A Thursday That Will Put Most Future Thursdays to Shame
Wow, RiffTrax Live! I never thought anything MST3K-related would come that close to my hometown. As some of you know, I not only saw Rifftrax Live last Thursday– I saw it at the Belcourt in Nashville. I was in the audience the rest of you heard and saw on the screens of your own theaters, and I had the pleasure of meeting the Rifftones in person. 
Here are the highlights of the day:
I drove two hours from Owensboro to Nashville without air conditioning. Sighhhh, the things I do for my fandom. I got there a few hours early to pick up my tickets, and knew I was in the right place because this awesome dragon mural opposite the theater is also viewable on Google Maps in Street View!
Here is the lovely Belcourt Theater below. We were wondering if it would turn out to be like the Tardis, bigger on the inside. Maybe it was for the performers? Not for us.
The line stretched all the way around the block once people started waiting for the doors to open! Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka walked the line at one point, carrying a bag of energy drinks and asking us whether we wanted “liquid abortions.” I thought about chiming in with a sick joke of my own, but it might have embarrassed the friend I was with so I stayed quiet. The guy in line behind me took one of the energy drinks, tasted it, then said it was gross and dumped it after Kyanka went around the corner. So THAT’s why he was giving us stuff! 
My friend Aaron got cranberry smoothies from Smoothie King across the street, and we had a liquid dinner while waiting for the doors to open at 6:15PM. Please pay no attention to the bad hair day behind the “Aryan” architect.
Most of you saw the same show that I did, so there’s really no need to blog about it except to say that the RiffTones rocked the nation! Well, and everyone else was awesome too. I know there have been some negative comments about Jonathan Coulton’s music online in MSTie circles, but I think those negative people just don’t pay attention to song lyrics! Maybe his music is a bit soft for a riffing event? BUT THE LYRICS read exactly like B-movie riffs! (Aside from the parts of “It’s Going to Be the Future Soon” that always make me cry because they hit a little too close to home…) Haters need to stop hatin’ on JoCo. The Nashville audience had to pay attention during the musical interlude too, as we were not allowed to get up during the show. The camera guys needed to keep the aisles clear and trail their equipment cords everywhere. No bathroom breaks for the audience, and we had been advised to “go” before the show started. 
After the show, we hung around a bit to see if there would be a meet-and-greet. And we weren’t disappointed! There was a bit of a line to meet the RiffTones, but amazingly only one small group of friends talking to Jonathan Coulton! He was being mostly ignored! How rude! I switched lines and shuffled over to say hi to him first.
Duuuuuuurrrrr… I swear I’m not mental! 
It’s just, he put his arm around me and at the same time I was focusing on Aaron and wondering whether he knew how to use the camera I had just handed him, and then the flash went off RIGHT IN MY EYES and the whole thing was over before I really knew my picture was taken.
Here’s another one, but the camera had been handed to someone who didn’t know how to use it and set it on the wrong flash setting. I salvaged it best I could in RAW by upping the white balance and warming the tone to a sepia.
JoCo was actually the easiest one of the lot of them to meet. I think of him as a game industry person, and I’ve met the creators of Sim City, Pac Man, and Quake at the Game Developers Conference. Prepped conference rooms and guarded doors for them. Moreover, Jonathan Coulton was not on my radar before my college years. He had no influence on my childhood, unlike the rest of these kind people. I told him how excited I was that he was there, and that I had tried to guess what songs he would play, and that “The Future Soon” was a pleasant surprise and I wondered if he might also do “Skull Crusher Mountain.”
He may have been pleased to hear my Kentucky accent pronounce “mountain” as “moun’ in,” and he definitely seemed pleased when I said he could sign Gene Roddenberry’s birthday on the August page of the 1997 MST3K calendar, which I had brought for being the handiest thing to get autographed.
See, I wanted the RiffTones to sign the picture and everyone who wasn’t riffing to sign the calendar side on the back. JoCo put his geek glasses smilie on Gene Roddenberry’s birthday! And a FROWN FACE on Patrick Swayze’s birthday! And another smilie on the day President Nixon resigned in 1974. Yes, that’s what it says in blue. Patrick Swayze’s birthday. “What IS this?!?” JoCo exclaimed, chuckling as I giggled and handed him the page. This *was* part of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan club calendar, after all.
Ok, now it was time for the moment of truth. There was still a crowd around Mike but the line was dying down around Kevin and Bill so I went to them next. “Hi Bill!”
“Haven’t I seen…” he started, having recognized my face from Facebook but not confident he could produce the right name for the right person. I introduced myself as “Teresa Lee, OR Euphoriafish” and Kevin smiled at me. “Oh, so you’re Euphoriafish!” OMG, did he notice my comments on the blog? Was he just playing along? I had talked to Bill before on Facebook, but I hadn’t friended Kevin yet and didn’t think my blog comments really stood out or anything.
The guys were so very nice to me. I felt like I was Dorothy standing between the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man. You know, because Kevin is so hairy and Bill is so… shiny? Kidding, kidding! I mean they were just so friendly and we even joked around together a bit. I passed the calendar page back and forth and Bill asked whether I spell my name with an “H” or not as he signed it. I don’t. “Well, of course not. What’s an ‘H’ doing in there anyway? Silly English…” I said that I love it when I meet people from foreign countries and I sometimes get to hear the foreign pronunciations like “Tay-ray-saa,” to which Kevin chimed in, “Or in Wisconsin, they’d call you Treesa. Oh hi, Treesa!” And he did the accent. Kevin Murphy has quite possibly the friendliest voice in the history of voices. Though Bill comes close, when they’re not giving him rage lines in the riff scripts.
Still a crowd around Mike. Getting smaller though.
One guy had recognized Bridget and was telling her how wonderful she is while she signed something for him. I waited to get her attention and another fangirl came up behind me and asked whether we were in line. I said, “Well, we might be waiting to say hi to Bridget…” (judging whether she seemed to be in a hurry and whether she *wanted* to be recognized or not) The lady did not recognize Bridget. I explained she was Mike’s wife, Nuveena on MST3K, etc. The lady nodded. I don’t remember whether she said hi to Bridget or not but I think she somehow skipped around me and got to Mike first. That’s ok. I was too busy asking Bridget to sign my calendar page.
She did seem to be in a hurry, but she was friendly anyway. She grabbed a red pen, saying maybe she’d make some corrections.
She said I was one of her 10 fans that night. I put my foot in my mouth– “I was surprised to see you here!” Sigh. She gets that all the time. I know she does. I just somehow didn’t think she would find the Nashville trip worth it for just two or three days. I felt guilty for asking the over-asked questions, but I didn’t have anything better prepared.
“Oh, I’m Mike’s wife.” “I know!” “Oh, well, I go with him everywhere. We leave the kids all alone!” with a look of manic glee in her eyes as I laughed and she made a hasty retreat. Aww, you pretend to be a bad mother for all the fans, Bridget!
Then there was Mike.
What a nice guy, that Mike! Shorter than I expected but of course still much taller than me. I let him know that Tor’s soliloquy was my favorite line from the Plan 9 riff. I hope I didn’t give the poor guy a headache with all my excited babbling. Do you suppose celebrities mean it when they sign something with the message “(your name here) rocks!” or are they just being nice to you? Mike wrote that I rock and Bill wrote that it was nice to meet me. Kevin just wrote “Thanks!”
I also told Mike the story of the calendar page. In December 1997, my uncle Bruce stole my MST3K calendar. I didn’t even notice it was gone, because I generally forget to turn the pages after September. He framed all the pictures and gave the framed pictures to me as a Christmas present. “And that was… good?” prompted Mike.
It was! Bruce was my favorite uncle (no longer with me, died two years after the calendar Christmas, but I didn’t mention this). Some of the images are still hanging on my bedroom wall over a decade later. And it was a bonus present, not the only present. “Yeah, cuz that would be… yeah… different…” we stumbled, making “lame” faces at each other.
It was truly pleasant to meet all of them, on a Thursday I shall always remember fondly. I hope I wasn’t too giddy and fangirl-y. I find it easy to meet game industry professionals and well-known authors, but there’s a whole other level to meeting the Best Brains alumni. MST3K was such a huge part of my pre-teen and teen years. I can be composed and not freeze up the *whole* time, but I’m more than a little bit giddy to meet people I half felt like I knew through their comedy for so many years, but who I thought I hadn’t a prayer of ever meeting. You know, when I was 12 I thought my only chance to meet them ever would be if I could win the Comedy Central-advertised contest to win a trip to the Conventio-Con-Expo-Fest-A-Rama. Which I didn’t of course. So I gave up but was ever wistful, ever hopeful.
There’s another one off the ol’ bucket list! Well, half off. I still have to meet the Titans!
P.S. I also got my cupcakes at GiGi’s on the way to the theater. They were out of margarita ones by the time I got there, but the pink lemonade cupcake was not a lie!
Happy Birthday to me indeed!
E->}}}*>
Whaaaaaaa??? …the Hell?
