Soo.... I’m sitting here eating a bologna and cheese sandwich and drinking a beer. I’m exhausted - as in bone-tired, drained, beat exhausted. I’m very hungry - I lived this weekend on beer, diet Coke, cinnamon graham crackers and gum. No, I’m not joking. Actually, wait - I forgot -there *was* a trip to Carl’s Jr/Green Burrito in there somewhere for a quick bite, but the rest is certainly true.
Why on earth would I live on so little? Fan convention. Apparently - that’s the “fan con diet”. But I’ll get back to that later. For those that hadn’t heard, haven’t heard or don’t know me well enough to know - I’m a die-hard Buffy/Angel fan. I’d kind of always wanted to go to one of the conventions, because I heard about how much fun they were - but they were always so far away or so expensive that they were out of my league.
But you know, I’ve said that sometimes the tumblers all align just right and life unlocks for you in the strangest ways. It certainly did for me this year. This year, I turned 30. As a present, my mom offered to get me pretty much whatever I wanted (within reason of course). I wanted an iPod at first.
Then, a friend of a friend or something like that turned me on to the website for a convention, www.alternateuniversepresents.com. I went to check it out and Holy Crap! They were doing a Joss Whedonverse convention in Sacramento. I mentioned it to my mom - that I really wanted to go, but couldn’t afford the tickets. We emailed back and forth and finally, my mom bought me a ticket to the convention - not the highest level, but not the cheapie, gets you nothing but your butt in the door day pass either.
*CLICK* Tumbler One.
As part of that, there was a costume ball - so on top of the ticket (thank you MOMMY!), she also made me a costume. I’m the proud owner of a blouse that looks BANG on for the Vampire Willow costume from “The Wish” and “Dopplegangland” episodes of Buffy. I even went out and bought red lipstick and black nail polish (okay a NEW bottle of black nail polish) to go with it.
*CLICK* Tumbler Two
In the days leading up to the convention, money started to get tight and by the Friday kick-off, I had enough money to *either* get a cheap motel room *or* other minor stuff like... you know... FOOD. GAS. BEER. Throw-away stuff like that. I was talking to a friend, Andrew (Hi Andrew!), on my lunch break that Friday at work and he tosses out this idea, “Hey, you know. I’m out of town this weekend and I live not that far away. If you’ll water my plants, you can stay at my apartment.”
*jaw drops* *CLICK* Tumbler Three
Having my priorities straight (YAY! Beer money! Gas to get to work on Monday!) I obviously took him up on his VERY generous offer of a place to crash. He gave me keys and directions and Friday after work, I came home long enough to pack for the weekend, grab a 12-pack of diet Coke (cause I KNOW how much hotels charge for a glass of soda!) and head down to the hotel for the convention.
All the way down on the drive, I was debating in my head - should I check in at the hotel *first* or go to the apartment first and drop off my bag? In hindsight, going by the apartment first would have been the bright idea, since I would know where I was going in daylight - but I threw caution completely to the wind and went straight to the hotel.
And I should be very glad I did. I admit it - I have a crush on James Marsters that will NOT die an easy death. So I was pissy that I was there and he was in concert and I wasn’t going - my pass didn’t include a ticket to the concert. But when I checked in I overheard them say it wasn’t sold out yet, although the afterparty was.
*CLICK* Tumbler Four - the gates opened up and heaven shone down on me.
I bought a ticket before I walked away. I cam say, it was the MOST enjoyable $40 I’ve ever spent for a concert. They tell me the concert’s on the very edge of the hotel and I trooped off with everyone through the winding halls to the ballroom they’ve got set up. Apparently, James got pissed the night before during soundcheck because the original venue was right below the hotel’s nightclub and their sound system was bleeding through the walls - so they moved ALL the way to the other end of the hotel.
James - dude - good choice. After paying $40 to hear you, if all I’d heard was WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP from upstairs, I’d have been ballistic. Thank you - saying something was not a diva move, but someone who respected his music and the fans enough to pitch the necessary bitch.
First up was a band called Common Rotation. I can honestly say I had NO idea who they were at first. I thought maybe they were James’s new band since Ghost of the Robot split up. No, Common Rotation (www.commonrotation.com) is a band with Adam Busch (Warren from Buffy), Eric Kufs and Jordan Katz. While I can say they’re not my usual style of music, they put on an amazing show. Adam Busch seems like a man who can be utterly exhausted and still go until he’s exhausted. He’d flown in that morning and had to leave that night to go back to a movie he’s working on, but he still was jumping around on stage like a sugared-up 4 year old with a new babysitter. Eric Kufs is astounding - and the two harmonize so cleanly that even in a room not set up to have the greatest acoustics, their voices were seamless and unified. Jordan Katz came in to play trumpet and bass. His trumpet playing made the hair on the back of my neck stand up - beautiful. Just beautiful.
At one point, they decided to do a “post apocalyptical pop folk version” or “a dead Pocahontas version” of one of their songs - which involved twists on common pop culture references taken from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera” and Paul Simon’s “Call Me Al” - based on the chandeliers in the room.
The last song of their set, they came down to the front row and with no mics or amps, and sang their last song. I don’t know the name of it, but the chorus moved me to tears. I wish I could remember it all, but it started “Don’t look at me/I’m not guilty/I’m just a pawn/In someone else’s game”. I’m half tempted now to go on their website and order their latest CD just to see if it’s on there.
After the set, they sat in the back of the ballroom and signed autographs (the ONLY people at the con besides Jim Butcher who weren’t charging for their autographs, BTW.) I got all of them to sign the back of my jacket. If you swing by their website, I recommend taking the time to download the three MP3's available. “Indie Rockin’” is great.
James Marsters came on after that to lots of applause. He started out acoustic for the first few songs, then plugged in his amp for the rest of the set. Each of the songs was off his new album “Civilized Man” and he intro’d each with a quick line of what he was going through when he wrote it or if he didn’t, who *did* write it. The sole song on this album he didn’t write was “Every Man Thinks God Is On His Side”, which was by Andrew Rosenthal.
Musically, he wasn’t as strong as Common Rotation, but he loves his music, and that enthusiasm to have an audience bleeds out. Not to say he was bad - he wasn’t by any means - but even he admits he’s a good amateur/mediocre professional musician. His musical style bounces around a bit, but that’s okay because so do my tastes. (His song, “This Town” makes me think that someone was watching over my shoulder in my late teens/early twenties. The lyrics break that 3-4 year time period of my life down into a couple stanzas. And if you’re not thinking of sex during “For What I Need”, you must be asexual. Listen to “Bad” which he says he wrote about his experiences at a convention - which means he picked up a fangirl at a con.... naughty James.... want my number???)
I wish I could have gone to the afterparty, but it was $180 for the concert/afterparty/CD package and I’m kinda selfish - I like having things like.. electricity..... As I left the concert, I ran into Ginger, one of the convention promoters and asked her if they’d be selling James’s CD the next day. They would, but cash only - I ended up working out a deal where I would pay Ginger on my credit card and Ginger would pay James for the CD so I could get one. (THANK YOU GINGER!)
I think it was about 1 am when I finally stumbled into Andrew’s apartment and grabbed a quick shower, then collapsed onto the bed I made for myself in his other bedroom. I was exhausted, but it was a strange bed, in a strange place, with strange background noises, and I was still amped from the concert -so I laid awake till about 3-3:30 before my body just shut down.
I was SO worried about being late and missing something the next day that I woke up before the alarm in my cell phone went off. By 7:30 when my alarm went off, I’d been up, dressed, watched an episode of Quantum Leap and on my second diet Coke. I drove back to the hotel. Thankfully, I wasn’t one of the people who bought photo ops with the guests, because I got there as those were ending. (On second thought - I’m *still* kicking myself for not cracking out the $65 for James’s photo ops. I think someone fed him a lot of Red Bull - because when I saw the photos afterward, he’s grinning like a madman and sitting in the woman’s lap in ALL of them. BTW, James.... if you really wanna know why the women were feeling you up like you told Amber... I’ll let you in on a secret. We’re. Only. Human. Get a hot man to flirt with us like you do and we’ll go for it. Ask any male stripper and he’ll tell you I’m not kidding...) To get James in my lap, I’d GLADLY pay $65. *WEG*
I accidentally wandered into the wrong room and walked into James’s photo session. Amber Benson was sitting on the floor talking to her PA. I nearly squee’d right there, but I ducked back out before I embarrassed myself.
Like any con, or so I’m told, the schedule got thrown to the wind. There was supposed to be one big Q&A with everyone, one with Amber Benson, and one with James. Instead, it was one of the guys (Armin Shimerman, Tom Lenk and Jonathan Woodward), one with the ladies (Amber Benson, Elizabeth Anne Allen and Bianca Lawson), one with David Fury, then James. James’s led into the charity auction, which he kicked off as guest auctioner.
Armin Shimerman (Snyder from Buffy and Quark from DS9, among other parts) is incredibly articulate and has a quiet intensity. When he was asked a question, or even if you just ran into him and got to talk to him, his presence is immense - especially since when he stands next to me, he’s just barely above my shoulder. He makes you feel as if it’s just the two of you talking - he’s *that* focused on what you’re saying, but when he does it, he never makes the rest of the audience feel excluded from the conversation. At times, he drew comparisons between some of his characters and his experience on stage - such as drawing some of the inspiration for Quark from DS9 from Shylock in “Merchant of Venice”. At the same time, he’s not dry and boring. He cracked up the audience with quips about some of his experiences and playing off the other actors, even drawing them in to get their comments about questions when they hadn’t been asked one recently.
Tom Lenk (Andrew from Buffy) seems to have an awkwardness still. Not the “I’m desperate to be liked” awkwardness of his character Andrew, but I got the feeling that he was wondering at times why he’d even been asked to speak or even a little intimidated to be sharing a stage with someone as comfortable as Armin was, but get him talking about Reno 911 and he squees like a fanboy. I got the impression that he drew on that part of himself for his character. He got Armin with a good joke about how articulate and poetic he was, so now everyone had to answer their questions in iambic pentameter, which made Jonathan Woodward start counting on his fingers.
Jonathan Woodward (“Holden” from Buffy, “Knox” on Angel and “Tracey” from Firefly) is a riot. This is a guy I can honestly say I wanna go drinking with. I get the feeling I’d end up choking on my beer at some point, if not wearing it outright when it comes out my nose. He’s irreverent and funny. There was a gentleman in the audience taking notes and he got all three of them started spelling some of the poly-syllabic words of their answers so the note-taker could keep up. He started talking about his online church, “The Church of the Eleventh Finger” which he “was legally prevented from discussing until he gets his tax-free status”, but that didn’t stop him from holding service on Sunday morning. (I’ll get to that later.)
Then they brought in Amber Benson (Tara from Buffy), Elizabeth Anne Allen (Amy from Buffy) and Bianca Lawson (Kendra from Buffy). I think because it was almost all girls in the audience and all girls on stage, but that Q&A was just.... cool. It felt like total girltalk.
Amber is talented - A Renaissance Woman - as I put it. Writer, producer, director, actor, singer... and at the same time, she makes you feel like you’re talking to an old friend when you talk to her. In fact, if you didn’t recognize her, you’d think she was just another girl at the con. She talked about an upcoming trip to Romania to film a movie for the Sci Fi network and she was stoked because she got to go play princess and fight dragons and kick ass.
Elizabeth - man, I don’t know how she did it - she came to this con eight months’ pregnant. Her baby boy is due at the end of August. She mentioned that one of her other projects is working with kids (she has a degree in psychology.) She talked about getting into acting to get attention because she was an attention junkie. She was glowing from within and I;m so jealous - at that far along, I looked like a whale. She looks like the posterchild for maternity.
Bianca is a total sweetheart. She’s *tiny* and very soft-spoken, but sweet and absolutely gorgeous, even with no makeup and baggy overalls. And she’s a giggler.
David Fury - he was wandering all over the convention all the time. And it didn’t matter. People would walk up and he was always willing to take the time to talk to you. During his Q&A, he was hysterical - he had me laughing so hard it hurt, but at the same time, it was such a stoke to have someone to ask questions to about stuff you just “gotta know” like “who was going to Shanshu if Angel had gone to season 6?” and “Do you think Spike could ever be redeemed?” and “what’s Joss like to work with?” and get *real* answers.
James.... OMG... WORTH. WAITING. FOR. He came in to thunderous applause and wolfwhistles. And a terrible flirt. He actually asked for us to try to embarrass him because he loved to be embarrassed and after 6 years of conventions, no one had managed yet... So I now know things I hadn’t expected about him.... like he doesn’t like to wear underwear (“Can’t you tell Love? *shaking the leg of his button-fly 501's* and yes, I *did* pay attention to that.... TYVM “There’s nothing between me and you but a thin sheet of denim.”), how often he gets to *ahem blushes* how shall I put this euphemistically.... “take matters into his own hands”? Yes, he did answer that.....
BTW, someone told me that he’d come across as “not the sharpest crayon in the box”. I can say that’s SOOO far from the truth. He got into a discussion with a fan during the Q&A about Shakespeare and how he’d love to be involved in a performance of Richard II as well as how he misses the stage, because he could produce a stage production for seven grand but needed 30 million to make his own movie, which put it out of his league.
He also took the time to talk to a guy in the back who’d brought his 4 year old nephew, who was cowering thinking that James was actually Spike. James was awesome - he told the little boy that he was playing pretend and it was really easy to tell when he was pretending - if he was blond, he was pretending, if he was brown-haired, he was just James.
But that’s not surprising when you learn he’s a dad too - he has a 9 year old son. He said he doesn’t bring his son into his celebrity and I respect that - I’m sure it gets insane and it’s confusing for adults, much less a kid. But still... the image of James as “single dad” who reads to his son at night and does all the dad stuff just rings my bells all over the place....
And for anyone wondering.... yes, he’s really 42, 43 this summer. No, he doesn’t look it at all. He said that if women saw him as “just James” with no makeup, no fancy lighting, they’d walk on by. I give that an emphatic “NO WAY!” Even with no makeup, those cheekbones are hard to miss. I suspect if his son looks anything like his dad, he’ll be breaking hearts in about 3-4 years himself.
Then the auction started. James got things going like crazy. I think one item, a script for “OMWF” donated and signed by Joss and everyone else went for $4 thousand. By the time the six items were done - he’d raised close to $10 thousand dollars for Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospitals.
James left to go get a nap (he’d just flown in from Australia and been up late the night before from the concert and cocktail party.) So Amber Benson poked her head in as guest auctioneer and ended up auctioning off *herself*, including stripping down to a white wifebeater and black bra and adding the shirt off her back.... She went for $710. Seats next to her at that night’s banquet went for $650 and $600, respectively.
Not to be outdone, Jonathan Woodward came in and guest auctioneered next. When he heard Amber had sold herself, he put himself on the auction block and was sold for $600, for which his “Slave mistress” got carried out of the convention hall piggyback.(He told Amber later he went for $800, so we’re wondering if perhaps he chipped in some of his own money too....)
The autograph session was that night for everybody and James’s only one. So most people were in a lather to get his signature before he left. I went with the flow and where they told me without a fuss, figuring I paid and they must know what they’re doing,... so they’ll get to everyone, right?
Okay, don’t panic.... it was a good night. Yes, I got everyone. I just love scaring you though. Tom Lenk was sweet and joked with me about signing my jacket because he didn’t see why I’d get it signed and then never wear it again... I told him I didn’t want the signatures to fade like some others had and he offered to trace them for me. He’s so cute.
Amber Benson was SO sweet. I admit it, I went stupid and gushed about how I’d loved Tara and although I’m sure she’s heard that a trillion times (and probably wishes she had a dollar for every time) she still ahh’d and thanked me.
Armin Shimerman - he’s SO cool. I told him this con was my “rebirth” because I was 30, newly divorced and celebrating life... so my jacket is personalized “to Brande - enjoy your new life!” (Side note, he remembered that the next day when he talked to me..... talk about a mind blower...)
David Fury - funny, funny guy.... big teddy bear of a guy too. I think he enjoys the fans as much as the fans enjoy the show.
And James. I SO lucked out. I dunno if I banked “con karma” by being so nice to all the volunteers and promoters and gracious for all the celebs’ time to that point, but the ticket taker for James’s autograph session slipped me a second autograph that I had NOT paid for - his sessions were selling for $65 a signature too! Damn fool me though should have had him sign the CD case instead of my convention program though - idiot idiot idiot.... oh well..... another time maybe.
James is SUCH a sweetheart as well. Getting up close, I can say, there’s something about him, some je ne sais quoi.... when I walked up to him, he smiled and called me Love (as I’m sure he smiled and greeted every woman who walked up) but the light in his eyes made me feel like he’d been waiting all day for a chance to talk to ME and not the other way around. I told him how it was my first convention and blah blah.. How I ended up staying at a friend’s. He asked me my friend’s name, so I told him and he laughed, and said “Tell Andrew ‘You rock!’” and threw me the goat. (Pinkie and index extended, the rock on symbol, if you don’t know the term...) He also told me that the longer I stayed a fan, the more really cool people I’d meet because all the people who got into Buffy were intelligent and amazing people.
(Side note.. I can’t remember if it was the Q&A, the auction or after the autographs that James stuck his tongue out and waggled it in a semi-obscene way - but good LORD, the man’s got a tongue like Gene Simmons.....)
After that, I got to go meet Jim Butcher (James does the audio readings of his books and he’s a Buffy geek himself.... so he was as squee-y to be there as I was - fun convo), Elizabeth (we talked about babies), and Bianca (I complimented her on her acting because her characters are so different than her personality).
There was a formal banquet that night that I didn’t get to go to, but I heard it was a blast. The hostess is an actor and singer herself, so she did a cabaret act. All the guests were broken up among tables. Each table had a celebrity and apparently the celebs were having a small ongoing rivalry as to who can get their “group” to be the most ribald and outrageous.... (more on that later...)
I went back to the apartment and changed into my costume (of which I will get pics LATER, I SWEAR!) The costume ball was the biggest disappointment of the whole con (well, except for finding out Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin had had to cancel because of schedule conflicts.) Apparently, people forgot - or went home after James left - because very few people showed up and of those, maybe 5 were in costume. Of the five in costume, only *I* came as a character.
Bianca Lawson was at the party with a guy that I think was her boyfriend. Jonathan Woodward had a table full of girls he was talking to and he got sloshed on white wine. I think I gave up and wandered over to the other room. I’m glad I did now.
Amber Benson was having a pajama party. No, I’m kidding. Sort of. She was in her jammies and slippers, hosting a viewing of her film “Chance”. If you’ve never seen/heard of this one - try to find someone with a copy to borrow. She wrote, directed, produced, and starred in it (filmed in her apartment even) with James Marsters, Andy Hallet (Lorne from Angel), and David Fury. It’s worth it just for the scene of James putting on Amber’s lipstick and open-mouthed kissing her bathroom mirror, but the scene of him cross-dressing was a riot too. He gave a great performance (they all did, although Andy Hallet and James seemed a little stiff together, but it worked......) And Amber and James’s brief love scene is mind-bending for a Buffy fan.... especially one into fanfic like me.... cause now I want to see if there’s any Tara/Spike fics...
It’s a quirky little film and I actually got to ask her about it at Sunday’s Q&A. But that’s later.
I went back to the apartment, got out of my costume cause I couldn’t fricken breathe.... or move.. Or anything really.... and washed off the makeup. I think I crashed around 2 and woke up at 9 in a panic. Thankfully, nothing started till 11 again, so I had time to go to Barnes and Noble for a copy of Jim Butcher’s book and Starbucks for a quick cuppa before I got to the hotel.
It was supposed to be another morning of Q&A’s, but Jonathan Woodward decided to have “church” that morning instead... I think cause he was hung over. His service was a riot - he faked an orgasm with the telephoto lens of a fan’s camera, got US on stage and asked us questions, which lead to me telling my story of how I got there *again* and found I wasn’t the only one who’d walked through fire to be there - the woman next to me was trying to call home to find out if her house was still standing from Hurricane Dennis and the one in the back row had landed from Heathrow only to find out at San Francisco International that London had been attacked.
Jonathan was hyper so he started giving people stuff out of his pockets as door prizes for good answers or comments. Then they rushed him out so Armin and Tom could talk. It was just as Armin had sat down that Jonathan comes *flying* back in the doors of the hall and dives down the row to my chair. I’m panicked cause in all honesty, I’d snuck up to the front 2 rows of seats from my 8th row seats and I was trying to stay under radar. Then he dumps like 4 hostess cupcakes on the chair next to me, gives me the double thumbs up and hauls ass back out as I just sat there dumbfounded.
Armin did that Q&A with no H. No, the room wasn’t that small... his theater training projected that well. Tom came in late and a little sleepy, but he was so cute, you had to forgive him.
They brought in Elizabeth and Bianca again and this time, with such a small audience, we got to hear how it was for them to film their final scenes and funny stories of their “fangirl” moments - like when Bianca met Madonna in a public bathroom and forgot how to talk or Elizabeth was shaking so badly she couldn’t wait on Stephen Spielberg (who tips really well.... BTW).
Then David Fury was scheduled to do a live viewing of “Smile Time” with live commentary, but he said that he had all his Buffy and Angel DVDs with him and if we’d rather do one he’d written, we could vote on it, so we watched “Crush” instead. If you think commentary on DVD’s is funny, try hearing it LIVE. David would launch a quip about “I wrote that...” or whatever and we’d all giggle....
Amber came in again and man, did that get almost as ribald as Jonathan. The two of them have a friendly rivalry going that stems from a convention cruise and when we told her he sold for $600 at the auction, she slipped and called him a bastard over the mic cause he told her $800. Then somehow, we got onto what she’d had to go through to get James into a dress and pumps, then what size pumps, which garnered a comment from someone (that she overheard) wondering how “endowed” James was... and Amber said “Well, you know, we filmed that one scene and I had to get close to him and he’s doing okay in that department...” and one of the girls in the audience who had been talking to Amber all weekend said her ex had worn size 16 shoes, to which Amber winced and said “OOOWWW’ and we all joked about this woman’s ex having a day job as a sundial. Yes, it got worse.... Amber serenaded and heckled anyone who left during her Q&A (which most of us had been in there with stacked back to back programs for 5 hours and were doing the peepee dance in our chairs) but she was so damn funny, I had to stay and hear everything.
When she was done, they did the second autograph session. Armin greeted me with a merry “so, how are you enjoying your birthday present!” Tom said it was great to see me again. David Fury thanked ME for MY time. And Jim Butcher gave me advice on other books he thought I’d like while he signed my copy of his book.
I ran into Jonathan in the hallway as I was leaving and he quirked his head for a second, then said hi like we were old pals. I ribbed him about how had he known I liked chocolate (from the cupcakes) and he grinned and said “I was SO worried about you not eating. Are you gonna make it home okay?” We talked for a minute and I really wish I’d been single at that moment cause I haven’t been that seriously tempted to ask a guy out in my life. He’s just so.... cool. And funny and nice.... and okay, maybe I have a TEENSY crush now......
*exhales* so.... sandwich is eaten, beer’s gone, James’s CD is on repeat and I’m even more exhausted than I was 3..no.... 4 hours ago... when I sat down.
Mom.. Dad.... if you read this..... I had a BLAST! Yes, I had a few beers.... no... I didn’t drive afterwards for quite a while. Thank you for the present..... that was the COOLEST birthday present ever! And my jacket is now almost full and ready to frame..... however, I wouldn’t mind Joss’s John Hancock on it - yeah right, I heard he’s IMPOSSIBLE to track down. Oh well, a fangirl can dream, right?
Oh, and speaking of dreams... I need to do some dreaming of my own now.
