08/31-09/03/2001 in Atlanta, Georgia
report by Honeycombs aka Nema

Picture taken from Amy's Dragon Con Pictures

Our trip that day after a long week of rain and hard work was pleasantly sunny warm and quick as Atlanta is a short hour and a half drive from us. My wonderfully sweet cooler than cool kick-ass Mom came along with me so I won't have to go alone and we are ready for our adventure among the stars in the big-ass fancy hotel. 

After arriving in aforementioned swanky hotel and going through the very unpleasant task of standing in three different lines to get registered for this Con we are set free to roam the halls of the two hotels. It was a wonderful sight of people dancing, singing, drawing, drinking, and laughing in the halls and lobbies and of course every character you could imagine was represented in one form or another. But I came to see but one "little one" and I would not be disappointed. 

While waiting what seemed like an eternity for Jeff's first panel we spotted him in the lobby across from us with his pal Ted and the writer of The Attic Expeditions. I watched from afar of course as my shyness genes had kicked in and I was frozen with fear. He was talking and smiling for pictures with fans and being his usual friendly self. He was alone for a second and started to walk our way when my Mom who claims to carry the shyness gene herself decides to give me a heart attack and grabs his arm with a big smile and says "Hey remember her?" She was pointing to me as I surely had a look of shock and terror on my face. Time stood still and my face was so red it was burning, but all was right when he turned and smiled and said "HEY yeah!! how've you been and gave me a hug. HE REMEMBERED ME!!?? We talked for a while about little things and how the con was going so far and he really is such a sweetie. He really does treat you like an old friend when he sees you again and he makes you feel special to him. On his way to his panel he said he'd see me in a little while and he was off. There was no way to wipe, chisel, or even sandblast the smile off my face now. Could we say that I was happy? 
Jeff's first panel was on The Attic Expeditions with Ted Raimi, the ever cool Alice Cooper, the producer Jeffrey Katzen, and the writer Rogan Marshall. After a really cool preview and behind the scenes featurette they emerged amongst many applause. The usual questions were asked of the actors, alot of which I'm afraid I can't remember. Most of the questions were for Alice and Jeffie and it was really cool to find out that they had become good friends who really admire each other for their work and the people they are. Alice said that the reason he agreed to do A.E. was to work with Jeff and that he's seen all of Jeff's movies...even the ones that Jeff may not know he's made. Of course there were plenty of laughs with Ted and the boys mostly concerning the budget for the movie. When Ted made a joke about the low salary he received Jeff said "Wait a minute....you got paid? Alice was a sweetie too and seemed like a really nice guy,very intelligent with alot of great views on things. It was fun and everyone had a good time but one little moment sticks out in my mind. About half way through when someone else was fielding a question, Jeff spotted me from the stage and smiled and waved to me only as our Jeffie can. After the panel Jeff and the boys left the festivities for the night and after roaming around checking out more strange sites I decided to hop in the bed after a long hard day. And I slept all night with a huge smile on my face. 

The next day Mom and I roamed around again and checked out the sites and the cool Art Exhibit and tried to become more familiar with the 2 huge hotels. It was hard to find things because despite the hugeness of this con they didn't make it easy to figure out how to get around and find what you wanted. We knew Jeff would be at the dreaded "Walk of Fame but we didn't know where that was. Finally we realized it was simply down stairs where the dealers rooms were and I was off. When I first walked in to the mass confusion and wall to wall people I was like "oh great tons of people I'll probably never get a chance to see him and have a little chat". Just then he went whizzing by me with a hey and a wave and a smile. On his way to the potty it seemed. I checked out some of the dealers and cool stuff and had a ball checking out some of the other actors who had shown up. My Mom was thrilled to death to meet and get her picture taken with Virginia Hey who plays Z'han on Farscape which is Mom's favorite show. She was very nice and verrrry tall. I'm sorry to say that Alice left the night before and canceled his panels and autograph signings because of something unexpected that had come up. So sorry De I didn't get to give him a squeeze for you. Everyone seemed very nice and it's fun watching people get that look of excitement when they meet someone they admire or just plain get a kick out of. 
Speaking of getting your kicks. I waited around a while until I saw a break in Jeff's line and he was alone. I'm always so nervous anyway and if people are all around me I feel cornered. I hoped he'd have a second to say hi so I held my breath and stepped around the corner and waved and said hey. I couldn't believe it. The man actually jumped up out of his seat with a big smile and ran around the table to give me a big hug. I'm sorry let me just pause to say with all due respect for Jeff's wonderful wife and 2 beautiful little girls that he adores that This man is so sweet and damn sexy that I'd smack my granny down and eat him up with a big ol' spoon. And he feels sooo good when you hug him......(HONEY excuses herself to step into another room and throw a rather large bucket of ice on herself). 

Ahem, sorry I just got carried away. He's just such a sweetie pie. We talked for quite a good little bit. He asked me how I had been and if I was having fun and we talked about the craziness of this whole thing. Surprisingly, he said he didn't like big crowds either but he may have just said that to make me feel better. And yes I did tell him hey from everybody at the Jeffrey Combs Woohoo forum and give him a squeeze for everyone. "Woohoo forum?" he said, and after I explained who we were he gave me a grin and a "WOOHOOO". We talked about the hotels and agreed that we were both happy to be staying at the Marriot which was a little more bearable than the Hyatt. He took his agenda out to show me where all he would be and what times and asked if I was coming to the Attic Expeditions screening at the campus theater...DUH!! He tried his best to give me directions and I nodded my head as if I knew what he was talking about. We chatted a little more and seeing the growing number of people behind me I told him that I needed to get moving. I got an autographed pic for a friend and a Re-Animator CD for myself which he very sweetly wouldn't let me pay for. We had another squeeze and he said he'd see me later. And I literally felt like I was floating on air. He really is such a great person and so easy to talk to, he makes you feel at ease and this shy nervous girl greatly appreciates that. Our Lil'One ::sigh:: there's no other. 

After Mom and I floated around in a "happy daze" for a while and got a bit of lunch we headed to a Star Trek Enterprise panel that Jeff was taking part in. We arrived at what we thought would be an efficient 10 minutes early only to be turned away at the door by 2 rather large and somewhat full of themselves con security dudes who told us the room was full. Apparently way more people than they expected had an interest in this panel. We stepped back a little bummed and wished they would let us stand at the back of the room. We could still see through the open doors and we spotted Jeff walk from the front of the room back to the back where you could see him. He saw us and smiled and waved. He asked us if we could get in and when I shook my head no he came out and got us "You wanna come in? come on I'll getcha in." We couldn't help but have an evil little grin as he pointed to us and said "These 2 right here, they're with me." And we three vertically challenged ones walked past the two big surly ones. If only you guys could have seen their faces. It was soooooo Keeewwwwlll!!! We stood back with Jeffie and laughed a little as he half joked about how tired he was now and had a cute little bitching session with us about how many mistakes there were on the internet Bio they had printed up on him. He was a little beat but not down and when they announced his name he strolled down the aisle to what was clearly the biggest applause from the packed room. I'd like to think mine was the loudest and of course I gave a big loud WOOOOHOOOOO!!! 

Jeff had gotten us into a packed panel on the new Star Trek Enterprise show. At this point I will have to apologize because after all this time I've forgotten the name of the other actor who was at the panel and the name of the producer who was there. And of course many of the questions that were asked and answered about the show in general and Jeff's Andorian role, which at that time hadn't been aired yet, have since been reported from other cons. What I do remember were the very kind words Jeff had for Scott Bakula. He said that Scott was a very underrated actor and one of the nicest people in the business. Jeff said that Scott knows so much about the actual making of a television show and the technical things that he makes everything run smoothly and working with him is a joy. He said they got along great and became fast friends. Of course there was much talk of Jeff's "baby" Weyoun and believe me when I say that when the discussion jumped to the Original Series Jeff had everyone rolling with a dead on impression of Captain Kirk. I wish I had a video camera. 

At the end of the Enterprise panel Jeff announced that in thirty minutes he would be having his panel and joked that we were welcome to come back to what would surely be an empty room. Boy was he wrong. The room was even more packed than the Enterprise panel. We managed to get seats on the 3rd row which seemed great until We realized that the 2 women who had seats saved in front of us were clearly Amazons staight from the great river itself. They were huge! And another thing was that unlike the other con I saw Jeff at, where he had a big room and a whole stage to himself to get up and goof around on, here he was confined to a chair behind a table where he had to stay seated. So needless to say I had to do some major head bobbin and weavin' but of course it was worth it. Some of the highlights were the story of when Jeff had to take a bite out of a fake brain filled with Poly-grip for the movie From Beyond. He was hilarious as he did the impressions of trying to say his lines with his mouth stuck together. I was really excited when Jeff said that there was talk of doing a special edition DVD of From Beyond with commentary from the actors. That's one of my favorites and I love the DVD commentaries he's done before so that shoul be cool. Someone also asked Jeff what was scariest thing that had ever happened to him on a movie set, "Was there ever a time when you thought you might not make it?" His response... When he was thousands of miles away from his agent in Italy filming Castle Freak and director Stuart Gordon was determined to have Jeff become the first actor "to show my ...thing, right there for everyone to see" full frontal in a movie. "I gotta tell you, he said "I was truly scared,I thought I was going to have to do this and I was so afraid. But luckily in the end I won." (DAMN!!):: Honey smacks her hand for that dirty thought:: Bad Honey!! Anyhow, I can't remember everything that was talked about in his panel but as usual Jeff had us all laughing. At the end of his panel he took time out to talk to a little boy who looked like he was about 12yrs. old and had been waiting patiently for a while to get to talk to Jeff. He was all decked out in his Star Trek costume and was by the way as tall as Jeffie. Our Jeffie, not the tallest of the bunch but that just makes him more lovable. The boy had tons of questions for Jeff who stayed and happily answered them all and they even had a pretend shootout with his pretend phasers. I skipped out to the potty while Jeff posed for pics and when we came out he was having a conversation with a guy in a really cool suit made out of duct tape. There were lots of people around him so we decided to go, but when he spotted me he waved and smiled and said "see ya Nema"  

After that we roamed the halls again and bought a few things and checked out more of the great costumes people were dressed in. After we had gotten a much deserved bite to eat it was time for the not so pleasant experience of finding the cineplex at the college in down town Atlanta where the Attic Expeditions was playing. We went to 3 different places to try and find the shuttle and thought we were home free when we finally found it only to realize that the driver had no idea where he was going. Needless to say it was an adventure but we finally made it. We made friends with a very sweet young couple from Buffalo, New York. We had a great time in line talking about Jeff's performances in our favorite movies and of course how cute he is. I felt like I was in high school again, but it was fun. 

Inside there was a short intro from director Jeremy Kasten before the film and we were all psyched because we were actually the first American audience to see the film at all and one of the few who would actually see it on a screen, since it will probably not have a theatre release. 
I personally thought the film was a hoot. Nicole was right when she said it was a little confusing in parts. I understand that it's supposed to be through the eyes of a schitzophrenic therefore it's not supposed to make sense but it was a little too jumbled at the end. I really enjoyed the performances the most. It was very well acted with a great sense of humor and wit and Seth Green and Jeff had some great lines. It was also a very stunning film visually. I had a great time. When Jeff and the others got up on stage to field questions from the audience Jeff was stumped when someone asked him what it meant. He looked surprised and said "I don't know, the attic was his mind and the trunk was a deeper part of his mind and it pulled him down in to more confusion? I don't know, man. What do you think it meant?" Everyone got a kick out of that. I wanted to ask a question so bad. I was right on the first row ready and able but I froze up. I felt bad for being a scaredy cat but I felt better when Jeff saw me. He pointed to me and gave me a surprised smile and said "Hey I didn't even see you there" and smiled again. 

On Saturday night after we got out of the cineplex at the college, we had to wait an hour for someone to come and pick the group of us up who had taken the shuttle there. It seems they had forgotten us and it was like getting an act of congress to get them back down there to get us. The young couple that we had met and I were joking that I should just ring up the hotel and tell Jeff to come and get us, since we're buds....As IF!!?? We had a good laugh about it but it would've been a fun crazy thing to just try if I'd had a few drinks in me. That way the humiliation would'nt have bothered me. 

After we finally made it back to the hotel we checked out some more of the craziness going on that night and goofed around the big fancy hotel laughing and eating way too many late night munchies. It had been quite a fulfilling day and I slept with a smile on my face once again. 
The next day I checked out the very KEWWWL art exhibit again and wished that I had the money to buy one of the paintings or prints, but alas everything I was interested in was way out of my money league. I roamed around the dealers rooms again and had a nice conversation with a young artist(whose name I'm sorry to say escapes me) who was selling his artwork. It's amazing the talent that these people have. I loved to draw and paint when I was a kid and I could copy things very well and I had a lot of creativity, but I am just in awe of these real artists. Maybe next time I will get to purchase something. 

Jeff was scheduled to be at the autograph signings at 11:00 and at 12:00 there was still no sign of him. I didn't need another autograph but I wanted to say hey and see if he would spill a little about his night since I figured he had a busy night and had overslept. I came back down around 12:30 and there he was. Not a happy camper. Clothes rumpled, hair slightly askew shall we say and a look of "I can't believe it's time to wake up already" on his face. I came around to say hi and he gave me a sleepy smile. He asked me if I had fun at the screening and of course I told him I had a blast, except for our shuttle forgetting us. He told me that Jeremy and Rogan and some others had dragged him to a wild costume party somewhere in downtown Atlanta. He said it was crazy and certainly interesting but they stayed out too late and they ended up dropping him off at the hotel around 3am while they headed off to more adventure. He said he'd had enough and he fell asleep with his clothes on and woke up at 12:00 going "Oh No!!" He was beat. 

He said it had been really slow so far and that a lot of people had gone home. He said he felt like just packing it up for the day. I told him that if I had the money I'd buy more from him and help him out a little. He smiled a sleepy little smile and said "Oh no sweetie I wasn't talking about you . I don't want you to buy anymore that's not what I meant" and he patted my hand. He was also not happy with the young man who was handling his autograph money this day. He caught me off guard when he got up and decided to go do something about it and leave me in charge. "Nema, will you sit here for me with everything and watch this for me while I go take care of something?" I happily obliged. It was cool sitting in his chair and when people came up for an autograph and saw me I could'nt help but grin as I told them he would be back soon. He returned after about 4or 5 minutes and the young man was quickly replaced with the young boy who had been doing that job for him. He said that guy just had no idea what he was doing and how simple could that job be. I think he was actually going to ask me if I would help him out until Johnathan got there but he didn't get a chance. Johnny was on the spot in no time flat. He and Jeff got along great. He's really good with children. 

I hung out a little bit longer and chatted a bit in between a few autograph signings. A couple came up with a little girl who was 4 and one on the way. Since Jeff loves to talk to the little ones and taking care of small children is what I've done for 14yrs. we both struck up a conversation with the mother about the little one and the baby on the way. They were very nice and the little girl was very outgoing. After they left Jeff and I talked about how we were surprised that most of the children we had seen there were not afraid of the scary costumes that people were wearing. I said I would've been frightened out of my wits when I was small and he agreed that he thought it was a little much for smaller children and said he wouldn't bring his youngest daughter to one yet. I asked how old the baby was now and he told me she was nearly 2 and1/2 now. I told him that I had 2's and 3's in my pre-school class and we had a delightful little chat about potty training. People...I am the POTTY QUEEN!! Oy Vay!! if I had a dollar for every little one I've sent to the world of big boy/girl undies I would be living a comfortable life. It seems she likes to sit on her little potty and gets a kick out of seeing everyone else go potty but she hasn't got serious about it yet. He said since she was not quite 2and1/2 yet they were still just letting her get familiar with the potty. We talked a little more about kids and then when I saw his line start picking up some I told him I better go on. He asked me if I was staying til Monday and when I told him that we would be leaving in a few hours, he told me to come back down and say bye before I left. 

Mom and I had lunch and took care of the monetary end of our stay and after I snooped around a little more Mom said she was worn out and we decided to make our exit. 

I went back down to tell Jeff goodbye and luckily for me there was a break in his line. When he saw me coming he asked if we were leaving already and came around to give me a hug. He said "thanks for coming, sweetie" and asked me if I was going to get to come to Vegas. I told him I couldn't get the money or the time off from work for a trip that big but to please remember to visit us in the south cause that's the only way I can catch a con. He told me that he would and we had one more squeeze as he told me to be careful going back home. I told him to have fun in Vegas and take care of his little ones. "you take care too Nema, I'll see ya next time." and with a smile and a wave I floated out of there. 

Once again I have to say that meeting Jeffrey Combs is such a pleasure. He is a genuinely nice caring man who definitely cares about his fans. He's always made me feel so welcome and comfortable and like I've said before, I appreciate that so much since I'm one of those shy types. I hope this won't be the last time I get to see him. And now as I finish up this report I'd like to say, "Thanks for being such a sweetie Jeff, from the shy girl from Tennessee."