Photo by Zschamm

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…

Photo by Cyberdragon

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.

Photo by Zschamm

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

Photo by Zschamm

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!

Photo by Goldenwolf

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

Photo by Zschamm

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.

After the crazy-fun social media foreplay that was 2005-2007, last year was the disappointing realization that this is not porn and we really DO need long-term commitment if we want satisfaction at the end. I survived, barely, but a lot of my friends both digital and corporeal suffered heavy losses and are currently regrouping.

I’m still self-employed, but I’m not able to tour like I did in 2007. In fact, I’ll be lucky if I can get on the road again without a record deal.

All that being said, we have great cause for hope. American ingenuity reacts inversely to the stock market; we find our best ups when we’re really down. Currently, I’m drawing a blank other than “work my ass off”, but a wartime strategy is in the works. When the pickings are this slim the noise of less-worthy competitors dies away, leaving the battle-hardened lifers on the front line alone. The halfhearted indie bands go back to their day jobs while the shining stars like Geoff Smith and JoCo find better opportunities.

Perhaps I’ll be so lucky.

It’ll only be a good 2009 with a lot of effort and help from you. Yeah, you, the person reading this right now. I am nothing without your support. No one finds out about Matthew Ebel dot net or Goodbye Planet Earth unless you tell them. I can wave my arms, light myself on fire, and dance naked in the streets, but nobody pays attention to the self-promoter. You are my lifeline in these dire economic times, and you are what kept me alive in 2008.

Let’s see what we can do together this year.

Photo by Daisy’s Little Cottage