Well, the entire Feel The Hate crew went to Fantasm this year, and boy what a blast. It was definitely one of the most entertaining weekends I have ever spent. It was literally a weekend long party centered around erotica and alcohol. I was rather disconcerted to note that the FTH crew was some of the more normal looking people there. From start to finish I do not remember a single boring moment. From the room parties to the programming to the dealers room. There were also a great many attractive women in interesting outfits (or lack thereof on some!) walking around the Con. We got to see old friends, made a few new friends and introduced a lot of new people to our brand of hate, and did so without pissing too many people off!
This article is rather categorized but it was the only way for me to hit all of the points I wanted to express without rambling on in vague directions. Fantasm is really hard to put into words; I have spent several weeks just trying to decide what to put to digital press and what to leave to your imaginings. Fantasm is truly a place where anybody can fit in and be welcome, no matter what you look like or what your specific kink may be! Everyone was friendly and helpful when we talked to them and we all got invited to a lot of great parties. This was probably because of the press badges we wore, but hey it was still cool of everybody to include newcomers into their fold.
The Con was held on Easter weekend, which I found to be poetically ironic given the kink and debauchery. Especially since some hack dressed up as Jesus Christ and spent the entire weekend being very naughty. I actually got to see Christ get spanked by Julius Caesar who was carrying a five foot paddle around. Jesus also went to the Hell party and sold his soul for a drink. The guy dressed as Satan wouldn’t let him out until Sunday morning. It was all very wrong but riotously funny as well. There was also a girl dressed as a naughty Easter bunny, she had a basket full of Jell-O shooter eggs and was passing them around freely. They turned out to be quite powerful and very tasty too.
It was held in the Marriott Century Center, which is a very nice hotel with comfortable rooms and a couple bars on site. The hotel is also attached to a mall that has plenty of good eating establishments in it. Anything from standard American restaurants to this one little place that sold food very similar to what you would find in India or Pakistan, Blackraven and I ate there and were blown away by the quality and flavors of the food. I have always been a fan of Arabic and Indonesian cuisine and this place did not disappoint. It was Blackraven’s first time eating such exotic fare, but she bravely dove in and loved every bit of it. We tried to get everyone else to eat there but they were not interested at first and by the time we talked them into trying it the place had closed for the night. There were also a couple higher-class restaurants that you could sit down and enjoy a decent "normal" meal in. Plus there was a scattering of Chinese carryout places and New York style delis. All in all, the food that could be had was easily as colorful as the Con itself. Much to my current disappointment I have learned that Fantasm 2004 will not be held in the same hotel. They were apparently not ready for the kind of convention Fantasm is. Plus I believe there was some altercation between an elevator and several Con goers who became trapped therein. [Editor's note: Yeah, I was one of the trapped people! We practically needed the Jaws Of Life to get out!]
Being the resident "booze hound&34; at Feel The Hate, I arrived at the Con with enough liquor to sink a battleship. A couple of the other crewmembers were also packing liquid ammunition, so we spent the weekend excessively drunk and tried our best to keep everyone around us in a similar condition. I personally spent a great deal of time mixing and handing out various drinks to anyone brave enough to imbibe them. I even played impromptu bartender for two different room parties and was begged to stay every time I tried to leave for other parties. The antics that occur when inebriated can be worthy entertainment. I imagine the Con would have been fun even sober but the addition of alcohol made the entertainment that much more enjoyable. With that in mind here is my account of the festivities.
There was an "Iron Bartender" contest, if you have ever seen Iron Chef on the Food Network imagine liquor instead of oriental cuisine, where yours truly got good and spanked (pun very much intended) by a professional bartender. I’m no pro though I have catered alcohol to quite a few parties. There were a total of three matches and the judges were good and wasted by the time it was over. The secret ingredients that were chosen had to be some of the worst liquors ever imagined. I had a pineapple and cognac liqueur, there was an egg-based liqueur and the third one, I have no idea what it was but it smelled like gasoline and tasted about as good.
They also had a contest called the Con-Coction contest. Basically, you bring five gallons of a mixed drink of your own devising and it gets judged on things like quality, taste, content, and presentation. Most of the entries were good but some of them were just plain nasty, especially the one that walked away with the "honor" of Worst Drink. It was served in a toilet and had what appeared to be a link floating in it. I wasn’t able to make this contest personally as I was otherwise involved but was informed that the tasting was interesting and there was much merriment had.
The slave auction was great. It was surprising to see how many people signed up for it and how much they were being bought for. I am not completely sure about the rules for the auction but it seems that anything goes as long as all parties involved agree to it. Several of the dealers there to sell their wares bought people to help pack up their booths on Sunday. Several of the "slaves" were obviously bought for sexual purposes, and some of those were damn fine to behold!
The dealers’ floor was well worth looking into three or four times. A lot of the booths were, of course, selling kink goods like manacles, whips, paddles, gags, and such. There where however several booths with books and magazines, jewelry, paintings, and even henna and body painting artists. The T-shirt booths were truly diverse; anything from normal and funny to raunchy and frightening could be had on a shirt. There were also a glass artist and a decorative metal sculptor on hand for that truly lasting art. Lastly you had costume makers there for your medieval clothing needs.
We caught a great band Saturday night, called Ghoultown, and their sound was pretty unique. It was like Motorhead meets ZZ Top, I actually read a review of them that said something similar and they were dead on. Rev. Bob got in good with the band so we were able to meet them and talk with them before the show, really great group of guys and their PR girls were great scenery even in a Con full of attractive women. The Rev. got some nice pictures of the band and their girls, which should be up on the site. The show itself was loud and rockin’, just like music should be. We also picked up their CD’s so we could turn other people on to them. All in all, a band definitely worth seeing and hanging with.
Also on Saturday, we got to watch a group of professional fire dancers work their magic on stage. These ladies were truly gifted dancers and the way the fire moved and gyrated in the dark was truly fascinating. I think we were all in awe of the show, you just don’t see those sorts of things in the mundane world and I am always up for a light show of that quality. It also helped that the dancers were very athletic females and were capable of some amazing contortions and dance moves. It was truly amazing!
All throughout the weekend there was a tech room set up for online gaming, which was run by a friend of ours, named Hug me. Late Saturday night this turned into a Jell-O wrestling party. Of course, when you mix an inflatable pool, a LOT of Jell-O, and several attractive, naked women you are going to end up with one HELL of a good time. The participants were fun to watch and looked like they were really enjoying themselves and each other. There were only female participants but that was fine with me. Sadly the room was soon inundated with drooling, virgin geeks wielding cameras, which sucked because the room was dark and all of the camera flashes blinded everyone and really just ruined the fun. Not to mention that there were so many of them that they kept stepping on Blackraven, my mate and sometime collaborator on the column, and I to the point that it was either leave or slaughter the entire lot of them.
Then there was the kink room, ooohhhh the kink room. It ran all weekend long and was filled with all things kink. The room was a freeform free for all; you could participate with consenting groups or just sit back and enjoy the show. Some of the people were even taking suggestions from the crowd. All told, it was like a big vaudeville act. A couple of the crewmembers, including myself, spent a fair amount of time here just hanging out and enjoying the show. At one point on Friday night we slipped into MST3K mode and started adding some of our own comments to the acts. This quickly turned into a roving theme throughout the Con. Being that most of us are accomplished punsters we ended up getting other people to join in and made a party out of it.
The Rev. was able to collect an impressive array of photographic evidence of the fun we had. He got great pictures of some amazing women as well as capturing several people in costume. He was also able to acquire a few photos of Boonetaltech and me during the Iron Bartender competition. There were so many gracious people there willing to have their pictures taken that I don’t think the Rev. was able to get them all. He should have the ones he was able to get up on the site right about now as we were trying to put everything from Fantasm up together as a sort of theme issue.
We really enjoyed the Con as a whole and the lot of us has already made plans for a repeat next year. All I ever heard about Fantasm since it started was how debaucherous and explicit it was. Sadly, most of the people that turned their noses up at going had never been there and had no real basis for disliking it. Everyone I know kept trying to talk us out of going. Everyone I asked to caravan with us said that it wasn’t worth his or her time or it just wasn’t his or her thing. Ultimately, there were only six of us that went but we made the best of it and have all kinds of great stories to tell about our experiences. Now that we have gone and seen how much fun it is we have started converting all of the nay-sayers into willing attendees for 2004. Ultimately, the only way to truly appreciate the Fantasm experience is to go and experience it yourself! So if you happen to go to Fantasm 2004 look us up, we are not hard to spot and we use our Feel The Hate pen names for our badges. Hope to see you there!