Charity Auction: Misha’s Eye Mask

At the Salute to Supernatural Convention in Pittsburgh earlier this month, Misha Collins told us about his eye mask. He explained he received a toiletries set a few years ago, and it included an eye mask. He tucked that mask into his bag, and he wears it while traveling.

As he described it: “It looks like an oil rag that one would see at a gas station… so disgustingly filthy.”

A few minutes later, Richard and Rob brought said mask to Misha onstage.

Rob’s face really says it all…

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Eventually, Misha threw the mask into the crowd. Well, “throw” is a strong word. Think of it more like an attempt to throw the mask, much like he attempted to throw that paper airplane at Jared and Jensen a few years back. Suffice it to say, the mask did not go very far. In fact, it landed on the floor in front of the first row.

And most of the people in the first row actually just watched it fall to the floor, perhaps cringing a little in disgust.  An inspired  young woman in the first row did, however, reach down and pick it up. She laid it gently on her lap. And Misha’s panel continued. Afterwards, that young woman approached us, telling us she’d like to give it to charity, and asking if we could help. We talked about some options, and the plan began to take shape.

The young woman asked Misha to sign the mask during autos. At that time, she explained to him that she would be giving it to us to auction, with the proceeds to benefit Random Acts. At first, he was a bit surprised. “Why would anyone want this mask? It’s so nasty.” But despite his skepticism, he signed the mask and happily approved her choice to donate it for a charity auction. Hey, it’s for a good cause!

So without further ado…

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Charity Auction: Misha’s Eye Mask! See Misha in your dreams every time you close your eyes!

Okay, but seriously, all proceeds benefit Random Acts and their Hurricane Relief Effort.

Bonus!

Also included is a copy of Family Don’t End With Blood, which includes a chapter written by Misha! (And twelve other Supernatural actors, who all told their personal stories about how the show and the fandom have impacted them). Every copy of Family Don’t End With Blood also benefits Random Acts, and Attitudes in Reverse. Misha, Jared, Jensen and everyone who wrote chapters are proud of that — and of the powerful chapters they wrote too. (If you don’t win this auction, you can still purchase a copy of the book and make a contribution to Random Acts – links at the top of the page).

Here’s Misha in his Family Don’t End With Blood shirt inspiring you. How can you not be inspired by that face??

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This auction is worldwide, and we will pay for the shipping!

The auction runs for 10 days beginning September 26th, 2017.

Please support this auction, Random Acts, and the Hurricane Relief Effort.

Misha’s Eye Mask Auction

Thank you for your support!

Lynn & Kim

#SPNFamily

 

Lynn and Kim do PittCon – Part 3, Jared and Jensen Sunday!

Sunday at Pittcon was J2 day, as always. It would have been J3 day, except Jeffrey Dean Morgan wasn’t able to come. Though I guess it was still J3 day, since Jim Beaver filled in for him last minute.

Lynn: I still get nervous on Sundays, even after all these years and even after working with all three of these J’s on writing their chapters of Family Don’t End With Blood. I guess that’s a good thing though – if my tummy is ever totally okay on a con Sunday, that might mean it’s time to hand in my fangirl card. I live tweeted the morning gold panel including some phone pics, but didn’t bother taking out my camera – since Kim was sitting right beside me.

Kim: I don’t usually take a lot of pictures during the gold panel. Partly because it is quiet in the theater, and I suddenly feel self conscious about the clicking of my camera. But mostly I don’t take a lot of pics because Jensen tends to stand right in front of the mic, which is frustrating, and Jared tends to move around a lot… so basically most of the gold panel pictures suck. Unless you stan the mic. Lol

 

Jensen confessed right off the bat that he was tired, since he couldn’t sleep the night before. Even reading something boring didn’t work.

Jensen: Like Jared’s texts…

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PittCon – The Saturday Night Special

Post and Photos by Kim Prior

I have written several articles about the Saturday Night Special and my love for these events. I don’t think I could find the words to say it any differently this time – I simply love Rob and Billy and Mike and Stephen. I love to watch Mike play that guitar. I love to watch Stephen as he passionately pounds the drums. I love to watch Billy pour his heart and soul into his guitar. And I love to watch Rob sing, and dance, and smile as he commands the center of the stage. Simply put, Louden Swain gives me joy. This concert gives me joy. I have said it before, and I know that I will say it many more times to come… the Saturday Night Special is special because of Louden Swain.

The concert in Pittsburgh apparently had some technical issues – mics not working properly, guitar issues, and so on. But let’s be honest, I didn’t care, not even a little. These guys could come on stage and sing the phone book completely a capella and I’d be so okay with that.

So without further ado, and without a lot of commentary, here’s a recap of PittCon’s Saturday Night Special.

The night got off to a rockin’ start as Jake Abel introduced the band.

The first song of the night was “Present Time.”

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Lynn and Kim do PittCon – Part 1, Friday and Saturday

Lynn didn’t make it to the Supernatural con in Pittsburgh until Saturday, thanks to having to work all day on Friday (boo!!), so this first part about Friday is all Kim.

Kim:

Conventions are always super busy, jam-packed weekends. Panels. Photo ops. Autographs. Sometimes I do meet & greets. Hanging out with old friends. Meeting new friends. It is a full schedule, to say the least. For the convention in Pittsburgh, I added another thing… I helped Lynn with her book sales (Family Don’t End With Blood) at her table in the vendor area. How many ways can I spell exhausted? I have newly found respect for vendors, for Lynn. Working in the vendor area and trying to do all the convention things is beyond exhausting. And for the record – I would totally do it all again. And again.

Lynn: I have that in writing now. Excellent… *evil cackle*

Kim: Thank Chuck for my dear friends Kim and Stacy, for helping me set up Thursday night, for sitting with me at the table all weekend, for giving me the time I needed for photo ops and autographs (and a meet & greet with Kim & Briana). Thank Chuck they were there to make sure I had water and food, and a few stolen moments to breathe and pull myself together for photo ops.

That said, entering the airplane hangar – at least that’s what the theater feels like – to sit down for a panel was a like entering my zone… sitting down, taking out the camera, watching the panels through the comfort of my lens… yes, this is where I belong.

Rob could not be there on Friday, so we had just Richa…

No.

That is one million percent Inaccurate. Wrong.

When did the word ‘just’ become an adjective? When did it begin to carry that negativity? Every day of my life, I have to tell people that, no, I don’t have a job, that I’m ‘just’ a mom… as if being ‘just’ a mom is somehow less, somehow unworthy. Sure, the popular phrase “Just Do it” implies a positive message of strength and endurance, but usually adding the word ‘just’ to describe anything is somehow, less. So can we stop saying that? I’ll stop using the word to describe myself, and ya’ll stop using the word to describe yourselves, and let’s just simply stop using the word as an adjective of negativity, ok?

So starting over…

Rob could not be there on Friday because he was attending a film festival. As a result, we were treated to the impeccable hosts of the utter effervescence that is Richard Speight, Jr, along with the always delightful Jason Manns, and the incredibly talented Louden Swain band members Billy Moran, Michael Borja, and Stephen Norton. We were given witty banter, and fabulous music, and as Richard put it, we were in the “warehouse of fun” and it was awesome.

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Sunday with Jared and Jensen at Minncon 2017

Sunday is J2 Day at Creation Supernatural cons, this time joined by another Winchester (Mary, aka Samantha Smith) with the day introduced by Rich and Rob and closed out by Ruth Connell and Louden Swain.

The Sunday morning gold panel saw a rather sleepy looking Jared and Jensen joining us – and of course the very first question asked was about that “this is a bad idea” Instagram video Jensen posted of him and Jared on Friday night.

J2: nope.

As in, they declined to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate them. Or, you know, get them incarcerated.

All kidding aside, Jensen and Jared were worried about their families in Austin as Hurricane Harvey began to takes its incredible toll on Texas. Jensen took a call from Danneel while they were onstage, Jared hovering over his shoulder.

This eventually resulted in shenanigans as Jared tried to grab Jensen’s phone (or something) and Jensen spun around and around to avoid him, then backed up like ‘here ya go’. #boys

 

Glad to report that Danneel and Gen and the kids are fine, and were all having a ‘sleepover’. In the wine cellar.

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Supernatural Minncon Friday and Saturday – Misha, SNS and More!

 

The Supernatural convention in Minneapolis is notable for a couple of things. First, it’s in the grandest theater on the whole tour – an actual slanted floor tilted and cushioned seated amphitheater style theater with two clamshell balconies that open up like magic on Sunday for J2 Day. The stage is so big that some of the guests aren’t quite sure what to do with it and it makes the Saturday Night Special seem like a rock show in a bona fide concert hall – and Louden Swain and guests know exactly what to do with that!

The convention center, and the city itself actually, is also notable for being connected by a series of hamster trail elevated tunnels that allow you to make your way from the hotels to the convention center without being pelted by the inevitable wind and rain. My hotel was also playing host to a furry convention, so we had furries and Supernatural tee-shirted fans sharing space and high fiving in the hallways. I was struggling to transport my hundreds of copies of Family Don’t End With Blood the mile and a half (okay okay, exaggeration, but it felt like that…) of hamster trails to the convention center when a very nice young man at the furry convention offered to help. He pushed the overloaded handcart the entire way to the convention center, while we chatted about what our two fandoms had in common and why nobody should be ashamed of what they’re passionate about.

I was in the vendor room throughout the con, and was so honored to meet many people who had read Family Don’t End With Blood and been inspired by what the actors and the fans shared in their personal essays. I also was thrilled to collaborate with Jodi from Eldwenne’s Fantasy – she created an original Women of SPN – FDEWB necklace that I adore, and was kind enough to give one to me. The necklace symbolizes that for the women of Supernatural, family means more than just blood – there’s a blue backdrop that matches the cover of the book, hugged tight by silver to symbolize the found family that surrounds the Winchesters, and black for Baby. And of course the drop of blood red. Gorgeous. Jodi is giving $5 off the necklace to anyone who purchases the book, or $10 at a con!

The con kicked off on Friday with Rob and Rich a bit overwhelmed by the amount of greenery onstage – not just the usual couple of dead trees, but a whole forest of them, along with some equally-dead potted plants.

Rob and Rich rearranged them, made a makeshift Supernatural Christmas tree, and generally had way too much fun with inanimate things. They even had a Christmas story, with Richard sitting crosslegged on the stage.

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Supernatural Vancouver Part Two – More SNS, Jared, Jensen, Ruth and Rachel!

So, where was I? Oh right, the Saturday Night Special…The thing is, it’s not just the way they sing that makes them all such rockstars. It’s the emotion they put into everything they sing – I don’t know if it’s because they’re also actors, or just people who feel things deeply and allow themselves to be emotionally vulnerable, but so many of them reduce me to tears during the SNS. It’s an entirely emotional experience, not just a musical one.

And speaking of…. I knew Jensen Ackles was going to sing, but it seems I’m never entirely prepared for it anyway. He’s performed ‘Whipping Post’ several times, but I swear every time he pours his heart into it even more and it gets to me even more. I was so enthralled with his performance, I completely missed the fact that he was wearing a tee shirt (single layer single layer single layer) that said ‘Skyrockets In Flight’ – once the SNS was over we were all humming ‘Afternoon Delight’. Jensen and Jared are huge Anchorman fans, so it made sense, but….yeah.

In my defense, I may have been a little distracted by all the biceps action too. Hey, it was just right there, what can I say?

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Return to Mecca – Supernatural Vancouver Con (Part One)

I’ve been too busy to post con reports this year for the most part, but I’m trying to change that – at least for one con! Vancon, as it was called for almost a decade and will still always be called in my head, is a special con. It takes place in mecca for Supernatural fans, where the show is filmed, and that means that lots of other Vancouver-based Supernatural alums and crew members often come by to say hi to the fans. It’s also the place where some of the best days of my life have taken place, and where many of my SPNFamily friends come to congregate, so that makes it a special con for me. This year was no exception.

I didn’t have any extra time to take in location filming or revisit some of my favorite Vancouver restaurants and sights, and I’m still grieving that the con is no longer at the beautiful Sheraton Wall Centre, but the Westin Bayshore is also quite nice. It’s also way above my budget at the non-con rate, and thanks to my aforementioned busy, I neglected to book it early enough to get that. So my friend Alicia and I spent the first two nights up the hill at the Coast, a European flavored hotel with an international bunch of patrons and a portable AC machine that served as possibly the best white noise I’ve ever experienced. I totally wanted to bring the giant thing with me! I then cashed in every single Starwood point I’ve ever accumulated to move over to the Westin, which rewarded us with an amazing view of this amazing city. I love you, Vancouver!

I mean, look at it! That’s the view from my window once I finally got to the Westin Bayshore.

I had a lovely seafood dinner out on the water on Friday night and a few good meals at the hotel restaurant too – I wasn’t in the vendor room, so I had a lot more time to hang out and have some good conversation. I was also very honored to sign copies of Family Don’t End With Blood for lots of people who had read it and been inspired by it, which totally made my weekend. If you came up to me and asked for my ‘autograph’, I’m thrilled that you enjoyed the book and that I got to meet you. And I hope you all told the actors what a fantastic job they did writing their chapters!

I had very little internet reception on Friday and especially Saturday, so I tried to make up for the lack of tweets by taking pictures. Thus this is Part One of my Vancon post, since wordpress was a wee bit upset with how many photos I was trying to cram into a single post. Part Two (SNS continued and Sunday) up shortly!

There were lots of SPN alums on hand for karaoke and during the con, most of which I forgot to take photos of, but I had to have a picture of the lovely Kuma, star of television commercials, and his owners Kevin and Jill Parks. Kevin has been with Supernatural as a First Assistant Director ever since I can remember, and is instrumental in making the show the high quality tv that it is. In fact, he’s joking referred to as “Parkasapedia” for his encyclopedic knowledge of SPN canon! Kuma has appeared on the show too, as well as in that Flonase commercial you see all the time.

Adam Williams, who supervises all that amazing VFX wizardry on Supernatural, was also on hand – along with the always awesome Lucy. Together, Adam and Lucy wrote a chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood about how the show changed their lives completely – by bringing them together! Talk about life changing.

Friday kicked off with Alaina Huffman (filling in for the busy-filming-Supernatural Kim Rhodes) and Gil McKinney.

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Supernatural at Comic Con 2017!

For the past decade, there’s been one show that has inspired me to brave the insanity that is San Diego Comic Con again and again. Pretty sure you can all guess which show that is.

In 2007, it was the prospect of seeing Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki in person that made me throw caution (and possibly good judgment) to the wind and fly all the way across the country with almost no notice just to hopefully sit at the feet of the two actors who brought to life the characters that had entirely captured my heart. My friend Kathy and I slept on the sidewalk to get in early and raced through the hallways to the room where the Supernatural panel was, breathless but triumphant. This was long before SPN had proven itself able to fill the gigantic Hall H, so they were relegated to the much smaller Room 6CDE. Little did Comic Con know, Supernatural was already a fan favorite, with the line of SPN fans wrapped around and around the building and many disappointed fans unable to get into the room. Jared wasn’t able to come that year, but Kathy and I made it in and sat there beaming at Jensen Ackles and Eric Kripke sitting right in front of us. I managed to snag an autograph ticket through all sorts of machinations, and thus had my first actual conversation with Mr. Ackles, after which I found Kathy and immediately burst into tears. Fangirl problems, what can I say?

I’ve been back to Comic Con almost every year since, in the audience for the Supernatural panel as others began to notice the show’s passionate fan base and move the panels into ever larger rooms, until finally we were in Hall H itself.  If you’ve never experienced Hall H, it’s something to behold. The first time I walked in, my jaw dropped – the sheer size of it is overwhelming. I felt a swell of pride the first time Supernatural was deemed worthy of Hall H, and that feeling has never gone away. This year was no exception.

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Turning up the Heat at #Supernatural Phoenix Con!

Phoenix Con was the first con after a bit of a break, for those of us who weren’t lucky enough to go to any of the non-US cons, so it was great to see everyone again. The cast of course, but also my vendors room buddies and fellow fans and friends new and old. My old friend CB, from my very first job as an ‘adult’, now lives in Phoenix, so she came to the con to keep me company in the vendor’s room for part of the time. For another part of the time, she was sick with a nasty stomach flu, which left me on my own in the vendor’s room – which makes it very difficult to get any food or drink or even to run to the bathroom! But never underestimate the kindness of the SPNFamily. There were several contributors to Family Don’t End With Blood there, and they took turns checking on me and bringing me food and drink – so did several fellow fans and fellow vendors.

Padalecki books! With the awesome Megan Padalecki and Little Moon

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