Bethesda Swap Conference Spring 2007 Report

I arrived early last tuesday morning at the Bethesda BISA complex, which has grown over the past month to include numerous surrounding buildings as well as new construction. Trolling the grounds were people of all demographics, many of whom swapees, but all seeking answers. The directorial staff of BISA, including Drs. Arthur Gulf and Howard Bergman, would hopefully provide.

When Dr. Arthur Gulf took the podium alongside a small latin girl, I could virtually immediately sense what the first item of discussion would be. The girl stepped up to the podium and spoke.

Earlier this month, she explained, the bodies of Dr. Howard Bergman and 12-year-old Manuella Perez of Mexico City, Mexico, were swapped. At this time, the mind of Dr. Bergman, in the body of Miss Perez, would be fulfilling Bergman's duties at BISA.

The wording seemed odd to me, and they were pressed to explain. "We have reason to believe that the swaps are, in fact, a temporary inversion of psyches. That through some yet-unknown catalyst, one person's identity is temporarily washed onto another's and vice versa, but will very likely become supressed and negated."

This got a generally positive reaction from the crowd, except for a few Church of the Holy Redeemer supporters, who booed audibly.

Questioned as to when this would occur, Bergman explained they had no idea. Their most conservative estimate was that within a year of the first swap, early swapees might be restored. However, a more likely scenario is that it could take many years for all or most of the swaps to be reversed, and that's assuming they reach a "breaking point" after which they slow or stop altogether.

"Much is still not known," Gulf explained, "but we are expanding our knowledge by leaps and bounds each and every day."

Now that the BISA infrastructure is in place on five continents, about 20 major cities with offices established or in development, swaps should be accepted as a very normal part of life, albeit one that brings numerous surprises and inconveniences.

Bergman said she did not know at this time what would become of swapees whose original bodies had died. They may stay as they are, or it is quite possible they will revert, depending on the still-unknown nature of the "de-swap" process. If it involves a maintained connection between the two, then severing that conncetion may prevent de-swapping. If it involves the swapee merely "remembering" his or her original identity, there is not much to worry about.

Beyond that, there were a number of roundtable discussions, panels, workshops for people who had been swapped. Most notably, a group for those who had inherited addictions from their swap-partner, whether to cigarettes or heroin. Many of those people were in bad shape.

The Church was attempting to recruit. There was a preview trailer, met with thunderous applause, for an upcoming film about the swaps featuring numerous actors who have been swapped, including America Ferrera and Matt Damon (who will take on Ferrera's role on ABC's "Ugly Betty" this fall.)

I saw my friend Nick at the conference, and we got a cup of coffee. She has been absent from the blog recently, and told me it was because she was "dealing with stuff, and some of what I'm hearing here is only making me feel worse." She also asked I keep our conversation private and off-the-record, which I am only slightly ignoring.

On the last day, a Volkswagen pulled up to me on the street, driven by a young African-American woman. She got out of the car, leaned against it and told me, "You're a tough guy to track down."

I looked at her and asked her if I knew her (because at these events you never know,) and she said we had met once before, at a support group on Ohio. I thought back and told her I didn't remember her (and my entry seems to confirm this, since I described everyone there and no African-American woman was among them.) She pulled out a pack of Camel cigarettes, which I remembered seeing a man there smoke.

"I've been in this body for almost a week and I still can't smoke these sumbitches without coughing," she said as she lit the cigarette in her lips.

She could not be the man I had met there; he'd told me he had already swapped, and I see no reason why he would have lied. There has not been a documented case of a person swapping twice, but this woman carried herself, with the same hunched shoulders, titled head and curled lips of the man I had met in Canton who refused to tell his name.

"Just who are you?" I asked her.

"You want to interview me, right?" she smiled. I told her I was actually on my way to the airport, so she took out a business card (which read "Mary Patton Designs") and scribbled something on the back; a pager number and the letter Q.

"Let me know when you wanna talk, 'kay sugar?"

With that, she flicked her cigarette down and coughed, extinguishing it with her open-toed shoe and got back in to drive away.

On the plane-ride home, I furiously scribbled my notes and about a dozen question I thought this Q person might be able to answer. I have yet to hear back.

Swapee wins 2007 Wii Playoff Championship

Kyle Walchuk, 23, won this past weekend's National Wii playoff in Bethesda, MD. Six weeks ago, Detroit native Walchuk was swapped with 17-year-old Maria Cassini, a native of St. Louis, MO but whose parents emigrated from Rome, Italy shortly before her birth.

"After the swap I didn't really want to go out," said Walchuk, whose profession is listed as 'poker player.' "Didn't want the world to see me, so I stayed in and practiced my Wii. [Cassini's] body has pretty good co-ordination, and I was doing even better than I had before."

Walchuk's intense practising helped, as she had already signed up for the Spring Tournament for the Nintendo console. The year before, Walchuk had placed third in the National Guitar Hero tournament after placing second in the Detroit regionals.

In this 3-day tournament, Walchuk's crowning achievement was finishing the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in only 64 hours of play, a remarkable achievement given that its own programmers took an average of 70.

"Maybe the swap helped improve my game," laughs Walchuk, "I don't know, but I can tell you that playing non-stop helped me. It reminded me that I can still do all the things I like doing."

The win was a little surprising to Cassini who says that he had "Little to no talent" in video games as a kid, although he modestly admits, "It was something my brothers liked doing and I kind of wished I could get into."

Cassini has also been embarrassed by the media attention received by his former body. "Kyle is a skinny guy, but in my old body I'd been putting on the pounds. [She] looks okay, probably after sitting around, playing and not eating much, but I was up near 160 Lbs before the swap and [she's] still got my gut."

Walchuk doesn't seem to mind, laughing, "I'm not here to be a model or a beauty queen. I'm here to kick ass," also noting that having a shapely figure helps fend off otherwise sex-starved gamers. "I know how those guys can be - I'm one of them!"

Nick: Testosterone...

Must be a very powerful thing. Without it, I've been a much more docile person, whereas Terri has been going full-throttle on this whole "man" thing.

On the weekend, we went down to the theatre to see Spider-Man 3. It was sort of a double-date you could say, because I brought Cherie and Traci brought Rose, this girl from his work. It was, in a word, awwwwwwkward.

The story there goes that they knew each other just a little bit when Traci was the receptionist, but weren't on much more than a "Hello, good morning, cute top" basis. Then Traci got my body and moved to the mail room where he sees her more and the conversations increased to what neither of them realized was flirting. Then Traci realized he liked girls and, after screwing around just a little bit, decided to take the big step. Rose decided to enter our weird little world.

So they're holding hands, and Cherrie and I are walking behind them kind of making fun because we're both single. It's mid-afternoon on Saturday and the Bloor area is full of construction workers, because the Ontario Museum has been undergoing renovations, like, forever. And these guys see me and Cherie and start this lame slow clap and a few wolf whistles. I didn't realize the cliche about construction guys was a fact. I guess they get to see a lot of women walk by every day. I'm not even sure I would have condoned this behaviour when I was a man, let alone now that I'm receiving it. Cherie just shrugged it off but I was nauseated and couldn't concentrate on the movie. Still though, I thought they did a decent enough job even if it didn't live up tot he second one. topher Grce needed more screen time, but you know James Franco really had some good scenes (even if the amnesia bit was totally hokey.)

I've been staying with Cherie more and more, as Traci's place becomes less and less girl-friendly. Maybe it's not even that, but it's just not roommate-friendly, as he keeps having Rose over to all hours. Cherie's a bigger place, too, with a comfier sofa.

But I do still live with Traci and the morning after that I sat down and had a serious talk with him.

"So how do you like Rose?" I asked, affecting the tone of a gossipy girl.

"Oh she's great," he beamed, "Smart, funny, and so pretty. God, she's great. She's everything I ever looked for in a person, even though..."

He paused and I finished the thought, "She's a woman."

"Yeah." He looked a little ashamed. "Do you think it's weird that I'm, dating a girl?"

I had to think. "I don't know. Because I know that's my old body and I guess it liked girls that much."

"But I wouldn't be doing it unless I really wanted to do, right?" he seemed really unsure of himself, for perhaps the first time, "I mean, your body isn't controlling me, I just want a different thing, don't I? Do you think?"

"I can't say," I told him, "I mean, I wore at the BISA but I'm not one of their scientists. I'm as clueless as you are."

He changed his tone back to the fond faraway one. "She makes me so happy."

"Then shouldn't that be all that matters?"

He nodded. "It's not just in my pants, either. I don't think so, anyway."

I rolled my eyes. Contrary to some women's beliefs, men are capable of having feelings elsewhere. Traci's learning this firsthand. Still though, the pants are a good place to start.

"So you're really attracted to her," I asked.

"Well yeah, aren't you? I mean... wouldn't you be?"

"I think so. It's hard to remember." I sighed. It was time to ask a really tough question. "When you're a woman... how do you know you're attracted to someone?"

"I guess it's not so obvious," he laughed. "But it's still easy to tell, Nick. You just get this feeling. Like your blood rushing faster. You just like to be near that person. They make you feel good and you think about them a lot. You just... know."

Blood runs faster? Like to be near? Just know?

Oh God... I think I'm in trouble.

60's pop group to reunite under unusual circumstances

The Monkees, one of the top-selling pop/rock acts of the late 1960's will reunite this summer after a pair of fortuitous swaps.

Singer Micky Dolenz, 62, swapped with former 'NSync singer JC Chasez, 30, on February 18. Neither man would comment on te swap at the time, with Dolenz only saying it was "One of those things you live with, hopefully."

A publicist for Chasez said, "Mr. Chasez can only say he has the utmost respect for Mr. Dolenz and hopes to continue his own musical endeavours."

However, less than a month later, on March 10, Dolenz received a call from his former bandmate, Davy Jones, 61, albeit in n unfamiliar voice.

"Davy always did have kind of a light voice, you know," grinned Dolenz, "But I get this call, the voice says, 'Mick, it's Davy!' And I can tell it sounds British, but I couldn't help but clean out my ears and ask, 'what?'"

Jones had recently been swapped with Maureen "Reeni" Gould, lead singer and bass guitarist of Cybertronic, a "girl-geek-punk" group from Southern California.

"I told Micky what'd happened," Jones' English accent is fully audible coming over Gould's pierced tongue. She brushes a lock of dyed-pink hair from her face and rolls her eyes, "It seemed this would be a natural concept."

The Ventura, CA native Gould had very choice words regarding her swap with the Manchester-born former pop idol. None of them are, however, printable in a family-friendly article. Using a very colourful metaphor for oral sex, Gould expressed her displeasure with the swap.

Jones & Dolenz are currently rehearsing their old material, as well as a pair of new songs, one of which will be written by their fellow ex-Monkee, Peter Tork.

When interviewed, Tork found it difficult to stop laughing.

"Mick and Dave are good friends of mine, yeah we go way back," Tork beamed, "And hey, maybe I'll get swapped with one of those boy band types too, and get Jessica Simpson's number in the process."

Tickets will go on sale soon for the tour, which will start in July.