Went To Megacon... Met Brandon Walsh... No Big Deal.

Went to Megacon for the first time as a fan... it was pretty awesome... and that was before I met Brandon Walsh...

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I've worked MegaCon for the past coupleof years. This is the first year
that I went to mega Con asa fan, not as a radio station
employee, and I gotta tell youit was pretty cool. This is a
podcast just a bit of a contrastsfrom what I'm used to. I usually
have to talk past because there's farpeople sharing the mic, but this is

(00:22):
just me, so I I saywhatever i'd like. It might be serious,
sometimes it might be funny. Sometimesto scratch your head and said,
Ryan is such a tummy bud.It's just me. I ain't got no
help. This is Brian Grin andI'm talking to myself. It is Brian
Grime. It is my podcast,and I am talking to myself. Got

(00:43):
my first ever megacn experience as afan this past weekend. Now, if
you don't know this, if you'relistening to this from outside of Orlando,
Megaican giant convention of basically everything popculture I think. And I'm not in
a Megaican expert, So if youare and you're hearing this and you're like,
man, you're stupid, maybe Iam, But I think MegaCon has

(01:04):
grown to the point now where it'sbasically like anything pop culture. I think
it started out as like a StarWars sci fi comic bookie type thing,
and now it's expanded to basically anythingthat you could be a fan of.
Mega Con can deliver for you,And so they do it at the Orange

(01:25):
County Convention Center. Hundreds of thousandsof people show up. It's really really
cool. I've worked it for thepast few years where basically we go as
a radio station and we hang outat opening day. Not because they need
the promotion obviously, because there's tonsof people there, but it's a great
partnership. They get in front ofsome people they may not have gotten in
front of before that might have preconceivednotions about what Mega Con is. We

(01:48):
get to give away tickets to oneof the major events in town, and
we get to cover it on socialmedia. It's a win for everybody.
So it's really cool. I've workedit before, and last year when I
was working at I kind of walkedthrough, but I'd never have gone,
like just left my house as afan and gone to Mega Con until this
weekend. First of all, somany cool things at mega Con. So

(02:10):
I was originally a fine arts major, so I am in all when I
walk around and I look at allof the things that they have for sale,
obviously that artists have created. Now. A lot of times I see
things and I'm like, oh,I can paint that myself, so I
would never pay that kind of moneyfor it. But there are some that
create these things that there's literally noway I could ever imagine creating, And

(02:30):
I see those and I'm like,Ben, I really want that, so
I can respect the art part ofit now. I don't, like I
said, I don't know what itwas before. I don't know if it
was all comic books and sci fistuff before, but it has grown now
to become this all encompassing like popculture convention, which is really cool if
you're into sci fi, if you'reinto comic books, if you're into anime,

(02:52):
if you're into just regular animation,if you're into cartoons, if you're
into old movies, if you're intolittle really anything. I think the only
thing that I didn't see a lotof was anything sports, which wouldn't make
sense anyway because that doesn't really fitinto Mega Coon, but there could have
been something there. If you're intothe horror genre, they have that there

(03:12):
because Hollow Scream has a booth setup from SeaWorld, and they have a
Petrified Force, which is, ifyou're not from here, a really cool
local haunted attraction. They have actuallya castle set up this year, kind
of a haunted house that you canwalk through, which was really cool.
So I went and did that.And then there's this whole other thing that
I've never done, which is whereyou can pay for photo ops and autographs

(03:37):
with some of your favorite celebrities.And I mean I'm talking to everybody from
anime illustrators to voices of cartoons thatyou would have never even seen what they
looked like before, to sci fiactors, to just regular mainstream actors,
like for the first time ever,the cast of Entourage was there this year,

(03:58):
and I really honestly want to goget a picture with the cast of
Entourage, but each one of theseexperiences comes with a premium, like a
price, and that was out ofmy budget tomorrow a phrase from Johnny Magic.
I was not prepared to spend thatmuch money today for the cast of
Entourage, although it was so tempting. As I walked by and I saw
him there, I'm like, ooh, there's nobody in line right now.

(04:18):
Because the lines fluctuate depending on whattime the signing is because there's different sessions.
So I was like, ooh,man, I want to jump in
there. But then I'm like,ooh, I didn't really budget for that
today. But you could get picturesand autographs with some people that you would
have never imagined you would come incontact with, which is what I did
and which is how this all started. So for me, I mean,

(04:41):
I knew I was going to workMega Con, and I knew it was
going to walk through it and takesome videos and all that stuff, because
that's what I always do. AndI do always love checking out the art
stuff, and I do like lookingat the celebrities from Afar and all that
stuff. But around Christmas time,Christmas Eve, my wife and I went
to the Miami Dolphins game down inSouth Florida against the Dallas Cowboys. One
of my wife's best friends, herhusband is a Cowboys fan, she's a

(05:02):
Dolphins fan. We are all friends. We hang out together and we go
to these you know games and tailgatesand all that stuff. Well, we
were at the Dolphins game and hewas talking about how excited he was because
he's going to Megaicon and I'm like, really, I'm working MegaCon, I
always work Megaicon and he's like,dude, I have a Jason Priestley Brandon

(05:24):
Walsh photo op. And I'm like, what, Jason Priestley Brandon Walsh,
I am one of the biggest ofBeverly Hills nine oh two one to oh
nerd people in the world. AndI was like, I am definitely down
for meeting Jason Priestley aka Brandon Walshfrom Beverly Hills nine o two one oh.
So real quick, I grabbed myphone, jumped on the Megaicon website.

(05:45):
I'm like, photo ops, eightydollars boom, that's a bargain.
I even threw the extra ten dollarsin there to get a digital print sent
straight to my phone so I canput it straight on social media. Because
I grew up well, I mean, I guess grew up as probably I
mean, I guess you're always growingup, But I grew up watching Beverly
Hills nine two nine o two oneoh. And when I say that,
I don't mean grew up as in, like you know, since I was

(06:06):
like five, but I watched itthrough high school. They graduated on the
show in nineteen ninety three at thesame time that I did. Of course,
they graduated from West Beverly High Schooland I graduated from Seminal High School
in Sanford. And they aren't realso they didn't really graduate. But I
digress. And on the show theyalways make fun of me. They say
that I think that I was partof the West Beverly High crew. I

(06:28):
just was, you know, offto the side. You know, you
didn't see me in any of thescenes, but I was at everything,
and I feel like I probably couldhave been. So when I saw that
and he told me that, I'mlike, well, first of all,
I didn't know that you were afellow West Beverly Wildcat, But now that
I know that you are, Hellyeah, I'm down. Let's do this.
So right there on the spot,Boom booked my Brandon Walsh Jason Priestley

(06:50):
photo session. I was I wasexcited. I was looking forward to it
for like since Christmas. Eve andhim and I talked back and forth on
social media about it. He toldme he was getting a shirt made,
so he had a Brandon Walsh forPresident's shirt made, because if you don't
know, Brandon Walsh ran for studentbody president at California University. Didn't win

(07:11):
his election. He became president theprevious administration when Josh Richland passed away in
a car accident while he was thevice president, so he was elevated to
president. He didn't win his reelection. But that's a whole nother story for
a whole other time. So Ihad to get a shirt made. So
I thought to myself, well,what can I do? I need to
get me a shirt, and Iwas thinking first peach pit, but I

(07:32):
didn't want to wear a button upshirt because if you know anything about me,
I don't wear buttons. And thenso I thought to myself, what
else could I do? I wasthinking maybe, you know, he was
part of the you know, WesBeverly Blaze, and I was like,
well, maybe that or the BeverlyBeat. He was, you know,
an editor on the Beverly Beat.But then I thought, you know what,
No, I know what he's knownfor. He's known for rallying the

(07:56):
senior class of Wes Beverly around hisfriend Donna Mark when she was scapegoaded at
the prom and found drunk, andthe chant Donna Martin graduates. I think
anyone who knows anything at all aboutTV in that time knows that Donna Martin
graduates. So I had a Tshirt made that said Donna Martin Graduates that
I was just dying to wear frommy photo op with Jason Priestley aka Brandon

(08:20):
Wash, the founder of the DonnaMartin Graduates movement. So I was very
excited about this. So I workedMega con on Thursday with the radio station,
did the walkthrough, did the Hauntedhouse, checked everything out. I
scoped out all of the locations whereeveryone was gonna be. Celebrity wise,
I mean, one of my firstever TV crushes, Alyssa Milano, she

(08:41):
was there, which was exciting.Marissa tome H fell in love with her,
and my cousin Vinny, she wasthere, the cast of Back to
the Future. I got to lookat all them from afar again. I
wasn't prepared to pay the amount ofmoney asked to do the actual meet and
greet with Back to the Future,although I wish, I wish I had
maybe next year. Maybe I'll startsaving my pennies now for next year.

(09:03):
But that was cool. We gotto see all that. So Thursday I
scouted everything out and then I knewSaturday morning I was going back to do
the official official fan day at MegaCon so Saturday morning. Set my alarm,
get up, make sure I'm gotmy hair all done upright so I
look good for Jason Priestley and hisphoto with the Brandon Walsh and got my

(09:24):
Donald Martin graduate shirt on boom,Jump on the road. Get to the
Eyedrive area. Now, my friends, they're smart. See they got a
hotel room at the Higher Regency whichconnects right there too the convention center.
So genius got to park in theHigher Regency parking garage. That was nice,

(09:46):
and then we walked across the streetto Mega Con. Now, first
of all, you see so manydifferent people and so many different outfits.
Whatever it is you're into, theygot somebody that's dressed up as that.
They have a cosplay area where basicallyyou and you're in character, and everybody.
What I did notice right away wasjust having a great time. Everyone

(10:07):
was so happy. All of usjust set through traffic like crazy just to
get to a parking place which wepaid thirty five forty fifty dollars to park
in, and nobody nobody was madabout it. Nobody was in a bad
mood. Everybody was giving props toeverybody on their costumes, on their outfits,
everything. It was like the mostpositive vibe I have ever been around.

(10:31):
In the biggest crowd that you couldhave crammed into one place, and
literally everybody was just cheesing. Theywere so happy, so excited taking photos
with each other, giving everybody acredit and respect for all the effort they
put into their costumes, asking ifthey could take photos with them. I
mean, it was wild. Somepeople in character the entire time, some
people not so much, like myself. I just had my Donna Martin graduate

(10:54):
shirt on, so I just lookedlike a normal dude. But it was
just crazy to see everybody so happyto be all in one place, and
everybody was kind of a common thing, and not even really a common thing
in the sense that if you're scifi, you really don't care about Jason
Priestley aka Brandon Walsh from Beverly Hillsnine o two one zero, but you
love the fact that I love it, so you're cool with it. Same

(11:15):
Like, I don't know who someof these people are, but I love
the fact that they were so intoit and we're so happy to be there
to see it all, which wasreally cool. Now, one thing weird
did happen. There was one personthis is on Thursday, that stopped me
to take a picture with me becauseof the radio show, which is cool.
I mean, I'm in Orlando,but there's a lot of people that
are in town for this that arenot radio listeners. But when one person

(11:35):
stops you to take a picture,everyone else around assumes that you're somebody famous.
So a person stopped to take aphoto, and then that other people
started stopping because they're like, well, he's got to be somebody they want
a photo. And then a fewother people stop, and I had to
tell everybody, ay, y'all,I'll be happy to take photos with all
y'all, but you're gonna be disappointed. I'm not anybody that you think I
am. I tell bad jokes onthe radio here in Orlando, so I'm

(11:58):
not MegaCon related yet. After that, nobody that stopped wanted to take the
photo. But anyway, so Igo on Saturday. I'm excited. We
get in line for the big,the big Brandon Walsh photo. Ops.
I see other people in line,got there nine o two one to ozho
gear on. They're excited, they'rehappy as well, So we're waiting in
line, everyone's having a good time. Get up to the front of the
line. And now I've never donea photo op before, although I've done

(12:22):
a ton of photo ops with likeradio station stuff, like you know,
artists that come in and people doto meet and greet. So I kinda
next that I think about it,knew exactly how this was gonna go.
I don't know why I didn't eventhink about it. It's it's a quick
process. It is literally a stepin repeat situation. They've got these lines
that you line up kind of likea little makeshift booth that is kind of

(12:46):
you know, curtains that hang up. In this case, it's Brandon wash
Jason Priestley standing there and there's youknow, a space next to him,
and the lady says, when yousee the flash from the picture before you
go ahead and start walking over,you literally get seconds with whoever it is
you're getting the photo with. Now, in some cases, I've seen pictures
that people posted where there was alittle more in depth, which was cool.

(13:07):
And I know one guy said thathe bought back to back photo ops
so he would have a little extratime, which I guess is cool.
If you want to pay for twophoto ops, you get two different photos
whatever. But you know, Iwalk in, Jason Priestley sees my Donna
Martin graduate shirt and instantly he startslaughing. He's like, hey, man,
love the shirt. Which was cool. We took our photo. I

(13:28):
was cheating like crazy. You know, you step out, next person steps
in, and you go get yourphoto. People were hitting me up after
I posted it, saying, dude, I've never seen you smile that big.
I've been listening to the show forfifteen twenty years. I've seen lots
of photos of you. I've neverseen you smile that big. I'm like,
man, I'm sitting right next toBrandon walsh Man, come on,
like this is something growing up thenI would have never even expected. And

(13:50):
now working in radio, I've meta lot of people, but like those
are people that you don't choose tomeet, Like they hey, say,
this person's coming by the station today, Great, I'll get to meet him.
This person's coming by the station today, Great, I'll get to meet
him. And I'm talking about likebig name people you know from the Guys
and then sync to you know,Kevin Hart when he was coming in doing
media for stand up. So I'vemet some pretty big people. Shakiro was

(14:13):
a huge deal when she came through, But this one is one that I
really wanted to meet, and thisis someone that I grew up watching.
And it's not because of the radiothing that I that I want to meet
him. It's because that's that wasmy deal through high school and actually through
college too, was Beverly Hill's nineO two one oh. So it was

(14:33):
like a different vibe getting to meetthem than getting to do some of the
things I've done with the radio station. So yeah, I was cheating like
crazy. If you haven't seen itat Dee Bryan Grimes on my Instagram,
it is one of my one ofmy happier moments. But then because it
went so fast, I was like, man, you know what if he's
over at the autograph table later ontoday, after we you know, walk

(14:54):
around a little bit, I thinkI'm going to go and do the autograph
session too, because I know theautograph session I got to watch a few
there's a little bit more of aninteraction because you got some more time.
So I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna do that. So we
went and had a drink and thenwe came back and we did our photo
op with William Shatner. My friendis a big star Trek fan. That
one was kind of awkward, butin a weird way that I understand.

(15:18):
And the awkwardness at first was likeeh, but then when you look at
the photo, I'm like, thatmakes the photo that much better. So
with William Shatner, he's got hundredsand hundreds and hundreds of people lined up
and he does multiple sessions and soit really is quick. But when you
pay for a session, you canhave up to four people in your photo.
And so my friend Lamar paid forthe session and he's like, you

(15:43):
guys, just be in the photowith me. I'm like, all right.
Like so his wife and I weregonna jump in the photo. But
when you go up to the WilliamShatner thing, I mean, granted,
he's old. I mean he's anold dude. He's been around for a
very long time. This is CaptainKirk we're talking about. He's sitting down
in a chair. There is aleather brief case between you and an X
on the floor and they tell youstand on the X, don't touch him,

(16:07):
And I get it. He's anolder dude. You know what I'm
saying. He's been around a minute. A couple of reasons. Your Jeremy
ass don't need to be given.Captain Kirk and he sort of he Begbi's
and what happens if you get alittle over zealous and you knock him over
or any of that stuff, that'dbe a terrible thing. So I get
it. But the photo is solike awkward because we're standing so far away
from him, and I'm like,oh, that's a great photo of the
three of us. It looks likesomeone just photoshopped William Shatner in a chair

(16:32):
next to us, which is cool. So I photo shopped William Shatner closer
to us, and then we startedphoto shopping random things in between us,
like you know, Mini Me fromAllston Powers and whatnot. So it was
an awkward photo, but it turnedinto like a really funny photo. I'll
post that on my Instagram as well. At the Brian Rhymes. But then
anyway, we're walking around, wefinish all our photo op stuff, and

(16:53):
I see that there's a short linefor Jason Priestley's autographs, but that's because
he's not there yet, So he'snot there yet, they're just people starting
to line up for when he doesget there. So I'm like, well,
let's just jump in line and askhow long it's going to be.
Luckily, we timed it perfect,so we got there right before he got
there, and then people started fillingin behind us because they saw he was
there. So I got to dothe autograph session with Jason Priestley. So

(17:17):
I had him sign a group photoand I told him the story about how
I work on the radio. Andthey all think I'm a super dork because
you know, I love Beverly Hillsnine h two and zero and I've been
talking about this for weeks and theythink that I think that I'm a member
of the West Beverly High graduating classof nineteen ninety three. And he got
a kick out of it, andyou know, as we're leaving, he
you know, signed photos for myfriend Cara, my friend Lamar, and

(17:41):
he said, hey, take iteasy, Brian, and my friend Kara
was like, oh my god,he remembered your name. And I'm like,
oh my god. Brandon Wash justsaid take it easy, Brian,
Like did anyone get this on videowThey didn't, And He's just really good
at being personable. I mean,he's like me and him, are you
know, best friends or anything,although you know whatever, we could be.
Who knows it's possible be best friends. I know everything, well,

(18:02):
I don't know everything about it.About it, I'm like I know everything
about him. No, I knoweverything about Brandon Walsh. I don't know
everything about Jason Priestley because snap backto reality, Jason Priestley is not,
in fact Brandon Walsh, but heplayed the hell out of Brandon Walsh,
which made me believe he's Brandon Walsh. All in all. If you're into
anything at all pop culture, Iwholeheartedly recommend Mega Con when it comes back

(18:26):
around next year, even if youjust do the admission just to walk around
and check out the people and hangout. But if you do have a
favorite that's gonna be there, takethe opportunity, do the autograph session,
do the photo opportunity. I recommendif they offer it, do the photograph
selfie slash autograph session, not inthe photo session, because if you do

(18:48):
the photo session, it is aquick, quick, quick, but you
can do with a lot of theman autograph slash, you know, selfie,
and you'll get a little bit moretime and you'll still get that cool
photo with them, as long asyou got someone and are a phone with
you to take the photo on yourphone. It won't be like an actual
print type thing. But I woulddo that. If I would have known
that, I would have done that. But I think I'm happy that I

(19:08):
did both. I'm happy that Igot the one on one Jason Briesley photo
and then also the autograph session photoas well. But that's my recommendation.
Anyway. You could check out mysuper cool Brandon Walsh photo on my Instagram
at v Brian Grimes, and youcan follow me on all social media at
d Brian Grimes at Instagram, Facebook, and x of course, weekday mornings

(19:29):
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(20:15):
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