On October 7, HBO invited me to their store on 6th Avenue in NYC to see some of the costumes from the set of “True Blood” and to interview the co-writers of the “True Blood” comic series. Someone from MTV was interviewing the writers, David Tischman and Mariah Huehner, so while I waited I checked out the nifty schwag no the shelves. I had already ordered a bunch of the “True Blood” themed pint glasses but it was neat to see an entire fridge filled with bottles of True Blood. They had a bartender handing out Fangbanger cocktails (2 oz vodka + 8 oz True Blood) which were very tasty and went well with the tasty Cajun-inspired fingerfood (deep fried shrimp, etc.). There were only a couple of the costumes inside the store as the rest were in the streetside display windows but it was very cool to see them in person and close up. The costumes will be given away to the lucky winners of HBO’s www.TrueBloodSweeps.com contest,

The store is pretty tiny actually so milling around was a bit difficult but there were some friendly people there (other press + HBO’s PR people). Once MTV was done I stepped up and did the above interview before heading out to run an errand on 7th Ave. On my way out HBO gave me a bag of goodies that included an issue of the comic plus a bottle of True Blood with cocktail instructions, a “Bored To Death” t-shirt, and a “Boardwalk Empire” t-shirt among other items – SCORE! My piece on the event went live at LAist yesterday.