Still don't quite have the hang of blogging via iPhone. I meant to end the previous post by saying I have to get back inside and will write more later.
There's no cellular reception in the ballroom where the Eisner Awards are being presented at the moment. Not a lot of oxygen, either. Which explains why I'm outside on a bench overlooking the water.
My panel-free day was exhausting. I'd forgotten that one of the reasons I started hosting all them panels at cons was that I get bored sitting at a table all day signing my name and it's hard on the feet to wander about on concrete floors for four days. The noise level can get to you as well. I heard Tijuana has been calling to complain about the noise.
Did some interviews. Had some business-type meetings. My meals bookended my relationships: I had lunch with my first girl friend...first time I've seen her since 1972. Then dinner was to celebrate the birthday of the current light of my existence, Carolyn Kelly.
Another amazing YouTube find: The night of May 6, 1971, Johnny Carson's guest host on The Tonight Show was Woody Allen, whose guests included Bob Hope and James Coco. Someone has uploaded pieces of this broadcast and the little player I've embedded below will play them, though not necessarily in the right order.
There are many points of interest in here. One is that you get to see the way Mr. Carson's show opened for a few years there with some odd graphics. Another is that you see Ed McMahon taking, as he often did with guest hosts, a more activist role in keeping the proceedings moving along. The mutual respect between Mr. Allen and Mr. Hope is obvious, especially the way Woody looks at Bob. And I suppose I'll find other things to enjoy when I have time to watch it again. Here's your chance to watch it now...
Kevin Drum (hi, Kevin!) explains why we don't have Climate Change legislation and probably won't for quite a long time. My guess is that at least three states will have to be completely destroyed before the Limbaugh crowd will grudgingly admit, "Well, maybe there's something to this worry." And it can't be small states, either. The obliteration of, say, Rhode Island wouldn't be enough to budge the folks who chortle, every time it snows anywhere, "Well, so much for that Global Warming crap." It's going to take losing a big one, probably Florida. (Louisiana won't do it since we've already kinda decided it's expendable...)
I was a few minutes late for my first panel yesterday at Comic-Con 2010. Fortunately, I was not the moderator. But running around before, doing errands and getting Frebergs to their table, I suddenly found myself behind the convention center, where few venture. Recalling a shortcut inside that I last used around 2001, I hurried this way and that way, only to find myself in what is now a restricted, high-security area, arguing with one of those security guards who think you're supposed to vanish off the face of the planet just because they tell you, "You shouldn't be here!" Getting rid of me did not seem to include telling me a proper way I could get upstairs to Hall 6A and flashing my Guest badge only seemed to irritate him further.
Ordinarily, I feel for such folks and sympathize with the "dirty job but somebody has to do it" reality of their assignments. Hurrying later from my first panel to my second, the easiest route was to enter through an exit. A guard there tried to stop me but when I pointed to my badge and said, "I'm the host of this panel," he saw the wisdom of saying, "Come right in." But that first guy, and an older woman who hurried over to confirm I was forbidden to be where I was, reminded me of all those stories Sergio and I have done wherein our character Groo wreaks havoc and destruction merely by following his orders exactly and mindlessly as he understands them. I said to the two guards, "You know, you could get rid of me this second if you told me which way to go to get into the convention center." "That's not our job," the woman said. "Our job is to make sure people like you aren't here."
I thought of about thirty great sarcastic replies but I was already tardy for the panel. Fortunately, I found another guard nearby with an I.Q. higher than his body temperature in Celsius and he directed me to a door the other ones could have told me about but wouldn't.
So there you have it: The only thing that went even vaguely wrong yesterday. Otherwise, it was as much fun as these things ever are. I continue to marvel at the stunning skill with which this convention operates. Among the many reasons I pray it doesn't relocate to another city is that the convention crew has learned how to do this convention in this building with about as much efficiency as is humanly possible. I don't want to endure the learning curve while they reinvent everything for a new venue. (No word yet on how likely a relocation is. The fact that the city hasn't done the sane thing and given the con everything it wants to stay suggests that somewhere in the San Diego government, there are some officials who are recklessly trying to play hardball in the negotiations. No one affiliated with the convention staff has told me anything but it's the only possible reason this wasn't a done deal months ago...and if I were a nearby San Diego merchant, I'd be pissed. Hey, great time to be gambling with the local economy, guys!)
Oh, you want to know what happened with the much-promoted protest by the Westboro Baptist Church yahoos? You know them: The folks who are so embarrassing with their corruption of God's message that real Baptists have written to ask that I not refer to them with the "B" word. Well, what happened seems to be not much. Some of the assholes showed up to find they were vastly outnumbered by counter-protestors, some of whom had very funny signs and costumes. I guess when the a-holes saw they were looking even stupider than they usually do, they largely retreated...but this is a third-hand report. In the hall, we didn't hear a word about them.
I had a great time panelling and roaming that hall. Stan and Hunter Freberg were a smash with their panel and after, their table was mobbed with folks who wanted to say howdy and also purchase the new Freberg CD that debuted at this convention. I'll have details here later on how you can get a copy and hear all-new Freberg funnies...but if you're here and anywhere near Table II-15, drop by and get a couple signed by The Man himself.
I'm about to go do more roaming for today, inexplicably, I have zero panels to host. I make up for it tomorrow but today, I am without purpose or meaning. Or panels. This has happened before at a Comic-Con, most recently in 1976. I may, out of force of habit, just wander into someone else's and start moderating. I hope Brad and Angelina don't mind.
Fred Kaplan on the state of our intelligence community...where they're supposed to know everything that's going on except within other portions of the intelligence community.
July 24, 2010
