To convention or not to convention, that is the question

There comes a time in every sci-fi fan’s life when they have to make the hard choice: do I go to the convention or not?

It doesn’t matter what convention, really. There’s always going to be some sort of carefully staged gathering poised to take advantage of a sci-fi fan’s deep, desperate love for shows with the word “star” or “Buffy” somewhere in the title. I was thinking about this last night when I discovered that something called Jump Con is coming to Detroit and the featured guests will be Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell.

I’m not sure if you know this about me, but I really like “Battlestar Galactica.”

So my first reaction was, “Awesome! Sign me up.” And my second reaction was, “Oh man, every time I go to one of these, I just come home feeling sad.”

Now, I need to clarify that I’m not talking about mega-conventions like Comic Con where you get to see previews of great new movies, comic books or TV shows. And I’m not talking about gatherings like Origins where people are interacting with each other and having a good time previewing new games and competing. I think that stuff’s fun.

But I’ve been to a few other types and, well, that word “sad” just keeps coming up. In college I went to a “Star Trek” convention with some friends on a lark, just to see what it was all about. While it was great scoring a copy of Brent Spiner’s surprisingly entertaining singing debut and checking out the merchandise booths, there was also an undeniably large amount of brightly-colored velour and middle-aged men with their mothers.

A few years after that, I dragged the husband to an X-Files convention. On the awesome side, there was Charles Nelson Reilly in slippers telling the most wonderfully ridiculous stories, and William B. Davis being Canadian and regaling us with tales of his water skiing prowess. You have to admit – you don’t see those two things every day. On the downside, there was Doug Hutchison trying to pick up college girls by telling them, “I played Tooms, you know.” And by the end of the day, I kind of felt like I was in some weird X-Files celebrity zoo.

That feeling was heightened earlier this year when I exercised my nerd duty and went to the Motor City Comic Con. Again, on the plus side, I saw a lot of great new artists and discovered some new authors that truly intrigued me. On the “wow, this is sad” side, I saw Mickey Dolenz (who I loved as a child), Erik Estrada and Lou Ferrigno sitting in little booths – not unlike at a petting zoo – waiting for people to come up and pay for their autographs. And I felt bad because I thought that Erik Estrada training to be a police officer in rural Indiana for a lousy reality TV show was as crappy as a career could get – until I saw him sitting in a booth in suburban Detroit with me walking by not willing to pay $10 to tell him how "ChiPs" made me afraid of motorcycle cops as a kid.

So maybe it’s the celebrity side of these conventions that bothers me. It’s the paying to meet people and have awkward 30-second conversations with them that just makes me feel weird, like I’m engaging in a high-end, rapid-fire act of fully-clothed prostitution. And please don’t think I’m being snobby and saying, “I’d never get an autograph that way” because trust me, I have. Mickey Dolenz and I had quite the awkward mini-conversation back at 1987’s Autorama car show and I’ve got autographs from Marina Sirtis and Michael Dorn to prove I didn’t leave that “Star Trek” convention empty-handed. And don’t even get me started on book signings: I’ve collected the signatures and disdain of many of America’s greatest writers. Mostly, I think I make these situations bad on my own. I’m notoriously terrible at human conversation in general. Put a celebrity in front of me and I become exponentially more socially retarded. Nine times out of ten, there’s a good chance I’ll fall down. In fact, let me describe for you what me meeting Mary McDonnell at a convention might look like: I would likely attempt an ill-advised joke about not being gay just because I think she’s awesome. And she would look at me like, “What the fuck?” And then, like a fainting goat, I would fall down.

I’m sure millions of people have a great time at these conventions. And I’m sure the actors who take part in them have a blast, too. It’s got to be great knowing so many people enjoy your work. But you know at some point, there’s going to be awkwardness and weirdness. At some point, someone’s going to stand up and ask Olmos to read their BSG/Punky Brewster crossover fan fic and everyone in the room is going to die from the collective shame. And everyone who bought a ticket will feel tainted by association.

So, with the prostitution vibe, my own social awkwardness and the guarantee that roughly 20 percent of the other attendees will be really weird and lacking the requisite shame to keep it to themselves, I’ve just soured on the experience.

Who are we kidding though? You know and I know I'll probably end up going to the damn thing anway. God knows, there's nothing else to do in Detroit. So if you hear about a woman falling down in front of Mary McDonnell, just pray for my shame-filled soul.

Married woman seeks 325 pages of prose for discreet weekend dalliances

This may be admitting to a psychosis, but I tend to relate to books as if they were people. When a book is good for the first 275 pages and then completely falls apart at the end, I feel as though it has betrayed me. “You made me think you were a modern American classic!” is pretty much akin to finding out my date with the PhD from Stanford had only driven through Stanford and actually it wasn’t even Stanford. It was Stamford. Yes, the one in Connecticut.

And when a book is good, I want to be its BFF beyond forever. “Les Miserables” and I could grow old together, rocking on the front porch of some stately old home, swapping stories and talking about how awesome Jean Valjean is.

This is why I wish there was a dating service for books. I get cold feet trying to find something new to read. Walking into a bookstore is like walking into a party alone when really, I’d just rather be sitting on the couch with people I already know. I’m comfortable at home with my Dorothy Parkers and my Fitgeralds and Carvers. The trouble is though, what with being dead and all, they’re not producing much new work. I’m forced to find new meat. But what if I pick up a book and what I thought was clever prose actually turns out to be painfully pretentious prose – the literary equivalent of giving me the clap on page 278? What if I buy something with a shiny cover and find out it’s dumb as a brick? What if I pick up “Midnight’s Children” and get stuck talking to Salmon Rushdie all night? (If he gets cheese in his beard, do I tell him?)

I wish I could just sign up for a service and tell a computer what my likes and dislikes are: I’m a Capricorn with a passion for spare ribs, Anne Tyler and epic poetry. Post-modern fiction need not apply. And then the computer coughs up a reading list for me, guaranteed to please or my money back.

Once you pick up a book, there is an implied commitment, just like when a guy takes you out to dinner and you order a $20 entrée, there’s the implication you’ll at least stay through the $10 dessert and then ask to be taken home because you feel gassy. I don’t want to make that kind of commitment with just any book. I want something that’s going to hold my attention past the colorful cover, past the first few pages and the first few character introductions. I’m in dire need of a book that’s going to put my heart to racing at least a few times and make me want to scribble things like “Liz + One Hundred Years of Solitude 4 EVER” on my notebooks.

And yet, I have no idea how to make that choice. In the past, I was a mass shopper – just grab a bunch of books and hope for the best. I was, in short, a brazen book whore. But now I just don’t find the same satisfaction in doing that. I want to cut to the chase and find a good book on my first go-around. I don’t have time to dilly dally or fuss with inferior products. This cougar ain’t getting’ any younger.

So, until the day someone invents a literary dating service, I’m afraid I’ll just be spending a lot of time browsing, hoping against hope I can find at least one book that thrills me enough to not only give it my real name but also call it back in the morning.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July everyone! In honor of this day, I give you Bill Pullman's stirring speech from "Independence Day"...and just remember, if the aliens ever take over Earth and Bill Pullman leads us to victory on a holiday weekend, then "the fourth of July will no longer be just an American holiday." And we'll all owe our lives to Randy Quaid.


Cracks me up every time.

News of the Mid-Morning - July 3

+ Recession. Wildfires. A decade-long campaign for president. Of all the terrible things facing America these days, this bit of news seems worst of all: we're going to have to wait another few weeks for the Brangelina twins. How much more must our nation endure??

+ Remember how all I ever talk about is "Battlestar Galactica?" (I know, it's terrible. Just imagine what it's like to live with me.) Anyway, just for fun, let's replace that mania with "Dr. Horrible" for a while and check out the official debut of Captain Hammer, Dr. Horrible's nemesisisisis, in this new Dark Horse comic.

+ Can I just tell you how much I love the random photos that Google News runs with its teasers? This, for example:

The court case will apparently be judged by the feline cast of "Pirates of Penzance."

News of the Day -- Wednesday, July 2

+ Yesterday was just one of those days, you know? In case you had one of those days, too, let's all watch the Dr. Horrible teaser and make it better, shall we?


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

+ Science-types are talking about the possibility of an invisibility cloak. You know what I would do if I had an invisibility cloak? I would spend a whole day just giving people the finger. Dogs and little children, too. I don't know why, it just seems like a reasonable thing to do.

+ Did you hear that Nelson Mandela was taken off the United States' terrorism watch list yesterday? Happy Birthday, Nelson! At first, we were going to get you a gift certificate to Bed, Bath and Beyond but this seemed so much more personal. On a related note, King George III rose from the dead yesterday, got in his time machine and took George Washington off The Naughty Colonial List. Sigh.

+ And did you know that yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the S.O.S. signal, marking the 100th anniversary of me of confusing it with scouring pads?

+ And finally, Galactica Sitrep reports that Jane "Everything I Write Turns to Magical Television Gold" Espenson will write the first of the three proposed Battlestar Galactica TV movies. Word is that Edward James Olmos will direct. And there was much rejoicing...