Headed home to SoonerCon—my how you've grown!

Hey, we know all Trek/sci-fi/comic-con conventions and shows are unique ... but the one that's most unlike any other, to me, is the one that has me back each year, much appreciably, as a guest of my homies in OKC at SoonerCon, this year back at the Reed Center in suburban Midwest City June 26-27-28—with guests including fellow STC'er Chuck Huber and my friend from Voyager and other realms, Bob Picardo. It looks to be another boom year with turnout closing in on 3,000.

Sinec SCon rebooted in 2007, I've been invited to all but that first tentative year—and I always make sure to catch up with friends and family alike that week. A few years back I realized that SoonerCon should be a lot more than "old home week"—with the vibrant multiple fandoms, and new breed of indie filmmaking ... and then, even the coming of the USS Ajax fanfilm and the Starbase Studios that is now home to many productions and one-time users.

Kudos to my old bud Leonard (who sang at our wedding) and "new" friends Aislinn and Matt for the big economic-impact press coverage on SoonerCon in OKC's Journal-Record—for, as with practically every other pop culture convention, the times they are a-boomin': SoonerCon was lured from downtown OKC by Midwest City (home to Tinker Air Force Base), where a recent study estimated the weekend's economic impact at $1.9 million! To a battle-hardened veteran of the fandom "respect" wars of the 80s and 90s, I would have died to have data like that on my side—much less the PR. Now, everybody just reads about San Diego, and The Big Bang Theory, and gets it. Or IS it already.

The other thing that comes back to me each year is that there's plenty of Okie fans today who have no clue about the generation prior to our move out to L.A. in '94—which is great. That means the regional fanbase is fresh, and growing ... but with the red dirt in all our veins, it's like meeting a whole new batch of "old" family each year at the reunion. It's also a bastion of mostly progressive thought, arts boosting and diversity respect in a famously "red state" —and kudos to the new Tulsa-bound "OKPOP" state arts/pop culture historical museum being signed into law with funding.

Looking forward to staring to mesh out outreach for Enterprise in Space with the first NSS chapter folks I was familiar with, the 46th state's own Oklahoma Space Alliance.

It's also a shoot trip for more survivors of The Con of Wrath—four Okies, plus three down in Dallas— as well as a homecoming for my DP Neal Halford's festical-winning horror short, The Case of Evil, for one of his other "hometowns"—showing at 3:30 pm Saturday in the Theatre.

Oh—and I STILL kudos to Bernina of OKC for sponsoring the bulk of the costuming/cosplay segment of the weekend and the masquerade prizes. I think it's doubly awesome that SoonerCon has cosplay out the wazoo but still sticks with the old-school term of "hall costumes" for all-day, non-contest entrants.

All in all, for those of you in the region, I hope you can make it by one or more days. Here's the entire program schedule... and here's the whole gamut for me—plus tabling TBA:

FRIDAY:
5 pm, Ballroom D/Main: The SoonerCon edition of our patented "Trekland: Between the Cracks"—2015's Trek losses, anniversaries, rumors, all from my archives, injokes and blooper. Plus--forum cross-talk time for the audience.

Table times:  2-5 pm
(Opening Ceremonies is at 6 pm)

SATURDAY:Table times: 12 noon-3:30 pm

11 am, Ballroom A: "Podcasting"—a first for SCon, on a panel on the basics of content and production, with several local podcasters writers/artist guests. You can bet there will be lots of Other Side of the Room knowledge divulged, even if it isn't specifically from trekfm.

4-6 pm, Ballroom D/Main: "The White Iris" latest (Ep. 4) Star Trek Continues on big-screen, with Q&A following with me & Chuck (McCoy) afterward—proud again to have the history, plus ongoing as Creative Consultant. PLUS: Chuck and I will judge a "McCoy-off"—come ready to grouse and toe-rise!

10 pm-12 midnight, Parlor Room (Sheraton 101): Yes, it's a "Dr. Trek Show" crowdfunder for The Con of Wrath, and the opportunity to support the doc with a $20 or more gift for screen credit, awesome video rariites and sneak-peeks and maybe grabbing a prize for trivia. AND you are out in time for the decent room parties—the ones still going strong.

If you are coming, please Join the Facebook event page and help give me a head's up.

SUNDAY:
Table times: 1-3:30 pm 

11 am, Theatre: "Enterprise In Space: 2019, For Real": The latest video and clips about this non-profit I'm the spokesman and outreach chief for, hopefully with some local Oklahoma Space Alliance folk on hand for a bit of the hour, whose parent National Space Society is the EIS sponsor.

Noon, Ballroom D: 20 Years of Voyager—This is really Bob P's Q&A but I'll be on hand to throw in some context and help close out the weekend.

(and Closing ceremonies at 4 pm)


WHEW.

See you at L.A.'s own Comikaze—last con of the year!

They say that cons in L.A. are the hardest because the celebs are everywhere all year long anyway, and the fans are blasé. 

Well, we'll see about that: After missing it for a couple years, I'm finally going to roll out of bed and stroll over for the Comikaze event downtown under Stan Lee's banner—and I can finally see for myself about all that, in all its downtown Staples Center splendor.

Yes, Friday is actually Halloween—my first year to be "home" on spook night since being in Kingsland, GA on Oct. 31 last year for the last day of filming Star Trek Continues' "Lolani" and the early overlap with Farragut's "Conspiracy of Innocence." But you've got nothing to do in the day, right?

Highlight for me at CK is the Star Trek Continues' big-screen showing of "Fairest of Them All" at noon Saturday and a cast/crew panel afterwards that I'm taking part in—along with James Kerwin, Chris Doohan, Kipleigh Brown, Doug Drexler, Lisa Hansell & Tim Vittetoe, and Jacqueline Groehner. I also expect to be tabling as well... in fact, I'll have my Trekland CDs and photos and Stellar Cartography...but most of all I'll be talking about Enterprise in Space live, my first chance to do so since we really started our roll-out.

Hang on, and we might even try a crowdfunder "Dr. Trek" show Saturday night. Not too late, of course: It is, after all, an L.A. crowd.

Oh and here's the "official" screening/panel call for STC's event at noon Saturday...

A Seattle rush! Emerald City in my rear-view mirror

Before I get back on the road:

I just had an awesome time in Seattle over Emerald City Comicon—special thanks to Jim Demonakos and Mike Byers! And after five straight years, I think my little colony of Treklanders there is really growing—a hoot for me, since Seattle in 2012 is the very first place I tried out my "Con of Wrath" crowdfunder meetup idea. The prior two years I had cut my chops doing 8 a.m. fan meetups with Shannon and Matt and their once-and-current Seattle Geekly podcast! ECCC itself is just booming and selling out, as are most comic-cons.

I wasn't tabling this year, so panel-less Saturday felt odd with no bags and no show to weigh over me: I got to just attend! Friday had already been great, even with my "Between the Cracks" audience a bit drained from going up against the lovely mainstager, Eliza Dushku. I did get to meet Cat Roberts (left), one of our Star Trek Continues Kirkstarter donors generous enough to land a walk-on role in the Mirror Universe Episode 3....whom I'd missed on opposite ends of the shoot. As a doctor, she was especially sad not to catch McCoy #1 ( or #2, depending how you number vignettes. ;-) ) But at least we swapped snaps.

Friday night was dinner hosted by Huston Huddleston of New Starship, staying in town after meeting with A Major Museum —and then Saturday I was the dinner guest of Oren Ashkenazi (left) , Grace Moore and Bob Collins of All Things Trek podcast of Seattle (right), who'd just had me on their show. Selfie time!

And somewhere in there I even squeezed in another visit to catch up with Wende Doohan, to be featured in The Con of Wrath speaking for Jimmy, and their Sarah (left). (Guess who was the Adventure Time fan?)






Now, little did I guess that panel-and-meetup Sunday would be an even more hoppin' day than I'd planned: A pretty full crowd greeted us for our fan forum "State of the Trek," and a lot of passionate, feminist, activist, pro-and anti-corporate  views of Trek were voiced...and I think I added a little insight as well. Our Q&A speakers were lively, with everything from feminism and untapped diversity to "Hollywood factory" disgust versus JJ's franchise-saving put forth—and I think I threw out a few insights folks might not have considered, too.

But the adrenalin was already pumpin' thanks to TWO shocks right before that, in bang-bang order...






With about 45 minutes to go, who comes up to say hello but three honchos from Seattle's own Outdoor Trek theatre group (inspired but he now-ended similar group in Portland),  Joy DeLyria (left) and Kris Hambrick—plus Phillip Duff (who took this snap, right). I'd only read of their productions of TOS Trek—treating the classic scripts like Shakespeare with free-form and free-casting choices meant to showcase the stories, like those of the Bard's as timeless. In fact, with 20 minutes to go til my panel, I grabbed the Canon and we SHOT a 10-minute interview for TREKLAND STV that you'll see here before their season starts in July.

I might not have cut it so close (look at that line!) ... but what else happened on my panel countdown, RIGHT THEN? To my typical reminder tweet about who's reading my hashtags actually AT the con, lo and behold Uncle's Games from over in the gaming vendor's area across the street tweets me back to offer a prize for my panel to give away. While I'm in the terlet! Holy Terok Nor, Batman!

 So that's why, why before I chatted with Kris and Joy, curting it close.... I accepted this $180 value DS9 tabletop gameplay station model from Stephanie Fields and Sarah Tolsma of Uncle's Games of Seattle/Spokane, who ran it over to me just so I could give it away. Easy come ...

... And easy go. After teasing it sitting out all panel long and thanking and plugging the
store profusely, still amazed myself, we did a trivia question fior it. Dave Kosin, whose energy we practically had to restrain, actually won it fair and square. My thanks to front-rower SarafinaCosplay.com for hopping up to give me a second set of eyes once I launched the trivia question. Good job, Sarafina—we did not need a run-off!

But I needed a breather. Our post-panel throng was wonderful... but thanks to Seattle fan and follower Umberto Lenzi I eventually got out of there and up the hill three blocks via rollerbags for our third annual "Dr. Trek" crowdfunder-meetup for The Con of Wrath...back in the Six Arms pub where it all began. 

And that I'll save that story for later this week...

Oh, and one last word—which I tweeted at the time:

To the young lady in the brown, "Inevitable betrayal" Wash Firefly TShirt who so elegantly defended J.J. Abrams and his movies, and by extension the new and younger fans who came to Trek fandom because of them:

I want you to know that I love you, and nothing I threw in as commentary from other sources was meant to squelch your intelligence, your opinions, and most of all, your passion. Thank god we have you and so many more like you. I'd have loved to have talked to you more, but until I can—just keep the fire, girl. Don't let the Tellurian turkeys (including, perhaps, me) get you down!






Maybe should be it's own post?
I didn't do much cosplay snapping, but I couldn't resist this shot just outside the convention center:

Is it psych or is it Trek-v-Wars? Our WonderCon panel is online!

Before we get any further from that WonderCon weekend...

I want to make sure all our Trekland friends got to see this fun panel's video (below the fold) that my friend Dr. Andrea Letamendi asked me to be part of a few months back. Joining in on an actual comic-con type panel—you know, with panelists—is still a new thing to me, coming from the arena of the solo show from Trek and media cons.

But Drea wanted me to be involved as the "franchise guy" for Trek, and I met the other panelists that day (at left, with mod Brian Ward of Shout!Factory (center), Robot Chicken writer and Wars guy Hugh Sterbakov (right), and Drs. Drea and Ali Mattu).  It was amazing I made it in time with Friday LA freeway traffic snarls ...and this vid, recorded by Ali's front-row friend Lowen Baumgarten, shows me to all the world sneaking in as I barely make the opening intros, before I'd even got by to get a badge (how did WC even let me in?)

Seriously, Drea and Ali had a great plan of getting across some serious behavioral points and even concepts for storytelling, within the fun of the moment. But I came away from that hour at first feeling like it got caught somewhere between her pitch and the later trash-talk smackdown format it turned into—and I was concerned it came off as a mishmash.

But never fear—this is Trek and Wars. We had to run off as it ended, but random folks kept stopping to tell me all weekend in Anaheim that they loved the panel ... and now this video shows people were indeed having a good time. The fact that the Trek folk were outnumbered 2-1 and yet actually edged in the "winner vote" at the end tells the tale as well. (We did, actually, as this actual Yahoo News story seems to point out). Maybe that's the old bit of the Wars folk showing up "armed for bear" and the IDIC Trek gang just rolling their eyes at all of it, "Really?" It was also fun correcting or detailing even a few innocent misconceptions by our Wars brethren about Trek, which I think the audience appreciated—especially regarding any monolithic Trek reaction to artificial intelligence, whether android, robotic or (my inclusion) holographic.

Doubly fun was getting in a zinger that not only barbed the Wars crowd (since we had to go there), but also the old Shatner/SNL "Get a life!" wrongful Trek stereotype as well. (Thanks, reporter Eric, for getting that in.) In fact, Drea's title got a lot of mainstream media play before and after; driving down, it was one of just two KNX radio news highlights of the WC day mentioned.

But I had a blast meeting Dr. Ali from NYU and Hugh, albeit oh so briefly, as well as working with Drea and Brian. The SDCC gods willing, we might even revisit nurture-v-nature and all the rest at San Diego—so if you happen to make it down in July, take a look for us.




AND the right side of our house, with Lowell in full hand-held mode:

WonderCon look-back: A Bones-Sulu reunion AND a hit panel on video

What a difference a year makes.

A year ago we were drowning in a monsoon that ruined the mood at what I called "strip mall con"—the normally San-Fran-based Wondercon, San Diego's little brother relocated to Anaheim for a year or two and struggling then to share parking with two high school sports events at the convention center there. Meh. People were drenched waiting in open air for slow, overwhelmed and distant shuttle buses.

This year? Wow, and not just for the very welcome sun:

FIRST, I pull off a successful meet-up for "The Con of Wrath" (more on that soon)...

... AND enjoy the largesse of some table space at the hubbub of Enterprise-D chair photo opps thanks to Huston Huddleston (rear, left) and his booming non-profit restoration project and science center "New Starship"....

...WHERE we had a McCoy-Sulu reunion with Grant Imahara of Mythbusters (left and right), soon to be seen as the helmsman opposite my doctor in the new Star Trek Continues indie online series—the pilot episode to debut at PhoenixComicon May 24 (more on THAT later, too!) ...

...PLUS have a wealth of Treklanders drop by: longtime Trek illustrator-author (and Voyager designer ) Rick Sternbach and Voyager illustrator Tim Earls .,.. PLUS post-production producer Steve Welke, all of whom recorded vidchats with me for the blog for later: look for them soon.

Rick...

...Tim...

...and Steve!

PLUS a genre psychology panel I was asked to join that garnered a lot of news attention, recorded on homespun video for posterity (with a cool opening sequence)—and more on THAT later as well.

We even worked!—and got in an interview on the run with one of the dealers who was a pivotal key in the saving of "The Con of Wrath," our documentary on the 1982 Ultimate Fantasy show in Houston that was Stat Trek's most glorious failure. You "Wrath" supporters will hear more about that as well.

I also made it over to the CBS Blu-ray Remastering panel, for the great clips and reaction from another full house (at left) to the Okudas, producer Roger Lay, doc director Robert Burnett and even Brannon the Braga back on his outreach effort. I was sad to hear., though, the offhand news that longtime TV Trek set decorator Jimmy Mees had just passed away. (More on him soon, as well.)

All in all, from my admittedly narrow point-of-view on 2 of the 3 days the weekend, my two days at WonderCon WERE a wonder—a good mix of fans, coming from all across the genre spectrum of course, even as the Trek variety tended to find me—and in surprisingly and healthy numbers, judging by both the panels and the obvious cosplay. I really, really was amazed at the contrast between last year and this—both in numbers and in Trek repping. It was a good year for the show in deed, where I heard totals jumped up from around 40,000 last year to 50,000 this time. With the entire convention center uncontested by high school cheerleaders and girls volleyball championships—confusing the anime fans boys with cosplay photo meltdown—things overall seemed more settled, and folks having a more leisurely and settled time.

I still miss, however, the lack of anywhere to go NOT associated with the nearby hotels—as helpful as they are, overflow choices are still limited. With Anaheim set up to fuel Disney full-time or to host events whose members hit Disney for the night... there's just no mom-and-pop or local nightlife or pubs/eateries in walking distance. And heaven forbid you give up your hard-won, hard-paid parking spot in midday or early evening! Whether WonderCon returns wholly to San Fransisco's Moscone Center, or maintains split campuses now in both OC and the Bay, is among the choices the WC has said it will consider... based on venue vibes like this. Wherever it is held, WonderCon is enjoying the boom of popularity as many regional comic-cons enjoy these days as people shy away—or are forced away from ticket sales shutouts—from megamonstrosity CCSD and its 150,000 bodies in July.

Finally, though—just a big thanks to everyone who came and braved the sunshine this year, and offered up some fun chat or good cosplay, or both:

Ex-Brit Ben Paddon of L.A.'s own TShirt 

Especiale gracias to you guys-n-gals who made it to any or all three of the panels I was a part of, including our "traditional" Saturday evening Trekland "Between the Cracks" show—even if we did have to have it in the "classroom" room, you stuck by. And look for those psych-panel video and donor tribute posts before much more time gets by.

Oh—and you wanna say something about the Hawaiian shirt? Well, GO ahead. Disrespect the uniform.

Missed It? Video up from historic Trek Art Directors Night

If you missed the big Art Director's Panel recently with four Trek design luminaries (the DS9 art reunion was only a happy sidebar) or had to live outside of The SoCal, there's video of the evening now up at the Guild website here (scroll down). What an historic night from all eras—with John Jefferies, Joe Jennings, Herman Zimmerman and Scott Chambliss—plus a wonderfully blunt video interview with the late Harold Michaelson.

Our pal and Gene Roddenberry impersonator extraordinaire Daren Dochterman did a great job as moderator...