The Official FWAwk

Last weekend was the best convention experience of my life. Without question.

First of all, I understand that being named Guest of Honor will definitely skew my impressions towards the positive, but after hearing so much feedback from other FWA attendees I know I’m not off-base. This convention was well-planned, well-executed, attended by amazing people, and in a hotel that seems built entirely for massive nerd gatherings.

Before I duck behind a cut to save people’s loading times, I want to remind everyone who attended to please tag your photos/videos etc. with FWA09 wherever you post them. I’ll be looking on Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and other sites for evidence-gathering purposes, so please make your stuff easy to find!

If you’ve posted any pictures or videos of me in or out of costume, please tag them with Matthew Ebel or matthewebel. If you’re feeling nice, put a link to http://matthewebel.com at the top of the description. I always appreciate the traffic!

And now, on with the show…

Animals Are People Too!

The first people I must mention are the staff and board members who volunteer (yes, volunteer) hundreds of hours of their time to make FWA happen. Hux and Tiger Paw¹ in particular seemed to be waiting on me hand and foot, even as they managed the entire affair. Rama in the Dealer’s Den ran a tight ship as always and made it a pleasure to function both as an attendee and a merchant.

Also named as Guest of Honor was the amazing artist Lizardbeth. I’d never met her before, but she was truly a treat to interact with. She’s a little shy onstage, but once she opened up she’s as funny and sweet as her artwork can be. She gave me an amazing button that all you Twitter fans out there might appreciate. She also draws art and comics live via UStream from time to time, so check her out if you haven’t already!

Yet another birdie, Flain, really took on a role as host this weekend. It’s always good to see him, but he sacrificed time, gas, and even blood to make sure I enjoyed Atlanta while I was in his territory. (I hope the head wound hasn’t rattled you too much, birdbrain!) Since the hotel restaurant was ridiculously overpriced ($6.50 for a draft beer? Really?), he took us out to some great local restaurants. Taco Mac, the land of a thousand beers, and Five Guys, an awesome little burger joint, made the dining experience second only to the God-Level Sponsor dinner on Friday night.

And on that note, if you haven’t already been to Fogo de Chão, there’s a reason they call it “the meat faucet”. It starts with the the filet mignon and doesn’t shut off until you fall over. If the staff can find a better restaurant in all of Atlanta, they’ll have to be serving prime rib made of pure gold and the wine that Jesus Himself made. Kage would drink it.

Anyway… I may be focusing on the birds too much here, but another great highlight was having a quiet drink with 2² the Ranting Gryphon on Sunday. I’ve met him before but I never got to just CHILL with him until this weekend. To quote his LiveJournal:

I finally grated up enough nutsack to go to his dealer table, congratulate him on his show and offer him some booze and company for awhile.

First of all, grated nutsack tastes nothing like grated nutmeg, so I’m not sure what the gryphon was cooking. Other than that, I was amazed he had to work anything up to come say hi to me. Onstage he’s all beak and talons, but offstage he’s one of the most courteous and intelligent guys I’ve ever met. Not only is he a bird (not an osprey, but I can look past that), he’s trying to get back into writing/producing music. I’m not exactly a huge metal head, but what he shared with me sounded good enough to overcome the crappy speakers on the hotel room alarm clock.

And I absolutely love the fact that his ring tone is the sound of an angry Blue Jay. It just seems right. I’m sure his Twitters would sound like that if they were audible. One way or the other, I hope we can call each other friends (and totally, like, CALL each other and stuff, yaknow? OMGBIRD!).

Programming Doesn’t Always Involve Computers

My concert on Saturday was one of the most fun live shows I’ve ever done, thank you to everyone who showed up for the performance. I still want to play with a band so I don’t have to use backing tracks, but until then the robot band will have to suffice. The crowd was easily 8-10 times the size of last year’s show and easily 100 times more enthusiastic. I got to debut She Will Set You Free as a live track and my heart started pounding when the crowd erupted for the last chorus. I always knew that was a good climactic moment on the album, but I never thought a live audience would react that way. That kind of response is honestly what keeps me going. It will be difficult to go back to playing Bon Jovi covers to a crowd of restaurant-goers this weekend.

2′s show was side-splitting funny as always. I still think he ought to either buy a colored suit or bring a colored backdrop, ’cause from all the way in the back all I saw was a bald head, sunglasses, and a floating beer. Magicians call it “black art”, so I guess it almost kind of works for his stage vibe anyway, but it makes it difficult to get good photos and video of someone who definitely deserves some better coverage. Granted, his comedy pushes more envelopes than the USPS, but if you can write off the 10% that will offend you, you’ll laugh your tailfeathers off at the remaining 90. I’m just glad that, even after major heart surgery, he’s still squawking and performing with the same spirit he’s known for. Oh yeah, and still BREATHING too.

My two panels were relatively well-attended. I didn’t expect many to be interested in setting up a home recording studio or marketing their artwork. For those that showed up, though, I’m glad you came. If you have any questions, you can always contact me and ask!

The parade³ and the gigantomungous photo shoot were a blast. 201 fursuiters⁴ definitely require a WIDE angle lens, I can’t wait to see what the official photo looks like. To all of you who marched in the parade: I’m so, so sorry! Yappy Fox gave me the planned route and as soon as I got through the door I saw a wall of camera-holders 8 thick between me and my destination. Leading away from the route was a perfect corridor of camera-wielding fans. I had to make a split-second decision to just barge through and force all those people to reposition, or take the path they’d provided.

I decided that the parade was not for those of us in costume, it’s for those with the cameras. The dances are for the fursuiters, the parade is for the fans that either can’t afford the costume or just would rather enjoy the animal eye candy. Unfortunately, I always sucked at those “snake” games (you know, that Light Cycle thing from Tron that leaves a trail behind it?), so eventually I brought the parade back and crossed over itself. People ended up looping back again instead of crossing through… some told me they circled the Dealer’s Den three times before realizing what had happened.

All I can offer is an apology and a guess that it was better than the 3-hour “death march” at Anthrocon, right? Right?

The Big Tall Building

The hotel was absolutely excellent. People (including myself) complain about the elevators, but they functioned better and faster than most of the conventions I’ve attended. Because I was a Guest of Honor (I assume), the staff housed me on the Executive Level. The three top floors of the hotel not only get a great view of Atlanta, they get free continental breakfast, evening hors d’oeuvres, and 24/7 fruit, Coke, and tea. When you’re a starving musician like me, free food is always appreciated. Eating at conventions is always a crazy affair, so having regularly scheduled breakfasts and dinners kept me alive and energetic throughout the weekend.

The hotel’s security staff gets a special note of thanks from me. I fully intend to write them a letter (on PAPER for duck’s sake) commending them for their assistance. Normally hotels tolerate Furry conventions because they bring in a metric ton of cash. This hotel, the Hilton Atlanta, is one of the three DragonCon hotels, so I guess they’re used to weirder guests than us! When a local radio station decided to try and crash the party and drum up some kind of freak-show story, the hotel’s security staff sprang into action. Most of the attendees didn’t even know there was anything amiss, a testament to their discretion and professionalism. The radio station tried for three days, but the Hotel really went to bat for us and kept the trolls at bay. When a hotel goes against the local mass-media for a bunch of kids in animal costumes, I call it exceptional service. If you attended FWA and had fun, please let the hotel know.

Where It All Ends

In conclusion, this weekend ranks in the top 5 of my entire life thus far- and remember, I played the Grand Ole Opry on a Saturday, spent weekends in Hawaii, and this is the 13th convention of this nature I’ve attended. Every aspect of this convention seemed focused on making the attendee happy and I hope that’s the impression everyone else got. It was truly an honor being one of the guests for 2009, I only hope I made it worth the convention’s time and money. I met so many new friends this weekend it’s hard to keep them all straight in my birdie brain. I just wish I could have spent more time with everyone instead of running around to all the different panels and events. There’s never enough time is there?

Perhaps not… but there’s always FWA 2010.

Footnotes:
1 – For those that aren’t aware, most folks in this fandom are known at conventions by character names rather than real names.
2 – Three reasons for this footnote: Be warned: 2′s material is about as worksafe as George Carlin’s, yes his name is a number, and I just wanted to be able to type 2²
3 – Here’s a video, there’s plenty more.
4 – Fursuiters are just people in animal costumes. That’s it. The animal that runs onto the field before the rest of the football team? The only difference between him/her and a fursuiter is that we do it for the animal spirit, not the sports.

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