Convention Report by: Lunacy!
This is my second XWP convention after Valley Forge and I have to tell you, the experience just gets better and better. It was FANTASTIC to reunite with many of the friends I met at Valley Forge and then to meet so many others!! I was particularly star- struck by the bards, who were the major reason I went to this con. The celebrities were WONDERFUL but NOTHING beats meeting your fellow Xenites.
The flight over was pretty much uneventful although LOOOOOONG. However, I think the trip from LAX to the Burbank Hilton was possibly LONGER!! ;-) I arrived in the afternoon just as traffic was getting bad. The shuttle van driver decided to get off the freeway hoping things would be less conjested on the side streets... WRONG!!! It took us nearly THREE hours to get to the hotel. However, I found some fellow Xenites (Witchhazel and a friend) on the van so the whole thing ended up being FUN! We got a nice tour of L.A. - saw the famous Manz Chinese Theatre, the L.A. red light district, the Hollywood sign :)
Soon as I got into my room at the hotel I got a call from my buddy LN James to head for the bar. Xenites had taken over down there! Immediately started seeing a lot of familiar faces from Valley Forge and meeting new ones - NEW BARDS in particular! Met Jill and AJ Putman. After dinner a group of us headed over to the early registration where we immediately started buying merchandise - yeap, those budgets took a beating at this con! LOTS of great new mer- chandise. FANTASTIC pictures, great t-shirts, the calendar we ALL wanted (outstanding folks - very highly recommended! :) pewter figurines, these interesting 3-D mini-screens showing different scenes from the episodes, plaques, books, comics, posters, dolls. I was deligthed to see people already wearing name badges - made sure they HAD badges if I didn't see one ;-) It really helped us find one another throughout the con. To all of you who attend future cons - make sure to push those name badges! It greatly improves the con experience when you can recognize fellow Xenites.
After registration I headed up to a party where I met more new faces and yeap...MORE BARDS!!!! Met THE Quest and Laine Lawless. A few minutes later, the Bat Morda walks in wearing her Janice hat. Batsky you guys **IS** Janice Covington - same personality, mischiveous, playful, HILARIOUS and though she'll likely deny it - very sweet (yes Bat, this con is gonna RUIN your rep. >:) A little later, comes in Word Warrior herself! Trying not to gush I head over to say hi. Wordee is everything I had expected - fun, WICKED, talented. The woman's voice has the power to drop Xenites to their knees! >:)
Later that evening I FINALLY got to meet my favorite mushball, Jenbob! She liked my accent :) She was threatening us with some - er - somewhat unpleasant developments in her stories but I think LN, Critter and I may have pointed out some of the equally unpleasant repercusions >:)
I was delighted to meet Puckster and her Sweetie, both of whom were absorbing the con experience for the first time. Also met Kristo, Marylin, and several other Xenites who tend to lurk around the Xenaverse including Lurker Anne, Nancy, and Carolyn who are VERY nice and should DELURK MORE OFTEN!! Diane Silver was signing copies of her new book. 8thouse (Jane) was running around displaying a tatoo... located on her right thigh ;-) The look on Blue's face when 8th flashed her was just priceless! Vada and Verda were there showing pictures of Vada's trip to New Zealand and her now infamous visit to the XWP set. I cut out around midnight (which was 3am Florida time) just as my South Florida neighbor Missy Good walked in and was immediately surrounded by fans (I think Missy had to talk with more fans at this con than the XWP people did ;-)
The next day started out with many of the Xenites again converging on the bar/restaurant for a nice brunch. Met more new faces including Bobocat and Littlespit. En masse we then headed for the con. I was on a mission to meet Wishes, DJWP and any other bard I could find >:) Finally got to meet Judy as we were checking out some of the merchandise. Wishes is one of the Xenites and bards I've known the longest so it was a real thrill to finally meet her. As a plus I also got to meet Fuschia - another long-time buddy from the NetForum. As it turns out, MANY familiar faces were sitting in close proximity. I had Mist on one side, one seat away, LN, Spikus and DallasDeb on the other.
The first XWP staff person to speak was Brad Carpenter - the merchandiser director who is leaving for a new job. Brad was one of those hunky guys who carried Lucy on stage when she appeared on Jay Leno right after her accident a while back. He was the one to Lucy's right. He's very nice - funny. His new job is going to be with Gay Entertainment TV in NY I believe. When he said that he added something like "Guess I'll be pushing Xena stuff on there too!" :) Brad showed some clips from the upcoming season. I'm going to mention a little bit more about that but I'll leave it for the very end in case some of you do NOT want to be spoiled.
Michael Levine (director) was next. He showed some footage from THE QUEST that had never been seen before. I missed this part because Michael wasn't actually scheduled for Saturday. He was supposed to be on stage on Sunday so while he was speaking I was out having lunch with Moira and Missy. However, I did FINALLY meet DJWP so it was well WORTH IT!!!
Robert Trevor was WONDERFUL as usual. Earlier we had spotted him walking around with a Xena calendar and taking pictures with fans in the lobby. Extremely nice man. His number one fan Sal_Fan was there of course. Rob Weisbrot was next - he's the guy who wrote THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO XENA which is excellent by the way. We saw Ru Emerson and then they showed that great video tribute to Gabrielle WINGS BENEATH MY WINGS. Right before they showed the video they had some technical difficulties so a bunch of Xenites, remembering that I had shown an "interest" in the video, later tell me they were all thinking I had taken the thing! Geeeeeeeeeeeeez what a reputation a girl can get around here! ;-)
Rob Tapert appeared that afternoon. Tall guy, nice looking. ADMITTED HE HAS READ SOME FAN FIC!!! >:) When asked if this season was really going to be IT for Callisto, he sort of hedged pointing out that the woman has died a bunch of times but he did add that Hudson is one of those people he loves to work with and when you like to work with someone, if you finish a project then you find them another vehicle :)
Danielle Cormack was next. Danielle is delightful! It was her first con and you could TELL! She was nervous, giddy I would say. She was wearing a very simple black leotard cut off above the ankle with sandals. She is very beautiful. Had Ephiny's curly hair but longer than we're used to seeing it in the series. She said that she had just had a baby. Trust me you couldn't tell from her figure. She has a WONDERFUL Kiwi accent. In the middle of her appearance pop out from behind the stage Karl Urban and Kevin Smith!!! They brought the house down! Karl is very cute - WILD from what I hear and you could tell. He started doing an Elvis impersonation. Kevin was more quite. Has a dark, bad boy look (more on that later >:) They stayed for a few minutes kidding around with Danielle then left. The last to appear that evening - which was good because this was an act NO one could have followed - was Hudson of course. The woman is just unbelievable! TOO WICKED!!!! For one thing she's tall and EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY skinny - nicely proportioned though. She comes out wearing this skin tight, STRAPLESS, black, vynil and latex two-piece leotard outfit. She looked (and moved) like a feline. I think at one point she even purred ;-) You can tell she's a veteran now at doing conventions. She's quite the performer although ocassionally the genuine Hudson surfaces revealing a very nice, talented lady with a big heart who is just having a HELL of a good time! Ephany (an avid fan) showed she has ovaries of STEEL when she goes up there and BETS Hudson to a game of Truth or Dare!!!! Hudson ended up inviting her on stage and planting a kiss right on Eph's lips! Ephany then sang her a song during which came one of those genuine moments when those of us in the audience could tell Hudson was moved. Afterwards, Hudson kneels in front of Eph and starts bowing to her. I don't know if Eph was more shocked by the bowing or by the cleavage conveniently revealed... ;-) Later on some lady went up to ask Hudson on behalf of her son how Hudson had made it through high school since the boy goes to the same high school Hudson did. Hudson went down into the audience, found the young man, brought him up on stage and took a picture with him then suggested he just "look for the love".
The autograph signings went relatively quickly. Hudson took pictures with fans afterwards but I was gone by then. I got together with Critter, Mil Toro, Cathy Peel and a couple of other Xenites to watch WARRIOR PRIESTESS TRAMP. After the episode we headed to yet another party in Bat's suite. I met Zealander and saw Blue who presented me with a GIANT BUSHY THING!! (a purple one no less >:) Ever since Lucy posed for ENQUIRER holding a switch with this bushy thing on one end I have been THREATENING bards with the bushy thing during those times when they get difficult (give us cliffhanger, after cliffhanger or threaten to kill our beloved warrior and/or bard). Needless to say, my bushy thing was quite popular the rest of the evening. The Bluester cleans up well! She was wearing this tux that was feeding many a Xenite's tux fetish ;-)
We ended up getting thrown out of the room because of the noise but Julie (Amazon Rules) did her Amazon thing with the hotel and got us another room - this one in an area where we could make ALL the noise we wanted :) Funny thing is that when we go into the room there are two beds there with straps. The Xenites there take one look at the beds, one look at my giant purple bushy thing and just GRIIIIIIIIIIN. You could SEE those wheels turning ;-) DJ was there with a rocking sound system and a LITTLE XENA IN A BEACKER!!!! It was TOO cute! M&M's were being tossed around behind Bat's back >:) Robert Field joined the party a few minutes later and was immediately surrounded by fans. I headed over to the group and was just standing listening to him when he saw my badge and recognized the name :) I left around midnight but the party was still very much in full swing.
Sunday morning at breakfast I met Hobbes, Chemmy, Alwayslooking and a few other Xenites from the NetForum and lists. Afterwards came probably one of the FUNNIEST convention experiences for me. At breakfast I was sitting near Demeter, Tamara and Cathy who are all talking videos. Tamara had a great new video Cathy and I hadn't seen yet and she wanted to see Cathy's so we decide to head to Cathy's room to see if we can see the videos. Tamara brings in a VCR but when we look at the back of the TV set there's this short cable already hooked to the video jacks. One end hooked to a device on the side we had no problem disconnecting but the other end of the cable screwed into the video input into the TV had this plastic tube over it to prevent tampering. HA!!! No flimsy little plastic tube is going to stop a determined Xenite - much less FOUR!! We then spent the next HOUR trying to pry that NOT-SO-FLIMSY plastic tube off the damn cable!! Exhausted we finally sent Demeter to look for either Blue or Julie (Amazon Rules) to see if they could pry the stupid tube OFF! Tamara, Cathy and I are sort of drained looking at the back of the TV set when suddenly it hits me that we don't NEED to unscrew that short cable! We can just screw the damn cable INTO the VCR instead of using the one that comes with the VCR. DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <8-| Well - at least the whole thing was good exercise :) We did manage to watch Tamara's video which is WONDERFUL. BTW - I carefully documented the whole hour in pictures so Cathy, Demeter, Tamara - I'll be taking bribes for the pictures and negatives. >:)
That day at the con I met the famous (or infamous >:) Spoiler king himself ZWOLF!!! Also met another bard, Kronus :) Several XWP staffers appeared on stage Sunday including RJ Stewart, Liz Friedman, Bernadette Joyce (coordinating producer), John Kretchmer (director) and finally Robert Field who showed BLOOPERS!!! I finally got to see some of those great bloopers everyone has been talking about. I could NOT believe the number of times Renee was hit in the face by a fish for the shot we saw in A DAY IN THE LIFE. I tell you that girl is a trooper!! FUNNIEST thing was that after ALL those times, they ended up using the first take which "coincidentally" also happened to be the ONE shot in which she answered Howard's question about whether Xena would ever get married with "She likes what *I* do." In all the other shots Renee was saying "She likes what she does". Hmmmmmmm... >:)
After Robert they showed a FANTASTIC Ares video to the music of that song BAD TO THE BONE (not sure of the title on that). Then Kevin Smith came out. Ahhhh Kevin :) Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Kevin in jeans and a SKIN TIGHT beige t-shirt. Some lesbian friends of mine even considered changing their orientation at the site of this man! VERY, VERY, VERY...fit ;-) The man is also INCREDIBLY nice. Physically he looks to me like a dark, biker, dude, rocker type. His hair was curly and long - longer than he usually wears it on the TV series and he had his normal Ares goatte. The sideburns were there but not quite as long as the God of War wears them. He has a fantastic Kiwi accent - kept welcoming everyone with a "hi mate" and then telling them "cheers mate" when they finished. He's been married for 14 yrs. and has a bunch of kids which you can tell because he is good with kids. One funny moment came when someone asked him which character he would like to be if he could be someone other than Ares. His answer - "Argo" ;-) Everyone cracked up! Many a Xenite was going "Yeap - definitely, sounds good."
Soon as Kevin left the press started coming out in full force. ET was there, several other news shows, local stations. The security got tighter too. They showed a nice new Xena video to that Tina Turner song YOU'RE SIMPLY THE BEST (not sure about title) then came out THE Lawless one herself - Luce!! She was wearing long purple boots, a light blue mini-skirt and a striped shirt - what can I say - Lucy's taste in fashion is very much her own :) I thought she looked cute. Gorgeous as ever actually. I was in the fourth row so I could see the baby blues. Also saw the HUGE rock Robert gave her - nice. This is the first time I ever actually see her interacting with an audience. I found her honest, nice, and funny. In real life she seems more like Meg than Xena. She was constantly cracking jokes. At one point a little kid asked her if people ever got hurt on set. She said it rarely happened although a stunt person recently needed stiches after SOMEONE (and she notes "not ME!") hit him with a staff ;-) Spoke wonderfully about Renee and everyone on the set.
A guy dressed up in a Salmoneous outfit went up to the mike and mentioned that his daughter was a fan of the show then told Lucy that he hoped she and the show's producers would be sensitive to their younger audience members and tried to cut back on the inuendo. Lucy very nicely but quite quickly told him that as a parent it was HIS responsibility to monitor what his daughter looked at on TV and that Xena was ****NOT**** necessarily appropriate for kids all the time - not just because of the "sexual innuendo" either but also because of some of the violence. The fans went berserk applauding. Later on someone asked her if there were gonna be more Xena lookalikes on the show. Lucy responded that they are working on an episode tentatively titled WARRIOR POETESS TRAMP which is gonna feature a well-known poetess from the ancient world. She looks at the audience and says something like "can you guess grrls?!?!" Everyone screamed SAPPHO!!!!!! She smiled and then added (I'm paraphrasing here) "Oh and where's the guy with the Salmoneous outfit...make sure to screen that episode for your daughter - LOTS of that stuff you were talking about in THAT episode!" It was absolutely wild. She is VERY subtext friendly.
That evening after the con we all went to the Bat Cave (Bat's house was about 10 mins. from the hotel) where we had one last bash. Met Mrs. Bat, Phoebe (Mrs. Bat's feline) and Idgie (the inspiration for Janice's Argo in Bat's IS THERE A DOCTOR ON THE DIG) - a BEAUTIFUL, BIG golden retriever. We ate pizza, and talked about ha-has (don't ask ;-) All in all guys, another OUTSTANDING convention experience. I want to thank Bat and Wordee for being our hostesses over there. Want to thank also all the bards, and Xenites who said HI! I enjoyed meeting every single one of you and hope to repeat the experience again someday! You are **THE BEST** Below I am including some of the spoilers I heard or saw for those of you who NEED to be spoiled :)
The Lunatic (proud new owner of a giant purple bushy thing >:) ----------------------- SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
S P O I L E R
S P A C E
Here are some of the spoilers I saw or heard about at the con:
Among the clips Brad Carpenter showed there was one, supposedly from BITTER SUITE which has Xena holding an unconscious Gabrielle straight over her head - apparantely getting ready to throw her over a cliff. Xena is wearing her armor, the Gabster is in a white dress. This gave me the chills folks - particularly when combined with the fact that Solon **WILL** be in MATERNAL INSTINCTS and is apparantely either killed or hurt. I love this show but it's going to take a LOT to convince me that X&G could EVER share as strong a friendship as what they've had until now if Hope kills Solon. We shall see...
Another clip, again from BITTER SUITE, has Xena dressed up as a queen on a throne - sprawled in front of her on the ground is Gabrielle dressed like a peasant with guards around her.
When Danielle Cormack appeared she was asked if she was going to be in any more episodes. She sort of laughed and then said something to the effect that after the last one she doubted we would be seeing any more of Ephiny. Some people have assumed she just felt like she did a bad acting job on that and the XWP people would not want her back. I think it was RJ Stewart when he appeared the next day who said that Danielle has done a great job regardless of what she said. I'm not sure if this was a hint about something happening to Eph or not. Again...we shall see.
Another new episode coming up called King Con apparantely will be about gambling. They showed a picture of the "hunk" who will be on the show and comented that he will show a romantic interest in Xena.
They showed one HILARIOUS clip from QUILL which showed Ares and Aphrodite having a VERY bad hair day!! :) They both looked beaten up and dirty. Apparantely in the show Gab gets the power to make real anything she writes (OHHHH the fan fic possibilities!!!!)
That's all I can remember for now :)