Finding My New Normal: Goofy Fan

Have you ever really enjoyed some form of the media and wondered what it would be like to meet the people creating your faves? I used to work in radio and as a runner/gofer for a large concert hall so I've met a lot of popular entertainers. Mostly singers and songwriters though I've also interviewed quite a few local, state, and national politicians. I wasn't ever really star struck. Mostly that has more to do with the stars than with me. I have interviewed singers whose music I've enjoyed and had to work at being professional without sounding like a geeky fan-girl. I think I pulled it off for the most part. Whenever I've listened to those old interviews, I mostly sound more green than geeky. The more interviews I did and the more stories I wrote, the better I sounded. However, there were some performers I knew I could probably never meet or interview because my awe and admiration of them fully eclipsed any professionalism I could muster.

Well, last night I once again entered the realm of geeky fandom. Thankfully I wasn't interviewing anyone, but I was offered the chance to meet some of my favorite comedy performers. The original cast of MST3K performed last night at the ACME Comedy Club in Minneapolis. This was the launch party for their new DVD "The Oozing Skull". I brought my camera with hopes of getting some good photos but my seat wasn't so good. Actually at first it wasn't horrible. I was in the last seat of the regular chairs, but I was in the middle of 4 couples. One of the foursome had a friend show up and he was sitting in the way back, against the wall, in the tall bar chairs so I offered him my seat so he could be with his friends. Little did I know that I was giving up my unobstructed view for a partially obstructed one, but the guy was so thrilled with my offer, he gave me $10! It sometimes pays to do something nice. Anyway, I didn't take pictures because I was far away, the view was somewhat obstructed, and I didn't want to be "that guy". However, I did manage to get one shot of most of the cast at the end of the show:

Here you see a tiny portion of J. Elvis Weinstein (Josh), all of Frank Conniff, Trace Beaulieu, Mary Jo Pehl, and Joel Hodgson. They were singing the theme song to MST3K before going out to the lobby to sign all kinds of autographs.

During the autograph signing, I took photos and waited for the line to go down so I could get my own copy of "The Oozing Skull" autographed. Of course, this is when I became completely tongue-tied and dopey. It didn't help that it was passed my bed time and I'd had some wine during the show (thanks to changing seats guy and his $10). All I could muster in the way of intelligent conversation was "thank you", "I love you guys", and "great show". Duh! I am SO a graduate of a Communications program, huh? You'd never know I once interviewed the governor of Wisconsin and procured a fairly intelligent interchange. Still, I wasn't really a fan of his, so maybe that's the difference.

Here are some photos. Go out and buy your own copy of "The Oozing Skull". Also, look for tickets to Cinematic Titanic's Live show at the State Theater in October.