As I mentioned in my last article I woke up EARLY on Saturday. Elsa had brought some fruit and bagels with her to the con and we munched on those and pastries and stuff. Then several of us went to get our photos taken with the Doctor Who crowd.
9am is dead early if you're at a con. Imagine suffering from Jetlag and having people flashing cameras at you every minute or so. And yet the Who guests were still smiling! (Some more fake than others...) I did the "Instant Gratification" polaroid as well as a shot with my own camera. They both turned out well. They had it set so that the 6 guests (Sylv, Mark, Caroline, Louise, Geoffrey, and Lisa) were around a chair that the punter would sit in. Then they'd take your photo. It was a bit of a shame that they had all the actors together so that you couldn't really do group photos if you wanted. But you could still distinguish the various dots from each other after the shot.
The Doctor Who panel was next. This time they split it into two groups. Mark, Sylv, and Lisa talked for a half an hour, then Caroline, Louise, Geoffrey, and Terry talked the second half hour. The highlight (other than my getting to stare at Sylv next to Mark for half an hour) was someone in the audience asking, "This question is for Caroline and Terry. And Geoffrey if he has one."
Terry replied, "Now I really want to know what this question is."
Caroline replied, "Yes, he has."
And Geoffrey's face turned red as a beet. It was quite impressive.
Turns out the question was "What was your favorite Jon Pertwee memory."
Louise was going back at 6pm, so she did her variety show act at the start of the second half of the panel. She came out as the teacher in a Christmas pagent rehearsal. The kids were all DrWho people. "Where are my Wise Men? Tom Baker, are you a Wise Man? You aren't?" "Adric, stop doing that!" "Turlough, you're my shepard, aren't you?" "Stop looking at that crystal!" "Zoe, leave Jamie's kilt alone." "Adric, stop doing that!" :) It was very funny. But was it a sign of a good variety show or a bad one? More on that later.
There was much more from the panel, but at the moment, I can't recall a thing.
(Should I start sighing now, or should I introduce this next bit?)
The Celebrity Luncheon was next. And thanks to Judi (who was nice enough to sell me her ticket rather than force me to murder her), I was able to go. (For the first time ever.) Let's see how I do.
The circle around the table was Alryssa, Suki, Alden, Marion, Andie, Kyle (nonPMEBer), Chris, blank, and Marylin. We started on our salad. Around noon, the celebrities entered the room. And our table was joined by...
(the suspense is terrible)
(I hope it will last)
Mark Strickson. :) *Sigh* He first apologized for looking like Jon-Boy. But I think he looks good in plaid flannel. (Or in speedos... wait, sorry about that.) He was very talkative and friendly and looked straight at you when he spoke to you. He even seemed to be happy, which I think is nice, since he always seems so sad in his interviews in DWM. Since we were all internetters, we got Mark talking about email and the WWW. He likes email for the amount of paper that it saves. (Of course, if he worked in the US government, Judi assured me, he wouldn't see that saving of paper.) He autographed my "high school year book" as my program had become (lots of PMEB signatures in that program). And he allowed us to take photos.
When dessert came, they had the guests move around. And then Louise joined us. We all but convinced her that the WWW was the way to go in advertising her charity (Romanian Orphans Fund, IIRC) and her auctioning off of her Leela Knife. She was also very friendly and talkative. The food was even rather good (though I heard it was the same as last year's meal).
After the luncheon, several of us went downtown to window shop in and around Marshall Fields. Again I'm going to try the memory thing and see how many I get right (please don't hate me if I forgot someone.)
Judi, Elsa, Steph, Alden, Meg, Carole, Mary Ellen, Becky, Peter, Jack, Andie, and me. Oh, and where is Suki? :)
We took the train into town and then walked through the subway to Marshall Fields. Then we split up for two and a half hours. I wandered around the store and up and down State Street with Suki. The most common purchase from all of us was Frango Mints. This would seem to be the thing to buy at Marshall Fields. I bought two boxes - one for me and one for a co-worker who was originally from Chicago.
At 5:30 we met and ate supper at the food court of Marshall Fields. I had calamari that was good except for the salt. So I passed the rest around the table and folks had a chance to try it who might not normally have tried it. Then we headed back to the trains. It was getting close to the Variety Show time.
Now, just to let you know some background, I've been going to Visions since 1995. And the variety show has gotten worse and worse. Several friends of mine decided to give this year a miss. Judi and I and a few others were optimistic (or sadistic). Honestly, it couldn't be any worse than last year's... Or could it?
Well, I'm happy to report that it was the best they'd had in the 4 years I'd seen it. (Of course, this is my opinion, but I'm sticking to it, by gum!)
To start with, they showed the skit that won the Best of Show at the Maskarade the night before. Then Mark (sigh) came out and sang. I was impressed - I'd never heard him sing before. He sang "Caberet Tonight!" to the tune of "Comedy Tonight." I'd imagine this is something he's done at other cons, but I could be wrong. Then he told a bad joke I saw coming a mile away, but I can forgive him that. :)
Robin Atkin Downs was next and he was the MC. He sang something (I can't remember - but he too is a good singer) and then introduced "The Lord of the Dance," Sylvester McCoy. (There is more humor to this than meets the eye. Just ask the other con-goers what the Other convention at the hotel was...)
Sylv entered the stage carrying a guitar case. He opened it to remove his instrument. Which was a teeny tiny guitar-shaped case. Actually, more of a spoon-shaped case. In it were his spoons. He then sang about his big brother Sylveste while he played the spoons (on his legs and later on the audience).
Caroline did a bit from Othello, playing Othello's wife and her maid. She was very impressive, doing two seperate voices and having the characters play off of each other well.
Geoffrey read from Mort by Terry Pratchett. His Death was the best I'd ever heard. It's a shame that he doesn't read the Pratchett books.
Robin's girlfriend sang an aria (which probably shouldn't have been sung via the mic) which was quite lovely. Then Tracy Scoggins came out trying to sing Opera as well. Only it was too high for her. She tried a lower Opera piece which was still too high, then requested a boy's piece. The pianist started playing "Jailhouse Rock," so Tracy did her best Elvis impersonation. She isn't anything like a singer, but she did seem to enjoy herself and it was a fun romp.
Kent McCord ("The Guy from Adam 12") recited the Miranda Rights. (He had a story to go along with it.) Judi, sitting next to me, recited the rights along with him. :)
Robin and his girlfriend sang a bit from Phantom of the Opera. (Again, very nice, but they needed to turn down her mic a bit.) He'd also earlier sung "The Lady is a Tramp" aiming most of it at the pianist. (And he danced with his mom, too.)
The pianist (whose name I can't remember) played one of her pieces and sang along with it.
The Lord of the Dance returned with a 12-foot length of knicker elastic. He had Cowboy Bob (the director of the con) hold one end in his mouth. "This 12 foot length of elastic, sensation seekers, stretches out to 24 feet and has a recoil velocity of 45 miles per hour," Sylv said as he made his way out into the audience to climb onto a chair about 24 feet from the stage. He was going to get it out to that length and then let go, hitting Cowboy Bob on the face.
"Cowboy Bob? Are you Ready?"
"Yes!"
And fwap, Sylv gets knocked off the chair by 12 feet of knicker elastic hitting him at 45 miles per hour. :) He chased Bob off the stage.
Erin Gray came out and did a wonderful bit of Tai Chi. She did it about double time to what you're supposed to, and even then it was very slow. Her face was still with absolute concentration, and when she was done, she looked very relaxed.
Terry Walsh played the guitar (I'd wondered where Sylv had gotten the case from). He did some Celtic music and taught us a bit of history and about Turlough O'Callohan (or whoever that was). I was a little sad to see that he wasn't singing "I've got a song that'll get on your nerves."
The finale of the show was up to Mark. He called for 10 volunteers from the audience, of which Steph, Tom, and Alryssa were some. Then he sang "Doctor Who had a farm, EIEIO."
Some of the verses that I do recall (and Steph et all could probably help) are:
Of course, the import things are the hand motions... (Which the 10 behind him had to do along with him.)
And I don't remember enough of the others to finish them. :)
But it was a wonderful finale to the show. And Steph has the "scars" to prove that she jumped onto the stage. :)
I was very pleased with the variety show this year. It had variety AND was done in under 2 hours.
After the variety show, we headed off to Tom's party. The first 15 or so minutes was standing on their balcony looking out over the city. I was still gushing about the variety show and was probably incoherent for the most part. It's damn hard to be coherent when you're wibbling. They had popcorn (non microwaved, even) and Beatles music and when enough people arrived, they put Yellow Submarine on. Geez, it's been ages since I'd seen that movie.
Sometime after the sequence which should have had "Hey Bulldog" (but didn't) I headed off to the bar to see my friends Mike, Robert?, Greg and Sadron. It was lovely seeing them again and, as with most of the people that I met with at the con, I only wish I'd had more time to talk with them. (I say again, but I'd only just met Greg's roommate, Sadron, at the con this year. It was great meeting him after everything that Greg's said about him.) Steph joined us after an hour or so and then Meg joined us too. At 2am, though, I was dead tired. (And the smoke wasn't doing me any good, either.) So off I went to bed. (And was there someone snoring that night? Could be......)
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