I got Frakesed!

It's always a joyous occasion when hockey season begins, cause I get to see more of my sister who lives in Florida. And while this year's Devils opener wound up being unceremonious (save the return of Petr Sykora and Zach Parise sporting the "C"), we did manage to have some fun that day at the Garden State Comic Con.

I was most anxious to meet Jonathan Frakes -- Commander Riker on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" to most of the attendees but Mr. Francis to me -- and it happened more quickly than I expected as I made my way into the main room of the convention.

The big plan was to pay my dough in order to get a picture taken. I was going to say that I very much enjoyed "Bar Karma," which was directed by Mr. Frakes and starred his wife, the ever lovely and talented Genie Francis, for Current TV. (Catch the whole episode here http://current.com/shows/bar-karma/episodes/109/; the player link below is just a taste.)



I was just getting ready to hand over my camera to someone I didn't know, always cause for concern in terms of getting a nice photo, when my sis popped up out of seemingly nowhere to handle the chore. So I said what I wanted to about "Bar Karma," and Mr. Frakes quickly deflected credit to his wife. "She was wonderful," he said. "Yes, she was" was my not very pithy response.

Now sis was snapping the picture and ... darn, if I didn't have my eyes closed in true Schector tradition. Luckily she picked up on that, and the other person in the photo graciously offered to do another. (By the way, the man is massive! I felt like a peanut in his palm.)

By the way, Mr. Paige (aka Mark) later texted his envy, since he's a big "Trek" fan -- not in that scary really-needs-to-be-boomed-into-a-loony-bin kinda way.

When Mr. Frakes went off to be gracious with another fan and my sis went back to scouring the tables, I realized how surrounded I was by celebs. (Guess I had tunnel vision or just didn't expect them all to be there at once or something.) Next to Mr. Francis was Marina Sirtis, also of "ST:TNG." Next to her was Davy Jones of The Monkees and Barbara Eden, of course best known for "I Dream of Jeannie." The latter two seemed to have more energy than I did. And next to Jeannie was Hayden Panettiere, who I saw grow up on soaps and "Ally McBeal" before "Heroes" was ever in and then out of vogue.

Across from them ... and this tripped me up a little ... was Nicholas Brendon from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Only thing is, also at that table was Kelly Donovan, Nicholas' twin brother, who appeared in two episodes of the show -- notably "The Replacement," in which Xander's double was created by a demon. And I must have been focusing on Kelly for a couple of minutes, before I realized that Nicholas was also at the table.

Luckily the brain cells did finally start functioning and I snapped some pictures. At one point, Nicholas -- yes, I'm sure -- looked over and did one of those silent "hi" things that happens when you mouth a word but no sound actually comes out.


Then I perused the items at the various tables. The fiance always says I can sniff out something from "General Hospital" a mile away, and truth be told, I had already procured a couple DVDs with some great '80s footage with Luke and Laura (Mrs. Frakes!!) and Tracy and Edward and Blackie and my all-time favorite, Tiffany. Speaking of Blackie, The VHS Preservation Society booth had John Stamos' "Never Too Young to Die," which sis snagged for me as part of a deal.

At some point, I needed some food, so I went out in the lobby to see what was available ... and that's when I saw Mr. Francis again! He was signing out at the desk and he turned and saw me and he did this ... well, all I can say is that it was kind of adorable. The big hulk sort of hunched over, smiled broadly and waved vigorously back and forth like a windshield wiper. This has already become a verb in the lexicon with my sis -- he Frakesed me.

And that was my day at the Comic Con, save seeing a Storm Trooper walking up and down the halls and other such elaborately costumed denizens. Personally, I think the acquisition of the day might have been a T-shirt sis got "And then Buffy staked Edward."