DragonCon: It's All About Joe

To be fair, there were a lot of great things at DragonCon that had nothing to do with Joe Manganiello.  But as much as I loved those awesome panels with the Buffy cast and Q&A with Sherrilyn Kenyon, I'm pretty sure that neither of them will be feeding my fantasies for six seconds, much less the next six months.  Joe, however, will provide solid fantasy fodder for the foreseeable future.  So let's dish.

The True Blood panel was the very first event I attended when I arrived at the convention on Friday.  It featured Joe, Kristen (Pam), Jim (Hoyt), and Charlaine Harris.  I can't say they shared anything particularly groundbreaking. Charlaine did her standard speech about how the show would be boring if it followed the books too closely (Bullshit!) Everyone went on and on about how awesome Alan Ball is (Barf.)  Jim talked about how he'd like to play a darker side of Hoyt, since he has been so thoroughly betrayed by his mother, then Jessica, and now Jason.  And my favorite Joe moment was during the audience Q&A, when a woman told him she was a lesbian, but that she'd like to do him anyway. (Wouldn't we all?)

The second True Blood panel was Saturday and we scored seats on the fourth row. It was outstanding (except for the fact there was no room for my ass on the seat... but that is a story for another post.)  The fabulous Dennis O'Hare, who played Russell, joined the other cast members for this session and he was wonderful.  He talked about that big scene where Russell came out on television, telling humans he didn't need their approval and how it served as parallel in his life as a gay man.  It was really quite powerful.  It made Kristen cry. Though to be fair, she seems to be a crier... she also cried Friday talking about her animal charity.  And Jim cried too, over how moved he was by the power of the emotion he felt for the Bill and Sookie love story.  Joe talked about crazy fan moments... how some husbands have asked him to let their wives sit on his lap.  He (and the others) talked about how they trained to adjust their accents on the show. (Joe's is the best, IMO.) And he was so aw-shucks charming. He complimented Charlaine, pulled out her chair, and he referenced details of the books, which scored him big brownie points with me.

And of course, there is this.  The best $30 I have ever spent.  Honestly, I would have paid more.  The photo session was the number one thing I was most excited about in the entire trip.  There were so many people with tickets, the whole thing moved like an assembly line. But standing next to the man was such a surreal experience.  He is so damn tall!! For reference, I'm 5'4.  He says he is 6'5.  I swear to you, I wanted to climb him like a tree.  But it was over so fast.  I grinned like an idiot, saying, "Thank you so much."  He said, "No, thank you."  An just like that, it was already some bitch's turn to have him next. 

But she can't take away the memories. 

P.S. Don't forget to check out my Top 10 Lessons Learned at DragonCon if you missed it yesterday!