Lando
Tuesday, August 20th, 2013
I for one think it’s a pretty big deal to meet one of the top-billed performers from the original Star Wars trilogy, and it’s rather rare to see them on the autograph circuit. I got lucky in the past getting a photo with Carrie Fisher at an autograph show, and I had to put my neck on the line for my Harrison Ford encounter, but getting Billy Dee Williams – who played the lead character Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi – was really quite easy. It just took having four twenty dollar bills in my wallet and the will to give them up when he came to the Hollywood Show on February 11, 2012. Read the rest of this entry »
We saw the sun on the morning of Sunday, July 15, 2012, before almost anyone in America. Well, we would have if we hadn’t slept through it. Bob and I were in Lubec, Maine – which is credited as being the easternmost town in the contiguous United States. But aside from the sunrise, we had already seen everything there was to see here. But there was more to see just a little further east. Of course to go further east meant that we would have to leave American soil, and since we had our passports handy, that’s just what we did. But we started with a bit of breakfast continental style, mine being especially full of blueberry (a muffin and yogurt), and then a little bit after 8am, we checked out and headed into Canada. 
When one goes to a celebrity show, one can be generally confident that if the price is right one will get the chance to meet each of the adverstised celebrities that one has come to see. Unfortunatlely, when hoping to meet certain performers after shows in which they’ve performed, it’s much more of a crap shoot. Life indeed does move pretty fast, and so do celebrities who don’t want to be encountered by the likes of me – so you have to be on your toes. When I go to a live stage production or even a concert, there is always the hope that I will get to meet whichever perfomer in whom I have interest. Sometimes I get lucky. Sometimes I don’t. Win some. Lose some. 
It had been a great week in New York city and just as soon as I had grown accustomed to the Big Apple and its ultra-convenient subway system, it was time to leave Manhattan behind and begin the second portion of the two-week trip – which would be continued on the road. I slept in as long as I possibly could before packing up, but was still able to meet Bob and his merry band of travelers down in the lobby by 10am. A shuttle picked us up shortly thereafter and we headed out of the city toward Newark, New Jersey and the Liberty International Airport. It was Friday, May 31, 2013, and it was time for Phase B of our New York trip. 
Ilan Mitchell-Smith’s presence at the Chiller Theatre show in Parsippany, New Jersey on April 27, 2013, was enough of a clincher for me to actually purchase my plane ticket to attend it. Sure, there were others, but it would have just been too incredibly painful to miss knowing that he would finally be making an appearance. Actually, this was his second autograph show; I had read recently of a Weird Science reunion at the Blood at the Beach event in Virginia Beach – but only after it occurred – at which he showed up for the first time.