The Legend of Dragon*Con Sam
Sep. 29th, 2011 02:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonSeriously? You’ve never heard the legend of Dragon*Con Sam?
Why practically almost everybody here in Terminus has.
Alright , dig this…
They say somewhere in the Marriott, y’know… the one downtown off Peachtree where all the action happens come Mardi Con, well l anyway, there’s supposedly this one room that’s been rented out by the same guy for nine years straight now, since Dragon*Con ‘03 to be exact. Apparently dude’s got himself some suite up on the top floor booked permanently and he’s just holed up in there living like some geek Howard Hughes .
Local scuttlebutt has it that Dragon*Con Sam rarely leaves his room. Occasionally though he gets a little restless and next thing you know harried commuters crawling dazed out of the labyrinth depths of Peachtree station will spot a chain mail clad 7th level half-elven paladin riding around on a rented out Segway up and down Peachtree. Or some suit will be scoffing down his tax write off a lunch only to look over and see a rather pudgy Darth Vader perusing the appetizers a couple of tables over. Mainly reports filter in from jet-lagged tourists checking in for their stay only to find a rather sad, out of shape Bat-Man sitting at the bar idly twirling his straw in an untouched Shirley Temple.
Anonymous sources within the Marriott staff confirm that every Wednesday night, two rather expensive call girls, the classy type with names that sound like expensive cars or forgotten cities, show up at Sam’s suite. They wear perfect mannequin stares along with star spangled lycra costumes barely hidden beneath trench coats. Immaculately painted nails clutch plastic bags stuffed with the latest comic book releases, new action figures, a few bottles of vodka, black market fuck drugs and a box of something called ‘Chocodiles’. More than one cleaning lady has resigned from the Marriott in disgust the morning after, having witnessed a golden lasso bound Sam snoring content in a pile of chocolate stained splash pages, spent sonic screwdrivers and exhausted light sabers.
No one really knows why Sam stays up there exactly, not that that hasn’t stopped anyone from offering their theories and speculations with an air of conspiratorial authority.
That Sam’s rich, is a given. Some say he’s the grandson of a famous comic book publisher, who has decided that with great wealth comes no responsibility or an illegitimate member to a certain notorious Star Fleet Officer from the 60s. Others that he won the lottery and did so using the numbers of the issues he pulled randomly from his pull list. Of course there’s the usual rumors of dot coms, social networks, software development along with the predatory stink of day trading.
It doesn’t really matter.
What matters is not how he can afford to stay there, but the why of it.
Because here’s this cat who could be off jet-setting around the globe, going to one convention after another in a never ending, international tour of panels, screenings and dealer rooms amongst a population of pop culture avatars. So what gives?
One story I’ve enjoyed comes from an old friend who claimed to have worked phone duty at one of the escort services that Sam used for his weekly Wednesday night geek-freak fests. Apparently, once bound in the golden lasso, Sam was obliged to tell the truth. One of the ladies, on a whim, asked him why he stayed there.
Sam explained, through gritted teeth and hour six of his chemically induced tumescence, that back at D*C ’03 he met a young lady at one of the dances in the ball room. A young raver type, visiting the Fanboy Phantom Zone between burns. She was rolling her ass off and for some reason, took a real shine to the rather short man on the edge of the dance floor, watching her intently from beneath the rim of his Victorian top hat and through the glare off his cog wheel decorated goggles. She went over and took him by the hand and coerced him with no end of coquettish pleas and winks to join her. So he danced, for like the first time ever, and she slipped him something on his tongue with a kiss and after a few songs something kicked in and Sam was laughing at all the new colors he discovered. Eventually they went back to his room, where she delivered an elusive satisfaction whose absence had haunted most of his adult life. The next morning she had to head out real quick, to meet up with some friends, her family, her boyfriend, somebody who wasn’t Sam. But she’d come right back to Sam’s room and with more ‘candy’ for them to play with to boot. Sam made her promise she would return. She agreed and in turn made Sam promise to wait there for her.
Nine years later and some change and our boy’s still up there waiting for his lost raver to find her way back to him. Or maybe it’s not that he’s waiting, but he just refuses to let go of that one magic night he had, where he finally danced and talked to a girl and was blessed by that dream of every fanboy to rent a suite for the four day Dragon Weekend.
Is it true?
Well, to be honest most likely not. But occasionally, when I’m strolling around the city on my lonely high, I’ll look up at the pregnant curves of the Marriott in the skyline and for a moment, I think I’ll see Sam up there, staring wistfully out his window for the lost promise of a golden yesterday gone.
Why practically almost everybody here in Terminus has.
Alright , dig this…
They say somewhere in the Marriott, y’know… the one downtown off Peachtree where all the action happens come Mardi Con, well l anyway, there’s supposedly this one room that’s been rented out by the same guy for nine years straight now, since Dragon*Con ‘03 to be exact. Apparently dude’s got himself some suite up on the top floor booked permanently and he’s just holed up in there living like some geek Howard Hughes .
Local scuttlebutt has it that Dragon*Con Sam rarely leaves his room. Occasionally though he gets a little restless and next thing you know harried commuters crawling dazed out of the labyrinth depths of Peachtree station will spot a chain mail clad 7th level half-elven paladin riding around on a rented out Segway up and down Peachtree. Or some suit will be scoffing down his tax write off a lunch only to look over and see a rather pudgy Darth Vader perusing the appetizers a couple of tables over. Mainly reports filter in from jet-lagged tourists checking in for their stay only to find a rather sad, out of shape Bat-Man sitting at the bar idly twirling his straw in an untouched Shirley Temple.
Anonymous sources within the Marriott staff confirm that every Wednesday night, two rather expensive call girls, the classy type with names that sound like expensive cars or forgotten cities, show up at Sam’s suite. They wear perfect mannequin stares along with star spangled lycra costumes barely hidden beneath trench coats. Immaculately painted nails clutch plastic bags stuffed with the latest comic book releases, new action figures, a few bottles of vodka, black market fuck drugs and a box of something called ‘Chocodiles’. More than one cleaning lady has resigned from the Marriott in disgust the morning after, having witnessed a golden lasso bound Sam snoring content in a pile of chocolate stained splash pages, spent sonic screwdrivers and exhausted light sabers.
No one really knows why Sam stays up there exactly, not that that hasn’t stopped anyone from offering their theories and speculations with an air of conspiratorial authority.
That Sam’s rich, is a given. Some say he’s the grandson of a famous comic book publisher, who has decided that with great wealth comes no responsibility or an illegitimate member to a certain notorious Star Fleet Officer from the 60s. Others that he won the lottery and did so using the numbers of the issues he pulled randomly from his pull list. Of course there’s the usual rumors of dot coms, social networks, software development along with the predatory stink of day trading.
It doesn’t really matter.
What matters is not how he can afford to stay there, but the why of it.
Because here’s this cat who could be off jet-setting around the globe, going to one convention after another in a never ending, international tour of panels, screenings and dealer rooms amongst a population of pop culture avatars. So what gives?
One story I’ve enjoyed comes from an old friend who claimed to have worked phone duty at one of the escort services that Sam used for his weekly Wednesday night geek-freak fests. Apparently, once bound in the golden lasso, Sam was obliged to tell the truth. One of the ladies, on a whim, asked him why he stayed there.
Sam explained, through gritted teeth and hour six of his chemically induced tumescence, that back at D*C ’03 he met a young lady at one of the dances in the ball room. A young raver type, visiting the Fanboy Phantom Zone between burns. She was rolling her ass off and for some reason, took a real shine to the rather short man on the edge of the dance floor, watching her intently from beneath the rim of his Victorian top hat and through the glare off his cog wheel decorated goggles. She went over and took him by the hand and coerced him with no end of coquettish pleas and winks to join her. So he danced, for like the first time ever, and she slipped him something on his tongue with a kiss and after a few songs something kicked in and Sam was laughing at all the new colors he discovered. Eventually they went back to his room, where she delivered an elusive satisfaction whose absence had haunted most of his adult life. The next morning she had to head out real quick, to meet up with some friends, her family, her boyfriend, somebody who wasn’t Sam. But she’d come right back to Sam’s room and with more ‘candy’ for them to play with to boot. Sam made her promise she would return. She agreed and in turn made Sam promise to wait there for her.
Nine years later and some change and our boy’s still up there waiting for his lost raver to find her way back to him. Or maybe it’s not that he’s waiting, but he just refuses to let go of that one magic night he had, where he finally danced and talked to a girl and was blessed by that dream of every fanboy to rent a suite for the four day Dragon Weekend.
Is it true?
Well, to be honest most likely not. But occasionally, when I’m strolling around the city on my lonely high, I’ll look up at the pregnant curves of the Marriott in the skyline and for a moment, I think I’ll see Sam up there, staring wistfully out his window for the lost promise of a golden yesterday gone.