I'm dreaming of a...

Here I am, rock you like a hurricane. I've freshly returned from Dark Xmas, the little horror con in Warren, OH, and oh, the sights I have seen.

Firstly, let me just state upfront that I have got to be the biggest tool on the entire planet. Shocking, yes, but true. "But Stacie, " you say, "This is not possible. You DEFINE cool and cutting edge, what with your 'Charles Nelson Reilly' this and your 'I love Halloween III' that. What is this "tool" of which you speak? You must mean 'tool of wicked awesome'!" Alas, I just mean "tool". You see, the reason I left Final Girl waiting out in the cold all last week is because I was working on a mini-comic to sell at the con. I finished it Friday night- all the stapling and whatnot, and I felt so...so... indy! I was ready to rock the socks off the people of Warren, Ohio...I was imagining myself standing atop the table, books in hand, people at my feet, their dollar bills thrust high in the air- like I was a stripper on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange or something. Pure. Mini-comic. Magic.

I left my house early on Saturday, so psyched and ready, man- ready! The three-hour drive went by like it was three minutes. I pulled into the parking lot of the host hotel, and thought to myself- "OK, iPod goes in suitcase in trunk. Here's my wallet...now where'd I put the boooooooo----------------".

Instant panic. My cheeks caught fire as I remembered that I hadn't put the books anywhere. They were still sitting in a bag on my living room floor.

So this meant that all my hard work would go unworshipped by the people of Warren...and also that I was going to be sitting at a table with my pal Dirk Manning with nothing to do for two days. See? TOOL! Like Dirk pointed out, I'll just have plenty of copies of They Won't Stay Dead! for the upcoming Mid-Ohio-Con. Small consolation, but consolation nonetheless. I guess.

But enough of this sad, sad story! Onto Dark Xmas! What wonders did the Comfort Inn hold this weekend? Well...umm...hmm. These shows never really turn out the way you expect them to, now do they? It was a nice little show and all, don't get me wrong, but it was not a buyer's convention. I was actually pretty pissed when I realized how little there was to buy. I fully expected to come home with some new flicks to review, but it was not to be. I did, however, pick up a most righteous autographed picture of Christopher Lee as Dracula. I don't normally buy autographed photos, or even care about them, but it's Christopher Lee. As Dracula. And it was cheap.

The tables at the con were manned mostly by basement horror movie directors selling their wares. No offense to anyone, as I'm a basement director myself, but come on. The fact that I have iMovie and a video camera doesn't make me a fucking auteur who should be selling my videos for $20. If you're at my house, I'm gonna make you watch 'em, but I wouldn't try to make you buy them. Unless you were drunk.

Tom Savini was in attendance, but he seemed really cranky every time I walked by and I totally wimped out. He was the only person I wanted to meet, but I knew I'd just get up to his table and say something stupid and make him even more cranky. He may just have been bored- like I said, the show was a little...quiet. By "quiet", I mean "a little better than completely dead".

Now, onto the highlight reel:

*There was Sid Haig of House of 1000 Corpses wearing a bib that read "Born to Suck Titty".

*The promo model dancing atop her table, with or without spectators, to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" at various times over the weekend. Whenever she started the music, this guy in a wheelchair made a beeline for the front row, right up against her table. Like the sign behind the table said- Promo Models Rule!!

*The female stormtrooper slyly attempting to adjust her codpiece.

*Harvey Pekar's nerd friend Toby was there on Saturday, and he really, really is a nerd. Really.

*The dude walking around who had a bottle of beer and a cigarette...he had nowhere to put the cigarette out, so he held his bottle between his teeth and rubbed the cigarette out on his palm. I hope to be that tough and badass someday.

*Can you see what kind of a weekend I had?

Saturday night Dirk decided to go hobnob with the drunken masses after the con, whereas I was happy simply to go back to the hotel- drunken masses just aren't really my thing (nor Dirk's, to be fair, but he wanted to pimp Nightmare World. Of course, he ended up falling asleep in his car, but that's another story.). Imagine my glee when I tuned in to the very beginning of the roaches-gone-crazy flick They Crawl and these words appeared on the screen:

with

Tone Loc

and

Mickey Rourke

Clearly, I made the right choice by staying behind. But oh, 'lil Stacie sure was tired, the bed sure was comfy, and the movie sure was awful. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was a shot of computer-animated cockroaches crawling out of a big pile of white rice or something. I remember thinking "Shouldn't the rice move?" because the roaches were just kind of...appearing on top of the pile. Then it was off to Slumberland. I never even got to see Tone Loc.

Warren has its fair share of "Oriental Sauna Health Spa"s, bars, and churches. What I liked about the churches was that they each put a snappy little saying on their signs outside...like "Every day is a gift from God...that's why it's the present" and "Poverty of purpose is worse than poverty of purse". What I liked about the Oriental Sauna Health Spas was the term "health spa".

There you have it. I don't mean to really paint the show in a bad light- it was certainly amusing. We met some really cool people, and I had a blast hanging out with Dirk. I was definitely let down by the lack of crap to buy, but maybe that's just me. Apparently next year's Dark Xmas will feature Elvira and Linda Blair as guests- that oughta liven things up a bit. And I really, really hope to remember my fucking books next time. Tool.

Promo models rule!!