ALCON '98 was awesome! I've been looking forward to this event ever since the day it was announced and now that it's over I'm never gonna forget it! Above is a picture of some of the souvenirs I picked up that day. It was great to get to meet such fine people as The *other* Amanda, Unruly Julie, Videot, Gumby, Happy Steve, Jeff Morris, Greg, PoohBear and his family, the other Sharon and her daughter, Amanda's Dad, MeriRenae (who I think really likes my bumper sticker), Trivial Todd, Good Time Gil, Eric the Amish roommate, Haakon and Stephanie at the Subway, Joe and his autographed LP cover (I still can't believe someone asked me for my autograph!), Blair and his wild bidding, oh, and of course Mike A. and Amanda and tons of other people I know I forgot to mention (245 of the nicest people you'll ever meet!). Plus it was great to see again Sharon, UHJeff, Lynnette, Bermuda, and that guy with the really curly hair and the Hawaiian shirts, Al!
If you were there, and I missed you I'm sorry. There were so many people there that I wanted to meet but didn't know that they were there until the day after. I was the only male ticket taker there so unless you arrived after 2:00 then I know you saw me. But you gotta admit, there was some serious feeling of family between all of us there, huh!?
I was also third place in the Look-Al-Like contest. You can see part of my prize above, the autographed CD! By the way, thanks again Julie for letting me use your accordion.
And for all of you who are wondering... yes, the shoes are my size!
Souvenirs
Here are some of my souvenirs. Besides the stuff in the frame above I also got some other cool stuff.
I saved my ticket. (#5). You can see a picture of the scanned ticket above.
I also saved my raffle tickets. The yellow ones are for Lynnette's raffle for a copy of "The Authorized Al." The *other* Amanda won that one. The blue ones were for an autographed Hawaiian shirt from Al's very own closet. If you look closely, they have the number 27 on them. I'm not sure who won that raffle, but it wasn't me. (pictures above)
Everybody got a sticker that said "Close Personal Friend Of Al" with the logo on it as they entered, and by the end of the night, everybody there was a close personal friend of Al. (picture above)
The autographed promo single of "Taco Grande" was part of my prize for finishing third place in the Look Al-Like contest. (picture above)
Lynette was selling items from her personal collection. Among the items I bought from her was this rare Cal Poly Arts Season Program. Everyone was allowed to have one item autographed by Al, so this was the item I chose.
I also bought a copy of the Nickelodeon magazine with an interview with Al in it from Lynette.
I also picked up some items in the auction. Remember the flashy dress shoes that Al wore in "This Is The Life" video? Well my bid was good enough to win the shoes!!! (Photo courtesy of ALCON '98.)
If you look closely at Al's "Gump" video, you can see him wearing gold boots. They were also up for auction and once again I had the winning bid!!! The shoes still have the original dirt from the video shoot in their treads!!! (Photo courtesy of ALCON '98.)
Pictures
I didn't bring a camera with me, but some close personal friends let me post these pictures from their collection onto my website.
Hey Hey the gang's all here. Here is a sampling of some of the people you might meet if you hang out on the IRC channel #weird-al or the newsgroup alt.music.weird-al. Moments later the audience started throwing rotten tomatoes. Wakka wakka wakka. (Photo courtesy of Eric Houg.)
I think I'm a clone now. Here's a candid shot of all the contestants in the Look Al-like contest pretending they are rich and famous musicians. I'm the fool with the accordion. I was going to say I was the fool with the Hawaiian shirt but that would be pointless. (Photo courtesy of Eric Houg.)
Get up close and personal with the guest of honor, "Weird Al" himself! (Photo courtesy of Unruly Julie.)
It's the winner of the Look-Al-Like contest and Julie herself preparing themselves for a spine tingling rendition of "I Don't Wanna Do My Laundry". Either that or they're just posing for the camera. You decide. (Photo courtesy of Unruly Julie.)
Guests of Honor Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz and "Weird Al" Yankovic chat with a lucky fan. (Photo courtesy of Unruly Julie.)
I made you into a freak. You’re the freakiest thing I’ve seen all week. I may be an accordion playing geek, but my friend, you’re a full fledged freak. And I’m not kidding. I made you into a big fat frea-ea-ea-ea-ea-eak. Oh yeah. (Photo courtesy of Unruly Julie.)