The 10 Best Pics of Rowdy Roddy Piper and Jay From Monster Mania Con 28!

With the summer installment of Monster Mania in the history books, the countdown to Halloween is fast-approaching. Although it’s a horror convention, my mind never associates it with the onset of the Halloween season. Not sure why, but when you think about it, in merely a matter of days, Dinosaur Dracula will be signaling to all that the countdown is on. Halloween is right around the corner, yet this is still a summer event, one that’s ripe for escorting the sweltering season directly out the door without passing go. Good riddance to you summer, I say. Oh, I suppose you want to know more about Monster Mania? OK, I’ll give you all I can remember.

Let me get this out from the get-go: we didn’t get drunk with the Joker and Freddy Krueger like we did that other time, but once again, the forces of Dinosaur Dracula, Freddy in Space, and The Sexy Armpit came together and had quite an interesting time to say the least. It’s a scene not for the faint of heart. You’d probably like to know all about our sordid Monster Mania tales from this time around, but we’ve got to keep some decorum here, plus, details are fuzzy. Put it this way, there was a lot of liquor and VHS tapes involved. And Tom Bryce’s pretzels. It was a veritable Shit Pretzel Fest.

As I mentioned, it’s a little foggy, but the bits of this event that I do remember include buying a Princess Bride poster AND more monumentally, meeting Rowdy Roddy Piper. With the Hot Rod in New Jersey, how could I miss the chance to meet one of my favorite WWE Legends of all time?

I think I must’ve gained a lifetime membership to the club. You know that club, Those Who’ve Met Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper Within a Matter of Days From Each Other Club. It’s not the kind of braggable anecdote as say, being in the mile high club, but it’s a tidbit that’ll most certainly be engraved in my headstone.

While waiting on line I noticed Piper was smiling and taking his time to talk with every one of his fans. Fortunately, Matt (@DinosaurDracula) arrived, grabbed my phone and snapped over 20 photos to make damn sure we commemorated this historic meeting of the minds. It was a nearly impossible task to narrow it down, but here are the top 10 best photos of Hot Rod and I from our impromptu photo shoot. Some of the shots are different, yet so completely the same.

As they were swiping through these photos on my phone, a few of my friends and family members asked what I talked to Piper about. Seeing 20+ photos of he and I prompted one of my friends to ask “how long was he talking to you for?” No joke, it had to be at least 35 minutes. There were “BULLSHIT” chants coming from the people in line behind me. To be clear, we didn’t talk wrestling, we didn’t talk They Live, and we damn sure didn’t talk politics. But he did offer me a recipe. It’s just like good old Hot Rod, recipes are so typical of him. You can see how good he is with a blender in that episode of Legends House. Piper vs. The Blender, a feud that can only be rivaled by Hogan/Piper.

The blur was actually present in the room. It eventually dissipated, but, at first, it was like The Mist.

JAY:
“Hey Hot Rod! How exciting it is to meet you!”

HOT ROD:
“Hey, thank you man, what’s your name?” 

JAY
“I’m Jay.”

HOT ROD:
“Jay, I love that shirt!” 
(I’m wearing the Panther shirt that Roddy wore to the ring in the early ’80s.)
JAY:
“It’s classic! I’m about 6 tequilas in, so excuse me if I sound like it.”

HOT ROD:
“Ohhhohoo, so you want to be a big shot don’t ya?”
JAY:
“Well, not really, I just wanted to get drunk with my friends.”

HOT ROD:
“Now that you mention it, you are lookin’ a little bit under the weather, You know what, I know exactly what you need. It’s what I used to make when I was oh, knee high to a grasshopper.”

JAY:
“Specifically, what kind of concoction are you going to supply me with the recipe for, Roddy? Not that raw egg in the blender gimmick that Hulk gave Mean Gene I hope!”
(Just when he thought he had all the answers, I obviously changed the questions.) 
HOT ROD:
“Now, don’t insult me kid or I’ll crack your head with a coconut, trust me you’ll want to listen to the information I’m about to lay out for you.”

JAY:
“I’m all ears, Hot Rod.”
HOT ROD:
“Do you remember once upon a time when that little meatball Rachel Ray’s cooking show was a hot commodity? Well it can’t touch Mixology with Rowdy Roddy!
JAY:
“I’m confused, are you saying you’re changing the name of Piper’s Pit?”
HOT ROD:
“Listen up, stop your lips from yapping for one minute. If you want to be big time, you’re gonna have one of these with me”
Piper proceeds to instruct me on how to concoct a Hot Roddy.
HOT ROD:
“Ever hear your grandmother talk about drinking a Hot Toddy when she was sick? Well, this is what I call a Hot Roddy.”
JAY:
“I assume it can cure what ails ya…or ails me. After all the drinking and partying at Monster Mania so far, this is just what I needed. Some kind of an elixir to rejuvenate me.”
HOT ROD:
“You’re damn right, and remember Jay, this drink ain’t FOR EVERYBODY, but if you want a banana have a banana, us, we gonna have ourselves a Hot Roddy.”

HOT ROD
Oh no…
JAY:
Oh no, what?

HOT ROD:
Oh no…who is that taking our picture? Please don’t tell me it’s that damn motherf*ckin’ Dino Drac, that sonofabitch! OK, OK, that’s enough pictures, you know where you can stick those VHS tapes! This is the last picture and then get that photographer the hell out of here!

I have come here to show you at least 10 photos and kick ass, and I’m all out of photos.

Monster Mania 27 Recap

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Freddy Krueger was in town over the weekend. The mere thought of this may have struck an incredible amount of fear into you back in the mid ’80s, but nowadays it’s not as scary as it is cool. At some point in the future, we’ll look back and marvel at how monumental of a thing this was. FREDDY F’N KRUEGER himself meets and greets his fans, quite often I might add, in New Jersey of all places. This is the type of thing that happens all the time at the Cherry Hill chapter of Monster Mania.

Negating all that build-up, I wasn’t actually there to meet Robert Englund. Nope, my mission for Monster Mania 27 was merely to cruise around the dealer rooms and hang out with friends. While not as monumental as the 26th Monster Mania, #27 did have its charms.

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Homemade Horror Chocolates!

As we stared down several stories to the ground floor from our newly renovated room at Crown Plaza in Cherry Hill, we gazed at the Englund line. His drawing power is tremendous every time. The line to meet him is usually wrapped at least halfway around Crowne Plaza.

When I see the Englund line, I wonder to myself, are these all people who have met him before and want to meet him again, or is this line sprinkled with a whole new generation of fans? I imagine it’s a bit of both which is a really cool thing. The crowd is usually very diverse. It’s not just a bunch of middle aged people going to meet equally as old if not older celebrity guests. Appropriately, there’s constantly new blood. I witnessed it first hand when a young kid/horror fan who couldn’t have been more than 12, ran up to John “Freddy in Space” Squires and his wife Jen to say hello. It was one of those cool moments that reinforced the fact that the horror community is tight knit and comes out in full force to local horror cons such as this.

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This Guy…

One of the cool things about the March installment of Monster Mania is that it usually falls near my birthday on the calendar. That was pretty awesome for a long time, but with each passing year the novelty has began to wear off. Any time I’m at Monster Mania I feel like there aren’t many other places I’d rather be…probably only Disney World. It must be that all the nostalgia makes me feel like a kid again. I feel very at home and at ease at the cons because they’re a chance to tune out the world and get transported to an alternate reality. I love being able to talk to people with the same interests as me as well as doing some horror-themed shopping.

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Something in my mind tells me that I’ll get more out of the experience if I don’t go to a con merely just to buy stuff. Is it a fuller experience if I meet some of the celebrity guests as well as shop for stuff on my macabre mental checklist? This time around I was a clean slate. I was going for no other reason than just to be there and enjoy the experience. Usually, that’s the precise time when the coolest stuff pops out at me. Plus, it’s more fun to be taken off guard by an item you didn’t even realize you wanted.

Once we arrived we wasted no time swinging through all the dealer rooms a few times. This is the first time that I don’t think I bought anything except food and drinks. I’m proud of myself. I didn’t even buy a t-shirt, but that’s because I have..all of them. Matt found a few toys that he discussed in his Monster Mania post and later he surprised me with an insanely awesome Slimer night light! Thanks Matt! See a picture of it at my Instagram (instagram.com/sexyarmpit.)

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We purposely thought it best not to intentionally try to recapture the over the top nature of the August installment of Monster Mania, so we just hung out for the rest of the night and had a few drinks. The kitchen at the hotel bar was backed up. This wait resulted in John, Matt, and myself debating about our favorite Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th films. I feel like we talk about this same topic each time we are in each others presence, but it always seems like we accomplish something in the conversation. Sometimes I get looked at like an elitist film snob for my taste in NMOES movies. As a kid I swore Dream Warriors was my favorite, and it may be one of my favorites, but ultimately, the original is without a doubt my favorite and it’s the installment I can watch anytime without having to be in the mood for it. As far Friday the 13th goes, I’m pretty sure we all agreed (but I’m only officially quoting myself) that 1984’s Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is our favorite of the F13th series.

After we finally ate and had a few beers we ran into Tom Bryce from Shit Movie Fest – a guy who I swear I’ve most likely brushed shoulders with at previous Monster Manias but didn’t realize it. It was great to meet him since he’s one of the nicest dudes from our online world. I also saw our friend Jess Rajs from Gorgeous and Gory and a few other horror-fiend friends of mine.

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“Someone saw a clown up on 12…”

Later, we all decided it was time to head to the room rather than being loud and obnoxious in the lobby which had pretty much cleared out for the night. We hopped on the elevator and ran into a creepy clown guy in the elevator. I wish this was going to lead into some sort of horror movie scenario, but it doesn’t. This guy’s got to get to his room to get some sleep just like everyone else does.

The following paragraph contains situations of a graphic and violent nature, reader discretion is advised. 

I’m not sure how it began, but I’m pretty sure I instigated it.

The epic hotel room match between John Squires and myself included tons of back and forth, reverse knife edge chops, and even some painful scientific holds, but ultimately I took home the win. Now you know Johnny wouldn’t let me off that easy. We couldn’t take away his heat like that either. Smart booking dictates that he needed to pull some real #heel type shit.

As I was reeling from the win, I heard Dinosaur Dracula announce me as the winner (just before he passed out for the night grasping his new Boglin) and at that point it really felt like I was in the ring getting cheered and jeered by a packed house at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, home of Wrestlemania 4 and 5 (at least that’s what was going through my mind.) Distressed, John’s wife Jen looked with a tear streaming down her face, she ran into the ring/bed area and tried to console a stunned John. I hobbled over to take a swig of beer for the working man from my can before I could throw it in the trash and…BAM!!!

John spears me into the wall.

The whole room shook. 

Can you blame us? We were a mere 8 miles away from the ECW Arena. Extreme vibes were running wild. This is how the commentators would’ve called it, when you read these, hear them in your mind as they would sound:

JIM ROSS
“SPEARED INTO THE WALL! SPEAR! SPEAR! WHAT A DASTARDLY ATTACK! THE WALL HAS CAVED IN! BUSINESS HAS JUST PICKED UP!” 
GORILLA MONSOON
“WHAT A PEARL HARBOR JOB ON THE PART OF SQUIRES…THIS IS DESPICABLE.” – Gorilla Monsoon
BOBBY HEENAN
“AT LEAST JAY GOT TO HAVE THAT LAST SIP OF HIS BEER, WOULDN’T WANT TO SEE IT GO TO WASTE. NOW SOMEONE GIVE THIS MAN A HARVEY WALLBANGER.”
JESSE “THE BODY” VENTURA
“HE WAS JUST CRACKING HIS BACK FOR HIM McMAHON!”
MICHAEL COLE
“VINTAGE SQUIRES”

Bless the people in the adjacent hotel room. They were saints for not calling in a noise complaint. I feel even worse for the newly renovated hotel room itself since it surely felt the wrath of two of the most powerful and destructive bloggers and writers on the face of the planet. Don’t worry, if the earth is ever in some sort of diabolical peril, the two of us will join forces as a tag team and doggy paddle everyone who fell into the Atlantic Ocean to safety. You’re welcome.

It was pretty embarrassing when we ran into our nice neighbors as we both checked out at the same time the next morning. They told us that they thought the mirror was going to fall off the wall in their room. A big thanks to them for being such good sports.