fandom and my dad and music you need in your life
Hey there, internet! How was your evening?
I went out to dinner with my parents and their friends and then my mom, two of her friends, and I went to see Lucy Kaplansky, Cheryl Wheeler, and Tom Paxton at the Community Theatre. It was awesome. I especially loved Cheryl Wheeler. I can't remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did when she finished out her set with the opposite version of the love song she wrote for her partner. (It's here and it's an absolute riot. As was the song about her cat's 15th birthday.)
***
So, I went out with my dad and moonsheen last night and it was interesting. My dad was like, "Pretend I'm not here. Whatever." So moonsheen and I mostly ended up talking about fandom and at the end of the night, my dad and I had the Fandom Conversation.
Now, I've been involved in internet fandom for about thirteen years, now, give or take. I've been writing slash almost that entire time. Over the years, I've explained slash, fandom, fic, et cetera to my father more times than I can count. My dad and I are pretty much cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways. He's a big sci-fi and horror fan, he used to read a lot of comics, and we've got the same sense of humor, so he "gets" a lot of it, but slash always takes a little more explaining. We end up talking about the usual things people do when explaining slash--authorial intent versus fan interpretation, the effect of male writers and predominantly male main characters on the relationships within the show, chemistry between actors, homosocial relationships, et cetera. I also added a bunch of random queer theory stuff that I picked up in college and didn't factor into previous conversations when I was in junior high and high school. ::shifty eyes::
Anyway, the conversation ended the exact same way they ALWAYS end. After all of the talk and explaining, after mapping out the theories and describing fannish tendencies and all of that, it ended with me watching SGA on my iPod and him pointing at the screen.
"Is that," he asked, pointing at John, "the gay one?"
I looked at him for a moment and finally sighed and said, "Yes, dad. That's the gay one."
***
An earlier conversation with my father on the bus: "You're kind of a scatterbrain, aren't you?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"What planet do you even come from?
"I don't know, but it's an awesome one."
***
So, with those two bits of my life and past in mind, I present you with this as well:
When I was small (very small), my parents took me to a performance of a traveling show called Dinosaur Rock! The keywords of my dinosaur icon, "dinosaurs are strong and scary," is a lyric from one of the songs in that show. We got a tape on our way out and I'm pretty sure we listened to it until it broke. We LOVED that show. Totally obsessed. We knew all the words and long after I forgot how the show was staged, we were still listening to it in the car all the time. I'm sure my parents were totally sick of it and wanted to kill me, but I adored it.
A few months ago, I mentioned this show here on LJ (I think mcwonthelottery mentioned she remembered the show? Someone did.) and saw that they still toured and sold CDs. Not long after, when I had an Amazon.com credit, I bit the bullet and actually DLed the damn thing.
Oh my god, guys. Oh. My. God.
The cast is different from the tape I had as a kid and some of the voices are cheesier. Some of the songs are slightly changed as well, either in tempo or music or whatever. But at it's heart, it's still the incredibly, incredibly cheesy show about dinosaurs and the paleontologist who could draw them in the same with his magical dinosaur bone and make them come to life.
I shit you not.
The lyrics include things like "dinosaurs are strong and scary / big animals that are not very hairy." Or "He stands more than three stories high / and those who fight him usually die." It is amazingly bad.
I am uploading the whole thing as a zip file for you.
Seriously, I don't expect you to love it, but even if you just listen to a few minutes of it, I think it will explain an awful lot about me as a person.
Dinosaur Rock (full album)
And some samples, if you still don't believe you need this in your life:
The Dinosaur Song
The Tiny Little Babies And the Great Big Mamas
The Hadrosaur from Hackensack
Have a great night, everyone.
I went out to dinner with my parents and their friends and then my mom, two of her friends, and I went to see Lucy Kaplansky, Cheryl Wheeler, and Tom Paxton at the Community Theatre. It was awesome. I especially loved Cheryl Wheeler. I can't remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did when she finished out her set with the opposite version of the love song she wrote for her partner. (It's here and it's an absolute riot. As was the song about her cat's 15th birthday.)
***
So, I went out with my dad and moonsheen last night and it was interesting. My dad was like, "Pretend I'm not here. Whatever." So moonsheen and I mostly ended up talking about fandom and at the end of the night, my dad and I had the Fandom Conversation.
Now, I've been involved in internet fandom for about thirteen years, now, give or take. I've been writing slash almost that entire time. Over the years, I've explained slash, fandom, fic, et cetera to my father more times than I can count. My dad and I are pretty much cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways. He's a big sci-fi and horror fan, he used to read a lot of comics, and we've got the same sense of humor, so he "gets" a lot of it, but slash always takes a little more explaining. We end up talking about the usual things people do when explaining slash--authorial intent versus fan interpretation, the effect of male writers and predominantly male main characters on the relationships within the show, chemistry between actors, homosocial relationships, et cetera. I also added a bunch of random queer theory stuff that I picked up in college and didn't factor into previous conversations when I was in junior high and high school. ::shifty eyes::
Anyway, the conversation ended the exact same way they ALWAYS end. After all of the talk and explaining, after mapping out the theories and describing fannish tendencies and all of that, it ended with me watching SGA on my iPod and him pointing at the screen.
"Is that," he asked, pointing at John, "the gay one?"
I looked at him for a moment and finally sighed and said, "Yes, dad. That's the gay one."
***
An earlier conversation with my father on the bus: "You're kind of a scatterbrain, aren't you?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"What planet do you even come from?
"I don't know, but it's an awesome one."
***
So, with those two bits of my life and past in mind, I present you with this as well:
When I was small (very small), my parents took me to a performance of a traveling show called Dinosaur Rock! The keywords of my dinosaur icon, "dinosaurs are strong and scary," is a lyric from one of the songs in that show. We got a tape on our way out and I'm pretty sure we listened to it until it broke. We LOVED that show. Totally obsessed. We knew all the words and long after I forgot how the show was staged, we were still listening to it in the car all the time. I'm sure my parents were totally sick of it and wanted to kill me, but I adored it.
A few months ago, I mentioned this show here on LJ (I think mcwonthelottery mentioned she remembered the show? Someone did.) and saw that they still toured and sold CDs. Not long after, when I had an Amazon.com credit, I bit the bullet and actually DLed the damn thing.
Oh my god, guys. Oh. My. God.
The cast is different from the tape I had as a kid and some of the voices are cheesier. Some of the songs are slightly changed as well, either in tempo or music or whatever. But at it's heart, it's still the incredibly, incredibly cheesy show about dinosaurs and the paleontologist who could draw them in the same with his magical dinosaur bone and make them come to life.
I shit you not.
The lyrics include things like "dinosaurs are strong and scary / big animals that are not very hairy." Or "He stands more than three stories high / and those who fight him usually die." It is amazingly bad.
I am uploading the whole thing as a zip file for you.
Seriously, I don't expect you to love it, but even if you just listen to a few minutes of it, I think it will explain an awful lot about me as a person.
Dinosaur Rock (full album)
And some samples, if you still don't believe you need this in your life:
The Dinosaur Song
The Tiny Little Babies And the Great Big Mamas
The Hadrosaur from Hackensack
Have a great night, everyone.