geardrops [blog]

I realized I needed a wrap-up post for Comic-Con. Because you care, and I care that you care, and you care that I care.

The problem with Bill Willingham is that he wants more readers, just not you. He made this abundantly clear by wasting easily a fourth of the Fables panel mocking the television-viewers in the room, instead of talking about Fables-related things. Sir, I understand you’re bitter that the line to 6DE wrapped thrice on itself solely because of Venture Brothers and nothing to do with yourselves, but it’s not very classy when you let it hang out like that.

9 looks promising. District 9 will either be amazing or shit.

Doc Hammer cannot seem to remember that the room might be populated with those under the age of eighteen, even when reminded.

Audience Member: I just wanted to start off by saying, Mr Publick, I’m sorry for trying to lure you to my hotel room last night.

Jackson Publick: Were you?

Audience Member: You were pretty drunk.

Doc Hammer: Wait, where the hell was I when this happened?

Jackson Publick: Probably drunk too.

Doc Hammer: [to audience member] Damnit, why didn’t you ask me? I could have been waking up in your tub right now.

This only got worse as the panel continued…

Audience Member 2: Just wanna start by saying I love you guys…

Doc Hammer: And I love you. Let’s go back to your hotel room. Can we get that first guy involved? The one with the glasses? You and I can do a high-five over him.

James Urbaniak: So I just noticed… on the back of these little nameplates, it says: “Please be aware that some of your audience members might be under the age of eighteen, and that you are advised to keep the content of your panel appropriate for this audience.”

Doc Hammer: … [staring at this second audience member] … [realizes he looks a little young] …

Jackson Publick: You know what we should be talking about? Vegetables.

Doc Hammer: Yeah! And when I say ‘get it up and keep it up’ I mean your grades.

This was some of the milder stuff. My hobby during this was to watch Keith Crofford simply react.

Watchmen was fun, if for no other reason than Zack Snyder wound up accidentally hosting a food drive simply from being asked if he preferred smooth or crunchy peanut butter (so you do not freak out, I believe the answer was smooth). An audience member cried out that he must have jelly, to which he replied: “I don’t want any jelly that could possibly have come from this audience.”

In the end, a good time was had by all. And I received an ARC of THE CHILD THIEF, which is great so far. Was pretty sold on THE MAZE RUNNER but, alas, no ARC to be had.

The main event of my Saturday — weekend in general, really — was attending Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival.

Just so you understand, this was the drive I took, having to pick up Kat in San Francisco.

Pro tip: If your friend says she is somewhere near Fisherman’s Wharf (let’s say, for funsies, Pier 39), tell her to start walking in the opposite direction and you will meet her there.

Pro tip two: Taylor and California is steep. Burnout here is likely, and absolutely terrifying when the car behind you is riding your ass. Seriously, guy in the Mercedes. My tires are spinning and screaming, and you think, “I shall come closer, this Civic looks like it’s handling the 60-degree angle well.” I really wish natural selection worked.

Pro tip three: There is a Kinko’s open relatively late on Geary and Stanyan, should you forget to print out your tickets.

On the way, Kat related a story to me about having seen from her window, a man in a tophat, speaking, “But there was no one there to talk to,” and pulling things out of the walls, “But there was nothing in the walls to pull out.” I asked if he was insane or a magician. After all, he had a tophat, so that might make you wonder.

“Well, he didn’t really act like a magician,” Kat said. “But if he was insane, then how did he get the tophat?”

Solely by the aid of our toy phones, we were able to get to the fairgrounds. Oakland has the market cornered on large, open spaces. The line to enter the festival was obscenely long, but once we got inside, the place was large enough not to seem overly packed.

The shows were really entertaining. I observed them from a distance as we walked and stared at art. There was the giant Mouse Trap making another appearance. My splurge purchase of the evening was a lovely staff from Trick Concepts, and they were kind enough to let me experiment with many of the staves before I came to my choice (5′3″, 3oz weight on either end).

Then Amanda Palmer played, and she was fabulous as ever, and she and Neil Gaiman signed books and both persisted in being fabulous. During the concert, Kat and I nosed our way to the front, and found two others who were as big fans as we were. If you were at the show, we were the obnoxious people singing near the front.

I’d have to say the highlight of Amanda’s set was the soulful cover of Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean, accompanied by an interpretive dance revolving primarily around the Napoleon Dynamite dance as performed by a pregnant cheerleader. That’s rather tough to beat.

After the show, we spotted our co-singers again, whom we officially met as David and Lynlee. Holding our spot in the signing line, I guided Kat to them by shouting, “Right in front of you, I swear to god, she’s right– You just passed her. Turn around. Turn around. Okay. No, you just passed her again.” They took the BART in. I volunteered taking them back, as they live in SOMA and well it wasn’t that far out of my way. Plus I got to see Lynlee get her rack signed by Amanda Palmer in shiny gold paint.

I said, “Tomorrow you’re going to wake up, hung over, asking ‘Why do I have gold paint on my boobs?’”

“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve had to ask that question…”

I thought the end of the evening would be marked by the four of us singing Dresden Dolls over the Bay Bridge. Which was lovely. But it was not.

I thought perhaps it would be marked by being in a fancy-digs SOMA residence with the classic Devo hat introducing them to the Polysics. Not that either.

Then I thought it would be on the way back home, when I saw a shitty little car — think if a Ford Pinto and an old Volkswagen Rabbit had a baby, and let’s just say it had a face only a mother could love — with police lights duct-taped to the top of the car. Part of me wishes I was kidding. Most of me is glad I’m not.

But no, it was finally concluded by the man backpacking the 101S-680N interchange. Backpacking. Shit you not.

San Jose, June 23 2009

The rally had been going on for near an hour at this point. We were collected at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park, and though he worked for laborers I think he would have appreciated this. The sun was beyond the skyline and night swept up as we began marching around the plaza, chanting, candles in our hands.

I carried a clear plastic cup with a little tea light inside, wick swimming in melted wax, wind still creeping over the lip of the cup and threatening the tiny flame. It danced, flickered, then went out.

“Excuse me.”

The woman beside me had a long candle whose flame was protected by a tiny Dixie cup. She was middle-aged, and her skin a lovely shade darker than my pale Slavic heritage granted me. “Yes?”

“My candle has gone out. Could I borrow your candle to re-light it?”

We pulled off from the line of slow-moving demonstrators, and struggled against the wind to re-light my candle.

“Are you half-Persian?” she asked me. Valid question, as I don’t look even remotely Persian.

“No.”

“Oh.”

Clearly she wanted to ask why I was there. The question was on her lips, but she couldn’t say it for fear of offending me. I appreciated this, as I’d spent the past near-hour concerned someone was going to call me out, asking what Whitey McCornbread was doing here.

She found a more tactful way to get to the question. “How did you hear about this?”

“A friend of mine was in a rally in San Francisco when he heard about this one, and told me.”

“So you know what this is about?”

“I’ve been keeping up.”

She was clearly surprised, I suppose most non-Persians aren’t even aware of the situation, let alone pay enough attention to keep up, so I explain.

“It’s just, a nation is clearly crying out for democracy, for a vote they can put their faith in, for a government they can trust, and they don’t have that. We’ve enjoyed this freedom in America for over 200 years now, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be taken away in an instant if we stop paying attention. A nation’s freedom is only maintained by the vigilance of its people, and I support the vigilance and the passion of the people of Iran.”

I took a breath here, a long one, to calm the burn in my throat that crept up as I spoke. Words came with increasing difficulty, but I worked to finish what I’d started. “I don’t really care what nation it is, when innocent people are being killed for trying to assert their rights, their voice, it goes beyond borders. It’s not about being Persian, or American, it’s…” I couldn’t speak anymore.

“It’s about being human.” She finished my sentence, but barely.

We caught a gap in the wind and my candle was re-lit. “Thank you,” I said.

She smiled. “Thank you.”

(more photos)

I learned a valuable lesson on Saturday concerning where cars ought be parked.

I went to a Hot Drinks Party on Saturday, in San Francisco. Swanky little place with an incredible view, overlooking Folsom. I arrived unfashionably late, due to having spent the day at the Dickens Fair. Glogg and spiced cider was served. I partook.

I sat around awkwardly, as is my wont when confronted with a room of faces I’ve neither met nor been introduced to. I spotted a friend and clung to her, listening in on conversations.

Our host, Steven, called our attention by asking, “Is that a fire?”

I glanced to the kitchen, but he was staring outside. I shifted focus. Lo. Fire.

Across the street, directly in front of our gaping windows, a recycling bin caught fire. Nobody was certain how this was achieved, but the cardboard spilling out like an overstuffed bouquet blossomed orange on top.

“That looks really close to the car,” someone said. Don’t ask me who. “Think it’ll explode?”

“It’s really hard to make a car explode,” I said.

Steven ran off to call 911.

As minutes ticked by, the blaze grew, and I realized if one of us had run out there with an extinguisher when we first noticed the flames, there wouldn’t be a problem, but now it was far too late to help. I shared this observation with the group. “Entertainment through schadenfreude.”

“Is the car on fire?”

“The cabin’s all full of smoke, look!”

“There’s flames underneath it!”

“I hope they have good insurance.”

We watched the flames grow.

The fire truck eventually came, and promptly put out the fire. We cheered. They noticed, and waved. We cheered some more. One of the firemen brought out an ax and began smashing the windows. It was explained that occasionally, heat within will cause windows to crack and shatter. This was explained via the visual of columns of apartment windows shattering in a fire while residents fled the building.

The ax continued its work. The fireman took a swing at the windshield, but didn’t manage to break it. Just a large wound surrounded by spiderwebbing, purposeless.

I frowned. “Now that’s just mean-spirited.”

We continued our watching, until the fire department cleared out, trailed by the police. A decision was made to survey the damage, which I supported. After all, we’d watched the full process. It was our due.

Being on Folsom, near the Gordon Biersch on Embarcadero, scattered couples were walking down the street. The couple in front of our pack stopped to take a good look at the truck.

A very good look.

“Sir? Is this your vehicle?”

The girl stepped back, hands on her mouth. I turned away briefly, stifling a horrible laugh. (I’ve long since come to terms with the fact that I’m a horrible person and it’s time you do the same.) Her eyes were wide. He nodded, once, slowly.

“What if they’re in South Bay?” I asked our small group, in discrete tones.

Crissy stepped forward. “Are you guys okay? Will you be able to get back home?”

The girl stared at her, through a fog.

“We all drove up here from South Bay.” I pointed at the window we spent the previous hour glued to. “We saw the whole thing happen. We called the police. One of us can drive you back if you need.”

“I…” She pointed west. “He…” She pointed north. “We’ll take a cab.”

We nodded and backed away. No need to be a gawker. Not at that moment. Instead, we returned to the party, explaining what we’d seen. Conversation returned, and we casually watched the windows now. The boy put the girl into a cab and took a separate one.

Worst date ever.

“It’s incredible,” Crissy said at one point. “Crap like this happens, the city never even skips a beat.”

Never park next to a full recycling bin.

Photos here.

Day One - October 31

Spent the bulk of the evening around drinks with Shweta, Emily*, Jeff, and Ann*. Conversation was mainly of the speculative variety, from loved fiction to their Clarion experiences to politics, though we mostly grazed that latter topic with frustrated fists and let it be. I have not had a “Clarion Experience” myself, but I enjoyed being a fly on the wall for this one. And as long as I didn’t mention my lack of Clarion, I remained unnoticed by Emily and Shweta and their odd desire to see me go to Clarion.

It’s likely to not happen, though I appreciate the sentiment.

I tried to subtly snipe a photo of Nathaniel from Abney Park. Ninja I am not. He cornered me over whiskey and tea and we discussed everything and nothing.

Met a lovely group of people and drank Black Bush. The topic of the day for this and many conversations was how wonderful the steampunk community is. Which, truly, it is. But more on this later.

Met more lovely people who apparently were Platform One. Had a lovely discussion about music and general creativity, and did my best to explain steampunk to someone who demanded more punk and less steam. But our punk comes not from our willingness to destroy but our willingness to create and reclaim that which has been lost. We say no-thank-you to the society that demands we drink and party every night, that rampant and tawdry consumerism is a sign of being confident in one’s self, and that maybe, just maybe, sitting in your room with a soldering iron and a cup of tea is an okay way to spend your Saturday night.

Moreover, unlike regular punk, steampunk owns the fact that the visual aesthetic is a big part of the identity. But this is perhaps an essay topic for later.

Day Two - November 1

It took me a day, but I discovered the game Damnation, demo of which resided in the lobby just by the vittles stand. I spent far too much time here, waxing about this game. I, by history, am a gamer, and this is a good game. I’ll likely make a post exclusively about the game once it’s released. It’s got a steampunk look to it, though I can’t speak to the steampunk feel from the demo. It was standard shooter goodness, with a bit of magic powers, and some acrobatic platform-jumping. If you’re a fan of things like Resident Evil 4, Bioshock, or HalfLife, as far as gameplay goes, you might enjoy this one.

The VanderMeers held a panel, solo (duo?), though I believe they were supposed to have others with them. Which led to them interviewing one another, not having rehearsed the questions beforehand. The highlight of the whole thing was when Ann embarrassed the living hell out of Jeff. She opened the interview session with, and I’m paraphrasing: “Now, Jeff doesn’t know I’m about to say this, but we’ve done this before, asking one another interview questions. But we’ve always done it naked. So this will be the first time we interview one another with clothes on.” I’m not exactly certain, but I think Jeff turned purple at one point.

What I took away from that panel was the five awesome things of steampunk, which Ann claimed to have bogarted from someone else: one, it’s something the genders can share; two, fantastic visual aesthetic; three, it’s goth’s nicer cousin; four, it bridges the subgenre gaps; and five, it goes back to the “promise” of science, of a glorious future-that-could-be. The last could be another essay topic all on its own.

The VonSlatt keynote was wonderful, and I won’t do you the disservice of summarizing it. Instead, I’ll link it. I particularly enjoyed his discussing tinkering with respect to open source projects; I feel too many stare at a computer as a terrifying black box with a shaman inside, and I work to demystify the thing to my friends.

Then came the Party at the Center of the Earth. Mme Cavalaxis had the wonderful and decidedly drunken idea to dance. I followed, as did a few others. I decided our party was too small, and there were questing eyes in the audience, the longing look of, “I want to dance but none of the boys want to dance with me.” I pulled hands and we danced around the room until the floors were flooded.

Abney Park and Platform One put on good sets.

Day Three - November 2

My first event, after getting a Jamba and hiding the fact that my hair was in need of a deep cleansing, I went to a panel on Researching and Writing Steampunk, with Ryan Galiotto*, Gail Carriger, Mike Perschon, and Jeff VanderMeer, moderated by Ann VanderMeer. What I liked about the panel was the opening question, about entry points into steampunk. The answers varied from the clothing (Gail) to having a story idea and being told it’s steampunk (Mike) to comics (Ryan). It really does emphasize the all-inclusive nature of steampunk.

Gail did a very good, detailed writeup for this panel, over here.

So, that’s my redux of the con. Hope you enjoyed reading.

* If you have a link and spot this, let me know, so I can link you properly in the text.

Lad, I don’t know where you’ve been, but I see you’ve won first prize.

I have this problem. I’m very inappropriate. I have a difficult time self-censoring.

And my friends? Same problems.

Driving this weekend, and we’ve all had a bit to drink. The designated driver of the group, however, had only one drink, which for him is like a glass of water. Still, he speeds, and gets pulled over.

There are two weekends you don’t speed: Memorial Day and Labor Day. I tried to tell him this, but well.

Cop hauls him out of the car when he smells the alcohol. Why wouldn’t he smell alcohol? We had a car full of drunk people. The cop called for backup and started my friend on a sobriety test. Asks him to walk in a straight line.

Then he busts out the breathalyzer.

“I want you to blow into this, long and hard.”

My friend stares at the cop, briefly. I see the gears working in his mind and knew, knew in the depths of my soul, that he was about to get wildly inappropriate on this cop, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it. After a pause he opened his mouth and spoke:

“That’s what she said.”

And so you don’t wonder, he blew a 0.01, which is far below the legal limit.

Office Mate: What are your colors?

Me: Um..?

OM: For the company lunch. What are your colors?

Me: I don’t understand the assignment.

OM: Sports team. They want us to wear the colors of our favorite sports team to the company lunch.

Me: Oh. Er. I guess I’d wear all black.

OM: What team is that?

Me: The All Blacks?

OM: Fair enough.

Today was a Dollar Day. This has nothing to do with the post at hand, but I’m tracking this for posterity.

In 2002, when I was but a senior in high school, I had what I have now termed a “Dollar Day.” It is a day in which a stream of small things go wrong, one after the other, until you’re overwhelmed. The most memorable day of this happening was that fateful March 2002 day, which began with my locking my keys in my still-running car and ended with me running out of gas in the middle of rush-hour traffic (in Los Angeles) and landing my car in the one stretch of freeway that required I walk through traffic to get to a call box. On my way to said call box, I found a dollar, and that was the high point of the day. Hence, Dollar Day.

Today was one of those days. And, indeed, it actually ended with me finding a dollar. But that’s not what this post is about.

The third sandwich shop I found (because the other two were closed) was barren, with naught but a surly Asian man standing behind a row of bread. He rushes me to order but I ignore him, staring at the menu, contemplating.

On the menu is one of my standard favorites: chicken salad. However, people are wont to put strange things in chicken salad, like nuts, which I detest.

Me: What’s in your chicken salad?

SammichMan: Chicken.

I stare at him. Perhaps he’s building up the list in his mind? Perhaps he didn’t hear what I asked?

Me: And… what else?

SammichMan: Mayonnaise.

Me: Uh-huh.

Things were going well.

SammichMan: Celery.

I fiddle with my lip ring and return to the menu.

SammichMan: Chicken, mayonnaise, celery, salt, and pepper.

He rattles this off as if he only now understood that when I asked what was in the chicken salad I was asking for, yes, all the ingredients.

I proceed in my sandwich selection, undeterred.

Me: What’s in your Polish sandwich?

I’m Polish. Sometimes you have to kick back to your roots. Plus, sauerkraut sounded really good at the time.

SammichMan: Bread.

He points emphatically at the bread, to make sure I knew.

Me: Er. Yes. Typically. What else? Sauerkraut?

SammichMan: Sausage.

I sigh. I mean, really?

Me: Fine, I’ll have the Polish sandwich.

SammichMan: Do you want everything on it?

Hang about. We’ve been here before, except last time I was the one driving.

Me: What’s ‘everything’?

He gives me this look as if somehow I’m the idiot in this scenario.

SammichMan: Mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions.

Me: Just mayo, mustard, and tomatoes, please.

SammichMan: You want sauerkraut?

MD: Er. Yes. Thank you.

All I have to say is he’s lucky it happened to be an exceptionally good sandwich.

Conversations not to have when you are going for your security clearance while working for a government contractor. At least, not to have loudly.

“Oh, what’s that you’re drinking?”

I was on my way to bother my friend about ducking out early for lunch and maybe playing a little hooky. The receptionist stopped me, staring at the odd blue bottle in my hand. She’s a nice woman, and we chat on occasion.

“Oh.” I looked at the bottle myself, though I don’t know why. As if I was making sure what I was drinking. “Bawls.”

“Balls?”

“B-A-W-L-S. Bawls.” I faced the bottle so she could see the label. “It’s an energy drink.”

“Is it any good?”

“Oh yeah. Tastes kind of like Sprite with a hint of guarana.”

She nodded. “I’ll have to try it sometime. I can’t stand the way most of those energy drinks taste.”

“Like Red Bull? That stuff is gross.”

“Oh, I know!” She sounded absolutely scandalized. “They taste like sugar in turpentine. It’s just horrible!”

“I don’t understand why they’re so popular.” I took another sip and felt my body sing with appreciation for the caffeine. “Like at bars and stuff. Everyone drinks them. But this tastes so much better.”

“You know, you shouldn’t mix those energy drinks with alcohol.” She was a sweet lady, but I could tell she hadn’t hit a college campus since women burnt their bras. “Like vodka with that Red Bull stuff? It can kill you.”

“Yeah. Uppers and downers. They don’t work well together.”

“Oh?”

I leaned against the counter. “Well, because you’re taking the downers, you don’t feel exactly how far you’re going with the uppers, or vice-versa; so you can take enough to make your heart stop without realizing it until it’s too late.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep. It’s why you should never mix heroin and cocaine.”

She looked at me archly.

“What? I paid attention in health class.”

I ruined someone’s life.

No, I’m not referring to my parents, although that’s an easy conclusion to come to. A poor woman who had the misfortune of sitting across from me and Jason on the lightrail found herself saddened and lost in life from the brief contact.

Let me explain.

This will be somewhat difficult to communicate, as the joke was a music joke. Not entirely unattainable, except for the fact that I have to hum portions of it to get the point across. Still, I will do my best.

He and I are taking up three seats, with our bags between us. Despite that neither of us were in school at the time, we still refused to leave the household without our bags of holding, filled with pens, a notebook, a book or two, iPod with headphones, and various other necessities of urban life. I for one can’t live without gum. We were being both loud and obnoxious, two things I excel at, and while I did notice this woman observing us, I did not stop myself for a few reasons: one, this is just how I am, and sometimes you just gotta be; two, the train was loud anyway, so we had to shout over it all; and three, she was finding amusement by watching us.

Fine by me. This poor, mousy woman, dressed in the standard corporate-issue uniform of grey jacket-and-pencil-skirt set over half of a lavender twin set, both bearing faint traces of the others color from far too many washings, beige stockings and dour, chunky shoes, pinched smile, eyes set in her face like beads pushed too deep in wax; how could I deny her this brief entertainment? Clearly her job hadn’t entirely crushed her soul. I wasn’t going to get up to finish the job.

“So, there’s this guy in Italy, trumpet player, right?”

“Is this a joke?”

I smirk. “Somewhat. A pretty bad one my choir teacher told me. Bear with it.”

“Oh, choir humor,” he said. “This I have to see.”

“Trumpet player, practicing in his apartment. He’s got this song in his head, and he’s hooked, absolutely fixated on it.” I proceed to hum, C-A-C-A-C-A-C-A. “He just keeps playing it over, the last note dragging away, the rest of the song eluding him, slowly driving him to madness.”

Jason nods to show me he’s listening, which I appreciate. Odds are he wasn’t — he was very good at tuning his girlfriend out and often applied that practice to everyone he knew — but at least the gesture was there.

“A tourist is standing outside of his window, listening to the tune. Despite that the trumpet player is hitting only those two notes, over and over, his playing catches the tourist’s interest, and he stands under the window for some time.”

I sit back in the chair, opening up a bit. One of the cardinal rules of theater is to always face your audience. “Suddenly, the trumpet player becomes so frustrated, so overwhelmed with this stupid tune, that he chucks the trumpet out the window, nailing the tourist right in the head!”

The mousy woman visibly reacts to this, leaning forward slightly, tiny clues to show me that she’s far more interested in what I have to say than Jason would ever be. Of course, Jason’s known me for five years now. I’m surprised he’s lasted this long.

“The trumpet player collapses to his knees, not knowing what he’s done, still obsessed with the music. Outside, people have gathered around the tourist, and someone has called the police. In a few agonizing minutes, the ambulance can be heard from the distance, the sound of its siren floating into the trumpet player’s room. And suddenly, he starts crying tears of joy.

“Because he hears,” and then I hum, C-A-C-A-C-A-C-A, D-Bb-D-Bb-D-Bb-D-Bb. (At this point, I’ve hummed a few measures of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”)

“That was a horrible joke,” Jason said, “and you should be dragged into the street and shot for it.”

The woman looks at me, frowning, as we pull into St. James Station. “I don’t get it.”

“Well, see,” I say, facing her fully, “that’s how ambulances in Europe sound. It was… he heard the second half of the song. Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

She stepped off the train but stared in, the doors closing as she said once more, “I don’t get it.” She stared through the window, resting a plaintive hand gently on the glass.

I’m frantic now. I’m pantomiming to her as many apologies as I can. The train scoots down the track slowly and I watch her face through the progressive windows. The train stops at a light, still lined up with the platform. She walks up to the window again, staring at me, frowning.

I apologize once more before facing Jason. “You got it, right?”

“I think she’s a bit touched in the head.”

“I can’t believe it. I ruined that poor woman’s life with my joke.”

“Well,” he said, “it was a really bad joke.”