Avalon - the Event, part the first

[catspaw]

That was unbelievable! The room went mad, flashbulbs popping, the two of them smiling and acknowledging the crowd. Oh man, I was within ten feet - and my freakin' camera started playing up :-((( I was tryng to take photos, but it just wasn't happening :-( Luckily yragg was sitting beside me, snapping away like a good 'un, so I just sat in a heap, trying not to shake or drool or forget myself *g*. And I have to tell ya - I may have been daft about the man before, but I'm in deep, deep smit now :-) He's even lovelier in the flesh than he looks in his photos. Nowhere near as bulky as the tv cameras would have you believe. He was wearing a bulky dark jacket, dark tee and tan slacks and he looked beeyootiful, with his lovely, messy, sticky-up hair and all ::girly sigh:: Man, oh man...

So, on with the Q & A. I've been wracking my brains to think of the questions that were asked and the replies given, and have probably forgotten a whole bunch of them, but here's what I remember. They were both asked about people they considered had been their influences. RDA answered, "Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais, my dad." AT agreed with the dad comment and also mentioned her gran, Bea, who died fairly recently I think at the ripe old age of 103+. Seriously. She told a story about chatting with her gran on the phone one time: her gran at this time was about 98 and AT was keen to find out what she thought of the show. Her gran told her that she rather liked 'the Colonel', an actor with whom she wasn't familiar, adding, 'If only I was twenty years younger...' LOL! You can imagine the fun that RDA had with this comment, seeing as at the time he'd been under 50. He was cheerfully hamming it up much to everyone's delight.

They were asked also, 'if you could have anything downloaded into your brain (a la Ancient device), what would it be? I can't remember for the life of me what AT answered, but RDA's answer was 'All the languages of the world - including Scottish' *g*. Apparently he was having trouble with the mulititude of different accents he was hearing (and he very often had to have the questions repeated because of that *g*) and Thomasina Gibson had been teasing him about finding her accent hard to understand.

Um. Again on the brain whammy theme, they were asked, supposing their brains were wiped, which particular memories would they not want to lose? AT answered first again, saying her daughter and her husband, and RDA also went with Wylie, and with building his house - mostly the whole father/daughter thing.

Somebody prefaced their question with 'I've watched you since I was 9' and RDA again hammed it up, doing the 'old man' thing.

Another question was, 'what three things would you do to improve the environment and help save it' or something along those lines. Again, I can't remember what AT replied, but RDA I think mentioned renewable energy sources and moving away from the use of fossil fuels - which I found a little ironic, considering the huge gas guzzlers that he seems to have a fondness for - but maybe he's learning *gg*

A guy sitting right in front of us asked, on behalf of his wife, "What are your best chat up lines?" After a bit of confusion and translation of 'chat up lines' to 'pick up lines', he grinned and said firstly he didn't use them because he was too shy, and then appealed to ladies in the audience with, 'plus, you guys see right through them, right?' And then went on to say, at AT's instigation, that the only one he ever really used was 'Hello, I'm Richard Dean Anderson', whereupon AT chipped in with, 'Yeah, that one works.' Again, much hilarity, and it was referred to frequently - and used to get RDA out of what he thought might be tight spots thereafter *g*

Someone asked a long, rambling question about their responsibility for children aping the violence they see on TV and what they thought could be done about it. Apparently she was a teacher from a rough part of LA, so an obvious axe to grind there. AT did her best with it and RDA said in effect, the subject was far too big and complex for him to just come out with a sound-byte answer, that it wasn't really a fair or easy question to spring on them at a con. I was sorely tempted to shout out, 'Why not just say, 'don't try this at home, kids'?' but didn't because I thought that might be a bit disrespectful to the questioner.

Eventually the prepared questions ran out, and it was thrown open to the floor. yragg had prepared a question but forgotten to submit it in time, so I nudged him and said 'Now's your chance' and he went for it: "Do you ever self-critique your work?" And bless them both, they answered extremely seriously and with a lot of thought. RDA was making eye contact with yragg the whole time he was answering - and my damn camera wasn't working ya boo SUCKS. His answer was though - not so much when he was younger, but now that he's older he does, seeing it as an opportunity for growth.

And that really is all I can remember about that session. So another split and onto the next one :-)