Status Quo Sunday In The Center East

If it's in the middle, it's not in the West.  

FIRST UP I'M PLAYING OTAKUFEST!

No time YET, but it feels good to be back in Miami playing a convention that will likely have a proper stage setup. Winji did right by me last year.

THURSDAY 

 I was lucky enough to secure a room with artist friend HELLBREAKFAST, his wife and a fellow artist, and then I was in the hotel by Thursday evening. I couldn’t really do much, since they closed the vaccination check line early, but I got to bum around the con for a bit, play some Commander, and saw some really excellent fursuits. 

FRIDAY 

HOO BOY WHAT A LINE TO GET IN. First, I had to go through the vaccination line (just got my second booster and flu shot a couple weeks before) that took almost an hour, then ANOTHER two hours on the proper registration line. 

At the very least I was able to start “Glory Hounds”, the latest VN from the same studio who did “Echo” and “Adastra”. "Glory Hounds" has you playing as Alex de Rooij, a down on his luck dalmatian whose life is saved by the vigilante Dawn Hound, who later takes Alex on as his sidekick. While this year's State Of The Bastard describe Echo as a "Renpy-ass Renpy Game", Glory Hounds is a lot more stark and stylish in its presentation with more animations and crisper lines in the sprites and BG. It's meant to be episodic in nature, focusing on individual "issues" and has NO choices, but I enjoyed going through Issue 1.

Also met up with Teddy Wynton, one of the best musicians in the fandom and some of his friends for some Pho at a nearby restaurant, Mian in the Rivers Casino, which was the best and most reasonably priced food all weekend.

Rick Fox had his “Cut Content” panel, and it was good to catch up with him again, as he is also spreading to other conventions and working hard on his comic project. 

There were two themes at this con: Heroes, which lent itself to a fun little metagame where there were trading cards you can pick up at various con locations

and amogus. 

I am not going to any convention that doesn’t have a pop up shrine. 

SATURDAY 

Apparently there were protestors outside the con. 

Pug Face girl and Incel Boy are seen here protesting the event, but there were HUNDREDS of people their age inside having fun and they chose to hold signs because they're lives are worthless. They are beings of no consequence. 

Most of my day was getting in games of Commander, but I also managed to catch a show by I’ve Made Too Much Pasta, a fursuiter band very reminiscent of The Violent Femmes. 

The lead singer also goes by Scurrow Squirrel and streams regularly on Twitch!  I did want to see more live non-DJ music this weekend, but the best I could manage is an impromptu show Pepper Coyote, infamous filk furry play out by the food trucks. 

The weird thing was that I then went inside to the game room, where someone was playing “Even Flow” on Guitar Hero 3 and Eddie Vedder’s voice suddenly went up a full octave and oh shit, it’s pepper. 

SUNDAY/WRAP UP 

Sunday and Monday were pretty uneventful. I did end up purchasing a bunch of commissions throughout the weekend, and did buy some books from the artist alley, because support writers, dang it. I got exactly what I wanted out of this convention: got to see a lot of people I followed on the (soon to be unusable) Twitter in person, like a PAX East for my Furry Bullshit. 

I also learned two things about artists:
1. A LOT of them are BIPOC, showing how diverse this fandom can be, and how NECESSARY they are to the fandom as a whole, since, as I've said before: 

Furries Are Nerds Who Have Siezed The Means Of Production

2. Saying, "Oh, I recognize your stuff now!" is a phrase that apparently induces more fear than it meant to. Especially in the realms of bara. 

Anyway, on to something less gay:

JAM OF THE WEEK: "Born To Be Alive" by Patrick Hernandez

Disco!

This was always one of those one-hit wonders of the disco era that always seemed to be on in the background and in the rotation, but never stood out since there wasn't any 

Until Kelly Turnbull introduced me to Shoresy, a spinoff of the show Letterkenny, that wrapped up its first season with a massive hockey fight set to this song.  

"The hockey brawl in the lockers is a better example of visual storytelling than any overprocessed and underbudgeted CG fight of avengers putting the boots to a bunch of putties, on that note."

And it fucking RIPS. The intro guitar hook reveals its origins as a hard rock song, and it's constant motion from there on out.

Status Quo Tik Toks The Year Away

Uh.... Hey all, Scott- I mean, Rhythm Bastard here!

At least I've been busy!

ANIME IWAI RECAP

2018 was the last Anime Iwai I had an event every day, and it gives the downtime some kind of purpose when you have an event either later in the day, or just finished something. Most importantly, it gives me a guide to recapping the weekend that is both self-centered AND well-organized!

Friday, I had my concert, and while I'm loving my new setup with a tablet to control my backing tracks, I'm still getting used to it. Downside was that it was earlier on Friday, and when people are in line for 2+ hours for a local convention, people arriving on time end up being late. The smartest cons usually print out their badges beforehand, so that guests can come and pick it up later. 

My acoustic song that set was "What's Up?" by 4 Non Blondes, from the trailer to Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City, which released two weeks later, which ended up being a rushed mess that couldn't let me glom on to anybody. It felt like the movie was cutting between two different movies that happened to end at the same place, and left me with a sensation of "...What happened, there HAD to have been more..."

Saturday was the HCNCW Live event, Iwai-vor Series, with the winner getting to be in HCNCW canon, because we couldn't get a toy belt in time. Still, I forgot how INTO these games people can get. The crowd was going nuts every match for a 20+ year old Nintendo 64 Wrestling game, and there were no "well, i guess..." entrants. The final match was ALL women, and the winner ended up being Kayla of the 3000 Brigade!

Since she didn't know much about the game or wrestling, what we did instead was have a Kayla Canonization Match, where 8 characters she played throughout the span of the show fought in a Battle Royale match, which, even though she didn't know anything about wrestling, still had a fun time commentating with us!

I also finished my Thrash head, with his hair included! It was supposed to be a mohawk, but it ended somewhere between punk, greaser and scene, which yeah, it works!

Sunday was the Cosplay runway event, and I ALMOST didn't participate, but uh, we'll save that for the next section. 

I went as Meowscles from Fortnite and despite not winning, I was clearly a fan favorite.

GOING VIRAL

So I'm on TikTok now, because at the aforementioned Cosplay Runway event, someone uploaded video of me flexing and put it on there, so now I'm like "WELL, I GUESS I'LL DO THIS THING". Still, the thirst got me through a VERY rough move.

@zent0fu

suddenly I’m ninja 🌝 ##fyp ##fortnite ##meowscles ##animeiwai ##animeiwai2021

♬ U RIGHT X LUXURIOUS - Baby Q💖

OTAKUFEST

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm playing Otakufest the weekend of Jan 15th and 16th! I've never been, but it looks like there's a lot of big guests and it's at the MACC, which it's been almost a couple years for me now, so I'm psyched to play again! AND only the weekend after...

MAGFEST!

Sadly, I'm not performing (yet), I'm going to be on staff. It was an opportunity I HAD to take to see everyone! I will also have a couple test burns of Hardcore Nerdcore Punk Rock on me, since that's nearing completion, but you'll be hearing about that VERY SOON.

I am helping with the Rock Band stage, so come by and say...

JAM OF THE WEEK: "Hello, Hello" by Trixie Mattel

I get the feeling that it's been so far between these things that I forget what I've talked about and how I've fallen down the RuPaul's Drag Race rabbit hole.

Anyway this is a song from Season 7 competitor, and All Stars 3 winner Trixie Mattel. I was linked her cover of Lana Del Ray's "Video Games" from my old partner, and she really turned it out. The arrangement felt lonelier and desperate than the original even though it had extra instrumentation and more going on. When you listen to her more country leaning work, it's clear there's this air of longing and desperation in her songs, which I WANT out of country music. When I think of country, I think of sparse, beautiful landscapes with no other human being around, and these people telling you a story that you

It's refreshing, but scary at the same time. 

"Hello, Hello" is a mid-2000s alt rock jam, aka the kind of stuff I was learning to play when I started guitar, and it's just fun.

Trixie Mattel for Rock Band!

Status Quo Sunday's Feeling Kinda Fuzzy

NEW CON CONFIRMED FOR BRAWL!

Otakufest! 

OtakuFest is a two-day festival that celebrates anime, manga, cosplay, gaming, comics, and more. You can dress up as your favorite character or come as you are, we aim to be a very inclusive convention. OtakuFest is new to South Florida’s convention scene, but its creator/show-runner Winji Mesadieu has been a part of Supercon as well as the South Florida convention community for over a decade. OtakuFest expects to bring in 4,000 people over 2 days for its first show in 2019. OtakuFest will feature activities and celebrities from the realm of comics, anime, animation, cosplay, manga, comics, gaming, and more!

It's also the day before Labor Day, so you can guarantee I'm getting all Socialist-y at this show. And you can get shitfaced and not have to worry about work the next day.

I did get word back on one OTHER new con, but I'm waiting for an announcement on them first...

SPEAKING OF NEW CONS...

MINI IWAI!

Mini Iwai was a blast as always, and the show was fun to put on.

However, my two favorite events of the day were the ones where I didn't play.

First up was "Cosplay Relay". which is a good concept that needed refining, and will be one to watch when Iwai: Rush comes around in a couple months. Basically, two teams of three work together to make a cosplay for a "model" (which I was) using a bunch of supplies provided for them. The catch is, every member is only given 10 minutes and can not communicate with each other. It's got potential, but it seemed like everyone only had a 80% grasp of the concept, so it needs ironing out.

Then came the 3000 Brigade Preview Show, which was just great.

As opposed to a preview show where our TOTALLY REAL BOY BAND B12 performed, it was Match Game where everyone was different charachters. We've done this before at other shows, and this time I was Tenya Iida from My Hero Academia because I spent $50 on a UA Gym Uniform AND GODDAMN IT I WAS GOING TO USE IT AGAIN.

Also turned out to be really popular. Huh.

MEGAPLEX AND AFO!

Same weekend, that started with Car Troubles: namely my car overheating a couple times and a hole in my tire. So I had to drive 50 miles on my spare, then wake up at 8 AM to get a new one the next morning. Then Sunday on my way home, my battery died.

ANYWAY, HOW WAS THE FURRY CONVENTION YOU ASK?

I had a good time! The night I got there, I caught Foxes and Pepper's Concert, which is the musical project of Fox Amoore and Pepper Coyote, two big musicans in the furry scene. If you're a fan of very folksy alt-rock, along the lines of say, Counting Crows.

The next morning, Fuzzy Logic had an escape room set up, which more cons should have. Escape rooms can do a great job of reinforcing the theme, get attendees to meet new people and are different than the usual fare. Obviously my team won, because Zero Escape vet here, duh. 



I was lucky enough to secure a slot in the Artist Alley via their Lottery system (ALSO A THING MORE CONS SHOULD DO), and I did WAY better than anticipated. I think I sold more CDs there before a show than any other convention.

As for the show itself, tech issues made us start late, but I wanted an eager crowd, and I GOT ONE!

Definitely a great experience and I think there might be a higher cross over between furries and punk than with anime/gamers and punk.

SO ARE YOU A FURRY THEN?

...Let's say Thrash Panda was something of a "soft launch"



Then I went to AFO, and of course Tiny Waves killed it at the rave.

Though people asked me about Megaplex with the same tone you'd use to find out someone was in the hospital...

NEW SONG: "FUCK TERFS (BUT DON'T HAVE SEX WITH THEM)"






For Gay Wrath month! Got a lot of requests for it at Megaplex, so I figured, WHY NOT?

JAM OF THE WEEK: "We Are All On Drugs" by Weezer



The tech issues mentioned earlier were that my laptop died, so I had to use whatever backing tracks I had on Google Drive, and I didn't have the Backing Track of "Hunting Bigger Game" with "Magic" by Mystery Skull tacked on the end, so I requested house music, and this is what they came up with.

So basically this makes Jam Of The Week because a week ago I ran around shirtless throwing Magic The Gathering cards to this song.