Friday, 8/27/04

The plan for Friday was supposed to be sightseeing until about 4pm, registration, and then cocktail party, etc. Since none of us had planned on actually partying that first night, we were dead, and didn't leave the hotel and see anything. So naturally, Deb and I felt the need to start drinking at noon, simply to celebrate the fact that it was noon. (Stephanie found this was amusing later on.) As we were in line to register for Allabama and Mandy, we were getting our drink on big time, stealing cups in front of hotel personnel, and making trips back to the room to "switch flavors". It was way amusing.

After everyone was registered, we made our way upstairs to chill out and do nothing until cocktail party time. At some point, we DID go in the dealer's room to say hi to Common Rotation, George, and Leary (who wasn't there because he was doing a commercial). Then later we got dressed and went down for the cocktail party.

The cocktail party was OK, but was not actually one of the better cocktail parties I've been to at a Vulkon. Maybe that was because I didn't actually utilize the open bar. *shrug* I had drank enough earlier. It also had a lot to do with obnoxious people really monopolizing the time of the guests. Now, I'm not one who pushes in to talk to the actors, but it would be nice to at least be able to say hi to some of them..especially the ones I know. Tony Head was SO monopolized, he gave me this "help me" look and a sad little wave. Poor guy. At least we got to chat later.

Pretty much all I took away from the cocktail party was Cindy grabbing my butt, chugging a beer, and Adam grabbing me into this huge hug when I wasn't paying attention, and was talking to someone else...which Adam never does. We also had more fun than should be allowed with Jonathan Woodward and his girlfriend. Those two are just so cool. lol

After the party ended, we all sort of gravitated outside the room and were hanging out talking to George. I realized I didn't have my wristband for the Common Rotation show, and there was no way I was gonna be in the back for a "convention" show..and I ran upstairs to get it. When I got back down there, power-trippin security gal wouldn't allow me to walk the four feet back over to where my friends were with George. That pissed me off. So I just cut and stood right in front of the entire line of people.

The concert was great, as usual. I expect nothing less. Somewhere at the beginning, Eric asked me for a beer, which was passed down the line by Froggy, and he was provided with in record time. I have a setlist from the show, which I will scan at some point. I even stood in line and made them sign something for me, for the first time ever, after the show...just to be a dork. Adam saw it was me and just laughed at me. Eric almost refused to even sign it, lol.

When that was all done, we headed up to party. Everyone was there..the usuals. Alabama and Mandy, Eric, Brian, Tracy, Chris, Marie, Camden, Jonathan & Carrie (I'm not sure how she actually spells here name), Peter, Eric and Ken. Later..after the party had died down around 5:00am, Deb and I walked Eric and Ken back to their room. I got back to my room around 6:15am and crashed.

 

Saturday morning was greeted with a door slamming and “I hate you all!” That’s OK, though..we worked it out..sort of. Due to my lack of sleep, being hungover, and being way sick, I unfortunately missed all of the photo ops I was supposed to do with Cate, though..which sucks. I’ve already got one with Tony Head, so that’s no big deal, but I really regret not getting into those ones with Alexis and Clare. Oh well, maybe there’ll be another chance someday.

When I finally DID roll out of bed, most of the rest of the morning was spent sitting around in my pajamas, drinking water, and chatting with my roomies Deb, Donna and Belinda. I finally got dressed and headed downstairs around 1am-12pm..not too sure on the time frame there. We spent a lot of time hanging out in the bonus guest room, and just talking to people. At this point, Deb went over to talk to Matt Busch, who informed us that the living room show in our hotel suite was definitely a go. That being put in motion, we took to inviting as many people as possible to come up to the show. (Note: Invitations to the show, whether by the band or by the people staying in the room, were invitations to the show ONLY. There was always a private party planned for that night, long before we knew anything about a show. We opened the show to the public to support the band. The party, however, really had to remain private. My apologies to anyone who didn’t understand that. We didn't mean to hurt any feelings, and I hated having to ask people to leave. Booze ain't cheap, ya know, lol.)

We all got our autographs for James Marsters, Stephanie Romanov, Nick Brendon, and Alexis Denisof then. It was nice to see Marsters wearing a shirt we gave him well over a year ago. In the large amount of time both Deb and I had to talk to him, he laughed at the "Leary head's" Framin Norman photo she had him sign, said he wears that shirt all the time, and was very friendly. It's nice we can be that way. Belinda got time to talk to him about the Halloween event as well, and James said, and I quote, "that's only for idiots who want to see Angel and Spike on stage together." He agrees it's a rip-off, and people shouldn't waste their money on it. The rest of the autographs lines were pretty uneventful.

Afterwards, we headed up to the suite to start setting up for the living room show. It took a LOT of work and moving around to get everything just right. The dining room table was taken apart and pushed into one of the bedrooms, all the end tables and coffee table were moved into the bedroom, every chair in the the room and from both bedrooms was moved into the main area and setup for optimum viewing pleasure, lol. It was a lot of work. Then came the drink coolers…they were SO full, and all the ice from the previous night had melted, so that damn things were about to buckle. I actually sat there and took every bottle out of every one, dumped out all the water, and refilled them with as much ice as I could, before the ice machine was empty.

Then it was time to get dressed for the banquet. Since we’d have to run out of the banquet pretty early, due to having to actually be IN our room when the show started, most of us opted for casual comfy clothes, so we wouldn’t have to hurry up and change. Deb, Froggy and I all got down to the banquet way early, and sat around on the tables in the hallway chatting with some Vulkon staff members. Finally, it was time to start getting organized to go in for the banquet. My first choice to sit with had been Tony Head, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen, since my badge was low (#13) but not THAT low. I did get my second choice, though, which was of course James Leary. I’ve now sat with him at every banquet I’ve attended, but I prefer it that way because I am more comfortable sitting and eating with someone I know and am comfortable with. Everyone at the table was pretty cool (*waves to Jeanne and lovejames*), and we chatted while waiting for Leary to show up (he was still doing his improv with George in the next room). I wandered around the room a bit talking to some friends, etc. Froggy was wandering taking pictures, so he naturally snapped another one of my ass. Then I went and visited Deb at Adam Busch’s table and was going to visit Cate at George Hertzberg’s table, but never quite got there. I was briefly accosted by Tony Head when he realized I was there, and sat chatting with him at his table for about 20 minutes, since most of his table was empty, anyway. I apologize to anyone sitting at that table..I had no intentions of monopolizing his time..but he ordered me to “sit the f down”. It was nice to hear about how he was planning to rip Aria and Moonlight Rising that next day. When I returned to my table, I saw that Leary had already arrived, and I missed the “grand” entrance, lol. When I got to the table, and he saw I was seated there, he stood up, reached across the table, and quite excitedly said, “Hi there!!! I’m James Leary!” To which I retorted with, “I’m Regan…oh my GOD! I am such a huge fan…blah blah blah.” It was really funny. Although, I don’t think anyone else at the table realized Leary and I knew each other, and I think they thought I was insane. That’s ok.

We got called up for our food, and I went. The food looked really good, but I just wasn’t hungry. I had been starving about an hour prior to the banquet, and ordered room service. So I filled a plate, and wound up eating nothing but the rice. When we got back to the table, Leary started doing the usual questions to try and get people to talk, since he and I were the only ones who were. The first question was where everyone was from. Without looking up from my rice, I answered deadpan and in a really bad accent, “Texas.” The next question, what we all do for a living, prompted me to reply with “stripper” and everything went downhill from there.

Unfortunately, not long after that, I had to say my goodbyes, as we needed to get upstairs to get ready for the show. Deb had already left with Adam 15 minutes earlier. Leary was sad, but somehow he got through it. He informed, though, that he’d be up later, probably around 12:30. Sadly, I had to miss Tony sing.

We were kind of turbo-charged from that point on, rushing to get things ready for people to invade our room. When I got to my room, Briel and Syd were already there. Too funny. I also made threats to everyone in the room about my chair, and staying out of it..since I was on the door until the show started and I am selfish and wanted a good seat.

We didn’t originally know about the show Common Rotation was gonna be playing for us. Back when we booked the suite, we had emailed and asked if they’d consider doing a show, since Adam was booked at the con and they’d be there anyway. That was before Common Rotation was booked for the con at all. We figured if they played the con, they wouldn’t consider doing a living room show there, as it would be a conflict of interest. But in the wee hours of the morning Friday night/Saturday morning Eric told me that they had been talking about playing the show in our room, because of what had gone on with Vulkon at the show the night before. He said not to get too excited about it and not to tell anyone, since it wasn’t close to being definite and they hadn’t even discussed it with Matt. But that was the first time we had heard about the possibility of a show at all. Matt Busch even had it approved by Julie Caitlin Brown and told her they were doing it as a thank you to all of us for our help at past shows.

Once the doors opened, man did they open. I can’t believe we fit 74 people into that room. Unbelievable. I’ve heard from a lot of people that the show was the best part of their weekend, which is so damn cool. George Hertzberg, Camden Toy, Danny Strong, and others were in attendance, and hanging out in the V.I.P Lounge, otherwise known as the bar. It was a great setlist, comprised of a lot of different songs from what they had played the night prior. There were some improv’ed words from Adam during one song, too, about Ghost of the Robot breaking up, which was just too funny. Adam’s request for rum & coke’s in the middle of a song was hilarious. It was even more hilarious when Danny Strong shushed Deb when she made some noise trying to get the coke’s out of the cooler. My favorite part of the show had to be when I decided I needed another drink, and the room was so packed, that I couldn’t get near the coolers. So, Deb and I made a request for 2 more Smirnoff’s, and they had to be passed down from the other end of the room, during a song. The band was nice enough to pause for a moment while we put in our drink orders, and Adam said it was only fair that if they were going to wait for us to get our drinks, they should get the same. Too funny. I also have to say, it was fun seeing a Common Rotation show at a CONVENTION that was packed by people there because they love the band, and not because of Buffy. That doesn’t happen too often at cons. But you could tell people were fans, as they were singing along, and doing the “Hollywood Romance” clappy parts.

Unfortunately, some time during the show, someone came in and and tried to convince us to let Power Animal, or Soccer Hooligans, or Butt Monkey, or whatever the band is…play a show in our room following Common Rotation. Like we would ever let THAT travesty happen! Sadly, this person would have been allowed to stay for the show, if they hadn’t come in with just the express purpose of trying to get another show for a band we don’t think has any place sharing time with Common Rotation. Also, around 10:30, Dizzy came down from the James Marsters private reception, and asked us how long this show would be going on. We told him it would probably last until about 11:30, and he was disappointed. We asked why, and he said that James Marsters REALLY wanted to come down for the show (we could have brought him in the extra door and hid him behind the bar) but had to be at the private reception. We’re all like, “does he know whose room it’s in?”…and Dizzy assured us that he knew exactly whose room it was in. Classic.

After the show, we had Brian make an announcement about how the party would continue as a private party, and anyone who was only invited for the concert, would have to leave. It sucks that we have to be so selective, but with the number of actors that end up in our room, we have to be careful, since we are responsible for their well-being. As soon as the Common Rotation guys in the next room heard Brian make that announcement, though, they were all like, “rock on”…left the room, hid around the corner until everyone was cleared out, and then came back to party. Later in the night, not sure when, Stephanie and Clare showed up with Froggy in tow, Leary wandered in looking for a drink, Danny, George and Camden stayed from when after the show ended, and the Common Rotation guys all stayed.

The rest of that portion of the party was kind of blurry, as Stephanie is a bad, bad, influence, and that shit she drinks is foul and disgusting. We also told her about how Deb and I were making out the night before, so all night she kept asking me if I wanted to make out. From there, the guests informed up they were obligated to show up at the Vulkon dance for a while, so Stephanie grabbed my hand and dragged me along with them. They assured everyone that when they were done at the dance, they'd be back up to our room. When we got into the hallway, Fernando was there, obviously on his way to our room to look for his guests, lol. He told them it wasn’t time for the dance to start yet, so they should go up to his room and have a drink or two, and then they could all head down together later. I had no intentions of going with them, because hello, Fernando’s room…but Stephanie wasn’t gonna get on the elevator to go up there without me, because she wanted to dance. So I agreed to go up for a bit. So, me, Fernando, Stephanie, Clare, Danny, Leary, Adam and Eric all got on the elevator to go up one floor. At that point, George proceeded to get on the WRONG elevator, and went down, instead of up…turd. When we got to Fernando’s room, we hung out, Leary made me a drink, we chatted about some stuff, and Stephanie and I formed our own band, the white girls known as “Salt & Pepper”. Clare Kramer is also now known as “Spin”. Adam and Eric only stayed in Fern's room for about 5 minutes until I saw them take off, and apparently they went back down to our room for another hour or so. I dunno..I stayed with Stephanie.

The dance was fun. Stephanie and I danced a LOT, and were having a blast. Then, George danced his way over to me, asking me to help him with a gross, stalker-type person, so I danced over with him to help him out. Then, went back to Stephanie, and Leary later joined us. At one point, I was in the middle of a George and Stephanie sandwich, and I am scarred for the rest of my life because of it. When I left to go help George again, Stephanie hadn’t realized that I’d left and kept on dancing. As she told the story to me, she was dancing, she was dancing, she was getting into it, she stops, looks around, and realizes she’s all alone and everyone is watching her. Then she leaves the dance and goes looking for me, telling everyone “that bitch ditched me”. Hehehehehe. I was in the process of trying to get Leary and George off the table in the dance, when someone told me Stephanie was looking for me. So I got them off (um..the table), told them I was going back up the room, and left to look for Stephanie. I found her a short while later, and we eventually decided to head back up to my room, since the bar was closed, and we didn’t want to hang out at the dance anymore.

We got back up to the room around 2-2:30am, and were quickly followed by the others, as Leary, George, and some others made their way back up there. At some point after we got back from the dance, freaking Charlie DeMars showed up in our room. I don’t really like that guy, but I was drunk, and apparently spent nearly an hour talking to him and arguing with him over who was gonna jump out the 18th floor window first. I was still drinking, and had been drinking for a looong time, and just started drinking vodka straight, at which point, Leary started taking drinks out of my hand and throwing them away. He also took a cigarette out of my hand (I sometimes smoke when I drink) and stuck it in a cup of water and told me that’s gross. George and Stephanie decided they were gonna head to bed around 3-3:30am (not too sure on an exact time). Leary left with George, saying he was going to bed, but returned by himself a short time later. Then, for some strange reason, he started making me more drinks, and they were good. I couldn’t figure out why he was taking drinks off me one second, and then making me more drinks the next, though. The folks at the party rocked out to Foreigner behind the bar, had a few more drinks, and we didn’t get one noise complaint from the hotel. After Leary finally left, he called the room again about 10 minutes later. Dork. I’m gonna miss seeing that guy at cons. Apparently, Velvet Chain showed up there too. I don’t even remember that at all, judging by my answer to their phone call the next morning (more on that later). According to Cate, Charlie left around 5am..but don’t quote me on that. I don’t know what time I passed out, all I know is I ended up in the bed, in the correct bedroom, and woke up the next morning fully clothed even wearing my shoes

 

Sunday, 8/29/04

Usually, the Sunday of any convention I’ve attended in the past, has always been pretty tame. Oakland, however, broke the mold! Sunday was crazy! So let’s begin with my hangover morning from hell.

I once again missed out on all photo ops, as Deb and Cate headed downstairs to have their photos with The Troika and Stephanie done. I rolled out of bed sometime around 10am. Confusion set in the second I opened my eyes, and found myself on the wrong side of the bed, fully clothed, and wearing shoes. I also wondered where the hell my roomies were. For some strange reason, instead of just staying in clothes, I got up, showered, and changed into my pajamas. As I was wandering out into the living room, the phone rang. When I answered it, I was informed it was so-and-so from Velvet Chain and her husband left his red box up in our room after the party last night, etc. What? Huh? Wait- who are you, and exactly what the hell are you talking about? Velvet Chain was in our room last night? Apparently. After much confusion on my end of the phone, and conferencing with Belinda and Donna, I was informed that Velvet Chain had come to the party late the night prior and had left the box with ALL of their money in it, in our room. But someone had found it, and it was safely stowed away. I informed her, and she said they’d be right up for it.

I answered the door when he got there, and quickly apologized for not knowing who the hell they were. He was all grateful, though, and said we were all welcome to come by their table in the dealer’s room that day, and have anything we wanted for free, for keeping all of their money safe. I never did take them up on that. Huh.

At some point later, Deb and Cate returned, and we all headed down to the dealer’s room to see the bonus guests…and yes, I headed down in my ever-comfy pajamas. The second Leary saw me he laughed and was all like, “Dude, you couldn’t even get dressed!?!” Poor Adam Busch was informed that I might puke, and I think Jonathan Woodward thought I was on all kinds of drugs. It wasn’t pretty.

After much killing time chatting, hanging out, getting autographs etc..I headed back up to the room with Froggy so I could change and he could get some stuff he needed for his charity thing.

A quick change and no makeup later, I was on my way back downstairs with Froggy (and Deb had joined us) on a mission to actually take some pictures at this damn convention. We have the worst habit of not breaking out our cameras until the last day…and then we take excessive pictures that one day. Pictures achieved, asses grabbed, fingers flown, we were ready to leave that room for a bit.

At some point, we went to the main ballroom to do our Clare Kramer and Tony Head autographs. Clare was cool, and remembered that she was now in a band with me and Stephanie, and she was “Spin”. I’m impressed she remembered that after the amount of alcohol that was consumed that night. Tony was lovely as ever, and wouldn’t stop talking to me..to the point of Terry having to ask us to leave the line. Tony gave her a look, but it was cool, we listened to her and said our goodbyes.

I was dying of starvation, so we then went and got some food. We got it go, as we really wanted to say goodbye to the guys (ie, George, Leary, etc.) and then hurry on over to actually see a Q&A, mainly Tony Head. Deb and Cate went into the ballroom with the food, as I went in to interrupt an interview and say my goodbyes to Leary. It was sad. We (neither my friends nor Leary) won’t really be doing any more cons in the US and we aren’t going to be seeing each other for a while. We talked about staying in touch, making trips out to LA, etc. and it was difficult to walk away…but I did. I love that guy, and I miss him already.

As I walked out of the room on my way to the Q&A’s, Common Rotation was packing up to leave, and Adam grabbed me, hugged me, and told me that he hoped I felt better. I told him I just need to stop drinking so much. We laughed, said our goodbyes, and he left and I went into the ballroom.

Tony’s Q&A was GREAT! I can never tire of listening to him, as he’s just so straight-up about everything, and so funny. I knew he was going to say what he said about Moonlight Rising and Aria, but it didn’t ease the shock at all when he ACTUALLY said it. I love that man even more now. Getting to hear him sing was a nice treat, since I had to leave the banquet early for Common Rotation, and never got to hear him sing even a note the night before. “Sweet Transvestite” never sounded so good, and it was hilarious to see Jamie (Zathras) up there on stage with him!!!! Go Jamie!!

Next up was James Marsters. Admittedly, I didn’t care about seeing James speak. It doesn’t even have anything to do with not liking him. I’ve just seen him do so many Q&A’s and they all end up being the same. So during his talk, we did pretend shots, picked our noses, and nodded off (not out of boredom..we were just so tired..I almost fell asleep during Tony’s as well).

After the Q&A’s were over, I hunted down my fellow “Snotty Bitches” Alabama and Mandy, and chatted with them for a while. Alabama told me a funny story about how every time he tried to see Jonathan Woodward that weekend to get an autograph, the guy was always out of the room. So Sunday afternoon, Jonathan was in the bar eating, and Alabama spotted him. He ran down to the dealer’s room, stole the headshot off the bulletin board outside the room, stole a Sharpie, and took it back upstairs with $20 and apologized for having to do it that way, but he could never get to Jonathan all weekend for an autograph. Jonathan signed it for free. It was a hilarious story, though, so I stole the Leary, Adam, and Tom photos…and later Deb stole the rest. It was the great picture heist of 2004 and we were very proud. LOL.

Everyone went their separate ways after that, and we went back to the room to relax. Later in the night, my new friend Sarah and her boyfriend, Alabama (now known as Illabama), Mandy, Erin, Cindy, Marie, Magoonie, and a few others showed up to hang out. Froggy had ordered pizza, as is our usual Sunday night thing, and we all ate and chilled out for a bit. Nobody had any intentions of going to the pajama party (except Froggy, who doesn’t like to be far from Clare), until Deb had a great conga line idea. We’d all conga line into the dance, each carrying a bottle of hard liquor. We’d make one lap, and then dance right our of the room and never return. It was hilarious when we did! We cleared the entire dance floor when we got in there. It was insane. Then we left.

After making newspaper hats and other such contraband, we decided to do one more trip downstairs, and just one more conga line. This time, when we entered the room, Dizzy made the announcement that the “snotty bitches were in da house”. After the note on our door in Tampa, that had to piss off a lot of people. That was why he did it. Our conga line degenerated into us making our own dance out in the main hall, though, as we didn’t leave right away. We then decided to head back into the dance for a while, and get a little crazy on the dance floor, which we did and there’s photographic evidence. Scary. Trainwreck was there too…and I couldn’t stop laughing. Mandy rocks the “robot dance” hardcore, and Cindy can grab my ass any day. Yeah, yeah. Big ups to my homeez. We’re such dorks.

After we were spent on the dance floor (I think I actually layed down on the floor at one point), we went back upstairs to eat cold pizza and drink some more. I was really not looking forward to that 5am train I had to catch. Iyari and Clare came back with Froggy at some point, and Iyari was all about the munchies. She loved Margaret’s cookies. I spent some quality bar time, standing behind the bar, on a cooler, singing along to the Golden Oldies on the radio. Good times. I was making some pretty damn good alcoholic concoctions, but the ginger ale and coconut rum was my favorite. Those took me into the wee hours of the morning. I passed out some time around 2:30am, as I just couldn’t stay awake anymore. More people showed up later, but I was out for the count. I remember Dizzy coming in and giving me a kiss on the cheek while I was sleeping, to say goodbye, and was told Fuckin Larry was going to jump on me and Deb, who were both in bed. I’m also sad I missed Dizzy’s impromptu standup routine..it sounded hilarious.

When I got up at 4:45am to get ready to go the airport, I went out into the room to find a few people I didn’t know, and no Froggy. Apparently, he had been passed out, but then got up and wandered out of the room never to return, about an hour before. Around 5:30am, there was a knock on the door. It was hotel security, returning a wandering, wasted Froggy to our room. It’s sad that when hotel security finds a drunk guy wandering aimlessly around the hotel, they automatically know he belongs in room 1811.