The reason that Michael Shanks gets invited back to Chicago every year and is already booked for next year is downright obvious. If you can’t see why after reading this . . . go back to whatever pitiful Stargate-less planet you came from!
Michael has a habit of not dressing up for these occasions. More than once he’s shown up in a T-shirt and a baseball cap, with a scraggly half-grown beard on his face. This is a bit irritating because the cap and beard make it hard to get good pictures and see his face. Michael has called it his “lazy daddy” look. When I see that, I get out my “take off that cap or else!” look.
I think Creation might have gotten enough comments to realize that this was getting annoying to us fans, so they added something to Michael’s schedule: “Super Suave Photo Ops!” This means Michael has to shave and dress up. Then they scheduled his stage time afterward. Thank you Creation!
When Michael came out, we went wild. I mean he looks AMAZING in black! Michael seemed to like our reaction. He took some time posing for us, even turning 180° on request. Cameras were going off like crazy, and yes, there was some whistling going on! After 
giving us his customary greeting of “Hi! How’s everybody doing?” to which he got many happy shouts in reply, Michael said, “I’m just going to point it out now so that someone doesn’t later. I forgot to pack socks for this outfit.” He lifted up a pant leg to show us his very bare ankle in his black dress shoe. Then he had a seat – he’s one of the few who actually sits and stays seated on stage, which is nice because pictures come out co much better then they are not in constant motion (Dan Shea!) – and said “I’m dressed up! This is for all you wankers that complained about me always showing up with a hat on or unshaved or meh meh meh meh. So this is my (puts his thumb to his nose, fingers straight up and wiggling, and makes some indistinguishable sound).” Well really, Michael, when you come unshaven with a cap on, you look like a freaking hobo! And I mean that in the kindest way possible!
“So how’s everybody been? [Audience shouts “Good!”] So you guys beat the Canucks in the playoffs, huh? . . . (Letting his smile slide, he muttered) you suck. . . . Yeah Chicago’s going to have a good team going for it, which really sucks. Now we’re going to have to listen to this constantly for the next 5 or 10 years (Scrunches up his shoulders and makes an unhappy face).
“Does anybody have any questions? Because I could just sit here and yammer for a while, but I’m sure there’s some queries that some people might have.”
Read More “Chicago 2009: Michael Shanks – New Stories, No Socks!” »