And now in the "When Bad Things happen to Bad People" category...

[bovil]

...the only question is "Why didn't I hear of this earlier?"

So there's this thing called NASCAR. It's really popular, particularly in the south. It involves beer and "natural male enhancement" advertisements written all over American-made cars. The cars go around in circles for hours at a time. Not my idea of interesting. I prefer when racers have to turn corners in both directions.

For over 50 years, the "Southern 500" in Darlington, SC was a Labor Day tradition, at least until a track-shareholder in Texas sued NASCAR for anti-trust violations that froze out his track. 2004 was the last "Southern 500," and a lot of NASCAR fans were very disappointed. The Labor Day race was moved to Southern California.

5 years later, and NASCAR is ready to make a big event out of their Labor Day race again, Labor Day 2009.

They're reviving the "Southern 500" name.

They're moving the race back to the southeast.

Darlington, SC? Nope.

Atlanta.

Now what else happens in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend?

ETA: No, not the Chick-fil-A College Kick-off (University of Alabama vs. someone non-conference) at the Georgia Dome. But it looks like "Bama" and Chick-fil-A are on the fast track to make this an annual Labor Day event at the Georgia Dome...

Comments

[laragoth.livejournal.com]

Heh. D*C already had to deal with some football game last year. Now the NASCAR people?

Gweeeaaat....

[bovil.livejournal.com]

NASCAR people every year. It's likely a long-term contract with Atlanta Motor Speedway. The lack of a cup race in the southeast on Labor Day weekend has left a lot of NASCAR traditionalists cranky, and they'll get over it not being in Darlington again pretty quickly.

BTW, the average attendance at a NASCAR event is 180,000 people (2003 numbers), and not all of them can stay in RVs in the infield.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the University of Alabama is negotiating with the Georgia Dome for a Labor Day 2009 game. It looks like that may become an annual thing too...

[laragoth.livejournal.com]

Heh.

Well, for the short term, D and I have done our time at D*C. I'm sure we will go back sometime, but we've made no solid commitments to anything beyond SDCC next year.

I would like to see how this all pans out before I think of going again. So far...looks icky :P

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

I wonder what could be moved to San Diego in June...?

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Nothing. CCI is already over a barrel with its venues. It's a victim of its success. The local hotels and convention center don't need other groups creating additional demand to shrink room block commitments and drive up prices.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

That's too funny.

Goodbye cheap hotel prices!

[auroraceleste.livejournal.com]

Goodbye hotels, period. Last year I got my DC room in February, and people were still getting con rate in April. This year the Con hotels were sold out of con rates on October 1. Con block opened on Oct. 1. If it's gonna get worse a lot of people are just going to not bother coming. I wonder if that will make them consider changing the date . . .

[bovil.livejournal.com]

If the sports fans buy more rooms and buy rooms at rack rate, the D*Con room blocks will slowly and quietly shrink until most folks (con-goers included) are paying rack rate.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Hahahahahahha! Hahahahah!

What goes around comes around, beeeotches! Karmic fucking return on the D*C crowd, dammit.

Just saying.

*insert more maniacal laughter here*

[ala-mokita.livejournal.com]

Take a deep breath and wait for it to happen. The collison of the DC (Carnivalle Cruise Ship) and the Nascar (can you say Exxon Valdez) has yet to happen.

Celebrating prematurly might cause Uncle Murphy to rear his ugly head and COMBINE the 2 events into a brobdignagian nightmare car race/gaming/anime/sci-fi miasma where you'll weep to see Harlan Ellison driving the Robotech Pace Car. IT could happen. To us!

Now I will quietly wish them an interesting time, chinese style, and whoop it up after the crash of the century.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

*pthtthth* A girl can dream, can't she?

BTW, NASCAR fans would be more likely to stay in all the hotel rooms up the 85 corridor near Atlanta Speedway -- it's not anywhere near downtown. There are hundreds of room nights available up there, at mid-price hotel and motel chains.

[moonpuppy61.livejournal.com]

It involves beer and "natural male enhancement" advertisements written all over American-made cars.

I thought beer was the natural male enhancement?

[esprix.livejournal.com]

Having never attended DragonCon, I don't know what's wrong with it, so I'll just smile and nod. :)

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

I am trying to be a good bunny and not start into my rant, but basically, two things:

1. Founded by a pedophile.
2. Predatory con that aggressively worked to shut down other regional cons for years and years.

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

Er, don't you mean alledged pedophile? Innocent until proven guilty and all that?

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

You know, funny story. Back in the early '90's, I used to be on this mailing list for the Indigo Girls. Now, the thing was, about every few months or so, there'd be the same discussion that would come up. Someone on the list, usually a guy, would say something about how Amy and Em weren't *gay*, clearly, because you could just *tell* they were not. Now, this would seem really silly to those of us who knew them from the time they were a local band, because not only did we know they were gay, but we knew their lovers/partners, etc. I mean, you couldn't watch Amy go off on Michelle Malone during a fight, where Amy was singing up all kinds of confrontational shit and Michelle was getting hella drunk at the bar in the back of the room, and NOT know -- it was just a fact of life. But I guess, if you weren't *there*, and you didn't see it, then it was easier to be like those folks on the mailing list. I mean, if there wasn't some sort of *proof* for those people, then it must not be true. So no matter what we locals said, those folks stuck to their guns about how they weren't REALLY gay, or they would have said something, or how this or that lyric totally proved they were not gay. But you know, from the point of view of locals, it was ridiculous, clinging to the myth of heterosexual Indigo Girls. I mean, from the point of view of locals, the proof was right there, in front of our eyes. Incontrovertable.

And of course, now they're both "out", and those people who kept saying, "But there are lyrics that PROVE they're not gay!" look pretty silly.

Now, what's funny about that, is that it's sort of like this other thing that used to happen when I was a kid, where you know, some people had family members that everyone knew you just didn't leave alone with the kids. I had friends, they had an old uncle, or a grandfather, or some cousin, people knew that person "wasn't right", more or less. Often times at holidays, we'd be visiting around, and there would be some relative that we would say hello to, but you know, parents didn't leave us alone with that relative. Somebody heard that a kid was in the den with Uncle Tommy, they'd say, "You go on in there and get your cousin and tell him to come into the kitchen and get some pie." And maybe as kids we didn't know why, but parents did, or aunts and uncles. They knew, and they kept us safe, because people didn't think about calling the police for things like that. Which is sad, terribly sad, but that's how it happened. Families policed themselves, because it didn't occur to folks to tell the sheriff about Uncle Tommy. Because of that, Uncle Tommy might spend his whole twilight years eating off a TV tray table in the den, getting older until he died, and when he did die, people would cluck and shake their heads at his funeral, and say to each other in murmured tones that it was all for the best.

Amy and Em, they weren't "alleged" lesbians -- some people just didn't know the truth yet. And Uncle Tommy and men like him aren't innocent just because they never got convicted. If a parent and local fan in Atlanta tells you to keep your kids away from Uncle Tommy, or Grandaddy Ray, or some comic shop owner, I'd pay attention, because they're probably doing you a favor.

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

Hum, I was more concerned about Innocent Until Proven Guilty and all that stuff. I have no problem with parents or relatives policing things. In fact I would probably prefer they called the police before some innocent wasn't sufficiently warned.

Of course this raises the point of where the line is with preaching or conspiring to commit a crime or being a member of NAMBLA (or whatever the acronym is). If someone says X and I have talked and we are going to go out and rob a bank, are they really guilty of conspiracy, or if they say X and I robbed that bank yesterday, can you really say they are guilty, or are they still "allegedly guilty". Because if you wind up on the wrong side of that line you could be guilty of slander / libel.

So, my preference would be say he is "an alleged pedophile under house arrest and if he ever gets out everyone should keep their children away from him."

P.S. Oh yeah, being a Lesbian or being Gay isn't a crime (at least not any place I live or want to live). It's more like being White or Black. So, while some might disagree with me, I don't think saying someone is a Lesbian is the same as saying someone is guilty of a crime.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Gosh, if you think I was equating homosexuality with crime, you've missed the point. Perhaps you should read the story again. Several times. You yourself may have a preference for "alleged". I would never use the word "alleged" when dealing with statements of fact. I also didn't say anything about being a member of NAMBLA, or talking about something.

But again, you're welcome to use the word "alleged". I was the one who didn't, and you challenged me about that. I tried to explain why someone might not need to use the word alleged My impression is that you're a Yankee, and the subtext may have been lost on you, though.

[rinolj.livejournal.com]

paradoox wrote:

Hum, I was more concerned about Innocent Until Proven Guilty and all that stuff.

I see no prison bars, here.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

The Ed Kramer story is just a sordid side-show (and there's more than enough sordid to go around in it).

My concerns are more to do with Dragon*Con's predatory and/or head-in-the-sand business decisions.

There's the bad NASFiC with the art show that was closed down by the fire marshall and rearranged so it couldn't be navigated with a wheelchair.

There's the post-NASFiC move to Labor Day weekend when they knew artists and authors who had to make a hard financial decision would make more sales at Dragon*Con than they would at Worldcon.

There's the lack of support or even attention from the exec committee towards any department or track that they don't really care about.

There's the bad masquerade and bad audience behavior. The masquerade is still bad, but at least the audience heckling was killed when the MC's (not the director or the con) put a stop to it. I've had friends recruited to run their masquerade, and their experiences were uniformly bad.

There's the music licensing fiasco from a few years back; turns out they had never paid any ASCAP or BMI licenses for music at the con (and they have a lot of music).

Then there's the misconduct in the costume program track. There were well-documented reports of sexual harassment by the track head that were ignored by the executive committee and board before the staffer went public (then the board got a slew of additional complaints from other women who had worked in the department). There was the well-documented allegation of selling front-row seats for the "Adult Masquerade" and pocketing the money. Oh, and there are all the youTube videos of program items where he wastes half the panel with his own introduction. The track head is still there.

Oh, and there's that little bit about them stealing the CC26 logo for the costume program track web page. It's gone now.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

BTW, see also "Breendoggle". Whether it was appropriate to ban from a con, history has shown us that defenders of the person in that case were wrong to do so, as he was ultimately demonstrated to have been sexually assaulting minors.

[sarcasm-hime.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely. *sigh*