Meeting Karl Urban

Lisa and I drove to the Emerald City Comic Con this afternoon on a mission to meet and present Karl Urban with one of De’s scarves. I was given a heads up (“You’re all set!”) by the Talent Coordinator, Todd Jones, just yesterday after sending him an email about my background as De’s personal assistant and my desire to do this. He checked with Karl, who readily agreed to a brief meeting during his break between an autograph session that ended at about 4:30 and the photo op session that began at 5:30. He told me to call or text him at about 4:45 and he would take us to where Karl was sequestered.

 

We got to the convention at about 2:45.  Since Lisa was my navigator to get us to the two convention parking garages, when we found both garages FULL, we had to find an alternate solution, which took about ten minutes. During this time, Lisa was flustered and freaking, near panic, because she felt responsible for navigating us, since earlier I had put her in charge of that detail. At about the six minute mark, she said, “I’m sure glad you’re driving. I’d be totally freaking right now if I were.” I smiled and calmly said, “Hey, I’m glad you’re freaking, because otherwise I’d have to be doing BOTH, and that would not be good! This way I get to just calmly drive!” We both cracked up.

 

At about the ten minute mark, we found another garage that was still close by–another section of the garage, apparently, that was “full”. So we drove in, found a place to park (C-204) and got out of the vehicle. It was very noisy in there, right next to the I-5 freeway. Lisa said, “I have no idea where we are now in relation to the convention.” I didn’t either but I thought it was pretty much right overhead since it spans the I-5 freeway via an overpass. So I said, “We’ll find it.”  I knew I could always backtrack the way we’d driven in and find the convention center that way, as we’d just passed it when we found the alternate garage entrance.

 

We wended our way up a flight of stairs with a sign over it that read ELEVATOR.  As we approached the elevator, I said, “Oh, look. We’re on Level D &C–De and Carolyn! That will be easy to remember!”

 

At about that time, we spotted a gentleman with a convention lanyard approaching the elevator, and I said to him, “Hi! Are you, by any chance, heading for the convention center?”  He said he was so I asked, “Would you mind taking us along? We have no idea where we are!”  He said, “Certainly!”  He told us the convention center level was G&H and that his name was Shep, after we introduced ourselves as Kris and Lisa. As we walked with him, he gave us the lay of the land. He showed us the automated pay machines that I’d use to bail out the vehicle at the end of the day as we approached those.

 

When we got inside the convention center, Shep said, “Take a look at this room number. 301.  Remember that. We’re on the third floor of the convention center now and you’ll want to find this room number again when you want to return to your vehicle. Just do backward what we did just now, following the colored pathways, and you’ll get back just fine!”  Perfect instructions–and much needed!

 

After leaving Shep, Lisa said, “Now we need to find Will Call and get checked in.” So I asked one of the guides where that was. He gave us directions and we got on a series of escalators (in this case, de-escalators) and descended to the first floor, checked in by showing our driver licenses, and received our official FRIDAY attendance badges.

 

After that, we decided what we wanted to do for the next two and a half hours until the time came for our meeting with Karl.  We decided, of course (being creatives ourselves) that we’d go see the AUTHORS AND ARTISTS on Level 6, so we ascended the escalators again.

 

Along the way, it was fascinating to see the other attendees. So many of them were attired in cosplay costumes. There were some very impressive ones. I wish I had thought to take some pictures of them.

 

As we ascended the final escalator, Lisa said, “I can’t believe how many people there are here. The last time I saw a crowd like this, we were at a Bernie [Sanders] rally!”  I agreed.  The crowd was immense, massive, almost overwhelming.

 

When we got to the Authors and Artists Room, we looked up our friend Mark Monlux, a cartoonist who does illustrations for Microsoft and lots of other high-profile entities. We spent about fifteen minutes waiting to say hi to him because he had an engaged, well-dressed gentleman buyer who stayed and stayed.  As that fellow left, we said, “Hi! Mark!  You’re our first stop!”  He got up from his chair and stood (what a gentleman!) during the whole fifteen minutes or more that he spoke to us, and told his table mate that I was DeForest Kelley’s personal assistant back in the day.

 

Mark engaged us in conversation for a long time. He told me he will introduce me to James Taylor of (Pax ?) Comics in Tacoma because he thinks James would be interested in putting me on a panel at his Tacoma comic convention.

 

I asked him what a table on the Authors and Artists floor cost.

 

He said, “$450 for all four days.”

 

I asked, “Do you break even or do better?”

 

He said, “Oh, I do more than break even. This is the place to be to make some money.” I nodded to the growing crowds and and said, “I bet!”

 

He added, “We were less busy yesterday, the first day, but we were still busy. It’ll be crazy Saturday and Sunday.”

 

Lisa bought a great set of horror-themed playing cards from him. Mark thanked us profusely for looking him up and stopping by to visit for a while.

 

After that, we wandered around that floor a little more–Lisa bought four whimsical cat post cards that were adorable–until the crowd got so tightly-wedged that we were both feeling a little panicky, so we left the convention center and walked to the Sheraton Hotel, where the autograph and photo ops sessions were taking place, and where we were going to be meeting Karl at about 5 PM, according to plans.

 

Lisa texted Todd my message that we were in the Sheraton at 4:30 and he appeared almost immediately to escort us down an escalator (although we were oblivious to this step as we anticipated our imminent meeting with Karl) to a curtained-off area. He asked us to wait while he went behind closed doors to let Mr. Urban know we had arrived.  Minutes later, Todd returned to us and signaled us to follow him inside.

 

When we got inside, we found Karl in conversation with another gentleman, but they were just finishing up, so we stood back and waited about twenty seconds. The conversation ended, and Karl stood and stepped over to me, smiling broadly.

 

He said, “Hello!” looking pleased. We shook hands.

 

I responded, “Thank you so much for agreeing to take some of your down time to give me this opportunity…”

 

He said, “I’m happy to meet you!”

 

I countered with, “I must tell you I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for Greg Barton in Australia. For my birthday, he got me into this convention and a photo op with you. He’s the fellow with the Dredd guitar that you met at a Comic Con down there.”

 

“Oh, yes! I remember!”

 

“He was supposed to be here, too, but the convention messed up his ticket and he ended up having to cancel… (Karl’s brow furrowed at this information…)… so he sends his hellos.

 

 

I continued relatively quickly–conscious of the fact that I was taking up some of his rest period (although Karl certainly didn’t make me feel, in any way as though I was), saying “I don’t want to take up too much of your break time, and besides, if you’ve ever heard any of my interviews about De, you already know how I feel about what a great job you did. Interviewers always ask me what I think of the new McCoy.”

 

Karl responded, “Well, I wanted to take great care, and be as true to the essence of McCoy as it is possible for another actor to get.  I have met many people who knew DeForest and they have always said what a warm, wonderful man he was.”

 

I confirmed that. “Oh, he was. He was salt of the earth. And you did it! You absolutely did get the essence of McCoy! De would be so pleased. I wish he were here to see you, meet you, and tell you so himself… Oh! Which reminds me: I have something for you.”

 

He seemed surprised by this statement so I don’t know if the talent coordinator had told him anything more than DeForest Kelley’s former personal assistant wanted to meet him and have a few words with him, or not. “You do?”

 

“Yes. I have some of De’s scarves. I want you to have one. But I want you to pick it yourself. I didn’t want to guess.”

 

“Really?” (Appearing truly stunned and honored.)

 

“Yes. (Taking the plastic baggie of scarves out of my satchel and opening it, then handing it to him to dig through…) Go for it.”

 

Karl quickly looked through the scarves (there weren’t more than four) and chose one. “This [gesture of yours] is wonderful.  Thank you very much!”

 

“I know he would want you to have it. Now, my I ask a personal question?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What size shirts do you wear?”

 

“Large.”

 

“Oh, drat. Because I have the sweater that De wore when he got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and I thought if it would fit you, I’d want you to have it. I can’t imagine anyone else I would want more to have it.”

 

Karl responded, “Oh, no. really, this [scarf] is fine.”

 

He looked back at me and took closer note of the BONES t-shirt I was wearing. When he spotted the cover of the book, he said brightly, “I’ve read that book!”

 

I grinned back, “I wrote it!”

 

“I enjoyed it.”

 

I introduced him to Lisa, saying, “This is Lisa, my strong right arm.”

 

He shook hands with her and said, “Hello, Lisa.”

 

She responded, “Hello.”

 

He gazed  again at the scarf in his hands and then said, “If we have the privilege of doing another Star Trek, I will try to find a way to incorporate this scarf into it.”

 

“Really?!”

 

“Oh, absolutely!”

 

I said, “Wow! That would be great! Well, we need to let you go so you can actually get a break. Thank you again for this [these brief moments with you]. ”

 

We all shook hands again and then Karl sent us off with a cheery, “I’ll see you later!”

 

As we left the area, Lisa apologized, “I just didn’t feel comfortable taking out my cellphone and taking pictures of the exchange. I’m sorry.”

 

I said, “No, you played it exactly right. It wasn’t the right time or place. It would have looked to him like we were doing it for a photo op. If his people had whipped out their cameras, that would have been one thing, but they didn’t. You absolutely did the right thing.”

 

Lisa said, “I’m so relieved. I was afraid you’d be disappointed.”

 

I said, “Nope! Good call!”

 

We wandered out into the throng of people again and started a conversation with a gentleman who was serving as a guide/crowd monitor. We told him we’d just had a brief audience with Karl and that at 5:30 we were going to be having a photo taken with him.

 

He said, “That’s wonderful. You know the photo op will be on the third floor, right?”

 

I told him, “We are on the third floor.”

 

He said, “No, you’re on the second floor.”

 

“Seriously?!”  (He’s a guide, Kris. He knows where he is. Apparently you don’t! DUH!)

 

I looked at Lisa, confused. She appeared as flustered as I was.

 

“We are?! How can that be? I coulda sworn we were just around this corner waiting to get called to meet with Karl…”

 

Then Lisa and I both remembered simultaneously, “Oh, yeah! Todd took us down an escalator to meet Karl!”

 

The poor guide smiled as if this kind of thing happened all the time.

 

So we took the elevator up to the third floor, pretty much just in time to get in a long line  for the photo op with Karl. (Thank you again, Greg Barton! Happy Birthday to me, indeed!)

 

I unburdened myself of my satchel and we went into the little cordoned-off area where fans were in line waiting for their brief seconds with Karl while a professional photographer snapped their photos.

 

These “photo ops” were mere seconds long; there was no time to chat at all.

 

So when our turn came, I bolted to Karl’s right side and Lisa bolted to his left, the photo was snapped, and we headed out immediately.

 

But just as we reached the curtain that would take us out of his sight, Karl called out to us, “Thank you again for the scarf!” and gave  us the Namaste hands-together sign of blessing.  I called back, “You’re welcome!” and that was that.

 

My take on Karl, now that I’ve met him briefly, up close and personal?  Not only is he a great Dr. McCoy, he’s as wonderful a human being as De.  Which is only fitting.   I’d have been very upset to discover he wasn’t!