Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 15:19:30 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Balticon in 2006 - Hunt Valley Inn
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 01:17 PM 3/14/05 -0500, Michael Walsh wrote:
>> omni at omniphile.com 3/14/2005 12:19:40 PM >>>

>>Yep!  But back when it was at the Sheraton Park, I didn't have to go
>>outside until the con was over!
>
>Which dates thee... most of WSFA has never been to a Disclave at the
>Sheraton Park.  Ghod, what a delightful hotel that was.

That's scary...I guess I must be getting old or something.  Why does
"C-640" keep running through my head?

It was actually at least three hotels that sort of grew together into one
huge complex taking up a whole block.  We once played a live D&D game there
at the con.  It was so big one of the trolls got tired of being a wandering
monster, since no victims were encountered while wandering, so he went up
to the con suite and became a sitting monster with a drink! :-)

Disclave was my first con...I think it was in '75 (the year after the
worldcon here anyway).  Lots of wild memories from those days...skinny
dipping in the hotel pool at 2am (I know how that got started if anyone
wants details) and the two naked people arguing theology with the born
again barbershop quartetter at a first floor window that overlooked the
festivities, Fref and Amy's wedding, the Fannish Inquisition with Joe
Mayhew as the chief judge ("I sentence you to be burned at the stake!  Care
for a bon-bon?"), picking through the remains of the National Symphony Ball
at about 3am with Jacqui Freas and Robert Adams and a couple of others
(found some interesting things there too!), my first (and so far only) art
show sales (got $17 total for two items...paid for my hotel bill for the
weekend, as well as the con admission and food!), the hotel security people
who actually had a clue about how best to handle fans doing stupid things
(like 40 of us sitting in front of the elevators chatting...started out
with just two, as usual...), and meeting Markland and helping to go get ice
(which included a full costume march through the lobby at rush hour doing
the Wicked Witch of the West Guard marching chant...).  The Marklanders
didn't notice the reactions of the crowd, which included a bunch of law
enforcement types, both uniformed and plainclothes, but I did, bringing up
the rear with the ice buckets...they are lucky they didn't get shot!

It's really amazing that the hotel put up with us for so long...be nice to
find another like that...

Say!  Maybe fandom should just pool all our money and buy a hotel?  Then we
could hold worldcons there all the time, as well as smaller cons, writing
seminars and other events of interest...keep it booked year round just with
fans, and live like we want to?  Maybe extend it into a chain so there are
such hotels everywhere?  No more hassles for the hotel liaisons, by fans,
for fans?

What characteristics would such a hotel have to have anyway?

>>They laughed when I said I'd be a comedian.  They aren't laughing
>now!
>
>They're calling their lawyers?

Yeah, but what are they calling them?

<insert favorite lawyer joke here>

-- Mike B.

--
Your lucky number is 364958674928.  Watch for it everywhere!