The AMC Luncheon was held at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, Manhattan to be more specific. This was my first trip to New York and my first AMC Luncheon. We stayed at the Hotel Intercontinental because I got us a kick-ass rate of $179.00 per night by booking on-line. The telephone reservations would have been $359.00 per night and yes I am congratulating myself on this! Considering I decided on Wednesday evening to fly to New York for the weekend I thought I did pretty well! Our hotel was close enough to the Roosevelt that we decided to walk over. The day started by my friends dragging me, against my will, into a Starbucks. Blech! Coffee is such a vile substance. Next time I think I’ll have a "Liz&Lucky" special pretzel on the street.

We strolled over to the Roosevelt to check in around 10:00 that morning. We received our attractive pink bracelet decorated with little balloons, which set off my black attire so well, Also, we received a goodie bag with a couple of the soap mags, an AMC magnet, a letter from David Canary explaining his absence, a complimentary video of Soap Center from Soap Net (pretty much the only channel I watch anymore!) and a few autograph pages. We headed on into the foyer outside the ballroom to purchase tickets for the various raffles. There was one $5.00 per ticket raffle for a studio tour, the new porcelain Erica Kane doll and an AMC studio chair.

The $1.00 per ticket raffle was for items ranging from autographed scripts to photos of the actors, a couple of autographed playbills from Annie Get Your Gun and for some strange reason they were even raffling off some pics of GH’s Luke & Laura. Unfortunately, I didn’t win anything, but a couple of my friends lucked out, one even won an autographed script.

 By this time, it was only around 10:30 so we had an hour and a half to kill until we were allowed into the ballroom.  We elected to go hang out in the bar and see what we could see, which turned out to be nothing but some fashion mistakes. In time for lunch we headed back upstairs. The lunch, if you can call it that, began with a pitiful looking little Caesar Salad and a roll that I’m convinced was made of cement. Followed (nearly an hour later for those of us in the balcony) by an ancient chicken breast dry enough to rival the Sahara, some sweet potato vegetable mixture concoction that I refused to touch, a spinach soufflé (or so I was told) which I also refused to touch. We only had water with our meals, as you had to buy cokes separately for $4.00 each in a glass about the size of a dixie cup! In case you didn’t gather, this point not at all impresses me, so I decided to go linger in the foyer, use the facilities and dash by the bar before the fun started. When I arrived in the foyer, Abby Spencer (Becca) was stepping out of the restroom and began signing autographs from some rude people. Walt Willey (Jack) walked through a couple of times saying hello to people. On my way out of the restroom Susan Lucci (Erica, as if you didn’t know) came in, not something I was expecting, but my gawd she looked fabulous! Some of those aforementioned rude fans hung around outside the restroom hoping for an autograph or a picture. I hung around in the foyer for a little while longer chatting with some friends and Josh Duhamel (Leo) walked up the stairs and was taken aback by some of the same rude fans who saw him and lunged in his direction.

Everything was running behind schedule all day long.

(Vanessa), Julia Barr (Brooke), David Beecroft (Eliot Freeman…aka Josh Walenski), Cameron Mathison (Ryan), Esta Terblanche (Gillian), J. Eddie Peck (Jake), Susan Lucci (Erica), Michael E. Knight (Tad), Marcy Walker (Liza), Cady McClain (Dixie), Vincent Irizarry (David), Eden Riegel (Bianca), Abby Spencer (Becca).

Noticeably absent was Michael Nader (MyDimitri) who was confirmed for coming which is why it was so easy for my friends to convince me to drop everything and fly to NYC at the last minute; however, I got over my disappointment as soon as J. Eddie Peck walked in (gggggrrrroooowwwlllll!) He was wearing leather pants and men in leather pants just do something for me that I can’t even begin to explain.

Carol Dickson, the president of the fan club, then gave out some awards voted on by the fan club.

FAVORITE STORYLINE: Adam & Liza saga and Alex/Anna mystery
FAVORITE COUPLE: Gillian & Ryan
FAVORITE COUPLE: Marian & Stuart
FAVORITE COUPLE: Hayley & Matéo
FAVORITE COUPLE: Erica & David
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR: Cameron Mathison (Ryan)
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR: Vincent Irizarry (David)
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR: Michael E. Knight (Tad)
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Kelly Ripa (Hayley)
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Esta TerBlanche (Gillian)
BEST VILLIAN: Marj Dusay (Vanessa)

OUSTANDING NEWCOMER: Josh Duhamel (Leo)
OUTSTANDING ACTOR: David Canary (Adam/Stuart)
OUTSTANDING ACTRESS: Susan Lucci (Erica)

 I’m going to be sad to see him go, but I’ll definitely be tuning into HBO more often. The show is a comedy, where he will be playing a gay cop, who is in love with a white man and they met in a church. Sounds promising.

During the Q&A, Cameron was using his video camera to shoot some footage for his webpage.

Finally, they released us at 2:30 to go to the autograph tables, meaning we had only an hour and a half to see the stars.

Cady left immediately without signing any autographs, but I guess the fans should be thankful that they were graced with her presence at all. Jennifer Bassey also left. I overheard her saying something about needing to check on her family.

We headed to the room where J. Eddie, Eden, Rebecca, Esta, Josh, and Cameron were signing. The line for J. Eddie was shorter and looked to be moving pretty well. Y’all he is a Q-T-PIE! Some rude person cut line just before we got to the front. She shall remain nameless for purposes of this story, but rest assured that I know who she is BY NAME AND SIGHT, because throughout the afternoon she was loud and obnoxious! When I got my turn, I said something to him that I have no recollection of and which prompted him to ask where I’m from. I told him Memphis and asked "you couldn’t tell by the accent?" lol. He said his mom is from Nashville and that’s what made him ask. He recognized the drawl. I talked to him for a minute about his stint on Dallas and Y&R and took a picture. :::::swoon::::: He said there seemed to be a lot of Dallas fans there today. Guess I wasn’t the only person who remembered him.

Eden and Rebecca were next in the line. My friend managed to get both to sign her book, but Rebecca had to leave, so I missed having her sign mine. Oh well, she wasn’t a priority. Eden is a delightful young person. She was very pleasant and seemed to handle the obnoxious crowd better than some of the older stars.

Next, I really wanted to see Marcy Walker, so we skipped the astronomical Cameron/Josh line and headed to the other room. Marcy was first in this line and speaking of delightful, ugh, she is the sweetest person. I love Liza except when she’s pining after Adam, but I first saw Marcy on Santa Barbara and I told her the most frightening thing I ever saw on daytime was Eden’s rape. Excellent story!!! She was genuinely impressive.

Sara Hugh was next. I skipped her basically because I have no use for her character and I had bigger fish to fry, as they say. Besides she had some strange frightening big hair thing going on. I didn’t want to be too close.

 Mathew St. Patrick was next. He is a lovely, lovely person. I told him we were going to miss his presence on AMC, but can’t really blame him for leaving (I didn’t say this, but crappy story makes folks leave!!!). I also mentioned that I caught him on GH (ex-Taggert) where I found him immensely watchable. He appreciated my memory! Now if you think he’s a gorgeous hunk on tv, believe me, the tube does not do this man justice! Oh my gawd, he’s a fine specimen of a human!

Walt Willey was next. We got our pictures and had him sign the books all the while, he’s making jokes, playing with the group. I think he likes to be the center of attention.

	Eileen Herlie was next. She’s absolutely a sweetheart. Something funny – she signed my book as Myrtle. She didn’t even sign her real name. How cute is that?
Lana Quintel was seated at the same table and she also signed the book. She’s really a nice person despite that voice like nails on a chalkboard.

By this time it was after 4 and we heard that all of the lines had closed down. We decided to check our raffle tickets to see if we’d won anything; however, when we entered the lobby, the Cameron/Josh line was still open…and hey…

I’m always up for standing in line to get a hug from Cam! When I got my chance to say hey to Cam again he was munching on an energy bar of some sort so I talked while he choked down some nourishment. I mentioned what a fantastic job Manny does running his website, the fact that he updates it regularly.

 I love the fact that Cameron pops in with messages of his own from time to time.He said he would pass on the message, but I had already emailed Manny telling him as much. We took another picture and I told him I’d see him again in Florida for SSW (CAN’T WAIT!!).

Overall, I had a nice time (the GH Luncheon was way better), but there were serious problems with the organization, the meal, the service…serious chaos; however, none of that is why I was there. I saw the stars and that’s all that mattered.