Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: On the scene

May 15, 2014

Snausage links and furry news of the week (5-15-14)

by Patch O'Furr

rocket raccoonFurry culture in San Francisco news – Furfling banned on FA – Fur Con reg open, hotel 5/21 – Rocket Raccoon cosplay – And more!

Do you like links and samples of stories to come? Here’s treats of the week. Snausages: now a regular feature!
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– “FUR AND LOVING: UNZIPPING THE SF FURRY CULTURE”
We’re in San Francisco’s XPRESS magazine. (I helped author C. Genest with a little story info and interviewing.)
“The only genuine bond connecting the furry community is a common love for ‘funny animal’ characters in art.”

– FURFLING and FAKE DATING SITE CONTROVERSY
Original story updated with new comment from FA owner Dragoneer. (And a new fake site discussed there.)
“Furrymate was barred from advertising on FA given their deceptive practices.”

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May 13, 2014

Furries to march for millions at San Francisco Pride 2014

by Patch O'Furr

San Francisco has a great tradition of LGBT culture. If you dig subculture, there’s a lesser known feature here: the world’s most dense population of Furries. On June 29, 2014, we’re joining forces for a world class parade. This may be the height of the season for furry outings that draw a lot of us to fairs and festivals. On Facebook’s Bay Area Furs, Chris posts:

I have reserved a place… THERE WILL BE A FURRY FLOAT. Yaaaaayy!

SF Pride 2013 drew 1.5 million attendees, and who knows how much media. Many furries went, but only informally for this meetup that I wrote about. It grew in size and interest from our meet at SF Pride 2012. There’s much excitement to keep the energy going, this time with a formal parade contingent. We haven’t done one in years, but in fact, furries have been involved since as far back as 2002:

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May 8, 2014

A tasty assortment of snausage links

by Patch O'Furr

Do you like links? How about samples of stories to come? Here’s some little treats. These snausages might become a regular feature.

– San Francisco’s How Weird Street Faire – 43 furries came out for fun and fursuiting. (Pic by Spark Note, and ABC News.)

The most fun legally possible to have on a public street (and other kinds too)

The most fun it’s legally possible to have on a public street (and maybe other kinds too)


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May 5, 2014

John Waters, Furries and “Plushies”- how valid is the term?

by Patch O'Furr

johnwatersJohn Waters is a great character and his interviews always make me laugh. He has a place in San Francisco. He says his movie Pink Flamingos paid for it. He hangs at a certain dive bar here, and rides a certain bus line. My buddy who lives across from Yoshi’s knows which one. We went there to see him perform This Filthy World. (“His one-man show concerning his origins in the trash genre and his successful career navigating Hollywood.”)

Despite the content of John’s movies, the crowd was quite unfabulously dressed for good taste. My buddy’s Clownface drag outfit stood out like we were at a square dance.

At the end, John took a few questions from the stage. Thanks to the outfit, he couldn’t avoid noticing my hand up. I yelled out to the theater: “When are you going to come hang with the furries?”
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April 18, 2014

How furries helped Jei Cheetah reach an impossible goal

by Patch O'Furr

Amazing… I saw Jei share that 3 years ago, he was 300 lbs and could only watch others dance. If you can’t dance, you can still watch and learn from videos. Now this cheetah is a dancer. Because of you furries! What a story. This is why I love furries so much. <3 After I saw his video, I asked him to tell his story.


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April 17, 2014

BLFC’s little snags and big success

by Patch O'Furr

Part 3 of 3

Reno, NV used to be the Wild West. It reminds me of bison, cowboys, cattlemen and sheepmen. Freedom had a lot to do with animals and boundary fights.

On frontiers of culture, furries have a colorful little corner where lines are pushed between normal and weird.

(Pic by PictureNV)

(Pic by PictureNV)

When I started to write about BLFC, I felt sorry about including some gossip in my last year’s con report. I’d love to balance it with pure positivity. It mostly related to locals from Reno, and the way they looked at the con. It was mild conflict between grey conservatism, and colorful, younger, wilder furries.

Unfortunately I saw reminders of the same issues this year. Oh well, let’s be honest, and talk about security. But don’t worry. The con was wonderful.
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April 15, 2014

More from Reno – Biggest Little Fireside Chat

by Patch O'Furr

Part 2 of 3

(Pic from Hahul.)

(Pic from Hahul.)

You’re at a smarty-pants club that smells of leather bound books and rich mahogany. The wisest animals are here. On a perch, Archimedes Owl thinks egghead thoughts. In a corner, The Great Mouse Detective gives him an eyeball and orates about the rat race. By the bar, a beatnik goat sips espresso and beardily strokes his beard. A sniffy elephant waiter serves a snifter of spirits. Your armchair is waiting. Bring your favorite tweed jacket, and rest your elbow-pads and paw-pads. Have a chess game by the fire and let’s converse.

Now switch the scene to a con hotel room. There’s cartoons everywhere, fursuiters chugging Monster energy drinks, and party music thumping thru the wall. Ooontz oontz oontz. Shove some stuff off the bed, play video games and hang out.

There wasn’t actual fire in the hotel, but when you hang out with furries… you never know…
After Part 1, here’s how smarty-pants it got with Dane, a fur con newcomer.
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April 15, 2014

Biggest Little Fur Con brings new wave of furs for a second record-breaking year

by Patch O'Furr

(Pic: EmptySetArt and Trip Collie.)

(Pic: EmptySetArt and Trip Collie.)

Part 1 of 3

On March 28-30, 2014, fur met hair band style, for the radical 1980’s-themed Biggest Little Fur Con.

In 2013, I really enjoyed attending the first BLFC in Reno, NV. It had a healthy attendance of 704. At the second BLFC, attendance shot up to 1442 (including 465 costumers in the parade). It broke the 2nd, 3rd, AND 4th year furry convention attendance record. With 105% growth, it became the 7th largest con by attendance at this time. Whoah, dude!

This is a sign of burgeoning subculture. It was a super positive experience. I loved dancing with the 80’s theme, representing it in costume, and playing retro video games in a nicely hooked up game room. (I heard high praise from another con’s game room organizer.) My favorite part was fursuiters on go-karts.

I’d love to give a well-rounded review about the programming, the hard work of the organizers, and charity benefit results. But I didn’t actually DO a lot more than bounce around like an escapee from the Bubble Bobble machine. So… What was your favorite part, fuzzies?
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May 3, 2013

Opinion: Street fursuiting is the most fun furry experience

by Patch O'Furr

Repost from Flayrah, 5/3/2013:

San Francisco hosted the 14th annual How Weird Street Faire last weekend, with the theme “WEIRDI GRAS: Carnival of Peace.” An informal fursuiter outing was organized through Meetup.com and its active Bay Area Furries group (independent from the mailing list), which runs many local events each month. I offered changing space at a nearby apartment, and scored a pair of “Disco Pants” for costuming, direct from the office of local web-based fashion startup company Betabrand. Afterwards, Betabrand was cool enough to post photos of modeling the pants on their “Model Citizen” section. (There’s more photos on Reddit.)

2013-4-28-howweird3_0-288
Left to right: Kitten, Meerk, Patch. Background: Ty Cougar.

Any news media story that covers furries is likely to focus heavily on fursuiters, and their striking visual appeal and fuzzy glamor. Fursuiters can’t represent the whole of furry fandom, when “furry” is a vague and broadly defined umbrella over anything related to anthropomorphic animals- but I think it’s OK to consider fursuiters the expressive, theatrical soul of furrydom. There is an element of “ambassador” role to their hobby. Without the 15-20% of furries who wear fursuits and costumes for role-playing, you’d just have regular unglamorous nerds saying “meow! I’m a cat”. That’s what crazy people do.

Of course, I’m kidding: Call me the most crazy of all, but I prefer the term fabulous. I like to put on silver disco pants and a Husky partial, and get on the subway to go dance and hug random people, under the influence of blasting techno music and magical substances in the air. They get so entranced by a giant sparkly talking dog, that they hand over their babies for photos. That actually happened several times this weekend at the How Weird Street Faire. I didn’t know where those babies had been, but I let them touch my paws anyways, even more carefully than when I pick up my chihuahua (who gets super confused and never knows whether to trust me when I dress up.) As far as I can tell, everyone loved the experience, even the astonished babies. Those photos might provoke some interesting questions when they grow up.

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September 8, 2012

Andrew W.K. to join panel at Brony convention; let’s discuss furry con guests

by Patch O'Furr

Flayrah news: 9/8/12

Bronies: are they furry? Skipping that topic, let me just say this makes me like Andrew W.K.:

The unruly, boisterous rocker will be part of a panel answering the question, “What Would Pinkie Pie Do?”… The king of partying hard claims that he is the living embodiment of the positive, party pony.

In this interview, the rocker known for a bloody-nosed image discusses why he’s a Brony, his love for cupcakes, and ponies with “nice, fragrant hair.”
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