Con 04 "Hudson”

by KT
fsktl@uaf.edu

First day of the con. Things were going to start at 1:00 p. m. As I walked towards the convention center, I suddenly remembered how back in ’98, the con was called the Hercules-Xena Convention. Now they’re just called the Xena Convention.
 
In 1998, there were a lot of things for kids to do.  Someone had set up an inflatable castle in the parking lot that kids could go into and bounce up and down on the floor.  I THINK there were pony rides? and other little entertainments. There was a real feeling of a small town festival going on. Very colorful. Of course, the show was only in early season three then and was much lighter, much more of a kid’s show. (As was Hercules.) They didn’t have the kid stuff this year.
 
The stage was decorated with a plinth. And with those big vinyl pictures of the various characters. There were two huge ones, maybe 12 feet by 20?  and two long banner like ones, maybe 2-3 feet by 12. The banners had pictures of the characters of the actors from the show who would be at the con. Of course Xena wasn’t on the long banners since Lucy was working and wouldn’t be able to attend. The guests all sign these and then they’re auctioned off. Each one was different, each sporting half of the con cast. Gabrielle was at the top of one and Callisto was at the top of the other.
 
The con started with Adam, one of the owners of Creation, welcoming us. He thanked us for coming. Then he introduced Sharon Delaney. She came out and also welcomed us and talked about what would be going on over the next few days.
 
She mentioned that Renee had been rehearsing there in the hall that morning. And that she started her performance wearing a few layers of clothing. And she had to strip off or add on some layers for the different vignettes. And one time she pulled her blouse up and whipped up more than just the outer layer. So Sharon said that Renee would be practicing taking off one layer at a time, thus preserving her modesty in public during tomorrow night’s show.
 
Hudson was scheduled to be on first. I don’t think she’s ever started a con before. Usually they start off with actors who were not on the show as often as Hudson was. Scheduling perhaps, or maybe just trying to get people to show up on Friday. Hudson is always a big draw.
 
Adam came out and announced that Hudson was held up in traffic. So they put on a few of the fan made videos that they have been showcasing at the cons lately.
 
It wasn’t too long before Hudson showed up. First of course, they showed us the Callisto video. I can’t for the life of me remember the song they play in that one.
 
It ended and Hudson came out on stage. She was wearing a sparkly, spangly, flowing two piece beige outfit. A small bra, bare midriff with her belly button dimpling free, a skirt with a slit right up to her crotch and very high, mostly transparent strappy stiletto heels. For some reason, the skirt part put me in mind of a mermaid’s lower half.
 
She was chewing gum as usual. (I always wonder if she chews gum as part of her con character or if she just does it to keep her spit flowing free.)
 
She talked about being stuck in traffic. And said that we need to have guns in our cars. (They DO in Southern California, don’t they?) She said the sun roof would be handy for shooting from. Then my notes seem to indicate that she said, “People are driving Hummers out there. I didn’t think you could drive those on the highway.”
 
Creation always sets up mikes on the sides of the stage so people can ask the stars questions.
 
Someone went up to the mike and asked her if she had worn her outfit while driving over. She said, “Yeah!” like a punk. And then she said, the way you let somebody know they’ve just asked a silly question, “Noooo!” But that she could see it—there she’d be in that outfit, driving down the highway, hanging out the sunroof and screaming at the traffic. And somebody would scream back at her, “Hey you! You in the sparkly outfit! Nice boobs!”
 
Then she posed around sticking her boobs out for us to admire.
 
Hudson tends to tease us and make fun of us sometimes. Sometimes with more affection than others. Some of the questions obviously get to her. Like last year when one person kept asking about how she dealt with the violence Callisto lived with. And Hudson made a great show of pointing to her image on the banner and saying, “Callisto” and then pointing to herself and saying, “Hudson”.
 
She imitated us for a little bit, showing how our faces look when we come up and ask questions. Then she just made generic funny faces at us.
 
She looked around the audience and made it clear that she was trying to think of something else to talk about. She pointed one of those wriggly fingers of hers towards us and said, “YOU think of a topic! YOU see how easy it is.”
 
Someone asked her about her yoga classes. She talked about it very quietly and seriously. She told us she loves “growing”. And yoga has helped her with that. She said that she likes the idea of purification and that is what yoga does. It cleanses you.
 
Hudson always reads and responds to the crowd. The crowd is always smaller on Fridays than it is on the weekends. And thus we’re quieter since there are less of us. She wasn’t that much of a sex kitten this time. She didn’t really assume that wilder character she often does. Perhaps she was still dreaming of gunning down traffic bozos. She was still hysterically witty though. She is just so quick and funny. She’d be great in improv. I also love her physical humor. She imitates “attitudes” sooooooo well!
 
Someone requested that she do her yell. But she said she really didn’t want to. Some of the fans began to tell her to do it and some of them began to tell her she didn’t have to. I THINK she said she might do it later. (Or was that Adrienne again?) I’m pretty sure she never did the yell.
 
One fan asked her to reprise her version of what people of each Zodiac sign are like, that she had done at another con. She put on a little exasperated voice and said something like, “You expect me to remember that?!” A number of people clamored for it. She asked us if we realized that she didn’t memorize that and would have to improvise some of it on the spot. We egged her on.
 
She ran through the whole thing to great laughter and applause. Then she said, “Now do NOT come up here and say, ‘You said that Libras are…and I’m not that way at all!”
 
I think it was the next person at the mike who said exactly that…   And there was more than one who did that! But Hudson made faces at them and refused to discuss it.
 
And no, I don’t remember a thing about them, except that they were all REALLY negative. And hilarious.
 
She was asked where she got her costumes from. She said,
“This old thing?” making that coy, dismissive little pose girls use when they say that.  She said she gets the con outfits in L. A. shops that she would never shop in for herself. That she’d never wear stuff like this in her real life. “Truly, what the hell am I gonna do with this?” And she struck a seductive pose as she chirped out, “Hey Mom, hey Dad, I’m ready for Christmas dinner!”
 
Someone asked her about going on a fan cruise. And she said the best thing about going on a cruise would probably be getting off.  Of course some of us laughed at the double entendre which may or may not have been intended.
 
At one point Hudson yelled at someone in the audience, “You’re STARING at me!”  The she shared with us that people get scared by her sometimes.
 
Right behind me was a little bevy of guys. They were almost as slutty sounding as some of the lesbians I’ve heard commenting at cons. They kept roaring and applauding her raunchy comments and poses. Some things never change…grin.
 
One fan asked her if she knew she was in the credits every week for Tru Calling. Then she asked if Hudson’s agent knew? And said, “You’d better call your agent and get money for that”.
 
Hudson thanked her—said she’d get right on the phone and see to that right away. Then she laughed and made some kind of comment about finding it funny that we want to give her and her agent advice.
 
But you know, in some ways we’re almost like their moms in terms of how we follow and support their careers. We watch their performances on TV in any damn thing they pick to appear in, good or not, we write fan letters on their behalf to production companies to keep their shows on the air, we send e-mails DEMANDING that the Discovery Channel show Warrior Women in America, we find out when they’ll be on talk shows or on things like ET and TAPE them, we go to these cons and sit through their evening performances and applaud them madly. And this doesn’t change, whether they’re really good or not, whether they’ve chosen a good piece or whether their choices of material is amateurish and corny. We applaud them when their singing is excellent, yeah, but also when their singing is more loud than on key or their dancing more enthusiastic than graceful. And we also try to give them advice on their careers. We just got that mom pride thing going that makes us smile with besotted happiness at them no matter what they do. It’s odd and silly, but I think it’s done out of a sense of gratitude for what the show gave us. Hopefully the little dears find it endearing and not too frighteningly weird. Grin.
 
Finally Hudson offered her dress to be auctioned off for the James Ellis Foundation. The first bid was $1,000, which came from a guy sitting a few rows behind me. He won it with no further bidding.
 
Hudson smiled hugely at him and then called him up on stage. She said that he had just been in her yoga and she wanted him to talk about how the class had been for him.
 
He began to say things along the lines of, “This woman saved my life. She’s extraordinary.” He said many beautiful and caring things about her. She kept saying, “Don’t talk about me, talk about the YOGA.”
 
He told us how he used to be so shut in, so tight, so closed off from his emotions. But after taking Hudson’s class, his whole life had changed. And he said that if any of us were really stressed out, really unhappy, we should take up yoga. He kept saying loving things about Hudson and her class.
 
I talked to him after he came back down from the stage. And I said that I was happy for him that he’d felt able to go up there and talk about his experiences. And he said that he could never have imagined doing that before he took the class. But that he was now a totally different person, living a better life, due to Hudson’s teachings.
 
This is very interesting to me. Hudson is so involved in so many good things. Like the charities she supports. Like wanting to point people towards a more fulfilling spiritual life. She strikes me as being very concerned with taking an enlightened journey though her own life. She makes deliberate choices towards creating a better environment for herself and for those around her. She doesn’t just go tripping lightly down her life’s path, but thinks about where she wants her path to go. And makes choices that create the path she’s traveling on, rather than passively following along a straight, unexamined track like so many people do. (While still keeping the option open of blowing away traffic bozos in Hummers.)
 
She’s such an intriguing person. And man, does she have a great sense of irony and humor about life. As always, she was one of the highlights of the con. Great start!
 
KT
 

Return to Main 2004 Xena Convention Page