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FADE IN:

Mike Watt and Amy Lynn Best come up with an idea. What Pittsburgh needs is a cool horror convention!

DISSOLVE TO SHOW THE PASSAGE OF TIME:

Many months later, they have made all of the preparations, booked the hotel and guests, and now it's time for the show!

FLASHBACK:

Mike and Amy are begging me to be a guest, because they need my star power to bring in the fans.

MIKE- Please?

AMY- Yeah, please?

ERIC- Okay. But I want one of those heart shaped boxes that usually holds chocolates, but this box will be filled with Boba Fett action figure heads.

MIKE AND AMY- Sold!

Cut back to the present, as I remember the past while typing this memoir. I traveled all the way from Maryland to attend the first Genghis Con! And this is my story...

Cue the title!

Photos taken by Leanna Chamish and Eric Thornett

Here I am at my table, which I commandeered from some porn star who didn't show up. So it was a bittersweet victory. It was a win since I got this great table next to Joe Bob Briggs, Debbie Rochon and H.G. Lewis, but it was a loss because now I couldn't meet a porn star.

As you can see, I was promoting my movie Shockheaded, and also selling ties...for cheap! Which would be more popular? Only time would tell!

Here's Leanna Chamish, who came up from my area to check out the show and generally hang out. While she wasn't a guest, she is a horror star in her own right, having been in many of Don Dohler's productions. In fact, she was recognized several times at the show.

One of those was from me, but that probably doesn't count since I knew her personally already.

Or maybe...it does?

No it doesn't.

I borrowed this digital camera from good friend Jason Russler. It's a great camera with a super fast capture. This was taken about a quarter of a second before Leanna slapped me in the face, and you can't even see a blur.

And here are the hosts, Amy Lynn Best and Mike Watt. Amy's the one on the left, and Mike's the other one. The two were busy all weekend, and probably very drunk.

That last statement would be more accurate if you replaced "probably" with "stinking," and "very" with "extremely," and "drunk" with "really drunk."

So now I started swinging the camera around to see who else was around us! Here are two members of the Happy Cloud Picture family, Tim Gross and Charlie Fleming. All weekend long I tried to make them cry, but to their credit, they held it in. I bet they cried when they got home though.

I swung the camera around again, and caught Mark Baranowski in the act of taking my picture without my permission! We snapped pictures of each other until our fingers bled and our eyes grew watery.

As you can see, Mark's wife Ryli Morgan thought this was hilarious. Every second of it.

Here's Mark again. He put me to shame with his puffed hair, manly stubble and single earring. The only way I could compete was by throwing some old mints at him, but he didn't even care.

Seriously, does he look like a guy who would care?

The tally so far:

Time spent at the show: two hours.

Time spent at the table: twelve minutes.

Ties sold: zero.

Tim and Charlie came over to console me, and give each other sexy rubdowns.

My theory of viewing people through the alternate dimension of Charlie's glasses was proven a bust, as the reality is that they just looked sort of concave.

Some tribespeople in the world think that taking someone's picture steals their soul. Here we see a photo of Ryli next to the real person. So we can assume her soul would have been in that picture. However, since I took a picture of the picture, I stole the soul with this picture. But I assume that Ryli wants her soul back, so I made sure to publish this on the page, and she can take a photo of the screen and at the very least, have the photo that holds her soul.

The question is, how does she get her soul back inside of herself? Grind the picture up and use it as seasoning? They don't teach this kind of thing in Catholic school for some reason.

Here is Ryli trying out her puppy dog eyes on me. I don't remember what she wanted, but I probably felt guilty and gave it to her.

And here's a picture of some antics! Oh my, the antics! Ryli's making a funny face! Charlie's taking a picture of me taking a picture! And right off camera there's a pack of Boy Scouts running around on fire!

Who cares about them, though? Look at Ryli's l'il tongue!

Time spent at the show: five hours.

Time spent at the table: two hours and thirty eight minutes.

Ties sold: zero.

Here I am with the saucy Alan Rowe Kelly. Alan is part of the Heretic Films family, so you just know he's a great guy!

Wow, a sale! Greedily I took the money, and put it in my shirt pocket right next to my black, evil heart. That afternoon I used it to buy an enchilada.

And then Debbie Rochon came along, commandeered the room, and bought a tie! We haggled over the price for awhile...I think we eventually settled on her paying me twenty cents, plus she promised not to throw any more empty soda bottles at me.

At first I thought I really made out, but Debbie started throwing FULL soda bottles at me.

Debbie Rochon defeats yet another person with her legal mumbo jumbo.

Time spent at the show: seven hours and thirty two minutes.

Time spent at the table: two hours and fifty eight minutes.

Ties sold: one.

And with that, it was time to close, and a group of us decided to head out to dinner and then...the after party! What celebrities will I meet? And will I sell the other tie? Read the next page and find out!

Boy, we sure were hungry! We didn't really know where anything was, so we got directions to the place that real rebels of darkness and horror go to...the Olive Garden!

I had never been to an Olive Garden before. I may be suburban, but I'm not THAT suburban! So Leanna, Mark, Ryli and I headed out to eat mediocre food in a white-bread setting.

And then...the party!

The party started off as all great parties do...sitting on a couch. Oh yeah, and groping babes. This picture was taken by that pervert Mark Baranowski, who was intruding on what we called "Leanna's Special Time."

The party was being held in the bar of the hotel...all the better for drinking! Even though I don't drink, I could act like I was! Surely there would be celebrities that I could regale with my Olive Garden quality wit!

Ryli decided to start the night off with a bang, and she showed me her tattoo. I screamed and cursed at it, but it didn't care.

To this date, I do whatever the tattoo says. The tattoo is my master now.

Things were already hopping at the bar. Joe Bob Briggs was nice enough to answer my numerous questions about Casino and his writing. He's an incredibly nice, low-key guy.

And here's Heidi Martinuzzi! She was going undercover as a five year old, but those pigtails didn't fool me. That is NOT coffee in her cup!

And look, there's Reggie Bannister behind us! And behind Reggie, a karoke machine!

Debbie showed up, still wearing that great tie. She had me sign it too. If we were a gang, that tie would be our "colors."

Amy had a long conversation with Leanna about how clever and handsome I am. I'm pretty sure that's what they were saying because I heard my name, and then what I'm sure was appreciative laughter.

I didn't care for the shirt Amy was wearing though. I don't like birds with speech impediments.

We all got thrown out around one, and then we went to a super SECRET party which I can't tell you about. But why would you care...there weren't monkeys or robot cars or anything cool there. Just more talking and booze.

But we had to get our rest because we had another full day of Genghis Con ahead of us!

So the next day, all bright-eyed and ready to go, the doors opened once again. To recap, let's put up the tallies once more:

Time spent at the show: seven hours and thirty two minutes.

Time spent at the table: two hours and fifty eight minutes.

Ties sold: one.

I needed to sell that second tie!

"Don't worry!" screamed Leanna. "I'll help you sell that tie!"

Mark took this picture while we were discussing strategies. We thought that being really loud would work.

Leanna pretended the tie was her tongue, made a sock puppet out of it, and tried to pass it off as "a delicious muffin." Yet nobody wanted to buy it.

Could it be that this show would end in failure?

I couldn't stand yet another failure.

"Buck up Eric!" said Leanna. "We'll sell that tie yet!"

First she stopped by Reggie Bannister's table. "Will you buy Eric's tie?" she asked.

"No thank you," replied Reggie. "I already have a tie, and mine's a lot better because it's a tiny little head."

"How about you, Joe Bob?" asked Leanna.

"I already have a tie, and it matches my coat" he replied.

She went to horror legend H.G. Lewis, who is an incredibly nice fellow. "Mr, Lewis, would you care to buy Eric's tie?" she asked, batting her eyes twice.

"I don't even have a collar," said Mr. Lewis.

Things were getting desperate, so I stepped in and batted my eyes four times. "Please buy my tie?" I begged.

Amy Lynn Best walked over. "Get away from Mr. Lewis before I stab you," she snarled.

So that was it. The game was over. Amy really did have a knife, and I knew she would use it. Let's show the final tally:

Time spent at the show: fourteen hours and thirteen minutes.

Time spent at the table: five hours and four minutes.

Ties sold: one.

But wait! Suddenly, Ed Neal from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre showed up! He was intrigued with the tie. Acting quickly, Leanna told him about how warm the tie would make his neck, and how colorful it was, and how babes LOVE ties.

He offered me twelve cents for the tie. I countered by complaining about how much overhead I had, and offered it to him for ninety cents. We haggled for awhile until we finally came upon a mutually accepted price of forty eight cents and a shoelace tip he found on the floor.

And with that, the tie was sold! I deemed the convention a huge sucess!

Time spent at the show: fourteen hours and forty nine minutes.

Time spent at the table: five hours and thirty four minutes.

Ties sold: two!

VICTORY!

And with that, Leanna had to pack up and go home. She said I could keep all of the tie profits, which I appreciated because I really wanted to buy that pack of peanut M&Ms from the vending machine.

We said our farewells and she gave me a goodbye slap, and left for her long drive home.

Ryli's tattoo was telling me it was time to leave as well, so I gathered my wares and my half-eaten bag of M&Ms, said my goodbyes to Amy and Mike, and headed back home to Maryland.

And that's the end of my story. The convention was a great success and I'm glad I was invited to participate. If Mike and Amy decide to throw another one, I'll be there!