doubleshiny

Am I the luckiest person alive? I think so. After a test screening of Serenity in London, I was walking round Chinatown looking for a horrible gold lucky cat to give to my brother, because he hates them and it's my job to annoy him whenever possible. It was nearly Chinese New Year, and this adorable old man gave me a charm with a leaf and a Chinese character made from soapstone. He said 'It's for luck. Very lucky this year'. And gosh darn it if he wasn't right.

The latest installment of the Chinese charm's luck bringing is detailed below. It's been posted on nearly every site in the known 'verse, because I want everyone to know why Joss Whedon is the world's coolest man.


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Having agreed to go and dance like Joss -puppet -monkeys on MTV, we ended up there at 5pm, queueing behind Blazin' Squad, or some 'youths' who looked like they were their official doubles. This made me feel old, as I kept wanting to tell them to tuck their shirts in. We go inside with a nice researcher lady who explodes the lie of television, and tells us exactly how the 'competition' element of the show is going to run. Basically, we play a game called Serene or Mean where Nathan, Joss and Summer have to guess how we'd react in certain situations. A genius idea on the part of the researchers, as it meant they didn't have to actually know anything about Serenity, past the definition of the word.

Myself, Linzie, Sarah and Dani (we're thinking of forming a girl group) are seated at the Top Table, which is the same as all the others tables, except for a crap cardboard sign which says 'Reserved'. This brings much jealousy from Blazin Squad and their groupies who are forced to stand. Mwahaha! There's a good 45 minutes of clapping rehearsals (it strikes me that if you need to practice clapping, maybe you're not ready to go out by yourself, let alone be in a TV audience), and then Joss, Nathan and Summer are wheeled out to meet host Alex Zane (who has lovely eyes).

After the usual questions of 'what's it like to...', 'how did it feel to...', 'tell us about...' etc., the game begins. The guys guess correctly, then incorrectly, then correctly, then it's me, and Alex Zane tells them that I was in a restaurant and the chef hadn't cooked my steak properly. Was I serene or mean? Summer comments 'you could have been killed!', sweetly unaware that these situations were invented and handed to us on cue cards about an hour ago. They guess wrong, so only two of get the tickets and we have to choose whether or not to 'gamble'. Seeing as we'd already been told that we're all getting the tickets anyway, and that we should gamble for the sake of it, we do. They roll out a ridiculous question about the serial number on the side of a plane in Serenity, which Nathan has to tell us the answer to, and then we win tickets to the Premier, and shock horror, the after show party!

As they're torn back into the green room, the guys stop to give us all higs and kisses which further tormented the members of Blazin Squad. One of them managed a kiss from Summer, and no doubt will write a r'n'b crossover hip hop ballad about that very event. Unfortunately, we still have to sit there clapping like divs until the end of the show. We finally make it down the red carpet at about 7.10. Me, resplendant in my newly dry cleaned white coat, slighlty spoiled by the fact I was hauling a massive black holdall with me, looking like I was trying to dump a body.

After the premier (film, Joss makes joke, we laugh, popcorn was free) we retire to the Moon Under Water, which is the designated Browncoat Shindig venue for the evening. We decide to head off to the party at quarter to eleven, and arriving at Teatro we get those funny looks from security which say 'We don't like you until you have a ticket'.

Teatro is quite a posh and trendy place. I immediately felt out of place, and a little like I was in Shindig, except where Kaylee had a new dress, I have some jeans which look like they belong to a cowhand, and a t-shirt from tesco which cost £4. Amongst the Prada shoes and Armani dresses I feel like I should be scrubbing the toilets rather than hobnobbing, but I dampen that attitude with some free beer, and then some more free beer, and then a little bread thing with a grape on it, and then more beer (free).

Somewhere amidst this hazy cloud of boozery, Nathan and Joss begin to circulate and be nice to people. I talk to Nathan about the fact that I have to teach my first ever class as a trainee teacher the next day, and he offers some sage advice about discipline techniques which seem to all involve ritual humiliation. He is much amused at a childhood friend of his who has accompanied him to the party and is now dancing feverishly with every girl he can lay his hands on. Good work that man!

Ah yes, dancing. So there I am, grooving away in my own junior school disco kind of way, oblivious to the injuries I'm causing to myself and others and the withering looks of people who actually have an image to think of, when I notice a kindred dancing spirit, seemingly as unconcerned as I am that, if God is a dancer, we're going to burn. I look up to see who this fellow Soul Train Dance School alumnus is, and lo and
behold, it's only Mr Joss Whedon himself. Dancing with your hero, it's the new black. (Apparently, Joss's hero is Steven Sondheim, but he'd still rather dance with me, though this possibly can be explained away by the fact that Mr Sondheim is 75, and that most people don't want to make an ass of themselves in front of their idol). I tell Joss that he's a good man, and he makes people happy, which is the most articulate thing I can manage in the presence of so much free booze. He replies by saying that I've 'got the moves', and that he's impressed I can dance and hold a beer
at the same time. On re-telling this doesn't seem like a huge compliment, but for me it was like being awarded the Nobel Prize in Mega Coolness.

Later, as the night draws on and Anthony Stewart Head and his lady depart for their comfy beds (he was there by the way, I haven't just gone crazy), I'm still dancing, as the beer to sensibility ratio begins to tilt, when a hand comes to my shoulder and Joss is back for more
grooving. The man's stamina is phenomenal, we ain't talking no simple shake of the shoulders here, this is all out, backs to the wall funk. After a little one on one bumping and grinding it's time for refreshing water and panting (Joss) and more free beer and sweating (me). A wave of surreality washes over me as Joss, grooving away, suddenly looks at me and says 'I really love this song', as if it's the end of term disco. I haven't stopped smiling since.

So there's the story, they say you should never meet your heroes, but I'd like to add an appendum to that. You should never meet your heroes, unless your hero is Joss Whedon, cos, you know, he rocks.

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In response to the challenge set on the Serenity Boards....here it is.

Dead Bessie - Foetal Detective

When one of the 3100 Justin Timberlake clones escaped from the All Worlds Institute For White Boy Funk, he stowed away on a passenger freighter headed for the Space Bazaar on a tiny planet named Parliament. There he hid from the feds inside a freak show tent, where he found a deformed cow foetus. That foetus began to send psychic waves to young Justin383, and pleaded with him to help her escape from the indignity of the freak show and embark on her true destiny – solving crime.

Follow Dead Bessie (voiced by Dame Judi Dench) and her sidekick Justin383 (Alan Tudyk) on their adventures across time and space, but mostly space. This fall, only on Fox.


Episode 1 – Destiny, Thy Name Is Justin383

The season opener will feature guest appearances from Albert Finney, Sir Ian McKellen and Paula Abdul. See how their adventures all began, in this feature length pilot. Justin383 escapes from the Institute on a passenger ship piloted by an old English pirate (McKellen). Hotly pursued by his evil creator, Usher (Finney), Justin383 disguises himself as a crate of wool and is delivered to the Space Bazaar on Parliament, the funkiest planet of them all. Paula Abdul stars as ‘Galley Wench’.

Episode 2 – Eeny Meeny Miny…Dead!

Bessie and Justin investigate the murder of a high profile councillor who was due to be subpeoned in a trade dispute. Hilarity ensues. Guest appearance by James Earl Jones as ‘Funky Pope’.

Episode 3 – Monkey See, Monkey Shoot!

A Jazz bassoonist is shot five minutes before a concert, seemingly by his own pet capuchin, Billy. Bessie and Justin investigate who may have taught Billy to pull the trigger, and why a famous monkey trainer would have taken out a ten billion credit life insurance policy on the bassoonist only hours before. Guest starring Joss Whedon as the bassoonist, Sarah Michelle Gellar as the monkey trainer, and Chris Buchanan as ‘Billy’.