Raleigh NC April 2 (& 3rd . . . see below)

Raleigh NC April 2 (& 3rd . . . see below)

The Great Friggin' Gonzo Revenge of the Sith Tour is officially under way!

Kicked it off this afternoon at Wal-Mart SuperCenter Store #5118 in Raleigh NC, and it was a party . . . the whole staff was so pumped to sell Star Wars that I had to do a 45-minute meet & greet in the employee lunch-room before the actual event -- and I think I signed more books for the employees than I did for the customers.

Which is cool by me.

A sale's a sale, baby . . .

And the NC Garrison of the 501st Storm Trooper Battalion turned out, too, so that I had a pair of clone troopers, a Red Guard, an Imperial pilot, Boba friggin' Fett and Darth by-God VADER doing CROWD control . . .

It was pretty cool.

And I got to meet in person for the very first time one of my long-time friends, HAWKi102, who I've been corresponding with for a couple years now, and discover that he's a perfectly normal-looking guy, with a very understanding moms-type in tow. Great to meet you, Steve.

Why do I always expect my fans to look like demented homeless cattle-mutilators?

And there was Shane, too (aka tyshalle83, brave lad) -- also entirely human. And towing the lovely Allison (did I get your name right? I met a lot of people today) [EDIT: AMBER, dammit, sorry about that], thus proving that my fans are not only handsome folk, but attractive to the opposite sex.

How did this happen?

In fact, over all, I'd have to say that my fans are all singularly goodlooking people (in addition to their obvious intelligence and stellar taste).



Later --

Did my first reading -- at Quail Ridge, a vastly cool independent store here. Of course, I'm kind of a small-timer round these parts, seeing as how they've also recently hosted none other than the legendary Zahn . . . not to mention Greg Keyes . . .

The 501st was here as well, and this time they hung out after the event and took off the armor -- without getting conspicuously naked, so forget about pictures -- and took me out to dinner, and proved my earlier contention applies not only to my fans, but to Star Wars fans in general.

I mean, I've been to a LOT of cons. SFF fans are a pack of scruffy-lookin' nerfherders, and not only will few of them deny it, most would be offended if I were to suggest otherwise.

Star Wars fans, tho' . . . these are good-looking people. I mean, you can't squeeze a fat ass into that storm trooper armor, you know what I mean? Hell, one of the troopers at Wal-Mart was a REAL trooper -- he could honest-to-Christ quickdraw his friggin' blaster, because he's an honest-to-Christ deputy sheriff. Two others are officers in the Air Force, for Christ's sake -- there was Navy represented, too. These aren't your Living-in-Mom's-Basement-Wearing-Spock-Ears types, y'know?

Later still --

Hey, Raleigh loves me so much it doesn't want to let me go. The US Airways shuttle to Pittsburgh turned around in midair and went back to the airport. In Pittsburgh. It never even got here. And then it was cancelled without explanation. And then US Airways politely explained that all other flights to Pittsburgh were already overbooked. Until 10:50 PM, which would make me a bit late for my 2:00 Talk & Signing at the Barnes & Noble #2898 on Freeport, which will consequently be deprived of my company.

Sorry, folks. Shit happens. Apparently it happens to US Airways quite a bit -- the next thing they did was start taking volunteers to skip the oversold flight to New York that was the next one out of the same gate . . .

The good news is that I get to spend an extra night in the Raleigh Sheraton, where people are very nice to me indeed, and the food's really good, and the Young Christian conference that was having a picnic in the hallway outside my room yesterday (no, I'm not kidding) seems to have evaporated, so I'm gonna quit blathering on about things now and get to work on CAINE BLACK KNIFE.

I'll see folks in Boston tomorrow . . .