A Night Of Many Smells
UPDATE 3/31/01: Noders are now pouring into the area by the dozens, in cars, trucks, biplanes, scooters, stolen motorcycles, and even the Mystery Tour bus! All of them are seeking the mysterious treasure buried under the big 'W'...But who will win???
So I wrote on the day of the get-together, as delightful a mental image (to me, at least) as any I have ever come up with.
Robot Roll Call!
I picked m_turner up at the airport on Saturday morning. Michael had said he would look just like his home node pic, complete with fedora, long hair, and beard, and this was absolutely true. He was also carrying a tripod. I assumed that he just carried one in case he needed to support unwieldy objects, but it turned out that he was a passionate amateur phtotgrapher who intended to catch Mother Nature unawares in the hours before the meet.
We headed for La Jolla where after a spell of confused tracking and backtracking we finally located a bistro where Michael could pick up some breakfast. We passed an hour in amiable companionship on a sidewalk bench as he ate his ham and cheese sandwich, after which he set off to find lodgings and scenery while I went to run errands.
That evening my wife Angela and I set off for Porkyland. I was either looking for a guy with a bike and a GPS, or a guy with bleached hair and a Powerbook. I quickly spotted Lost And Found's bleached 'do, but what really sruck me about the trio in front of the restaurant is what others have described in other get-together nodes -- you can just tell who the Everythingians are. I think the essence of the mysterious Everything Factor is this: that we don't look like the kind of people you would expect to show up somewhere together, but we are all obviously joined in a common purpose.
As we talked, others began trickling in in ones and twos. I don't want to take up vast amounts of space with notes on each and every person who attended, but here are a few random impressions from dinner:
The overriding theme in people's stories was odor: things, people, and places ended up reeking of garlic, Lawry's seasoning, lettuce, carrots, and Hormel chili.
owlbreath added an air of intrigue to the proceedings by refusing to tell us who he was. We wore him down eventually in a hard-fought battle of wills, though I was disappointed when my theory that he was secretly The Evil Anti-Quizro turned out to be wrong.
Yurei, who proudly serves in the armed forces, regaled us with tales of fried cockroaches, the seething hatred of Western culture in Bahrain, enraged monkeys in Filipino dumpsters, and the manhandling of an elderly beggar he witnessed in Thailand. This last poor bastard became a bit of a running gag for us rich, lazy, apathetic Americans throughout the evening. Ha ha! Let us laugh at the misfortune of others!
Yurei also mentioned that E2 seemed to be displaying random writeups in 133t-speak. Oh, yeah! I remembered that April Troll's Day was soon to begin. I asked what the current server time was, and he confirmed that it was indeed April 1st. (Yurei's watch displays Paris, London, New York, Tokyo and E2 time. Not really, but that would be cool.) Suddenly I was in the rare position of knowing a secret that no one else there knew. Had I guessed at the fear and anger the event was to engender, I would have said something; but I was reveling in my 'insider' status and just nodded in what I hoped was a cryptic and inscrutable manner and went back to my taco. I'm such a dork sometimes.
My personal award for Best-Dressed Noders goes to Chihuahua Grub and prole, who practically radiated retro cool and hip sophistication. CG is also a spellbinding raconteur and has excellent taste in music, by which I mean "very much like my own". It's a real pity he lives in Reno, a sentiment I think he would wholeheartedly agree with though for different reasons.
Lost And Found is a quiet man, but when he spoke his words had great depth and feeling. He made a mix CD for the occasion, which was just about the coolest thing.
igloowhite is FUNNY. I mean, lots of people there were funny, but his rendition of a public service announcement asking gun-toting rednecks to please check and make sure that a vehicle's abandoned before shooting it full of holes just about brought the house down.
After dinner and a group photo, the greater part of the San Diego contingent went away and the rest of us tried to figure out what to do next. prole suggested karaoke, and thus began a recurring motif of the evening for me: Asking People For A Copy Of The Yellow Pages. The employees at Porkyland denied having a phone book at all, and I suspect if I'd pressed the issue they would have denied even knowing what one was. The bartender next door cheerfully supplied one, but when I mentioned what we were looking for he instantly recommended a pizza place a few blocks away. Huzzah! Who needs the Yellow Pages? Off we go!
We passed a series of shops offering a variety of hilarious merchandise for people who have too much money (a ten-foot tall metal giraffe?) before arriving at Il Forno, where we were informed that karaoke was no longer offered, but we were welcome to go into the room anyway and watch a DJ spin. However intriguing the mental picture, several in the group needed alcohol badly so we abandoned our quest for karaoke and started looking for a bar.
The Karl Strauss Brewery looked promising, even though Yurei had startled a group of well-heeled society matrons earlier on by gesturing wildly at them through the window. The hostess showed us to an impossibly tiny booth which would never, EVER, in a MILLION YEARS, fit our party. While the more beer-hungry among us quenched their thirst at a small table, I ASKED FOR A COPY OF THE YELLOW PAGES and looked for alternatives.
We decided on the Princess Pub, which was downtown. Astonishingly we managed to keep our little convoy together on the way there and found ample parking in Little Italy. I realized with horror that I had left a whole mess of stuff at the brewery so I went up the bar, ASKED FOR A COPY OF THE YELLOW PAGES, and called them from a pay phone outside. Huzzah! They had my stuff and would hold it for me! By this time I too needed a drink, and it was with a sense of great relief that I joined the rest at a table.
Chihuahua Grub fed a slew of dollars into the jukebox and every song he picked was a delight. Conversation turned to Everything 2; we wondered about the fate of Malcolm Frink, lavished praise upon noders we admire (stand/alone/bitch's ears in particular were no doubt burning a continent away), and discovered shared interests based on C!'s we'd bestowed (I fessed up to being the one who'd soft-linked igloo's Hunter of Fascists, Ha Ha Ha! to Libra, establishing a common liking for writer Don DeLillo).
I visited the men's room where I scrawled www.everything2.com on the sports page tacked to the wall above the urinal.
And then it was time to go. Noders from far and wide bid each other goodbye, expressed a heartfelt wish that we do this again sometime, and wearily rolled off into the night in search of much-needed rest -- except perhaps for prole, who wanted to drive to Los Angeles. Despite the mid-evening stumbling blocks, I think it went well overall. Angela and I had a great time, and I look forward to seeing these people again. Thanks to all who showed up and especially thanks to chrisjh, AKA Chris the Recommender, who led us to Porkyland.