Month: June 2018

Family Business Beer and More Austin Adventures with Lynn and Kim!

Family Business Beer and More Austin Adventures with Lynn and Kim!

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For Supernatural fans, Vancouver, where the show is filmed, is often referred to as ‘Mecca’. But there’s another contender for that title – Austin, Texas, where both Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles make their homes. Fans have been going to the San Jac Saloon in Austin for several years, ever since Jared Padalecki became the owner. And since January of this year, fans have had another place to congregate when they make the pilgrimage to Austin – the Family Business Beer Company, owned by Jensen and Danneel Ackles, her brother Gino Graul and their parents. That makes Austin a destination city for the SPNFamily.

So when the Paws4AKF charity coordinator contacted me to see if I would like to donate a copy of Family Don’t End With Blood for a charity event at the San Jac Saloon benefitting Austin Pets Alive and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, I said sure. It seemed a small step to then say well, why not buy a ticket to the fundraiser and head out to Austin myself? After all, I’d been dying to experience Family Business Beer, so two birds, one stone, you get the picture.

At the same time, the more rational part of my brain was insisting that it’s never a good idea to buy a plane ticket with only a few days notice. I called Kim, partner in crime and fellow fangirl and talented photographer, to say this is a crazy idea, right? Kim agreed.

Kim: Yes, crazy idea. Definitely.

Lynn: So…. you wanna go? Take some pictures?

Kim: Absolutely.

That’s how we found ourselves in Austin in late June, when the temperatures are just a wee bit higher than we’re used to. We flew in on Friday, me from Philadelphia and Kim from Kentucky, and managed to rendezvous at the Austin airport. Car rental figured out, we GPS’d our way into the city and checked into our hotel – and immediately ran into familiar faces. A large group of the SPN Family had showed up in force for the fundraiser. Most of us made the trek out to Family Business Beer when we arrived on Friday – and was it ever worth the 50 minute drive out of the city!

As the city fell away and the roads became more trees and nature than highways and buildings, we kept our eyes open for some kind of sign so we’d know when we were there. And sure enough, there was a sign! A few, in fact, all hand painted. The unassuming one at the entrance just said ‘Brewery.’ I believe Danneel Ackles painted the signs herself, since she and Jensen and Gino are the definition of hands-on owners. If so, lovely job, Mrs. Ackles.

The signs directed us to the side lot where we parked, then made our way up to the main building. The Brewery itself was gorgeous in the summer sun, the interior tastefully decorated and blessedly cool and the outside dotted with picnic tables clustered under generous shade trees.

I’m so glad we had Kim and her camera to do it justice!

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Supernatural Day and Paws4AKF in Austin!

Supernatural Day and Paws4AKF in Austin!

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Otherwise known as… The Austin Adventures of Lynn and Kim!

Supernatural fans have long made pilgrimages to Vancouver, where the show is filmed – but there’s another city that’s also a sort of Mecca for the SPNFamily. That city is Austin, Texas, where Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles make their home. Padalecki owns the San Jac Saloon in the heart of the city and Ackles and family own the Family Business Beer Company, a brewery in nearby Dripping Springs. That gives fans two destinations in which to congregate – and this past weekend, they had a good reason to brave the Texas summer heat.

Longtime Supernatural fans Sandra and Tonia organized Paws 4 AKF (@Paws4AKF), a charity fundraiser to benefit Austin Pets Alive (which Jared and Jensen have supported) and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline (the other charity selected by Jared Padalecki for this fundraiser). The event was held on June 23 at the San Jac Saloon, which attracted Supernatural fans from all over the country to Austin. About 50 fans gathered in ‘Jack’s Place,’ as the upstairs room of the bar is known, to do some good in the world and to enjoy each other’s company. There was a silent auction with plenty of donated items as well as games, a photo op area with props, a Twister board, and a very popular karaoke mic. I brought along copies of Family Don’t End With Blood to donate, and my friend and fellow fangirl and photographer extraordinaire Kim Prior came with me – so now the event had a photographer too! And this article has some pretty pretty pictures.

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Changing Lives With Stroke Awareness – Rob Benedict on Writing in Family Don’t End With Blood

Changing Lives With Stroke Awareness – Rob Benedict on Writing in Family Don’t End With Blood

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Last month was both Stroke Awareness Month and the one year anniversary of the publication of Family Don’t End With Blood, the book written by the cast and fans of Supernatural. So this is a perfect time to chat with Supernatural actor and Louden Swain frontman Rob Benedict (Chuck/God) about the powerful chapter he wrote in the book. In his chapter, Rob takes us through every tension-filled moment of the stroke he had while at a Supernatural convention in Toronto several years ago and how the SPNFamily got him through it.  I knew when Rob sent me the story to include that it was going to make readers cry (in a good way) and that it was going to inspire people – but I didn’t know that it was going to literally save lives.

That’s exactly what happened though.

At a Supernatural convention this spring, a fan approached the vendor table for Family Don’t End With Blood and said she had something to tell me. I’ve heard so many wonderful stories about how the stories shared in the book have inspired someone to keep going, or given them the courage to make changes in their lives, or helped them feel okay being who they are for the first time. When the fan standing at my table got emotional, I expected to hear a similar story.

“The Supernatural fandom and this book,” she said, “saved my life.”

Not in the way I expected, however. Patty Barbera had read Family Don’t End With Blood, and Rob’s chapter, in which he shares his experience having a serious stroke at the Toronto convention, had really stood out for her. Shortly before the convention, she was getting ready for bed when her hand started to go numb. The numbness slowly moved up her arm, and then there was a pain in the back of her head and her whole right side went numb. The right side of her face began to droop. She began having trouble speaking. Because she had just read Rob’s chapter, which details what happened during his stroke, Patty immediately realized she was having a stroke. She screamed for her husband, and they drove to the hospital – where a CT Scan showed that she was indeed having a stroke – the type referred to as a “TIA” or mini stroke. Even more alarmingly, her scans showed that it was not the first one.

As she told me her story, she began to cry – but they were good tears. She was healthy enough now to attend the convention and thank Rob herself (and has since made remarkable progress and is almost fully recovered)

“If I hadn’t read this book, I probably would have ignored everything and went to bed, most likely damaging my brain. But because of this book and Rob’s story, I’m back to my old self with minimal damage,” Patty said.

I felt my own eyes well up, and we shared a few tissues together.

Patty’s powerful story was a reminder of why we all wrote Family Don’t End With Blood – we wanted to make a difference. The actors who wrote chapters and the fans who wrote chapters all wanted to share their very personal stories in the hopes that others would be inspired and impacted by what they wrote.

That was certainly the case for Patty with Rob’s chapter. Shortly after I met Patty, I sat down with Rob to ask about why he wanted to contribute to the book and what the response has been to his story. In keeping with the important messages of Rob and Patty, we’ve included a summary of the warning signs of stroke at the end of this article – you can read the entire account of Rob’s very emotional experience in his chapter of Family Don’t End With Blood.

Lynn: You wrote a really personal chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood, taking readers through every moment of your experience when you had a stroke at a convention several years ago. What made you want to share your story?

Rob:  It’s almost easier for me to express myself through writing.  And I felt the need to re-visit the experience and take all of it back into my consciousness, and to try to account for what happened.  In my recovery I read an amazing memoir called Brain On Fire, in which the author Susannah Calahan tracks her own journey through a debilitating virus that attacked her brain.  I was inspired by that.  I am inspired to put all of this in a book someday, but this chapter was a place to start.  It was incredibly therapeutic.

Rob reads from his chapter at the book release party in LA

Lynn: Was it challenging to be that personal and share your own vulnerability?

Rob: Not really – I mean the fear of getting too personal is always a road block, but it’s one I like to push out of the way.  I do it a lot with my song lyrics.  At times, singing my songs is like reading my diary out loud.  It’s terrifying!  BUT I am motivated by that fear.  I dare myself to speak the truth.  I think there’s something incredibly confident, or robust, about expressing one’s own insecurities and fear.  I’ve said it before on stage when I sing songs like She Waits, but there is something about this fandom that makes me feel safe to express myself.  I feel like there’s an unspoken connection, especially by the end of a convention weekend. So I did also feel that when I wrote this – that it wouldn’t fall on judgmental ears.

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