Maine Lining

Hey there, 'Redheads... From time to time I bring you news from the far away lands that I'm paid to bring mirth to. Well, last weekend I hitched the Mild Amusement Express to the tauntaun of the Geek Comedy Tour to trek up to Maine to play PortCon 2010 with geek jesters, Jake Young and Chris Barylick. The GCT specializes in turning the tables on society's natural instinct to give wedgies to the uber-nerds among us and instead relates to them with professional grade inside jokes. PortCon is an Anime/Sci-fi convention that gives all of the kids that spent most of high school inside their lockers a safe haven to let their geek flags fly with impunity. These are the kind of people who know that Newton's 1st Law of Motion is, "Do not talk about Newton's Laws of Motion." The inside of that hotel looked like a Hot Topic (and in many cases, a Torrid) exploded. It was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas if Hunter S. Thompson played Dungeons & Dragons and Dr. Gonzo watched Pokemon...
You may be saying to yourself, "Jared, you're not a geek. How ever did you manage to blend in?" Surprisingly well...
When it comes to geek world, I'm a daywalker of sorts (which is enough of a dork reference to give me away). It wasn't so long ago that I attended a convention like this, with my bag of dice and my tattered character sheets. Actually, it pains me just how long ago it was. Back in my day, we flocked to the room full of 386's to gawk at Castle Wolfenstein. These kids have networked PS3's for Super Street Fighter 4 tournaments. I entered one of these tourneys to test the myth of my skillz. I was promptly bounced like Mel Gibson at Jay-Z's BET Awards after-party. I button mashed valiantly, but I was no match for these whippersnappers who could pull off unblockable super combos like you or I check our email. I have a pretty good base knowledge of the geek world, but I was further out of touch than my ironic Star Wars t-shirt let on.

Our show was on Sunday afternoon in the giant outdoor tent that held the techno dance party the night before. What does a techno dance party at a geek convention look like, you ask? A little like this...

We got a huge crowd in there to see us, thanks in part to the impromptu flyers that Jake made up...
Roughly 200 eager geeks poured into the tent to check us out. My one big regret was not taking pictures during the show, but trust me, we were goddamn rock stars. I've done one other geek event with these guys, and I can honestly say that geek crowds are my favorite. They're smart and they like to fill silences with applause. God (or whoever has their back) bless 'em every one.

I've got more from this trip, but it's getting late, so I'll get back to this soon.

To be continued...