It's strange, really, but for five straight years now in late January I've made the 1400-mile round-trip trek to the frozen tundra of Evanston, Illinois, and subjugated myself to 24-straight hours of whatever A&O Films can conjure up to try and kill me with, cinematically speaking: Spawn of the Slithis, Super-Babies, singing monkeys in soiled diapers, Merkin, the horrors of Communism, '50s Anti-Comedies, '80s musical/vanity pieces and Break-Dancing orgies, some vintage toon-porn, and a hardcore version of Alice in Wonderland, to name just a few. And every year, on the long drive there, there is a moment when I wonder Just what the heck are you doing? Every year tickets seem harder to come by, and every year I think -- no, I know -- the money spent on gas, food and lodging could be better spent elsewhere; and I'm getting older, those seats aren't getting any softer, and I have an inkling to hang-up my B-Fest spurs for awhile if not for good. It was a good ride, let somebody else take the slot.

But then, every year, I come full circle; and after immersing myself in that big old vat of cinematic cheese, thoroughly saturated with Nerd Funk, knees popping, ass tingling, buzzing on sugar and caffeine, clothes coated with bits of Pringles and several, large pizza-grease stains, when I and my fellow B-Fest survivors stumble out of the darkened theater and into the light of the lobby, I've already got a major itch and urge to do it all over again -- unfortunately, an itch I can't scratch for about 365 days.

Which brings us to B-Fest 2007. Seems to me that they announced this year's line-up a lot earlier than usual -- and what a line up it was! In my estimation, it was the best, most well-balanced batch of films since '02. And after going through the titles, my usual pre-fest malaise took a look at it, smiled, and said "Have a great time" before withering away completely when I got a look at Mitch O'Connell's artwork for this year's poster. Are you kidding me? This was gonna be awesome!

And this year, we also decided to give a little back to B-Fest, when I and the rest of my traveling partners from the rolling plains of Nebraska -- Mike "Captain Wow" Bockoven and Matt "Hiro Protagonist" Campbell -- decided to sponsor a film all by our lonesome. Mike, being the usual swell guy that he is, ram-rodded this operation, and I knew which movie we had to sponsor if it was still available; an old Sam Katzman turd-burger of a morality play/driver safety video called Hot Rods to Hell.

Well, we got it, and now all we needed was a name for our group -- and it couldn't have been more obvious; it even had a built in mascot. Thus, The Black Hole of Des Moines Appreciation Society Was Born. And while Mike took care of the financial logistics with A&O, I turned my really crappy Windows Paint skills to try and come up with a logo and artwork for the traditional transparency that's projected before the film's screening -- so audience members would know who to blame, and thus, know who to chuck things at.

So, our sponsorship was set, the line-up was looking positively spiffy, and a large contingent of the BMMB irregulars had committed for the annual pilgrimage/drink-a-thon at the Hala Kahiki for a demon-rum primer, and then back to the hotel, where more booze and a scheduled screening of several people dancing around the re-animated corpse of Mae West in Sextette a-waited to put us out of our misery. We even had complimentary tickets for the Shedd Aquarium for Friday morning, where rumor had it, there be dragons lurking about. Woot.

Now, those of you who have been reading this site for awhile know that getting lost in the Chicago suburbs (-- for the record, my favorite thus far has been Waukegan...), trying to get to and from the Tiki bar, is another B-Fest tradition -- a tradition that I really wanted to break ties with. To accomplish this, I abused the hell out of several office privileges by printing out a six-sheet by three-sheets worth of YAHOO maps showing the most direct route to the bar, and then pilfered about a three yards of Scotch tape to slap it together into the Über Map of Doom. There was no way in hell we were gonna get lost this year -- He typed ominously...

Luckily, the sun cracked open the fog, searing it off, and we arrived at Matt's place fairly unscathed, where Mike reveals the transparency he made out of my logo for the The Black Hole of Des Moines Appreciation Society. And, in due course, we were across the border and about 150 miles into that very Hole we appreciated before Mike realizes he forgot the transparency back in Omaha. E'yup. Captain Wow strikes again. (We gave you one job, Mike...) Fortunately, a plan was soon hatched to get the transparency faxed to the hotel and then a hunt for a Kinko's to remedy this unfortunate gaffe.

This cannot, and will not, stand! With the trip's Karmic Balance in the balance, the decision was made to backtrack until we found Him, resulting in three concentric-circle tours of all the exits until we found the right one, of course, the very first one we passed up, harboring the McDonald's we needed. (And for the record, those of you looking for this Pagan effigy, you want the Coralville exit.) After eating, to appease our blasphemous lack of direction, Matt offered a cheeseburger Happy Meal as a sacrifice for our transgressions.

"And Lo, He Who Walks Between the Arches smiled down on these foolish mortals and granted them safe passage out of Iowa City."

From the Book of Eternal Flatulence, 1:6

And I do believe that blessing, when combined with our quick, centrifugal tours of all the exits in Iowa City, slingshots us through the remainder of the Hole -- like how the astronauts used the moon's gravity to slingshot them back to Earth. But it almost worked too well because I think we broke the time barrier -- Wow! Just like Star Trek IV -- evidenced by a quick, off-road landing at the REST STOP OF THE FUTURE: a monolithic structure of odd angles, stone and glass, and a strange, crude, post-apocalyptic language carved into the murals covering the walls; some kind of code-speak about armageddon, or pork-belly futures, that I could not decipher. Back on the road, the time-warp reversed itself as we made it to Chicago and to the hotel in Evanston in almost record time.

Checked in, lickety-split, and while Mike and Matt went off in search of Kinko's (-- and I'll let Mike tell that strange tale), I cleaned up and caught a quick power nap before the pre-fest festivities of the evening commenced. It was a quick one, and soon I joined the other BMMB'ers in the lobby. It was great to see them all again -- Tim, Sean, Josh, Jessica, Lisa and Ray. And a B-Fest virgin, Movie Mike, of Mike's Movie Cave fame, took his life into his own hands by volunteering to ride with us to the Chinese Buffet for some grub; what with our Mike driving and me navigating, map or not, I have no doubt that we'll wind up crashing into Lake Michigan at some point -- on the Canadian side! Speaking of the Great White North, Mike made the trek across the border to B-Fest, and he had some funny stories about getting through border security. Seems the guard wasn't aware of this [quote] B-Fest [unquote], and Mike had to rattle off a few of the films they were showing to prove that it was real event. Luckily for him, one of the film's he didn't mention was Invasion U.S.A. ... One can only imagine the international incident if'n he did.

Fully stuffed with egg rolls and Mongolian beef, and stocked up on a six-pack of Old Style tall-boys for the room party later, with the Über Map of Doom locked and loaded, we then departed for the Hala Kahiki. Sure, we missed a few turns (...Turn now, Mike. Turn NOW, Mike. TURN NOW, MIKE! OK, circle back...), but we made it there practically unscathed. I love you ÜMoD! Inside, several more BMMB'ers were waiting, and expecting a fairly large crowd, we started pulling tables together. More BMMB'ers arrived, a ton of them. In total, there were between thirty to forty B-Movie zealots crammed into one section of the bar getting their drinkie on and flexing their nerd-fu with overlapping conversations about a screenplay for a live-action Thundar the Barbarian movie, crappy juke-boxes, the fine art of killing vampires, and at some point I got dragged into an unfortunate conversation about the inherent eroticism of breast feeding ... I answered these question innocently enough but apparently gave the wrong answer. And I think the questioner had a point -- a point that I obviously wasn't getting, hell, I think we were on the same side, and as things spiraled out of control, we were both saved from an ugly escalation as all efforts to withdraw failed miserably by Scott Ashlin's timely intervention, and the noble El Santo from 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting quickly diffused the situation. Thank you, my friend.

And I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to all who were sitting at the table who witnessed that. I'm still not sure what happened there, so I'll just blame it on the rum.

Oh, yeah. My ass is hurting already.