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JusticeGH at the 2008 GLAAD Awards
Hey team, Back from another amazing weekend with other Nuke fans. We had a great time in New York and accomplished a lot of Nuke-related goodness. There’s a lot to share, and I’ll just share as much as I can remember, and let you decide how much you care to read.
Saturday
Melissa had crashed at my place Friday night, so we got up at 3:50am and left for Theresa’s house at 4:50am. We picked Theresa up at 5:30am and were on our way to NYC. We arrived at around 9:30am and parked in Times Square. We were pretty much right on time for our 10am training at the Marriot Marquis hotel (where many of us will meet in just over four weeks for the luncheon!). Once inside we were joined by Renee and a VERY excited Lisa. Shirphie followed shortly thereafter. Theresa, Melissa and I had a brief talent escort training with our team leader, Tom. When talking about celebrities you might not recognize and would need to use your “cheat sheet” of photos to identify, he used the example of the soap guys “like Van Hansis” and the one who plays his boyfriend. We bit our tongues because we didn’t want to blow our cover and get stuck as FAR from Van and Jake as GLAAD could manage. Someone else stepped up and said “Jake” and we felt better.
We spent the next several hours stuffing, packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking, packing, organizing and beautifying gift bags. We became known as the Paper Squad as we were initially assigned to the table with all the coupons and magazine samples. As should surprise no one, we decided we were the most organized, responsible and helpful volunteers there. :)
After we were done with bag making, we headed out into the city and wandered around. We stopped by Midtown Comics…oddly not my suggestion or decision, though I was happy with it, and oddly, I didn’t buy anything…though Renee and Shirphie did. We saw film crews shooting at Rockefeller Center and off 5th Avenue. Eventually we ended up in Central Park. We had plenty of time to discuss ATWT…Melissa and Lisa calculated that there must be a minimum of 9 bedrooms upstairs at Snyder farm, plus at least one converted bedroom downstairs, for example. We also stopped by the CBS Early Show studio to get a group photo showing our love for CBS. We had dinner at Dallas BBQ where we’d eaten before closing night of DMD, and Melissa, Lisa and I had the spectacularly tasty and large Texas-Sized Margaritas and Daiquiris. We said good night, and Melissa, Theresa and I headed to our hotel in NJ.
Sunday
Team Nuke New England drove into the city and parked at our new favorite Times Square garage again. We wandered until we found a diner to have breakfast in. We made plans to meet Renee as the Staten Island Ferry Terminal at noon. We saw the headquarters for DC Comics (which to my knowledge Van has not toured), which was fun for me, and passed the Ed Sullivan Theater, home of the Late Show with David Letterman, which helped convinced Van to move back to New York a few years back. I proudly figured out how to get to the Staten Island Ferry terminal by train…only to find out there were service interruptions which made us about 20 minutes late. Ah well. We found Renee inside and boarded the ferry, from which we had a great view of the “huge monument to freedom” known as the Statue of Liberty. We wanted to recreate some of the V-Day boat scene…but it was just a bit too busy and I’m just not that gutsy. We did discuss the fact that for all of the site visits folks from the boards have made to Nuke-related sites, as yet no one has gone to find the almost-deadly slight incline on Staten Island.
Renee took a pic or two of the Homeland Security building by the ferry terminal, in honor of those brave American heroes who will somehow not figure out the sudden marriage of a devout Muslim from Iraq who has desperate immigration problems and an out gay teen whom she thinks of as a brother is a sham. After the return trip to Manhattan, we went to the South Street Seaport and got pictures of Sailor Noah’s boat. We did some shopping (new sneaks for me!), and made plans to meet Shirphie, Lisa, and Christian later in the day. We went to shop some more to find the last pieces of Theresa and Melissa’s outfits for the awards ceremony, and had no luck at the Century 21 store. Then we headed off to find the stairs where Sailor Noah and Columbia Luke literally bumped into each other in the V-Day episode. Apparently Law and Order films there a lot, too…and I recognized the stairs from L&O more readily than from ATWT. We had to watch the V-Day scenes on Theresa’s phone to confirm it was them, then took a group photo.
By this point, we were going to be late meeting Shirphie and Lisa. We arrived at our rendezvous point…the world’s largest Build-a-Bear Workshop on 5th Avenue. Shirphie was waiting, and Lisa joined use shortly thereafter. That’s right, Nuke fans, we had decided to do the absolute DORKIEST THING any Nuke fan anywhere had ever done…we built Luke and Noah bears. I think I need to bed about 14 super models of both genders and do about 1500 vials of cocaine to regain any street cred I might previously have had. We did have a lot of fun…I don’t know about anyone else, but the wish I made when placing the hearts in my bears was definitely Nuke related. For the “World’s largest”, this Build-a-Bear Workshop did not have anywhere near enough seduction polos, vertically striped oxfords, horizontally striped sweaters, or emo hoodies for our liking. But there was a perfect “Colonel Mayer” bear outfit, and I could’ve easily made Vienna and Lucinda bears. Still, we had fun. The same cashier rang up Theresa and Renee, and was a bit confused when they both had bears whose names include “Luciano ‘Luke’”…thank God other cashiers helped the rest of us as the girl would’ve really thought we were a mess if she’d had us all. For the record, my bears are name Luke Snyder-Mayer and Noah Mayer-Snyder. Cause this part of the story just wasn’t dorky enough already. As we condensed the pairs bears into one house per pair for ease of carrying, the cashier made Shirphie’s bears 69, but didn’t seem to think anything of it. Naturally, we dirty minded Nukies caught right on.
We were late in meeting Christian for dinner, so we settled on Social, the future home of Nuke-a-palooza, which was near his hotel. He joined us and we had a lovely dinner dicussing the show, the GLAAD awards, and how excited we were for the next day, before going our separate ways again.
Monday
Team Nuke New England woke up at 9 and began getting dressed, made-up, shaved, etc. We clean up nice! We didn’t need to be at the Marriot until 1:30, but we were nervous about St. Patrick’s Day traffic and what our garage would be like on a weekday. We got in early…a bit before 11, and went to have lunch. We passed the Vanmark Starbucks, the Olympic diner where Nukies had dinner during the 1/5 DMD trip, and New World Stages, former home of DMD. We had lunch at VYNL, one of the few restaurants in NYC I’ve actually eaten at and know how to find again. From there, we headed back to the Marriot to meet Renee again.
We had our talent escort training and walk through. Lisa and then Shirphie showed up for their 2:30 volunteer shifts. Enough talent escorts had show up that despite our best efforts we couldn’t get Renee, Shirphie and Lisa moved into our camp.
At 3:30, Melissa and Theresa got switched to being white folder escorts and were assigned one celebrity to follow all night…Theresa had Kate Clinton, and Melissa had Caroline Rhea. No one else had gotten their assignments yet. We got our credentials and radios, and headed to the third floor. We offered to help get the tickets ready for our team leader, who needed time to change. That was how I learned Tala was listed as Van’s guest and Elena was listed as Jake’s. I sent out a text to some of the board folks, and we brought the folders with us to the lobby. Finally, assignments were given out to everyone, and I found out that I was also a white folder escort, and would be with Anthony Rapp of “Rent” fame for the night. The escort for Van and Jake hadn’t shown up, so they were reassigned to someone else.
Things got a little hectic as celebrities actually started showing up, and Melissa took control, keeping things moving and organized. Somehow, despite my best efforts to watch for them, Van, Jake, and Tala snuck in a back way and were brought upstairs. Theresa briefly heard their voices and let us know they were already on their way up. Mr. Rapp showed up shortly thereafter, and I officially went on duty, taking him up to the red carpet room. I left, forgetting that he hadn’t been sure if he wanted to check his coat…he did…so I had to run back and get it and check it for him. The elevators weren’t working, so I took the escalators down six floors, checked his coat, them took them back up to the 9th floor again, passing Shirphie on the 8th. Back on the 9th, I waited at the Private Celebrity Reception, along with Theresa, who was waiting for Kate Clinton to finish the red carpet. Van, Jake, and Tala were still in the red carpet room, as was Anthony Rapp. Lisa was stationed at the party, so I chatted with her and Theresa for a bit before Lisa got moved to the Silent Auction. No sooner was she shifted than Van, Jake, and Tala came out of the red carpet room. They all looked great, but Tala especially. She is gorgeous, and the pictures I’ve seen so far from Monday night don’t do her or her dress justice. For those of you that don’t know…I like boys. And she managed even to distract me from Van and Jake of all people. Crazy! I texted Lisa to tell her they had arrived at the reception, and she sent me an expletive laden response.
Anthony was hoping we might find some hors d’oeuvres, so I escorted him to the silent auction. I ran into Christian, who was a guest at the awards and also cleaned up nice, and he let me know there didn’t seem to be anything to eat, though by the time Anthony caught up to me (he’d bee chatting with someone), Christian did point out some nuts in bowls around the silent auction room. I said goodbye to Christian and eventually brought Anthony back up to the reception room to get a drink, but the bar there was closed and folks were starting to head to dinner. While Anthony stopped to chat with Alan Cumming for a bit, Van, Jake, and Tala passed me on their way to the ballroom. Once Anthony was seated, I went about trying to track down his script. I was sent to the green room where there was a practice teleprompter for the celebrities to warm up on, and when I walked in, the teleprompter was reading “presenting Van Hansis and Jake Silbermann”. Random. I was given a copy of the full script for the evening and told to guard it with my life. I brought it to Anthony, and he said he was fine with it. I began to bring it back, then thought to try to find out if ATWT had won…but it was just taking me too long to flip through. So I took it back into the green room and headed back out to relax for a bit.
I found Renee, Shirphie, Lisa, and Theresa, and they told me Van had just seen them and had turned to say hello, and narrowly missed a waiter in the process. I called Barbara while Theresa called Jammi to tell them the news. We saw Van, Jake, and Tala walking out of the ballroom and hung up…and the trio headed straight for Shirphie, Lisa, and Renee. Van had brought Jake and Tala out to meet them/us. Theresa and I ran over to join the group and, as has previously been the case, Van was gracious in introducing Tala and Jake to us. I shook hands with both Jake and Tala. I have to say…I’ve heard it for months now on tv, but Jake just has a great voice…I really really enjoyed it in person, and of course, he’s not hard to look at either. You definitely notice those spectacular blue eyes. Meanwhile, we also couldn’t help ourselves and pretty much simultaneously all told Tala she was gorgeous. She was also gracious in accepting the compliment, and said something along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing here, so don’t quote her on this) “That’s so nice of you to say…I was afraid you all might want to throw stones at me or something.” We reassured her that while we may have our issues with Ameera, we wouldn’t project those feelings on her. Van and Jake mentioned that they were to present around 8:15, so they were looking forward to an early night. Theresa and I checked our presenter schedules and gave the bad news…they weren’t scheduled to present until 9. They both looked a bit disappointed, but laughed it off. Van said they were going to head back in, and Lisa mentioned how nice it was of them to come out and meet us, and that they didn’t have to do that and they should just enjoy their evening. Jake said something along the lines of “Of course we had to come out and meet you guys.” So now that I’ve met both Van and Jake, and their newest co-star, I’ve got to say they all seem super sweet and gracious, and as I’d mentioned previously…absolutely gorgeous.
I headed back to get Anthony to the green room for his presenting gig, and while I was in there, celebrities began getting backed up because the show was lagging behind a bit. So at one point I was in the green room with Anthony Rapp, Broadway performer Cheyenne Jackson (gorgeous!), Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s Eduardo Xol (gorgeous!), Loretta Divine, Anika Noni Rose (so pretty!), Kyra Sedgwick, and Kevin Bacon all at once! It was SO cool. Sadly, that’s about when I was asked to leave because it was too crowded. Despite the fact that I wasn’t supposed to leave Anthony (it was my duty!), I waited outside the green room. Anthony presented, and was taken to film a PSA (which he wasn’t signed up to do but apparently graciously did anyway), and I waited for him to return.
While I was waiting, Van and Jake were brought to the green room, and Theresa brought Kate Clinton in as well, so Theresa was in the green room with the guys. They walked right past me again on their way to the stage. Their introduction involved the mention of ATWT winning best daytime drama which was the first we’d heard of it winning. They did a great job presenting a reel explaining what GLAAD does, and were very cute with Van putting his arm around Jake. They were then brought upstairs to do a PSA. I hope we get to see it at some point soon!
Anthony returned to his seat without ever coming back to the green room, so I continued relaxing for a bit. Judy Shepard was inspiring and moving, as were GLAAD’s president and Brian Grader, Entertainment President for the MTV Group. When the show was done, I escorted Anthony to the VIP After Party, and heard over my headset that Van and Jake were leaving. I later found out that Melissa, who had missed the earlier meeting with the trio, got to meet them downstairs while they were on their way out. At the after party, I let Anthony mingle. He was the last celebrity guest to leave, so I was on duty until midnight when I called for his car to take him home. But I had time to hang out with Lisa, Shirphie, Christian, Renee, Melissa and Theresa. We took our group photo. We met up with our team leader again, and it turns out Theresa, Renee, Shirphie, and Lisa had finally told him who we were and why we were there. Still, we made a good impression…Nukies work hard and follow directions well (well…some directions).
We headed outside, said our goodbyes to Christian, and walked out into Times Square. Finally, after being professional for the better part of ten hours, we let out our excitement by screaming…which, in Times Square, is acceptable even at 1am. We debriefed a bit, and then went our separate ways…excited to see each other again (and Van and Jake and many of you!) in just over four weeks. We had a great time hanging out and working together and helping build the great reputation of Nuke Nation as not just a fan group…but as a service organization!
Other celebrities not listed above that I was close enough to kick, but did not, include (and yes, I’m just name dropping at this point): Alec Mapa (funny!), Caroline Rhea (funny!), Graham Norton (funny! and said hi to me!), Randy Jackson, Mariska Hargitay (beautiful!), and Milan from Project Runway. I wasn’t close enough to kick Tim Gunn, but I could’ve beaned him with a dinner roll from how close I got. And I got to see Barbara Walters on stage, but not up close at all. Anika Noni Rose thought she kicked me…but she didn’t. Still, she graciously apologized.
Thanks for reading, sorry to go on so long! Pictures can be found here.
Saturday
Melissa had crashed at my place Friday night, so we got up at 3:50am and left for Theresa’s house at 4:50am. We picked Theresa up at 5:30am and were on our way to NYC. We arrived at around 9:30am and parked in Times Square. We were pretty much right on time for our 10am training at the Marriot Marquis hotel (where many of us will meet in just over four weeks for the luncheon!). Once inside we were joined by Renee and a VERY excited Lisa. Shirphie followed shortly thereafter. Theresa, Melissa and I had a brief talent escort training with our team leader, Tom. When talking about celebrities you might not recognize and would need to use your “cheat sheet” of photos to identify, he used the example of the soap guys “like Van Hansis” and the one who plays his boyfriend. We bit our tongues because we didn’t want to blow our cover and get stuck as FAR from Van and Jake as GLAAD could manage. Someone else stepped up and said “Jake” and we felt better.
We spent the next several hours stuffing, packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking, packing, organizing and beautifying gift bags. We became known as the Paper Squad as we were initially assigned to the table with all the coupons and magazine samples. As should surprise no one, we decided we were the most organized, responsible and helpful volunteers there. :)
After we were done with bag making, we headed out into the city and wandered around. We stopped by Midtown Comics…oddly not my suggestion or decision, though I was happy with it, and oddly, I didn’t buy anything…though Renee and Shirphie did. We saw film crews shooting at Rockefeller Center and off 5th Avenue. Eventually we ended up in Central Park. We had plenty of time to discuss ATWT…Melissa and Lisa calculated that there must be a minimum of 9 bedrooms upstairs at Snyder farm, plus at least one converted bedroom downstairs, for example. We also stopped by the CBS Early Show studio to get a group photo showing our love for CBS. We had dinner at Dallas BBQ where we’d eaten before closing night of DMD, and Melissa, Lisa and I had the spectacularly tasty and large Texas-Sized Margaritas and Daiquiris. We said good night, and Melissa, Theresa and I headed to our hotel in NJ.
Sunday
Team Nuke New England drove into the city and parked at our new favorite Times Square garage again. We wandered until we found a diner to have breakfast in. We made plans to meet Renee as the Staten Island Ferry Terminal at noon. We saw the headquarters for DC Comics (which to my knowledge Van has not toured), which was fun for me, and passed the Ed Sullivan Theater, home of the Late Show with David Letterman, which helped convinced Van to move back to New York a few years back. I proudly figured out how to get to the Staten Island Ferry terminal by train…only to find out there were service interruptions which made us about 20 minutes late. Ah well. We found Renee inside and boarded the ferry, from which we had a great view of the “huge monument to freedom” known as the Statue of Liberty. We wanted to recreate some of the V-Day boat scene…but it was just a bit too busy and I’m just not that gutsy. We did discuss the fact that for all of the site visits folks from the boards have made to Nuke-related sites, as yet no one has gone to find the almost-deadly slight incline on Staten Island.
Renee took a pic or two of the Homeland Security building by the ferry terminal, in honor of those brave American heroes who will somehow not figure out the sudden marriage of a devout Muslim from Iraq who has desperate immigration problems and an out gay teen whom she thinks of as a brother is a sham. After the return trip to Manhattan, we went to the South Street Seaport and got pictures of Sailor Noah’s boat. We did some shopping (new sneaks for me!), and made plans to meet Shirphie, Lisa, and Christian later in the day. We went to shop some more to find the last pieces of Theresa and Melissa’s outfits for the awards ceremony, and had no luck at the Century 21 store. Then we headed off to find the stairs where Sailor Noah and Columbia Luke literally bumped into each other in the V-Day episode. Apparently Law and Order films there a lot, too…and I recognized the stairs from L&O more readily than from ATWT. We had to watch the V-Day scenes on Theresa’s phone to confirm it was them, then took a group photo.
By this point, we were going to be late meeting Shirphie and Lisa. We arrived at our rendezvous point…the world’s largest Build-a-Bear Workshop on 5th Avenue. Shirphie was waiting, and Lisa joined use shortly thereafter. That’s right, Nuke fans, we had decided to do the absolute DORKIEST THING any Nuke fan anywhere had ever done…we built Luke and Noah bears. I think I need to bed about 14 super models of both genders and do about 1500 vials of cocaine to regain any street cred I might previously have had. We did have a lot of fun…I don’t know about anyone else, but the wish I made when placing the hearts in my bears was definitely Nuke related. For the “World’s largest”, this Build-a-Bear Workshop did not have anywhere near enough seduction polos, vertically striped oxfords, horizontally striped sweaters, or emo hoodies for our liking. But there was a perfect “Colonel Mayer” bear outfit, and I could’ve easily made Vienna and Lucinda bears. Still, we had fun. The same cashier rang up Theresa and Renee, and was a bit confused when they both had bears whose names include “Luciano ‘Luke’”…thank God other cashiers helped the rest of us as the girl would’ve really thought we were a mess if she’d had us all. For the record, my bears are name Luke Snyder-Mayer and Noah Mayer-Snyder. Cause this part of the story just wasn’t dorky enough already. As we condensed the pairs bears into one house per pair for ease of carrying, the cashier made Shirphie’s bears 69, but didn’t seem to think anything of it. Naturally, we dirty minded Nukies caught right on.
We were late in meeting Christian for dinner, so we settled on Social, the future home of Nuke-a-palooza, which was near his hotel. He joined us and we had a lovely dinner dicussing the show, the GLAAD awards, and how excited we were for the next day, before going our separate ways again.
Monday
Team Nuke New England woke up at 9 and began getting dressed, made-up, shaved, etc. We clean up nice! We didn’t need to be at the Marriot until 1:30, but we were nervous about St. Patrick’s Day traffic and what our garage would be like on a weekday. We got in early…a bit before 11, and went to have lunch. We passed the Vanmark Starbucks, the Olympic diner where Nukies had dinner during the 1/5 DMD trip, and New World Stages, former home of DMD. We had lunch at VYNL, one of the few restaurants in NYC I’ve actually eaten at and know how to find again. From there, we headed back to the Marriot to meet Renee again.
We had our talent escort training and walk through. Lisa and then Shirphie showed up for their 2:30 volunteer shifts. Enough talent escorts had show up that despite our best efforts we couldn’t get Renee, Shirphie and Lisa moved into our camp.
At 3:30, Melissa and Theresa got switched to being white folder escorts and were assigned one celebrity to follow all night…Theresa had Kate Clinton, and Melissa had Caroline Rhea. No one else had gotten their assignments yet. We got our credentials and radios, and headed to the third floor. We offered to help get the tickets ready for our team leader, who needed time to change. That was how I learned Tala was listed as Van’s guest and Elena was listed as Jake’s. I sent out a text to some of the board folks, and we brought the folders with us to the lobby. Finally, assignments were given out to everyone, and I found out that I was also a white folder escort, and would be with Anthony Rapp of “Rent” fame for the night. The escort for Van and Jake hadn’t shown up, so they were reassigned to someone else.
Things got a little hectic as celebrities actually started showing up, and Melissa took control, keeping things moving and organized. Somehow, despite my best efforts to watch for them, Van, Jake, and Tala snuck in a back way and were brought upstairs. Theresa briefly heard their voices and let us know they were already on their way up. Mr. Rapp showed up shortly thereafter, and I officially went on duty, taking him up to the red carpet room. I left, forgetting that he hadn’t been sure if he wanted to check his coat…he did…so I had to run back and get it and check it for him. The elevators weren’t working, so I took the escalators down six floors, checked his coat, them took them back up to the 9th floor again, passing Shirphie on the 8th. Back on the 9th, I waited at the Private Celebrity Reception, along with Theresa, who was waiting for Kate Clinton to finish the red carpet. Van, Jake, and Tala were still in the red carpet room, as was Anthony Rapp. Lisa was stationed at the party, so I chatted with her and Theresa for a bit before Lisa got moved to the Silent Auction. No sooner was she shifted than Van, Jake, and Tala came out of the red carpet room. They all looked great, but Tala especially. She is gorgeous, and the pictures I’ve seen so far from Monday night don’t do her or her dress justice. For those of you that don’t know…I like boys. And she managed even to distract me from Van and Jake of all people. Crazy! I texted Lisa to tell her they had arrived at the reception, and she sent me an expletive laden response.
Anthony was hoping we might find some hors d’oeuvres, so I escorted him to the silent auction. I ran into Christian, who was a guest at the awards and also cleaned up nice, and he let me know there didn’t seem to be anything to eat, though by the time Anthony caught up to me (he’d bee chatting with someone), Christian did point out some nuts in bowls around the silent auction room. I said goodbye to Christian and eventually brought Anthony back up to the reception room to get a drink, but the bar there was closed and folks were starting to head to dinner. While Anthony stopped to chat with Alan Cumming for a bit, Van, Jake, and Tala passed me on their way to the ballroom. Once Anthony was seated, I went about trying to track down his script. I was sent to the green room where there was a practice teleprompter for the celebrities to warm up on, and when I walked in, the teleprompter was reading “presenting Van Hansis and Jake Silbermann”. Random. I was given a copy of the full script for the evening and told to guard it with my life. I brought it to Anthony, and he said he was fine with it. I began to bring it back, then thought to try to find out if ATWT had won…but it was just taking me too long to flip through. So I took it back into the green room and headed back out to relax for a bit.
I found Renee, Shirphie, Lisa, and Theresa, and they told me Van had just seen them and had turned to say hello, and narrowly missed a waiter in the process. I called Barbara while Theresa called Jammi to tell them the news. We saw Van, Jake, and Tala walking out of the ballroom and hung up…and the trio headed straight for Shirphie, Lisa, and Renee. Van had brought Jake and Tala out to meet them/us. Theresa and I ran over to join the group and, as has previously been the case, Van was gracious in introducing Tala and Jake to us. I shook hands with both Jake and Tala. I have to say…I’ve heard it for months now on tv, but Jake just has a great voice…I really really enjoyed it in person, and of course, he’s not hard to look at either. You definitely notice those spectacular blue eyes. Meanwhile, we also couldn’t help ourselves and pretty much simultaneously all told Tala she was gorgeous. She was also gracious in accepting the compliment, and said something along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing here, so don’t quote her on this) “That’s so nice of you to say…I was afraid you all might want to throw stones at me or something.” We reassured her that while we may have our issues with Ameera, we wouldn’t project those feelings on her. Van and Jake mentioned that they were to present around 8:15, so they were looking forward to an early night. Theresa and I checked our presenter schedules and gave the bad news…they weren’t scheduled to present until 9. They both looked a bit disappointed, but laughed it off. Van said they were going to head back in, and Lisa mentioned how nice it was of them to come out and meet us, and that they didn’t have to do that and they should just enjoy their evening. Jake said something along the lines of “Of course we had to come out and meet you guys.” So now that I’ve met both Van and Jake, and their newest co-star, I’ve got to say they all seem super sweet and gracious, and as I’d mentioned previously…absolutely gorgeous.
I headed back to get Anthony to the green room for his presenting gig, and while I was in there, celebrities began getting backed up because the show was lagging behind a bit. So at one point I was in the green room with Anthony Rapp, Broadway performer Cheyenne Jackson (gorgeous!), Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s Eduardo Xol (gorgeous!), Loretta Divine, Anika Noni Rose (so pretty!), Kyra Sedgwick, and Kevin Bacon all at once! It was SO cool. Sadly, that’s about when I was asked to leave because it was too crowded. Despite the fact that I wasn’t supposed to leave Anthony (it was my duty!), I waited outside the green room. Anthony presented, and was taken to film a PSA (which he wasn’t signed up to do but apparently graciously did anyway), and I waited for him to return.
While I was waiting, Van and Jake were brought to the green room, and Theresa brought Kate Clinton in as well, so Theresa was in the green room with the guys. They walked right past me again on their way to the stage. Their introduction involved the mention of ATWT winning best daytime drama which was the first we’d heard of it winning. They did a great job presenting a reel explaining what GLAAD does, and were very cute with Van putting his arm around Jake. They were then brought upstairs to do a PSA. I hope we get to see it at some point soon!
Anthony returned to his seat without ever coming back to the green room, so I continued relaxing for a bit. Judy Shepard was inspiring and moving, as were GLAAD’s president and Brian Grader, Entertainment President for the MTV Group. When the show was done, I escorted Anthony to the VIP After Party, and heard over my headset that Van and Jake were leaving. I later found out that Melissa, who had missed the earlier meeting with the trio, got to meet them downstairs while they were on their way out. At the after party, I let Anthony mingle. He was the last celebrity guest to leave, so I was on duty until midnight when I called for his car to take him home. But I had time to hang out with Lisa, Shirphie, Christian, Renee, Melissa and Theresa. We took our group photo. We met up with our team leader again, and it turns out Theresa, Renee, Shirphie, and Lisa had finally told him who we were and why we were there. Still, we made a good impression…Nukies work hard and follow directions well (well…some directions).
We headed outside, said our goodbyes to Christian, and walked out into Times Square. Finally, after being professional for the better part of ten hours, we let out our excitement by screaming…which, in Times Square, is acceptable even at 1am. We debriefed a bit, and then went our separate ways…excited to see each other again (and Van and Jake and many of you!) in just over four weeks. We had a great time hanging out and working together and helping build the great reputation of Nuke Nation as not just a fan group…but as a service organization!
Other celebrities not listed above that I was close enough to kick, but did not, include (and yes, I’m just name dropping at this point): Alec Mapa (funny!), Caroline Rhea (funny!), Graham Norton (funny! and said hi to me!), Randy Jackson, Mariska Hargitay (beautiful!), and Milan from Project Runway. I wasn’t close enough to kick Tim Gunn, but I could’ve beaned him with a dinner roll from how close I got. And I got to see Barbara Walters on stage, but not up close at all. Anika Noni Rose thought she kicked me…but she didn’t. Still, she graciously apologized.
Thanks for reading, sorry to go on so long! Pictures can be found here.
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, Mar 19 2008, 11:43 PM EDT
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| twins1729 | I LOVE YOU GEORGE! | 6 | Mar 24 2008, 7:55 PM EDT by VanHanFan | |
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Thread started: Mar 19 2008, 2:40 AM EDT
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Thanks for spreading Nuke love all over!
What a great recap, I was soooo there! lol Lately I haven't been as excited for the Luncheon, but now I'm shaking! OMG! I'm soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited now! |
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