2010 OFFICIAL XENA CONVENTION
Los Angeles, California, USA

5 - 7 February 2010

Main Con Page

Read Part 1

Cleo 2525 Reunion Part 2


A young man came up to the mike. Vicky asked him, “Got a girlfriend?” The fan answered, “I don’t speak English” V: “Perfect!” One of them said he had great hair.

I missed something again, ‘cause next Vicky says to Gina, “You want to EAT him?” Gina: “NO”.

Fan: “You can say whatever you want”.

Vicky to Gina, “He came for you, so you answer the question”.

Gina, (With a confiding glance to us) “I’m starting to remember what the last week on the set were like”.

Jennifer: “Occasional (batting off? Battery off?)

Vicky said either “fingers” or “Figero”. (Obviously MY mind was wandering here.)

I think then they were talking about other roles (for Gina?)

Someone asked, “Wonder Woman?”

J: “Little gold pants again”.

G: “I’m so fortunate and grateful that I got to do what I love. If someone would pay me, I’d do…No. We get to play characters that move people. Or just stick like a thorn in their eye.” (Editorial note: You can take the girl out of New York, but you can’t take New York out of the girl.)

J: “I want to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Become the Poet Laureate of the United States.”

V: “I’ll have to Google you and see how you’re doing on that”.

(Note: Jennifer read from some of her work last time she was at the con-and I thought it was very good, tilting towards excellent writing.)

J: “I’m in grad school in New York.”

Someone in the audience yelled out “10-3!” (Referring to the score at the superbowl. But I don’t think we got who was ahead.)

V: “Who’s playing? When does hockey start?”

Jennifer was talking about being here at the con. “All my friends keep texting, ‘Hey, WP! Hey, WP’”.

Vicky said either, “Nothing” or “Mouthy”. *siiigh*

J: “Us over football. That’s why they put US now!”

Note: At the fan breakfast event that morning, when Jennifer sat at our table, she said something about having been expecting Lucy to be there that day because it was the last day and Lucy was always the big finale at the cons. She happened to be looking at me when she finished her sentence, so I said, “She apparently could only come Friday”. And agreeing with her, I said, “I mean, yeah, you always save the best for last. But…” I was about to say, “But not this time”, when I suddenly realized that I was talking to the person who was going to be onstage that day and who was therefore the “disappointment guest fill-in”. So I revved right into, “But…THAT’S why they got YOU GUYS coming-so we can end with a bang!” Jennifer gave me a gracious smile and happily some of the folks at the table said, “Yeah!”

Who knew then that I was actually right? Grin.

I think a fan was talking about Cyan whom Vicky played in Xena. If there was something she didn’t like about the character.

V: I didn’t like the screaming.

The fan asked her about the character’s nudity.

V: “The nudity? Only because it was cold. It was so uncomfortable.”

G: "I only did one episode of Xena. I was in Hercules, playing with the boys".

One of the other ones said, “I never got to play with the boys”.

J: “The chick in your ear”. Yes, this IS what she said-I scowled at it for a bit and then realized she was talking about Gina playing Hel who had an aural implant so she could get directives from Voice.

G: “I was the R.A. on Cleo. I never got any”.

V: "I got some".

(Note: R.A. stands for the Resident Advisor like in a college dorm-a student whose duty it is to maintain order. My first glimpse of my RA at the University of Alaska was seeing this tall young woman with long, dark, curly hair, dressed in a pink sheath covered by a pink mostly transparent gauzy flowing wrap lined with fluttering pink feathers at the edges, sporting a fuzzy pink boa constrictor wrapped around her neck, sauntering down the hall and saying hello and welcome to all the freshmen. She was apparently the most stable, reliable person they could find in our dorm.)

A very cute young male fan came up to the mike, “Jen, I live in New York. I’m a Libra. I like poetry.”

We (and the girls) whooped and hollered for him. (I remember now that they had discussed signs of the Zodiac at one point, but I didn’t get it down, obviously.)

Moving along, Jen said, “I was vegan. (This like skeeved the other two.) “WHAT?!”

J: “I would eat a whole lot of beans. Alright-Titanic going down. (Pause) Be suspect of the soy.”

V: It tastes like ass. Not in a good way though.

G: Bacon makes me happy.

V: I love fish. Turkey. Ostrich. Kangaroo.

G: And it’s lean, lean.

Fan: “What’s your favorite fairy tale?”

G: Well, since Jen just divorced the fairy…

V: Therapy with your girlfriends…

J: Been there, done that. Now I’m the fucking prince.

Vicky began talking about the Princess Pavilion at Disneyland and I think said that she likes Ariel. And something about an object? (There was lots of groaning over Disneyland. The girls MAY have started the groans, but some of the audience joined in. Or vice versa.)


G: I’m a Belle fan myself.

V: “Know what? I like ‘em all! (And she gestured towards Jennifer) And Prince Charming over here.” Jen gave a lovely little queen wave.

V: “Hey Prince-you got a pretty mouth”.

G: “We create our own fairy tales”. We cheered that.

Jennifer said something about “Airport concession activity books”. I think a fan must have brought it up. Because then Gina said to the other two, “Let me handle this”. And then said in a very enthusiastic tone, “That’s a GREAT idea…” while Vicky pretended to be hiding.

I think a fan asked Jennifer something about playing a character who was only pretending to be an Amazon, who was essentially living a lie.

Gina said, “You were a stripper.” (I suspect she didn’t know Amarice’s story and thought the question was about Cleo.)

J. “Oh. Right”.

Then she answered, “Being an Amazon is a state of mind. Be tough in your own mind.”

The fan may have said something else, because Jen copped an attitude and said, “Gabrielle made me one. So, Whatever!”

V: “Did you see the squid movie I did?” Of course, some of us had and yelled out things about it.

V: “I’m sorry. But I got a mortgage to pay, alright?” She then began talking about another project, the “Texas Mongolian Death Worm”.

She talked about her agent calling her. “Hey Vic-we got an offer!” She asked what it was. “Texas Mongolian Death Worm”. V: “Ha ha! What?” Silence. Then, with awful dawning realization, “Whaat?

G: You would have passed it up if it was the “Detroit Death Worm”.

V: I’m like a magnet. And you’re steel.

G: I was raised in Washington Heights in Queens.

Then they somehow were talking about a boyfriend. Ah-I think a fan who was either living in New York or going to school there or something brought it up.

G: “Does he get on the train and come to see you?” (This was obviously of import to Gina-that the guy make the effort to go to her.)

Then I think a fan said, “You three should have a talk show.”

V: “Beep. Beep. Beep.” She said something about “We love J. (and I can’t read the last name.) “He’s the cocksucker. We suck ass.”

Off and on during this presentation, Vicky would fondle Gina’s knee. She’d lean against her. She’d hold onto her. At one point she acted like something a fan said scared her, so she jumped up and ran behind Gina to put her between her and the fan.

A fan asked if they were on Facebook and if so, how many friends did they have.

J: I have thousands.

G&V: No.

Next thing I have written down:

J?: “They said we couldn’t say coochie. They didn’t say anything about cock.”

G: “This explains all the Facebook friends”

A fan asked, “Since Jen showed us her abs, will you show yours?”

G: (Pause). “Hell. I didn’t see THAT coming.” She looked at the fan a moment. “Now remember, I had a baby.”

Then she pulled up her shirt, and damn, she had the most amazing abs I’ve ever seen on a woman. She literally had a six pack. Of course we applauded them.

Then it was Vicky’s turn. She stood up and said, “Well, you know Gina just had a baby”, and then pulled up her shirt and she also had a very defined musculature.

Then I have written down, “Stop it!” And then, “Flash!”

Which I think must mean that Vicky was being coy and telling us to stop hooting and applauding for her. And then whipped her shirt up again for us. (Sounds good anyway, huh?)

Then Vicky was talking about clothes I think, like fashion stuff and designers. Gina pointed to her and asked “Which jeans are those?”


V: “The ones with the holes in them”. And yes, her jeans did have holes in them.

G: “I miss your intellect most of all”

I think then that a fan asked Gina to sing for us. Many years ago, heck I think maybe even at the end of the ‘90s or at the most, certainly very early in the 00’s, Gina performed with Kevin Smith at one of the evening cabarets. Kevin had sung for us many times-he used to have a rock and roll band. Joel Tolbeck, who played Strife was in it. And when Danielle was there, she would be the rocker chick for them. It was always high energy and great fun.

Many people participate in the cabarets. Some with good voices, some with great enthusiasm. And we appreciate them all.

But that time with Gina, she came out, opened her mouth and this absolutely gorgeous, transcendent sound poured out in a golden flood. She was amazingly good. Kevin stood there and was not only as enthralled as us, but since he had presumably heard her before-I imagine they rehearsed, he also managed to let us know just by his stance that he felt he wasn’t worthy to be singing with a person who could sing like this. He was charmingly both abashed and thrilled. And man, did they do a marvelous show that night.

So anyway, Gina thought about what she would sing. Vicky said, “Pretend that I’m Simon”. She put on a British accent and huffily said, “That was bloody awful!”

Gina began to sing, “I’m a little teapot…” And that was as far as she got. She looked at us and said in a kind of surprise, “I don’t know the words to that song”.

Then she did sing more and the audience was very happy to hear it and gave her resounding applause.

A fan came up and said something like, “Oh wow. That’s good”. Then asked, “What about that bad director?”

G: “I feel a plant”.

They were told they should have a show. One of them said, “We could go opposite ‘The View’”.

J: “I personally want to beat up that Elizabeth chick. She must have gone to a prissy chick camp.”

V: “She can’t be very happy and she makes others unhappy too”.

I think it was Gina who said, “I can’t believe Whoopy hasn’t cut her down yet.”

One of the others answered, “That’s why Joy and Sherri are between them.”

A young Creation worker (who I heard later from other fans had been giving them the high sign to stop, showing them fingers for the minutes left, trying to get them to say goodbye, and was being soundly ignored by them), stepped close to the stage and said loudly, “Five minutes”.

We all looked at him and broke out into long, thunderous “BOOOOOOOO!”s.

Gina stood up and flashed her abs at him.

They said goodbye, they kind of nodded at us in thanks, they hugged each other, while we stood and gave them a HUGE standing ovation.

At the end of everyone’s time on stage, Creation plays the Xena theme as the guests sign the to be auctioned off banners and wave goodbye to us.

Gina, Vicky and Jennifer broke out into the Cleo 2525 theme song and roared it out over Xena’s theme. And did a pretty good job of almost drowning it out.

Man, this was a fantastic what? 45 minutes or so? We were such in a happy happy joy joy fan haze.

It’s always great to spend time laughing helplessly. It’s SUCH a good feeling to do that. It creates a LOVELY afterglow.

As we left the hall and later that night also, many fans talked about how great it was that the con ended with such a bang.

This con was different from most of them, due to the scheduling of Lucy’s appearance. It was oddly off-kilter, kind of unbalanced, since Lucy had been and gone the first day. And for the first time in a number of years, there weren’t any evening Lucy concerts to go to either.

So in all other cons, excitement would build throughout the whole weekend. And then the last day would be capped with appearances from Lucy and Renee and the two of them together.

And this time, as I said before, the Big Kahuna had spent her wad the first day.

So it was particularly fine that the last thing wound up as this absolutely hilarious and delightful real feel-good presentation.

If you can’t have Luce, this is a pretty damn fine second choice.


KT