Grand Slam: How Tall is Boomer?

Saturday was loaded with talent on stage. And with Saturday came all the fans. It was packed. We still didn't fill out our row, but there were fewer gaps.

Brent Spiner started. Brent could talk for hours and I'd be sitting there. He is more disciplined than Robin Williams, but the guy can non-sequitur with the experts. He's been very busy, but typecast as a "scientist," all from his appearance in Independence Day. He really enjoyed appearing as the singing John Adams in 1776, a role he reprised on Broadway right after Next Gen ended, and I'm sorry I missed it. He was selling his new CD in the lobby.

Kevin Sorbo and Michael Hurst came up next. Since I enjoyed Hercules: The Legendary Journeys at the same time I was watching Xena, it was great to see the two of them. Michael is in a new movie called Bitch Slap, and there are bit parts for Kevin, Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor. They played us a trailer from the movie. Even though it has some of my favorite actors, it's not my kind of movie, as I figured from the title.

Grace Park came on stage, and many of us had been waiting for her. She plays a pivotal role on Battlestar Galactica, and the show is filming its last season. She tried hard not to give us any spoilers.

A couple of hours later, a youngish girl with a volunteer badge from Creation came over after we had gotten all of our autographs, and asked if we were done. I figured she just wanted us to move along, but it turns out she had nothing to do and just wanted to chat. Amanda told us that Creation was unprepared for the number of people Grace Park had drawn to the photo ops and autographs. And that they had charged too little for the fan opportunities. She confided that Creation usually charges by demand rather than just cost, what it cost them to book the star, and I found that quite interesting. "So, if she ever comes to another convention, like the Battlestar one in November, expect the price to go up." She said that Grace was really put off by Comic Con, with the no-boundaries crowd pushing and shoving and asking usually inappropriate questions. But she really seemed to be enjoying herself at this one, as it's much smaller and most of us know how to behave.

When we went through her autograph line at the end of the day, we found that they had created another totally separate line just for Grace. Grace has many names on Battlestar Galactica, as she was revealed to be a Cylon very early on. Boomer is her military code name (like Apollo and Starbuck), but Sharon Valerii is her real character's name, and Athena is one of her Cylon names. We figured out the reason her autograph line was slow pretty soon: she was talking to everyone who came by. (Also, I suspect, that since this was her first convention, people bought extra autograph tickets for her to sign their photos and banners.) Many of the stars just sign, maybe smile, and wait for the next. She probably wanted to figure out: who are these people, why do they watch the show, why do they come to conventions. When we finally got up there, my question to her was, how tall are you? Why, she asked. Why, what? Oh, why do I want to know? I laughed. "Well, we met Katee Sackhoff last November, and she seemed about my height. I just couldn't tell how tall you are on stage." It was her turn to laugh at that point. "Katee's a shrimp. I'm 5'9". You don't notice it because Tahmoh (her costar most of the time) is so tall!"

So when I returned to my seat so that Amanda could eventually find us, I yelled to fellow Oaklanders Amy and Jennifer, who were seated in the back, "She's 5'9"!" They laughed.

On our other line tour, I saw Julie Caitlin Brown, who was helping Smallville star Erica Durance (Lois Lane) with her autographing. (Since I've talked about Julie a couple of times, I thought I'd post her picture.) I said hi to Julie and asked her how her two kids were. When Erica was finished signing Rick's photo, she turned to our conversation, and I told her that, "You know, Julie used to be a big star on Star Trek. She had her own fan club and everything." Now Julie is a manager of talent. Julie cried defensively but half-laughing, "I'm still a star!" I quickly tried to slink away while Rick teased me.

I am quickly figuring out that the stories are the people. It never used to be that way....well, maybe it always was and I'm slowly noticing it all. Being here brings back memories of when Rick and I used to stand in autograph lines for hours at the old Pasadena Convention Center, memories of Andrew Robinson signing in the dark, waiting for us, and hours getting to know some of the fans rather intimately. Some of them are still here, still coming to these. Like me. I'm really having a ball.