From phil@metalab.unc.edu Tue Sep 7 15:16:26 2004 Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 15:15:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Phil Lee To: "Smith, Dave" Cc: jeff@monkeylair.org, Greg Spahr , tiercel@email.unc.edu Subject: Chewing and DragonCon (Re: Chewtoy) On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Smith, Dave wrote: > The Yaoicon organizers sent me my receipt yesterday. The ad will > indeed appear in the program book. Excellent. It's their sacred duty to decide to flip through the con book, whether they know it or not - rest assured, I'm sure they'll get the message, if only 'cause half the con will be going, "So, wonder who those two are?" David, do you have a pic of the final ad handy? Speaking of cons, I had one hell of a time at DragonCon. I know that Jeff is staring at the screen in disbelief, but it's true - I had a blast. I also figured out the problem we've had attending anime cons: we're paying to go to a convention where we don't really care about the guests, can't find much worth buying in the dealer's room, aren't really interested in the panels, etc, etc. Whereas, I spent the entire weekend busy doing con stuff and felt like I actually got my money's worth. Brief highlights: - I got Dr. Demento to sign a yo-yo for me. It doesn't get better than that. - Though the Doctor's two presentations were pretty damn entertaining, with plenty of classic material (cue audience sing-along), some obscurities I hadn't actually heard or seen before, and live performers. Some kid named Tony Goldfarb did an amusing Mix-A-Lot parody with "Sirius Black", which made up for it's lack of booty references by laying the "Baby Got Back" beat over samples of "Something Wicked This Way Comes" from the third Harry Potter flick. That's okay - the Great Luke Ski made up for it with an epic rendition of "Shake That Booty, Fangirl", not to mention a vastly entertaining "Star Wars Trilogy Homesick Blues", complete with Dylanesque cue-card gag. And then there was Tom Smith... - ...who I followed around throughout the con, catching two concerts, his Dr. Demento appearances, and buying a pile of CDs from him. Here's two tunes from Tom's new album: http://www.ibiblio.org/phil/fnordchan/tunes/The%20Illuminati%20Polka.mp3 http://www.ibiblio.org/phil/fnordchan/tunes/Talk%20Like%20A%20Pirate%20Day.mp3 - I also saw the filker Michael Longcor put on a damn fine concert. Where Tom Smith is completely insane, Longcor is personable, has good SCA anecdotes, and insane in an entirely different sort of way. Here's an old favorite: http://www.ibiblio.org/phil/fnordchan/tunes/Truck%20Driving%20Vampire.mp3 - Warren Ellis had a terrific panel; I can't remember many of the details, but I'm sure an MP3 is already circulating somewhere online. He's an entertaining speaker, with plenty of jokes, a raunchy sense of humor, and a great Alan Moore impersonation. He's pessimistic about the comics industry, discussing how the US comics market shrinks every time there's another superhero boom; I had to resist the urge to stand up and yell "MANGA! MANGA" repeatedly. He has a novel coming out, the result of his literary agent nagging him until he flailed out completely unsellable copy which she promptly sold, thus forcing him to work it into something actually readable; to give you an idea, a key phrase of his pitch was "Godzilla bukkake". I'm psyched for his upcoming project with Chris "Top Ten" Sprouse, "Ocean"; I flipped through preview pics at Sprouse's table in the dealer's room and was blown away. Oh, and Ellis uses BitTorrent, just like the rest of us. There's a lot more, but you get the idea. - Harlan Ellison was generally entertaining, with one major exception. He opened up his "Fluffy Harlan Panel" with plenty of ranting about his legal battles against AOL to force them to stop carrying alt.binaries.ebooks. And he was successful...after spending $350,000 of his own cash, as well as $80,000 in contributions. All of which will do absolutely nothing to stop Internet piracy. I had the vague urge to attempt to explain this to him, but it's hard to tell a man they're Don Quioxtie, and I didn't want to kill him. 'Cause, when Ellison dies it's going to be when his heart finally goes nuclear in the middle of raging at some poor schmuck; don't worry, he'll die happy. Besides, I wouldn't want to invoke his wrath, especially after hearing him use the phrase "they'll find the bastard with my teeth in his throat" during the panel. Fortunatly, he made up for all of this with an epic anecdote about why he doesn't come back to North Carolina, and it's always entertaining to watch a man who could be your grandfather running around the room yelling "C*CKSUCKERS!" at the top of his lungs. - Three major Firefly guests were at the con, only two of which I got to see: Nathan "Cap'n Malcolm" Fillion and Jewel "Kaylee is the cutest Engineer ever" Staite. Their panel was very fluffy, with very little solid information about the upcoming Firefly movie. However, they made up for it by being incredibly entertaining, with terrific back and forth, enthuisasm for the con (even when I saw them on Sunday afternoon), and some genuinely good questions from the audience. (For example, we learned that Jewel Staite would like to cosplay as Jessica Rabbit, which is a very happy thing to know.) There were two major highlights. First, one woman asked why everyone but Kaylee had a romantic relationship in the show. Nathan boggles and says, "Um...she does. The tension between Kaylee and Simon is a major part of the show", at which point the fan replies, "Oh, but we don't think Simon likes girls." Cue Jewel Staite sinking completely below the table in hysterical embarrassment and the crowd going completely insane. And they had a glorious finale where , though out of time, Fillion announced that he wanted to say one last thing and he didn't think the con could stop him. Cue two stormtroopers marching out to drag him off-stage, and the audience losing it completely. Pity I couldn't make it to the other two big Firefly panels, but the one I did get to was fantastic. - Speaking of stormtroopers, there was a massive presence courtesy of the 501st Legion, who were at the con in full force. I mean, there were Imperial troops of all kinds absolutely everywhere. I spent a while taking to one dedicated member after admiring his completely kick-ass t-shirt: http://www.501st.com/promo/Shirt_VF-Black.jpg It was based on an old Russian propaganda poster and is a damn fine piece of clothing. Alas, it's members only, which was almost enough to send me off in search of my own suit of armor. The guy agreed with my theory, which is that the 501st is basically the modern day equivalent of the Shriners, with a bunch of folks in goofy attire making public appearances and doing charity work. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. While I didn't see them myself, the whole Shriner thing was reinforced by the troopers riding around on miniature speeder bikes. There were also goofy Trooper antics galore, my favorite being the 70's Vegas Elvis Trooper, complete with gleaming white cape embedded with a faux-jewelry outline of the Imperial logo. The pimp troopers were also a hoot (complete with Millennium Falcon shaped medallions), though I regret not getting a glimpse of the "FemTroopers"; I ran into a guy I knew from the Foundation's Edge and he started the conversation with "Did you see the bare mid-riff stormtrooper?" Ah well. Finally, one of my favorite moments of the whole convention was seeing a very young girl shyly shaking hands with a kneeling stormtrooper. It was a "What if Norman Rockwell was a fanboy?" moment. - And, speaking of Nathan Fillion, Richard saw him on Saturday night when he took a bunch of the Chapel Hill guys out to a strip club, where Fillion as sitting right in front of the stage, gulping down drinks and shoving bills into panties. My own celebrity encounter was far more low-key: I noticed David Caradine sitting a couple of seats down from me at a hotel sports bar, savagly macking on a fangirl. Ellis had his own Caradine anecdote, running into him in the elevator when Caradine was too drunk to speak, clinging to the handrail for dear life as his friend asked, "Um, David, are you okay?" Ah, the joys of stardom. - I'm completely jaded by anime cosplay at this point, but I have to say I appreciated a lot of the costumes at DragonCon. It may be that the costumes came from all aspects of fandom and not just anime, or it may be that the quality of costuming was generally superior. I mean, I think Animazement gets some damn fine costumes, but some of the folks at DragonCon completely put 'em to shame. Complete teams of X-Men, Avengers, and the JLA were walking around (including Dennis's girlfriend Laura who put together a wicked Zatana outfit), Star Wars and Trek costumes in all directions, scantily clad folks in all directions (some highly scenic, some...not), and more. A local guy I knew had a terrific Buddy Chirst, complete with glowing neon halo; neither of us know why fandom has yet to twig to the joys of EL wire quite like the Burning Man folks, but he put it to excellent use. Anime costumes were not uncommon, but it was nice not to be assaulted by Chis and Gokus in all directions. Finally, the absolute best costume was a guy who had a dead perfect Kingpin. Build, strength, bitching white suit, the works. Seeing him grab a Spider-Man and lift him completely off the ground was terrific. - Okay, I take it back: the best costume was actually by a bunch of professionals who are in the habit of winning Best of Show at the costume contest. You couldn't pay me to actually sit through the contest, of course, but I enjoyed seeing them in the photo shoot area later that night: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. An absolutely dead-on Electric Mayhem, with all members (including Rowlf, substituting a harmonica for his piano), enormous oversized costumes, and a dozen handlers to help them walk around. Apparently this is the same team that did "Where The Wild Things Are" last year to equally devestating effect. Robin, I wish you could have been there to see life-size Muppets; they even used a bit of visual slight-of-hand to get Animal's bent legs just right. Jaw-droppingly awesome. - The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company was back again with live-performances of their radio shows. I missed seeing Ellison in "A Shadow Over Innsmouth" on Friday night, but had a terrific time with their adaptation of Heinlein's "The Menace From Earth" on Sunday. In particular, Dennis and I enjoyed seeing Jewel Staite in a tremendously short skirt. Oh, and she did a good job as the Menace, too. - I didn't spent a whole lot of money, but did come away with some good stuff. Tom Smith CDs, ARTC CDs, and a few comic books for the most part. I was tempted by the hip-hop Thing t-shirt (bright orange, with Ol' Blue Eyes in baggy blue athletic clothing, bedecked with giant gold medalions, and holding a huge boombox), but picked this up instead: http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/5462/2h/cbldf.safeshopper.com/images/bm19h16l.gif - Finally, I got on the dancefloor at the Sunday night dance. I dance poorly, but with enthusiasm, and had a good time even if things were a tad goth for my tastes. Dennis was wearing a very early-90s "rats in numerous sexual positions" t-shirt, and we discussed the inevitable 90's nostalgia on the way over. Our timing was excellent, as one DJ did a rave set, up to and including Utah Saints' "Something Good", which led me to invent a new dance move: the Buster Launcher. And there you have it. There were lots of other moments throughout the weekend, but that should give y'all an idea of the highlights. It was wonderfully refreshing to go to a con and have a really excellent time. It was also refreshing to not be a volunteer. I was able to go on the cheap and look forward to heading back in 2006. Phil