Mutant Summit 2000
report
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Day -3
Sean begins his Canadian Immunization by attending a Tragically Hip concert in Vancouver.
Day -2
Sean continues Canadian Immunization by attending a Vancouver Canucks hockey game. We beat the American New York Rangers 4 to 3. Victory!
Day -1
Sean begins selfless gift buying for Justin and his little legion of youths.
Day 1: Sunday, Nov 19, 2000
PoolMan: Sean is on the EARLY flight to Denver, CO. The flight attendant closely resembles Mrs Lauder from the Drew Carey Show. The plane departs late, but at least the captain's funny (he lets us know he's got tickets to the Denver Broncos game that afternoon, so he was motivated!). Watch Chicken Run without sound on the plane. The guy sitting next to me orders two Becks, and is mysteriously not charged for them. I file that bit of infoaway... The flight out of Denver to Detroit is overbooked, but Sean passes on $600 US incentive to take next flight so he can make the Youth Group meeting later that night. What a guy! Approaching Detroit, Sean sees probably the coolest sunset ever, trapped between two layers of fiery cloud. Moments later, he is surrounded by snow as he dips below the clouds to land.
Meets Justin at the airport. Laughs at the "Bearded Momma" sign Justin is holding. Much handshaking and chitchat ensues. Sean makes a vain attempt not to stare at Justin's red pants. Canadian Night at the Youth group meeting is a great success. Bacon is flung, Canuck trivia is asked, and Sean receives two "God Loves You" crosses. Excelsior!
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Back at the Bachelourpad of Doom (BOD), Justin and Sean watch Hudson Hawk, and do not go to bed until about 2 am. This is pretty typical pacing for the rest of the week.
Memorable line: "If I had to choose between drinking my own pee or eating my crap, I'd go with the pee." (Justin)
Justin: Let's just get this out in the open, since I'm sure Sean's going to make much mention of it in the rest of this journal: it was very freakin' cold in Detroit that week. Colder than it's ever been that year, in fact, and I think it was due to PoolMan bringing his cold weather masses down with him (gee, don't they declare that at customs?).
Justin, holding a sign that reads "Bearded Momma", meets 'n greets PoolMan in the airport. Our height differences are readily noticable, although small children do come up and punch PM for no good reason, showing that they are not afraid of his Goliath stature.
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Back at Justin's pad, the true Summit began as they relished a viewing of Hudson Hawk, which PoolMan had never seen. Despite PoolMan over-nitpicking this weird film ("Hm, didn't that mirror ornament change three times in that scene?"), the first movie of the Summit is declared a success. Justin makes PoolMan blow up his own bed, and a couple hours of Final Fantasy 9 rounds out the night. Mmm... trance.
Mental note: If you happen to be comfortable lounging around in boxers, make sure to say that before dropping your pants and scaring the hell out of your visitor.
Day 2: November 20, 2000
PoolMan: Up at 10 am, we hit Denny's for breakfast. This is the start of another trend. Back to church! Sean meets Pastor Steve, who brandishes a wooden cross instead of shaking his hand. Sean laughs it off, but secretly wants desperately to crawl back into his coffin.
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Back at the BOD, Justin receives a telesales call, and proceeds to ruin the salesperson's day. Up until now I thought he was a pretty nice guy! We watch Doom Generation (Ah! My brain!) and Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. It's not enough to cheer us up.
Justin: Can't believe we stayed up till 2am last night. Final Fantasy 9 curse. Justin treats PM to American culinary delights at Denny's for breakfast. At 11am, Justin finally gets to work at church. PoolMan meets pastor Steve, who comes in the room wielding a crucifix at our Canadian pagan (seriously).
Despite the bitter cold, the duo dives inside to the mall and decides to re-enact that Kevin Smith film (Clerks). Highlights of the mall excursion included asking reluctant strangers to take our picture, Justin uncomfortably posing with a manniquin at Victoria's Secret, dancing to "In The Air Tonight" at Subway, and pondering the existance of our hands.
Back to MRFH temp HQ, we bit the bullet and got our viewing of The Doom Generation out of the way. Screams, gasps, "I did NOT just see that", Domino's delivery, and PoolMan's shocked silence later, we were again horribly scarred for life. We did find the chink in Doom Generation's armor, though - mocking it together with our dragon-style kung fu wit.
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Day 3: November 21, 2000
PoolMan: No time for breakfast, Dr Jones! We're off to Bible study at Mount Hope!
(for the curious, we did Romans 5:1 to 11) Sean is not normally the churchgoing type, but talks a lot during the study. Occasionally, he sounds like he knows what he's doing.
After much waiting in Justin's office, we go to see Charlie's Angels for free at a local theater. Apparently Justin knows one of the managers. It's all good! We then proceed to terrorize Toys R Us. Highlights include an impromptu game of hockey between the aisles, and the amazing robotic dog with radar ears, whose main function seems to be rolling forward and back. Wow.
We enjoyed dinner at a mob-run restaurant a couple of blocks from Justin's house. Sean engulfs roughly 5 pounds of fried chicken. His heart has yet to resume beating. We enjoy a freshly purchased copy of X Men on DVD, followed by a course of Army of Darkness for dessert. Ah, this is the life!
Justin: Okay, I just like Denny's! Where else can you get cheap food served cold and surrounded by people who have just graduated from homeless academy? But I do feel bad I dragged PM here so much. Ah, well, he shall survive.
You can read about our experiences while seeing Charlie's Angels in our review, but it was a good time had by all. PoolMan was honestly torn over what type of movie snack food to buy, so he settled on (I swear this is true) Care Bear Gummi Bears. I so respected his confidence in his masculinity by choosing this that I sat four seats away in the theater so people wouldn't think I was sitting with the Care Bear Freak.
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Announcer: What planet are YOU from?
Kid: That's AMAZING!
Announcer: WAIT! yadda yadda yadda
Day 4: November 22, 2000
PoolMan: Finally get to really sleep in... didn't get up till 11:30 or so? And it's
lunch at Denny's! (told you it was a trend) Justin chokes on two plates of sausage and threatens legal action.
We cleaned out the Youth House at the church. Sean sets up a makeshift hockey rink on the game room floor. This is sure to be lots of fun for the kiddies seeking a higher balance of vitamin Canuck in their diet.
Burrito Binge!!! The Mutants stop at Taco Bell to ingest Mexican food. Sean is so impressed that he buys 5 chili and cheese burritos for the road, which will learn a new definition of pain as they are to be slowly digested over the next thousand years.
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Watched Spice World at the BOD. Huh? We're both confused, but Sean still finds it funny. Justin does not. Slap fighting ensues.
Justin: Wednesday was really about the hockey game. Sure, it's just OHL, but you're guarunteed to get good seats, and the players have no qualm about beating the living crap out of each other. I like that. We took my junior high youth group to see it, and they're always fun. Wait, not fun, but bloodthirsty. I got into the game, Sean got into the game, but the junior highers nearly had to be physically restrained from leaping onto the ice to either (1) declare their love for a "really hot guy" or (2) kicking the opposing team's kneecaps. I got myself a broken hockey stick as a souveneir.
A note on Final Fantasy 9: I just purchased this game a couple days before Sean's arrival, and I am fanatical about beating these types of games. So out of respect to my guest I spent only the early mornings and late nights playing this fabulous game, but fortunately PM liked to be a spectator and wax on about the glory days of Final Fantasy 3 (listening to him, you would eventually believe that FF3 cured cancer and caused massive increases in your SAT scores).
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PoolMan: After a late start, we check out Unbreakable. This time Justin is satisfied, and Sean is not. More namby pamby name calling. We head straight to the LaBelle's house, where we enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Sean and Justin are treated as freakish, odd smelling sons, but sons nonetheless. Sean totally enjoys the experience, playing with the kids and watching Star Wars with Rob.
Head home for the umpteenth Final Fantasy IX marathon. Cool game, so Sean considers buying Playstation. Then he remembers how much the airfare was to get to Detroit, and decides against it.
Justin: During the week, most of the people we bumped into found us a fascinating oddity. Two strangers meeting for the first time after a long internet relationship, and not wanting sex from each other. When people asked, I let Sean explain how the whole thing happened, and what our site is about (whatever that is). Pastor Steve helped us out by e-mailing our web address to most of the church members.
Star Wars is not your typical Thanksgiving day fare, but it suited Rob and Sean and I just fine. The three of us tried to outdo each other with obscure SW trivia, but Sean took the cake at the end when he knew the Star Wars name of that old Rebel Alliance leader guy ("Oh, that's Corban Dair [or something like that]," he said, which prompted me to shake my head for the rest of the night mourning his soul).
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PoolMan: Downtown Plymouth, home of the Box Bar and Grill. The waitress Jen is very sweet, and offers to look the other way as Sean steals the pitcher his pop came in.
Off to visit Pastor Steve's house! Sean meets the family, but fails to convince either daughter to take them out on the town that night. Justin immediately informs Steve of the stealing incident at the Box. Steve looks for the cross.
Bowlerama! The Head Mutants go to the local lanes (complete with Justin's ball, Lulu) for a few games. Sean wins all three games played, despite Justin's Bill Murray-like style of bowling. Highest score on either side, any game: 127. We're pretty sad.
Drive to Ann Arbor, a cool college town about a half hour away from Plymouth. We take in the Mongolian Barbecue, which pretty much goes like this: take as much meat as you want, watch maniacs cook it in front of you, and repeat. Awesome, awesome fun, and we left stuffed. Missing the sea, Sean's second plate is almost entirely composed of squid cooked in sweet chili sauce. Mmmmmmmm...
Now high on the possibility of going out and socializing, we drive around for roughly 2 hours looking for a bar in Plymouth, but absolutely FAIL to find one!!! We go back to the Box, figuring it would be just as fun as that morning, but the presence of 3 year old children and no waitress to take our order convinces us otherwise. So we drive some more. On the plus side, all this time in the car lets us have a great opportunity to do an hour long Simpsons Singalong with Justin's Simpsonic CD. Much fun was had. After the Drive With No End, we give up and go home to watch Better Off Dead and the last half of Barb Wire. Sean says: "Buh?" to both movies, but enjoys the experience. Laughing at Pamela Lee is easier than you might think!
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Justin: The thing you have to remember is that I just moved here a few months ago. Not having a lot of friends my age around here yet, I don't know most of the social spots to visit. This made me feel terribly bad as we wandered forever just to find a bar, and I think the town of Livonia hid all of them for the night just as a practical joke. Sorry, PoolMan! But that said, the town of Ann Arbor is a really cool spot to visit. The Mongolian Barbeque is a terrific place to visit, even if -- out of an entire selection of very desirable waitresses -- we got the one perky male waiter who made us want to hide when he came around. But there's just something about having a bowl of raw meat in your hands as you stand in line that makes you thank God you're a man.
I am not ashamed to admit: I stink at bowling. Some days I'm okay, but this time I was really off my game. Plus, Sean started this "punch me in the arm" thing after every frame, possibly as a male bonding thing, and I fear I hit him back a bit too hard that last time. "You mean Americans," he said. "You always have to pick on the weak 6'3" kickboxing Canucks!"
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PoolMan: Breakfast at Denny's... sounds like a good movie, doesn't it? But instead, it's business as usual, as we once again take over the local eatery. If Sean was there another week, I'm sure they would have let him cook there. Straight from Denny's to the airport, we arrive 3 and a half hours early for Sean's flight. So, he curls up on the bench at his gate and sleeps his way to flight time. On his way home, Sean reflects on probably having gained 7 pounds during the week, and the new friend he's had to leave behind. On the flight home, Sean orders a Becks, and is mysteriously not charged. If there's one thing he learned on this trip, it's to order Becks on flights, cause you never get billed for them!
Memorable line: "Ah, Saturday. You know what that means! New pants day!" (Justin)
Justin: I hate goodbyes. It didn't help any that it was a very rainy day and we timed the arrival to the airport early by a few thousand minutes. But I can say this: Sean is a very easy guy to hang around with, if you get used to the fact that he likes to torment those nearest and dearest (or at least closest in the car). It's great that the MRFH has brought me some great friends, and I'm glad that we had a good time this week. I wish that I knew more fun sights to take Sean to, and I think a road trip is in order for our next meeting. Maybe even then we could have more mutants there as well!
Justin's Closing Thoughts, Since PoolMan Wrote A Following Novel And I'd Feel Guilty If I Didn't Write Something
Notes and other thoughts from the Summit:
1. We both wish that we could get paid for MRFH and have an office building and an eventual corporate empire. Except we have no idea what people would actually pay us to do.
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3. In my defense, I do eat at places other than Denny's.
4. But enough me, Sean has more to say since, after all, it was his visit. So pay attention in the back rows!
PoolMan's Thoughts on Mutant Summit 2000
It's always a good sign when you step off a long flight and see something worth laughing at. Doubly good is when that something is your ride. From the moment I got off the plane for the Mutant Summit 2000, Justin was absolutely hysterical, with his "Bearded Momma" sign and quirky demeanor. I knew this would be a fun week. But where to begin?
THE BACHELOURPAD OF DOOM!
Well, let's start with the basics. The Bachelourpad of Doom (Justin's apartment) is a thing of beauty. It's a shrine to masculinity and living single. Boxes and laundry everywhere, movie posters all over the place, and magazines everywhere you turn. There's a box of video game mags next to the CAN, for God's sake! Awesome!
Although I was a little put off initially by this, Justin owns a mannequin. No, really! Her name is Quinn (which, to be honest, I didn't really get until I got home), and she wears a leather helmet and goggles, and just generally stands in the corner freaking you out. Until you get to know her, and then it's cool. She's very loyal, too. I tried to give her my number, but she kept insisting she couldn't leave Justin. Or at least, that's what he told me she was saying.
The pad itself is actually a pretty big apartment, and I was allowed a bedroom to myself. Sadly, I was made to sleep on a vinyl mattress that was probably manufactured the day before I got there, and the fumes that came off the darned thing were literally intoxicating. (An experience I highly recommend, especially if you're still lightheaded from blowing it up.) Justin's building is very nice, and it had a workout room that I exercised in all of once. But it was cool.
As for Justin himself, what a card. Now, you have to remember, we've been checking out each other's personalities over email for a good couple of years now. When you keep such a regular correspondance with a guy, you think you know him. Then you show up at his house, and he walks around without any pants on. Seriously. First night, we've been in each other's company for all of three hours, we get into his place, and whoosh! Off go the pants! Thankfully, he wears shorts under the pants, but still, if you're not expecting it, it's quite a surprise. Kind of like being lost in the dark in one of those parks with the natural geysers that shoot up from the ground and not having a schedule. Did that make sense?
It's worth noting that Justin's fridge contained several fruit cups, 2 bottles of ketchup, and 2 bottles of mustard. I had to stock it with beer myself. Thankfully, I'm the only one who really drank any.
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Now who did I meet in Detroit? Well, aside from the Head Mutant himself, I had the pleasure to make a couple of acquaintances while I was in the States.
Pastor Steve: I like Steve, the Pastor at Mount Hope. I think he's probably the coolest clergyman I've ever met. From the moment we met (when he tried to drive me away with a cross in hilarious vampire style) to his patient observations on my latest Canadian psychobabble, Steve was really awesome. We talked a little during the hockey game we took the kids to, and he was extremely fun and subtle. I can see why he picked up Justin to work for him. He even went so far as to let me into his house and meet his family, and then look at pictures of him dressed as a pilgrim. Most excellent. Plus his name is just so fun to say, like Forrest Gump repeating "Lieutenant Dan!" over and over. "Pastor Steve! Pastor Steve! You got new legs!" Definitely an integral part of my trip. Also hello to RoseAna, who was behind the scenes at the church doing all the real work.
The LaBelles: Now, in Canada, we have Thanksgiving in October. "Pagans!" you say, but it's true. I think it's cause we're more efficient. So imagine my glee when I discovered that I'd be having a SECOND Turkey Day in the States! And to make it even better, we spent it with the LaBelle family. Rob and Beth, their three kids, Cory, Kathryn, and Joel, and Beth's parents were hands down some of the nicest people I've come across, ever. They took Justin and I in, fed us like their very own overweight children, and played games with us while watching Star Wars. I've had Thanksgivings at home that weren't this much fun. They made us part of their family for a night, and it was great. To the grandparents: I know you're coming to Vancouver... look me up and say hi when you get here!
The Church Kids: I beg forgiveness that I might not get all the names (so I won't try and list them all), but I was poked and prodded on Canadian Night by several high school kids. Despite their flag waving tendencies, they were so much fun, and I was glad to get to know them. Throwing bacon has never been so much fun! I hope you guys enjoy the new hockey rink.
Gramma: The waitress at Denny's got pretty used to the sight of us, and even let us take a picture of me with her. She was pretty funny, and said to call her Gramma. Well, that makes about 5 for me!
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Anyways, the other main locales on the trip included Mount Hope (his church), the White House (the church youth house), the local movie theater (which I call the Googolplex), and the LaBelles' house. The church and white house were both very neat, and Pastor Steve made me feel very welcome there, to the point of actually voluntarily doing a bible study! (which isn't exactly par for the course for me) The kids at the youth group meeting were awesome, and asked me lots of funny questions for "Canadian Night". Honestly, they were great, and I hope they're all well.
We largely stayed out of Detroit itself, instead preferring to ignore the common wisdom of American Beauty and dwell in the suburbs. Plymouth and Livonia were the 'burbs of choice for the week, along with a side trip to Ann Arbor. I will say this about Michigan; it's cold, flat, and grey, but it's also pretty fun. Considering we had a week in which to fool around and make idiots of ourselves, the small towns in which we played served our purpose very well.
It's worth mentioning that very few people initially believed that any point in the USA could ever be colder than in Canada. Believe me, it was WAY colder in Detroit than it was in Vancouver. How do you people live that way?
Anyways, I notice that Justin has a rather unhealthy obsession with malls. We went into a couple, and each time, he would flit about into various places and try on wierd stuff. He strutted around American Eagle like it was his personal walk in closet. And J, while I think your fashion taste is actually pretty respectable, I have no idea what drives you to try on every silly looking pair of sunglasses you can find, but I'm glad that one sales girl told you to "get those off your face, now". Oh man, I haven't laughed so hard in ages...
So yeah, we pretty much stayed in the burbs and went from place to place making ourselves annoying in true Mutant fashion. Tres cool.
MUTANT LIFE AND HOW BAD IT CAN DAMAGE YOU
So what did two guys in their early 20's do for an entire week with little work to be done and precious few moral scruples to be honoured? Well, that's easy! We watched movies! Including my viewing of Chicken Run on the plane to Denver, the complete list of movies we viewed during the Summit went like this: Chicken Run, Hudson Hawk, The Doom Generation (brr...), Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, Charlie's Angels, X Men, Army of Darkness, Spice World, Unbreakable, Star Wars Episode IV, Office Space, Better Off Dead, and the last half of Barb Wire. That's a grand total of 12 and a half movies, and I'm 99% sure I've left at least one off the list.
Aside from Doom Generation, it was an amusing list of flicks to share with my copilot, so I was pretty happy that we immersed ourselves in at least 24 hours of screen time. After all, what kind of Mutants would we be if we didn't?
That aside, I learned about Justin's unhealthy obsession with his Playstation. There was so much Final Fantasy IX being played it was remarkable. Thankfully, I didn't really mind, as I'm a FF nut too.
The rest of our time was pretty much an exploration of how to answer the question "what do you want to eat?". For the record, here's the scores on where we did eat (of note):
Denny's (3)
Subway (2)
Taco Bell (1, with leftovers for 2 days)
McDonald's (0, thank God)
The LaBelle's House (1, but a good one)
The Box Bar and Grill (1, and a failed second attempt)
The Little Italian Place Down The Road Run By A Ham Fisted Dude With No
Sense Of Humour (1)
Mongolian Barbecue (1)
The rest of our time was spent on our ongoing witty repartee, like how high I was on today's vinyl fumes, or how Justin needed new pants to take off. Stuff like that.
NOW THEN, WHAT DID WE LEARN?
During our final lunch together (at Denny's! Agh!), Justin, out of nowhere, asked me what I learned during the week. I was flabbergasted, to be honest. I didn't expect any kind of intellectual reward from my trip, just some dead brain cells and a tacky souvenir or two. But this is what Justin asked me, and here's more or less what I said.
"Americans are more tolerant than I thought." I'm a big man, and I can admit when I've overstereotyped, as much as I joke about it. The Americans I met on this trip were all nice enough to be honourary Canucks, and it was a great pleasure to meet them all.
"You need to wear your pants more often." Justin prefers wandering around free, I prefer to not see pale legs. It's just a conflict of styles. [Justin's note: My legs are not nearly as pale as yours, Mr. Great White North]
"Denny's is hard on a man's digestive tract." I think there's a statute of limitations on how many Slams you can eat in any given week. 'Nuff said.
"The Doom Generation is so... bad..." There was a long list of expletives used here. Best not to repeat them. Please add my consensus to the pile: Don't see it.
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It took me two years of emails to make a good buddy. It took me a week of fun to make a great friend.
Justin's a helluva guy, and I miss him already. My entire trip was a blast, so I'd like to publicly thank him for a great time. Here's to you, Big J!
