dragon con report part 1

[dianora2]

Well, I had a horrible commute into work, and then when I got there discovered a complete and utter nightmare that evaporated all my lingering happiness over the weekend, so that sucked, and I am seriously considering a career change because I don't know if I can take this shit anymore. I want to cry just thinking about going in and dealing with more fallout tomorrow. So I'll cling to happier times and write about the con instead.

I took notes at the BSG panels so I'm going to put all of that stuff in a separate post. Here's everything else I did. I recap the random Jamie sightings in here as well. :)

Overall, I can totally see why people get "addicted" to this con. It's unlike any other con I've ever been to, wilder and woolier and overall a very welcoming place. That said I think it would be a much more enjoyable con if it were in a convention center rather than spread out over three hotels, and I know it's easy for me to say that as a newbie, so I'll leave it at that. Apparently attendance was way up this year and the hotels definitely showed the strain. And there definitely needs to be some logistical improvement in terms of getting people into and out of rooms, although that definitely got smoother as the weekend went on. But anyhoo.



Friday the first panel we went to was "Star Trek vs. BSG," which I'll recap in the other post. The panel was lame, through no fault at all of the celebs. I don't understand why Dragon Con doesn't have moderators for these celeb panels, it seems to make the celebs extremely uncomfortable.

Next up was a panel featuring Bruce Harwood aka Byers and Tom Braidwood aka Frohike of X-Files/Lone Gunmen fame. Seems strange that I've never seen them in person (I've seen Dean Haglund multiple times), but there you go. Gotta love those dudes because they are just so NORMAL. Just nice, regular guys. Bruce's wife asked a couple of questions, which was kind of weird, especially when she started talking about slash. Bruce said he made the mistake of looking at a Byers/Frohike slash one and he still can't get it out of his head. He also found a Byers/Mulder one which he felt was more acceptable. *g* Bruce said he resented Tom at first b/c he didn't think it was right that an assistant director on the show got an acting job. They both had nothing but nice things to say about David and Gillian, of course. And they talked about what a control freak Chris Carter was, which is also not a surprise, but they didn't put it quite that way. ;) Here they are, pictures by em_meredith:



After that I think we went to check out the Walk of Fame, where the actors sit and sell autographed photos of themselves. A part of me finds it all unseemly, but that didn't stop me from gawking and partaking. The sheer number of B-celebrities in one room was mind-blowing. On my right is Erik Estrada, on my left is David Prowse and Peter Mayhew, around the corner is Richard Hatch! Etc. And, of course, people like Jamie and James Marsters and Mark Sheppard, etc. So we kind of did a lot of just standing around and staring at the pretty. We are only human, after all. It was weird to know that you could kind of just go look at Jamie any time you wanted to, like he was in a zoo or something. It rattled me.

Some Walk of Fame highlights of the weekend:

* Erik Estrada strutting around, humming, and waving about his newly-autographed Chewbacca photo. He was SO HAPPY.
* Lou Ferrigno and David Prowse standing next to each other. I ordered kiss_me_cassie    to snap a picture. "It's the Hulk and Darth Vader standing next to each other, just DO IT!"
* em_meredith    talking to her BFF Mark Sheppard, who totally remembered her from Flanvention.
* Richard Hatch's giant pile of BSG books to sell and his banner proclaiming himself as the "Original Captain Apollo." (For the New Yorkers, the "original" looked just like a Ray's Pizza.)
* That guy from that scene in Star Wars. Umm, General Motti? The one Vader chokes first.
* Debating whether or not to ask John Wesley Shipp about his death by ice cream cone on Dawson's Creek.
* Juliet Landau never taking her frickin' sunglasses off.
* The Ghost Hunters are the warmest, friendliest, nicest guys you'll ever meet.
* My encounter with Gil Gerard, but I'll get to that later.

Next em_meredith    and I went to the panel with Jamie & Oliver Phelps aka the Weasley Twins, and Matthew Lewis aka Neville Longbottom. The panel was packed, natch, and somehow the subject of twincest never came up, for which we were grateful. We were near the back of the room and from that distance Matthew Lewis looked a bit like Ryan Gosling. He's much better looking in real life -- I didn't know he wears a fat suit for the movies. Anyway, all three were charming and British, but Em and I decided to cut out a few minutes early to avoid the crowds. As we were leaving via the back of the room, Matthew Lewis saw us and called out, "Please don't go!" I didn't even hear him; Em told me after we left the room. This of course meant for the rest of the weekend we talked about how Neville didn't want us to leave. ;)

Next up was dinner at a seafood restaurant across the street from the hotel. This was where we overheard a hilarious phone conversation where a guy kept saying quite seriously and urgently, "Klingon karaoke is a go. Klingon karaoke is still a go!" We finished eating and had put together our money to pay the bill, when I look up and the blood drains from my face and I say, "Oh. My. God in heaven." Because Jamie Bamber is walking right toward me. Behind him are Mark Sheppard and another guy. They proceed to sit down at the table perpendicularly next to us, with Jamie's back to us. Um. Yeah. Cue total freakout. So we pretended to have trouble figuring out the bill for the next 20 minutes and just kind of sat there and basked in the proximity. And took pictures with my phone.




The seat next to him was empty so he did a lot of leaning on the chair with one arm and then fluffing his hair with his other hand, and it was pretty much the hottest thing ever. Unfortunately they were JUST far away enough for us to not really be able to hear what they were saying. They did order sushi, though. And poor Em was sitting so that she couldn't really see him, and was ready to kill me and C. for our luck. Heh. It was really frustrating to be so close to him but to really feel that it wouldn't be cool to bother him when he was basically spending his entire weekend being bothered. None of us felt comfortable doing that. So we finally took our leave and I walked around the table so that I HAD to walk right in back of him, I mean, I had no choice, clearly.

Then we tried to go to the Robert Picardo panel, only to find out he had cancelled the con, so we decided to go back to the hotel. Which meant taking MARTA. Which meant walking right past the restaurant where Jamie was still eating dinner. Hee. He was using chopsticks, it was really hot.

The next morning was another BSG panel, followed by an hour with Ron Glass and Mark Sheppard. Ron Glass is kind of a weird guy, but not in a bad way. He cracks himself up a lot, which I found endearing. He's also naive in the ways of fandom, which was also endearing. And he didn't want to sit, so he stood the whole time, so Mark Sheppard stood the whole time too. Nothing unpredictable here, just lots of talk about how much they loved the show and the cast, etc., etc. People kept trying to get Ron to dish on Book's past and he was like, I know as much as you know, I didn't write the show. Heh. And there was one question asking why Book said "River" right before he died, and Ron was like, "Are you sure that that happened?" and someone in the audience pointed out that he said REAVERS, which made sense, since he was trying to tell Mal the Reavers had just attacked and all. *facepalm*

Just did other random stuff that day, then after dinner we tried to go to the BSG party, but a) the Hyatt had been completely shut down by the fire marshal and we couldn't even get in the building, and b) they put the party in a room for 100 people and 400 people showed up. So we were very sad about that, especially when we found out later that Jamie and Aaron and Mark were all there for a bit. So we went to the Marriott and scoped out the bar, didn't see anyone interesting, and went back down the escalator. As we're going down the escalator, we see Mark Sheppard getting on the up escalator. I say to Em, do you want to go back up? and as soon as I finish saying that, we see Jamie there too, about to go up. So, decision made. We get to the bottom of the escalators and I am literally standing RIGHTNEXT to Jamie, who had changed into a long-sleeve button-down shirt, sigh, and am excited by the prospect of going up behind him on the escalator, when he suddenly changes his mind and yells out to the ascending Sheppard, "Mark! Never mind, I'll see you tomorrow!" and heads off toward the elevators. WOE. Not that I can blame him. But we went up anyway and went into the bar and were standing near Mark and his buds, and the bartender came to take our order and Mark and his friends got pissed because the bartender hadn't come to them first. Mark Sheppard claimed they had been waiting for "12 minutes," which I'm pretty sure was an exaggeration. I apologized to his friend standing next to me, who apparently played a Chaos Demon on Angel or something. Anyway, the bartender wound up giving them free drinks, so Mark Sheppard can't complain anymore. After a while Lou Ferrigno came into the bar, too. Heh. We stayed a while and then left.

Sunday morning was BUCK ROGERS! Woot! I was so excited for this panel and was not disappointed. It was Gil Gerard, Erin Gray, and Felix Silla, who played Twiki's body. Felix is a little person, and Gil kept telling him, "Stand up, Felix!", as if it never got old. He also kept teasing him about being Italian and talked about his eating pasta and talking with his hands and stuff. CRAZY. WTF, GIL GERARD. But it soon became clear that that's what he does, he busts his friends' chops until they're pretty much ready to kill him. He was even like that with some fans in the audience who he knew from various events.

Gil spent the first fifteen minutes talking about his gastric bypass surgery and how he had lost 150 pounds. Pre surgery. Yikes.

Gil now (photo by em_meredith   :


His doctor told him in the next five years he would either need a heart transplant or die, he was that sick. But now instead of living to eat, he eats to live. He was extremely candid about the whole thing and Erin kept egging him on. She was clearly so proud of him/happy for him. Turns out Gil and Erin are really good friends and have been all these years, which is really cool.

They were also very candid about how much they hated the second season of the show, they got a new executive producer who they thought was an idiot and who tried to fire Erin Gray but Gil stood up for her. Also, Universal wanted them to do commentary on the DVD for no pay. WTF. And they've never seen a dime from the show, which is why Gil was hawking his custom-designed Buck Rogers t-shirts like mad.

Felix talked a lot about how when he was in the Twiki suit the crew acted like he didn't exist. Like he would tell them he had to go to the bathroom (he couldn't get out of the suit by himself) and they'd be like, "Yeah, in 5 minutes" and then it would be an hour later and they still hadn't let him pee. And the crew would pick him up and throw him around as if there wasn't a person inside the suit, and he'd yell things like "Put me down you sonofabitch!" Gil said that he had to become Felix's caretaker on set to watch out for him and make sure he wasn't mistreated. Crazy.

At one point Gil made an "incest is best" joke for some reason. OMG. He's fast and loose with the offensive humor, let me tell you. Oh, and then he said he was from Arkansas so he was allowed to say that.

There are talks to remake Buck Rogers and Erin is on board as a producer and she's going to try to get a role for Gil. Awww. Gil makes documentaries these days, huh. He's making one about the Appalachian people performing Shakespeare.

All in all, it was just a DELIGHTFUL panel and so entertaining and then I decided I really did need to get the shirtless Buck pic I was eyeing autographed. So we went to the Walk of Fame and I went up to him and told him I wanted an autographed photo and he asked which one, and I said, "I'll take the beefcake photo if you don't mind," which of course he didn't. And then I told him that I had just taken a beach house vacation with friends, and that we developed a routine where every morning we had breakfast and watched an episode of Buck Rogers, and we just had so much fun, this group of thirtysomething women sitting around watching Buck Rogers, and I wanted to thank him for that. He thanked me, and then he said, "If you buy an XL t-shirt, you can wear it to breakfast tomorrow morning!" Yes, he shilled his t-shirt to me after I'd already bought an autograph! OMG. Hilarious. But he was so sweet and called me darlin' and shook my hand and LOOK AT THIS PICTURE, LOL:


AWESOMENESS. (My name is blurred out, that's not the picture.)

Next was the James Marsters panel. Elisabeth Rohm was there too. I only stayed for half of this one before sneaking off to the last half of the Ghost Hunters panel. Hmmm. He quoted my favorite soliloquy from Macbeth, which was cool, but I find it odd how his fans ask him to perfrom on command. He talked about how kissing SMG was like kissing his little sister, and it pissed SMG off whenever he said that. He got off a good rant about the Swift Boaters and John Kerry and needing ballsy Democrats that had me nodding vigorously. (In the next post we'll discuss how Jamie's progressive politics made me swoon, btw.) And Elisabeth Rohm kept making jokes about arresting people.

Another BSG panel, then dinner and drinks at the Marriott again. No A-listers this time, but during the course of the evening we did see Lou Ferrigno and Twiki drinking together, which was quite a sight to see. David Faustino aka Bud Bundy wandered in and out at one point. And Byers and Frohike showed up with an entourage of heavyset middle-aged women. Later a guy came over to us and said we looked like we were mocking people, so he wanted to sit with us. Hee. I don't even think he was hitting on us, I think he meant it, which was amusing. So we talked to him for a while and then left. Sunday seemed to be Colonial Fleet costume day and we got to see a lot of BSG costumes from our perch at the bar, which was entertaining.

Favorite costumes seen during the weekend:
* Pimp Darth Vader and Pimp Stormtrooper
* Santa Stormtrooper
* Princess Leia from the medal ceremony with Han Solo in tow
* Baltar and Six -- costumes that really only worked when the two of them were together
* Benedick/Kenneth Brannagh and Beatrice/Emma Thompson from Much Ado About Nothing. They won my favorite costume prize. AWWW.

Monday Jamie was not there! Woe. He had to leave to go film a movie in Louisiana. Just as well because I had a meeting and then had to get to the airport. At the airport I was stitting at an empty gate to make some phone calls, when Bruce Harwood sat down three seats away from me. Naturally, I documented this.



When I had to leave I went over to him and said I didn't want to bother him, but just wanted to thank him for going to the con, I was a big XF fan, etc., etc., and he was REALLY nice and chatted about his trouble getting to the airport and thanked me for saying hello, etc. Just a nice guy. I was glad I said hi.

So then I went back to my gate and saw my flight was delayed a bit, so I went to another less crowded gate and sat down. Five minutes later MARC SINGER sits six seats away from me. WTF.



I did not approach him though, despite my V obsession, as he frightens me a little. It may be the brown polyester pants he wears everywhere, I don't know. He was pretty fidgety, kept getting up and sitting back down and stuff. What a bizarre airport experience. I also saw a guy from Andromeda with a guy from SGA but damned if I know their names. It wasn't Rodney or the other guy. *g*

So those are the highlights! What a wacky weekend and I know I'm forgetting a million things, but there you go. BSG stuff to follow at a later date.