It again be Int’l Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day, and I aim ta celebrate the fact!
So lift a tank of grog (or non-alocholic grog substitute, iffin’ you be one o’them teetotallin’ types) an’ sing a shanty ’bout men dyin’ at sea or gettin’ piss drunk on forlorn docks. Me preference this year be fer’ Stan Rogers’ “Barrett’s Privateers”.
Yo-ho, all hands on sail, mizzenmast and…arr…um…cumberbund.
Okay, I think that’s enough for this year.
You do not blog about Post-PAX parties.
Wait…oh shit.
Well, screw it. We’re already here. So yes, I went to a party last night! It was amazing, easily the best party I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to, like, three of them, so clearly that makes me some kind of fucking expert.
The shindig started up on the Penny Arcade forums, where one of the Omeganaughts who lives here in Seattle invited the local PAXers to a barbecue at his place. We enjoyed some booze (read: a lot of booze), grilled meats and salty treats, there was lots of Rock Band playing and an impromptu fight club. Except for time with the missus I can’t imagine a better way to spend a Saturday night.
I reconnected with my friend Agent Beryllium, whom I missed the chance to rock with at PAX and met a bunch of other awesome folk. A couple of the regulars from Gamma Ray Games, which is quickly becoming my preferred geek shop, a dude who looks uncannily like David Tennant and is responsible for creating the PAX Prank tradition, our illustrious host who’s apartment made me feel unsuccessful and inadequate and a girl who was named after a famous Star Trek character. All definitely folks I want to invest the time in getting to know.
So that was the weekend! Now I’m going to sleep off this hangover and try to scrimp together some money to buy a table. Maybe even a table and chair. Oooh, fancy living.
Also, in more official-type news, you can look to your left to see my Twitter feed. I’m not sure exactly what it’ll be used for other than short observations right now, but when the comedy/acting thing starts to pick up some steam it might actually serve some useful purpose. Exciting! And there should be open mic dates, as soon as I get some money to buy more than rice and hot dogs.
So the last…two and a half weeks? Has it really been that long since I left Knoxville? Anyway, the last two and a half weeks have been insane. My brother and his fiance drove across the country with me to Seattle in three days, ironman rules, which was both wondrous and terrifying. Kansas nearly broke my brother’s already fragile mind, and we literally nearly died over the Rockies. I thought we were mountain folk, coming from Vermont and what not. Turns out, no, we had no idea what real fucking mountains were. We’d be driving, I’d think “I’m dizzy”, and then up to three minutes would pass without any personal knowledge of it. Keep in mind I’m doing 60 down a switchback highway full of other cars.
We arrived in Seattle, I got my apartment set up, my girlfriend came down from Vancouver to meet the family (and also…do other things…of a less family-oriented nature. Unless you have a weird-ass family), and then it was off to PAX. My brother and I had been trying to hook up a visit to the Penny Arcade Expo since it first started in 2004, but one thing or another would always come up. The stars were finally right for the first PAX East in Boston…and then he was hit by a car.
I’ll keep the details private for his sake, but both he and his fiance were grievously injured and he was dead for a total of six minutes (not consecutive) before arriving at the hospital. The recovery process was brutal, and PAX East came and went. I knew I would be arriving in Seattle just in time for PAX Prime, and I thought that if we didn’t do it now there might never be another shot. Many pinched pennies and dubious loans later, we had our tickets and set the date for the journey west.
The convention was a spiritual experience. All the things you hear about PAX being a spontaneous nation or a party with thousands of the best friends you’ve never met are all true. I’ve only seen people so free with their love and kindness and openness in one other place, the Governor’s Institute for Art in Vermont as a teenager. I suspect for many of the same reasons: a sharing of common love, and a sense that in each place we were free to truly be ourselves.
I got to take a walk with Jerry Holkins and talk with him about writing and hats and the importance of strong women in life. I annoyed Scott Kurtz. I saw people arm-wrestling with the Protomen and a zombie break dance. I got on the jumbotron and made my brother Internet Famous and a PAX legend with his harrowing tale of beating death. I met a supervillainess from the future. I felt like I was home.
Now I’m setting up a twitter account (details soon!), looking for job listings, looking up venues for acting and comedy and preparing to drop off the siblings at the airport tonight. Then the real business of living here will begin and the magic of these first few weeks will fade away. But rather than lament the passing of this amazing time, I choose to see it as a portent of things to come. Life in Seattle is already off to an amazing start, and I believe the trend will only continue.
Open mic information and more missives to come. Stay tuned.
