TimeGate 2011 – Day 2 (Saturday)

Posted on Jun 26, 2011 in News | 1 comment

For the first time in weeks, I got to sleep in past 8am. My amazingly comfortable bed held me in suspended animation as thoughts of jelly babies danced in my head. Dad stayed in the room and rested, indulging in the finest cable news that money could buy, while I descended the mighty elevator and returned to the TimeGate lobby. It was my job to make sure people actually came to my show on Sunday, so I made sure I was armed with a good sized stack of flyers to promote our main event. I then introduced myself to a cacophony of people to discuss Dr Who and to personally invite them to come see a band they’ve never heard of.

At 12:45pm, I began to make my way to the Gallifrey Portal room for my panel. I appeared on “Beyond the Pandorica: Season 6” with Ashley Raburn and Martin Hennessee. My fellow panelists had wonderful bits of insight into the new series episodes and many spoiler theories concerning The Silence and River Song. The panel ended slightly early, Martin and Ashley left, yet most of the people in the room remained in their seats. I decided to open the floor to the audience, allowing them to bring up any topic they wished to discuss. If they asked a question that I was capable of answering, all the better. The brilliant questions, cogent responses, and thought provoking theorems brought up by the group astonished me. My favorite theory proposed by one of the panel attendees was that the name “Rassilon” was no longer in reference to a particular person, rather it had become an honorary title. As the panel went twenty minutes over its official end time, I could do nothing but smile.

I had dinner with a large table of Time Ladies who wished to discuss the possible connection between the character Patience in the 8th Doctor novels and Idris in the recent Neil Gaiman episode. While this conversation was taking place, Scott and Debbie Viguie were sitting at the next table. I introduced the Viguies to my charming dinner partners and before long, we had three tables chatting up a storm. In addition to being fine conversationalists, it turned out Debbie and Scott lived relatively close to me in Florida. They offered to appear as guests at a little event I’m putting on in Orlando in July called “Time Lord Fest.” There’s nothing like a New York Times best selling author and a Dr Who expert/archeologist/attorney to help take an event up a notch!

Dad and I, having adorned ourselves in our festive garb, soon made our way towards the Centennial I Ballroom. The infamous TimeGate Cabaret was soon to begin. Professor Satyre was a hilarious master of ceremonies, who told jokes which nearly exhausted all of my air. Attempting to recover from my humor induced paralyzation, my father and I managed to muscle our way onto the stage where we performed two original songs, “Amy’s Got a New Boy” and “Companion’s Lament.”
Much to our delight, the audience seemed to enjoy our brief cameo. Louis Robinson came on after us and masterfully performed two lyrically mature ballads with his acoustic. He then accompanied Sophie Aldred as she sang a presumably traditional English folk song. After her song, we snuck up stairs to our rooms to change into civilian attire.

When I returned downstairs, the Masquerade costume show was still taking place. I enjoyed not only the costumes themselves, but the joy the fans of the various series took in dressing as their favorite Doctor Who and Stargate characters. While watching this, one of the Time Lady friends who had taken me to dinner earlier in the evening began texting me about a room party happening later in the evening. Late night drunken fan revelry sounded most appealing. Though, I did want to see the other band perform. I asked if a few of the ladies would like to join me in watching “One Hard Night” play at 10:30pm. The two came and joined me, along with long time friend and fan, Lois. The band was very good, had a great singer, killer guitar players, and a nice rhythm section. My favorite part of their performance was when they asked members of the audience to come up close to the stage and slow dance. I asked my Time Lady friends to dance with me and, in a circle, we danced and swayed to the band’s ode to sci-fi fandom. Soon though, the lure of a room party was too much so I followed the fair maidens to the fourth floor.

I shall now list the top 5 amazing and/or WTF items from the room party…

5) enough fermented grain to fuel our underfunded space program
4) A man performing a special dance with a bottle of Colt 45 ,which resembled the ant eater mating ritual dance from the 1980′s classic, “Can’t Buy Me Love”
3) Two “Captain Jacks” and a bottle of jack.
2) Several beautiful women singing very loudly lyrics from Rocky Horror then, without missing a beat, breaking into a sloppy yet heated debate over who is more freaked out by the Weeping Angels (“Man, I those angels are scary.” “You have no idea how freaked out by them I am, I just walk around people’s yards and break them” “There is no way you are more freaked out by them than I am, I can’t even be in the same room with statues anymore without punching them…”)
1) I was sober the entire time.