Event Report, I-Con Sunday
April 21st, 2002
by Gonzai
Sunday was so much better than Saturday it wasn’t even funny, despite the fact I only got 3 hours sleep Saturday so I was now on 5 hours in 3 days. Ack. Talking about running on andrenaline, or in this case McDonald’s coffee. Since I needed to be at the con by 10, I woke up around 7ish, got up and got packed, and left around quarter to nine, with the rest of the Contingent still asleep. I left all of my stuff in the middle of the floor so they wouldn’t forget to put it in the car. The 9am shuttle wasn’t there, so I ran over to McDonald’s to get breakfast. I met a few of the gaming people there, we chatted a bit, and since the shuttle still wasn’t there they offered me a ride to Stony Brook. It developed they were also Farscape fans who liked to draw, so needless to say we got along just fine. But I didn’t get a real chance to say thanks for the ride, due to a repeat performance of no-parking-so-I’ll-drop-you-in-front-of-the-door. So if the Tiggers happens to read this, THANKS!
Much to my surprise, it was pretty darn cold Sunday, and my jacket was still locked in Jennie’s car. Oh, and my shoulder was killing me. So naturally my first assignment for the day was to go back to the lecture hall & fetch a box they’d forgotten to bring back to the Sports Complex. Ow. Brr. Yuck. But that was the only assignment I had, & I managed to get started on a drawing of Dominic Monaghan that I’d been carrying around all weekend. Sterlin & Fellowship came by with their goodie bags for Billy & Stewart, & I added my Pop-Tarts to Stewart’s bag, since I still hadn’t remembered to give them to him. I also (finally) got accurate information as to what I was entitled to as a volunteer – lunch, among other things – and an autograph. So after a second, more leisurely tour of the dealer’s room, I went to get Brian Downey’s autograph.
Brian saw my ‘Fellowship of the Wee Scarvie’ badge and started giving me a hard time about it in a silly manner, and he signed my photo “My name is not Billy and I don’t like hobbits.” When I mentioned ‘the Rock’ to him, he perked right up and started quizzing me on my Newfoundland knowledge. I passed with flying colors (being a former hockey journalist who had covered Brian’s favorite team helped) and he gave me another photo for free, which he signed, “You are too cool.” Then when I was getting a picture taken with him he started tickling me. It’s a weird picture, but I had a blast and I’ll simply have to be a Brian Downey fan now.
I then scooted back down to the Stage area - since I knew Stewart & Billy were on the same page as I was with regard to the Q&A coordinator, I had agreed to work the session anyway, but I didn’t get to talk to Billy and for that matter I was never given any real instruction as to what I was supposed to be doing there. So mostly on my own, I decided to adjust the microphone for the folks asking questions, and make sure they knew how to speak into it. I also told them not to ask for hugs, since the coordinator would go ballistic if they did. Naturally a few people on the other side of the line asked for hugs anyway, and then a guy in my line asked for one in a manner which practically flashed “I’m kidding” in neon. The only person there who didn’t know the guy was kidding was, of course, the coordinator, who stared daggers at me the rest of the session. Then when the session ended, everyone with gifts descended upon Billy & Stewart and much chaos ensued. I asked the coordinator what she wanted done about it, she told me to get all those people out of here – by myself. Needless to say that was impossible, so I settled for telling Stewart we had to get Billy out of there. I had no trouble finding Stewart - kind of funny watching Stewart flailing about uselessly and waving a box of Pop-Tarts wondering where on earth they came from.
As I was now officially done with volunteer work, I turned in my time card and scurried off to get autographs from Andreas Katsulas, Richard Biggs & Herb Jefferson. Jefferson had already gone home, it turned out, and I barely got Biggs, who was packing up when I asked him. I stopped by New Line Cinema’s table on my way back upstairs, hoping to snag one of the LotR bus posters they had, and they said they were giving them away at 4, come back then. So I joined the Michigan gang on the stairs to wait for Billy’s autograph line to form, and worked on my drawing of Dominic some more. At 4 I went back to New Line’s table – they gave the posters away at 3:30 instead, and apparently Billy had been the one handing them out. Sheesh. I got back in line, and when they opened the doors I wound up about 50 people back in line, with the rainchecks and guests ahead of the 50.
I explained to the autograph coordinator about the lack of info I’d had the previous day, and he agreed in my case to look askance while I asked for a second autograph (the rules were one autograph, you can take photos OF Billy but not WITH him). Because of the time of the session, the time of the dinner at Eastern Pavilion, and the need for Sterlin & Fellowship to be there, & their needing a ride from Jennie, somehow the coordinator was also convinced to allow Sterlin, Fellowship & Jennie to skip to the front of the line; & since groups were to move in fives and myself and Da Girl were also riding with Jennie, the five of us were moved to the head of the line. I went last of the bunch. I had the giant color portrait of Billy out, plus the Electric Blue Pippin & one of the b/w pics of him as himself, I couldn’t decide which to get so I’d decided to let him pick. I set them all on the table near him while waiting for Jennie (not a problem waiting for her though, she didn’t have anything to get autographed so she was getting MY book signed because she wanted an excuse to be in line again!) What I had missed after the Q&A was that Jennie hadn’t been able to give Billy the vests she & her husband had made for him, and she had been very upset all afternoon, but Billy was thrilled to see her, and thanked her profusely for the vests, so she was much happier after that!
Billy & Jennie had a nice chat, and then he turned to me, and he was looking at me, not the artwork – and he got a great big grin on his face, and said thanks for the book last night. I was almost surprised he remembered, considering how tired he was when I gave it to him! And then he asked me if I had done all of those drawings in the book, and I said no, I did the first five, and then the other members of my mailing list did the rest and sent them to me, and I put them together into a book. He told me I’d done a great job, and I got a good laugh out of him by saying I’d learned a lot about using computers this week. Then he looked to see what I had to get signed, and he was floored by the color Pippin. He wanted to go over every detail of it, and asked me questions about how I made it, etc. Security really wanted me out of there, but it was so clear Billy wanted quality time with the picture they backed off. He asked me what I wanted him to write on it, and I gave him the card with my name and said ‘my name, your name and anything nice you want to put in the middle,’ he thought that was funny. Eventually he signed it, ‘Thanks for your wonderful work! Lots of love, Billy Boyd XO Pippin’. When I asked him to pick between the other two drawings he said, no, we’re going to do both (!) and he commented on those as well. And Jennie took a photo of us with the big drawing, on our respective sides of the table, mostly because Billy wanted a photo with the drawing! He also asked where he could see my other LotR artwork, especially the Gandalf one I had mentioned because it won second place in the Official Fan Club Art Contest (Billy mentioned in a Q&A that he sometimes checks out their boards). It was a totally fabulous and incredible and everything other superlative you could ever think of minute or two!
But I had to leave then, having taken way more than my share of time, and Sterlin & Fellowship were awaiting. I stopped long enough to get a picture taken with Stewart (our shirts clashed so badly I think the result ought to be burned) and we headed out to the Eastern Pavilion. When we got there, there was a sign up in the party room that said “Happy Communion!” They took it down, but we wanted it to stay up J I noticed a stereo in the back of the room, which apparently the staff had never paid attention to – it turned out to be a karaoke machine wired into only that room, so I fetched my Travis, Weezer & Badly Drawn Boy CDs (and oh yes, ‘Harrison Ford’ again) and started playing DJ. Only catch was that the Muzak in the restaurant couldn’t be turned down, so a few times there was a very odd musical competition going on. There was also a stray guy in there, I didn’t catch his story but Sterlin thought he looked like Harry Potter, so she drew a lightning bolt on his forehead.
We had a good time chatting with the very young bus boy while the rest of the group trickled into the restaurant. After a long wait the food finally starting arriving, but we were charged extra for drinks despite having already paid a ton for the dinner. Sterlin, Fellowship and Jennie thought they might be able to ‘conjure up’ Billy, so they went into the parking lot and gave it a shot. Jennie returned a few minutes later to say that Sterlin & Fellowship were now yelling at passing cars. Jade, Rhianne(sp?) and Leslie treated us to their rendition of the Bakshi version of LotR, and there was generally a lot of camaraderie. But everyone had a drive home, so we started packing up – and discovered the restaurant considered us over $100 short on the check. Everyone raced to put in more money towards the bill – go loons! The Maryland Contingent went to Port Jefferson in a successful search for Starbucks, where I not only got a Cinnamon Mocha something or other but also a free sample of something with caramel and brownies in it. Thoroughly caffeined and sugared up, we headed back, with Dij riding in Alison’s car this time to keep Alison awake.
The trip back for Jennie & myself turned into a coffee voyage – when I wasn’t needing to get rid of what I had in Port Jeff (the New Jersey Turnpike has never seemed so far away) Jennie was trying to find more coffee, and we wound up stopping 4 or 5 times between NYC and Baltimore. She is also convinced I subjected her to noise the whole way (ahem: the Jayhawks and the Josh Joplin Group are NOT noise. Foo Fighters, ahh, might have a point there, but it kept you awake, so there.) She did like Dr. Demento J A quick round of ‘The Scotsman’ can wake you up. Alison and Dij arrived back at my house before Jennie & I did; we managed to rearrange everyone’s luggage and say goodbye without waking up my dogs, and then I crawled into bed at 4am. And that, folks, was my weekend.
©copyright 2000 Gonzai