Nashville Comic Book and Horror Fest
October 1-2, 2011

David With Charles Pogue, screenwriter of the 1986 remake of The Fly.

US airways changed my flight, so I didn’t have to get up quite as early as they had originally made me book my frequent flyer mile flight, so that was a blessing. It was a nice day and my flight was on time and despite a three hour layover in Charlotte, NC, I was in Nashville by noon. The hotel was close to the airport so they came and got me and I was checked in by 1:00 PM.
David was due in at 5:30 from CA and the con promoter, Marc, graciously offered to come pick me up first and take me with him to the airport to get David. He felt David would spot me much faster.

This was what happened. David came out a Terminal A and made a beeline right for me.
Marc took his rolling bag and drove us back to the hotel. David said it was a long day, his flight out of Houston (plane change) got off late.

Once David was settled in his two room corner suite, he wanted to eat, having only had McDonald’s for lunch in Houston. There was no restaurant in our suites hotel, so they directed us across the street to the Doubletree. But first we had walk down our hill, to then walk up their hill to get there.

David was game, so we hiked over there. The two waitresses/barmaids loved David, gave him anything he wanted (shrimp cocktail and Cobb salad) and he left them a very good tip. We got home okay, going downhill in the dark. We did not go over there again.

I asked David if he wanted a wake-up call. He said no, he’d get up or set his watch for the breakfast buffet in the lobby. He wanted room service, but there was none. I offered to get what he wanted: juice, muffin and black coffee, and bring him a tray, but no, he didn’t want me waiting on him.

I dialed a wake-up call for me and went down to make my own breakfast. I figured David had already gone and come back by that time. About five minutes after I got my food, about 25 people showed up to eat. I was making oatmeal by the hot water, when David came in. He saw the line and his face fell, but being who he is, he walked over and got in line at the very end.

It was the line for eggs and I saw no reason for him to stand in it for juice. So I asked nicely if I break in and get to the juice machine, as I only wanted juice. Sure, they said, and let me. I then motioned David to join me by the hot water and handed him the juice. I poured David his cup of coffee, he grabbed his muffin and left. Teamwork.

They came for us promptly – we were the last pick-up of the ‘car pool’ and we went off to the Fairgrounds. The comic guy in the front seat knew who David was and kept asking him questions all the way through town and out the other side.

We had a nice corner – me and David along the back of the L and the rest of our group along the side, which was The Fly (1986) screenwriter, two authors and an actor from the “Ernest” movies. The Walking Dead group was across the room along the other L. We had good traffic flow, everyone had to walk past us and about 1000 people did. David was very popular. Wow, David Hedison. In Nashville. Everyone kept telling David what a pleasure it was to meet him. We had Voyage fans, and Fly fans and even some self identified Bond fans.

Our panel on 100 years of Vincent Price was full – all the seats were taken and we spent a good hour talking about Vincent, his movies, our books. It went very well. Our best customer was a fellow named Donald, he bought every Fly picture we had, plus he brought in several of his own items for David to sign. He was fun.

We had two Maggies come by the table; one of them said she was from New Jersey. Two people drove down from Louisville, one I knew, Nancy Appelhof and her husband John and her friend Marilyn, who I didn’t know. We took pictures. Hopefully they came out and will be posted here shortly. David was very obliging and posed for us. He looked good. Everyone was telling him that.

David stayed until about 5:30. We stopped on the way back to the hotel to get David his muffin and orange juice for Sunday morning, so he wouldn’t have the line issue again. He also wanted me to call him so he’d have plenty of time in the morning to pack. So I agreed to do so.

Our panel group came and picked us up and we went out to McNamara’s Pub for some really good food and talk. We came back to the hotel after that. David went to his room to make calls. I checked in with John, did some computer updating.
I called David when he wanted to get up and he was all set to go when they came to get us. I had to chase him down the hall, as I wasn’t quite ready and he was already in the car with his seat belt buckled.

David had an early flight home to Los Angeles so he stayed about an hour on Sunday. We made an announcement that he was leaving early, so everyone who was there who wanted to meet him could. I stayed to the end of the show. David left me some signed pictures for anyone who wanted to buy them. The show was really good to us and we had a great time in Nashville.

Diane Kachmar
10/4/11

Convention Report, long version