Fangoria’s Weekend of Horror ~ Aka: Alex O’Loughlin has won my heart!

Well, this may very well go up instead of my initial “Hey, we made it to Los Angeles” post, but who cares! I’ve just had such a wonderful day that I had to write all about it right now.

For those unlucky souls who’ve never heard of it, each year (in two locations generally) Fangoria Magazine puts on it’s ‘Weekend of Horrors’ convention for all of us horror fans. I attended my first con at the ripe ol’ age of 18 and had only been able to attend one other since. But, as I was flipping through the local arts paper, I saw the con listed for this weekend and chose my day. It was tough to choose only one out of the three days, but when I saw that not only was George A. Romero attending Sunday, but that it would be a 40th year reunion for the entire cast of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ ~ well, I’m sure you can tell which day I chose!

We arrived shortly after everything opened up and did an initial walk through. There were tons of vendors and I managed to get pretty far in before succumbing and buying something. I couldn’t help myself but to stop when I saw the pint glass with a The Winchester Tavern’s logo. Along with the pint glass I also picked up a tank top with the Zombie Hunter logo. It’s a chain of merchandise that Fango started selling awhile back and I always thought they were kind of funny ~ everything in army fatigue chic.

From there, though, everything was cooler than I could have ever imagined! We walked by all of the booths and stopped when I spotted Russ Streiner. He’s the actor who played Johnny in the original ‘Night of the Living Dead’. We were the only two there and he was quite wonderful. I told him that it’s my tradition to watch the movie when I’m filling out my holiday cards each year. He seemed really amused and said that that’s a first in his book! Which, I suppose it is kind of odd. But, then I told him about that first year after the hurricane and how my sister had surprised me with a new copy so that I could continue my tradition that year and how much something that simple had meant to me. At that he instructed me to pick out a still from the movie for him to sign, free of charge (most have a fee of $20). I am still so jazzed! I’d only been running off at the mouth and hadn’t expected anything like that. But, what my sister had done that year he found to be very endearing and wanted to add to it. I was actually so excited that I forgot to ask for a picture! But, the still is more than cool ~ I picked the scene (THE scene) where Johnny re-appears at the door as a zombie, with the one gloved hand on the doorway. And he wrote “They’re coming to get you Melissa!” ~ again, just too fucking cool!

Next in the “wow” category, was wandering into the talk with Ray Wise. He’s currently starring in the tv show ‘Reaper’. I’ve only been able to see one episode, but my brother is addicted to it! So, I was hoping to snap a picture for him with my crappy cell phone. Well, Donnella had been doing pretty well, so I let go of her hand while I *tried* to listen. Er, that was a mistake, as she made a mad dash for the stage, and yes folks ~ ran the hell right on up! Ray (if he doesn’t mind me calling him that) was awesome! He got a huge kick out of it and actually tried to include her in on it! But, she was too busy trying to run away from me to take center stage. The crowd roared with laughter as Ray announced her as his youngest fan. And, as I gestured my apologies to Anthony Timpone (editor of Fango for the last 100 years) he only smiled and nodded back that it really was ok. She was definitely the bell of that ball! And, that wasn’t the only one she stirred up!

But, before I get on to that, I need to add that I met a wonderful couple while there and have even more reason to visit Las Vegas now. At the entry to the con was a long table filled with movie promo’s and such. And, as I was going through picking up one of everything, I bumped into a guy doing the same. We made the smallest of chit-chat about the con and all the stuff there was when he mentioned that he and his wife had a booth set up inside. They’d brought their young son and he thought maybe we should stop by when he got there later. And that’s when he mentioned that his son is a highly functional autistic. That really floored me, since it was only recently that Donnella was diagnosed with a form of autism. Some of you may recall my jokes in the past ~ when it comes to her “issues” ~ how at least I didn’t need to worry about autism. Well, it looks like I joked too soon, because she falls into that same category as their son. And, the more we talked, the more I realized just how much she’d benefit from knowing someone like herself. He and his wife know all too well the heartbreak I’ve felt when watching the other kids and how they just seem to sense something’s not “right” with her and quickly abandon her on the playground. And, when they did finally get to meet it was far too brief a time together. But, seeing her play with another kid who “got her” made my night! And, as soon as I’m able, we’ll be getting with whatever support group there is in the area so that she can socialize with even more kids. Oh, and Gina also gave Nella one of the artsy boxes she was selling. Nella’s newest “thing” is to be a kitty cat, so she gave her the box with two cats on it. Very, seriously cool! When we got back Nella put all her convention buttons in it as her treasure box. And, another thing I’m only now making the connection about; as we were talking, she made the comment that they can now *spot* other kids like their son, so I’m thinking that’s why he’d initially invited us over. He could just tell. Wow.

The next bit of super-cool-goodness began with the 40th year anniversary of ‘Night’. Nella would not sit down for it, but I got her to at least *stand* with me to hear this incredible group talk about the film. We stood off to the side near the wall and it bugged me to be so far away, but at least she wasn’t yelling! Well, as we stood there I happened to look over to my right and seated RIGHT THERE was Joe Pilato!!!!!! I couldn’t fucking believe it! I was standing not even 5 feet away from the man who played Rhodes in ‘Day of the Dead’ and the hero in ‘Effects’!!!! Let me tell you ~ I was DYING through the whole thing! And, when it was over I immediately begged the man for a photo. He was as genuinely cool as I’d always heard he was and he posed for a pic with Nella and one with me. It was AWESOME! Just before he walked away to meet with George and the rest, I told him that ‘Day’ is my favorite and the best of the bunch. He then gave me that “Rhodes” wink and said thank you. I’m still gushing about that! I won’t lie to ya ~ Rhodes may have been a supreme asshole from hell, but I’d always had a thing for him. And, I was very impressed with myself in how “cool” I was about the whole thing. I really was. Of course, as soon as Joe was out of ear-shot, I turned to the guy who’d taken our picture and began gushing in that special pitch that could break glass!

As soon as that bit of hoorah died down, as we were actually walking toward the door to leave the auditorium, Anthony Timpone came on the mic and announced that the panel for ‘Moonlight’ would be on shortly. Oh boy. How could we leave when Nella’s newest heartthrob, Mick, was going to be on stage???
This time she whole heartily agreed to sit down and listen. Let me tell ya, this was the most well behaved she’d been all day! And, when they came on stage, I was actually quite glad we stayed. They were the last panel for the convention and I was pretty worn out. So, had Nella not been so insistent to see her Mick, I’d probably have skipped it. Well, the group consisted of Alex O’Loughlin, Sophia Myles and Jason Dohring ~ the three main players on the show. Now, she sat pretty damn still, but I did have to keep her from charging the stage again! And, this time she knew all too well what she was doing ~ she wanted to be near Mick! And, dammit if my kid doesn’t have some great taste! But, to pacify her, I promised that when they were done, she could go up and say hi to him. And, when I could tell they were wrapping up, I walked us up near the stage and let her go the second they ended it.

Now, this is where it gets really cool. She ran up to the stage and just at that moment Alex turned around and saw her. He turned, smiled and said “Well, hello there”. You should have seen her ~ eyes all big and adoring! I quickly explained that she really loves the show and had wanted to say hi. Well, that was a wrap! Hearing this he held out his hand to her and pulled her on stage! She immediately held open her arms to hug him and then leaned in for a kiss! He seemed so genuinely pleased to have one so little so completely in awe of him that he happily hugged and kissed her right back! Of course, I was so shocked by it all that I didn’t have the stupid phone out! SO, he patiently waited so that I could get a picture of them together. Want a man, what a man, what a man! I should also add that Mr. O’Loughlin had been working on the show til 8:30 that morning ~ this was 6:30pm ~ so the man had had no sleep. But, what really killed me was that he was going to hang out with her LONGER, but she turned and walked away! He was crouched there with this huge grin, saying “What? That’s it? Where you going?”. I mean, out of all the really cool experiences we’d had, after all the really cool people we’d met ~ here he was, so pressed for time, yet pretty much said “fuck it all” and was gonna MAKE time for her! You just can’t get any cooler than that! So, as she was walking away I just shrugged and said “Eh, she’s fickle”. To that he smiled at me and said “She’s really cool is what she is! She is really cool”.

And, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also add how we nearly incited a riot amongst the women in the audience who also wanted a hug from the hunky star! It really was too funny ~ the handlers were trying to get them off stage and to the backstage area for the *paid* photos and hugs, and by holding him up, that held everybody up! It was utter chaos! All the fans from the audience kind of rushed the stage and the actors just went with it. Really, it was kinda cool to see how much they enjoyed the fans and didn’t really care about the business end of it all.

After Nella was done with her moment, Sophia Myles was suddenly in front of us having her photo taken. On a personal note here, I wanna be friends with her just so she’ll show me how to pose for pictures like that! The girl was ON. But, when she’d first walked out on stage I was really taken with her dress and yelled out to her that it was just gorgeous. Well, this super-cool chick stopped what she was doing to give me the designer’s name. She said to me “Check out her stuff. She’s really, really good and her cuts are perfect for women with, uh, real figures!”. Ya know, I loved her as the trampy-bitch in ‘Underworld’, love her as Beth on ‘Moonlight’, now would also like to hang out with the woman in real life! Hey Sophia, I’m new to town and could use a new bff! Ya know, I’m just sayin’......

But, in all seriousness ~ Alex, if you ever read this, know that you now have a life long fan! I really can’t begin to tell you how much the attention you paid my kid means to me! She’s so special, but also tends to be quite lonely. She really does spend so much of her daily life up in her own head and not in the world. So, making her the center of your attention the way that you did not only brought her out, but bolstered her confidence in ways that I just can’t articulate. And, that pretty much makes you a real life super hero in my book!

Well, it’s late and I should wrap this up. All in all, she had her picture taken with Alex O’Loughlin, Joe Pilato, John Gulager (Director of ‘Feast’ ~ who was really pressed for time, but was more than happy to pose for the pic and talk to her) and The Ice Cream Man from ‘Phantasm’, Reggie bannister (who also just gushed over her and was as cool as I remember him being from back in the day!)!!!! Such a cool, cool day that I will be kind of high over for weeks!

Oh, and I should also mention two other things: during the *brief* minute I was able to listen to Joe Dante’s talk I’m pretty damn sure I spotted Mr. Edgar Wright himself in the backstage/vip section! And, no ~ I did not even try to talk to him. The other is that I got to meet and talk with other writers and directors and hopefully will be seeing more of them in the near future at screenings! So, networking, networking, networking. And, though I never got to talk with George Romero, I *did* get a poster that will be immediately framed and kept for life! “For 40 years he has spoken the truth about us! We need a leader we can trust! ROMERO FOR PRESIDENT!”. Oh, what a cool thing to have!

Ok, so there’s really more to add, but this has gotten long enough already. I will post my “moved” addition in the next few days, though. I just never expected LA to be as cool as it’s been so far!