Creature From The Back Room-goon

By the time this post goes up, I'll be gearing up for the New York Comic Con. It'll be the first time I'm surrounded by complete comic book nerds and hopefully, many half clad women. I'm sure that the majority of them will have their guts hanging over their belts, but I stay optimistic. I'm talking about the women. Overweight comic book nerds are a given.

So, what should I expect from my first "Con"? Will I be disappointed or glad? Will I accept these nerds and furthermore, will they accept me? Either way, I'm headed in with a good friend who is like me.

We're both the type of nerds that aren't really nerds at all. Many of our friends are just cool people with nerdy attributes. Yes, he loves Planet of the Apes and I have my undying allegiance to The Doctor, but we can both successfully drink our weight in beer and hold a conversation with women. Not to mention we've both spent many years playing in bands (guitars, not marching).

The shyness of nerds has always been a laugh for me. I crack up every time I see a caricature of the nerdy group of guys who constantly push their glasses to the bridge of their nose, breath through their mouths and freak out as an attractive girl approaches them. My friend and I encountered these very nerds while we were checking out a comic shop. 

We walked in and spent some time browsing the racks, chatting up the owner, and found out there was a section in the back with more stock. So, we make our way to the back half of the store where we were greeted with the sight of five guys, one barefoot, sitting around a table and arguing about the direction a writer was taking a certain superhero comic. I couldn't believe it. The very guys I saw in comedy bits and on TV were sitting before my very eyes. One was flipping through his pages of playing cards while the others thumbed through comics, only lifting their eyes to state their opinions. 

We made our way back up front, paid for our books, and walked out. Neither one of us said a word until we both sat in my car and just started laughing. It was such a shock to the both of us that these guys existed and we couldn't be more happy that we weren't like them. Don't get upset though. We were both very appreciative of these guys and know that they have a good time being who they are. It just made us appreciate who we are and how great it was to have each other as friends.

What cracks me up is that this entire blog entry could have been written by one of those guys. In their version, we're the weirdos and they laughed at us as we walked out. Either way, I was the one able to laugh about it with a girl later that night.

Oh yeah, I remember that!

A few months ago, I had gotten myself into Doctor Who. There was a lot of outside influence that made me want to watch the show. It also helped that my close friend was getting into it at the same time. We would both watch it on our own time and discuss episodes when we saw each other, usually at a bar. Let me be the first to tell you that if you meet a girl at the bar and she doesn't know what/who Doctor Who is, she's not worth your time. She might be hot, but if you're reading this blog, you probably didn't have a shot with her anyway. I'm kidding.

Fast forward a few months and you would find me barely through season 2. Something that I was really adamant about watching had fallen to the way side. Before you jump to any conclusions, this isn't an entry about how "I can't finish anything" and "woe is me, I should accomplish something with my life." It's simply about rediscovering something that was pretty sweet.

When I started watching those episodes again, I couldn't understand why I had stopped watching it. I mean, I know how and the why. The simple answer is "life happened." Some good, some bad, but watching those episodes allowed me to somewhat forget about all that and just enjoy the show. Too bad that I couldn't see past life for a moment.

Doctor Who isn't even the beginning. Rediscovering albums, a passion for an art, playing a sport, riding a bike, anything that you haven't done in ages is always a great feeling. One of those other things was watching cartoons and riding my bike. Granted, they can seem like childish activities, but they're totally not. OK, maybe they are, but why can't we just digress into being kids sometimes? It makes life a little more fun.


Note: Prior to writing the end to this entry, I rode my bike to the library to pick up the first volume of All Star Superman. 

"Whatcha readin' there, son?"

I'm sure only a handful of you know that I love to read. It's become one of my favorite past times since I started working in the broadcasting industry. Spending 7 hours of my day watching a screen with some terrible programming, Golden Girls excluded, has everything to do with it. I'd come home and feel like an absolute zombie, but, of course, this wouldn't stop me from browsing the internet for hours.

This was all well and good until I made good friends with a co-worker. It seemed that he had a different book every week. On top of that, one of my closest friends was a big reader. I don't mean to say that he was fat (he's not), but that he spent most of his off time plowing through books. That was all the convincing I needed. That and the thought that chicks dig intellectual guys (note: They don't. They like douches.)

After reading some of the books that I had in my own library, which were never read, I began running out of material. That's when I whipped out the ole library card. It had always been in my wallet no matter how many times I got new ones, but was never used. Upon examining it, I had noticed that it expired about 3 years prior. 

The library was my new fascination. It seemed like all those stupid posters from my grade school days had actually been right. Sadly, Bill Cosby wasn't there to greet me. I wonder if they got paid to take those photos for the posters, because we all know that no celebrity would visit the library. I know I would. You make me a star today and I'd still be ordering books from my library. Maybe even donate enough money to add a new wing, but instead of using my surname I'd have them call it "the bat wing". Let's face it, my nerdiness would never disappear, no matter how much money you try to bury it under.

For a while, I ordered some of the classics and then got into some of the new fiction. From there, I made a turn and started reading collections of essays (i.e.: David Sedaris and Chuck Klosterman). It seemed like I had the "intellectual" image going. That's when I found out I could order graphic novels from all over Nassau County.

Bye, bye intellectual. Hello nerd.

The first few times I picked up some of the GNs I ordered, I tried to convince the librarian that they were for my younger brother who doesn't exist. I realized this was absolutely stupid and just owned up to my nerdom. Now, I proudly walk up to the counter, hand over my card, make small talk, and pray they don't think I'm some creep who reads cartoon books.

What can I say? I like the pictures. It could be a lot worse.