By No Means the Final Word on Vegas KHAAAN 2012

I awoke to see the cityscape of Downtown LA, buildings that are so well-known to me from years and years of staring at them, envisioning what tragedy or ho-ho! good-times went on within those offices and suites. My trusty a/c unit was buzzing away, and it has been all night, and will be doing so all day; spinning my head around I could see my mismatched furniture, and various what-nots, and there's a story behind each and every one of them. Everything is familiar: STLV did happen, didn't it? No panels to attend. No friends to meet up later with. None of it.

I know the preceding was trite stuff, and probably not worthy of the first blog I've posted in over a year, but that is what the fingers wanted to type. And my guts and soul know that this won't be my last word on the subject. How can it be? The Vegas KHAAAN is a grand affair; it's insanity, and exhausting. It's a fucking frolic, nirvana, lifting a fan of Star Trek to sublime heights ("Celebrities! Goodies! People who 'get it!' Costumes!"), and then harshly plopping them back to Real Life, yanked away, à la Dr Soren from ye olde Nexus; and like that villain from the tepidly received Next Generation film, some of us desperately want to get back. Especially when some of us make connections with people who are still in the "Nexus." Pass me a beer, Mr Surly Bartender from the Masquerade Bar.. oh, wait, that's right: I'm no longer there. I'm here.  We've got to back to the Island, Kate.

But, you know: Real Life. The bills, the responsibility, the Mundane friends who don't get it but are still 'friends' so we adapt, and temper our geek references, and get puzzled when they go on and on about college/professional sport teams, and the jerseys of their favorite teams, and the ungodly amounts of money spent on sports packages with their cable providers or the season tickets. And don't get me started with their face painting or those bizarre head-things they wear. Or I can live and let live, right? Just don't tread on me, Mr and Mrs Sports Figure Bobble Head People, ya dig?

Trifle Deluxe, this be. I'll post something soon with photos, and impressions on individual days (actually, I probably won't do the latter, as I made the mistake of bringing a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey, which meant that there were a few odysseys in Booze-ania... note to self: DON'T bring the hard stuff next year!), and all of that other bloggy stuff.

Names Have Been Removed to Protect the etc., etc..

I didn't think I could milk another tale from last year's Star Trek convention in Vegas, but while I was watching the Star Trek series after Deep Space Nine, and before Enterprise, and seeing the what-has-been-described-yet-never-really-saw-as "courageous" Mayan Native-American First Officer of the Intrepid-class vessel lost in the Delta Quadrant, this little morsel came to mind.

Now, years ago, I dabbled in the theater arts, and I loathed dealing with the audience after the performance. I never liked chatting with them, and after the play would finish, I'd purposely wait in the dressing room, taking my time to remove my make-up, and if by the time I finished some folks were still outside, I'd open whatever book I was using as research, and read, baby, read. And my reasoning for this was two-fold: I didn't like how they looked at me as if they knew me, and, more importantly, I detested the questions ("Why did you say that that way?" "Why did you do that?"), because the answers were my tools to pull the role off, and I'd be damned if I was going to share my creative soul with them. Besides, who really wants to know what the actor thinks about the story? I mean, really? It's about the viewers' perception, and that, at the minimum, what they leave with after seeing the play should be slightly different than what they brought into it...

I say this because I have a teeny-weensy inkling of what it means to be asshole-ish when it came to dealing with theater-goers/fans. So when I heard that [the actor who portrayed the "courageous" Mayan Native-American First Officer of the Trek show from the late 90's] was a jack-ass on the Star Trek convention circuit, I nodded my head, and thought that it was silly considering that in the grand Trek scheme of things, with all of the wondrous people that populate the Trek-verse, that his character was so vapid, but I didn't really give it more that a passing thought. They say he's a jerk? Okay. Whatever.

Back to the 2010 Trek Con in Vegas: Saturday morning. My friends and I were having our morning coffee before the day's festivities, and were seated at a choice table that was smack dab near the main walkway, giving us a prime location to people-watch. As we were gazing at the folks walking past us, some in costume, others in "civilian" clothes, I saw a Caucasian male hovering around middle-age, who was about average height, average build, with dark-but-graying hair slicked back, wearing a Command Red Starfleet Duty Uniform, and had the same tattoo on his face that the aforementioned Mayan Native-American First Officer had.

We got his attention, called him over, and he told us his tale...

Star Trek Convention, Las Vegas: August 2010

Wednesday.

I decided that after the long drive, I'd unwind for a moment in my hotel room and perhaps take a look at the view I was promised (it faced their emerald-green golf course), but the thing I most wanted to do was swim in the hotel's pool.

I can't remember the last time I swam in a pool. We didn't have a swimming pool at our house growing up, but I had a cousin who did, and in those days being a welcome house guest, I'd visit him frequently and, consequently, would swim often.

I was a pretty good swimmer in my youth. I wasn't bulky enough for football, and while I had some skill at basketball, I frankly didn't much care for organized sports. Swimming was an invigorating, solitary experience: being an astute fellow who paid attention to science class, and filled with the knowledge of the human body's relation to it, I felt as if I was conquering the very element of water itself.

In my adult years, most of the pool parties I was invited to were instances of me indulging in the "party" part of the event, and I have since left the "pool" aspect of it for the brave and the fool-hardy.

[Things I purchased for this trip: extra toothbrush, travel-sized deodorant, "medicinal" tea bags, and swim trunks]

But of course, planning on making the first evening in Vegas a serene and calm one was an exercise in futility.