Thom Zahler Art Studios: Con Reports

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, PEOPLE
Golden Apple is probably the premiere comic book store in LA. It’s certainly the only one I know about. And every year, after the convention, they throw an open house party at the store, with free food and drink. And I’m all about the free drinks.

So Bob, Roger and I went over there to see what there was to see. We talked with a number of comics pros, including Bill Tucci and Mike Barr. I also saw Brett Lewis, my former editor at the ill fated Motown Machineworks comics line, for about a minute and a half., He offered to hook up with us if we were staying past Wednesday, which unfortunately, I wasn’t.

CLEVELAND ROCKS
We also did the Warner Brothers Studio Tour, which while cool, didn’t involve Jean-Claude, so you won’t see me as an extra in ER. Jean-Claude could have swung it.

Which is not to say that Marianna wasn’t a fine tour guide. She was knowledgable and lovely and had a little bif of the rebel in her, too. She pointed out Clint Eastwood’s office too us, and then immediately told us she wasn’t supposed to do that.
We saw the exteriors for ER, including Doc Magoo’s. We saw a new set for West Wing. President Clinton was coming out the week after to check out the sets and stuff, I guess to make sure there’s enough headroom under the Oval Office desk.

Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

Marianna said that some of the actors are very focused, and some are really open. George Clooney will come out and talk to the tour groups sometimes, especially if there are small or disabled kids in it. Martin Sheen apparently will join in basketball games that the pages have in the lot.

“So,” I asked her, “you’ve played basketball with Martin Sheen?”

“Yeah, he’s pretty good,” she answered.

“Good, he’s 5’2”! Stuff him!”

“Oh yeah, I guess I could.”

I then tried to convince her that since Martin was from Dayton, and Bob, Rog and I were from Cleveland, that he wouldn’t mind having a couple of home boys from the ‘hood drop by. Unfortunately, my persuasive powers weren’t up to the task.

We did get to see the Drew Carey sets, though. Drew’s a local boy, too. He gets business cards from Clevelanders and staples them up in the Warsaw Tavern set. Since Marianna knew we were local, too, she let us put our cards up there, too.
We weren’t really supposed to do that, though. After we placed them on the wall, Marianna said “Whew, we just barely avoided security.”

ANOTHER DRINKING SONG
The title for this section is taken from a song on Captain Tractor’s “Celebrity Traffic Jam” CD, which I highly recommend. See, I’m all about the links.

Anyway, Tuesday night we decided to visit this place called Dublin’s Irish Whiskey Pub. It’s a nice little drinking establishment on Melrose with a bunch of rooms and cool bars and just a really good feel to it.

So we start drinking, Roger and I. Bob was designated driver, by choice and that neither of us was signed on to drive the rental car. Our bartender was Skip, an amazing bartender who could put a shamrock into the head of foam on a pint of Guiness. I still think this is pretty cool.

I get a little bored at the bar, not due to the fine company I’m with, but I’m just so used to drawing while talking while watching TV while reading e-mail that if I’m not multitasking I get jumpy. I decide to do a caricature of Skip, which given the fact that it in blue ballpoint on the back of a napkin, turned out pretty well.

Skip said he was going to put the drawing in a safe place, lest anyone get jealous and ruin it.

“Heck, Skip,” I said, “I’ll draw anyone you put in front of me.”

Skip poured me a free beer and brought a friend over. So I drew the lovely Maria, also a bartender, who bought me a beer. Dani, a regular of Skip’s got drawn, and she sent me a free beer... but didn’t bother to come over to talk. Still a little hurt by that. But I’ll get by.

And then there were these three girls over by the other side of the bar. I must have drawn one of them, because when Bob, Rog and I decided to go, I had to go say goodbye to them.

Now Bob and Rog tell me that they live vicariously through me. I keep pointing out that they’ve so chosen the wrong person. Yeah, the devout Catholic, that’s the party animal with some stories. But when I started saying goodbye to the girls, and an hour passed, I decided this was what they had been waiting for. so I wasn’t too worried about them waiting. Actually, since the girls bought me a beer, I wasn’t worried about much. We had a great conversation. I found out they were from Canada. I love Canada. Due South rules!

Here’s a little note for you, when I get drunk I get... tactile. Well, more tactile than I usually am. And I start realizing how long it’s been since I’ve been kissed last. (Here’s a hint: Ben Sisko still had hair.) So I, in my drunken state, decide that maybe I can change that. I’m drunk, you’re drunk, the reasoning goes, and I just drew you and your friends, what’s one smooch?

(If anyone is really dying for a kiss from me, yes, alcohol is the way to go. Oh yeah, I can see that line of ladies and liquor forming around the corner now.)

I pitch this idea to my favorite of the three, adding that my friends who are living vicariously through me are probably watching and this would make their day, let alone mine. Okay, I’ll pause while you all figure out what the response will be. You’ll be wrong, but it will be fun to try.

(whisting)

“I don’t usually kiss guys.”
That’s right, I managed to stumble upon Drunken Canadian Lesbians.

CHIN TO CHIN

There are two ways to get into the Tonight Show. You can wait in a line that starts forming at eight in the morning, or you can know Mark Evanier. Thankfully, I know Mark.

Instead of waiting all day, we arrived at the NBC Studio Store around 3:30 and only had to wait in line for a couple hours before being ushered in to the Tonight Show set. The set’s a pretty cheery happening place. It gives off that clubby vibe that I know Leno prefers.

I’ve seen Letterman a few times, and regardless of their respective performances and comedy stylings, I gotta say that Leno is a lot warmer and more personable. He came out for about fifteen minutes (as opposed to Letterman’s five), riffed with the audience, even has a picture deal set up.

What I mean is, he’ll call up audience members and one of his producers stands with a Polaroid taking pictures of you with Jay... after he’s done making fun of you of course. And all in good fun.

"I've touched Halle Berry, have you?"

I also relate to Jay a lot more now. A brief digression, every time I seem to be hitting it off with a woman, she turns out to be either seventeen or married, sometimes even both, I’m sure. On my way out to San Diego I wound up sitting across from this lovely girl from Texas who was actually going to the Comic Con because she was such an X-Files fan. I started talking to her and when I got to the question “What do you do when you’re not going to Comic Cons” her answer was “Well, I’ll be a senior in high school this year.” Man, she was even Catholic. And I ran into her at the convention, and she was dressed as Dana Scully. Life is not big with the fairness sometimes.

So anyway, Jay gets done picking on some guys he’s brought up and picks out these two very cute and very daringly dressed girls. He jokes “You know these pictures may require some partial nudity.”

He gets to the “What do you do?” question and by now you all see this one coming. The first was sixteen and the second was seventeen. Jay jumped back and held the microphone at arm’s length. “I’m not going to jail. What school do you go to?”

“St. Mary’s Catholic High School.”

“Catholic school girls, too? I’m going to hell.”

Another nice thing about Jay’s show is many of the people in the prime seats on the floor were waiting in The Big Line. It’s nice that people who don’t know people get treated as well or even better than people who are there thanks to the largess of some friend.

The guests were Halle Berry, from some sort of X-Men movie. Have any of you heard about this thing? Hmmm. And Christopher Titus, who I find laugh out loud hysterical.

Right before the show, a producer has a bag full of free stuff and starts throwing it out to the audience. If he had a better pitching arm, I might have some, but he couldn’t seem to clear the first row of bleacher seats. He also got four very attractive ladies to dance for him to earn some Tonight Show shirts.

On a completely unrelated note, I have some Thom Zahler World Tour 2000 T-Shirts available.

CULT OF PERSONALITY

This is a picture of the Scientology building near our hotel. There’s a billboard you can’t read that says:

“Scientology has helped me in my business.”
--a Businessman

Apparently a businessman who wants to remain anonymous.

I also took great pleasure in, whenever we passed it, calling out “Battlefield: Earth sucked!” I understand the same thing happened at the L. Ron Hubbard table at San Diego.

In fact my buddy Rob accidentally wandered into their sphere of influence and they started talking about Battlefield: Earth. Rob expressed his dislike for the movie in that kind of sharp pointed way that only Rob can. The lady he was talking to said “I didn’t like it the first time I saw it, but after the fourth, I really started to enjoy it.”

Why do I get the feeling she was reliving scenes from A Clockwork Orange?

AMBASSADOR OF PEACE

I got to visit the LA beaches for the first time. I got to see Muscle Beach and Venice Beach (actually the same thing) as well as Santa Monica Beach, which was my favorite. I even got to play a little pick-up volleyball with some French and Australian guys and gals.

Okay, I admit it, the French girl on my team was pretty cute. I like to think of it as doing my part to foster international relations. Unfortunately, due to lousy instructions on my part to my camera crew, I have no pictures. That’s a shame, because I had one particularly impressive dig.

Roller coasters, sand, beach volleyball and scantily clad women. What more could you want?

That's just too cool.

The houses in Venice, California are surrounded by canals, just like the other Venice. This is also where all the Darla and Alfalfa in the boat scenes were filmed in Little Rascals.

CHICKS DIG THE CAR

My little travelogue would be incomplete if I didn’t mention the fire engine red Camaro Convertible that we were tooling around in.
When we left San Diego, things seemed a little tight, especially for me in the back seat. Bob offered to get us another car.

“Bob,” I said through clenched teeth as my legs went numb, “we are not giving up this car.”
So Bob drove and I generally lazed in the back seat, working on my tan, smiling at all the girls going by . Logistically, getting in and out was a problem, so I adopted a Luke Duke jump over the side of the car that seemed to work pretty well. Except for that night I was drunk at the Dublin, but even that didn’t turn out badly, just not gracefully.

What a time to misplace my license.

BACK TO LIFE, BACK TO REALITY

NOT my twin brother.

The So I’m back now. The trip was fun. San Diego was okay, but LA, that was cool.

One last thing, at the Con, my “friends” Roger and Bob got me an autograph from a Hollywood type. Did they get me Gigi “Chyanna” Edgely, or Alexandra “Aphrodite” Tydings, or even Richard “Apollo” Hatch? No, they got me someone who haunted my teenyears, due to our passing similarity. Here it is.

I’ll get you guys for this. Really I will.