DragonCon 2014 the Rest of the Convention

Or The Convention apparently. I lost an entry along the way.

Boy, a lot happened in the past couple of days.

Some Dragon Cons are just fun. I haven’t had a bad one since I handed out the Tech Director position to Bill Harrison.

Then there are those Dragon Cons that hit the awesome level.

This was in the realm of Awesome with Awesome sauce.

Thursday didn’t start as well as we would like due to a room issue but the magnificent Rachel solved the problem and we were back on track for a good Dragon Con.

I gave blood, which I always do at Dragon Con unless there is a reason I can’t. One year I had done a round of antibiotics that would not allow me to give blood. I checked in with various tracks that I would be doing panels for. I ran into old friends. I got to spend sometime with my brother on his birthday, which I hadn’t been able to do in forever. A friend got Caroline from Knoxville to Atlanta so I picked her up and took her to spend sometime with my parents. And I did some more work on the puppets.

Friday started with getting Peter set up in Artist Alley and me set up in the Art Show. The day divided down into errands that needed to be run and working on puppets until 5 pm. At 5 pm I made my way to the Friday night workmanship and that is where I spent most of my evening with the lovely Cheralyn Lambeth, Fred Clements, and a new judge Robert Allsopp. We went through the costumes and judged which still gets harder every year. Everyone brought their A+ game. I spent some time with my friends and my family afterwards and went to sleep at a reasonable hour for Dragon Con (1 am).

I had to get up early to go pick up Caroline on Saturday at my parents before the parade shut down the roads. I got back and started up on the puppets again until my panel on the Workmanship contest.

Saturday was a blur of various panels and just physically getting from one building to another. The choke point at the Marriott was terrible and, if you have any form of claustrophobia, terrifying. The puppetry track was behind the blood drive, which is at the choke point. I did my puppetry on a budget panel and so missed my partner in crime Liz.

Saturday night is one I will remember for a very long time. We had the banquet. Peter was not MCing because he was going to MC the Page to Stage contest with George Perez but he was giving out the Julie Award. This year’s recipient was Terry Gilliam. We got to the banquet a little late (OK 20 minutes) due to trying to get an elevator to the floor we needed to go. A little out of breath we finally made it and were seated at Pat Henry’s table which was not that unusual for us. Pat introduced us to Terry and then left the table. Peter asked me what my panel was at 10 and I told him it was Puppetry in Television. Terry asked what I was going to talk about. I told him and I watched as his face lit up when I said Beany and Cecil. Turns out he is a big Stan Freberg fan. I told him about meet Mr. Freberg at SDCC. We talked about the brilliance of his humor and how it influenced Terry’s work.

Peter presented the Julie Award to Terry and told how he had a deep personal respect and gratitude for Mr. Gilliam’s work. He told the room, with my permission, that the film the Adventures of Baron Munchausen got me through one of the darkest times of my life. I saw that film probably 10 to 15 times and it helped me cope with my, at the time, rather severe depression. So he thanked Mr. Gilliam for saving his wife’s life, which Mr. Gilliam did with that film. Mr. Gilliam made a rather brilliant speech and came back to the table.

I told Terry that what Peter had said was true. He laughed and said Oh don’t put that all on me and then he winked at me. We then proceeded to have a lovely chat about a lot of subjects including about being a parent, Munchausen, Parnasus, and his up coming work the Zero Theorm. It was a conversation I am going to treasure always.

I did my panel on TV and puppetry. I had to vamp because my ipad was acting up.

I attended my brother Sean’s League of the Interesting party and met up with some friends I haven’t seen in over 20 years including my friend Joanne who I have known since I was 17 and my friend Peter Hart who taught me how to make the puppets I am so well known for. Peter is a brilliant puppeteer and a superb teacher. I caught up on news with them. Peter had fun because he got to see some old friends he hadn’t seen in years who always attend Sean’s parties.

I gave myself a cut off point of 1 am because I still had work to do on the puppets (noticing a pattern here?).

I got up early and started cleaning up for our annual dinner of fried chicken and ribs which gives us a chance to talk to our friends. I went to the store to get some supplies and then to my first panel. Then back to the puppets. Then to a panel. Then to a rehearsal. Then puppets. Then a panel. Then Tech rehearsal.

The dinner went well. I had a good time talking to everyone. They watched while I put rods in the puppets. We were watching the Masquerade on Dragon Con Tv when Lee Arenberg and Gigi Edgley arrived. I got to show Lee my Rumplestilskin puppet which he declared awesome and said he had to get a selfie with the puppet. I pulled out Mr. Gold and we had great fun setting up photos of the puppets. That was fun. He also said he had to show these to Robert because he’d love them.

Then it was off to the puppet slam. We got there. We were 2nd in the line up. I would like to thank my cast John Hudgens, Rachel Wyman, Jamie Kamin, Cheralyn Lambeth, Melissa Honig, and Valerie Meiss for grace under pressure.

I got back to the room at 3:45 AM on Monday and got up at 8:00 AM. I went through the day pretty much in a daze but managed to do what I need to do which included picking up Holmes and Watson from the art show. I sold the two Phluzzies. I said good bye to friends old and new. Made plans to get together with some folk at NYCC in October. Hugs and promises to find a little more time next year to talk to friends.

I had my birthday dinner at my folks. Spent some time talking to them and then hooked into their apple TV so I could watch the new episode of Dr. Who.

Now back at the hotel getting ready to pack for the trip home.

It has been a blast but I am ready to go home.

I am grateful I was able to tell one of my heroes that he is one of my heroes.