London Film and Comic Con

(This, too, is not a 50 for 50.  For reasons.  Mostly because "go to a Con" was already taken.)

So, about a year ago, Ellen (friend in Germany) and I agreed to meet in London at the London Film and Comic Con (LFCC) this year.  We bought three day passes and waited to see what guests were announced.  

Short form explanation on how LFCC works.  It's mostly photoshoots (for a fee) and autographs (also for a fee).  But the photoshoots can be booked in advance; the autographs you just have to line up for.  (Or, if the guest is busy, you pick up a "virtual queue" ticket, like a deli counter number, and wait for your turn to be called.)  Also, some guests give talks.  (Which are really just Q&A sessions with the audience.)  These are also for a fee, but way less than the photo or autograph.  The only way to get a guaranteed autograph is to buy a package including the autograph AND the photoshoot AND the talk in what they call a "Diamond Pass," which is Really Fucking Expensive.  OK, now you know.

So Ellen and I are waiting to see what guests get announced.  A few weeks before the con, the only ones I'm even vaguely interested in are Peter Capaldi and Val Kilmer.  I can't decide whether to buy the Capaldi photo shoot (and wear my Clara cosplay) or risk a Kilmer autograph line (hoping to get there early enough to get a low virtual queue number) and have him sign a printout of my bad review of him in that horrible Ten Commandments musical.  I decide on the Capaldi photoshoot.  I buy it in advance.

THEN they announce Matt Smith.  Shit, shit... fuck it, second photoshoot.

THEN they announce Sam Neill.  I am sorely tempted, but resist.  Until they announce a Sam Neill Jurassic Park Green Screen photo shoot.  (In front of the gates.  With a raptor.)  Well, you only live once.  (I may have to WORK an extra year past my planned retirement to pay for it all, but I'll only LIVE once.)  I order the Green Screen shoot.

They announce Peter Davison.  He is MUCH cheaper than everyone else, but I've already bought three photos already.  I resist the photoshoot.  I will try for an autograph.  I add up what I've spent and figure I won't be buying much crap on the LFCC floor.  (I read on LFCC message boards that some people have booked 13 photo shoots and 5 diamond passes and I am aghast.  Who ARE these people?)

As it happens, most of my stuff is on Sunday.  The Sam Neill Jurassic Park Green Screen in the morning, and the Capaldi and Smith photos in the afternoon.  Somewhere in all the photoshoot buying, I also ponied up for the David Duchovny talk, which turned out to be Saturday. 

Saturday morning, I turn on the internet and find out the Sam Neill Jurassic Park Green Screen Photo Shoot is cancelled.  Dammit.  I know some people are trading theirs in for a regular Sam Neill photoshoot, but I'm letting it go.  I show up Saturday afternoon, get my bearings, walk the hall, wait for the talk (which I have to leave early anyway, for theatre).  Saturday is the busiest day at LFCC.  Thousands and thousands of people are in this convention hall.  Tens of thousands.  I don't count them.

Saturday fucking afternoon, they get on the loudspeaker and announce they've added David Tennant as a guest for Sunday.

Tens of thousands of people whip out their cell phones and try to buy tickets.  (Some poor fools run to the Sales Desk.  I've been to the Sales Desk.  Don't even.)  I seem to have found a place for my Sam Neill Jurassic Park Photoshoot refund.  I order a photoshoot.  He sells out in record time, and I am very lucky to have the shoot.  We may have crashed the LFCC ticketing website.  (Or the cell phone reception tower nearest the convention hall.)

That night, back in my flat, I order the Peter Davison photoshoot, too.  What had started as a picture with Peter Capaldi while I'm showing off my Clara cosplay has turned into, "Hell, let's get pics with our four favorite Doctors."

And nothing started before 1:00 on Sunday.  But between 1:00 and 5:00, I had four photoshoots, two costume changes, a random one-hour comedy/video thing (which SHOCKINGLY didn't conflict with anything), one ACTUAL wardrobe malfunction (and a very nice lady sewing me back in), and Ellen had got there earlier and picked up a Peter Davison virtual queue ticket for me (number 324) which I was able to cash in while waiting for Matt Smith to come spectacularly late to his photoshoot, and when all was said and done, all of these happened:

(Yeah, photo of a photo.  Sorry about the glare  You gotta love his pose, though.  Truly.)

At the time, he looked like he was grinning.  I have come to the conclusion that a Tennant Grin and a Tennant Teeth-Clenching are very similar in appearance.

Every time someone came up for a photo, he was throwing a sideways "V" sign and getting people to throw it with him.  (Because he's cool and wearing a hoodie.)  AND watching this happen with two people in front of me, I had all of 30 seconds to come up with an alternative, so I asked him to throw this instead.  He obliged, although he had no clue what it was.  I told him it was "I love you" in American Sign Language, and both he and the crew guy seemed impressed, and now I shall taunt Jayne with the photo.

There is no way around it: this is a horrible photo of me.  (I pulled off my glasses at the last second and didn't push my hair back.  When I saw it, I decided to keep the specs on for the rest of the day.)  My G-d, that's a shit photo of me.  But I got it signed by Peter Davison and got to tell him that he was "my" Doctor.   So that was pretty fantastic.  :)

Not a 50 for 50

There are two reasons the Peaky Blinders pop-up ... sorry, sorry, make that Feasty Blinders (more on that little bit of not-fair-use later) is not a 50 for 50.  The first is that I went alone.  The second is that somebody has already claimed "cosplay someplace."  (I'm looking at you, Ali and Jonathan.)

But, damn, I want some sort of credit for walking the streets of London in my 1920s get-up.  Dudes, I RODE THE FUCKING UNDERGROUND while wearing a fascinator. 

And, honestly, I didn't "walk the streets" dressed like this.  I fucking strode.  First, because it's something of an empowering outfit; and second, because, fuck it, I know people are going to stare at me while I'm crossing Leicester Square, I might as well fucking own it.

I'm saying "fuck" a lot.  So did the Feasty Blinders.

So, yeah, Peaky Blinders pop-up.  I thought I read somewhere that it has nothing at all to do with the television program and is instead based on the real gang in Birmingham and...

... yeah.  And it's got all the characters that were invented for the TV program, and the fact that the show ends with the band playing a ten-minute of cover of "Red Right Hand" is PURELY coincidental.  Tonight was the last night of "Feasty Blinders" and I wouldn't at all be surprised if it was because of Cease & Desist letters.

You buy your ticket online and you aren't told of the location until a few days before the event.  Fuck that, I Googled.  (Well, honestly, no luck there, but I found it when I searched Twitter.)  A cabaret/club I could easily find.  OK then.  Had some issues ordering tickets because it was one of those rolling on-sales, so I couldn't buy tickets until they e-mailed me a code, and they didn't e-mail it to me until the middle of the night (because time zones) and long story slightly less long, I ended up with a shit restricted view ticket.  (I almost didn't buy it, but, at that point, I sort of bought it out of spite, if that makes sense.)

And then, Monday, I got the email with the location and it was a different damn club.  (Points to London for having at least two 1920s cabaret establishments, so the switch was easy.)  The good news is my shit rear stalls ticket turned into a balcony ticket.  The better news is I showed up in time to claim the best seat at my table -- right up against the railing, with a terrific view of the stage. 

I am sitting next to a British couple and I bring out the small talk.  They've ordered a bottle of Moet, so I ask if they're celebrating anything.  They explain that they're spending 6 months doing fun things to celebrate their 25 anniversary.  I understand immediately.  Boy, do I understand (says the woman with a two-year-long celebration of turning 50).  We chat and she discloses she's a HUGE fan of the TV show (no shit, lady), so we talk about that for a bit and we manage a good two hours (in between dinner courses and entertainment) before the husband asks if I'm thumbs-up or thumbs-down on Trump.  Honestly, in the current climate, I'm impressed it took that long to ask the American about her politics.

The entertainment is a band, doing swing-style covers of a lot of things you wouldn't expect swing-style covers of.  (Like, You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) or Time of the Season.)  There were a couple of burlesque dancers who we saw four freakin' times.  (I wondered if one was an understudy.  I wondered this because she kept looking at the other girl, while the other girl kept smiling and looking at the audience.)  And then there was the whole Peaky-- sorry, sorry, FEASTY Blinders thing.  Whereby the members of the Shelby family and Alfie Solomons were opening up the Eden Club they'd taken over from Mr. Sabini.  This was SO not Peaky Blinders, you could pin down exactly which season and episode it wasn't taken from.  There's fighting and cussing and the dude playing Tommy keeps saying "No fucking fighting," and everybody laughs because we know there's going to be fighting.

The 1920s attire wasn't mandatory, but nearly everyone played along.  (To the point where the people who didn't stood out.)  Props to the dude who went full-on shirt, waistcoat and cap... but accompanied it with shorts in deference to the weather.  (I only noticed him in the line for the bar; sitting as his table, he looked the same as everyone else but was probably more comfortable.)  And there was something very cool about it all.  People drinking and dancing at a club is something you see every day; but people being all dressed up in their '20s finery added some much-needed flair.

Look, when you get right down to it, the Peaky Blinders tie-in element was a little disappointing.  I'd bet they spent more time on the mediocre burlesque dancers than the Peaky storyline.  (And as soon as you say to yourself, "I wonder how they're going to end it," you instantly figure it out.)  But it did bring two important things to the table from the audience point of view.  First, it got us all dressed up so we were in the spirit of playing along.  And second, it got us all immediately on the side of the good and righteous Shelby brothers (and their nice, peace-loving friend, Mr. Solomons) against the evil Sabini.  We weren't 300 strangers in a club; we were all friends of the gang, come to have a good time in the city.

Or, as the band leader put it when he promised to play as long as we wanted to listen, "Let's get fucked!"

50 for 50: 35 (Take Two) - OK, Jump Out of an Airplane with Jayne

So, we pretty much had the road trip to Lompoc down to a science.

I've had plenty of times where I've taken a trip and wanted to repeat it to correct mistakes.  Hadn't actually WANTED to do Lompoc over again, but there were a couple ways in which we could improve on it.  Like the "hearing accessible" hotel room which wasn't.  (You have to call ahead for that.  You have to CALL AHEAD to tell them you need the pre-booked hearing accessible room actually set up to be hearing accessible.)  Or the crappy restaurant we went to for dinner.  And, of course, the whole wind-blowing-from-the-wrong-direction-so-we-can't-skydive thing.  Admittedly, we didn't have much control over that.  But the rest of it.  Oh yeah, we're improving on the original.

I called ahead for the hearing accessible room.  We got the same room as last time, but now they have attached one (1) sensor that turns the vibration of someone knocking on the door into a flashing light on the inside.  Which was great, except when we had to call down to have someone fix the (unrelated) broken bathroom door, they managed to knock the vibration/flashy light sensor off the front door.  We tried reattaching the damn thing, but then Jayne figured it would make way more sense on the door between us at night, where knocking might actually take place.  Improved.

I had googled or yelped or whatever for good restaurants in Lompoc.  (I don't mean to unnecessarily mock Lompoc, but seriously, there is no such thing as a GOOD restaurant in Lompoc.  You're grading on a curve here.)  There were two with high(ish) recommendations near us -- Eddie's Grill and a Mexican place named Floriano's.  We'll come back to this later.

As we were driving up, it dawned on me that I really truly wanted a massage that night.  That would be a Good Thing.  I got a ton of credits at Massage Envy, but there's no Lompoc branch.  (I, for one, am shocked.)  I google for the next best thing:  a cheap Asian Massage place.  I find a few; only one is open late:  Massage Yee.  I decide to broach the topic once we're at the hotel.  I admit that deciding to wait is a communication thing.  Given enough time, I can get my point across in ASL, but the sentence "Hey, do you like cheap Asian massage places?" is going to require too much fingerspelling, and I don't want Jayne to take her eyes off the road long enough to figure me out.

So we arrive; we check in; we get our FANTASTIC hearing accessible room with AWESOME door knocky sensor; we go down to the "manager's reception" to enjoy our free wine (it's ... wine); get a table; and I now take another look at the internet to get a good handle on the location of Massage Yee.

It is across the parking lot from the hotel.  I am not making this up; it's a LITERAL 2 minute walk.  And you know what's on the way?  Floriano's Mexican Restaurant.  I pitch a plan to Jayne; she's up for it.  I make an appointment at Massage Yee and we quickly down our wine.

Look, I know you're all here to read about the skydiving, but I feel obligated to point out that Massage Yee is terrific value for money, very nice on the customer service, and is either located in a former pediatrician's office or has a super-weird design aesthetic.  I mean, sure, there's a sign on the wall saying that they've got Zero Tolerance for Soliciting Prostitution, but I don't know how anyone could even think of sex with all the teddy bear decor.

When we finished, we walked over the Floriano's, which is a Restaurant And Butcher, and it took a good bit of studying the menu to find that one Veggie Burrito hiding there amongst the dead things, so that Jayne could have something to eat.  Tasty, though.  I downed a coupla tacos.

Cut to the next day.  Free breakfast happens.  (Better than the free wine, if you're keeping score.  We watching Spain lose to Russia in the World Cup.  I'd heard many different languages spoken in the Lompoc Embassy Suites, but the breakfast crowd was pretty much unanimously rooting for Spain.)  We drive to Skydive Santa Barbara.

First thing they have you do is fill out the multi-page waiver and watch the "no really, we have no insurance" video.  I mean, it's something like four pages that boils down to, "I won't sue you.  Or really, the small pile of my smoking remains won't sue you.  Even if it was totally your fault.  Totally."  The waiver says they have an "accident log" you can review, and see the types of accidents that happen here, and I was pretty sure there was no way in hell I wanted to read that accident log.  I was going to do this anyway, dammit.  Ignorance is bliss.  Or, at least, ignorance.  I signed the waiver.  It asks for your age.  This was, actually, the first time I had to write "50" on something.  Seemed suitable; this was the most bucket-listy thing I had.  Best to do it a few days after my actual birthday.

Once they approve your waivers and take your money, they send you to wait in the hangar.  There are a LOT of people in there.  A foosball table, a life-size Jenga set, and a single bathroom for what I can only imagine is an impressive quantity of nervous urination.  We ask how long our wait will be.  We're jumping in group 7 and they're on 3 right now.  They said it would be at least two hours.  They give us directions to the nearest Starbucks.  We tell them we'll be back in an hour.  We stop for the "Before" picture.

Now, I live my life on the general principle that a Starbucks break is always a good thing.  This one was a VERY good thing.  I was nervous and nauseous and just sitting quietly with a cup of tea was a good idea.  Jayne, who had jumped before, walked me through the whole experience.  Then she encouraged me to run through all the other things I've jumped off of, or other adventurey things I'd survived and adored.  I ran through it, even including the panic attack during the SCUBA certification.  The whole thing calmed me down.  After our hour, we drove back to the skydive place, ready to wait another hour.

Only to discover they'd been looking for us, and we were actually in the next group.  (We took a minute to queue up for the Last Toilet Break.)  We met our instructors.  Mine was Sarah.  She was nauseous too.  Seriously.  She pretty much introduced herself and then explained that she was a little nauseous 'cause of a med she was taking, but she's good and fine and it's no problem.  I said I was nauseous too, so no problem if we didn't do all the spins and turns.  She matter-of-factly informed me that she's a "sympathetic vomiter," so if I go, she goes, and we float back down to the landing zone both covered.  We decide to try to avoid this scenario.  She says a coupla things which give me confidence in her -- like that she's one of their most experienced instructors, and that her boyfriend works here and packed her chute (and they're doing quite well as a couple, thank you).  And that, yes, that accent I'm hearing is Australian.  Look, I know that Generalizations Based on National Origin are Bad.  Still, safely jumping out of an aircraft is just one of those things I expect Aussies to excel at.

I have a moment to see Jayne's instructor talking to her from behind; of course, she has no clue what he's saying.  I think this is probably one of those times that I ought to jump in and say something, so I point out that she's Deaf.  I am both a little concerned that he hadn't noticed, and a little impressed by how much he just adapted and didn't seem to care.

Sarah walks me over to the plane.  We get in, and she starts attaching my harness to hers.  I notice the plane has a bunch of duct tape around the door.  I comment that our plane is literally held together with duct tape.  Sarah thinks this is a fair description.  Oh well.  It isn't like I'm not strapped to a person with a parachute.  The "emergency exit" and the regular exit are pretty much the same thing.

Everyone piles in.  We're all paired up, except for the few non-tandem jumpers.  But we're all just sitting there in two long rows, facing the door.  I'm attached to Sarah; Sarah is seat-belted in.  She removes her seatbelt at about 1000 feet, because by then, there's only one way we're leaving this plane anyway.  At one point, she tells me I'll put my goggles on at 12,500 feet, and we're only at 8,000.  I tell her I probably don't need to know our altitude.

And here I'm pretty much going to just explain the four-minute video you'll see.  (I should put "learn to edit videos" on my 50 for 50 list.  Because I really want to edit this, but I tried three different apps and got errors or problems on them all.)  ANYWAY, a solo jumper goes out the door and just DISAPPEARS out of view underneath us.  And Jayne is next and we're after Jayne, and if you watch that video, you can very clearly make out me saying "Holy shit.  Holy shit.  Holy shit."

(Sarah said, "I'm an Aussie; we've heard 'em all.")

And out the damn door.

I am not saying "Holy shit," anymore.

I am not saying anything.

If you watch the video, it looks like I'm clenching my teeth in pain.  This is not what's happening.  During the freefall, we are moving so fast it feels like I'm having difficulty getting air into my lungs.  (I don't see how that can possibly be true.  I mean, it's ALL air.  In fact, the only thing that I can safely say is in my immediate vicinity IS air.  But I felt like I wasn't getting a really good breath going, and that's what you're seeing there.)

Also, your harness is spectacularly tight.  As well it fucking should be.  But, as soon as there is no longer aircraft underneath your ass, gravity is very interested in pulling you toward the planet at 9.8 m/s^2.  You immediately drop down, as much as you can, within your harness.  Result:  that strap which HAD BEEN right under your bra, now slides upward.  Bringing bra with it.  So, now you know what I mean when I cheerfully tell Sarah I had a wardrobe malfunction.  (There's one other bit where I say something while we're parachuting down.  You can't hear it.  Don't try to read my lips.  I had no idea the camera was on.)

Once she opens the chute, and your speed drops, she also loosens the harness a tad, and you can sort of lean back all comfy-like and watch the scenery go by.  She lets me drive a bit, and we do a long graceful turn to check things out, while she's amusingly narrating the sights of Lompoc.  ("There's NASA/SpaceX.  There's the federal penitentiary."  Thus ends the sights of Lompoc.)  There was ocean, too.  It was quite pretty when I'd realized we would not, in fact, vomit on each other.

I'd been a bit worried about the landing, but here, the wind gave us one.  We landed from the east, and the wind was blowing from the west, so it nicely kept the chute inflated and we just touched down.  I mean, we stood up and that was it -- no sliding (like some others did) and no "running it out" to keep the chute behind us.  We just landed, knees bent, standing there.

(OK, I lie.  I was bending my knees pretty far and there was a human being attached to my back.  She said, "You can stand up," and I said, "No, I can't," and one of the crew grabbed my arm and pulled me to vertical.  Fuck it; I'm 50 -- them young 'uns can give me a damn hand.)

A link to the video, in all its unedited glory:

I'm Jumping Out A Damn Plane

Back on the ground, we did our "After" picture.  Much more windblown, and I think I picked up a few more grey hairs.

Also, the amusing certificate:

Now, I was no longer nauseous.  I was excited and bouncy.  Jayne, however, had had a more twisty-turny ride, and wasn't feeling so great.  So we got the heck out of there (after filling out the "comment cards" which are conveniently in the form of Tip Envelopes) and stopped at the pharmacy to pick up an antiemetic.  Jayne wanted to just sit in the car and nap, and I figured I'd walk across the parking lot to ... why, it's Eddie's Grill, the OTHER recommended restaurant in Lompoc.  (I can sum Eddie's up by the pictures of classic cars on the walls and the TVs showing the American Flag Football League.)  Had a decent chicken sandwich, and was ready for the road trip back to L.A.

Oh, and when Jayne was in the pharmacy, I picked up this little souvenir of our trip to Lompoc.  Not anything particularly Lompoc- or skydive-related, but I'll remember the trip whenever I see her, and who DOESN'T want a Beanie Baby kitten that looks like Jasmine?  I figured I should have her peeking out of my purse like Paris Hilton does with that damn dog.

That's about it, really.  We rode back to LA -- another Starbucks stop was involved -- and even on the road, the skydive seemed so far away.  Did I really just jump out of an airplane?  I have a video that says I did (n.b., glad I uploaded it -- Jasmine excitedly batted the flash drive under the sofa as soon as I ejected it) and some memories of viewing California from airplane-height without the presence of an actual airplane.  I absently pet the little kitten Beanie in my purse, and thought a little bit about what a crazy wonderful world this place actually can be.