Cherry Hill Con Report – Day Three

I’d be remiss if I didn’t share two great fan stories before going on about how wonderful our day three with Todd Stashwick, Charles Malik Whitfield, Jim Beaver, and Misha Collins was.

 

I missed a big highlight from day two, and for that I’m sorry. One of the Creation diversions was the costume contest. There were four winners; one Dean, one Sam, one Bobby, and to me and everyone else, the true grand prize winner. A man dressed himself in a brown teddy bear costume, when fluff coming out of the giant hole in the back of his head and a replica of the sign, “Life is meaningless. T. Bear.” He was the hit of the ballroom for the afternoon, and just about everyone posed for pictures with him (including guests Traci Dinwiddie and Gabriel Tigerman). Everyone but me, who absentmindedly left the camera in the hotel room. Luckily, my friend Lindsay had me covered. 

 

 

The second story came from the Charity Auction and Gold Ticket Breakfast (despite what they say, it was not a brunch). Sitting at my table was Kat (aka gigglingkat from LJ), who had in her hand a newly made book of her 2006 project, “I am Not Jared.” At the Fangoria con in February 2006 in Chicago, Jared was supposed to be a guest there, but had to cancel last minute. About 150 gold ticket holders, all fans of Supernatural, hung around in the bar playing pool and making scrapbooks, deciding to blow off the convention. Kat made a sign “I am Not Jared,” and took pictures of several of the bar patrons holding the sign. Then she went out to the convention at large, and even got David Arquette to pose with the sign, because in her words “she has no shame.” 

 

She made a book of the entire experience that she shared with us at the table. I absolutely loved the picture that showed how a roll of duct tape made Supernatural fans feel welcome. One strip of the grey heavy tape was placed over the “Jared Padalecki” listing on the Fangoria photo ops sign. 

 

Kat had the infamous sign in her possession, and considering Jared cancelled this weekend for NJ, she was doing another version of “I am Not Jared.” All of us at the table posed with the sign, and I saw how she got many others to pose throughout the day. I can’t wait to see her final results. The photos for the original book can be found at gigglingkat.livejournal.com under “My scrapbook.”  

 

 

So, the day started with the breakfast, and after an hour of some decent food and conversation (see the “I am Not Jared” mention), Charles Malik Whitfield (Henriksen), Todd Stashwick (Dracula), Jim Beaver (Bobby), and Misha Collins (Castiel) were introduced. All men were looking fine and were all smiles for the crowd, posing for pictures before spending a few minutes at each table for quick conversation. I do mean quick (I kept thinking about the bungee boss from Dilbert).  

 

Malik (yes, that’s what he prefers to be called) was first, and asked where we were all from. As soon as I mentioned Columbus, Ohio, he said he was there two weeks ago for a project. The project was a play that he’s producing for a church and they’re looking for a theater right now. Before I could get more info he had to go on, but I’m working on getting more info since I’m always interested in covering local projects. 

 

 

Next was Misha Collins, and I’m still swooning. He looked tired, but oh so pretty. He had on a button in honor of Kim Manners, and talked about the amazing energy and enthusiasm Kim had during the one episode he worked with him (“Lazarus Rising”). He also mentioned how exhausting the filming has been recently, and he doesn’t know how Jared and Jensen do it all the time. He got his tap on the shoulder and he was gone, ready to do it all over again at the next table. 

 

Jim Beaver came next, and he was worse than Misha in the fatigue department. He doesn’t drink coffee, and didn’t have any of his much desired Dr. Pepper. He talked about how his daughter is doing and the ill friend he’s been blogging about lately. He also mentioned that his book is coming out in April and he’ll probably be promoting that, so he had to turn down a movie role in a film starring Johnny Depp (at least I think he was being serious). With that comment he was gone, as the game of musical tables resumed. 

 

Last to our table was Todd Stashwick, and he’s quite the character. He’s very funny and outgoing, and mentioned how much of a fanboy he is and it’s strange for him to be on the other end this time. He talked about how he had to learn how to drive an automatic Vespa for “Monster Movie” (he only could drive manuals), and spent much time practicing on the lot. He ended with a plug about “The Riches” season two coming out on DVD soon. 

 

With that everyone went off to the first photo ops of the day. I never buy photo ops since I hate being photographed, which is likely the reason why my profile picture on Facebook is Gossamer, the red headed monster from Looney Tunes. The photo ops were located in a remote location on the second floor, which made it nice for those of us that wanted to navigate the lobby and other public areas without fighting an anxious crowd in line. 

 

It was time for festivities in the ballroom, and first up (after watching several outdated and already shown videos) was Jim Beaver. Considering his schedule changed and he didn’t have to be in Vancouver early on Monday after all, he was given time for an extra long panel because his autograph session was moved to later in the afternoon with everyone else. 

 

Jim took questions for an hour and a half, easily having the longest panel of the weekend. He was in perfect character, had us laughing and often took every opportunity to tease the audience and call them out on stupid questions. Speaking of stupid questions, Jim, like everyone else so far, got the cheese and chocolate question. After taking a long pause, he answered, “Who cares?” That’s exactly what I’d been saying every time I heard it! That ended up being the last time the question was asked, and now I love Jim Beaver even more.

 

Like I said, his panel was super long, and I’ll have every single detail posted sometime in the next day or two. From what I remembered, he shared a sweet story about his daughter, talked about how he learned Japanese and misspoke it once while in Japan, took on a bunch of hypotheticals with long answers that sometimes had him conceding in defeat, and taunted us about episode 4-20, 4-21 and 4-22, refusing to share anything. 

 

There was a long two hour break after that (for me anyway, since I ignored the no bid minimum auction and the trivia contest) and a desperately needed one since I was still tired from getting up way earlier than I normally do. I got back just in time for the trifecta of panelists, starting first with Todd Stashwick. He was very entertaining, and went over his very diverse background. He started of doing improv with Second City, and eventually worked his way into television, where he’s done a combination of many different things in both comedies and dramas. His most known role is Dale in “The Riches.” He had plenty of stories about that role and his Supernatural one, comparing in one question working on Supernatural with other things. He won over the crowd by re-enacting his Dracula role from “Monster Movie”, doing the line “Is there garlic on that pizza?” 

 

Charles Malik Whitfield came up next, and he chose to change it up a little. He started with an inspirational speech about no limitations, and half of the crowd hung on every word, while the other half wondered where he was going and what he was talking about. Considering most hadn’t seen him at other conventions, they probably didn’t know about his hard upbringing in The Bronx and what he’s overcome in his life. The confused looks were understandable. I actually adored what he said. He went on to take questions about Henricksen next, and had a great sense of humor with several of the questions. A kid asked him about getting a swirly from Jensen in “Jus In Bello.” Malik looked in the audience and asked jokingly, “Who does this kid belong to?” He also joked about being freaked out after seeing the pilot, instantly going to turn the lights on. He also shared a tattoo on his chest when asked if he could describe himself in one word. “Reborn.” 

 

We knew Malik was close to being done when Misha started teasing him from behind the curtain. Malik joked that there was an angel back there, and he’s stripping. And there’s a pole back there. That got a reaction. He left the stage and the crowd got very anxious over what was coming next, for Misha was the big draw since it was his first con and his character is almost as lusted after as Jared and Jensen. Judging by the lady behind me, more than J&J. Creation teased us though, going to another fan video that hinted of Wincest with a Celine Dion song, thus making me ill.  I’m still trying to block it from my mind. 

 

Finally, the grand moment arrived. Misha was introduced and the room went wild. He looked a lot more awake than when we saw him at breakfast. He first thanked Malik for being a pimp, and then went straight to questions. The first was about his apparently infamous role on Nip/Tuck as a yoga instructor, which he confessed was a role he got because he lied about knowing yoga. Needless to say, it caused him a great amount of lingering pain and he acted pretty embarrassed about the whole thing. So then, why shouldn’t a fan be inspired to setup more embarrassment by holding up his poetry book and asking him to read one of his poems? He didn’t remember one, so she brought the book to him. His color was now a lovely shade of beet red.  Someone in front of me shouted, “We love you”, and he said to just wait, for they hadn’t heard his poem yet. He read one, we cheered, and there was another shout, “We still love you.”  I still love him too but I’ve never been a fan of poetry, so I felt as awkward as he did.      

 

Oh, but the embarrassment didn’t end there. Eventually, someone asked him to do his line “You should show me some respect.” He did after much reluctance, and he was getting rather tired of these requests by then. So, when someone asked if he’d show us part of his audition when he thought he was playing a demon, he rightfully refused. The fan did the sad face, but he didn’t fall for it. “I’m not your monkey,” he said, getting huge laughs. Yep, it was right about there he officially owned us. Oh who am I kidding. He did that at his entrance. 

 

My favorite part was when he talked about having to fly out to Vancouver a week early to be fitted for his outfit with the wardrobe department. He didn’t want to, but did it anyway. They had a suit picked out and he went along with it right away. He mentioned that if he knew he’d be wearing the same thing all year, he wouldn’t have picked the “fucking” thing. Our angel has a potty mouth and I love it.   

 

There were plenty of golden nuggets during his panel (just like Jim’s), and again I’ll have the full summary shortly. 

 

 

I waited a while for autographs, but considering these guys didn’t have to be rushing out to catch a plane (a MAJOR switch for a Sunday at the con), they were spending time talking to the crowd. I didn’t mind the wait this time just for that reason. I had a great conversation with Malik about his play in Columbus and he signed my copy of the book, “In The Hunt.” I talked for a bit with Todd about his role as a Romulan pretending to be a Vulcan in Enterprise(one the hubby’s favorite shows, so I had a story to bring back), because the line was being held up for Misha. He signed my gold pass “U were my first and U were fantastic.” Yeah, right after we talked about my hubby the fanboy. I adored his strange sense of humor, for I’m that way too. Luckily, hubby appreciated the joke as much as I did.     

 

It was finally my turn for Misha, and I showed him my season four premiere promotional package that I had Traci sign the day before. He was impressed to see one since he’d only heard about them and thought it was cool. I told him how that was delivered to my doorstep the day I lost my job, thus making things all better. He smiled and signed it “From one angel to another.” Yep, I melted. I then got Jim to sign the copy of my first article, similar to the one that Jensen and Jared signed in Chicago. I told him how that article pushed me into this whole blogging for the fandom thing. He was grateful for the efforts and signed a nice note, “Thank you and much luck” on it. I told him it was a thrill to finally meet him, and he said it was nice to finally meet me. I’m surprised between him and Misha that I didn’t go thud on the floor right there. 

 

It was almost 9:30 by that time, and the line was still huge. I can’t imagine how long they were there signing. Our group went out to dinner, and we were pretty much mush the entire time. We were in awe how well this con went, and for once had nothing but kudos for Creation for putting something so great together. Yeah, I was shocked too. The smaller and more personal con wins, and the circus surrounding Jensen and Jared on Sunday for once wasn’t missed. Granted each one of us has experienced that before, and I only hope this crowd gets that same thrill next year in New Jersey. They’ve earned that chance to go through it at least once.     

 

Thanks for the memories “Salute To Supernatural” Cherry Hill. Well done, despite all the obstacles. I know I’m not alone in my happiness either, for a few I talked to in the autograph line said that they were very happy with the way things turned out, even though they thought about not coming after Jared cancelled. They even posed with the “I am Not Jared” sign. All was forgiven.