Episode 130: Pam Noles
In Episode 130, Elizabeth and Flourish interview Pam Noles, the self-described “executive geek” in charge of one of the restricted entrances to Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con. They discuss Pam’s history with cons, how being on-staff changes the con-going experience, and the past, present, and future of SDCC. Plus: Pam tells some behind-the-scenes stories about saying “no” to A-listers, studio executives, and the kind of people who say things like, “Don’t you know who I am?!?”
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:02:18] Comic-Con at Home is happening!
[00:05:09] Our interstitial music here and elsewhere is “Quirky Small Town Characters” by Lee Rosevere, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:07:10]
[00:10:06] The woman throwing shoes apparently has been given the moniker “the Costco Karen.”
[00:16:20] Apparently Tom Mison was not actually, himself, naked in Watchmen, and very much wants us to know that.
[00:31:24]
[00:32:00] The dek of Vanity Fair’s article about Oscar Isaac’s disaffection with Star Wars is “Hope you enjoyed Poe Dameron while he lasted” and, yep.
[00:34:23] Tom Spurgeon actually wrote guides to Comic-Con every year for many years: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. Pretty much all his advice still applies!
[00:37:06] Flourish insists that the LotR Zoom reunion was the best one, despite the presence of Josh Gad.
[00:37:50] If you too want to watch the Red Dwarf live commentaries, they’re here!
[00:46:48] Yeah...Downtown Disney doesn’t look very socially distanced. (Note, we recorded this before they announced they were opening Disney World.)
[00:59:13] A 100% accurate picture of Elizabeth Minkel:
[01:02:01]
[01:06:49] If you like Star Trek and haven’t yet read Diane Duane’s Rihannsu series, they are highly recommended!
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #130, “Pam Noles.”
FK: Pam Noles! And Pam Noles is probably not a name that you know, but one that you ought to know, because Pam is I would say one of my favorite parts of San Diego Comic-Con every year.
ELM: Oh yeah. Top, top, I was gonna say top 10 part, but definitely top 3.
FK: Yeah. So Pam is a member of the Programming staff at SDCC, specifically she’s on the Hall H team, and she handles one of the restricted access entrances into Hall H. And she is funny and she has some amazing war stories and because we are really missing San Diego Comic-Con right now, we thought this was the right time to invite her to come on the podcast!
ELM: OK. Not to explain it too much, but restricted access means that people will come and say “Don’t you know who I am?! I have to get in this door!” and Pam will say “sorry sir.”
FK: [laughs] It’s true. It’s like where the press comes in and where, like, the executives and so on, the suits.
ELM: Don’t you know who they are?
FK: Don’t, don’t, don’t, no. I don’t know who they are. And I work in the industry! Often I don’t know who they are.
ELM: [laughs] I am missing Comic-Con thinking of last year, we went to this party and we were the, like, next in line for like 45 minutes, and we got to watch so many “Don’t you know who I am”s, it was really incredible experience.
FK: And then we were the last people allowed into the party because we were not assholes who said “Don’t you know who I am”!
ELM: Yeah. We didn’t have to do any fighting.
FK: None. We just sat there and were polite to the person working the door, who was having a terrible night.
ELM: [laughing] Anyway, SDCC would have been this past weekend, when this comes out. It’ll be a couple of days before the virtual con that they’re doing this year, so we can put a link in the show notes to all that stuff. But I don’t know, talking to Pam is more exciting than a virtual con to me, that’s my personal opinion.
FK: [laughs] It really is, honestly! And it’s, and it’s, it’s great. Cause at actual Comic-Con we usually get like a minute or two to say “Hi Pam!” Cause she’s too busy. So, so this is ideal.
ELM: OK but before we talk to her, should we do some business?
FK: Yes. So, despite the fact that we had our very first short ad last time, we are still almost entirely—like, really almost entirely—supported by listeners like you. And the way that you can make sure this podcast keeps going is by pledging to our Patreon at patreon.com/fansplaining. We have a bunch of rewards; they’re great. Our pins are now all going out again, like normal, from the before times, which is the $5 Patron reward.
ELM: In fact, more pins are being made in China as we speak!
FK: They are. More pins are being made. So please, we need more people to sign up for $5 rewards so that we’re not stuck with a bunch of pins!
ELM: Yeah, exactly. That’s the only reason to do it.
FK: [laughs] Anyway, there’s also lots of digital rewards as well, some special episodes, we’re probably gonna get back on that special episode horse pretty soon, so yeah. Sign up and give us some money, I guess, is the summary.
ELM: Wow. First of all, horse? Special episode horse?
FK: [laughs] It’s a horse. It can be a horse.
ELM: All right. Patreon.com/fansplaining, yeah, we are going to do another in our Tropefest series very soon, maybe within the next couple of weeks. So if you haven’t been listening to those, pledge $3 a month and you can listen to “Trapped Together,” “Enemies to Lovers,” I’ve forgotten the other ones because it was a couple months ago but that’s like nine years ago in pandemic time.
FK: And if you don’t want to or can’t chuck us some cash, there’s still other ways that you can support us. So you can send us a question or a comment at fansplaining at gmail dot com, or on our social media which is all fansplaining, or via phone—1-401-526-FANS. Or you can review us, tell your friends about us, generally get the word out about fansplaining, because the more people listen, the more people who see us and listen and support us? It’s great. Keep that snowball rollin’. OK.
ELM: I feel like you are a snowball. Just rollin’. Out of control.
FK: [laughing] Unfortunately it’s, it could do with some stopping, but it’s not stopping.
ELM: Snowball in July! Subscribing too is actually important, some podcast sites including iTunes do take subscriptions into account. So if you listen to us semi-regularly, please subscribe!
FK: All right, cool. I think that’s the business we needed to cover!
ELM: That is, we’re done.
FK: All right, shall we call Pam?
ELM: Yeah, let’s do it.
[Interstitial music]
FK: All right, I think it’s time to welcome Pam to the podcast! Welcome, Pam!
Pam Noles: Hellooo Flourish, Elizabeth! I’m so happy to be here, thank you thank you! Oo!
FK: Ahh!
ELM: So excited to have you, this almost makes up for Comic-Con being canceled!
PN: No. No. [ELM laughs] No it doesn’t. [all laughing]
ELM: This is, all right. This is the best possible consolation. Right?
PN: This is still part of the experience. As we get closer to the 22nd, 23rd—to me it would actually have been the 20th, you know—I feel myself being more and more, I’m going to cry!
ELM: Aww!
PN: But, getting together with my friends…
ELM: You’re making me sad!
PN: You know, they started releasing the schedule, so I’ve been going through it, I’m like “I can actually go to panels!” I have not been to a Comic-Con panel in like, 15 years. [FK laughs]
ELM: Incredible!
PN: This is gonna be great!
ELM: I can’t wait, we’re gonna have to get your reaction afterwards. Tell us what it’s like to go to panels for the first time in ages.
FK: Panels: are they better or worse than you remember? [all laughing]
PN: WonderCon is my panel, my panel show. WonderCon I can go to panels, cause I work at night during WonderCon. But Comic-Con? Gave up panels a long time ago. [laughing]
ELM: OK, all right, let’s start where we usually start with guests. Can you give us your, like, fannish history? Like, you’ve been in fandom for a—
FK: Fannish origin story.
ELM: Yeah, your origin story.
PN: [laughs] My fannish origin story!
ELM: You’ve been in fandom a long time, right?
PN: Oh yeah. The very first convention I went to…was in…Cleveland, I wanna say. Metropolis, some Metropolis thing. Years and years ago. I was a kid, and I didn’t know what it was, and I just went cause I was downtown and I saw something going on at the convention center. I just walked up. I was like “This is great!” [FK laughs]
And then it was around the same time Buckaroo Banzai, yeah, it was around the same time. Because that was also when I wrote a letter to the studio about Buckaroo Banzai and they wrote back. There was a, there was a newsletter and everything. Do you, do you remember that movie? The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension? It came and went.
FK: I believe that I am much too young.
PN: Oh, right! [ELM laughs] I’M OLD! [comedy old person voice] Back in my day…
FK: Sorry! I’m sorry!
PN: [comedy old person voice] They didn’t make movies on your computer! Ya had ta leave the house! And you went to the mall! And you were the only one there for Buckaroo Banzai! [normal voice] So at the end of the run, the manager, the theater manager gave me the one-sheet. I still have it. And…
FK: [laughing] You were really into Buckaroo Banzai!
PN: I love that movie so much! It’s really great! I met my best friend because of Buckaroo Banzai! Anyways. I ramble sometimes. So then there was that, then…I knew, I had heard about Comic-Con, I used to live back east, but it wasn’t until I moved to California, took a job, and it was the Sunday, the last Sunday of con, and I was living in Palm Springs, and me and one of the other reporters were like, “Let’s go down and see what this thing is!” And it was back when, you know, we only had I think like 25 or 30,000 people. It was a small show, and it wasn’t taking up the whole center.
And we went in and we walked in, it was like, first thing I thought was “I don’t have enough money.” Walked into that exhibit floor and was like, “Damn.” [all laugh] “We will plan for next year. It’s a whole year planning!” Got the room, got everything budgeted, and volunteered, just walked on as a day volunteer that year, just testing, just to see. I always like to see how things work. Volunteering is a great way to do that.
And then I got recruited by [inaudible], came back the next year, started doing official volunteer stuff. And been with them ever since, in many different departments. I have met, I call them my con family, some of my best friends on Earth, through Comic-Con. They’re just, they’re wonderful people, they’re ridiculous people, they’re wicked smart, very organized, teach me stuff, you know? I just love con. A lot. Even those times, sometimes, where you’re being screamed at. Not by con people but by attendees. [all laugh] I love them too.
FK: You have, you do have a job that it seems like would probably put you in that line of fire often.
PN: Yes. It’s the, where you have to say no—as a matter of fact, part of my, when the 22nd comes, when con is officially open? I’m gonna find somewhere around here a door to stand in front of and tell people they can’t come in. [all laugh]
ELM: You could do, you could do mask enforcement!
FK: You could do mask enforcement!
ELM: You could be like “No mask?” And they’d be like “Let me in!” [all laughing] Yeah! Find a business that’s having issues with this…
PN: That’s right! Any Costco. Any Walmart. Any major grocery store…apparently some shoe store? I saw a video yesterday, some woman threw boxes of shoes at the workers cause they were like “You can’t come in without a mask.”
ELM: Oh my God.
PN: Go to a dentist’s office…I’ve been watching way too many of those videos.
ELM: All right, don’t actually do this cause I don’t want anyone to throw shoes at you Doesn’t seem worth it just for the hell of it.
PN: I got reflexes! They’ll never be able to hit me! Dodge! Dodge! [all laughing]
ELM: When you first went to SDCC, like, could you ever have envisioned that you would be so deep in it, so many years later? Like…
PN: Nope! Not at all. Not at all. And I have to say, it enhanced my experience. I don’t know if that makes sense. We were talking earlier, it’s been awhile since I’ve been to a panel at the big show. But in exchange for that, I have different kinds of relationships with people. I see how the system works. I like systems. I like working in conventions, you know. This isn’t the only convention I work for. Well, actually, COVID, I work for nobody now. [all laugh] Everything is gone.
But, to see how many people it takes to make something like this happen, the dedication they have to have, the frustrations that you have to figure out ways around—I just like it. I’ve learned so much watching and I’ve learned so much listening and then doing stuff, and like “OH! That was great!” “Oh, that didn’t work. All right. I’ll just wait for Eddie to say something. Sorry!” [laughs] You didn’t see it, it didn’t happen. Yeah, but it’s a different kind of experience. Con worker bees, we have a different relationship to shows than attendees do, but it’s no less a one. It’s just a different one. You have to really love this stuff in order to put up with what you have to put up with when you’re running a show, you know? We’re like executive—you ever heard of Eddie Izzard? He had that whole “executive transvestite” thing? I’m like, we’re like executive geeks. You know? [all laugh] We are more geek than you are! And it’s all valid. So. Yeah.
FK: So does that change your relationship to, like, the stuff that comes to the show, too? Does that change your relationship to comic books or to, you know, your favorite TV show or whatever? Or is it just that like, in the time of the con that’s different, and then when you leave the con you’re back to having the same relationship to the shows and everything else. Cause…you know? Does it create a fundamental difference for you now that you, like, are in that con space part of the time? And you’re in that particular position?
PN: That’s a great question. That’s actually a great, that’s a really good—fundamentally, for me, how I relate to the fan stuff I like, the books I like, the shows I like? It’s all the same. It doesn’t change by working or volunteering with show. The only slight change might be more studio people. [FK laughs]
ELM: Yeah, that was gonna be my question! Because that seems like the big difference, right?
PN: Studio people! I have, I kinda get it now, why they can be so tense sometimes. You see the pressure they’re under, you know. For those of you, you see them, like, “Wow, OK.” But at the same time, it’s interesting, like, I’ll have to deal with big studio people and then their assistants, or just, managers. All these people, they have clouds of folks around them.
And it’s always been fascinating to me—although I saw this in the general working world too: a lot of times the higher up the chain the person is, the chiller they are. It is the ones beneath them who are, you know, lower on the chain, that can be like, “RAWR! I WANT THIS NOW! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!” And I’m like “I don’t care.” [all laugh] “That’s not what you got with the pass and I can’t do anything about it, sorry.” So that is an interesting dynamic. But it doesn’t change the way I feel about the fan stuff I like.
ELM: Yeah, this is a question—this like, do you ever think like, when you go see like a, a big blockbuster movie and it’s something you really like, do you ever think, like, “Oh, I saw,” you know, “I had to like,” what’s the right word? Not “shepherd.” What’s the word for...
PN: Oh, when we liaise?
ELM: Rustlin’? I’m trying to think… [laughing]
PN: Wrangle! Wrangle. Guest wrangling.
FK: Rustlin’! I like rustlin’ better.
ELM: Like herding—
FK: I’m totally gonna steal some of these people and just escort them away. [all laughing]
ELM: You know? But you think, like, “Oh, nine months prior I saw all the people who made this,” like, does that ever—like, make you, like, does it make it harder to suspend your disbelief and think, like, “This is a magical piece of cinema that just, like, sprung from imagination”? To think about those mechanics at all?
PN: [laughing] It doesn’t…cause me to…make it more difficult for me to suspend my disbelief. It does give me a greater appreciation for it. Like, have you ever seen live magicians, you know? Like Copperfield and the people at the Magic Castle and stuff? It’s amazing, but once you learn how they do it, like once I was able to be an assistant to a magician for a thing—and that’s all I can say about it—but they trained me on “here’s how this trick is done.” And I was like “This is even more amazing!” You know?
I do, however, sometimes I will go see, like, big blockbusters or even smaller things and I just remember, Mm-hmm. I remember, I know what you did backstage.
FK: Oooooooh. [ELM laughing]
PN: I remember, I’m not, I’m not gonna hold it against you, but I will never forget it. [laughs] But it doesn’t get in the way of my enjoyment.
FK: That seems like a superpower to me, man, because like, when I have had moments when I’ve encountered people in ways that are like—I don’t know. Like, one year, the year at Comic-Con that I met all the people from Sleepy Hollow it was like, I’m never gonna be able to write Sleepy Hollow fanfiction again, it’s done, goodbye. You know? I don’t know, I just couldn’t do it. [PN laughing]
I mean to be fair, part of that probably had to do with the fact that there were sex scenes and things, you know. And like—once you’ve met someone you’re like “I don’t know if I can like, write that.”
PN: Compartmentalization, my friend! Compartmentalization is key! [laughing]
ELM: It could’ve been a research opportunity! You could’ve been like, “Turn around please, so I can get some details.” You know.
FK: It’s true. It’s true! Well, you know, the joke’s on me because like, Tom Mison then was in Watchmen and he’s naked a bunch of the time in it, so like, actually clearly he doesn’t care.
PN: So you’re actually respecting his choice!
ELM: Mm-hmm!
FK: If I were to write fanfic about this, yes, I would be respecting his choice! [all laugh] To be naked all the time in Watchmen! Sure! That’s respectful!
PN: In stunning detail.
FK: Ahh, don’t worry. Don’t worry, Tom Mison, if you’re listening to this, I have not penned a word about you in that respect since we met, because that’s creepy. For me. Personally. And now he’s gonna, like, get this Google alert on his name or something, you know, and it’s just gonna be like all over for me. I’m gonna, I’m gonna go into some meeting someday—or he’ll be someone’s friend, you know what I mean, I’m just gonna be like, “We can—no.” Have to turn right around and walk out.
PN: You’ll be on the list. [all laugh] The list we have. “That’s the one, yes.”
FK: Oh, I don’t wanna be on the list! No, that’s not a list I wanna be on. Do you actually have a list? I assume you must have a list.
PN: Yes.
FK: There’s a list. Yeah. There is a list.
ELM: Wait, a list—a positive list or a negative list?
PN: There’s both! There’s both.
ELM: Oh, all right.
PN: That’s not just con, though, that’s any event like this.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
PN: Dealing with celebrities or stuff like that, or even corporate people have the same kind of thing. One of my corporate jobs is the same thing. The negative list is the more important one, you just have to be aware if there’s something going on, you know? Like, they will give you “here are the names, here’s the lookbook, be aware.” That hardly ever happens at con. In all the time I’ve been there I can think of four, four times with four different guests where it was “here is the person, here is what the person looks like, here is what you do if.” And it’s like, OK.
Mostly, like—fans, we’re like, you know who we are! We’re like “Yes!” We’re so excited. We tend not to be dangerous. Tend not to be dangerous. Right? Can be really intense, can be really—that’s why I don’t, I try not to, I’m not gonna say I don’t. I try not to take it personal with some of the stuff that happens at the door. Because they’re just so excited! It’s like, “you have a pass, you’ll be fine.” “I wanna be—!!!” “You can’t now. I swear to God. Everybody will be cleared out and you will have a space.” And I get it. They’re just excited, you know? I was like that! There are certain things I’m like that with. Although through my other experiences I now temper that a lot. Just, “OK. Just let me know.” You know? But they tend not to be dangerous.
When a name comes up, then that’s, that’s a red flag. That’s a really red alert. Orange alert! You know? It’s a rare thing.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
PN: Yeah.
ELM: Do you, like, how will you—I’m always so impressed when I see you, you seem so in control of everything. Is this something, a skill you’ve built over time, to be just like, you know, to be—to be that calm when people are so anxious and excited and, and self-righteous about how they’re gonna get in? You know? Like—I’ve witnessed this, right? You know? Like, so…I don’t know if you know this for context, like, I’ve worked taking bets at a thoroughbred racetrack for the past 17 years, and so I similarly encounter a lot of humans in a very heightened state…
PN: Yep.
ELM: And it, you know, it is a very special, it’s like a skill that you have to really cultivate in that space, to be like, if someone’s screaming in your face about how they can’t do the thing that they wanna do, you know, and they’re so hyped out about the horse race or whatever, you know.
PN: Where money’s on the line, so you get it, right. Yeah! Really similar. Yeah, it is part skill from other jobs—like my other career, I was a mainstream newspaper reporter for many years. And so part of that is like, people getting in your face if they don’t want that. They don’t want to hear what you have to say. You know? But part of it is also—don’t get me wrong: there’s a little room in the back where it gets so much, I just go stand in that room for a little while. [all laugh] And breathe. And you’ve seen my, my yellow shirts, you know. They’re like “She’s not available right now.” [laughs]
And then on some days, really intense days, at the end as soon as the floor is closed, I’m off with my friends. I am on my way to the room, and I walk in, and they have my scotch waiting for me. You know? So. There are coping mechanisms.
But part of the things they look for when they look for volunteers to put in certain positions is you gotta be able to keep a calm head. You have to be able to. I’ve been punched, I’ve been spat upon, I had—oh man, I remember, I had this really cute little—this is on the record—I had this really cute little white dress, like, white vinyl dress, I was like “I look cute!” And some kid was trying to get to… Buffy actor. Marsters. Blond.
ELM: James?
FK: James Marsters?
PN: Yeah. Was trying to get to him.
ELM: James Marsters.
PN: And I was like “The line is here,” and the kid just grabbed me, ripped my dress. By accident! He was just trying to get to him. And I was like—one of my assistants was about to take him out and I was like “Don’t. He didn’t—don’t.”
ELM: It’s like a child, like an actual child, not like a teenaged boy?
PN: No, no, it was a teenaged boy.
ELM: All right. I’m a little unsympathetic.
FK: The way you were describing this, you must have this really look-for-the-good attitude in all people, because I was convinced that was a little child. Teenaged boy for me is like a different story.
ELM: I was like, “A six year old, couldn’t help it!” Yeah, no, teenaged boy trying to get to Spike, it’s like “Calm down!” You know? Unnecessary!
PN: He was a fan! He was a fan. He had a thing, he was getting them all to sign this thing! You know, stuff like that will happen. You’ve gotta be able to keep a cool head, but most importantly you have to be able to treat everyone decently, you know? Even if they’re treating you not-so. If I go off on some of these people, that’s not gonna look bad on me. That’s gonna look like hell on con. You know?
ELM: Yeah.
PN: I can’t scream back at the studio person screaming stuff at me. I can just calmly “No. No. No.” “I need to talk to your supervisor!” “OK. He’s on stage right now.” [laughs] “Here’s my name,” you know. And a lot of times you can deescalate a situation. But sometimes you also have to be able to hold the line. Sometimes “No” is “no.” And it’s up to the fire marshal! It might look like the room is open; it is not. He shut it down. He’s Galactus, there’s nothing we can do. Piss off the fire marshal, he can shut down the whole show, you know? So.
People get tied up on “this is the thing I have to do,” you know. Be they worker bees, be they fans. “This is the one thing and nothing else matters.” And part of our job, a lot of us, is, “Well, this is one part of a bigger system, and this can’t happen until X happens, until we get permission for Y to happen. And until that happens, you may stand there quietly. Or not. You can stand there screaming. But the answer’s not gonna change.”
ELM: You’re making me feel nostalgic for the, like, the well-oiled machine that is San Diego Comic-Con!
PN: [laughs] I’m glad it looks that way! We try!
ELM: Everyone always seems so in control of everything, you know? Just compare—it’s always weird too because I think that was the first con I ever went to, and it was only five years ago. I was not really an IRL fan prior to a few years ago, as opposed to Flourish, who’s always been very IRL. But like, going to other cons after that, that were not even that much smaller but just a little more…shambolic.
PN: Yeah.
ELM: You know?
PN: Yeah.
ELM: And it’s just like, “Oh, that’s really—that’s pro. Everyone’s really,” you know.
PN: I do still have a problem sometimes though, when I go to like, book signings or like—I’ve been to a couple of, like, big huge actual studio premiere openings, and I just, I just— “Oh, your line is just awful.”
FK: Yeah, yep yep yep. That is a familiar feeling, Pam. I don’t know if you know this but I used to run Harry Potter cons—little ones, you know, I mean, not, not giant ones like Comic-Con.
PN: Oh, I didn’t know that! Cool.
FK: 2,000 people or whatever, yeah. I was the lead organizer for one of them and I was really involved with the others and literally it took me years to not, when I went to a con, start either volunteering or being volunteered to do things that I was, you know [laughs] was like…the nice thing about Comic-Con for me, actually, when I started going was—in fact, the first time I went to Comic-Con it was right after I had just got done being on concom for one of these small Harry Potter cons, and it was great because I knew that at this giant event, I was not going to get volunteered for anything. [all laugh] It was gonna be nothing going on that I could impact in any way, shape, or form, and therefore I was safe.
ELM: Pure spectator!
PN: You were free!
FK: Yeah, absolutely!
ELM: Wait, do you, do you train your—the volunteers? Or do they, do they, does someone else train them? Like, you know. Cause you have people who support you, like, structurally. Like, do you—are you the one who trains them, or…?
PN: It depends on department. In this department, I don’t have to train anybody. I have like the guards I have, the two teams of guards I have, one inside, one outside. The black shirts are inside, the yellow shirts are outside. The yellow shirts all I have to do is like, “OK. Here’s what we do at this door, here’s what you look for,” you know, “here’s how you tell them no, and then come get me and I will tell them no.” But the CSC guys, they’re pretty trained.
The black shirts inside, what they’re doing with the reserved seating, I’ve worked with the same team in there for years—in fact I ask for them. I don’t even have to ask for them any more. The same people come up. I’m like, “Yes!” And so they run it like, and they also work conventions, so. But different departments have—there is training for different departments. It depends on what you’re doing. For registration there’s a whole training thing, different day volunteers, the art show, masquerade, there is training, but different departments, it all depends.
ELM: But you don’t have to train.
PN: No.
ELM: So wait, so some people are paid and some people are volunteers?
PN: Yeah.
ELM: OK, gotcha.
PN: I think that’s the only way you can pull off an event that size.
ELM: Yeah, I was gonna say! Well, especially if you guys are—you know, anyplace where everyone has to be working every day, then how do you incentivize a volunteer, right? Because they have to have a little time to, you know. Like a little mix of like, what they’re doing there, right?
PN: They have to work X number of hours and then they get a free pass into the show.
ELM: Gotcha.
PN: Yeah.
ELM: That’s interesting. You’re not gonna tell us any thinly-veiled anecdotes from your time…
FK: Elizabeth! [all laugh] Elizabeth loves gossip.
ELM: You love gossip too! Come on.
FK: I also love gossip, but I think that it’s better to pretend that you love gossip and then the gossip naturally flows to me.
PN: [laughs] So then you’re covered! She got you covered!
FK: Exactly! Yeah!
ELM: You don’t have to tell us anything. I just, I have so many questions you probably can’t answer.
PN: I do know—I told this story a bunch of times, actually. All right. So, in H, you can tell some of them get up there…it’s amazing, standing on that stage and there’s 6,000, 6,500 people screaming your name, right? And you can tell some of them have fear in their eyes. You can just, like, “Oh my God.”
ELM: It’s so good.
PN: They have different ways of dealing with it. Once—and I will thinly veil it. It’s not a negative thing, but it’s hilarious to me. I was in the back checking on my worker I have in the back docks, where the limos drop the people off so they can walk on stage. And a big huge movie was coming out. Huge movie was coming out. And big huge actor was on the panel. Very large actor. [all laugh] Comes out with a little, with the guy who was doing the panel hosting, not a large man, a very smaller man compared to this larger man. Large, gorgeous locks, man.
He gets out—Lisa Bonet’s husband. [all laugh] So he gets out of the car and he’s, he’s got like, those really tall beers. Stout. He gets out, and he starts walking down the dock ramp, and he slams it. He puts it down, hands it to an assistant, who gives him another one—[FK: gasps]—and he slams that as he walks in the door. And me and my guy was like, “Did you just see that?” [laughing] It was the most amazing thing! Didn’t break stride, the little man next to him was trying to keep up, it was the funniest thing. [all laughing]
And then, I had to just peek in on that panel, cause usually I’m outside. I had to peek in. And he was all cool, he was chill, he was everything, but [laughs] the host guy was slammed. He was out. He was like “Eyy!” I was like, yep. Body mass and attitude. I don’t know, but it was the funniest thing on earth.
ELM: This is at the heart of my real question, because I have seen now many panels in Hall H—
FK: Where everyone is—
ELM: —they seem like they—
FK: —completely plastered.
ELM: —had, yeah!
PN: I think it happens a lot! [laughs]
ELM: Well I watched one, I saw a couple years ago, I watched the Westworld panel and they said, cause they were all super giggly. And then someone was like, “We all did tequila shots in the parking lot!” And I was like “OK guys! Maybe you did many, because I don’t know if you’re supposed to say that, like…” and they were like “Ha ha ha!” And then like the moderator—I can’t remember who it was but he was trying to have a really complicated, like, conversation about the nature of consciousness, and they were all like—
FK: Yeah, cause it’s Westworld, right?
PN: Oh, bless. I love the moderators who are like—
ELM: And Ed Harris was like, “Where am I?” And it was like…
PN: —and they don’t read the room. There was, some moderators are great at it, you know? They understand. Or even some of the talent, like, I’ve always said and I think other people have said too: Robert Downey Jr. knows exactly what that room wants and he gives it to them every fucking year. Without fail.
FK: He sure does. He sure does
PN: Certain moderators are really good. They read the room and they’re like, “OK, they just wanna have fun.” Some of them, I’ve seen them with their cards and they have serious questions, and I’m like “Yeah…nope.” And that’s what a good pro moderator does. That’s why getting those comedians and podcasters and other actors who are good at that, those improv people. They make the best moderators. They are really good at it. And they make sure the attention is on the cast, which is what people want to see, and not on them and their ultra-complicated questions about consciousness. I mean really, where are you? This is not the academic con! This is H!
FK: Yeah. I was gonna say, it’s funny because it’s like totally—it’s a totally different vibe, it’s a totally different room than what you would want on some other panels, right? Cause there’s, there’s panels for that. I mean, even at Comic-Con, sometimes there’s panels for that. And at other cons, certainly there are. But within Hall H, it’s like—it’s a very different vibe. And yet at the same time, you know, you also see sometimes panels where it’s like, here is a bunch of the nothingburger questions that you would have at like, you know, your presser, you know. And it like, that’s not it either.
PN: Yeah.
FK: You know? Like…
ELM: Yeah, yeah yeah.
FK: I don’t personally care about how great you think the director is! We know that you’re contractually obligated to say he’s great. We know that! You don’t need to say that! I don’t care! [all laughing]
PN: Oh my God and recently we saw just that example! What was it? You know what I’m talking about!
FK: Oh yeah.
PN: Walkin’ it back!
FK: “I retract everything I said about Joss Whedon.” Ooooh.
PN: I was like “Whoa! What happened?”
FK: Yeah! You said the thing out loud that people are thinking inside their heads! Normally that’s an indoor thought!
PN: Oh my goodness. [laughing] Or like Boyega, once his Star Wars was done, all of them just like “We’re free! This is what I really think!” I’m like, “You just go ahead and live your best life.” [all laughing]
ELM: Wait, you saw what—did you guys see what Oscar Isaac said about whether he would do Star Wars again?
PN: Nuh-uh.
ELM: He said “If I need another house.” [FK gasps; all laugh]
FK: That’s the thing we say about the actor! We say “I guess he needed to make a boat payment!” The actor doesn’t say that about himself! Man!
ELM: He can say anything he wants in his cable knit sweater and his tighty whiteys!
PN: Honesty.
FK: He can, he can. His ass gives him the ticket. [all laugh]
ELM: Yeah.
FK: He can say whatever he feels like.
ELM: It’s fine.
FK: It’s true.
ELM: It’s really funny.
PN: That’s great! Another house.
ELM: It’s interesting because you know, you’re talking about these like A-list actors come on, and some of them look so scared, and I always find it really interesting, because I think it’s like, you know, probably a lot of them—especially the Americans—haven’t done theater, and maybe have never had that experience of being…even if you’ve done theater, you don’t often…
FK: A 6,000 person theater!
ELM: 6,000 people! That’s true!
PN: I was just about to say that: you can tell the ones who are used to live performances versus the ones who are on movie sets or TV sets and they’re closed and it’s just a small group and they’re talking to the camera that’s not talking back to them. Or shouting their names. Or anything. You know? Yeah.
ELM: Yeah! Like, I mean, I can’t imagine what that would be like. I get nervous when, you know, when I’m standing and giving a presentation of like 100 people or whatever. But like, it’s just funny to see how some of—you know. Cause it’s like, you want everyone to be Robert Downey Jr. and to be like, reacting, giving you what you want, but I think some of them just can’t. That’s too, that’s not the way that they operate. They’re not that kind of, you know, quick, quick reaction.
PN: But it’s adorable to watch them settle in and try, and you know. [laughs] It’s adorable! You see this fear, and then it slowly goes away! And they get a little more calm, you know? They feel more comfortable, they realize “Yes! There’s 6,500 people in the room, but you can’t actually see them! Just talk to the person who’s asking you the question.”
ELM: And it’s a very interesting audience, too! Like, I am always really, really struck by who’s there to be in that room. You know? And they’ll be like, you know, you’ll sit in those chairs and people around you will be like, “Who’s next?” And they’ll be like “Oh, I don’t know!” You know? Especially when it’s like, earlier in the day and it’s not like the big tentpole thing at the end of the day, you know. They’re just curious to see what’s next, right? And so that’s a very forgiving audience, because they’re not…
PN: They’re very supportive, yeah. They’re there for the experience. I know people who go to con and they go to all the panels or they just go to the academic track or they just shop or they move into H and they don’t go anywhere else. Have the—there was a guy, he passed, he was a great conference journalist. His name was Tom Spurgeon. And he wrote an article years ago about how to handle conventions. And he said, “Enjoy the convention you’re having, not the convention you think you deserve.” You know? So like…
FK: Yeah.
PN: If your friend is into something you’re not? Doesn’t matter. Get together afterwards and talk about it. You know?
ELM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.
PN: If your friend wants to go and watch everything in Ballroom 20, yay! If your friend wants to go to the academic—and you know, some of the academic tracks are really interesting. Not only the ones at WonderCon—although this year I will be able to go to some of the—I will be online!! [all laughing] I’m so excited!!!!! I’m so excited! I can’t wait to see what—they split it up though. Did you hear? DC is doing their own fandom thing, they’re doing…
ELM: Oh yeah yeah yeah.
PN: They haven’t put any details out yet, so I’m like, what’s that gonna be? You know.
FK: We haven’t been following it as closely because once we, once we figured out that the con was not actually going to happen itself—
ELM: I’m sorry, are “we” a unit? “We” haven’t been following it?
PN: Oooh! Awkward!
FK: Have you been following it more closely than I have? I didn’t know you had been following it that closely.
ELM: Apparently more than you, I knew DC was doing something separate!
PN: Somebody got called out!
FK: I knew that! [all laughing] I just mean anything finer-grained than that, you know, I’ve been like “Oh, I’ll turn up and see some stuff I guess!” You know, because…
ELM: Yeah, I mean, I know some people who are gonna be on the virtual panels and stuff, you know. Like, you’re right. I haven’t been paying that much attention. It’s true.
PN: See, I’ve been obsessed with it! I’ve been tracking everything. Because I’m like, again: I will be able to go see panels! I’m going to…
ELM: This is so great.
PN: I’m just gonna, after I’m done standing in front of a door at Costco, I’m gonna come back here and watch some panels. [all laughing] It’s gonna be so exciting!
ELM: Oh, I love it so much. It’s hard for me because, you know, I was just thinking about this today—I can’t remember what, I was listening to the radio and they were like, “Whatever music festival’s going online this weekend!” And I was just like “I’m so tired.” And I’ve done like—
PN: Stagecoach? It was either Stagecoach or...it’s not Coachella. I think it’s Stagecoach. I could be wrong.
ELM: I’m trying to remember what it…no, I think it was Canadian.
PN: Oh, Canadians.
ELM: It was some random music festival—Canada, don’t worry about it. [PN: laughs] But I was just like, “It’s so great, all these artists, I could go see this, I could turn it on,” but I literally just don’t have the mental energy to tune in to any of these live performances for anything. I don’t know.
FK: You know though, it’s funny. Actually have just talked about how people get so scared on stage or like, don’t know what to do on stage, I kinda wonder if some of the stuff with the big actors is going to be better in this space, because a lot of the big actors—if you’re a film actor, they’re basically being filmed. Right?
PN: Yep!
FK: You know, so we’re going to actually get to see them like, existing…
ELM: I don’t know Flourish, have you been watching these Zoom reunions?
PN: I’ve been watching a lot of—the what?
ELM: The Zoom reunions.
FK: They’re more fun than plenty of Hall H panels, no offense to Pam or anyone involved.
PN: Those are fun! Those are fun. I don’t care, you can’t hurt my feelings. [all laugh]
FK: I was gonna say, you’re not responsible for any of this. But like, they are a little—I mean, not that, I just—I don’t know.
PN: They’re relaxed.
FK: I think it’s possible that some people come alive more before a camera, even if it is a webcam.
PN: Cause they’re more comfortable! It’s their native environment.
ELM: Yeah.
PN: I have been watching these, um, it’s out of England and it’s only if I can manage to be up at six o’clock in the morning. You ever heard of a show called Red Dwarf, do you remember?
FK: Yes!
PN: OK. So the people behind that, Rob Grant, Doug Naylor, I think Henry’s been in a couple, they’ve been doing this thing called Lockdown Theater and Talkbacks. So they either run an episode of Red Dwarf and then they just talk about it, or they have been reading plays. Scripts that were written but not produced. And they’ve gotten people like Game of Thrones actors, [inaudible], and all in their little boxes, and they’re doing great, and the first couple ones were really funny—they didn’t, one of the actors didn’t have her settings right. So apparently if you have an iPhone, you can make phone calls through your computer? Well…
FK: Yeah.
PN: Patrick from ITV called in, right in the middle of a scene. [all laugh] It was hysterical. But they’re really good, they’re really good shows and I’ve started looking for others like that that I can find and watch. But I get what you’re saying, Elizabeth. Something about the…what we’re all going through, trauma, collectively, just sometimes I can’t even turn it on. You know? You just can’t. You just, your mind is not ready. Which is dire.
ELM: I’ve even like been having a hard time engaging with culture at all, like, you know? I was watching really nothing television for like most of the—when New York was really at its peak in particular. Now I’ve gotten over that a little, and you know. Like…
PN: What was some of your nothing television?
ELM: Ah, well, now I’m ashamed to talk about it—
PN: Nah, it’s fine!
ELM: It’s dead to me now! It’s Law and Order: SVU. I don’t wanna engage with these cops!
FK: Yeah, we were both on a Law and Order: SVU kick and then that got nuked so, so hard. [all laugh] It was not possible anymore.
ELM: Even as I was watching it in like April—
FK: It’s true.
ELM: —I was like, “Wow, Detective Stabler sure does a lot of brutality. Maybe a little too much brutality he’s doin’? I know he cares about the kids…”
FK: Detective Stabler does do too much brutality.
ELM: It’s a lot of brutalities!
FK: Under any… [all laughing]
ELM: Just constant. So, so I knew it was like, whatever. We both watched probably like a thousand episodes of Law and Order: SVU each, so like, we, you know. But like, it was like, I couldn’t—I, I just couldn’t make a choice of anything. And that’s…
FK: The thing about Law and Order is you don’t have to make a choice.
PN: Exactly!
FK: There’s more there for you and there’s no choice to be made.
ELM: Yeah.
PN: One of my nothings is something called Midsomer Murders, which is—I love—
ELM: Oh, yeah!
PN: I hate, it is a terrible show. It is so boring. But it is so easy to watch. You know? It’s just, just have it there and I don’t have to do anything…Father Brown Mysteries which I’m back and forth on, you know. I love Vera, but that’s not a nothing show. I love that show. But. You know? Yeah. But my nothing show is Midsomer Murders, I just can’t deal with anything right now.
ELM: Just keep happening. Yeah! Procedural, you know. So. Yeah, yeah.
FK: So the—but the other thing, right, about this too, is it’s not just like your ability to focus on something that’s important. It’s also that like, everything is totally flattened, which is sort of fun but also sort of awful. Like, I am interacting with you guys right now through Skype, and like, I interact with everyone I work with through video conference…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And also my parents only through video conference and also my nieces and nephews and also, like, if I log on to have some kind of entertainment content from a con, that too is a video conference. At a certain point I’m just like, my eyes are crossing, you know?
ELM: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s part of it. And especially days when I have, you know, three or four meetings or whatever, as opposed to, you know. If it’s less than that then it’s fine. But like, I have a few friend groups that we’ve been talking regularly, and it’s just like, at a certain point… [sighs] I don’t know, it’s just a lot of, I feel like I’m in a meeting still. You know? Like…
PN: See, I find it different when I’m with my friends! I’m grateful for this, like, technology, because without it I could not see anybody really. And I’d go insane.
FK: Yeah, that’s true.
PN: And then we sit there and we drink.
ELM: There is that. [laughs] I also do that and don’t do that during meetings, just in case anyone was wondering. [all laugh] No drinking.
PN: Yeah, we’re not talking about work!
ELM: I drink seltzer? Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. It’s true. No, I mean, like, I don’t know. It probably feels different for us than you, cause you’re on the west coast and you know, like…just things have been timed differently in terms of when things are…
PN: That’s a good point.
ELM: So for me it’s like, things are chiller now, so I can, my brain is starting to function again and like, I’ve started writing fanfiction again, whereas like, it took me three months to write like 100 words. And now, you know. Like, so, it’s just—it’s just hard to process it all.
PN: Oh, I feel your pain. I have like 470-something pages of edits in the book I’ve been working on for awhile, right? So I’m like, “Pandemic! I’ll have all the time in the world! Can really focus! And get—” Pssh. Bad. That’s kind of not really happened. [laughs]
ELM: Wait, is this a book that you’re writing or a book that you’re reading?
PN: Book I’m writing.
ELM: Oh my Gosh! Can you talk about it?
PN: NO.
ELM: All right. [laughs] No, it’s fine. You already told us about the drunk celebrities…
PN: It’s set in a haunted summer camp, I can say that. It’s just like, there’s a thing I have to figure out, and part of it focus, part of it, oh, I have to think…you know, I can do spurts and like, if I get through 20 pages of rewrite and like 5 of fresh, I feel good. But then for three days I’m like “Let’s watch Midsomer Murders to recover.”
ELM: Yeah. Yeah.
PN: It was so stressful. [laughs]
ELM: That’s been me for most of this. I’m like, “Oh, I wrote three sentences, so…”
PN: Triumph!
ELM: Congrats to me! That’s enough for the week!
PN: There we go! [all laugh]
FK: I’m just crafting. I’m just crafting.
ELM: No words?
PN: Crafting is great though! Isn’t it? Like, hands on, just to get…
ELM: Yeah yeah!
PN: Meditative almost, yeah. A lot of the, like, really big creators, writers, filmmakers, whatever, they’ve all been saying over and again, “Do not feel guilty if you have not written the Great American Screenplay or whatever, if you’re having trouble focusing! We are too!” It’s, we’re all going through a thing that no one’s ever gone through before. And on top of that, in this country, we’re led by a psychopath! So. That’s another kind of thing.
ELM: Cool times.
PN: Layers on layers on layers.
ELM: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, it’s so hard for, it just feels like lost time and I mean it is what it is, you know? Like, if this is a lost year for a lot of people…I think people just, I mean, it’s like, I guess be grateful you’re alive? Sorry that I made this real morbid. But. We should go back to talking about Comic-Con!
FK: To wrap us back around to Comic-Con, I think this is something that’s interesting! [all laugh] Because…
ELM: Sure!
FK: Wrappin’ it back right around to Comic-Con, because I think there’s like a lot of, there’s obviously tons of uncertainty around everything to do with everything Comic-Con-ish, like, are there going to be cons? What kind of cons are there going to be? When are they going to happen? Like, when are things going to get released, right? And people talking—people stressing out about release dates on the fandom side as well as…trust me, people are stressing out release dates on the studio side. Believe you me they’re stressing out, right?
And so it’s sort of like…I think it’s also funny because normally the con experience sort of like runs in a rhythm. I assume that it’s even more so for you, Pam, that like, there’s, there is the season and these things happen in order, and now all that’s like out of whack.
PN: Yep, yep.
FK: But I don’t know. I guess the good news is that first one back, I hope, is gonna be, you know, have waited long enough that it can actually be great, right? Like…you know. So it’s actually safe again, as opposed to like, not-safe. Oh, hey! DragonCon actually canceled, did you see that, Elizabeth!
PN: It took them forever! I mean, come on!
ELM: Yeah, I did see that. Yeah.
PN: When Coachella canceled, when—what was the other big one? Austin, the one in Austin, I’m like, “Dude!”
FK: That—well, South By canceled immediately.
PN: That’s it.
FK: South By canceled, that was like the first one.
ELM: They were really proactive, yeah. But that’s, I mean, this is an actual question I have, though. Like, you know, it’s—it’s really hard to predict things, but it’s like, what would, what would you feel—like, are you a like, “I won’t go back into a space like that until like, pandemic is, scientists say it’s over and people are vaccinated and stuff?” Or…
PN: Oh yeah, pretty much. I’m mad at my state! California was doing great at the start, locked everything down, and then they—Newsom caved, I think, to the pressure of “We have to open up, we have to get people back to work, we have to,” and then so they opened up, and then boom! Started spiking again. Shut it down again. You know? This keeps happening! We’re not even through the first wave. It has to be dead stop, almost dead stop. You know. Vaccine or not. Enough that then you need people to think collectively. Put on your mask even if “I’m healthy.” To stand away from people. To not go and do things you don’t need to. Without a clear sense of “little COVIDs are not floating around anymore”? There won’t be cons! Any kind of events.
ELM: Right, right.
PN: For awhile. And I would need that sort of feeling before I would go and work any show.
ELM: Yeah. I think it’s interesting, cause I see a lot of people on my feed saying things like, “People keep saying when is it gonna get back to normal? It’s never gonna be normal again!” And I’m like, OK, calm down, I don’t, like…
PN: It’s gonna be a different normal. We don’t know what that’s gonna be.
ELM: Life changes, things change, it’s true, time passes. But like, it is, like, I can’t envision a time when there is like a socially distanced measures at a con, that—
PN: Just can’t do it.
ELM: That that would be remotely—it just seems like the one thing that like…absolutely not.
PN: You saw what happened with Disney yesterday, right? Disney is the devil. They opened up the mall. The—Downtown Disney? The mall? They opened it up for some reason. People swarmed it.
FK: Well they are opening all of it. Yeah.
PN: Just to go shopping! Just to buy stuff! And they swarmed—people put pictures from inside, and they were like, “Yeah, there were lines on the floor, nobody was paying attention to it. Half the people weren’t wearing masks,” I felt so bad for the workers. The lines apparently were all the way down the street, people with cars around the block. That’s a big place!
FK: It sure, it absolutely is. Wow.
ELM: Do you guys know, can I just say, I’m visiting my parents in upstate New York yesterday—I went to a mall.
PN: What was it like? Was it scary like zombie apocalypse? Empty?
FK: Did you find the katana and kill anyone with it? Because that was in Dead Rising, one of my favorite zombie games of all times, and it was at a mall and it was great. Also a riding lawnmower, I used to love running down zombies with that riding lawnmower.
ELM: Wow, OK, stop. It wasn’t like that at all. No, can I just say, this is a local, this is our local mall in my hometown and I, last time I went there, it was super weird cause like most of the chain stores have left and now it’s like, weird…weird random independent kind of, you know, like, “Down-Home Country Store,” and you’re like, what’s going on in this mall? I don’t understand this at all. It’s a place to buy like wooden bear statues now, and I’m like, I don’t know. Upstate New York, don’t worry about it. [PN laughs] I went to buy conditioner at the Ulta Beauty, and they had an entrance to the street—you can’t actually walk in the physical mall, so I’m a little bit misleading here. But it was weird cause it was attached to the mall.
But that was like, that was less stressful than going to the grocery store in New York City! It was, it was me and two other shoppers and we all have masks on and I was just buying conditioner, you know. So. But like…
FK: Yeah, that’s because you’re not using my patented “grocery store at three in the morning” trick.
ELM: My grocery store doesn’t open until eight, and eight to nine—I learned the hard way—is [in chorus with FK] senior hour. [FK laughs] I showed up at eight and he was like “Read the sign, miss.” “What sign?” And he was like “There’s signs everywhere, fuck you!” so annoyed with me, and I was like “Aw, OK. Sorry!”
FK: This is possibly the only good thing about the grocery store near my house, is that they are open all night so you can go at three a.m. when nobody’s in there.
ELM: No seniors! No, it was bad too. I felt really ageist but I had all my stuff, I was just—this was like at the height of the pandemic—so I just took a really long walk for an hour, cause I was like “I’m not going home, I’ve put on my little athletic pants and I have my backpack,” I was ready to do my grocery shop. So I went back at nine on the dot, seniors were still there, and they were confused.
PN: Don’t rush the seniors! Don’t rush the seniors, Elizabeth, one day you’ll be old too! Toddlin’ around! [all laughing]
ELM: I just think, I just think—
FK: Yelling at people!
ELM: —they should be using the—
FK: She’s gonna yell at people when she’s aged.
ELM: Yeah, “Get outta here! I have things to buy!” No, I just think some of these people, like, maybe they should be getting delivery! Like, I worry, I don’t want them out there!
PN: Delivery costs, though, not everybody can afford it! Not everybody has family that can help them shop.
ELM: I think this store was doing free delivery!
PN: Oh, really?
ELM: These people had no excuse.
FK: There’s also a lot, there’s also a lot of people like my former upstairs neighbor, who I love, Marina, who will absolutely refuse to have anything to do with delivery, because it’s of the now and she likes things of the past. [ELM laughs] She’s very intelligent, and she has a general policy that she likes things of the past and not the now.
PN: Wow.
FK: And if I said that in front of her, she would agree that that’s how she feels.
PN: That’s a lot to unpack.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: Yeah.
FK: She’s great! But that’s how she feels about it! So y’know, sometimes that’s the way age takes you.
PN: [laughing] I can’t wait to be a grumpy old woman. Just saying “Get away!” I can’t wait!
FK: Yeah! And then you’ll stand in front of the door to the nursing home saying “You can’t come in! Not you.” [all laughing] “Not you!”
ELM: “Without a mask!”
FK: “I don’t give a shit if you starred in some television show, like, 40 years ago, you don’t got the pass, you can’t come in!”
ELM: Oh, is this like a home for agéd actors? Is that what it is? [PN laughing] It’s really good.
FK: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
ELM: OK, wait. I have a way to loop this back to Comic-Con.
PN: Antici…pation!
ELM: Yeah, I know, I bet you’re shocked because I was talking about grocery hour. Get ready! You’ve been working at Comic-Con for a very long time, can you talk a little bit about how it’s changed?
PN: A lot bigger? Fundamentally, it’s still the same. I’ve had these arguments, I stopped awhile ago. People are like “Comic-Con is not about comics anymore!” I’m like, that’s so not true, you know? Just because what the media—especially the mainstream media—focuses on the TV and movie shows. Why? Because that’s who they’re talking to! That’s their audience. And it’s easier to do that.
But if you break down the schedule? This year’s gonna be different, obviously. But the panel schedules, tons of comic book stuff, tons of TV and movie stuff, even more though—this has been going several years—fan-specific stuff. The rise of professional cosplayers. Who ever thought that would be a thing? You know? And it’s great! But you know, special panels and workshops just for them, like here’s how you craft stuff or here’s how you get an agent. I don’t know what their panels are. But you know, they’re there! [all laugh]
FK: Yeah, you haven’t been to a panel since before there were professional cosplayers!
PN: FIFTEEN YEARS! That’s right! [all laughing] Um, I like that the prose book presence has been stronger and stronger. That’s a thing that changed from the very first one I went to, and just size. Just size. Oh! The swag. OK.
So it used to be, preview night, Wednesday night, was for the worker bees. None of y’all were there, and that was our chance to get on the floor and go see stuff and get swag and everything. Now, y’all are there, ruining preview night! [all laughing] Messin’ everything up! So I have, my friends get passes, you know, when they go through they have to go through the hell everybody else has to go through to get the passes, and I’m like “OK, here’s what I want you to do.” [laughs] “This is what I—I’ve heard that they have Judge Dredd badges here. I have heard that they got Pikachu hats here. You better go and try!” And they’re like “Aw, man!” “You’d better try!” [laughs] “Go through that line and get me something!”
Although I like to do it myself. On Wednesdays I’ll try to do it and on Sundays. But by Sunday everything is gone. Wednesday…it’s still fun. That’s also my one time on the floor, I can run around and see everybody, I run into my friends, see what all the, you know, beautiful set-ups and everything, that’s a big change too. Studio pavilions, I guess you’d call them. WB…you know. Sony. They have the good swag! But…
FK: The life-size Bumblebee.
PN: I KNOW! Isn’t that awesome?! [all laugh]
FK: It’s real big!
PN: It’s real big! And the big floaty thing. That one animated thing, the big floaty thing. It’s not a Kirby, it’s not Jigglypuff, it’s a big floaty thing. We use it as a, “Go for the floaty thing and then two aisles over. Meet you there.” [laughs] And more and more, there’s always been brand ambassadors. But the level—they used to call them booth babes, but they’re brand ambassadors.
FK: Oh yeah.
PN: I do brand ambassador for other things that don’t involve babeishness. But more and more really high-level brand ambassadors. Once I saw an ad—this was a couple of years ago, I can’t remember where, a friend of mine saw it and sent it to me, one of the temp agencies was recruiting brand ambassadors, and those things started at like $30, $35 an hour. And I was like “Are you kidding?” And he was like, “They’re going for models who are in heels for nine hours a day.” I was like, “Wow.” And they don’t even pay your room? I was like, wow. So I get why they don’t like us. [all laugh] They’re having a very different experience.
FK: Yeah, I gotta say, I think that being—being a booth babe seems like one of the worst possible jobs that I could think of. If I had to think of like, a job I really don’t want? That’s, that’s one of them. That’s high up there.
PN: Kind of thankless. Kinda thankless. Yeah. So try to be nice to them, even if they…
ELM: So do you, you find yourself arguing with like, old-timers who are like “It’s ruined now”? Like…
PN: I don’t jump in on those conversations any more like I used to. [laughs] But there are some, um, you know, long-time attendees, and not just for Comic-Con, I’ve heard people say the same thing about DragonCon—although I’ve never been. And DragonCon is its own beast.
FK: Yeah DragonCon’s real different.
PN: It’s a completely different thing. But yeah, that’s been a thing for awhile. Ever since the studio presence has been growing, because once they realized this is Earth’s greatest focus group? And early on—it took some of them awhile to figure out what kind of shows to bring and what kind not. Remember early they would just bring anything? And you were like “Nah. We will tell you what we think.”
FK: Occasionally they will still bring anything.
PN: That’s true.
FK: And you’re like “What did you do?”
ELM: Yeah. Sometimes you’re like “What possessed you? This is not—I don’t know.” It’s a show that you’re airing, OK.
FK: Sometimes I think that it’s because they’ll bring a show where there is a fan base, but it’s not the Comic-Con fanbase, but they figure everyone goes to Comic-Con so there’s probably enough people at Comic-Con who would, right? So it’ll be like—you know, and you’re like, yeah, there really is—whatever that show about Northern California bikers was. The spinoff?
PN: Oh…Mayans.
ELM: Mayans.
FK: Mayans, right? And I was like “No, there’s totally enough of a fanbase for the show it’s spinning off of, and I bet some of them are here at Comic-Con, but I don’t know that that translates to people coming to your Mayans panel in Hall H. Not sure.”
ELM: I always felt that was just pure California. That was like, “C’mon! You’re all Californians!” [PN: laughs] I get a real California vibe.
FK: Elizabeth has a lot of, a lot of ideas about California that are not true.
ELM: They’re all correct. [all laughing] I’m absolutely right. Yeah.
FK: As the one native Californian in this conversation, I’m not sure if I’m feeling offended or what.
ELM: They’re not negative perceptions, they’re just perceptions!
PN: They’re just perceptions!
ELM: Yeah, like “Everyone from California is a biker in a biker gang.” That’s accurate.
PN: We all surf.
FK: Well, Northern California that is actually more accurate than I would want to admit, so.
PN: Northern California barely counts! They’re like a completely—they should just secede! Just go.
FK: Trust me, we want to!
PN: [laughing] Like that book, Ecotopia.
FK: Yeah, you know, only—the problem is that I don’t wanna live with all the secessionists up there, you know, they are not my people, so.
PN: But it is a, a different vibe. It has changed, but for the—it’s just gotten bigger. And you still have all the independent artists, and I get it, I get, you know, some of their frustration if they can’t pull down the media attention. But again, that’s not their fault. You can’t control what the media wants to cover. But pay attention to the outlets that are covering indie artists, indie creatives. You can still, I still go Artist’s Alley, run around, grab what I can. It’s still there, it’s still the core.
And I know that you know, our big bosses, my big bosses, they are deep geek through and through, man. I mean, you think we’re executive geeks, we’re nothing compared to them. You know? All the work they do to put a nice balanced program together. So. But I don’t have those fights anymore. I just see those starts, I keep going. Unless I’m in a bad mood. [all laugh] I feel like fighting! Let’s go a minute.
FK: Yeah, I can see that. I can see that for you. I can see that for you. It’s like, it’s like the—you know, like, the Vulcan thing where you sort of keep the calm surface all the time and then like there’s some opportunity to let it out—
PN: Every seven years, “AHHH! This is my PON FARR!”
FK: “PAIN!”
PN: “BUT NOT SEXUAL, JUST MAD!” [all laughing]
FK: Yeah!
PN: Geek pon farr!
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: Wait wait, what—what Star Trek alien am I, if I wanna fight all the time?
FK: A Klingon, probably.
PN: Klingon.
FK: Oh, you actually are a Klingon.
ELM: Thank you!
FK: If I were going to put you as a Star Trek race…
ELM: Doesn’t that make me warlike?
PN: Sort of—who were the ones in Voyager?
FK: Are you suggesting that you’re not warlike, Elizabeth Minkel?
ELM: Fuck you.
PN: The new ones—they’re not new anymore. The Voyager, the Klingon version in Voyager…they’re warlike as well. You know who I’m talking about?
FK: Oh, you mean the—yeah I know who you mean. You mean the, um, uh…
PN: Ahh!
FK: They have all these different names cause there’s all these different tribes of them…
PN: Yes, yes!
FK: And they have the crazy hair…
PN: Yes!
FK: And I’m literally rewatching Voyager right now but I have managed to put this name out of my mind.
PN: I can’t see it—they are less civilized than Klingons, but more you just wanna fight…
FK: Their title is “Mahj,” that’s the title they use…wow.
ELM: OK no, I wanna be a regular Klingon.
FK: KAZON!
PN: There we go!
FK: The Kazon!
PN: It takes a village!
FK: I knew I would get it.
PN: Yeah, like that. Just pure fight. Yeah. Ooh, I can’t wait for Discovery.
ELM: No, I just wanna be a regular Klingon now.
PN: They’re cool.
ELM: A mix, you know. Sometimes I fight.
FK: I might be a—I’m not poly, if I were poly I would definitely be a Denobulan. [PN laughs]
ELM: No one asked, but you still told us.
PN: And nobody can see the look on her face, that, that smug, oh. That was just perfect.
FK: It was a very Denobulan face, wasn’t it?
PN: You should have screenshotted that. [laughs]
FK: Because I am!
ELM: God.
PN: That was great!
ELM: Do we have any other questions? Because like, obviously I’m not going to grill you, but like, about who is the worst drunk of all the A-list actors… [PN laughing]
FK: Uh, yeah! I want, I want, I mean, that would be my question is, can you tell me one more funny story? Because I’m sure you’ve got one that’s OK.
PN: OK, I can tell you this one. This is the one time I—
FK: All right, story time with Pam. Last time.
PN: My team, they saw me break. They saw me break. I never break in front of anybody. They saw me break. So this was when, Godzilla year. This was the year they dropped Godzilla and Fury Road. Yes. That year.
So I’m at the door, it’s between panels, some guy comes to the door like “I wanna get in.” All I’m doing is just looking down, looking at the badge, and I was like “Nope, wrong time, you can’t come in.” And he was like “But I really need to,” and I was like “Wrong time,” and I look up, and it’s Neil DeGrasse Tyson. [all laugh] And I stopped moving and I was like “Oh my—” and I literally this, I was like “Holy fuck!” And his kid was with him. She was standing behind him, and she looked at me like “I’m about to get everything I want.” [all laugh]
And you know, my CSC guards and one of my black shirts was out with me and they were like, I was like “Come in, come in, are you OK? Sit down. What do you need?” He really just wanted to cut through, you know. And usually that’s a no too. I was like “Oh yeah! I’ll walk you back there, I’ll be right back, it’ll be OK!” I was like giggling and everything, it was hysterical. And I come back and you’ve seen the guards, right?
FK: Oh yeah.
PN: They’re just standing there staring at me. Like, “Are you OK?” I was like, “That’s Neil DeGrasse Tyson!” They’re like, “Who is that?” And I was like, “You know what, you can go stand out in the sun for the next 15 minutes.” [all laugh] “Just for asking that.” I took a picture with him too.
FK: I really appreciate, like, I really appreciate because you know, like—really beautiful A-listers have their own, like, aura? And the fact that you’re not, the fact that you haven’t broken for any of them, for that like, “I look too beautiful to be human, and like, every like, part of you is just like, looking at me in awe,” you haven’t broken for any of those people, but Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
PN: Neil DeGrasse Tyson. And Peter Capaldi. Peter Capaldi was a little different. I just stood there smiling. [laughs]
FK: All right all right. All right.
PN: But Neil DeGrasse Tyson, I just shut down. He was really a nice guy. And he was funny too. Neil was like, “Ah. Fangirl. Great.” You could see it on his face. He was real nice about it. [laughing] But I was just like, messed. Well, cause you know, my little nephew—not little anymore—but my little nephew wants to be something to do with space, and reveres him, you know?
ELM: Yeah?
PN: I thought he did a good job with the Cosmos reboot! I’ve always liked Neil DeGrasse Tyson! He’s great! Carl Sagan was his friend! He’s cool! He’s awesome! [all laughing]
ELM: It’s so good!
FK: That is a wonderful, a wonderful note on which to close this out.
ELM: Perfect, yeah, perfect note to end on.
FK: It has been such an incredible pleasure to have you on, Pam, and I hope that next year we’ll be far enough past all of this that instead of having you on, we will actually be seeing you at Comic-Con. But if not, then the year after that.
ELM: We’ll see you IRL. Maybe in 2022.
PN: 2022. [laughs]
FK: We’ll see you someday!
PN: You guys were a delight to talk to! You have really great questions, too. And this was just fun!
FK: Well, thank you!
PN: And, and I’ve learned a new thing: Skype! [all laugh]
ELM: Call Bill Gates! That’s Microsoft. Yeah! Yeah! Great product we use.
PN: Gotta learn it, gotta learn it, so that’s cool, so now I know how it works.
ELM: OK, well have fun at virtual SDCC 2020.
PN: I will! All the panels!! Comfortably in my underwear! [all laugh] You know it’s true. That’s what everybody’s gonna be doing.
ELM: All right.
FK: Absolutely.
PN: You guys were great. Thank you.
[Interstitial music]
FK: [sighs] Pam is one of my favorite people in the whole world.
ELM: Just absolutely amazing.
FK: Well, you know, I will say that that conversation made me extremely nostalgic for SDCC, and really wish that we were able to be there right now, which…I don’t know, that sort of snuck up on me. Like, I mean I knew that I was gonna miss it and I had some moments of nostalgia, but I don’t normally think of myself like as someone who organizes their life around SDCC, but it turns out that I really like it there! And I wanna go back!
ELM: Yeah, I like it too, and I mean it is weird too from the perspective of this podcast: that’s where we met, and so I do feel like we’ve kind of framed this podcast around those trips, and also like, we live in the same city, but even before the pandemic…we don’t see each other IRL that often, so that’s like, one place where we’re guaranteed to like, spend every moment together.
FK: Every moment.
ELM: You coughing in my face for days on end until I get a virus that I still have one year later…
FK: I…you know…[ELM laughs] I…I’m looking forward to the day when you’re finally cured and then like, you know, like five years after that the point at which you stop bringing this up all the time.
ELM: Well, if I was cured I wouldn’t talk about it! But in fact it causes me pain on a daily basis! And so you should feel guilty!
FK: Oh no.
ELM: If you were Catholic you should go to confession and say “I have sinned,”
FK: I didn’t sin—!
ELM: “I got my podcast partner…” I know, I shouldn’t be saying this, because actually I have very strong feelings about illness and disease and, and guilt, and the idea… [laughs]
FK: I could not, I do not feel guilty about this. I could not help it!
ELM: No, no, I know. I just, you know, you kind of, when I bring it up you kind of crumble in a way that makes me feel [FK laughs] not physically better but mentally a little bit better. So. Yeah.
FK: Ohh. You have never said anything that more sums up your, like, way of being in the world better.
ELM: Wow, I thought—first you’re calling me a Klingon, I don’t think this is very Klingon-like! Would a Klingon say these words?
FK: They do love to see the defeat of their enemies.
ELM: As do I.
FK: Yeah. You might be more Cardassian than Klingon, except that that’s too mean.
ELM: Wow.
FK: But actually, the more I think about it, the more I think that you might really be a Cardassian.
ELM: What are the Romulans like?
FK: Um, they are like…kinda fascists?
ELM: Oh I don’t wanna be them.
FK: And they’re kind of like Vulcans except without the telepathy or the restraint? And they like, are all based off ancient Rome for some reason and the reason is that they’re called Romulans? [laughs] I don’t like Romulans as they are in the series itself. I much prefer the version of them that is in Diane Duane’s excellent tie-in novels, that is not canonical.
ELM: I opened the door to this and I regret it.
FK: Yeah, you— [laughs] You knew! You don’t ask me about Star Trek without expecting like, a dissertation!
ELM: I made a mistake.
FK: You did. I’m glad that you know that now. Now we’ve all made mistakes and we can, you know, end this episode on a collectively rueful note.
ELM: Yeah, my mistake was bringing up Star Trek, your mistake was making me ill. [FK laughs] [ELM dramatically coughs]
FK: Awwww. All right, my pathetic little orphan. Keep using your ear antibiotics or whatever it is that you’re using to try and get better from this…
ELM: Three time a day.
FK: …literally year-long illness…
ELM: Ear antibiotics.
FK: I will keep nerding out on Star Trek, and um, daydreaming about the day that we’ll be back at Comic-Con!
ELM: All right! Great! Good. Fine.
FK: [laughs] I’ll talk to you later, Elizabeth.
ELM: OK, bye Flourish!
FK: Bye!
[Outro music, thank yous, and credits]