The rude parts triumvirate

Nice spread in Capital Times this week – breasts on the cover, a bottom on page 9, and a total dick on page 8!

In which I realise that I’m in a Sartre play

Okay, I went to the Guillermo del Toro book signing at the Weta Cave and eventually got to see the man himself, but it was a frustrating experience. I arrived at 6:15pm to a scene of chaos. I queued obediently like a good citizen, and two hours later… gave up and went to dinner.

The queue was full of fans and geeks, which is inherently a good thing. Geeks are usually nice, non-violent, intelligent people who just happen to be unusually interested in specific aspects of pop culture. There was, for example, a large number of fat men in their early thirties wearing leather coats. Good for them.

Unfortunately I was stuck right behind an utter goon with a very loud voice who didn’t shut up once the entire time. It was very, very cold, and I know that sound travels better in a cold environment, but even so. He’d written some things for Salient, and he fantasised about interviewing del Toro. He acted out this imaginary interview for us, doing the voices and everything. He then conducted an imaginary interview with Tim Burton. Why not? He speculated on the casting of The Hobbit – would there be a part for Sandra Oh? He sang lustily a song he’d invented called ‘Del Toro’, to the tune of Annie’s ‘Tomorrow’, which was actually kind of funny, but by that stage I’d gone through a kind of pain barrier and was finding pretty much everything funny. At 8:30 we were just inside the entrance of the Weta Cave, but it was obvious it was going to take another hour to get to the front. I talked to the lovely Stevie McCleary, squizzed the great Mexican himself, and buggered off.

There were a bunch of charming but extremely self-involved Europeans on the bus back to Kilbirnie who we’d also travelled in with, and that plus the burbling of the Snapper system nearly made it a Seinfeld moment.