Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: NYCC Report and Reminisce Over You

EDIT: I'm getting emails asking me about Speakeasy. You should go to Josh's blog for anything about the fate of Elk's Run. As far as my own opinions and what I'm getting from all this, I learn from it - just like I always do.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I had a blast at NYCC – and I was there on Saturday, the day everyone got turned away, fire marshals showed up and people were waiting on line for hours to get back onto the convention floor. I stole an exhibitor badge so I can come in and out freely, only got held up on a line once, and we were passing exhibitor and press badges back to the outside to sneak folks in. If I was one to trivialize struggle and elevate the importance of 32 pages of excessive cleavage I’d say we were like the NYCC Underground Railroad. But I won’t, ‘cause I’m not that guy.

But it was good, talked to a lot of people about the book I’m putting together, got a couple of people to commit to the project and have a couple of people at (hopefully) a halfway point. One cat in particular would be a dream come true, so much so I’m holding off on following up with anyone else until I hear back from him.

Pop Culture Shock’s after party was pretty dope, good turn out – good people. DJ was bangin’ and I always thought white people dancing was funny because, you know, I’ve seen video of myself dancing and it’s all my momma’s side, but goddamn there’s nothing funnier than white comic fans dancing. They were spinning some funk towards the end of the night and this one cat looked like James Brown doing the Humpty Dance while having an elliptic seizure.

And we'll do a little old school Moose style story, why the hell not...

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I got to hang out with my cousin RJ all day Saturday at the con which was a blast. I don’t get to see the dude enough and it’s too bad, we’ve been through a lot of shit together. Back when his brother got sick, me, RJ and Luis used to chill every Friday at my place and just watch stupid B-horror movies until three in the morning.

Some good, some bad. The best call we made back then was renting SALEM’S LOT. Not that it was a good movie by any means, but some dude dubbed over the VHS copy of the movie at the video store. He did it well too; it took us a little bit to catch-on as to exactly what the fuck was going on.

For instance, when the opening title came on you heard the guy say, “Salem’s Lot: The Movie. Staring George Duzunddrada…” We were sitting around and wondering why the guy reading the credits didn’t even bother to pronounce the actor’s name right. During the opening scene a car whizzes by the camera and you hear, “Mee-meep! Hi!”

We couldn’t stop laughing, you know? We just figured it was the worst fucking movie ever made. It wasn’t until the old dude “farted” that we realized some genius laid his own audio embellishments down. Pegasus Video closed down recently; I wanted to stop by and buy the dubbed SALEM’S LOT but kept forgetting to.

We found other gems, of course. 976-EVIL PART 2 was a favorite of ours – the scene when the nerd on the moped says, “See ya later, doll” and then crashes. Good shit, right there, many a laugh. Of course there was the Jerry Springer TOO HOT FOR TV joint, the scene when the redneck says, “Oh dang, I’m falling!” as he’s falling. We watched that scene about fifty times in one night, 49 of them in slow-motion.

We’d always get into arguments over the movies we watched. RJ and I firmly believed STAR WARS was the greatest trilogy of all time. Luis thought it was POLICE ACADEMY, despite the fact that there were six of them made at that point. But there was one thing we always agreed on, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM would be better if it was called THE LAIR OF THE WHITE DILL.

Ah, inside jokes.

But it was all escapism, you know what I mean? We were teenagers, we could have went out on Friday nights and prowled the streets of Brooklyn, we occasionally did, but at home – ragging on shitty movies and eating calzones from the House of Pizza – it was the kind of entertainment that was guaranteed to take your mind off of what was going on in the family at the time. We all needed it, RJ the most, and the time spent hanging with cousins on a Friday evening will always be one of my favorite memories from my teenage years.

The night Steven took a turn for the worse, RJ was over my place. I remembered pretending to sleep on the floor when my mom got him, I remember him stepping over me and trying not to wake us up. Shortly after Steven passed away – it just goes to show you that escapism only takes you so far. When life wants to be fucked up, it just gets fucked up.

Sorry for depressing you all – but at the heart of it, RJ and I can still get together for 15 hours at a crowded convention and the whole time act like we did over thirteen years ago – a couple of goofy kids obsessed with pop-culture and hell-bent on making fun of everything and everybody. You take something away from all your experiences in life; I took a friend out of this particular one. Hanging with him now-a-days just brings it all back – you’re not supposed to forget shit like this and you’re not supposed to hide it, know what I mean?

Labels: travel

NYCC Report and Reminisce Over You

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

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