Shore Leave (US convention)/1998

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Convention
Name:	Shore Leave (US convention)
Dates:	June 26-28, 1998
Frequency:
Location:	Baltimore, Maryland
Type:
Focus:	multi-fandom
Organization:
Founder:
Founding Date:
URL:
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Shore Leave is an annual fan-run convention that takes place in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

It was founded by the Star Trek Association of Towson which continues to run it. The first convention took place in 1979; the con was still running as of 2025.

The con's focus was initially on Star Trek, but it has since broadened to include other science fiction media.

1998: Shore Leave 20

It was held June 26-28, 1998.

1998: Programming

• Showcase: Con Skit: Opening sketch: “South Trek,” Episode MST-ed: DS9: “Move Along Home” by Mystery Trekkie Theater (see for more information on the con's skits in general)
• other unknown

1998: General Con Reports

Shore Leave: Too many Klingons, but that's to be expected.

Mystery Trekkie Theater was pretty good, as was The Emergency Holographic Playhouse (they combined Voyager, Alien and The Terminator).

Contata: (a filk con) Not nearly enough sleep, but that's normal.

Highlights included the 5 minute Talking Blues version of Les Miserables, "Old MacDonald had a Deformed Farm" (complete with the GoH, whose last name is MacDonald, making various threats to the singer) and the hour-long session by the GoH from 2:30 to 3:30 am (which started with "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", oddly enough).

South park references everywhere (quick quiz to the Zappa fans here... if you were to write a South Park song to a Zappa tune, which one would fit best? There's a reason for this question...)

Sunday Morning: A Trekkie's Dream

The next morning, we got up bright and early for Temple of Trek, which several people said would be very funny. Unfortunately, once we got there, we realized that people seemed to be taking it seriously! (shudder) We beat a hasty retreat... and ran into Peter in the hallway! I introduced Liz and Harrison. Peter had to run off to get ready for Sunday's main event: Mystery Trekkie Theater which was late as usual.

Lynn, meanwhile, was at a panel on DS9. Most of it was just a discussion of the good points of the last season's shows, but there are a few things worth mentioning here. The reason why Jadzia died in the last episode of the season was because the actress playing her wouldn't renew her contract for another season unless she got paid as much as the actors who play Sisko and Worf. (sigh) However, one of the guys on the panel said that they've been pointing out that it's *Jadzia* that's dead, and that Dax is very much alive. So, it sounds like Dax may be coming back, but with a new host. Also, the holographic character who seems to know a lot of surprising things is probably going to be around in the next season. Sorry, but I don't remember the guy's name.

While we were waiting for MTT, we noticed that it was warmer than it had been all through the convention. It seemed they had finally straightened out the air conditioning! When Peter apologized for the delay in MTT and also said that the air conditioning would be on again soon, there were several calls from the audience asking them *not* to turn the air conditioning back on. Peter even took a vote, and it seemed that most of the people felt that way. Not that this actually had an effect on anything; the air conditioning went on, anyway.

MTT was more than 20 minutes late, but well worth the wait. MTT started with a skit, South Trek. Four guests appeared as the four captains as the four South Park kids. Peter was Kirk as Cartman ("I'm not fat, I'm big-boned." "Big boned the way a planet is big-boned! You even have your own gravitational field!" "That's not gravity! That's just static cling!" "Kirk, you're so fat, that when you walk on the bridge, people say *** ******, that's a big fat captain!") and his sister, Beth David (is that a person or a synagogue?) was Janeway as Kenny. They couldn't agree on who was the better captain, so they asked Bill Mumy to decide. He gave a nauseatingly inspirational speech about how they're all good in their own way. Then a fanboy appeared on stage, saying that LIS was terrible. He was threatening to kill Bill Mumy. Bill ducked down behind "Janeway", and someone, (we can't remember whether it was one of the people on stage, or an audience person), shouted "Danger, Will Robinson, danger!" Instead, the fanboy killed... Kenny/Janeway! (wait for it...) "Oh my G-d! He killed Janeway! You bastard!" Bill then switched into his Twilight Zone character and said, "You're a bad man!" and made the fanboy disappear. Also, Bill was somewhat unhappy with the script (he thought no one would laugh... go figure), so as Bill was leaving the stage, Bill says something like, "And Peter's the one to blame for this skit!" and then he "killed" him with the ray gun. The fanboy (Alan Chaffin, by the way) reappeared later, with corn coming out of his pants. The "Mad scientist" fellow said, "Frank! Where have you been?!" and Frank pulled the ears of corn out of his pockets and said "In the cornfield." (the character in TZ sent bad men "to the cornfield"). See a picture at http://members.aol.com/gallerysc/sl20/page_3.htm

Mystery Trekkie Theater was hysterical, but most of it doesn't make sense without seeing the episode. They were MSTing the episode with the game players, who put the command crew into a game as live pieces. During the opening credits, when the comet first flies by, one person yells out "ICEBERG! RIGHT AHEAD!" Then they started singing the Comet song ("Comet, it makes you vomit, so get your Comet, and vomit, today"). They were also joking about the names of the cast. "Avery? That's a girl's name! Rene??? Terry... ah, there's a person who will last... Siddig????? Cirroc??????? Armin??????? Like Armin Hammer??? Nana? (singing) Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, good bye!") When the titles came up, they said, "Our score: Deep Space 9, Babylon 5"). A character cried out "Julian!" and the MSTers replied, "FRIES!" And the running gag: every time an actor had to say or do something stupid, they would say, "I went to Julliard for this?"

Sunday Afternoon: Deja Vu

We stuck around for the afternoon this year, because Bill was speaking again. We caught the tail end of Robert Duncan McNeill. He was more awake on Sunday. Robert made some mention of Lost in Space fans, and Bill did this odd little sort of skip thing out to the middle of the stage, and then skipped back. Someone asked what his favorite SF shows were. He named a few, then said, "Recently, the best is Space Cases." About 1/8 of the audience seemed to know what he was talking about, and applauded. Bill milked the applause, then ran out and took a bow. Lots of people applauded at that point. Still, I suspect that Robert only mentioned SC because of Bill's presence. In fact, Liz leaned to everyone and said, "Any guesses as to how much Bill bribed Robert to mention that?"

Bill's afternoon speech was well worth the wait. He told some amazing stories about Babylon 5 and Alfred Hitchcock. Bill explained the use of the phrase "Zabagabe" in a B5 episode. He needed a Minbari chant, and none was scripted. "Zabagabe" is from a Barnes & Barnes album, and Bill tossed it in as an inside joke for the small cult following that B&B has. JMS saw it while reviewing the tapes, and said, "Bill, get over here." In the back of Bill's mind, he could hear "Warning! Warning! Danger! Danger!" JMS told Bill sternly, "Don't promote B&B on B5!" Apparently, JMS owns the Zabagabe CD.

As for Babylon 5, Bill told a rather long story about a prank that the cast played on Jason "Marcus" Carter, in which the entire crew tried to convince Jason that he was being written out of the show. In the end, JMS apologized and gave Jason a note promising not to kill him again. When Marcus was ultimately killed off, Jason said, "You can't do this! I've got a note!" JMS said, "I didn't kill Marcus; Marcus killed himself."

As Bill told his B5 and other stories, he did uncannily accurate imitations of various people’s voices: Mira Furlan (Delenn from B5), Jason Carter (Marcus from B5), Jonathan Harris (the original Dr. Smith), and Alfred Hitchcock. And he said he couldn't do voices!

About the Minbari hand position for fighting, Bill said it was sort of a satanic surfer thing (a combination of "hang loose" with the horns of Satan). He had no idea it was I Love You in sign language, but thought that was "bitchin!" He also made a joke about how Lennier was so spiritual that he was unconsciously caring about people while he was kicking their butt. He made a comment about how Lennier was "beating them up with love", then joked about how that would make a good song topic. (At least, I *think* he was joking)

Liz asked Bill her question about the origins of Space Cases. He brightened at the mention of the show. He told another side of the story: that he went to Nick to pitch a series based on his comic, Trypto the Acid Dog. Nick... thought he was nuts, but said that they knew him from LIS, and they would be interested in a show with kids in space. He outlined the series with Peter. As for the Ferna Herna episode: he told us that they originally intended to have four Ferna Herna: Jin, Pel, Gorge and Rongo, with the other two played by Miguel Ferrer and Bill Paxton, friends of Bill's who have worked with him on other projects.

Bill also told a story about working with Alfred Hitchcock: it was late in the day, they had to wrap, and Bill wouldn't stop fidgeting. Hitchcock came over and whispered in Bill's ear that he was going to nail his feet to the mark if he didn't stand still! Bill's mother told him it was just a joke, but Bill was afraid of walking by Hitchcock's office for the rest of his life!

We said our good-byes, and Suzanne and I headed back to Philadelphia… just in time for the evening rush.

Liz and Harrison stayed behind, to see a play and get Bill’s autograph for herself and my friend Suzanne. By the time the play was over, they discovered that the lines were closed. Bill passed by them, and Harrison asked if he would sign some things for them. Bill said "Sure, I just need a pen... they took the one I just had." So he walked over to his fan club table and asked, "Anyone got a sharpie? (a pen)" Someone handed him a magic marker, and he signed the things for us. The book Liz had him sign was a 1967 Lost in Space book, and he looked at it and said, "Wow. I haven't seen one of these in *ages*." :) Anyway, Liz thought that was pretty cool of him to do that for us. Liz told him she thought he was a good speaker, and then half-jokingly told him that he should try stand-up comedy sometime, and he sounded horrified of that idea. (grin)

Until next year, this is Tracey from Shore Leave, signing off…

1998: Con Reports by K/S Fans

Note that most of the art auction reports, skits, art show, and discussions described by K/S fans in the letterzine, The K/S Press and Usenet (specifically alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated) did not happen in public venues, but instead at the annual K/S Press room parties and other places. In fact, many K/S fans did not attend much of the official programming, but were there as part of a "con within a con."

I'm certain (well, hoping) that better reporters than I will fill everyone in on the official activities at Shore Leave. (Also, I didn't attend much of the "official" stuff. Just hung out with my Trek buddies.) But I do have to say how wonderful it was to have Trek conversations that didn't involve typing! And those of you who weren't there were talked about, but only nice things like "I wish 'Wildcat/Greywolf/Raku/Jonk/insert your name here' were here."

We want someone to write a story where the TSU faculty has to go to a management training seminar.

In one of the rooms, they showed the Star Trek movies all day Saturday, and I had a couple of wonderful experiences with that. Several of us went to the last part of Wrath of Kahn [sic]. Got there just in time for Spock's death. And it was just so great to watch that with like-minded people. Then we watched the beginning of III and left. Then we came back and watched the end of III and beginning of IV. Can't remember why we kept leaving.

Three of us went to a talk on "Return of Classic Trek." It was just two guys who were totally into plain vanilla Star Trek. And one of them (for some reason) re-enacted the end of Amok Time -- did all the lines. And when he said, "So Kirk says, 'Come on, Spock, let's go mind the store,'" the three of us looked at each other and said, "Euphemism!" Then he said "Zine people? We don't want to hear from you." (Guess he doesn't know about the net.)

Most exciting to the Professor of Kirkology was I got a copy of Shatner's biography -- Where No Man. I went back to my room, sat in my William Shatner chair (yes, I take it everywhere), and immersed myself in some pretty incredible stuff. It is a very flattering portrait of him -- hell, you can see the authors drooling. They also manage to lead the conversation in some intriguing ways. I may have a quibble about their skills as biographers (they weren't at all shy about displaying their own agenda), but I can't fault what they got out of him. Does anyone know why Shatner tried to buy up and destroy all the copies of this book? I have my theories, but if someone has actually heard something reliable, step right up to the microphone.

I found a lot of wonderful ideas and intriguing thoughts in this book. And the pictures -- Well! Waiter, just pour the pitcher of ice tea over my head.

The rest of this "report" is about a couple of interesting ideas that I encountered. A lot of what I'm about to say is probably old hat to many of you, but as a relative newcomer, who also encountered other relative newcomers, some of the conversations got my wheels turning.

One K/Ser shared with me her theory that, in the episodes, Spock is in love with Kirk, but Kirk doesn't return those feelings until ST:TMP. I've re-watched only a few episodes since Shore Leave, but just off the top of my head, this has a feeling of plausibility about it. Seems to me we see a lot of Kirk flirting with Spock, but then we see a lot of Kirk flirting with everyone. It's fun and diverting, and usually not too meaningful on his part. Spock's feelings do seem to run deeper. As the person who expressed this idea put it, "By the movie, Kirk has figured it out." Anyway, when the Sci Fi channel starts rerunning TOS (uncut!) this fall, I will definitely be watching with this thought in mind.

The same person also talked what non-K/S people see in Star Trek. (Subtext scanners off for this discussion.) Even if Kirk and Spock aren't lovers, you still have this incredible friendship. (And thank god for the word t'hy'la, because, as far as I know, we don't have a word in English to convey the depth of this relationship.)

Here are some of my thoughts on this. Many people have pointed out that what people saw in Star Trek was optimism. We made it to the future and the stars, and we all have a good time doing it! Under this category of optimism, I would include the Kirk/Spock relationship. We see two beings who are deeply connected, so much so that they will risk everything for each other. They understand each other, and they share with each other in ways they do with no one else. I think most people would love to have a friend like that, whether or not romance or sex was involved. It's something that I feel our society is especially reluctant to allow men. In Kirk, we see a shining example of a passionate man who is comfortable with his emotions, and is willing to examine his doubts and fears -- all no-no's for 20th Century men. Yet he does not appear weak. It is truly a step forward, and reason to hope for the future. And in the Kirk/Spock relationship, we see a connection that is genuinely awe-inspiring. They learn from each other, give to each other, and aren't ashamed of those things.

This is one of the reasons I would love to see more stories that deal with their relationship, outside of sexual/romantic context. I feel that if you see Kirk and Spock only in that context, you're almost short-changing them and perhaps yourself. In a way, it's like saying that such a connection cannot exist outside of romantic love. And I have found that to be untrue, at least in my own life. My husband and my t'hy'la were two different men. My t'hy'la passed away almost two years ago. I still feel that loss, and I expect to feel it for the rest of my life. I was connected to him in way that is different from my connection to my husband. Both ties are profound and precious beyond all description. I share this with you only to illustrate my belief that t'hy'la do not have to be in love with each other. YMMV.

The last idea that I'd like to share came from John Ordover of Pocket Books. Yeah, I was stunned, too, since I have found those works to be almost unreadable in the past few years. He announced that in 1999, they will publish the first book in a TOS trilogy, the theme of which is "Wagon Train to the Stars." Sound familiar? These books will cover the Enterprise's second five-year mission and will fill in the gap between ST:TMP and ST:TWOK. The Enterprise is assigned to escort a group of pioneer ships to a planet well outside of Federation space. At the end of the first book, they'll reach the planet. The next two will be about events that occur while they're stationed there, guarding this frontier settlement. By the end of the third book, ST:TWOK will be set up to happen. Ordover said these books will explain things such as how Kirk and Spock ended up where they are at the beginning of that movie. He also said that, because they'll be stationed in the same place for a long time, we'll see some relationships developing. His example was, "Chekov might have a girlfriend." Huh. That's not the relationship I was thinking of.

I know that many people don't consider Pocket Books to be anything near canon, and I'm in this camp myself, for the most part. However, this is an intriguing notion, and it will be interesting to see if any of the TOS fanfic writers decide to take the ball and run with it. (And now that I've let you in on it, we could beat 'em to it!) It's certainly running around in the back of my mind, and trying to move to the front. NOOOOOO! Back, back, new idea! Must finish other stories first!

In closing, I'm glad I went to Shore Leave (although I did suffer from con let-down when I got home), and I'm looking forward to whatever happens at Friscon.