BotCon '98 - Sharon "Tut" LaBorde

BotCon '98 was my second experience, but this is my first report. Suffice it to say I was too overwhelmed to write something suitable for last year, but having more experience now I can throw in a few cents of my own.

This year Daryn and I had the bright idea to leave from Dallas-Fort Worth airport to Anahiem, making the drive much less of a strain. So to make up for that, I was blessed with the task of shoving a very oversized cardboard sleeve into the very undersized rear door of Megatron the Umpteenth Incarnate, my 94 Toyota Tercel (who may make an appearance next year depending on location.) Next year, Galvatron will also have to get a damned green card... Anyway, between getting there, worrying about leaving Megatron in a safe place, and navigating one of the biggest and busiest airports in the country, we got into the perfect frame of mind for our journey.

That was Wednesday. Robert Jung was nice enough to pick us up from the airport and bring us to the Quality Inn, then leave us to our own mischief. After succumbing to jet lag-induced comas, Daryn and I woke up on a beautiful Thursday morning and realized with glee that we were in California, that fabled state that all Southerners regard with scorn. We didn't find it so bad.

Vulcana met up with us around lunchtime, toting a map and backpack and casing the area for other fans. Not many others had shown up yet, so after we compared notes and figured out that nobody besides the special guests had booked into the Marriott, she went off in search of others while Daryn and I headed for Disneyland. Star Tours was beckoning my lovely fiance' like a proverbial siren's call, and who am I to deny my partner in crime?

Our stowaways kept the hotel room safe for us. Galvatron had suffered damage to the top of his crest, but I managed to fix it reasonably. Cyclonus and Starscream, in their humble pillow forms, took over the bed and Nightbird stayed in the background as usual. Her sai had come off during the trip, but some Crazy Glue set everything aright (not to mention nearly bonding my fingers,) so we knew the room was protected.

At Disneyland we met up with some fans familiar to us through snail-mail, most notably among them Matt "Talon" Kirkby, whom I greeted with an energetic tackle hug as soon as he found us. One thing I notice about BotCon is that a sort of rift exists among the Internet-based fans and the snail-mail fans. Granted, logistics has a lot to do with it, but I find it almost a bit frustrating to talk with one set of fans and mention another set, and none of them have ever heard of each other. We need integration!

--This concludes my public service announcement.--

Anyway. Disneyland, well, was Disneyland, and the group of us all left exhausted and with a few souvenirs. Cyclonus has a new cuddlepet in the form of a Malificent doll--they make a cute couple, in a sick and twisted sort of way. I wonder who would be the dominant partner... Well, I may never know because whatever they did to introduce themselves, Daryn and I were sleeping too hard to notice.

Friday Doug Dlin gave us a wake-up call, and after Daryn and I got at least decent enough to make PG-13 we let him in to catch up on the latest. We walked down to the local Seven Eleven to get food for the weekend, and discovered heaven in a frozen cappucino machine the likes of which I haven't found since. BTW, did you know there are no convenience stores in Louisiana that aren't gas stations? There are also no Seven Elevens anymore. One of the things this trip taught me is that I live in a backwater void.

Dealer and art setup that afternoon was an interesting experience. Daryn staked out the art table to help Raksha and Vulcana while I got our passes and brought in the artwork. THAT was a mess. First Raksha and I took Sound- wave II to get Galvatron, only to realize I left our room key and the staff wouldn't let me in because the room was in Daryn's name. D'ohh! So Raksha and I drove back around, I got Daryn's key and dashed off personally to get the almighty Galvatron--all seven feet of him--before the dealer room closed in fifteen minutes. Burt "Skyflight" Ward offered to help, but suffice it to say that he doesn't have a Seeker's speed, particularly a Seeker's in a mad rush. He made it back five or ten minutes after I did.

With Galvatron and company set up, Daryn and I headed back to get ready for the kickoff party. At this point, it's almost a blur how many people came in and out of our room. It turns out that most everybody opted for the cheapest accomodations possible, which strained budgets less but left no creature comforts for partying. So, our room became the unofficial party place, which was fine by us. After the unveiling ceremony for BotCon exclu- sives and guests of honor, which gave both Daryn and myself a nice chance to hobnob with Susan Blu, Simon Furman, Andrew Wildman and some fellow fans, an enterprising individual managed to convince Doug Parker to come over to our room. I think it was Vulcana, but either way Daryn had to shush me in the middle of a Beast Wars dig for the full picture to register: one of the guests was coming to *our room*. Kewl!

Earlier in the day, Rosemary "Hollywood" Faulkerson had entrusted to our care a very nice cake of Starscream, which we put in the refrigerator. It got damaged around the edges in transit--*nothing* is safe in transit!!! but the image was still preserved well enough for everybody to look at it and take pictures. Saturday he was devoured--beats the Galvycannon...

Well, everybody piles into the room and Doug Parker takes a seat, then notices three of my CD's on the ledge next to him. "Scorpions, Ozzy Osbourne and Cher, I'm in hell..." Needless to say, I immediately had an idea where his music tastes *didn't* lie and I felt no desire to openly claim the CD's; call me timid. Next Greg "MSipher" Sepelak eagerly requested that Daryn tell a second time his story about getting backstage through creative means to meet George Carlin. Daryn told me later he was hesitant because he didn't want to seem like an old fogey telling the same story ad nauseum, but everyone agreed and they enjoyed the tale. From what I understand they even enjoyed the silly articles I read, pulled from the dusty microfilm reels in Louisiana Tech's library. Doug Parker even asked for a copy, so later in the weekend I scrounged up two legible pages of it for him.

Eventually everybody got tired and left for their own rooms, and I managed to pass on at least a few of the ton of Mardi Gras beads I was hoping to get rid of. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I finally got rid of them all...

Saturday was the big day, the start of the convention proper. The dealer room this year had pluses and minuses. On the plus side, there were plenty of foreign TF items for sale, most notably British and Japanese. On the minus side, things were much more expensive and the G1 goodies were harder to find. Last year I stretched my money over both days and came home with a ton of important G1 toys I'd been wanting for years, but the same scene was not to be repeated. However, I did snag a British theatre poster for TF:TM, plus a press pack that came with it. The dealer said in ten years, that was only the second one he'd seen. It was quite expensive, but well worth the money. So was the Aleta-One (you spell it your way, and I mine) model kit that I basically bought out from under somebody. I also got the Seacons, which satisfied a longstanding rivalry between my brothers and I. So all in all, I got a smaller but still respectable trove of goodies this year.

Daryn and I went to the panel for the voice actors, which was great fun. I still refuse to buy the Beast Wars toys and watch the show with any real regularity, but the members of the voice cast are wonderful people and we enjoyed everything they had to say. Doug Parker reminds me of a cross between my favorite uncle and a really nice RA at a summer camp I went to. Scott McNiel is just plain nuts, but a very nice guy and I also discovered that he did the voice of my brother Jean's favorite character from an obscure cartoon called "Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars". David Kaye and Gary Chalk are great people, and I look forward to meeting them all again next year.

Before the 'con, Daryn did not look forward to the idea of going to the Saturday night script reading. I preregistered us for it anyway, and it turns out that by Saturday evening Daryn wanted to go. So did I. But first, we had yet another room party to host.

This was our private BotCon pizza party. This year was slightly less hectic than last year's, because we had a prearranged location and Vulcana was getting help acquiring the pizzas. Well, some help, from what I heard. Everybody got there before she did, so we hung around and talked TF's while waiting hungrily for the grub. After it arrived, we munched and talked TF's some more. Lizard and Raksha were reasonably entertained by the storyline Daryn had come up with, which I took the liberty of relating. (Hey, I give credit where it's due at least...) After that, we all packed up and headed off, leaving the pizza for later retrieval.

It was good to see Vince DiCola back in action, but I missed the funtastic performance he gave last year. But that's okay, because the voice actors' antics made up for it. I never imagined I would have so much fun at something related to Beast Wars..! And, as everybody knows, BW Megatron's comment about "Raksha...?" brought the house down. I will forego the all-too obvious moral finger-shaking about how taking the chance to attend something can turn out well after all..... well, you get the idea. Love you, Raksha.

Sunday was more subdued. I had next to no money to spend on anything worthwhile, so Daryn and I hung around and helped Raksha at her dealer table until the panel for Bryce Malek, story editor for the G1 cartoon. THAT was informative. For instance, the reason why we never heard any references to nuclear power was because, due to the stress of political issues at the time, it was strictly taboo. Also, our cult favorite episode with Nightbird was a difficult one to write. The Movie was given to Sunbow to do, not Marvel, and communication between the two groups was rather lacking. Bryce was unable to answer a lot of questions, but if you had enough of a brain to put things together, even what he didn't know explained a lot about the efforts behind the scenes for the Transformers.

Jon and Karl had their panel toward the end of the day. Everybody, let's do our part to get someplace like Dallas in the running, because it will be nice and in the middle of the country so people on each coast can travel an equidistant journey. Besides, gals like Charlotte Brogden can fly in to DFW, and we can pick them up in Megatron, so Soundwave and Raksha can have a break.

Beast Wars entries took the top places in the art contest this year, and Lord Xiphos won a couple of entries. Galvatron snagged second place and Nightbird got third in her category. I was pleasantly surprised at that, because I figured Dave Van Domelen's figure would do better. Maybe size does matter after all....?

With the show over, everybody packed up to vacate the premises. Daryn and I took Charlotte to Tiffy's, where we met up with Burt Ward, Lizard, MSipher and Doug Dlin. I got pictures of Charlotte's first encounter with barbecue, and we also treated her to root beer and a corn dog. That was great fun, don't you just love firsts?

Afterwards we took her back to Raksha and Vulcana's room, and probably talked poor Raksha's audio receptors off. I got a potentially naughty picture of Avatar crawling all over Charlotte, while Vulcana lay mostly asleep behind her. Raksha had a dreadfully long drive ahead of her the next day, so we hugged her goodnight and wished her a safe journey back home.

Monday morning we packed up to leave, and treated Charlotte to breakfast at the Marriott. She would be staying another week or two in order to tour the United States, so we fed her once and gave her our leftover microwave goodies before leaving ourselves. Forgive me for saying so, but Charlotte is most definitely one of the most attractive fans in the realm. Megatron has an absolute crush, I'm afraid. (Don't ask me how I know this...) She called us twice after we got home, and even got as far east as Dallas, but we were unable to get free time to show her around. Too bad, though. The grassy knoll looks great from behind the picket fence....

Doug Dlin, it turns out, was flying to Dallas with us on a rerouted flight, so we got to jaw with him most of the way back. Afterwards he helped us get Galvatron and company out to someplace in that maze of parking lots, while I fetched Megatron--safe and sound, just where I'd left him. To save the hassle, we just performed a C-section of sorts and cut Galv out of the sleeve so I wouldn't have to heave-ho just to get him in the car. I would hate to hear the arguments that sort of experience might spark between the two Decepticon leaders....! We hugged Doug goodbye, then headed home. Well, one last nasty surprise. It cost seventy bucks to get out of the freaking airport--there went my last bit of spending cash. ARGH! But at least we were on our way back to nowheretown, LA.

One final note. We stopped at a Taco Bell for food in my hometown of Bossier City, LA, an hour away from our current headquarters. Fed for the first time since the flight that afternoon, I fell into a doze as we sat in the parking lot; until Daryn woke me up to inform me that I had mumbled something about Terrorsaur. WHAT?!?! Terrorsaur?!? A Beastiality Bot? A wretched... well... okay. A Beast Wars character. I was talking in my sleep about Beast Wars characters. Joy. I guess I *did* have fun at BotCon, didn't I?

Other than having to tell the policeman we were just fine about ten minutes after getting into our apartment, and having to call *Daryn's* mom-- not mine-- to let her know we were alive, things were pretty humdrum. Life as usual goes on in the bizarre world of Daryn and Tut.

END CREDITS

Crowd control: Daryn Broussard
Interrogator: Sharon "Tut" LaBorde
Public Relations: Megatron
Psychological Consultant: Galvatron
Master Sushi Chef: Nightbird
Corn Dog Testor: Cyclonus
Airline Coordinator: Starscream
Comptroller: Aleta-One
Determined Nuisance: BW Megatron

Catering provided by the Quintessons and
the Feed Your Five Faces Cafe'