DWARVES IN MY MILK

GEEK MYTH: Observations from a Science Fiction Convention, Part I

I was having lunch with a group of co-workers when someone at the table asked Nate, a paralegal in our office, how he met his girlfriend. Nate looked at us with embarrassment and said, “I’ll tell you if you promise not to laugh.” We nodded enthusiastically, lying.

“I met her at a science fiction convention.”

We each lowered our forks and stared at him with the same astonished disbelief. Nate looks like the kind of guy someone would have cast to play the handsome but pensive friend to the slightly more handsome central protagonist in a Joss Whedon vehicle. From his genetically perfect hair down to the floormats of his sleek sportscar, Nate was as far away from being a geek as I am from being crowned Miss Tennessee. At least, that’s what we thought before he dropped this on us.   

“You don’t really look like the type of person who would go to a science fiction convention,” someone said carefully.

Nate, sitting there in a suit that cost more than my first car, animatedly explained that “it’s not what you think,” and that we “had the wrong idea.” Nate scrambled to find an appropriate explanation that would keep us from viewing him completely differently than we had for years. He tried to assure us that not everyone who liked science fiction was a pocket-protector wearing geek, and that people who attended science fiction conventions were no different than you or me. He insisted that we had the wrong idea, that we didn’t understand, dammit, we just didn’t understand.

I was dumbfounded. How could someone confident and cool on the outside harbor a slightly sweaty, robot- and/or slyph-loving nerd just below the surface? How could I have been deceived so easily? Had I let him into my circle of friends? My God, what had personal information had I disclosed to him?

Nate pinwheeled desperately to find any outcropping of credibility to save himself from the fall he faced. But he had, in a moment of monstrously bad judgment, exposed himself as a thirty-third degree nerd.

My co-workers and I forced a chuckle and pretended that his stunning revelation was no big deal, but the damage had been done. For the remainder of the meal, no one spoke to Nate. He tried to engage us in conversation, but we changed the subject to something we knew he knew nothing about and pretended not to notice that we were shutting him out.

Nate looked back down at his taco salad and ate quietly.

I didn’t see him at our regular group lunches much after that.

***

I was in my office several months later looking through the weekend events section of the newspaper when I read:

Shore Leave 27, Friday through Sunday at the Hunt Valley Marriott, is a science fiction convention run by fans and includes panels featuring guests from assorted TV shows, as well as authors and scientists. Also included in the festivities is a special ‘Klingon Feast,’ where attendees have the opportunity to eat like Klingons and hear inspirational Klingon poetry and bear witness to sharp Klingon humor.

I put down the newspaper and thought immediately of Nate. Guilt poked at me with a sharp stick, and I wondered if I had been too harsh in judging him, too quick to label him as an untouchable geek without giving him a chance.

I looked again at the ad and I laughed. A week before I had waited in line on opening day to see the latest Star Wars installment. In my basement was a box of Star Wars figures and a Star Wars lunchbox that I cherished as a child. And I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation weekly in law school with a group of like-minded friends. Who was I to judge Nate? I wondered if my impression—indeed, society’s impression--of science fiction conventioneers as unwashed, overweight misfits unable to carry on a conversation was justified. Or whether Nate had been correct and that they were just ordinary people, no different from anyone on the street. After all, I enjoyed the occasional science fiction film or story, and was a nut for the stuff when I was a kid, but I grew up and became a perfectly normal person.

Hadn’t I?

***

At the entrance to the Hunt Valley Marriott, a man wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the word SECURITY looks me over and nods me toward the front doors. It’s 10:30, and I am running late to the Klingon Feast. The feast is being held in a small restaurant off the conference area, and I am eager to get there because I haven’t had any dinner. The advertised menu for the feast includes such mouth-watering sounding Klingon delicacies as Plomeek soup (pomIy'Iq chatlh), Targ meat (targh ghab), Quadrotriticale rolls (leSpev chabqoq), and, of course, Jell-O (bIQqoq Dogh).

As it turns out, I am too late for the dinner and for the moving Klingon poetry. “You just missed it,” a hotel staffer tells me. “It finished about ten minutes ago, and we had to break down the tables, so we kicked out all the guys with the, you know, what do you call them?” He gestured to his forehead.

“Oh, uh, ridges?” I asked.

“Yeah, ridges,” he replied. “They were rude,” he added.

Rather than track the Klingons to their suite, I decide instead to wander around the hotel and survey the event. I haven’t officially registered yet, and I’m not scheduled to pick up my press badge until morning. So I keep a low profile and try not to draw attention to myself, which is difficult, because I’m wearing a buttoned-down shirt conspicuously free of depictions of Hobbits. I hitch my pants well above my navel and try to fit in.

***

One of the events going on tonight is called “Meet the Pros,” and it’s billed as an opportunity for conventioneers to meet professional authors of science fiction novels, and celebrities from the world of science fiction television and film. These convention guests sit quietly behind folding tables covered with stacks of each author’s books and cardboard promotions touting the latest addition to the canon and lore of Star Trek and other franchises. As for celebrities, there are two. Chase Masterson, who played a character on the Star Trek series Deep Space 9, sits at a table signing autographs and taking photos with conventioneers. She’s wearing a cocktail dress that is more appropriate for a swanky party in the Malibu Hills than in the basement of a hotel in Maryland.

There are actually more pros than there are conventioneers at this event, and most authors sit quietly or talk among themselves. A few sit alone in silence, eyeing with jealousy those authors receiving mildly curious visitors.   

***

James, an author of several Star Trek stories for publisher Pocket Books:

“I love these shows, I sell a lot of books at these shows. I may do three or four a summer, try and do at least two in the winter. But it’s great.

“I guess I always expected to be a journalist, work for a newspaper, but then when I was younger I thought about writing novels. I think—I’d bet—that the other authors here have a ‘serious’ novel tucked away in some box or drawer, something not science fiction. I met Tom Wolfe at a publishing thing a few years ago, and I told him what I did, what I wrote, and he completely blew me off. Walked right away, boom.

“I take my craft seriously, you know? And I read Bonfire of the Vanities. Very high-brow stuff, but, hell, just because my characters wear Starfleet uniforms instead of Brooks Brothers suits doesn’t make them less human. The stories are the same: betrayal, love, redemption. Of course, mine have murderous alien species in them, but still.”

***

Of the three hundred or so conventioneers in attendance, I find exactly two who are dressed up in costumes. Ken and Linda, a soft-spoken couple from a few miles away in Arbutus, walk slowly past the authors, browsing. They are dressed as Starfleet Officers. This is their second science fiction convention.

“We came to Shore Leave last year,” says Ken, a thin man with wire glasses that are exactly the same kind worn by infamous subway vigilante Bernard Goetz. “It’s all the same stuff,” he explains.

Ken works in computers and his wife, Linda, “works in a major distribution facility.”  Ken says, appropos of nothing: “Well, it’s for A&P. She’s worked for A&P for years.” He smirks a little when he says this.  Linda looks miffed.

I ask them why they are attending this convention, and they look at each other, measuring their responses. “We just like it here, really. We like coming out and seeing the stuff,” explains Linda. “I like looking over collectibles,” adds Ken. This animates Linda.

“Oh, gosh, he’s got a whole room full of the stuff at home.”

Ken smiles and says, “Well, a lot of it’s Star Wars, and there’s some Star Trek. I just like collecting it.”

“He bought me a Batleth last year,” beams Linda, and she explains that a Batleth is a sword used by Klingons to violently smite their enemies. “It’s kind of curved, like this,” she gestures, and Ken nods approvingly.

“It’s the real thing. It could cut your skin,” says Ken in a voice that makes me wonder if the resemblance to Bernie Goetz stops at the glasses.

***

Tonight is karaoke night at Shore Leave, and the grand Hunt Valley Ballroom has been converted into a makeshift Cotton Club. 

Mellow conventioneers, sated by Targ meat and watered-down drinks from the cash bar, languidly sit at small, round tables that have been covered in tasteful red tablecloths. With the exception of a spotlight on the hall’s main stage, the room is illuminated by the glow of tea candles.

Onstage, a man sits casually on the edge of a stool, one foot resting on the stool’s lower rung, his body jutted in a way that is meant to convey a blend of jaunty confidence and tender openness. His eyes are tightly closed and he holds the microphone as if he’s holding a delicate robin’s egg, or the hand of a frightened child. In the other he holds what appears to be a banana daiquiri. His soulful singing echoes throughout the enormous room. "Witchy Woman" by The Eagles.

Wooo hooo, witchy woman/See how high she flies…
Woo hoo, witchy woman/She got the moon in her eye-hi-hiii…

He looks exactly like Bob Ross, Bob Ross the painter who mass produces landscapes of fluffy little clouds and happy little trees on public television, Bob Ross with the magnificent Caucasian afro.

Bob Ross majestically glides through the lyrics with purpose if not tone, his upper body grooving slowly to the music. He hits the high notes at the bridge emphatically—Aaaaaah, ahhh AHHHH AHHHHHHHH (Ahhh Ahhh!) AHHH AHHHHHHH (Ahhh Ahhh!) Ooooh Oooooh OOH Ooooh Oooooooooooooh—to the enthusiastic applause of the three dozen people in the room.

When he's finished, he draws a moist towelette from his pocket and dabs at his brow. He thanks the audience "for all the love." He then passes the microphone back to the DJ and saunters off stage with his drink, strolling through the crowd of appreciative listeners, smiling and nodding. "He's my favorite so far," says a woman to the others seated at a nearby table, and they all nod in agreement.

Next comes Josh, a twenty-something man suffering from what appears to be a lamentable, self-inflicted haircut. His large gut jiggles softly underneath his too-small t-shirt (“I’m from the 80s!” it declares) as he takes the stage, waving nervously to the crowd.

"This is my first time," he warns, "and I don't really know this song." There is an almost imperceptible groan from the audience.

As the soft dulcet notes of piano begin to introduce Bobby Darrin’s Beyond the Sea, Josh uses the few seconds to regale the crowd with a science fiction convention joke.

"We have a no Velcro shoe policy this year,” he says, “so we're going to enforce the policy." He chuckles softly at his own joke, and you can almost taste the silence from the crowd.

This throws Josh, and he starts off late to the lyrics. Despite rushing breathlessly to catch up, he never does. The tuxedoed karaoke DJ struggles to assist. "Help him out folks," encourages Sammy, who walks through the crowd with a microphone. No one bites. Josh is left to fend for himself.

“Wow,” says a man behind me as Josh mauls the song, “Even Kirk died with more dignity.”

***

Back out in the convention center hallway, there are now many more authors than conventioneers as the evening winds down.

I look toward the corner of the room and am surprised to see that even now, just past midnight, Chase Masterson remains. She doesn't sit behind her table, but walks among the conventioneers, chatting amiably. No one hounds her for her autograph, or demands to take a picture with her. She is not cornered by any geeky science fiction fans clamoring to ask her questions. She is treated with respect and distance.

At one point, I notice that she is speaking with a woman who has a prosthetic leg and stands with a cane. They stand closely, almost intimately, and soon Masterson is doing all the talking. It is easy to tell from her body language that Masterson is counseling the woman about some problem. At one point Masterson puts her hand on the conventioneer’s, which rests on her cane.

There is only one awkward exchange for Masterson. From a distance I see that she is approached by a conventioneer who is of questionable sex, but certainly not gender. "I just thought you were so great in Star Trek. So hot," he bubbles, staring in naked awe. "Oh, thank you!" Masterson chirps. There is a tolerant but weary look in her eye. The admirer repeats himself—“So hot”—and solicits an autograph.

A young woman standing next to me sees that I am taking notes of this conversation and leans toward me conspiratorially. She’s wearing the unmistakable ribboned badge of a convention volunteer. “You know, not everyone here lives in their parents basement. I’ve been coming to this for three years, and the people are really nice. It gets a little crazier tomorrow, but just remember that everyone is pretty normal. On the inside, at least.” I promised to keep that in mind.

Later as I walk to my car, I will see Chase Masterson standing at the edge of the parking lot, her wheeled suitcase at her side. She will be talking to the woman with the cane and prosthetic leg, who has followed Masterson out of the hotel. Even though it’s nearly 1 a.m., Masterson will listen attentively and engage the woman in further conversation.

As I pull out of the lot, I will see the two women exchange hugs.

***

It’s Saturday morning, and registration is a mess. I should have expected that people who are so strongly drawn by concepts of a vast space-time continuum don't necessarily think linearly, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised they don't queue up that way. I squeeze between a wizard and a man who may or may not be Sloth from The Goonies and wave madly to the woman behind the registration counter.

Cathy, my liason with STAT (the Star Trek Association of Towson, Maryland), the organization running the conference, is taking handfuls of cash from eager registrants, and hollers at me above the crowd tell me that all press needed to send in e-mails to the press liaison two weeks earlier. When I tell Cathy that I had e-mailed the press liaison three weeks ago, Cathy says, "Oh. Well, our press liaison went on vacation to the Mediterranean two weeks ago.”

Ignoring my baffled expression, she hands me my press badge. It's green, and bears a hand-drawn likeness of Yoda which, upon closer examination, resembles a rabbit in a bathrobe. The single hand-scrawled word "Press" fills me with a sense of inflated importance.

“Is there a press room? With snacks?  Maybe a vegetable plate?”

She takes my $35 and puts it in the cash register and says with a chortle, “Are you kidding me?” 

***

My registration kit is positively plump with useless information. There are a couple of flyers touting sundry writing workshops, and one promoting something called United Fan Con 15, which I can only assume is yet another effort by mediating parties to broker reconciliation between the various warring Fan Cons.   I imagine the harried mediator, forced to physically interject himself between a violent Romulan weilding a folding chair menacingly and a cowering  guy dressed in a homemade C3PO costume, pleading, "Please, gentlemen, please!  A woman could accidentally walk in and see this!"  

The packet also includes a CD enticingly touting "A Movie in Your Mind," which, I discover later, turns out not to be the aural David Lean epic I was hoping for, but a demo disc of sound effects from a local sound studio (the next day, while stopped in traffic, the driver of the car next to mine will frown disapprovingly at the repeated sounds of alien grunts and the Pyoo! Pyoo! Sounds of laser fire emanating from my Mazda.)

I find an invitation from Pocket Books (a corporate sponsor of the event) to design the U.S.S. Titan, which, the flyer informs me, is "the starship of Captain William Riker, which was established but not seen in the feature film Nemesis." The eligibility rules are printed in 6 point font, and read like a government contract solicitation from the Department of Defense. I also receive "Serpent Among the Ruins," a Star Trek novel set eighteen years after the "presumed death" of James T. Kirk.

The thought that the Star Trek canon leaves a door open for the theatrical return of William Shatner fills me with equal measures of dread and excitement.  I take a moment to collect my composure.   

The packet also contains cover art for upcoming Star Trek novels, an announcement of a Star Trek short story contest, and dozens of pamphlets related to the Star Trek universe. I begin to sense that Star Wars fans—of which I am one—will feel cold and unloved after reviewing the program of events.

MadisonSquareGardenI review the program and discover to my horror that of the more than fifty panel discussions and small events held during the convention, exactly one is devoted to Star Wars: a slightly swishy-sounding thing entitled “Star Wars Extravaganza!” Tribute to the source of thousands of hours of my childhood daydreams has been reduced to something that sounds like a children’s musical show at Madison Square Garden.

I think I feel a single tear run slowly down my cheek.

***

Although the hallways running through the conference center were sparsely populated last night, today they are filled with enough exhibits enough to satisfy the most eager of science-fiction fans.

The first floor of the hotel has been converted into an expansive bazaar of science-fiction merchandise, and the market extends out from a large ballroom and into the long corridor just outside. Here conventioneers barter with dealers for a rare autograph or an exquisite spaceship model. In the series of small conference rooms (or salons) to the rear of the hotel’s first floor, tables and chairs have been set up to accommodate the panel discussions, model building classes, Star Trek club meetings, video presentations and other events scheduled throughout the day.

The heart of the action, though, is downstairs. The large central ballroom is filled with row after row of conference center chairs facing a large stage. This is where the celebrities with cache will speak and answer questions, and where the convention-capping masquerade and awards show will be held.

In the corridor outside the main ballroom, tables have been set up for various exhibits and clubs—there is the Starfleet International recruitment station, the Stargate SG-1 area, tables for various authors—and for the celebrities attending as guests.

William Windom, who I learned played in a couple of episodes of Star Trek nearly 40 years ago but who I recall as the sweaty, straw-chewing prosecutor from To Kill a Mockingbird, has already set up shop. A poster of Windom showing him thirty-years younger has been tacked to the wall behind him, and he sits with his arms crossed, waiting for someone to ask for an autograph or pay him some attention. Unlike other celebrities here, he has no merchandise to sell, except for the occasional autographed photo. He seems content to sit with anyone who will approach, and he is happy to talk about Star Trek or anything anyone wants to talk about.

Watching William Windom, I decide that this is how I want to spend my golden years. I will set up a table at the mall or out in front of a Wal*Mart, and I will hang a poster up depicting me when I was thirty. I will hand out flyers that tell people I was a special guest star on three episodes of CSI: Miami, and had a small but recurring role on Murder She Wrote back in the day. Then, when people ask me questions about my acting stints, I will make something up.

“Angela Lansbury never saw the bottom of a bottle she didn’t like,” I will confide. Or, “You remember that episode where they tracked the killer by lifting prints off the victim’s eyeballs? Yeah, that was my idea, but they never ever paid me for it, and I sued them, and the President of Paramount Pictures called me a cocksucker at the trial.”

Then, when they tire of questioning me about my illustrious television career, I can steer them to talking about things I like, such as the Orioles or dancing girls.

This is what William Windom does, here at this show. He sits and patiently answers fans’ questions, and then when they have run out of things to ask him, he tells them stories about his time in the War (he was a member of a company that stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day), or the time he played Thurber on stage, or about his family. He invites them to sit, and he entertains them with well-worn tales of a different world and a different time. They listen and smile, and ask him about his past, and he tells them things that he knows from experience they will be glad to hear. He smiles and laughs a lot, and so do they.

***

I am watching as a gum-chewing Klingon woman tries to figure out how to assemble the pieces to what a flyer tacked to the wall promises will be a “KLINGON INTERROGATION AND DENTISTRY EXHIBIT”. She is tall and thin, dressed in little more than a leather bustier and thigh-high boots. She is hunched over, struggling to jam a long, round metal bar into a wheeled base, and she grunts unattractively with each push. Sweat glistens on skin that is slathered in what I can only assume is enough tanning accelerator to fill a kiddie pool.

“I just want to dump this whole goddamned bag out and let somebody else fucking work on this for a while!” She yells this to a stout Klingon male who is ambling around and eating a donut. Its colorful sprinkles clash with his dour costume. He furrows his ridged brow and turns with some difficulty to the woman.

“Just wait a minute! Okay? God! I’m looking for something!”

He swivels slowly away from her and takes another bite from his donut, shaking his head.

“Well, goddamnit, hurry up! Where’s Tupp? He’s late.”

The stocky Klingon shrugs, and then walks away. He returns a couple of minutes later dragging a chair. It’s one of those awful, uncomfortable, chairs you see in every hotel ballroom, with the red natty fabric over a millimeter of padding, and brass-colored legs. Anyone who has ever had to sit in one for more than a minute can tell you that the chair’s designer placed stackability far above any considerations of comfort. In the furniture world, the hotel ballroom chair is the equivalent of a pair of hard shoes that are a half-size too small.

“Here’s the chair. You’re the interrogator, so where do you want it?”

Klingon woman looks up with an irritated frown. “It’s the interrogation chair, so it should go out in the dumpster in the parking lot. Where do you think it should go? Put it in the center, dummy. And help me with this, please.”

He sets the chair down joylessly. “I’m going to go look for Tupp,” Klingon man responds, ignoring her.

I look at the scary chair, and at the Klingon woman, and shudder a little. I make a note to give this exhibit a wide berth from here on out.

***

The Stargate SG-1 exhibits are relegated to the far end of the corridor outside the main ballroom in the basement, near the service hallway. Stargate SG-1, as far as I can discern, is about a team of military officers who battle alien species by traveling through a large round stone inter-dimensional portal bearing ancient hieroglyphics.  You tell me.

There is an animated discussion going on between a man in camouflage and a guy wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with an iron-on picture of the lovable 1980s icon, ALF. They are talking about the giant replica of the Stargate from Stargate SG-1 that stands at the end of the hallway. It’s nearly twenty feet tall and made from plywood. I compare this pretend Stargate with the real Stargate from a flyer on a nearby table and nod my head, impressed. Except for a few splotches where the gray spray paint didn’t take, this homemade Stargate more than passes as an accurate replica of the more professionally rendered, Hollywood-crafted Stargate.

“This is just one person’s vision, okay?” explains the camouflage-wearing man. “The same guy who built this built the bridge from last year.”

“Oh, cool!”

“Three days in his backyard. He started on Thursday, built the whole thing there. We had to come over and paint it. It almost rained. And I was up on a 24-foot ladder and I thought I was going to die. It was crazy.”

“That’s completely cool,” reiterates the ALF enthusiast.

“Well, look, if you want a picture in front of it, it’s only $5.”

“You didn’t charge me last year.”

Camouflage man opens his hands in the classic what-are-you-gonna-do pose. “Hey, times have changed.”

ALF guy considers this. “Well, I may want to buy a raffle ticket instead. You’re still doing the raffles, right?”

Camouflage man smiles and points to two baskets sitting on the table sponsored by his club. The baskets have been lovingly prepared with ribbon, and their contents have been arranged to maximize presentation. Cellophane Easter grass playfully pokes out at every angle.

“Of course we are. Same prizes as last year. First place is the chocolate basket, except this year there’s more stuff. You want to see second prize? Second prize is our hot sauce basket, that’s a big hit.”

Third prize is you’re fired.

           ***

Camouflage man is named Jay, and he talked with me for a few minutes about the fan organization he belongs to, Starfleet International. He takes great pains to make sure I understand that while they have attended this year’s conference in the militaristic leitmotif of Stargate SG-1, their organization is “really a Star Trek organization.”

Jay complains that he is “just a lowly Captain” in Starfleet International, whose goal is unification of all governments under a dictatorial regime guided by monolithic adherence to the idea of race purification.

“Actually,” Jay gently corrects me, “we’re just a group of science fiction fans, and we get together online and at restaurants and at places like that.”

And they do charity work—good charity work.

“We are giving the proceeds from our raffle and photos to the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance, which helps children who have been sexually abused,” explains Beryl, the Commanding Officer of Jay’s club. Beryl is wearing the military fatigues of a Stargate SG-1 character, but she also makes sure I understand that their club is actually the “U.S.S. Sovereign,” a Philadelphia "ship" that is part of  "Region 7" of Starfleet International, which consists of the Starfleet members and local organizations in the mid-Atlantic. Each “ship” begins as a “shuttle” and must have at least ten members for one year and reach certain “benchmarks” before it can be considered for “official commissioning” in Starfleet International as a bona fide “ship”.

I ask her at what point club members go through final purification and reach OT III, and Jay scratches his head. Beryl diplomatically ignores the question and continues describing the group’s charitable activities.

“This weekend we hope to raise between $500 and $600, which will go straight to the Children’s Alliance."  I learn that the club’s connection with the charity is through Beryl, who, after dressing on Saturday and Sunday as an alien-battling soldier from the future, will return to work on Monday as a criminal defense investigator, a thankless job if ever there was one.

“You know, I go to these homes and I serve subpoenas, and I see how these kids live, so I try to do what I can, and everyone on the ship helps, too.” Beryl is soft-spoken but earnest in her expressions of dedication to their club’s philanthropic mission. This is one of several shows they will attend over the course of the year, and the goal of each is to raise money for charity.

“But we like to have fun, too,” she clarifies.

“It’s nice to be part of something that’s both fun and good for the public, for children. We do a lot of really helpful charity work, I think,” Jay adds.

He looks down at his badge in mild irritation. “I could do more if I ever got a promotion.”

***

Grace, an accountant with CitiFinancial:

“I’ve been to about, what, five of these? The last one was the one here in February.

“Oh, God no, I would never want my friends to know I come to these shows. They already think I’m a big enough geek as it is! If they knew I was coming to these things, they’d laugh me out of the building.

“I guess there’s a sort of impression that people who go to science-fiction conventions are these smelly nerds who live at home. But look at me, I’m not smelly, and I don’t live at home. I helped broker a deal last week worth about $17 million, and I just bought an investment property.  We're not all smelly geeks.  Just look around."

“Okay, well, don’t look over there, ha ha!"

“Anyway, I sure don’t think I’m a geek.”

***

I am told by Cathy that Saturday is the big day, and I can see why. Many more conventioneers are dressed up in costumes now than Friday night, and the hotel is packed with people. Old people, young people, whole families, Jedi, Klingons, Hogwarts students, Starfleet Officers, Stormtroopers—it’s a Free to Be You and Me rainbow coalition of science-fiction fans, all gathered together under one roof in the spirit of galactic harmony.

There are more celebrities here today, too. Joanna Cassidy is here, Joanna Cassidy the free-spirited psychotherapist mother of Brenda on HBO’s Six Feet Under, Joanna Cassidy the long-suffering girlfriend of Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Joanna Cassidy sits at a table with a publicist, an array of photos of Cassidy in various roles spread before her. The curious have formed a short line, and Cassidy sits and smiles and signs with a somewhat distant and slightly vacant look in her eyes.

I observe with puzzlement that almost every person who reaches the front of the line speaks only to the publicist.

“How much is each photo?”

“Will she personalize it, or just sign it?”

“Can she write, ‘Best wishes, Bill?’ or maybe ‘Here’s wishing you the best, Bill?’”

“How does she like Maryland?"

“Wow, this is great, thanks! We just love her.”

Few, if any people speak directly to Cassidy, afraid, perhaps, of staring directly at the blinding light of unalloyed celebrity. Those who do usually utter just the worst kind of drivel.

“I think your hair looks so much better in its natural gray.”

“Wow, this must really be a change from L.A., huh?"

“How much do you make doing these shows?”

No one asks about her critically acclaimed role on Six Feet Under, no one praises her work as an actress. They ask her questions like, “Do you still keep in touch with Dabney Coleman?”  It’s strange, feeling sorry for a star.

A young man who has made it to the front of the line has absolutely no idea who Joanna Cassidy is. “Oh, you were in Blade Runner!” he discovers, consulting his program.

Joanna Cassidy smiles wanly and signs her name across a picture of her face.

                                                      ***

Mark Goddard, on the other hand, is just the opposite.

Mark Goddard was cast forty years ago as Major Don West on Lost in Space, a show that lasted all of three years but which has defined Goddard probably for the rest of his life. Just as Leonard Nimoy will forever be Spock, Mark Hamill will forever be Luke Skywalker, and Isabel Sanford will forever be Weezy, Mark Goddard will forever be Major West.

But Goddard appears to revel in his eternal bondage to a character he played when Lyndon Johnson was President. A slick banner reading “MARK GODDARD—LOST IN SPACE’S MAJOR DON WEST” is draped in front of the Lost in Space memorabilia arranged invitingly on Goddard’s well-located table.

For a man who is nearly seventy, Goddard looks like a million bucks. No one at the convention is more smartly dressed than Goddard, who appears twenty years younger than his actual age.

Goddard stands when a young woman begins browsing the officially-licensed Lost in Space merchandise, and speaks with her about the low cost and great pop-cultural value of a Lost in Space calendar. She’s not buying, and Goddard politely thanks her, sits, and turns back to his handler to continue their conversation.

I happen to know someone who knows Mark Goddard, and I know that Goddard is now a special education teacher in Massachusetts.He obtained a Masters in education, and now every day he goes and works with disadvantaged and “at risk” youth. I bet he’s been physically threatened several times by punk twelfth-graders, all for a teacher’s salary. But still, people think of him as Major Don West.

I will see Mark Goddard again later, at the hotel restaurant.

From my vantage point at the bar, I later see that Mark Goddard and his handler can’t get a table. The polyester vested host patiently explains that dinner seating at the Hunt Valley Marriott is available only with a reservation.

“Do you know who this is,” Mark Goddard’s handler doesn’t demand.

“Hey, pal, I’m Mark Goddard,” Mark Goddard doesn’t insist.

Instead, Mark Goddard and his handler look silently at each other, wondering what to do about dinner.

“I can offer you a seat at the bar,” offers the host, but the handler says, “Nah, too smokey.” Mark Goddard agrees, and they both shrug and Goddard politely thanks the host and walks out of the restaurant.

In that moment, I see myself saving the day for Mark Goddard, TV's Major Don West. 

I see myself walking up to the host and shaking him by his synthetic shirt collar, and I will shout in his face. “You just turned Mark Goddard away, idiot! Mark Goddard! Don’t you know who he is?” I will demand of the host.

“Th…that was Mark Goddard?” the host will ask, quaking from the realization of his mistake.

The host will then chase after Mark Goddard and his handler, catching them just outside the restaurant. The host will apologize profusely, and Mark Goddard, being a class act, will accept the apology and follow the host back inside the restaurant. The host will gesture to me and tell Mark Goddard that it was I who took care of the situation, and show Mark Goddard to the best table in the house.

Mark Goddard and his handler will then invite me to dine with them, and I will graciously accept.

We will have porterhouse and lightly steamed, crisp broccoli, and we will share stories and laugh uproariously.

After three hours, Mark Goddard will put his hand on my shoulder, look at me, and wink. “You did good, kid,” he will say, and his handler will nod slowly.

Before leaving, Mark Goddard will shake my hand and thank me for the best time of his life, except for the day his son was born. Then he will hand me a Lost in Space calendar, and on it, signed in silver pen and Mark Goddard’s handwriting, will be the words,

To Lars,

You are a prince among men.  All my best...

Your friend,

Mark Goddard,

Lost in Space’s Major Don West 

But, of course, none of this happens.

As I sit at the bar, I watch Mark Goddard wander off, just a regular guy with a wife and a kid and a difficult but rewarding teaching job, a guy who can’t get a table at a middling restaurant in Baltimore.

I think about how at these conferences, on the floor, people don't see that Mark Goddard.  To only a few of the fans who attend these conferences, he’ll never be known as that great guy--the regular, everyday hero with a lot more going on than having once been TV's Major Don West. 

I sip my beer, and think about the peculiarities of fame.  And daydream about owning a Lost in Space calendar.

***

Charles, Vietnam Veteran and insurance industry retiree:

“If I have to pin it down to a single reason, I would have to say that I enjoy coming to these science-fiction conventions because I get to meet—or catch-up with—people I have a lot in common with.

“After I came home from Vietnam, I hada difficult time adjusting to being out of the service, to being home. I did the whole hitchhike-for-four-days-from-Saginaw-to-look-for-America thing. Soul-searching. Whatever you want to call it.

“And I guess it was my wife who got me interested in science-fiction. I think the first science-fiction I read was Ray Bradbury—‘The Four Billion Names of God,’ maybe—I don’t exactly remember. And by that time Star Trek had been on already, so.

“So I really identified with it, and that was great, and we came to the first show in, what 1983? ’82? ’83. Anyway, right after the Star Trek movie came out, the first one. And we’ve been coming ever since.

“The only part about it, about Star Trek, that doesn’t bring me happiness—my wife hates this—is the way they structure their command operations. Coming from the service, that kind of thing drives me nuts. Where’s the Chief of the Boat? Who’s telling the junior officers and enlisted what to do when the senior officers are all on the bridge. That’s the only part that I can’t stand. You never see the Chief of the Boat.

“Drives me nuts.”

***

NEXT!

ANGRY NERDS DEBATE KLINGON POETRY!

THE AUTHOR IS ATTACKED BY WHAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE A TRANSVESTITE!

AND THE GALA AWARDS SHOW THAT MAKES THE TONY AWARDS LOOK LIKE A SLIGHTLY GAY, OVERLY SHOWY LOVE-FEST FOR THE HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA WEIRDOS!

 

 

Where I Adopt Tom Delay's Legal Strategy Approach

Scene: My expansive and rich law office

Me: (shakes hands with new client)  Jim, thanks for coming in.

Jim: Thanks for meeting with me.

Me: (gestures to plush chair) Please, have a seat.

Jim: Thanks.

Me: (walking over to in-office wet bar)  Scotch?

Jim: Um, it's ten a.m.

Me: It's tea time in England, though, my friend!  (pours glass full of brown liquor)

Jim:  I thought lawyers having bars were something that you saw only in really bad movies or David E. Kelley productions.

Me:  Normally, yes.  (Downs a highball glass of Glenfidditch).   Now then, I've been giving your case very serious consideration.

Jim: What's your strategy? I'm looking at some serious time here.

Me: Yes, yes, I know. The Grand Jury issued an indictment against you, but I think we have a sure-fire way to get ahead of this and beat out the jury, the judge, and the other side on this.

Jim: (Excited)  Great! Let's hear it!

Me: (sitting down, steepling fingers, looking pensive)  We're going to have a press conference and call the prosecutor a douchebag.

Jim: (long pause) What?

Me: (cupping hands, leaning forward) WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A PRESS CONERENCE AND CALL THE PROSECUTOR A DOUCHEBAG.

Jim: (irritated) No, I heard you, I didn't mean "what" as in I-can't-hear-you what, I meant "what" as in what-the-f*ck-are-you-thinking what.

Me: Oh.

Jim: You think this is a good plan?

Me: Define your terms.

Jim: Well, will it effect the evidence?

Me: No.

Jim: Well, will it effect the judge?

Me: No.

Jim: Well, will it effect the verdict?

Me: No.

Jim: Then how is this a good plan?

Me: I get to be on TV!

Jim: (sinks) I'm hosed.

Me: (ignoring him)  More scotch?

Ring.  Ring.

-- Yelllo!

-- Thorwald?

-- Talk to me, Goose!

-- Thorwald, this is Jennings, in Quality Control.

Oh, shit! Jennings!  Quick, tuck in the shirt.  No, wait, he's on the phone, he can't see your shirt, stupid.  Quick!  Say something witty!

-- Cows make a moo moo noise!

Fuck!

--  Thorwald, I don't have time to chat amiably.  I saw this morning's post.

--  Okay, uh-huh.

--  Not only has the Board expressed concerns about the growing infrequency of what can only be described as mildly entertaining observations from what we can only conclude is a severely dysfunctional mind, but we here in Kew-See have spotted some problems.

Fuck fuck.

--  Okay.  Uh-huh.

--  "Alabaster," Mr. Thorwald, is an adjective that should only be used sparingly.  According to industry standards, it should not be employed in more than 14% of annual posts, and yet our records reflect that you used it once in each of your last three items.  And in each event you used it to describe skin tone.

--  I...just.

--  Please save your sorries in a satchel, Thorwald, and hear me loud and clear.  The Company has issued to you a fresh thesaurus.   You got it in January.  We expect you to use it.  There is no excuse for using the exact same descriptor for milky white skin three times consecutively.  It distracts the reader and tarnishes this outfit's good name and reputation.  We cannot allow our goodwill to be eroded by your lackluster efforts.  Your typos alone are headache enough.

--  It was funny?

--  I am ignoring that frail attempt at explanation and noting this call in your file.  If you have no questions, I suggest you tuck in your shirt and get back to work.

Damn it! 

--  Okay.

--  This call has been monitored for training purposes. 

Click.

The Way We Were

At lunch, the question, from an embittered partisan co-worker, angry and bile-filled with hate and rage. 

At lunch, the question that took me back.  "What I want to know, is does anyone," he brayed rhetorically, "Anyone remember Afghanistan?"

Do I remember Afghanistan?

The question is:  How could I forget it?

It was May and the poppies were in full display in the field north of beautiful Kandahar. My on-again, off-again friend with benefits, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and I, were holding hands and letting our joined fingers trail across the tall grass and plant tops. He had just come in for a two-day visit from Jalalabad on some secret arms deal. "A quickie visit," he called it, and I giggled. Because there was nothing quick about Slow Hands Don.

We walked in the field and we laughed, talking of how one day we would stroll just like this through the streets of Paris, and about our future, and about multi-stage bunker nukes, and of how happy we were. We walked and he kissed me. That lip-less kiss that said, You're gosh darned right I dig you, baby! We kissed and he took me, there in the sticky sap and heather.

After, in the warm embrace of post-coital afterglow, Donald chewed on a poppy stem and gazed upward at the smoke-filled sky, the sheen of sweat glistening off his pocky, alabaster chest.

"One, day, kiddo, I gotta tell ya, all of this could be yours," he said, spreading his spindly arms expansively.

"What, all these scheduled, controlled narcotics?  Oh, Donald," I cooed.

"No, this place.  This country.  Right after nine-eleven the President was all piss and vinegar, and itchy for a fight.  He asked me what I would want to attack Iraq, and I jokingly held my hands up in the victory sign and said, 'Afghanistan.'  Superman II had been on the night before, and I was just fooling around.  Well, gosh, can you believe it?  He promised me the place, the whole kit and caboodle, right then and there.  It was the darnedest thing."  Slow Hands shook his head slowly in amazement and sucked the opiates from his plant.

"Oh, Donald.  I don't want Afghanistan.  I just want you, silly," I gurgled, tracing lazy circle eights on his hairless, spongy pecs. 

He looked at me, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and smiled.  "You don't fall madly for the love you want, you fall madly for the love you have."

I squeezed him closer.  I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about.

But then again, with Donald, there in Afghanistan, I never needed to.

An Open Letter to Kate Winslet and Kelly MacDonald

Kate and Kelly:

My sympathies and encouragement to you.   I am writing that in this time of tragedy and need, I am there for you, Kate Winslet, star of Titanic, and you, Kelly MacDonald, star of Trainspotting.

I am there for you.   

Oh, I doubt you actually need my assistance in the courageous and heroic things you must be doing in defense of Britain right now.  I suspect that even as I write, you must be bustling about in Churchillian fashion, doing everything you can to shore up the defenses against further tube bombings and V-2 Rocket attacks. 

I can imagine that you are helping others to haul heavy sacks of sand and stone as barricades against the threatening hordes, sweat glistening on your brows, and the napes of your necks, and the supple, alabaster plains beneath your clavicles.  Or perhaps standing guard for Civil Air Defense, wearing your Doughboy helmets and loose-fitting, white tank tops, damp from perspiration and pressed against your heaving breasts, whistles at the ready.  You serve your countries well.

No, I cannot assist you in the active defense of your nations, but perhaps there is something else I can do.  In these trying times, we Americans long to help.  Indeed, I yearn to ease your burden, if ever so slightly. 

Therefore, Kate, ethereal star of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Kelly, wee star of The Girl in the Cafe, I offer you my services in the coming weeks and months and years.  I will do what I must, he sighs, to help you through this trying period.  I feel there is much I can offer.

Dearest Kate, surely your feet tire from standing guard in defense of England. Here, let me lovingly massage them with my hands, kneading the flesh with my strong but nimble fingers.  What's that, you say?  Shall I suck this toe?  Why, but of course.  For I am only too happy.

Darling Kelly, surely your toiling in the rescue efforts in the Underground have left you exhausted and dirty.  Shall I draw a bath for you?  And help you to wash away the hot tears of anger at the outrage of such attacks?  Perhaps your hot tears rolled carelessly to the small of your back.  Here, let me sponge them for you, dousing them with milky bath water and later drying them--and the rest of your tired body--with a soft towel and, in those hard to reach places, my exploring, eager tongue.

Yes, it is a time for sacrifice, and I would give myself willingly in these or other similar chores, if they would only ease your tension, and assist Britain.  And while such selfless giving may exhaust me, I feel it is my duty to shoulder my share of the burden. 

Really, it's the least I can do.

Say the word, Kate, star of Heavenly Creatures, and Kelly, star of Finding Neverland, and I am on the next flight to Heathrow, ready to throw myself into the effort.

God save you, and God save the Queen.

Your Most Obedient Servant

Which Reminds Me...

During the summer between college and law school,  I worked for about two months at a realty company that rented beach houses by the week.  The office was about a half-hour from my parents' house in Virginia Beach, and the hours were pretty easy.  My job consisted of processing paperwork and going to beach houses between rental weeks (which were Monday to Monday) to make sure that the place was clean before it was handed over to the next renter.

So Mondays were great because I'd swing by the ten or fifteen houses on my list, quickly run through them making sure they were fairly presentable, and then I'd leave for the day. 

One Monday I went to a house on my list and opened the door and was immediately hit in the face with a pungent, sickly smell.  It was like rotten meat.  It was strong enough to make me stop and wince a little, and go back out into the driveway for air. 

I looked back at the house, deciding what the hell that smell could be, and whether I could stand to go in.

I braved it, and walked into the house.  Now, these beach houses typically are three or four stories, with the kitchen and main living area on the top floor.  And with each flight of stairs I went up in this house, the smell became more pungent and more powerful.

By the time I reached the kitchen level, my eyes literally were watering.  Something in that house was rank, and I half expected to see a rotting corpse on the top floor when I came up the stairs.  I opened every window and door on the top floor, and went out on the deck several times to catch my breath before going back into the house to figure out what the hell the smell was.

But the house was spotless.  Every trash can was free of debris, every closet was empty.  The smell, which I determined was coming from the kitchen, was untraceable.  The counters were speckless, and had you been able to breath and if you had the stomach to do so above the noxious stench, you could have eaten off the floor.  The house was immaculate.

I bent over to look under the sink, and that's when I realized the smell was coming from the dishwasher.  I put my hand on the dishwasher door and counted to three before opening it, having no earthly idea what was inside, or if anything would leap out at me. 

Scent is the sense tied most closely to memory, and there are days when I will walk past a heaping trash can at a fair grounds in the summer, or smell the breeze coming off the dump in Baltimore City, or drive with my windows open by an estuary off the Bay at low tide, and I will catch a frisson of something that vaguely reminds me of the malodorous death aroma that smacked me in the face when I opened that dishwasher.

It was like a vat of ammonia, vinegar, dog shit, rotting flesh, and infection had been simmered slowly, then shit into by a large man, then poured into trash bags and left out for a month in the sun, then slowly and lovingly slathered on the gangrenous open wounds on the foot of an elderly diabetic man, that you then had to suck on.

I slammed the dishwasher door shut and threw up immediately into the kitchen sink.  Then I ran out onto the house deck and dry heaved several times.  I found a beach towel hanging off the deck rail, and I took a deep breath and put it over my mouth and nose, and ran back into the house and opened the dishwasher and looked inside.

There is a modern tale about cooking fish that seems like urban legend, but is true.  If you take a fillet of fish--say, salmon--and wrap it in foil and put it on the top rack of a dishwasher, then you can cook the fish by running the dishwasher.

What the tenants discovered, however, is that you cannot do the same thing with other seafood. 

The tenants--probably in a drunken, last night celebration--decided that they were going to boil and steam a bushel of live crabs by putting them in the dishwasher.  Better still, they thought that the best way to season them would be to put Old Bay seasoning in the detergent tray of the dishwasher.

What happened was that the Old Bay clogged the detergent line, and the dishwasher water simply wasn't hot enough, and all of the crabs slowly suffocated and died.  The tenants must have realized the monumental mistake they made, but rather than remove the still-living (and probably pissed off) crabs, they simply shut the door and let the crabs stay where they were.

For over a week.

Not only did a cleaning crew charge double to clean the house and aerate it, but the dishwasher unit had to be replaced. 

I was given by my boss, as a joke, a gift certificate to John's Crab and Seafood House. 

I never used it.    

      

Scenes from an American Bachelor Party--Part I (Catonsville)

My friend Tom is dying. 

I mean, sort of. 

He is marrying a perfectly fine, perfectly lovely young woman named Gina,  but everyone can see that Gina is slowly but with tremendous determination carving her man into a eunuch.  His friends certainly see it.  We gather together at parties, speaking quietly about Tom's new conservative haircut, his freshly pressed Polo shirts, his markedly decreased use of the word 'Fuck'.  We gather close, and we watch with growing horror as he undergoes his change. 

When the announcement of their engagement came, her friends cheered and applauded. 

We smiled wanly, hearing in the background the heavy tolling of the death knell.   We smiled wanly, and we did the only sane thing friends to such a man can do:  We held his bachelor party. 

****

Tom is making love to Big Bertha on the dance floor. 

He slips her cover off, which he keeps on the club head until his ball is teed up, and he steps back, lining up his shot.  He addresses the ball, waggling the tip of his Callaway "Big Bertha" driver, looking back and forth between the ball and the pin, judging distance.  Uncharacteristically for such a serious golfer, he speaks.

"No strip clubs tonight, okay, guys?  I promised Gina."

We stand there, dumbfounded and incredulous.   Tom, the Seducer, who could get a woman's phone number after three minutes of conversation.  Tom, the Perv, who had ogled millions of women, declaring his appreciation of each with the phrase, "I think I'm in love."  Tom, the Just, who saw beauty in every face, no matter how pierced, or fat, or mottled with errant hairs, and wanted to kiss them all.  Tom, the Uninhibited, who once approached a table of dining women on Mother's Day, of all things, and declared, "I have an enormous cock."  Tom, the Bold.  Tom, the Lascivious.  Tom, the Man's Man.

Tom, the Emasculated.

The twenty of us had suspected Gina had issued an ultimatum from Tom, demanding that he refrain from entertaining the dark art of erotic dance.  But for Tom to promise?  That boggled the mind.  We were crushed.  Whatever ember of hope remained that this would be a day for the storybooks was extinguished, and turned cold.   We stood silently on the cart path, stricken. 

"Well, shit, even Steve McQueen married Ali McGraw, I guess," said Wayne with heavy resignation.  He had traveled from Tennessee, and wanted to make the most of this day.  We all wanted to. 

"I just want a different bachelor party," said Tom.  "Just good friends, having a good time together."

He took his swing.  His ball traveled thirty yards and sliced into the woods.

****

The guts and shells of crab bodies were strewn across the table, the piles of lifeless husks marked by a dozen empty pitchers.  We had feasted upon five dozen very large steamed crabs, corn on the cob, and beer.  Everyone was full, sitting there on the deck at the crab house, overlooking the Bay, and ready to move on to the bars.  It was 7:15, and it was either do or die, get moving or watch as one by one men peeled off from the group, saddled with food coma.

I signaled the waitress.  "Can we get our check, please?"

"You all don't want dessert?" she chuckled.  I smiled in return.  "No, thanks.  Just the check."

"Actually, I might want dessert.  What've you got?"  This from Tom, who sat at the head of the table. 

"Well, we have chocolate cheesecake, pecan pie, peach cobbler, hot fudge sundae, chocolate mousse..."

"I'll have a hot fudge sundae!" exclaimed Tom.  "It's my bachelor party!" 

"Ooooooookay, one hot fudge sundae.  Anyone else?"

The 20 of us sat silently.  "You all sure?" she prodded us.  "The bachelor's going to eat alone?"

"Yeah, I'll have one, too," allowed Ben, Tom's best man.

"Anyone else?"

"Yeah, I'll have one, also," said Tony.  " Steve, you want one?"

"Yeah, what the hell."

"Okay, me, too..."

One by one, every man ordered a hot fudge sundae.  To a man.  Sadly, even me.

The waitress brought the sundaes a few minutes later, and, looking up from mine, I could see all twenty men intently eating their rather effeminate looking desserts.  I looked at Wayne.  "Let me see if I have this right," I began.  " No strip clubs, but there's a bunch of guys sitting here eating ice cream sundaes?"

Wayne laughed.  "Yep, that's about it.  A real throw-down, huh?"  Chocolate sauce dribbled down his chin.

I got up to go to the bathroom.  "Don't eat my sundae, Tom."

I pushed past tables and walked into the restaurant and then to the men's room.  I stood at a urinal and unzipped my fly.  A rather large man with what I can only describe as Lyle Alzado hair walked up to the urinal next to me.  He was tall and wore a black sleeveless t-shirt with a confederate flag on it.

"You guys having fun?" he asked slowly.

A strange question.  I looked up and smiled.  "Yeah, yeah we are.  It's our friend's bachelor party."

The man considered that.  "Well, we don't really like that sort of thing here."

I was confused.  "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean.  Faggot.  You and your friends get out of here."  He slurred some of it.

Me:  "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Him:  "You know what I'm talking about. "

He zipped up and left.  Bigots are required by law not to wash hands before returning to work. 

"Uh, you aren't going to believe what just happened," I said, returning to my seat. 

"Guy call you a faggot?" asked Wayne.  I looked at him.  "Yeah, how did...?"

"He and his buddy were sitting behind us.  His friend said only faggots eat ice cream sundaes.  He thought we were gay."

I pinched my face up.  "What?  What did you tell him?"

Tom:  "I told him we were gay, and it was my big coming out party.  The pink golf shirt helped.  Then they called us faggots and got up and left."

Everyone laughed. 

Tom looked at us and said, "Let's go get drunk and then go to a strip bar." 

We cheered.

****

It's 11:30, and Tom is singing "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor in front of the back bar at a tavern.  The place doesn't even have a dance floor.  The song being played is Journey's "Don't Stop Believing."  We are confused. 

"Maybe there was something to that gay thing after all," says Wayne. 

At the bar, Ben introduces himself to a beautiful, tall, tan brunette, and asks her if he could buy her a drink.  She laughs at him.  "Not if you were the last man on Earth, hon."  Ben is a quick wit, and shows it. 

"Honey, if I were the last man on Earth, you wouldn't even be allowed in line."

Tom does a spinning move to impress the bartendress, but succeeds only in stopping in a disjointed shamble against the wall, spilling half his beer.   "I love you guys!" he announces to the cigarette machine. 

Our friend Jeff is talking to one of the Jaegermeister girls who have been assigned to the bar for a promotion.  "So, what's your name, what's your story?" he asks her.

"I'm Trina, and this is Stacey, and we're here doing a Jaegermeister promotion."

"That's great, just great," says Jeff.  "Say, why don't you take off your top?"  Then, more conspiratorially, ignoring the amused but disgusted look on Trina's face, he says, "I really, really bring something to the party, baby."

Jeff will later go home with a woman who is roughly the same size and shape as a stack of oversized whitewall tires.

****

She is a tall woman, and blonde, with alabaster skin and eyes of blue.  Under different circumstances, I might have called her "statuesque," but "statuesque" is generally not an adjective associated with a woman who is basically dry humping a brass pole in front of a mirrored wall.  We are sitting at the bar at a strip club called The Ritz.  It is 1:30 a.m. and almost last call. 

"You know," observes Wayne, "if she didn't have that trashy look so common to carny folk, she could be a model." 

I nod in agreement, and look back at Tom.  Tom is being held up by three people in our little group of ten (the others having drifted off to greater adventures at different bars or having gone home), and his head is bobbing, but not to the music.

"Hey, if you turn your head a little and sorta squint, Tom looks just like a lobotomy recipient," I say to Wayne.  Ben, sitting to my right, elbows me  and I turn.

"Hey, man.  She's checking you out."

I look up at our dancer, the Beautiful Miss Tawny, and I see that she is laying on her back, looking through her spread legs, staring at me.  She sticks her pierced tongue out like Gene Simmons and glares at me with something like hate.

"Dude, she's pissed," says Wayne.

"Uh," I respond, and look again.   The Beautiful Miss Tawny is back on the brass, holding her upper body out at a 90 degree angle, her weight suspended by her legs, which are clamped around the pole.  She turns her head and glares at me again with that awful lizard tongue poking out, stabbing at me like a little dagger of hate.

"Whoa.  She is pissed." 

The Beautiful Miss Tawny's song (Toxic, by Britney Spears) has ended, and she is walking down the bar, crouching so that men can slip her a dollar tribute into the waist band of her G-string.  The whole time she makes her rounds, she looks at me.

"You better give her two," offers Ben, "or she's going to jam one of those Lucite heels right into your fucking neck, I swear to God."

The Beautiful Miss Tawny stands before me now, looking down, her angry face framed by her angry breasts.  She crouches down.

"Uhhhh, hi," I say helpfully, offering two dollars, folded long ways.

"I can rock your cock," she suggests, and puts her face close to mine.  "I can make your balls flap," she informs, and I see for the first time that her nostrils bear the unmistakable red rings of cocaine abuse.  It looks like she had a cold and had blown her nose with fine sandpaper.

"That's very...uh, interesting," I say, slipping the two dollars into her G-string.

"Let me show you something I learned in 'Nam!" she yells, and proceeds to insert three-quarters of my longneck beer into her mouth and throat.  As she tilts her head back, I take a second to marvel not only at her ability to drink most of my beer like that, but also at the fact that society not only tolerates bachelor parties and the behavior they entail, but actively encourages it.  This is how we send our menfolk into marriage.  With one last glimpse of a nude woman simulating fellatio on a bottle of domestic beer.

"God Bless America," says Ben. 

"You going to finish that?" asks Wayne as the Beautiful Miss Tawny sets the bottle down on the bar, leaving beer and backwash at the bottom.

"Jus' gooooood freenz, havin' a goooood time t'gether," adds Tom, the lobotomy patient, to no one in particular.            

                  

But I Get Hate Mail, Too

So there is no confusion as to whether I am adored and beloved by everyone who reads my writing (most of which is left on the pages of Fark.com, the single bestest site in the whole wide world, ever, after this toadily awesome site), here is a thoughtful comment from a reader about a post I made on Fark.com making fun of TSA agents at airports, with their clip on ties and their Courtney Love-like attention to detail:

"Do you know why they wear clip on ties?  In case some pee pee puffer such as yourself tries to pull it off.  Maybe you should take your finger out of your ass and ask them some time.  That's how I found out, then maybe you could talk to these ptople instead of making fun of them.  I know exactly who you are, you are one of those sniveling little bitches that cry when they ask you to step aside for further security.  I see people like you all the time.  Think before you insult people that could have saved my father-in-law from dying in a plane.  You might have a problem with the local's in your usual airports, but not all of them are total assholes.

Thanks for providing me of someone to think of when I hear of someone dying with AIDS.

John Doeril"

You know, Jesus had his critics, too. 

My Enormously Presumptive and Haughty Mission Statement

This in my e-mail:

"Dude, you need to post more.  That History of the world thing was amazing.  Are you a professional writer?  I think you should be a professional writer.  Your stuff is hilarious to read when stoned.  But you need to put an entry in every day!  I need to read some good stuff between my summer school classes.  Why don't you post more?  You need to post more.  Okay, gotta run, Justice League is on."

Although this stoned young man is clearly a poor judge of talent, he raises a point worth addressing: Why don't I post every day, like a Joel Achen or an Instapundit or a Gawker or a Defamer or a Wonkette?  Like most bloggers? 

Well, first, the best-known blogs are generally quasi-news and celebrity tracker sites.  You will find no news here, or even quasi-news.  If I ever speak directly and in an opinionated manner about politics or current events, you are required by law to drive to Baltimore, take a cab to my house, and stab me repeatedly with a makeshift knife--or shiv--in the ribs.  There are plenty of people who write about politics and culture, and do it far smarter than I ever could.  Plus, I work in Washington and have lived in Hollywood, and frankly I have substantially lost any taste for dwelling upon the lives of royalty.  Once you've been backstage, the show loses its magic.

Except for those well-known blogs, pretty much all other blogs are personal journal entries.  And I don't want to bore anyone with the details of my life in an "I got up and ate me some Sugar Smacks and then I went and showered and my soap had dwinded to an unmanageable sliver" crap that blogs can be, and usually are.   You know what I'm talkiing about: pages and pages of countless diary entries cataloguing the mundane, recording the banal, interesting no one but the author.      

Let me say this and get it out of the way before moving on to my story about the Gay Bachelor Party and the Crack Whore Incident, so there is no confusion between me and you, the reader about where I stand on the issue of using blogs like a daily diary.  Here's my stance: 

I hate that shit. 

I hate that like talent hates Jenna Elfman, and refuses to be in the same room with her.  I had an ingrown hair on my upper thigh when I was 16, and it morphed into an enlarged pimple that became a blister that became a boil-type thing, filled with blood and pus, and I couldn't lance it or treat it because it was excrutiatingly painful to even look at, let alone touch, and one day in Algebra class that thing popped--I mean, I heard an audible pop--and looked down and there was a circle of red, stinking infection spreading on the front of my khaki pants, and I hated that boil and that awful, embarrassing moment, but I hate Dear Diary blogs worse than that. 

A blog should be for storytelling, for entertaining and delighting, to the extent your meager talents can, the 10 or 15 people who will ever read it.  There may only be a handful of people that ever see this, but that does not mean they have to be subjected to The Continuing Adventures of My Battles with Verizon or experience the torture of Amazing Stories of Things I Ate Today or be made to suffer The Myriad Problems of My Love Life and Why I Must Bother You With Them While Writing in Third Person Emo. 

If you are using your blog to discuss the new razor you bought or to chronicle the fabulously dull adventures of your new puppy, or to inform the whole wide world about your wedding plans, then you should be visited with the painful beatings you so richly deserve. 

Because no one wants to hear that shit.

No one.   

Here's a good rule of thumb:  If it's not something that you would discuss at a dinner party with all eyes on you, then don't put it on the page.  Contrast this:

Bob:  ...and to think that that one cab ride would inspire Jane and I to go on a safari to the Congo is crazy to us.

Jane:  It was just nuts.  I mean, who goes on a trip to Africa on a whim like that?

Carol:  That's insane!  And then to have your caravan attacked by a lion, that's unbelievable!

Jim:  God, what a great story.

(General agreement among party guests)

You:  Hey, speaking of great stories, did I ever tell you about the time I took pictures of my cat playing with my feet?  Oh MY GOD!  It's was out of control.  Out.  Of.  Control.  Okay, so I was sitting there reading the classifieds--I was looking to buy a pretty inexpensive chiffarobe--and I looked down, and my cat was pawing playfully at my toes!  He'd never done that before, so I took pictures!  Wanna see the pictures and listen to me talk for the next 15 minutes about how cute my cat is?  Especially when he is playing with my toes?

Host:  (looking around at the other guests)  I...I really think you should go.

With this:

Bob:  ...and to think that that one cab ride would inspire Jane and I to go on a safari to the Congo is crazy to us.

Jane:  It was just nuts.  I mean, who goes on a trip to Africa on a whim like that?

Carol:  That's insane!  And then to have your caravan attacked by a lion, that's unbelievable!

Jim:  God, what a great story.

(General agreement among party guests)

You:  (Pause)  I once gave a full body massage to Catherine Deneuve.

Everybody:  What??!  TELL US MORE!!

You see there?  Why be the person who makes everybody count their spoons when you can be the doyen of the dinner party, the master storyteller, the maker of worlds, the giver of life?

Look, I am under no delusion that I am the hottest thing to hit the scene since Kit Marlowe, nor am I one of these astonishingly unrealistic bloggers who thinks that their webpage will one day have a readership comparable to that of US Weekly.  If a dozen people see this page in the course of its life, then I'd be shocked.  And this is true of 99.9% of all bloggers.  But I try to live by my own rules of thumb.

So if I am blessed to have even one person stick around long enough to read what I write, then goddamn it, I'm going to be that person's monkey, and I am going to dance.

 

Who's On Second

Everyone knows the phrase "Third World country" and many people know the phrase "First World country", but no one knows anything about Second World countries.  Pressed for an answer, no one could identify a Second World country.   

Except people who've been there.

Here's a good rule of thumb: does the country have the technical know-how and supply system to provide a three-egg omlette made with fresh eggs, mild cheddar cheese and thick Canadian bacon, like I had this morning?  Can it offer to the wary traveller fresh squeezed orange juice, crisp Texas toast and homemade strawberry preserves, as I enjoyed when I woke up?  Can you eat this meal while scanning at leisure over 150 channels on satellite television, ranging from baseball highlights to cooking shows to mindless Hollywood entertainment news?  If not, but it still claims to be civilized, then it is probably a Second World country.  Like Yugoslavia or Armenia or Albania.

Or Poland.