CONtraflow XI

Lewis D'Aubin's Fannish life began in the early 70's watching Star Trek in syndication on WGNO-TV. Angling his mother to make him a blue 'science officer' shirt and gluing together his AMT model kit type II phaser and communicator, he participated in countless outdoor landing pares (they weren't called 'away teams' back then!) at age 7 with his next door neighbor (and future bass player) George Schleh. One weekend in June when Lewis was age 9, George informed Lewis that he had just seen a life-changing film in which the aliens didn't speak English like they did on Star Trek - they spoke in REAL ALIEN. Lewis was instantly sold by his friend's enthusiastic testimony and proceeded to see Star Wars in its first run.

A few years later, in 1982, Lewis was randomly flipping through channels on WYES-TV when he stumbled across an extraordinary British science fiction /horror programme that astounded him by the depth of its low budget creativity. It was at that point that he found his favorite television show of all me - Doctor Who - and immediately joined the Companions of Doctor Who, a New Orleans fan club headed by Cheryl and Charlie Duvall, that met downtown at the main library. Lewis attended his first Convention in 1983 (Vulcon XI, at the Airport Hilton) and became friends with Jim and Jan Mule. After many years of fandom and a couple years in the infamous sci-fi rock band The Anonymous, Lewis started his own science fiction rock band, The Consortium of Genius (C.O.G.), with fellow Trek fans Keith Casebonne and George Schleh. The band was directly inspired by the 1984 film 'Buckaroo Banzai' and New Orleans pre-eminent mad scientist horror host Morgus the Magnificent. It debuted at NOSFFF in 1996. The C.O.G. has run for 25 years to date, releasing four albums and getting 15 different songs played on the nationally syndicated Doctor Demento show. C.O.G. also spawned off a Steampunk jazz ensemble in 2011 and a robot-themed electronic band in 2014. The band has played at science fiction conventions as far north as Marcon in Wisconsin and as far south as Nerdapalooza in Orlando. The C.O.G. continues to perform live 'lectures' each year and is currently investigating branching into educational programming. In 2020, during the height of the COVID pandemic, Lewis enlisted the help of a couple skilled music friends and launched 'Escape From the Secret Lab', a weekly live internet video gameshow broadcast from his personal recording studio, designed to give local bands a profitable venue in which to perform while all physical venues were shut down. The show raised over ,000 for guest bands in its first few months.

Along the way, Lewis also became a filmmaker, shooting and editing music videos and interviews for over a dozen bands and other clients of his 'Secret Lab' recording studio. Lewis has become closely involved in efforts to preserve and document the career and output of his most prominent local influence Morgus the Magnificent, including working on Morgus's DVD Vol. 1 in 2004, the documentary 'Mystery of Morgus' in 2011, restoration of his 1961 color pilot in 2020, and the Vol. 2 DVD in 2021. Since becoming involved with VulCon in the 1980's, Lewis has assisted at many local conventions, acting as a sound and video tech several consecutive years at Vulcon, Panopticon, NOSFFF, Exoticon, NOWFF, Contraflow, and the infamous House of Shock. In 2013 Lewis and the C.O.G. allied with Paul Patecek and the Krewe Du Who in producing the temporally themed Time-Fest, staging four conventions to date. Lewis works at an engineering facility in Harahan Louisiana and is married to fellow Doctor Who and Star Trek fan Jeannine Flores. In his vanishingly small free time, he enjoys collecting, restoring and playing video arcade and pinball machines.