-paraphrased from the "Convergence Proposal Guidelines", written by Macross, and posted to the alt.gothic newsgroup
convergence 5 (or C5, as it's described from here on...) was held in new orleans, louisiana, between the 2nd and 4th of april, 1999, and as it says above, is the annual excuse for internet gothic people, and the mutants who hang out with them, to take over a town and cavort. this was my second convergence, having attended 1998's convergence, in toronto. had a near death experience at the '98 one, so i figured, "why not?" and made my travel plans. a note of caution before i continue: a lot of the behavior, actions, and illegal activities either mentioned or implied in this report are in no way condoned or advocated by collector times online. in other words: kids, don't try this at home.
one final disclaimer of sorts, on a slightly related topic, before i begin the report: on april 20, there was a rather terrible incident in littleton, colorado, involving two teenagers wearing black clothing, and a lot of firepower. in my personal experience with gothic people, and by all media accounts, these were by no means the typical type of folk who dress in black, and i also highly doubt that any interest they had in this rather harmless subculture was what drove them to open fire on their classmates.
i tend to believe instead , that it was an environment common in schools (as well as in the adult world) that ran these kids into the ground. it's an environment that harbors humiliation, ridicule, and ostracism of those who are different from the majority, until people like the two teenage assailants feel as if they have no way out. while this in no way excuses or serves as justification for their horrific actions, and while there are always better ways of solving problems than violence, i sincerely hope that another lesson has been and will be learned from the columbine high school incident. that lesson is quite simple: before you ridicule, antagonize, or otherwise attack the character of anyone that's different than you, think first of the fact that they're a person, with feelings, just like you. then, remember that every time someone does pick on someone, they might be pushing a person like eric harris or dylan klebold one step closer to reaching their breaking point. please, have a heart.
for more information on how the gothic community has reacted to the tragedy in littleton, visit
ok, enough serious stuff, for now. here's how the weekend went...
friday, 4/2/99 (day 1): after a rather hellish 36 hours of being awake, and a flight during which a delightful bubba noted that i looked like i was "fixin' to have a good time", (this was before landing, during which he noted, "i'd get up and stretch, but i'm afraid i'd fart." i loved this beautiful bastard.) i arrived in new orleans at 7pm central time, and was met at the airport by the force of nature that some of you got to know as know as "mr. x" in a previous article. already knowing we had much to do, we headed to the hotel, and then downstairs to a kickass bar called evelyn's place, which had awesome creole chicken rice soup. and was presided over by the pistol-packing, but imminently charming evelyn, who was somehow able to tell i was of legal age by looking at my eyes. must've been a cyborg of some sort. certainly spunky enough.
after evelyn's place, we contacted a fella who, for the purpose of this article, will be known as "el diablo", and had him meet us at the very patient marriott hotel. "el diablo" was a phenomenal tour guide, and as louisiana's own david duke might be heard to say, "is a credit to his race". that's a joke, son. he's aces, though, and he gets a big ol' friggin' shoutout, for kicking ass above and beyond the call of duty.
10:15 pm: "el diablo" arrives, along with andrew (irc's cammy) and his girlfriend, cleo. we leave for the first night's festivities, and take a lot of drugs. we get to jimmy's (the site of the first event-man, was it dark in there), and there were a lotta friggin' people there. seriously. and this was the event that some skipped on because it was way across town from where the hotels were. ran into a bunch of old faces from c4 and elsewhere, and met up with a few new ones while we were there, but we didn't stick around for the whole night. instead, we headed out after hearing cut rate box do their heart-warming rendition of "the sounds of silence" (you know, i'd never thought of doing THAT to that song...).
back to the quarter (by way of a stop-off for more abuse of controlled substances at a dorm room). mind-altering chemicals in full effect, yo. beautiful night, not too warm, not too cold, and a drizzly mist coming down. went to the riverfront, and there was an unbelievable amount of fog. at the risk of sounding horribly cliche', it was tremendously atmospheric. just beautiful.
we finally showed up at the bienville at about 2am, and found a few of the stragglers who i'd been looking for, most notably macross and his incredible utility belt of doom. now, the last time mac and i got together (as some of you may know), i was scarred for life. later on in the weekend, i believe i returned the favor nicely. we'll get to that in a bit, though. one of the first quotables from the weekend came out of the so-called "motor city madman jr." (hahahahahaha) during this encounter, as he referred to bourbon st. as "the largest collection of assholes on the face of the earth...12 year old girls, 80 year old men, you name it.".
at this point, "e.d." had to rescue a friend of his who didn't know where he was around this point, so after he, cammy left, mr. x and i headed to a club called the crystal for more hi-jinks. cool space. real cool space. did a little disco dancing, ran in to a few more of the c4 alumni, including a nelson (aka irc's vorpal), and a zoe (werd. \m/) while we were there, but we were impatient sorts on this night, so we took off after about an hour.
after a bit of wandering, we got back to the marriott, and decided that bourbon street warranted a gander. 5 am at this point. even with the crowd mostly dispersed, macross was absolutely right. =) now, i've been all around this great big world, and i've seen all kinds of girls...but never anything quite as...darwinistic...as bourbon st. if you haven't been there before, you need to get it out of the way. terrible, terrible place. =) and here, i didn't think much fazed me anymore. jeeeeezus...
saturday, 4/3/99 (day 2): woke up with a monster. actually, not really, i'm just listening to cheap trick right now. anyway, woke up about 11am to the sound of the voice 'o' 'manda (or irc's vict0ria, if you're less familiar). began getting ready for whatever was gonna happen today, but i wasn't REALLY ready...
once i got to the bienville for the bazaar, i hung the sign on the bulletin board:
(i later added "by whammo" to it.)
i wasn't totally aware of how true the "hell on earth" part would be at the time. =)
now, for those who do don't know me and/or talk to me on irc regularly, i'd been pondering having some sort of "sports entertainment" in the hotel room for weeks before c5. originally, it was going to be chocolate pudding wrestling in a kiddie pool. regrettably, refrigeration issues got in the way, as well as the prospects of having a HUGE bill for pre-made pudding, so a compromise of chocolate cake mix was reached, in my idle whims about this...i wasn't ever really sure how serious i was about doing this, until the first person asked me at the bazaar held in the official hotel on saturday: 'so, are you doing that wrestling thing?' at that point, destiny took over, and i said "i'm going to try my damnedest", or something to that effect. i consulted with mr. x, and we decided that it was totally worth trying, sink or swim (literally, heh-heh-heh). immediately, my mind began to work like a steel trap. "el diablo" was contacted, and plans were set to go to a wal-mart outside the city limits before the show started that evening at the house of blues. a lot of the afternoon was spent walking around with nelson, (since 'manda showed up so damned late, phooey...only got to see her for a few mins.) and during this time, a lot of bases were covered as far as what needed to be done.
eventually, after i caught up with C5 promoter heather speare and acquired tix/laminates from her that i didn't get around to grabbing on the previous evening, the run began. we arrived at wal-mart after a roughly 40 minute drive, and headed in. the item list was chipped away at: pool, bucket to mix ingredients in, 3 kids' garden utensil set (rake, hoe, shovel) to mix with, tarp for the floor, fishing line, 50 lb. test (dunno why, but it worked for me...), 1 bill goldberg keychain (a bust of "the man") which had nothing to do with the necessary ingredients, and they didn't have cake mix. so after inviting the stock clerk who helped us with the stuff, we went to the legendary winn-dixie (i can now die happy saying i've been in one of the south's staples of mediocrity) and picked up 6 gallons of milk, 2 5 lb. bags of sugar, and 16 boxes of cake mix, as well as a can of reddi-whip and 2 2-liter bottles of popov vodka, which (not surprisingly even with everyone's intake) didn't get touched, really.
our minds were racing, knowing that we were about to commit a spectacular crime against human decency.
"haha, i hope the wal-mart guy shows up..."
'what if no one else does?' =)
we got back to the hotel, loaded in (overtipping the bellhop to make sure he kept his mouth shut), and after readying the room a bit, headed to evelyn's for a bowl of that fan-fucking-tastic soup of hers before the show. god DAMN, i hope some of you take me at my word and go to new orleans just to partake in that. worth cross-country travel, fer shure.
we arrive at the show. the first person we spot is alt.gothic regular narnia. i walk up to her, and utter the words: "we got the pool." it took her a second, and then she realized that the pre-c5 propaganda about my evil intentions were suddenly very real. the shit was going down. =)
once we were inside, word spread rather quickly, which was good, because it allowed me to actually watch most of clan of xymox (regrettably, i missed all of the other bands except for maybe two songs by mentallo, i believe). they were solid, but not as truly great as they were on the "hidden faces" tour, partially due to the shift in focus to the new album's material. i wasn't familiar, and upon my first two listens after buying it at the show, it's not as strong as "hidden faces" was (especially lacking in the production department), but i'm ranting, and i don't want to leave the impression that xymox sucked, because they were very good, just not...great...
i did become a ball of stress at the show, because i had placed our party in a position of tremendous expectation. at one point, though, a girl (whose name i sadly can't recall...1,000 apologies...) scratched the back of my head for a while, and after about 27,381 orgasms from it, i felt a little better. ;) seriously, though, if she's reading this, i'd like her to know that i think she's a complete and absolute angel for helping a total stranger relax like that (she was truly phenomenal with her hands... and i don't mean that in a lecherous, sexual way at all...), and i owe her at least 3 of the souls that i have in this jar on my desk. ;) yes, she was that good at scratching the back of heads. you're a wonderful person, wherever you are. =)
shortly after xymox was over, it became time to prepare. "e.d." (who didn't get into the show, due to it being sold out) was summoned, and we went to the marriott to begin the evil. our first snafu hit, when the pump wouldn't work. it was decided that we would inflate the pool with warm water, instead. what a mess. =) water everywhere. we got it as inflated as we needed it, though. then, jessica (a very nice girl from my native nj who graciously volunteered to be our assistant preparer earlier in the day) arrived, and work began on the mixing of the evil cake batter. as this was happening, people began to arrive, slowly but surely. "where are the contestants?", they asked, and i panicked a little, as the rather exquisite "sarah", from the detroit metro area, our most prominent volunteer, had not arrived yet. after taking a quick swim in the now-completed cake mix to set an example for my peers, i left room 1845, and set out to find her, as well as any other potential athletes, completely drenched in chocolate. =)
when i ran into her, she was outside the house of blues, and she told me that "she looked too good to roll around in chocolate cake mix", and while i vehemently disagreed with this on the inside (in fact, she looked too good NOT to roll around in chocolate cake mix...:D~~~), i decided to let her be. truth be told, i just don't think she felt she could defeat someone of my magnitude in the ring, and wanted to spare herself the humiliation of a loss in front of a large crowd of spectators. i am, after all, the undisputed king of professional wrestling, and (self-elected) chocolate wrestling federation (or CWF, if you're familiar) champion. =)
next, i stopped at the bienville, where another challenge was met with a person conceding defeat to the god of chocolate cake mix wrestling. 'no way', the lovely zoe (my roommate from c4, and all around swell gal, other than her non-participation in "the greatest night in the history of our sport") said. not even my bold attempt at calling her out...
"and you call yourself a warrior princess."...paid off here. things began to look slightly bleak.
i had also been told by someone that equally lovely monica, also hailing from the motor city, and deadly with a camera, was a volunteer, but she declined at the last minute, and peacefully became unconscious throughout the rest of the event on one of the beds in the room. (it later came to my attention that someone had volunteered her, rather than her volunteering personally, so my apologies go out to her for any peer pressure i may have inflicted on her. besides, she and i know that she would've just ended up bowing to the power of crawfordmania. ;P)
the crowd became restless. moses (he of the camera) even tried to awaken monica by sprinkling a bit of the cake mix on her, in a voodoo ritual (this was nola.). narnia arrived with a girl named poppy, who was rather drunk, and endured tremendous amounts of peer pressure from the pretty big crowd of people who had amassed by this time (including a loud "POPPY! POPPY!" chant). narnia even made a half-baked claim that she'd also wrestle if poppy agreed to it, and i went as far as to offer narnia an nWo shirt...but to no avail, as all were afraid of the awesome might of _sdc_-
3:16...
...except for one. moses, who had become so frustrated with the lack of competition in the room, decided to try to blindside me, knowing that a cheapshot was the only way i could be taken down. while my back was turned, talking to someone, he stripped down to his skivvies (i'm STILL not sure why) and blindsided me into the "ring". and thus, an epic battle began, with the flash of what seemed to be dozens of cameras capturing the event...
moses had already earned a trip to the smackdown hotel by pouring cake mix on poor, defenseless monica, and i was fixin' to deliver. his holds, though indicative of a solid greco-roman/amateur background ala bob backlund, were largely ineffective on me, and he was frustrated as i worked the crowd into a frenzy, even laying my signature move, the ddt, on his monkey ass. amazingly, through some one in a million streak of blind luck, he survived the ddt, so i did what all pro wrestlers do when their game plan hits a bump in the road...i cheated. =) i grabbed a nearby 7-up bottle, and throttled him with it not once, but twice. (i'll say one thing, the guy can sell a move.)
being as there was no appointed referee, i called for the bell, since this was a dq-able offense. moses, being the stooge that he is, began celebrating his "victory", not knowing that the title NEVER changes hands on a disqualification. when i told him, he looked like the mark that he was, and i gave him another shot at me at c6, mostly out of pity. =)
after the match, the majority of the crowd dispersed, pleased with the night's wrestling action for the most part...some people arrived late, including (sadly) the girl with the camcorder. sorry, kids, but if you want to see live cwf action, you'll have to go to next year's convergence event. and hell, if any of you think you can beat me, i'll be happy to send you to the corner of know-your-role boulevard and jabroni drive, if you smell...what the scott...is cooking. =)
as is the case with any wrestling event, there's a lot of cleanup involved after the event ends, and this was no exception. chocolate from one end of the room to the other. thank god for scotchgard. =) i swear, this hotel had the stuff on EVERYTHING, from the curtains to the lampshades. guess they've been through it all before. there was still the small matter of the removal of the ring (and tarp) from the "arena". a small debate ensued between mr. x, moses, the still-in-shock macross (now scarred for life from a convergence, just like me, heh-heh-heh...) and myself about disposal methods. we ended up deciding to tie up the tarp (with the pool inside) with the fishing line (i KNEW that'd come in handy!), and brought it to the service elevator, pushing "up" after doing it, and running like hell. =) (an ugly rumor has since circulated about security cameras being in the halls, but it COULDN'T be true, because we're an elite group of commandos, and would've noticed. ;D)
after the evil deed was finished, we decided to grab breakfast at angeli's. a great place on decatur, 24 hours, i want one in NJ or NYC. my food of choice? why, chocolate cake, of course! =) (washed down with an awesome root beer float...)
sunday, 4/4/99:
woke up with a monster. actually, i really did this time. it was like 11 am, and i couldn't get back to sleep, as much as i wanted to, so I struggled out of bed, room totally awash with the smell of cake batter, still. took a brief trip down to the bienville, to see who was awake, but there wasn't much doing, so back to the marriott i went. by this time, mr. x had recovered sufficiently to commence "wake'n'bake". i passed, however, as spending the entire weekend listening to damn near nothing but black sabbath's "sabotage" record had me fixin' to find a karaoke bar that had some sabbath tunes on the playlist.
once we got done getting ready, we talked briefly with nelson, and headed out to bourbon st. (my first glimpse of it during the day). i can now say that i've been to the casbah. kind of a lousy titty bar, though. dunno why pepe le pew's always trying to bring his women there. must be a front for some white slavery ring, or something. also popped into marie levoux's store, and came really close to purchasing one of them cool snake vertebrae necklaces, but funds were low. at least i have another reason to go to nola again.
began looking for costume stuff, and found nothing really of note (if there's a costume thingy at c6, you're darn tootin' i'm planning in advance for it...). ran into some people who'd either heard or witnessed my exploits from the previous evening during the afternoon...finally, after visiting briefly with irc denizen niamh, who i hadn't met yet, but who told me of the "screaming puking naked drunk thing", mr. x and i headed in for a nap. sun. afternoon was slightly uneventful, all in all.
sun. night, i awoke at about 8:30, and got ready for the ball thingy. opted to dress up as a "washed-up former propaganda model", which in this case, consisted of jeans, a cat'o' 9 tails, and a t-shirt that said "lesbian" on it in big white letters. headed out, leaving mr. x to sleep it off a bit more...
arrived at the house of friggin' blues, and spotted a kv. hadn't run into her all weekend (she was off living the part of kyle machlachlan in the movie "showgirls",apparently...;D), so i said hello. decided once i got to the club that another, slightly less animalistic party would be a good way to close out the weekend, so i spread some word around.
costume highlights: irc's coffin, in a return engagement as "kiki" (cannot wait to see the pics of me lambadaing with kiki); alt. gothic regular jean-croix, who rocked the hizzouuuuuuuuuse as boba fett; someone dressed as edward penishands, oops, i mean scissorhands; falko, aka irc's flaky, who had an exquisite ball gown on; mr. x, who arrived at the club dressed as "some guy from florida"; and narnia, who showed up as "the girl in the 80's movie who didn't have a prom date", and who i did my best to cheer up. hope it worked. =)
the club on sunday ended up being a load of fun, much more fun than i expected, and certainly a lot more cool and laid back than you'd expect 1000 goths in expensive costumes to be. =) the dj's did some fine work. standouts: fross, sick bastard that he is, worked "robert deniro's waiting" by bananarama and "tragedy" by the bee gees (an emotional favorite; my first phone call ever was to a radio station to request it, circa 1979...) into his set, while lady bathory instigated perhaps the largest audience performance of "time warp" i've ever seen in my life. =)
as things wound down a bit, i got in touch with "el diablo", using one of macross' patented batphones from the "utility belt of doom" (thanks, mac!), and we went on a hunt for food before the last night's festivities. car filled up with people, we headed toward a taco bell that for some reason wasn't open, and, dejected, headed back to the hotel, along the way passing the fabled "butterzone" of urban legend (no joke; cars parked for probably a quarter mile around this club, cops directing traffic...), and allowing mr. x some time to get his mack on with 2 fine ladies in the back seat of "e.d."'s mitsubishi eclipse (names omitted to protect the guilty parties...)
back at the hotel room, people show up...vorpal, niamh (who couldn't stay due to a debilitating allergy to "the chronic", sadly...), narnia, narnia's very nice friend dymentia w/her jack skellington purse, and some other swell people whose names escape me, what being a week removed from the hi-jinks. mr. x, while downstairs from our room, corralled a street dealer who was going to bring him bad things, but (thankfully), that never panned out...room service ordered, people hung out for a while, but then we all got curious as to what was going on over at the bienville, so we headed over (sans mr. x, who needed his beauty sleep).
bienville house, probably about 4amish. first party we stopped at was at a fellow named sexbat's, which was just winding down. great balcony in that amazing suite. i was jealous. wouldn't have wanted to get cake batter all over the place in there, though. dymentia and i discuss water balloons on said balcony for a bit, before sexbat calls it a night, and ushers us out. the big party was elsewhere on the 4th floor balcony, so we headed there.
plenty of people at the last party, i think about 20 or so more than the wrestling party from the evening before. just about anyone who was still there and awake stopped by for a bit. mellow atmosphere, another beautiful night's weather, and chili cheese fritos that i didn't see anyone eat. only complaint about this gathering was that it seemed a bit like the alt.gothic old boy network was in full effect, and to those, like myself, who don't read daily or post here very often, the conversations were a bit inclusive at times. a minor gripe, though, as there were plenty of people to talk to.
ran into other C5 co-promoter guymon adams at the end of the night, who i hadn't seen all weekend (there were a few stragglers that just weren't very visible, what with the sheer number of people there...). good to see him, as it's been a while, though he did seem disappointed that he missed the wrestling. =) also talked at some length with william from helfyre (a night run at the crystal), who i hadn't met before, but who seemed like a pretty cool, straight-up dude.
finally, it was time to "put this whore to bed", as a friend of mine put it recently, so i headed back to the hotel, had breakfast, packed, and headed with mr. x to the airport. beautiful flight home, during which i slept, for the most part. i was blessed with good flights in both directions.
to sum up:
all in all, this was one hell of a wing-ding. definitely a completely different feel to it than c4 had, but just as much fun. at times, probably the most surreal weekend of my entire life, too. =) the city of new orleans was definitely a place i'd like to visit again soon (though i'd never live there, what with all the drunken, sex-crazed hedonists wandering the streets...:P). the people were by and large very cool, just like last year, which is certainly a credit to everyone who attended, as this was definitely a bigger crowd than c4, and usually as crowds get bigger, the moron factor increases exponentially. let's hope that this remains the case as convergences and other events of its ilk continue to happen. my advice to anyone who hasn't hit a convergence yet? start planning to attend c6. save up, find roommates, kick ass. in the meantime, hallowmas is only a few months away for those who want a warmup. maybe i'll bring a kiddie pool to that, too. (can't wait to explain that one to the border mounties...)
"regrets, i've had a few..." dept.:
personal, irrelevant shoutout dept.: ;)
the organizers, again, for making it happen. get some sleep, all of you.
mr. x, because pimpin' ain't easy. we do some high livin', brother.
"el diablo", for being the best damned tour guide in the south, and a hell of a guy besides...
macross, for continuing to kick ass in ways that haven't been invented yet. we've got some bad stuff in store for c6, my good man. muhahahahahaha...
jessica, our lovely assistant cake mixer, who was a rather swell lady. i will call, i promise. =)
cammy and cleo, for hangin' out and livin' the lifestyle, and for sharing their fungus with me. >:D
poppy, for licking chocolate off of the book of mormon, which had inexplicably gotten involved in the pre-wrestling match festivities. dave wyndorf has heard of your exploits, and he approves. =)
narnia, for being narnia.
the bands, for playing.
linda rainwater, for booking me two bitchin' flights, and contributing keys on that "sounds of silence" cover that all the kids are gonna be listening to soon. sorry i didn't get to meet up, but i had acts of mediocrity to commit.
everyone who dressed up on sunday night...you kids looked pretty funky.
moses, for not being able to take my CWF world championship belt from me. muhahahahahahahaha...punk. ;) do me a favor, though. if i grant your rudie poo candy ass another title shot, wear some more clothes, willya? you frightened the kids! never mind that after those pictures, i'll never be able to run for public office...
everyone else who i met, hung out with, and/or who contributed to the success of the weekend...you all kick ass. werd. \m/
p.s. GO TO MY WEB SITE! ALL OF YOU!!!!
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