Day 1 Recap
Keith: Heeey, *laugh* Rewatchers!
Kyle: All right!
Keith: Yup! We are here, reporting live! This episode's going out right after we record it!
Eamon: That's right!
Keith: I'm one of your Rewatchers! I'm Keith!
Kyle: This is Kyle!
Eamon: This is Eamon...
Keith: Aaaand welcome to our Day 1 Recap episode of the Highlander 30th Anniversary Gathering in Lakeland, Floridaaaa!
Kyle: The land o' lakes! Butter!
Eamon: Butta.
Keith: Yeah! It's a confusing place—
Kyle: It's a buttery place.
Keith: I mean, it's... LakeLAND? And...
Kyle: There are in fact lots of lakes.
Keith: But there's... it's... land! I don't understand. *wheezelaugh*
Eamon: What, that it's not water?
Keith: Well there's a—
Kyle: That the whole thing is not a giant lake.
Keith: It's Lake... LAND.
Kyle: You're saying Lakeland's an oxymoron?
Keith: Yes.
Eamon: Hmm.
Kyle: Great. Cool. That's kind of funny actually. *chuckles*
Keith: Yeah!
Kyle: There's a—So there are all these beautiful bucolic lakes littering the landscape, that have Christmas trees suspended in the middle of them, which is a little strange; but why not? It's cool!
Keith: And there's a lot of... swan, like, swans, and like—
Eamon: Other waterfowl.
Keith: —dinosaur-looking birds.
Kyle: Yeah. And like, homeless people.
Keith: Yeah.
Kyle: That, too. *soft chuckles*
Eamon: You saw a homeless person?
Kyle: Mm several.
Keith: Many.
Kyle: Many.
Eamon: Where?
Keith: With drug problems.
Kyle: Yeah heh.
Eamon: Really?
Kyle: Yeah.
Keith: Oh yeah.
Kyle: Just, walking around.
Eamon: Oh. I didn't see any. ... Weird.
1:49 Keith: Anyway... so, we got here, uh, yesterday afternoon. We enjoyed a wonderful fish sandwich at Mister Fish!
Eamon: Yeah.
Kyle: *accent* Meester Fish!
Keith: Meester Fish!
Kyle: Hey. Every nibble, a good bite!
Keith: Oh, it was great!
Eamon: Yeah, it was really good.
Keith: Anyway, you guys don't want to hear about Mister Fish.
Kyle: They do. That's actually why they're here!
Eamon: Yeah.
Keith: Root Beer. Tartar Sauce. Coleslaw...
Eamon: Fried clams...
Keith: Oh, man. Let's keep talking about this, guys!
Kyle: Ha ha, highlights!
Keith: Anyway, but, the convention started yesterday, Saturday morning with the Sword Experience, a lot of people, taking that! And, Kyle, you spoke to a lot of people that took the class. What was the vibe?
Kyle: Well everyone said it was really awesome! We actually... I was surprised by the number of repeat attendees... who had attended Sword Experiences elsewhere, or who had lured their friends to come with them just to the Sword Experience... So that was kind of interesting. Everyone kind of uniform said it was righteous.
Eamon: Yeah and it looked like a workout. People were sweaty ‘n...
Keith: Totally! And I believe they were doing the choreography from... from The Gathering, which is kind of cool.
Eamon: Mm. It was a piece of... Bob Anderson choreography, I think Adrian Paul mentioned, they used.
Keith: Yeah. From the first episode, from the fight in the uh, like the weird warehouse?
Eamon: Ahhhh. Yeah.
Keith: The weird Duncan warehouse?
Kyle: Oh yeah!
Keith: Which is almost fitting around here. Like, around this hotel are, just like weird piles of dirt everywhere! *snickers*
Kyle: Yeah, it's very strange, like, you walk 10 feet from this hotel and you're like at Axis Chemicals! *laughter* Then... Oh yeah, there's like a bunch of strange industrial parks nearby...
Eamon: Mmhm.
Kyle: It's kind of an odd town.
3:24 Keith: Yeah. Ah, so... After that, I guess, Eamon, you attended one of the panels from a non-Highlander star, but a star nonetheless!
Eamon: That's right. The actress Dee Wallace was here! Um, she's pretty, pretty funny, pretty blunt. Um, she was basically demanding the audience ask her questions, which I thought was pretty funny. She was like, "I'm not gonna sing and dance for you up here folks!" But she told some stories about Cujo, like how she, like, smashed her arm through, like, a piece of glass, and then had to like run to a house and her arm was completely cut up and bleeding, and like, they made her retake the shot before going to the Emergency Room. She also told a story about, like a stunt double who like, when she put her hand out, like, a dog was supposed to like attack, and then they like wrapped the t... like, wrapped the take and the director's like, "We got it!" and he went "Yes!" and the trainer went like "Yes!" and the dog jumped up and bit her nose off!
4:24 Keith: Holy sss—
Eamon: She also told that story...
4:27 Kyle: Holy shit! That was also Cujo?
Eamon: Yeah. So, eugh.
Kyle: Wow!
Keith: So that dog was a... real bad dog.
Eamon: Yeah, apparently. But um...
Keith: He was a method acting dog!
Eamon: A method acting dog. *laughter* She told some good stories about Steven Spielberg and Rob Zombie, um, it was...
Keith: Two names that don't get often mentioned in the same sentence!
Eamon: Yeah they're not much together that much.
Kyle: Because she was in ET and, what was the Rob Zombie movie?
Eamon: I have no idea! She didn't say what it was called, but—
Kyle: Well she's got like 160, like mostly slasher films under her belt so... you know, that's all...
Eamon: Yeah, yeah. She was in a lot of stuff, but it was fun! You know, it was a good little, good little panel.
Keith: Awesome!
Kyle: For Dee Wallace?
Eamon: For Dee Wallace.
Kyle: What does Dee Wallace look like?
Keith: Oh boy!
Eamon: That lady!
Kyle: We're not completing that joke.
5:12 *****Eamon: Yeah, again. *laughter*
Keith: Um, so after that, uh, Adrian Paul and Elizabeth Gracen put together a little surprise, for the convention goers here. Kyle, you were the only one who went to that so, you want to tell us what that was all about?
Kyle: Yes! This was kind of fascinating, actually, and they... It was funny, they gave some weird disclaimers at the beginning they're like, "We just put this together, this hasn't been workshop like, blah blah blah."
Keith: So let's critique it here on our podcast!
Kyle: *laughing* Yeah exactly! Um, so they put it together very quickly, and apparently... you know, it stemmed from the fact that Elizabeth Gracen has the rights to do, like, YA novels based on Highlander: The Raven. So in any case, it was basically set up—they had two desks set up on either end of the stage, with Adrian Paul and Elizabeth Gracen being at one each, and it begins with Adrian Paul, like, you know 10 to 15 years after the close of the Highlander series, looking up Amanda and writing her a letter. And then it starts this like, email—or this letter correspondence between the two of them, and it starts off just kind of like, surface level and kind of lovey-dovey stuff, and they kind of catch up on where their relationships have gone, and things like that, and then slowly, uh, a more kind of sinister plot starts creeping into their correspondence... uh... It kind of... it was... it was very cool. Like a lot of the, just like emotional character building stuff was really interesting. Once the plot kind of got going it was a little hard to follow... And very strange! *laughs* So, sh—
Keith: It's going to be interesting to see what comes of that.
Kyle: Yeah. Should I explain the plot of this thing?
Keith: Yeah, why don't you touch on it just briefly.
Kyle: So, briefly the way it goes, is like... I guess somebody takes over... a new person takes over the Watchers with a kind of a Horton-esque agenda, and he is... looking for the Methuselah stone, which is not something we've fully explored in... where we are in Highlander, but we've introduced the concept of, like the shards of that stone, so... that Luther was trying to collect for... magic reasons?
Keith: Right.
Kyle: So, this Watcher is looking for it, and he's teamed up with an evil Immor – evil ancient Immortal who was like a Tzarist—
Eamon: Oh!
Kyle: —back in, back in Russia who may or may not have been involved in killing Rasputin. Um, they team up with this guy Balthazar, and they're... killing... They're like hunting down Immortals and like, Methos is in hiding, and no one can find Joe... So it was like... It was kind of interesting, the plot, the plot ratcheted up very quickly, so it was like a little tough. But then, uh, they did a... they did a little dance at the end!
Eamon: Oh!
Kyle: They finally meet up in person, and they did a little dance, it was very sweet!
Eamon: Did they do the dance, or was the dance just, in, recounted in the letters?
Keith: Just described...
Kyle: They just described—no, it—
Keith: "Remember last night when I held your hand and put my other hand around your hip and we went back-and-forth together?"
Kyle: Yeah, there was a—it was rhythmic.
Eamon: Uh-oh.
Kyle: Uh...
Kyle: Yeah, hold on, are we describing a dance?
Eamon: Yes.
Keith: Oh okay.
Kyle: One thing that was very funny is, anytime they were... they were talking about taking—descending into the bone zone—*someone wheeze-laughs*uh, Adrian Paul had like a duck call... that he would blow!
Eamon: Wow!
Keith: What? *chuckles*
Kyle: This is not a joke! Well I mean it was a joke...
Keith: That was the alarm to say, like, the good stuff is coming? Or...
Kyle: That was like the, instead of saying like, the good stuff, like...
Keith: Is it like the yada yada yada, and then we QUACK!
Kyle: Yeah, yeah, basically! They'd be like, "I c—I could really—" It's like, "I've, I've... maybe I DO just miss a roll in the hay. Next time you come and we should—" and that they would like blow the Duck horn.
Eamon: Ah, haha! I get it! That's pretty funny!
Kyle: That's... Two things about that...
Kyle: Yeah, I have thoughts!
Keith: One, one we... we need to be doing duck calls now, on the podcast—*laughter* all the time, because we talk about that a lot! But also, like—
Kyle: Yeah, but we also use the words.
Keith: Yes!
Kyle: We use the big kid words.
Keith: But that's the thing is, in that letter, like, Dun—like, Duncan's sex... sexting game is, like... ratcheted up.
Kyle: Well it's just—
Keith: He's just like "Yo, you want to come over and..." and he did write that word...!
Kyle: He actually just sends the eggplant emoji! *Eamon laughs* Uh, no it was mostly Amanda writing the words, and then Duncan would interrupt her from across the... the stage by blowing the Duck call.
Keith: Oh, that's cute!
Kyle: Yeah.
Keith: That's funny!
Kyle: It was pretty funny, actually. But it was...
Eamon: Do you want to describe how the stage was set up, a little bit? Because it was kind of unique.
Kyle: Yeah, so... there was just like a sofa in the middle, and then there were these two tiny desks to either side, one of which had a picture of our... event promoter Michael Lashman on it—*wheezelaugh*
Keith: With his wife...
Kyle: Yeah, with his wife, so Adrian Paul was just staring at that the entire time... Which, OK, anyway...
9:55Keith: It was like a... Kind of like a living room sort of set up.
Eamon: Yeah, yeah.
Ky: Yes!
Keith: With a couch, 'n it's cozy.
Ky: Cuz, and for the majority of it, they're kind of just either sitting at a desk, or just kind of milling around it, and then at some points they would... when someone would like, disappear for a while, they'd kind of go offstage, or, you know. Amanda was stationed in Venice at the time; Mac apparently moved to London, and has a dog. It was—
Ke: He has a dog?
Ky: It was established that Mac gets a dog.
Ea: Oooh!
Ke: Did they say what the dog's name was?
Ky: They did not. Though one of the first questions, when it was done, was what kind of a dog does Duncan MacLeod have. *laughter* He... Adrian Paul theorized it would be a large, shaggy dog.
Ke: Not a Ssscottish Terrier?
Ky: Ooooh. I should've fielded that! *Eamon laughs* You know, just to workshop this "dog" idea.
Ke: Yeah!
Ky: Yeah really ratchet that up!
Ke: That's the only problem you had with the—the story, was that the dog was unknown. That's all they need to fix.
Ky: That's it! Otherwise, just cut-print! *Keith laughs* It was cool! It was like a half-hour or so long, uh, like I said, *****all of the emotional content I thought was actually very strong. Um, but they teased they might be working together on... kind of building this into something else. Like a... like a series of, of books based on... the kind of after-years. Also a weird theory was posited about what happens if you clone an Immortal; that was strange.
Ke: Hm! We'll have to get into that later.
Ky: That's a topic for another time!
Ke: So we should also talk very briefly that WE did a panel!
Ea: That's right!
Ke: We conducted a panel called "Crossing Swords!" live with F. Braun McAsh and Anthony De Longis! So, for everyone out there, stay tuned to our Facebook page. Uh, we're actually gonna have a video of it, which is gonna be really cool, uh... *Eamon: Yeah, yeah!* Jeremy, the director of the Highlander fanfilm, The Watcher, uh, did a great job filming it, and so we're gonna be putting that together in the next week or so, uh, and we're gonna be releasing that episode to you! But we had a—we sat down with them for about an hour, and had a great conversation about their involvement on the show, how they got started into swordplay, and, um, their philosophies on stage-fighting, screen-fighting, all that sort of stuff. It was really exciting!
Ky: Yeah! It was very exciting! Uh, we also got some unique little anecdotes that... Hearing the two of them talk together about how sword fighting works is pretty incredible, cuz, you know we at least were able to speak with Anthony De Longis once, in the past, but we're... y'know, we can't quite speak the same language when it comes to the ins and outs of swordplay and Martial Arts, and things like that, so hearing the two of them bounce off each other was... was very interesting.
Ea: And you got a little first-hand display of Mr. De Longis' whip-work.
Ky: Good Gravy!
Ke: This might have been—I think this is the highlight for m—it didn't even happen to ME, but this is my highlight I think, of the... the convention so far!
Ky: Yeah! So he just had me stand, and just started cracking the whip in my direction. Which is incredibly intimidating but he's got like a big smile on his face when he did it, so, like that was at least like, calming... but yeah. Then he like, had me stick a pen out and like, would wrap the whip around the pen. A—
Ke: Did he wrap it around your neck as well? Or was it through your arm?
Ky: No, no my arm. But like, he did it once—
12:54 ***** Ke: —my head, I was like, "Get his neck!" *laughter*
Ky: I deserve it! One of the things that was kind of funny, that was like, he did it once really loosely around my arm, and I was like, "Oh, okay, hahahah." And he was like no, but that can go differently. And then he does it again, and it was... VERY tight on my arm. Like he... was pulling me.
Ea: Wow.
Ky: Like, very... steps forward, it's like I cannot disentangle my arm.
Ke: Awesome! And actually yeah, I guess, um, if you haven't already, we did post a little video of that, uh, online, and we might have another video of that coming soon. But yeah, check on our Facebook page, cuz there's a video of Kyle getting whipped at!
Ky: Yeah! So like, yeah! I try to keep it cool, but it IS in fact incredibly intimidating. *chuckling*
Ke: It was awesome.
Ky: It's kind of rad!
Ke: Uh, so then Kyle and Eamon attended the Highlander panel, uh, hosted by John Mosby, uh, guest and friend of the show, who is the author of "Fearful Symmetry: The Essential Highlander Guide". And it was, uh, intended by F. Braun McAsh, Anthony De Longis, Elizabeth Gracen and Adrian Paul! So you guys wanna tell us a little bit about what uh, was talked about there?
Ea: Yeah! There was some fun, like inside stories. Um, Adrian Paul told a pretty... pretty intense story about the actor who played Ursa.
Ky: Yeah, and he also has a very funny French impression.
Ea: Yeah.
Ky: I guess this guy—that guy was technically Belgian, but still...
Ea: Yeah. He actually did the French impression a lot during the panel. *chuckles* Like, a LOT.
Ky: It was a solid like, 5% of the words he said!
Ea: Yup. *laughter* Um, but apparently the actor who played Ursa got like, really drunk, on set. I think somebody told us this before on the podcast, but we got a little bit more detail. And he kept on bragging about how much he weighed, *coughlaugh* and like, almost chopped Adrian's head in half, and was asking why he didn't do his own stunts, *coughlaugh with Keith* and just all this crazy stuff!
Ky: Yeah, cuz he wouldn't like, take like a jump that was like a 15 foot drop that the stuntman was supposed to do. *Eamon: Yeah.** And they were like waiting for the stuntman to get on set, and the guy was like, "Why don't YOU do eet?" you know, like... *laughter* It's like, "Alright." Yeah, so that was kind of funny. Also, apparently he BIT him at one point?
Ke: WHAT?!
Ea: Yeah. He bit him. Yeah.
Ky: Yeah, there was like, it was like, in the script though, right?
Ke: Oh. Okay.
Ky: That he was supposed to bite him, but he like, really bit him! And it like, really hurt!
Ke: That's crazy!
Ky: This is an insane person!
Ea: Apparently, when F. Braun McAsh came on the show, he's the one that said "No more wine at lunch." *laughter*
Ke: That's a good idea.
Ky: He—he—he cut the wine ration and everyone was pretty mad about it.
Ea: *laughs* And there was a funny story about um... they all got bottles of cognac from... from Hennessy... um, cuz I guess on one episode he swings from a Hennessy sign? *silence* Uh, and um, it was pretty funny. Uh, I forget—oh, Jim Byrnes, Liz Gracen and Adrian Paul polished off 3/4 of a bottle of cognac in Adrian Paul's pal—Paris hotel room. *Kyle laughs* That was pretty funny.
Ke: That's about right. That sounds good.
Ky: Noice!
15:52 Ke: Awesome! Uh, and one of the other really exciting things, uh, that we've been doing at this convention, is we've debuted our magnet set! It's our Highlander Hero Collectible Magnet Set! Uh, and it features five beautiful illustrations by Eamon himself, famed Philadelphia illustrator! Um, and we teemed up with Davis Panzer Productions, and we've been working on these for quite a while! And it's really exciting cuz these are kind of one of the...there's, you know... this is a new piece of Highlander merchandise out there, so it's something everyone out there can kind of add to their fandom and collect. Uh, we're hoping to do even more of these in the future, which is gonna be really exciting! Uh, so it features... Duncan MacLeod, ah... Amanda, Methos, Joe, and then a really cool kind of alternate Duncan, of him in the 1600s in his kind of Tartan garb!
16:38 Ky: His—his uh, barbarian Highlander outfit that we, we love so much?
Keith: Yeah! So, these are really rad! We're gonna have all the shipping and purchasing details on our Facebook page, as soon as we get back. Uh, but yeah! They're like, high-quality.We didn't want to skimp on this stuff so, I know sometimes you can go online, and there's kind of weird, knock off Highlander products. That's not what this is, baby! This is the good stuff!
Eamon: That's right!
Kyle: Abso-lutely! Oh, one more fun thing that was-was brought up during the, uh, during the panel. Apparently they were always fighting for locations with X-Files!
Eamon: Oh, right!
Keith: Yeah!
Kyle: Which was filming in Canada at the same time, so apparently that happened a few times, where they'd have to, like, accelerate shooting cuz the X-Files crew needed to come in.
Keith: You know, I've been meaning to mention this, like, I think all season and I keep forgetting to, is I've been re-watching The X-Files as well recently. Uh, and it's also shot in Vancouver of course, so like… two things: like, Highlander actors are all over the place. Like, it—
Eamon: Yeah.
Keith: It's like the same cast, half the time. All the guest stars are, it's like "Oh, that's that villain from that episode! That's that doctor from this episode!" Um, which is kind of fun, and just kind of cool to recognize those people. Um, but also like the locations, as you said like, they'll be walking down alleys and streets, and it's like "Oh! I know where that is!" *Eamon laughs* "That's where Duncan fought whatever and… fought whatever," like a monster.
Kyle: Yeah. *laughter* "That's where he fought those evil cockroaches in that episode of X-Files, right?"
Eamon: That's where he fought that sewer monster.
Keith: Honestly an X-Files/Highlander crossover would've been pretty fantastic, I think.
Eamon: It almost could make sense.
Keith: I think it would make sense…
Eamon: Like, Mulder has pictures of an ancient Immortal and, he's like, *mockMuldervoice* "Scully, do you realize this is the same person?" *laughter*
18:21 *****Kyle: *laughing* Is that your Dana Scully Impression?
Eamon: Yup!
Kyle: *shrilly* "Playing out the course of the centuries…"
Eamon: *nasally* "Mulder, this is impossible. I'm a doctor." *laughter*
18:33 Keith: Uh, very good. And then we capped off the evening! There was a screening of the original 1986 Highlander film!
Eamon: Highlander. And we got to watch all the trailers on that DVD for some reason!
Keith: We got to… All… ha ha ha.
Kyle: All the trailers! For—
Eamon: The Spirit.
Kyle: The Spirit, one of the worst movies I have ever seen! *Eamon: Yup!* Coming to theaters soon in 2008!
Keith: 2008!
Eamon: Yeah. What else was on there? Um, *all together* Highlander 2…
Keith: And *with Eamon*Highlander: The Source…
Eamon: There was something else, though wasn't there? I thought there was one more.
Keith: There might have been.
Kyle: There was like a horror movie; I don't remember what it was.
Keith: Oh yeah. Some nondescript…
Eamon: I wish I could remember…
Kyle: We, we all wish that.
Eamon: Yeah.
Keith: But that took up some time, that was good.
Kyle: Yeah. But they also gave us chicken tendies, *laughter* and Swedish meatballs; Keith, did you put barbecue sauce or honey mustard on your chicken tendies?
Keith: Both!
Kyle: Oh shit!
Keith: But, but… more—
Kyle: What kind of modern d—
Keith: —I erred on the side of honey mustard, more honey mustard!
Kyle: Oh, okay. Oh. You had me worried there I was like what kind of modern day Caligula puts both barbecue sauce and honey mustard on chicken trendies?! *Keith laughs*
Eamon: That's how I describe Keith.
Kyle: *laughing* A modern-day Caligula?
Eamon: Yeah. I had mine naked.
Keith: Oooh!
Eamon: Mmmm.
Kyle: It's like Caligula in a different way!
Eamon: That's right!
Keith: Yes! *laughs* Very good guys. Um, so yeah that was fun. It's always good to kind of, you know, hear the theme music in a group of people, getting really ramped up…
Eamon: Yeah, definitely!
Kyle: Yeah, and we got to enjoy that sweet, sweet opening shot again. The entire opening sequence of that movie is just, just gold!
Eamon: Yeah. Pretty awesome.
*moment of silence*
20:02 Keith: So, um, I think that about does it!
Eamon: We watched a lot of Teen Titans Go!
Keith: Yeah, let's talk about that actually! I hadn't seen Teen Titans Go, uh…
20:10 *****Eamon: It's pretty good—It is insane…
Keith: It is hysterical!
Kyle: And it's insane!
Keith: So everyone should watch that, that was another highlight of this trip!
Eamon: Yeah, yeah. A High-lander—
Keith: Lights.
Ea: Li…what?
Kyle: What? Meester Feesh!
Keith: *exasperated sigh* Very good, everyone! So, uh we're about to start Day 2 here at the convention—
Eamon: That's right!
Keith: —so stay tuned and we're gonna be having a recap of today, hopefully, um… soon!
Eamon: Yeah!
Keith: Um, yeah! Thanks a lot, and oh, uh, stay tuned on Facebook, and if you have any questions for us, message us on Facebook today, and we will—can get back to you, and maybe do some live videos about whatever you're asking or, who knows! Uh, but we got some fun stuff coming your way!
Eamon: Yeah yeah!
Kyle: Sounds good!
Keith: We've been your Rewatchers! I'm Keith!
Kyle: This is Kyle!
Eamon: This is Eamon.
Keith: Bye-bye!
Kyle: Seeya!
Eamon: Bye!
Keith: Bye!