Not a con report

[gwyn]

I'm not much for the con reporting -- for one thing, I can't imagine anyone giving a damn who I saw or hung out with unless they wanted to see me mention their names, and for another, I'm insanely boring and frequently find myself alone, so there's even less to talk about. So this is a not-con report, mostly, about my general thoughts on Escapade this year -- I almost never do panels except when they involve friends, so I have little to comment on except general stuff.

My traveling companion, T, and I always come in early on Thursday and try to spend time in an area of LA we've never been to before, exploring and seeing sights. This year we went to West Hollywood and did the gay trail, culminating in a stop at Circus of Books for the porn palace we've heard so much about over the years. Yes, there was a lot of porn. But I found it a bizarrely disappointing collection, as there wasn't much in the way of particular kinks in either the het or the gay sections, and the gay stuff was just completely unorganized, so you'd have to spend whole days there if you were looking for anything specific. Since I thought the poor gay guys were probably mildly freaked at the tall straight-looking chick, I kept my presence to a minimum. But then we dealt with hideous rush hour traffic and construction to visit the coolest cemetary ever, the Hollywood Forever graveyard off Sunset. Unfortunately the sun was setting and T was freaked, plus I was worried they would close the gates early, so we had to leave without finding any of the good celeb graves except for Mel Blanc (whose tombstone says "That's all, folks!"), but we're definitely going back next year. And T so generously signed me up for next year's con at the higher rate, whch makes me uncomfortable but verklemmt and grateful.

Verklemmt and grateful turned out to be the theme of the weekend, for me. X, whose gorgeous fan art has been a favorite for years, helped me out significantly financially, as well as giving me a cool booklet with her gorgeous art of Chris going in under Vin's hat for a kiss. And I can't say enough about the generosity of killabeez, who not only already gave me the first season box set of Jeremiah, but also gave me DVD copies she made of the unaired in the states second season eps, as well, at the con, not to mention other wonderful treats. maygra plied me with drunken compliments that she probably doesn't remember at all, but that made me feel all warm and gooey. It makes me all weepy and sniffly, and I pretty much spent the con that way. morgandawn has not only been putting up a bunch of my vids lately on her space, but she also gave me a new disc of her vids, and bought me dinner when a bunch of us Jeremiah folks went out for food Friday night. You never really know how many friends you have and how generous people are until something terrible happens to you, and then you find out just how wonderful the people you know truly are. I felt blessed and loved and happy, feelings that I confess are somewhat alien to me. And when I got my Keen Eddie vid mentioned in the vid show review panel, that kind of tipped me over the edge -- it surprised me so much that they'd want to mention it before the other comedy vids that I almost burst into tears. (BTW, if you're interested in watching the vid, it's
at Morgan's site -- if you already have the password, you can go there; if not, e me and I'll let you know.)

ETA: I meant to say something about the song in the vid, Too Bad. I heard so many variations on what people thought the music was that I wanted to clear that up: Doug and the Slugs were a ska/punk/powerpop/barbershop (no, really) band from Vancouver that I used to go see all the time in the early '80s. They had a minor video hit with the video to Too Bad and a couple others, and I'm always surprised when someone I meet knows about them -- they're that obscure.

I got to see all my usual friends, including my beloved San Francisco buddies, check out poor lizyjn and make sure she was okay!, and hang out with the usual folks I bop around with. I loved the Escapade lounge this year, with a bar and a huge TV and little tables with lights and a couple couches by the TV -- it made a great place to look for friends, and waste time in. It also made a great overflow area for the vid show. I also loved being able to check out zines from the library in the con suite. I went to a couple of high seas/Napoleonic era fandom panels, one on Master and Commander (it is just so *cute* to see all my friends going so nuts for this! I love it!), and one that encompassed more of the general themes of both Hornblower and M&C (though once again, I was left feeling really depressed and isolated because I love a character who seems to be completely marginalized by the HH fandom, though I did appreciate that Naomi and Destina included Sharpe recs on their handout). I also went the WOAD Society preview of their new disc set, and it was lovely and wonderful -- got to see some new vids and some that were favorites. The only other panel I tried was the tiny fandoms one, but I started to get hostile about halfway through and had to leave -- whenever a couple people will take over a panel and hoard all the talk time, I find myself losing it, and remember why I never go to panels.

The vid show went surprisingly smoothly this year, and not having the Friday show made me enormously happy. All of the tech setup problems that plague us when we have less than two hours to hook together modern and 25-year-old technology were eliminated, and astolat's creation of a disc beforehand meant we only had to soundcheck the vids, rather than check each one individually for everything. There were a few problems, like a run-list glitch, and one vid had severe audio problems, but overall on our end it was smooth. Though there was a problem with the comment sheets migrating off to places many vidders didn't know where to go to find them, so anyone who left early was pretty much SOL. Problem I need to find a way to solve next year if we do the sheets like this again. And once more unto the breach -- it is both heartening and horrifying to me that no matter how much trouble you go to to ask people not to attack vidders or lash out just because you don't like their musical tastes or their pairing or whatever, and you create a different type of comment sheet to minimize that problem, people will still find a way to be malicious and cruel for no other reason than that they are evil, petty little shitheads. I swear, next year I'm taking names and bashing heads.

I didn't come home with a run list or anything like that, and far too many vids have already gotten lost in my brain cloud, but I remember loving (I'm not even going to attempt trying to do everyone's LJ name, because I will fail miserably) Laura Shapiro's exquisitely disturbing Farscape vid, Destina's gorgeous Gladiator vid to All Souls Night, Luminosity's riotously funny Angel vid My West Hollywood Lifestyle, Whatever and her other Angel and Wes vid that I can't remember the darn name of, Sisabet's deeply creepy Smallville vid, Morgan Dawn's breathtaking Due South vid to music from the Road to Perdition soundtrack, Killa's haunting, sad Kurdy character study for Jeremiah, and also her lovely QAF-UK vid (Vince!), Melina's tender character study of Duncan, and the unreally cool LA Confidential vid by Jill and Kathy. And I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff now... I'd already seen Sandy, Rache and Viv's wonderful Farscape/Stargate vid to Wipeout, and it was fun watching it with an audience and seeing them react so happily. And shalott's beautiful Master and Commander vid to Duende made me wish I could run out and watch the movie again rightthisverysecond. It was totally Russell Crowe night with LAC, M&C, and Gladiator, I'm telling ya! I also just adored having a Professionals vid in the show, which PRZed brought all the way from Canada. What a treat and reminder of our heritage.

I thought it was a very good, very solid vid show, and filled with vids that I thought made wonderful character studies or great slahy set pieces. Every year, because I think I'm a sort of visible presence from making announcements before the show, I hear the complaints of how it's not slashy enough or not fannish enough or not connish enough. And the comment sheets often echo that, though in far less polite way than many of the people I know on LJ who've said that. And once the hoo-haw dies down about some of the con reports, I plan to write a long post about this -- it's been building up in my mind for many years now, this whole thing about how to define what should or shouldn't happen at the show, and since I have such a lengthy history of being involved with it and as an audience member and vidder there, I feel I have something to say. I'm sure it will offend some, hurt some, and make some happy, though I have no intention of writing it with any of those things in mind -- but I know there will be fallout, so I want to wait a while before I say anything. No matter how calm or reasoned you are, when you get into these topics, decorum flies out the window, I've learned.

Sunday was day of recovery, the dead dog party, and then House of Meat with my buds, who hadn't already departed. I love House of Meat, even when we're crammed into a table that's far too small and we're all practically in each other's laps. T and I got back to LAX far too early, so we sat in the only sun of the whole weekend (it rained most of the weekend, my only real disappointment) for a long time at the car rental place, and then went home. It was harder coming home this year than usual, knowing I had to be up gruesomely early for an outplacement seminar thingie, and that now I couldn't put off the unemployment filing and the dealing with job hunting anymore. Real life is back, in all its misery. But this was such a sustaining weekend with my friends, I think I can get through it now. I know some really amazing people, I do.