An Evening with BRUCE CAMPBELL!

So.... Last night was the book signing ("Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way") and screening of his up and coming SciFi Channel film, "The Man with the Screaming Brain". I met up with an old gaming buddy, Leslie, at the old, historic theater the function was held at. By the time Leslie arrived, there was already a line starting to stretch outside the theater lobby, down the street and around the corner. And this was about and hour and a half before Bruce was to start signing. Over 300 people showed up. Popular guy, that Bruce.

Most of us purchased the book for him to sign, but some people weaseled in other items. Leslie brought her DVD of "Bubba-Ho-tep" and one woman brought a chainsaw for him to sign.

Close to the time of his arrival there were still a lot of people still funneling into the theater's ticket lobby. I suddenly notice this one guy, with longish black hair storm by the line and on into the main lobby. I'm thinking to myself, "Who the hell is this guy, blazing past the line of folks who've waited 2 or more hours? Wudda cork-knocker!!!" Ooops... it was Bruce Campbell, himself! Seems as Bruce has let his hair grow quite a bit and is due for a good shearing soon. (Ok, that was kind of a lame anecdote. But I was up late last night and I'm a little wishy washy this morning. You want funny? Go to the Onion.com)

Bruce was very cool and down to earth, making sure he took a little time to talk to everyone he signed for. When I got to him, he shook my hand and commented on the fact that I was wearing a funny Apocalypse Cow shirt and a Hawaiian shirt over that. "Why do some of you guys wear shirts with stuff to see under shirts with stuff to see?" and I replied, "So guys like you will notice that we're wearing a shirt with stuff on it over a shirt with stuff on it." (He didn't get the witty banter either.) We went on to talk very briefly about something else, but I forgot what. I was in the presence of BRUCE FRIGGIN' CAMPBELL, fercrissakes! But I do remember he ended our conversation with "Well, LAA-TEE-DA." Very cool guy.

Now,don't get me wrong. I love Bruce. He's a great guy and all, and was very gracious to come visit and sign for all of us screwheads. But, I gotta tell you one thing. Not a complaint, mind you. Just an observation. Upon examining his autograph more closely after he signed it, I realized he doesn't really sign his name, he inscribes some sort of squiggle or insignia or initials or san scritt or cuneiform or hieroglyphic or somthin'. But I can't really see any recognition of b-r-u-c-e c-a-m-p-b-e-l-l anywhere. I think I see a "g" or maybe it's a "y". I think if I examine it long enough I'll be able to make it out to be a map to the lost city of Atlantis. I'm just yankin' at Bruce's chain here. It really was a pleasure to get to meet him and talk briefly. It's always a treat when a celebrity has a good repore with his or her fans and is not an egotistical pain in the ass. You don't see or read about Bruce throwing phones at bellhops!!

Since there was a ton of time to kill before his Q&A and movie screening, Leslie and I got some grub at he diner next door. While we were sitting in our both, out of our window we saw some oddball dressed as Ellwood Blues (Blues Bros.) walking toward the theater. Dressing as Ash from "Evil Dead" I could see, but dressing as one of the Blues Bros. I didn't get. After dinner we went out and looked at the line of people. Again I saw this Ellwood Blues guy walking up and down the street. I thought maybe he was a Mormon trying to recruit people on the street or something.

In any case, we avoided him and went back into the theater and watched Bruce sing autographs and people watched. We finally got our seats in the theater and waited for quite a while. Outside of some drunk guy getting a tongue lashing from a theater manager, the wait was quite uneventful. But then, the curtains parted and there stood Bruce in front of the screen. Everybody went ape-poop and once we settled down the Q&A started. Of course one of the first questions to pop out someone's mouth was the ever popular "Is there going to be a Evil Dead 4?". This question had been asked trillions of times before at other Q&A's, message boards, websites, convention appearances and interviews. The answer was a firm "NO!" And with that the audience pounced on the quizzical, uninformed boy and throttled him soundly.

After a few questions Bruce brought in a special guest. From out of the crowd and up onto the stage flew the guy dressed as Ellwood sans the sunglasses and hat. It was Bruce's old buddy Ted Raimi!!! (Xena, Seaquest, brother of Spiderman / Evil Dead director, Sam Raimi). It wad a double dose of celebrity geek out!!!! Since Ted was also in "The Man with the Screaming Brain" he came upon stage and him and Bruce did some shtick and answered some more questions. Then they introduced the movie and disappeared into the night.

Since this blog is already getting way to frellin' long in the tooth, I'll tell you that the movie is quite hard to describe outright. Let's just say that it's a little goofiness within the Sci-Fi / Horror genres and will be on The Sci-Fi Network this coming September and out on video this October.

And that was an evening with Bruce Campbell!

Now if you got a few more seconds I'd like to introduce a new feature to Zangz's Blog of Geekdom. I'd like to call it "Website of the Moment" where when I find a website that I'm really impressed with I'll post up a link here and hope that some of you will check it out. So here we go....

WEBSITE OF THE MOMENT

SUPERMAN HOMEPAGE

I've never been a huge fan of Superman when it came to comics. I think he was a little too "goody goody" for my taste. I was always a sucker for the "dark and gritty" cliched books and hero's, myself. But , if you've ever followed Superman in any way shape of form (TV, movies, comics, collectible) THIS is THE place to check him out! It's got everything Super-related and is a great base of operations for fans of The Man of Steel.

Well, I'm finally through. I gotta go buy snacks and drinks for tomorrows Star Wars RPG I play in. I'll blog about it later. Have a darn fine weekend. And please stay away from any Boomsticks!

Zangz.