Testicles: An Exercise In Grace

So… a funny thing happened this weekend at Furry Fiesta…

There we are on stage B, setting up for Bandthro, a big multi-artist supergroup thing, when my turn comes up to run through a couple tunes. Most of the convention’s 5,000+ attendees are at stage A watching the dance competition, so it’s quiet in our corner of the hotel.

It took a while for the A/V crew to get any signal coming out of my mic, so I sat there patiently repeating the usual “test… test… test…” until I had to alleviate the boredom. Since most of us musicians turn into juvenile delinquents during sound check (I’m looking at YOU, Pepper), that quickly evolved into :

testicles… testicles… testicles…

Finally, we got signal in the monitors and mains, ran through my songs with the band, and all was well.

Unbeknownst to any of us at stage B, the mic was live the entire time at stage A. Remember the thousands of people watching costumed dancers battle it out? This is what they saw and heard:

I’ve been performing at Furry conventions for over 13 years now. There are a LOT OF PEOPLE in that room who recognize my voice. Within seconds, my twitter feed is on fire.

(Side note: The voice of the A/V guy Oddy, who is my mastering engineer and friend, wasn’t blaming the judges… he was correct in that the sound was coming from one of their mic frequencies.)

The short version of what happened is that the two A/V crews didn’t realize they were using the same wireless frequencies for some of the mics. So while we heard nothing on stage B, my mic was tuned to the same frequency as one of the judges’ mics on stage A. Oops.

It gets better…

Because I had to take the stage again in half an hour (and because Furries are incredibly capable people), I had a #Testicles shirt made inside of ten minutes. Thanks to Andraconix for bringing her vinyl cutter and shirt press!

I wore that during my part of the show, and later it fetched $180 at the charity auction for CARE.

Blurry TFF 2020 Room Party Shot

Within 24 hours, people started remixing…

I was able to work that little techno number into my party set Sunday night.

A Graceful Community

This could have gone very badly, but not all Furries jump straight to cancel culture. And for this, I am grateful.

The convention thought it was hilarious.The A/V crew thought it was hilarious (and they’re making sure they coordinate wireless rigs more carefully next time). People kept approaching me all weekend and, aside from just yelling “testicles” at me, telling me that the incident made their weekend.

Most importantly to me, the dancer (who placed third, btw) also thought it was hilarious. Truly an exercise in grace, and I’m thankful everyone took this little SNAFU well.

How was YOUR weekend?