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[elfs]

Stormy and her Hat

The hotel rooms are actually kinda nice. Not fabulous, but the AC works, the shades actually cover the entire window (when helped with a pair of clothespins, naturally), the bathroom isn't horrible. The shower latch on the tub sticks, but after tugging hard it comes up and you get decent water pressure.

The soap says it contains "marine extracts." So that's what happened to Sarge.

My roommate is Scott, a decent guy so far. Straight shooter given to wearing the high-contrast knit shirts of a salesman. And sure enough, that's what he is: he sells airplanes.

I met up with my crew of three young women and we scouted the neighborhood for lunch. It took a while, but eventually we found a Korean burger joint in a strip mall with a submarine sandwich shop and a smoothie joint. I had a straight burger and fries, neither of which were worth reporting on.

My diet is taking a heck of a hit here.

We got back on the bus for a ride to Fullerton College, where the actual competition was scheduled to be on Friday. The band was scheduled to be in a "clinic," where someone from the judge's group (but not scheduled to be one of their judges) worked with the band for an hour to try and improve their performance presentation. That left

The Choir in Rehearsal

the choir free to run around. Stormy and her friends made a game of throwing Storm's hat off an outdoor stairwell, of the kind common in sunny, beautiful lands like South California. I ended up herding eight young women at some point, and I have to say only this: Castle Anthrax probably wasn't as much fun as it sounded. The giggles were crazy-making, and the smell was terrible. It might even have been what caused Sir Galahad to be so pure.

The choir had their practice, and eventually we headed back to the hotel, for dinner at Downtown Disneyland, a narrow alleyway on the east side of Disney property where all the stores are isolated and made accessible to passers-through. Anyone who wants to buy Disney merch can walk through without buying a ticket.

It was a mile walk. One of the three young women with my group was already looking peaked even before we got there. As we walked there, we saw on the other side of a fence all of the high schoolers lining up for Grad Night, an all-night extravaganza that Disneyland puts on for paying customers. As we walked passed it, I gestured and told the girls, "Behold, The Slathering Zombie Horde. Let's get this done before they escape their cage."

One of my girls' requirements was to find live music. That was easy. There were Disney-approved street performers. The first was the most depressing. One of the most notable lead singers of one of the most important punk bands of the 1980s, and this guy playing hammered dulcimer had reduced it to a Muzaky, ballady thing. It was horrible. (I don't care what you say, "Neuromancer" wasn't that tragic an album.) The second played a mean flamenco guitar, but a shame about the terrible backing music he chose on his synth.

Brother Yusef

The third, Brother Yusef, was fairly awesome. Entirely on his own, stomping out a beat with a tambourine around his ankle while he belted a mean blues, it was still, well... how blue can the blues be, when it has been approved to be played in the Happiest Place on Earth?

The Disneyland restaurants were all too expensive for our budgets, so we hit out for the Dennys down the street. I told everyone to call their loved ones and make sure they know we're all still alive, and then we headed back to the hotel.

My diet has been terrible. I know, I said that, but grief, I never realized how easy Seattle makes it to eat healthy.

Dammit, forgot to draw today.