Being a nerd is the BEST! (pt. 2, Cinematic Titanic)

And now, for part two of my birthday evening in Chicago. I know it's long overdue, but hey, this isn't high school and this wasn't an assignment.

Are you familiar with "Mystery Science Theater 3000"? If so, you rock. If not, go get yourself a Netflix membership and rent some. Trust me, you'll thank me later. When my husband and I had been dating for about 3 months oh, so long ago, we spent New Year's Eve together and had a movie night. The three movies he and his nerdy friends picked out were Cabin Boy, Meet the Feebles, and Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. Side note here, if you've never seen Meet the Feebles, rent that, too. It's... awesome. Anyway, this was my first introduction to Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or, to those in the know: MST3K), and I was totally in love with this concept. Come to find out, it was a show that had run for like a decade! Oh, my. I'm not going to go into the whole history behind this awesome show, but you may recognize this:
That would be Tom Servo and Crow sitting with I believe Mike. He replaced Joel, the original guy on the Satellite of Love after a few seasons. Ah. I have always been a Joel girl. There's just something about him. The hubby has always been more of a Mike girl, but whatever. We've learned to live in harmony dispite our obviously huge clash of interest.

Yeah, I'm a nerd. What of it? Not that there's anything wrong with Trekkies or Star Wars geeks, but at least I'm not a Trekkie or a Star Wars geek.

Imagine how excited I was when a friend of mine told me the original group from MST3K had reunited and were putting out new DVDs, similar to MST. They are now called Cinematic Titanic and I went straight to their website to see about getting fresh riffing, and I noticed they tour and do live shows. http://www.cinematictitanic.com/ Wait, Chicago was on the tour list. WAIT! It was my birthday weekend! When the hubs came home from work that day, I told him I had picked out my birthday present. I used to sell fine jewelry to rich bitches and I HATED when women would come in and buy jewelry and say, "Hee hee, this is my birthday present." Stupid bitch. How about you make your worthless husband actually put some thought into getting you something meaningful? But I don't think I'm really in the same category, because I didn't pick out a diamond necklace. I picked out tickets to a show consisting of old-ish nerds making fun of bad movies. But that's ok, because he loves MST as well, and the price was very nice.

Fast forward to our night in Chicago. We had just entered the Lakeshore Theater and had given a guy our tickets. He was holding a hand stamper and asked, "Do you guys plan on drinking tonight?" I replied, "Heck yes we are," and thrust my hand at him to get that baby stamped. Then there was a table covered in Cinematic Titanic paraphernalia: T-shirts, movies, posters. The guy said, "If you buy something, the group will be signing autographs after the show." AGGGGHHHHHH!!! Then I couldn't decide what I wanted. I knew that if I got a shirt, I would just fold it up, stick it in a drawer and NEVER wear it (because the ink would fade, the shirt would wear out and I'd be one sad Kat). A movie would rock, but we would have to hide it away so the VegKids wouldn't totally wreck it. We could get a poster signed and frame it, and hang it up in the living room, and look at it everyday. Maybe hang it right next to the TV so it's always in my line of vision. Bingo.

After purchasing the poster for the movie we were to see riffed (The Alien Factor - HA!), we went to get a drink. Um, ok. The Lakeshore Theater ROCKS because they are independant (I'm assuming), have all kinds of kick ass comedians and shows, and are just all-around cool. However, the hubs got a bottle of beer and I got a gin and tonic, and it came to $16. Kind of a ripoff. Plus, when I was deciding what I wanted, the bartender said, "I can make anything you want." I said a Bombay Sapphire G&T, but they only had Beefeater. Meh. After getting a drink in my hand, I took a look at the crowd hanging around the bar. Wow. I had never felt so... comfortable. A whole room full of nerds, totally in their element. No "popular" kids to make fun of us. And while I completely embrace my nerdiness, sometimes I feel... hmm... I think my husband put it best when he leaned in and whispered, "I'm the most highly functioning nerd I know." I know it sounds kind of like mocking, but I'm not! I loved it. There was even a gal in pig-tails who had made pin-back buttons and stickers and was handing them out. FOR FREE! Nobody does that! Nerds rock.

Finally, after waiting in the lobby for an eternity, they opened the doors. We showed the guy our VIP tickets (oh, yeah, only the best for VegKat) and we were ushered to our seats, smack in the middle of the second row. What? Hell, yeah. Second row. There were two guys wandering around the audience handing out cards saying if we wrote down a question, Joel would maybe answer it. I racked my brain for a clever question, but all that was going on up there was, "ohmygodohmygodjoelareyoumarriedohmygod". Not clever. But the hubs points to one of the card guys and said, "Isn't that the guy from 'Freaks and Geeks'?" YES! It was this guy:His name is Dave Allen and it turned out he was part of the opening act and was HILARIOUS. But when he started introducing the Cinematic Titanic guys (and gal), and I realized I was literally like 15 feet away from these people I have totally been in love with for like 10 years, the "ohmygod" in my head turned into, "EEEEEEE!!!!!!!"

Then the actual show started. If you have seen MST3K (and I'm assuming you have, otherwise you will not have made it this far. I would not read this much about Die Hard.), you know that there are some comments that are so hilarious you laugh so hard you miss a couple riffs and have to rewind and watch again. Then there are some (just a couple, here and there, once in a great while) that... aren't super totally awesome, or go right over your head. But still awesome, still awesome. But this damn show was so friggin hilarious, my face hurt 20 minutes in. My craniofacial muscles were screaming, "STOP! STOP SMILING ALREADY!" And my ab muscles hurt for like two days. And I'm a professional bodybuilder, so that's some hard core muscle action. Oops, did I say professional bodybuilder again? I meant professional crocheter. I'm always doing that.

I wasn't sure how I would handle the live performance, though. Obviously on the show they would have had to watch the bad movie several times, timed their comments, weeded out the bad ones, etc. But it looked like it was just a guy and two robots sitting down and making fun of a movie. The live performance was obviously them performing for us, not just an impromtu riffing. But it was SO awesome seeing them react to each other, react to our reactions, and Joel lick his fingers and turn the pages of his notes. Er, uh, I mean... nevermind. There was even a couple of times where they cracked each other up so much they started laughing. So adorable. Plus, instead of just 3 "characters", there were 5 of them up there. Even better.

Afterwards, there were tables set up right in front of us for them to sign our stuff. We were like 3rd in line since we were in the 2nd row. Did I mention we sat in the 2nd row? I was clutching my poster like a little girl at a New Kids on the Block concert. And I was actually getting nervous! What the hell. I was talking really fast and blabbering to my husband, "What am I going to say? What do I... How...?" For a second I contemplated just shoving the poster at hubs and running out of the theater screaming, "The pressure! I can't take the PRESSURE!" Then the 5 came out and lined up right in front of us. My eyes were darting around like a lunatic and my face was beet red. First person went through the line. Then the second. It's my turn! AGGHH! First to sign was Trace Beaulieu, who played Dr. Forrester and was the original voice of Crow T. Robot. He put his hand out and said, "Thanks for coming," or something like that. Now, I expected a signature, but not a handshake and conversation! So I shook his hand and babbled something incoherently like, "Awesome show." I don't know. Next was J. Elvis Weinstein who played Dr. Erhardt and was the original voice of Servo. Again, "Babblebabble" handshake, blush. He actually noticed the pinback button hubby was wearing and asked him where he got it. Next was Mary Jo Pehl, who played Pearl. She is such a meanie on the show, but is so freaking awesome and nice! She said thanks for coming, and I told her it was my birthday and the tickets were my b-day present. She went, "Aww! What a great birthday gift!" ('EEEE!') Standing next to her was Frank Conniff who played TVs Frank. He overheard it was my birthday and said happy birthday, too (again, 'EEEEE!'). Handshake, babbleblabble by me, and on to The Joel. Eeek. He made some comments about the poster, shook our hands, and by this point I think I had had an aneurysm so I said something like, "Show fan big good show." I realized I had just shaked (shooken, shooked?!? What's first person past tense of shake?) hands with all five of them, so I vowed never to wash my hand again. Then my turn was over, and it was time for cooler, more put-together people to treat the gang like humans. I snapped a couple shots of the CT group and we were on our way. On our way out of the creepy alley we had to exit into, Dave (from opening act fame) was just coming in from outside and we said, "Hey, great show!" and he was all, "Hey, thanks for coming out tonight, guys!" Hee hee. Blush blush.

In the car, headed out of Chicago at 11:00pm, I could have jumped out into traffic. What the HELL was I thinking? Hello?!? Had I been in a somewhat present state of mind, I would have said, "Hey, Joel. It's my birthday, is it OK if I get a picture with you?" Like he would have said no. What the hell? That's pretty much all have been thinking about since the show. Grrr. But... Hubby said the other day, "Well, if they tour again around Chicago, we'll just have to go again and you can get your picture with Joel." Sigh. What a guy.

Just got a MST3K in the mail from Netflix. I'm going to go cuddle up with my ticket stubs, poster and my hand in a bag and watch Joel and the gang rip up Secret Agent, Super Dragon.