Saturday, August 17, was insane. Utterly insane. At least 783,497 people showed up. Well, it seemed like that. I had to park about a mile away down Cooper River Park, which is a happening place in its own right. Some guys were having a big party down there, blaring out Smokey Robinson. Cool.
The first oddness I ran into was the Ghouligans. 
They have a YouTube series you should check out, just for the “Flesh” parody alone.
Lots of Jason’s. 
As if that last Jason wasn’t bad enough: 
I have no idea: 
Nor about this: 
Got lasered by a Predator. 
Lots of zombies: 
Got back with Malcolm McDowell. 
We talked about Community, which is the funniest TV show ever and in the future, and on which McDowell plays an insane history teacher. I suggested that he and Betty White team teach a class, which should make Abed’s head explode. McDowell loves Betty White.
Pinhead. 
Not sure, but I like it. 
The vampire sisters. Lovely, just lovely. 
Can you blame him, er, it? 
I’m going to die, but who cares? 
Wait. What happened to the vampire sisters? 
Zombie Bride and Punk Arial. 
Zombie Bride and Punk Arial trying to kill me. 
I got away.
Isn’t that cute? 
Proud mother. 
Outstanding. 
Disturbing. 
Puzzling. 
Not sure what this is, 
but this is Captain Sparrow, 
who wanted compensation for me taking his picture. Captain Dickhead.
Even the parking lot wasn’t safe. 
Thank God there was a priest. 
Pray with me, in my hour of bleed…
Chandler Riggs, 
Carl on The Walking Dead. He should do something about the girl in the bloody bathrobe, ’cause it looks like she’s about to turn. 
I’ll rescue the nurse, Chandler.
Dave Hagan, put’er-on’er of Monster Mania. 
Christopher Lloyd, put’er on’er of various roles. 
He had an hour long Q&A. When he played Jim Ignatowski, he was not acting. Trust me on this.
Of course, these guys showed up. 
They invited me to the midnight showing but, no. No thanks.
Jeremy London and Dave Sheridan. 
Jeremy London is the guy with the vampire eyes. This was supposed to be a Q&A, but, instead, was an hour long riff-and-improv, mostly by Sheridan, which had me falling off my chair laughing my butt off (screw the acronym). I did not tape it. I wish I had.
I then attended Carrie Fisher’s Q&A. Yes, Princess Leia was there, somewhat puzzling but, hey, the lines between horror and scifi blur. She has turned into her mother, later Debbie Reynolds, with the voice inflection and the affectations, including a dog she had up on the table with her. No pictures, per request of Dave Hagan. She was very funny and charming, the most memorable of her stories involving the scene from The Empire Strikes Back where they enter Cloud City. A shot of the cast inside the Falcon shows them all smiling. The reason? The night before, they had all been at Fisher’s residence, which she rented from Eric Idle, and the Rolling Stones happened to drop by. “We are not hung over in the shot,” she said, “we are not done yet.”
I also attended Malcolm McDowell’s and George Romero’s 
Q&As. I did record those, and as soon as I figure out how to upload the videos, I’ll post them. I suck at video.
Then it was time for the costume contest. 
Rusty won the kid category. 
He’s three. I’m sure he’ll grow up fine.
This kid sat next to me. 
This is his Dad. 
I’m sure he’ll be okay when he grows up, too. The kid, I mean.
Elvira Ate-Too-Much-in-the-Dark. 
That’s what she called herself, so there.
A group costume.
Uh-huh.
Winners of the Most Original category, 
Tied with Yip-Yip. 
Winner of the Sexiest category. 
I had a tie vote with Nurse Jasmine 
and Punk Arial 
even though she tried to kill me earlier.
Ash 
Freddy vs Jason, 
who won first place in the Scariest category, and a female Cenobite, 
who should have won first place in the Scariest category. And the Sexiest. Yes, there’s something wrong with me.
Throwing on a sheet ain’t gonna do it, kid. 
This is the guy who taught Christian Grey everything he knows. 
This is Sex. 
And that was that.
Day 3 was…well, day 3. Nothing much. I met Jeff Zornow, 
who signed my copy of ’68 and thanked me for my service, even though I missed Vietnam by about five days. Refreshing.
And, thus, the convention ended. I went home.
Now, I gotta say something about all the celebrities, quasi celebrities, demi-celebrities, what-have-you, who were all over the place charging for their autographs and extra to take a photo of them. Yes, I’m looking at you, Samantha Mathis, Gary Busey, and the rest. You do understand, don’t you, that the reason you get to attend conventions as a celebrity, quasi-celebrity, whatever, is that we Great Unwashed plunked down enough moolah to attend/purchase/obtain/enjoy your various movies/shows/plays/books in the first place. There’s a certain…what’s the word I’m looking for here? Hypocrisy? Contempt? Disregard?…in you then demanding we shell over the price of two or three movie tickets just to have the pleasure of your dashed-off signature on something of yours we purchased, like a DVD, and a picture (on our own camera, I might point out) of you looking bored or uncomfortable. Please, recall, that your celebrity status came about because you have a better-than-average knack for remembering and repeating lines that someone else wrote for you, and you happened to have the right genetic mix to make you (mostly) pleasing to the eye. Perhaps, and this is just something to consider, if you didn’t charge so much and drive up ticket prices, more people could attend these conventions and buy more of the products which made you celebrities, quasi or other, in the first place, and I think the residuals are worth more, aren’t they? Just sayin’.
None of the immediate above applies to George Romero, who is a god.
When I got home, I discovered that Gracie was now devil cat 
and the pod had reached maturity. 
I don’t know if it’s a squampkin or a pumquash, 
but I swear there’s a person inside.