Things may have gone quiet on the blog for a while, but that isn’t for lack of trying. Between a new Day Job and lots of weather insanity, April has been one of my busiest months yet, and it’s only getting more intense. So much for taking a hiatus, much less a vacation.
The fun all started back in March at All-Con 2014, when Taffeta Darling of Fangirls: Dames of the Round Table stopped by the Triffid Ranch booth to say hello, and asked “Would you be interested in an interview on Deep Ellum on Air?” I gave my usual standoffish response (“If you nail a duck’s foot down, does he waddle in circles?”), and Taffeta contacted me last weekend about this coming Sunday’s show. This may be once again breaking a promise I’ve made to myself for years about not scheduling anything the weekend before a big show, but as a fan of Taffeta’s costuming work for years, I’d be an idiot to pass it up. April 27, from 3 to 4 p.m CST, and I’ve sworn over and over that I won’t drop the F-bomb on the air more than, oh, thirty or forty times.
This, of course, is just preamble for the big show. The last Triffid Ranch show of the year, and the last show until May 2015. Texas Frightmare Weekend is less than two weeks from now as I write this, and the plan is to make that last show one that everyone will remember. Admittedly, I’ve tried doing that with every Frightmare show for the last five years, but between a whole slew of new plants and a Sarracenia pool that’s exploding with fresh blooms and fresh traps, come out to see everyone off for the hiatus.
(Incidentally, there’s a little extra involving Frightmare that, sadly, I won’t be able to attend, as much as I wish. Back in the mid-1980s, I was a regular at a local midnight showing of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead with an audience participation crowd that made a typical showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show look sick. The Dawn showings stopped in 1986, and I spent years trying to convince local theaters to give it one last revival. Finally, the Alamo Drafthouse Richardson runs a show, with George Romero in attendance, and it’s the evening before the beginning of Frightmare. Don’t let me stop you from attending, though, and if you see Kelly, the lovely and talented head of publicity at Alamo Drafthouse Richardson, please thank her for me.)
So that’s the plan. Come out to say hello at Frightmare, or just listen to me glibber and meep online. Either way, time to get back to work.