Last Weekend

Last weekend was spent in Portland.


Attrition


Friday, I waited for Anita to get off work to head down there and good thing I did because a wreck on I5 kept everybody else from getting there any quicker. It took Jason over 6 hours to get to Portland. We arrived around 10 and managed to meet up with Jason and catch part of a short block at the film festival. Then it was time to head over to the new watering hole for the HPL Fest, Tony Starlight's, which was a nice Las Vegas Rat Pack inspired bar with a red curtained stage and open mike. While there we were treated to the "dog head story" which I shall not describe because it is something you really need to hear from the source at an HP Lovecraft inspired festival to appreciate. (I will say that they are talking about a real dog's head, however.) Then it was off to find a place to stay in Portland, which I did, but it was on the third try and one of two rooms they had left.

Saturday was a bit more busy. I started by meeting up with Gwen and Brian at the Acropolis, a steak house strip club. Steak was great. The girls were "meh". (Ok to look at but their choice of music drained all interest I had in watching them.) Then it was to Andy & Pax surplus store to pick up a new sweater and wool German knickers. I got to the HP Film Fest and said some hellos and watched a Hellboy animated show before heading over to Conflux for the first time. Conflux was in a nice old ballroom. All in all it seemed much like the Portland convergence scaled down. There were multiple rooms and the art was on the various walls. Probably only about five or six artists. There were some vendors but only half were even there at that time and they were still doing sound checks for the bands. I left, ate some dinner, and watched another short block of films and then went back. I had talked to Martin from Attrition about doing photos as they're using some of mine that I took of them at the NOLA Convergence. I got that arranged and had another drink and looked at the vendors again before heading back for the final short block back at HPLFF. Then it was back for the final event of the evening and I watched the Black Cat Cabaret and Attrition before retiring for the night as it was too late to join up with people at Tony Starlight's for drinks.

Sunday was just a quick drive home.


Black Cat Cabaret

The Black Cat Cabaret was neat. I wish I had been more attentive of my camera. I took some nice photos, but unfortuatly, they are all a bit out of focus. My camera had been set to manual focus and they looked ok via the viewer but not in the final photos. I finally got it sorted out and caught the tail end of their set and did ok for Attrition. Attrition played a good set.

HPL Fest was HPL Fest. They seemed to have less movies and more authors this year. They are combining it with ChuthluCon but also, I heard that they are getting less submissions. The submissions they get now are much better than in the past though. I saw none that were painful to watch.

Conflux was Portland's dark arts festival and I hope they do another one next year. I missed Friday and Sunday's entertainment, which sucked because I really wanted to see The Red King who packed the venue at the Portland Convergence and caused me to hear how great it was for the rest of the weekend. It seem a bit under attended this year but fairly well run. Most of the entertainment seemed very swoopy goth and not much to interest the industrial or deathrock crowds. I also think there could have been more art. It was a good first run though, I had fun, and I hope they did well enough to do it again.