Second session rememberings...
I know that I started off the second session with a question I wanted to ask just for a laugh – hence not wanting to ask it in a big room. Whilst the second session people were collecting drinks and food, James sat back in his chair and I asked him – was he scared of spiders or did he find them interesting? He’s not scared at all – they aren’t a very difficult opponent – just bags of goo as they have no skeleton – you just squish them as he demonstrated! Louisa said “But they can kill you!” to which he replied yeah, but given a choice of opponent, they're really not hard to fight!! I also enquired how he was about snakes (not so comfortable) as rattlers could be really nasty. (Of course I forget that there are snakes in California – we only have 1 poisonous snake in England and they are pretty rare.) And he wasn’t too keen on rats either and it came up about rabbits being viscous and evil (Anya had a point!) I showed off the scars on my wrist caused by a scrabbling rabbit and James wondered why we use rabbits as the symbol for Easter etc (cos of breeding like rabbits!)
Magie showed James a picture of one of her cats and he did a lovely cat-talk “Oh-look-at-da-big-fluffy-pussy-cat!” kind of thing – so cute! – and I asked her if it was De Niro that I had met the day before - it was. (“Hi Bobby” said James!) So Magie explained how he was named – when he meowed at her and she said “Are you talking to me?” and again he meowed “You talking to me?” they kept doing it over and over again, so it was obvious what his name was going to be…!
James laughed and said he had once served De Niro coffee – but he wasn’t sure if it actually was De Niro as he is such a normal looking guy, he really just blends into the crowd. You just don’t notice him. He decided it was him cos he was sitting with Martin Scorsese (and someone else well known whose name I’ve forgotten) And then Steve told us his De Niro story from when he was an agent. He was coming in and they mustn’t keep him waiting – they had to be with him immediately So Steve demonstrated him walking into the room and there are 4 guys sitting there – two on one side and two on the other. And he looked round, took one step back outside the room and mouthed at the other people “Fuck – which one is De Niro???” - he couldn’t tell as they all looked so ordinary! And, as no one could help him, with great determination he stepped back into he room, turned to one side and said confidently “Mr De Niro?” hoping to God that he wasn’t going to hear a “yes?” coming from behind him!! We were all cracking up laughing - And yes, he
did get it right!
I then asked another question that I was interested in hearing his thoughts on. Being very much a science guy, I wondered what his thoughts were on astrology, as scientifically it doesn’t make any sense at all. I thought he would be completely dismissive of it, but wasn’t! Said he wasn’t sure why it became magical rather than a science (as it was the original astronomy before they divided) and then said he was a text book Leo and all his family fitted into their signs perfectly too and he hated that he was so typical, people often guessed correctly that he was a Leo without knowing! Apparently they are natural leaders and very driven but can be a bit obnoxious! I told him about the book that does the character for each day of the year and that I thought his was pretty well spot on and mine was scarily accurate too!
Talking of stars, at Magie’s request (having reminded him who had a star named after him – “Me!”), James explained his whole theory and story for the galaxy that surrounds ‘his’ star t and how it was formed and where it was going – about gas giants and all that – he lost me that’s for sure, but its wonderful to listen to him anyway when he’s all enthusiastic and geeking out!
And I remember at one point Magie’s phone went off and her text tone is the Mutant Enemy “Grrr! Argh!” which caused the entire table to collapse laughing including James! Very appropriate!
James said he wanted to contact the Guinness Book of Records as he thought he probably had the most different action figures made of characters he’s played – 6 at the moment I think it is. He has them all on a special shelf at home – and also keeps a model of a performing monkey up there too, to remind him. Said he doesn’t have a figure for Buzz, but he has one from the Planet of the Apes which looks like Buzz in its space suit – and then you take the helmet off – and it’s another performing monkey!!
And he desperately wants one of the beautiful, very detailed (very expensive!) models of Piccolo from Japan and wanted to know if they had only done Piccolo like that or any other characters. We decided, for him, it was only Piccolo…!
I had heard at Chicago he had told someone about all his special stuff on the shelves and that he had his piece of moon rock on there. So I just asked him if he did have it up there and he replied very certainly that he did, as that was very special – which made me very happy cos I gave it to him…!
There was a very young girl in the second session – she was only about 7 or 8 I should think (there with mum and sister) and she was resting her head on the table – James put his chin down on his hands on the table too at her level and said “You look extraordinarily bored, my love – is there anything you want to talk about?” the answer was negative and he joked that she had been dragged along and she said she had! Mum was denying it saying she was very excited about coming (She was just shy I think – she was far more talkative afterwards!)
(A lot of it is coming back to me – going to all be a bit random from now on)
I remember talking about the mosque at Ground Zero and James’s feelings about that (he said there had always been one there since before 9/11 and they wanted to rebuild. It would be a community centre with a small prayer room ) so then there was talk about free speech and ho this wasn’t helping at all – Sarah Palin got mentioned too and something about her being on a reality show “She needs to get a reality first” was James’s opinion!
He said he had an iPad and was very excited about it, but couldn’t download from iTunes at the moment as his credit card details had been stolen and he had to shut the account! He was dying to get some music and felt lost without it, as he confirmed again when I asked that yes, he had also dropped his iTouch in the toilet…! He also sang a chunk from a Simon and Garfunkel song he had been playing around with to get the guitar chords right using an app (and another burst of something else – the album he desperately wanted to download) We then all bullied him and Steve unmercifully about getting his music on iTunes – or at least snippets on Facebook or the website so people could listen and see if they liked it. Magie was selling it to Steve by convincing him if nothing else it would be more money for him! He said he wasn’t touching the GOTR stuff and we said just put Civilised Man and Waterfall on whilst you work out the other (James said he would have to talk to Charlie)
The mum and sister of the little girl were saying they had had their James and GOTR CDs stolen from their car and they couldn’t replace them as they were far too expensive on eBay etc. James said “Then you have my full permission to copy them – I’m sure someone will do it for you.” Linn said she had a couple of spare copies of the GOTR singles and I said I would burn CDs for them if they wanted and James said “There you go – Rosie will do it for you!” I checked again to make sure that he really was OK with that (absolutely! I have James’s permission!)
I know we talked about movies – James saying that Apocalypse Now and Star Wars are actually the same movie – (I’ll have to work on remembering why – I do know that Darth Vader is actually the USA!) and I said that Avatar was pretty much the same again too. James was blown away by the special effects in that and was so glad he got to see it. And we talked about Dragonball and why it wasn’t promoted at all (James thinks it was insider politics) and got onto Wonder Woman and Supergirl. I do remember a very interesting point James made that in the original Wonder woman (I think…) the women kept men as slaves and how do you reproduce that now without being politically incorrect? His point was that you don’t get equality by flipping inequality on its head which is absolutely right!
At the end, Louisa was given the floor to present James with an award as it was the Emmys that night and Moonshot was up for one, so she presented him with a ‘Fanny’ – (nothing to do with your ass!!) as it was from his fans. (James made her read out what it said on it as “I’m not getting paid!” in Spike’s voice) as it was about our appreciation for all that he does and it was very sweet and lovely - James kissed her on the cheek and I think he was very touched by it as we all cheered the best we could. (and of course he really does deserve a proper Emmy too!)
Right at the end, Steve asked us to give them a minute to get James on his way back to the convention centre (we were in a nearby hotel) and James was muttering about needing to take coffee with him, so grabbed a glass from the side (and spun it round in his hand with a very professional flourish!) the coffee he had been drinking and the one Magie had topped him up with earlier and did a sort of mixing-juggling trick with three containers so all the coffee and the milk ended up in one cardboard cup. Steve watched and remarked – “we do have fresh coffee over there…!”
We had all thanked him for a very enjoyable time, and Steve had said to come by the autograph table and say hi, and then as he was about to go, James quickly hugged Magie with his free arm that wasn’t holding coffee and then turned back and hugged me too, which was lovely – just a brief pull against him with one arm, but still a nice firm hug! (I hugged him back with both arms round him!) I just said thank you again for the great time and enjoyed the fleeting moment!
That’s it – except I’ve just remembered something that happened right at the beginning of the first session – practically as soon as James had arrived in the room. Having organised where he was gong to sit at the top of the table, he went to get himself coffee from the side table and I cant remember how it came out, but someone said something about him being little, and with his back to us after a long pause he said something like “hmm – so I’m the short guy am I?” in a rather dangerous voice and I mentally groaned and thought “Oh shit – great start! Piss him off first thing and we know he can be grumpy in the morning and he’s not even had coffee yet!” but obviously he decided to ignore it and changed the subject and we carried on from there and he was an absolute delight!