(It is a little known fact that Sailor Venus, as seen above, moonlights
from time to time at Vegas.)
10/10/99- Sunday
It is currently 11:20AM Sunday morning, and I've finally gotten a chance
to kick back and collect my thoughts in regards to this past weekend. I
would have prefered to do these entries before hopping in the sack for
the evening, but I'm rarely (if ever) in a writing mood between 4-5AM,
my average bedtime these past two days. With that in mind, let's recap,
shall we?
10/8/99- Friday
Events earlier today possessed the ability for screwing the entire
weekend, but it still ended up being a good day, all things considered.
Arriving at the hotel after 8PM disturbed the everloving crap out of me,
seeing as in the past the latest I've showed up on a Friday was about five
hours prior to that. Neil's heinous car troubles aside, the evening was
fairly cool. The new hotel was frickin' huge, which resulted in both me
and Neil getting lost on more than one occasion. Check-in went without
a hitch (save the fact that we wouldn't be able to get badges until the
morning), and since sheer, disgusting hunger had taken over several hours
earlier, we tackled Rio Bravo for dinner. Our combined ravenous hungers
(along with general slowness at the resturant) resulting in us missing
Mari Ijima in concert, which I later found out kicked much booty. That
seemed to be the common theme for the weekend- I missed seeing a lot of
stuff that I had hoped to, yet still managed to have more fun this year
than any other.
Neil had to duck back out due to forgetting a number of his Dreamcast
cables, so as he took an obscenity-laced trip back to his house, I took
the opportunity to check things out, and to catch a little bit of Anime
Hell. I arrived in time to finally see Devil Man/Mazinger Z in its entirety-
if ever was there a reason for attending Hell, this was it; it just has
to seen to be believed. I could sit here and describe how much I laughed,
but it wouldn't quite be the same. I want a copy of that tape!
I returned topside some time later and spent the better part of the
next few hours locked in a dance o' carnage against Neil in Powerstone,
which, while very cool, can't quite replace my beloved Ehrgeiz as
my favorite free-roaming beat-down fest.
The powers of Anime Hell soon beckoned me to return to its fiery embrace,
though I got a little sidetracked on the way down. Upon hitting the lower
level, I couldn't help but notice several women gyrating to loud club music
in one of the suites, which promptly got my undivided attention- it would
seem that an impromtu dance party had broken out a night earlier than scheduled
[Post entry note: I later found out that this
was Club AWA '99, not to be confused with the dance that occured Saturday
night]. Having a general weakness for loud club-remixed anime
music along with, well, women, I found myself hanging out there for the
next couple of hours. Not dancing, mind you, seeing as I suck quite mightily
at the act while sober, but just checking things out and absorbing the
ambience. Wallflower that I was, I immediatly uprooted myself upon seeing
a lass dressed as Luna of Sailor Moon fame (yes, the cat) break out with
a limbo rod.
For those of you that don't really know me, you wouldn't understand
the significance of me and the horizontal mistress that is the limbo bar.
What it boils down to is this- in all modesty, I'm quite good at bending
my spine at obscene angles, and as far as I can remember, I have never
turned down the opportunity to test my skills at it. The last time I faced
the bar was at a high school assembly back in ninth grade, where I picked
up the title of Der Limbo Koenig ['The Limbo King'] from Herr Wokatsch,
my german teacher at the time. It took me but a moment to come to my decision-
I, Damani Zayas, double-jointed freak extraordinaire, was going under that
'sumbitch, and there wasn't a thing (save my spine severing at my booty)
that could stop me. It had been quite some time since I danced with the
Mistress of Limbo- I just wanted to see just how low could I go.
Short answer to said question: "Pretty frickin' low..." =)
So low, in fact, that Steve Bennett of Studio Ironcat fame offered
me and two other limber-spined individuals personalized artwork if we swung
by his table sometime during the next day. Oh yeah!!
Well, when the party finally ended some hours later, a number of us
weren't quite ready to turn in just yet, and so like a horde of lost vikings,
a number of us made our way to the Con Suite (we didn't quite know what
we were seeking, but as my memory serves, there were numerous cries for
beer by the tribe). The Suite was a bit sedate at that late hour, so me
and Sonny (a bad mother-shut-'yo-mouth dude from south Florida I was hanging
out with at the party) commandeered a drink or two before finally deciding
to call it a night. I wasn't too surprised to return to the room to find
Neil still up and Dreamcasting, so we had a few more bouts of Powerstone
before finally heading to bed around 5:14AM. Immediatly after announcing
my intentions of being up around 9:00AM to pick up my badge and stuff,
Neil sort of laughed and gave me a look before repeating the infamous quote
that Blade said to the cop that shot at him in the hospital (you know the
one...). Maybe I was out of my damned mind, but I couldn't help it- I'd
been waiting an entire year for this, and I was dead-set on enjoying as
much of it as I could.
10/9/99- Saturday
Don't ask me how I did it, but I was up, showered, dressed, and in
line for my membership packet by 10AM. And as I stood in line for said
packet, I realized the first of many truths that I would learn on that
weekend- Going under the limbo bar stretches every
muscle in the front half of one's body. I was a little bit on the
sore side, but nothing that would hinder me from enjoying the con. When
they opened the floodgates to the Dealer's Room at 11AM (or the there-abouts),
I was among the first horde that managed to squeeze inside. My initial
sweep of both rooms didn't reveal much (though Ian informed me that one
of the tables did indeed have the covetted Einhander soundtrack
I'd been searching for...). After wandering around for a bit, I finally
managed to get together the testicular fortitude to head upstairs for a
change in outfits- I was prepared to don the garb of the infamous Psycho
Mantis of Metal Gear Solid fame.
Now keep in mind that out of the four years I had gone to AWA, I had
never gone in costume, so I was a bit nervous as to what to expect. I mean
c'mon, I was going to be walking around the hotel wearing a freaking GASMASK,
for cripe's sake! The regular guests at the hotel seemed a little spooked
enough as is due to the convention, but I figured, hey, what's another
freak in the mix? After changing into the outfit (of which most was concealed
by the black leather trenchcoat), I merely walked around for a while with
the mask in hand, trying to decide on just the right time to put that sucker
on. I eventually made a quick stop by the bathroom in order to get the
mask on- I made sure that everything was in order before taking a deep
breath and stepping into the dealer's room...
I learned another valuable lesson at that moment, one that I will forever
keep in mind for future conventions- Going in costume
kicks infinitly more booty than being in normal attire. There's
just a rush that comes with it that's difficult to explain. It was awkward
at first, but the first time someone stopped me and asked to take a picture,
I started to settle into the role more comfortably. There are two things
that occured while I was in costume that I won't be forgetting anytime
soon-
1) The look on some poor old woman's face as I got on the elevator
with her, who mumbled something about a 'freak' under her breath. Heh heh
heh... that amused me to no end...
2) Some obviously depraved individual screaming "Psycho Mantis,
YOU'RE MY HERO!!" at me in the Dealer's Room. I mean, damn, I like
Psycho Mantis as much as the next guy (probably a bit more even), but he
wasn't quite what I'd consider a role model (the man said he joined FOX-HOUND
because he "wanted to kill as many people as possible"!). That
poor boy needs some serious help...
Several people didn't know who I was, but I did get a quite a few 'Hey,
Psycho Mantis, cool!' responses here and there. I even ran into the Fujikoma
tribe a few times, and in fact that's how they ID'd me ("Hey Psycho
Mantis, you signed our Guest Book!"). It's a good feeling finally
being able to put some faces on these names. I finally managed to catch
up to Steve Bennett at the Studio Ironcat table to have him do that pic
of me, and I spent the next few minutes posing and cracking jokes with
the Ironcat crew (one of the guys said that I looked like Morpheus from
'The Matrix' with the trenchcoat, which promptly forced me to assure him
that I could never be that cool). On the way back up to the room to drop
some stuff off, I ran into one of Ian's friends, who explained a dilema
he was currently facing- it would seem that they had brought in their modded
Playstation, but had forgotten the RF unit, which rendered the system to
being little more than an expensive paperweight. We run upstairs to my
room to grab mine (I had brought my PSX along for the ride, despite the
fact that most of the time was spent on Neil's Dreamcast), and out of gratitude,
he offers me a ride up to Walmart with a couple of his friends to hit the
ATM (seems that our fellow con-goers killed the one at the hotel...). Which
was very cool by me, but he failed to mention one key detail- of his three
friends, two were in costume. And one was a cross-dressed Neo Queen Serenity...
I couldn't have held a straight face in Walmart if you had dipped my
head in plaster and had a gun aimed at my crotch.
Since I didn't want anyone thinking I was a terrorist, I decided to
leave the gasmask in the car in order to cut down on our freakiness level
somewhat. Even so, man oh man, we got some interesting stares inside
of Walmart. I almost died from laughter after seeing a little girl point
at our two costumers and say 'Mommy, those two women are pretty!'. Our
masculine Neo Queen Serenity laughed and took it as a compliment- despite
the fact that he was much taller than me, I have to admit that he was pretty
convincing.
Back at the hotel, me and Ian gamed and shopped a bit before I decided
to haul off upstairs for a quick nap before the CosPlay. This was a bad
idea for two reasons- one, I didn't get much sleep due to the Tech game
being on, and two, after heading downstairs we soon discovered that the
friggin' line was wrapped around much of the lower floor of the hotel.
Since we knew that getting in would have been nigh-impossible, Neil and
I took the opportunity to swing by the hotel's watering hole to grab some
much needed grub, and a drink. I learned another valuable lesson- A
Lynchburg Lemonade, combined with little food and even less sleep, will
get you buzzed in no time flat. Not quite drunk, mind you, but enough
to put me in a more pleasant mood.
The Dreamcast wars continued upstairs, with Josh stepping in to take
my place the numerous times I ducked out to see how things were going down
below. When the CosPlay ended and Club AWA got started again, Neil and
Josh both stuck around for all of thirty seconds before decreeing that
it sucked, and returned upstairs to do battle in Soul Calibur. I,
diehard optimist that I am, stuck around and chilled for a bit. I then
ran into Sonny and company again from the night before, and was invited
to their room in order to partake of their brew. I wish I had my camera
with me in order to capture the sheer massiveness of the tower of beer
bottles these guys had stacked up in their room- mere words cannot hope
to convey the obscene amount of alcohol these guys had consumed over a
scant two days. My dad and uncle- nay, every Puerto Rican male in my family-
would have been proud.
We all tripped out and talked for a while before finally heading back
downstairs. I stood around the outside of the dance floor for a bit, but
after some time the Icehouse began to affect my better judgement, and I
did the unthinkable...
I danced!
Quite badly too, I'm sure, but it really didn't matter. I was having
a blast, and that was all that mattered at that moment. Another valuable
lesson was learned- No matter how much you enjoy
watching an event, getting involved makes it so much more fun. Though
I'm not quite ready to sell my soul and be on staff next year...
We partied and we danced; we danced and we partied. Dancing with
women would have been my next step, though I didn't quite have enough to
drink to gather up the courage for that just yet (next year! NEXT YEAR!!).
There were a few lovely ladies that caught my eye, in particular a lovely
goddess whose 'date' (if you could call him that) looked to be neglecting
her and grinding with one of her friends. She looked a little younger than
me, but I still think that I should have said something to her. Ah well,
it's like I've always been told- hindsight is always 20/20.
After about an hour of dancing (combined with multiple exoduses for
water and bathroom breaks), they broke out once again with the limbo rod,
the vile temptress that I could not resist. Oh sure, it was fun and games
earlier, but now it was about honor- Steve Bennett had declared me to be
The Limbo Emperor earlier that day, and I was determined to defend
that title!
Well... The Limbo Emperor lost to The Limbo Goddess,
a young lass whose spine-bending skills could only be described as 'unholy'.
I litterally found myself bowing to her mad skillz, and her unholy spinal
collumn. You really had to have seen it to believe it- it was quite freaky,
and in fact, somewhat intriguing...
*SLAP!* Bad Mani! BAD!
Ahem...
Hours of dancing and general merriment blended into what seemed to
be just a mere moment, an all too short memory that would eventually come
to an end. I had so much fun, and I made a lot of friends that day. And
like last year, as I sat in a chair in my hotel room staring at the calm,
blue waters of the pool down below, I really couldn't bring myself to go
to bed once it was all over. I didn't want it to be over. Why couldn't
it have been longer? Why couldn't it happen more than once a year?
And then it occured to me. That's what has always made the AWA experience
so unique to me. AWA is the only con that I've ever gone to, and since
AWA 2, I've always looked forward to this time of the year, in particular
the three days that I could spend in the company of total strangers, yet
not feel the least bit out of place. What made AWA so special is that,
like any other convention, it only happens once a year. Oh sure, it'd be
nice to do this every other month or so, but then I think that it would
begin to lose its significance. Throughout the year, I constantly look
forward to that weekend in October where I can get together with so many
people spend three days having so much fun.
And after thinking about it, I was finally able to go to sleep, and
not have a single regret about doing so.
