Mutant Summit 4: Geekfest!

Oh, the things you'll see! Oh, the places you'll go!

Drew: Longtime MRFH readers may have noticed that, with the exception of the boss and his top assassin, we don’t get together on any kind of a regular basis. Part of this is distance, and part is busy schedules, and mostly it’s that we’re too cheap to pay for plane tickets. But when it comes out that two of us live barely an hour away from each other, well, suddenly a meeting becomes a lot more feasible. And since I’m always willing to make a road trip at the invitation of a lady (even a married one), my ears immediately perked up when Lissa started telling me about a little shin-dig she and Duckie were putting on. But this… oh, this was no ordinary Mutant Summit, my friends. Little did I expect to engage in a grueling, nigh-endless gauntlet that would test my sanity — and my liver — to the breaking point and beyond, in an unforgiving marathon of endurance that could only be called…

Lissa: Geekfest! It was a test of true devotion: to watch all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies, back-to-back-to-back. That’s right. Extended Fellowship of the Ring. Extended Two Towers. AND Extended Return of the King. And just for good measure, the Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit as a preview.

Such a feat cannot be undertaken alone. Well, it can. But where’s the fun in that? So Duckie and I invited a number of people over on a Saturday, made up a buffet of sandwiches, strombolis, hot dog bites, and brownies, poured out the booze, and prepared the beds for people to stay over.

And thus began Geekfest.

Drew: I’ll admit, as I began the trek to Lissa’s house, numerous anxious thoughts flew through my head regarding this, my first ever Mutant meeting. Would there be hazing involved? Would I settle into a chair, ready for the dulcet tones of Cate Blanchett to fill my ears, only to find myself facing a marathon viewing of The Doom Generation? And gosh, what if none of the other kids liked me? I vividly remember taking a sip of my Coke on the way there, burping, and thinking, Oh man, I hope I don’t do that in front of anybody. I needn’t have worried, however, as Lissa, Duckie, and all of their guests were incredibly friendly, the food was delicious, and halfway though the evening, Lissa’s sister let out a belch that put mine to absolute shame. It’s the little things that help.

Drew: the house-broken elf

Lissa: I don’t remember that particular belch, but I totally believe Drew. My sister is the only person I know that can make herself burp and fart on demand… simultaneously. (Sorry guys, she’s off the market!) But I certainly understood Drew’s nervousness, because I felt the same way.

Due to the nature of Geekfest, our invite list was a mix of people from different groups. And due to the weather, we only got a sampling of each group. So it was my best friend from grad school and his wife, my sister and her fiancé, my brother-in-law and his roommate-type-person, myself and Duckie, and Drew, whom I’d never met before. (Drew: You see the trend here, right? I kept waiting for everyone to pair off and make out, while I hung around the refreshment table pretending not to notice. Ah, high school…) I mean, for all I knew he could be an axe murderer! I was a little worried that people wouldn’t get along at all. (Even though I think it’s physically impossible not to get along with some of these people.)

I do remember Drew calling to let us know he’d be a bit late, and let me tell you, hearing another Mutant voice was just plain weird. Drew doesn’t sound ANYTHING like I imagined. (The funny thing is he sounds more like I pictured Justin’s voice.) For the record, he’s not a tenor. And he doesn’t have the goatee anymore.

Drew: Yeah, turns out college is over and somebody forgot to tell me. (Who knew?) I’m leaving the earrings in, though. Damn the Man!

Lissa: By the way, he should keep the earrings. The earrings were cool.

And what do you do when this person you sort of know shows up on your doorstep? Do you hug them hello? Shake hands? Fortunately, there were brownies to be exchanged. Brownies smooth over any wierdness.

Drew: They do, though I’ll state for the record that it took me less than 2 minutes after arriving to realize my sheer idiocy in bringing brownies-from-a-box to the home of someone renowned for the homemade variety. Seriously, that’s like a slap in the face. Given our similar methods of bribing our way onto the MRFH staff (Lissa with brownies, me with those negatives from Canucks Gone Wild: PoolMan Dekilted), you’d think that would have occurred to me at some point, but I guess I’ll never be anything more than a pretty face.

Lissa: In case you were wondering, the bribe was that we would NOT have to see the negatives, not that they’d get out and around the internet. It was really more of a threat.

Anyway, the movies… you can see our opinions of them in the reviews. However, what we did notice is the extensive drug use that Tolkien promotes. Honestly, do you have any idea how many of these characters are stoners? I never noticed it so much when I watched the movies separately, but all together… wow. But aside from that, they were the movies that we all know and love. (Except Kyle, who is quite ambivalent to all things Tolkien.)

Drew: Ah, but simply analyzing the High Times recruitment drive unfolding before us wasn’t enough; to truly understand the problem, I knew we would have to dive head-first into the minds of the hobbits, to come to grips with the full scope of their self-destructive habits. Sadly, law-abiding citizens all, none of us had in our possession any of that special Shire blend, so we resorted to the closest available substitutes — humming Led Zeppelin tunes to ourselves, and lots and lots of booze. While Lissa’s consumption of two massive glasses of wine (Lissa: It was three! And they were REALLY big!) led her sister to pin the label of a “[bleep]in’ lush” on her, I made the mistake of trying to match her future brother-in-law Yuengling for Yuengling, and nearly fell into darkness myself. I’m proud to say that my college years were not entirely wasted, as I managed to last through all three movies, but I’d be lying if I claimed to remember much of Return of the King. I feel like there were hobbits, and fighting, and maybe a ring of some sort, but that’s about it.

Lissa: imbibed what they call a "pint"

Lissa: Sadly, those three glasses did me in but good. The last thing I remember is Faramir’s doomed charge. It should be noted that Faramir is extremely hot, and I believe I felt the need to state this every. single. time. that he was on screen. (Drew: True, though it wasn’t till you started kissing the screen that I got really uncomfortable.) I truly wish I could tell you more about the night, but I can’t. I can tell you Duckie does make as good a stromboli as he’s always boasted to me, I had to be put to bed by a very concerned husband, and late at night my husband, my brother-in-law, and my friend Lou got into a very strange conversation that involved my stepfather’s conspiracy theories and children, but I only heard that part secondhand. Like Gandalf, I fell into shadow before my time, only to return much later.

Drew: At last, well past one in the morning, the final set of credits began their bittersweet scroll, bringing our labors to an end and eliciting… well, vague mumbles from the few members of our fellowship still conscious and paying attention. Duckie gallantly went to check on the status of his befuddled bride, while the rest of us rubbed our weary eyes and tried to remember where all these empty bottles came from. Leaving the mystery for another day, I sacked out in a spare bedroom, counting Ayn Rand titles on the bookshelf as I quickly slipped into oblivion.

Lissa: For the record, there were six.

The morning after: (no pictures available)

Lissa: Well, believe it or not we were the first two up. Before nine o’clock. Drew came down as I was watching a lot of what I had missed (argh! I still can’t believe I did that!) and was drooling over Faramir as he romanced Eowyn.

Drew: I honestly couldn’t believe it. My first reaction was, My God, 11 hours wasn’t enough? I don’t have to watch them all again before I leave, do I? Fortunately, Lissa was just making up for passed-out time, so she reluctantly tore herself away from David Wenham’s artfully stubbled mug and we had some time to gossip about our fellow Mutants before I went my merry way. (Did you know Rich really writes them Harry Potter books? That’s what I hear, anyway.)

Lissa: Hard as it was (because David Wenham IS really cute), Drew’s company does outweigh the benefits of looking at sexy guys on the screen… especially when said sexy guys are pausable. Sadly, Drew (Drew: non-pausable sexy guy) did have to go home and I did have to recover (I didn’t really feel the effects of the hangover until the next day, but still). However, he did leave his brownies, and yes, we ate them. And yes, they were very, very good. But it was very nice to have met him, and I would like him even if he wasn’t a Mutant.

Drew: Awww… thanks. Right back atcha!

Having had some time since to reflect on the weekend, I’ve come to several conclusions. One, Lissa and Duckie are extremely nice people with extremely nice friends, who live in an extremely nice house and make extremely nice food. Very Brady Bunch, if Mrs. Brady had a belching (but cool!) sister. Two, Lissa’s right — they should have left the Boromir/Faramir flashback scene in RotK. (Lissa: Because more Faramir is ALWAYS a good thing. See?) Three, I still love the LotR movies but have no desire to ever watch two in a row again in my life, let alone all of them. And four, I’m a total lush… but at least I’m in good company.

Now I can’t wait to see what Justin’s wedding will be like... my God, they’ll need to offer liver transplants at the door…