D-CON: Kills Nerds Dead

In case you haven't guessed by now, let me just spell it out: I'm an enormous nerd.

That's right. Gasp in shock and horror at the darn near 32 year old male who collects comic books, plays Magic: The Gathering, watches cartoons regularly and is an avid role playing gamer (or at least he used to be back when he had nerdy friends to play with).

Nerd, nerd, nerd. Huge nerd.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

With this established, it should come as no huge surprise that in a mere 4 days, I'll be off to Hotlanta, GA, where I will be meeting a goodly number of my college Nerd Herd pals for our semi-annual sojourn to Dragon Con.

For those unschooled in the ways of nerddom, Dragon Con is a science fiction/fantasy/comic book convention that's held annually in Atlanta around Labor Day. It's an excuse for lots of nerds, closet nerds, freaks, geeks, subsidiary Buffites, Pern-People (Oh, God, the Pern people!), Trekkers, Trekkies, Tolkien Scholars, Poser Tolkien Scholars and a few otherwise normal folk to congregate and meet some of their genre heroes (actors, writers, artists, sundry creators, washed up b-movie has-beens, former porn actresses, and, as always, Boomer from Battlestar Galactica) who are responsible for large chunks of their nerdy entertainment pleasure.

Many of the attendees even dress up for the event, sporting some of the best and the worst home-spun costumes ever conceived. (Check out Dragon Con's picture pages for the good the bad and the ugly from years past.) Now most cons have dressup as a factor, but Dragon Con is especially well-known for being something of a freak show. Sure, you've got a huge representation of Storm Troopers, Elves, G.I. Joe troops, miscellaneous Cobra soldiers, Klingons, Hobbits, Ghostbusters, residents of the Matrix and comic and sci-fi characters, but there are plenty of people dressed up for completely non-innocent reasons as well.

To put this in perspective, Dragon Con has more leather present than do most herds of cattle.

In fact, the dealer's room, while chock full of nerdy goodness, is also home to booths that sell a wide assortment of leather gear. Some of this is couched as Ren-Fest supplies, but others are openly geared toward the S&M crowd.

Need whips, chains, hand-cuffs (both padded and not), leather lingere, riding crops or harnesses of any sort? Hit the dealer's room. They'll have what you want.

Need a speculum? Ho boy, do they have speculums. And ladies, these are not those comfy warm plastic speculums most thoughtful gynecologists use these days; we're talking nice cold gunmetal speculums that'll ratchet you open to 11. Two words: Dealer's room.

Need a testicle vice? Well, I haven't seen one of those in the Dealer's room, but I wasn't exactly looking for one either. It's probably there.

So as you can see, Dragon Con is nearly as much fun to attend just to watch the strange, disturbing, sometimes titilating but more often than not just plain unsettling scenery as it is for all the nerd stuff. And as weird as some of it gets and as much as I'm glad some of the people there are not among my close personal friends, it's a very open and welcoming atmosphere. Where else are you going to find two entire metropolitan high-rise hotels chock full of people just being themselves and not feeling out of place because of it. From the tiniest goth chick to the most whale-like comic book nerd, all are welcome to the party. It is a sight to behold.

Plus there's always the chance you'll get to ride in an elevator with Chekov from Star Trek, see a former member of the Royal Shakespere Company dry hump a fat guy or get to buy an overpriced autographed 8x10 of Lou Ferigno in the Walk of Fame hall where the celebrities hang out.


I confess that I get a bit star struck when I visit the Walk of Fame hall at Dragon Con. I usually just walk around and see the famous folks there without actually bothering them about anything. When I do talk to the celebrities, it's mostly to tell those I admire and respect that I admire and respect them, then I get the hell away. Not that there should be a problem with chatting to such folks at the con, it's just not usually my bag. I did chat for a while with Brad "Wormtongue" Douriff, but only because I found out he's from West Virginia and wanted to know which part. Turns out he has relatives in the Tri-Metro area and spent a lot of time around here as a kid.

Another drooling fanboy moment is pictured at right. This was my nerd's dream come true photograph taken with actors Andreas "G'Kar" Katsulas and Peter "Londo" Jurrasik, of TV's Babylon 5 fame. Peter wasn't even scheduled to be at the con that year. Imagine my surprise to walk into he hall of fame and see the both of them, my two favorite characters from the B5 series, seated side by side. I nearly screamed like a girl. My friend Joe had to ask them if they'd consent to a group photo and they graciously did. I'm such a damned nerd.

So you can see that there are celebs that make me too starstruck to say anything at all. I'm not sure why this is, as I'm a former broadcasting professional who has interviewed and otherwise met quite a few semi and actual famous people through the course of my job without once losing the ability to speak to them. Perhaps, though, it's because I never gave a rat's ass about most of the famous folks I met in the course of my radio career. Not so at Dragon Con.

For instance, while standing in a nerd traffic jam in the dealer's room, I happened to glance over at a woman standing to my immediate left, who was equally stuck, and noted that she was actress Claudia "Ivonova" Christian, also from B5.

Wow, I thought. She looks exactly like Claudia Christian!

And that's pretty much the extent of what was running through my head. Not: "Oh, excuse me, I just wanted to tell you that I really enjoyed your work on B5. You played one of my favorite characters on the show." Or better yet: "Why the %&#! didn't you come back for Season 5? What the hell were you thinking, woman?!" Nope. Just: She looks exactly like Claudia Christian! And in my starstruck beffudlement, I failed to notice that Ms. Christian had a gerbil peeking out of her cleavage. That's right, a live gerbil. In her cleavage. It should also be noted that one of my nerd companions, who I won't name so as not to embarrass him, (Mark Chow), first locked eyes on the gerbil in the cleavage and then was too distracted to notice whose cleavage it was peeking out of until we told him later. I don't know which of us you should feel more sorry for on that one.

Chatting with the celebrities can also be a dangerous thing to do unless you're armed with beaucoup small-talk skills and common sense. Otherwise it can quickly degenerate into something uncomfortable for all involved. For instance, there was the time we accompanied our above cleavage-fixated friend to meet Biff from Back to the Future:

MARK CHOW: "Oh, hey. I, uh... I just wanted to tell you that I liked you in Back to the Future."

ACTOR THAT PLAYED BIFF: "Oh, thank you very much. It was fun."

MARK CHOW: "Yeah. That movie was... that was great."

ACTOR THAT PLAYED BIFF: "Mm."

(Time passes)

MARK CHOW: "Oh, and you were good in the sequels too... playing all those other Biffs."

ACTOR THAT PLAYED BIFF: "Sure. Thanks."

(More seconds of awkward silence pass as we all stand there looking at Biff and his expensive autographed Biff merchandise we're not about to shell out good money for. None of the rest of us have any idea what else to say to Biff either since the only thing he's ever done that we've seen is play Biff, so we just leave Mark hanging out there like a moron.)

MARK CHOW: "Well... um. It was, uh... good to meet you."

ACTOR THAT PLAYED BIFF: "Sure."

(We slink away)

That's how these things go sometimes, though.

Another far more personal failure at smalltalk came when I met comic book artist Adam Hughes. When I first heard he was going to be at the con, I was bound and determined to get him to sign one of his issues of Justice League America for me and tell him how much I've enjoyed his art. He draws very clean and very well composed comic pages with a great deal of skill and I wanted to tell him I appreciated it. What I did NOT want to do was be the slack-jawed stereotypical nerd fanboy who just likes Hughes art cause he draws fantastically well-stacked women. So here I go, marching up to Hughes's table with my JLA issue in my hand and all that came out of my mouth was something akin to "Yew draw womens purdeee!" That's not an exact quote, but I assure you the real quote was startlingly similar. I was mortified even as I said it, for it was precisely what I was trying to avoid saying. I'm an intelligent human capable of discussing the finer points of comic art, but enormous well-composed cans were all I could think of when it came down to the wire. Hughes sort of smiled/sort of looked sad for me and then signed my book, mentally putting another check mark under the Horny Mouth-Breathing Dipshit column in his fanboy tally tables.

Sometimes, though, meeting celebrities can present more actual danger, such as the time a couple of friends of mine inadvertantly picked a fight with author Harlan Ellison...


For anyone who's ever seen author Harlan Ellison on TV, (yeah, I know, it's probably been a while, but Tom Snyder's show couldn't last forever), you are probably aware of the sort of volatility his personality holds. He's an extraordinarily intelligent man who doesn't suffer fools lightly and seems to view at least 95 percent of the populace as fools. He's also had like 8 heart attacks, so he doesn't have a lot of time to mince words, hates political correctness with obvious passion and is capable of very precise verbal surgery when confronting a suspected fool. With science fiction conventions being simply rife with fools, you can imagine how fun and curse-filled his panels can become. Being connoisseurs of political incorrectness and crassness in general ourselves, Ellison's panels are just the sort of thing my friends and I love to witness.

A few years back, after one such Ellison panel, during which he lambasted a girl in a wheelchair for taking up valuable aisle space, my friends Marc Stewart and Joe Evans decided to approach Ellison at his autograph table to congratulate him on his extraordinary skills as a master crassman.

Marc, ever the crassness ambassador, was the one to actually speak. He told Ellison they enjoyed his work and were glad he was a consultant on Babylon 5. Then, completely as a compliment and with good cheer in his voice, Marc added, "Mr. Ellison, we just wanted to let you know we think you're the king of crassness." Now either Ellison didn't take this as the intended compliment it was or he simply decided to prove the point, because he lit into my friend with a series of blinding curses and insults that completely cut Marc's legs out from under him. Joe described Marc as being pinned like a frog on a dissecting table as Ellison verbally carved him several new assholes in front of God and everybody. The onslaught continued for nearly a minute before Joe was able to reach in and grab Marc's arm and physically pull him out of Ellison's Dead Lights. They fled toward the nearest exit, while Ellison's screaming continued as a soundtrack to their escape.

Harlan Ellison is scheduled to be at the con this year, as are Marc and Joe. I'm looking forward to the rematch.

My own personal favorite celebrity moment at Dragon Con, though, was when I attended the Mystery Science Theater 3000 panel, featuring Mike "Mike" Nelson and Kevin "Tom Servo" Murphy, two years back. About mid way through the panel, they opened the floor for Q&A's and I stood up to be the first to speak. I had no question for them. I merely wanted to tell them thank you for their little TV series and tell them just how much of an influence their creation has had on shaping the collective sense of humor of not only me and my friends but pretty much everyone in the room that day and kindred spirits across the earth. It was a heart-felt speech that I extemporaneously summoned up and delivered with the skill that would befit a man of my broadcasting background. I'm proud to say that the entire population of the hall backed me up with cheers and applause for Mike & Kev and they seemed to take the compliment well. It was a moment that could have come across as Scary Emotional Nerd Guy at the Mic, but I believe worked out for the best. It was something that had to be said.

This will be my 4th year attending Dragon Con and I am looking forward to it. Quite a few heroes of mine will be in attendance this year, such as Warren Ellis (writer of Planetary, The Authority, Orbiter, Red), Denny O'Neill (writer of The Question, lots of Batman, and the classic Green Arrow/Green Lantern series from the 1970s), and Dr. Demento. Plus one of our Con favorites Peter Woodward (of Combat and B5: Crusade fame) will be on hand. We always try to attend as many panels as he's a part of cause he's just one of the most entertaining and intelligent guys around beyond his ties to nerddom. (For those keeping score, Peter's the former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company who humped a fat guy on stage. Twice, in fact. He did it once while actually humping the fat guy during a martial arts demonstration two years ago, and then again last year when the fat guy returned with pictures of the humping and Peter then had to reinact it for the audience, using the same fat guy, in order to tell the story. Nothing like a proper English gent humping stuff to tickle the funny bone.)

Beyond all the nerd stuff, I mostly go to Dragon Con to hang out with my friends. I don't get to see them often enough these days--almost exclusively at weddings and major holidays and Dragon Con. And I only usually get to see a fraction of them at the Con anyway, but we've got a good crew this year. I liken this to the typical "Annual Hunting Lodge Gathering" that lots of men engage in with their buddies on an annual basis. (As imortalized in Da Upers song "Second Week of Deer Camp" which I heard thanks to Dr. Demento.) Frankly, if my pals weren't there I probably wouldn't bother going to the Con at all. There is very little in this world these days that can coax me from my house beyond work, comics, friendship and love.

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