Creation Convention Diary

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 Some notes on the 2005 Official Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas

On the first day of the Official Star Trek Convention (August 11, 2005), while I was waiting in the registration line, this guy walked past me. I looked quizzically at him, he did likewise at me, then I said, "You look very familiar to me." He said, "You look really familiar to me too!" I asked him if he'd been to other cons here, he said no. Then I asked if he had been in the military.  Again, no. Then he said, "I'm from New Hampshire, maybe you saw me there?" He was from Claremont, NH, where we had lived. I remembered that he was a postman there. WHAT are the odds of us even noticing each other among those thousands of people?  He mentioned that he wondered where I'd gone, which is when I told him why we left there, but I'm still stunned that I ran into him among those 12,000 folks! After breakfast the next morning, I strolled over to the main auditorium to see Gwyneth Walsh and Barbara March (B'Etor & Lursa), but March had a family emergency and cancelled.  Walsh was good, but she kept moving her head back and forth, so it was really difficult to get a good shot of her.  Next up was Garrett Wang (Pronounced 'wong'), who was a RIOT!  He's let his hair grow to shoulder length, and said he did that because as Harry Kim on Voyager, he had to get a haircut every single week.  He did an impression of Kate that was OK, but he did an absolutely perfect impression of George Takei ("Sulu") - I swear if you were just listening to him, you'd think it was Takei!  Amazing.  He really clowned around, and snarked his Voyager co-stars.  Speaking of his co-stars, he had stolen Beltran (Chakotay)'s trailer sign, and auctioned it off for charity. Beltran didn't bother to take it when Voyager ended, so Garrett did. He was so cute!  

Katie and I went to the dealer's room, where we saw a multitude of support stars, such as Robert Walker (Charlie X), Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Rand), Arlene Martel & Lawrence Montaigne(T'Pring & Stonn), Joanne Linville (Enterprise Incident Romulan babe), Felix Silla (Cousin Itt from the Addams Family), the guy inside the Gorn costume, on that lame-o episode I didn't like, and Charlie Brill(The covert Klingon in "Tribbles"). Charlie's wife, comedian Mitzi McCall, was tickled that I knew who she was (A character actress on a lot of 60s and 70s shows), and I told her it was great to see that they've been married for so long, especially in show biz!  She sat in the audience in my row, while Charlie spoke to the crowd; we tried to get her to get up there with him, but she felt it was Charlie's time. Sweet. On that stage as well, was the girl who played "T'Pring" as a child in "Amok Time" - all she really did was have her picture taken, but interestingly, she said she had the measles during that shoot. She brought her two daughters with her. There were many more, but frankly I took so many pix I can't remember them all. The standout in the dealer's room, though, was the guy who played wheelchair-bound Captain Pike in "The Menagerie" (Sean Kenney), because Bob absolutely loves that episode (that guy has to be at least in his 50s - he looks fantastic!). Not only did I buy a personalized pic from him, but Katie took a short video msg on her digcam; take a look! Bob got a kick out of that. After we left the dealer's room (Where all the folks above were), we caught the last 15 minutes of Levar Burton's (Geordi LaForge) set. Then John DeLancie got stumped by my daughter, Katie, when she asked him how he liked playing a character in "Invader Zim". De Lancie said, "I have no idea of what you're talking about" - Katie gave him more details, but he still didn't know what she was referring to, so he then said, "I guess you got your answer!" The crowd roared, and of course I got plenty of shots of my baby girl chatting with "Q". Robin Curtis (Saavik in ST:III) made the terrible mistake of doing a spoken word piece about a psychotic housewife. I snapped some pix of her then bolted. I skipped Corbin Bernsen altogether (The other Q in that ep where Q got booted, nekked, from the Continuum), but the highlight of today wasn't any of those named above... It was Dean Haglund (Langley, the blond "Lone Gunmen" on the X-Files). He did some improvisational stuff that had us ALL laughing our arses off!!! I had no idea whatsoever that he was such a good improv comic! The few of us there got a thrill. Katie got video of him too. The man's a riot! He told all of us present to stop by his table in the dealer room, to buy a DVD of the performance, but none of his three  video cameras worked! The paltry amount of video Katie took was the only record, so he asked us to send him our video and stills, which I've done.  I was embarrassed, because you can hear me telling Katie not to record the show (At first), mostly because I didn't want us to get booted out (Videotaping is verboten), but also because I was planning to buy the DVD, so I wanted Katie to save space for stills of the remaining stars, in case my SLR screwed up.

Next up was my fave, Kate Mulgrew. She was very introspective; ruminating on life, death, motherhood, and marriage.  She recently lost her father, and her mom has end stage Alzheimer's, which apparently has made her re-evaluate her priorities. One fan stood up to tell her how attractive and talented he thought she was, and she asked, "Are you married?" He said yes, then she said (coyly), "Happily married?" Then I yelled, "So are YOU, Kate! "She laughed and said something like "What was I thinking just then?!" hehehe I got tons of pix of her, as did Katie and my friend Maria.  I had Kate sign my copy of the "Tea At Five" CD of her one-woman play. I had told her earlier that I never got to see it, since while it was in Connecticut, we had just moved from New Hampshire to Phoenix, then the play came to Phoenix, but we had just moved to Florida!  She was absolutely radiant, despite talking about the loss of her dad, and the steady deterioration of her mother.  She's had some lumps recently, but she always bears it well.  I told her that she has the amazing ability to rise above anything thrown at her....even when it's a lousy Voyager script, or the ever-schizophrenic changes her character endured at the hands of hack writing (The personality traits of the character kept being tweaked but she was good, nevertheless - that's talent!)  I hope she took that in the spirit for which I meant it!  I also told her how much my then 17-year-old Craig likes her; more than he does the male Trek captains.

Max Grodenchik (Rom) and Chase Masterson (Lyta) were doing a really bad song to the tune of "I got you babe" Max sang it as 'I got TWO babes' - Lyta and some woman whose name escapes me - she apparently had boinked Rom at some point. Gary Graham was next (Soval on Enterprise), and he talked a lot about Alien Nation as well as Enterprise, and said he really wishes Enterprise could be saved, but that he doubts it.

Marina Sirtis came out alone (Dorn was still doing photo ops), and she snarked him, but she told us to mention that Dorn's lost weight (He looked fabulous - I shot an entire roll of him alone *thud*) That little Marina is quite the snarker! When Dorn finally showed up, the two of them went at it like cats and dogs, but good-naturedly.

Katie stuck around for the gaming session, and was a recipient of the exclusive t-shirts given out by www.startrek.com   Most of the other fans there were male, obese or both, so Katie was the only child-sized person there. Something similar to that happened to Craig back in my La Femme Nikita days.  Jolene Blalock bailed, so I traded in my ticket for her, and got a photo op with Brent Spiner instead. Cool. (my son Craig posed with Spiner)

Katie went down to take pix of Eugene Roddenberry, Penny Johnson Jerald and Robbie McNeill (this shot is from a previous con). I showed up at the halfway point for Rosalind Chao, then took pix of Casey Biggs, Jeff Combs, Vaughn Armstrong,  and some other guy performing gag songs. Jeff is a pretty good guitar and piano player, but his vocals are straight from hunger - EGAD that was bad. I told Jeff how much I liked him as Dammers in "The Frighteners", and he smiled.  Biggs had the best singing voice, and you could tell he had been into music a long time.

Next up was James Darren (Yes, the guy from the "Gidget" movies, and also from DS9 as a hologram), who cracked us up by giving money to anyone who said they thought he was great.  Then, a guy suggested he try to get a part in "The 4400" since he could be out of phase like many of the other characters. The fan mentioned the producer of the show, "Ira Behr"(sp?), and without missing a beat, Darren called Behr right there on stage!! He only got the voice mail, but we all hooted and hollered so that Behr could hear us. It was so cool.   The auction followed Darren, and that was an interesting thing for us as well. People paid hideous money for original Trek show stuff, as well as stuff from Farscape, but the highlight for us was the raffle they had. They pulled seat numbers and gave door prizes. Katie kept trying to chat with me, but I told her we should listen in case they called our seats. She said, "Oh mom, they're not gonna call us." I swear to you, it was less than 5 minutes later that they called a seat number in our row, KK, but different numbers from our seats, 12 & 13. The seat number they called was empty, so then the guy says, "Where are all the KK people?" We all raised our hands, and we EACH got the second season DVDs of Enterprise! (Twilight Zone theme music) There was a very nice family next to us, who were delayed by Avery's photo op, so since we had 2 copies (One for Katie and one for me) of Season Two Enterprise, I gave them the spare. If they had missed the auction by deciding to do something non-con-related, I would have given it to a friend. They were very grateful. Right before the auction, Katie had a photo op with Avery Brooks, which ran really long, not surprisingly. She was all giddy because he told her she was pretty, and said her name 'five times'. She was so cute. (This is relevant later)

Then the man of the day went onstage, Avery Brooks, looking as hot and sounding as sexy as ever, and the applause was deafening! The place was jam-packed, cuz this was Avery's first Vegas Con, and he hadn't really done many in the past anywhere.

The girl sitting next to Katie and me, "Hillary", is a student teacher, who wanted to ask Avery about his work as a Rutgers University professor (for more than 20 years, if I remember correctly), but she was scared to death, and asked me to go up with her for moral support. While she and I were waiting to get to the mike, this incredibly cute little girl (about 4 years old) named "Rachel" went to the mike, and when Avery saw her, he couldn't resist putting her onstage with him (See the Creation Entertainment pic of Rachel here). She promptly jumped up into his director's chair (!), while he stood to talk to her. She then asked her question, but I forget what it was, since she was so danged adorable! She was wearing a TNG uniform (Blue), so she was so sweet looking, with her cute little outfit and voice. Katie took pix, and so did Creation (They took her name down, so I'm sure she'll be in Creation ads and web sites, etc). The fan who looked nearly exactly like Avery was there, of course, and the two of them argued over who had a bald head first. hehehe. The fan's info was taken down by Creation as well, but this won't be the first time. I've seen that guy here every time, and he's already on Creation and www.startrek.com's pages.

Back to little Rachel, etc. Hillary asked her questions, then went back to her seat. I thought about leaving with her, but then came up with something to say to Avery. I related to him all that Katie had gushed, and that Katie apparently had fallen in love with him during the photo op, but that now he dumped my daughter for this "Rachel" person! I then said, (In sassy black chick style - think "Diary of A Mad Black Woman"): "I wanna know what your intentions are toward my daughter?!"  Avery, and the rest of the crowd were in stitches. My work was done.  hehehe

I have soooo doggone many autographs, and they'll line my dining room walls.  At this year's con, I got the "Pike" pic I mentioned earlier, Beltran, (Pre-signed), Patrick pre-signed, since he was sold out for everything, Felix Silla ("Cousin Itt"), John De Lancie, Robin Atkin-Downes (Lyta's dead lover on Babylon 5), an assistant director whose name escapes me, but I bought it for Bob, Brian Thompson (Numerous sci-fi characters, such as Eddie Fiori in Kindred: The Embraced, various demon roles on "Buffy" and the alien bounty hunter in X-Files), Jeff Combs, Suzie Plakson, (Again, for Bob), Robert Picardo & Ethan Phillips (Got those free with my tickets) I took snaps of the green lady (Vitina Marcus) from Lost In Space (She had the hots for Dr. Smith: "Pretty, pretty handsome doctor Smith") - she looks great, by the way, as well as Marta Kristen (Judy on Lost In Space), who agreed with me when I said Guy Williams was way sexier than Mark Goddard. I told both of them I thought the green chick was nuts to go after Smith instead of Goddard, though. hehehe They liked that.  (See the third 'Trekking' page for the autographed pix)

I went to get my autograph from Avery Brooks at about 8:30 the next morning, which was very nice, then Katie and I had breakfast. Katie went to some talk by a NASA scientist, while I went back to the room to get ready for the festivities.

First up for me was Armin Shimerman (Quark), Nana Visitor (Kira) and Rene Auberjonois (Odo). They did the usual snarking of each other, especially by Shimerman. They spoke of practical jokes, like not shaking and doing the battle moves, while Avery Brooks was the only one bobbing and weaving. hehehe Someone asked what they thought was good about Trek, other than the aliens, to which Rene replied, "You're talking to three aliens!" Another fan asked Rene about his voice over work in cartoons, but Rene couldn't remember that particular part, so Shimerman said, "It's not 'Odo' - it's OLD-o!"  Another fan asked what type of fun they had behind the scenes, to which Armin said, "I know most of the time people think we f*ck around, but it's not true." (Or words to that effect, including the 'f' word). Mouth like a toilet, that guy, but he was very funny. Next up was my main reason for showing up at this con, Patrick Stewart.  I love that guy, but man is he a wind bag! He stood there and plugged about 10 pending projects, then took at least 5 minutes answering the fan questions, so not many got to get a word in edgewise! He looked muy caliente, though, so I got lots of pix!

I strolled over to the dealer's room while Katie snapped pix of Shatner, but when I was done with the dealer's room, I decided to go sit through the end of Shatner's set, when who was on the stage with Shatner? PATRICK STEWART! I snapped a few more pix of mostly Stewart, since Shatner was turned away from my seat. Cool.

I went to get Craig started on the Spiner photo op (I had to pay for a day pass for Craig), then I went back to the main hall, where Brent Spiner was speaking. He was his usual wry self, doing a dead-on Stewart impersonation!  Every time someone said they thought he was great, he'd agree with them. Then when someone mentioned Brent's character on "Night Court", Brent did the voice of that character, one of my personal faves. A big problem with his session was how packed the room was!  The reason my pix of him are so crappy is that there was so much body heat (packed crowd), that the condensation fogged my lenses. With other shots throughout the site, I simply didn't fully grasp how to use a manual SLR (lots of under/overexposed pix).  I plan to re-scan and try to fix many of them, but that's one of those things you never seem to get to.  Beltran went onstage while I was still in line for Spiner's autograph. I went back to my seat and took some shots of that jerk and then got back in line. The first things out of his mouth were nasty comments about the Australians.  He was talking about how he didn't understand the success of Australian food ("Outback" restaurants, etc.), because the Australians were the 'castoffs' of the British, who don't have good food either. What a jerk. He got booed, just as he should have.  Later someone asked if it was difficult to work with Jeri Ryan in the love scenes, to which he said, "Oh it's very hard..." That was rather funny, I have to say (wink-wink, nudge-nudge)
While Spiner was signing his autograph for me, I said, "Hi Mr. Weaver/Wheeler!"(The writers of "Night Court" screwed up the last name when the character was re-used) After I got my autograph, I went back to my room to relax.  The con was a blast, but I have to admit I'm glad it's over!

This web site is in no way associated with Star Trek®, its actors, or any other
affiliations related to the Star Trek® franchise.  Star Trek® is a registered
trademark of Paramount Studios®  All photos on this page were taken by Natalie
Larkowski© (With the exception of the Creation Entertainment photos, or other photos, which are individually identified), and are not meant to be used elsewhere without expressed permission. 04/20/2008

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