Finally Tim
Russ came up to speak. Tim is very funny, he sang two songs from
a music CD he's done, plus a couple of parodies to the tune of
Gilligan's Island
and The Love Boat. He talked about his other projects, about working on
the
show and what a great time he's having, and about the acting
profession. Finally
he ended with a skit he wrote, asking three audience members to come
and do
some of the parts. All in all this guy is great. Then there was
autograph
signing which I skipped although my brother got a couple of autographs.
Day 2: Xena
I've already been to a Xena convention run by Creation,
so the material was
familiar. Video salutes to Gabrielle, Xena, and Callisto. The 10 best
Xena
moments and 10 best Gabrielle moments. A stump the experts segment
where this
time the experts missed most of the questions. An auction including
items that
went for several hundred dollars (props, chakram, signed portraits).
And finally
the guest speaker.
I must say that there were a lot more people to see Ms Leick than to
see either
of the Star Trek guests. When she came out there was cheering and
clapping,
a whoopin' and a hollerin'. She kind of basked in the glow and posed
for the
myriad of cameras as the flashes formed an almost continous light for a
few
seconds. Clearly Ms Leick enjoys putting on a show.
Once Ms Leick started interacting with the audience it was easy to see
why she
is so popular. Ms Leick is vivacious and playful and honest and
charming and
sexy and open and a lot of other things. She asked questions and
answered
questions ranging from the rather insensitive to the sublime. Watching
her
onstage it would have been very easy to let myself be enraptured as
just about
everyone else was.
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Call it an innate sense of individuality, or a
stubbornness to control my
emotions, or just being jaded by other dynamic speakers, but I felt
detached
from the rest of the crowd. Ok, I was taking a lot of pictures and
concentrating
on fiddling with my camera settings to get a wide range of shots, but
that's
not the whole story. I came in determined not to be Hazed and lo and
behold I
wasn't. (Many fans describe the experience as The Haze.)
Ms Leick has a very magnetic personality, and it reminds me of the
effect that
Steve Jobs has with Macintosh users, or Larry Ellison has with Oracle
employees.
It's the kind of reality warp that makes ordinary people do and say
things they
wouldn't do if they were thinking normally. The kind of blind devotion
that I
find scary in other people.
Funny that I would be apprehensive of those kinds of followers when I
have some
of those same aspects myself. But for me it's a choice. Larry Ellison
tells me
to go and shoot Bill Gates, I'll do it with a few second thoughts. Not
because
I'm enamored by Ellison or because I admire him greatly, but because
he's the
head of the company I work for. Same if the President asked me to do
something
suicidal. I long ago swore to myself to obey authority, not because I
believe
in it emotionally but because... well, that's a rather complicated
discussion.
In any case, when asked questions Ms Leick answered the speaker, and
thought
about her answers. She was a bit more circumspect about saying bad
things about
other people, but most people and especially actors are like that.
Speaking of
acting, she is back in the business after taking a year off, so
hopefully she'll
be getting more roles.
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