Sorry, that analogy is not the way to go for this demographic. Hang on...
If Comic Con was Episode IV of the Star Wars saga, then Saturday definitely fits as the moment Luke blows up the Death Star.
That's much better.
Saturday at the Con is the climax of everything that has been building for the previous three days. The masquerade ball is Saturday night, so all the nerds bust out the prime costumes. The exhibitor booths pull out all the stops with their giveaways. Celebrity sightings are big and frequent. The floor is jam packed. And G4 network's live coverage of the event kicks off, complete with a gorgeous hostess (see previous blogs here) dressed up as a variety of superheroes (more on that in a bit).
The energy in the convention center is buzzing. You can see people walking with just a little bit more of a spring in their step. The overheard conversations are almost frantic with excitement and anticipation. Noises of every kind imaginable are coming from the big booths in an attempt to capture your attention for even the slightest of seconds. Comic Con Saturday is almost alive in its own right.
The day started with a sign of things to come -- the official outfit of the nerd:
That's right: socks with sandals. Right from the get-go, I knew it was going to be an amazing day.This being my first year at the Con, I had made it a point to try and experience the event like a typical nerd (which wasn't hard, given my eighth grade school photo, which I hope we don't have to mention anymore). I wanted to wait in lines, grab swag left and right, run after beautiful women just to have them scribble on something, and cheer for things I've never heard of just to get a free t-shirt thrown in my general direction.
Having gone to a screening on Wednesday, learned some valuable lessons about lines and swag on Thursday, and acted like a completely crazed fan on Friday, I thought I was ready for whatever the Con could throw at me on Saturday.
And then I saw this guy:
...and I nearly peed my pants. Seriously, he was easily 6'6" and ripped, plus he didn't really say much, and when he did talk it was something about joining the resistance. And thusly did my Saturday at Comic Con officially begin.
I got to the convention center early to wait in line for a drawing that would determine who would be allowed into the Attack Of The Show autograph session later that afternoon. After a good hour in line, I manged to pick a winning ticket on my first draw (those drawing a blank ticket could return to the back of the line to wait for another chance until all the winning tickets had been drawn). Now, I don't want to sound weird, but I have to admit -- I actually prayed that I would draw a winning ticket. It wasn't a crazy deal like, "God, I'll never lie again if I get this!" or anything, but in my head, I remember literally praying to God that I really, really wanted to make it into this session and asking Him to let me get it. Whether or not you believe in this sort of thing, I have to say...drawing a winner on the first try didn't happen very often from what I heard in line. Not that God is overly concerned with my desire to meet famous people... but the point remains, I got in and I was super stoked.
But I had a few free hours before the next big event on my schedule, the G4 Network's live coverage of Comic Con, which began at 1 p.m. I've been on television a few times before, as I'm sure you'd expect from someone of my gratuitous level of fame, but as I mentioned, I wanted the full Comic Con fan experience, and if getting in the background of a live TV show isn't on a nerd's must-do list, then I guess I just don't know nerds at all.
So once again, I headed for the exhibition hall for a look around. I had heard that Saturday was a big day, and it makes sense for all the reasons we mentioned before, but I was not prepared for what I saw and heard (and sometimes smelled).
I guess it was the combination of so many people having their attention pulled in so many different directions -- it felt a little bit like being in a big nerd amusement park, only instead of rides there were celebrities everywhere. Every time I turned around, I saw...
Rob Zombie:
...Jamie Kennedy:
...Tyrese Gibson:
...comedian Doug Benson:
...Yvonne Strahovski (if you don't know who she is, you should Google her right now...do it!):
...Nina Dobrev (you may not know who she is now, but you will):
...Billy Connolly (from the immortal TV show Billy back in the early 90s, as well as The Boondock Saints, The Last Samurai, and Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events, to name a few):
...Kathy Najimy (from Sister Act and Rat Race, among others):
...and I'm sure there were more that I didn't even see. There is always something big going on at the Con on Saturday, it is beyond impossible to see everything.I made my attempts though, and despite the crowds, I soldiered on. When the constant jostling, the heat, and the body odor of the crowd got to be too much, I found a little spot by one of the stairways to grab a seat and catch my breath (and upload my photos for my many adoring fans). But the electricity of the floor kept pulling me back in, and I powerless to fight the alluring call.
Plus, the chance to get on live TV will make regular people do the weirdest things, and for someone as famous as I am, I have to say that I guess I'm not entirely immune to this phenomenon. Actually, I'll just play it off like whatever I was doing was on purpose to get the full fan "experience." I don't think anyone will question that.
So I headed over to the G4 stage, which was a two-story structure tucked away nearly in the corner of the exhibition hall, with a commanding view of the floor:
The network's coverage of the convention began at 1 pm, but, as with everything at the Con, people started gathering much earlier than that to secure their chance at television immortality. Even though I got there around 12:45 pm, I still managed to find a few gaps and slip up towards the edge of the stage. At that point, this happened:
That's me in the green hat, and this was on television. And so my already considerable fame grows.Of course, just to make my family proud, I had to do something to draw attention to myself, so I did this:
Yep, that's me showing off a rub-on tattoo of Kevin & Olivia I put on my right shoulder. Again, this was on live television. Granted, it was on the G4 network, so only a few mill... um, thous... OK, it was like 60 people who saw this. And it was totally worth it...Now, I'm typically not a "screaming masses" kind of guy, but it was pretty fun to just hang out with the other fans and act all crazy every time the stage manager waved his hands. But with the stage elevated, our view was pretty much this:
...which was cool from a behind-the-scenes standpoint, but was difficult from a neck pain standpoint, having to keep looking up like that. I enjoyed using my camera to zoom in and read the teleprompter to see what they were supposed to be saying, then hearing them ad-lib for minutes at a time before they were forced to return to the scripted text. One of my favorite aspects of Attack Of The Show is that the hosts have such great rapport with each other that you don't feel like you're watching a show as much as you feel like you're watching your good-looking, really funny friends hang out and entertain you. As much as I watch the show (I have my DVR set to record it every afternoon so I can watch it later), I was really excited to see the live coverage.And they didn't disappoint... at least, not entirely. The show was three hours long, and even though a lot of it was happening in front of our eyes, there were a lot of pre-taped segments and commercials, so there was a lot of down time. They did a good job of keeping interest somewhat alive by having Kevin & Olivia come down into the crowd from time to time:
...but even so, I just couldn't stand there the whole time. I'm sure some veterans of the Con were able to handle it; three hours is a cake walk compared to a line leading to anything Star Wars-related.One other incentive was Olivia dressing up as various superheroes, beginning with Wonder Woman:
...and continuing with Batman villain Harley Quinn:
...Lara Croft, Tomb Raider:
...Marvel villain Emma Frost:
...and Watchmen heroine Silk Spectre, which I failed to digitally capture.Kevin did his part, dressing up as Mammogramo (as you can see in the above picture), as well as a Japanese raccoon:
with some... well, let's just say that he's not storing those acorns away for winter.It was interesting to watch the choreographed chaos that is live television unfold before my very eyes, and see really how much the hosts put into pulling it all off. I don't know where they get their energy, but Kevin & Olivia kept things going for the entirety of those three hours, and even had to shoot some alternate endings for the show after it was all done. I was exhausted just watching, so they must have been pretty much done. Olivia still had a Star Wars-related internet series to present afterward (Olivia Munn + Star Wars = no way in Hello Kitty would I try to wait in that line), so apparently she has the stamina of a Navy SEAL. Or she injects pixy stix straight into her bloodstream every commercial break. Whatever she does, it's working.
But I had to conserve some energy for the grueling line I knew awaited me for the AOTS autograph session. I had drawn a winning ticket, but I heard that there were 599 others just like mine, and I had learned by now that nothing this big happens at the Con without a line forming hours in advance. So with the live show wrapping up at 4 pm and the autograph session set to begin at 5:30 pm, I headed up to the autograph area at about 4:10 pm to jump in the back of the line.
Turns out I was about eight tenths of the way to the back by the time everybody showed up, and my line neighbor was a pot-growing fledgling comic artist named Mike (who would have been one of the most entertaining people ever had I not been so sleep-deprived and nervous about meeting Kevin & Olivia). I sat for a good 40 minutes on the bare concrete floor, then stood back up for a good 40 more minutes before a triumphant cheer from the crowd finally announced the arrival of the talent.
The G4 team kept the line moving quickly, but still allowed everyone time to talk briefly with the hosts and get a poster (and/or some other items) signed. When I got up there, I first saw a glimpse of Olivia and my heart started really thumping, I kid you not:
I didn't really know what to say, despite the fact that I had been rehearsing a few different options in my head for the entirety of the line wait. What came out was this:I'm amused/mortified at the audible change in my voice when she started talking/looking at me. As a reformed (reforming?) dork, I felt like I had made significant progress in my 28 years on this planet. This event showed me that I have come nowhere near as far as I had thought. I will grant that she is an extremely beautiful woman, and that a man would have to have no soul to not feel a little nervous around her, but I was reduced to a stammering, quasi-coherent bundle of nerves before I even knew what was going on. I still don't really know what happened, and I'm at least glad I have the video to look at for reference.
Despite my buffoonery, I managed enough of a recovery by the time I transferred over to Kevin's station to have something resembling a conversation. We joked about my autographed forearm as a potential Craig's List item, and I got him to say something cool about me, which turned out to be (as it always is with these two) something dirty (and awesome). I walked away with my head in the clouds and an extra bounce in my step, even though I felt kind of like an idiot as soon as I started thinking of all the other cool responses I could have said to both of them.
But I also got to thinking about why it's so hard to have a normal interaction with somebody famous -- specifically a celebrity I follow with a passion.
My answer, after some deliberation, is that when you watch someone on television consistently, they start to become a part of your life. You laugh at their inside jokes, you remember the crazy things they did, and you identify with them in little ways that give you a sense of real connection. The thing is, it's a completely one-sided connection -- the only thing the celebrity sees when they're putting on the show is a camera. When the real-life meeting finally takes place, you still feel the connection, but the celebrity reacts to you as the stranger you are. They do a great job of being very friendly and making you feel like you're part of what they have going on, but it's still vaguely off-putting to be confronted by the sensation of disconnect, especially when you feel like you've established a link, however superficial it may be. All of this, plus the general nervousness involved with meeting someone new and not knowing how they'll respond, makes it difficult to have a truly natural, real interaction. I know it's easier for some people than it is for others, but I think overall that it's an odd phenomenon no matter what happens.
Either way, I ended up with this:
...and a whole lot more costume sightings, including scary chainsaw girls:
...an awesome Joker and henchman (who were smart and just camped out in this spot to allow for other people to take photos):
...an R2D2 unit that hopefully had a midget inside (you know, just for authenticity's sake):
...Spiderman:
...Mexican Superman & Wonder Woman:
...Thor, Magneto, and... a girl...?:
...my personal favorite, Swag Man (a costume made entirely out of things handed out, plus some duct tape):
...a group of Predators (or rastafarians?):
...Alice and The Mad Hatter:
...Disney princesses Tinkerbell and Snow White:
...and Snake Eyes:
I was pretty jazzed up at that point, so I hit the floor again for a quick lap or two, and kept the camera rolling for a few thoughts:It was a great Saturday, and as I wedged myself into a trolley seat for the ride back to Qualcomm Stadium, I was exhausted but thrilled. The Con's big day was an experience I'll never forget, and I know a little bit more of what to expect next year.
I just hope there isn't a line for it already.
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