meredith's Kon reporT

[the element of laughter <woiccare@pebbles.sct.clarkson.edu>]

hi all. for those of you who don't know, meredith is love-hounds' unofficial
KorrespondanT in germany. while her cover is that of a student, those of us
"in the know" know that her true mission is to seek out and discover the true
nature of the fabled _early years_ lp and that academics are second to this
more important goal.
 
anyways, as vickie guessed, meredith did tell her own tale of the KonvneTion
and, knowing that she would approve, i'm going to turn myself into her for a
number of paragraphs and relate her story as she told it to me. enjoy!
 
------
 
meredith here!
 
where to begin...i suppose you've gleaned every detail about the KonvenTion 
from love-hounds (and i'm sure either ied or c&v or both provided a very
extensive report!), but i'll tell you my personal experience anyways, and 
if i'm redundant, tough shit! :) i got to london on friday afternoon, no
problems - we were just in time to catch the next gatwick express train into
victoria (which btw, takes you *right* past the factory/power plant (not
sure which) from the cover to pink floyd's _animals_ - sans pig, though! :)
at passport control i went to a counter manned by a guy who was at least 
65-70 years old. "passport." "length of stay?" -until sunday afternoon.
"why are you here?" -for a KaTe bush KonvenTion. he looks up with a com-
pletely incredulous look on his face. "the *singer*?!?" -yes. "well, jolly
good that!" and stamps the passport. i almost died - it was absolutely
*hysterical*!!! by this time it was 3:30pm (and already pitch-dark outside),
and we made our way to the youth hostel. as we were checking in, another
love-hound who was staying there noticed the KT button on my bag and intro-
duced himself: graham from sydney. he was totally goofy, and *totally*
australian, and totally cool. i'd never had an extended conversation with
an aussie before! he was on his way out to find used record shops at the
time, but we saw plenty of each other the next day. that night, susan, teja
and i went a'wandering: picadilly circus (tower records!!!); dinner from
a take-out in chinatown; various pubs in soho and convent garden; jumping
on random double-decker busses that were stopped at red lights just to
see where they were going; getting lost in the theater district as a 
result; going out to westminster just in time to see and hear big ben bong
ten (pix didn't come out though :( ); carving the KaTefemme symbol into
the railing of a bridge crossing the thames with my swiss army knife; :)
wandering soho in search of fish'n'chips for teja (the walking feedbag!)
and kit-kat bars for us; (they're the *best* in england, their home :) and
back since london shuts down at 11:00pm (pain!!!). it was a fun evening!
 
saturday morning, graham and i headed out to hammersmith early. at 10:00,
there was already a line outside of le palais ("the most famous nightspot
in the world" - i'd never heard of it!), and as we were standing there in 
the rain, i saw a man who *exzactly* fit the description of ied that some-
one had given me. so i called out "andrew!" and it was him. he had made up
nametags for all us love-hounds, with the KaTefemme symbol in red and "love-
hounds" under our names. he also had a bouquet of flowers for KaTe, which
we all signed signed the card for once we were together in our corner
inside. it said, "to KaTe with love- love-hounds usa and the world," and
once everyone had signed it there was a big space off to the right, so 
andrew gave me the pen and told me to do something, so i put a * over the
"with love" and in the space put a "* and the utmost admiration and respect"
for lack of more profound or intelligent (so now KaTe has my autograph,
but i don't have hers! :) :( ). back to the queue - when chris'n'vickie
showed up, i was plesantly surprised - they're *exactly* like sf fans! (must
be something about the groupie mentality :) they had duct tape, so we
all got "suspended in gaffa" with armbands & such, and they also had var-
ious ads for vickie's show and the tape of chris' phone conversation with
KaTe (envyenvyenvyenvy*green*) and piKTures from their colleKTion & such.
inside, we commandeered couches and chairs and made our "love-hound Kor-
ner", and i met ed suryani and jorn and phil smythe and evan walsh and a
whole bunch of other folks, all of whom were really cool. after the Konven-
Tion was over, 23 of us decended upon a poor italian restaurant in earl's
court - they gave us our own room and we amused they so much we even got
free wine! :) then it was too late to go back tothe pub, so most of the 
pack of love-hounds ended up in the common room of the youth hostel until
rules kicked them out at midnight. i was really *bummed* i had to leave
the next day - these were people i wanted to hang out with some more!
exploring london with them would have been a *blast*. but alas, it wasn't
to be.
 
so how did i like the KonvenTion itself? do the words "religious experience"
mean anything to you? :) the "live fan entertainment" was so bad it was
amusing (ied made an appearance at that point! :) and i'm not sure whether
KaTe was listening to it in the back puking or rolling on the floor - could
have gone either way! the "this woman's work" video was great - i finally got
to see the snl appearance and the prince's trust strap-falling-down perform-
ance and even a little bit of _les dogs_! chris' gripe about it was that
they showed full versions of clips that everybody's alraedy seen, yet only
showed a few seconds of other, extremely rare stuff - i agree that it was 
a bit annoying, but i was i heaven - me, the videoless! the other fans 
were also quite amusing - some of them looked like they'd been heading for
the monsters of rock, but took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. one
dude even had the _aspects_ picture tattooed on his arm! (chris got a piK-
Ture of that i think :) another had a beautiful piKTure of KaTe painted on
her leather jacket and another had spikes coming out of his head that made
the KT symbol. i think the ones who were gathered under a banner that had a
rune on it i think the KT might be based on (where *does* that come from 
anyway?) and looked like they hadn't seen the light of day in years were 
some of the people who worship her as a goddess incarnate. (*seriously* -
not like we do :) i should've talked to a few of them to see what they were
all about, but i was too freaked.
 
as the enclosed piKTures can't even begin to illustrate, KaTe is the most
beautiful woman on the face of the planet. even er best photos do her *no*
justice at all! "stunning!" can't even begin to describe her, but it'll 
have to do. i couldn't believe it. *and* she's hysterically funny. when 
she first came out, she was genuinely freaked that so many of us had come
so far just to see her, and said "you must all be *mad*!" yep! :)
 
so...she's going to tour! if she decides not to blow of the u.s. again
(which i can't see her doing - chris said she had *8* preliminary bookings
in the u.s. after _the dreaming_ and she's grown in popularity since then!).
know anyone with connections? i'm considering somewhere in the first 10 
rows (center!) to be a mission from god. *if* she plays new york when i 
can get there, that is. with my luck, she'll come smack dab in the middle
of exam week or the night before my thesis is due. *or* she'll blow of
the u.s. entirely and the love-hound pilgrimage to england will be exam
week or christmas. **but aren't you psyched as hell?!?!?!?** heh! :)
 
------
 
ah. i'm woj again. that was bizarre. now i'm even more pissed that i didn't
go. (not in the british sense ;) does anybody recall vickie saying way
back when that nobody should miss this event if they could possible help it?
well, i'm living proof of it - i kick myself periodically just to admonish
myself some more. self-punishment? naaah... ;) (*slap*) (owwww!)
 
woj