I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
2001-02-20 - 07:02:29
I'm back from Frücon, lots to catch up on. On Thursday I started class a half our early so we could get an earlier start. My first step was picking up Lisa. That part is easy; my car knows how to get to her apartment. That's a good thing since I was not paying attention and almost missed the exit. Then we had to follow the directions from mapquest to Gella's. A miracle occurred and we found her. After dropping her friend off at the train station we were finally off to Toronto. As I expected the ride up was great. It was long but Gella and Lisa made it fun. We stopped fairly often and Lisa drove for about an hour and a half. We listened to tapes. Two in particular were great. One was a tape of my all-time favourite songs for Betsy; the other was a tape of Gella's friend, a singer/songwriter. She was amazing. I'd take her over 95% of what's out there.
We did have an incident on the way though. On Route 17 a cop pulled me over. We had no idea why. None of us thought I was speeding any worse than everyone else. After taking my license and registration the cop asked me to get out of the car. This got me nervous. I have been stopped before but I never got out of the car. I was wondering if he was thinking that he wanted me away from Lisa and Gella in case he had to shoot me. Maybe he thought I was a killer who was kidnapping them. The fears were groundless. He told me I was doing 77 MPH. It must have been for only a moment since the highest I saw was 70. Then he asked me where we were going and I told him all about Frücon. We had a friendly talk then. He is from Buffalo and we talked about the concerts in the Square where Fruvous played. He really got on my good side when he asked me if I went to school with Gella and Lisa. After all that I got back in the car and he just gave me a warning, not bad. It pays to be friendly.
The next adventure was finding Gigi's house in Toronto. Gella stayed with Gigi. We had directions but it was a long trip. I think Gigi lives someplace near the North Pole. We got to Gigi's at Midnight and I didn't get to my room till after one. At least I remembered the hostel where Lisa was staying and had no trouble finding it. Signs in Toronto are as bad as Jersey, if you follow them you often get lost.
On Friday the plans were for me to hang out with Lisa during the day then go to the Pub gathering and Jian's Solo show. We were going to go to the CN tower but got distracted. After lunch we ended up shopping, the same thing happened last year. Lisa and I both hate shopping so it's fun to do it together. We found a place that does custom embroidery. We wanted to make a t-shirt for Lisa to wear when she bowled with Früvous. The shirt said Bronx Frühead in an arc with Lisa written below it. We then had to find a shirt to be embroidered. That ended up taking all afternoon. We still had a great time though.
The Pub Gathering was much better than I thought it would be. It was nice and relaxed. I met Lawrence on my way up to my room and told him I'd be right down. I called up Betsy and arranged to meet her down at the pub. Lawrence, Betsy, Dave, Lisa, and myself then grabbed a table in corner with nice "comfy chairs" and settled down for the evening. We got up to get some food and talk to other people but basically we were set. In addition to Betsy and Dave, I met Jülie, Rod, Tanya, and Eri for the first time there. I also saw old friends, Kim, Kris, Syracuse Kim, Joy, Jaci, Andrea, and George.
The next stop was Jian's Concert. Lawrence was the only one of us with tix but we all decided to try and get in. I was able to get one ticket from Pat who I had met at the Früvous House Party. Pat had her tix on will call so I joined her online which was nice since she was the first one there. I bought the tix for everyone else then we went to the back of the line. We let everyone else in before us. Once inside lovely young women presented her hand to me without introducing herself. It was the Swoonable Renita. When I kissed her hand she swooned and I had to catch her before she hit the ground. That was the high point of the weekend for me.
Jian was good but I wish he'd put more variety into his songwriting. He is capable of writing such clever satire but all the material he performed were sappy love songs but the last one, the Persian Cowboy Song. I think he doesn't appreciate the value of his humorous writing. They are not only clever but almost always have an important point. An interesting thing occurred during the opening act. Lisa went into the Lobby and Murray was there. They wouldn't let Murray in, the show was sold out. There was plenty of room too; they should have let him in. On the walk back we passed Murray and only Lisa noticed. Betsy, Lawrence, and myself walked right past him.
The next day was the Con Itself. I arranged to drive there early with Lawrence. We were the first one there of course. While there I got to meet Squee, Racer Mike, Andy and Michael Maki. Old friends I spent time with were Jen, Lori and Joy.
Let me apologies to everyone that I forget to mention right now. I met so many people and I'm a total Batnose.
I had to run out during the Con and unfortunately missed the entire open mic. That really hurt. I wanted to see Gella and Jülie so much. At least Gella sang for me on the ride up. It took 15 months to get her to sing for me.
I got back in time for the Q &A with Jian and Murray. That was fun as usual and when it was over I spoke to them for the first time since August. I got them to sign Leah's songbook. It was nice to see that they still remembered me.
After the raffle Lawrence, Gella, and I raced to my car so we could be first on the line at the venue for the concert. We weren't since Andi, Sandy, and Kim had left the Con early but we were still right up front. Lawrence and I drove back to the hotel to make a pit stop while Gella held our place. When we returned we went for dinner at Dangerous Dan's and excellent diner right on the block. We all really enjoyed it and each other's company. When we got back on the line we were told doors were going to open early, at 8 not 9 which was great since it was cold. While we waited we sang, and told jokes and in general had a ball. Waiting in the front of the lines of Früshows is half the fun. They did let is in early and we got places right by the stage. I was directly in front of Jian's drums, which were missing the red underwear I might add.
The opening act, the Supers, were the best opener's I've seen for Früvous since Sarah Harmer. The place was filled with energy and they took advantage of it. I actually gave up my place next to the stage to let Kelsey in front of me. She's 12 year's old and small so she's easy to see over. She ended up actually sitting on the stage. Later Elfy joined us and as she is also short I let her in front of me. Joyous Joy made her way to right behind me and to my left. She made sure to not stand in front of anyone shorter than her, which is so nice. Lawrence actually watched the show on his knees so that others could see over him. I wish other tall people were half as considerate. Is it any wonder that I worship him as a god?
When Früvous came on you could feel the electricity. The show was one of their best. Tim Engle thought it was the best he'd seen. Five months off left them with an enthusiasm that was amazing. They were practically bouncing off the walls and so was the crowd.
When I let Kelsey in front of me I told her she had to get me a setlist, she succeeded. Here is the list of songs that were on Murray's list. I'm writing this down exactly as he did so you'll have to figure out what he played.
- Michy
- Jockey
- Horse
- Fly
- MPG.com
- Lazy
- Moon
- Pisco
- Indy
- Booty
- Video
- B.J.
- Stuck
- Tur
- Sauce
- Guinea
- Kids
- Hold
- Nuits
- Authors
- Car
- Psycho
- King
- GR
- Cher
- DR.
It seems I have a reputation among Früheads. Two people asked if I was the "famous Gordon" the hand kisser. I of course kissed both there hands and Rochelle even swooned. I also got to Dance with Betsy after the show. There was no music but that didn't stop us. I had been looking forward to that for months.
My plans for the Sunday were breakfast with Renita at 9:30 then Jülie was going to give Gella and me a tour of Toronto after the breakfast. We got there at 9:35 and Renita wasn't down yet. I called up to her room and Mike said she was still sleeping and didn't want to wake her. This upset me since I didn't think that Renita would do that and now everyone else would be eating and I'd have to find someone to eat with. I joined Gella and the Engles, Kelsey, Tim, and Robin, all people I love. After about 5 minutes Renita came down. She was in the bathroom when I called not sleeping Mike was so sleepy he didn't realize it. I moved over and ate with Renita. We were joined by Pauley, and Joy. Joy I had met once before and was a good online friend. I had bonded with Pauley at the Con. It's always a challenge talking to Joy as I try to make up a new rhymed couplet every time I see her. She's worth the effort though. The breakfast went great. I had wanted to spend some time with Renita and she was as cool as I had hoped. Ellen joined us after a bit. All in all a great way to spend a morning.
I don't know what happened with Jülie but she checked out so we never connected. She was the one person I planned on spending time with that I didn't. Gella and I had to amuse ourselves. We ended up going for Sushi, and no I didn't eat Sushi, and going CD shopping. Then we went back to the hotel and had coffee and hot chocolate while we waited for Lisa to return from bowling. We even got to take a nap in the comfy chairs.
We pretty much drove straight home with no major stops, just for Gas and Coffee. Gella slept in the back most of the time and Lisa and I talked. We ended up dropping Gella off at about 3 AM. I didn't get home till 4. I was dead but it was an amazing weekend.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile 2001-02-20
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