I started out my trip in the usual way, packing 15 outfits for a three-day weekend (that’s light for me).  I had stressed already the night before because Robyn had once again bailed on me to go to Hawaii (she claims it’s for business – right) and Dave (a.k.a. Vera) decided he would rather shoot guns than be in his star trek dress (go figure).  Robyn usually gets the room for us so I had no room reservations the day of my leaving for New Orleans.  Luckily, Big Rob had managed to warn me before I got on the plane, and saved my ass from sleeping in the lobby (or passing out in the chip bowl).  I also got a call from Chris (a.k.a. Gigglecam), saying that she decided to be there and did I need a roommate? Thank god for that, as I am a poor, poor woman (hint, hint) and can’t afford a hotel room by myself for this convention.

I got on my plane and was ready to go.  And of course, as I must have a travel blunder on the way to any con I attend, this one was no different.  The plane was late taking off and I missed my connecting flight.  Can you say “flying stand-by”?   Anyway, I got there three hours later than I planned lugging 3 bags (weighing two tons) of luggage.  I can’t believe that my skimpy outfits weight that much.  There isn’t that much material to them!

Big Rob was there to meet me at the hotel (apparently he gave up after two hours at the airport) and I asked if it was possible to go into the quarter for the evening to drink profusely and see the gaudiness of it all.  Rob told me that him and his newsgroup on the net (for MST3K) were renting a limo to go into town.  He let me join them (I practically begged him to let me go along) and we went to a jazz club and saw a band - Amy and the Hank Sinatras.  Not bad considering I really don’t care too much for live music at a club.  After many more shots and bourbon and cokes, we went off to Bourbon Street in the limo.  It was really neat to feel important as people gawked at our limo.  Of course, the magic ended once we swaggered drunkenly out of the door.  I did everything my friends told me I was supposed to do in New Orleans - 
  The highlight was seeing the two fishnet stockinged legs swing in and out of the window of the nudie bar.  I had never seen anything so gauche before in my life, and literally stopped on the street, pointed, screaming “Did you see that?!!!”  Apparently, I am not as jaded as the rest of them, as they already had seen that.  The only thing I was disappointed about was that I never saw a track mark infested drag queen.  I feel a little empty about not seeing that, but perhaps if I get enough money for Mardi Gras…

We dropped off those that were tired around 2am and the rest of us, including Big Rob, went to Café de Monde to have hot chocolate and  that I can’t think of the name (it was two in the morning, give me a break).

When I got back, I saw that there were some activities on the 2nd floor by my room at the Retro Room (a place of Ataris, 80’s music, etc.)  I was so plowed by the time I got there, I almost accepted the Phat Boy beer that was offered to me.   As I was stumbling back to my room, I was met up with Con-Tour, who had had to drive all the way to New Orleans from Athens, GA.  It took them over 8 hours to get there and they had just arrived realizing they couldn’t check into a room until 6am.  I let Ron and Teresa (T-Rex) share my room with me, as I was pretty much agreeable to anything at that point (but not THAT kind of agreeable), 

Surprisingly, I wasn’t hungover the next day when Chris (Giggles) called me at 9, but  I was extremely exhausted.  She had called to tell me her reservations were cancelled and that she wouldn’t be getting there until 5pm that day.  Apparently she has the same luck I do.  In my groggy haze of little sleep, I have a vague recollection of that conversation.  Ron helped me remember later what time we needed to meet her.

After changing into the catholic school girl outfit and eating McDonalds gut rot, I got registered for the con (as a guest, of course), and went to visit the Reverend Maynard (one of my all time fav people at a con) at his comic book table in the dealer’s room.  He gave me a present he had meant to give me at Dragon Con which he knew that I would hate and fear instantly (lucky me, a beanie baby shark).  After freaking out over my gift (sharks scare the shit out of me), I attended the Con-Tour panel on their magazine (I like to show support for the group that lets me expand my ego to gigantic proportions).  Even the Reverend ( towards panels not involving ) and his pal Tracey showed up.

When the Con-Tour panel had ended, they had another panel they were putting on to promote their con, Fantasm (I am attending this one as well in February).  I found out that I had apparently signed myself up as The Gong Show hostess and organizer in one of my drunken stupors at another con (I have to be careful what I promise to people after 1am and a sizeable amount of shots).  Now I need to get a collection of hats and people who don’t mind  (that’s gonna take a miracle to happen – hats are so hard to find in my size) to pull this one off.

As Con-Tour was clearing out of the room after the panel, Ron and I went downstairs to wait for Chris (Giggles).  I was so nervous about her coming as we had never met before until she asked me to be in the net cam girl calendar and only then had we seen each other by cam.  I thought of the obvious things that worried me - would she like sci-fi cons?  Would she like me and my friends?  Is she in a wheelchair and didn’t tell us?  What if she belongs to a hate group? 

It turned out we all hit it off perfectly.  Taking a cue from the pics on my website, she packed accordingly and I was so proud of her for her taste and style in clothes.  Not only that, but everyone else adored her as well.  Things could not have gone more perfectly.  We dressed her up for the  panel - Ron’s idea to attend, not mine (you know how pristine I am).  Chris took it all in stride while I explained some con vocabulary as it came up in the panel (what does fandom mean?).

Because its about being fabulous, I blowdry a spot         Here Chris gets her first pair of fangs.
                  off of chris' Target dress.

Afterwards, I had to get ready for the big moment of my convention, the coronation.  Ron took so many pics of this and I wanted all of them to be seen, so I made a page for you to view them here without the extremely long load up time.  I was to be Queen ExotiCon I and I had prepared accordingly.  I had brought over my white queen (from X-Men) costume complete with a white wig and tiara I would wear while 
around the court in my hip boots.  Chris accompanied me to the room where everyone was getting dressed and ready.  I was met up with Alfred, King ExotiCon I, the happiest man (as well as the sweetest one) at the con. He was in his little king outfit with his huge crown and was constantly getting called the Burger King, which would make him stamp his little feet in outrage, demanding they take it back.  I got a kick out of watching his pained expression, every time someone accused him of it.  I had not been up to date on the rehearsals and the planning on the coronation and he made me feel right at home and explained everything to me.

Chris even got roped into being my hand maiden – she was to follow me and throw white beads at everyone while I addressed the court and acted snobbish and haughty.  We were the only ones in vinyl (everyone else had chosen renaissance wear – go figure) so at least we matched.  After everyone in the court was introduced (there were a lot of people - from the  to the house wench to the stately person who holds the hair back for royalty to vomit), it was my turn to make my grand entrance.  I was introduced and I made the great walk while Chris threw beads at people I pointed to (she made an excellent hand maiden – she is just a big of an exhibitionist as I am).  I was bowed before and people clapped for me.  I even made a guy rise up from his bowing position, only to dismiss him with a wave of my hand and a swish of my cape.  And as I stood in front of the entire court and smirked at them while the applause grew and flashbulbs popped, I knew that I would never ever in my entire existence feel this cool and important again.  And yes, children, I even teared up a bit, knowing that this was probably the pinnacle of my con, and it would only last a few moments.

When I sat down Chris and I made the audience laugh as I made her sit by my feet at my throne (the throne being a fold-up chair) and she rubbed my vinyl boots while I played with her hair.  When the King was introduced, he made his way through the crowd to join me at my side.  He even acknowledged Chris, my hand maiden.  Looking at both of us with an evil grin, Alfred announced "."

I was given fresh flowers and the king and I made our way for another walk through the audience together.  The royal toast was next, which me and Chris shared as she had no glass (her part was way last minute – the reason she had no chair and had to sit by my feet in the first place).  The courtly procession walked out into the hallway when the ceremony was over and Chris and I quickly went upstairs to change.
 
 

I wore my clear plastic vinyl skirt with matching vest with a silver bathing suit, while Chris wore her vinyl coat dress with fur.  We both agreed that we were looking very cool.  Our  was short, as the Romulan Ale was available firsthand from the king, and we proceeded to get our buzz on.
 
 

                Here is one of the men coming out of the wood-            Ron attempts to put boots on
                                            work for Chris.                                                    Chris.
Chris made quite a splash for her first con.  Men everywhere were coming out of the woodwork to flirt with her.  I was so proud that she was taking it all in stride and hamming it up just as well as me.  She was so beautiful that evening, and men were flocking to her.  Looking back I should have been , but I wasn’t, and I attribute that to having my own fans as well and we had already decided to be each others dates – that and I was Queen.

Here Joe sports his stylish Star Trek PJs.                                    Yapping my head off as usual..

After we showed off our outfits to the masses, we hurried to get to the consuite to help decorate the place for Con-Tour’s Lingerie/Pajama Party.  Chris had brought her webcam and laptop with her, and after some problems we managed to set up the cam (we are geeky computer cam girls after all) and have the pics upload to her site every 20 seconds. Hopefully they turned out so that everyone could see us and the we hang with.

Here are some scenes from the Con-Tour Magazine Lingerie/PJ party.  They were serious about the attire.

Some people at the party took the whole sleeping attire a bit to far, as some of them were down to skivvies that they shouldn’t have been in (of course, Chris and I were looking fantastic in our sleepwear).  I had flashbacks of MOC’s “I’m too sexy contest,” but fortunately it never got so bad that Chris and I would have to leave to hurl (but it was damn close).  The only truly weirded out I got was  started.  I have included some pictures so I don’t have to describe any of this in much detail.  A picture can say so much.  The best part of the party was when Joe Campbell (consuite manager and resident asshole to some degree) showed us his star trek long underwear that I had to get a pic of.  He was so embarrassed of the outfit that after a while he had to leave and change. He had even turned pale (which is hard to do for a black man) when I told him the picture would be on the internet for all to see.  Unfortunately, it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.  The pic didn't come out the way it should have to be embarrassing.

Amy, Bonnie, and Teresa sporting their black vinyl.    Chris, Ron and Holly - still up past 3am.

As I was Queen, people were still giving me the queenie treatment and giving the same treatment to Chris.  She was astounded at the way people were so nice to everyone and to her, even though she was a complete stranger.  She knew how to use her power, and she soon had , including the king who went out in the cold at 2am to get us daiquiris.  We held court after the party at the consuite with the webcam pointed towards us on the couch drinking daiquiris.  The people toasted to the queen and to her hand maiden every 10 minutes.  It got to the point where it was almost embarrassing (but not really as I dig all the attention I can get) and getting us really sloshed.

            The Reverend shares a bed-time story.                                  Apparently, Bonnie's been bad.
 

The Reverend even made an appearance and for my handmaiden, he did his party trick of   Chris thought this was the coolest, and at that moment I felt that we bonded.  I knew then, that she was a fan of cons for life and would be attending most of them with me.

            A scene from Saturday's dance. Check out that dude's tie.

As everything wound down, Chris and I pulled the cam into our room and set it up so that we could have the   Chris claims that people actually do sit at the computer and (gasp!) watch her sleep.  I don’t have this feature to my cam as I don’t have an 8 pin DIN mini-connector head extension cord (hint, hint) to put one in my room.  Intrigued as I was, she invited me to be a part of that, and so we slept with the lights on that night so our viewers could watch us drool and snore.  Later we learned that a fan had watched us that night and told us the next morning about it.  I just about died laughing that someone was either that bored or that easily entertained.

After ingestion of  the next morning,  Chris went downstairs to get vampire teeth made for her photo shoot (Bonnie wanted her and I to be in a shoot for future issues of  Con-Tour magazine).  I changed into my man-suit, and went downstairs to harass whatever fodder I could find as a victim.  I ran into some guys who made leather corsets and skirts.  But the thing that attracted me to their booth, was the stuffed cat they had that was made into an arrow holder.  I would have bought it, but the price was too high (I wanted to put it on that ugly table of mine so everyone could view it on the cam).  They were the funniest and they let Bonnie borrow some items for the shoot.

The shoot was a gothic scene and so Bonnie took us to a graveyard for the right atmosphere – cold and rainy.  Ugh.  The worst part was having to change in the road for the different shots.  As my luck would have it, as I was trying to get into an outfit a car nearly ran me over while I was facing the other direction getting a 

I never had been a big Goth fan, but I loved the corset, and after stuffing enough tissue in the bra, I could actually produce cleavage in it.  The skirt, however, was a different story.  After being laced up in it, I couldn’t walk and had to be carried (straight as a stick as my knees couldn’t bend) to each different grave we were shooting at.  I was like a   Bonnie got some pictures of that, and I hope to scan them so you can see the misery Ron went through to carry me.  I think the pics of Chris and I will turn out well, and Bonnie has given me permission to use them on my site once she gets them scanned.

Here are two guys being auctioned off at the slave auction. And Taurus as the sarcastic Auctioneer.

Back at the hotel, Chris and I crammed a hamburger down before changing into our slave outfits for the auction.  She was so worried that she wouldn’t get bid on.  She kept saying that me and my white fur outfit were going to go for hundreds while she would be lucky to leave at 30 bucks (I knew better than that, but trying to reassure her did nothing).  After having a few rum and cokes, she felt a lot better about it, and we got in line for the bidding.

        Here I am doing the catwalk for the slave auction.

        Here is the whole line up of slaves, waiting to get bought.

I saw a cute little boy (well, he was not so little, just barely 21) named Fish – his real name was Jake - that I wanted to bid on.  At MOC, slaves are allowed to bid on other slaves.  Apparently  for when a slave in line tried to bid, Taurus (the auctioneer) slapped them down telling him that slaves are forbidden to participate.  At hearing that news, I stood up and screamed about how I wanted to buy someone, and he made an exception for me.  When the guy that I wanted was up for bid, I figured he wouldn’t go for much as he was a guy.  At MOC, men go for 10 bucks if they are lucky (men are usually used for cheap labor and a woman doesn’t have to pay for a man to pay attention to her at MOC).  Unfortunately, he was up to 25 to start with, and some dude (Dave) from Coast Con was bidding on him and he seemed to have unlimited funds.  We were battling up to 50 bucks before I demanded to see who was bidding me up.  After he was pointed out to me, I rushed over there ranting on how I had such plans for him.  He basically dismissed me with a wave and told me to sit down (I am rewording what he said, as it wasn’t as nice as I just described here).  He won the little war.

Here is Dave our slavemaster with his two fav slaves.

Chris went up on the block, and displayed her talent of eating cherries with one of the scream queens and promptly was started out at 75 dollars.  She ended up going for 130, beating me by 10 bucks and getting bought by Fashad, one of the most gorgeous men at the con.   When I went up on the stage, as irony would have it, the guy I yelled at earlier bought me and I thought of the hell I would soon be going through.  But God smiled upon me, and it turned out that he bought Jake and then bought me so he could make Jake and I dance at the party together.  He just wanted to piss me off for a few minutes.  What incredible luck!  I apologized and slinked off humbly with Chris to change into the next outfit – the blue bellydancing outfit.

We changed rather quickly as Chris and I had to meet our masters at 9 at the dance.  We got a little sidetracked looking for booze and we ended up being late.  No matter, he was late too and it seemed that my real duty as slave that evening was slow dancing with Dave the Slavemaster from Coast Con to some big hits of the 80’s.  All in all, he was a 

We went party hopping to the Babylon 5 party where the scream queens were hanging out at (no, not in that way).  There was chocolate fondue being served by a lovely lady who would actually feed it to you.  Chris and I stayed there for a while gorging on chocolate and   They were very funny, and it turns out that they know the guy that runs DramaCam as he is a casting director.
 

Chris and I (as well as our entourage) meandered to several parties (one of them having an interesting dish of chocolate and kitty litter) before running into Zoe, who was in a hurry to get downstairs for some special event.  She said it was some sort of ceremony of the Re-Animator Fluid (Gatorade and everclear) and so we followed her downstairs to see that a caldron of yellow liquid had been created and was being carried on stage to Big Rob, Russ, and the Frog Man.  and the caldron, and were handed cups to raise up for the alcohol.  Russ was the headmaster of this celebration and when I asked him later as to why this event takes place, he replied that in a moment of clarity within his drunken haze, he realized that “alcohol was good” and thus, he wanted to spread the news.

After Russ had spoken the “word,” Frog Man went up in all of his glory (and his eyesore of an outfit) to make sure we realized the importance of this event as well as the importance of alcohol in our lives (he even read from some sort of alcoholic “bible” that somehow justifies this event).  After a few Hallelujahs and Amens, we were allowed to quit kneeling and scrambled to Joe, who was ladling out the juice to everyone. and they all danced to booty music while we ran in fear (but not without our Re-Animator Fluid).

The Jonestown party (run by  the Reverend Maynard, Tracey, Jason (Jesus), and Christine) was in full swing when we went upstairs.  The Reverend was having a fine time serving his punch - which you had to sign a release to drink.  His specialty was making blue stuff he insisted was a shot - but after one, you didn’t need anymore.  Jason was doing a fine job DJing (this party always has the best music) and Christine was being, well, Christine.  Chris and I had already put up the cam, so we hope it caught all of this.

 The Reverend makes you try the punch. or the blue stuff.

to attract more people to the party.  I don’t have this on film and I regret my battery running out at 3am on Saturday as this was a major event of Jonestown for its last party.

What's wrong with this pic? Don't be scared, its really chocolate.

We take a moment to pose for the king before we get sold.

We once again got our drinks refilled and went out party hopping, getting our pics taken by randoms, and generally flirting and having a good time.  Fashad and Chris were getting along especially well, and I didn’t see them for quite some time during the wee early morning hours. 

After another experience of French toast in bed the next morning (Chris brought it over from Fashad’s room for me and Jake), we packed and said our good-byes to Con-Tour, Big Rob and his gang, as well as a few of the people we had hung with for the majority of the time.  Big Rob wants to see about  as I feel the role was made for me, but I am not holding my breath on that one.

I had a wonderful time (and being Queen helps a little on that one).  I am so glad that Chris came to experience the con with me, and we have made plans to both bring our cams as well as the other calendar girls to  in February and she will possibly go to Chattacon in January.  I hope to visit her sometime soon in Chicago, as we have become pretty good pals.  She even gave me some cool bracelets to remember her by and wants me to let you guys know that she has written in her diary about this con, too and you need to check it out at her site (she even let me make a guest appearance on it!).  Some other friends I made at the con are also gonna try to be there as well.

What did I learn this weekend?
I learned that flying standby sucks, that sometimes I need to bend my own rules I set for myself at cons, that French toast in bed is good and last but certainly not least - I learned that its good to be the king, but even better to be the queen.

Check out my next review when I hope I will be going to the Degenerate Press’ New Year’s Party in Atlanta if they can find a location for it.  If not, the next one will be about Chattacon, coming out in January.  Until then, remember – If you can’t be good, be good at it.

A few days after I wrote this, FROG MAN wrote me to let me know that he has additional pics on his page (and it also leads to other links of pics).Go to: