Con Report:

AggieCon 33: Sleep? Who Needs Sleep?

Friday, March 22, 2002 I work nights. Friday morning I got off work, threw stuff into the suitcase, and headed off to College Station and AggieCon. Before I left, I had a message on ICQ from my daughter Sidra, who wanted to go out to lunch. Sidra was in charge of registration at AggieCon this year, so I suspect she wanted a break. AggieCon is located in the Memorial Student Center at Texas A & M University. It is the oldest student-run convention in the United States. I was at AggieCon 7 so I can testify that the con has been running a very long time. Anyway, it’s located on the other side of the campus from Sidra’s dorm, so naturally, I got lost...and with all the construction, it was like the 7th Circle of Hell. Going to a convention is a powerful motivating factor, so after a little while, I found my way over to the Memorial Student Center. At the registration, I found Zack (Consoletations) manning the desk. He didn’t know where Sidra was, but in short order, she arrived and wanted to get the hell out. Well, not so fast for me! I wanted to do a quick look around. So, Sidra told her fellow Cepheids she’d be gone for a couple of hours, and we headed off to the convention. First on the agenda was to tour the Charity Art Auction. Man, there was a lot of stuff in there this year...mostly anime and gaming stuff, but there was a Usagi Yojimbo hardcover that looked attractive to me. However, in the perusing mood, rather than the buying mood, I passed on bidding on anything. Next we headed to the regular Art Show. Man, they had a lot of nice stuff this year! Last year we picked up some winged cat fantasy prints for Sidra, and we have added to the collection here and there along the way. There was a winged cat print I hadn’t seen before, but I didn’t bid at the time. Sidra found a framed nice alien world landscape laser print for the quick sale of $15, so I bought that for her. Next, it was off to the dealers room for a quick go around. There was a nice selection of stuff, ranging from jewelry to SF books to comics to gaming to swords and clothing, all sorts of good stuff. The one thing that stopped me dead in my tracks was a copy of Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Wertham. Now, for those of you who don’t know, the book Seduction of the Innocent made such a hoorah in the 50’s that there were congressional hearings about comics, and the end result was the start of the Comics Code Authority and the Silver Age of Comics. This is a historically important book to comic fans, and in my 40+ years of comics reading, I have never even seen a copy. I was slobbering over the book, and naturally, no dealer was in the booth at the time. Well, I knew this was a place I would be stopping by later. We ran into Zack’s friend Frank on our way out of the dealer’s room. Frank goes to Texas Tech in Lubbock and had driven down to AggieCon. Frank went into the gaming room and was never seen again, except for brief sightings. Ah, hard core gamers! Sidra and I went out to eat, then headed to the local mall. Sidra was playing Columbia in the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and she needed new fishnets. We went to Hot Topic where she got her fishnets and some goth chick in the store liked *my* hair. Mwah ha ha. And since we were at the mall, I had to look at parrot toys at the pet store, so we headed over there, and once there, we had to look at all the birds. In other words, we fucked around. I delivered Sidra back to con late, and then went to check into the motel room. Checking into the motel room, the nice lady asked me what I was doing in College Station. I explained that my husband and I were here for AggieCon and also to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. The incredulous look on this woman’s face prompted me to say, quite seriously, "Yes, a romantic weekend in College Station." I wish I had had a camera for this poor woman’s face. Once I checked into the motel room, I died. Paul woke me up when he arrived around 6:30 pm. Back over to the con we headed. We hit registration first, in a search for Sidra, and once again, there was Zack, no Sidra. Sidra was back at her dorm, waiting for her friend Summer, who was coming up from Houston. Paul was pissed cause the dealers room was closed at 7 pm. Lucky for us, Summer and Sidra arrived in short order. I tried to get Zack and his friends to go out to dinner for us, but to no avail. Summer, Sidra, Paul and I went out for some good old Texas BBQ. When we got back, we dropped Sidra and Summer off at Sidra’s dorm. Sidra had to get ready for her performance at the midnight showing of Rocky Horror. Paul and I hung around outside the auditorium until Sidra arrived, then we went into the auditorium with Sidra. Being parents of one of the cast has it’s advantages, we staked out seats in the front 2 rows and watched all the bustle of folks getting ready. Finally they let folks in, and the pre show entertainment started. Hats off to Kelso for providing some of the damndest music. Paul had to run over to find out what the name of one very funny song was, and it was entitled "My Enormous Penis" by DaVinci’s Notebook. Sidra and Kelso did an impromptu lip synch to a song from the Buffy Musical that I thought was rehearsed, it was so good. It got a round of applause by the appreciative audience, too. All the folks who had never seen Rocky Horror live in the theater before had big red V’s on their foreheads for virgins. The cast made them come to the front, kneel and watch them do The Time Warp. Then the cast sprayed them all with silly string. It’s becoming a AggieCon tradition, they did this last year to the virgins. This year, the women of Cepheid Variable (the SF club that puts on AggieCon) had a theme for those women not in the cast of Rocky. It was Catholic School Girl attire. We had Bad Catholic School Girls and Good Catholic School Girls running around in all sorts of plaid skirts. Well, I have seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the theaters, but I have never seen The Cepheid Version. The Cepheid Version has the regular stuff you see at the midnight movies, and then some. There was one fellow who ran up on the stage in time to get hit with a bolt of lightning from the movie screen, and he flopped on the stage. It was very funny. And my god, what the cast did behind the sheet during the seduction scenes of Brad and Janet was hilarious. It was a heck of a lot more bawdy and entertaining than what happened in the movie. The audience was totally rowdy and a good time was had by all. When it was over, it was 3 am and Paul and I said our farewells to Sidra, Summer, Zack and his friend Bryan, and went back to our hotel. I woke up at 4:45 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I made Paul go get us breakfast at 8 am. Sidra was due to interview Neil Gaiman at lunchtime, so I gave Paul all the stuff she needed to take for the interview...aside from the regular interview type stuff like the tape recorder, we had a couple of copies of the article Scott Crawford wrote a couple years back entitled Why Neil Gaiman Should Really Be Worshipped By Fanboys."> I wanted Neil to see it, and I wanted to get a copy signed for Scott. I also gave her a couple of things for Neil to sign for Stephane (What I Care to See.) Then I promptly went back to sleep. Saturday, March 23, 2002 I awoke sometime Saturday afternoon with Paul merrily chirping in my ear about what science fiction books he had bought. I’m still unclear as to what he got, because I was half awake but was trying my best to look interested. He was trying to motivate me to get up and to get dressed so we could run back over to the con before the auctions started. We got back over to the con and went into the art show. Paul showed me what he had bid on, and it was really cute. It was a print of an alien, sitting in his lawn chair drinking a drink, and admiring the nebula in his sky. There was another alien landscape that Paul bid on, and I broke down and put a bid down on a print of a pair of winged cats rubbing heads together. Paul and I both figured, judging from last year, that we would have to be in the art auction later to actually obtain the pieces. That was fine, we had looked at the schedule and knew we would have time for it and to eat dinner before the costume contest started. Wrong. The charity auction lasted FOREVER. I enjoyed about the first hour of the charity auction, and then I went over to the dealers room. I found out that the price of Seduction of the Innocent was $100. I told the dealer I would think about it. I told Paul, Paul was less than thrilled with the price. I pointed out that HE had been shopping all day, and I hadn’t bought a thing. He agreed that this was true. I told him I’d think about it. We sat in the charity auction some more. A very nice finger painted piece featuring Gandalf and Frodo by Brian Stelfreeze came up for auction. Earlier in the day, three artists had done an Iron Artist Challenge. All the fingerpainted results were up for auction. Brian had won the challenge, and man, was that piece pretty. Unfortunately for me, the price rose fast, and I couldn’t even get a bid in, it was so fast and furious. The piece went for $175. Another high point of the auction occurred when Neil Gaiman was the guest auctioneer. He was bidding on a Scooby Doo cardboard cut out for his daughter and his daughter outbid him. After that, I lost interest, so Paul and I went out and wandered around some more. We bought a copy of Death, The Time of Your Life TPB and decided to have Gaiman sign it so we could run a contest in the CT. Hey, it’s our 4th anniversary, we wanted it to be special! We went back to the auditorium. The charity auction was *still* going on an hour after it was supposed to be over. Paul and I declared, "To hell with this, let’s eat." We grabbed Sidra, Summer, Zack and Bryan and went over to the local college pizza joint and had pizza. There was a music festival concurrent with AggieCon that weekend, so we got to eat to the sounds of a live band upstairs at the pizza place. It was very nice. We once again dropped off Sidra and Summer over at Sidra’s dorm, so Sidra could get ready for Rocky Horror. Paul and I went back to the auditorium to see if we could catch the end of the regular Art Auction. We didn’t, but folks were standing in line to buy the pieces they won in auction. Paul and I got in line, and once we made it up to the front, we discovered that we had one a couple of the pieces we wanted. I got my winged cats print, and Paul got his stargazing alien print. Woo hoo! We were thrilled! The costume contest came next. Sidra deemed it "The Year of the Fairies." About 3/4 of the contestants were fairies. The jungle fairy won the adult costume contest and another fairy won the kid’s contest. After that, we saw the Miss AggieCon Contest. Mind you, nothing normal, like an attractive woman, ever wins Miss AggieCon. Past winners include a ferret and a middle aged guy in drag. This year was no exception. The Miss AggieCon title was shared this year by a guy, who looked pretty normal, and someone’s pet rat. After that, it was time to dance! And dance we all did. Music ranged from new swing to techno to cheesy 70’s music. Folks got out there and danced. I found it really interesting that what packed the dance floor was The Chicken Dance. It’s a polka, for god’s sake, where one acts like a chicken for part of it. Well, it was popular. So was The Time Warp. After awhile, a lot of the dancers got a hold of some glow sticks, and they turned most of the lights out, and we all watched the pretty colored patterns that folks made when they danced. After that, the regular attendees got kicked out while the cast prepared for Rocky Horror. I didn’t leave, so I helped put out the chairs and get the auditorium in shape. And of course, staked out the front row. The second night of Rocky Horror was essentially like the first, except the Catholic School Girls did a airline hostess skit in informing the audience of the rules, which was very funny. Also, the Magenta this night was the *real* sister of the guy playing Riff Raff. Those Cepheids are warped in their casting, but it was funny when she came out on stage after the show, carrying a sign that said "This really IS my brother." The audience was very appreciative. Once again, it was 3 am when we staggered into the hotel room, and died. Sunday, March 24, 2002 Damn, was it morning already? I drug myself out of bed, slapped some makeup on my face so I didn’t quite resemble the Living Dead, and helped Paul pack up our stuff and haul it out to the car. Then we went back over to the convention. We discovered we had come too late to have Neil Gaiman sign our trade paperback at the regular signing session. Paul and I headed to the dealers room, in hopes of finding Neil. Thank God for Conor, the current chair of Cepheid Variable, who said, "Hi Sidra’s parents!" I asked him where Neil was and lo and behold, Neil was right in that booth, signing books for one of the dealers. Well, hot damn! We got our trade signed for the contest, and also got a copy of Scott’s article signed for me. Mission accomplished. Finally, it was the Moment of Decision. Did I really want Seduction of the Innocent or not? I had looked and thought and looked and thought all weekend. I discussed it with Sidra, did she want to read it? Oh yes, she did. And there it was, still there with the same dealer. To hell with the budget, I *bought* it! And I’m glad I did. After that major purchase, I decided to get out while the going was good. I headed back to Houston. It was an extremely enjoyable weekend, although it took me 2 days of sleep to recover.