ericcoleman | Marscon - as much as I can type before I collapse ...

I left more or less on time ... Only an hour later than I planned on.

I got to the hotel, got my badge, checked out where I had to be when ... then got in contact with the friend I was staying with and we met up and went to get food from Nepal ... oh my yum ... Great food too (insert snare drum here)

I got back to the hotel about in time for opening ceremonies. The skit with

lukeski,

raptavio and

wyngarde was great.

Talked with some folks and just hung out for a bit.

Then the Gothsicles tore the roof off the place ... ferocious, brutal, hysterical. The great find for the weekend as far as I'm concerned.

I took off pretty soon thereafter and headed back to get some sleep.

I got back to the hotel in time for my first panel. It was a songwriting panel with

barondave and Rich Brown (who I have recieved email from, but not actually met) I hope I wasn't too pushy, but it is a subject that is very important to me.

I stayed for

wormquartet and

darknes's classic video game panel, then we all headed down for

devospice's show.

I didn't see a lot of it, I was (as usual) obsessing about my show. What I managed to stand still and see was great. The new song (that is on Technobabble) is brilliant. I have to play it for

cryndalae

Only Coffee House In Town
Low Self Esteem
WYSIWYG
Wookie Weenie (with the much appreciated and masterful help of the snaremaster himself,

budsharpe)
Standards
Bang My Bald Spot
How Can I Miss You?
Nice Guys

Ok, message to self, never put 4 fast songs in a row again in a set, my hands were burning, I thought my guitar playing sucked, but apparantly only I noticed.

The mighty

wormquartet opened with a special intro just for Marscon (that I had heard earlier in the week, one has to brag) and a new song5 that is on the aforementioned Technobabble. And you have to appreciate a fellow who can get an audience to sing along with a song that has two words,

What can I say about Raymond & Scum (

r_and_s_jeff). A FULL BAND show from R&S with the help of

budsharpe (they let him use a full drum set) and the mighty

wyngarde. Amazing stuff, a great mix of old and new.

And Hot Waffles (

chriswaffle). I had never seen them. They had 4 CDs with them, I could only afford one with all the other stuff I bought (more on that later, after I listen to everything). Great deadpan wise-ass-ness with banjo and bass. I'm a fan now ...

And the GOH concert with

filkertom. What can I say except it was another brilliant Tom Smith show. But my favorite was his sunday show. More on that later.

I went back and crashed for a bit. I was helping on filming

lukeski's concert later and felt that I needed to relax a bit.

Luke put on a great show (the new theme song rocks) and there were many yummy cheerleaders ... I love fannish women ... it was a great show

After I wandered the parties for a bit, but was crashing out so I went back for a bad nights sleep.

lukeski,

pixelene,

wormquartet and myself were doing Carrot Juice Is Murder for the Smackdown. We stumbled through it a few times and decided that we could handle it.

Then was

filkertom's improv concert. He sat up there and took requests of content and style from the audience and filled every one. Tom is one of the few folks who is always capable of hurting me, I mean really hurting me every show I see. He was astounding.

After his set

devospice interviewed me for his podcast.

I hung out till the smackdown. Wandered the dealers room and ran into some folks I had met in St Louis at Archon. We chatted for a bit.

Then the Smackdown.
Oh my, I wish I had kept notes.

Raymond And Scum opened with somt blues (I was playing lead backstage, I shoulda jumped up and joined in, I think I was distracting)
I did Dead Puppies with the help the Marscon Dementia Choir (aka the audience)
Devo and Shoebox did 2600, Hot Waffles made up a song that weekend for the show and the rest is kind of a blur. Oh, Gothsicles did the theme song from ... oh man ... I can't think of the show. Shoebox did R2D2 and nearly broke about half the audience. What else happened ??? someone remind me ... the afternoon was too damn funny ...

We closed the show with Carrot Juice. Great choice

pixelene.

We all stood around after for awhile and ya know ... folks bought our stuff. Thanks, I spent a lot on CDs (since everyone seemed to have something new, and I think I bought nearly everything, at least something from everyone) so almost clearing me out of stuff (admittedly I didn't bring a lot) sure helped pay for my trip.

A couple of thanks ...

Thanks to everyone who asked me to sign their Laughter Is A Powerful Weapon Vol II CDs. Not because you asked me to sign them (although that is cool) but because you bought them. Thank you, it's for a great cause.

And all of the folks at Marscon for giving us a home every year.

And ... I won't even try to say hi to everyone I saw this weekend, there are just too many of you. I have two weekends of music every year that I must make it to. This is one.

Seeya all next year ...