Screamfest

We went to Screamfest (horror convention) yesterday. Greg's favorite movie EVER is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not the remake, mind you, the original; Greg was relatively offended by the remake. TCM (as obsessed fans refer to it) starred Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface. Guess who was at Screamfest signing autographs? THAT'S RIGHT! Greg was VERY EXCITED!

Here is Gunnar autographing a particularly gross 8x10 for Greg, which will soon be up on our wall (oh, joy):


Here is Greg with Gunnar:


He's absolutely giddy!


See the picture that Gunnar signed for him, with the droopy skin and bloodiness? That's the "Pretty Woman" mask (as TCM fans call it), where Leatherface had on his mask made from his victim's skin. TCM was very loosely based on Ed Gein, a serial killer in the 50's. He murdered several women and dug up the recently buried bodies of several others, all of whom looked a bit like his mother, and made clothing out of their skin. The Buffalo Bill character in Silence of the Lambs was also loosely based on Ed Gein.

Who wants to bet that I know more horror movie trivia, relative to the amount of horror movies I have actually seen, than anyone, EVER? :)

Here's Greg with some stray freak (there were plenty of them wandering around the Wyndham):


I bought some really cool stuff, too, including this SCARY necklace:

I love The Shining, it's one of the few really scary movies I have actually seen and enjoyed. The book was so good, I just had to give in and watch the movie. It's not quite as good as the book, but movies rarely are. I don't know if being scary is a good trait for jewelry, but I fell in love with this creepy necklace.

And I bought this little painting:


From this artist:

How cool is this chick? I loved all her paintings, but settled on just buying one small one. I plan to put the painting somewhere in our newly organized library, I haven't decided where yet (in the picture above I put her in front of several scary paperbacks... ooOOoo). You can see more of her stuff here:R. H. Phister, and if you want to buy me a fabulous present for Christmas this year, you could get me one of these. Especially if you happen to be married to me... That's a HINT.

We also ran into our friend Gary, from the Just Push Play podcast.


Gary was in a movie that was screened at Screamfest, Zombies Zombies Zombies!. Zombies vs Strippers, who wouldn't love that?

Er... other than me, I mean. :)

Screamfest/Gay Pride

Last Sunday Greg and went to the Screamfest horror movie convention at the Wyndham hotel. I think Greg was disappointed that it wasn't bigger (it wasn't nearly as big as MegaCon) but there were some interesting people and vendors there. We didn't have to pay for tickets, we won tickets from ORock, yay!

We met and got pictures with Jane Wiedlin, from the Go-Go's. We asked her why she was at a horror convention -- she's done some sci-fi movies (and was on one season of the Surreal Life, which is kind of horrific, I guess) but never anything horror related, and she said they invited her without really explaining why, and she figured why not? She was very nice, and very tiny... I think she is even shorter than I am.

There were also lots of actors from various horror movies, which I didn't know. I am not a horror movie fan, even though I am married to a very knowledeable, expert, horror movie FREAK. :-) There were also some people in costumes... I have no idea what the costumes were, but they looked cool.

I talked to some cool people and bought some artwork and saw Patricia Quinn (Magenta from the Rocky Horror Picture Show) and met Lloyd Kaufman. He's the president of Troma, he wrote and directed a bunch of classic cult movies, such as the Toxic Avenger. We got pictures with him, too -- he asked the girl working with him to come take our picture, and it sounded like he called her Labia. When she gave me back the camera I asked her what her name was, and she said Jane. I kind of frowned, and she rolled her eyes and sighed "He calls me Labia".

We left the convention around 1, and decided to go downtown to eat lunch at Tijuana Flats and go to the library, and maybe take a walk around Lake Eola. It turned out to be Gay Pride day, and the festival was right across the street from Tijuana Flats. It was a beautiful Florida day. They had a stage set up in front of the history center, and Miss Sammy was the hostess. We walked around all the booths, I got a Gay Yellow Pages and a Cirque du Soleil enamel pin, and picked up the new Watermark.

We had the new spinach artichoke tostada at Tijuana Flats, and it was so good I couldn't shove it in fast enough. They say it's a promotional special, if they don't add it to the regular menu it'll be a crime.

We walked through the CityArts gallery and saw some wonderful artwork -- anyone who remembers the days of OVAL will be shocked to see what the space has been turned into. I saw art by a few former OVAL members, like Donna Dowless and Liz Watkins, but didn't see any by several of OVAL's best. I wonder where Cameron Moore is now?

We spent a while looking through the library and came outside just before the parade started, so we went up to the second floor of the parking garage across the street and watched from there. It was a great place to watch the parade and take pictures!

We saw Moira and Jana from the Philips Phile, and Savannah, and Billy Manes from the Weekly. Disney had several cool floats, and Cinderella's carriage with huge black horses. They handed out Mickey ears to the kids in the crowd. Universal Studios had some of their Mardi Gras performers, including the stilt walkers, and they threw beads.

There were bikers, and people who got married at the Metropolitan church, the Orlando Gay Chorus, and floats from Parliament House and Southern Nights. The one from Faces was the funniest -- they had a U-Haul with women squirting the crowd with turkey basters. (It's a famous lesbian joke: What does a lesbian bring on the second date? A U-Haul.)

Good times!