Before I begin, let me just say that this chapter is relatively happy.
I go to all kinds of conventions; this volume is dedicated to my experiences going to a Horror Movie Convention is Suburban Baltimore.
When I first went, it was actually sprung on me as a surprise. We were always going to Baltimore (as the inner harbor is a pretty fucking cool place) for like a weekend. Then like the day before, they spring it on me. There’s a convention that same weekend, you’re going. Not only that, but muthafucking Bruce Campbell was going to be there. Bricks, as they say. Were shat.
That was really my first Convention experience; it was pretty cool, my Mom tagged along with me, because at the time I think I was 16. Which meant I got her to save a place in line for Bruce Campbell. (Don’t worry, she got to sit in a chair) Needless to say, I wanted to go back the following year.
And I wasn’t going alone.
This time around, it was just after we all graduated from High School, and my parents said if I wanted some friends to go, that would be cool. I then drafted Dimm, J, and Danny to come along, not only did my parents pay for them to come along; they even gave them like $100 to spend.
*Editor's Note* This I think led J to believe that my parents would pay for anything and that I didn’t care if he stole anything of mine because “my parents would just replace it”.
This one was rather quiet, no incidents, we went to cool things, met cool people. (Including George A. Fucking Romero) One thing that kind of bothered me was that J, kind of exiled himself on the trip. While at the Con, he never wanted to do anything with us. He later said that he wandered around it a bit and went to some Horror Author readings, but I have my doubts.
He did however; buy a bootleg “Angry Beavers” complete series DVD set. The first two episodes were in real good quality. Then the rest seemed to have been ripped straight from somebody’s VCR recording of the show. We lol’ed.
Ok, so maybe we gave J a hard time at that convention. I totally forgot that one night we took Greg’s hair trimmer and shaved his eyebrows. Or more accurately, I shaved his right eyebrow and then shaved a chunk out of the middle of his left eyebrow. Also we were all hovering over J while he slept, desperately trying not to laugh.
That was a fun trip, but probably the last “innocent” one I would ever have.
The following year, I still wanted to go. But this time, my parents were not going with, so we had to pay our own ways. Dimm couldn’t go for financial reasons, but I did get Danny, J, and now Joon to agree to go. Everything was great; I was packed and ready go the night before. But then shit happens.
Turns out that Danny had no money to go; he never bothered to tell me this. He just kept saying that he was going. So the night before we are supposed to leave, one friend drops.
Then J starts to back out.
He never explicitly said that he didn’t want to go. But he definitely made it very clear to us that he did not want to go, and had no intention of going. So we figured J was out. *Editor’s Note* J to this day, hold this against us. But Joon and I were absolutely convinced he didn’t want to go based on how much of a shit-fit he was throwing.
The next morning, two feags leave for Baltimore.
Did I mention that Joon drove for me? You see, at the time I was still a very unsure driver, I was absolutely scared of driving on interstates. But no matter, I had a friend who had loads of experience driving on the freeway.
What’s that? You lost your glasses?
Now I know this should have throw up some red-flags, but we were ok. Joon drove all the way up to Baltimore, and back. Without glasses. He went out of state, to a convention that really depended on him being able to see things, and he had no glasses. I still don’t get how somebody loses their glasses; he doesn’t wear contacts, so that’s not an excuse.
Thankfully after we got up there, there were no more incidents. Watched a bunch of shitty movies, met Ernie “The Black Ghostbuster” Hudson. But there was one night where Joon desperately tried to get me to look at a shit, he had just taken, that was apparently “over a foot long”.
Oh, and actor Udo Kier (you know him, he’s the guy who plays a German in every movie ever made) got drunk and ate some flowers.
Oh and on the last night, Joon and I went to the Outback Steakhouse and ate at least 5,000 calories each.
In one final display of my epic knowledge of pop-culture and movie references, that Sunday afternoon, this DVD company was giving out free stuff. Including a copy of the original Halloween (since most of the remake’s cast was at the con) and daisies, I wanted that DVD. It was the last prize given out for answering trivia questions; we waited an extra hour for them to give it away. Joon even said “we could have left an hour ago, if you don’t get that DVD...” So the guy at the booth raised the copy up, and asked this question “In From Dusk Till Dawn, one of the main characters, Scott, wore a t-shirt that referenced this John Carpenter m...” I cut him off by raising my hand and shouting “Assault on Precinct 13”.
*How did I know the answer? I read the trivia page for the movie, on IMDB.com.
Fuck.
Yeah.
So I shut Joon up, and we left almost immediately for the 4 hour drive home.
The next day, his girlfriend at the time, K, broke up with him. She took him to the mall and tried on clothes for the next school year, which I guess was supposed to be her doing something nice for him before she ripped his heart out (which was then stomped out of existence by her later actions). Personally, I think if you’re going to do something like that, make it lingerie…or bikinis at the least.
We have yet to return to that convention. But I think next year is in order, because most of the fun from what we heard, happened in the bar.
And that’s it for Volume 3 of Con-Men! I figured since this one was more of a “happy” story, that I should keep it short. There are still some Con stories left to tell, but that will have to wait for another time.
- Tune in next time, where I lay out the ground work for an epic know as “The Feag Saga”.
Until next time, Bojac.
