In the last few days some of my younger son’s friends have sent messages to my Facebook account asking me to join in a boycott of sportswriter Dennis Dodd and CBSSports.com because Dodd made some insensitive remarks about marching bands, specifically using the term “band geek” and basically being dismissive of musicians who choose to be in marching bands and drum corps.
Dodd was writing about an injury to Houston Wide Receiver Patrick Edwards who suffered a horrifying break to his leg during a Houston-Marshall game when he ran into an instrument rack left at the back of the end zone by the Marshall band. The first part of the article chronicles Edwards’ struggle to overcome the injury and play football again. Dodd also tells of how Edward’s is looking for someone to blame in the incident for the purpose of suing for damages, quoting the young receiver promising legal action as soon as he can figure out who to blame.
It is here that Dodd takes a left turn when he decided to blame the band. Dodd goes beyond simply putting them at fault because, as Edwards pointed out,”It was a band cart” that he crashed into, Dodd goes on to say that the band should be blamed because, well, they’re the band. The facts that he offers as proof?
“In general, band geeks are self-important and frequently out of tune. It's obvious to the rest of us, why not them? Led Zeppelin does not translate well to the trombone.”
Dodd recounts a tale of a reporter at the Rose Bowl who is running across the field to get to the press box and decides that the best route is right through the middle of the band. Shock of shocks the band, whom he describes as “Tuba Goons,” decide that one reporter with a notebook is easier to move than a group of people carrying instruments, which might weigh as much as fifty pounds. Only when a director comes to his rescue does the reporter escape the menacing clutches of the band. My bet is that Dodd was the reporter in the story and that he has been waiting a long time to get even. Other gems from Dodd’s story include;
"Remember when being in the band merely meant you couldn't get a date?"
"For the most part, bandies are neither funny nor, unfortunately, dieting."
He goes on to suggest that the band director’s head on a platter might be an appropriate bit of vindication for Edwards. You can read the entire article here.
The thing that makes Dodd’s article so infuriating is that he takes the attitude that only social misfits and geeks would be in a band or other marching ensembles. Corey Moore would be someone Dodd would consider a geek. Who is that you ask?
Corey Moore is the Drum Major for the Troopers Drum & Bugle Corps out of Casper Wyoming (and yes, before you mention it I do know the difference between a marching band and a drum corps, but stay with me here). Moore, 20, stepped up from the horn line to the drum major post this year and in seizing that responsibility has dedicated himself to making that corps."I'm expecting us to make the finals. That's our goal. That's 12. It's been since 1986," said Moore talking about the Drum Corps International Finals which to held in Indiana this summer which the Troopers have failed to qualify for in th epast twelve years. They did not even march in one of those years and even their own director refers to the current incarnation of the corps as a “comeback”.
What makes Moore special and worth talking about are the things he chooses not to make a big deal out of, the fact that he has been in and out of hospital emergency rooms since the start of rehearsals in May. The fact that he suffers not only from Chron’s Disease, but Primary Schlerosing Cholangitis (PSC) as well. PSC is a chronic progressive disease of bile ducts that route bile from the liver to the intestine and it is the same liver disease that killed Walter Payton. Eventually Moore will need a liver transplant.
These diseases slow Moore down not one iota. He participates in 14-hour per day rehearsals, travels across the country on busses getting very little sleep, performing at high schools and college stadiums in sometimes oppressive heats while wearing replica US Army Cavalry blues complete with sword and sidearm.
I had the pleasure of seeing The Troopers perform at a recent DCI event at Stanford Stadium and I have to admit that Moore stood out as he lead his corps out onto the field. His step is razor sharp, his gate is slow and assured, his posture is perfect. When the announcer calls out “Drum Major Corey Moore, is your corps ready?" Moore pivots on the ball of his foot like an army officer and, leaving out the flourishes of most drum majors, tosses off a sharp salute that would make any military man proud all while standing on a platform that isn’t much more than a scaffolding with some wooden planks some 12 feet off the ground.
Wearing a replica of a military uniform and in ultimate commitment to that role, Moore does not remove his hat, as drum corps tradition would dictate, when he turns back to his band to conduct because he IS at this moment an officer and he IS under arms (carrying a sword) and as any military man will tell you, one does not remove one’s cover when under arms (for the civilians reading this, that means if you’re holding a weapon, you keep your hat on). Even while standing awaiting award announcements Moore is a study in rigid determination, arms crossed across his chest, feet apart slightly, chest out, ready for anything, almost defying the judges to award his corps something other than first place. Unlike the other corps, he stands alone representing the entire unit (musicians and color guard).
The Troopers were not the best group I saw that night, but Moore stood out and it was only after I decided to find out more about him and the Troopers that I discovered this article about him in a Wyoming Newspaper (which I think you should all go read) about his ailments and his struggle to overcome them.
Is Moore a geek? Not in the way that Dodd thinks. I think if you substituted baseball or football or bocce for Drum Corps, Moore’s story would be played up more in the media of the towns he visits. In some ways Corey Moore is a lot like Patrick Edwards, both have a lot to overcome to do something they love.
While this young man’s story may be unique it is by far not the only story of commitment to craft and to corps that I have seen since my own son became involved in his school’s music program. As a former member of the jockocracy myself I can attest to having looked down at people in the band as annoying dorks. Then I watched my son and his fellow musicians practice and drill and practice and work harder than I ever did in any sport I played. I see the qualities that it takes to not only excel at your own instrument, but to try and lift the performances of those next to you to a higher level. I witnessed the camaraderie and the esprit de corps these kids had and, to be honest, I was a little jealous. Nothing brought that point home more when at the DCI show at Stanford the Blue Devils (a drum corps out of Concord CA) played the theme from A Band of Brothers (an HBO mini-series based on the book of the same name). The performance was short but moving and it made you realize that there was indeed a brotherhood out there on that field, a strong one built on commitment, loyalty and passion. The fact that men and women from myriad backgrounds stood shoulder-to-shoulder playing their instruments as individuals and as a band made you understand the ideas of team and commitment in some ways better than watching a football or baseball game.
After all that, you would think I would have jumped on that Dodd boycott bandwagon feet first. I can’t and the reason is simple; Corey Moore. As I write this, we are coming up on the Fourth of July, a celebration of our declaration of independence and of our becoming the country we are. In that declaration our founders wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
I think along with those things one of our inherent rights is to be able to be a moron and Dodd in his column (not just this latest one, but in most of the ones I have read) uses that right frequently. People fought and died for the idea that you and I have a right to say what we think and feel and that the press should be free of intimidation from anyone. As insulting as it might seem having someone like Dodd call a particular kind of musician geeks is not in the category of speech that should demand a boycott. I have been referred to as a geek reasonably frequently given my chosen profession (publishing comic books and graphic novels) and that is never going to stop. Trying to silence someone like Dodd does not make the misperceptions that people have about marching bands or comic books or anything else go away, if anything it tends to strengthen them. Living well, as the saying goes, is the best revenge and that’s how I have managed to silence my critics over the years.
I would think that Corey Moore (although I do not know him and cannot speak for him) would probably just stare a guy like Dodd down and then go about his business, and I think that everyone who feels strongly about what Dodd wrote should use the bully pulpit provided to us by the internet and modern society to ask for an apology. You won’t get one because Dodd seems committed to exercising his right to be a moron since his only response to people asking for an apology was “Brass blows”. So barring getting an apology perhaps a good alternative might be finding a way to evangelize your interests in a way that gets people interested. Find someone like Corey Moore and talk about them, every marching band or drum corps or other music ensembles must have similar, compelling stories to tell. Tell them. Continue to voice your displeasure about people like Dodd, use his name as often as possible when making your point on the internet and eventually the entire Google searching world will associate Dennis Dodd with being a moron (it seems like most people already do anyway, so it shouldn’t be too hard).
That’s my plan anyway.
My apologies for the lengthy post, I will now return you to your regular nonsense.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Boycott Dennis Dodd and the tyranny of free speech. Plus an uplifting story.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Royal Pains - Television Series Review
Being home sick from work means you tend to watch a bit of TV that you might not ordinarily see. Occasionally you discover a gem (A Battlestar Galactica marathon when I had the flu got me hooked on that show) and sometimes you discover that you can indeed develop tendon pain from pushing the channel button too frequently because there isn’t anything on worth watching for more than 30 seconds.
On my latest home leave I discovered a show called Royal Pains (USA Network, Thursday nights, also available for on-demand downloads at Amazon.com or streaming for free from the USA Network website) and while this wasn’t a gem, it wasn’t a total stinker either.
ROYAL PAINS centers on a young E.R. doctor named Hank Lawson (played by Mark Feuerstein) who, after unintentionally allowing a rich and powerful benefactor of the hospital he is working at in order to save a younger less wealthy patient, is convinced by his brother Evan (Paulo Costanzo doing a water-downed take on Tyler Labine’s character in Reaper) to spend a weekend in the Hamptons where he stumbles across an opportunity and becomes the reluctant concierge doctor (doctor for hire) to the rich and famous. When the attractive administrator of the local hospital (Jill Flint) asks him to treat the town's less fortunate in a free clinic, he finds himself becoming a sort of medical Robin Hood, taking from the rich so he can give to the poor.
This is kind a cross between All Creatures Great and Small and Nip/Tuck with rich D-bags hell bent on preserving their privacy and avoiding scandals instead of animals as the patients. That is the essence of the problem I had with the show, I really didn’t care much for the people the doctor is supposed to be saving. When Dr. Lawson gets a big retainer from someone putting himself on a solid financial footing, I almost felt like he was being drawn deeper into a soul-sucking morass of social dilettantes, excessive lifestyles and moral ambiguity.
That is, I guess, supposed to be balanced out by the people Dr. Hank helps as part of the free clinic, but it all comes off as being kind of lame. For instance in the Pilot episode, Hank saves a young woman at a rave from being accidentally killed by the cynical concierge doctor when he assumes she is suffering from a drug overdose. Given the rave-like qualities of the party that was an easy assumption to make. Our hero intercedes using near superhuman vision to note the girls eyes from across the room and diagnoses she is suffering an allergic reaction to an insecticide used in a garden she was walking in. It’s this act of diagnostic heroism which lands him the job as the Hamptons new medical mercenary. The first couple of episodes featured several McGyver like medical procedures, so much so a character even makes the comparison just to let you know they are doing this on purpose.
It seems that all of the Glitterati in the Hamptons have a couple of things in common, 1) They all share a disdain for the local hospital and B) They all need their conditions kept secret, which is why they are all willing to pay loads and loads of money for a physician to be on call to treat maladies as varied as a “Flat Tire” (a sudden deflation of a woman’s surgically enhanced breast) or to check out their girlfriends who might have been injured in a car accident.
On the opposite side of the coin, Dr. Lawson also helps a dog-walker who is an aspiring veterinarian whose hand has been bitten by one of his dogs and a fisherman who needs treatment for his diabetes.
Royal Pains is a USA Network show which means it follows something of a formula. A beautiful location (The Hamptons) beautiful people and an undercurrent of people rising above having the disadvantage of being advantaged to try to live normal lives (okay, that’s mostly a shot at Nip/Tuck).
So I hated those show right? Wrong. Is it a guilty pleasure kind of a thing? No. Is it a diamond in the rough? Nope, probably not. So what is it?
Royal Pains is a mild diversion, something to watch when you’re home sick and you have nothing better to watch. These days though I can’t imagine that no matter how sick you are yo couldn’t find SOMETHING better to watch. So what makes this worth watching.
The lead actors are very likable and the scenes they have together are not bad. I think the show would have been better served if the two had switched roles. I think Costanzo could have brought a lot more to the role of Hank Lawson, likewise Feuerstein looks like he is being constrained and just wants to take off and be like a character out of Animal House. I also like the McGyver-style medical treatments, it was cool and kind of believable.
So, if you like some of the USA Network shows like Burn Notice, Nip/Tuck or Monk, you’ll probably like Royal Pains and you should at least check it out. Otherwise, avoid getting a cold and watch more sports.
The Adventures of Buck Naked (or, the traffic lights and the new chivalry)
So, occasionally, life tosses you a bone. When things aren't going well and it feels like the whole world has abandoned you, when you have a summer cold (the worst kind of cold because, well, it's summer and we're all supposed to be disease free during summer), the recession is feeling like a depression and all you can think about is just packing it all in, life will jump up and toss you a small morsel of something interesting just to let you know that this stuff is not personal.
This happened during my drive home from work today. As I mentioned above, I have a cold, a bad one, the kind that makes you go home early. Things at work are very quiet (what? you mean people don't want to buy comics in a recession?) and given all of that I decided to get out while the getting was good and go home for the day and for the weekend.
I was stopped at a light waiting for a light rail train to go by so I could make my right turn and hit the last stretch home and the light going forward was red. A car pulled up next to me stopping at the light and when I glanced over I saw a very attractive woman in the passenger seat.
Naked.
Well, maybe not entirely naked, but she did not have a shirt on. She was, apparently, deciding what to wear because she had two tops in her hand (which, from what I could see, were not going to cover much. This young woman had fallen victim to the myth of the auto-glass invisibility field. This is the phenomena where people driving in cars think their rolled up car windows will block out prying eyes from anything they might be doing while driving. Most common caught-red-handed moments include The Pick (you know, where you practically have your forearm shoved into your nasal cavity) The Bucket Seat Boogie (where you are bouncing around in the seat, gyrating like an idiot probably to the music of Queen or ‘NSync) and lastly The Bluetooth Ballyhoo (where you carry on an animated conversation with an unseen partner, more than likely using a bluetooth device but in some cases talking with an imaginary friend).
Now, I am not going to belabor the point that I could see this girl’s everything, and that it was a pretty nice everything, or that she was kind of dumb to think that someone at a stop light would not see her and take a good look. For all I knew, she was aware people could see her and she didn’t care. That’s her deal and are we to judge.
So, was I was supposed to see this young woman. Think about it, if I didn’t have a cold and things weren’t so slow at the office I would have stayed until 5:00 or so instead of 3:00. The woman would have been at that stoplight two hours before me and I might not have been stopped to wait for a light rail train.
So, was I supposed to see her? No, but sometimes, like I said above, life will toss you a bone to make up for some of the crap that gets tossed your way.
And, yes, I realize writing about this makes me sound kind of piggish, but I blame the cold medicine. I guess the quality of modern day chivalry is that I did not take a picture, even though I had time, and I am not currently uploading it to the internet.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Cold Calls
One of the annoying parts of having a small business is the cold sales call. This is where someone calls you up out of the blue and tries to sell you something. I can't imagine it works since I have never bought anything from someone who just cold called or walked in my front door.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Father's Day in Hawaii
This is a little, no make that a lot, out of the order that I was going to post my old travel journals. However given that this one was written on Father's Day (actually the day after) I thought it would be a good idea to put this up today.
Okay, waking up in Maui on Fathers Day automatically makes this the best Fathers Day ever. We all woke up about the same time. Dillon had hand carried a Fathers Day gift he made in school in his backpack and he was just busting to give it to me. After cards, coffee in bed and presents, Michelle leaned over and asked me what i wanted to do today. I looked back at her and said “I'm doing it.” As beautiful as Maui is, and as much as I would have loved to see the rest of it, I was tired of driving around all over heck and back. I wanted to chill out and relax. We had made plans to go to Lahaina to the Old Lahaina Luau, so I figured a day of hanging around the pool and beach was warranted. So that's what we did.
We had a blast at the beach and pool, we drank and ate and just had generally great time. Anticipating much drinking and carousing at the Luau, I booked a shuttle bus trip to Lahaina, which we had to meet at 2:30 (because we wanted to visit some more of the shops.) The map that the Luau gives out puts its location just at the edge of the two block area that is the Front Street entertainment district (my name for it.) THIS MAP IS A LIE! It's not to scale, not even close. The location of the luau is a good two mile walk from the edge of the three block commercial district on Front Street where all of the shops, bars and restaurants are located. This became a problem because we walked to where we thought the luau was about five minutes AFTER check-in was supposed to start. We wandered around for 10 minutes looking for the place until someone who seemed to recognize the lost look on our face pointed us in the right direction.
We hustled our way down to the luau, We were all hot and sweaty when we got there. I was kind of pissed at the place for giving out such a deceiving map, but that dissipated quickly when they stuck a Mai Tai in my hands. Its alcohol content was questionable, but it was cold and tasty and I sucked it right down.
The Old Lahaina luau is one of the many luaus on Maui, but it comes billed as the most authentic polynesian luaus in all of Hawaii. The emphasis is on traditional Hawaiian dance and on retelling of Hawaiian history as opposed to the showmanship of the fire dancers and whatnot at the other places. It also came recommended very enthusiastically from nearly everyone we talked to.
The luau site is made up to look like a small polynesian village complete with grass huts and tikis. Picnic style tables surround the performance area and small serving areas surround the tables. The imu (the buried oven where the kalua pig is cooked) is off to one side. The bar is open and dispensing drinks very freely. Michelle came back from the bar with some green concoction which was not good. Noticing my displeasure our waiter said he would bring me a green drink I would love. He disappeared and returned with something he called “Liquid Hash.” It was great. I'm not sure what was in it, and the waiter wouldn't tell me. As a matter of fact when I tried to confirm the name of the drink, he quickly backtracked and called it “Old Lahaina Swamp Water.” I looked at him and called him on the name. He explained that it was something the bartenders made up, but they weren't allowed to refer to it by its original name. I ordered three more. It was about then that we saw a truly striking rainbow. The fact that I got a picture of it means that it wasn't alcohol induced.
Our waiter took us over to the serving area and explained the spread to us. There was a LOT of food, a list of stuff so long Id probably gain three pounds just typing it. Grilled steak, chicken, salads, baked taro root (which tastes like baked sweet potato) and of course the required bowl of poi. Everyone made a face when the waiter said the word poi, but he explained what its traditional use is and I decided I would give it a try. Poi, it seems, is a taro root paste which is best used as a condiment. The old Hawaiians would need to cure their fish and pork for the long travels between islands. The curing process leaves the meat tasting very salty, so they would use the poi as a dipping sauce in order to take some of the salty flavor out of their food. The waiter then recommended that we should eat the poi the traditional way, if we were inclined to try it. I tried it and, while not overly disgusting, I wouldn't say it changed my attitude towards poi. The food was great overall, though, and I ate like five times my own body weight. And that was before I went to the dessert tray.
As showtime approached our waiter came and took another drink order, and then informed us that he was going to be absent for a while because he was performing in the show. He said someone had called in sick and that he was pulling double duty. We assumed that he meant he was subbing for an ailing performer, but when we noticed that his picture was on the cover of the brochure and that he had a major role in the show we realized that he was a performer doubling as a waiter.
The show itself was very entertaining, providing a look at hula dancing in the islands history. There were a bunch of costume changes and a ton of dancing. Midway through the show our waiter/performer appeared again to take another drink order, which was delivered by a different waiter. By this time, our table was covered with the remains of several glasses of Mai Tais and Liquid Hashes. Dustin gave me one of his patented little boy disapproving looks and says “Dad, remember, the second beer is never a good idea.” I downed my Liquid Hash and pointed out that I wasn't drinking beer and it was Fathers Day and he should cut me some slack. He did, begrudgingly.
As the show was drawing to its conclusion, Kekai (our waiter/performer) appeared again, dripping with sweat and telling me that the bar was about to close and I should order up if I wanted anything else. I ordered another four Liquid Hashes, expecting that they would be delivered by the bus boy again. Much to my surprise Kekai delivered them himself on his way back to the backstage area, dropping them off with a big smile and then disappearing in a flash. I had no sooner lifted the first drink to my lips when I saw my man back on stage in a different costume, participating the in the grand finale. I was impressed. No, make that amazed. The man went above and beyond to make sure that I had one more drink (or several more drinks as the case may be) and it wasn't like he was stopping off at all of his tables and taking drink orders. I felt special.
The show ended and, finding the ability to walk, I staggered over to meet our shuttle bus for the ride back to the hotel. Our driver was very talkative and doing his best to kill my buzz. The rum coursing through my body started to take its toll and the twenty mile hike from the lobby to our room nearly did me in. I collapsed into a heap.I think Michelle undressed me (although the fact that I cant remember means I didn't enjoy it.) This was, without a doubt, the way EVERY man should spend his fathers day.
It’s Sunday night and we've got one more day and a wake up in paradise.
Friday, June 19, 2009
San Jose Sharks Captains, look back and look forward
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Whole World is Watching, or at least I am.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Baahh! It's Not Google!
So I have been noticing more and more traffic coming to my company's website (www.slgcomic.com) via Microsoft's Bing search engine. Enough so that I thought I would look into both paid advertisements as well as whatever version of Adsense they have for this blog. Low and behold when I clicked on the advertising link I was greeted with a screen which informed me of the following: Notes Okay, so you guessed it, I am writing this on a Mac and yes I am one of those people who are loathe to spend money on a Microsoft product. So my actually WANTING to spend money with that company should say something in and of itself.So since I am not going to search out someone with a Dell just for the purposes of advertising with Microsoft I guess I will not be trying out their new search platform as an advertising vehicle. It kind of reminds me of the old Groucho Marx quote "I'd never join a club that would have me as a member." or, as I maturely put it "Nyaah, I didn't want to advertise on your stupid search engine anyway."
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
New Orleans Day Three
Here is the third installment if my travel journal from my 1999 trip to New Orleans. When I look back on the trip I really recall it a lot more fondly than when I wrote about it. Time really does heal all wounds, although I would love to have the $3,000 I lost on the trip back.
But then, that would be true for a lot of things.
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Saturday May 29.
The show goes poorly for yet another day. My expectations were that we would come here and break even, or come close. We're not even close and this is turning into the financial debacle of the year. Over two days we've taken in about $400, and we've made more money than most of the exhibitors in the place. I'm going to have to ship almost everything back, and that sucks. This show was reasonably well promoted, so I'm not sure what to blame the poor attendance on. Even Adam West was wandering around scratching his head. He walked up to our table and said “Where is the crush? The crushing crowds?” which made sense, but just barely. I find myself in complete agreement with another exhibitor who said that if something didn't’ save this show on the last day, it would be a long time before New Orleans ever saw another comic book convention. We spent most of the morning playing You Don't Know Jack on my laptop.
The lack of business has become a distraction for me and I'm finding it difficult to enjoy what is easily the biggest party city in the world. I took a side trip into an area of the city on Magazine street which was the home to a bunch of funky shops. This is a little antique shop area off the beaten path. I wandered into a place called the House of Lounge which turned out to be a “Distinctive Lingerie Store” and not what I was expecting.
That night, we ventured back into the French Quarter looking for a place to have dinner. Travis has a narrow spectrum of food that he will eat, so we wandered from place to place until we found someplace that would serve something other than seafood, cajun or Creole food. We wound up at a place called Original Papa Joe's on Bourbon street. The food was good, I had a dish of gumbo while Bob had the jamblaya. I wouldn't put this on the top of my list of places to eat, but I wasn't disappointed either. Up the street about a block is the Court of Two Sisters, a place which came highly recommended. The weeks business has, however, made the prospect of eating there very dim.
Venturing back onto the street we come face to face with the unbiqutos shouts of “Show us your TITS!” and a shower of beads descending onto the streets from the balcony above. I had always thought about this little ritual as something that only happened during Mardi Gras but apparently this happens on a nightly basis and picks up some steam on the weekends when the crowds are big. We stand and watch for a while, I thought about trying to buy some beads, but as I said before the total lack of business has distracted me to the point of becoming a buzz kill. This is what happens when you sign on to own your own business. You make a bad decision and it follows you for a long time. Believe me, it takes a lot to distract me from a street full of naked breasts, that should give you an idea of my frame of mind. Not that I didn't notice them, however, just that I wasn't into it.
What I was into, but didn't really sample, was the various slurpee-style cocktail bars lining the streets. New Orleans is a 24 hour city with an open container law that allows you to carry booze up and down the street as long as it isn't in a glass or aluminum container (all the restaurants serve booze in plastic cups so you can just get up and walk out with it.) Its probably the best and worst place in the world for someone like me. It was probably a good thing that I wasn't feeling well, otherwise there's no telling how much I might have drank.
As we walked along Bourbon street the night before, Travis commented how it seemed odd that we hadn't seen any vermin yet, no cockroaches or rats of any kind. Well, that streak ended today when Travis saw a huge cockroach run onto the sidewalk where we were standing. He stomped the little bigger with his giant, steel-toed boots. When he lifted his foot we were shocked to discover that the thing was still alive. It had been pretty much crushed from the head down, yet it waved its little cockroach legs at Travis like it was flipping him off and saying “Screw you, skinhead. I'm gonna crawl off and breed a million more just like me. One day, I'll own you and this town.” It crawled off on two legs yelling for a little cockroach medic. A few blocks down we saw a rat big enough to put a leash on being chased by a voodoo witch-cat from a churchyard a few blocks away.
Needing a place to pee Bob and I wandered into a bar that looks like it was set up inside someone's living room. Outside we could still hear the hoots and hollers of the “show us your tits” crowd but I still wasn't into it and was just happy to have a place to pee. We walked back to Cafe Du Monde for more beignets and then we caught a cab and went home.
I wish I had come here on vacation, because I would be having one hell of a time. Right now all I can think about is trying to cut my losses and getting home. It occurred to me that the rental car we got has been basically sitting in the garage unused because we've taken cabs everywhere. I've spent money stupidly before, but that was knowing that it was going to be stupid going in. I keep coming back to the fact that, if this convention hadn't happened I probably would never have come to New Orleans, but if I can't enjoy myself, what's the point of coming.
I found myself looking for the Queen of Actor (or whatever) again, but she was nowhere to be found. I wanted to hold her accountable for her bogus fortune, but I guess even that little bit of retribution wasn't in the cards. When we got back to the hotel, both Travis and Bob heard chicken death-screams, vindicating me from the day before when both of them said I was nuts. I should have known there was something weird going on when I saw that the hotel gift shop sold Voodoo for Beginners kits. Maybe that's what went wrong with the Big Easy Con, bad hotel mojo.
This may not be the last comic convention ever held in New Orleans, but its probably the last one we're coming to.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Notes and thoughts, plus tax!
• A public service message for all teenage boys living in California. The "Long Shower" is not really a great cover for your, eh, "Me Time". We are in the midst of a water shortage crisis where we live, pretty much in a drought, so seriously find some other tactic. Chances are your dads are not far removed from their teenage years and they know what you are up to anyway. The time-honored tactic for calling the long shower to an end, flushing the toilet a couple of times, also wastes water.
So, seriously, find another venue for your man-time.
• Apparently fast food (excuse, quick service) restaurants are doing very well in This Economy (an expression I despise by the way). The chains are getting so big that Zagats restaurant guide has released a survey of Fast Food chains. Top chains were Wendy's for overall and for best burger. So, given the the state of the economy is the dollar menu at McDonald's the modern day equivalent of a soup kitchen.
• When we go to conventions we always tack on the local sales tax. The response from people is "Oh, you charge tax?" Understand something people, I do not CHARGE sales tax, i COLLECT sales tax, the state is the one charging you the tax and I am merely an uncompensated tax collector. Given the state of the economy and what is going on in various states (especially California) I think everyone exhibiting at shows this summer needs to make a point of collecting the local sales taxes (and of course for passing that money on to the various state agencies). Yeah, it's kind of a pain and the states don't make it easy sometimes, but I would assume that states are going to get more aggressive about collecting what they feel is owed them and cracking down on non-licensed show vendors. Look for ugly scenes in San Diego at Comic-Con this summer.
Worth noting, the New Orleans show I went to about 10 years ago (which I am reposting my travel journal to this blog), they had a representative from their equivalent of the BOE AT the show and as an exhibitor you could not set up without paying them a deposit and then they came to you at the end of the show to settle up.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Old Stories Part Three - Meanwhile, back at Bourbon Street
Morning comes fast when you've been up most of the night. We actually got in reasonably early, but the fact that we had gotten up at five in the morning the day before turned the entire day into a marathon. All I can say is that the hair of the dog has never tasted this bitter. I felt poorly coming into this town and I had no business drinking anything last night. Travis and Bob aren't doing much better than I, we seem to have mutually infected each other with a combination of cold/flu/poor judgment. In search for the groups enabler the verdict comes in that we're all guilty. On top of the cold/flu I came here with, it seems like I now have a slight case of alchohol poisoning or at least the nausea that I would associate with it. I'm looking out the window and I can see the air. The humidity here is the kind of thing legends are made of. You sweat while you take a shower. I'm wilting and I haven't even gone outdoors yet. It seems that the only livable time of day is the evening, and even then the air is stifling. In going down to the convention hall I learned what should be lesson one in the art of naming a business; consider regional takes on your chosen name. It seems that people in the south aren't amused by the name Slave Labor Graphics. I've gotten more than one disapproving look in the half hour I spent down in the hall this morning. Of course the security guard standing in front of my table was African/American. “Slave Labor huh?” he said, looking at me as I plopped my stuff down on the table. I d Even good shows take a toll on your brain, though, which is probably why we end up drinking so much and partying so hard in the evening. Going to San Diego and Chicago and Washington and New Orleans looks good on paper, but since most of our day is spent in a hotel or convention hall, we get to enjoy very little of what those cities have to offer. Right now I'm in a convention center three blocks from the French Quarter, but I won't be able to get out of here until after 7:00 PM. Most of the retail shops will have closed by then, which leaves us with just the bars and restaurants to hang out in. One place I was sure we were being sized up was at the C I got sized up again walking down Bourbon street later in the evening when a drug dealer wearing a Gilligan style hat asked me if I wanted to buy some coke and tried to hustle me down a side street. I waved him off and later that night I saw the guy being escorted to jail by five of New Orleans finest. Its kind of funny, all of the literature we've read about NOLA told us to stay away from deserted streets. Yet we felt the safest on the streets with the fewest people. The areas where all the tourists hang out had the largest number of unsavory characters in them. The deserted streets in the French Quarter were the mostly residential areas where people who didn't live there just wouldn't want to go. The Architecture here is wonderful, if it weren't for the humidity, I could really enjoy living around here just to be living in some of these old buildings. Bourbon Street pretty much lives up to its billing as an adult Disneyland, and underneath all of the neon and vomit there is some beautiful building design. Vomit is pretty much a recurring theme walking up and down Bourbon Street. The smell of stale beer and puke permeates the air. Ordinarily that would make me ill, but here it works. Bars selling take out booze are everywhere. Strip joints are also ubiquitous. I found it hard to resist the club that offered to let us “Wash your favorite dancer.” You could see right into the place. We passed it by, but the temptation was there. It was really odd to see families with children walking up and down Bourbon Street. Maybe they didn't know what Bourbon Street was all about but man, why would you let them stay once you did know? When we got to the end of Bourbon Street we wandered east a little until we came into a high-rent district lined with antique stores and some really cool hotels. We stopped for a drink in a small hipster-doofus club along the way called the Shim Sham (notable for its Dean Martin shrine above the bar and the fact that the only beer on tap was Pabst and Guinness), then made our way back to Cafe Du Monde for a cup of coffee and some Beignets. Beignets are basically a donut covered with powdered sugar, but the description doesn't do them justice. They're amazing and were the highlight of the night.They really cake the sugar onto those babys and you can't help getting covered in more white powder than your average coke dealer. Ordering a cafe au lait in New Orleans doesn't seem as hipster as it does in a Starbucks in San Jose. Sadly there were signs of encroaching mass-market bullshit in the French Quarter. On the outskirts of the Quarter there is a Hooters, a Planet Hollywood, a House of Blues, a Bubba Gumps and a Hard Rock Cafe. The only thing missing is a Starbucks. There was also Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville which, while not out of place, is also a chain. On the other hand, Pat O’Brian’s just opened a club in the City Walk at Universal Studios Orlando, so really maybe were just seeing the entire culture becoming homogenized. I doubt we'll ever get to feed live chickens to alligators in San Jose, our loss maybe. I ended the evening by having my tarot cards read by a gorgeous young woman who had set up a table St. Anne's street next to Jackson Square. Her name was Veronica and she was from the house of Ishtar, whatever the hell that is. This one street had dozens of little street vendor mystic types lined up and down it. It was late and all three of us were struck by how cute she was, so I decided to throw down for a reading. Of course she said all the right things. I'm going to be rich, but Ill have to work hard for it. everyone I know is also going to prosper and things generally look good for me. Of course, she had no clue what my future was going to be and I didn't think she would, but it seemed like a good way to sample some local color. About midway through the reading, some guy who looked like he just stepped out of an Anne Rice novel walked up and greeted our reader with a spooky "Good Morning," (it was, of course, near midnight). He was wearing a top hat and a cape and he smiled like a psycho. His name was Jess and apparently he is a prominent member of the Sanguine Society; a group of people who live like vampires, sleeping in coffins and only going out at night. He looked down at me and said “You have chosen one of the better ones.”and then he walked off into the night. That just seemed to be very New Orleans.
ecided to not respond, which might have been the best thing. Most of the service sector of the economy in NOLA is staffed by African/Americans. A lot of the bosses seem to be fat white guys with a plantation owner's mentality. I don't anticipate too much trouble while we're hear, but I'm going to go with SLG Publishing for the duration of the show just to be safe.
The show has started and things are going very badly for our team. While most of the people I know look at my travel schedule and say “Its so cool that you get to travel to all of these places.” What they fail to take into consideration is the tedium and mind-numbing boredom of having to work a booth at a trade show or convention for nine hours a day. This tedium is doubly bad when the show you're at is a dud... like this one is turning into. If there were a hundred people here today it would be a generous estimate. This is turning into one of the worst convention disasters since we exhibited at a Star Trek convention in Fresno. At least at that show, the promoter gave us our booth space for free and kicked in with some free food (of course I had to sit through a full scale Klingon/Federation friendship ceremony, but that's a story for another time.) Here, well, we're into it for a good pile of cash. In the end this thing is going to cost me over $2,000 to attend and we didn't even break a hundred dollars the first day of the show. Its raining like crazy outside, which might be keeping attendance down, and it is a Friday, so I'm holding out hope that the weekend will be better.
After the debacle that was Thursday night at Pat O’s, we all decided that drinking heavily wasn't going to be in the cards tonight. Still, we were here and we had to do something, so we ventured back into the French Quarter in search of food. The cab dropped us near Jackson Square and we wandered around some of those streets and alleys for awhile. We crossed through one street and were bombarded by bats feasting on low-flying insects. Given New Orleans legendary vampire population, I had to wonder if we weren't being sized up as someone's dinner for later in the night.
afe Pontalba. This was a nice looking place that served some good food in good portions. Its major claim to fame was that it was located in the oldest apartment building in the United States. The help, though, was something else. Our waiter couldn't have given a damn that we were in his section, eventually we got served by a waitress from a different section. The attention we got from the busboy was unwelcome and unwanted. This busboy kept asking where we were from. He kept checking out Travis’ tattoos and asking him if he was into heavy metal. The he turned his attention to me and asked me if I went to college. I was wearing one of my wife's patented homemade fish shirts, which as anyone who has seen can tell you attracts attention everywhere I go. I was also wearing the lesser of my watches (a steel Rolex) and this caught his attention. Very unsubtly the bus boy stared right at it to see what kind of watch it was, then he disappeared into the kitchen. Right then and there we knew we were being sized up as potential targets. If Travis weren't such a man-mountain, I'm sure we would have been rolled within minutes of leaving the restaurant.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Old Stories Two - I am a wonderful father.
The following was written in March of 2003 as I went with my then young son to a Kendo tournament. What is Kendo, read on McDuff. I must have been drinking pretty heavily because the Thompson influence is pretty apparent here.
3/23/02
It’s a month later and I am in a bus driving to southern California surrounded by people armed with swords and hell bent on hurting someone before the weekend is over. This is my kind of church group, I feel right at home here. These people are screaming violent maniacs with bloodlust in their eyes. The meek may inherit the earth, but this weekend they are going to get their pansy-asses kicked in, old school, with bamboo swords.
I am in this stink hole because the young boy I use as a beard when I'm cruising for married women has decided he wants to participate in a Kendo tournament. If you have never seen or heard of Kendo, it is a sort of Japanese fencing. Combatants use a bamboo sword called a shinai to whack away at each other until their eyes cross. The pads/armor they wear looks like some sort of medieval inquisitionist uniform, with helmet with cage/mask, gloves and a long flowing ceremonial robe that has to be put on in a very particular way.
To call it fencing though, is to understate the savage nature of the sport. The scoring alone is a kind of study in pain and suffering. The two armored combatants jockey for position, screaming and yelling at each other as they attempt to strike what amounts to a killing blow. There really is no other way to describe it. A point is earned when a quality hit is made with the end of your sword on the opponent’s head (men), hand (kote) or stomach (do, pronounced doe).
Not just any hit will do, it must be a quality hit, one with the edge of your sword and with the proper follow-through. The point being if you were a samurai fighting with a real sword you would either be cleaving open your opponents head, hacking his hand off at the wrist or slicing open his gut so that intestines were now sitting on top of his shoelaces. The first person to two points wins. Two points may not sound like much, but in real-life most knife fights end as soon as somebody slices his pinky, so this kind of scoring assumes a high tolerance for pain.
Normally, I show no interest in any of the boy’s hobbies, however I want him to develop into full-on maniac someday so I can use him to rough up the local junkies. Besides, interests in blood sports must be encouraged and nurtured. So off we go on this overloaded tour bus to Torrance California for the annual North/South kendo tournament.
We are barely half way through our trip when things start to go sour. The toilet on the bus, basically a port-a-potty on wheels, has begun to stink up the entire cabin. This unit, it seems, does not deal with feces well and makes no attempt to cover up the foul smell. So rank is the odor drifting through the bus that we don’t even notice driving by cowschwitz. Properly known as Harris Ranch, cowschwitz is one of the biggest meatpacking and dairy facilities in central California. Acres and acres of cows, stretching as far as the eye can see, all standing on mounds of their own shit. As all of these animals are destined for slaughter the place has earned the name cowschwitz honestly. The concentration camp parallel is heightened by a night-time drive-by as the place is lit with an eerie orange glow and the clouds of methane and cow shit look like a layer of poison gas floating over some World War I battlefield. A vegetarian’s nightmare located conveniently next to the freeway, cowschwitz is a landmark associated with gasps for air, watery eyes and an increase in speed from the limit of 70 to the limit of your cars engine. The air is so filled with methane that there should be warning posted about smoking in the area. The smell is enough to make a shithouse bat go crazy.
Except on this trip. The smell from the bathroom is so powerful and so foul that it makes me want to stop and have a picnic next to the killing room at Harris Ranch. I don’t even notice driving by the place because my eyes are too filled with tears to even see out the window.
The rest of the trip into the valley went smoothly and without incident. The only excitement was driving by the scene of an accident on the highway. A fire department helicopter was about to lift-off to take the casualties to the closest burn center. The car in this accident (and, strangely it seemed to be the only car in the accident, making it more of a fuck-up than an accident) had burst into flames. There were other charred bodies littering the median and of course traffic slowed to a standstill so tourists could get good pictures.
We arrive at the hotel to find that, in addition to our group, the place is overrun with toga-clad teenagers celebrating something or another. There were also some very well dressed people attending a wedding reception. And a hooker, Of course, there’s always a hooker and there was nothing special about this one, so we’ll skip the details. Since we had an early wake-up coming, and I wanted the boy to be in prime fighting shape and decided not to mess with the hooker and get some sleep.
Morning comes and we find ourselves at the Wilson Sports center for check-in. As I walk into the lobby I see that brackets are posted for the tournament. Brackets. Why did it have to be brackets? I had just lost a ton on March Madness betting. I was victimized by my own arrogance. This year I was just like millions of fools who don’t follow the college basketball until the NCAA Championships, then just bet the conventional wisdom. Gonzaga cost me my first parlay card. These jokers were #6 in the COUNTRY and they get bounced out of the tournament in the first round by a bunch of hayseeds from who-gives-a-shit University. Fucking Gonzaga. Had I been paying attention during the season I would have noticed that Gonzaga was due for an ass-savaging in the tournament due to the fact that they played what amounts to a bunch of stiffs in their conference. The first round loss ended a string of four consecutive seasons in which they made the sweet sixteen. They were no longer underdogs, people bet them like favorites and got screwed big time. Lots of people screwed the pooch on Gonzaga; Duke cost me money as well. Aren’t they supposed to be the Yankees of college basketball? I thought the fix was always in on them because they draw big ratings in the Final Four. Indiana went deep into the tournament proving that maybe Bobby Knight was a bigger problem then people thought.
But once again, I am digressing. I looked over the brackets and fought back the urge to start some action in the lobby on the thirteen and under category. My kid, despite being a beginner, has the heart of a killer and the soul of a madman and could wreak havoc on the brackets. I settle into the bleachers to watch the action. My kid is off hanging out with his kendo-thug friends. Good, I think to myself, he’s setting up a network. It’s good to make these kinds of connections early. You never know when you might need a gang of maniacs to roust a crack house.
At any rate, the first brackets are the women’s and senior brackets. I joked to myself that they were polite and letting the women and old folks go first. But a few minutes of watching the action told me that this was some pretty serious shit. The women were particularly savage, going at each other like banshees screaming at the top of their lungs. The seniors fought like experienced old warriors. They put on game faces that said, “I have seen death a million times, I will lose no sleep over yours.” The older men fought without fear, without hatered, without malice. The blows were decisive and there was no gloating, only the look that said “ I will briefly mourn your death before I add it to the list of stories I tell at the local pub.”
Soon after the women’s divisions came the division which included my kid. Rankings in Kendo are done sort of numerically. The lower rankings are called Kyu (pronounced Q), and are numbered six through zero. A beginner, like my kid, would be a six kyu. You would work your way up in practices and in tournaments until you reached zero kyu. After Kyu comes Dan. These are numbered ascending starting from one and going as high as the participant can go. You could have a 10 dan if someone was that good; The highest at this tourney was a 7 dan.
When they divide up the divisions, they further divide up by age. When you get to lower ages, under the age of 13, they tend to lump all of the skill levels together. So a 6 kyu could end up getting matched with a 0 kyu, which is kind of what happened to my kid. While younger than my kid, the opponent he drew was more experienced. My boy had the whole murderous heart thing going for him, but he still had not developed a strategy. Still, he fought his opponent to a standstill in the three-minute regulation bout, not giving up a point and ending in a tie. He fought almost the entire two-minute overtime period before losing in sudden death from a savage blow to the do (stomach.)
Had this been feudal Japan, the boy’s innards would now be piling up in the sand while his opponent watched stoically and small children laughed.
The boy took his defeat with grace, style and class. This is in direct contrast to my frantic ravings of “Fix! Fix!” from the grandstand. Having watched the sport of Kendo for almost two hours I now considered myself an expert. My kid made at least one decisisve blow to the head and maybe another to the hands. He had the other little creep beaten and should now be shoving his head on a pike. I was about to claim racism (all of the judges in his match were Japanese) but then thought better of it since everyone around me was carrying a big stick and would probably beat me to a pulp. While I was armed myself and could probably shoot my way out of any trouble I got into, I decided that it wasn’t worth messing with the police in Southern California. The police here are like storm-troopers and the swat teams are trained by the Delta Force to be extremely cruel and destructive.
Anyway it turns out that I did not understand the scoring system as well as I thought as the boy explained that in order to get a point you not only have to make a killing blow, but you need to call it out as you make it to prove it was not a lucky hit. Not only that, but you have to be moving in a forward manner so that the hit, the call and a forward stomp with the foot all have to happen together. I think that's where things sort of fall apart for me in the scoring. I have survived many a bar-fight by getting a lucky punch in on some much bigger, stronger, dumber drunk. That's how I wound up with the boys mother, actually. I do like the idea of calling your shot though, not so much for proving you intended to make the hit you made, but to encourage taunting of your opponent.
The trip back home was uneventful. There was much swapping of war stories and screams of "we'll take em next year!" All in all this was a good trip.
Old Stories
While cleaning up my hard drive of old files I discovered that I have been blogging before blogging had a name. Back then it was just an online journal of my travels. Most of this stuff is about 10 years old and sort of shows my Hunter S. Thompson influence.
Today I'm flying to New Orleans to exhibit at the first ever Big Easy Comic-Con. My road crew for this trip consists of Travis O'Neil (Slave Labor's new operations manager and the guy who is supposed to watch my back) and Bob Simpkins (now in his second tour of duty with Slave Labor, assuming the job of publisher recently vacated by new Reno resident Craig Pape).
Things started on a lousy note for us when we went to get our seat assignments and they couldn't seat us together. On the first leg of the trip (San Jose to Salt Lake City) Travis and Bob sat in the back two rows of the airplane while I lucked out and got a bulkhead seat. Things got even worse for me when the gate attendant wouldn't let me board with my rolling suitcase. It seems that someone from the plane had called down and told them that all of the overhead bins were full. This turned out not to be the case, there wa plenty of bin room. I couldn't get my bag back and now I know it's going to end up in Cincinnati or someplace worse.
The situation went from annoying to bizarre after I got seated when this punk kid in the row behind me signaled the flight attendant over to him and reported that “He was a danger to himself and everyone on the aircraft and was capable of hurting someone.”
“What?” the woman replied. “I'm going to hurt myself or someone else on this flight.” he repeated.
There was a man sitting next to the kid who interrupted and said “Ignore him, he's pulling your leg.” “No I'm not” insisted the kid. At this point the flight attendant asked the kid if he wanted to get off the airplane. He was in the process of saying yes when the man sitting next to him flashed a badge and announced to the flight crew that he was escorting the young man back to Utah for trial. After some verification of paperwork and an assurance from the officer that the kid would be no trouble, things settled down and returned to normal. I shot the little sociopath a stink eye that said “If you do anything to make me miss my connecting flight, standing trial in Utah is going to be the least of your troubles.”
An interesting observation about Delta Airlines flight attendants; they have mastered a facial expression which is hard to describe. They don't smile, not fully. Yet they don't frown or scowl. They go about their business with an attitude that says “Being a flight attendant would be great if it weren't for all of the passengers.” They aren't unfriendly or surly (that would be American Airlines flight attendants) but they fall far short of being the friendly, helpful bunch that you might find on Southwest Airlines (Southwest is a great airline they seem to understand that flying is no longer a pleasant experience and they help you make the best of it). Nobody has been rude to us yet, but the flights not over.
Anyway if I had to name the expression, I guess I would call it a smowl. Just enough of a smile to not insult you, but enough of a scowl that says “Fuck you very much, and thanks for flying Delta” On the Salt Lake to New Orleans leg of the trip I decide that I'm going to bust out with the new laptop computer right after the meal service. I should have just declined the food which was something like teriyaki shoe leather and some kind of green substance as a side dish. There was also a mold of something that looked like it might have (at one time) been mashed potatoes. Airline food is never great, but it's sometimes passable. This stuff was tailor made to be inedible.
After the meal I discover the folly of pulling out a G3 Laptop computer in a coach seat of a 727. I struggled with the bag (which I had slid under the seat in front of me) for what seemed like 10 minutes. Once I finally managed to get it out I discovered that the stupid thing was just a bit to big for the flip down tray. As a result, I couldn't lean the screen as far back as I would have liked. I mention this only because Apple markets these things as being portable and versatile. One of the selling points is that, if you buy a DVD kit, you can watch Austin Powers on an airplane TWICE.! Fat chance, I say. I doubt I could get the CD carrier to eject without poking the person sitting next to me. And it has nothing, NOTHING I TELL YOU, nothing to do with the fact that my stomach has now encroached into my lap area, leaving me with considerably leass lap than I had a few years ago.
Still, I made the effort to get it out and turned on, if only to convince myself that one of my main reasons for buying the G3 in the first place hadn't just been flushed down the chemical blue toilet of the unfriendly Delta Airlines skies.
I don't know if it's the fact that I'm fighting off a cold or just plain tired, but the people around me are starting to look odd. The two people in the row next to me have settled in to read a couple of their favorite bestsellers; The new Garfield collection and the latest musings by that noted redneck philosopher/thinker Jeff Foxworthy. I fear that I am flying into a wasteland of inbred dolts. Out of the corner of my eye I see one of my fellow hillbilly passengers eyeing my laptop like one of those apes staring at the monolith at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I imagine he's thinking to himself “I'm gonna git me one a’ them things and git me on that internet. Alls I need is a little book ‘larnin and a computer and I could sell metal pigs to people in other countries like Alabama.”
Maybe its not that bad. Or maybe it is. I've lost my ability to judge reality as this plane keeps getting tossed around like bad ideas at a Hollywood pitch session. I think we're somewhere near Louisiana. Below me cousins are marrying, gators are eating tourists and some weird voodoo priestess is cursing the fact that Delta flight attendants don't smile. I fear my lunch will revisit me soon and it won't look substantially different than before it was eaten.
Its about 12:45 PST. The clouds outside have an unfamiliar quality to them. They look like they're filled with water and anger, and that they would prefer that I not stare at them. It seems that the entire southeast is mooning me from below. Elsewhere in the cabin, babies are crying. A teenage girl is rocking a cabbage patch doll as if it were a real child. I look away in case she make a poopy. The captain keeps turning the seat belt sign on and off, taunting me into thinking that he's got the situation under control. Suddenly this whole New Orleans trip is looking more and more like a bad idea. I'll type more after I land and I finish throwing up.
11:05 PM Central time - Riverside Hilton, New Orleans.
Okay, I overreacted a little about the flights. Had there been actual emergencies I probably would have written my last will and testament instead of flippant remarks about flight attendants and people from the south. The landing was rough, though. I think the pilot was making side money dusting crops because he came in at a strange angle. We made some radical turns and, when he finally decided to put the plane down, he bounced the damn thing three times. We almost went sideways at on point. It seemed less like a landing and more like a controlled crash.
Getting off the plane we discovered something that we've always known about but never admitted; NEW ORLEANS IS HUMID AS HELL! Its really bad, like walking through a sauna. We walked to dinner and Bob mentioned something about the rain. I told him it wasn't raining, that the air had just become solid water, All in all, the weather here stinks.
During the drive in we saw our first sign of stereotypical real south; A trailer flying a confederate flag pulled up along side of the road with broken fishing boats strewn all around it. I saw the home of the redneck and was awestruck by its attention to cliché. You have got to love the irony of a state with a population that's like 80% black and can still boast a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan as a legitimate candidate for governor.
We mad our first foray into the French Quarter tonight. Without getting into the gruesome details I'll just tell you that mistakes were made. Another thing, never drink with an irishman at a place called Pat O’Brian’s. Pat O’s as it's more commonly known, is the home of the Hurricane, a drink that ,when well made, is pretty good. Sadly, the hurricane at Pat O’s leaves a lot to be desired, more of an alcoholic brain freeze than a proper mixed drink. I was ready to cast many an aspersion towards the legendary bar until I sampled the Mint Julep. A little cup of heaven. Also worth sampling are the Rum Runner and the Plantation Punch.
The number of drinks I mentioned above should give you an idea about the mistakes that were made.
At any rate, I decided that the Hurricane at Pat O’s was something that they served to tourists. Later in the evening I noticed that when you ordered one the bartender would just pull a pre-made one out of a refrigerator under the bar. That just isn't good for anyone.
Pat O’Brian’s is actually three bars. A regular bar bar (where we spent the evening), a piano bar across the hall, and a patio bar with a real cool fountain that lights up at night. This is a place worth seeing if you're in New Orleans. It has an odd rest room set up, though. The men's room nearest the bar we were sitting in only had urinals. To find a stall, I needed to go use the rest room in the piano bar, and let me tell you, they don't want just anyone wandering into the piano bar. There's a line a mile long for the bar, and the doorman is pretty adamant about making sure you're using the rest room and not trying to sneak in ahead of the line. I had to explain in some detail why I wanted to use that particular bathroom (“Well pal, it's like this, I really gotta vomit, and I don't want to have to do it in the urinal.” The stall in that rest room didn't have a door (to discourage unsavory activity? Come on, this town's foundation is unsavory activity) and I imagined myself back in grade school.
Across the street is a voodoo store. Shrunken heads; chicken feet necklaces; little bad mojo kits complete with dolls, pins and an instruction manual, and weird stuff. Pretty much sums up the city. Most of what was in the store we termed "tourist voodoo". That might sound weird but it's par fot the course in a place where you can have guided tours of haunted places and graveyards.
For those of you who don't know, New Orleans is actually below sea level. That's why its famous graveyards consist of above ground crypts. In a good rain, bodies buried in the ground have a tendency to rise to the surface and float away. Many of the crypts are very ornate and, when combined with the voodoo and vampiric history of the city, make interesting landmarks. One man's creepy is another man's cool, and i declare this to be very cool indeed.
You can also take tours of the swamps, but somehow the notion of going into a gator filled bog in a small boat with some cajun guide strikes me as a little too Deliverance.
Even the normal stuff has an odd vibe to it. I'm sure our hotel has some kind of bad voodoo mojo going on in it, and it's a pretty modern place. When I went to the ice machine I could have sworn I heard the screams of a dying chicken coming from one of the rooms. Was it some kind of ritual sacrifice, or some NOLA hooker doing a special?
I don't know.
I don't want to know. All I know is that I'm going to be real nice to the locals while I'm here. And I'm steering clear of anyplace with a goats head in the window.
Tomorrow the convention starts.
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