On the ride to the hotel in Tampa, Florida, last Saturday morning, the van driver started telling me about a convention that was being held at the hotel. He said: "We have all these young people dressed up as cartoon characters. . . They are all very nice, but it's kind of weird." I didn't really understand what he was going on about. He was a very nice gentleman, but I was having a hard time with his thick Hispanic accent. Not wanting to be rude, I just kept nodding my head and smiling---giving him the same looks I received years ago, while conducting a safety briefing for a planeload of non English speaking Japanese tourists.
The convention the driver was talking about was called Khaotic Kon. It was a gathering of Anime (Japanese animation) enthusiasts, and sure enough; the hotel was packed with teens and twenty-somethings dressed up as Japanese cartoon characters---not something you see every day! I could tell the middle aged guy from Omaha, Nebraska, that checked in behind me, was having a hard time wrapping his head around the sight of a Japanese cartoon hooker in the lobby of the Doubletree Hotel! I thought about helping the poor guy---by explaining how Khaotic Kon is to the Anime folks, what AirVenture is to pilots, only cheaper---but decided to let it go. He probably would have just nodded his head and smiled at me. . .
This was not my first encounter with the Anime crowd. A few summers back, I had a layover in Baltimore, Maryland, when the National Anime Convention (or whatever it was called) was in town. The Inner Harbor was crawling with characters. Like AirVenture, it was Khaotic Kon on a grand scale!
I don't know what is about the Doubletree Hotel chain, but it seems to attract the weird and unusual. For instance: Back in my 737-800 days, I had a layover at the Seattle Airport Doubletree Hotel. It was Easter weekend and the hotel was hosting the West Coast Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival. The best way to describe that scene is: King Arthur meets Star Trek. There were Starship Troopers and Knights with Fair Maidens everywhere. Through the misfortune of seniority I attended that one twice!
Same hotel; two years later. While waiting to be seated for breakfast one morning, I observed an exchange between tables that was most unusual. At one table were four women who looked very startled. All four were looking at a young woman seated at the table next to them. I didn't hear the initial exchange, but I did hear the young woman apologize, and say she had Tourette syndrome. That certainly got my attention! Right away I had visions of the movie Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo. I thought, WOW, this should be interesting! Then we made eye contact. . . She got up from her table and walked over to where I was standing, and asked: "Are you the Captain of this Spaceship?" At the time I was still a First Officer. I pointed in the direction of the American Airlines captain that was waiting at the end of the line, and said: "No ma'am, I believe it's that gentleman over there!" She moved off in his direction at about the same time the hostess asked me where I would like to sit. I pointed to the far side of the restaurant and said: "How about way over there?" Later, as I was checking out of the hotel, the young woman approached me in the lobby, and asked politely: "Do you know if it is OK to be insane on this planet?" I replied: "Absolutely!"
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