Horror and Science-Fiction Conventions : The Celebrity's Latest Cash Cow.

 Here I am with Paul Picerni .who played the detective in 1953's              
House Of Wax,not to be confused with the wretched 2005 remake.         
                                                               

 A friend of mine recently told me that he went to a comic book convention where actor Norman Reedus (of the hit TV show The Walking Dead) was charging over two hundred dollars for his autograph, a picture taken with him, plus a ten minutes conversation. Yikes! And that ain't all, folks. Patrick Stewart of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame, commands one hundred dollars for his autograph and ten more dollars for a picture with him. 

No thanks Norman, I'll happily watch interviews with you on You Tube for free. And Patrick, I can live without your autograph. I really can.

It's a trend I've been noticing since the late 1990's; movie stars charging outrageous amounts of money for an autograph or picture taken with them. You see, I remember a time when they charged either nothing or a small fee, like five or ten dollars. When Linda Blair charged ten dollars to sign my Japanese mini poster of The Exorcist plus posing for a photo with me, the money went to an animal rights agency, not her pocket. Dee Wallace( The Howling, E.T) said her autograph was five dollars,but was apologetic about it,which I thought was rather sweet and endearing.

These days, many of the other celebrities I've encountered sit at their table along side their manager stuffing the convention goers money in a lock box. Why not place a cash register on the table instead?  I was surprised when director John Landis( An American Werewolf In London, Amazon Women On The Moon,ect) was charging thirty five dollars for his autograph. I mean, with all the high profile movies he's made the man has to be quite wealthy.  Does Landis  need  the money that badly? He ought to sit outside the hotel with a tin cup and a sign reading: Need money. Give what you can.  Yes sir, it's greed on parade and it ain't very pretty.

And how about Sid Haig? Before his runaway success as Captain Spaulding in House Of 1000 Corpses and The Devils Rejects, he was a cult actor who starred in dozens of drive-in fodder movies in the 1970's and 1980's. Back in those days, Haig would have probably been thrilled to death to have someone come up to him and ask for his autograph. However,since his sudden success,he now commands $20.00. Maybe his fee has increased as of this posting. You know, when you factor in inflation and the economy.

To add insult to injury, Tony Moran(brother of  the late Erin Moran who played Joanie on Happy Days) was in the film Halloween for a few seconds. He was the face of the unmasked Michael Myers. Yet, despite this micro bit part, Moran signs photos of himself from the film and has the nerve to charge money for his autograph.  He was in the film for a couple of seconds, for Christ's sake! That's hardly a starring role. I wouldn't give him a stick of gum in exchange for his autograph, much less $20.00.

As you can imagine, the vendors at  these conventions are none to pleased with all of this, because after the fans have spent money to enter the event and then shelling out more money to obtain autographs from their favorite actors and actress's, there's not a whole lot to spend at the vendors tables. And they pay a pretty hefty fee to set up tables at these conventions. Now  here's the kicker: the conventions pay for the celebrity's air fare, hotel accommodations and, I've been told ,their food as well. So in addition to all of this, the celebrities charge exorbitant prices for their autographs? The fans, being the sheep that they are, gladly fork over the money without complaining.

     Yours truly and actress Kelly Stables in 2005  who was 
     known as the little dead girl in The Ring  before going
    on to co- star in Two And A Half Men and The Exes.
      You're not going to believe this, but someone saw this
              picture and thought Kelly was my girlfriend. I  reluctantly
           admitted she wasn't, though I was sorely tempted to lie. 
                     Believe me folks, when it comes to women I'm not that lucky.

         

It's gotten to the point where I'm wary of approaching a celebrity just to say hi because they might want to sell me an autograph. It used to be that you went up to a celebrity, they'd shake your hand. Nowadays when they extend their hand, it's to take your money. So I've stopped attending to horror/science-fiction conventions because it's no longer about the fans, it's about how much money celebrities can suck out of a fans wallet. For me, it's just not fun anymore.

*Update 2017.

Well folks, it was bound to happened. The cost for an autograph and a picture with your favorite celebrity has gone up. Nowadays, there are two sets of prices: $30.00 for a signed autograph and $30.00 for a picture with them or(and this is a real deal) $50.00 for both!  So when you go to these conventions be sure to bring plenty of money with you because you're sure gonna need it. Hell, maybe even take out a loan to cover expenses. Naturally, the the fans, or sheeple as I call them, will gladly hand over the cash without protest. To which I say: shame on them.

The late actor Ed Kemmer (TV's Space Patrol and the horror film The Spider)  never charged for his autograph. He said that signing an autograph for a fan was a privilege. It's not that way in this day and age, sad to say. As I said previously, conventions just aren't fun anymore. It's all about the money and not the fans.

Are Monster Kids Normal?

In the days before VHS and DVD's, we collected
Super8 versions of our favorite monster films .

As I mentioned before, my father took a dim view of my hobby. He couldn't as well as wouldn't attempt to understand why I was so incredibly fascinated with books and movies that dealt with the macabre or creatures from another world. For many years he would ask in a loud tone of voice, aching with disapproval," Why can't you be normal?" Which of course, makes me ponder the concept of normal.

You see, the word fan is derived from fanatic meaning : A person marked or motivated by an extreme,unreasoning enthusiasm,as for a cause. So when you see grown men at a football game, their faces and torso's painted to reflect the colors of their favorite team as they dance and holler
(after hoisting a few brews) like a bunch of yahoo's; they're  fanatics or fans for short. To my Dad, that was perfectly acceptable. In others words: his version of normal.

 When I was either eleven or twelve, Sister Florence Joseph,who knew of my lack of interest in sports, was my teacher in Parochial school  and was of the opinion that any normal red blooded American boy should be eager to engage in athletics. She convinced my parents  that enrolling me in Saturday Basket Ball practice would somehow, some way, imbue in me a love of  sports. Nice try people. Wasn't going to happen. So for the next bunch of Saturdays I attended basketball practice with  the same enthusiasm as if I'd stayed home and spent the day polishing the silverware. I spent more time talking with the coaches sons, who were watching the rest of us playing basketball, than I did spending quality time with an actual basketball.

Now here's the kicker: at the end of the school year, yours truly, and remember I showed little to no interest in basketball practice, was invited to a Sports Banquet! The other boys in my class who actually participated in the basketball ritual were God smacked. Several of them voiced their discontent to Sister Florence Joseph. One kid stated," All Joe ever did was sit around and talk. He never played basketball with us." But she was adamant; I was invited to the sports banquet and that was that. Perhaps the she felt that my attending a sports banquet would maybe, might, perhaps bring out a deep down, suppressed interest in sports that dwelled within  me after all. That poor, misguided woman.

My interest in the Banquet was so minimal that I told my parents about it the day I was to go. Boy, were they mad at me. But I got dressed up and was carted off to an event that included overcooked roast beef and an amateur, cut rate magician(probably the husband of one of the teachers) who valiantly struggled to perform his magic act before an obviously unimpressed audience. There was  a flurry of polite applause at the end of his so called act. After the dismal affair ended,  my  mom picked me up and took me back home. Basically, all I got out of that damned evening was a bland dinner and the antics of a piss poor magician. Ah, memories.

As long as we're talking about normal hobbies and interests, is someone who collects monster movie memorabilia and enjoys watching horror and science-fiction movies any less normal that the person who collects football cards, tacks up pictures of his favorites players on the wall of his bedroom and can rattle off a litany of football stats of his favorite team? Not in my book it isn't. A fan is a fan,no matter what his or her passion happens to be. As I like to say:whatever revs your engine.

And every hobby has it own special culture. Back in the day, when every Sunday Newspaper contained a TV supplement for the week, I would go to the movie listings and mark off all of the horror/science fiction films with a pen. I knew I couldn't possibly see them all, but I saw as many as I was able to. Years later, when I shared an apartment with my friend Larry, he noticed one Sunday that I was circling the horror/ science-fiction films that were on TV that week. He asked me why I wasn't circling any comedies or dramas. I said something like, " Because I know there's always a comedy or drama showing on TV." I don't know why, but I couldn't verbalize at the time that to me horror and science-fiction movies were something special. It's also a part of the culture,because I knew other horror and science-fiction fans who performed that very same ritual every Sunday.

So whether you  collect elephant figurines and have voraciously read any and all books on the subject,or have obtained every record of your favorite band and can tell anyone who will listen the entire history of of each of the members, or like myself, someone with an appreciation of the horror/science-fiction genre; then you're a fan. And everyone should be passionate about something; it makes life interesting.

In the 1960's and the 1970's there was a plethora of monster goodies that we Monster Kids has to choose from.

My Thoughts on Being A Monster Kid .

                         

                  Here I am as The Voodoo Child at a 1974 Halloween Party.     

Here I am, almost sixty years old and I'm referring to myself as a  Monster Kid. Now for those of you out there who have no idea what a Monster Kid is, well, an explanation is in order. A Monster Kid is someone who grew up in the late fifties to the late sixties, when Monster Movie Magazines, Monster toys, Monster model kits, wallets and notebook covers emblazoned with a Universal monster on them, Super 8 condensed versions of your favorite monster movies,and other such goodies were plentiful. Someone once referred to these years as the Golden Age of  Movie Monster Merchandise. We Monster Kids had it all.

You know, my poor Dad would be rolling over in his grave if he could hear me calling myself a Monster Kid. He never really understood horror and science-fiction films or for that matter, why anyone would want to watch them. All through my childhood and teenage years, he called them " goofy movies". Which of course, made me love those kinds of movies all the more. I truly believe if he had said nothing and had not constantly hooted down and jeered at my monster hobby, my interest  might have ran it's course and I would have moved on to something else. But his disapproval  made my attachment to the strange, fantastic films that inspired both awe and wonder in me even stronger.

My monster hobby even help pull me through some tough times in my personal life. My parents, and I have to blunt about this, were two people who should have never gotten married in the first place. The reason they stayed together was a rather stupid one: for my brother and I. It's not a good thing having a family unit when the husband and the wife are always fighting. Oh, they'd get along for brief periods, but they argued more times than not. Add drinking(on both their parts) and domestic violence(my Dad was an abusive man) and you had a situation where divorce was the only sensible solution. My Dad once said in an attempt to me feel guilty, " I stayed with your Mother for you and your brother." My reply was ," You didn't do us any favors."

My monster hobby actually helped me through some of the unpleasant periods in my young life . One time, my parents were spending the day arguing back and forth about some such shit. It seemingly went on for hours. At one point, I went out to get the mail and much to my surprise there was the first issue of Monster World in the mailbox that I'd ordered from an ad I found in the back pages of Famous Monsters Magazine. Immediately I went into the rec room and began devouring the contents of the magazine. Although my parents had stopped their petty bickering,the tension in our house was so palpable, if anyone had dropped by to visit on that day they would have felt it immediately.

But there I was, happily reading my monster magazine when my brother Mike came to me and asked," With all of this going on, how can you sit there reading ?"  I replied something along the lines of," I just want to read my magazine." In other words, this was my escape from my parents drama. At the age of fourteen I didn't possess the proper tools to cope with my Mom and Dads inability to pull their disintegrating marriage together. Since there was no one else in my family to turn to(my Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents weren't worth the powder to blow them to hell) and no support groups existed back then, I was left on my own; refuge into the world of  monsters, robots and the supernatural was my way of dealing with the situation. But, I'm damn sure there are other Monster Kids out there with similar stories, so I'm not trying to elicit sympathy from anyone. I'm simply telling you where I've been.

But, getting that off my chest , I have to admit that through the fifty some years of being a Monster Kid, I've had a lot of fun, whether going to monster movie conventions and meeting like minded individuals like myself or seeing the latest horror or science-fiction film at a movie theatre (when  theatres showed real 35mm film prints and not DVDs), or acquiring a piece of movie memorabilia for my collection. And while I've known people besides my Dad who don't get my enthusiastic appreciation of the horror/science fiction genre, well, that's their problem and not mine. I'm a Monster Kid and proud of it. End of story.