Wondercon report
Since we were stuck in Atlanta (for five hours) waiting for the next flight, we rolled over to the TGIF Fridays and had lunch, at least that killed some of the time and was the only decent meal we got all day – as they don’t feed you anything good on long haul flights to California any more unless you pay for it.
We had a very late dinner at the 24 hour Denny’s after we checked in.  I had chicken soup and toast, which was surprisingly good. I was too worn out from traveling to want anything else.
The hotel was very nice, if expensive, and quite convenient to the convention center – you walked one block through Yerba Gardens, or in our case, rolled three suitcases with everything for David’s table through.
We ended up with eight badges. David had two, they couldn’t decide if he was an exhibitor or a professional and then they gave him five comps for Bridget and her brother Robert and his family.
Set-up on Friday went fairly quickly, in fact, we will still putting the table together when they opened the doors.  We were to the far right of the (one) entrance, so it took a while to walk down to our autograph area.
David wasn’t going to arrive until at least 1 PM, (because of United) so we continued to get everything set out and ready to go for him.  Malachi mentioned he was hungry (to the group at large) while we were setting up, so I took my bag of granola bars over to him and let him pick whichever one he wanted to have.  His wife brought him a sandwich soon after that.  
I told one guy who kept circling back that first hour – he was an ex-submariner, who really wanted to meet David - that we were going to write a new South Park song, but instead of “Blame Canada” we were going to call it “Blame United.”  The guy did finally get to meet David, and at Ieast I got him to laugh. 
Finally my cell rings.  It’s David.  I went up and was looking for a car to pull in.  I finally spotted him ambling in (on foot) off Howard, carrying his black backpack and a grey zip case of pictures.  
We came down into the hall and there was a very long line for giveaways from the new Watchmen movie and David wanted to know what that was about.  So I told him.  
David started to sell almost right after he got settled.  It took us almost an hour to integrate all the photos David had brought with him into the set-up.  David stopped me mid-sort and told me there was something for me in one of the plastic picture string binders.  I had already been having fun discovering what David had brought, that either I didn’t have or hadn’t seen in a very long time – one photo I recognized was from 1991.  
So I went looking and in the very last picture folder (of course) I found my gift.  David’s *prototype* card from the new Rittenhouse Bond series that was released on March 25.   I was thrilled, but all I said to David was:  “You were paid to sign all those cards, I hope.”  He said yes and told me how much.      
The first person I recognized who come up to the table was Michelle Ellett.  She came in with her daughter, Tabitha, and she and David ended up having a nice chat about raising Samoyed dogs.  Great with kids, but never do anything you tell them to.  David’s second dog - after the Samoyed, who David had named Sam, of course - was a black lab mix named Highway and always did what David told him to.  
His little girls (at the time) loved the Samoyed, because Sam would let them do anything with him.  When they had the beach house in Malibu (on the weekends) the lab would go down there with them because Highway loved the water, while Sam did not, so he would stay behind at the (town) house.
We had one lady came up and she was so thrilled to meet David she kept fanning herself.  She was very nice, but quite overcome. We had two fellows who wanted David to sign for their Heroes Club in Japan.  Nice guys.  John insisted I show someone my NIMR logo shirt.
We sold steadily until about 4:30 PM and then it slowed to a trickle.   We turned John loose to explore the con and find out if there were any picture dealers there for me to buy stills from.  If there were, John couldn’t find them; but he had a good walking around and talking to Gary Lockwood and Sergio Aragones of MAD magazine fame.
David and I talked at length about my contract to do the Five Fingers book.  David is a wonderful collaborator and I am so looking forward to doing this second book with him.
I insisted on walking David up and out to street level.  He assured me that he knew his way in and out now and that wasn’t necessary, but I didn’t want anyone accosting him.  It was still a bit cold, so we waited inside the door and David asked after my work – he knows I’m a state employee.  
I assured him that Florida was in better shape than California in that regard, but we were having budget shortfalls because of the drop in both sales tax revenue and construction fees.   And that the housing market had tanked.  I assured him I was not going to be furloughed this year (to my present knowledge) and that I appreciated his worry and concern.  
It will be a tough year at the University, with probably another budget cut (our third in three years) but we know its coming and are planning for it.  Not much else we can do.
A black car pulled in and David said it was his friends.   I gave him a good night kiss and told him to have fun at their dinner out and that was Friday.

Saturday started out good, with lots of sales.  Helen showed up first, then Marianne with all four of her kids, and then David’s brother in law, Robert Mori, arrived with his wife and their two boys.  The con became total gridlock in the aisles from all the people around 1:30 PM and it was very hard to move around until about 4 PM when it finally eased.
I had a very nice chat with David’s brother in law.  He was very interested in the Fly book and how I came to write it and what was it. He also commented on my Fly t-shirt.  I told him about the Fox licensed collection that was produced in 1994, of which my t-shirt was one of the collectibles produced.  I guess it’s not every day one he sees a t-shirt with a man-fly on it.  Had I known he was going to be there then, I’d have brought back two cups of tea, instead of just the one for David.
I had a really good time talking about the Fly book all day with the people who bought it.  One fan wanted a picture of David with Vincent Price, so I sold her a Fly book with the picture of the two of them.   A lot of the fans liked The Fly and we sold several of David’s “unique” lobby card.   A graphic artist friend of David made it for him, because in the set of the original 8, Fox wouldn’t show “The Fly” because “the reveal” of the monster was to be a surprise.
The fans love The Fly (1958).   One guy was sure that Vincent Price killed David.  Another one thought Vincent Price was the Fly.  We get that a lot.  Someone was sure that wasn’t David in the mask.  I told him what I had wrote in the book, that the mask was made from a plaster life cast of David’s face and as a one-of-a-kind, no one else could wear it.  They then asked David to describe his experience was being encased in plaster for the mask.  David said the process was “not fun” and went on “for hours.”  
David also said how they could tell it wasn’t a stunt man.   A stunt man would never be able to do the kinds of movement that David (the trained actor) knew to do to convey the pain of Andre.  If you watch the film you can David doing this.  He is absolutely perfect in the part.   
John had me show off my t-shirt to some fans.   I realized my badges were hanging down in front of the design, so I lifted one and then the other in sort of a fan dance movement and all three guys cracked up!
After arguing with someone about whether or not that was David under the make-up in the 4th season episode “Manbeast,” I told them to get a copy of Starlog 12.  There is a picture of David in full makeup holding a coffee cup in his hand, while Dan Streipke works on his make-up.  One can clearly see its David – no one else has eyes quite like his.  David insisted again that he still has his fangs from that episode.  It’s the only thing he kept from Voyage, having given away all his scripts in the early seventies to his fan club. 
David sold an amazing variety of pictures.  Voyage pictures, as usual, sold the most, but we also sold Fly, and Bond and some Another World head shots David had also brought.  I have my favorites, but there was no one clear preferred shot, we sold some of everything.
We chatted about the Oscars, how David voted and who he liked and about the ongoing dispute between SAG and AMPTP.  David is always very knowledgeable. I enjoy talking him about what he does in Hollywood.  He also brought me up to date on what he’s doing at the Actor’s Studio West.  He was really pleased with the presentations from I Never Sang for My Father.  
Jan Cruz from Sacramento showed up right before closing to meet David.  She had never been to a con before and it was all a bit overwhelming for her.
I walked him out about 6:30, it had been a very long day and I wanted to be the one to hand him off to Bridget.  David insisted that he’d be fine, but there were a lot of folks milling about, and as it turned out David was recognized and stopped, by a fan from Brazil, on his way out.
He pointed out Bridget’s rental car when it pulled up.  I handed him everything he wanted to take with him after he got in.  I should have checked his bag before he left, because when I got back to the table, I found his badge and lanyard lying on the table.   I picked it up and stowed it to have on hand for Sunday and we packed up and went home.
Saturday night on Powell and Mission Streets (the two malls) was almost like Mardi Gras.  The costumes were mostly Watchmen – we saw a lot of Rorschachs – and Japanese Anime.   We walked down to dinner behind this 7 foot creature that looked like the offspring of a lion and a sunflower.  A lot of the folks on the sidewalk were talking his (?) picture.   
A young lady walked by a table dressed as a white centaur on Saturday.   She had a bustle on to complete her half horse persona and David – as he had with Rorschach – asked what she had on.   I looked carefully, and explained to David that she was supposed to be half-horse and “that thing” on her rear was her “horse’s ass.”  It just came out that way.  
David fell out of his plastic chair, laughing.  I love to tease him.  David is always curious about the costumes and why folks dress the way the do.  So I try to explain fan culture and trends to him the best I know how.  He’s not a science fiction fan.  He likes drama and human interest and mostly watches foreign films.
David was interviewed by Chabot College.   I hope they will stream the video at some later date. I will put up links on the web site to any video or pictures I find.
David was given three silver plaques to sign for Seaview Kits.  They really like how neat and straight his signature was. 
David listened to me on Friday and Saturday, explaining what was in the Fly book and started telling folks on Friday:  Talk to her, she knows everything.  The fans would question John and he would say, talk to my wife, she wrote the book.  So they would talk to me and I would tell them what I knew, some of which was in the Fly book.  I appreciated David’s confidence in me to handle their questions, but I want to state here and now, that I “do not know everything.”  Only what David has told me sitting by his side at various events since 1988.  
Sunday David was on time.  I had told him I had his badge, in case they would not let him in the door without it, but he showed up on his own, smiling.  He said the guy guarding the door told him, I know who you are, and let him in without a badge.  David was very pleased and told me he did not have to show his badge the day before, either.  I wouldn’t have wanted to try to get in without my badge; however, they weren’t letting in ANYONE who was not with the convention. 
On Sunday there was a discussion about the Voyage episode The Surfers.  He was convinced it had been filmed and that David had a copy of it.  He did not believe it was one of the four unfilmed scripts and had never been made, because the finale would have cost more than they had in the budget at that point in the filming.  He would not accept what I knew about the history of this episode, so we told him to go to the Irwin Allen Archive at UCLA and ask them what they knew about it.  He also asked David why Richard Basehart got fired from his father’s newspaper when he was 20 years old. Stephanie Kellerman had told me this story, so I had the answer for him.  
Then there was a guy who wanted to know about a certain Fly statue that he was convinced was Vincent Price.  I told him Vincent Price did not play The Fly in either of his films, he played the brother and that two different stunt men played the Fly of the statue he was referring to.
I boosted my small black roller up onto a chair around lunchtime and let David take any of the snacks he wanted for lunch out of there.  David stayed until about 2:30 PM on Sunday.  David left us some signed photos and books and kissed us goodbye.  Anyone who came to buy from us after that at least did not go home with nothing.
The whole con started rolling up around 4PM.  Michelle Ellett came back Sunday to take us out to dinner in North Ridge at a really cool Italian restaurant.   Perfect end to the con, until I got back to my hotel to check my bill and print my boarding pass and found out my flight was cancelled (because of snow in Atlanta) and I had been re-booked to go at 11 PM on Tuesday!
Monday we went out to the airport as scheduled – they were going to kick us out the hotel at noon anyway, and had them rebook us yet again to go out Monday, 9 hours after we were supposed to leave.
We spent the day in the Delta Crown Room.  John watched TV and I plugged in my laptop.   We finally were boarded at 10 PM and headed home.   I don’t sleep on planes as a general rule but I did fall asleep during the movie.  We finally landed in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday around noon.
And that was our trip to San Francisco.   
 Diane Kachmar
3/22/09