Sunday The Smallville panel was the first one of the day at the Hyatt so we had to get a move on and get in line early and we were going via the Marriott as Magie had an early photo op whilst I went on and got our spot in the queue.
My efforts to get Magie up this morning included telling her that James was at the door - unfortunately it backfired as her response was “Tell him he can get in bed and do the panel from here….!”
Eventually we got going and on arrival at the Marriott, the first thing we saw was Froggy on the phone – straight away he said “Have you got a laptop?” I said I had one in my room. Then he asked what cameras we had – we told him and asked why and he told us that the room with all the equipment in had been broken into and they had had all the laptops and cameras stolen! Horrific!! Neither of our cameras were good enough for what he needed. Immediately I was trying to think who had a top quality camera that might be able to lend it. Could think of 3 people straight off but didn’t have numbers for any of them.
I went to join the queue at the Hyatt and there found Roxane who was one of the three I knew had a camera like Froggy’s, so I asked her if she would be willing to loan it to him. She said yes and took off over there and in turned out that it was the right type and it was the one that Froggy used for the rest of the weekend. (She did get a free photo op with James for her trouble) So I helped save the day! (Obviously they had lost a lot of pictures with the theft and they did a lot of retakes during the day but it’s still causing problems for them weeks later)
They let us into the room for the panel early as we were the first one and they were going to do a DragonCon
broadcast so we were the audience which was quite fun. (And Magie had got croissants for breakfast – so even better!) We got in the front row – yay!! They had put the signs up on the table for each of the guests and so we sat on the right as that’s were James’s was, on the end. They took them down for the broadcast and when they put them back up the guy was teasing us by pretending to put James’s name at the other end and we were shouting at him. Actually I wish he had. Because James always looks at whoever is speaking he spent a lot of time looking away from us at other panel members so I had him in profile for a lot of the time. But the lighting for this panel was the best of the lot, though there was still a water bottle problem – mostly exacerbated by the man himself as James kept using it and putting it down in different places all the time!
As ever, I tend not to remember much about the questions, which have been reported elsewhere but it was a fun panel. John Schneider was wonderful – he has definitely got better looking as he’s got older! It was fairly obvious that James is not good at early – there was a bit of stretching and ducking his head as he seemed to be trying to get with it. (he was wearing the navy polo shirt again – I really am going to have to ask Steve to try and leave it somewhere!) Consequently he seemed to be just saying whatever came into his head without any censorship. At one point he was saying he had abused his body a lot and put it through a lot of shit - and then it was pointed out there were kids in the front row. He gave them a huge grin and a thumbs-up and then proceeded to tell them they should only drink water and wheatgrass juice and go to bed early and that was his secret…!
The caffeine was obviously kicking in too – from my place at the front I had a clear view of the front of the table and the tablecloth was flicking back and forward all the time where James’s foot was constantly kicking it. He may have been sitting down but he couldn’t keep still. It was so funny I took a bit of video of it – classic James!!
The lighting was great and despite James being turned away from me a lot, I got some fantastic shots. His curls were just looking so tempting this morning – I desperately wanted to run my fingers through them! And I got fascinated by a little sticky-out curl on the back of his head, so I ended up taking a close up of it…
After the panel was finished, I headed back to the Hall of Fame with Squirl as Magie was off elsewhere. I couldn’t do my auto with James as I knew Magie wanted to be with me to see Steve’s reaction to his ‘house’. So Squirl and I went round trying to track down John Schneider and where he was doing autographs – it took us 3 circuits of the room to find him! (He was on an awkward corner!) I left her in the queue and then went back to do some more James watching whilst I waited for Magie (a tough job, but I was up to the task!)
When I found her, ready to be official poster holder again, Magie wanted to get Johns autograph too so I was able to show her where he was and went up to the table with her. He was really nice, very friendly. Magie was telling him that he as Bo Duke was her first crush (I admitted I always preferred Luke...!) and we both said he was better looking now. He rubbed his hand in his beard and said “Do you think this works?” and we said yes – then he pointed to my hair and said “That works!” so I grinned and said thank you and then he asked “Can I touch it??” so of course I said yes and he stroked his hand across the top of my hair a couple of times!! OMG - John Schneider stroked my hair! (lots of people do like to run their hand over it when I have it spiked up – in the same way as I want to run my hand through James’s hair!!) Magie was a tad miffed cos she was the one that had gone for the autograph, and I was the one that got noticed!! So that was my tag line for rest of the day “John Schneider stroked my hair!”
We finally went to join James’s auto queue which wasn’t getting any shorter so we had a bit of a wait. I got the house out ready and had to wait for Magie to catch up with me before I gave it to Steve.
I asked Steve how he was first off “ I’m fine!” was the reply with a smile “Fine” as he took the CD cover from me (GoTR’s ‘Its Nothing’ this time) I had worked out in advance kind of what I wanted to say as I wanted to sound very apologetic and contrite.
“Steve – I wanted to apologise. On Friday when I gave James the belt cos his was falling apart, and you said your house was falling apart, would I get you one and I felt really
really guilty about that you see –so I bought you a house!” and I produced it and put it on the table in front of him.
Just for a second his expression was ‘WTF?’ and then his face broke out in a grin “You’re insane!”
“It’s a hen house!”
He picked it up (the roof comes off!) and then looked at me with a wry smile and said again “You are insane!”
Magie then asked to take a picture of him holding it, so he posed very prettily whilst I was cracking up laughing before I said “ I was going to write ‘Steve’s House’ on it but we didn’t get time to find a sharpie”
Steve then took the roof off and looked inside again and said “I’m going to put all my valuables in it…” and then indicated the tiny space inside “…cos that’s about as many valuables as I have!”
I told him that I really wanted to find a model house and thought I had no hope at DC “and then I walk in the dealer room and the first thing I see is the Model building company and I went “oh yeah!”” and he was still smiling and said in that dry way Steve has “That’s funny. That’s very funny – thank you” and then it was my turn to talk to James.
“Hey Rosie!” as we shook hands (still get a kick out of him knowing my name!)
“Morning sweetie”
“Good to see you babe”
“How are you today?” (Sorry – it’s my British-ness – automatically asking how people are!)
“I’m doing pretty good!” he smiled at me “yeah, I’m doing pretty good!”
Then he was looking at the cover of the CD and smiled slightly to himself and shook his head slightly and then tapped his finger on it and said “ I keep asking myself what is this image all about” (its kind of a man in what looks like 70’s clothes standing aggressively over another one lying on the ground)
I was agreeing “yeah – what the hell is all that about?”
James raised his eyebrows “My personal feeling is that this was jealousy. This is supposed to be me…” pointing to the guy on the ground “…and that’s Charlie going “Grrr! (Yes, James growled!) You’re not the leader of the band!”” I giggled a bit and he went on “but it’s history – it’s just a theatrical...”
“Just a wacky image” I added
“Charlie’s actually become a really wonderful human being – he’s grown a lot” he slid the CD over to me as I said “yeah, you’ve been saying that – it’s good”
Then I pulled out his gift “I have another prezzie for you – it’s a t-shirt”
“Right on!” as I handed it over
“Again it may be one your son is going to steal off you I suspect…”
“He steals all my shirts, man!” and the James held it up so he could see the front (it was a dark grey with a black silhouette of a guy playing guitar and ‘iRock’ underneath in white)
Then put it down so he could look at me “Whoah – that’s a nice shirt!” he held it up and looked at it again “That’s an awesome shirt!”
I joked “I saw that and thought of you!”
“And it’s soft too!” he held it against his cheek and rubbed against it briefly as he was grinning at me “Thanks babe” as we shook hands
“It’s a nice one – I thought Sullivan would probably steal it”
“Totally!” agreed James “He steals all my stuff!”
I the asked him about doing autographs the next day and then straight away said “I should be asking Steve!” as of course James didn’t know. I’d been crouched down for this one so then I had to haul myself to my feet and said “I’ll see you in a bit for photos. Thanks sweetie!” and we shook hands again as James replied “Looking forward to it” and then I had to turn away.
Photo ops were earlier today which was good so we would have plenty of time afterwards to get ready for the party. So we had something to eat and a chat and then made our way to the Marriott and some time beautifying in the bathroom (thank God for the freebie toothbrushes I’ve got from Virgin flights – they are brilliant for having in your bag for photo op emergencies!)
We were having a group op done for the JMF Yahoo Group that Magie organised – so we went at the back of the line and it meant I was very last to go. Got a hug again – so many hugs and no complaints! – and as I had the copy of a pjoto for us to copy I plonked it on the floor as it’s the easiest place so James can see it and Froggy remarked “ I like Marsters fans – they come with prompts!” It was actually very like the Spike/Dru one where Spike is kind of leaning on Dru’s forehead with his eyes shut and she’s looking at the camera. It worked well; I managed to get a reasonably sultry look on my face!
Then I said to James “Im going to teach you a dance position” and I had to swap sides so I could get him into the ‘sweetheart’ position as its known in line dancing. I was aware that I was doing all the talking and trying to be quick so I might have rather been kind of ordering him about. I hope not! We did that shot and then I asked if he would just put his fingers on my mouth as though he was shushing me. This one is lovely – it worked really well. Im looking up him with a kind slightly surprised but adoring look and again, James has that wonderful slightly lustful look on his face and so it looks like he’s just shushed me before he’s about to kiss me…! And of course I got to look at him from fairly close up and that is always of the good!!
I got to stay where I ws by James as the others then all came in for the group picture. I did ask him was he OK as he did seem a bit tired and quiet now and he said yes, he was doing fine.
We had decided to do the pose that Magie had found of the group from Big Bang Theory doing – so James was in the middle with 3 of us either side all leaning in and pressing our cheeks together. As Magie was organising it I knew she would have one side by James so I had quickly put dibs on being the other side…! (She did say James could either look very happy or very shocked at being with us all!) So I had James’s right and I got to be snuggled up to him, pressed up close against his face with his ear against my cheek. And I got to stand there for a bit whilst Magie organised everyone into place. Lovely! There were hugs and thanks all round and then we were on our way out.
Magie was still on autograph missions as she had a couple more to try and get so I was helping her in one of the dealer rooms and met up with Mary and Jude. They were looking fabulous being all dressed up in their corsets that they had been photographed with James in. I was a bit upset after something that had happened earlier and as what I’m feeling is obvious on my face they knew straight away I wasn’t feeling great so immediately offered the best English cure of all woes – cup of tea and a chat in their room (they had proper English tea bags!) And I thought that was a good idea, so Magie went on back to our hotel so she could have first crack at the bathroom to get ready for the party, and I went and met up with the girls and did have an hour or so of tea and sympathy (and a lot of laughter!) which was very nice and made me feel better before I made my way back to the Sheraton to get myself ready for the party.
Party ramble coming soon..