JOURNALISSIMO!

for the con report, read below.

for general ramblings click here.

Hey everybody! This is where I do my report on how the party went. The Journalissimo section is a new thing I just added, but it’s an old idea of mine, which sure took its sweet time getting here.

When I set down the layout of how I wanted the page to look, two years ago, I knew I needed a diary or a journal for party updates. Unfortunately I didn't know beans about how to make my own webpage and I was reasonably happy to cut my losses. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible for Mara, mostly out of guilt. I hate asking folks to do stuff for me that I can’t do myself. At that time AWA 2000 was getting closer and it was more important that I got the FAQ out there so that people who had no idea about Dessloktoberfest could find out what the big deal was. It was really important as the AWA message boards were buzzing with the mystique of Dessloktoberfest. Nobody knew who we were where we came from or why we were throwing the party. Everyone agreed it was the new hip place to be, but the new hip place was different things to different people. We were the Rorschach party. Some of those discussions were pretty amusing. The most off base answer was that Dessloktoberfest was a drunken orgy and girls had to flash their tops to attain entrance. Kathy and I have our own breasts, we don’t need to see yours. I don’t care how good they are. So after I got the webpage out on the Internet for a while I was content with the simple fact it existed. It’s almost like I have my own business or something, I leave out flyers at conventions, I give my friends stickers to give out or sell for cheap. I have my own t-shirts from Café Press. I have a stein with the Dessloktoberfest logo on it. It’s nearly as cool as having my own action figure. If I’m going to be a merchandising juggernaut I need to make the product worthwhile and that means updating my page.

Dessloktoberfest 1998--Our First One Ever

I don’t think I’d ever thrown a party in my life before then. I’d never had enough friends. Dessloktoberfest ’98 was open to the public, which had buckets of positive and negative aspects.

On the up side, we made a lot of friends and we entertained everyone who went. We met several folks who came from the New England area, not too far from where we lived. At the end of the convention when the Convention staff asked the Sunday hangers on what the best part of the con was, some folks were shouting out "Dessloktoberfest", and that made me proud. Amy Howard met Dave Wilson III, we were their Enchantment Under the Sea dance. We started a tradition in the name of Desslar/lok and his Empire that we are proud to continue to this day. I had fascist slogans up on the walls, the most popular being, "Because a Police State is Fun When You’re the Police" and paper gray stone heads of Desslar with luminescent eyes.

The bad stuff was that a) we underestimated and ran out of beer, and that b) underage kids got in. Star Blazers/Yamato aired in 1980-1983 or so on American TV. Most folks who watched it at the age to make a lasting impression were twelve or so back then, making them in their late 20’s to early 30’s. We were all legal drinkers who enjoy a good beer and/or alcoholic punch once in a while. Kathy was watching the door, as she for the most part likes to do, but she couldn’t keep everyone out and some kids weaseled their way in. Some kids just snuck in and drank. Other kids snuck in and took our beers and wine coolers for their own parties, hiding them in backpacks. I busted one of those kids personally. It really hurt my feelings as I thought we were all one big brotherhood of geeks and that no one would intentionally pull a number on a fellow geek. That party showed me a side of the next generation that I didn’t want to see. Younger geeks these days have no reservations towards stealing from the older geeks. Younger geeks treat older geeks like the enemy now. These folks were not only willing to steal from me but send me to jail if the cops asked them where they got it.. Desslar is a character who learns from his mistakes, and we followed that example. Reborn hard, I drafted a list of party rules to go outside the front door as a code of conduct. Invitation only. No backpacks. Valid over 21 ID or no entry.

Dessloktoberfest 1999---Good Things Come From Small Package Stores

Dessloktoberfest for that year was invitation only. Kathy and I went around Saturday day with sheets of Avery labels and stickered the con badges of invitees with Dessloktoberfest pass stickers. AWA was at a different hotel and the party room was a little smaller. We were right next to a shopping center so it was relatively easy to get supplies. We didn't run out of beer, and it was our first time experimenting with hot snacks. There was a party store across the street from the hotel, so we bought a rack and some cans of sterno and served HOT WEENIES!!!!!! We also had an alcoholic punch made by Heather, ½ of Heather and Paul, friends we made in Atlanta who ironically lived in Massachusetts not too far from us. The punch ROCKED THE HOUSE! It was called "Blue Electric Death" because you didn’t notice the alcohol until it was too late. We couldn’t restock it fast enough.

Good things: We met the Psychomu Gaijin team for the first time. Everyone we remembered from the year before we gave invites to and they all came back. Amy and Dave III had a little Anniversary thingie with cake. I think they might also have gotten engaged that weekend, too. Steve Harrison brought his excellent Yamato Lounge CD’s. My Esso Mike brought a videotape of bomb footage as background eye candy. We got to meet Brett Weaver! It was great and everyone had fun.

Bad things: The room was super small, it was very hard to keep it cool in there. I learned that with the food and plates and napkins we need to buy we should also invest in dish soap, sponges and trash bags. Punch gets sticky. Also the day after, some folks came up to us asking us where the party was. We had completely missed them.

Dessloktoberfest 2000---Not Quite the Happiest Place On Earth

Dfest2K was in the second biggest room ever. Folks had couches to sit on. There were blue spring Oreos I had scrounged and hermetically sealed so that they would be good eatin’ for Dessloktober. Kathy got to make backwards fours in Skweezy Cheez on Ritz crackers. Blue Electric Death Punch and Micro Weenies continued their legacy. There was plenty of beer. Mundee, Bruce Lewis’s wife and I became pals and she bartended for us when people wanted mixed drinks.

DaveIII and Amy had sort of a pre wedding non-shower reception activity where folks gave them gifts and we had a champagne toast in their honor. This time we got rave reviews from our friends and we wondered to ourselves if we could actually hold a bad party.

You’d better sit down. On one of these pages I said I’d made a deal, like Lando Calrissian. Well kids, that was supposed to be a joke. I had no idea how close to the truth I was. No, Darth Vader didn’t show and try to co-opt the party, and none of my friends were misleadingly taken to a free buffet where they were frozen in carbonite as an end result. Despite this, it was still a bargain we should not have made.

Here’s how the caper went down.

At AWA 1999, Cap'n Dave and Elizabeth Christian had a possible problem with the consuite. That problem was a lack of competent people to staff it for the coming year. Dave saw that we were competent people and it was with this in mind that we made THE DEAL--if we staffed the consuite for a certain amount of time we could use the consuite to hold Dessloktoberfest and supply our party with the convention's resources. No more begging from the super secret mailing list. We really liked that. I hate begging for money from our friends. I hate having to worry that the party could suck or soar depending on how much money I put into it. Money shouldn't be an object when it comes to our friends' happiness.

Anyway, the three of us agreed and we did our best to be ready for AWA 2000. Dave never said we couldn't have those things. Seriously, he's just one guy and only one part of what makes AWA the Gamilon Party Corps' Convention of Choice. For AWA 2000 the consuite was really nice. There was a big table for a snack buffet, there was a bar corner, and a fridge to store perishables. Kathy and I worked the consuite and Mike worked the art show. Because they needed us, there was a small problem. Friday we worked with no difficulty, but Saturday we needed to get supplies and hand out invitations *and* work the consuite from 3pm-6pm or so. Poor Mike worked all day and we had to get supplies without him. Since we don't have cars (in Atlanta) and depended on rides from folks, that was rough going. We got supplies and worked the consuite, but only had about 1/2 hour to hand out invitations. What we did was find some folks we trusted and gave them a sheet of invitation stickers each. We got to store our perishables in the consuite fridge and put items aside for the party, but we received nothing from AWA according to the aforementioned deal. It's okay. The more time we spent in the consuite with the convention staff serving folks the more we realized it was an unfair thing to ask, especially because our party was not a con function.

When party time rolled around we were struck with jaw-shattering reality. Because we had given our invites to pals (who of course know different people than we do), we had a mob of strangers to entertain. Do me a favor and look up a the last paragraph I wrote. Remember the "not a con function" part? Well guess what? Because we were throwing a party in the consuite, even though the consuite was closed and that fact was posted outside, that did nothing to deter angry uninvited folks from trying to enter Dessloktoberfest.

Congoers thought that their con badge gave them entry to Dessloktoberfest. Con staff and guests thought we were throwing a party for them. Nobody knew what the heck Dessloktoberfest was or who it was for, but everybody wanted in, and Kathy who works the door actually had to WORK THE DOOR, like a bouncer at a disco. Several underage (. . . ..yeah they were punks) young people tried to trick and or force their way in to the party. Some of the industry people and guests of the convention who were turned away when they tried to get in called convention staff to MAKE Kathy let party crashers in. There was no room to have Yamato based party games. We felt completely taken advantage of, like someone who gives their services for money, but not like a caterer, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Using this as another learning excercise, I decided that we would have a little more control over the invitations, and not work the consuite on Saturday next year. The week after Anime Weekend Atlanta 2000, Dan Baker started up a mailing list for us on Yahoogroups.

Dessloktoberfest 2001---A Police State Isn't Fun

Dfest 2001 had several new items which came along with it. Within that past year, I had designed t-shirts for the party available through Cafe Press. Most of the guests were on the list already so there was no lack of information between all of us.

We had invitation badges, not stickers, partially created by me and choreographed into place by our pal Neil Nadelman and his expert use of "Adobe Sotoshop". They looked like back stage passes to a rock show.

Due to a comedy of errors we didn't get to staff the consuite at all, though we were supposed to help DaveIII and Amy in the Green Room. I don't know what happened but they didn't seem to need us when we were there. Dave? Amy? If there was a time when you needed us and we weren't around, we're sorry. Really. We never intended to not do our jobs, it’s just that stuff happened and we never got there.