Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well, my trend is apparently to get to the Heroes Convention later each year, especially when forgetting to factor in the stupidity that is I-77 in the Queen City.

My impression is that there was a bit less along the vintage paperback, pulp magazine and old humor collections this year, and I came away with rather less swag than usual, though I did make the mistake of making eye contact with several good pitchmen. There also seemed to be a bit less cosplay than during the peak Marvel movie years, though that take may be due in part to my starting on the opposite side of the (huge) floor from the costume contest area. I did come away with a few gifts for my nieces, and some new "weird western" graphic novels from Mike Baron. (No new Nexus projects were ready, but he is doing a kickstarter for the next one).

On the way home, I decided to detour a bit on the inner loop towards Huntersville, and man I thought there was something wrong with my car: The tire noise on the segment near the airport is awful!

I had wanted to see The Beach Boys at the Alabama Theater earlier this year, but could not get it together. In the event, I believe the date may have been rescheduled for later this year. Had it taken place, it would likely have been my last time to see two Beach Boys together, as long-time member Bruce Johnston announced his retirement from touring last month. With Bruce spending his nights in his own bed, Mike Love & Al Jardine are the only two official Beach Boys still active, though they don't get along well enough to tour together.

Anyway, when I mentioned I was going to the Beach, my sister pointed me to a news article mentioning that Mike's Beach Boys would be at the OneFlight Myrtle Beach Classic golf tournament at the Grand Dunes resort, so I picked up a ticket (a really odd and frustrating process, ending up with something you can't just print out), and headed out Friday afternoon.

It turned out that the shuttle parking lot was the old Myrtle Square Mall site (which is still completely vacant after all these years), so i parked and got on a bus which took us a mile or so north. I had never been back in Grand Dunes, which is gated, but it is quite nice with golf, houses and a country club all right on the ocean. The concert site was backed up against the shore, and you could see boats passing by behind the stage. It was quite a chilly evening for May, and I had my sweater buttoned up.

The opening act was an Italian singer I had not heard of, Benedetta Caretta. She sang to backing tracks, without a band (aside from one song where she brought out a guitarist). From where I was standing, I could barely hear her, but she seemed to have quite a nice voice.

After she finished her set, which was probably about five songs, the roadies starting setting up for the main show, and Mike & co opened with a 1968 top-20 hit, "Do It Again", moving directly after that into the more well-known "Surfin' Safari".

John Stamos mentioned Mike's recent 85th birthday, and yes, I have to admit, Mike was not having a great voice night. He was certainly game, and the audience was appreciative, but the numbers which were originally sung by another Beach Boy back in the day came off better as the band was quite good, both vocally and instrumentally. I'm not quite sure why Stamos was there, whether it was a one-off, or if he is on the tour, but he has been associated with the band since the 1980s so it's never a real surprise to see him turn up. I thought he did a very nice version of Dennis Wilson's classic song, "Forever".

I didn't capture any of the first songs on video because from where I was standing, the sound was trash. I thought it was down to the wind and the sound system, but when I walked just a few feet closer a bit later on, I was suddenly in the focus zone, and the sound was excellent, and I did record several numbers (fumbling the start a few times) and the traditional closing duo: "Barbara Ann" & "Fun, Fun, Fun".

The setlist was something like this, though I won't vouch for the order except for the first two & last two numbers:

Do It Again
Surfin Safari
Catch A Wave
Surfin' USA
Surfer Girl
409
Little Deuce Coupe
Shutdown
Don't Worry Baby
I Get Around
Darlin'
Help Me Rhonda
Be True To Your School
Sloop John B
God Only Knows
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Good Vibrations
Forever
California Girls
California Dreaming
Rockaway Beach
Kokomo
Barbara Ann
Fun, Fun, Fun

Given the venue and time limit, there weren't a lot of deep cuts, but probably "Rockaway Beach" surprised some folks.

I took in Brookgreen Gardens Nights Of A Thousand Candles on Wednesday 3 December this year. For a midweek showing, they had a pretty good crowd, though it being a school night, there were not a lot of kids.

At last year's event, the Garden Of The Muses was closed due to the start of construction on the Judith Wall Courtyard, which is nearly done this year. The part that was opened looked like it will be a nice addition with a restaurant patio overlooking the Muses. My impression is that the event this year was slightly smaller in scope than previously, with only one entertainment tent on the Christmas Tree side of the gardens, and with the food trucks being deployed near that rather than down the walkway to Pegasus. In addition there were no fire-pits for s'mores, which I had been looking forward to. The weather was pretty good: Crisp, but not so cold that my hands froze taking pictures, and there was a spectacular full moon.

There are still a good number of nights you can catch the festival during the rest of the year. You can (and must) get tickets at

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For various reasons, I have been unable to get back to the Carolina Renaissance Festival in Huntersville for the past five years or so. Perhaps next year. In the meantime, I have been able to go to the Mythical & Medieval Fest in Socastee last year and this year.

It's definitely a smaller event, but still a nice way to spend an afternoon. In the event, Saturday was the last warm day in November, apparently, and I did not even need a sweater to be out and about on the grounds -- a far cry from this week!

I took in the saucy songs, juggling acts, broad comedy and fire dancers as well as checking out all the vendors. I would say that there seemed to be less local food this year. I had found some good local salsa last year, but did not see that farm booth Saturday.

The Sun News reports that the biker bar "The Rat Hole" has closed, and I infer that the event space for the festival, "RH Acres", was connected with that, so I am not sure if the festival will have a spot to unfold next year. We will have to see. At any rate the show is on for next weekend as well, so if you happen to be in the area, it's worth a look!

Commenter Dustin reminded me this morning that I had not done a South Carolina State Fair post this year. I certainly meant to, as I enjoy the Fair Food, neon, taking a video on the chair-lift, the art and just the experience in general. Unfortunately this year, my primary car was out of service, and I thought it would be a bad idea to put a 45 year old car with no door locks in the fair parking lot. Hopefully next year!

In the meantime, for those of you who *did* go, you can use this post to leave your comments.

I almost did not get to the annual Greek Festival this year, and in fact I zipped in after dark Saturday night just long enough to pick up some baklava and bread (which I had with both garlic & honeybell marmalade [at different times!]). Unfortunately I got there too late for the galaktoboureko and sesame wafers. It was about 8pm, but there was still a pretty good crowd. Hope you were able to get by, hope I plan better next year (which I say each year...)

After missing last year's convention due to a wedding, I was able to get back to Charlotte Saturday for day 2 of this year's.

I managed to get there a little earlier this year and the extra time actually let me walk every asile of the convention floor, which is massive, and I was definitely feeling it in my feet and in my bag-laden arms by the time the floor closed at 6:00.

In the event I picked up a number of things I would have bought on general principles, and another number of things I had never heard of from creators who were also good salesmen. There is a certain danger in making eye contact going up and down the asiles, but by the same token that's one reason for going to a big show: To get something you had no idea existed, but yet which someone is passionate about.

This young lady is "Poderosa" one of the heroines of Pittsburgh based "Heroineburgh" comics which I was enthusiastically given to understand is a sort of pinup based comic series similar to AC Comics "Femforce" which also produces campy live-action episodes at https://www.heroineburgh.com. I left with several autographed issues, an autographed picture of Ms Poderosa and this proof that it happened.

This group of cosplayers had kind of a Shrek thing going on with also some Marvel & DC representation.

I was glad to see that the creators of Elfquest, a comic I liked a lot back in the 80s are still rolling along.

These were a couple of more sales made by a stoked creator. Apparently the hero here is a tiger in a Zootopia type city of animals who holds down a day job as a teacher and works the nights as a Batman type vigilante with a strong focus on anti-bullying in both roles.

Indie space opera -- I don't know anything else about it yet.

Comic tie-in to the above.

Reportedly a humorous story about a knight in love with a dragon and all the mayhem that would cause.

The Heroineburgh comics plus assorted associated swag.

An issue of Hogan's Alley, an ongoing comics' history magazine.

More indie space opera, there are several novellas in this volume, but that's all I know!

You can't go wrong with Pogo!

I just fininished Volume 72: Luffy & the crew are split into several groups in the mysterious country of Dressrosa where toys are alive, and Luffy must fight in the arena to keep the power of his late brother Ace from falling into the wrong hands.

I had a nice conversation with comic writer Mike Baron towards the end of the day. He had a long run on "The Flash" for DC, but is probably best known for the space-opera superhero series Nexus and the Wisconsin gonzo series The Badger ("Put on a costume and fight crime? You'd have to be crazy..."). Recently he and Nexus co-creator, artist Steve Rude, parted ways and they are now doing separate Nexus projects. Baron was fairly philosophical about it and indicated that at least they could actually do that because they owned the character. It turns out that Baron actually has no ownership of The Badger, so getting new Badger projects going is more difficult. I picked up Baron's latest Nexus graphic novel Scourge (done now with artist Kelsey Shannon), an issue of his Florida Man which I hope has some of that Badger gonzo spirit. His police thriller Thin Blue Line (he admitted that coming out as a pro-police conservative has hurt him some in the industry), and his take on Sherlock Holmes.

All in all, an interesting day, and I left pleasantly footsore and laden to fight the I-77 traffic.

I didn't know for sure when I made arrangements to spend the weekend in Fernandina that I would hit the Dickens On Centre festival, though I figured there was a pretty good chance of that. In the event, I did, and it was quite nice. They close off Centre Street starting at, I believe, Fourth Street, and also a block of 4th, 3rd, 2nd & 1st on either side of Centre and line the entire thing with craft booths, performance stages and outdoor eateries, the most visible one being the bubble enclosed tables on 2nd Street.

Players in period costumes (well-to-to period costumes to be sure) circulate for photo ops, and there are music and theater events on the stages. There was also a drone show over the harbor, which I was not expecting and was not in a good position to see, but which was nonetheless quite impressive. Centre Street merchants and restaurants stay open during the event as well, and do, I'm sure, quite a good business. Things wrap up Sunday at 3:00, and you can see a good bit of the teardown in the pictures following that.

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My trip to this year's Nights Of A Thousand Candles was one of the coldest in quite a while. Last year the Smores setup seemed like one of those things you do at the Fourth of July because the kids like it, but the chocolate is melting everywhere -- this year that was not a problem, and the heat from the firepits was very welcome! In fact, my fingers were going numb on the camera controls, something which hasn't happened for a good few years now.

I wasn't expecting the traffic to be particularly bad for a Sunday show, but in the event it took an hour to make my way from the start of the lineup on US-17 to the parking lot. There were a few visible changes this year: The Garden Of The Muses is under construction, so there were no lights at a spot which has has some quirky setups over the years, the indoor model train setups have added a Hooterville layout, and the main Christmas tree is lighted again after giving it a few years off to recover.

The event runs weekends through New Years, so if you happen to be in the area, but sure to check it out!

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I've always enjoyed the Carolina Renaissance Festival in Huntersville, but for one reason or another I have not been able to get there since 2016, so when I saw that there was a charity Ren Faire in Socastee, I thought I would check it out.

It was a nice sunny day, and the place was drawing a decent size crowd. They have a good number of craft booths, concessions and the usual Ren Faire players including kind-friendly fairies, bawdy ballad vocal groups, fire eaters & jugglers. It is nowhere near the size of the NC encampment, so you only need an hour or two to take it in, but it was a fun way to spend a Fall afternoon, and if you will be in the area next weekend, I suggest you check it out.