Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in mofilker's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
8:23 pm	Once more at Parrot's Hey all. Sorry to not have been at Duckon this year--hope it went well (and with janmagic involved, how could it not?). For those in the St Louis/St Charles area, two things: I'm doing another Happy Hour at Parrot's Bar and Grill, I-94 and Jung Sta Rd, in St Charles, MO, this Friday (June 26) from 5 to 8. If you're not busy, pop on by. This will probably be it till September--they told me they usually slow down in July and August. But you never know. Maybe I've impressed them enough with my stage presence to have them think about July or August. Or not. Thing 2: We're having our second House Filk on July 11. If you're interested and/or want to know more about that, let me know. I'm keeping an email list for House Filk, and I can put you on it if you're interested (assumng you aren't, already). Back to getting sets ready. (8-{D Current Mood: busy (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
9:59 am	Upcoming Filk Circle - St Louis House Filk We of the long-suffering midwest filk community are going to try and establish a house filk happening. What it may become, how it may fare, is anybody's guess. But we're going to try. The date we have decided upon is May 9, a Saturday. It will be at the home of one of our local filkers, because he wanted to do it and I have five cats in the house at present, precluding anyone with pet allergies from attending a meeting at my place. If you're interested in attending, email me at my livejournal contact email address. I will put you on my filk circle email group list (using my mundane email address, so don't be surprised when my address changes). I have another actual paying gig on May 8, so I may not be in top form Saturday. But I'll be there, and I hope some of you will be there too. I will NOT be posting directions to the host's house (or any other personal info about the host, for that matter) over Livejournal, so if you want to attend, send me an email address. I'll send you the info. Hope to see you there! MoFilker (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
8:23 am	got a gig tomorrow, Friday, March 27 Playing my first paid, live-at-a-pub gig in twenty years tomorrow, Friday, March 27, for a happy hour (5 - 8) at Parrot's in St Charles.  Should be interesting.  Hope I remember which end of the guitar to hold... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 6th, 2008
10:04 am	It's over I posted this as a response to a post by Joe Haldeman.  Decided if I'm going to post it there, I may as well post it here... +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ There are so many sides to everything.  Forget 'The Force'--life is like trying to get a definite answer to a question involving quantum mechanics. The candidate I supported won, and for that I'm greatful.  I hope.  However, I have voted for many candidates who won, and, most of the time, it seemed as if there was little that would have been different in the long run had the other candidate won.  Promises made and forgotten, promises made never intended to be fulfilled, promises unfulfilled because too much was promised and it just couldn't be done--it seems that, most of the time, what you get is never what you hoped for, or what you were told and were expecting to get. There is a lot awry in the world, and a lot awry here in the USA.  We have opted, in effect, to chuck the existing machine and bring in a whole new one in the belief that the existing machine had more to do with the way things are than the one we just voted in.  That may or may not be true--just as one point to ponder, those who read Orson Scott Card's open letter to the media have at least some cause for caution--but it seems we believe it enough to have decided to give a new order a try. I believe we elected a team that had the best overall plan for our country over the next few years.  I don't for a minute believe they have the best plan for every single thing.  I expect mistakes will be made, but I hope they, unlike how the current team seemed to have operated, will realize when they have made a mistake and immediately take steps to rectify it.  We have elected someone who has literally been part of two worlds, or three worlds, or even more.  He has an unparalled opportunity to continue with dissolving those artificial barriers to which we have continued to grant the reality of existence.  Continue, not complete, because there is probably far too much to do in the way of dissolving them completely for anyone to seriously think it can be done in a few years.  But our President-elect is in a marvelous position to act as a catalyst, and I hope he does so. He's not going to have it all his way, and neither are we.  I think that, as a nation, we've been a little out of touch with reality lately.  We think we deserve what we've not earned yet, and we've paid for it with a credit crisis.  We think we know the best way for people to govern themselves, and we've paid for it with most of the world thinking we're arrogant, conceited, and obnoxious.  We take for granted our way of life is what everyone should strive for, without considering what would happen to the resources of the world if everyone lived as we did, and what our way of life is doing to the world ecology, now that other nations are starting to catch up to us. On the other hand, we just completely changed the hands of power in this country with no rioting, military action, or harm coming to anyone.  So we must be doing something right. We as Americans have always understood better than many that you get what you pay for.  We pay for it by working harder, by being open to new ideas, by refusing to have our imagination constained by anything.  It's our strength, it's behind the greatness of America--and I believe there is greatness here.  It's let us come this far, this fast, and, if we have elected whom we think we have, it will be what let's us move on to the next thing, whatever that may be. The journey is half the fun.   (Comment on this)
Monday, October 27th, 2008
7:39 am	***sigh*** Not at OVFF again.  But then, I never have been, so that comment's along the lines of "The Captain is sober again" in the the log entry of the disgruntled first mate.  Congratulations to all the winners!!! We had our penultimate marching band competition down at the Edward Jones Dome this weekend.  Did much better than we did the week before--Second place, Silver division.  Not too shabby, all things considered. Next weekend is the Mizzou competition, our last active marching band event.  After that, it's cleanup on maintenance items we've noted over the season, and the final banquet next spring when our youngest graduates. And yes, I'd like to think that the end of marching band season and the youngest going off to college means we'll have more time for things like conventions, but the end of marching band season also means two active college students, not to mention our returning military daughter coming back to St Louis to start civilian life.  So if anything, our convention budget is probably going from miniscule to non-existant.  Oh well.  Que sera, sera. Currently, I'm working more on getting some set material together with an eye toward playing out now and again rather than on new material and new CDs.  I'm hoping if I can land a gig a couple times a month it can bring in enough extra to be able to do a convention somewhere during the year.  We will see.  At the least, I'm having a grand time playing with the MIDI sequencer! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
10:21 am	Archon 32 report - MoFilker on Archon Filking OK, it was a lot of work, and not everything went according to plan. But hey, it's a con. If everything actually did go according to plan, I'd have to check the sport's page to see if the Cubs had won the pennant... Sorry... Actually, things went pretty smoothly, at least from my point of view. Overriding all, from a Filking point of view, was the obvious fact I could not invite a Filk GoH this year. Whether I can have one next year depended in part on how filking went, and I think we did all right. For the first time at Archon, we had two full filk rooms going at once! The concerts were all well attended (although I can't vouch for Luke's since I was packing up), and the panels all had at least a half dozen people at them. So Filk On! As to the mechanics (meconics?): ( Read more ) Thanks to all who contributed and made it all it was. Hope to see you all again at Archon 33! Gary "MoFilker" Hanak   Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: Filk (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 21st, 2008
8:50 pm	Official Archon Filk Posting Catchy title, no?  OK, It's time to belly up to the bar, grab the bull by the horns, jump into the deep end--pick your metaphor. I would like an idea of who, filk-community-wise, is planning on coming to Archon this year.  Yes, in spite of anything you may have heard about difficulties with the hotel, the reports of Archon's impeding demise are greatly exagerated.  Yes, remodeling is going to occur, but NO, it's not going to occur during Archon, and anything that does occur hotel-ownership-transition-wise is not going to affect us.  So rest easy. But the filk track--or rather, my creation of the filk track--is a little thin this year as yet, denied as I am the opportunity to invite a bona-fide filk GoH.  Toyboat is coming, which means Daniel Gunderson, Jason Neerenberg, Mike Nixon, and Eric Coleman will all be there.  (And if they're not, now would be a good time to tell me!  But they are.  Right?)  Tom Smith, as we all know, will not be there, but we all wish the best for him and I'm sure something in the program will be Tom Smith related. So please, if you're a filker and are coming to Archon, be so kind as to let me know, either here, through the Archon website Filk link, or by emailing me at mofilker@sbcglobal.net (with Archon somewhere in the subject, please!).  And, if those who read this don't mind, please tell your LJ friends, who are undoubtedly more numerous than mine, so that they can also have the oportunity to respond to my plea. Obviously, if a million filkers respond to this, I will have difficulty in trying to get everyone directly involved in the programming.  On the other hand, if NO one responds, I will have difficulty just trying to have programming.  So let me know, if y'all would be so kind.  (Why is it the southern dialect of American English is the only one sophisticated enough to have a distinct second person plural?  From the folks who gave us "You might be a redneck if...".   Go figure...) Many thanks, and hope to hear from (at least some of) you! Gary a.k.a MoFilker Current Mood: hopeful (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 30th, 2008
8:52 am	OK, so the toe is healing relatively nicely, and I'm trying to just use a cane for this week at work. If it goes well today, I'll take the crutches back this evening. Seems to me I'm also supposed to give blood either today or tomorrow, and Jamie has a mammogram scheduled (let's all hope it continues to stay clear!), so it's a day of medical stuff. I spent some time this weekend putting together material for use in actually playing out. With our current budget crunch, the occassional gig is looking like something I might try and do again. Depends on how well the MC-50 sequencer works with the Yamaha keyboard. So far, not too bad. And the reason for this post--I also finally spent some more time working on getting that long-promised lyric website up. I have acquired a network drive that supposedly can be used as a web server, so the plan is to link that section of the drive into my myspace account. I put together an index page and links to both sets of album lyrics as albums. Now, I have to pop the pages I've got onto the network disk and see if it actually works. After that, I have to get the non-album lyrics into HTML and then spend some time making the pages look pretty. But progress is being made... (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
9:34 am	Good things come in threes... So, not to be outdone by anyone so shy and retiring as Tom Smith, I have managed, over the weekend, to break my left little toe. Great.  Beware, ye of the filk community.  There's another event out there somewhere looking for a home... It's mainly an inconvenience, as I now can't participate in the golf league or keep the grass mowed (let's think about plus and minus, ying and yang here...).  But it doesn't hurt (unless I try to walk on it), so it requires an effort NOT to walk on it, as if it hurts, I've likely already done something I'm not supposed to.  I'll see the orthopedist sometime this week, hopefully, and get the final diagnosis and recovery instruction set, which will hopefully be what I've been doing. Luckily, I've no bookings over the next month (or the next three months, for that matter), so it won't interfere with anything other than a normal life.  Should be fine by Archon, at which point I'll probably drop something on it. So, how was your day? ( 8-{P Current Mood: blah (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 16th, 2008
9:22 am	Life after Duckon Thanks again to janmagicfor being the goddess of all things filk. We had some logistical problems (hotel and not Jan-organizer related, of course!), but overall it went pretty smooth, for the most part. It was good to see Jeff and Maya again. They did a fine job as GoHs, which is only to be expected. And it was good (as always) to get with Riverfolk (chasophonic, chirosinger, musicmutt)(and Mrs. chasophonic!) again. ericcolemanand all the Toyboat crew were there, which is always fun, and usually makes for a more interesting time than not. I also had the chance to meet mrgoodwraith, a scary and very talented song corrupter, fleetfootmike(who is just very scary), and Tom and Sue of Stone Dragon, and had the chance to see Ookla the Mok in concert. I even finally saw Worm Quartet in concert for a little bit. A big disappointment, of course, was the lack of filkertom, out of sorts for the next few months with various corrective medical procedures going on about his person. Heal up, Tom! I wanted to do "Hey, it's can(n)on" on the accordion for you, but couldn't get with fleetfootmike to do so. Didn't have a big turnout for my concert. Not small, but not huge. Of course, I followed, as usual, Worm Quartet (and the Great Luke Ski), so maybe the crowd was just tired. That's all for now. Back to work... (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
4:46 pm	Writer's Block: Here's the Skinny... Have you ever been skinny dipping? View other answers Yep. A few times, in fact. Best to draw a kindly curtain over the details--it's not an image you probably want residing in your cerebral cortex. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 18th, 2008
5:11 pm	Disappointing year so far. Had to turn down an opportunity to do a concert at Confluence, as the outlay would have been too much for our current financial Visualization of the Cosmic All. Also had to scrap plans for Demicon, and, most grevious, had to decline a repeat GoH invitation to M.O.O.N.Con. That is to say, too many kids in or preparing for college. Looking grim over the next decade or so. The joys of parenting. *sigh* And yes, the lyric web site is still in work, I still need to get the info on all the publishers for the songs on my parody album so I can send out requests to use the original music and thereby allow digital distribution, and I still haven't started the Mr Beer. I did, however, build a new digital TV antenna and stick it in the attic, and it works, so that's something. Currently spending time trying to put some material together on sequencer to let me play a live gig somewhere in the area. After I get enough stuff set down, I'll start looking at some local places, and we'll see. In the meanwhile, Archon has opted for a minimalist GoH list this year, so I'm prohibited from inviting a formal Filk GoH. I am hoping to get a conference room in a different hotel, to allow the open filk to be held in a room without a big-assed table in it. We would also then try to have a filk block for that hotel. It may isolate the filking folk from the convention proper, but I think overall the benefits would far outweigh the inconveniences. We'll see. If any of the filk community is considering Archon this year, let me know, either here or through the Archon website (assuming they add my filk link back in). I still plan on having a filk track this year. The more bodies I have, the more I can abuse your generous nature... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
8:51 am	It's 5 deg F outside here in St. Louis. I've been working on my usual dozen things at once, some of which I have completed (rewiring the house phone system, building another shelf in the laundry room, fixing the washing machine), some of which I haven't (getting all the publishers together for the parody album to straighten out digital distribution, fixing the TV antenna wiring in the house, brewing my initial batch of Mr Beer), and some I have but haven't finished yet (a website for my song lyrics, songs for the next album, putting a disk server on my home network). Time flies when you don't know what you're doing. Looking forward to Duckon this year, assuming our memberships actually get processed. May try to get up to Iowa in May for Demicon (I think that's correct). Still thinking about that. I also need to decide about going to Confluence in Pittsburg--it's a long way and a small con, apparently. I'd like to do it, but it will come down to time and money, as usual. Archon is starting to roll along. One little fly in the ointment is that last year being NaSFiC really was a bump in the road--pretty typical of a NaSFiC, from what I hear. The long and short of it is I'm not allowed a Filk GoH this year (no, it's not just filking). However, former GoHs are back in the comped membership category, so we may see some of our prior guests again this year. I also have 'Toyboat', a rather interesting collection of filk personalities, salivating to come in and do a show at Archon. If other filk personalities are planning to come back to Archon this year, let me know so I can get with you to see if there's something you would like to do, wouldn't object to doing, or could be browbeaten into doing for the convention this year. To keep it uncluttered, you can email me through the archon website, when they get my info up on it. (I just checked, and it's not on the Archon32 sitemap. You can try filking@archonstl.org and that might work.) Off to the next thing. TTFN! (ta-ta for now) mofilker (Comment on this)
Monday, November 12th, 2007
11:15 pm	Back from Windycon First, heartfelt thanks to janmagic for all her efforts at Windycon. Not only was she deep in the filk administration swamp, dodging alligators, she and her husband put up with me and my wife as room squatters for the weekend. No trivial feat, that. Also my heartfelt thanks to Sue (do I know what your LJ tag is?) for helping me schlep all my paraphernalia back and forth. No telling what I could have lost had you not been there! chasophonic was there, and it was fun to play along with him again, as well as with the Minnesota folk (it was Minnesota, was it not?) he introduced me to on Saturday evening. Ye gods, what talent there be in that bunch. David showed up and wowed them at the open filk later that night. Bill and Brenda were there as special guests and did a fine and noble job. Brenda in particular added an interesting touch with her operetta "Choice of Ending" based on a story by Tanya Huff. As the Suttons are now again living (relatively) close to St Louis, I may have the chance to run into them again relatively soon. (They live near Indianapolis, and we've already had the chance to run into the Childs-Heltons again, so hey--it could happen!) filkertom, gundo, born_to_me, and tollers were also there, to name but a few. I also had the pleasure of hearing Carla Ulbrich for the first time. As demented and charming a lady I've not had the pleasure of meeting in recent memory. Hopefully next time we're in the same area, we won't be quite as adept at missing each other as we were this time. A well attended and, near as I could tell, fun event, at least for my part, though there were some interesting difficulties with the hotel. Mundane things, like my cart fitting into the elevator only with the greatest of difficulty and the hall and room arrangements not being any better for cart maneuvering. And the fact that the basement was bisected by a sewer, so getting from one point to another was sometimes a rather tedious procedure. I also understand parking was a real female canine. But that's a problem for the past, as they are moving next year. I don't know if we will be there next year or not, but I had a good time, and so did Jamie. We will just have to see how things are going next year. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, November 5th, 2007
4:39 pm	moving along... CDBaby now has my two modest entries in hand. (6 days via Priorty Mail. If you're in a hurry, consider an alternative delivery method...) So sometime between now and the week after Windycon, hard core filk collectors (and they would have to be) won't have to catch me at a con for a CD. I'll be online!!! Just trying to catch up to the 21st century. Looking forward to Windycon, assuming our memberships are all straight and nothing disastrously unexpected occurs. I'm scheduled for a concert at 2:00 on Saturday, and a panel at 4:00 Saturday. I think I may be doing something Friday evening, too, but I've not heard for sure yet. And the open filking, of course. Hope to see some familiar faces there! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
8:20 pm	OK, the marching band trip to Oxford went much better. Didn't win any more trophies than last time, but they did improve, and both trucks made it there and back!!! Of such small steps are great journeys begun. Anyway, last weekend, at our first local, we came in 2nd overall, so the kids all feel better about all the work they still have to do. Looking forward to Windycon, where Jamie and I are attending at the insistance of janmagic, bless her heart. I filled out the panelist form and submitted some sort of 'who the hell are you and why should we care?' type info, but if things go as they usually do all that will have little, if any, bearing on what I actually wind up being assigned to do, if anything. I also submitted a quick panel selection list for Jamie, probably with the same results. That is, random. But we are looking forward to it, and to seeing tollers, filkertom, and anybody else who happens to be up there. Getting ready to storm. Time to batten down the hatches. Till next time, TTFN (ta-ta for now!) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
4:37 pm	As time goes by... The marching band had it's first road trip last weekend, to Indianapolis.  The event wasn't too bad, but both trucks died (again).   They were supposed to be (like) new, refurbished, and ready to roll.  Which they did, ALMOST all the way to Indy.  *sigh* Well, this weekend, it's off to Columbus for our second road trip.  We'll pick up the truck still in Indy on the way there, we hope, and then on to Columbus where we'll all try to get 100+ high schoolers on and off the field in regulation without getting a hernia carrying the props. Come November, I'm REALLY going to be looking forward to Windycon, assuming  janmagic  still wants me to come up, especially considering the track record I've been accumulating recently with conventions.  By the way, Jan, did I mention JVLCon in that list of con corpses trailing behind me?  If you've changed your mind, I really can't blame you...   (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007
9:41 am	Is there a pattern here? OK, I was Filk GoH at NameThatCon.  It later closed.   I was Filk GoH at M.O.O.N Con.  It hasn't been heard from since, though it keeps trying, like a mortally wounded beast valiantly trying to keep moving. I was going to be Filk GoH at Daranacon.  It just got cancelled (the con, not my specific appearance).  Before I even got there, so I supposed I can't be explicitely blamed.   But beware, any out there who, in whatever lost recesses of your mind and however improbable such an occurrance may be, would even be considering the possibility of letting the thought cross your mind of having me as a Filk GoH, that I do not, to date, have what even remotely could be considered a good track record... And I just tried to go to the Windycon site, and have been told it's forbidden... (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 4th, 2007
9:07 am	OK, so it's been a month since my last posting.  (Sounds almost Catholic, doesn't it?)  Roughed out a new song last week, and hope to rough out another in the next week or so.  Also, Daranacon is coming up in October (hope to see some of you there--though I know there's a few I won't, because I'm a guest at the con since they can't be!).  And largely due to the insistance and huge efforts of janmagic, Jamie and I are planning on going to Windycon this November.  Boeing and JoAnne Fabric willing... For the rest of this year, until November, our time will largely be consumed by being Marching Band parents.  That, and trying to handle the load of a kid in college.   After Daranacon, and assuming I get the copyrite forms in sometime this week, I'll be contacting cdBaby to set up marketing arragements for the first two CDs I have.  Everyone I know has spoken highly of them, they were quite pleasant when I contacted them, and they seem to have a lot of fun.  So, I'll take the plunge.   Current Mood: busy (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 6th, 2007
9:12 am	Archon 31 - Archon 31 / NaSFiC 9 / Tuckercon is now officially done.  Although I haven't heard from the rest of the committee folk, the filking part went pretty well, at least from what I heard.  My thanks and gratitude to all who were there and who took part in making Archon Filking such a success--Barry and Sally Childs-Helton, Deb Gates, Jen Midkiff (collectively as Wild Mercy); Tom Smith; The Great Luke Ski; Blind Lemming Chiffon; Gary Ehrlich; Mary Crowell; Sandra Morrese; William Warren; Jan DiMasi; and anybody else who was there and participated.  All the good stuff associated with the filk track this year was because of their efforts, and I am greatly appreciative. Thank you all again, and I hope to see you at Archon in the years to come! Current Mood: grateful (8 Comments |Comment on this)