This weekend, we're flying to Hollywood. We are booked to perform at the Into the West Oscar Party, sponsored by New Line Cinema's Official Lord of the Rings Fan Club. We are so psyched.

Unfortunately, I haven't done nearly as much promotion for the event as I would've liked. After five years of promoting day and night, I'm kinda burnt out. Fortunately, our fans aren't.

So when I got an email last week from Hagar "the Horrible" (he dresses as a Viking at Renaissance Festivals and kinda looks like the comic strip character) saying he wanted my permission to email the TV stations about our Oscar Party gig, I was like, "Hell, yeah! Why didn't I think of that?"

I didn't think anymore of it until a camera crew showed up that evening. Jim Swift from KXAN News 36's "Out On The Porch" segment saw on our website that we were playing that very evening and decided to interview us.

The interview went fantastic and ran this past Sunday. It also got me thinking. Why on this earth does Hagar continually go out of his way to help us? What's in it for him?

There are many reasons. I hope to go into many of them in future articles. But let me tell ye, it's not for any financial reward. We don't pay him a thing. Actually, he won't even accept money or free CDs. He does it mainly for two reasons.

One, we've educated our fans to promote us. Two, and more importantly, it allows him to "pay us back" for the joy we've given him.

Hagar isn't so horrible actually. In fact, he's a lot like you and me. All we want is recognition for what we do. The biggest reward your fans really hope to receive comes from two emphatic and sincere words: "Thank you!".