Comic-Con Day 3

I gotta mention this first off: this is going to be something of a sprawling, meandering, aimless, meaningless little coaster ride of a blog post. It may well not be worth your wait in line. Consider yourself warned.

So, it is Day Three. Saturday, the big day every year. I got up early today, and it’s still early, but here we are, already waiting in a long, winding queue. If someone in a helicopter took a picture of the packed-in pre-dawn line of us, it could easily be referred to as a nerd herd, hundreds jammed in where there should be dozens (or none, frankly), waiting semi-patiently for a line that won’t move for hours.
I brought my mini tape recorder (or whatever it is they’re called nowadays), and I spoke into in as I walked from my car. Here's that little recording:


As I came over the ridge and Hall H (where we will enter in just under three hours) came into view, I was awed at the amount of people already here. I still am. If I had to guess, I’d say I am about thousandth in line, but when my alarm went off, I gamely imagined I’d be in the front twenty or fifty.As I typed this, my faux laptop crashed for the first time ever. It just froze, and nothing I pressed could thaw it. I had to take out the battery. Granted, I was running one program at the same time, so that may have been too much for it, but I fear it could happen again.

Morgan Spurlock (and some guy named Whedon) are doing a documentary this year about Comic-Con, and one of their subjects is in the line in front of me. He’s a scrawny, super-geeky kid with an underbite like a deepwater fish. It should not surprise me in the slightest that he has a girlfriend. Someday, I’m going to become a supervillain, the kind that says “Bah!” at the beginning of his sentences.

Dear great Cthulhu, it happened again. I am really upset and the day hasn’t even started.

I may have to take this back to Best Buy and get another one. Or more likely, I may strike it down upon the cement with great vengeance and furious anger, which will seem like the wrong choice in retrospect.

So, a camera and sound crew are following this guy around, watching him stand in line, move as the line moves, get coffee, sit down and wait for the line to move. Honestly, if they use ANY of what they’ve shot for the last hour, no one will go see this documentary. They’d be better off releasing it straight to video anyway, but what do I know?

It froze a third time. Now I’m becoming seriously concerned. This is three times in an hour.

There was something I was going to type before, but now that I’ve got this freezing machine out, it hardly seems worth my time. But I’ll write it anyway. After all, I already did it once and lost it the last time this fucker crashed.

Behind me a ways in the line was a big, lumbering behemoth of a kid. A henchman type. A Gammorean Guard. You know what those are? I noticed him because, as the line was moving (and it moved for no reason I can understand, since the people at the head of the queue are already sitting down, understanding that they’re going nowhere), I saw him edging closer to me. He passed a few people behind me, and they said nothing. Sometimes people will be trying to catch up with someone who’s holding the line for them, and we just let them by. But this wasn’t the case. What the guy was doing was just walking past people, just to be further ahead in the line.

Well, as he came up alongside me, I wondered if I should say something. After all, this flabby bucket of dung made me look absolutely svelte, and if Marvel Comics have taught me anything, it’s that fat people are incredibly strong. So, I let him go. But as he pushed his way through the documentary crew (which was five or six people), I found myself filling up with hate, like a water balloon attached to a tap. Every time he pushed past another bystander, I hoped they would call him on it, or tell him to go to the back of the line, or hit him in the stomach with a bookbag. Didn’t happen.

People are drinking coffee around me. I wonder if that makes life easier.
After the line stopped moving, we began to sit down. That’s nice.

I meant to go to sleep early last night. But STATE OF PLAY was on and I’d never seen it. I think I may remain the last Ben Affleck fan on the face of the earth. Seriously, Jennifer Garner won’t even go to that guy’s movies.

There’s no internet access here in the line. Well, technically there is, but I’m not able to get on. I wonder if there are different strengths of wireless modems, and if you buy a super-duper one, you can snag onto a signal from blocks away.

I stood up to stretch my legs, and gazed upon the guy I was complaining about an hour ago. It was strange, but as I looked at him, talking to a stranger beside him about “Supernatural,” nearly all of my hatred faded away. He’s just a guy, a fan of certain shows and movies (and probably comics), just like I am. He got up early and probably worked even harder than I did to get here as soon as he could. And he’s never punched a child in the face at last year’s SDCC, I’d bet.

The first time I ever went to something like this was in 1999. It was the Star Wars Celebration, a convention anticipating the first new movie, and it was held in Denver, Colorado.

Yep, just crashed again. That’s it, this is no longer going to be referred to as a faux laptop, but as a craptop. Guess I have to start over with what I was saying.

And if you’re tempted to snark, “Haven’t you ever heard of saving your work?” I have this to say, “Yes, Jeff, I have saved it. That’s why I have two pages here instead of none. I’ve saved it hundreds of times. Why don’t you do something useful and fix my damn craptop?”

Well, there were thousands of people at the Denver Celebration (though only a fraction of Comic-Con’s attendance), and there were long lines, and something I haven’t ever had to endure here: bad weather. We got rain, and since the whole thing was held outdoors (under tents, but still outdoors), it got really miserable, with people getting wet and muddy and cold, and unable to do anything about it.

But I found that the folks around me were good, friendly people, willing to save your spot for you, take your picture, or talk to you about how many times Luke Skywalker fired his blaster in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.* Despite being dirty and uncomfortable, I found myself really enjoying meeting all these strangers, and realized that I had something in common with them, something deep and something powerful: no woman would ever sleep with us.

Okay, that was a joke (sort of). But what it was was a passion, a love for this film franchise, the characters, the music, the toys, the story and mythology and ships and weapons and ideals, and memories of how and when and where we first saw it and became changed for life. These people were just like me, and--

Oh, this is rich. A couple of people down the line started to yelp, and a girl shrieked. I paid it no mind, but a moment later, a rat came scampering past me, jumped onto the backpack of the guy behind me, turned, and climbed over the woman who was on her back, sleeping next to me. It moved on to the next part of the line, where people jumped up, screaming, and did that little ants-in-the-pants dance. Oh, the poor woman beside me was so revolted. That's no way to wake up. I tried to comfort her by saying, “At least it was a CUTE rat,” but that didn’t help.

I guess she feels like that one girl in 1992 when I tried to hold her hand. Poor bastard.

Oh yeah, where was the documentary crew then? At home, washing their tights.

So, what was I saying? Not that it matters, but I was really struck by a feeling of community with these people, who had come from far and wide to share their love for STAR WARS, and the anticipation, which was immense, for more stories and characters from the mind of George Lucas.

It goes without saying that my impression of the Prequels, and all that has come since 1997 really, has changed the way I feel about the whole Star Wars universe. There are now factions of Star Wars fans, ranging from those who only have nostalgia for the first two films, to those kids who idolize the new cartoon characters. The fans of the video games, and those who still hate the Ewoks. And that’s fine, I guess.

In spring of 1999, though, I felt like everybody around me was the same, a devotee to something special to them, willing to shiver and yawn because of the passion they felt for what I was passionate about. These men, boys, and women were just like me, and it made me feel that I belonged, and was somehow less alone out there. And it was a great feeling. You could compare it to religion, but I’m not going to. It was less divisive than that.

And it is in that spirit that I forgive the Gammorean Guard, and go on to type something else.

By the way, I’ve now been typing for twenty minutes (only an hour to go!) without it freezing on me. God bless you, Safe Mode.

Ninety minutes have come and gone. I’m still sitting here, thinking I ought to write some kind of fiction. I went to a Star Trek convention once, and I came out of it feeling two things: 1) handsome, for once, and 2) that I’d like to write a story that takes place at a Star Trek convention. Both feelings faded quickly.

But if I were to write a convention story, what would it be?

My first inclination, and most people’s, I’d wager, would be to write a Sci-Fi story, or a comedic Sci-Fi story, where aliens or people from the future come down and end up at a Star Trek convention, and the attendees don’t realize these are not costumes. Or the aliens think this is what humans are actually like. Or something.

I saw a family of Klingons yesterday. I tried to take their picture. Would actual aliens think they were real?
I got nothing. I’ll stop typing for a minute and do something else.

Alright, I’m back. Turns out you can’t watch “Fawlty Towers” in Safe Mode.

Thinking ahead, I had picked up peanut butter, bread, and jelly in preparation for this day, and made a bunch of sandwiches I kept in my backpack. Also there are a couple cans of soda, enough to tide me over if I am indeed here all day. It makes my backpack kind of heavy, but I'm not going anywhere.

From my vantage point here on the ground, I see a legitimately hot chick about six hundred people away from me. Now, I’ll be the first to argue that that’s impossible, that it’s just a mirage, like seeing water while dying in the desert. But I have seen some really attractive girls at this thing, and that just vexes me. My friend Jeff used to go on and on about how loving and supportive his wife was, and I would always respond, “Well, you got the last good one,” but there’s no way in Bossk’s orange earth Emily would go to a comic book convention.

The hot geek is a myth, kids. Now, I’m not arguing that an attractive girl couldn’t enjoy SPIDER-MAN 2, or watch anime, or dig a Harry Potter book, but it seems highly unlikely that she could like it THAT much, you know? Because attractive people have other interests, and other opportunities that present themselves to them. Society gives them other things to occupy their time, and their circles of friends (which I presume would consist of other attractive people, maybe some wealthy ones too) aren’t going to be into comics and cartoons. That’s not a criticism or anything, it’s just the way things are.

I looked back across the way, and the really pretty girl can’t be seen anymore. Maybe she was a mirage.

I suppose I’ve relegated the attractive to a sort of “Other,” something reserved for people of a different race or religion or culture. I wonder if it’s wrong to see one group as being better than another, the same way it’s wrong to see one group as lesser. After all, Brits have traditionally felt that nobles are better than commoners, though I imagine that’s lessened these past generations.

Well, I know a person or three who believe that homosexuals aren’t people. That they’re things, damned things, that don’t deserve to be allowed to walk the streets and get jobs and eat food and live their lives. That it’s obvious they shouldn’t get to marry one another or have insurance or get treated the same as straight people, because they are evil beings that have chosen Satan’s ways and deserve the prejudice and hatred that is thrown their way.

If there is a Hell, it will be an interesting place to be, and the upside will be seeing the faces of assholes who lived lives of bigotry and racism end up there. Time will tell, I guess.

So, I say this, but I’m able to justify my belief that the attractive are different from everyone else.

Take a friend I made when I was doing extra work. His name was John, and I called him Ladykiller John in my blog. He was extraordinarily handsome, and doors just opened for him. But he was a nice, supportive guy (even if he did look like that guy who was in ARMAGEDDON), so I got to hang out with him from time to time. Toward the end of my days in L.A., I got his number, and called him to go to a movie one time. “Sorry, dude,” Ladykiller John said, “I can’t. You know that cute brunette we met yesterday on the set of ‘The Office?’ Well, I’m going to be naked in a bed with her today.”

You think I’d be typing this right now if I were Ladykiller John? Hell no. And if I were his female counterpart, I wouldn’t have time to get excited about what Sinestro might look like in GREEN LANTERN or how they’re going to digitally age the Potter kids in HP8. My priorities would be very different. My brain would work differently. I’d find joy in other things.

I was never cool enough to get a job in a record store, and if I was I wouldn’t want to anymore.

Or was the lyric, “I wouldn’t want YOU anymore?” God, that’s even worse.

Because Ladykiller John was not a douchebag, I didn’t resent him for his looks or ease with women. I wished I could be him, just for a weekend, but I didn’t dislike the guy. A lot of the beautiful people ARE douchebags, however. Or whatever the female equivalent is.** And I guess I shouldn’t blame them. But I still do.

I once wrote (or started writing) a story of a kid (based on me) who made a wish and got to switch bodies with a handsome, popular guy (based on George Clooney, for some reason). The kid was bullied, lonely, unhappy, and the kind of dreamer that I’ve been for as long as I remember. The Clooney guy was a cool dude, not at all a bad guy or a bully, but just from the other side of the social tracks. So naturally, the kid gets to be gloriously, unrestrainedly happy, while the Clooney guy finds the transition tough and confusing. The one scene that sticks with me, for I never finished the story, was when the two of them meet. The Clooney guy (now in a geeky kid’s body) is so relieved and hopeful when he finally encounters his true physical self, sure that all his questions will be answered and he’ll get to switch back. And the kid’s reaction to seeing his old self again was to viciously, thoughtlessly kick the crap out of him.

I think that was a statement of how I feel about the way life works, and the way I feel about myself. It was a nasty moment that really surprised me in the writing of it, because there’s nobody that doesn’t fear becoming that which they most despise, right? And as proud as I was (though proud isn’t the right word, exactly) of that moment in the story, I sort of lost momentum after that, and it fell by the wayside, as so many of my stories do.

If I were one of the beautiful people, I would be someone else. I’m not saying that would be a bad thing--oh heavens, no--but it seems to be the case. I am who I am due to circumstances, history, patterns, peers, family, influences, schooling, habits, and personal drives. Due to challenges I’ve faced and how I’ve responded to them. Due to the lessons I’ve learned and the ones I misunderstood, or just plain refused to learn from. I am me because of many things, and you are you because of those same sorts of things.

I’m not one of those people who re-reads my old blog entries. Every once in a while someone will leave a comment on an old entry (though they’re usually those idiotic spam messages that generically praise what you’ve written and want you to check out their link), and I’ll read through it again to see what they’re talking about. And sometimes I chuckle over something I’ve written, sometimes I wince, and sometimes I find a typo.

I imagine I’ll wince when I read this, in winter of 2014.

Unless I’m not around anymore.

Then I might wince harder.

(later)

Wow, this really was the least-painful line experience I can remember. Once the line started moving, it pretty much moved until I was in Hall H. Even though I was upset at this computer when it crashed, it made the hours fly by. Thanks, Mean Joe.

I was sitting about mid-way through the auditorium, and I moved up a bit in between most of the panels, getting a wee bit closer each time (although there was one time when I went up, looking for an open seat, and had to come crawling back to where I was before and sit next to the guys I had just said "Screw you, guys, I'm taking my family to a better neighborhood" to).

The most frustrating part of today has been try--Wait, the second-most frustrating thing about today has been trying to get online with the free Wi-Fi here. I keep getting notified that there’s a signal (signal strength: excellent!) only to have my browser time out or flat-out claim there’s no signal available. Grrrrr.

There was a GREEN LANTERN panel first up. Ryan Reynolds is a little too cool to be real. Because I was sitting right under the big screen, every picture I took came out like this:
Actually, that's not true. Most of my pictures came out like this:
It may be time to start saving up for a new camera.

So that was also a bit frustrating, but I'll heal.

I wrote my cousin an email describing everything I'd seen so far, and hit “Send,” and it just disappeared, with no way to re-send it or retrieve it. Gay. I know it’s out of vogue to use that word, but it feels appropriate.

Speaking of which, I sat through a bunch of trailers in between presentations, and my god, I’m old. Only about three of them looked remotely good, and even those had a couple of issues that I hoped were in the trailer only.

One of the trailers was for a flick called DEVIL, and you shoulda heard the audience turn when M. Night Shyamalan’s name came up at the end. That guy has no bridges left to burn, it would seem.

Also, there was a trailer for NEVER LET ME GO, which included a quote saying the book was “The Best Novel of Last decade.” The movie looks pretty good, but wow, I had a similar reaction to the book as the audience did with M. Night’s name. It’s strange how differently I can feel for something than everybody else. And I thought the idea of the book was absolutely riveting.

It’s weird to no longer be in that target demographic for movies. But I did think about movies differently a decade ago. I went to see BATMAN & ROBIN on opening weekend, even though it looked like it was going to be bad. I’d neeeeeever do that now. My time is just too valuable, not when I could watch test patterns or go hunting for worms.

There was a trailer for a Robert DeNiro/Edward Norton flick with a godawful title, but it looked a bit more my style. Maybe.

The GULLIVER’S TRAVELS trailer ends in such a retarded note (“Don‘t shave off my sideburns, I need those muttonchops“), I cannot believe somebody thought that was the punchline to finish up on. Arrgh. I used to like Jack Black, even.

There were six or seven trailers for CGI talking animal pictures, ranging from cheap-looking to monstrously-expensive. Of course they’re all in 3-D, and of course they’re going to make money. But I will be happy--no, overjoyed--to not see a single one of them. It must be extraordinarily difficult to make a CG animal toon. Either that, or it’s unbelievably easy: just create a couple of cute animal characters, then beat the hell out of them, throw in butt jokes, and you’ve got a hit on your hands.

The one about the chameleon seems like it could be alright, but it also has a bad title. RANGO. Plus, it has Western elements, and that's traditionally been a death sentence for general releases.

Oh, and speaking of shitty titles, the trailer for CHARLIE ST. CLOUD would actually work if it was called something else. I don’t know if it’ll make a cent, but if it does, it’s in spite of the title.

Remember how my dad said they should show all movies to him before they release them? I keep finding myself thinking of him saying that, and I keep feeling like that would be an interesting experiment. For example, let’s say they showed him the SUCKERPUNCH trailer. Would his opinion be the same as mine? How about that Zach Galifianakis flick about the mental institution? Would he say, “What? You can’t call a movie IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY, what’s the matter with you?” I think he might.

My Dad and I don’t get along or have the same sensibility or sense of humor (holy shit, Jane Austin reference), but I would be curious if he liked the LITTLE FOCKERS trailer, or if he thinks TRON LEGACY is a better title than TRON 2.0?

What would he say about the MACHETE trailer? Too much sex? Too stylish? How about the SCOTT PILGRIM one? Even I’m dubious about that one. I mean, I’ll see it because it’s Edgar Wright, but it may just bee too cool for the room. I'm wondering if that might be one of those SHAWSHANK or FIGHT CLUB-type movies that doesn't make any money in theatrical release, but is considered a classic just a year or two later.

The last trailer they showed was for some awful low-budget X-men ripoff, and literally nothing worked from beginning to the revelation of the title. The audience booed and hissed through that one too. You know you got a flop on your hands when your most die-hard target demographic rejects your attempts to appeal to them.

(later)

I still sit here, occasionally jotting down thoughts or thought-fragments.

There’s a pitiable creature a row or two up who’s a teenage girl with a hairlip. I will try not to feel sorry for myself today.

My cousin likes any movie with kung fu fighting in it. There are times, Mister Data, when I envy you.

Quijibo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I absolutely hate it when people use the word “sick” to mean “cool.” I’ve heard that five or six times today.

Spoogebob Queerpants.

The organization on this sucker is, if I haven’t said it before, pretty amazing. The doors opened at ten o’clock, giving us plenty of time to get seated for the first program that happened at . . . 11:15. It was no wonder that by the end of the night we were more than an hour behind schedule.

The first panel was about GREEN LANTERN. It looks to be a neat movie, and though I already knew this, Ryan Reynolds is a handsome dude.

Tom Felton came over to introduce a trailer and clips from the last HARRY POTTER(s).

There was the LET ME IN panel, and that little Chloe Moretz got tons of applause, probably as much as Ryan Reynolds did. She’s a talented little actress, and it’ll be interesting to see if she defecates on her career the way Lindsay Lohan did.
They showed a lot of that movie, and while my friend Jeff feels there’s no need for it (and possibly won’t go see it, I certainly hope not), the first clip they showed had me crying, for reasons I can’t even explain to myself. I guess it’s a bit to do with the loneliness I mentioned the other day, and just how beautiful the scene at the arcade was to me. Nostalgia for that period, I guess. Empathy for the Codi Smit-McPhee character. Hit Girl’s expressive eyes. Good filmmaking too, I guess.

Enough of this Robert Rodriguez/Bryan Singer bullplop; movie directors should look like Matt Reeves.
When I was a kid, I had a sort of crush on a girl named Sally. Or maybe it wasn’t even a crush, maybe it was just a glance and a thought. We knew each other through children's theater, and I only saw her in the summers. The next year, we were in a play together, holding hands and proclaiming our love for one another. And I never even considered pursuing anything with this girl, despite her being my leading lady and all.

If something had happened between us, and I was about ten times as lonely as I actually was, maybe we would have shared a moment like that LET ME IN clip.

Why do I write all this stuff if I’m not going to put it in my blog? Arrgh.

Wow. The battery on this bastage lasts eight hours, and amazingly, I’m almost at the end of it. I keep turning this off (or at least putting it to Sleep) whenever a new panel starts, but I guess even a heavy-duty battery like this one is limited.

There was a big segment on RESIDENT EVIL: EJACULATION, or whatever they’re calling number five. Ali Larter was there (and pregnant), and Milla Jovavich was way into it. They showed 3-D clips. I hate 3-D now.
So, next up was a presentation on PAUL, the newest flick with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in it. They brought a huge cast with them, including Sigourney Weaver, Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Bill Hader, and Seth Rogen. They created a little trailer that was pretty interesting, even if it did end with “Hey fucknuts, it’s probing time!” I already loved Simon Pegg for years, but I was surprised by how funny Nick Frost was. At one point, he said, “Just nine years ago I was a waiter, and now I’m in a movie with Sigourney Weaver and Joe LeTrulio in it.“ That was neat.
Even neater, though, sirs, was the presentation for COWBOYS & ALIENS. Jon Favreau came out (fat once again, thank Buddha), and said they’ve just started shooting on the film so there wasn’t much to show, since it comes out AFTER next year’s Comic-Con. But then he went on to introduce Daniel Craig, Sam Rockwell, Number Thirteen from "House M.D.", and, for his first-ever Comic-Con appearance, Harrison Ford.

Dude, you know that Daniel Craig has been center of attention in every room he’s entered for the last four years. But he was Claude Raines when Harrison Ford came out. I assumed it was a private joke, but they had two security guards bring Harrison Ford out in handcuffs, sitting him down at the table with the others. Probably something about having to drag him to Comic-Con, I don’t know.
But wow, how people screamed. It was infectious too, and he smiled and took it in, not thrilled about it, but used to the attention (if not on that scale). I caught some of it on my camera (awfully loud, folks), and though it's not really worth watching, I'll stick it here too.

I've pretty much loved Harrison Ford my whole life, and despite falling out of favor lately, it was neat that so many people apparently still the love the guy.

They then showed, I don’t know, ten minutes or so from the movie. Favreau called in some favors to get it edited and special effects-ed in time for Comic-Con, and it was awesome. Really. It combines two of my favorite genres, plus it has Bond and Indy in it. I can’t wait.

At one point during the afternoon, there was a hubbub in the back right of the hall. People made a commotion and started standing up. Soon, everybody stood up. I assumed it was a celebrity of some kind, because earlier, there was an actor from “Dexter” that came in and sat down, and he was mobbed like he was Paul McFrigginCartney. But it turned out to be an altercation between two attendees that ended with, believe it or not, one of them stabbing the other in the eye with a pen (though I also heard that it was a compass tool).

I didn’t find this out until Robert Downey Junior of all people made a joke about it. And then, at the end of the night, Kevin Smith came out for his usual Q&A and explained it all. He referred to it as a protractor, which sounded a hell of a lot better, until somebody corrected him on it. Then, one of the guys in the Q&A asked a question with a pen jammed into his 3-D glasses. It was in really poor taste, but it was funny.

Because they had to clean things up and make an arrest (I’m assuming, it wasn’t spelled out until later), they showed a bunch of the trailers again. I guess that’s why I have so many notes about them. Sorry.

At the end of the day, Marvel Films did their big presentation, starting with CAPTAIN AMERICA. There was a neat scene with Red Skull searching for an artifact from Asgard (this is pre-skull, when he still looks a bit like Hugo Weaving), and they showed a bit of Chris Evans in a costume test. I still don't know that he's right for the part, but he sure was muscular.The majority of the show was for THOR, since it’s more completed. Kenneth Branaugh came out, and seemed really passionate about the project. Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, and the dude who plays Loki were all there also.***
There was nothing not to like about the footage they showed (it was in 3-D too, but I won’t complain about that, since it was kind of novel), and the scene where Destroyer shows up, and Agent Coulson thinks it’s just another one of Tony Stark’s armors was pretty great. They did a lot of Q&A about that. One guy from the audience did angrily complain about the recasting of Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, and I’ll be jiggered if there weren’t a hundred or so people who were still banking on that whole thing being a hoax, one that was about to be rectified.

But no, they did show a teaser trailer for AVENGERS, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson (“And there came a day . . .”).
Then SLJ came out, and introduced the whole cast for that movie, including Scarlett Johansen and Robert Downey Junior. They brought out their director, Mister Joss Whedon, and he had Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo come out (Hawkeye and Bruce Banner, respectively). They took a bow, then that bit was over, the whole thing having lasted about six minutes (yep, and Downey Junior was on stage for about half that).
I hope AVENGERS works. I hope Joss finally gets the hit he deserves, and is able to make anything he wants afterward, such as his old Buffy spin-offs, or at least something as cool as Favreau is doing with COWBOYS & ALIENS.

I nearly didn’t stay for Kevin Smith’s curse-a-thon. Not that I don’t love the man, but I get enough of Kevin with the weekly SModcast show he does. But I stuck around, figuring I’d already been there twelve hours, why not make it fourteen?

And I'm glad I did. Kevin’s programs are always a lot of fun. He talked extensively about the police being called to his house for playing FROM DUSK TILL DAWN too loud, his gay pal Malcolm and all that he’s taught Kev, and for being booted off the Southwest flight in February for being too fat. But he had a fresh way of retelling the story, and kept us shocked and amused as only he can until it was time to go home.

Oh, and who should be the first question of the night, but the geeky kid from the Morgan Spurlock documentary? He asked a question for his girlfriend, asked one for himself, and then let Kevin answer them. Kevin is a talker, so that killed ten minutes or so. Then, this kid had the gaul to say he had one more question. The audience immediately turned on him, booing and telling him to shut up and get off the stage and take a pen and poke out one of his eyes.

But the kid was undaunted, and said the question wasn’t for Kevin, but for his girlfriend. The audience did a complete 180 as, in front of everyone, the geek got down on his knees and asked the girlfriend to marry him. Well, of course the documentary crew was there for that, and I’ll be darned if even I didn’t find myself clapping and cheering him on, thinking that one of the highpoints of an already-high day.
Of course, I’m now tempted to go back and edit my earlier statement about this kid, especially since you know that proposal is going to be the highpoint of the documentary. But instead, I’ll let it stand, and ask, if I was jealous that he had a girlfriend, despite his insane geek status, how much more jealous am I that he’s now got a fiancee, and that Kevin said he’d come to their wedding?

I don't know, about the same, I guess. Life is an interesting little roller coaster ride, and though I sometimes feel I got on the wrong car (I can never decide if being at the very front or the very back is the best seat)--or sometimes even the wrong amusement park--it's always nice when that first plunge happens, and you forget about whatever else might have been on your mind. You find yourself shrieking against your will, laughing at your own fear, and mixing metaphors in the world's longest blog post.

Take care,

Rish Outfield

*Correct answer: zero.

**I was on the set of one of the "CSI"s one time and we were doing a fashion show scene with a bunch of uberhot model-types walking up and down the runway. I found myself beside one of those women at the craft services table later on and I asked her if she actually was a model or an actress playing one. She looked at me--and oh, this girl was so beautiful she made wilted flowers bloom again--like I was a leper trying to lick her popsicle. I didn’t even merit an answer to my question, I was so below her station. The woman next to me who had the rat crawl on her wasn’t as mortified as this poor princess was to have been addressed by me. And as I walked away, still uncertain whether she was a model or an actress, I felt like a real loser, like I had done something wrong. Though at the time I probably also thought she was a bitch, I was more upset with myself for talking to her when I obviously shouldn’t have.

***There were several questions for the panel, but not a single question was asked of the guy who plays Loki. I stood up to go up and ask him about the nature of Loki (whether he's truly evil or just mischievous, whether he actually hates his brother or has a sort of love/hate relationship with him), but the Q&A line was so long I knew there was no point to it. Still, I felt bad for the dude.