Monster Presents: Memoirs Of A Con, Part 2

Con-Tamination, June 25 2011, Day two.

Blinded by the light, wrapped up like a douche, uh nanananana night.... I think the sun comes up earlier in Missouri than in Oklahoma. Like a switch in both D and my heads, right at 5:30am on the dot we are wide awake with the sun blaring into the hotel room. We sat there pissing and moaning about the early sun, and nothing to do. The free Continental Breakfast wasn't going to start until 7am, and we knew the others wouldn't be awake yet.

After showering we decide to go for a walk around the hotel, maybe meet others that are going to the con. Nope nobody. Finally the doors open to the "Restaurant" for breakfast. Much to our sad tummys all they had was cereal, hard boiled eggs, and something that resembled doughnuts. Yum yum... McDonalds! Luckily there was a Mickey Ds right down the street, so it wasn't a big deal to grab some breakfast burritos. After we eat we head back to the hotel to pack up our stuff to move on to the Sheraton Chalet where the con was and our next room was ready for us. After we check out of the roach motel, we stop and pick up Clyde, Chanel and TZ and head to the con. Yay!

We go in and go to the front desk to let them know we are there, and to have them let us know when our room was ready. Luckily they already had a room ready for us. Since the con hasn't started yet we grabbed our gear and took it to the room. At this point, let me tell you about the elevator. The slowest elevator I have ever seen. The building is only 4 stories, and it literally took 10 minutes for it to stop for us. Needless to say we only took the elevator when we had our gear, or were too tired to take the stairs. By the time we were unloaded and ready, the con had opened for VIPs... us. First stop, on the Lobby Floor, the Boondock Saints signing was to begin in 10 minutes. I grab my roommate's DVD I was going to get signed for her and set my phone to camera. Went and sat waiting for the Saints to show... 10 minutes... 20 minutes. At 20 minutes late David Dela Rocco comes in, stops, says he feels like he's on LSD, and promptly walks out the back door of the room. That gave me a good laugh! He sounded just like his character in the movie. Due to unforseen circumstances the other Saints were unable to make the show this weekend.

I go ahead and buy a couple pictures to have signed in case they do show up later. While I'm waiting to pay for the pictures, TZ comes in and tells me that my presence is requested downstairs on the con floor. First thing going through my mind is, "I must have broken something", even though I hadn't been down there to this point.

The first table I go to is the one ran by Eric Stanze, creator of Ratline. Really cool guy to talk to. I did unfortunately miss seeing Ratline, but I do hope to see it soon. After that I went into the main room in search of Mark Tierney, Terry Alexander, and Gary Klar of Day of the Dead. D takes me over to Mark and says, "Here's the Monster!". He jumped, came over and shook my hand! He then grabs Terry and tells him who I am, and he yells "MONSTA!!" in his Jamaican accent! I thought I was going to die. I looked around for Gary. He had gone up to his room for a break.

After talking with them for awhile, I decided to go back to the room and grab my DVDs to have them signed before we started working on FearCast stuff. First one to get signed... Candyman Special Edition, by the man himself, Tony Todd. Tony was an amazing guy. Nice as could be.

Next to Tony was the one guy I was scared shitless to talk to, but really excited about as well. Kane Hodder. He who is THE Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th. Yeah, that guy. He was awesome! He got a call on his cell just before signing my DVD and excused himself. I waited a few minutes, and he came right back apologizing for the interruption. I asked him for a picture as well. Unlike Tony, he had no handler, and didn't charge me a cent for the picture. In fact Tony was the only one I met who DID charge.

This is where it gets a bit scary for me. As any of you know who has had a pic taken with Kane Hodder knows that he puts his hands around your throat for the picture. What I didn't know it that he doesn't play around. He's really choking you. I was having KillSaw taking the pics for me. Somehow he got my camera set to video instead of picture. So Kane is squeezing my neck, my face is turning purple, my eyes are starting to close. Kane asks KillSaw why he isn't taking the picture. He's freaking out because it wont take. Finally Kane let's go of me long enough for me to catch a breath and correct the camera setting. As soon as KillSaw had the camera back in his hands, BOOM, Kane's huge hands are wrapped around my throat again. Picture taken, I thanked him for everything and took my camera back. It seemed like forever, but the video was only 18 seconds long. Yeesh! Choked out by Jason.

I walk down the row of celebs, several I've never heard of, and several I wasn't interested in for my own reasons. I finally get to Bill Johnson, the man who played Leatherface in my favorite Texas Chainsaw movie, Part 2. He had his back to me when I stepped up to his table and when he turned around he jumped! I scared Leatherface! I ALMOST felt ashamed. He was really cool and signed my copy of Texas 2 with a great quote: "EAT THE GIRL!" So awesome.

After leaving his table I see that Gary Klar is back at his Day of the Dead table. I go over there and another fan is talking to him. Up to this point this was the highlight of my day. The guy he was talking to said, "I heard you guys doing an interview on some show Monday night." Gary said, "Oh yeah that was a great interview! We all had a blast!" At that point I cleared my throat and showed Gary my FearCast press badge. I swear I think I gave the man a heart attack! "MONSTER!!!!!" Grabs my hand with both of his and almost ripped my arm off shaking it so much. The guy he was talking to asked me if it was me on the show doing the interview. He listens to our shows! He asked me to take a picture of him and Gary, then he asked Gary to take a picture of us! That was awesome!

I talked to Gary for a bit then went off to find the crew. They were all huddled around G. Tom Mac's table. I'm then introduced to one of the coolest guys I've ever met. If you've never heard of him, Google "Gerard McMann" (It's spelled incorrectly, He did that on purpose, it's actually McMahon). Heard of him yet? Yeah, he wrote and performed "Cry Little Sister" for The Lost Boys soundtrack. Don't think of him as a one-hit wonder though. He has written some of the best music ever over the last 30 years.  Look it up! He was gracious enough to give us all signed pictures and again invited us to his concert later that night. To which I reply with a resounding "HELL YEAH!".

After leaving G Tom Mac, I decide to take my swag up to the room and get ready for interviews. Before I hit the elevator, I see the D4 table. Darrin Dickerson is standing there watching the crowd. He's the Creator, Director, Producer, and star of the film. We had been talking on Facebook about his film, so I was totally stoked to get a copy. It was great to finally meet him in person! I bought a copy of D4 and he was cool enough to sign it and a poster for me. Review will be up soon for that!

I finally make it up to my room (yeah, the elevator took forever again). I grab the camera and go back down to get some footage of the crowd. I extend my tri-pod to it's full height, and do an aerial view of the crowd. We get a few bumpers for the show, then decide food sounds like a good idea. I don't recall the name of the place we went, but it was some of the best food I've ever had. It was kind of a pizzeria meets a bar. I got 2 slices of New York Style pizza with my faaavorite toppings. 2 slices equaled half a large pizza. I was in heaven.

After we ate, there was about an hour and a half until the G Tom Mac show. We use this time to mingle with the other guests and just kind of take it easy. During this time I had the pleasure of meeting Thomas Churchill. I picked up a sweet deal from him, his newest feature, Emerging Past. He gave me a copy of the poster, and soundtrack on top of it! The soundtrack is mostly done by the other guest, G Tom Mac! At this point we notice the dark clouds starting to roll in. At about 8:30pm we find out that the show is at another hotel and starts in 30 minutes. We take off out to the SUV and bolt over to the venue. Come to find out it's the hotel D and I stayed at the night before.

We get there about halfway through the first opening band's set. We stayed for about a song and a half before we all decided to go outside until they were done. When the next band came up I decided to go to the bar and grab a beer. This will be my first journey into the wonderful world of 6 point beer. Oklahoma beer is a watery 3 point. What a whole new world! It was quite tasty!

The next band blew my mind. A local group called Hollow Point Heroes. They were absolutely amazing. After their set we went and talked to a couple of the band members. They gave us a copy of their Demo Disk. It has only left my CD player once.

Now for G Tom Mac. I'm embarrassed to say that I was one of those who only know of "Cry Little Sister", but as the show progressed I found that I knew the words to almost every song he played. Come to find out he actually wrote all of these songs that I've known for years! There was one new song that grabbed my attention. It's called "Secret Of Oz". Really an amazing song. It's also on the Emerging Past soundtrack I got earlier!

After the show we go outside. The gods decided we were way too dry and proceded to pour down extremely heavy rains. D, TZ and I ran out to the SUV (we had taken Clyde nad Chanel back to their hotel earlier), and got completely soaked to the bone. For some stupid reason TZ wanted go back to the hotel. I'm sure he's still kicking himself in the balls for that one. We drop by a convenience store and grab a couple 6 packs of beer and head back to the Con hotel. OH my my my... the debauchery has begun without us! At this point I won't go into any details. Let's just say it involved a rave, half naked goth girls, beer, tornadoes, and Don King.... yes... THAT Don King. Bed time at 4:30am, must be up at 8. GAH!! G'night! Zzzzzzzz......

-Monster