The first concern, however, involves tickets, or more accurately, seating. McCormick Auditorium in Northwestern University’s Norris Center has for decades now been a uniquely congenial home for B-Fest. The ample stage area allows for both brief skits, as well as room for sleeping bags in the middle of the night. The tiered seating rows and wide aisles are generous enough to allow for gear storage and, again, for sleepers to lie upon the floor, seeking sweet respite in the arms of Morpheus.

However, the auditorium is comparatively small. If I remember correctly, it seats somewhere between 300 and 325. And since the people running B-Fest are smart, they leave a percentage of seats open (you don’t want to literally sardine strangers together for 24 hours), leaving I think somewhere around 225 seats actually available for attendees.

In the past, this has actually been an advantage. B-Fest wouldn’t be the same if it drew crowds of like 600 people. In fact, it’s arguably overloud as it is, and certainly no longer as intimate as it once was. It certainly isn’t an event for folks who want to pay attention to and (especially) hear the movies. Doubling the audience size might well make the movies to all intents and purposes silent pictures*.

[*The other extreme is to compensate by blaring the films over the speaker system. However, then the audience is drowned out, and frankly sometimes the movies are played too loudly as it is. This is the first year I brought a pack of ear plugs, and I was glad I did. I also handed out pairs to more than a few fellow audience members.]

However, the seating issue is now coming to a head. The Fest is drawing a country-wide audience now. In our group alone, we had people from Texas and Arizona, to name but a few such locations. In fact, one guy in the audience turned out to be from France. This is, of course, due to the Internet. I myself played a part in this, as the local boy who helped draw to the fest the operators of several of the bigger B-movie sites, including (at the time) Oh, the Humanity!, Stomp Tokyo and Bad Movies.org.

The other major factor now is that over the last two years, tickets have been available not just at the school, but over the phone. Last year, tickets went on sale two weeks before the event, and sold out in about a day. Many were caught off guard by this, especially since B-Fests were not prone to selling out at all in the past. In any case, tickets had always, up to this juncture, been available at the door. Those days are now clearly gone.

In an attempt to deal with this situation, several options were discussed with the organizers (the show is run by a student body, the A&O Film Board) last year. Sadly, the best one, to find a larger, alternative venue for the event, was and remains a no go. There’s no larger facility on the campus that could possible suit the event. Meanwhile, going off campus, even if something were available (and given the 24 hour nature of the show, that’s pretty unlikely), it would cost untold thousands of dollars to rent such a venue, and no doubt pay a projection staff to run the films.

In the end, they went with logic and in the best tradition of supply and demand, raised the ticket price from last year’s $20 to $35.* However, this raise proved inadequate. This year, instead of selling out in a day or more, tickets sold out in under two hours. If the idea was to bump up the price high enough to dissuade casual attendees, either it didn’t work, or there are more fervent would-be attendees than had been anticipated.

[*Tickets for actual Northwestern students, however, were kept at the $20 level. Despite this, I think under ten of them were sold this year. There’s a danger here, too. If the audience purely becomes outsiders, will the school remain interested in even running the event? Surely it provides a lot of jack for A&O, but should student interest die out completely, that could be a major problem right there.]

Other factors contributed to the quick sell-out. First of all, quite a few of the films were sponsored this year, around, say, ten of them. As part of the deal, each sponsor gets two comp tickets to the Fest. (This makes sense; if you lay out $150 bucks to sponsor a film, it’s going to be lame if it turns out you can’t get a ticket to attend.) That’s 20 tickets right off the top, however. Given the size of the audience, and were all the potential films to be sponsored, it’s entirely possible that more than 10% percent of all the tickets will be spoken for before even one seat goes on sale.

In any case, I ended up sweating bullets the day tickets went on sale. I needed 12 tickets.* On the Friday morning the tickets went on sales, I called in an hour late—having lost track of time at work—and got a voice mail requesting my name and phone number. I left that info, but called back periodically to try to get an actual person. I got through within an hour, and almost fainted when I was told the tickets were "sold out." What the guy meant, however, was that they had gotten so many phone messages that they had stopped sales until they worked through them.

In the meantime, Joe Bannerman had dropped me a note explaining that he hadn’t gotten the three tickets he’d wanted either. Luckily, the ceiling of 15 tickets allowed me to get his tickets, too (since I needed 12 of them). That was the one good thing to come out of the wait.

Still, thank goodness so many people I’d been inviting to the Fest in the prior months proved unable to come. Next year, however, is obviously going to be a problem. Basically, I won’t feel free to invite folks—especially those from out of town who would plan to come in by plane—until after I already have tickets. And then it might be too late to get a good fare. Anyway…it’s a bit of a mess. There are people who have been trying to come in for years, and who I have been fervently hoping would get a chance to attend, but now this situation makes it all the more difficult to arrange.

Yet for this year—if just barely—all was well. Moreover, the arrival and departure schedules worked to my advantage. Most of the attendees were renting cars, meaning that I didn’t have to make many airport runs (something that in the past has on occasion turned into an eight to ten hour day). And if no one arrived early enough or left late enough to spend an extra day up here, conversely everyone was around long enough to afford ample time to get where we needed to be at any given juncture.

Stomp Tokyo’s Chris Holland (his partner in crime, Scott "Five Plates" Hamilton, elected not to attend this year, noting concerns about the possible disruption of his sleeping patterns) and our good friend and Jabootu reviewer Chris Magyar arrived first. They hit my place on Thursday afternoon, with Chris H’s friend Amy and webmaster Zach Handlen in tow.

Gear got established for Chris and Chris, who were spending the night at my place. They then all headed down to Evanston, where the members of the Bad Movie Review Board were having a pre-Fest party at a Tiki bar. They were kind enough to invite me, too, but I have a little pre-Fest ceremony of my own, of fairly long-standing, and I didn’t want to abandon it. Still, I obviously appreciate the invite.

In the end I spent the evening having my traditional pre-Fest steak dinner with Paul and Holly Smith over at Jameson’s Char House. I arrived back home in time to let in the Chris H & Chris M when then returned. Chris H., being a savvy veteran, elected to hit the hay early. Chris M. and I stayed up and yakked, which, after all, if a large part of why we really get together. I haven’t gotten to spend as much time with Chris M as I’d have liked over the last several years, so I really appreciated out chat.

Eventually, my dear old friend Jeff Withem arrived around 1:00 a.m. Jeff lived here back in the day before moving out to Arizona quite some years ago. He’s been attending B-Fest with me for at least fifteen years now—I know he was there in 1991, the year of the fabled Fearless Fighters. (As I greeted Jeff, I learned one result of not being a very social person. When I said hi, I croaked a bit, and suddenly noticed my throat was already raw from talking with Chris over the last three hours. And the Fest hadn’t even started yet!)

Friday morning we rose, and with Joe Bannerman and Amy in tow, hit the L&L Snack Shop for some of their typically huge breakfasts. (Even veterans of the place, like myself and Joe, gasped when Jeff’s truly monstrous six or eight egg omelet arrived on a stalwart pile of hash browns.) Grossly bloated, we all eased our ways out of our respective booths and headed back to my place.

An hour or two later, new attendees Kirk and Patty Draut arrived after driving in from

Midway Airport. I met them last year in Texas when Chris H and Sandy Petersen ran a little film fest. I truly remained amazed at how this particular hobby has allowed me to meet what is uniformly as great a bunch of people. Kirk and Patty are just the latest example of this. I’m not by nature someone who makes friends easily—my degree of social awkwardness is difficult to exaggerate—but after a few hours with the Drauts I felt as if they truly were old friends.*

[*This despite the fact that I at one point coerced Patty, who has a distinctive East Coast accent, into saying, "I pahked the cahr in the yahd." It pretty much sums up how sweet she is that she continued talking to me after that, much less refrained from punching me in the nose.]

Chris H, Amy and Chris M left circa noon to hit Superdawg and arrive in Evanston early to pick up the ever effervescent Lodore Brown.* Around an hour later, the rest of us followed suit, with Jeff, Joe and Kirk driving. We didn’t need that many cars for the numbers of attendees, so much as for our gear.

[*Still haven’t seen Chris and Lodore’s comical take on the slasher movie? Buy a DVD copy here…cheap!]

We soon arrived at Superdawg for a nice leisurely meal, meeting there Jeff’s old friend Rob and his pal Frank. The Drauts, wanting to experience what they could of this fabled emporium, ordered more food than they could possibly eat. In addition to the obligatory Superdawg (which a benighted Patty insisted on calling just a ‘hot dog’), Patty went with the grilled Polish Sausuage, Kirk the burger.

Kirk used his professional grade camera to take pictures of the place’s iconographic food containers. This drew the attention of the manager, who is in fact the son of Maurie and Flaurie, the couple who opened the place fifty-odd years ago. He wanted to make sure Kirk wasn’t some advertising guy looking to rip-off their distinctive designs.

For my part, I barely was able to finish my Superdawg, as I was still full from breakfast. In fact, to my everlasting shame, I actually threw away part of my incredibly thick chocolate Supermalt, since I really just couldn’t finish it. (It’s also a sign of how full I was that I failed to take advantage of the copious amount of spare Superfries that both Kirk and Patty had left.)

Our repast concluded, a party of us walked across the street to the Dominick’s to pick up some last supplies, mostly lunch meats—of which we bought waaay too much—for late night sandwiches. Again, having the time to just walk around and chat was too terrific for words. (This is when I got Patty to say the ‘pahk the cahr’ thing.)

Then Jeff and I jumped in his rented PT Cruiser and headed down to Evanston, with Kirk and Patty following behind in their jeep. Joe Bannerman and his friend Jesse had left a bit earlier, and were in possession of the Tower of Snacks. When they didn’t show up at the Norris Center for a while after we had arrived, I began to fear that Joe had absconded with the Tower and was heading down to Bolivia, where its bounty would allow him to live like a god. Luckily, though, he did show up eventually and the Tower was put into its traditional spot.

Having arrived some hours early, we moved all our copious gear—the Tower, the coolers, the camp chairs, etc.—into place. Once more I was able to snag the area on the stage behind the side curtain in which to set up my sleeping cot, which made me very happy. Eventually we were pretty well organized.

Then we basically caught up with folks who had otherwise arrived. These included such long time attendees as

[*At the end of the show, Chris H remarked that I had been, in my venting about the movies, actually "angry" about the line-up. That actually sort of shocked me, as I don’t normally think of myself as an angry person. However, I won’t gainsay him, and it’s entirely possible that I was more actively bitchy than I had realized or intended to be.]

Moreover, as Chris H—who consulted on things—was constantly and correctly at pains to point out, prints of older movies are increasingly hard to find. This partly explains what to me (and several other traditionalists, if not all attendees) was an appalling lack of films this year that were made before 1970. Indeed, there were only four black & white movies on the roster, and that includes the obligatory showing of Plan 9 from Outer Space. However, some research at the listings of Swank, the film distribution company, confirms that less and less old style ‘50s genre films are available for rental.

My final caveat is this: As much as it pains me to admit it, I am an Old-Timer now, and it may be that B-Fest is merely changing in nature as its audience gets (from my perspective) increasingly younger. Indeed, for several years now there’s been an increasing call for newer films, which to my mindset makes little sense. An occasional fun ‘80s movie like Breakin’ is a nice change of pace, but it’s your classic ‘50s schlock like It Conquered the World or ‘70s garbage like Gymkata that has, in the past, defined the event.

However, as was made obvious from perusing the lists of suggested films for next year, it’s quite possible that B-Fest is in the process of changing from a model built around classic old bad movies and exploitation films to a ‘cult movie’ fest, in which stuff that previously would have never even gotten a mention—regulation titles like Killer Klowns from Other Space, or Evil Dead II, or Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, or Re-Animator or things of that nature—might become the standard fare. And if I was truly bewildered by seeing such suggestions as Underworld, Batman and Robin (!!!), The Chronicles of Riddick or Legend on the list—and these titles were hardly unrepresentative—the fact may be that this is where the Fest is heading.

This is, perhaps, inevitable, and all I can say in response is that I would have little interest in attending such a show. That isn’t meant to be some sort of petulant ‘threat,’ however. After all, B-Fest can get along with me more than I can get along with it. However, if it came down to it, I’d rather invite some people to come into town and watch a more classic sort of line-up on my TV then see 24 hours of (to my mind, anyway) regulation cult movies and entirely lame recent Hollywood fare. However, I can’t pretend to be on a high horse here. To the younger attendees, it might be just as painful to sit though stuff like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. As invested as I am in the Fest, the most one can reasonably do is present his case and then let the people decide.

However, to help illustrate what I considered flawed in the line-up (and again, I note that these are only my own, personal views, and that I am in no way arguing that they are more valid than someone else’s of what makes a good line-up), here’s some basic ‘rules’ I have developed over the nearly two decades I have been attending B-Fest.

Basically, the idea is to mix things up as much as possible, in recognition of how deadly things can get otherwise. Films should be kept short, with a general attempt to keep things not much over 90 minutes (and under that, when possible). Black & White flicks should be roughly alternated with color ones, and genres and eras should be mixed up as well, with as much variety as possible.

And, as another person suggested this year—sorry I can’t remember who—there should probably be at least a ‘ten year rule’—i.e., nothing made in the last ten years*. Furthermore, at least from my perspective, this should include a general recognition that recent films are not, by and large, as fun or interesting as the older stuff. Again, check out that small list of suggested films I included a few paragraphs back. I’m not sure how Van Helsing failed to make the cut. Maybe it did, and I just missed it.

[*There are always exceptions, of course, as with Battlefield Earth. However, that film is a pretty lone genuine cinematic turkey amongst the generally insipid dreck put by Hollywood these days.]

In contrast, of this year’s selections, seven films, or over half the line-up, were pictures released within roughly the last twenty years. Four of them—over a third of the slate, in terms of running time—were made since 1990. At one point, four pictures in a row—again over a third of the of the entire program, basically a seven hour stretch—were films made since the mid-‘80s.

Note also that there were thirteen feature films in total this year. As Chris H noted, in the past you’d often seen seventeen features. The difference is that many of the movies lasted well past 90 minutes to nearly two hours, or even longer. The 1998 Godzilla clocks in at a punishing two hours and twenty minutes. Even this year’s Troma movie ran 107 minutes, or seventeen minutes past the 90 minute mark. Believe me, nobody needs to see a nearly two-hour Troma movie. I mean, put it this way: Tromeo & Juliet was pretty much fully a half hour longer than The Creature of the Black Lagoon. Now who does that make sense to?

More? Only four films in total, not quite a third of the roster, were in black and white. Of those four, three of the movies were amongst the shortest features shown, respectively running 79 minutes (both Creature from the Black Lagoon and Plan 9 from Outer Space) and 71 minutes (Cobra Woman). Godzilla by itself ran nearly as long as Plan 9 and Cobra Woman put together.

For a good ten hour stretch there, everything (save shorts)—six feature pictures in a row, or nearly half the program—was in color. Moreover, only three titles were monster movies, and that included the desultory Godzilla. Of those three, Creature of the Black Lagoon and Godzilla were the second and third films of the line-up, while the other, King Kong, was the last movie shown. Thus 9 movies in a row lacked a monster, other than in cameo throw-away bits. I’m not saying that B-Fest should necessarily be a monster fest—although it has been—but damn, you need more than that. [And note that the monster movies were constituted of two outright classic films and one overblown, mediocre would-be blockbuster. No The Giant Claws or Robot Monsters here.]

By general agreement (at least amongst those with who I discussed the situation), the major problem was sadly due to a quite generous, democratic and egalitarian impulse. For the last several years, A&O has gone out of its way to accommodate those who sponsor movies, going so far as to encourage them to outright select the film they wish to sponsor.

The mechanism for this is a list of films that is to be submitted to A&O. From this, they see what is actually available to rent. In this case, it seems that many of the sponsors’ better choices were not available, and that what was proved to be the more recent fare indicated above.

In effect, this idea was always dangerous, it’s just that this year we finally ended up paying the piper. As a long-time sponsor myself, I’ve always appreciated the thrill of being allowed to select a movie. However, this year revealed the peril in allowing the B-Fest movie slate to be assembled by, for all intents and purposes, a committee. And a committee whose members were not in touch with the other members, at that.

In the end, I’d argue for a firmer hand on the wheel. Whoever organizes B-Fest next year would be well advised to put the slate together themselves (with whatever input he, she or they consider necessary), and then lets sponsors choose from that already determined roster of titles. To my mind, that’s the easiest and most obvious solution to the problems we saw this year.

When it comes to suck, Size (all 140 minutes) Does Matter. Well, OK, that’s a little unfair…but not much. However, I was sufficiently disenchanted that I tried to sleep through this, although it was too early and I eventually gave up and watched the remainder of the movie. This confirmed all my thoughts I had when I first watched the film on it’s opening theatrical night. To wit: The studio that made this really screwed the pooch, mainly by hiring a ‘film’ making team that thought they were too good for the (as they publicly called it) "cheese factor" entailed in making a Godzilla movie. To which I say, fuck you, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. In response…they didn’t. Good work, YOU MORONS!! (Hello, Hollywood, if you don’t’ trust a ‘pre-sold’ property, don’t try to make a movie out of it.) "Godzilla" is basically an overblown remake not of the original Godzilla or its sequels, but of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Which is fine, just don’t call it Godzilla.

Amongst my various complaints:

Before the movie revealed itself, Chris H (seated behind me) ominously noted that there was five or six solid hours of unentertaining movies coming down the pike. Since our tastes are somewhat similar, this left me a bit concerned, and sure enough, the appearance of a Troma movie for the second year in a row did not assuage my trepidation. Indeed, Tromeo & Juliet quickly proved the most Tromaistic of all the (admittedly limited number) of Troma movies I’ve seen. I gave up on it after several quick, heaping ladlefuls of sleaze, including but in no way limited to the movie’s second intimation of incest in fifteen minutes. The fact that it was indeed a warped adaptation of Shakespeare sort of made me nauseous as well. Still, one man’s poison and all that, and it must be said the the film had its champions. I’m with Chris H, however, who more than once stated his conviction that Troma movies have no place at B-Fest. The trying-to-be-a-cult-movie thing is indeed deadly. Although I did laugh a couple of times in the early going, I felt guilty for doing so, and soon hit the hay. I tend to doze more than outright sleep at B-Fest, and wondered why the film seemed to still be going whenever I was conscious enough to bend an ear towards the screen. Appallingly, it turned out it was because the film runs over one and three quarters hours. No thanks.

Got up for this, worse the luck, but I couldn’t sleep through everything. For some unfathomable reason, Scott "Five Plates" Hamilton specially picked this film for his sponsored movie. Heaven knows why. It’s not particularly good, and it’s not particularly bad, and it certainly wasn’t in any way entertaining. The fact that Scott was home blissfully snoozing or laying about while we sat through this made it all the more infuriating. I’m not a Prince fan, so the music numbers left me cold, except for one production number featuring maybe a twelve year old kid in a sharp suit. Had the movie been built around him, we might have had something. In a desperate attempt to entertain ourselves, Liz Brayman (seated to my right for the movie) and I had to shamefacedly resort to a few feeble "Huh, huh, Prince looks gay!" japes. As if that weren’t embarrassingly enough, we used them about five minutes into the movie, and then had absolutely not a comedic straw to clutch at. It was horrible. The thing I don’t understand is that Prince made an epically bad and muuuuch more B-Fest worthy movie in Under the Cherry Moon. So none of us could figure out what the hell Scott was thinking, including his Stomp Tokyo partner Chris H.*

Not completely awful, but not really (again) a traditional B-Fest movie. It was helped by a dream sequence I didn’t remember featuring Robbie the Robot and several ‘50s sci-fi monster suits. It wasn’t as boring as Graffiti Bridge or as sleazy as Tromeo & Juliet, although that’s setting the bar a bit low. For what it’s worth, I like Jeff Goldblum, so it had that going for it. And I’m sure any furries in the crowd were appreciative. Well, any female or gay furries, anyway. No cat women for us hetero guys, I fear.

A sigh of relief went up on this, if only because it was in black & white, and called to mind the more traditional sort of B-Fest fare. It’s your standard jungle society picture, with a mad high priestess of the Cobra Cult (played by exotic actress Maria Montez) who chooses young village maidens to be sacrificed by the dozen during a loony dance ceremony. She’s in love with your typically brash and brawny white guy hero, the sort who sets the teeth of modern audiences on edge. He starts out in love (or at least lust) with her, but chances his affections to her put upon twin sister when he figures out what a nutcase his lover is. The hero is played by genre veteran Jon Hall, who starred in two of the Universal Invisible Man movies (playing the villain in one and an invisible spy against the Nazis and Japs—the latter as played by Peter Lorre!—in The Invisible Agent), and ended his acting career with the quite B-Fest worthy The Beach Girls and the Monster (1965), which he also directed. The year after that, he directed and did the "special photographic effects"—‘special’ as in Special Olympics, presumably—in the schlock classic Navy vs. the Night Monsters. Boy, that would be great at B-Fest, too. His white guy-worshipping native flunky, meanwhile, was played by Sabu, a B-Fest veteran from the unfortunately memorable Jungle Hell. Also on hand, as a mute native, was Lon Chaney, Jr.

I have no shame. I fled in horror at the prospect, heading downstairs to the food court for a slice of pizza. Jeff and some others joined me, and we basically hid down there watching some cable reality show starring Flava Flav (or whatever), until the whole thing blew over.  One bit of odd trivia:  Bob "Porky's" Clark directed both this and Rhinestone, and so was one the better represented directors at any B-Fest.  Apparently the sponsors of this film actually apologized for it being there.  It was the last film on their list, which they never thought would actually get shown, and chosen solely because of its high ranking on the IMDB worst film list.  However, that list is notoriously whimsical and unreliable, since it's assembled from votes by people who don't really concern themselves with what a really bad movie is.  When Mystery Science Theater 3000 was still extant, you could be sure that whatever film they showed that week would within days magically make an appearance high on the Worst 100 list, even if it were a TV episode compilation or a film nobody had ever heard of before.  I don't have the evidence for it, but I'll bet there were times when 90% of more of the list consisted of MST3K offerings.  Now that the show is off the air, pretty much whatever the most recent lame, poorly reviewed movie is makes the list.  I've no doubt this movie sucks--or I wouldn't have fled before it--but I doubt it sucks in a way I would appreciate.

In any case, we all convoyed back to the home of (Techmaster) Paul and Holly Smith, who are kind enough to host the post-Fest party each year. My memories of this event are rather scrambled, as one’s thoughts are never entirely clear following the rigors of the Fest. Still, we ordered in the traditional Gino’s deep dish pizza—if you want get people to return to Chicago in the depths of winter, ply them with Superdawgs and Gino’s pizza—and then basically gabbed and watched a movie or two.

Chris H had brought a pre-release copy of a girl band / monster movie pastiche called Stomp, Scream. These weren’t the best conditions under which to really pay attention to a movie, but it seemed really quite well done, and I looked forward to giving it another look under better circumstances.

Kirk, meanwhile, had brought a copy of something called Rolling Vengeance, a title that proved laughably literal. Apparently set in the Roadhouse universe, some upright guys in a small rural town find themselves besieged by bad guys, led by a highly embarrassed looking Ned Beatty. Apparently Rip Torn was busy that week.

Beatty’s pompadour-with-upswept-owl-curls alone was enough to inspire some guffaws, but the main plot device was that after suffering a Job-like category of outrages, the main hero builds himself what is basically a pill box on Monster Truck wheels and rolls over his enemies and their property. (Doesn’t Swayze in Roadhouse roll over the car lot of his adversary? I seem to remember that. If so, that scene is reproduced with numbing slavishness here.) Anyway, keep an eye out, I’ll probably be doing a Video Cheese segment on this one.

One new wrinkle is that the Stomp Tokyo-related attendees were all interviewing each other for podcasts. Lodore eventually attempted to interview me, but sadly I express myself even worse verbally than I do in prose, as shocking as that may be to my long-time readers. And again, having just finished B-Fest (not to mention about a pound of deep dish pizza), I was not anywhere near my best.

Worse, she had a couple of questions that I just wasn’t prepared to answer. First, she asked me my favorite B-Fest boobies moment this year. I stuttered something fierce, as I had slept through the main films (Tromeo & Juliet, and Coffy—which had I been prepared, would have provided my soundbite: "Let’s just say it involved two hot, steaming, overflowing cups of Coffy!") that provided such. In the end, I eventually referenced, in a rather incoherent fashion, a nude scene in Gas-s-s in which director Corman had filmed with surrealistic swirling color patterns playing over the lovers’ bodies. Frankly, I found that ostensibly groovy visual device more than a bit dated for a film made in 1971. Five years earlier, and he might have had something.

Ledore, however, seemed to think I was playing possum, and went after me like a dog with a bone when I similarly attempted to weasel out of her next query. This involved asking for my favorite "Nutsack" moment, a phrase that Lodore quite evidently relished, and which she employed at will. Here main examples of such, however, were again from Coffy and some other movie I had missed. (Of which, I must admit, there were more than a few this year.) She remained unsatisfied with my lack of response, however, and really worked me over. Finally, only the revelation that I was a Republican was repulsive enough to force her to subsist.

[I was saved later in the evening when Chris H grabbed his crotch. Seeing this, I excitedly ran back to Lodore to report that I now had a legitimate favorite Nutsack Moment. She gamely unspooled her microphone again, and we spent some time going over Chris’ testicle-grabbing technique. Anyway, we’ll see how much of this hits the podcast circuit.]

Eventually, we retired. Jeff, Zach Handlen and I returned to my abode for some sleep. Chris H, Chris M, Lodore and Jessica remained at Paul’s for (reportedly) further bouts of liquid refreshment. I do know that Jeff, Zach and I were able to rouse ourselves much earlier and more expediently the next morning.

Nicely, everyone was leaving late enough in the day that everyone was able to join in on the big, traditional farewell breakfast at Ritzy’s. The early arrivers, including me, Jeff, Zach, Julie and Tim Quandt and Kirk and Patty colonized one table, then endured the increasingly suspicious glances of the wait staff as we waited a good hour for the others to arrive and claim their table.

Eventually everyone arrived, and large breakfasts were consumed and conversation had. Zach seemed increasingly unnerved to find himself seated at the table of Conservative Curmudgeons, where the topics of conversation ranged from handguns to What’s Wrong with the Kids Today and the related Young Guys I Would Never Allow My Daughter to Date. (I don’t have kids, so I played the closest thing to a Devil’s Advocate in this discussion.)

Zach seemed increasingly uncomfortable with this retrograde palaver, but was too polite to just up and head over to the Communist table. He needn’t have feared, though. We’re a pretty hard group to insult, and none of us would have taken the slightest offense. In the end, he did manage to make his way to freedom, if only inch by inch (first he made his way to an isolated table by himself, and then eventually sidled over to the others), and having reached safety seemed much the more at ease for it.

Eventually it was time to take Jessica to the airport, and the farewells began. The Drauts had already left by this time, and all the Stomp Tokyo crew was to leave before I would return. Jeff also was heading off. By the time I returned, I think only Joe Bannerman and Liz and Charles were left. I was to drop the latter two off in the city, and since I am an extraordinary baby when it comes to driving on the expressway (which I probably haven’t done in ten years), Joe offered to come with me and make sure I didn’t end up in Kalamazoo.

We arrived at our destination, said goodbye to Liz and Chris (till next year!), and then Joe and I returned to my place, where…we watched movies.

In any case, it was really the ladies that made this a great year for me. The guys are terrific too, don’t get me wrong, each and every one of them—hell, just getting to spend time with Jeff makes the weekend worth all the effort—but my pleasantest memories this year particularly are of those moments spent with the members of the fair sex.

The last time Lodore came in (then her first year), I realized belatedly that I hadn’t interacted with her much. This occurred after she left and a good four or five people commented on her proclivity and admirable talent for brassy language. Realizing that I didn’t have any recollections of such, I had to admit that I probably just hadn’t really had an opportunity to talk with her. This year, well, we’ll always have Nutsack, Lodore. And for that I’m grateful.

Meanwhile, getting to spend goodly amounts of time with Jessica, Liz and Patty was absolutely delightful. What a bunch of smart, sweet ladies. And were I sexist enough to have even noticed how attractive they all are, I might have some standing to comment on that, as well. But of course, I only appreciated their company for their minds. Their hot, nubile minds.

Anyway, not wanting to end the report on that odd, creepy note, let me again sincerely thank Dannah and the good folks at A&O for assembling the show that brought us all together. I hope my grousing doesn’t in any way disguise the genuine sense of thankfulness and admiration I have for all of you.

Chris’ friend Amy, along with Liz’s pals Cherie and Christopher, were this years, "Wish I’d had a few more minutes with." Sadly, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I also didn’t get to spend even a minute with Tina and her mom. I can only hope that all of them had a good time, and that maybe I’ll be seeing them next year..

I’ve mentioned the ladies. Let me thank also all the guys; Chris H, Chris M (again, great to have had the chance for a long discussion with him on Thursday night), Kirk, Jeff, Joe, Zach, Charles, Telstar Man, the BMMB boys (and ladies)…all of them. Each of them, I should note, willing at a moment’s notice to let me impose on them in the most appalling ways. I wish I could say something better than that they’re all just good people, but really, that’s what it comes down to, and that’s no mean praise.

See you in Aught-Seven, folks.