Tonight is our only midnight screening on Repo Road Tour 3, which is exciting. Exciting because 1) REPO! The Genetic Opera screams "midnight movie", and 2) this later start time means that maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to catch up on a little sleep before tonight's show.

January 16, 2009: It's 11:00am. We meet downstairs, check out of our hotel, and hit the road. Tonight's stop: Greenbelt, Maryland. Compared to yesterday's hellish drive from Foxboro to Rutherford, today's road ride is painless. Alexa drives again, and there are plenty of snacks, good conversations, & picturesque landscapes to occupy the time. 

We arrive at our reserved hotel for the night, The Econo Lodge. It's late afternoon. From the road, we called ahead to confirm today's room reservations and got such an odd vibe from the rep on the phone, that we knew the hotel would present some problems. This suspicion is confirmed as we walk into the Econo Lodge's lobby, and inhale: it stinks. Bad. Plus, the hotel's clerk can't seem to figure out how to work his computer. We watch as he lets a stranger go in and use the bathroom in one of our potential rooms, and decide to cancel our reservations and relocate to the Howard Johnson's across the street. This upgrade costs a little more, but the expense is well worth it as I collapse onto my comfortable bed for the night, and pass out.

Darren, Alexa, Spooky, & I, meet in the hotel's lobby at 8:30pm, before driving out to find a restaurant for dinner. The hotel's clerk, who finds out that we're in the movie business—although he'd never heard of REPO! before tonight—prints out our imdb pages and asks us to autograph them. In exchange, the clerk gives us directions to Greenbelt's "happening" downtown area, where he professes there are lots of bars and restaurants. We get there and discover that the most "happening" place on this block-long outdoor mini-mall is an Applebee's.

Alexa orders another steak (impressive), and again completely cleans her plane (most impressive). We settle our tab and head off to the Old Greenbelt Theatre, REPO!'s RRT3 venue.

Greenbelt is a small city, positioned somewhere between Washing D.C. and Baltimore. Our theatre for the night is located within an outdoor shopping center, positioned somewhere between a photocopy center and a pharmacy. 

It's 10:30pm. We pull into the parking lot, drive past a line of REPO! people collecting in front of the theatre, and park. Packed into a car beside us, trying to keep warm until the theatre opens its doors, is a crew of REPO! attendees. How do we know this? Well, one of them is wearing a Pavi mask. Another is rocking Blind Mag's bloody tears. I'm not sure that they notice us, but it's sure hard not to notice them.

We have an interview in the theatre's lobby in about 10 minutes, so we make our way towards Greenbelt's glowing marquee, passing the line. It's pretty cold out, but people are happy to see us. Spooky Dan heads inside and begins setting up our merchandise table as Alexa, Darren & I hang back and take pictures with REPO!'s fans.

A pair of sexy women dressed as scalpel sluts stop me as I pass them in the line (Elizabeth "dizzylizzy" and Destiny "BloodSaga"). I recognize Liz, as she and I met in Atlanta on RRT1 back in November. She and Destiny are traveling to tomorrow's Cincinnati show as well, and then onto Los Angeles next week for RRT3's finale. Holding a syringe full of Zydrate blue "liquid", Liz asks me to open my mouth. I do. She aims the tip towards my tonsils, depresses the syringe's plunger, & fires the aqua-alcoholic contents into my mouth. I don't close my jaw fast enough, however, and the Zydrate juice ricochets off the back of my throat, spraying out of my mouth and all over Liz (way to look cool in front of the hot chicks, GraveRobber!).

Also in line are other familiar faces, others who have made appearances on previous Road Tour stops: Victoria, wearing a heart around her neck with an inscription of her REPO! forum name, "GraveRobber's Bitch", and Dean "Hellbound", dressed as everybody's favorite GeneCo Bandleader. Victoria hands me a Zydrate blue energy drink, which is appropriately named "Liquid Z". I give the drink to Spooky Dan who is so hooked on energy drinks that he should buy stock in Red Bull. 

Entering the theatre, I pass a proud father holding a piece of Nathan/Repo Man fan art that his daughter made. She couldn't be here tonight, but he wanted to make sure that I saw her work. 

I also meet a fella' cross-dressing as Amber Sweet, Michael aka "phobia2.0" aka Manber Sweet. His costume is great, replete with a diamond encrusted corset top, knee-high stockings, & black hot pants. He looks so good, in fact, that I find myself staring…staring a little too much. A very lovely woman dressed as Blind Mag accompanies him (Kaitlyn "J'adore"). Considering the circumstances, I don't want to assume that she's a girl, but I find myself trying to flirt nonetheless. But more impressive than Manber's costume, or his sexy, red-feathered, dubious cohort, is a piece of original artwork that he made for me: a painting of yours truly in my GraveRobber garb. It's good. Really good. The likeness is so spot on, that I'm at a loss for words.

It's 11:30pm. The theatre opens its doors. People file in to take their seats. Several fan pre-shows commence on the Old Greenbelt Theatre's dimly-lit—and very uneven—stage. This results in a dancing Gentern (Morgan "hununga") breaking her ankle. 

It's midnight. Spooky does his nightly pre-show. Tonight, he invites a couple of fans up to sing portions of REPO! songs. A lady sings a few bars of "Chromaggia". A dude demonstrates his Tibetan throat singing skills.

REPO! The Movie screens, and the crowd is really into it, so much so that the majority of the house sticks around for a post 2:00am Q & A and autograph signing. I sign a "Copyright Your DNA" t-shirt, several Zydrate vials, & a folded piece of paper inked with the words "one soul".

Check out Terrance's site for a lot more info!

REPO! Road Tour Diary: Greenbelt

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