Oct. 12: After one year, it's an open house for Portal 47!

My baby is one year old! Portal 47, the monthly insider deep-dive to more in-depth Trek, was launched a year ago this month—and we're having a party to celebrate!

Well, a virtual open house, actually, and you're invited: On Oct. 12, a special edition of one of our guest telebriefings. And in the spirit of #StarTrek50, it's a doozy: None other than Robert Butler, director of Trek's 1964 first pilot, "The Cage."

I thought Robert, whom I've met at a couple of recent panels here in L.A., would make a wonderful guest for this opportunity to show off one of the key features in the Portal package.  At 88, he can't travel much, so the phone-conference format is a perfect way to open up his appearance to the whole world. And there's not a lot of his colleagues still with us.

As the Portales do once a month, you can even send in questions in advance for our guest. Just reserve your virtual seat at this link, and see how, when and where to join in—and forward your pre-questions, if you like. We'll have some visuals, too, for those online...where we never have bandwidth issues.

It's just one of the features our deep-divers get every month—a part of what we call a mini-con all year long, no matter where your center seat is. (Seriously. Any continent, or wilderness... with a wi-fi signal, that is.)

But next week, all are welcome to see what that's like, and get a dose of first-hand Trek tales in the process... where no savvy fan has gone before. Hope you can make it!




(And by the way: If you tried to make our launch call a year ago and could not get in...don;t look for that to happen again. We're good!)

Old-school San Diego: See you at ConDor this weekend!

UPDATED with schedule adds/room changes: 

It's not often you get a chance to see three non-actor icons from the original Star Trek spotlighted at a convention—and at a hotel-based, sci-fi convention of not-insane size, on the old-school model. But come this weekend, Feb. 26-28, ConDor Con XXIII in San Diego is such an event—and I'm pleased to be a part of the bill that is headlined by three front-seat folks from the actual TOS Desilu days of the '60s.

Yes, you'll be able to see Dorothy Fontana, David Gerrold and Bjo Trimble as guests of honor—plus a whole lot more authors, artists, and the like. And you can still get in easily and economically!I am so thrilled to have been asked to join the guest list and have this chance—and if you can get yourself there to the Town & Country Resort in north San Diego, you should jump at the chance. Especially if your convention experience, all-Trek or otherwise, is of the huge ticket/ huge mob variety....cause this ain't.

What's more, Janet will be with me as a "low key" con guest for the first time since our Terraformers II Greece trip in 2010.

There's plenty of rooms and memberships (ie, tickets) available for one or all three days—and discounts for military and vets. And kids 12 and under free. Online reg is closed, but you can do it easily on-site.

Here's my own line-up for the weekend:

—Tabling, off and on in the dealer's room—with a PORTAL 47 prize drawing on Sunday.

FRIDAY
7pm: Meet the Guests/Opening Ceremonies (Le Chanticleer Room)

9:30 pm: The Captions Logged: Home Edition blooper image late-night caption contest that was such a hit at FedCon 2014, with prizes!  (Le Sommet Room)

SATURDAY
—10 am: My main "Trekland: Between the Cracks—Big 5-0 Party" slideshow and fan forum hour (Windsor Rose Room)

—11 am: Open Autographs (Dealer's Room) (will be tabling otherwise most hours)

—Noon: Actual multi-panel: "Star Trek: The Reboots" "Did Trek really need rebooting? And did the newest films do it justice, or seriously screw it up? Opinions are all over the spectrum. Come give us yours." ( Windsor Rose) 

—8-10 pm: A Dr. Trek Show Crowdfunder party for The Con of Wrath, (Clarendon Room)


And maybe some more to crash, who knows. 

Hope to see y'all SoCallers there!

Happy 96th, De—a cowboy in and out of Starfleet

Especially this week... if it was ever a secret how I felt about DeForest Kelley and his
creations, and indeed his life, it is no longer—thanks most recently to The Red Shirt Diaries.

It used to be lonely being a vocal De fan—not so much for any negatives for him, but purely for any attention at all. Yet now, with every year that goes by I see more and more appreciation for his long-understated role in the original Star Trek success chemistry...as well as his other roles, including those delicious bad guys.

If you have been a Treklander here for any length of time, you likely know I take a moment on Jan. 20 each year to celebrate De's day by sharing a photo from his life and career. And while many know of all De's TV and film Western roles before Star Trek, in that genre's heydey, few know of those he had after Trek's 1969 cancellation.

And thus comes this year's portrait: Taken during a guest appearance on ABC's short-lived series The Cowboys... In 1974—just five years after Trek's demise. It was the last sojourn in spurs of his career—but boy, De's time in outer space did not dull his feel for the wide open spaces. Don't you think?

Red Shirt Diaries: Ashley, Jason—and who's Bones?!

The truth HAS been out there for some time, but it hit home today: The Red Shirt Diaries is the cutest, bestest and yet heart-felt little Trek parody webseries out there: The fans are flocking, even before last year's "Season 2" Indiegogo that upped the bar this year … the buzz is growing… and now—yes, I got to don McCoy's dark hair and blue tunic once again!

THANK YOU, ASHLEY AND JASON.

That's Ashley V. Robinson and Jason Inman, of course, who not only announced their engagement recently but also have quite an up-and-coming profile—doing RSD as well as their awesome Geek History Lesson podcast/ YouTube, Jason's  DC All Access webshow co-hosting, and Ashley's burgeoning acting career (listen to this clip!). And of course, they first came on Trekland's STV radar a year ago during that Indiegogo drive (and yes, I still need to post the rest of the vidchat). 

This nighttime fun on Hollywood Boulevard came last Sept. 11 as they held a mini-season premiere screening at IO Club and Theatre for crew, cast and local backers, but I held off the posting until our McCoy spoiler was closer…which, of course, with "Operation: Annihilate!" meant late in the "season." Never fear—you can catch their "finale", RSD's angle on "Amok Time," on Monday next—and of course gotta catch 'em all on YouTube or via the RSD site. (At 5 minutes each, tisn't difficult).

Quite aside from moi's return to solid/dotted-rank, this is quite a landmark episode for Ashley's Ensign, er, Lieutenant Williams as well—and remarkably a big dose of pathos in what is admittedly a winky fun vibe of a series. And how many past World of Williams references can you catch? 

WILL there be a Season 3? WILL their Mirror Universe dream come true? Will Ashley's crack about Commodore Decker bear fruit? It's up to you guys and what they call "online analytics," of course—so, and she says, "SHARE AND LIKE! SHARE AND LIKE!"

The new Star Trek stamps: THEY didn't need a petition!

The news today about the four Star Trek stamps for the 50th anniversary next year is welcome, fun news. I love the crisp look by designers The Heads of State, though with a definite Prime TOS  tilt to them… which is, after all, appropriate for the 1966 anniversary. I didn't see a first day of issue listed anywhere, yet, but… Sept. 8, anyone?

And somehow, it is SO perfect that the sight of beaming, a Vulcan salute, the Big E and the delta shield patch with warp stars … should all be emblazoned with FOREVER in all caps.

(Yes, I know that the unending label is about the postage rate. Still,  it's awesome.)




We've come a long way since the USPS finally recognized Star Trek with a stamp, albeit through the backdoor via the 1960s edition of the "Celebrate the Century" millenium-looking decade by decade special stamp sheets, in 1999 (at right). It was a hoot to deal with helping announce the release of that issue in the old Communicator as the official source. Of course, nowadays the Postral Service is hip to giving pop-culturists (and promotion-cooperative media) exactly the nostalgia they crave on a dwindling communication art form.

What's almost forgotten now is that  Bill Kraft, a stamp collector from  Sauk Rapids, Minn., led a lonely, 17-year petition campaign for a Star Trek stamp all through the '70s, '80s and into the '90s to help that along—i.e., on paper with stamps!—way before The Big Bang Theory and the geek revolution made it mainstream. As both a Trek fan and a stamp collector, *I* was a party to that petition as well… and I'm so glad Bill shared the celebrity support letters and the saga of that effort in his book, Maybe We Should Get God to Write a Letter…. still available on Amazon.

How fitting that when news broke about the new bright and shiny pop-art Trek stamps for 2016, I got this short email from Bill about the story:

"I'm assuming it is in conjunction with Trek's 50th anniversary. I didn't even have to campaign this time."

We do still have our Star Trek campaigns to wage, Bill. It's just that commemorative stamps are not one of them! 

STV: David Goodman edits Kirk's bio! —Part 1

Didn't get all the best Trek goodies on your list for the holidays?

If you didn't already grab a copy of David Goodman's The Autobiography of James T. Kirk from Titan Books, maybe now's the time! Available everywhere live and online, it's David's second foray into non-fiction gap-filling, after FEDERATION: The First 150 Years in 2012. (And you know how I am about Trek gap-filling.)

In fact, I grabbed David once again in the off-hours at his office as Family Guy writer-producer to talk about the tome in a new vidchat: his choices, the process, and even fan feedback after Federation. 

WARNING: Loaded with all kinds of sidelong and unexplained Trek references, of course.

SECOND WARNING: Watch for the remainder of this chat in follow-ups in coming days!


FYI: Portal 47 members got to view this video up to 72 hours early before it went public—one feature of their deep-dive Trekland access.

So, 49 years ago …

… THIS happened:

Happy birthday (formally), Star Trek! We'd party more today, but we are already too busy planning the blowout for the big 5-0…. NEXT YEAR.

In Seattle? See this summer's Outdoor Trek, 'Amok Time'

If it's Trekland in the summer in Seattle, then it must be time for "Outdoor Trek"—a live Trek-in-the-park by the homegrown Hello Earth troupe that plays for donations as a non-profit, and offers an innovative, fun, Shakespeare-esque approach to minimalist staging, the Redshirts backing band, and "blind-sex" casting.

Here's my impromptu vidchat (below) with director Joy DeLyria and Kris "Kirk" Hambrick at Emerald City Comic-Con in 2014 (just before my panel!) and their goals and history—but the keys are all the same as they are for this summer's offering, "Amok Time". Listen for their intriguing thoughts about Star Trek's boldness, then and now, and translating that via today's cultural and gender points of view.

The group, with assistant to the producers Phillip Duff along (and standing just off-camera here), took their cue from Portland's "Trek in the Park," which since has run its planned five summers and ended. The Seattle crew has received good press and support locally, as well as around the fandomosphere, and has no plans for stopping with a similar five-years-only mission: The tell me that show number six is due to follow for 2016, and audience-goers once again vote by coin and cash for their choice among finalist titles for the next year's TOS script.

Check the links to the website and their Facebook for more details, both under Hello Earth (Twitter too) ...but "Amok Time" performances are 7 pm Saturday and 2 pm Sundays in Blanche Lavizzo Park, with pre-show musical guests an hour prior (Marc Okrand helped kick off opening weekend!), and food trucks on hand an hour before that. See the video for images as well from past and current park-TOS moments (Photos by This Apeture, Phil Duff, and others).



OH—and I love the live stage transporter beams.

You want a Trek pic for the Fourth? Here's a new one

Time for the token Trek holiday tie-in image!

And for America's  Independence Day, you could go to your "E'd Pebnista" moment from TOS,  your "Alternate Voyager" Golden Gate fireworks welcome home—maybe even your Bajoran lightship greeting by Cardassians with space flares, of all things.

Or you could reflect on the patriotic, Minutemen, even black-ops side of "freedom" and "independence"—and remember a little fireworks on Organia from "Errand of Mercy" ...

…even, still, taking that show's comment on "inevitable" enemies and war to heart:

Family wishes for Leonard memorial gift donations

Not mine, but forwarded to me—Marietta, near Atlanta, GA

Since Friday, life for me has been an overwhelming mix of feeling and fielding. 

I have tried to share my reflections on Leonard Nimoy in media everywhere —Twitter, Facebook, podcasts like a special The Ready Room, television like Sky News in UK/Europe, radio (Boston's WXTK) — everywhere, except right here on my own blog. 

But it's coming.

Meanwhile, in a telling way, you know where my head was from my very first tweet:

And many more followed.


For now, let me share the family's wishes for those wanting to make donations or memorial gifts in Leonard's name:

Everychild Foundation
PO Box 1808
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

COPD Foundation
20F Street NW, Suite 200-A
Washington, DC 20001 

Beit T'Shuvah Treatment Center
8831 Venice Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034 

Bay-Nimoy Early Childhood Center at Temple Israel of Hollywood
7300 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046

De-Day 2015: I'm an actor, not a doctor! OR a cowboy.

If it's January 20, it must be my annual, personal tribute —as it has since this blog began—to my guy, Jackson DeForest Kelley, who would have been 95 today. Wow.

Don't need to say much more than what I've said in past years... aside from the groundswell of Kelley fandom that seems to be shaping up everywhere (perhaps, not coincidentally, since THIS first happened).

In any case, I'll just drop this year's edition here. You're welcome.

De with Susan Hayward, getting out of the haybarns and hitchin' posts for once, co-starring with her and Bette Davis in 1966's Where Love Has Gone (and thanks, once again, Sue Keenan):

STV: Watch Gerald Fried play his OWN '60s Trek music

A little Trekland gift for all Trekfans everywhere... and one that is long overdue: 

This, posted at last, is the HD video I shot of what can only be called an amazing night in Star Trek history—shot off guard, from my seat, on hand-held zoom, on Dec. 3, 2012. It was already an electric evening at Hollywood's Egyptian Theater—the ballyhooed launch party for LaLa Land Records' incredible 15-disc original Star Trek complete soundtrack box set, a landmark moment for Trek and true film audiophiles everywhere. Friends Jeff Bond and Neil S. Bulk, among others, had all labored with love over it. And I have more vidchats from that night to share as well.

But the breathless moment of the evening was its climax, when an audience sat spellbound and delighted as TOS composer Gerald Fried, then 82, not only presented a duet medley of themes from his three classic scores for "The Paradise Syndrome,"  "Amok Time" and "Shore Leave"—but took to the oboe to play them himself, with pianist Rich Ruttenberg deftly adding the undertow.

It was simply 9 minutes of music intersecting history for a result I'd never experienced before, much less in Trek—and with no other apparent video cameras around, I'm just glad to have been able to capture it and share it now. The audio alone would be one thing—and those audience recordings are out there, I believe—but this decidedly unfancy video still adds the visual joy and drama as well...including the audience's delighted reaction to you-know-what from that Vulcan episode, and their 45 seconds of final applause.

Maddeningly, I ran out of chipspace just before the piece ended, but was covered by my iPhone mic—so I hope you enjoy what I edited together here, with sounds and sights alike:

STV: Ensign Williams logs in from 'Red Shirt Diaries' !

Finally… on the last day of their Indiegogo…I finally get this posted. Good thing it's not as if they needed my help! 

Meet Ashley V. Robinson and Jason Inman, whose Red Shirt Diaries web series is the slyest, most inventive little take on what NCC-1701 lower-decks life for redshirts 'n' redskirts might have been like…and now an Internet cult hit, to boot. It's all in bite-sized, three-minute weekly "log entries" from Ensign Williams of security, her friends—and, yes, her famous superiors. Organized, of course, by historical records otherwise known as the first 10 outings of Star Trek—original series style.

Are YOU hooked yet? It's so simple—and yet more addicting than a cordrazine slush.
If you're a noob, give a look here on their YouTube channel at the 10 episodes up so far—the TOS classics in aired order, through "Corbomite Maneuver"…told of course, through the long-suffering yet surviving ensign's oddly eventful personal logs, right from her simple quarters on Deck 8.  

Want to see more? Today is the last day of their very modest campaign and they've met two stretch goals already—including a bonus show and location shooting! So, you can still help them out with their drive for RSD's "Season 2", which would get the enterprising duo (and more) through the remaining 16 episodes of TOS' Season 1…and maybe even to Vulcan and plak tow...

Give a listen and find out all the backstage secrets, the genesis, what lies ahead for as we present this first of a four-part visit with Ashley and Jason RIGHT ON THE SET (ie, their living room)—and even a surprise visit from Gertrude/Beauregard. 
 

50 years ago, "The Cage" first flew—in Culver City

NOW we're talking history: 50 years ago, Nov. 27 was a Friday—and the crazy giant-killers at Desilu led by creator-producer Gene Roddenberry, line producer-in-deed Bob Justman, director Robert Butler and even studio guy Herb Solow started filming on a little thing called "The Cage," the Pike-led first pilot of Star Trek.

I'm been both gratified and amused to see the online-o-sphere finally start talking about this as the "actual" 50th anniversary ahead of the storied 9/8/66—anniversaries have a funny way of causing page-clicks  .... after I've been mentioning it here in passing, as a caveat,  time and again for years.  And years. (Of course, Gene's pitch memo was actually dated from March...)

One of my recently discovered fans, Dwayne A. Day, just did an excellent reflection on Star Trek's power to move us then —and not so much now—based on what "The Cage" and classic Star Trek meant in its time, to its times.

And *I* just did a new cover story piece to connect some recently pondered new dots about making 'The Cage" in the Titan official Star Trek Magazine (at left) —you can get it on newsstands or subscribing online or postally now.

So. I'll let the big time celebrating commence elsewhere, across the interwebs. For here, I'll just trot out a little reminder that not only was "The Cage" (and the second ppilot too) filmed not at Desilu-Gower (later Paramount)... but at Desilu-CULVER, in the studio that was home under various banners to Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane, Mayberry and Hogan's Heroes: today known as The Culver City Studios—going strong with a new owner, but not open to the public.

So I'll just mark "The Cage" today with my quick mini-tour of what you can acutally see of Trek's true filmage roots today: the fence along Ince Avenue, the studio's northeast perimeter where a small memorial has been created to honor all the lot's owners... including Lucy and Desi, and her little space show that went so far:

Happy 48th, Star Trek: How they sold it in '66

No— I was not there at 7:30 p.m. Central Time on Sept. 8, 1966, breathlessly awaiting the premiere of the most adult attempt at episodic, non-anthology science fiction ever on American TV.

I was just a kid, you know, and one who didn't control the TV —which was by a rotary knob...that got you to three networks and "NET". But I had heard vaguely about a show with a guy with pointed ears, and it sounded scary.  Far scarier than the Lost in Space robot that I loved to imitate on the playground at recess.

No, it took my ninth grade science teacher to "shame" me into watching Trek reruns, finally.

But it IS official Star Trek "Birth" Day today (even though, as I always point out, you can make a case for marking it from some date in 1964 related to "The Cage" as first pilot—a subject coming up in a big feature I just did for the next official Star Trek magazine from Titan, Issue 51.)

So, amid all the cool documents coming out for the 9-8-66 anniversary—I loved seeing this one, thanks to theinvisibleagent.wordpress.com—and I'll just celebrate with it.

Look below that for a little personal add-on:  the re-run of my first-ever Star Trek T-shirt, made with a Lincoln Enterprises iron-on scene!  

Trekland hits Vegasland 2014: Tour, trivia, TNG, The Experience

Whoa, here it is—where you Vegasites will find me at the Rio after our LA2Vegas Trek Tour
comes rolling in Tuesday night, and our "Kirk memorial" day trip to the Valley of Fire.

Special note this year: The annual debut of TREKLAND: On Speaker! This year, it's  Vol. 3, "DS9's Finale: What They Left Behind," on the 15th anniversary of the 2-hour epic and the end of the series!

You can also find Vol. 2 at my TABLE, but specific hours will be posted this year. Still working on that—check in later.


WEDNESDAY:

9 pm, Masquerade Bar (casino): Really? Our fourth annual preview-night "Landing Party" sponsored by Trekland, Mission Log Podcast and Glue Guns and Phasers. Fun and prizes and a hard-core's early-bird meetup of your Vegas regulars!  Hope I'm not too sunburned.


THURSDAY: 
12:30 pm.:  Rapid-Fire Trivia—the return of this pretty simple trivia bash with prizes supplied by our freinds at CBS Consumer Products. Just me and you... just get in line!

9 p.m.: Special screening off-site (Brenden Theaters,  across the street 2 blocks west) of THE GREEN GIRL, bio-documentary about Susan "Vina" Oliver and her long career, studio rebel, speed pilot/driver life, and early push as a female director. I was one of many to talk on camera for director George Pappy, including Celeste Yarnell. Panel afterwards! Only 96 seats: Some seats still available (online only).

11:55 pm: Special free screening off-site (AMC Town Square, on the Strip) of "Fairest of Them All," Star Trek Continues' "Mirror, Mirror" followup.  I am still proud to remain as a creative consultant. Panel afterward includes most of crew and cast present.

FRIDAY:

Daytime: At the table, but check hours: I'll be doing vidchats at times.

SATURDAY:

Daytime: Same as Friday, but get for a little cosplay surprise...

9-11 p.m.:  My Rio room 18006: The annual "Dr. Trek Show" crowdfunder to benefit THE CON OF WRATH: $20 not only gets you a screen credit but also a shot at prize trivia, rare Trek video and sneak peeks at the docs so far. And a shot at getting some more Trek tales out of me.

SUNDAY:
1:50 pm:  Panel talk; "20th Anniversary of the TNG Finale" This will be fun, and I have a surprise reading: The Lost Draft of the theft of the Enterprise-D!

5:20: "We Touched the Future: The Impact of Star Trek: The Experience"—panel with STTE veterans and fans/coworkers from the audience.

You're not coming to any of these by now unless you're already AT Vegas. Hope to see you, off this quick intro!

LA ALERT: FREE TOS/STC screening/writers Saturday

 

If you are in the LA area and love you some Original Series, plus Star Trek Continues' depiction of it... you have a don't-miss triple whammy this Saturday, July 12, 10 a.m.- 1 p.m. in Glendale.

 

And it's all free!

First up at the Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St., there's a stellar Star Trek panel with Walter Koenig (Chekov), Marc Cushman (award winning Star Trek author of These Are the Voyages TOS books), Mark Altman (writer/producer of Free Enterprise), John D.F. Black (sole surviving producer of Star Trek, TOS) and Scott Mantz of Access Hollywood.

After that, hang on for the screening of a clip from STC's most recent, "Fairest of Them All" (the mirror universe follow-up) -- and then a panel with director James Kerwin, assistant director Chris White, and actress Kipleigh Brown.

That's a knock-out, historic first panel—and if you have somehow not seen Marc's books yet, they are incredibly dense with TOS material. I know all those buds on the TOS side—as well as that lineup coming on afterward. I wish I could be there...but family calls, during my "rest" this month.

Yes, the day is free—plus get 3 hours' free parking (with validation from library) at the Market Place shopping center parking structure off Harvard Street.

Click in at the Facebook event page here.

Wow: The real-life birthplace of the Enterprise—TODAY

Buddy Dayton Ward's reposting of this iconic 1964 photo with a reminder of the 49th birthday of the "real" NCC-1701 earlier this week was a great kick in the butt to get something done I'd meant to do for years.

Meant to, in fact, ever since we had first published that photo and many more 13 years ago in a great piece by model historian William McCullars in the old Communicator (#132). It was piece that made me realize once again that, duh, we do live in SoCal here—and that once again the future "San Francisco" had again been faked for Star Trek. About a mile from me.

For just as, say, the Bird-of-Prey "Bounty" had really set down on Will Rogers' polo field in ST IV, not Golden Gate Park... so too were the Starfleet "San Fransisco Navy Yards" actually located at ... 104 E. Providencia in Burbank. That, you see, was the 1964 location of Volmer Jensen's Production Models Shop ... and the location of that iconic photo above, snapped on the occasion as primary model contractor Richard C. Datin (at left in photo) took delivery of the 11-footer for Howard A. Anderson Effects and Desilu.

I had been meaning for years to go over, scout the area, and try to recreate the angles in that now-famous photo—and another couple more we had from William but didn't publish. It was Dec. 30, only a day later and about the same long-shadowed time of late afternoon.

What I found... was astounding. Click and compare for yourself—12/29/64 vs. 12/30/13:

The distant church, the midground building on left, and especially the motel and the brick-topped short stucco sidewalk wall at right are all intact and obviously visible. Even the sidewalk and many phone/power poles appear to be the same. Changes in trim, doors and windows plugged since 1964—all can be picked out.

This second UNPUBLSHED photo (aside from William's now-gone website), which has a bit of Jensen's shop sign, gets an updated angle too. The dang modern green-screened gate is in the way, but try to look past it and see the short stucco "fence" turn back anyway. I was staring into a late afternoon sun-blanked MacBook monitor for reference, so my angle is not as true as I'd like; I should have been further left into the street, but hey:

 

There is no photo (to my knowledge) of Jensen's shop head-on, but here's the angle of what's there today (right): a tile and flooring shop, where I met the owner's brother Tony—who was well aware of the historic nature of his brother's little enterprise. They had not received many pilgrims like me, but the notoriety of the place had been handed down from neighbors and prior owners.


All these pics are another good reminder why both Tonight Show's Johnny Carson and Laugh-In writers thought the irony of a 1960s global media capital with a "Mayberry" downtown was too much to pass up—and so "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" was as much a local joke as a worldwide catchphrase.

I got by just in time, as Tony reminded me: the downtown modernizing of Burbank since the 1990s now means that a new IKEA and parking lot are going in this year just behind the shop, and a new downtown Hilton is going in across the street —taking out all the surrounding block of old 50s-60s low-story, freeway-adjacent industrial buildings. The building across the street at left and all the low-key use will be gone in a year—as will the flooring shop's neighbors.

Somehow, THIS shop escaped the new IKEA plan buyout... so, like Independence Hall amidst tall downtown Philly, this little Burbank division of Starfleet appears to live on—for now.

(What—you think the comparison in history is too much? Get out of here, Herbert.)

STV: A wrap for me AND our KIRKstarter—thank you!

I can't believe it's been since April that I posted a "Switching to Visual" video here at TREKLAND—and that I break the drought finally with one featuring ME.

But this is the final day of our KIRKstarter for future Star Trek Continues episodes—and while, yes, we were blessed to make our goal and beyond with 2,900+ backers (!!), I've seen people really get emotional and insistent about being a part of this to help us—and get their name on the record and claim some perks to boot.

(UPDATE: Our $100,000 goal wound up with $126,028 courtesy 2,981 backers! Thanks to everyone of you for being a part.)

Your last chance ends at 6 pm ET/ 3 pm PT Nov. 6, 2013. This drive covers three episodes, and while it's always an option to make a future direct donation—why not jump in now, help hike the tally, get into the system and claim a spot? I should point out: our briefing room table is the biggest reward level. (And my set tour and phone call are among the many unclaimed cast items. Just sayin.')

All of the support from so many fans, just like all the love since premiere date back in Phoenix, has been rather amazing; the Kickstarter site's fan comments and suggestions alone carry their own vibe, worth a read.

Meanwhile, Episode 2 is a more guest-centric show and the regulars have a bit less to do, but I know I stepped up my game in some subtle ways as we all grow into this project and work with our talented and fun STC family. If you were a fan of "Pilgrim" you will love the surprises and color of this next, non-TOS-sequel episode:


I have a lot of STV videos backlogged, including a few from the set of STC, and some thoughts to share... But for now—take a quick late-day set visit with me and thanks again for helping run our Kickstarter tally up even higher: late adds were the secret reveal of our big guest star and the much-requested digital download of Episode 1, "Pilgrim of Eternity."

Thanks also to STC/Farragut set guy and crew mate Scott Grainger for handling the camera and letting me jump into this one!

Shatner AS Kirk in a local parade, 1968: Priceless video

Click the image: Shatner in Columbia, SC Christmas parade—11/29/68

Here's a little jewel that proves why the Internet is AMAZING:

Twitter's @moonriverseeker just pinged me out of the blue today to ask about the source of this photo—obviously, Shatner doing a Captain Kirk local appearance to promote Trek in the '60s, one of many at the behest of NBC. (Leonard Nimoy has written about an infamous one he was a part of that changed his Spock outlook forever.)

Dealing with a university archive, I can't grab an embed code to share it intact here, but the link is easy enough to find. After all, I did it in about 10 minutes, just off the watermark of the frame grab—thanks to some basic guesswork and an excellent online browser of the University of South Carolina's MIRC archives. Turns out this is from B-roll film of the annual Columbia, S.C. Christmas Parade from Nov. 29, 1968, shot by WNOK News (now WLTX). (Well, that was easy.) The Shatner footage starts at 1:27, and is simple and yet oh so revealing ...

Best bit: how two adoring teenaged girls (left) are brave enough to have run out to the Shat's car for a quick up-close hello and maybe a smack, just as the newscam started to roll on him. Ahhh, and so it begins ... Don't THEY wish they could have Instagrammed that moment?

There's a bigger context, here too—after all, this is tumultuous 1968, year of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King's assasinations, racial strife, the Vietnam Tet offensive and anti-war protests hounding LBJ from running again. What also strikes me is how both whites and blacks are somewhat mixed here on the sidewalk as parade-goers, as some glints of racial social integration are finally starting to take hold, even in South Carolina. On a lighter note, check out how crisp and sharp Shatner's costumed Kirk looks, just sitting in an open convertible—even in black and white—against the cold drab gray downtown of Columbia, and likely many other medium-sized cities?

BTW, what's up with that? Local TV news still shooting in B&W in 1968?  They reasoned most of their viewing audience had not yet jumped up to color? The local OKC stations had mostly gone to color by 1968, I'm sure of it. Sure, for film the color chemistry was a pain—no videotape yet either?

So, today's moral: Who knows how many more treasures are out there courtesy of local news cameras, even local home movies, that ought to be preserved as local snapshots in  time, and even turn out to have national interest?

Once again, I'll climb on my soapbox to plead with you all to preserve your local pop culture history—either by yourself, starting with your Trek or sci-fi / genre club looking into local roots and imagery and interview subjects ... or at least by finding out how you can help those, like MIRC at South Carolina, who already hip-deep into it.

Just because we're digging into a little chapter of Houston Trek history doesn't mean it can't go on all over the world.