Jeff W. writes to ask…
I read your rant about how awful the layout and traffic are at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I get the feeling you have an anecdote you're hiding. Would you care to share it with us?
Well, since one of you asked: I think the last time I was down there was about ten years ago for a videogaming convention. I wouldn't have gone but a very nice (I wrongly thought) producer was about to make me a very nice (I wrongly thought) offer to write the scenario for a silly adventure videogame. We'd had two meetings in his office when suddenly he informed me I had to attend a meeting at this con at — shudder, shiver — the L.A. Convention Center. He insisted I be there at 3 PM sharp to meet with others involved in the project.
So I drove down there that day. I left plenty of time (I wrongly thought) to park and get to the meeting but there was no place to park, no how, no way. Every lot was jammed. The only exception seemed to be one lot directly across the street from the convention center but they wanted $50 to park there. Just as a matter of principle, I wasn't going to fork over that amount for a parking space that was usually eight bucks and overpriced at that.
At 3 PM, the producer cell-phoned me: "Where are you? Everyone's here." I told him I was circling the terrain, unable to find a spot to stash the auto. "Find a place," he yelled. "Park anywhere!" I told him the only option was the fifty dollar lot. He told me to park there and he'd reimburse me the money. Well, okay. The principle at stake suddenly seemed to be whether they'd get my money, not his. I parked, I paid, I went in.
It took me an awful long time to find and hike to the place where I could pick up my badge. It took an awfuler, longer time to get to the designated meeting place. One delay en route was a group of lovely young women who desperately wanted to undress me but I was able to avoid that.
The meeting took place in a little conference room built into the side of this particular videogame company's display. Eight people — one of them, me — crammed into a room about the size of one of those little Hershey bars — the kind you give out for Halloween. What was said? I have no idea. I was in the noisiest convention hall in the world with thousands of videogames all being demonstrated at maximum volume. Couldn't make out one word.
Since I heard absolutely nothing. I said absolutely nothing. After fifteen minutes, with my head feeling like Buddy Rich was doing an all-out drum solo on it, the meeting ended. The producer thanked me profusely for my invaluable contribution to the discussion — I think — and promised to be in touch. Three days later, he presented me with the formal offer for my services and I told him the amounts were insufficient by a couple of decimal places. This infuriated him and I not only didn't do the project but he never gave me my fifty dollars for parking.
It was an awful experience and obviously I'm not blaming all of this on the convention center…but the parking thing was their fault and from what others tell me, it's still a problem at times, plus it was a long, confusing walk from one place to another. Bet that hasn't changed either. Anyway, that's what happened the last time I was there, Jeff. Thanks for asking and —
Oh, wait. You're probably curious about the lovely young women who were eager to undress me. I sure would be if I was you reading this.
Actually, they were eager to undress almost any male walking into this convention. There were about half a dozen of them set up in a corridor there — all in their early twenties and looking stunning in cut-off jeans and tight t-shirts that promoted a new line of games. They were there, oh-so-ready to pounce on guys of a certain age. I'm not sure of the exact range but I was in it.
Their mission? To persuade you to remove whatever shirt you were wearing, which they would lovingly fold and pack in a bag for you. Then one of them would put one of their t-shirts — advertising what they were there to promote — on your torso.
The shirt removal and replacement would be done by one of the ladies in a little private tent they had there — just you and her inside. They all made it sound like a much sexier experience than it surely was. The best-looking one of them, selling this promotion a bit too aggressively, winked at me and said, "Who knows? Once we get in there, I may even want to change my shirt, too."
I said to her, "No, you won't." She said, "You're right, I won't. But it gets a lot of fellows into the tent. Don't you want to be alone in there with me?" She made a disparaging remark about my plain, advertising-free shirt and hinted at what fun she would have peeling it from my manly chest.
I said, "I'm sorry. My mother raised me to believe that if a woman ever removed my shirt, I'd have to do the decent thing and marry her."
She laughed and then, making sure no one around could hear, she whispered to me, "Come on…we get a commission for every shirt we get a guy to put on. Once you get inside, you can slip into the men's room and change back."
I don't know why but I said, "Have you got a 3X?" This was shortly before I lost all that weight in 2006. She checked and they were all out. I guess guys who go to videogaming conventions run kind of large. So I was off the hook and I hurried off to locate that meeting where I couldn't hear a damned thing.
On my way out, the same cute lady accosted me again and, forgetting they were out of my size, tried even harder to get me to let her put one on me. She stopped just short of inviting me to remove her shirt. I got out of there, thinking that even if she had offered that, the whole trip down to the convention center wouldn't have been worth my time. Not even if I hadn't had to shell out the friggin' fifty dollars.