Shut Up And Listen 127

Chicago Part Two

Friday--The Drink-Up
The place was Knuckles, the sports bar in the Hyatt. The people were me, Tim and Raj. We walked in and sort of took in the whole atmosphere. It was loud, crude and full of TV screens with various things on them. Not quite what I was expecting as the hotel bar, but hey, what do I know, right? We stood there for a minute, not knowing whether or not we had to be seated or whatever. It was then that Tim, I think, spotted Mark Peyton and Sabrina, two people we all know from the boards. So we went down to their table and talked a little with Mark, grabbing the table next to theirs. Now, as I mentioned last column, Peyton isn’t exactly the most well-liked guy at Millarworld. Personally, I’ve never really had any big problems with the guy. We’ve occasionally traded a few posts back and forth and whatnot, but never really talked or anything. First off, like a few people I met that weekend (like Tim and Steve Higgins), he was a little shorter than I pictured. But you know, we were all talking and he was quite nice and everything and it was some fun. Raj left a few minutes after we went on, to hit another party for the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund, so Tim and I ordered drinks when the waitress finally came around. I got just got a pop, while he got some alcohol of some kind.
	Mostly, we just talked for a while and then we ordered some food (burgers and fries--which sucked) and talked some more. Took in the atmosphere. When it got closer to nine, Peyton and Tim went out into the hall to direct people who would be showing up into the bar. By this time, Raj had returned and we held down our table. Then Peyton and Tim returned to deliver news that would shape the entire evening for me: they had started carding people outside the bar. See, I’m only twenty and therefore wouldn’t be allowed back in should I leave. Here in Ontario, the legal age is nineteen, which I like a lot more. This didn’t bother me that much as why would I want to leave the bar? Of course, then the other shoe dropped and we learned that there weren’t any bathrooms in the bar. No, the bathrooms were out in the hall. So if I wanted to pee, I would have to leave the bar. Just like that, the pop I had in front of me became the only drink I’d have that night.
	Lyons showed up eventually to meet a friend of his who he planned to meet. He spent the evening sort of going from one group to the other. Ben and Jenna showed up. And then we all waited for Mark Millar to show up. We heard he was here, but oh no, he didn’t have his passport with him and they wanted ID, so he had to go back and get it. In the meantime, Lou Ferringo came into the bar, which was kind of cool. We saw some other people we thought we knew as comic writers or artists, too. Around this time, Sabrina turned around from her table and pointed a finger at me, saying, “Who are you?”
	I said, “Chad Nevett.”
	And she said, “I knew that! I’m no good with names and faces.” And then she talked someone else. It was kind of funny. Steve showed up and soon thereafter, Millar came in. And his first act was to buy everyone a drink. He started with the other table, then hit ours and then a few others. And we all laughed and talked and had a good time.
	Eventually, the drinks came and we all had a little toast where I was terribly immature and rude by saying “To the wee cunt,” referring to Millar (because of a Chad The Christ comic I did with him in it where he used the phrase “ye wee cunt” in every sentence--he’s Scottish) and he said he was gonna take my drink back, but remembered that he didn’t buy my drink. Then he stayed and talked a little with us and moved on. And we all talked and such and Rich Johnston, writer of the weekly gossip column Lying In The Gutters, passed by and we made him tell us stories. Particularly one that had happened that day involving Paul Jenkins (writer of various things) and physical violence being threatened (I won’t tell the story because it’s not my place for one thing and for another, Johnston discussed it a little in his column). He also told us other things (like a certain BIG writer’s address and phone number--again, not my place to say who) and he was rather entertaining. Actually, now that I think of it, Brian and Elizabeth finally showed up before we talked to Johnston, because Brian was there for that, I remember.
	The night went on and people got steadily drunker, not me though. No, I was still nursing my pop, trying not to think about peeing. I had promised Lauren I’d phone her and let her talk to people, so I tried that, but the bar was far too loud to hear anything, so they took the phone out into the hall and phoned her. Tim and Ben posed for photos by pretending to make out and such so we could show them to our friend Ken. At one point, Walter Koenig came into the bar and Ben made me go with him and his camera to get a picture, but Koenig said no as it was a bar and he just wanted a drink.
	I ended up talking to Steve for a while and then a strange guy approached us and told us he was Micah Brandt, another guy from the boards. Now, here was a guy who said this was his fifteen visit to the con. Some pretty good stories involving comic editors, marijuana and other things. We all talked for a while and it was great. I’m sorry. I know, it’s hard to convey the true spirit and events that happened. Sorry.
	Sometime after midnight, Lyons asked if I was ready to go, so off we went to the hall, Steve with us as we were giving him a ride and I got to meet Aaron. See, Aaron and Matt had shown up for the drink-up, but like me, are underage and couldn’t get in. So we talked a little and then I talked to Lauren on the phone for a few minutes. And then I peed. Peeing was nice. Over four hours in that damn bar without being able to pee. And then we said good-bye to everyone and that we’d see them tomorrow and Tim, pretty drunk at this point, insisted on hugging everyone.

Friday/Saturday--I Like The Night-Life, I Like To Boogie
“Chad’s up front, so Higgins, you’re in the back,” Lyons said as we approached his car. Steve assured him he knew where he was going. Numerous times. This was . . . well, it was a lie. We spent half an hour or so trying to find his hotel. And Lyons was running low on gas. So naturally, since I’m a worrier, I was worried. I really, really, really, really didn’t want him to run out of gas on one of those fucking highways. I just wasn’t in the mood for it. Eventually, we got Steve to his hotel and he gave Lyons some money for gas (much more than was necessary--gotta love the slightly drunk, eh?) and we were off in search of a gas station.
	Lyons isn’t really from Chicago. He just goes to school there, so he doesn’t know his way around everywhere that well, you know? So to be honest, we didn’t know for sure where we were. I mean, I obviously didn’t and he kind of did, but didn’t for sure. So he had me look at a map. Normally, I’m pretty good with maps. Not this map. This map was fucked up. I blame the map. It sucked. Horrible! We were doomed to drive until gas ran out! Doomed! And then we finally found a gas station, he knew where we were and we hit a diner for some food. I got a burger, fries and a shake. He got french toast. It was good.
	We then went back to his place where he went to bed, and I wrote some e-mails to Courtney and Lauren, read a little and then went to bed.

Saturday--Wake-Up Take One
Once again, at seven, his radio came on and woke me up. So I got up and used the bathroom and read for an hour. And then it went off, so I went back to sleep.

Saturday--Wake-Up Take Two
The phone rang and rang and rang and then the machine got it. I kind of heard all of this, but then I went back to sleep.

Saturday--Wake-Up Take Three And The Con
Lyons came into the living room and I woke up. It was noon. Nice to have slept as long as I did. Apparently, he slept through the radio. So he showered and ate, and I showered and then we were off to the con. Lyons wanted to see Joe Quesada’s panel, so we went for that. We ran into Brian on the way in, so he joined us. Brian left somewhere between five and ten minutes into it and shortly after he left, Lyons asked a question. (All quotes are paraphrased because although my memory is good, it isn’t fucking amazing.)
	“Can you tell us if there is any fact to the rumour that rumours of who would be writing Superman for DC started with sources from inside of Marvel?” he asked.
	And then Joe Quesada went on to say how dumb it was to think there was any fact to that. Why would they do that? “That would be like me starting a rumour about my wife cheating with another man,” Quesada said. Then he went off on how people should actually think when they read stuff online. Essentially, he called Lyons stupid.
	So Lyons said, “Is that a denial?”
	Quesada sort of looked at him and deflated, nodding and said he guesses it was.
	I found all of this very funny. We left shortly thereafter as the panel got quite boring with stupid fucking questions being asked. We ran into Raj around the DC booth, so I talked to him for a while. He wasn’t feeling that good. I wanted to go buy some stuff, so Lyons and I agreed to meet in the lobby in around half an hour to forty minutes. Give us both time to get what we wanted. I ended up buying a bunch of trades: Brat Pack by Rick Veitch, Animal Man vol. 1 by Grant Morrison and Chris Truog, X-Men: Children Of The Atom by Joe Casey, Steven Rude and various other artists, Wildcats: Vicious Circles by Joe Casey and Sean Phillips, Wildcats: Serial Boxes by Casey and Phillips, and Wildcats: Battery Park by Casey, Phillips and Steve Dillon. I also went and got the first two issues of Puffed because it’s written by John Layman, former editor of The Authority and a decent guy who I’ve traded e-mails with every once in a while (who I learned was at the fucking drink-up and missed--we both agreed to blame Peyton because it’s easier that way). The artist of the book, Dave Crosland was sharing a booth with another artist, Jim Mahfood , and was kind enough to sign both issues and add a little caption to each. I also got a look at some of the sketches both were doing for various people (both had done Hellboy sketches for Brian the previous day, so I mentioned how cool they looked). My favourite had to be naked Susan Richards from the Fantastic Four that Mahfood was doing for some fan.
	So, happy with my purchases, I hit the bathroom and while exiting, I almost ran into Spider-Man sans mask. That was odd. I headed for the lobby to meet Lyons, who followed a few minutes later, armed with toys and a book or two. So, we headed back for Chicago (as the convention was technically outside of it--fucked up shit) and Lyons wanted to show me a little bit of the area around his school, so we went there. All I really wanted to do was get something to drink as I was rather thirsty. On the way, we had typical Nevett/Lyons discussions about literature, religions and politics. Plus a few on kids, swearing and brainwashing. Fun time. We walked around a little with our pops and it was a nice looking part of town. Another generic, any-city kind of part. Like it could have been London for all I knew, which I found a little comforting.
	We were trying to make plans with the others to meet up for food later that night, so we headed back to his place and then went downtown as Ben, Jenna and Tim were down there at one point. As we rode in the taxi, we found out that they had already headed back, but that was okay. I wanted to find Man On The Moon on DVD and Lyons wanted to find some body lotion from some special store that his cousin likes. So we hit the Virgin Megastore. We do not have these in Canada. We have Future Shop, Music World and HMV. I like Canada better. It took me five minutes to figure out that the DVDs were on the second floor of this store. Yes, it had two fucking floors. So I found my DVD and was glad to leave. We found the store for Lyons and he got the lotion and then we walked back to his place. It was a bit further than I thought it would be. I don’t know how far it was, but it was just further than I thought it would be. As we walked, Lyons talked to Ben on the cell and made the plans: they were to come on the train into town, come to Lyons place for some drinks and then we were gonna all go out and get some food at someplace where we all could get in.
	Back at Lyons’ place, I read some comics and tried to write a little. Eventually, they all showed up. Ben, Jenna, Raj, Tim, Aaron and Aaron’s friend (whose name escapes me now). Brian and Elizabeth would be along later. So some people drank some beers and we talked and laughed and all of that shit. Lyons phoned a bar near his place and asked if they served food, which they did and if us underage people would be a problem, which we wouldn’t be as long as we didn’t want to drink. So once Brian and Elizabeth showed up and we all talked and shit a little bit more, we left.

Saturday--Drink-Up 2
On the way down, Ben and Tim decided to take the stairs. They got lost. We had to wait for them and Lyons even went looking for them. During this time, Aaron’s friend chose to make jokes about Canada. Bastard. We walked over to the bar/restaurant and decided to sit outside, which required us to wait around ten minutes for enough table to free up. Which was cool and we waited. We ended up talking about the disgusting links that people have posted on Millarworld. (The best being www.goatse.cx in my opinion.) We also took a look at the menu to see what they had. Most of us wanted burgers, so we checked those out. They had buffalo burgers. I had never tried buffalo, and apparently it’s healthier, so most of us ended up getting those.
	We got the tables and sat down and ordered our drinks and food. And then it was suggested we phone people, so Aaron phoned our friend Chet and I phoned Lauren. As anyone present will testify, I was the only one to talk to Lauren, but there was a reason behind that. See, I had entrusted her with the task of updating the site and she was doing that as we talked. Except her ftp program wasn’t allowing her to connect to the server. So we were trying to figure out how to update the site. She downloaded some other ftp programs and I tried to remember which one I use (SmartFTP, if anyone wishes to know) so she could try with it. And before we knew it, the food was there, so I thought it to be impolite to hand her off to people who were going to eat. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Heh.
	The buffalo burger was pretty damn good. As was the root beer that came with it. At midnight, we had to move inside because of some city bylaw prohibiting people outside the restaurant after midnight or something. Inside, we sat around and told some jokes. Tim’s joke is as follows (numbers made up and details slightly changed because, again, my memory isn’t 100%):
	A man, an ostrich and a cat walk into a bar and sit right at the bar. The bartender asks them what they want and the man can’t seem to decide. He doesn’t know what he’s getting really. So finally he says, “I’ll have a rum and coke.”
	The ostrich nods its head and goes, “Yeah! Yeah, I’ll have one too!”
	And the cat just shrugs and says, “Fine, but I’m not paying.”
	So the bartender gets them their drinks and tells the man that the cost is $12.34. The man then reaches into his pocket and pulls out exactly $12.34 and this impresses the bartender, but he doesn’t think too much of it.
	After they finished their drinks, the bartender again asks what they want and again, the man can’t decide what to get. After humming and hawing for a while, he says, “Scotch on the rocks.”
	The ostrich nods its head and goes, “Yeah! Yeah, I’ll have one too!”
	And the cat just shrugs and says, “I guess, but fuck you if you think I’m paying.
	So the bartender gets the drinks and tells the man that the cost is $13.82. The man once again reaches into his pockets and pulls out exact change. This whole thing goes on a few more times before the bartender just can’t take anymore.
	“How is it you always have exact change? You never know what you’re getting or how much it’ll cost. What gives?” he asked the man.
	“Well,” the man said, “it all started when my grandfather died. See, I inherited his house and when I was going through his old stuff in the attic, I came across a magic lamp. The genie granted me three wishes and all that. My first wish was to always have exact change. Most people wish for a million dollars or some specific sum of money, but that’ll run out eventually. Always having exact change for anything I want to buy won’t.”
	The bartender agreed that that was a smart wish and asked what else he wished for.
	The man sighed and said, “An agreeable bird with long legs and a tight pussy.”
	The joke I sometimes tell to see who will laugh:
Q: What did the deaf, blind and dumb kid get for Christmas?
A: Cancer.
	Funny shit, huh?
	Pictures were taken and the bill was paid (thanks Tim for paying that extra $1.45 for me--my food cost $11.45 and I gave him a twenty for a ten). And then we all went outside and chatted a little before parting ways. Since Lyons and I both had to leave the next day, we couldn’t go out with them. So they went back to the Hyatt and we went back to Lyons’.
	There, I decided to watch Man On The Moon, which helped Lyons go from being indifferent about Andy Kaufman to kind of liking some of the stuff he did. He seemed to really like the Tony Clifton act for some reason. He went to bed about half an hour before it was over and while I was packing. I finished packing and then sat there for a while. I went online and did some e-mailing and shit. I was feeling a little nervous. Had to be up at six, so I could be ready for my bus at 7:10. Lyons had set his alarm, but I didn’t trust it, so I set his TV’s alarm to wake me up as a back-up (bet ya didn’t know that, did ya, David?). Honestly, I was again a little nervous. Because it was so early, I was gonna take a taxi to the bus station. Alone. In Chicago. But I tried to ignore that and went to sleep.

Sunday--The Long Journey Home
Got up at six and was all ready to go. Called for a taxi, said good-bye to Lyons and left. Took the taxi to the bus station with no problem. Paid ten bucks for a four dollar fare (I fucking hate one dollar bills--fucking American currency!). Found out the gate number and waited. Got on the bus and off we went. We got to Detroit an hour early, so I brought a book I was reading into the station and read. And then I lined up with others and waited to get back on the bus. And we waited and waited and waited and waited. Finally, the driver showed up and we were off to the border. Going into Canada was pretty easy. Because we were behind schedule, we were going express to London with no stops. And just my fucking luck that on a bus with maybe fifteen people on it, near me was some fucking pothead who wouldn’t shut the fuck up.
	This guy was fucking annoying. All I wanted to do was sit there and read Brat Pack, so I let him use my CD player because it would keep him quiet. So he listened to his CD and I read and then he dropped the fucking thing when he fell asleep. And then he wouldn’t shut up about various shit. About how if weed wasn’t legal in Canada he was gonna kill his friend. About some bisexual chick he “used as a pillow” on the trip from Seattle to Chicago. About how the driver on that bus didn’t care that they smoked up in the bathroom. About how customs had stopped him from crossing earlier (thanks a lot, you fucking bastards!). And about various other things. The only slight entertainment I got from him was this:
	Him: How many legs do six black roosters have?
	Me: Twelve.
	Him: How many hairs does a white cat have?
	Me: No idea.
	Him: Why is it that you know more about black cocks than white pussy?
	Obvious, yes, but still funny. Oh, and I forgot to mention how he bragged about stealing from some guy on the previous bus. Stole CDs and DVDs and a Game Boy Advance. So yeah, I kept my fucking eye on that jackass.
	Finally, FINALLY, we pulled into the London station and I got my bags and my mom was there and I went home. The trip was good, but it was nice to be home.
	I’d like to now say that it was great meeting everyone. Tim, Ben, Jenna, Raj, Brian, Elizabeth, Steve, Aaron, Micah, Peyton, and Sabrina. And especially my gracious host, Mr. David Lyons, who was very nice and didn’t try to rape me once. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back next year.