Tampa Vulkon
July 18-20, 2003

Hilton Westshore - Tampa, FL

Guests
Robin Atkins Down: Machida - "Reptile Boy" (BtVS)
Iyari Limon: Slayer in training - Kennedy (BtVS)
James C. Leary: Clem the loose skinned demon (BtVS)
Mercedes McNab: Harmony Kendall (BtVS/AtS)
Andy Hallett: Lorne - the Host (AtS)
James Marsters: Spike (BtVS)

Tampa! Tampa! Tampa!

Tampa was the last con I was attending this year, so I was all geared up for this one, especially since I had bought my ticket waaaaaaaaay back at the end of last July, just after Shore Leave. And in terms of the con itself, it rocked. In terms of some of the fan squabbles that developed, not so good. But thankfully, I was able to avoid most of that, and I still had a great time!


Friday

Christy and I met up at oh-dark-hundred(well, not really--I picked her up at 7:30, but it felt like the middle of the night) and we drove to BWI. Much discussion was had along the way, and our flights went well. We landed in hot, humid Tampa and got a ride in to the hotel. The shuttle was filled with other Buffy fans, too, which is of course no surprise.

There was much hanging out while everyone ran around, looking for friends and roommates. I found Cathy and Haley relatively quickly, and Christy waited for Chen. When Chen and Jerry arrived, they brought Jane and Laura with them--apparently, they were all on the same flight, but didn't realize it until they had arrived in Tampa. Oh, and Mercedes was on their flight, too--they saw her in baggage claim with her dog.

In the pre-cocktail lull, there was silliness and hanging out with friends. All the cool kids(i.e. the smokers) were outside the lobby or by the pool, so we all got to enjoy the lovely steamy Tampa weather.

Then, it was cocktail time. I don't know if there's a photo around of me in my outfit, which is a shame after all the help the LJ folks were. But maybe someone else out there took a pic? Anyway, it was more low-key than Cleveland. When things kicked off, Mercedes and Robin were the only ones there. James' plane was stuck at the airport but he did arrive around an hour in. Poor Leary and Iyari were stuck circling the airport due to the lovely thunderstorm we were having, so they never made it to the party.

I want to know what color James thinks the sky is, since he's living in his own little world. "Wants to mingle like a normal person," hah! After being surrounded by people for about an hour, his knee started bothering him/the con staff knew people were monopolizing him, so they sat James down at a table and let people rotate through.

I got to sit down(that's the back of my head, in case you were wondering) and ask James how things had gone in Europe on the tour with the band. Laura was sitting at my table and asked him about Venetian Heat. Kelly threw out a question about the actors, but since James didn't hear her(bad James!) I asked him. He confirmed that Derek Jacobi is playing the priest, and Sean Bean is playing the gay soldier. So all you people wanting to see James kiss Sean Bean, you've got your wish. :-) We all talked a bit about the movie, and then I had to leave.

After that, I hung around a bit, chatted with a few people, and went in and out to the dance. But the dance was so-so; not nearly so much fun as it had been in Cleveland. So, bummer on that score.

I did much drinking on Friday night--I believe I had 8 beers, which is a record for me. But somehow, I kept it all together and didn't even attack James.

[pause]

Okay, I did do some suggestive dancing with guys, but I was still a good girl. :-)


Saturday

Drinking all Friday night was kinda stupid, as I had to be awake and pretty by 10am, for my photo session with James. This was further complicated by the fact that I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. I'm still waiting for the photo session pic to see whether I was successful in either the awakeness or the prettiness, but people were very nice to me and said I looked good. Y'all will have to be the judge of that, though . . . I'm still convinced I'm going to get the photo session pic back, and I'll have one eye half-closed.

In the photo session, I didn't really talk to James--just went in, he shook my hand and did the whole "Hi! Great to see you!" bit, and then the photo was taken. Then, James must have read my mind, because he hugged me without me having to ask. :-) Then, we shook hands again and I am-scrayed.

At that point, I hung around a bit, and went to the auction to see how much dinner with James would go for($4000, a bargain compared to Cleveland's $6000). I popped into the end of the fanfic panel, which was just faboo. I'm so hoping that Chris can get everything pulled together for the fanfic con she's planning for next year, 'cause it's so gonna rock.

Leary's Q&A was first, and he showed his mockumentary, Stunt Cocks. Too. Funny. I had seen it at Moonlight Rising, of course, but this was the final version, and it just rocked. I ordered a copy, which I'm looking forward to getting.

I skipped Iyari's Q&A(very sweet girl, but this was the third time I was seeing her. Even a half-hour Q&A was too long.) I have no photos of Mercedes' Q&A posted, because again, sweet girl, but she sat in her chair the whole Q&A. Each picture looked the same! If I had my new nifty camera-with-zoom on Saturday, I oculd have gotten a better picture of her very cute shoes, though.

My camera decided to die within 20 minutes of James' Q&A, so I only have this one picture. Shame, too, as it was an hour and a half Q&A and it had some pretty good questions. I got to ask a question, too--I asked James what his thoughts were on Juliet Landau coming back and giving them a chance to explore the relationships between Dru, Angel and Spike. James said, "I wish everyday that Juliet could be a regular." At that point, Leary stood up in the back of the room and yelled, "What about me?!?" James and Leary kidded each other back and forth, with James saying, "I'm working more for you than for me."

The "highlight" of the Q&A was some teenybopper, who decided to a) ask four questions, which is just wrong, and b) asked James if he would read her fanfic. Now, you've just sat through nearly an hour and a half of James talking. He's said that he doesn't get on the Internet to read anything about what people think of him, and he's said he's way behind on his reading. So what makes you think he's gonna read your fanfic? [rolls eyes]

The autograph lines moved well on Saturday. I got Mercedes to sign a pic, and complimented her shoes. I then handed my things to James, and asked him about the SpikeThesis, for Taramisu. He went, "Uhhhhhh . . ." at that point. Bad James. So I just pointed out that when he was all done being Spike, he should read all this stuff that people have given him. He nodded and said "Yeah!" and then I had to go.

After I went through the autograph line, I ran over to the mall across the street and bought my new camera, so I'd have a way to, oh, use the 10 rolls of film I had. Thankfully, I got a pretty good deal, and I'm happy with what I got. By the time I got back, I hung out with people some more, and then it was time to get ready for the banquet.

I ate dinner with Alane, Jane, Jennette, Jeff, Jen, and two very nice women whose names I never caught. Sheila, my roommate from Cleveland, won the auction to sit at James' table, lucky girl.

The funnest part of the banquet, though, was the tauntfest. Apparently, Robin and Leary cooked up a plan before the banquet started, to have dueling songs between their tables. What they didn't expect was for Dizz to rally Mercedes' table into battle, and this lead to the eventual showdown between Leary's table, and pretty much the rest of the room, lead by Dizz and Mercedes' table, complete with the defection of Robin's table to their side of the room.

With that to cap off the banquet, we went on to karaoke, which was actually pretty good. There was one couple--oh, how I wish my photos had turned out!--that completely recreated "I'll Never Tell," down to costumes and props. They even did the whole dance! It was brilliant. Andy, Leary, and Dizz were great judges.

After all that fun, I ended up going to bed early(well, 1:30). I missed out on a lot of the fun around the pool, including Andy staying up to the wee smas singing and getting drunk with a bunch of fans. Pooh.


Sunday

Ahhh, Sunday . . . the last day of my last con. [sniff] I ate a late breakfast with Chris and Kelly and Cathy, and then scuttled in to watch the Q&As, which started really early. First up was a tag team session: Leary, Iyari, and Robin. A very fun Q&A, highlighted by Leary and Robin's interpretations of Kirk/Spock slash(one of the best lines of the con: "Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not a butt fucker!) and Spock/Christopher Walken slash(don't ask).

Next up was Andy . . . oh, my. So much better than in Cleveland. First off, we got some walking around on the stage. Someone asked him if he had ever been a female impersonator, and therefore drag queens became a running joke during the Q&A. He told great stories, including the infamous Paul Lynde plane story, which certainly played better in Tampa than it did in Cleveland!

Andy is just so much fun. He talked about how he was sent to a fanfic site that had slash on it, and said we all had dirty minds for coming up with fics where the plot was "Angel, Lorne, a shower, a bar of soap and three fingers." At this point, Leary made his appearance, and the guys talked about Clem/Lorne slash. If you were a slash writer or fan, this was the con for you. :-)

Andy's Q&A was topped off when he talked about how his mother's birthday had been the day before, and everyone, except him, had forgotten. Andy then decided to call his mom, and see if we all could wish her a happy birthday. Sadly, we got the machine, but we sang a nice fast version of 'Happy Birthday' to her, and at least this way, it's memorialized on the machine. :-)

And then, it was time for James. There's too many pictures to put up even half of them in this con report, but I've got pages up with the celebrity and the friends pictures, and I'll probably be adding more to them as time goes on. But I'll include my favorites here. And btw, the shirt James is wearing? My friend Jennette gave it to him on Saturday! So thank you for that, Jennette. :-)

The Q&A on Sunday was very good, for the most part. For one thing, James fessed up about his son! Finally, all the well-known fan secrets are out: he's admitted to his age, his ex-wife, and his kid. Makes one wonder why he's being so much more open about things, but that's speculation for another day. A fan had asked about the Internet rumor that James was being cast as Sirius Black in the next Harry Potter movie, and James said no, but that would be cool. The fan asked if he was familiar with Harry Potter, and James said, "I have a seven-year-old son, so I'm familiar with Harry Potter." Another fan later on asked him about his son, and whether he's seen Daddy's work on Buffy. James, very intelligently, said no, and that he's worked very hard to protect him from the plasticness of Hollywood. So, when James is out with his son, he won't sign autographs. Otherwise, they have a very normal relationship, "based on Dragonball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh." :-)

There were a lot of questions about Angel, of course, ranging from how Spike was going to come back to talking about how the WB costume people were re-building the duster, because Fox sold the original one, much to the WB's dismay. The funny part of this was when James went in for his costume fitting, and the WB people said, "Yeah, we could only find one picture of the coat." Amid many fan chortles, James commented, "Well, maybe if you looked for two minutes, you'd find another one."

I got to ask another question, too! I told James about how much I had loved the couch scene with Drusilla in Lies My Parents Told Me, because we got to see the beginnings of the evolution from William to Spike. James said that was his favorite scene in the whole episode, and praised David Fury as a director for his work in that scene.

At the end, it was very sad. Hard to believe that this may be/probably was the last time I'll see James. I'm not sure if the con life is for me, and besides, I have a gut feeling that James is gonna cut WAY back on cons in the future, as he really doesn't want to get pigeonholed as a genre actor. Doing cons is one of the ways you get stuck, IMO, so it's hard to know if I'll get a chance to see James again. Although, he said he was going to stick with Angel till the end, so if Angel gets picked up at the end of next year, who knows.

In the autograph line on Sunday, I gave James the card I had written up, as I don't like to give things to the celebrities, and James is probably the only one to whom I'd even give a card. I wished James a happy early birthday, and he said, "40 has been better to me than I thought it would be." I then said that this was my last con of the year, and maybe my last con ever, so I thanked him for always helping me to have a great time. He got a nice little "eeps! how sad!" expression on his face when I said that, and then said, "Thanks--I've always said that art was about not being alone, and you've just confirmed that." And then, I left. And that was that. :-(

After that, I hung around, feeling a bit at loose ends. Thankfully, I was able to get my autographs, unlike some unlucky people who were at the end of the line--my heart goes out to all of you who didn't. I did go over to the mall and get two rolls of film developed, although the pics didn't turn out so great. Christy and I got some dinner, and then we ran into Chen and Jerry, and hung out with them for a bit. I was feeling really tired and kinda disgusted, due to fan stuff, so I took some time to myself, did a little packing, and felt a lot better for it.

I also went to the end of the post-con Q&A, and made sure to give the staff props for all the hard work they had done, and to say how much I appreciated how the suggestions made in Cleveland were implemented in Tampa. And all in all, this con ran much more smoothly, had more panels, and was just more enjoyable than Cleveland, even though the hotel left some things to be desired.

I wanted to be in a better mood because Sunday night was the surprise party! We were celebrating Jerry's birthday and Kelly's forthcoming baby, and we got them good. :-) Chen was the one organizing it all, and neither of them realized that they were getting a party.

We all gathered together for our big group picture, and then, that was it. I ended up hanging around, talking to Jerry and Jane for the bulk of the evening, but then I headed up early again, as Christy and I were getting up early the next day for our flight home. But it was the perfect ending to the con--a chance to reconnect and remember why I came to all these cons this year. Because it wasn't about the celebrities, although that's certainly nice. And it wasn't about "sight-seeing."(What sight-seeing?) It's about getting together with your friends; people you've met online, or at other cons, and hanging out, talking, having good food and good conversations. Getting a bit drunk and silly, dancing, partying. Because you maybe get five minutes with James, put-together, for the entire con. But the rest of the time? You're with your friends. And those are the people that really matter.

Thank you to everyone for making these last three months so memorable, so enjoyable, and so educational. I hope to see y'all again soon!!!!!!