Salute to Supernatural San Francisco – Friday Report

(Disclaimer:  Please do not copy any convention reports from The Winchester Family Business to your site/blog in its entirety.  We would appreciate a link back to this article and that you give credit where it is due). 

Now that I have settled back into life in snowy, cold Pittsburgh, I think it’s about time I shared my experiences at the Salute to Supernatural Convention in lovely San Francisco!  This was the first convention I ever attended, and I had a great time, so it was a perfect first con!  And perhaps the best part was my mom lives near San Francisco, so we got to go to the con together!  It was her first con, too, and it was really a blast to experience the whole thing together with her.
 
The convention was held at the Westin St. Francis hotel, which is right on Union Square in the heart of San Francisco.  Now, since my mom lives near there, I have been to San Francisco a handful of times, so I wasn’t as in awe of the location as I might have been if I’d never visited the city.  But they picked a great place because this hotel was super swanky.  And Union Square really is pretty close to a lot of sightseeing destinations.  It’s really close to Chinatown, and if you want to hoof it through the city, it’s not that far from Fisherman’s Wharf and the piers and all that.  Here’s what it looks like from the outdoor seating of the Cheesecake Factory in the Macy’s building to the left of the St. Francis.
 

 
It’s a pretty big place!  And this photo doesn’t even show the top, oh, 20 floors.  So yeah, it’s a big hotel.  Incidentally, all photos you will see in all my con reports were taken by me, unless I specify otherwise.
 
Anyway, my mom and I arrived about half an hour before Gabriel Tigerman, who played Andy Gallagher, was due on stage.  We figured that would be plenty of time to get in, get seated, and listen to his panel.  But being con newbies, we didn’t realize one of the most prevalent con experiences was waiting in line!  We were only general admission seats, so we figured there wouldn’t be a wait for anything to do with those.  We were wrong!  Everyone registering and picking up their passes went into the same line, so we had to wait.  For a while.  But it ended up working out okay because while we were in line, Genevieve Cortese walked by!  She was with two other people, probably volunteers or security or something, and she was just talking and whatnot.  She’s so tiny and pretty!  And as she made it to the end of the hallway we were standing in, a fan stopped her to talk.  All I overheard of the conversation was, “Is Jared here yet?”  She very sweetly replied that he was not, but I was kind of rolling my eyes because seriously, how often must she get that question from “Supernatural” fans?  “Hey, how are you?  Where is your husband, who we care way more about than you?”  I felt kind of bad for her, but she handled it well, which just made me like her even more.
 
We made it into the main ballroom where the stage was and where most of the goings on went down, and we noticed that there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of people there.  Alice later told me that this was a pretty small con and that Fridays were usually sparsely attended anyway, so I guess that made sense.  We found some seats in the front right section and didn’t have to wait too long before Mr. Tigerman himself came onstage.  Throughout his whole panel, he was very charming and funny and sweet.  I thought it was a great way to start off the weekend.  Here he is trying to think up a good answer!
 

 
Unfortunately for me, to get close-up shots, I had to zoom in with my camera, and it turns out it’s kind of hard to get not-blurry photos when you’re zoomed in, so a lot of my shots that looked good initially ended up a bit blurry.  But hey, it happens, right?
 
Before I get too far into panel discussion, I should mention that I took better notes for some panels than others, so if I have more to share from some of them, that’s why!  
 
After a brief introduction, Gabriel opened up his panel for questions.  But no one had any, so he sort of adorably looked back and forth a bit before comparing things to “Lord of the Flies,” hoping we would all go from relative calm to complete anarchy as quickly as possible.  Since no one else was getting up, I made my way to the mike and asked him what the deal was with Andy’s sweet van, whether it was owned by someone or the production team made it.  Because, honestly, who doesn’t love that van?  It’s amazing!  He answered that he’s pretty sure it was made by the production team.  He did want to take the tiger fabric, though, seeing as his name is Tigerman and all.  He also said he ended up with some great pictures of him in Andy’s kimono robe in front of the van.  I told him he needed to “leak” those pictures online, and he joked about that happening, but I don’t see any pictures yet, Gabriel!
 
Someone asked him if he was pissed about Andy’s death, and he ended up telling a few stories related to that.  Kripke took him out for drinks one time to apologize for having Andy “go out like a little bitch,” as he put it.  He seemed pretty upset that poor Andy was torn asunder by a little girl demon!  He said that it was Kripke’s idea to kill Andy off, but he passed the job of writing the actual episode off to another writer.  So the other writer gets the outline, and they see Andy is going to die, and they come back in to yell at Kripke, like, “Really?  Andy?  Really?”  He also told a really cute story about his driver to and from the “Supernatural” set who was really upset when he found out Andy was going to die.  The driver got all quiet, teared up, and said, “did they salt and burn your bones?  Because if they didn’t, you can still come back.”  Good call, driver!
 
He got a question about what it was like driving the Impala, and he said it was super badass.  The only problem was they people on set were so protective of the car that he really couldn’t open her up and do anything fun with her.  He said he ended up driving really slowly in every take because everyone was so protective of the car.  And he didn’t really understand why at the time, but he does now.
 
He told a very funny story when asked what his strangest fan experience was.  It wasn’t so much an encounter with a fan, but he was at his parents’ house one time when he accidentally came across a slash fanfic involving him and Chad Lindberg, who played Ash.  He was pretty horrified and made a sort of squeaking noise, which made his mother concerned, so she rushed over to see what was wrong, and he had to close his computer really quickly to keep her from seeing it.  Talk about the wrong place to learn about that!
 
Someone asked him what it was like working with Jared and Jensen, and of course he said they were great and very curteous and all that.  Except that sometimes Jared would step on his foot on purpose during his dialogue to try and mess him up.  And they didn’t prank him, but on occasion, someone would call him over and show him a really horrific picture on their phone right before “action” was called to try and mess him up.
 
And that was pretty much it!  I thought it was a good panel, and Gabriel was really funny and lively and was good at bantering with the questioners.  Also, man, I took some good notes for that panel.  Probably because it was the first one…
 
In between panels, there was a trivia contest, and my mom, bless her heart, REALLY wanted me to get up on stage and participate, but I didn’t.  Instead, I answered a question correctly from my seat and ended up winning two prizes, which was kind of cool.  I got a coffee mug and travel mug, so now all of my hot-beverage drinking can be “Supernatural” related!  My mom was very proud of me.  Oh, and the question was, “what is the inscription on the Colt?”  I bet lots of you know the answer!  Bonus points if you can tell me without looking it up, and you can tell me what it means in English!
 
Next up, and the final panel of the day, was Charles Malik Whitfield, who apparently goes more by Malik, so that’s what I will use.  I didn’t take as many notes for this panel, so I don’t have as many stories to share with all of you.  Anyway, Malik gets on stage and is in a good mood, very bubbly and fun.  But he was chewing this enormous piece of gum, really chomping on it, and it was kind of distracting!  Still, he was very lively and a good sport.
 

 
He talked about hanging out with Jensen in L.A. sometimes, but he didn’t want to give away the spots they go to, which I don’t blame him for at all.  Got to keep your private life private somehow!  He got a big cheer for mentioning he was coming to karaoke that night, and true to his word, he came and had a great time.  More on that later.
 
Someone asked what his dream role would be, and he said he liked playing roles where he gets to have fun.  He also mentioned that he obtained the rights to a book called “Guilty at Birth,” a story about a man named Walter Kingstro, who followed his father’s footsteps into a life of crime.  He is excited about turning it into a movie.
 
When asked whether he thought Henricksen was in heaven or hell, he thought for sure he was in heaven.  He said in Henricksen’s heaven, the boys wouldn’t have their car anymore, he would have it.  And the first thing he would do is paint it bright yellow.  Of course, he wasn’t putting us on at all.  Nope.  Not trying to rile up the fangirls or anything…
 
He told a funny story about the toilet exorcism scene in “Jus In Bello,” too.  He read the script, saw that he was getting exorcised in the cell, but really didn’t think anything of it until he got to the set and realized the only place there was any water in that cell was the toilet.  He crossed his fingers that the water and the bowl were clean and just filmed it.
 
But the definite highlight of his panel happened when I got up to ask my question.  Well, it was the definite highlight for me, anyway.  I started to ask him about whether he thought Henricksen would have become a hunter if he hadn’t died since he knew the truth about monsters and all that.  But how I phrased it was, “I was so pissed when Henricksen died because…” and I didn’t get any further because Malik interrupted me.  He interrupted me and said, “I was so angry, too!  Girl, get up here!”  He called me up to the stage, and I walked around to the front of it to look for a way up, but instead, he hopped down to the floor and came up to me and put his arm around me.  And he held me tight as he went on this hilariously epic rant about how sad it was and what a waste that Henricksen got killed.  And the whole time he had his arm around me, pulling me close.  So naturally, I hugged the hell out of him right back!  I mean, who wouldn’t hug Malik Whitfield if he hugged you first?  Okay, it might have been more like I put my arms around him and put my head on his chest and clung a bit, but hey, it fit the moment!  He laid his head on mine at one point, too!  We were holding each other through the pain of losing Henricksen.  Seriously, it went on for like two or three minutes.  At one point I thought for sure he was done and started to break the embrace, but nope!  He pulled me back in and kept on going, so I just hugged him again and kept on hugging.  There was much cheering from the audience for that, and I have to say, it was pretty darn cool.  So thanks, Malik, for the super awesome hug!
 
And I would love to be able to share a picture of that moment with you, but my poor mom couldn’t get our cameras working!  Hers wasn’t taking very good pictures, and mine is a bit fancy and complicated to work, and she couldn’t figure it out in time to get a picture.  Blast!
 
After that, more stuff happened, but I was still pretty excited from the hugging, so I don’t remember too much about what it was.  I know he gave away some t-shirts from his friend’s clothing line, Cauliflower.  That was pretty funny, that he brought things to give away to the fans.
 
After Malik’s panel was over, it was time for dinner.  I was really excited about dinner because Alice and Jenniffer were joining us, and this was going to be my first time meeting Alice in person.  Jenniffer and I had met up a few times previously, so I totally knew her already.  Still, I was looking forward to spending time with both of them.  Alice called and asked if we minded another of her friends joining us, and of course we said we didn’t mind, so we waited for Lynn in the hotel lobby.  Well, it turns out that Alice’s friend Lynn is Lynn Zubernis of Fangasm fame!  If you have never visited the Fangasm site, I highly recommend it.  They have all sorts of great stories and interviews there.  I myself visit that site all the time, so I was really excited to meet Lynn in person and pick her brain and chat with her.  She asked how I knew Alice, I told her I wrote for the site as Ardeospina, and was really pleasantly surprised when she told me she was familiar with some of my work.  Cool!  I never really expect anyone to recognize my online name and be familiar with my stuff, so that was kind of a neat experience for me.
 
Dinner was really fun, and we all walked around Chinatown for a bit, trying to avoid the crazy bar fight that broke out on the sidewalk as we were heading back to the hotel for the karaoke party.  Karaoke was the final event of the evening, and I was really looking forward to it.  My mom and I signed up to sing a song, even though neither of us had ever done karaoke before.  But we figured what the heck, right?  Might as well make our first time a really memorable one!  In attendance for the karaoke party were Gabriel Tigerman, Malik Whitfield, and Richard Speight, Jr., who managed to make it despite a power outage at LAX airport delaying his flight.  And I’m so happy he did, because he was an awesome host.  That man is hilarious, fun, and so nice.  If you ever go to a con and he’s going to be at karaoke, make sure you go because you will have such a good time.  And sign up to sing “Love Shack.”  You won’t be disappointed.
 
Anyway, my mom and I were second on the list to sing, and she wanted to sing “Hang on Sloopy,” which is the state rock song for Ohio, our home state.  Even though we both live in different states now, we both grew up in Ohio and have a lot of Ohio pride.  The first person on the list wasn’t there when they called her name, so my mom and I got to open up the karaoke party!  We dragged Alice and Jenniffer on stage with us, and Richard joked about us having backup singers.  I should also note that Gabriel Tigerman was a perfect gentleman and helped me climb my ass up on stage when I went up the wrong side, the one without the steps.  So we sang our song, and asked the audience to be forgiving of us because we had never done karaoke before, and they were very gracious and cheered and sang along.  It was so much fun!  We got high fives from Richard and Malik when we were done.  
 
In fact, we had so much fun we decided to sign up for another song later in the evening.  But what we didn’t know is that there’s an unwritten rule that everyone gets one song until no one else wants to sing.  So sorry to anyone we offended by doing two songs!  We didn’t know!  Since they kept skipping us and it was getting late, we went up to grab our coats and stuff and came back to the ballroom to say goodnight to Lynn.  We still had a commute, and she was staying at the hotel, so she was hanging around for a bit.  And just as we walked back in, Richard called our names again, so we jumped up and waved our arms and jogged up to the stage.  Richard joked about us liking dramatic entrances as we made our way to the stage again.  This time we were singing the song I picked, “Build Me Up Buttercup,” one of my favorites.  As we started, Malik said, “oh, I love this song!”  And he helped us sing along and get the crowd into it.  Lynn very graciously grabbed my camera and took this awesome picture of us singing while Malik worked the crowd.  I have no idea what Richard is doing off to the left there…  Anyway, that’s me to the right in the teal shirt, and that’s my mom in the zebra-striped cardigan.
 

 
We got more high fives and good jobs from the actors after this song, and then we packed up our stuff and headed back to my mom’s house for some much-needed and well-deserved rest.  Friday was a pretty eventful day for my first ever at a con.  I had a great time.  It was great to meet Alice in person, finally, after talking with her so much via e-mail.  Seriously, I spam her inbox on multiple occasions.  She must dread seeing “Ardeospina” pop up all the time.  And Lynn, if you’re reading this, it was a pleasure to meet you and spend some time with you!  And thanks for the use of your hotel room as coat storage!  And of course, it’s always fun spending time with Jenniffer, cracked vertebra and all.  She was a trooper to come to the con with a broken back. Next up, my Saturday report.  Saturday was much more relaxed and low-key, but still a really good time.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us

Save