Boomin' SoonerCon: Homies ridin' that Big Bang wave

You know something is really going right when your local sci-fi/comics con in the great
FLYOVER part of the country—a term as despised as "Okie" used to be, in its day—gets a full-page splash across the weekend newspaper front. And three stories in all. Online also, of course.

And this is Oklahoma we're talkin' about—and the ultra-conservative Daily Oklahoman doing the splashing.

In fact, it's so right, it's another example of what I'm going to start calling "The Big Bang Theory Era of Fandom"— as in, you get *It* (not just publicity, but respect) without even having to ask for it. As in, The Geeks Rule The World and never had to fire a shot: they just fixed the servers and wrote the code. (I recently opined abut this in my latest guest blog at startrek.com—and how it really All Started With A Big Borg.)

But there it was, from theory to reality in the reddest of states: the Ok's WeekendLook cover (above) dominated by a story and a montage of art of a classic Prime-film-era Enterprise,  native Sooner sci-fi great CJ Cherryh and fellow OK SpecFic Hall of Fame inductee James "Count Gregore" Ferguson, my bud Kevin Hopkins' SC22 poster art ...and an icon of even Star Trek Continues' lead faces in 2009 style. I made the news!

And what a shock at that. In MY day, in my con PR  trenches (that's my local fan production cred, kiddies), we had to fight for every scrap of space and airtime and legitimacy we could get—especially when we had no Trek actors to headline, with an old-school pure litcon. Even when we did have actors at ThunderCon, it was no picnic: even news column-inches and airtime-minutes do not buzz and turnout make.

It helps when the culture overalls just turns with you, and you're suddenly swimming downstream. And that's what happened for my SoonerCon peeps: pre-registrations jumped 50 percent over last year, and the military/college suburb of Midwest City literally schmoozed them away from a downtown location to a new conference center/hotel complex—to near-universal acclaim by fans, guests and dealers. SCon is still on the small side by national standards, but it may be about to explode—and have a Comic-Con savvy Chamber of Commerce helping out all along. It doesn't hurt to have the Starship Ajax team (and their bridge ripe for fan snaps) as yet another looming Star Trek national-level indie fan film of note rightin Oklahoma City, either.

In fact, indie films are a looming aspect at SCon already, as OKC's nascient Dead Center Film Fest attracted 15,000 this past year as well, I'm told. Saints preserve us. That aspect of creatives was on display often in panels and screenings at SCon, too, along with all the rest of the traditional fare and genres involved.

What astounded me, though, was how my benefit meetup for The Con of Wrath at this SoonerCon drew the most turnout ever, ANYwhere—even with S-Con's sub-Vegas scope in numbers. More on that later, but the night was a humbling moment and gratifying thrill to both entertain that size crowd and add an extra hour to big-screen our "Star Trek Continues" in its Oklahoma public premiere. The winners of an autographed STC Phoenix debut poster even turned around to re-gift it for a benefit Trek auction for the troops coming in November—so the good karma's really catching.

What' surprised me just as much: Okie and regional fans were coming in who want to talk Trekland who know me only by social media, not "back in the day" association—and that's great. It's exactly how I wanted to get to know more new fresh faces and hear what they're up to. But the topper may be that I came across yet another Con of Wrath "Survivor" from 1982 (left), Mary Cottley! Or better yet, SHE came across ME, thanks to all the legit media stories that led her in the door. Mary was rattling off some great memories from that crazy Houston weekend—and I doubt she forgets them before we get her on camera soon.

So sure, money talks—but equality of money is just as gratifying, as fandom is finding out these days. So, here's to SoonerCon 23 in 2014—where the buzz is already hot, the exhibitors are flocking, the guests and panelists are already brainstorming.

I look for Jerry Wall, Leonard Bishop, Aislinn Burrows and all the volunteers to pull off another great clambake next year. And even if the busy Matthew Price (thank you!) Is not still at the Oklahoman, whoever comes along in his shoes later on deserves to do no less to get the word out to the untapped but hungry readers and viewers as Matthew does, especially this year. Wow.

Yes, It's a Different World—and I am cheered to say that's sometimes a GOOD thing, Miri.

Peeps time! See you back home at SoonerCon 21 in OKC

Of course it's cool because I get to visit family ... but the recent restart of SoonerCon and my guesting trips there get me back to my sci-fi and Trek "family" as well—lots of old familiar faces (and all the newer ones since the L.A. move, too.)

Plus, SoonerCon 21—next weekend, June 15-17 at the downtown Sheraton— is one helluva a grass-roots convention in its own right, its subtext showcasing Oklahoma's fandom explosion: filmmakers, pro comic artists, steampunk, costumers, small press, as well as the usual litfan, gaming, anime, and media hijinks. They're on Facebook, too.

Especially cool this year is that I finally get a chance to bring another "Meetup/Fundraiser for THE CON OF WRATH"—my documentary, of course—to the hometown crowd on this 2012 convention "crowdfunding" party tour: 10 pm.-12 midnight Saturday in The Boardroom: the usual hijinks but with a red dirt flavor I'm sure. Special guest: fellow Okie and onetime fanguy-turned-San Diego game designer/filmmaker Neal Hallford, my DP!  If you are an SCon attendee and on Facebook, click on the Meetup/Fundraiser FB Event page and come on over!

I can't wait—and here's hoping the FIFTH one will be the biggest and funnest one yet.  Just bring enough run & coke, and no one gets hurt ...

I only regret that the lovely McKenzie Westmore, host of SyFy's Face-Off whom I helped get to SCon, had the dang show change shoot dates on her and force a last-minute cancellation. So....next year for OKC, she promises!  (Maybe even with her dad, Trek makeup maestro and Oscar winner Michael.)

So, bottom line: If you are in the Oklahoma/Arkansas/Kansas/Texas region and have NOT made your SoonerCon plans, DO IT NOW.

Meanwhile, my own panel schedule:

Friday 4-5 PM: Speed Drawing Competition, Host

Saturday, 4-5 PM: Real Panel: "Hope In Warp Speed:  The Ethics of Star Trek in the 21st Century", moderator, with Eric Flint as a panelist

Saturday, 6-7 PM: "Larry's Trekland:  Between the Cracks 2012": from the archives as usual, but with a SoonerCon twist

Saturday, 10-12 PM: Meetup/fundraiser for CON OF WRATH, per above

... and some table time for the TCOW and TREKLAND, of course.

And while in town, fanfolk, take a break and go south one hour to see the National Toy and Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley, right on I-35. I kid you not. (Take that, East/West Coast fan snobs. If there are any.)

Not Trek, and yet Trek: Personal thoughts on the OKC Bombing

So, it was 17 years ago today...

We were halfway across the country from OKC, but only nine months removed. Only a couple months before I would first try email and AOL, so no tweeting,  no texting—people there actually called me here to turn on the TV... just as Jeri Taylor braced Janet at Voyager to do, by having her come into her office to watch her "perk" TV... And all about an event that hit just two blocks from where she'd worked at a bank until we moved west... moved, because of Star Trek.


I'm talking about the "Oklahoma City federal building bombing" of 9:02 a.m., April 19, 1995.


I remember thinking, my throat choked up as I watched those first TV images of chaos: "OKC? Really? Who'd want to bomb a bunch of Okies? New York or L.A. or D.C., I can understand....but there?"   Those thoughts, exploding amid TV images of bloody bodies, people running away in the streets, stressed first responders struggling to stay professional to their training ....

And then the surreallity, having watched LA anchors nationally on the slo-mo OJ car chase a year before, of seeing my old OKC news anchors carried live in LA.

And then, hearing how my mom's rural Guthrie neighbors were killed .. how my cousin might have been hit by falling stained glass had she been at work in her office as choir director at historic First United Methodist  ... and on and on.

And I also recall thinking, " Well, this is sure gonna put a pale on '89er Day week from now on ... "

The Star Trek family was good to us, when the seeming inconceivability of it all was so shocking, and them knowing how freshly and barely removed, if at all, we were from our Okie roots. Little did we know just another  6 1/2 years would bring an event even more  inconceivable, even more image-haunting, but by a factor of 100. But that day in 1995 was still a day to be distant and yet a very close witness. And to miss my days in the newsroom, already; it's good therapy.

Well, the rawness of the bombing back home has finally begun to recede, as it will be 20 years in just a few more. '89er Days in various communities who were founded in the original April 22 land Run of '89 do still thrive, as do others festivals in mid-April. Life moves on.

There's no real connection between the OKC bombing and Trekland. And yet, seemingly, in my own mind, there is—and always will be.

Sooner Born and Sooner Bred

(written June 8, 2008--posted later)

No, it’s not football season or Christmas season. So why do I find myself Back Home In Oklahoma?

Con season, of course… with humidity, spring tornadoes and T-storms a-plenty (love the latter, hate the former two). You’d think I’d be up the turnpike at big multi-guest Tulsa Trek Expo, but my home peeps had me in town in OKC for Restarted SoonerCon No. 3, as guests of the worldwide-but-OKC-based fan group "United Federated Planets" on the occasion of its 20th anniversary. All this to say that while it was old home week again, it’s also fodder for thoughts on mainstream SF and media fandom quite apart from the framing of bigtime media cons, where we tend to guest and/or hang out in recent years.

The “Trek recession,” real or imagined, has seen a damper on these smaller cons. But those like SoonerCon are bucking the trend—keep it local, keep it simple, keep it fun. While that's always the mantra of any good convention (at least it was the one that *I* preached), these guys have to do that to survive—and they do. Not just old litcons, not just media—they embrace the best of all worlds, and find the offbeat and unusual to carve their own niche.

At SoonerCon that was actually a track of adult events called “SinnerCon”—and you get the picture. Fandom is big tent, depending on the group and venue, but everyone agrees that it has been aging lately with all the competition from Internet stay-at-home Googlers and home/networked video games. As long as cons—and, by extension, marketers—can find the way to link in to making live fandom vibrant again and, well, alive, we’ll survive whatever media hiccups and "franchise fatigue" come down the pike.

(Excuse me— I said I'd never use the phrase "franchise fatigue." More on that pet peeve later.)