NOTE: Anything in parentheses are my own thoughts. When Garrett speaks
it's in BLUE. Audience
questions
are in RED. Also
I'm still working on developing those pictures I took from the
convention.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 1ST 1998
I headed up to the convention early that morning because Garrett
was
scheduled fo be the first guest of the day. I also needed to meet up
with
Christina, Jay, Annie, and Marie. I got there around 10:00 a.m. and
people were
already in line. I finally met up with Christina and Jay just after
Marie and I
got ourselves stamped and ticketed. Christina showed us what she was
gonna have
Garrett autograph for her. It just happened to be the 1997 People's 50
Most
Beautiful People Issue. She wanted him to sign his page. ( Why
didn't I
think of that? Hmm...) We had a whole hour to kill before Garrett
would go
on stage. We all headed for the Dealer's Room to find some goodies. I
ended up
buying two new pictures of Garrett. One was in his uniform in a new
pose and
the other was a blow up of Garrett's face from a previous convention.
When it
came close for him to appear we all headed up to our seats. I have to
say Marie
and I had the worse seats out of us 5. Christina and Jay got to sit in
the
middle of the auditorium in the sixth row. Then Annie got to sit just
two
sections away in the 8th row. While Marie and I sat on the far right of
the
auditorium in the 12th row. It was either that or sit in the far back
rows.
Adam Malin, the one in charge of the whole con, came out and introduced
Garrett, but first there was a salute to his character. They played a
music
video. It had clips from the first 2 seasons of Voyager. I don't recall
the
song, Christina or Annie, might remember it. Anyways, Adam came back
out and
introduced Garrett. Of course I was at the front of the stage with my
camera
all set and ready so was everyone else. Garrett was wearing a black
Chinese
dragon type shirt, and blue jeans. The camera flashes were blinding
from my
point of view, it's ever a wonder how he doesn't bump into anything
onstage.
Garrett began by saying, "Ok now
this is
your photo-opportunity. I always start at my left."( Incidently that where I was taking his
pictures. He was
only 5 feet away!!!! ) As he poses he can't move his lips so he
says, "Look I'm a ventriloquist, hehehehe."
Garrett continues to move all the way to the
right until
everyone has at least taken 5 shots of him. Garret: Howz everyone doin?!?!?
The audience yells out fine. Garrett looks back
at the
screen, where he sees one his pictures from season one. Garrett asks,
"Anyone know what's different about me now and
then?" People from the audience yell, "your hair,
your
hair!!!!" Yup, I had to beg TPTB
to let me
cut my hair. I like my hair as it is now. Anyways...what's been going
on? We've
just finished filming episode six of season 5. Wow, can you believe
we're
filming Season 5 already? (
Sorry, to say
but I can't recall what the first six episodes were about. I guess you
could
say I was distracted by Garrett,
sorry. ) By the way we're going to
shoot
our 100th episode very soon and LeVar Burton is going to direct it.
Among the audience were many oohs
and ahs
about the episode. All I can really say about the episode
is that
it revolves around Harry, Chakotay, and Neelix in that order. And that
it's
gonna deal with Harry from the present and than Harry 15 years in the
future.
This Harry has a lot every single of emotion you can think of. This
Harry can
stand up to Seven and not get his butt whooped. Garrett
pretends that Seven is coming up to talk to him. He does the
speak-to-the-hand-and-to-the-face motion and says, "Seven I don't need to deal with you right
now." The audience is estactic by the notion.
A man in the audience asks, "Is there still going to be a
Kim/Seven
relationship?" Garrett: What relationship? She beats
Harry
up!!! The audience is roaring in
laughter. Look the only way Seven and Harry are gonna get
together is
for two things to happen, ok? The first thing is for Seven to stop
beating the
crap out of Harry. (By this time
I'm
holding my stomach and trying to breath, because I'm laughing so hard)
The second is that she has to be able to have
respect for
Harry. If you think about it, the two go hand-in-hand. But seriously, I
think
The Powers That Be would like to keep one main romance going on per
ship or
show. So Torres and Paris are the main item for now. But I wouldn't
rule out
the possibility. A boy, about 13, asks, "Do you like
getting
twiped across the floor by Seven?" Everyone
starts laughing again. Garrett looks straight at the boy for a good few
seconds
and says, "You know I've learned
to not be
taken by questions like these from kids 15 and younger. The laughter gets louder and Garrett has this big
smile
on his face. The answer to your
question is
"no." Harry doesn't like getting wiped across the floor by
Seven. Ok,
I'm sure you all have your own little nicknames for Seven. The men in the audience start whistling and
howling. I remember
listening to this one guy from the East Coast said that we've nicknamed
her
"2 of D." ( At this
point I
couldn't contain myself, I know it was mean, but it was also funny.)
Please try to keep these names to yourselves. But if
you're
bold enough try telling Jeri that. Ok next question.... A kid asked, "Will you ever go get
home?" Garrett: I've said it before I'll say
it again.
If we would just stop looking and inspecting every single little rock
that we
pass by we would be home by now!!!! Forget all the aliens we encounter,
just
go, go, go. Don't look back just look forward. A man in the audience asked,
"What's your
background?" Garrett: "My theatrical background
or my
cultural background" Man: "No, where you've
lived?" Garrett: "Oh, ok." I was born
in
Riverside, CA. Someone starts
clapping.
Garrett looks at the person and says, "Aw
you weren't born in Riverside, stop clappin." Then I moved to
Indiana for
3 years. Then moved to Bermuda for 6 years. Then moved to Memphis for 6
years.
You know I went through a lot of
racism in Memphis. I didn't do any so-called "Asian accents"
because
I felt it was a wrong against my people. If you listen closely you can
hear the
differences in a Japanese accent to a Korean accent. Oh yeah, see
you're making
me get of course here. After Memphis I moved to Los Angeles where I
went to
school at UCLA. A college student
yells and
claps. Garrett looks at her stunned and then says, "You go to UCLA? The girl nods. Garrett whispers in the mike and
says, "Sssh, you know we're in enemy territory. Yeah
Bears,
go Cal, go!!! I love Berkley!!! We
all start
falling out of chairs laughing so hard. I made Marie ask what the
"Running
Man" was. I couldn't ask myself because I was coughing.....really
I was.
Garrett tried demostrating it, but he didn't have a chair to do it on.
So the
whole concept of the joke was lost. It's hard to explain so you'll just
have to
ask him what it is yourself. Garrett: Speaking of impersonations,
let's play
a game. Guess who I am. Garrett
starts
impersonating George Takei in his deep voice only he could do.
Garrett's facial
expressions while impersonating George is hiliarious. You have to see
it to
understand. When you guessed right Garrett used a heavy Chinese accent
and
said, "you get egg row, you too!!!
You
know now I'm going to put this Chinese take-out and laundry on my
routine." Garrett goes on to
impersonating Tim Russ. He takes it farther by doing a little comedy
stage work
by impersonating both George and Tim and both heading to Tim's trailer.
George
wants to feel Tim's ears and you can figure out the rest, just use your
imagination. You couldn't find a person not laughing at this point. Somone in the audience asked, "Are
you
athletic and what sports do you enjoy playing?" Garrett looks at the person and says, ok. Puts
the mike
on the floor and drops and does push ups for everyone and then shows
off by
clapping before having to hit the ground. Everyone is enjoying the show
he just
put on.
Garrett: How's that? Uh...sports. I use to play soccer or should I say
English football
when I lived in Bermuda. You know it makes sense that you call soccer
football,
cuz you use your feet. But American football you don't use your feet.
We should
call it handball, or cradle ball, anything but football. Oh, I also use
to play
tennis. Nowadays I try to play any sports where I don't get injured,
like
chess. You know Tim Russ got a sprang ankle from playing a pick up ball
of
basketball. He had to wear like a brace looking thing. So all the
scenes that
required him to walk in any shape or form had to be cut out. So in the
episode
all you saw Tuvok in was behind his console on the bridge. You know
can't have
Tuvok hobbling around the ship (Garrett demostrates Tim limping and
saying his
lines in a straight face manner) it just doesn't work. Oops, times up
folks.
I'll see you all next time. Garrett signed alongside, Rene
Auberjonis,
and Armin Shimmerman. He was the first one in line. He liked the
pictured I
picked out for him to sign. I also told him I was going to watch his
movie
HUNDRED PERCENT the next night. He told me I hope I liked it. I said no
doubt
about it. Then the lady helping him out took our picture together. He
had to
lean over the table. What a perfect way to end my day
with Garrett, but to have my picture taken with him. That's all for
now.
Reporting from San Francisco, I'm Rigel Apolinar, have a good day or
night
which ever it is.
If I happened to leave anything else out I'm sorry.
Thank you Rigel for your Report.
To View some pictures of this Convention Click here