Gong Trooper

Brought to you by Dragon*Con 2005.

Sorry about the delay in bringing you the next chapter in the D*C saga. Having a job really cuts into my blogging time.

Anyway, I promised to expose — ahem — the exhibitionism that fuels the con. You'll have to take my word for it, since I didn't take any photos of the nearly naked; pale wenches overflowing their bustiers just aren't my thing. But they must be somebody's, because there sure were plenty of them. Seriously, everywhere you turn at a con, any con, there's at least one extraordinarily zaftig woman threatening to explode from the corset that's got her girlz jammed up under her chin. The phenomenon is so prevalent, my little gang started calling them nuclear corsets because of the danger of fallout. Maybe I'm just jealous because I would have the opposite problem if I ever donned such a garment, but egad! It's only funny until someone loses an eye.

On the other end of the spectrum are the women whose proportions are more prime time but whose clothing is strictly after-hours. Police Tape Girl, for instance. While I've never met her, Police Tape Girl is a legend in D*C circles for showing up dressed only in strategically placed bands of police tape. Jennifer also spotted Ace Bandage Girl wearing just a few strips of elastic bandage. Since the bandage blended well with her skin tone, from just a few feet away she looked completely nude. She had quite a lot of trouble crossing the hotel lobby because guys in kilts kept asking her to pose for pictures.

Incidentally, Jennifer, a high school teacher, also spotted a former student of hers. A senior this year, the young lady was attired in the revealing slave outfit Princess Leia wore while a prisoner of Jabba the Hutt. At her age, she was one of the few able to pull that one off attractively.

To my dismay, there's not nearly as much beefcake as cheesecake on display. I saw a couple loinclothed barbarians waving their clubs around (not as dirty as it sounds), but they were always on the move, never stopping long enough for me to snap a picture. And a couple shirtless harem boy types showed up in the Masquerade. They, along with the Gong Trooper, were the highlights of the show.

Let's talk a bit about the Masquerade. The Masquerade is the big costume contest of the convention. Some of the programming sub-tracks have their own costume competitions; we attended the Star Wars contest, which was briskly run and fun to watch, and the Miss Klingon Empire beauty pageant, which was not. The Miss Klingon thing was a great idea maimed by poor execution — great costumes, but I think one introduction and one 30-60 second display of warrior-woman talent is plenty. You don't need to have a 3-minute intro, followed by a 5-minute talent performance, followed by a personality segment, followed by I don't know what because we got up and left to seek strong drink. I mean, a blogger can only listen to so many Klingon drinking songs, sung in the original Klingon, before wanting to put the idea into action, you know?

During a couple of the lamer Klingon talent skits, I heard audience members chanting, "Trooper! Trooper!" but did not know what that meant. Now I do. Back to the Masquerade.

During the grand Masquerade, in addition to (and sometimes instead of) prancing across the stage and posing in character, the exhibitionist instict resurfaces and each of the entrants performs a skit. All 40 of them. Some of them begin with a musical or spoken introduction lasting as long as a full minute, followed by whatever strutting and fretting the entrant and his/her friends have cobbled together. A few of these are well done and entertaining, but many aren't. The only nod to quality control is the Star Wars storm trooper who will, if an act sucks enough, come out and escort the culprit offstage, sort of like a sci-fi Gong Show. Fortunately for Kelly, Jennifer and me, the young people sitting behind us at the Masquerade were smart and witty, and their heckling of the contestants easily outshone anything that happened on the stage.

Which is not to say that there weren't any good costumes. The costumes were fantastic; those I captured in photos represent only about 1% of the crop, so scroll around and check them out. Personal favorites included the Matrix lady, Ash from Evil Dead II/Army of Darkness, the enormous and shiny space marines, the spectral dragon rider (who won Best in Show), the aforementioned harem boys, and the entire Island of Misfit Toys. Sci-fi? No. But still terribly cool.

The show was interesting, but long. If it hadn't been for the hecklers and the Gong Trooper, I don't think we would have stayed for the whole thing. Kelly's emergency cocktail run during intermission saved the day. Next time, I think we'll plan ahead better: fill hip flasks, stand in line sipping and showing strangers our Treos (again, not as dirty as it sounds), THEN watch the Masquerade. It really is worth seeing — as long as you don't see too clearly.

Today around the world: September 10 is St. George's Caye Day in Belize.