Xena Con 2007
Taipo's Report
by Taipo
taipogau@yahoo.com
Thursday evening, 1/11/07
Well, there we all were again. It was like we'd never left! The line for early registration stretched down the corridor and around the corner, but at least it was inside, since we're having unseasonably cold weather here in sunny SoCal. The line went quickly, though, and it wasn't all that long before we were standing in other lines to look at merchandise. The photo table line, of course, moved like molasses as everyone took their time carefully choosing which 8x10's they would buy for the actors to sign. I took the simpler route, and bought a larger photo that also graces the official convention t-shirt. It has photos of the characters played by the actors who will be at the con, and at least one who won't be here. It shows Sheeri Rappaport, who can't come, and doesn't show Brittany Powell, who will be here. Still, those are minor glitches, and it's a nice image.
The hail-fellow-well-met atmosphere of all cons prevailed in the room, and I saw many familiar faces in the crowd, as well as some new, and younger, faces. The next generation of Xena fans is alive and well, it seems.
Friday, 1/12/07
The doors opened early, at 11:30, though things weren't scheduled to begin until 12:30. Even the hall was open early, which was a great convenience, as folks could drop their jackets and things at their seats, and not tromp around the vendors' area, bopping one another with sleeves and bags and other belongings.
The festivities began with several music video winners being presented their certificates, gift certificates, and the videos being shown. Sorry, but I can't remember all the winners' names, but I will say the videos were all very good, and a lot of fun to watch. Some of the winners weren't in attendance to receive their tickets, but I know Hayley and Donna were there- good job, ladies! We were treated to a presentation of Jen Stamey's music video salute to Lucy's performances on Celebrity Duets. Fantastic job! I kept thinking, "I sure hope someone gives Lucy a copy of this!" It seemed to me to capture not only the best of her performances, but the essence of what it all meant to Lucy- a dream come true. I bet Sharon will make sure she sees it.
From there we had a short film offered by Deborah Abbott, who could not be at this year's con. Don't ask me why! The film, "Three Wishes," was about a pregnant woman who is hit on the head with a bottle, which happens to have been where an evil war god incarcerated Aphrodite 300 years ago. Mom-to-be opens bottle, Ditey pops out and offers her 3 wishes, and the fun goes on from there. Thanks, Deb!
We then watched as much of the blooper reels as there was time for, and then Ms. Adrienne Wilkinson took the stage. She treated us to a bit of her latest film, "Lakeshore Drive." It's one man's story of his boyhood and his parents, and it's quite dark, really. Adrienne was splendid as the depressed, somewhat spoiled, slightly wacko mom. Watch for it, probably at your local "art" theater. One interesting note: When Adrienne was a little girl, she was fearless. She loved jumping off high places, and twice dislocated her hips jumping off the family's backyard deck, prompting visits from Child Protective Services. Hmm. Maybe they thought her mom was stuck in an ice cave somewhere when she should have been at home grabbing her little jumping bean. Fortunately, Adrienne's parents succeeding somehow in raising her in once piece anyway.
After that, we got to see the Xenaversity's new short, "Xena vs. The Soul Sucker of Japa." Xena goes on vacation, and of course, all hell breaks loose. Still, I'm very happy to say that this trip to Japa wasn't the killer the last one was. The Xenaversity's graphics of made-up tabloid front-pages as part of the film was clever and fun. Keep it up, Xenaversity.
From there, we went to Mr. Steven L. Sears. He asked us to throw out the names of episodes, preferably ones he'd written himself, and he would try to remember a story about the writing/making of them. I found my writing supplies somewhere during his stage time, so I have a few more notes. There was so much, however, that I just can't report it all. I hope other folks who were there can fill in the gaps.
He told us that it was really Danielle's decision to let Ephiny die. He was willing to let the story go either way, but Danielle felt there wasn't really any more left in the character.
He told us that The Price was really about his father, who'd been in the Special Forces. Steve used the episode to explore the conflicting sides of his dad- the man who'd been there for him, played with him, loved him, but yet whose job was to kill people.
He also felt that Gabrielle's journey in the show was kind of the more heroic of the two, as he defined it. Xena had chosen to go from dark into the light, but Gabrielle had willingly chosen to go from the light, from innocence, into the dark, to be with her friend. He felt that was truly heroic.
He said it took the staff a while to realize that they actually had real actresses, who could truly work with all kinds of material, so they more they did with the material, the tougher the material the writers threw at them.
Amaryce was, in his mind, a survivor of an extreme Amazon nation, not an Amazon wannabe, so he was surprised when her character turned out that way after he left the show. But he respected the decision of the writers.
He did remember that Liz Friedman named Been There, Done That. They'd struggled with a name, until Liz came in one day, grinning, and popped out that name.
Steve was asked if he'd have killed off Xena at the end. After a moment's thought he said "Yeah." But his idea was to have another epic battle of good vs. evil, like the Battle of Corinth, only at the end, Gabrielle would be on the throne, and a ghost Xena would be there beside her, because Xena would have realized that this kid she'd picked up in a little village was actually the world's last hope. Gabrielle would have been leading the side of good in the battle simply because she was who she was, and Xena would do anything she had to in order to get her on the throne. Applause.
Steve told us that Hudson said hello, and that she wasn't there because she was making movies. Hooray for that!
One episode he'd thought of doing was having Xena follow Callisto to modern-day Los Angeles, where they're chasing each other down the streets, speaking Greek, and Cecrops pops up to help Xena learn to navigate LA and finally get Callisto.
In regard to the X&G friendship, as time went on, they realized they couldn't "divorce" the two characters, no matter whether you see them as friends or lovers, because the show would just die.
We learned after he was done that Steve ended up doing double duty, 'cause Zoe Bell wasn't there. It turned out that she was up north, working on Quentin Tarantino's new film, Grind House, and she'd mixed up her days. Too disappointing, but that's the way it goes. It's to Steve's credit that no one really noticed he'd run past his appointed time. Good work.
Friday Night Cabaret
The Cabaret is always one of my favorite parts of the con, and it didn’t disappoint this time, either. But then, I always love to hear Jennifer Ward Lealand sing!
First up was Jay Laga’aia, who plays the guitar and sings very, very nicely. He talked about growing up in South Auckland, and how television had a big influence on him. He told us he had 7 children. Throughout the weekend, that number grew by hundreds, thousands, millions, until he was talking about his 167 trillion kids. He dedicated his first number to mothers everywhere, and then gave us the Mary Tyler Moore theme song. He then gave us "You Send Me."
He noted that Xena and Hercules being made in New Zealand had really made the whole epic Lord of the Rings possible to do there, saying that so many people from the two shows had worked on the film. He then sang a song he’d written for his 4-year-old son called "Why Can’t I Sleep on the Top Bunk, Mom?" It was a lot of fun. He finished with an Indigo Girls song, the name of which eludes me. He was wonderful to watch.
Then Robert Trebor took the stage with an excerpt from his new one-man show, "The Return of Brother Theodore." Brother Theodore was a real person, and he had a stage show for many years, I think he said in Greenwich Village, but I’m not sure. The man was a Holocaust survivor, and a bit wacko, frankly. He’d been on various talk shows, and his own show was funny, but very darkly so. In this snippet from the show, Brother Theodore tried very seriously to convince the audience to give up eating, and to join him in sustaining oneself by absorbing sunlight. Ya hadda be there, folks. Rob was really convincing. I never saw Brother Theodore, but I have seen Rob Trebor, and the character on the stage was definitely not him! Well done, I say.
Then we had a Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Michael Hurst, sometimes singing together and sometimes solo. Michael led off with Tom Jones’s song "My Delilah," and then the two of them sang "The Little Things You Do Together," which they’d done last year and which the audience had enjoyed so much. Then they alternated their songs like this:
J- Don’t Talk, Just Sing (I’m improvising titles here, I confess!), M- It’s Lonely At the Top, and J- The Masochism Tango. This last was a BIG hit with the audience, and you could see Jennifer was really having fun with it.
Then Michael came out as a drunken Irish priest, and gave us a monologue in which Father Michael tried to teach us a parable that would answer the following question: What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his soul?
Well, from that point on, Father Michael managed to mangle the bible so completely I thought I’d die from laughing. It was so funny I couldn’t laugh out loud, if you understand what I mean. And I love puns, so when he told us that the elder son went first, and then he went second, and then he went third, and finally he "went forth," I loved it. I wish I could give you the whole thing, but maybe someone can find it somewhere.
After all that, we had Jennifer giving us two songs from her Marlene Dietrich show, Falling in Love Again. They were "I’d Be Lost Without You," and "Johnny," which she sang in very sexy German. It was, she said, about a woman calling her lover on the phone and asking him to come over. If he couldn’t make it that night, the afternoon would do just as well.
Michael then sang a song from a show he’d done sometime ago called "Who’s Randy?" It was based on the music of Randy Newman, and the song was "Political Science," about bombing all the inconvenient countries with nuclear bombs until only we were left. Very interesting.
Then together they gave us a very clever song called "Masculine/Feminine," from a show that Jennifer had done called "Berlin," which showcased songs from…oh, rats, I think it was 1920’s and maybe 1930’s Berlin. Someone will correct me, I hope, if I’m wrong. Then Jennifer gave us "Has Anybody Seen My Guy?" while playing her ukelele. After that, she accompanied Michael on the guitar for the song "Claude Raines," which came from an album made by a group she’d been in called "Front Lawn."
The evening ended with Jennifer, Michael, and Jay singing an Englebert Humperdinck song that they said was very widely known and loved in New Zealand, but which never became popular here. I’m guessing it was called "My Ten Guitars," as the refrain was "Dance, dance, dance to my ten guitars, dance, dance and you’ll know just where you are…" At the end, it started out "hula, hula, hula to my ten guitars," and then Michael turned it into "haka, haka, haka to my ten guitars," which ended the song with a bang and good old Maori war face, tongue out and all. After a bow from the whole cast, including Robert Trebor, the evening was at an end. We filed out of the auditorium and promptly mobbed the tables selling Jennifer’s CD of her show "Jennifer Ward-Lealand Falling in Love Again," and Rob Trebor’s latest edition of his book "Dear Salmoneus." Another great cabaret. What will happen next year????
Friday Night Cabaret
The Cabaret is always one of my favorite parts of the con, and it didn’t disappoint this time, either. But then, I always love to hear Jennifer Ward Lealand sing!
First up was Jay Laga’aia, who plays the guitar and sings very, very nicely. He talked about growing up in South Auckland, and how television had a big influence on him. He told us he had 7 children. Throughout the weekend, that number grew by hundreds, thousands, millions, until he was talking about his 167 trillion kids. He dedicated his first number to mothers everywhere, and then gave us the Mary Tyler Moore theme song. He then gave us "You Send Me."
He noted that Xena and Hercules being made in New Zealand had really made the whole epic Lord of the Rings possible to do there, saying that so many people from the two shows had worked on the film. He then sang a song he’d written for his 4-year-old son called "Why Can’t I Sleep on the Top Bunk, Mom?" It was a lot of fun. He finished with an Indigo Girls song, the name of which eludes me. He was wonderful to watch.
Then Robert Trebor took the stage with an excerpt from his new one-man show, "The Return of Brother Theodore." Brother Theodore was a real person, and he had a stage show for many years, I think he said in Greenwich Village, but I’m not sure. The man was a Holocaust survivor, and a bit wacko, frankly. He’d been on various talk shows, and his own show was funny, but very darkly so. In this snippet from the show, Brother Theodore tried very seriously to convince the audience to give up eating, and to join him in sustaining oneself by absorbing sunlight. Ya hadda be there, folks. Rob was really convincing. I never saw Brother Theodore, but I have seen Rob Trebor, and the character on the stage was definitely not him! Well done, I say.
Then we had a Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Michael Hurst, sometimes singing together and sometimes solo. Michael led off with Tom Jones’s song "My Delilah," and then the two of them sang "The Little Things You Do Together," which they’d done last year and which the audience had enjoyed so much. Then they alternated their songs like this:
J- Don’t Talk, Just Sing (I’m improvising titles here, I confess!), M- It’s Lonely At the Top, and J- The Masochism Tango. This last was a BIG hit with the audience, and you could see Jennifer was really having fun with it.
Then Michael came out as a drunken Irish priest, and gave us a monologue in which Father Michael tried to teach us a parable that would answer the following question: What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his soul?
Well, from that point on, Father Michael managed to mangle the bible so completely I thought I’d die from laughing. It was so funny I couldn’t laugh out loud, if you understand what I mean. And I love puns, so when he told us that the elder son went first, and then he went second, and then he went third, and finally he "went forth," I loved it. I wish I could give you the whole thing, but maybe someone can find it somewhere.
After all that, we had Jennifer giving us two songs from her Marlene Dietrich show, Falling in Love Again. They were "I’d Be Lost Without You," and "Johnny," which she sang in very sexy German. It was, she said, about a woman calling her lover on the phone and asking him to come over. If he couldn’t make it that night, the afternoon would do just as well.
Michael then sang a song from a show he’d done sometime ago called "Who’s Randy?" It was based on the music of Randy Newman, and the song was "Political Science," about bombing all the inconvenient countries with nuclear bombs until only we were left. Very interesting.
Then together they gave us a very clever song called "Masculine/Feminine," from a show that Jennifer had done called "Berlin," which showcased songs from…oh, rats, I think it was 1920’s and maybe 1930’s Berlin. Someone will correct me, I hope, if I’m wrong. Then Jennifer gave us "Has Anybody Seen My Guy?" while playing her ukelele. After that, she accompanied Michael on the guitar for the song "Claude Raines," which came from an album made by a group she’d been in called "Front Lawn."
The evening ended with Jennifer, Michael, and Jay singing an Englebert Humperdinck song that they said was very widely known and loved in New Zealand, but which never became popular here. I’m guessing it was called "My Ten Guitars," as the refrain was "Dance, dance, dance to my ten guitars, dance, dance and you’ll know just where you are…" At the end, it started out "hula, hula, hula to my ten guitars," and then Michael turned it into "haka, haka, haka to my ten guitars," which ended the song with a bang and good old Maori war face, tongue out and all. After a bow from the whole cast, including Robert Trebor, the evening was at an end. We filed out of the auditorium and promptly mobbed the tables selling Jennifer’s CD of her show "Jennifer Ward-Lealand Falling in Love Again," and Rob Trebor’s latest edition of his book "Dear Salmoneus." Another great cabaret. What will happen next year????
Saturday, 1/13/07
Began with music video winners: Julia, for I'm in the Mood For Dancing; Aaron, for his cinematic take on The Debt. Then there was a trivia competition, and the panel won, by the grace of Adam, and quite a few people won prizes for coming up with good, stumping questions, too. Lots of fun. Start thinking up good question for next year, even if you can't get to the con. Maybe we'll start a list. <EG>
Up first was Jay Laga'aia. "Some of you out there look shocking! I saw you last night!" (I have been informed that the dessert party went until 2 am. No wonder the hall was kind of empty before Jay took the stage!)
He sang the song Love the One You're With, and at the line "she's a girl, you're a boy," he sang "she's a girl, and you're a……..girl!" Loud cheers!
He was wearing a magenta colored shirt. He told us that he'd had to run to Frye's (where's Danielle Cormack when you need her?) because he discovered that his laptop plug wouldn't fit the American wall socket. He ran to Frye's, and said that as he went, he realized that his pink shirt was "not the international color of masculinity." He was so funny. His description of the salesguys at Frye's was more than accurate. "Even if they don't know, they pretend they do. But if they have to read the package, you know you're in trouble." I wish I could get it all down on paper for you, but it's just impossible. Suffice it to say this is one funny, funny man, who can do a myriad of voices and accents.
He went on to talk about his childhood. When he was young, he thought Elvis was a Polynesian, because all he could hear was the vowels in the songs. If you listen to Only Fools Rush In, you'll get it. And he thought Michael Jackson was always constipated, and he did a great caricature of Michael singing "She's Out of My Life." We were rolling in the aisles.
He has a first draft script of Lyre, Lyre, but he hadn't brought it with him. He was also involved in a children's show in Australia called Playschool. He then sang a song he had written, inspired by a little girl, a burn victim who'd lost her fingers but her spirit still shone. It's called "I'm Blessed," and it celebrates his children. He's written a couple of children's books.
Next up was Brittany Powell, for, as she told us, her first Q&A ever. She loved New Zealand, but couldn’t bring herself to cook the Huhu (spelling?) grubs she’d caught and was so supposed to fry and eat. "They have eyes. They look at you. I felt bad, so I had to take them back where I found them."
She had been wanting to thank Lucy and Renee for their kindness and their help while she was on the show. She’s run into Renee at other times, but she never managed to say thanks because they always ended up talking about their families. She told us that the first time she saw Lucy, Lucy had her hair up in a towel, and Brittany didn’t even know it was Lucy. "I thought ‘here’s a delicate flower.’" Then it was time to film, and off came the towel and on went Xena. Brittany said Lucy was just overtaken by Xena’s personality. She was impressed with Lucy’s ability.
About Brunhilda and Gabs, she was very coy and teasing. Actually, she teased the audience all the way through. Many people were saying "We’ve found the next Hudson Leick!" I have to admit that at one point, I thought she was maybe channeling Sharon Stone, the way her legs were crossed and her clingy dress hiked up, but no one seemed to mind, oddly enough.
She said she’d first come out to LA because Playboy wanted her. I can see why. In the end, however, she never signed on with them because for the duration of your contract you had to be known as "Playmate Brittany Powell," and she was already getting acting and jobs, and offers to do commercials, so why get stuck with a name like that? "Hasbro wouldn’t want me then," she laughed.
Other shows she’s worked on: Pacific Palisades, Silk Stalkings, Renegade, and the film Airborne. She also worked on General Hospital. She was currently learning to waltz for a play that she and her friends will be putting on at Burning Man this year. Their camp will be called "Blissful Goddess." She says "all women are goddesses. I just had to say that." She has one child, a boy named Tyson who is 8 years old.
At some point, one of those intrepid and incorrigible front –row fans (you know who you are! and we couldn’t do without you!) mentioned something that led to the topic of Brittany’s bra. Dunno what exactly was said, but the next thing you know, folks are encouraging her to auction off said bra for charity, the way Hudson auctions off her dresses. To her great credit, she was open to the idea. It took a little convincing before she realized we were serious. She says she does support a charity, the Desi Dietzman (I’m really winging it on the spelling here) Fund, which helps families whose kids have cancer to take care of their other kids as well. It covers expenses that other charities might not, and was created by a movie or television crew member who lost his daughter to cancer. In the end, she finally agreed to auction off the bra, and as the bids came in, she even showed off a bit of it for us. That really sent the crowd into overdrive. During the bidding, she was asked if a) she would sign the bra, and b) could the winner take it off? Brittany said she’d sign anything, and then said "Well, they can unhook it." I don’t know if that part happened, but I do know that a very nice lady bought that bra for $1,100.00. For us, it was nothing new- we’ve seen huge amounts go for charity in the past, but when the bid for 1,000.00 first came in, I think Brittany had an epiphany, and suddenly realized that we are not your ordinary fans. Great job, gang. Another con virgin initiated into the fold.
After Brittany there was another auction, this one scheduled, and among other things, a script donated by Steve Sears was sold to raise 2,400.00 for a scholarship fund in his name at….Florida State University, I think they said. Another 400.00 for the same charity was raised on his photos from past cons that he had put together and framed.
After the auction, there was another video by Paul, called "So Serious," which gave a great introduction to Michael
The End of the Show
The convention ended in what I thought was a really good way. The autographs had been done earlier in the day, so there was no need to have people standing around in an increasingly deserted auditorium, watching the stripping of the stage and yawning and wanting their dinners. Instead, four more music videos were shown, which left us with images of the show we all love so much. These winners were:
Diana, for Thriller, Tamara, for My Immortal, Cory (with help from Jamester) for I Like the Way You Move (very well cut, by the way!) and Linda, for a tribute to the animals of Xena.
When I left, the stage was bare and empty, and people were heading for the concert. The banners were gone, but the glow still lingered. There's always a high, at least for me, after the con. And exhaustion. All that emotion can leave you drained, even though it's all good emotion. It takes a little getting used to, all that extreme happiness, joy, and acceptance of you as you are. Let's keep at it until the whole world is exhausted with that kind of feeling. See you next year.
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