The ghoul goes west, part 666.

Yes, Triple Six. A devilish little number.

And devilish doings are afoot. Aclovenhoof, I suppose I should say.

After an early morning, which we musician-types don't always accomplish without some whining and a touch of a hangover (well, not really), I got word that my destination airport, LAX, had been dealing with a security breach which shut down the southern terminals for a time, and the plane I was supposed to be boarding in three hours was going to be nearly two hours late departing from LAX.

Not the end of all things, surely, but annoying.

Still, the flight eventually (and uneventfully) took place and I got into LA around 3:30, and had a great visit with my mama on her birthday as we drove from LAX to BUR... at 4 pm... in serious traffic.

I got to the hotel/convention center at close to 6 pm.

Yeah.

BUT...

 ... this is what was awaiting me. My longtime family friend Henner had gotten there before me and brought speakers, a mixer, cables, adapters, everything needed that I couldn't ship from home. And Joe Moe had brought some of the real Uncle Forry's personal things and set them up like a livingroom scene.

I could not (still can't!) believe that my Forry skull was going right on that empty round table right alongside the smaller table with 4E's beloved 'Maria' Robotrix from Metropolis (1927), a frame with his legendary eyeglasses, and the remarkable hard cover first edition Dracula signed by Bram Stoker and myriad other horror luminaries such as Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee...

... as well as his beloved chair, from which he told hundreds of stories thousands of times over his long reign as the King of Horror and Sci-Fi Fandom.

I'm still pinching myself.

At any rate, we opened boxes, things looked good, and the relatively uneventful process of putting him together was finished pretty quickly.

Now he sits in glory among the treasures there...

I had to open his widget and use a whatchamacallit to replace a little dinglehopper onto a doohickey that fell off during transit, but that's the boring stuff. He works. At least for this evening, he works!

By the way, that's Christian Hansen, a sculptor and figure maker who's here to show off his stuff too.

In case you were wondering what my little framed sign says:

Running him for a time to check on everything, he was already commanding attention from a few early (in years!) conventioneers:

This kid kept asking how I made him move and talk. I kept telling him, "Magic." I was not even close to lying.

My friend Henner observing everything during this first run:

So... with things ready to go, there was naught left but to wander around an empty Marriott convention center and see the empty tables where tomorrow will be marvelous artwork and spooky wares from Hell itself.

In the main showroom, realizing his rare moment of solitude and freedom, King Kong took his chance to let loose with a few Broadway show tunes:

I suppose after all that time in New York... anyway, he has a surprisingly smooth tenor voice. Who knew?

S&P patrons, your humble servant is dead tired and has a big weekend ahead (get it?) and needs to rest up for it all.

Updates promised.

Monsterpalooza, here we go!

So very... very cool.

DUMDUMSHREKPEEPS!