Guest Star Favorite has an Appearance on "Ghost Adventures"

I miss Ash. So I was happy to read Dread Central's report that Chad Lindbergh is going to be a guest investigator on this week's "Ghost Adventures" on the Travel Channel.

If you miss it tonight, check the schedule. It looks like a show that airs several repeats. Also, click the link above for the press release and some photos and videos as a sneak peek.

I Heart Richard Speight Jr.

As Trish mentioned in her Wednesday post, she and I just attended the SALUTE TO SUPERNATURAL con in Nashville. Great time! And seeing the actors in person (all of whom were lovely to the fans) solidified my deep admiration for them--especially for my favorite guest star of all time, Richard Speight Jr. (aka The Trickster aka Gabriel). I didn't know this, but Nashville is actually his "hometown." Also, the people who put on this convention have already decided to come back to Nashville next year and Jensen/Jared are on board, so start making plans now!

We actually saw two panels with Richard--one on the first day, alongside Matt Cohen who plays John Winchester (and Michael!) in trips to the past, plus another on the second day, with Brock Kelly (young Dean in "After School Special") and Chad Lindberg (the awesome Ash, aka Dr. Badass.) You can tell Richard by the empty chairs in both sessions--because the man constantly moved, usually through the audience and paying particular attention to the back rows, where it was hardest to hear and see. I tried like crazy to snap pictures, but they're all a blur because the man is a bundle of nonstop energy! So the picture here is from Trish. I'm almost sorry we missed him as master of ceremonies for the Karaoke party the night before the con started!





Richard is a quick thinker, extremely funny, generous (he is soon to jump out of a plane in order to help raise money for a monument but all the guys there are active with different causes--Misha and Matt are about to go to Haiti to help build an orphanage!) Anyway, Richard is very personable and answered questions about everything from the recent Pepsi commercials (in which he got to snap and do some magic which got Pepsi fanmail) to guesting on Justified (he could not say enough good about Walton Goggins). But of course most questions were about Supernatural and he encouraged fans to write letters demanding his comeback :-D His pet theory is that Gabriel trapped an ACTUAL Trickster to model himself after. He wants to play the real Trickster escaped and his first prank should be to shrink Sam and Dean, especially Sam, and chase them around. Richard joked that the reason he doesn't stay on stage is so you can't see how short he is next to co-stars. Unfortunately, Richard is so nice that some fans took radical advantage--and began the nonstop HUG request, even requesting him to get Chad and Brock down off stage for "threesome" hugs. I was cringing like you wouldn't believe.

Chad was very laid-back about the whole thing (he actually DOES remind me of Ash, but without the mullet and he admits to not being very computer-saavy) but Brock seemed a little uncomfortable with the repeated manhandling (although once he'd started accepting hug requests, he never told anyone no. Seriously good sports). Okay, guys, if you've never been to a con, here are my two pieces of advice: Wear comfortable shoes and don't molest the guest celebrities kind enough to appear.

BTW, the guests got asked lots of miscellaneous questions, from the random "what's your favorite color?" "what would be your spirit animal?" to the vaguely inappropriate, which I won't be repeating here. Toward the end, Brock Kelly, looking slightly dazed by things, gave one of my favorite answers. He was asked what he would do if time travel turns out to be possible, and he said he'd like to see the future. "I'd go forward. I'd just go and go and go until there was nothing left. Then I'd back up a little bit."

These panels reminded me of a big reason I love Supernatural. Yes, Jared and Jensen are completely awesome, but they often find just the right guest stars, even for single appearances and supporting roles. It was suggested by one of the fans that sarcastic "party-angel" Balthazar was a replacement for Gabriel, leading to several jokes by Richard including "glad to hear he's dead...I want my damn job back."

So if YOU were going to write an episode where you brought back the Trickster, young John, young Dean or Ash, how would you do it?

SPNews

Here are a handful of reviews for the Supernatural Original Television Soundtrack 1-5. The CDs do not include the classic rock tunes we often discuss, but rather the musical pieces crafted specifically for the show.

Look for Taylor Cole, who played art collector Sarah Blake on SPN (Provenance), as a series regular in the new drama, The Event. In this DFW interview she brags that she’s one of very few people who actually know what The Event is.

SPN Sister M.J. talks about casting books on the Romance Bandits blog. She cast Jared and Adrienne Palicki as the leads in her novel, Sunrise Over Texas. Check out the cover resemblance to Jared!

Chad Lindberg (Ash) is making news with his turn in the controversial, unrated remake of I Spit On Your Grave, which has a limited release next month. The 1978 original, rape and revenge movie, was banned worldwide and Roger Ebert called it a "a movie so sick, reprehensible and contemptible that I can hardly believe it's playing in respectable theaters." The remake sounds just as hard-core as stories have been floating around the internet of viewers fainting and vomitting during the showing. Much as I like Chad, this isn't my kind of film. You can check out early reviews on IMDB to see if it's something you can stomach. But I'll be watching to see if Ebert reviews this remake after giving the original ZERO stars.

The CW Connect has posted a new video interview with Misha Collins.

Four days until Supernatural returns. Watch Exile on Main Street this Friday!

Dark Side of the Moon

Okay, so, I had a thing to do with Number Two tonight, which got me home late, which meant starting tonight's episode about 45 minutes late. Number One turned on the TV, hit the playlist, and the DVR froze. It acted funky for a minute, then reset.

Argh

When it came back on, luckily, we found that despite the ominous black screen when we tried to play the recording the first time, Supernatural did, indeed, record. Except for about six minutes. Let's hope they weren't the most important six minutes of the entire season or something!

THEN
Lots of good stuff here, about the boys dying (again and again and again and again and again and then one more time), about God and the amulet. Meaty, yummy foreshadowing. Yay! Good music, too.

NOW
Lots of booze in this hotel room, bottles and cans everywhere. Dean sleeping, gun on him, guy has Dean's pistol, now how the hell did he get that out from under Dean's head without waking him? Ah. Bottles and cans. I get it.

Dean recognizes the two guys holding guns on him and his brother, but they don't care. Righteous bastards. They kill Sam, then Dean, but not before Dean makes the scariest eye threats ever. Boom, right to the title card that gives me a thrill every single week. Nice transition!

Knock Knock Knocking on Heaven's Door
Dean's dozing in the Impala in the middle of the road. Then young Sam (yay, Colin Ford!) draws Dean into a truly happy memory. I swear, I've never seen Dean look like this. This music might be nearly as perfect as Renegade was. But the fireworks' sharp reports remind Dean of the shotguns and their deaths...

PAMELA! ASH! MARY! Woo hoo! (Yes, I let the guest star list distract me from the scene. Sorry.)

Cas comes on the radio and tells Dean he's in heaven. He tells him to follow the road, which is apparently symbolic up in heaven there. Dean drives on and finds Sam getting hit on by an 11-year-old girl while her family is nice to him on Thanksgiving. Dean pulls Sam out of the memory (that Sam thinks is a dream) and the memory goes on without them. Nice to know they end up in heaven, though they're both pretty surprised.

They're trying to understand how it works. Dean's not too pleased that one of Sam's "greatest hits" is Thanksgiving at someone else's house. Then there's a very archangel-ish roar-and-shake-and-bright-light. They hide, it moves on, and Dean tries to reach Cas through the radio. This time we get him on a crappy old TV (was Sam 11 in the 1950s?).

"Don't go into the light!"

Cas is excited that the boys are in heaven, though he's also obviously resentful because he can't go back. He wants them to find Joshua, an angel who is rumored to have God's ear. They want to know what God has to say. Cas tell them the road winds through heaven, and they need to follow it to the garden.

Dean's gung ho, Sam's surprised, but Dean says God is the only one who can help. "The last hope of a desperate man."

Apparently, the road is symbolic in many ways. "Finding a road in a closet would be pretty much the most normal thing to happen to us today." And guess what? He finds a road in the closet! A toy racetrack!

It brings them home, where Dean is wearing an "I wuv hugs" shirt that Sam immediately busts him for. Mom, looking young and gorgeous in a sundress, offers Dean lunch.

Pure Torture
Dean revels in his memory, being waited on by Mom, and showered with affection and loving looks. But poor Sam, whom Mary doesn't see because it's not his memory, has to just sit and watch. He wants to move on, but Dean isn't aware of how much it must hurt his brother.

Mary takes a call from John, and Dean remembers that they fought and Dad moved out for two days. Sam says Dad always said it was a perfect marriage. Dean says it wasn't perfect until after she died. He comforts her, says Dad still loves her, and he loves her too, and hey, here's why Dean loves pie!

I had a...um...debate with a friend in January about Dean's love of pie. She pointed out that it was cakehole in the pilot, then piehole after, and did Dean's love of pie really mean anything? I hypothesized that while I doubted they knew at the beginning of season 1 that Dean loved pie and why, its usage wasn't random. That they deliberately sprinkled it into episodes as the seasons went on. She expressed the lack of belief that that was true--not that she thought it was untrue, but that she didn't know. I was absolutely convinced I was right. I have no idea if the writers knew this scene was coming, and deliberately prepped us for it with "I like pie!" and "Bring me some pie!" and Dean being turned off by pie in "Yellow Fever." But I do believe there was at least a subconsciously deliberate plan. I've had it happen to me enough times, where I was writing something, a revelation hits me, and I go back to plant seeds, only to find them already there, perfectly lined up right where they should be. That's got to be harder to do for a TV show, but Kripke did know approximately where he was going, so who knows?

Okay, big tangent! Pie! Geez! But here's some more poignancy, Dean's love of pie keeping him connected to his mommy. *sniff*

Sam comments on how long Dean has been cleaning up Dad's messes, which is enough to galvanize Dean into searching for the next piece of "road." It's a postcard for Route 66, which takes them to another efficiency apartment and Sam's dog, Bones. Dean asks if it's Flagstaff, and while Sam's joyous over the memory of living on his own for two weeks, Dean's angry because of the torment and probably abuse it caused him.

Uh oh.

Jared's real-life love of dogs is apparent in the way he pets and looks at poor Bonesy. He follows Dean out the door, but this isn't good. The new memory is again Sam's. He tries to pretend he doesn't recognize it, but Dean gets it. The night Sam ditched them for Stanford. And Dean doesn't need more to understand the pattern.

Sam's version of heaven is leaving his brother, and I don't know how it works up there, because it's Dean's version of hell—"The worst night of my life."

Zachariah has found them, though. They run, but Zach turns on the sun, and threatens some pretty ugly torture. He's going to make them beg to say yes before he sends them back to Earth. The boys run, and he's there every time, until a guy in a wrestling mask and cape rescues them.

The Roadhouse
It's ASH! "Welcome to my Blue Heaven," he says, and gestures with a flourish at Harvelle's.

"It even smells the same."
"Bud, blood, and beer nuts. Best smell in the world."

Ash explains the Supernatural concept of Heaven to the boys, and IMO, it's pretty cool. Well, that's because it's pretty much how I decided the afterlife must be back when I was in high school. Everyone who goes to heaven gets their own special paradise. Dean doesn't seem too keen on the idea of everyone being alone, trapped. Ash says there are special cases of sharing. You know. Soulmates.

Gah! Why, Andrew and Daniel, why must you feed the Wincesters so?!

Anyway, Ash is, of course, special. He's not like everyone else. He can go anywhere in heaven. He has a "holy roller police scanner" where he can tap into the angels speaking Enochian, and—also of course—he's fluent. He reveals that he's found Dean and Sam up here before, but the angels wiped their memories. Sam asks if he found Ellen and Jo, and Ash is pretty torn up to learn they died.

He hasn't found Mary and John, though he's been looking. Huh. Ash knew the boys for, like, three weeks, lived a whole life before that, but his heaven is tracking down the Winchester parents and (repeatedly) saving Sam and Dean? Iiiiinteresting.

So he hasn't found John and Mary, but he has found Pamela! Kind of odd, since he presumably didn't know her in life. But I could be wrong, maybe he did.

Pamela slaps Dean for getting her killed, Dean says if it makes her feel any better, they got Ash killed, too. "I'm cool with it!" Ash yells. Gosh, I love that guy.

While Ash and Sam work on the laptop, Pamela tells Dean she's happy, at peace, and maybe Dean shouldn't fight so hard against Michael. Sure, people will die, but then they come here. Dean's definitely not convinced.

Ash has found a shortcut to the garden and draws some symbols on the walls, cautioning that Zach will be watching all roads to the garden. Pamela hugs Sam, and gives Dean a big ol' kiss that's "just how she imagined." For a guy who gets laid a lot (or used to), Dean is regularly bemused by a simple kiss.

Heaven is Hell
They exit, but are suddenly back home again. This isn't right. Here's Mary again, looking like she did the night she died. She asks if Dean had a nightmare. He's no longer interested in wallowing, so he tries to leave, but Mary offers to tell her nightmare. The night she burned. Oooh, this is a new side to Samantha Smith. She tells Dean she didn't love him, he was her burden, she was shackled to him. Her eyes go yellow, and we go to commercial...

And FRAK, my recording glitches, and mid-commercial it cuts back to the show, with a stranger telling the boys he just trims the hedges. He says they're going home, but it's different this time. This time, God wants them to remember.

They wake up violently in the motel room, clothes bloody but bodies whole. But not, quite obviously, their spirits. Dean makes a call, then they're packing and Cas is there. He hopes Joshua is lying—clearly, they told him about the six minutes I missed. Cas curses God and gives Dean back his worthless amulet. Sam is determined to find another way, to stop everything, tells Dean "We'll find it. You and me. We'll find it."

But in the worst Supernatural moment EVER, Dean drops his amulet in the trash.

*sob*

I don't even know why he did it. I mean, we saw it coming, with Sam's heaven being away from Dean, but it had to get worse in those moments I missed. But even without seeing them, they've shattered me.

Sam, if you don't save that amulet, I will kill you.

SPNews

Jared Padalecki is one of three stars rumored to be a possible candidate for the new Conan the Barbarian remake.

VARIOUS SUPERNATURAL ITEMS ON SALE THIS WEEK. SAVE UP TO 50% OFF!!! Sale prices end 8:00pm ET Monday, January 18, 2010 - While Supplies Last

Colin Ford (ColinFordActor) tweeted that he’s returned home from Vancouver where he had a “blast” filming SPN, but can’t give away any spoilers.

Chad Lindberg (ChadLindberg) tweeted that he had his mom re-pierce his ear to play Dr. Badass. Now that’s painful commitment!

Traci Dinwiddie (GrooveGoddess) tweeted that she finished filming Elena Undone. The IMDB blurb says, “Fate brings two diversely different women together, and sets them on a collision course that will shatter their preconceived notions about love, life and the power of one's soul.”

Danneel Harris has been in a tweet war with E!’s Ted Casablanca over her engagement to Jensen. The girl put Ted in his place though!

Jim Beaver (JumbleJim) recently tweeted that he took a meeting with the History Channel about a new series, “Me, a host? Hmm.”

Supernatural received a GLAAD nomination. “The Real Ghostbusters” was recognized as an Outstanding Individual Episode in a series without a regular LGBT character.

And, lastly, a casting call has gone out for episode 5.17 – 99 Problems. If you don’t mind a minor spoiler check it out here.

Supernatural News

TV.com has put out its list of their top 20 favorite new TV characters of the year. Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) from Supernatural is among them.

http://www.tv.com/the-best-new-tv-characters-of-2009/story/20278.html?tag=news_list;title;0

Terri recently noticed some Supernatural-related Tweets on Twitter. Chad Lindberg announced that Ash will be back! He starts filming in January. And Colin Ford (young Sam) will be on Private Practice.

There are three new Supernatural novels coming in 2010:

Heart of the Dragon in February

Unholy Cause in April

War of the Sons in June

This column in The Huffington Post includes Supernatural in an alternative Top 10 list of best TV programs on TV in 2009.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/isupernatural-the-middle_b_395016.html

"My Big Break" Movie News

Primarily for our readers in and near NYC:

~~~~~~
Some news from Chad Lindberg's "My Big Break":

Hi There,

By now many of you know that "My Big Break" was accepted into Acefest (The American Cinematic Experience Festival) that takes place in New York City. We just won "Best Documentary at Artsfest in Pennsylvania and just got our official acceptance into a fantastic, prestigious festival in Britain (more about that soon) so the movie is really picking up steam.

We're pushing very hard to get a good audience for the screening in New York - we're trying to sell out the theater - so if you know anyone who might be interested in attending please let them know ASAP!

Our screening is on July 11th at 7:20 pm at the Tribeca Cinemas. Tickets are just $10. Here's the link to the movie's Acefest page. There's a trailer and synopsis there and a link to buy tickets.

Also, there's a cool film industry networking party happening the night before our screening at the hip Luxe in Manhattan. Anyone who buys a ticket to My Big Break can get into the party free if they show their tix. Here's that link.

We really need your help getting the word out so please let everyone know!

We hope to see you there!

SPN Alum on the Screen Pt. 2

In part 1, I told you about upcoming projects with Katie Cassidy, Genevieve Cortese, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Samantha Smith. Now I want to hit some highlights among some of our fave SPN guest stars.

Look for Nicki Aycox (Meg) back on the small screen next month in a new summer series. Dark Blue debuts on TNT July 15 and stars Dylan McDermott as the head of an undercover police team so covert their own colleagues don’t know about their involvement. Nicki plays Jaimie, a rookie brought in because of her shady past and incredible lying skills.

In 2010, two SPN sisters will show up in Elektra Luxx, a follow-up to the exploitation anthology by Sebastian Gutierrez. Adrianne Palicki (Jessica) resumes her role as hooker, Holly Rocket, and Traci Diinwiddie (Pam) has a small cameo. Also look for Adrianne opposite a stellar cast in January’s Legion, a thriller about a group of stranded truck stop patrons who find they’re humanity’s last line of defense after a biblical apocalypse when they learn their waitress is pregnant with the messiah.

Watch for Samantha Ferris to play Dr. Patricia Lang in this year’s creepy indie called Grace, which has a desperate mother insisting she carrying her dead child to term. Upon delivery, the baby miraculously returns to life with an appetite for human blood and now her mama has to make the ultimate decision. Samantha will also star opposite of Dolph Lundgren’s (he’s still around?) conflicted hitman/father in Incarus.

We fell in love with Colin Ford as young Sammy, now he’s going to charm the rest of the world when he stars in the live-action tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. Also watch for him in the drama Ticket Out, where he’ll go on the run with his mom to escape his abusive father.

Chad Lindberg made a memorable impression as the mullet genius, Ash, so it’s no wonder he’s got several movies on his slate. In the Gray explores the world of undercover narcotics agents, Once Fallen has the hook, “Getting even can take more then one lifetime” and perhaps most intriguing of all is his involvement in Snow White. (Who do you suppose he'll play?)

No doubt we’ll see Julie McNiven again next season as Angel Anna, but you can also catch her in the indie romcom, Failing Better Now. She stars as a flaky writer who loses her sister’s cat and falls for the aspiring rockstar who joins her on her wild search through the East Village.

Alona Tal (Jo) will stir things up between best friends in the psychological thriller Kalamity.

Charles Malik Whitfield has a number of small roles in upcoming films, but plot details are still undercover except for Notorious, which shows the life and death of rap star, Notorious B.I.G.

And finally, you loved to hate him as Uriel, but how will you feel about Robert Wisdom in the crime thriller The Midnight Man? When an ex-con decides to heist his new employer’s home he’s shocked to learn another criminal has already targeted the place and rigged it with explosives. Hmm, so is he the bad guy or the bad guy?

That’s it except for some recent news Jensen revealed….due to his SPN obligations he did have to turn down the lead role in G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra, a high-octane Tranformers-esque film which is sure to be an August blockbuster with Channing Tatum in his stead. That had to suck, but like Jensen said, he’s in this for the long haul and other things will come along.

See you at the movies….

Salute to Supernatural

I am recovering from the best weekend of my life.

Okay, I keep saying that, then I have to revise it and say top five, because I'm sure I've had other weekends that I felt the same way about. But seriously.

The. Best. Weekend.

I'm just going to hit the highlights here, because I could ramble on forever and that works much better on my personal blog than it does here. :) These highlights are HIGH, baby. Then, if you want more detail, you can head over to my regular blog, where I'll have daily posts about my experience.

One thing you won't get from me either here or there is a transcript of what everyone said, because I didn't record it nor did I retain it so well. I'm going to stick mostly to my personal experience, because no one else had it but me.

Okay, first, if you would believe it--the best moment of the event was Friday night at karaoke. I and my friends Megan and Lori:



sat at a table and said hi to the women sitting there, and congratulated Kayleigh, who had won a contest. We talked a little, she asked if I was on any message boards, I mentioned Supernatural Sisters, and...guess what? SHE READS US!! I was high half the night on that! :) So here's a shot of Kayleigh and me. She and her sister Mallory (I'm pretty sure it's her sister) are just the sweetest people ever, and I hope I get to see them again next year (but more on that later).



Surprise Number One--The Crowd

We figured a con in Jersey would be pretty intimate, with maybe less craziness than a big venue like LA or Chicago, but we still expected more than there was. There was one woman who was over-the-top obnoxious, and another who (seems to have) lied to us to cut the line, and one who asked Richard Speight, Jr., his opinion on Wincest (the crowd reaction apparently was enough to keep her in line after that, and she asked excellent questions otherwise).

I am NOT a social creature. I have my friends-who-are-like-me and otherwise, it's painful to strike up a conversation with a stranger. So Friday and Saturday went by without me saying a single word to the guy next to me. But that changed Saturday night, when we hung out in the bar, and Mike and his aunt Darlene were super-cool. *waves* We talked to some random people in line a couple of times, too. I didn't get/can't remember names, so this is a general shout-out to y'all. Hope to see you next year, too (more on that later).

Surprise Number Two--The Creation Staff

I'm not sure what I expected. I mean, they charge $7.25 in "freight" per ticket, even if those tickets are sent to you by e-mail. The SAME e-mail. Instead of doing a lottery with a flat rate for backstage passes and the (canceled) lunch with Jared, they auction them off, and the money isn't for charity. But when Jared canceled, I got all my money back for the photo op, including the freight charge. They allowed people who'd bought Saturday tickets to see Misha to exchange them when he got moved to Sunday. And they offered a significant discount (ostensibly due to the cancellation) off next year's con if you booked before the weekend was over. But more on that later.

The staff and volunteers were incredibly nice and welcoming people. They recognized us from one event to the next (and from almost running us down in the parking lot! LOL) and were really down to earth and personable. The guy emceeing everything teased people and made jokes and basically acted like he was one of us. The company has been around, I found out, since 1971, and they do a really great job.

Finally, Chris, the photographer, is superfantabulous. He takes really great photos, moves everything along really well but doesn't make you feel rushed or like an object instead of a person, AND, when he heard me lament that I'd blinked in the photo with Jim Beaver, told me he'd fix it and send me a new copy. I mean, how supercool is that?!

Surprise Number Three--The Access

Now, I'm sure things are different for Jensen and Jared (who?). They're kept protected from the insane freaks by also being protected from us nice, smart, reasonable, well-behaved fans. And indeed, things were very different on Sunday than they were Friday and Saturday. For the dessert reception Saturday night and the breakfast on Sunday, we got two minutes with each celebrity. But still, that up-close-and personal moment? SO worth the Gold Package. Seriously, you have to get it. But more on that later...

Anyway, on Sunday everything was very tightly scheduled, especially after Jim Beaver threw everything off first thing. :) It's photo op, photo op, speakerspeakerspeaker, autographing, go home. That creates a slight distance between the group of us down here and the guests Up There. Still, you don't get rushed through the autograph line, you can chat with them, and they all act like they want to chat. Poor Traci Dinwiddie was really tired, really sick, and really sweet and funny. The staff made sure she got through things as quickly as possible so she could rest.

But on Friday and Saturday...

This is my very favorite shot of the weekend:



That's Gabriel Tigerman, who played Andy in the episodes "Simon Said" and "All Hell Breaks Loose Part I." ALL the guests were nice, personable, awesome people who gave us more than we really deserve. But Chad Lindberg (Ash), Richard Speight, Jr. (The Trickster), and Gabriel Tigerman (Andy) went way beyond.

First, Friday night, Chad and Jason Manns (the musician) weren't leaving right away, so they showed up at karaoke. Then Richard appeared--he'd arrived in preparation for his event the next morning--and after about an hour or so, we got up the nerve to edge our way over and talk to them. We spent a good 10 minutes or more with Chad and Jason, then gave way to talk to other people and caught Richard, with whom we discussed all kinds of things, including television and the broken advertising model and stuff. Chad wandered back over and joined us, and by 1:20 a.m. we had a crowd surrounding us--I think (hope!) they were trying to hear, because, you know, we were so brilliant--and we only stopped when the handlers said the guys needed to get up early and we had to let them go.

We had elevator time with both Richard and Gabe, and Saturday night, we hung in the bar for a while after the dessert party, and they showed up, as did Jason Manns and Todd Stashwick. Misha Collins (Castiel) and Malik/Charles Malik Whitfield (Agent Henricksen) spent some time in there, too, but not when we were there.

We were really super lucky. Not everyone got these opportunities. Not too many people went to karaoke, because it started at 11:00 p.m., and not many people were in the bar (though plenty were in the lobby). We were in the right spot, and made ourselves available, and of course being fun and articulate didn't hurt. Nor did Megan's awesome boots. They were quite memorable. :)

What Wasn't a Surprise

1. Jason Manns. He had a turn on stage, and did his concert, and he sounded as amazing in person as he does in the studio. His talent is...well, okay, "unsurpassed" is probably too much of a superlative, but there isn't anyone I'd rather see perform. He spent a lot of time with us, too, during the autographing time on Friday, and didn't mind all the silly women asking for hugs. Oh, wait, there was one surprise about Jason. He's BIG. Everyone thought he'd be smaller, but he's easily Jensen Ackles' height, and quite built.

2. Misha Collins is beautiful.



Lori got much better pictures with her much better camera with the much better zoom, but it doesn't matter. His extreme beauty in person is etched in my brain, never to be worn away. Plus, she gave me copies.

3. Everyone was so entertaining!

They all had great answers to the questions they were asked, they kept the flow going, and they were willing to tell embarrassing stories and/or tell us no when they didn't want to do or say something. And they were all different.

Jim was Bobby Singer if he'd never become a hunter and had a second-grader he totally doted on.

Malik was being all spiritual and inspirational one minute, making toilet/swirly jokes the next or claiming Misha was going to strip for us.

Traci was shy, but put herself fully in our hands and trusted us to treat her kindly, then went all the way and had one of the top stories of the night.

Todd has such a broad and varied career, including stand-up, that he just got up there and put on a show. Every minute was entertaining, even those that were serious.

Chad had the toughest time, being on Friday with half the crowd, not getting enough questions, and some of them being really tough for someone who spent a handful of episodes on the show two years ago.

Okay, I think I've rambled on long enough. Now for la pièce de résistance...

This One's For You...

Everyone please thank Terri Clark for inspiring me to be bold (and find a way to expense the trip!). It's all WAY tentative, because even though everyone agreed, we still have to make the connections and follow through. But Terri will be interviewing Jim Beaver for Supernatural Sisters, and I have already received e-mail from Richard Speight, Jr.'s manager to do one with him. If we're lucky, we'll have several sprinkled over the next few months, probably scheduled during the next hiatus to keep us all from drying up in withdrawal.

Please send questions for any of the stars who were at the convention to natalie AT nataliedamschroder DOT com so we can do some kick-ass interviews!

AND, we have a nice little prize package that we're putting together and will hold some kind of contest for in the coming weeks.

Sooooo...that's the highlights. Can you imagine if I gave details? If you want me to elaborate on anything, or have questions, please comment! I could talk about this forever, and if I do it here, my husband will personally thank each and every one of you. :)

~~~~~~~~~~
OH, I almost forgot! Creation plans to hold a Salute to Supernatural in Parsippany, NJ, in July 2010. No one is booked yet, but my oldest kid, a fan, is extremely jealous of me and we are already saving our money for the day they officially announce tickets are on sale and, hopefully, that Jared and Jensen are booked. So stay tuned and keep an eye out for that!