I had caught up the previous day with my good friend Zack Sherman comic book writer among other things. He had a panel Friday with Radical Publishing about his very cool book Shrapnel. (now out in trade paperback.) On the panel were Gene (Kiss) Simmon's son. He actually wrote and illustrated a book called Incarnate. I was sitting next to some people I would meet again later, but they had no idea it was me again. (I'll explain in a moment.) On this panel was Jim Steranko. I remember his artwork from Raiders of the Lost Ark. It had a burly Indy and helped get financing for the project. So Indy didn't look like Harrison Ford since he wasn't cast yet. I have the poster still, somewhere...
After Zack's Panel I went back to the hotel room and put on CARNAGE. It's a costume I made years ago with my friend Terry for World Con in LA. 1996? We were Spider-man and Carnage and beat the crap out of each other onstage. So I wiggled into skin tight lycra after putting on a g-string to hold the package in place. ( You always see Spider-man in boxers, but they would bunch up under the lycra suit. Seriously.) So I put on the mask and went down to the shuttle.
This is when I became a paparazzi whore. The Paris Hilton of Super Villains. I waited for the bus. People would be walking by and ask to take my picture. The question I thought was kind of funny. I'm dressed in a costume, so I am obviously looking for attention. I'd be a huge ass if I said "no" to a picture. The Greta Garbo of costumed folk. Once off the bus I wandered around the Convention. I was stopped basically every 90 seconds or less for a photo op. I would step into a cool pose of some kind. I loved it. I had my picture taken with the people I was sitting next to at Zack's panel, and others I recognized from walking around. I had my picture taken with little kids. I would high 5 them so not to be a scary thing. I had my picture taken with booth babes lots of times. One said she was trying to keep her eyes focused up. So she wasn't looking at my package. I thought that funny because I was looking at her boobs, though you couldn't tell. When people got the shot sometimes I would say "do that again, I blinked." Some people walked by me and said "great costume." And I would growl, "it's not a costume!" I had a great anonymous time. Very fun. After 2.5-3 hours I needed to pee, so I headed back to the room to get out of it. As you can see, my fine motor dexterity is limited a little bit. (The picture is from 2002 Dragon Con. I'm the one that is not Spider-man.)
Friday night I went to the BSG concert at the House of Blues. I got in for free as a VIP because my former roommate Mark Banning did the artwork for the BSG season 4 CD cover. I admit I was tired and a bit grumpy from being on my feet for about 12 hours so far, so I was terse company at times. And I knew I wouldn't get much sleep with the snoring girl in the room. The music was great. I have not heard the music separate from the show. But I always loved the taiko drums in the battle scenes. Bear McCreary had a 17 piece band that was sight reading all the music. Some great session musicians. 4 drums, percussion, 3 guitars, 1 bass, 3 violins, 1 cello with a hot asian girl who was wicked awesome, 1 flute, 1 bagpipe, and Bear on keyboards. I'm forgetting something, but I don't know what. From the cast there was Adama, Tigh, Boomer, Cain, Calley, and Baltar. they talked about he show and a line producer from it, Harvey Friend, who died that morning. So it became a memorial. With 3 hours of music. In the raffle, Zack won a toaster that burned "FRAK OFF" in the toast. I thought it was cool. I was 1 number off from winning the toaster. We hung at the after party when the band was signing. I got back to the room after everyone was snoring. Earplugs and pillows were handy...
Oh, and for all the graveiness of Tigh in the show, his regular voice is higher and he sounds so Canadian. It made me laugh.
Good concert. Good cap to a long day on my feet.
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