Before I begin, I’d like to beg a favor of you kind reader….Can you help a couple friendly souls realize a dream? Put that notion in your pocket and read on:
Pop Culturing since FOREVER!
Brave Odysseus battled in the Trojan War for a good ten years and then spent another ten heroically wandering the Mediterranean before he finally made it home to the promised land. I’m starting to feel like Odie had it easy….when you’ve been fiercely navigating the stormy seas of popular culture as long and in the manner of my good friend Dale Whitley and I, the notion that we haven’t attended the world famous San Diego Comic-Con is RIDICULOUS.
We meet almost weekly to digest whatever Sci-Fi, High Fantasy, Supernatural, Action, Adventure, or any Tales of the Strange that Hollywood can possibly drum up. But it doesn’t stop there, we share a love of Graphic Novels (comics) and we pore over them and dissect them in a way that would make Oprah Winfrey shriek and gleefully spin freebies to the entire studio audience. Oh but it doesn’t stop there, we callus our thumbs and hone our reflexes upon a steady stream of pixels and a buffet of console-provided video games. We attend parties dressed as the characters that supplied the guide rails of our youth. We marvel at the full 21 points of articulation as triumphantly thrust our baked plasticine trophies mounted on cardboard above our heads. We scour the deepest chasms of the world wide web, seeking insight, support and answers to the questions of what used to be and what comes next across the vast multiverse of geekdom. Oh yeah, and we’ve been doing this since we were just a couple pups roaming the hallways of small Oregonian high school, and as roommates at the University of Oregon. Dedicated, durable and passionate don’t even get you to the starting line of description.
Anyhow, if you’re still with me, you can imagine what a good fit the San Diego Comic-Con would be for a couple head in the clouds dreams like Mr Whitley & I? An aside: It isn’t all pop culture for the protagonists of this tale. We are husbands, dads, dutiful sons and reliable comrades, we work hard to earn and provide most often pursuing the selfless options in Choose Your Own Adventure novels that create the framework for our lives. (aside complete) Three or four years ago we set out to plot a trip down to the world-renowned pop culture extravaganza that is the San Diego Comic-Con. Between relationships, marriages, children, finances, life and all the goo that exists in between, the big trip had been put off for long enough. We were both approaching some milestone birthdays and had heard some whispers that acquiring entry passes could be tough…..TOUGH!?! TOUGH!?! Try downright soul crushing.
If you’ve never sat in a virtual queue watching each day sell out over a 3-5 hour period of time, don’t….you’ll miss that innocent part of your soul. We entered with such high expectations, downright giddy about the prospects of a leisurely trip from Oregon to San Diego, already plotting all the great places we might nosh, just where to stay, taxis, airfare…the event passes were simply a formality, a hurdle made for skipping rather than jumping. Twas a gleeful moment spent on the phone bantering as we keyed in our credentials and allowed our shared dream to make one last ethereal glide through the slipstreams of our minds. We figured we would both login just in case there was an issue, an overcautious, probably unnecessary backup of a backup. Four and a half hours later, there was no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey had struck out.
We redoubled our efforts, did some additional research and a year later, the same results. I didn’t stop at that though, I reached out to comic companies, we entered contests, begged favors from friends of friends, even my sweet wife (who is kind enough to put up will all of this) put an 11th hour plea into an industry insider. The cold rebuke was somehow worse, as if Thor himself had gripped tightly upon his hammer and rained lighting upon our backs.
The following year was a more cautious, jaded version of the second, we barely had enough fight left to beg…Vanquished thrice, our faces communicating the sad reminder of a love unrequited. So today, as another San Diego Comic-Con wraps up, two men sit staring out upon a broken mental wasteland of what could have been.
BUT WE ARE NOT GOING TO GO GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT! Our quest to attend Comic-Con 2016 starts now, the publish button unleashes an earlier approach, a better way, a more furious effort! Can you help? Will you aid two gentlemen in realizing a beat up dream? Gaze upon our picture, consider the power you have in hitting “share” or forwarding this on to your chums with some sway. The gratitude and karmic reprisal just might thrust your essence into the most golden and sought after of eternal rewards. Please help us internet, you’re our only hope.
Have you tried Volunteering? Volunteers work a 3-hour shift for each day they want a pass to the Con.