I still remember back when Court was trying to recruit me like he was the
Houston Rockets coach and I was a shorter, hairier, and more articulate Yao
Ming. He didn’t exactly promise me money, women, and chocolate unicorns, but I
knew it would be a fun gig nevertheless.
After over a year, I realize that I’m probably not going to get rich doing
this, and that’s OK. I look at this column as something to fill my time when I
run out of crotch oil. But you never know where shit like this can lead, and
I’ve got a little story that proves it.
Before I became the resident comedic eskimo here at PIC, I had a different
internet writing gig. I wrote for a site called Grudge Match. The premise of the
site was simple, yet brilliant. We would take two icons from pop culture, write
a scenario that gave them cause to fight, and debate which of them would win.
Fans could vote and leave their own commentary on each match.
"I discovered that exploring a sci-fi convention would be a
great new form of torture for Iraqi prisoners."
Take, for example, a
confrontation such as Webster vs. Gary Coleman. On one hand, Coleman
outweighs Webster by about 30 pounds. On the other hand, if Webster
lands just one kidney punch, he’ll have Arnold praying for dialysis.
Sure, it was pretty fucked up to debate the fighting ability of
black midget child stars, but that was our mandate, and we took it
seriously.
Not all of the matches were simple fistfights either. We argued who would
solve a spooky mystery first: Scooby-Doo or X-Files? Who would get the girl: Sam
Malone or the Fonz? Who would win a build-off: MacGyver or the A-Team? There
were hundreds of matches, and, when you’ve had your fill of me here, you should
check out
the archives. They’re densely packed with comedy.
The site was massively popular. It got to the point where we were invited to
perform Grudge Matches for live audiences. Not many websites can make the
transition to live action. If PIC tried, it would probably involve Nick Gaudio
coming to your house and showing you his penis. And it might be weeks or even
months before there’s a demand for that.
I volunteered to be part of the team presenting a live multimedia Grudge
Match at Boskone, an annual science-fiction convention out of Boston, Mass. As
someone who has touched a woman in his lifetime, I had a natural disdain for
science fiction conventions, and didn’t want our kickass concept to be
associated with one. But pickers can’t be choosers, so off I flew to Boston,
cashing in all the air miles I earned by overseeing shipments of
Hello Kitty vibrators from Japan.
It was the middle of a cold Massachusetts winter. Not wanting to take my
chances with public transportation, I took a cab into the city centre. I’ve seen
enough Cheers to know that New Englanders have adorably retarded accents,
but I never thought I’d have to deal with an actual language barrier. I’m
positive I told the cabbie to go to the hotel, but he must have heard, “Please
drive as slow as possible, get caught by every red light, and drive me to the
wrong part of town entirely.”
When I finally arrived at the hotel where the convention was taking place, I
had to suffer the indignation of registering alongside a teeming mob of science
fiction fans. I realized that those same people comprised our fan base, but
still, the entire room stank of unwashed nerd. I was an artiste, a performer
doing a brilliant pop culture riff, I didn’t deserve to be stuck alongside
sweaty, 300-pound men wearing capes.
It’s important you understand how weird and pathetic this scene was. In order
for me to describe the appropriate level of shame, I would have to somehow
combine that kid whose Jedi combat storm kept the internet entertained for weeks
and
a grown man caught playing Dungeons & Dragons with a bunch of kids in a
hobby store.
I actually went into this with a bit of optimism. I figured I might encounter
some just-turned-18 sci-fi babe with her own Sailor Moon outfit. As a featured
performer, my comic delivery and stage presence would surely make this
hypothetical girl cream her Thundercats panties.
But, as many other delusional idealists before me have learned, such a girl
simply doesn’t exist. If there were any women at Boskone, the layers of
atrophied blubber made them basically indistinguishable from men. In fact, most
were confined to wheelchairs, which probably smelled like ass and were powered
by leftover gravy drippin’s. Wheelchair chicks can be sexy, but as everyone
knows, that’s “crippled” wheelchair, not “immobile fatty” wheelchair.
In any event, I met up with my colleagues to rehearse. Because we knew what
kind of Grudge Match fan would show up for this, we were presenting James Bond
vs. Indiana Jones, Harry Potter vs. Anakin Skywalker, and John McClane vs. The
Death Star. (McClane: Tends to cause things to explode. Death Star: Tends to
explode. You do the math.)
After we made a few last-minute changes to our script, I circulated among the
sci-fi people in an attempt to see what made them tick, and maybe drum up some
additional interest in our show. I discovered that exploring a sci-fi convention
would be a great new form of torture for Iraqi prisoners. Everything smells like
B.O. and ozone, and sometimes if you look in one of the rooms, you'll find
something you wish you hadn't. Like a symposium on all the things that were
wrong with Green Goblin’s hat in the Spiderman movie.
At one point, I strolled through a marketplace where the more entrepreneurial
nerds could sell their battle-damaged action figures and other crap. If a really
dirty refugee camp held a gigantic rummage sale, this is probably what it would
look like. Until that moment, I had never realized that Klingon erotica was in
such high demand.
That night, we attended something a concert of something called “filk” music.
According to reliable nerd sources, filk is folk music with
a science fiction or fantasy theme. Here’s a brief sample lyric from the
evening:
(To the tune of Hey Mr. Tambourine Man)
Hey, evil Borg machine-man, get away from me!
You're creepy, and I don't want to be one of you!
Hey, evil Borg machine man, won't you let me be?
In the interstellar darkness I'll be running from you.
And if that doesn’t make you want to gouge out your eardrums with a sharpened
Q-Tip, I applaud your courage, soldier! Later, when the euphoric crowd started
conga dancing to “Zombie Jamboree,” I decided I needed a drink bad enough to
shell out for second-tier scotch at the overpriced hotel bar.
The next day, my colleagues and I made our way to the room where we would be
revolutionizing the world of comedy. But there was a problem. Some douchebag
photographer was in the middle of a slideshow, and he didn’t show any signs of
relinquishing the room. We needed time to set up the sound and video, but this
asshole was plowing on about the time he met Chewbacca or something.
For what it’s worth, his audience seemed perfectly happy to stay, so I could
see that this situation would require a little creative thinking. My fellow
presenters were too panicky to be useful, so I grabbed an official-looking piece
of paper (actually, I think it might have been a Babylon 5 short story)
and marched right up to the guy.
Angrily jabbing at the paper, I told him that I was with hotel security, and
the room had to be cleared out, right now. I may not be the most intimidating
guy in the world, but I was powerfully motivated. I sure as hell didn’t fly to
Boston just to take in the local nerd culture. Amazingly, he bought it, and
within 3 minutes, he was lugging his gay-ass slide projector out the door and
back into the lonely world of alien photography.
Needless to say, our show was a rousing success. One of the responders
mistakenly thought we were presenting the Death Star vs. Senator John McCain,
which brought the house down. For a brief moment, I was
worshipped by nerds of all ages; I knew just how Weird Al Yankovic must
feel.
The city of Boston and its demented science fiction convention almost wore me
down, but in the end, it proved to be a worthwhile trip. To top it off, my
flight was cancelled due to snow, so I stayed an extra night in a youth hostel
where I hooked up with a beautiful girl who had absolutely nothing to do with
science fiction. She had a well-developed social conscience and, more
importantly, enormous tits.
To make a tired point, it’s amazing how a spot of writing, no more than a
hobby, can lead to cool shit sometimes. I did a bit of writing for a site I
believed in, and it led me to a memorable experience and a better-than-average
lay. Can history repeat itself? All I can say is, stay tuned. An editor at a
small publishing house, someone I’ve worked with before, has asked me to send
him some samples. Probably, it will come to nothing. But like I learned in
Boston, you never know.
