Usual warning: This will be long. And probably pretty
boring, although it's not like I'm forcing you to read it at gunpoint.
This year I was able to take Thursday and Friday off, and left
for Atlanta on Wednesday after work. I got to my hotel in Smyrna around 7:30pm.
I didn't try to go into Atlanta that night, just relaxed and walked to Target
to buy snacks and an umbrella. I ended up with crackers, cheese slices, and a
pair of gray socks with black bats on them. I forgot the umbrella, which was a
shame as you will soon see.
I was too excited about DragonCon to sleep well, and when my
alarm woke me at 6:30 on Thursday morning, I already felt like I was three days
into con weekend and feeling ragged. But I perked up quickly when I remembered
I was up early to go birdwatching with my friend Kevin!
Kevin is cohost of the fun podcast The Flopcast, which I highly recommend. We've known each other
probably close to 25 years at this point but the only time we see each other is
at DragonCon. Last year Kevin mentioned being kind of interested in birds, so I invited him to go birding
with me before DragonCon started this year. I drove into Atlanta
to pick him up, and while I was waiting for him to come down, I stopped by
registration to see when it would open. To my surprise, it was already up and
running, and it only took a few minutes to get my badge!
Kevin and I grabbed a quick breakfast at the coffee shop in
the Sheraton, then jumped in my car and headed to the Chattahoochee River. It's
not far from where I was staying--in fact, two years ago I tried to find it to
do some birding but the directions I had just sent me into a subdivision. This
year I had better directions.
By then, of course, it was pouring rain. Kevin had brought
an umbrella but I didn't have one, remember. We sat in the car for a few
minutes until the rain slacked up a little, then jumped out to see some birds!
It didn't go so well. We saw some Canada geese right off,
which made me hopeful that we might also see some cormorants or grebes or maybe
some ducks at least, but nope, just Canada geese. Then nothing for a long time
while the rain increased and the only pair of shoes I'd brought to Atlanta got
wetter and wetter. The light wasn't good so the few small birds I spotted were
just silhouettes.
We kept going, and then, miraculously, we spotted an osprey!
It flapped wetly across the river and landed in the top of a tree. While Kevin
watched it through my spare binoculars, I tried to ID the swallows skimming
over the river's surface. When one landed in a dead tree not twenty feet away,
I saw it was a Northern rough-winged swallow. I was so pleased that I'm afraid
I pestered Kevin to stop looking at the majestic bird of prey and instead feast
his eyes on the tiny bird sitting on a twig and looking not unlike every other
swallow species in the world except to the trained eye.
At that point it started thundering, the rain increased to a
deluge, and we decided we'd better turn back. I was so wet by then that there
was no point in trying to keep partially under Kevin's umbrella, so I just
walked and got wetter and wetter. Luckily I keep a towel in my car, and in fact
discovered, when we got back to the parking lot, that I had a second towel in
the back too for Kevin to use. Also luckily, my hotel was really closeby,
because I needed to change.
Kevin waited in the car while I ran up and changed into dry
clothes--all but my shoes, which were sodden. I threw my wet clothes into the
tub to dry. Then we drove back into Atlanta for DragonCon!
Official programming didn't start until Friday, but there
were some things going on Thursday afternoon. Kevin left to help run the newbie
walking tours, and I got some lunch, belatedly bought an umbrella at CVS, and
wandered around looking at costumes. As the afternoon progressed the hotels got
more and more crowded--nothing like the weekend, of course, but lots of people
nevertheless. I tried to find a pair of flip-flops to buy, but the only ones I
could find were hideous, cheaply made, and $10. I refused to spend that much on
ugly flip-flops so I just walked around in wet and stinky shoes. Eventually
they dried out, although they smell like a zombie died in them. I need new
running shoes anyway.
I didn't realize immediately that I was doing my own walking
tour of the convention area until I was nearly to the AmericasMart 2 building
even though I knew the dealer's hall wouldn't open until the next morning. I
never go to the dealer's hall anyway. What I was doing, subconsciously, was
getting myself oriented. It worked, too. I only got turned around once the
whole weekend, and that was early on Sunday morning when I was running on only
a few hours of sleep and hadn't had coffee yet. But I'm getting ahead of
myself.
Later that evening I met Kevin, his wife Felicity, his
sister Christine, and two friends of theirs for dinner at a Mexican restaurant,
where I ordered goat. It was good, and I was able to mark it off my bucket list
as a food I wanted to try.
It was fairly late when we left the restaurant, and after
some more walking around I decided reluctantly that I was too tired to stay up
for the Ego Likeness show at 10:30pm. I went back to the hotel room instead and
got less sleep than I needed but more sleep than the night before.
I've written over 1,000 words and DragonCon hasn't even
officially started!
I woke on Friday headachey and tired. I should mention that
I'm still getting over the con crud I picked up at WorldCon in Finland a few
weeks before. It was a mild cold, but it settled in my chest and chest colds
are so hard to get rid of. I skipped the 8:30am panel I'd been thinking of
attending and got breakfast instead, coffee and an egg mcmuffin type thing at
Dunkin Donuts. And a cruller.
The first panel I attended was "Dollars & Sense: The
Business of YA," which was interesting and made me feel I was using my
DragonCon time wisely. After that I rushed to get to the "How to Fight Like a
Woman" panel/swordfighting demonstration. Every year I try to get to a
swordfighting demonstration and every year the room fills up before I can reach
it, but this year I made it in! It. Was. AWESOME! If I was half my age and didn't
already have 500 hobbies, I'd want to take it up.
After that I attended a panel about the pop culture of 1987,
which was a lot of fun, then a Skeptics Track panel called "Weird Mysteries:
Applying Science to the Paranormal." That turned out to be a presentation by
Ben Radford, whose presentations I've enjoyed at DragonCon before. This one was
good too.
By the time it was over, it was 3:30 pm. I'd grabbed a piece
of pizza earlier (Papa John’s, made in a big truck behind the Marriott and
carried to various kiosks throughout the con; still $6 a slice!), but I was
hungry again so got a bottle of that Naked drink that's orange and made partly
of carrots. I love that stuff. Then I found a bathroom that was reasonably uncrowded and put my
contacts in, brushed my hair, and basically made myself presentable, because
after that I went to the "Goth: Heart of Darkness" panel. In past years this
has been called something like "State of the Goth Music Scene" or some such. It
had a slightly different focus this year, but it was still goth musicians,
including Aurelio Voltaire, Rogue of the Cruxshadows, and members of a few
other bands, and moderated by DJ Ichabod of the Out ov the Coffin podcast, whose voice I love. I honestly don't
care who's on the panel or the precise topics they cover, it's just great to
listen to people discuss music I enjoy.
After that I went to an 80s cartoon singalong, where they
played the opening credits to a ton of cartoons, many of which I'd never even
heard of--but they did have Star Blazers, which made me happy. The presenter
commented on a lot of them and she was really
funny--I think her name was Renee, but I'm bad with names so I could be wrong.
I think she said she was a co-director of the animation track.
It was 8pm by then. At 9pm GLANK! was playing. I wasn't sure
I wanted to go, but I thought it would be interesting and I might be able to
use it for a paper for my drum class this semester.
Well, I'm now a GLANK! fan. They're a percussion group
something like Stomp or Blue Man Group. Members are anonymous, dressed in
cleanroom suits, and play a mixture of traditional and found percussion
instruments. They also have a couple of other instruments--I saw an upright
bass and a guitar, but it's all subtle and mostly just all about the hitting
things with sticks. The crowd wasn't as big as I'd expected and not really hot at first.
I was having a blast the whole time, but things really heated up when they
started audience participation. They passed out shakers to those of us in the
front of the dance floor, and later did some fun and somewhat complicated
clapping (that kept people from clapping on 1 and 3--seriously, people, don't
clap on 1 and 3. Just don't. Please.).
They had a short intermission partway through their set
where members of the group came down to take selfies with audience members. I
don't usually participate in that kind of thing because I hate taking selfies,
but one member joined me and I didn't want to be a jerk so I got a picture of
us. And I was having a lot of fun, so it's actually great to have a picture of
me and a member of the band even though I look like I'm possessed by demons.
The show finished at eleven. I was thirsty and sweaty from
dancing and hungry again, so I grabbed another piece of pizza and a beer. I
needed a beer because I was going to see THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL.
Now obviously they didn't really lock the doors and make people pay to get out. But that was
the vibe. DragonCon matched donations up to $100,000 this year for the Georgia
Special Olympics, and tracks were also collecting money for Hurricane Harvey
relief. So there was a panel member sitting outside the room with a donation
bucket, and as people left they could donate if they liked, and they got a card and/or a button.
I lasted 45 minutes. I've seen the holiday special before
and didn't feel the need to see the whole thing again. Besides, beer makes me
sleepy.
Next day was Saturday, and I set my alarm for 6:30 am again
to make sure I was at the convention well before the parade traffic. I started
the day at an 8:30 am panel, "Classic Sci-Fi Court," where panelists make a
case that a particular bad movie is not as bad as it's said to be. Kevin was on
that panel and defended Howard the Duck, a terrible, terrible movie. The panel
was a lot of fun and a good way to start the day. Immediately after that one
was a roll-a-panel in the same room. Kevin was on the panel of that one too--he
was on eleven panels in all, in fact. The roll-a-panel has a big 20-sided die and every face is a
different movie released in a specific year, in this case either 1982 or 1992.
Someone from the audience rolls the die, and panelists have two minutes to
discuss the movie. It's really fun.
Above: the Classic Sci-Fi Court, with Kevin (standing in the green shirt) begging us to not be too harsh on Howard the Duck
After that I went to the Bill Corbett Show, a panel where
Bill Corbett has some hilarious guests and basically just makes everyone laugh
until they're sick. His guests were Cecil Baldwin of Welcome to Night Vale,
comedian Joseph Scrimshaw, and voice actor and comedian Hal Lublin. It was
incredibly good, and sweet too. That was something I noticed over and over this
whole weekend, in fact: various panelists and presenters mentioning either
obliquely or outright that we're going through a hard time right now in our
country and the world, and it's okay to seek
comfort in the things we love.
There were other panels I wanted to attend after that, but I
was starving. I wandered around trying to figure out what I could eat
besides pizza, and ran into Kevin. We ended up getting pizza together after
all, but as Kevin pointed out, even bad pizza is pretty good. After he left for
his next panel, I got a vanilla frappuccino at Starbucks (the only drink at
Starbucks worth having) and wandered around for a while, looking at costumes.
Then I remembered I really wanted to get a GLANK! shirt, so
I went to the Marriott where all the bands have their merch tables. Sometimes
it can be hard to catch someone at a particular table, since band members want
to go around and have fun too, not just sit at their table all day, plus of
course they usually have multiple performances. But I was lucky and a woman
with her sparkly hair in two ponytails was at the table. And the first thing
she said was, "Hey, you were at our show last night! I danced with you!" It
turns out she was the performer who'd approached me at intermission for a
selfie, and she was really awesome! We talked for a few minutes and I told her
how much I'd enjoyed the show and that I'd been telling everyone about it. She
asked if I was coming to their next performance that evening and I said I'd
try. I bought a shirt (I’m wearing it now, in fact) and she gave me a sticker
and a pin.
After that I went to the Animation track again for the
Schoolhouse Rock singalong. Basically they just put the DVD of Schoolhouse Rock
shorts on shuffle and everyone sang along. When "I’m Just a Bill" started, a
cosplayer dressed in a Bill costume showed up and joined us, dancing along with
the song. It was epic. And it's eerie how I know so many of those shorts
word-perfect.
I got more pizza and did more wandering around. I wish now I'd
gone to see The Pyrate Queen play at seven, but I missed my opportunity. I
joined Kevin and Felicity in line for the big Gonzaroo Comedy and Music show at
eight. We were in line quite a while and talked with the people around us,
which was fun. I shared out some of my fun-sized Hershey bars and one of the
other guys had some Hot Tamales cinnamon candy he shared too. We were close to the front of the
line and got really good seats, and I forgot to take any pictures.
After Gonzaroo ended, it was ten till eleven and almost time
for the Voltaire concert. I was glad it was at eleven this year instead of
midnight. I skated in right before it started and wormed my way as close to the
stage as I could.
He started his set with the same breakup song from his new
album that he started last year's set with. I hate that song. Fucking. Hate.
It. I even remember thinking that if he kept playing slow sad songs I'd leave
early. But after that he played "Vampire Club" and "Brains" and basically put
on a high-octane, incredibly fun show--probably the best show I've ever seen
out of the six or seven times I've seen him live.
Above: the only picture I took at the show, very blurrrrry
I didn't stay after that, just headed back to the hotel, but
I had to shave my legs and bring my journal up to date and find my phone that I'd
somehow dropped into my pile of dirty clothes, so it was after two before I
actually got to bed.
Oh, and remember those wet clothes in the bathtub from
Thursday morning? They still weren't dry. Not only that, I'd managed (don’t
ask) to drop a sock in the toilet so I had to wash it and its mate, and
they weren't dry yet either. That left me short two pairs of socks, and I'd
only brought three. Fortunately I had the new pair I'd bought at Target.
The towels in my car weren't dry either, and they were
starting to stink of mildew. In fact, Saturday afternoon out of desperation I'd
spread the towels on the roof of my car while it was in the parking garage. I
figured if someone stole them, they weren't exactly my good towels. That helped
a lot--they were mostly dry by the time I'd returned to the car after midnight--but
the car still smelled sour.
I got a decent night's sleep and woke up feeling a
whole lot better than I had for the last two mornings. In fact, I think I
turned a corner that night in my cold (although as I type this I'm coughing my
head off so who knows). I made it to the Sunday morning 10am Reel Crime panel
with Bill Corbett, Frank Conniff, and Trace Beaulieu but only by skipping
coffee. It was worth it, though.
I grabbed Starbucks and raced to the next panel I had on my
schedule, which I thought was going to be about movie musicals. But when I got there, just after it started because for some
reason I got turned around and couldn't find the room, it turned out to be about
musical theater. As I wrote in my journal later, "Opera or GTFO." I don’t care about musical theater. I left and sat down against a wall, grimly
choking down as much of the shitty Starbucks coffee as I could stand, along
with some aspirin for the headache I'd developed while trying to find the right
room.
While I waited for the caffeine and aspirin to work its
magic, I scrolled through the DragonCon schedule app to see what else was going
on that might interest me. I decided to head to a panel called "DIY Musician:
Touring with The Pyrate Queen," which I thought might be useful when I write
the sequel to my newly completed YA (it's called Kick Drum and it's about a
high school girl who plays drums in a band, and my agent doesn't even have it
yet so don't ask when it'll be published). Well, I wish I hadn't missed the
first half of the panel because it was awesome! There weren't very many people
in the audience so the panel had a low-key conversational tone. Sometimes those
are the best panels of all. That's when I regretted not going to see
the Pyrate Queen play the previous evening, because their only other set was at
1pm that afternoon, the same time as the "Famous Unsolved Codes" panel that I
was not going to miss.
I hit the bathroom after the touring panel, and ran into the
same GLANK! musician I'd talked to yesterday. She recognized me and asked
if I'd made it to their 8pm show the night before. I said, "No, I really wanted to but
my friends wanted me to go to the Gonzaroo show instead," and tried hard to
imply that they had dragged me to Gonzaroo against my will. She looked
disappointed but thanked me for my support. I felt like I'd kicked a puppy. I
asked if they had another performance and she said no, but that at 1pm they had a session where they were going
to talk about the instruments they used. I said I'd try to go to that one,
knowing I was lying through my teeth because again, that was when the "Famous
Unsolved Codes" panel was.
I will admit, I considered skipping it to see the GLANK!
instruments up close. I wanted to ask how they got their bass drum sound,
because I hadn't seen anything on the stage that looked like a bass drum. But I
really didn't want to miss Elonka
Dunin's unsolved codes panel! I enjoy her presentations every year.
Well. I enjoyed it this year too. But it was the same
presentation that she gave either last year or maybe the year before. I
remembered it and while I don't really regret seeing it again, I should have
been more flexible in my schedule.
By the time it was over, I was starving and frantic for
something that wasn't terrible pizza. I decided to walk down to the
Waffle House past the Sheraton. But evidently everyone else at DragonCon had
the same idea. When I got there, it was packed to the walls. I waited a few
minutes, but the thought of a pile of greasy food just didn't appeal to me
anyway, so I went next door to the nearly empty Subway.
The clerk at Subway seemed really intrigued by DragonCon. He
asked me how long it was going on and kept pausing to watch cosplayers walk by.
I got my food and sat down, appreciating the quietof the almost empty room.
While I was eating, a guy in an amazing costume walked past the windows. I don't
know what it was from, and I didn't get a picture, but it was one of the big
elaborate ones--probably eight feet tall including the wings. I saw him later posing
in the Hilton. A guy stopped him for a picture, and then the cosplayer shuffled
on, slowly because he probably couldn't see very well through the headpiece.
The Subway clerk suddenly appeared out of the Employees Only
door near me, phone in hand. He rushed to the main door, but stood there
staring wistfully after the cosplayer, who had passed the restaurant and was
making his way down the sidewalk. The clerk had obviously been dying for a
picture but wasn't fast enough. I told him if he wanted to go catch the guy I'd
be happy to tell anyone who came in for a sub that he'd be back in just a
minute, but he shook his head sadly and went back behind the counter.
I sat there eating the last crumbs out of my chip bag and thinking
sad thoughts about people who have to work on Sundays and feeling bad about
letting the GLANK! lady down too. That's how I knew I was overly stressed.
I took my time heading back to the convention, but I was
still back by 4pm. I went to the "Creating Animated Films" panel, which I'd
hoped would give basic techniques about various types of animation styles--that's
what the panel description sounded like--but which turned out to be about how
to become an animator. The answer to that was basically: know lots of people in
the business and be easy to work with. I always wanted to be an animator, but I'll stick with writing, where at least there are official
channels you can go through to break in.
Next I went to a fun panel about murder ballads, both
traditional and contemporary. The panel members were the bands American MurderSong and Valentine Wolfe, both of which sound awesome and I plan to pick up
some of their music along with the Pyrate Queen's. Then I went to a panel about
joining a podcast network--my own podcast, StrangeAnimals Podcast, is getting popular enough that I've been approached
already by one network and turned them down politely, but I did want to hear
what the panelists had to say about the pros and cons of networks vs staying
indie, and so forth. Unfortunately, like the animation panel, the actual panel
didn't really resemble its description, so I left after half an hour and
wandered around for a while. With more pizza.
Eventually I ended up in the Hyatt Concourse, where Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands was playing. The music isn't really my type but
it was good and I stayed for the rest of their set. Then I stuck around for
Bella Morte, who were playing afterwards. I was hoping they'd have a full band
with drums, but they just did an acoustic set. I have seen bands play the
concourse with full drum kits, but not in the last couple of years. I don't
know if that's a new rule (too loud?) or if it's just coincidence. Either way,
I was tired and decided to head back to the hotel instead of sticking around
for American Murder Song's set at midnight. My wet clothes were still wet,
and the socks were smelling pretty rank.
Above: one member of Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands, and some random people. There was a post in the way, okay? And mostly I was just interested in how he was playing a hi-hat and electronic bass drum along with that guitar.
In the past, I’ve never attended any of the Monday
programming at DragonCon. I always just check out of my hotel and head home.
But there were three panels I really wanted to see on Monday morning. Because I'd
left so early on Sunday night, I actually felt remarkably well rested the next
morning. I got to the convention way early, before 7:30am, and got coffee and
pastries at Caribou Coffee, which is one million times better than Starbucks
although that's not hard. I took my breakfast to the Marriott since the 8:30
panel I wanted to attend was there, and found a band merch table that didn't
have any stuff at it. I sat there to eat my breakfast and watch sleepy-looking people wandering by.
The hotel staff were cleaning wearily. Considering that some
82,000 people were anticipated at DragonCon this year, the hotel staff do an
amazing job keeping the con hotels clean. Saturday night in particular is a
flat-out riot, and I barely notice when I step over puddles of vomit or
passed-out partiers late Saturday night. In the mornings, the hotels are
carpeted with a thin layer of glitter, feathers, sequins, and other bits
of costume.
Kevin was on the 8:30 am panel, "Superhero-versary: Batgirl,
Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, & More." It was low-key because everyone was sleepy
(except me), but a lot of fun. After that I rushed to the Hyatt for a "Future
of Fantasy" panel. I was especially eager for this one because I'm starting a
new writing project soon and want to choose something that will sell. It's
always helpful to get an idea of what publishing trends editors and agents are
seeing.
Unfortunately, since it was Monday morning, there had been
some shakeups on the panel and only one panelist was actually a part of the
publishing field, an agent. I actually know her name but she probably doesn't want to be connected with this panel so I'll leave her anonymous. The other panelists were the
moderator, an old guy who was a writer although I didn't catch his name and
couldn't even see him because of where I was sitting more or less behind a
post, and another guy who I don't even know who he was--someone connected with
the fantasy lit track in some way, but not a publisher or anything. I guess he
was just there to help make up the numbers? Anyway, the panel started well,
with the agent giving a lot of really solid advice on what is selling right now
and what is not.
Basically, steampunk is out no matter how good it is because
it just doesn't sell so acquisitions won't buy it no matter how hard an editor
fights for it. Urban fantasy is hot again, although I don't know if she meant
actual urban fantasy or paranormal romance. Grimdark epic fantasy is flying high because of Game of Thrones. YA dystopian has morphed into
something closer to modern cautionary tales. Retellings of any kind are easy to sell to acquisitions because they understand what they are.
So that first half of the panel was great. But then...I don't remember how exactly it happened, but the old writer guy suddenly launched a rant about
the NYT book reviews. He had already
shown he was totally out of touch with current trends because he kept talking
about the 80s, when I guess he was still relevant in publishing. Now he started
ranting about how White Dragon had
only made the NYT book reviews list because McCaffrey was a woman and it was
all unfair and he was hard done by whine whine bitch, on and on. I zoned out
for a while and when I tuned it again he was still at it, although he'd
switched to ranting about publishers who gave away or sold at a deep discount
the first book in a series, which he didn’t think would work even though two
seconds before he'd said it had helped George RR Martin.
The moderator didn't say anything. I know it's not always
easy to be a moderator, but a simple, "Let's get back on topic. So and so, what
do you think about such and such?" would have derailed the rant. But no, it
just went on and on. Then the old guy said publishers were no longer putting "Hugo Award Winner" on covers because it didn't help sell books and sometimes
hurt sales, because the Hugo awards were out of touch and no one went to
Worldcon anyway, and that was why "we" started the Dragon Awards. (You know,
the ones where every single winner this year was white and all but one winner
was a man.) To my utter shock, the other guy on the panel agreed with this and said this year's Hugo slate was totally out of
touch.
The only person I could really see on the panel was the
agent, because of the post and other people in my way. It may be my
imagination, but from her expression she wished she was anywhere else besides
in that room. She didn't say anything. The moderator didn't say anything. I
raised my hand because I had a lot to
say, but I was behind the post and I guess no one saw my hand.
I should have left right then. But there were only five
minutes left in the panel. The old guy got one last jab in after someone asked
whether standalone novels were selling. He said, "No," flatly. At this the
agent said that that was not the case in middle grade and young adult, where
standalone novels were selling well, and then thank goodness the time was up.
If anyone knows who that old guy was on the panel, please
let me know. I'd like to avoid every single project that he's connected with even tangentially in
the future. I wouldn't buy a bottle of water from him if I was dying in the
desert. What a fucking asshole.
Anyway, that enraged me, but fortunately it wasn't my last
panel of DragonCon. I went back to the Marriott for another roll-a-panel, this
one about 1977 and 1997 movies. Kevin was on that panel too. In stark contrast
to the fantasy panel, everyone was happy, inclusive, intelligent, and funny. It
wasn't long before I was back in a great mood even though I'd only seen two of
the 20 movies listed on the die. At the end of the panel they auctioned off the
dice for charity and got $20 for one and $30 for the other, which was awesome.
I threw all my remaining dollars and change into the bucket too.
Then I said goodbye to Kevin and left the convention.
The minute I got
home--I mean that literally; it was the very first thing I did after I walked
in--I threw all my clothes in the washer and started laundry. Now my socks
smell nice and I have two fresh clean towels to put in my car for next time I
get rained on. And my shoes are demoted to yardwork shoes.
If you get one message out of this superlong post, it's that you should support GLANK! They are awesome. Oh, and if you’ve
read this far you clearly like something about my writing, so go check out my
new book! Its called Skytown and it’s available from Fox Spirit
Books.
See you next year, DragonCon.
