03/08/04’s illustrious band:

Evil Tom

Brought to you by MarsCon 2004. I attended this sci-fi/fantasy convention this past weekend -- probably my last for a while -- and brought back a few tales with which to regale the less geeky among us.

Friday night, I ended up on a packed elevator with a man whose convention badge identified him as Evil Tom. In the Star Trek universe, as everyone knows, you can tell which characters are from the evil alternate universe because they wear goatees (the men, anyway). Since Tom was clean-shaven, I was unconvinced of his evilness. So, being in a dangerous mood, I asked for proof.

The elevator emptied on the 11th floor, which was the con suite and party floor. (No House of Toast party at this convention, to my great dismay.) Evil Tom popped open the black box he was carrying, not unlike a doctor’s kit -- which was fitting, since the theme of this year’s con was “Let’s play doctor.” Inside the box were all the raw materials you’d need to completely repopulate the Earth with balloon animals.

Evil Tom whipped out a flaccid white balloon and a device that resembled a ketchup bottle. He slipped the mouth of the balloon over the nozzle and braced the bottle at groin level. With a series of pelvic thrusts that would have made Elvis blush, he used the bottle, now revealed to be a hand pump, to inflate the balloon. A flurry of twists and tucks turned the tube into a poodle, which Tom presented to me with a flourish.

Well, that wasn’t so evil, I thought.

I began to walk away, but Tom bade me stay. He repeated the pump-thrust-twist-tuck routine with a blue balloon to produce a second poodle. And then he joined them together, one atop the other, so that they appeared to be getting a really good start on that repopulation project, if you know what I mean. I declined Tom’s offer to make the sculpture into a hat and congratulated him on being truly evil indeed.

Reaction roundup on a scale of 1 to 10

Sci-fi relevance: 0

Entertainment value: 6

OK, I’d had a couple daiquiris by then: 8

Likelihood Evil Tom gets hired for a lot of children’s parties: 0

Likelihood Evil Tom gets hired for a Superbowl halftime performance now that the nation is crying out for higher standards in prime-time entertainment: 9

Today around the world: March 8 is International Women’s Day. Chicks rule!

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