Carol BelleA website full of music and non-sequiturs – Home of Selene Audion

Omg, the last blog post I had was when we were going to Toronto for Fanexpo. In my defense, DragonCon was immediately after and here we are in Atlanta before I said anything about Toronto!

Well, I was kinda working the show most of the time with my husband so I didn’t really do much on my own. We DID discover a wonderful drink while in Canada called the Caesar (not the salad!). It’s like a bloody Mary only with clamato (clam and tomato) juice, and it’s apparently their national drink! Ha. Caesars every day were great! It was a bit of a chore maneuvering downstairs all the time just to have a smoke.

There were so many people there, they couldn’t let them all up onto the main deck of the convention center! There were a lot of not so happy people sitting on the floor in their costumes with their DS or laptop or some other electronic device to pass the time! Poor guys! I was told they may have oversold tickets. The dealers hall was all in one room, and on the sides were the signing artists and celebrities. It was a madhouse! I mean, we could barely breathe trying to move through those dense crowds.

Now we’re here at DragonCon and I’m waiting for THEIR dealers hall to open at 1pm (fifteen minutes at of the time of this writing). I bought a t-shirt! Apparently it was their last “girl cut” they had left, and I even got it in purple! It says “DragonCon” with their lovely dragon-y logo on it. Yay.

Pictures will be coming! I just got a delicious new camera, a Sony cybershot. This should be fun!

More to come…maybe.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I’m on the plane right now, next to my delightful husband, and saw my blogging app here on my iPad, and I figured I might write a little something.

Ha! Why am I on a plane? We get to go to FanExpo in Toronto! Yay, me! We get to go as guests of the show, and boy am I just so excited! I saw the pictures of the event, and the crowds look enormous and intimidating, but mostly enormous. :)

It’s like Disneyland for grown-ups who grew up with nintendo and anime, and basically all the great science fiction and fantasy… Grown-ups like me! It seems like Canada’s answer to DragonCon, which we also get to attend! It’s going to be a very busy two weeks. Whew!

DragonCon’s next weekend, even. We have two days down time before we have to travel again… Gaming/anime/scifi gleee! Squeee!

Okay, so we just came back from Romania – yesterday. I think I held up pretty okay for the most part, considering I’d never been to Europe, and how last minute it all was. We had all of one day to prepare for leaving to Romania. I brought WAY too many clothes, and most of the time I would have been happy just being naked all the time, it was so hot! AND humid! OMG – 95-98 degree weather with 47% humidity, by the Black Sea, and on the set of the dumbest movie ever.

I can’t tell you the name of the movie or who worked on it, just because I think I might get in trouble, but just trust me when I say that it’s worse than any Romanian made-for-tv plot you can think of. The director himself wrote the script and had no idea what he was doing. Climbing up and down steep stairs on old dry-docked Romanian cargo ships where the sets were, with no air conditioning or fans for that matter.

The food wasn’t that great (except the lamb chops) and the drivers are all crazy! Ours, though, was a nice guy – though admittedly he did drive a little too fast at times, when other cars are used to just jumping out in front of you at the last second with no warning at all (I guess it’s normal for Eastern Europe). Everyone seemed like a vigilante on the road, it was so insane.

Everything that can go wrong, DID go wrong, and Murphy was with us the whole time. Their “best hotel” in a resort town called “Constanta” was just awful. Never mind that the air conditioning didn’t work, or that there were giant cracks in the windows of our 11th story suite, and that their idea of a club sandwich is chicken salad with soggy bacon and boiled eggs. The water heated up in the shower, and then spontaneously decided to go cold for two seconds before recovering for another three.

The few good things I can say is that their Coke is still made with real sugar, and not high fructose corn syrup like in the good ol’ USA (don’t get me wrong – I love this country despite some flaws). Our translator, Maria, was sweet and kind and saw to our every need as best as she good (thanks, Maria!). And Paul was cool too. Most of us got along, actually. And the other two American actors in the film were fairly nice, though I spoke less with them than some others on the crew.

A lot of Romania is still trying to figure out capitalism, I think. They have many buildings left over from the communist era. It only just ended in December 1989. The cities are depressing, I must say. And many of the other people in the crowds as we passed them were a little vulgar. But perhaps that’s just a Romanian thing. Things like talent agencies don’t exist there, nor do they have a union like SAG (Screen Actors Guild). The actors and everyone on the crew had to negotiate their own contracts, and don’t get overtime and things like that. The young actress in the film apparently had asked for more money for being asked to work three days over what they intended, and the production manager called it “blackmailing”.

This experience was the worst that I’ve ever had on any trip, and my husband says the same. We’re never going back to Romania.

My brain is still dead from all the jet lag, and going through customs, and having to go through security 4 different times! We were so delirious by the time we go home, I barely knew my own name.

Excuse me while I crawl into bed for the next week or so. Next week we leave for Toronto, and then to Atlanta. Oh, boy, oh, boy… *snore*…

Dearest Stars, Friends, and Supporters,

Life sure does take some interesting turns! While there was an issue needing my attention more than Second Life performances these last couple weeks (which we’re still patiently working on), there has arisen another!

My husband has taken an acting job in Romania and that means that I’ll be going too! Tomorrow, in fact. These things are mega unpredictable, and while it’s fun for me ’cause I get to go to Romania, that means I still won’t be performing until we get back sometime on the 19^th of August.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to share my experiences with all of you while I’m there. It’s not often that an agent calls up and say, “Hey! Wanna go to Romania?” I mean, London, sure… Paris, maybe. Let’s go to the land of Dracula! I’m not really into vampires, but I can appreciate the mystique and the history of such a place.

I will most likely be surfing through the antique shops there and maybe I can find some interesting medieval treasure! Who knows!

I hope this message finds all of my friends well! I miss you guys and hope to get back to it soon!

Love,

Selene ·´`·.¸.☆

Hey, folks,

As it is, I had to have the rest of this week’s shows cancelled due to a problem I hadn’t been able to for see until recently.

My venue is 2500 meters in the sky. Linden labs still hasn’t fixed the error that prevents events from being listed on the public calendar because of the place being above 1024 meters or whatever the ridiculous cap is. Not anticipating this, I went ahead and scheduled some really nice live performers … Only to have very few people show up.

Why? Because I couldn’t list the event. Waaah!

So I’m in discussions to install an elevator teleport type place. Until that happens, though, it doesn’t make too much sense to book shows at my place… Though friends of course are still welcome to visit!

Sorry, kids. :(

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Elvina sings pop-rock while shes plays the guitar :) Prepare yourself for her irresistible voice. Yay!

She performs hits by artists such as Jewel, U2, Bob Dylan, Ben Harper and many more! Elvina performs only covers at this time, and is working on some arrangements of some popular songs!

12pm @ Starlight Gardens

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mahana%20Isles/202/52/2502

CHARNDON KASS; THE FIRST LADY OF SL COUNTRY! Known to all who love her as CHAR…loves to sing!! She sings country music, with a voice so powerful and sweet….it will melt your heart! On stage, she is beautiful, poised, and one classy lady. Treat yourself to her voice by coming to hear her sing! Once you’ve heard her….you’ll wanna keep coming back for more!!!

TELEPORT: 6pm @ Starlite Gardens

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mahana%20Isles/199/54/2502

We had a whole lotta fun at my garden this evening, dancing away to everything from David Bowie, The Beatles, Eiffle 65, Tenacious D . . . DJ Beks is a great DJ. Come next week on Wednesday, 5pm SLT @ Starlight Gardens to catch another awesome set and dance with us!

June 22nd @ 12pm PST

Teleport: Club Nederland

June 22nd @ 4pm PST

Teleport: Starstruck Club & Mall

The Update Sort Of

I know this might sound weird, but I just updated my song list! Ha! Well, not by much. I added the two new songs I’ve been doing that I’m happy with – La Soledad by Laura Pausini and Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky from the Mirror’s Edge OST. Currently, I’m investigating some other new songs to do. The whole process of coming up with a playlist for a show is still new to me. I’ve still only been at this for six months or so now, and it’s still a little bit of trial and error . . . and not getting distracted by shiny things long enough to learn new songs.

Learning new songs was something I was doing all the time when I was in high school. Each semester, we got a packet of sheet music in all the choir groups I was in during high school. By senior year, I was in four groups, and each of them had at least 6 or 7 major pieces of music. Classic music, in different languages most of the time. But high school was 10-14 years ago. Gah! That’s weird too.

Anyway, my memory isn’t the problem. I’m not stuck in a classroom five days a week, three hours each day, learning music any more, and I’m not doing classical. And learning the songs I’m doing this time, for a different purpose and with a different style of singing is still somewhat of a learning experience. Most of the songs I already know, actually, but I haven’t actively committed to memory and polished my own sound yet. Some songs are polished, some are perpetually in the process of polishing.

The ultimate goal would be to write a song myself. But let’s not go there. I’m not feeling that yet, so I’m not pushing it. Currently, I’m happy as a clam singing other people’s stuff. It’s fun, and a little easier. :) I admire songwriters, though. I’m still not sure how to do it, but I hope to figure it out soon!

Starlite Gardens

The opening at my little place went . . . well, for the most part. It wasn’t a three hour event, as I had been oblivious to all the discussions around me about going out of town that afternoon. So I only had time to do my hour program and then jet. Didn’t have time to find a DJ or host or anything like that yet. In fact, I’m still not sure how to find people to host at my venue. Suggestions?

Anyone want to be hired as a host or hostess at Starlite Gardens? Maybe a friendly manager type might be nice. Live performers I know about, since I am one and run in those circles, but if you know of anyone who would like to perform in such a venue as mine, drop me a line! Leave comments here on my blog too. :)

Comments will be open until further notice, or until some jerk decides to abuse the privilege.

Also, I wanted to mention that after this week, I’ll mostly be inactive for the rest of July, as we’re going on our honeymoon / road trip thing across the Southwest! We’ll be visiting Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, the Grand Canyon, maybe even Sedona, AZ! So I’ll have no time for Second Life, I’m afraid, though I WILL be bringing the MiFi thing I just bought. We got the beefy data plan from Verizon (no contract) so we could have good internets on this trip without paying some sleezy hotel 10 bucks a day when I’m only checking my email once in a while. Harrumph.

So that’s the news, kids! I plan to have my Garden venue open for hang outs, discussions, music and dancing, though I won’t be performing. I may end up DJing a little. :) I has good musicks!

In Closing

I would like to take this opportunity as well to promote a live singer I’ve just discovered, with a sweet voice and who’s also trained (but she’s got a one up on me, since she actually plays guitar too). She’s lovely and delightful to listen to! Heard her play at Le Chiantelle Ballroom, so if you ever get a chance to check her out, her name is Carmel Daines.

It was great meeting you, Carmel! <3

Teleport // Starlite Gardens

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mahana%20Isles/225/27/2501