August 23, 1989
Dear Everyone:
“The Shadows of the City Belong to Vincent.”
If you don’t know what that means, you’re in the
minority. Vincent is the
title character of the TV Series,
Beauty and the Beast which is (usually) on Friday nights.
He is part man and part beast (hence the title) and lives with a
motley crew of society’s castoffs in a labyrinth of tunnels some 2 miles
beneath New York City. He is
also very fond of Shakespeare.
I spent a VERY interesting Saturday in the company
of about 500 avid (rabid?) fans of Vincent, Father and Catherine at a
Beauty and the Beast Convention in San Jose.
Just getting there was an adventure.
I had my route all worked out on the map, I-680 South to
Magnussen Expressway, west to I-880 South to North First Street and
right to the Le Baron Hotel.
What could be simpler? I
allowed plenty of time, which was good as I left about an hour behind
schedule; but I hadn’t allowed I-680.
It seems that Market Street isn’t the only thing being torn up
around here. 680 near San
Jose is a zoo.
About the time that the freeway signs stopped
reading “680 South, San Jose” and started reading “280 North, San
Francisco”, I figured that I might have missed my exit.
So I got off the freeway and took the first right turn that I
could (into a private soccer ranch) to consult my map and discovered
that I had indeed missed Magnussen Expressway, a small matter of some 16
miles. But I had allowed
lots of time and, after all, I had had the opportunity of seeing a lot
of, well, freeway.
Got back on 280 North, took 880 North towards
Oakland, got off at the right street, turned the wrong way, found a
U-turn signal, found the Le Baron Hotel and parked under a big shady
tree on the first try – it all comes out in the wash.
And there were only a couple of hundred people in front of me in
the line.
People came from everywhere for this Con (that’s
what we call these conventions:
Con’s): Arizona,
Chicago, Boston, Milpitas, everywhere.
Not that they broke any records; “Valerie Lowe” went to a Blake 7
Con a few months ago, here in San Francisco, and met a couple who had
flown in from New Zealand. (Blake
7 is an obscure science fiction TV series which only plays on
obscure PBS channels at obscure times, like 11:30 Sunday nights.)
I went for two major reasons:
1) The only Con’s I had attended up until now had been Star
Trek/Sci Fi types and I was curious to see what a different one would be
like; 2) I was hoping there would be a lot of different vendors (called
dealers) with merchandise that I might pick up for some early Christmas
shopping. In this I was a
little disappointed. Almost
all of the merchandise was provided by Creation (this is the
organization who sets up these Con’s) and it was strictly Beauty and the
Beast stuff. No other
fantasies need apply. And
there’s a limited number of people that you can present with a Vincent
doorknob hanger (“just what I’ve always wanted!”)
So I picked up a couple of T-shirts (I now have more new T-shirts
than will fit in my T-shirt drawer) and a bumper sticker and a button
for my wall at work. I also
bout $70.00 worth of stuff for “Melanie” and her sister who were furious
that they had to go to a family reunion and couldn’t come.
So what if Uncle’s not expected to live out the year?
The Creation people have been doing these Con’s for
over 10 years now, and they’ve pretty much worked all the bugs out of
the system (the early Star Trek Con’s sometimes got a little out of
hand). They generally have a
movie (or original Star Trek episode), a couple of guest speakers, a
trivia contest (“What is Catherine’s phone number?”
“How many candle holders are there in Vincent’s chamber?”
“What book was Father reading in the first scene of ‘Orpheus
Rising’?”) and an auction (proceeds usually go to a worthy charity).
When asked about why “Father” always uses a cane:
Ever hear of Guy Fawkes Day?
This is the day when the British celebrate the execution of Guy
Fawkes who was caught trying to blow up Parliament in the early 1600’s.
To commemorate the Gunpowder Conspiracy, they shoot off lots of
fireworks and build bonfires.
It’s sometimes called “the British 4th of July”, the
fireworks being the uniting concept.
It seems that the Dotrice family (wife and 3
daughters, all now actresses in their own right – one was the little
girl in Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins)
had burned down the orchard the year before and were under orders from
the gardener not to do it again.
So this year, they decided that the best place for the bonfire
would be at the bottom of the swimming pool which, this being November,
was empty anyway. Dotrice,
who “used to be quite a shutterbug” was busily taking pictures of the
family gathering and, yes, backed right off the edge and fell into the
pool, breaking his hip. The
bonfire kept him warm until the paramedics could arrive, this being
their busiest night of the year.
And his son-in-law, Edward, took lots of pictures.
Edward is Edward Woodward,
The Equalizer on TV. The
image of the Equalizer “catching the moment in pictures” while the
paramedics carry “Father” out of a swimming pool with a bonfire burning
merrily at the bottom is not one that easily comes to mind.
Add the fact that the Equalizer is married to, or the
brother-in-law of, Mary Poppins’s kid and the mind goes BOGGLE!
The rest of the Con was just as fun and, as I had
taken yarn and a hook with me, I got 2/5th’s of the way
through a new afghan. There
was a dark moment when the subject of the infamous “Dan Rather Incident”
came up. When the Chinese
government ordered the television news crews to turn off their live
cameras, CBS broke into an episode of B & B to show Rather switching the
camera off. Now, seriously,
which is more important, history in the making or Vincent finding out
the truth about his real father?
Fortunately, TV, unlike history, has reruns.
We’ll find out what happened (hopefully) in a few weeks.
Love, as always,
Pete
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