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Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.
Thursday 07/24/2003
The unmistakable odor of the hygienically challenged.
Kristen and I went to San Diego with the expectation that we would have a wasteful, restful weekend spent purchasing books and collectables that neither of us had any real need for at the San Diego Comic Con. It started out that way, however the final note was one of stress.
As we went into the parking structure Saturday morning, I joked that it was bad karma to pay the attendant with a twenty when I probably could have found the exact amount somewhere in my wallet. I should not have said anything �cause karma went and bit me in the ass. My car wouldn�t start when we tried to leave that night. After a call to AAA and a jump start, we were on our way home, except that the car quickly died again a few blocks later necessitating another call for assistance. It was late, and apparently ALL the mechanics in the city were closed and would not reopen till Monday morning, we were stuck 150 miles from home, and there was not an available hotel room anywhere because of the hoards of thousands of geek fans such as ourselves who had descended on the city en masse.
Luckily, despite the late hour, we were still able to rent a car. Which meant I could get us home, but that I would have to leave my poor little car behind with a Saturn dealer/repair shop till Monday. Which meant that I had to drive back down again Monday to drop of the rental and pick up my now healthy car. Which meant that I have done a dang lot of driving this past week.
Everyone was surprised that I would have problems with a relatively new Saturn. It seems the problem was that the battery had started leaking, so that may or not save face for Saturn.
Now I do realize that there was no actual causal relationship between my bad manners that morning and the sudden failure of my car to move, but dang, it sure felt as if I were being punished. If nothing else, couldn�t my car have waited till I was home to have its attack?
So, that�s the car story. There was more to the weekend and the comic book convention, but I don�t feel like bothering to write about it all, so here�s an abbreviated version:
-Almost every company and distributor there which dealt with anime made sure to inundate everyone with ads for their products. So I was exposed to everything from Fruits Baskets and All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, to Mutineers Moon and Burn Up Excess. I also saw the trailer for Witch Hunter Robin. Some of the folks who saw it muttered something being a Buffy rip-off (not exactly true if I�m understanding the witch hunter working for secret organization who is fact a witch herself set up correctly), while others just said �cool.� I�m more of the �cool� mindset and may have to actually look out for the thing when it�s released here in the states.
One thing I�m not going to be looking for will be Cat Shit One, a cute fuzzy animal version of the Vietnam War, which will be marketed here in the States under the friendlier name of Apocalypse Meow. While a Japanese take on the Vietnam War could be interesting, I�m not sure I could handle a gun toting hello kitty look-alike sniper.
-Every time I go to one of these things, I end up with Nightmare before Christmas merchandise. While this predictably happened yet again, after reviewing my purchases, it seems that Spirited Away is now competing with Nightmare for my dollars.
While I did buy a couple of Nightmare things, I bought even more Spirited Away stuff, including a couple of key chain pendants (one with the big fat baby as mouse, and the other with the three bouncing heads as the big fat baby), and a little figure of Rin (cool) and Kamagi (a bit weird). The availability of even more junk collectables for me to covet was not needed. If I were strong willed, I would be able to just say no as it were, but dang these things are cute.
-I don�t think I have mentioned it in the journal, but I�m a big fan of Jill Thompson�s Scary Godmother books, so I was a happy boy when I saw that there was going to be a screening of the new cartoon. A good thing I took advantage of the opportunity to see it since so far it will only definitely be shown on Canadian television, and it may take a while before I get an chance to watch it again/purchase it.
The audience was a mixture of geeky adults, hip adults, and their kids. All of whom loved the show. It was a bit weird at first seeing the characters animated, but once I got past that it was fun. The audience applauded when young Hanna and her Scary Godmother first showed up, but what got everyone the most excited seemed to be the inevitable cooking segment. In all of the books I have seen, the story is temporarily interrupted for a cooking segment for kids, and the cartoon was not an exception. I couldn�t even hear the recipe; the crowd was laughing and applauding so loudly.
Among the monsters and beasties that inhabit the world of Scary Godmother is her roommate, Mr. Pettibone, a skeleton in the closet. A good example of my obliviousness to the obvious, it never occurred to me that he would be a big ol� nelly queen. After a moment of wondering if this was a negative stereotype or not, I half remembered Harvey Fierstein�s line about sissies being a good thing (what is that quote anyway?), and quickly decided that exposing kids to a smart, intelligent, monster/living skeleton who happened to be a sissy was a pretty cool idea.
-My geekiest purchase had to be a small talking Dalek, that once I stuck batteries into it started threatening the lives of everyone around it and screaming that it must �Destroy the Doctor!� Sometimes I am very easily pleased.
-While walking through the crowds of nerd guys, and trying not to be nerd guys, I realized that the heterosexual man�s idea of being cool is to have long hair. Somehow a man with his hair in a ponytail is supposed to be a hip thing, even though it is not. So it�s no wonder that with my long hair, people think I am straight. It�s no wonder that women, used to long hair as a sign of nongaynes, continue to check me out, while gay men avoid me like the plague. The sad part is, my hairstyle is not a failed attempt to display my innate coolness, but rather just a casualty of my innate laziness.
-One of my purchases this weekend was the second issue of Fake (a yaoi thing about gay New York cops in love, except they�re not, but they are). This issue includes the English vacation turned murder mystery that was the basis for the video version of Fake. Both versions of the story are pretty flimsy, but still somewhat amusing.
-As expected, folks dressed up in costume were a common sight at the con. Among the expected Star Trek/Wars Aliens, was a big, shirtless, body building, muscle guy done up as wolverine (kind of yummy in a big butch way); a young, and very popular woman in a long skirt and who was topless except for black electrical tape suspenders stuck to her �naughty bits� that looked potentially painful to remove (I�m not sure who she was supposed to be, but I give her credit for working the crowd to maximum effect and for wearing something appropriate for both a comic book convention and a fetish ball); two young Asian women (sisters?) in identical raggedy doll drag (who also new how to work a crowd); and a man dressed as Max of Where the Wild Things Are (he carried a copy of the book around with him, I�m not sure if this was because he felt it completed the picture, or because it was the easiest way to explain who he was supposed to be).
-One of the booths was a Spanish language distributor. Sadly they weren�t selling any books, but they did have a cool display of various titles they carried. The most hysterical being a Spanish language version of Ralph Konig�s Killer Condom retitled something that translates roughly as The Assassin Condom. Dang do I want that book!
-When I wrote about attending the con last year, I made mention of the increase in numbers of gay men and the general over all attractiveness of the crowd. That was last year. This year, the crowd was less than good looking and was dominated by the unmistakable odor of the hygienically challenged. Maybe it was due to the uncharacteristic heat wave and high humidity that struck San Diego that weekend, or maybe it was because there was a large contingent of severe hydrophobes, but this was not the most pleasantly smelling of crowds. It was a bit annoying that every time I walked over to the Fantagraphics booth with the intention of buying something, I ended up standing next to an especially ripe, overweight man and was forced to leave.
Not everyone at the con had neglected to bathe, but enough did that Kristen and I started making jokes about arming ourselves with cologne/perfume and spritzing those in need.
-Jlist had a booth at the con, which is how I ended up buying a near mythical Hello Kitty vibrator. I just couldn�t help myself.
More later,
nico
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