Sky
There is one thing I like about Colorado: the expanse of sky that you can see. Mile after unobstructed mile of blue scudded with clouds like ships at leisure slowly getting wherever, because the destination isn’t as important as the going. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a sunny, clear day. Some of my favorite moments in Colorado have been watching storm systems rumble across the great, dark expanse of sky, running rain tendrils across the plains like the grey lace skirts of Victorian girls hesitant about listening in at the keyhole. In Seattle, the sky always felt so close or hemmed in by trees, buildings and hills. But here in Colorado, the sky is vast.
I mention this little tidbit because I’ve been hard pressed to find the positive since moving here in August.
I left a very dull but highly lucrative job in the bustling, thriving core of a city with immediate access by foot, bus or bike to arts, culture, multi-ethnic foods and neighborhoods, yoga classes, universities and some of the most beautiful, green, fern- and tree-rich natural areas within city limits I’ve ever seen. I traded down for a great deal of anxiety over procuring shit temp assignments through a half witted temp agency for miniscule wages the like of which I haven’t earned since 1998 with companies run by middle management like sterile, passive-aggressive nuns harping on kindergarteners about rules of conduct that were outmoded 70 years ago. No water at your desk, indeed! I traded down for living in the farthest flung, Cuesta Verde Estates reaches of suburban Denver out here on the eastern plains with the rabbits, warehouse sized, generically Christian churches with announcement board New Year’s platitudes like “Resolve to let the Lord solve your problems”, strip malls, no Trader Joe’s anywhere at all, in the entire bloody damn state, at least one hour and two forms of public transport away from yoga classes, a decent haircut, bookstores, independent movie theaters, the symphony, the opera, museums and comic book stores. Given this radical change in lifestyle, I spent much of the last four months of 2008 in a black and red wasp-buzzy cloud of depression, anger and resentment. Jim tried to goad me out of it by asking me what was positive about being here. Weren’t the mountains beautiful? Wasn’t it nice to be close to family? Hadn’t we made a nice home in the condo we’re renting from my brother? But I would have none of it and found ways to undermine all of Jim’s positives that he liked about living in Colorado.
Not the most productive way to live. So as the new year turned, after spending time back in Seattle and realizing that my time there is, for now, anyway, over and there’s no way to turn back, I resolved to find the positive about living in Colorado. The sky here is a positive, the expansive, broad blue of it, the expansive, multi-moods of it. That’s something I like about living here.
Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure (In Geek-o-Scope SurroundSound!)(Part Four)
Previously, on Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure:
“I really got my geek on… at the Emerald city Comicon. On Saturday morning, May 10th… Oh my God! So… many… geeks!... I make a bee line over to Julie Benz’s line… Oh yeah… she wants me! She totally wants me… There he is… Wil Wheaton,
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Wesley Crusher… I shake hands with Wil and tell him that it’s a pleasure meeting him and I thank him for the book and the autograph… I’m on a high for at least the next four hours… The false line reaction is a phenomenon whereby a small group of assembled human beings is assumed by subsequently arriving human beings to constitute a formal line… Wil Wheaton… read from his book
The Happiest Days of Our Lives… it was already three in the afternoon and the last time I’d had anything to eat was at eight that morning… I decided I’d best be leaving to head home for dinner.
And now, the conclusion of Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure:
I didn’t sleep very well that night. I was on stimulus overload. Lots of dreams about activity, activity, activity. And something about Whoopi Goldberg riding a lawn mower through the frosting of a giant wedding cake. But I woke up at four the next morning, unable to get back to sleep because my mind was just churning over and over my meetings with Wil Wheaton and Julie Benz and Gigi Edgley and being so excited because I was going to repeat it all again on Sunday! I got up and wrote for an hour and finally went back to bed to snatch some more sleep before I needed to get up to meet Kat for breakfast at 9:30.
Kat and I met at CJ’s in downtown Seattle. It’s good food for reasonable prices and wildly popular, especially on Sunday… the same Sunday that’s also Mother’s Day. But, surprisingly, we get seated right away. I want something lighter, so I order the bagel and lox, which was the exactly perfect thing to get. I filled Kat in on all the yippee moments from the previous day and after breakfast, we headed over to the Convention Center for day two of the Emerald City Comicon.
The atmosphere on Sunday morning is decidedly lower key. As we enter the sales floor area, I notice that the excitement’s somewhat abated. The noise level definitely is. There are fewer people today. Lines are shorter. The long lines that, coupled with his incredible good looks, intimidated me away from Jamie Bamber’s booth yesterday, are completely gone. So after a hem and a haw, I announce to Kat that I am going to go get Jamie Bamber’s autograph.
I buy one of his pictures and then Kat and I are standing before the man himself. Kat tells Jamie that she and he have actually met before, that he gave her an MP3 player. Jamie asks where that was and Kat tells him it was at the screening of Battlestar Galactica: Razor, which was about six months before here in Seattle. There was a drawing at the screening and Jamie Bamber, along with his co-star in the episode, Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen, made a surprise appearance to hand out prizes for random drawings, like the Halo 3 decorated Zune that Jamie gave to Kat. I was so excited. He touched Kat’s shoulder. I touched Kat’s shoulder after that. Kat was a little weirded out by my behavior. And then later that evening, when Jamie Bamber was standing outside the theater, talking to fans, I stood around to meet him, but chickened out when I realized “What am I going to say to this hot, hot guy that everyone else isn’t already saying to him? I’ll just look at him from here and… stop staring! Stop staring! I wonder how he defines ‘stalker’.” So I moved off, acquired a
tiny Cylon, and felt that I’d missed my chance to talk to a hot hunk.
But now I’m standing right in front of him, as Kat and he are talking, and he’s a little unshaven and he’s speaking in his native English accent and I have a split-second flash fantasy of taking his stubbled chin in my hand and drawing him in to kiss him. But those kinds of naughty sweaty feelings need to be shoved back down because I can’t disrespect him while I’m standing right in front of him by objectifying his hot body! I’m behaving! I’m behaving! He’s talking about being given an Xbox but not having played it very much. He played a golf game on it but got bored because he’d rather be playing golf in real life. He asks us what there is to do in Seattle and I blather something about “You could go see the Space Needle!” Oh, Jesus Christ, no, no! Don’t speak! You only sound like a big dork! And you trigger the re-emergence above your head of the blinking neon sign with the arrow pointing down at you that says “Huge fucking dork!” But I keep talking and say he could also possibly go to the
Icon Grill for dinner. He asks why they call in the Icon Grill and I have to admit… I have no idea. He says that he ate heavy the night before, paid $140 for steak dinner for himself and then felt sordid about it later.
Jamie Bamber, unshaven, saying “sordid” with that accent… the sweaty naughty feelings are back!
He signs the picture I chose and we thank him and tell him it’s been a pleasure meeting him. I touched Jamie Bamber. I shook his hand. This hand, this one typing this sentence right now. This hand touched Jamie Bamber. And I haven’t washed it since. I just really don’t have enough Englishmen in my life. I don’t often enough get to hear words finessed with an English accent like “sordid” and “purple”. As Kat and I walk away from Jamie Bamber’s booth, I glance at the picture he signed. “To Joe, Jamie Bamber.” No little heart with dashes on either side.
But yeah, he wants me… he totally wants me.
While we talk about things geeks talk about, Kat and I mosey around the sales floor. I don’t have anything in particular I need to see, but this is Kat’s first day here at the Comicon, so I wander about with her. We roam through booths, around the artists’ tables, past the gaming tables (geeks!), and end up, finally, back in front of Gigi Edgley’s booth. It’s Kat’s turn to meet her.
Kat introduces herself to Gigi, and Gigi also shakes my hand again. This is what I love about Gigi Edgley… she’s very gracious and meets your eyes and smiles and is very enthusiastic about meeting her fans. And once again, Gigi Edgley geeks out about
Farscape with a couple of fans. While she signs a still of her as Chiana for Kat, I ask her if she came up with Chiana’s movement in the show, or if that was dictated to her. And Gigi launches into a long explanation about how she did come up with the movements for Chiana. She tells Kat and I that she was on call one day and then they didn’t need her after all, but she had been put into the costume with everything but the makeup. So she went back to her dressing room and stood in front of the mirror and started experimenting with
this character staring out at her, and seeing how she moved, and playing with Chiana’s movements. Kat said it was odd that Chiana was the only Nebari in the entire series who moved that way and Gigi Edgley laughed and said, “Well, you know, whenever anyone else came on the show, they said ‘You’re an alien, move however you want. It doesn’t matter, because you’re an alien.’ But yeah, it was weird that Chiana was the only one who moved like that. Not even her brother moved that way.” She finished autographing the picture of herself as Chiana. She signed it “To Kat” with little hearts. She drew a big thought bubble over Chiana’s head and wrote “Waiting to play on Moya. Shine on!” with more little hearts.
Oh yeah, she totally wants Kat.
And Kat had the same reaction to her as I did: she’s so damn cute! You really do just want to hug her and bundle her up in your knapsack and take her home to snuggle with! And I bet Gigi Edgley wouldn’t define that as stalking at all. Not at all. She’d really be game for that, I bet!
Kat and I then do some more moseying around the room until we find ourselves outside Panel Room Morpheus, waiting to go in to Wil Wheaton’s Q&A session, which will be followed by Julie Benz’s Q&A session. While we wait, Kat and I are witnesses to the slow re-development of the false line reaction. True to form, while Kat and I sit near the door, a line forms behind us. Even when we’re asked if this is the line for Wil Wheaton, even though there is no formal line or any formal need for one, we say yes, yes it is, because, baby, we’re first in line this time! A woman sits down next to us, closer to the door than we do, after a good bit of line has formed. Neither Kat nor I say anything to her because, after all, this isn’t really a line. Suddenly the woman who sat next to us realizes that she’s just cut in this line that’s not really a line, and she actually gets up and joins her friends at the back of the line… that’s not really a line. And like that time when Kat and I laughed ourselves silly about Virginia Woolf: Tomb Raider (“Lara Croft said she would buy the bullets herself”), nothing I can say about what we said while we sat in the line that wasn’t a line will ever be as funny in the retelling as it was when we said it, but we laugh about the line. We laugh over the proclamations that you should respect the line (that isn’t a line), you should love the line (that isn’t a line). The line loves you. The line cares for you. The line will offer you a $600 rebate to help invigorate the economy. Vote for the line. Thus, we pass the time. The line grows behind us. Finally, the panel discussion in Panel Room Morpheus is over and we enter and take seats up front, close to where Wil Wheaton will once again be speaking.
Wil appears and takes his post behind the podium and invites people in the audience to step up to the mike to ask questions. I don’t remember most of them. The only reason I remember one of the exchanges is because Wil Wheaton
recounted it on his own website. What I do remember about Wil’s Q&A session is how engaging and engaged he is. He is, very much, one of us. I guess, since I’m not as big a geek as he is, as others are, I should say he is, very much, one of them. But I’m enough of a geek to know what he’s talking about most of the time. Wil is articulate, opinionated and funny. I hope I get another opportunity in the future to interact with him, or at the very least, see him read again.
After Wil’s talk, Kat and I stayed in the room until Julie Benz joined us. Her crowd was smaller than Wil’s. And dumber. Because they asked really dumb, fairly par-for-the course questions. But she treated each person with attention and courtesy. Someone asked her what her favorite moment in Angel was and it turns out that her favorite moment is my favorite moment: in the episode “Dear Boy” when Darla burns angel with a cross and tells him “You see, no matter how good a boy you are, God doesn’t want you! But I still do!” LOVE that scene! Julie Benz also talked a lot about her experience working with Sylvester Stallone and filming the latest Rambo movie. It made her, she said, a passionate advocate for human rights in Burma. And as she discussed this movie, she got a little bit into defensive mode. One guy said that the critics pretty much panned the movie, but Julie Benz listed off several critics who liked it. Someone else asked her if she didn’t think the violence in the film was gratuitous, to which she responded that Sylvester Stallone was very smart and knew what he was doing in making the movie. He was, she said, trying to expose the atrocities taking place in Burma and the violence depicted in the film shows the barest fraction of what’s actually going on there. Overall, the atmosphere in Julie Benz’s Q&A felt strained a little. But when I thought about it later, I have to say that I truly admired her for taking her stand and defending her work. Her attitude, I later told Kat, is exactly what I was missing, and why I would never have made it in Hollywood. Because it’s a stance of determination, edged with some ruthlessness.
With that in mind, the day, and the Comicon, ended for Kat and I, and we went back to her place to
kill zombies in a mall.
Labels: Comics, false line reaction, Geek, Gigi Edgley, Jamie Bamber, Julie Benz, kill zombies, Panel Room Morpheus, Seattle, Wil Wheaton
Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure (In Geek-o-Scope SurroundSound!) (Part Three)
Previously, on Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure:
“I really got my geek on… at the Emerald city Comicon. On Saturday morning, May 10th, I walked over to the Washington State Convention Center… Oh my God! So… many… geeks!... I’m totally geeking out about
Farscape with THE WOMAN WHO PLAYED CHIANA ON
FARSCAPE and she’s geeking out about it JUST AS MUCH AS I AM!!!... I make plans to meet Kat the next day for breakfast and then come back to the Convention Center for more Comicon and so that Kat can meet Chiana, too! And then I hang up my cell phone and head for the bank.
And now, on Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure:
The closest Washington Mutual branch is a couple of blocks west of the Convention Center on Fifth Avenue. As I walk over under cloudy skies, I have a little conversation with myself about how much to withdraw. Given that for the past four years I’ve been saying “I need to buy a new computer” and given that for the past four months I’ve been saying “I’m going to save for a new computer”, going to the bank and withdrawing the amount of money I’m contemplating is a little silly. It’s a frivolous expense, purchasing more books (I have plenty, I really, really do) and celebrities’ autographs. But am I not… a consumer of pop culture? Am I not… a capitalist? Am I not, indeed…an American? [Unfurl the Stars and Stripes here]
I AM A CAPITALIST CONSUMERIST AMERICAN!!! It’s my American right to spend, spend, spend on crap no one needs! So with all due patriotism and the strings of my heart swelling the national anthem, I feed my debit card into the ATM and withdraw $100. The guilt that passes through me will soon be washed clean by the obtaining of celebrity autographs and the commiserating with celebrities themselves. So I go back to the Convention Center as it begins to rain just a little bit.
Back inside, I make a bee line over to Julie Benz’s line. The perky convention helper asks me which of the assortment of pictures I would like Julie to sign. I choose one of her more tasteful headshots, money is handed over, my name is written on a post-it that’s attached to the headshot, and I wait to meet the woman who brought Darla in
Buffy and
Angel to life. A couple ahead of me asks her some question that elicits her response that she’s just gotten back from Japan. So when I’m standing before her (she really is just so beautiful), I ask her if she’s experiencing any culture shock coming back from Japan (to the U.S., to Seattle, to a geek fest, no less). She says “Not really. I was only there for four days for a press junket. I’m just having a hard time remembering what day it is.” I lean down closer to her and say “It’s Saturday. May 10th.” But only in my head, and only when I think of it about ten minutes later. What I really say is “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you!” And she smiles and I feel that this encounter is somehow just so false. It sort of robs both of us of some humanity. The actor in my mind so identified with a character she played, and the geek, geeking over that character, and not the real woman, not really Julie Benz. As I walk away from her table, I glance down at the headshot she signed with a silver pen. She wrote “To Joe – All the Best!” and she drew a heart flanked by a dash on each side.
Oh yeah… she wants me! She totally wants me.
I feel all warm and glowy inside as I take a position at the end of the line waiting to meet Wil Wheaton. The line is long. The line is moving slowly. I just make sure that I have plenty of time before Wil’s reading at 2:00. There is plenty of time and even time to spare! So I stand in line. I listen in on some of the conversations around me. Nothing memorable. Happy geek babble. I watch the people passing. I check out the cute guys. I notice how many men here have man boobs. And speaking of boobs, I notice as she passes, that Princess Leia has put on some weight! And it ain’t in the buns on the sides of her head. And there’s a Queen Amidala and kaboom! Has she put on the pounds! This is like… this is like the Amidala stand in that they couldn’t use because no one bought that she was Queen Amidala. So they put her on security or linebacker duty. And the line dwindles until finally, I’m next.
There he is… Wil Wheaton,
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Wesley Crusher. The first thing I’m struck by is that Wil’s sporting a beard. Which takes me aback a bit, because I was expecting him to look like he does on his website. That Wil Wheaton’s clean shaven and in a dark, button down shirt. This Wil Wheaton’s bearded and in a Batman t-shirt. This is the geek I’ve heard so much about! And the beard makes him remind me even more of my brother, Mike. Wil Wheaton and Mike really don’t look all that much alike, but there’s something there that’s similar enough to always make me think of Mike in Wil Wheaton’s face. But what am I saying? Now I’m standing in front of Wil Wheaton, daydreaming.
“Hi!” I say to Wil. He smiles gamely and greets me. I tell him I’d like to get one of his books, and I buy a hardback edition of
The Best Days of Our Lives. While he signs it (“To Joe. Wil Wheaton” with lots of crazy loopy loops in his signature), I tell him that I’m a big fan of his blog. “Your blog has helped me pass many a boring hour at work.”
“Excellent!” he smiles up at me. “I’m glad to hear that!”
“Yeah,” I say, “Whenever I can’t take the boredom any more, I just sign on to see what Wil Wheaton’s been up to!”
Thank God, he’s laughing at that. Not at that… with that!
“I’m discovering a lot of new music through your blog, too,” I continue. “Like Jonathan Coulton’s stuff.”
Wil’s eyes light up and he smiles a big smile. “His stuff is excellent! His Thing A Week collections are awesome.”
“Yeah, I listened to a lot of those. My favorite is the zombie song.”
“I LOVE the zombie song!”
And I tell Wil, as I’ve told you, dear reader, that I was so excited to see that I could download part of the zombie song as a ringtone for my cell phone. Wil laughs and says that’s awesome while a giant neon sign that says “Huge fucking dork!” with an arrow pointing down appears above my head and starts blinking. I shake hands with Wil and tell him that it’s a pleasure meeting him and I thank him for the book and the autograph. As I move away from his table, the ATM withdrawal-induced guilt is, as predicted, washed clean in the glow of celebrity interaction and autograph acquisition. I’m on a high for at least the next four hours.
With no further celebrities that I care about around to buy and glow from, I wander around the floor and peruse booths. The Dark Horse booth, publisher of the Season Eight
Buffy comics. They give me lots of free shit. The gay comics booth. They give me no free stuff. I more carefully peruse some of the booths with toys and action figures and collector’s action figures. I am bemused by the booth of Imperial Stormtroopers. I had no idea that there was an actual organization of Imperial Stormtroopers in the world, the
501st Legion. That is crazy wacky! I bide my time for a bit and then decide I’d best go sit over by the room that Wil Wheaton will be reading in.
I leave the sales floor for the more sterile and quieter area outside Panel Rooms A and B. I think they could have gotten a little more creative with the panel room names. “A” and “B”… come on! Are we not comics geeks? How about Panel Room Superman and Panel Room Batman? Or Panel Room Zippy and Panel Room Ghost World? Or something like that? Even so… I go to the door to Panel Room B, which has been re-designated as Panel Room A (so, someone was getting creative in some capacity, switching signs around like that). I’m twenty minutes early and the room is currently in use by the panel discussion before Wil’s reading, so I sit in the wide, empty, high ceilinged hallway with my back against the wall to wait. About 12 feet away are two women standing next to the sign listing scheduled events for Panel Room A (or Panel Room Morpheus). I pull out my copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five to pass the time and as I read, a woman sits down between me and the women next to the door, thereby setting in motion the false line reaction.
The false line reaction is a phenomenon whereby a small group of assembled human beings is assumed by subsequently arriving human being to constitute a formal line. And so I watch, over the next twenty minutes, as people line up behind me, and the line grows and bends and twists upon itself, when really, there’s no need for a line and there’s no actual line, because the three women and I didn’t consciously line up. At one point, the woman who sat down between me and the two women standing at the door leaned over and said to me “I’m sorry. Did I cut in line ahead of you?” For a split second I consider needling guilt into her heart by saying “Yes. But that’s okay. Whatever.” But instead I confide in her “No. I wasn’t actually in a line.” Although over the course of the few minutes I watched the line form, I did tell people, when asked “Is the line for Wil Wheaton?”, that yes, yes it was the line for Wil Wheaton that I’m fourth in line of, so… back to the end of the line, late coming loser!
Finally, in a tumult of geeks, the panel in session ends and lets out. And I, fourth in place, have prime seating choices and I sit up close to the front of the room. From the tangle of people conversing from the previous panel, being herded out by the crack Comicon staff, emerges Wil Wheaton. He takes up his position behind the podium and is greeted by enthusiastic applause and hooting and hollering. He read from his book
The Happiest Days of Our Lives, the very book he just signed for me! He read his story about being propelled back in time, watching kids playing with Star Wars action figures, to when he was a kid, buying Star Wars action figures. As much as Wil Wheaton was propelled back in time, his reading propels me back in time to the day my dad walked my brother Rick and I to the toy aisles of Gibson’s in Longmont. We left the store with one of every one of the action figures that Gibson’s had in stock that day. Wil also read a story about Star Trek conventions and then, nearing the end of his time in Panel Room Morpheus, he began and was, unfortunately, unable to finish his reading of my favorite of his stories: how he met William Shatner. It’s an awesome story, and to recount it here would not do it justice, but you can find part one of the story
here, and part two
here. Plus, I think it’s even more awesome read in Wil’s own voice. But we ran out of time, and were dispersed to make way for the next panel discussion in that room.
I left, considering popping into Panel Room B (or Panel Room Cthulu) for Jamie Bamber’s Q&A. But it was already three in the afternoon and the last time I’d had anything to eat was at eight that morning. I was starving! And when I’m that hungry, I am mostly incapable of enjoying much of anything. So I decided I’d best be leaving to head home for dinner. As I trudged up 8th Avenue, across the bridge to Seneca, I regretted that I would miss Jamie Bamber, but the next day the regret would be tempered by actually meeting and talking to him.
Labels: Comics, false line reaction, Geek, Julie Benz, Panel Room Morpheus, Seattle, Wil Wheaton, zombie song
Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure (In Geek-o-Scope SurroundSound!)(Part Two)
Previously, on Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure:
“I really got my geek on this weekend at the Emerald City Comicon… I’m so much a noob to comics, in fact, that it’s not even comic books that lured me to the Emerald City Comicon in the first place. No, that was Wil Wheaton… I even researched it at ECCC’s website, where I discovered that other cool people were scheduled to appear: Adam Baldwin! Jamie Bamber! And Julie Benz!”
And now, on Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure:
On Saturday morning, May 10th, I walked over to the Washington State Convention Center. I followed a trickling of geek-leaning-fashion folk past the quietly pattering fountain at the entrance of Pike Street. I ascended the long succession of escalators past closed stores, closed rooms, A Contemporary Theater’s doors, past art by local artists and blown glass displays, up to the top of the Convention Center, where the architecture indoors blends nearly seamlessly with the architecture outside in Freeway Park.
I’ve been in the Convention Center often. I used to take my lunch there to eat because it was quiet and full of natural light. The Convention Center also provided an indoor walkway linked to other tunnels and breezeways for a sheltered walk between work and home when I worked at a downtown law firm and lived at the Williamsburg Apartments at the corner of Boren and Terry. But on Saturday, I passed through doors I’d never gone through before, but had been curious about: the doors to the lobby of the show room. There was a sign there stating that Adam Baldwin was unable to attend. That blows!!! But he was being replaced by Daniel Logan. Yeah, I didn’t know who Daniel Logan was, either. And really, why would you? I’ll get annoyed by this a few minutes later. But for now, I walked up to the ticket booths and bought my two day pass. I was handed a green plastic bag with a free comic inside and the Comicon guide and some other miscellaneous paper, and then I turned and walked past security into the show room floor for the Emerald City Comicon.
Oh my God! So… many… geeks! Of course, I expected so many geeks, but first impression… so many geeks! Fat ones and thin ones, short and tall geeks, young and old, ugly and cute geeks, girl geeks and boy geeks (and when boy geeks are cute, they are so cute!). Look! That geek has thick glasses! That geek has a kilt! That geek has stringy hair, and that geek has no hair at all. Here comes a trio of Imperial Stormtroopers. There goes Magneto who really looks remarkably like Sir Ian McKellen. I had no idea Jedi Knights needed wheelchairs and guide dogs… who’s trying and not doing or doing not? Oh what a lot of geeks there are!
Let’s consult our Emerald City Comicon 2008 Program Guide… cool, the cover shows the Space Needle as a center piece for an epic battle between superheroes and some dragony monster thingies. Inside I discover… OH MY GOD! Gigi Edgley is here! I had no idea! Wait… who asked “Who’s Gigi Edgley?”? Oh man… out-of-the-loopers. SQUARES! It’s Gigi Edgley! At Booth 506! And Wil Wheaton’s going to be at Booth M-04. Where’s Booth M-04? And Jamie Bamber (gosh he’s a cute and sexy-British-accent guy) is at Booth M-02. Where’s the map of this place? Ah, map is the center fold in my trusty Program Guide. But, okay, before I find anyone, this is me… getting my geek-i-con cherry popped, so I must wander, first, before I pinpoint a destination! So I head along the wall, where the M dash oh tables are lined.
The first one I see is Wil Wheaton’s spot… but there’s no Wil Wheaton… it’s early, yet, it’s early. Then I see who Daniel Logan is. Adam Baldwin couldn’t make it at the last minute so Adam Baldwin, Jayne from Firefly, Hamilton from Angel, Adam Baldwin was replaced by… the kid who played young Boba Fett in Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones? How fucking… lame! Or… well… good for Daniel Logan, I guess… yay him! Go him! And his minor geek… cred. Ugh. But… LAME! Okay, but at least at the next booth, there she is… the gorgeous, the solemn Darla from Buffy… Julie Benz! And in the next booth, I can completely overlook the disappointment of Daniel Logan because I see the very hot, very yummy Jamie Bamber. I am so intimidated by Jamie Bamber. I came this close to meeting him last year at the screening of Battlestar Galactica: Razor but then… I freaked out! He’s too pretty to talk to the likes of lowly me! It’s enough for me to stand over here and glance his way, watch him sign pictures for other people. Stop staring! I wonder how he defines “stalker”?
I’m wandering! Seeing what’s around: comic book artists sketching and signing stuff. I have no idea who any of these people are. There are lots of booths selling toys and comics and comics related toys and action figures and Cthulu… oh my God! Plush Cthulus! Ahhh… they’re so soft and cuddly! Whose tentacles are dose, huh? Whose tentacles? I am so tempted by the All Hallows Eve plush Cthulu, black with orange detail. But I haven’t any cash on me! (Noob alert! Noob alert!)
And then I see her. Sitting at a table, with a little knot of people gathered in front of her, it’s… Gigi Edgley. Chiana from Farscape. Oh my God she looks so cute! Okay, I’m gonna go talk to her. And I approach the table as the little knot of people loosens and disperses. Except for the person she’s talking to, I have her all to myself. While I wait, I peruse the publicity stills she’s got arrayed on the table before her, her CD, and the publicity booklet for her comic book. I greet the woman sitting next to her, who turns out to be her editor or manager or something. We chit chat. Who cares what we chit chat about? She’s not Gigi Edgley and I can’t even remember. Perhaps it was about the weather. And then I’m talking to Gigi herself! I introduce myself (“Hi, I’m Joe”) and we shake hands. I tell her that I just recently discovered Farscape and really enjoyed it. She beams at me and coos “Oh, a newbie!” and she laughs and she’s just so cute! Then she launches into telling me how trippy Farscape was, that she just had to rewatch the series in big chunks for her [this is lost in the convention room noise] and she’d forgotten how trippy the show could be. She tells me that she was watching and would get caught by surprise by some of what happened in the show. She says “I don’t know why, I was there when we shot it” and her inflection as she says this almost makes me see her in a gray wig and gray makeup, it is so Chiana-esque. I agree that the show’s trippy and say “Yeah, like that episode when John Crichton visits all the alternate universes.” And Gigi Edgley thinks for a second, I see it in her eyes, that dart down to think and recall something from memory. She says “Oh, is that the one with that guy with the eyes… what was his name… Einstein?” I nod enthusiastically and say “Yeah.” Her eyes light up and she says “Is that the one where John’s head is bleeding and then sometimes it’s not?”
Who cares? I’m totally geeking out about Farscape with THE WOMAN WHO PLAYED CHIANA ON FARSCAPE and she’s geeking out about it JUST AS MUCH AS I AM!!!
I think I nod and say “Yeah.” And then Gigi Edgley tells me that that actually happened in Ben Browder’s audition, that his head just randomly started bleeding and trickling down into his eye and that later, the writers used that incident in that episode. And she laughs and even her laugh has that cute Australian lilt. And I laugh. And we laugh and goddamn it she is just so cute I just want to bundle her up into my backpack and taker her home! Instead, I thank her very much and tell her what a pleasure it’s been to meet her. She takes my hand again in hers and looks me right in the eye and says that’s it’s been a pleasure for her as well. So gracious, so warm! CHIANA!
I just beam as I walk away and I need to CALL SOMEONE RIGHT NOW! So I call my friend Kat just to say “I just met Chiana!” And Kat’s all excited and I’m all excited. I wonder if I’m talking too loudly or laughing too loudly. Who cares? This whole glorious geeky place is too loud! And we talk about cons and how when you meet people you’re supposed to buy their autographs and that is when I decide I really, really, absolutely MUST go to the bank. Because I want to meet Julie Benz and she’s signing those kinds of autographs, and I want to buy Wil Wheaton’s book when I meet him and… oh God… did I… just totally gaffe up by not purchasing an autograph from Gigi Edgley? She didn’t seem to care! She was gracious and animated and happy! We had a great conversation! I make plans to meet Kat the next day for breakfast and then come back to the Convention Center for more Comicon and so that Kat can meet Chiana, too! And then I hang up my cell phone and head for the bank.
(…to be continued…)
Labels: Comics, Cthulu, Geek, Gigi Edgley, Seattle
Joe’s Really Excellent Awesome Emerald City Adventure (In Geek-o-Scope SurroundSound!)(Part One)
I really got my geek on this weekend at the Emerald City Comicon. For those of you unfortunate enough to be out of the loop, the Emerald City Comicon is the annual comic book convention in Seattle. It was my first time attending. In fact, it was my first time attending any such event, ever. Because for most of my life, I was unfortunate enough to be out of the loop.
I was never much into comic books, you see. Of any sort. And it wasn’t because I thought they were beneath me at all, I just never got into them. I tried from time to time. I bought the odd horror comic book here and there. There may have been some Donald Duck comic books purchased at one time. For a while, I was mad about Mad Magazine, particularly the Spy vs. Spy features, but Mad was more satire than comic book. And I tried a couple of super hero comics, but always felt left out when I was reading along and suddenly an asterisk would appear in the dialogue and at the bottom of the page somewhere, what had been said, which often felt pretty important to know, was referenced as happening in issue 23… and here I was, on issue 147. So I always felt like I was behind the story and had missed massive portions of important content. In 8th grade, the new kid in class, Chris, was into comic books and when we became friends, I sort of checked out his collection of Silver Surfer, Daredevil and Wolverine comic books, but they were all sprinkled with little asterisks.
So I only ever skirted the edge of the comic book world, and dipped into it only through by-products of that world. Everything I knew about Superman I learned from reruns of The Adventures of Superman (1952-1958) starring George Reeves, from animated Superman’s adventures in the Super Friends during the 70’s, and from the movie Superman starring Christopher Reeve in 1978. All I knew about Batman and Robin I learned from re-runs of the 1966 show Batman with Adam West and Burt Ward and, again, from animated Batman and Robin’s affiliation with the Super Friends. Even Wonder Woman had her own show in 1976, but I already knew about Wonder Woman because… guess how? Nah, go on, guess! Yep… because of her animated self working with the Super Friends! I learned everything I know about other superheroes from Saturday morning sessions with the Super Friends, too: The Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman (fish, really? Come on! Against the sinister forces of the League of Doom?), and my favorite, Hawkman. My baby-gay self really liked Hawkman, because he tended to show the most flesh, all bare-chested in that hot harness you just KNOW was finely tooled Italian leather. Plus… wings! Hot! Mmmm… going to my sex-with-Hawkman-naked-in-the-wind-of-his-orgasmically-beating-wings place…
Ahem.
I’m back now.
My Saturday morning comics related cartoon exposure extended to the Marvel Universe, as well, with Spiderman, whom I probably first became familiar with in cartoon form via The Electric Company, who used to run Spiderman shorts during the show. And in 1977, Spiderman also had a live action show starring the very cute Nicholas Hammond (forever marking in my mind Friedrich in The Sound of Music with an extra special kind of glint in his eye).
By and large, however, I didn’t get into comic books until very, very recently, when my awareness of comic books rose along with their higher profile in Hollywood. My most favorite guy ever, Joss Whedon, has mentioned on several occasions the comic book influences that run through Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Heck, Angel very blatantly played off Batman’s dark avenger milieu. Then Joss started releasing Buffy comic books, and then Firefly comic books. And then in 2006, I finally read Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. Suddenly, my interest in comic books rose exponentially. The Sandman was all literary and shit! And look! ISSUE ONE!!! I could actually be fully immersed in the world without ever feeling like the characters were making references that they understood and weren’t sharing with the rest of… me. Furthermore, now Joss has released season eight of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a comic book series, and I happily geek out by keeping track of when each issue will be released and being sure on that day to make a stop at my favorite comic book store in Seattle, Golden Age Collectibles.
Even so, I am still a noob. I’m so much a noob to comics, in fact, that it’s not even comic books that lured me to the Emerald City Comicon in the first place.
No, that was Wil Wheaton. For those of you still pitiable enough to be outside the loop, Wil Wheaton garnered national attention for his portrayal as Gordie LeChance in the 1986 movie Stand By Me. He also appeared as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and then sort of slipped out of the limelight. He’s since been making a name for himself as a writer, a blogger and a self proclaimed, out, proud geek. I recently caught Wheaton fandom when I read his reviews of Star Trek: TNG episodes on TV Squad.com, which lead to reading his own blog, WWdN: In Exile. I have found, as I mentioned in my previous post, high entertainment and reading value in Wil Wheaton’s blog. I’ve listened to podcasts and recorded keynote speeches and Wil’s funny, smart and completely accessible. He’s just a big geek, like me! Okay… wait… not like me. He’s a bigger geek than I am, and I say that with all due respect and a tinge of regret that I have not and never will achieve that level of geekdom. I have no clue what he’s talking about sometimes, when he references video games and D&D terms and computer anything. Nonetheless, I am a fan of Wil Wheaton, and when he made mention of his impending appearance at the Emerald City Comicon, I vowed to show up.
I even researched it at ECCC’s website, where I discovered that other cool people were scheduled to appear: Adam Baldwin! Jamie Bamber! And Julie Benz! Oh my good Christ, if you’re still out of the fucking loop and have no idea who these people are, go to fucking Google and look them up! I can’t spoon feed you people all the time!
(… to be continued…)
Labels: Adam Baldwin, Comics, Geek, Jamie Bamber, Seattle, Spiderman, Wil Wheaton
A Few Of My New Most Favorite Things
While I’m sure there are more amazing meals in the world, today there is nothing more brilliant than macaroni and cheese with broccoli. A few weeks ago I was, rather randomly, asked, upon first walking in the door of my yoga class, by my yoga instructor, what my favorite comfort food was. I said “Hot dogs” because I was on a hot dog kick at the time and because they are just insanely easy and quick to fix using my George Forman grill. And they’re healthy when bought from Trader Joe’s with hot dog buns also from Trader Joe’s and hot dogs are delicious and comforting with the mustard and the ketchup and some sweet pickles chopped up for relish on top. But today, I would have to revoke my answer and respond, instead, with “Macaroni and cheese with broccoli” because that, I think, is my all time favorite comfort food meal. It’s like Saturday afternoons when I was 10.
And a word to the wise: teriyaki chicken in no way belongs in the lungs. It’s uncomfortable and alarming and makes your eyes water.
In other news of my new most favorite things ever: in search of some most excellent diversion from my least excellent and thoroughly soul-sucking and mind-deadening job tasks today, I went to Wil Wheaton’s most entertaining
blog, where I came across his latest
Radio Free Burrito podcast, which is dedicated to the music of Jonathan Coulton. Through a link graciously provided by Wil, I went to investigate
Jonathan Coulton (who was new to me) on his own website. And it was here that I came across my
new most favorite song ever, which, through the magic and glory of modern instant-gratification technology, is now the
ringtone on my cell phone!
I love you, Jonathan Coulton!
I love you, Wil Wheaton!
I love you, macaroni and cheese!
And, in the immortal words of
Gir:
“I loveded you, Piggy… I loveded you!”Labels: eyes watering, lunch, Piggy
Have Another Double Layer Triple Fudge Cheesecake
On Monday I noticed a headline on the MSN.com home page that said something along the lines of “Weight gain may be due to lack of sleep.” Because I consider the merit of MSN.com articles to be the journalistic equivalent of a Little Debbie snack cake wrapped in cotton candy, I opted to leave the link unclicked. However, on Tuesday morning, to my dismay, NPR, which I used to consider as my only source of legitimate news coverage, ran a story about how a lack of sleep has been linked to weight gain in babies.
According to the results of a Howard University study that weighed 915 babies at birth, 6 months old and again at 3 years of age, children who slept less than 12 hours a day were twice as likely to become overweight by age 3. Furthermore, NPR’s report continued, these findings corroborate results of prior studies done in older children, teenagers and adults, which also suggest that people who sleep less than 8 hours a night have appetite hormones in their fat cells and stomachs stimulated by their brains to induce hunger and tell the people to “eat, eat.” Hence, as Stanford University psychiatrist Emmanuel Mignot put it, “sleep deprivation stimulates hunger… when you sleep too little, you have a tendency to gain weight.”
Ignoring for a moment the fact that babies from birth to 6 months to 3 years of age generally do, in fact, gain a great deal of weight (it’s called growing up), I am going to go with this. So, you gain weight by not sleeping enough. It isn’t the heaping bowl of Cocoa Puffs you have for breakfast, and the grande Cinnamon Dolce Latte with a molasses cookie you grab at Starbucks on your way into work because the Cocoa Puffs didn’t satisfy. It isn’t the bag of Doritos Cool Ranch chips and can of diet Mountain Dew you scarf at your cubicle for a mid-morning snack. It isn’t the double Whopper with cheese, onion rings, super sized Coke and strawberry milkshake you inhale at lunch. It isn’t the Twinkies and diet Pepsi you suck up when the tummy rumblies strike at 3:00. It isn’t the bucket of KFC with macaroni and cheese, gravy-slathered mashed potatoes and biscuits you pick up at the drive through on the way home. It isn’t even joining your fat spouse and potential 2.5 butterball children for five hours of passive couch potato-ing in front of must-see t.v. while consuming a healthy snack of home-made Chex mix. No… it’s the fact that you only get 6 hours of sleep a night that is ballooning you out into a big fat tub of lard!
Now, I’m no Howard University researcher. Nor am I a Stanford University psychiatrist with a cool French accent. I didn’t even read the report published in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, but I have to say: this sounds like total bullshit to me! This is specious reasoning dressed up as scientific research! Lack of sleep doesn’t make you fat, lack of sleep doesn’t make you gain weight… caloric intake that exceeds caloric burn-off is what makes you fat, plain and simple! Why, by the reasoning employed to obtain the results of these studies, I can equally claim that, since these fat babies don’t sleep through the night and thereby disrupt their parents’ sleep patterns and thereby cut into their parent’s eight hours of blissful unconsciousness, it MUST BE BABIES THAT MAKE YOU FAT!!! And since babies are most often obtained via heterosexual sex… HETEROSEXUALITY MUST MAKE YOU FAT!!! Because look at all the hot, athletic bodies in the gay, lesbian and bi communities! While the heterosexual communities are just spreading like urban sprawl and the Southern drawl!
Honestly, the shit that gets passed around as viable news these days.
__________________________________________________________________
Postscript: While researching this blog post, I came across an item on the Little Debbie website regarding refreshments suggestions for a party. If you’d like to induce a toothache without the use of any sugar whatsoever, consider the Little Debbie suggestion for a kids’ party treat: you take Little Debbie snack cakes, say their Creme-Filled Chocolate, Orange or Strawberry Cupcakes, which are cakes with a creme filling, encased in a sweet, sweet, suh-weet coating of icing, and you “paint” them… with frosting!
Can’t you just hear the dentist drill now?
And as long as you get your now super revved up, hyperactive kids to bed for at least 8 hours of sleep afterward, these “Artist Palate Cakes” won’t affect their waistlines one little bit!
Labels: fat, heterosexuality, incredulity, Little Debbie snack cakes
I Am Jack’s Cock
I like my penis. I mean, I really like my penis. If my penis were accepting an Oscar for Best Penis In A Dramatic Role, it would never start its acceptance speech with “You like me, you really like me” because, like, for my dick, my liking it isn’t even a question. It knows it’s liked… nay, adored… even, I dare say, constantly locked in my smothering embrace!
I know… a gay man finds his penis fascinating. And eating nothing but Big Macs and fries makes you fat, Iraq is a troubled nation, and some large swath of L.A. County’s going to burn to the ground this summer. This isn’t news. Hell, even straight guys think their dicks are the bee’s knees. But as a guy who gets totally turned on by dick, it is a constant source of great joy that, hey, look!... I have one built right in! And it comes in all these nifty sizes: bunched up in a tidy little nub, floppy with athletic nudist abandon, stiff prod, feverishly engorged holy-fucking-shit-dude-I’m-gonna-cum! It’s Christmas, my birthday and the Fourth of July all rolled into one!
I mean, by stroking, squeezing, yanking and wagging around which of my other organs can I achieve mind blowing ecstasy? You just don’t get that reaction when you try that shit with, say, your liver. In fact, your liver shouldn’t even probably enjoy an external presence from your body. But behold, the humble, external penis is always at least a quick zip-down of one’s fly away, easily accessible to be slapped up against a shower wall, shoved between sofa cushions, plunged into pumpkin innards, thrust against a giant velveteen carnival-prize Schooby-Doo, or pumped into a Crisco slathered fist so you can go to town on this most fucking awesome faggot cock!!! Whoohoo!!!
Labels: Big Macs, Iraq, naughty, Scooby Doo
