Patti Buklis:
To answer your question,
    It was awesome!  It is really refreshing to go to a convention where the
unexpected guest of honor is so relaxed and responsive to his fans. He just
sat down with the rest of us (I was only a couple of seats away from him
)  )to watch his Disney special and enjoyed it along with us. He signed
autographs, mingled with the fans and watched us have fun during the
Demented Dance. I also discovered that he is even better looking in person
(with and without the glasses.)
    Bermuda showed us some really cool footage of early Al shows as well as
giving us a timeline of his and Al's careers.
    It may have been a small convention but, that is what it made it so
nice. The line went quickly for autographs. Everything was well planned and
went smoothly and it was probably the most enjoyable convention I have ever
been to.
                                                                Patti

Eric Houg:

Bermuda brought along a video message Al recorded for the convention goers.  At
one point in the video Al held up a CD and said we've all been wondering when
the new album will be ready and I want you people at the convention to be the
first to know...(he flips the CD to the label side) Yes, the new Hanson album is
ready!  He explained that he wished he could be at Alcon but he was busy.  Then
he stammered because maybe his reasons for being busy weren't good enough.  Then
he confessed he really wasn't that busy.  Then a guy came on stage and I thought
maybe the look alike contest winner was back, but he looked even better than
before.  (The contest winner was very good.).  It took a few seconds for the
crowd to figure out what was happening and then they cheered because the real Al
was there!  (Pretty cool.)  Bermuda knew that was going to happen, but Amanda
didn't, and neither did security or Al's manager.  Excellent secret.  Then Al
kissed Amanda and she fainted or something.

Attendees had hoped that an unscheduled guest might arrive, but they had to
settle for a show performed by amateur trained stunt hamsters, and
autographs from Weird Al and Bermuda, for alas, Harvey The Wonder Hamster did
not show.

Meri Renae:

It was a great party!  I literally partied until my toes were numb.  Two
of them still are.

While almost everything was amusing, I was particularly amused by the
auctioning off of one of Al's teeth and THE PRICE IT FETCHED!  I was
planning to buy that tooth to replace one of mine (after all, it is the
same age as mine), but it turns out the root canal to my own tooth is
actually cheaper.

--Mary Renee
Al's Birthday Twin

Todd Wilkinson:

OK! Now it seems everyone and their cousin who couldn't go has started some
sort of tell us about it thread and for the most part responses have been
really awesome!! What I want to say doesn't seem to fit to well under any
thread..... so here's a new one :-)

	Alcon, what was it like? TOTALLY AWESOME!!!! Oh...... you mean you want me
to be more specific? And I can't just use more adjectives? Hmm..... lets
see.....  I woke up at 4 am on the morning of Alcon and headed out around
5am from a friends house in Madison. By around 8am I managed to find my way
to the Holiday Inn where the con was being held. Drifting in with a few
other wary looking volunteers I managed to make it upstairs to the
convention room and find a seat. There I sat, looking uncomfortable until
the guy next to me struck up a conversation while we waited. Finally Amanda
showed up.... about as stressed out as a human being can be and stil manage
to stay alive. 
	Amanada, ll I can say is that I'm grateful you managed to survive the
stress and were finally able to convince youreslf that everyting was going
OK and enjoy yourself for a while..... :-) it meant that I got a few REALLY
silly pics of you girl!!! BWAHAHAHAAA!!! Anyways........
	Well, we  were introduced to the man who will forever be known as
"Amanda's Dad", in fact I don't think we were ever able to get his name,
and I know his name tag said "Amanda's Dad"...... Oh well he was a really
cool, no nonsense sort of character. PLUS thankfully enough he was goofy
enough to be an early influence on Amanda's tastes in music...... Amanda
where would we be today if your father hadn't liked Weird Al? Yanni Fest?
**shudders at the thought..**
	We all had to sign realease forms and were delegated tasks, me I got to do
christmas tree lights.... why it is that I get to do the christmas tree
lights where ever I go I don't know.... but it always happens. Basicly I
just removed them from the packages and got to watch as the hotel guys hung
them where I pointed to. Unfortunately the hotel wouldn't let us Alconers
up on the ladders :-(
	Finally the doors opened.... I had an extra shift in the sales room
guarding the Garage Sale Auction items.... ooohhhhhh!!!! Trust me it was
VERY cool, not only did I get to meet Lynette the Wardrobe Goddess but I
got to meet Goodtime Gil. Lynette is such a sweetheart, if you EVER get a
chance to meet her DO NOT PASS IT UP! Trust me on this one. Gil's also a
great guy, in fact I think I kind of surprised him when I asked for his
autograph on one of my Dr Demento Show LPs (D 90-45 Side 4 to be precise!).
Trust me Gil's a cool guy whom you should try to meet in person sometime as
well. Thankfully I was able to get pics with both of them YES!!
	Plus I got to meet Fred..... the only Alcon attendee to go through as many
costume changes as Al does during a concert..... I swear she had to have
changed costumes at least five times if not more. She's a cool gal and a
very good artist, her handpainted jackets were very well done in my
opinion. Plus it was even nicer of her to have put up the jacket she had
painted and Al had signed for the auction. That truly shows a generous
heart. That and her buttons were very cool too. Now I have buttons with two
of my favorite things on them: Weird Al and a rubber chicken!!! Way
cool......
	My cohort at the Gareage sale Auction table was none other than the very
high strung Adriana aka Nakedgirl.... an ever vigilant young woman slapping
hands left and right as they tried to touch the exploded head.....
Thankfully enough she didn't hurt me when I snuck a peek through Al's
glasses (whew!) Man on man was he blind or what? After watching the TV
special on his operation I can honestly say I believe everyword as to how
bad his eyesight was. Holding the glasses and glancing through the lenses
proved that! Plus they were some of the dirtiest lenses I'd ever seen.....
although to be honest who would want to wipe off the honest to goodness Al
eyeball sweat  on those hallowed lense.......... definately not me!!!
	Plus next door to the booth was a table where they were selling the
Prosthetic Lips tape and the Binge and Purge tape, plus a few other things.
Lushen from The Portuguese Rodeo Clown Company who was selling stuff was
nice enough to autograph my Binge and Purge cassette. 
	After that, it was a sort of mingle time, looking over the cool stuff for
sale, bought my raffle tickets and tapes and CD's. I picked up some of
Sudden Deaths' stuff and was lucky enough to get Devo Spices autograph as
well.  At the Garage Sale/Alcon stuff booth Poohbear and family tried their
hardest to sell me the ALbums....... and dang was I tempted... but the hole
in the wallet said no...... :-( That was a bummer because I definately
would have bought the picture disc's if I could have.....Instead I bought
official Alcon logo hawaiian shirts for me and my friends who couldn't make
it. May their bosses rot in a deep dungeon listening to muzaks bottom 20
songs of all time, and for eternity too! As for Poohbear, anyone there will
say the same thing..... he's definately a character.... and trust me if I
told you about their van.... you proably wouldn't believe me.......
	When 2pm came around I made my way to the raffle table and my three hour
shift selling tickets. Before coming to the con I was worried about
that..... scared about what I'd miss.... as it turns out that was one of
the best seats in the whole house! Not only could I see everything, but I
could stand on my chair to get better photographs and not worry about
bloking someone else's view. PLUS Gil, Lynette, and a few other's were
sitting not far away, and Tony Goldmark snatched a chair really close too!!
I was surrounded by greatness....... Tickets sold well enough, and even a
little better just after the first round of drawings.
	Luke Ski's act was totally awesome..... I've had his CD set for over a
month now so I knew the songs.... but the live performance was definately
worth seeing. Thankfully he autographed both my CD's for me and was really
cool to chat with later during the Con. Tony Goldmark's performance was
exceptional as well... in fact my only regrets from the whole con were the
fact that I couldn't afford to pick up Tony's CD when I was there and I
couldn't catch up with Tim Cavenagh to check out his CD and get an
autograph since he left before my shift at the raffle booth was over :-(
	Bermuda.... how can I say this...... Bermuda was totally awesome. He's a
very nice guy, well spoken with a very "cultured" way of speaking. Despite
all his claims to the contrary he really is a good speaker and his video
clips were excellent. I must say that I had a hard time reconcilling the
image of Bermuda in Bedrock Anthem, and There's No Going Home..... with the
person I met at Alcon.... Bermuda just face it...... you're a cool dude.
	At the end of the whole presentatin was Al's message to the fans.... and
his surprise. There was silence, there were screams, and there was a
general feeling of unrealness to the whole thing..... I mean AL came......
he really CAME!! It was just so mind blowing..... After a few delays they
started letting the volunteers sneak backstage to meet Al and get photo's
and autographs... I was in the second group through. While we waited Jeff
Morris who was watching the door was kind enough to feed us. At that time
the Al you can eat buffet had started, so for those of us who were whining
about being hungry he threw a few twinkies our way. BTW he's got a good aim
and a fair throwing arm I'll tell you that! What else can I say about that
part of the night.... I met Al...wow...............got my pic taken with
him and he signed my IN-3D album just like Bermuda did for me earlier.... 
	First thing I did after that was to hit the payphones!!! Called my friends
in Madison and gloated immediately!! Plus I told them what was for sale and
how much of their money I'd spent. After my little ego session was over and
I'd ecieved instructions on how to spend the rest of the cash I went to eat
quick.
	The Al you can eat buffet was definately good. The only hang-up I had was
with the lasagna, I felt it could have been spicier however having worked
in food services for the past eight years I do recognize the fact that
cooking for the masses means sacrificing the spices. It was all great, I
only wish I'd been able to get around to eating a twinkei weiner
sandwhich....that's my loss there I guess.
	The contests were all very cool in my opinion as well as theDemented
Dance.... kudos to Jeff for playing my request of Stairway to Gilligan's
Island!!!!! Plus for the one couples dance I'd have to say that Stephanie
was on heck of a good dancer.
	The auction went well, a few other items had been added, two Dr Demento
vinyl LP's the jacket Fred donated, and another autographed shirt of Al's.
I seriously think that it surprised Al just how much his stuff brought in.
After the auction I passes/met him in the hall and mentioned that his stuff
went VERY high, plus I told him the unofficial total I had kept druring the
auction........ I'd say his jaw hit the floor....... hard.
	I also got to meet and chat with my friend The Other Amanda: Spamanda,
she's the one crazy enough to have bought the In-3d shirt. In fact when I
get my photos back I'll have to pass on my pics of me with her..... and the
shirt :-)
	Both UHF and the Disney special were awesome events. Plus if you were
there and had a chance to watch Al when he came in to watch with us, you'd
have seen how much he got a kick out of him watching all of us watching him
on screen, singing along, mimicking lines from the movie.... that sort of
thing we always do. It brought smiles to his face. 
	Lets see...what else..... I did fold him a paperdragon during UHF and gave
it to him. He did tell me that it was cool so I'm happy about that!
	Luke Ski did my caricature for me with him in it and it turned out
wonderfully, I'll post scans of it when the scanner stops acting
up......Plus I was lucky enough to crash after the con with The Great Luke
Ski and his group. Talk about feeling priviledged or what let me tell you!
That was one of the definately cool things to happen to me. We talked about
a bunch of things and I got to see his rare comedy CD collection....... way
cool!
	But.... I' m getting ahead of myself..... lets see what else....... Fred
called friends on the payphone and managed to get Al to say a few words to
them.... heh heh.... I did get pics of that :-) Luke Ski did fan art on the
27 costume and I met the guys who created it, you're both way cool Subman(
the 7) Next time I'm in the Appleton/Oshkosh area lets hook up an reminisce
:-)
	I met MeriRenae, Al's birthday twin. A very cool woman, loved her V8
hat....
and I met a few others.... Gumbly Lick, Happy Steve, Elvis, Blasted Bill,
etc.... lots of people. What I have to say about the people I met at Alcon
should make their parents all proud. Everyone was friendly kind and
courteous. If anything I must say that the whole thing had the air of a big
family reunion where everyone knew each other and got along just oh so
well...
	Noon on Sunday marked the checkout time for many a conventioner... there
were hugs all around and last minute swaps of email and snailmail
addresses. The sense of family right then in my mind, was the greatest it
had been all weekend. We had all shared the same basic experiences and we'd
been gifted with the presence of someone we all admired, Weird Al. Our
shared purpose had brought us together and it made leaving all that much
harder. All I can say is that may we all meet again some time.......
	Overall it was just one grade A, awesome experience I wish everyone could
have enjoyed. My thanks go out to Amanda and the rest of the organizers,
you all did spectacularly. My sincerest thanks.

-- 
  -Trivial Todd-.... a little too odd but generally OK.... 
              remove the armadillo to personally reply..
              ... damned autospammers hit me already :-(

Chris P. Mezzolesta:

My memories of ALCON will be that I GOT THERE. My son and I left at
9AM Friday to make it to Evanston around 4 or 5, relax, hit the pool,
etcetcetc....WROOOOOONG! 

Even before we hit downtown Cleveland my car overheated (no idea
why!!!!!) OK, good thing I have a cellphone, call my garage first &
try to figure it out over the phone - nope. call AAA, wait for a tow
on the side of the highway. Guy comes and we go to a garage who can't
get on the car til that evening. OK, plan B. Tow it back to my home
garage, 1/2 hour backtracking, they spend close to 2 hours under the
hood drilling out bolts and getting my intake manifold off to replace
the thermostat (trust me, it was a problem, they're great guys) Thru
all this my son is sitting patiently. 

Finally they get the old one out and the new one in, and we go back to
the house to let it cool down and then we start over. OK. Hit the BP
station *again*, to get "Subways" for the trip. I check under the hood
one last time and we go in to order our lunch. Come back
outside......and I locked the ^$$#%#^(%*%##&^% keys in the car.
AAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!  By now it's 2:30. We eat outside waiting for
the police to come & try the lock - after an hour he gets there and he
can't get the car open. It's now 3:30. I frantically and wearily call
my wife at work and beg her to leave early, she does and finally gets
to us at about 4:30, so after all this we finally get on the road at
5:00.

Traffic Jam!!!!!!!! Au naturale, on the Innerbelt, for you
downtowners. Get out of Cleveland at 6:00. Around Sandusky (about an
hour later), massive near-tornado thunderstorms! Everyone's pulling
off the road because we can't see. Green sky & all that.....I think to
myself, is this a sign????

Unbelievably, the rest of the trip is rather uneventful. We finally
hit the Holiday Inn like 1245am CDT, like 16 hours after we initally
left. To the group of AL folks in the lobby who saw a seemingly
unsociable person with a 9-year-old and acoustic guitar in tow,
profuse apologies, but I was in no condition to do much...speaking
even! :-) Tried to make up for it the next day.

As for Saturday, well, what can be said that hasn't been already!!!
This: "SHOW ME YOUR ROTTWEILER". there we go.

Amanda, many thanks for doing this, great great job, everyone went all
out to show our devotion for AL and a general camaraderie. It was
great fun to get up & do "The Chemical Engineering Song" for everyone
(hint: get the tape!!!
http://mezzolesta.home.mindspring.com/pwrsalad.html), great to see my
son all excited about meeting Bermuda and Al and Luke Ski, total
wall-to-wall good time, and WE ##^# WELL EARNED IT!!!!!! :-)

Great to meet Jeff Morris after all this time, was pleasantly
disconcerting to be asked for my autograph by a few folks (Basement
Tapes 6), and I had a TWINKIE WIENER SANDWICH!!!! Even my son wasn't
that brave!!!!! Of course it was fantastic to meet Bermuda and to meet
Al again (first time was 1983 at The Bottom Line in NYC at an early
Dr. D/Al show like Bermuda mentioned, last time was about 1987, in a
hotel where my band was playing a wedding)

So THANK YOU ALCON!!!

I don't feel like such a worthless miserable hunk of slime now...


Tom Rockwell:

I agree that AlCon was totally awesome!  I had a lot of fun there.  It was great.

The coolest thing for me was meeting all the people I have been exchanging
email with- Luke, Jeff, Haakon, Joe, Eric, and everybody else who showed up. 
Performing was a lot of fun, too.  That was the first time I've performed
since 1993.  (It probably showed. :)  My friend Dave drove from California to
come and perform with me, although when he showed up he was in a REALLY bad
mood because his car had been broken into the night before.  He left right
after the performance and I don't know where he went.  He was on his way to
New York City, but I haven't heard from him so I'm not sure where he ended up.

Meeting Luke Ski was really cool since we did that song together.  Technically
we didn't do it "together"- he sent me a tape of his verse a capella and I
synchronized it with the music.  We talked about doing more work together in
the future which I think would be cool.  Seeing Tim Cavanagh again was cool, too.

I was really nervous about performing.  But I think it went well.  The funny
thing is Dave had not heard "South Park Junkie" until that day about 15
minutes before we went on.  I had Jeff cue up the song and Dave listen in
headphones while one of the lip synch contestants was on.

I spent most of the day with my girlfriend in my booth selling CDs and tapes. 
(By the way, anyone who bought Noise Pollution let me know.  I only wrote down
1 person who bought it and I need to send you the insert.)  I went up and got
Al's and Jon's autograph when they were signing, then later towards the end of
the Demented Dance (which was cool by the way) I got Al on video tape saying
how much he hated my version of "Happy Birthday."  (Yes, I put him up to it. 
It came out really funny.)

Everyone who was there was so nice and friendly.  It was great.  Someone else
mentioned and I agree, it felt like a family reunion.  Great bunch of people
those Al fans. 

-- 
->Later.....Spice
                                       ____ _____  _____  _____ __   __
                                SUDDEN |   \|  _ |/  _  \|_   _|  | |  |
  0  0            @  *                 | |\   |_    | |           |_|  |
   <                ^                  | | |   _|   |_|            _   |
  ----            ~~~~                 | |/   |_     _            | |  |
 before           after                |___/|____|__| |__| |_| |__| |__|

Bermuda Schwartz:

I guess I'll add my 2 cents here...

ALCON was a treat for me in many ways. It was a chance to see friends
and fans during a year where Al wouldn't be playing out much...an
opportunity to meet people I'd only chatted with online...a chance to
show-off some rare videos and offer some little-known info about Al's
& my career...and most importantly, an opportunity to grab some extra
hotel soaps and shampoo.

I enjoyed watching Luke Ski and Sudden Death perform, the lip-synch
contest was fun, and the Al look-Al-Likes were a hoot! Scot England
was the winner, and he introduced my presentation. When I got up on
the stage, I was quite nervous! It's one thing to perform in front of
5,000 people, where I'm hidden behind the drums and the focus is on
Al. It's quite different to be up close with 245 fans who I knew would
be watching and listening to only me. Although I had notes to help
keep me on track, I still managed to miss some things I wanted to talk
about. I guess they'll have to wait for the *next* ALCON. While the
vidoes were running, I was in the back enjoying the fans' reactions.
And during the last video segment, I ran up to my room to grab Al,
who'd been hiding out there since his arrival early in the morning.

That was the most fun for me - keeping the secret of Al's appearance.
He and I cooked it up a few weeks beforehand, and I was sworn to
secrecy. I had to watch my every word so I wouldn't tip off Amanda,
Mike H, Mike A, the volunteers, security, or anyone in attendance. It
was with great anticipation that I started my presentation because I
knew, at the end of it, Al would walk out and everyone would be blown
away. Al and I were not disappointed! Although we knew that it would
disrupt Amanda's tight schedule, we figured if there was ever a worthy
"fly-in-the-ointment", Al was it. Well...you know what I mean. Amanda
recovered from this hiccup almost immediately, and an orderly meet &
greet followed. Al hung around until the end of the night, giving
everyone additional photo opportunities and a chance to visit some
more.

Amanda Cohen, with virtually no background in this sort of thing,
produced an interesting, fun, worthwhile event which was enjoyed by
everyone I've spoken to. Big time hats-off also go to Mikes Hoffman &
Aquilina, and the many volunteers who made the event happen so
smoothly.

Thanks to everyone for making this a most pleasurable experience for
me.

Bermuda