Farm 0622

June 22

J&T planned to begin driving at 8AM to arrive at ABQ right when the convention started (10AM). Though I should’ve woken up at 6AM, the alarm clock didn’t ring until 7AM (I think), so my morning routine was a bit rushed. I made oatmeal breakfast, drank a cup of tea, packed up a few books, my notebook, my phones, and my laptop, and we drove off. The drive was pretty uneventful and conversation-dry, though we got to listen to the Thrift Shop song on the road (which I just realized was about a thrift shop about 3 days ago).

Once in ABQ, Josh parked at the convention center, we each paid $21.40 to get in (online tickets were not available anymore), and we went inside. And then I saw what a comic convention was like. Comic book sales, fiction book sales, extended series fiction, fictional art; many sensual-, epic-, cute-, bodacious-, original-, colorful-looking drawings and paintings everywhere, artists drawing and coloring right there on the tables, booths of fictional equipment replicas, quality miniatures of Star Wars ships and actual airplanes, and people wearing MANY kinds of costumes. The Brave heroine, X-Men, Superman, Flash, the Blue Spirit, Stormtroopers, Lego Stormtrooper, pirates, Korra, Star Trek officers, Star Wars/Bioshock/Sleeping Hill/Sailor Moon/Dragonball/anime characters, She-Hulk, Thor, Yoda, Roboto-Rita, Green Lantern, Commander Shephard, Ironman, Dr. Who, The Joker, the Demented Duo, and zombies were among the costumes I saw. Most of them were easily recognizable, although some of them gleamed more effort put into them than others. Hair and skin was painted in many cases, and at some of them, especially at the Brave heroine, I found myself lauding internally. Many of them, mostly the anime or newer video game characters, I didn’t recognize.

So I walked and browsed around aimlessly for about an hour, looking at art, people saying hello and telling me about what they made and offered and sold. I politely looked and listened, but not being genuinely interested in anything there, I just moved on from booth to booth. From the few things I remember, a replica of Commander Shephard’s helmet was available for $500, and the main female actress from Back to the Future offered Photo Ops for $10 and autographs for $25. I thought the prices fairly hefty for me, though reasonably-priced in the given market, if the actress actually wanted to made her time worthwhile (money-wise) while she was there.

I got a little hungry, but muffins were $4 a piece inside the expo, so I walked to the street and bought a little bag of peanuts for $1. Those held me for a while, and then I attended a talk with 77-y/o Dean Stockwell with J&T. He seemed so... bland. Well, his answers did. He didn’t really speak much - he sat down in front of the crowd, and simply said: “Well, who wants to ask the first question?" His 28-y/o-looking wife appeared a few minutes later, and he introduced her as such: "You might not believe it, but this is my wife". And the questions just went on. Apparently, he played the role of Father Cavin in the Battlestar Galactica TV series. The dialogues between the crowd and him went something along:

-"Along your extensive career as an actor, since you were a little boy until now, was there a character in particular that you enjoyed portraying the most?"

-"Ummmm... no. No, not really"

-"Why did you take *such-and-such* role when it was something so different from what you had done before?"

-"Well, the money they offered me was pretty good. Money can do a lot to shape one's decisions"

-"Was there any particular kind of movie, or genre, that you liked acting in more?"

-"Well, I did like working in comedy/romantic genres sometime. Like Quantum Leap, that had a little bit of it".

His answers seemed to be terse and true, and he seemed to be making little to no effort in keeping the audience entertained or excited. People seemed to try to pry into his thoughts about his role in Battlestar Galactica, but I think it was not mentioned even once. It was 11:29AM when he said "Well, it's time for lunch, right?" Someone else interjected a question before he left, but he seemed anxious to finish the session. As he walked out, I noticed his posture and attitude. He walked steadily and hunched, and he seemed like someone resigned to do what he was doing, though not really excited about, or looking forward to, pretty much anything. His demeanor did not seem like one productive or enjoyable.

For the next hour, I wanted to see some Martial Arts demo, but that part was postponed, and I instead sat at a talk by Robotech for a few minutes. When I realized my disinterest at the innovativeness of the games that Robotech was advertising, I walked outside and joined the talk with Neal Adams that J&T were attending. That one was much more interesting - he was a storyteller, as he said himself, and he talked about how he helped make the comic-book/arts industry return the original arts to the artists. His stories were full of dialogues and anecdotes, his voice actually modulated when he spoke, he attended to people's questions humorously and with a personal touch, even though many of the answers seemed to be prepared and rehearsed. So after an entertaining 20-30 minutes, the talk ended.

Then we went out to eat a Subway sandwich with J&T, then we returned to the expo. I hung outside for a while as I ate Subway cookies and drank their chocolate milk. I sunbathed for a while on a bench, then filled out an online Subway survey in exchange for a free cookie. After the survey, I wrote down a numeric code on my Subway receipt, made the line in Subway again, and got a free cookie in the end. I went inside again, and I saw many costumed people line up, all of them seemingly ready for the costume contest at 3PM. I decided to go to the room early, so at about 2:45, I went near the front of Panel Room A, and saw another engaging artist talk about his experiences to the crowd. At 3PM, people started getting up, so I grabbed a front row seat and reserved two other seats beside it for J&T. I called Josh to tell him I'd gotten them seats, then we sat down to watch the show.

The show was entertaining, and gave me a sneak peek into the interests of fiction fans. The event seemed to be central to the Expo, and even J&T, who aren't that much of hardcore fiction fans, were quite observant of the details and originality of the characters and costumes. An X-Men team that I thought looked cool and flashy, was easily discarded by Josh as very store-bought-looking, and unimpressive. And after I saw the costumes with a bit more attention, and compared it with many of the others, I understood what he meant. The time and effort that the X-Men team had invested into their costumes were probably only a minute fraction of what some of the others' had. Make-up, hair paint, sewing, painting; leather, paper, fabric, wood, metal, wires, electronics craftsmanship had been involved in many of the other costumes, and a store-bought costume was certainly not a match in originality with those others.

A listing of all the costumes I liked would be too long, but I found the exposition quite entertaining. I clapped loudly when the Brave heroine stepped in, in perfect make-up, long fire-orange hair curls, sky-blue long dress with a golden hem and Irish-looking designs on it, hand-crafted leather-covered bow: to me, a perfect replica of the character displayed in Disney posters. Even her face seemed to be a perfect match. It might've as well been the other way around. An Ironman suit made from scratch with LEDs on its helmet and chest, and a mask that opened just like in the movie, was a pretty strong, though not very original, contender. A little girl in a shiny green suit and skirt with a green lantern logo on her chest, and her hair only subtly dyed green, and a dramatic entrance and appearance, was one of the cutest contenders (and the children's category winner). The Blue Spirit made quite an entrance, with hand-crafted swords, and showing off actual-looking, flashy martial arts techniques with his twin swords. A red-haired dad came on stage with a baby, representing Fry & Nibbler from Futurama. A very detailed Captain Shephard in full armor ran into the stage, pistol in hand, shouting "nobody move!!", or something of the sort as he entered. A pyramid-head, walking on tall stilts covered in a brown sack-like fabric, seemed to crawl across the stage, dragging a huge sword behind her, and with, well, a pyramid head. The winner of the whole affair ended up being Roboto-Rita, who hand-made a near-full metallic enclosure with transparent domes, colorful LEDs, and wires all around her. Her hair was made of tangly wire, her skirt's hem was metallically adorned, her hat looked made of aluminum, her face was fully painted gray, and her entire thorax area seemed to be covered by a desktop enclosure. The time and effort put into the costume was most impressive, for sure, although my own personal favorite ended up being the Brave heroine, for the remarkable similarity I found in her to the "real" movie personage.

So after the contest (and watching some slapstick-humor Looney Tunes coyote & roadrunner interludes before they gave away the prizes, and wondering at the physical resilience and seeming indestructibility of the coyote's body), J&T stayed for the following talk in the room, and I walked outside the center to finish my sandwich. When I finished it and was still hungry, I walked to Subway, only to find it closed. Other restaurants in the area seemed closed or too expensive, so I just got a corn-in-the-cob from a food truck for $1, then sat down at a table in a deserted-looking area, and read Plato's Dialogues for about 30-45 minutes.

When I walked back in, J&T had gone into a talk called "Geeks who Drink", were the audience was asking questions to a group of semi-famous people in the art industry, of which I knew none. I sat there for a few seconds, then decided to walk outside and continue reading Plato's Dialogues. I sat down in a corner of the convention center, and after a while, I saw a red frisbee whizz by. Dean Stockwell's wife appeared and picked it up, then Dean Stockwell appeared, and they threw the frisbee back and forth between them for about five minutes before walking away again. The wife seemed to be very unskilled at throwing a frisbee, though she displayed much better catching than throwing skills. At about 7PM, I thought the whole event might be closing down, so I walked back inside Panel Room A. The event wasn't ending at all, and Josh saw me and invited me to sit with them. Since I'd been spotted, I thought it rude to walk back outside and continue reading, so I came inside and sat down with Tyler and two new friends, Ashley and Steven.

A few minutes later, Josh and Megan, Ashley's sister, appeared. Their backstories were fairly irrelevant, and a little later, a trivia quiz began. We formed a quick team of six people between all of us, and we called ourselves "Murder of Crows". I liked it. We did our best on the six sections with 8 questions each about aliens, musicals, Star Wars math, and other random facts, but we ended up placing somewhere in the middle. Still, the first place team got $60 and a Gamecube, so we didn't fail to win much more than ephemeral glory.

After the quiz, Ashley was acting pretty huggly and caressingly with Tyler, so we decided to stick around Albuquerque for a little longer. The girls invited us to a bar called "Sister", so we drove down to downtown ABQ, found a parking spot, and ate a $2.75 pizza slice each. Then we walked up to the bar, paid the $7 cover charge (each), then we went in and pretty much danced to rap and indie music all night. Oh, and Tyler danced with Ashley, then they held each other and kissed for a few minutes.A burlesque show with female fiction characters taking their clothes off, up to their covered nipples, followed, but I lost all of the little interest+peer-pressure I had after watching Kitana, the opera singer from the Fifth Element, and some kind of Catwoman holding Batman's picture dance and take clothing pieces off. I walked outside, talked to a very cordial and pleasant-looking Hot Dog vendor named Earl, visited an art gallery that seemed ready to close (which had a piece of art with a replica "Starry Night" from Van Gogh, plus a Thundercats symbol in the night sky), and went into Lindy's, a diner that was open until 3AM. There I ordered some Mexican Eggs (with hash browns and beans included), and heard two girls, a certain gold-skirted, white-bloused Ms. Chang, and her black-dressed Armenian friend talk to some old famous black guy in the diner. The Chang girl seemed especially engaging, sassy, and flirtatious, and sat down on the famous-seeming guy as someone took a picture of them. I liked her boldness and character (she began the conversation with him when she saw him dining), though I questioned her motives. If they were benign, then good for her.

When I walked back into the Sister bar again, Ashley was no longer beside Tyler, and he seemed to be waiting for her. He seemed to have little hope though, and after he went to look for her and couldn't find her, we decided to leave. We walked back to the car, Josh found the I-25 highway, and then I dozed off until we were back at the farm, just after 3AM. I think I washed the dishes I'd left in the sink, left half a cup of garbanzo beans soaking overnight, took my clothes off, crawled up into bed, and fell asleep.