Noise in the Shape of Writing

For those who enjoyed Sublime Convention Moment #1 yesterday (Harlan and his cake... go read it!), I present SCM #2:

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GEORGE RUNNER LOGAN ESTEVES SHEEN CLAYTON SCHIAVELLI SHATNER FRAZER MURPHY JOHNSON
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Back in '94 at Westercon, which was held at the LAX Hilton, there was a large Enigma contingent. Those were the hay days (or is it "hey" days? for Enigma. The Enigma Players had begun rehearsing, Live Games were really taking off, and Magic the Gathering was sweeping the community. (I recall someone saying Scott Martin had thousands of cards and no one would ever catch up with him... I think many did, however.).

At conventions, Enigmans were a quiet-but-known force. We had thrown several of our own cons and we knew how to party. Often, we were welcomed at room parties as warmly as any Guest of Honor. We partied, danced, went back to the parties, back to the dance. We rocked til 2am to the tunes of Oingo Boingo. We OWNED that dance floor. We made that Rasputin song *our* anthem. We seemed to like dancing mre then most anybody else at the cons.

We also like drinking.

Well, some of us anway. Ok, me, anyway.

Recently, I had discovered the joy of the Dead Elvis. A lore passed down from someone to Steve Mandel to Enigma to me. For Westercon, the NST posse decided to bring a large but portable cooler of the stuff. For the curious, a Dead Elvi are (I hope I get this right) Vodka, Lemonade and Blue Caracao. (or is it lime juice?) Anyway, we made these little stickers with Elvis on them and a big "X" through his face. We went from room to room and everyone who dared taste of our brew got a sticker. We only gave out one sticker per person, even if they wrangled multiple sips from us. If we HAD given out multiple stickers, someone in particular would have been covered in them.

George Clayton Johnson.

He became our shadow. He showed up miraculously at every party we went to feigning ignorance of previous encounters with us. Eventually he claimed to be a follower of the Great Elvis Gods (us) to whom he was indebted for the life sustaining juice we provided. Honestly, if we hadn't been on such a Logan's Run kick recently, we wouldn't have given him a second look. Instead he became one of NST's icons.

I remember at one point running into a guy who had dry ice and black lights and a hazmat suit who was serving something almost as tasty as Dead Elvis at one of the parties. We exchanged stickers. Fun was had by all.

This was back in the Days Before the Puking of Enigma.

Not that those days were'nt fun, too. Just messier.