{"id":47,"date":"2006-05-16T15:08:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-16T22:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/?p=47"},"modified":"2006-05-16T15:08:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-16T22:08:00","slug":"when-youre-up-to-your-nose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/?p=47","title":{"rendered":"When You’re Up To Your Nose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Halloa, back at the homestead.  We didn’t keep up a day-to-day journal of the World Horror Convention, I’ll grant you that.  But we managed to go there and back again<\/a> while staying in one piece, getting neither sunburned nor stoned on absinthe.  Lemme give you a thumbnail sketch.<\/p>\n

Day Three:  Friday.  The first full day of the convention.  Our base camp in the dealer’s room was all ready, so all we had to do was uncover our tables and…sit, mostly.  I’d gotten a dealer’s membership instead of a full one.  For all intents and purposes, I had clearance to be in the dealer’s room only.  Ironically I shouldn’t have been allowed into my own panel.  We got lots of confused glances from passersby who scanned our wares.  We explained the disks were all audiodramas.  The glances went from disoriented to downright suspicion.<\/p>\n

Yes, suspicion.  A furrowed brow and an apprehensive glare worthy of a spaghetti western hero.  Perhaps it was socio-political tension, a residue of fear that we worked for the NSA.  Maybe a prior case of mistaken identity was taking place.  Oh frack<\/em>, I thought to myself, who do I look like now, the leader of the freakin’ Symbionese Liberation Army<\/a>…?<\/em><\/p>\n

Whew, it turned out that it was nothing of the kind.  The prefix “audio<\/a>-” had conventioneers positively befuddled.  (If you meet one of these people, tell them to click that link.  Also, be a dear:  Smack ’em on the head on the behalf of every single frustrated English teacher throughout the land.)  Jamie hit on the idea of telling everyone we were selling radio theater.  Worked like a charm.  When told that, they instantly got excited.  Then they moved on to the next table.<\/p>\n

Writer Lawrence Santoro<\/a> came in for the first of many visits to our table.  We’d met him the night before, but he was exhausted.  Friday morning was our first chance to go into detail about our show, WRW<\/a>, and Transdimensional Media<\/a>.  That marked the first of many encounters with writers, editors, agents, and even customers that weekend.  A few might even be in town for the UFO Festival<\/a> this Saturday.  Shiny.<\/p>\n

No, wait, now this–this–was really shiny.  We’d tried to make contact with any number of other people, including family, while we were in the Bay Area.  Just when we thought it was just us against the world, we met up with Peter Fagan<\/a> for the first time in six years.  Years ago we’d worked on a painful amateur film project.  Somehow we’re still friends anyway.<\/p>\n

Day Four:  Saturday.  That morning we heard incoherent grunts and murmurs from our fellow dealers.  They hadn’t been bitten by zombies, thank God.  Rather, it was a little hair of the dog.  We were among the few completely sober people in the whole con.  I resisted the urge to wave pictures of ships at sea in front of the afflicted.  ‘Tweren’t the only urge I had to sit on either.  We were sitting across from dealers in goth corsets.  Fortunately our sales were picking up quickly enough to distract me.  By the end of the day, we’d sold all our copies of WRW’s “Frankenstein.”<\/a>  <\/p>\n

We’d also met up with writer Simon Wood<\/a> for the first time that weekend.  Very charming fellow.  Very clean<\/a>.   It was a relief to see him, I admit.  At least I’d managed to meet my fellow panelist.<\/p>\n

Panel…oh, ta ma duh<\/em>, the damn panel.  That was the following day.<\/p>\n

Day Five:  Sunday.  Closing day.  Lastday, Capricorn 25<\/a>.  “The Sounds of Horror” panel.  We’d asked the convention staff whether they were going to do a panel on radio horror.  They said “Great idea!” and nothing else for several months.  Suddenly I’m told that I’m going to be the moderator for the panel.   I hadn’t done any public speaking in a hundred years.  And I had to moderate the panel, the first time I’d ever done it.  I’d read up on the job of moderating con panels.   I wanted to put my notes on index cards, but couldn’t find any.  I wrote them out in a spiral notebook, writing question after question, comments as well as comedic gags.  <\/p>\n

All the advice I’d found turned out to be flat-out wrong.  Like a fool, I believed everything I’d read.  The articles said to avoid jokes.  Avoid jokes?  Until then, I’d always heard it was best to open with a joke.  Draw as little attention to yourself as possible?  Well, that kinda flew in the face of our reasons for being there, to promote “Afterhell.”  Wait…no audience participation till the end?  No shameless plugs?  Don’t<\/em> introduce your panelists?  Introduce them while…plugging their work?!  How does that work?  <\/p>\n

It didn’t, of course.  Utter BS, the lot of it.  <\/p>\n

The dealer’s room closed early that day.  Everyone wanted to go home, including us.  And it was just as well.  I got tired of ignoring attractive goth chicks trying on corsets in front of me for four days straight.  Packing all our wares as fast as possible, Jamie and I ran late for the panel.  We ran in, period — with everything we had, looking like the well-equipped refugees we really were.  We set our panelists’ table while con-goers trickled in.  I welcomed them and apologized because Jamie and I being so out of breath.  They looked confused.  Again with the deer-in-the headlights look.  Mentally I tossed out half my plans and broke all the rules I shouldn’t have learned.  I introduced the panel, then explained briefly about “Afterhell.”  People in the audience started sitting up, now curious.  I told one joke, prepared to watch it crash and burn.  lt broke the ice faster than you can say “CFC’s” and took a little tension out of the room.  The second one, totally improvised to cover up noise from the next room over, made everyone loosen up even more.  <\/p>\n

By the time our discussion had run out of steam, it was ten to the hour and I told everyone that’s all we had, thanks for coming. 
The response was a quick, surprisingly energetic round of applause.  Courtesy or not, we took it as a weary victory and headed north for home.<\/p>\n

The only consolation I had…well, the beauty of it was that I had several.  Good sales, good contacts, good response.  People’s eyes widened with interest, nodding with approval, whenever they heard our sound clips.  And those CD’s were moving.<\/p>\n

And now we don’t have to.  Later.  Got cat barf to clean up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Halloa, back at the homestead.  We didn’t keep up a day-to-day journal of the World Horror Convention, I’ll grant you that.  But we managed to go there and back again while staying in one piece, getting neither sunburned nor stoned on absinthe.  Lemme give you a thumbnail sketch. Day Three:  Friday.  The first full day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.afterhell.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}