Hell! Who needs this new Star Trek movie?

"I'm talkin' 'bout you! I'm talkin' 'bout me!" The strangest thing about this Star Trek episode is how Spock "gets" (understands, groks) these bizarre people. It's as weird as Wesley Crusher in The Next Generation, a gee-whiz, clueless Leave it to Beaver kid who seemed to "get" everything in the universe.

But the jam sessions are, well. . . One garish-looking chick plays a bicycle wheel, and Spock grooves on a thing that seems to be a combination organ, bass and electric guitar, with harpstrings thrown in for good measure.

The costumes for this particularly awful Trek are pure Desilu, made up of bits and pieces of whatever was left over in the costume department. Those musical instruments look like weapons to me. I particularly  like the way Zargon (or whatever his name is - NOT Herbert) keeps - apparently - "tuning" his axe, or at least he's doing something to it.

Maybe the writers were beginning to think Spock was just a little too straightlaced (straitlaced?) to be interesting. God knows they went outside the boundaries of his character a lot, having him fall in love with a woman in a cave (Mariette Hartley - no wonder!), cry for his mother, and half-kill his captain in the name of Love.

The whole episode reminds me of the Hitler audition in The Producers, the Dick Shawn character, complete with boots (or whatever they are - leggings? Stay-ups?) that go over his knees. A sort of Sonny Bono look.

SO. . . I just had to gif these! So in case you miss those cartoons you watched when you were a kid - here are your Saturday morning gifs.

It never ceases to amaze me what turns up in Wikipedia: individual episodes of Star Trek "TOS"! Makes me wonder if they're all there, but I am not about to find out. Maybe just the "clinkers"? To my mind, comparing this one to Spock's Brain is an injustice. That one was somewhere in my Top Ten (which I'd have to think about, since I've forgotten most of them). In this case, though, I think the analysts have missed the boat. It's the gorgeously cheesy, agonizingly kitschy atmosphere in this thing that "makes" it - makes it memorable, anyway. Particularly that big half-naked guy, whatever his name is (do you really think I am going to find that out?).

Reception

The episode has generally been seen as one of the weakest in the show's history, but its portrayal of characters representing the counter-culture of the late 1960s has produced widespread comment. Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a 'C-' rating, describing the "space hippie" characters as "too strange and irritating for me to view them sympathetically" and finding fault with the singing, which he described as "the worst kind of padding". Handlen noted as a positive aspect that the episode did allow for the voice of dissent against the "utopia" portrayed by Star Trek. In their compendium of Star Trek reviews, Trek Navigator, Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross both viewed the episode negatively, describing it as having aged badly because of the hippie characters and also noting the poor musical parts of the episode. Grace Lee Whitney, who had played Janice Rand in early episodes of the show, described the episode as a "clinker" on a par with another slated third season episode "Spock's Brain".

Several writers have discussed the way the episode represents the "space hippies". Aniko Bodroghkozy touched on the topic in her book Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion. In it, Bodroghkozy noted a negative and positive portrayal; on one hand Sevrin's followers have been duped and must return to "civilization, apparently contrite, chastened children". On the other, they challenged the supposed benefits and superiority of the Federation, which Bodroghkozy described as a "reading of the counterculture." Timothy Brown argue that Dr. Sevrin is "a clear stand in for Timothy Leary." Like the acolytes of Leary and other counter-culture leaders, Sevrin's followers are "under the spell of charismatic but dangerously unhinged leaders" and "stand for a sixties generation in the thrall of misled idealism."

POST-BLAH. OK. I made one. I made one of those Star Trek Top Ten thingies, and a bottom twelve because the more I thought about it, the more shitty ones I thought of. Funny, because at first all that came to me were the good ones, or at least the ones I liked/like. Many don't hold up, of course. And some, I love only because I was going through puberty and all sorts of emotions and sensations were surging through my body and mind. Star Trek will forever be associated with puberty for me. I'll try to give a brief description of each episode, unless I get bored with it.

Top Ten (you've seen these? They're good ones, so you'll remember them.)

10 The Naked Time (everyone reverts to their "true self" - Spock cries).

9  Trouble with Tribbles

8  City on the Edge of Forever

7  Assignment: Earth (Terri Garr and the black cat and Gary Seven! Way cool, even now.)

6  Journey to Babel (Spock's Mom and Dad. Also Lassie's Mom.)

5  Amok Time (Spock gets it on, or wants to.)

4  Space Seed ("KHAAAAAAAN!" Actually, Kirk doesn't say that 'til The Wrath of Khan, but there couldn't BE a Wrath of Khan without the Maxwell House Man, Ricardo Montalban.)

3  Shore Leave (Whatever you imagine becomes real. Bones dies,comes back to life with two women with fun fur stuck to their breasts.)

2  This Side of Paradise (Jill Ireland. I confess I still weep when I watch this one. At the end, she is truly heartwrenching and really crying.)

1  Miri (Kim Darby, Michael J. Pollard. . . the episode is absurd, because these kids are supposed to be entering puberty, and the boys have these deep man's voices. But it still gets to me because when I first watched it I was alone in the den, and I think that is the exact moment I reached puberty. Note: particularly memorable for its quintessentially Shatnerian line, "No blah-blah-blah!")

What interests me about this, and I am already losing interest because I haven't eaten anything yet and it's twelve to 1:00, is that quite a few of my "bests" ended up on other people's worsts. For some reason, Spock's Brain, which I thought was pretty good but didn't make the cut, is rated low. Apollo ended up in the top twenty, as did the gangster/OK Corral one! 

Bottom Twelve (no order to these, though some are worse than others.)

The Savage Curtain (Lincoln appears out of nowhere and calls Uhura a "handsome Negress").

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (Frank Gorshin is painted half black and half white. Jesus.)

Who Mourns for Adonais? (Who, indeed? He looks like an indignant Jolly Green Giant. A member of the landing party falls in love with him, then must spurn him for the sake of duty! "Really, Apollo, You didn't think I was some simple shepherdess you can awe." Only one word for this episode: appalling.)

A Piece of the Action (Gangsters - Spock in a porkpie - just fucked).

Patterns of Force (Nazis - Spock in a Nazi uniform. Actually, he makes a pretty convincing Nazi.)

The Squire of Gothos (Beyond obnoxious, ends up being a little kid whining to Mommy and Daddy, but he has been whining for the past hour, so what else is new?)

Spectre of the Gun (Western)

Journey to Eden (which see)

Arena (Gorn - only memorable for Kirk's famous drop-kick).

The Paradise Syndrome (Mirimani - synthetic Indians, Kirk knocks one up while he has amnesia)

A Private Little War (Mugatu, guy in a white fun-fur gorilla suit with spikes down the back).

The Omega Glory ("We! The! People!!!"). Actually, I keep thinking Americans might like this one.

But the only problem is, he left out "the right to bear phasers".

What's most ironic about all this is that William Shatner is a Canadian.

William Shatner's love child, and other hazards of turning 85

OK, so you already know that one of my many fascinations/obsessions is William Shatner. Whenever I read about his hyper-busy life, I think: geez, that's a lot for a man his age. 65, is he?

No. Nor 70. Nor 75. Nor. . .

He doesn't LOOK like a man of 85. He doesn't SOUND like, LIVE like, or do anything like whatever-85-is-supposed-to-be. Every so often, when I'm watching YouTube or an old Twilight Zone or just about any TV series from the 1950s, I'll see an unbelievably gorgeous Shat, just a matinee-idol type with the most exotically beautiful eyes.

Hey wait a minute. The *1950s*??

I was just about kind of getting born then. (Forgive all the italics. This is about William Shatner, after all.) He already had a career well underway on TV, worked steadily, had cut his teeth on Shakespeare at Stratford, Ontario. WHEN, during the Depression or what?

This guy is like that character in Trek who was Da Vinci, Brahms, Einstein, Bill Gates or whatever, all those different famous smart guys (and they always throw in a few we've never heard of, presumably from other planets), but he never dies because of "whatever". I don't really care why. The point is, this guy not only never DIES, he never slows down either. Right now, along with a host of other things, he is involved in - gulp - a paternity suit, the kind of thing a guy in his 30s might face.

I don't know how long he can keep going like this. He seems ageless. It creeps me out, some way, it really does seem downright weird, and in past posts I've wondered if he made some sort of a deal with "somebody" to just stop ageing.

I've known too many people, especially lately, who have expired far too soon. I don't know what happens to them. Then you have this guy who looks like a well-preserved 65, who is literally 20 years older than that.

Predictably, he has a whole lot of new stuff happening/coming out now. Not sure how he does it, but I'm glad he does.

William Shatner talks fame, Leonard Nimoy ahead of Calgary Expo appearance

ERIC VOLMERS, CALGARY HERALD

Published on: April 25, 2016 | Last Updated: April 25, 2016 7:29 AM MDT

William Shatner speaks during the Silicon Valley Comic Con in San Jose, California on March 18. He will be guest at the Calgary Expo     JOSH EDELSON / AFP/GETTY IMAGES


On the day William Shatner talked to the Calgary Herald, a Google News search of his name turned up a wide variety of articles.

There were headlines from Vanity Fair about how star-struck actor Sam Heughan of the series Outlander had gone out to dinner with Shatner and was thrilled to learn he was a fan of his sci-fi fantasy series.

RollingStone.com was reporting on Shatner’s newest book Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man, which chronicles his relationship with his Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy. Gaming sites were all atwitter with news that the space simulation, Elite: Dangerous, would soon feature Shatner’s voice.

Finally, there were tabloid-y reports about a man suing Shatner for $170-million, claiming he is the actor’s love child.

It suggests that, at 85, “The Shat” still commands a good deal of attention and continues to experience all the vagaries of fame: The good. The bad. The weird.

“Denial and downcast eyes is a good way of dealing with fame,” jokes Shatner, without referring specifically to any of his recent headlines. “It has it’s own qualifications. It can be irksome. But, on balance, what it has brought me in terms of talking to you, and going to Calgary and eating at the charcuterie there … if one were to look at my life, you would have to say: ‘One of the luckiest son-of-a-bitches that ever lived.'”

Shatner sneaks in the Calgary reference because he will be returning to the city this week as one of the higher-profile guests of Calgary Expo. He heads an impressive contingent of Star Trek stars that come from virtually every chapter of Gene Roddenberry’s ever-increasing universe, from the original series and movies in which Shatner played Captain James. T. Kirk to J.J. Abrams’s recent reboots. Shatner, as with many Trek alumni, has been at the Expo before. But this is a special year, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rodenberry’s vision.

While Shatner’s relationship with the Trek phenomenon has had its ups and downs, the half-century milestone is also a reminder that he has spent at least that long in the spotlight.

Few performers could have parlayed starring in a three-season cult series into such a wide-ranging, artistically restless career. As an actor, he has done everything from serious drama to goofy self-parody. He has authored or co-authored dozens of fiction and non-fiction books. He has directed documentaries, released albums, raised horses, played poker for charity, hosted a talk show, been a pitchman for Priceline, developed an autobiographical one-man show for Broadway. . . the list goes on.

At 85, he apparently has no plans to slow down and still has some surprises up his sleeve.

“I helped design a motorcycle in Chicago,” he reports. “A group of people drove, and I drove the motorcycle, from Chicago to Los Angeles and on the way shot a documentary of what went on as well as raising funds for the American Legion. All and all it was a very busy time. But I’ve got a lot of film of what I’ve called ‘the ride.’ And, in the intervening time, there are all kinds of documentary suggestions that I’ve got and I’m trying to sell and make. I’ve been very busy doing that kind of reality work.”

As a documentary filmmaker, Shatner has mostly concentrated on Star Trek, whether it be revealing “the shenanigans” that went on behind the scenes during the production of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the very entertaining 2014 TV doc Chaos on the Bridge, examining the deep cultural reverberations of the series in 2013’s Get a Life! or interviewing his fellow starship commanders in 2012’s The Captains.

For those documentaries, Shatner occasionally seemed to be looking at the ramifications of the franchise from a bemused distance. But that certainly wasn’t the case with his latest book, which was a deeply personal affair. In Leonard, he reflects on his five-decade friendship with Nimoy, who played the original Mr. Spock in Star Trek. By the end of his life, Nimoy was no longer speaking with Shatner, who says he doesn’t know why his good friend shut him out of his life.

The actor has written plenty of books, but this one was different, he says.

“Writing a factual book on somebody I really cared about was difficult,” he says. “It took a toll. We had so much in common. Our lives, our backgrounds, even our foregrounds, were strangely in line. So we talked about that a great deal over the years. And yet when you lose somebody that is close to you, all those memories are in jeopardy of being forgotten, they might as well have never happened. You have no validation from the other person. So that was one reason for writing that book, to try and remember some of the incidences and motivations.”

While Shatner may keep busy with writing and directing, one of the reasons he stays in the spotlight is because he remains one of the more prolific celebrity tweeters. The aforementioned exchange with Outlander actor Sam Heughan followed months of online banter between the two.

In 2015, he gained headlines for mocking Star Wars: The Force Awakens in a number of tweets.

A few weeks after this interview, he drew attention by briefly debating morality with author Stephen King in relation to the Netflix series The 100. But while he clearly seems to enjoy it — particularly if he can dictate the tweets (“Typing is onerous,” he says) — maintaining such a high profile online is also a pragmatic exercise. In fact, bringing it up in conversation allows him to plug another one of his many pursuits.

“Not a small part of it is that I raise money for charity, especially for children and veterans, and by making acquaintances that you wouldn’t recognize if they came into a room and they are with a show, they will give me stuff to auction off,” he says. “So the silent auction, for my charity show, which is the Hollywood Charity Horse Show, I’ve gotten really some wonderful stuff that has made use of this celebrity by raising money for kids in need.”

William Shatner is scheduled to appear at the Calgary Expo at Stampede Park from Thursday to Sunday. Visit calgaryexpo.com.

OK, so MY question is. . . where can I see all those documentaries? They never come on TV. They don't appear in theatres. I would DIE to see any one of them, or all three. Do I have to go to film festivals or what??

UPDATE/BADDA-BOOM. This is from the Smithsonian Magazine. Is there nowhere this man doesn't show up? I mean, doesn't he show up nowhere? Doesn't he anywhere NOT show up? Or something. But for some reason, not one article mentions that he looks 65 when he's 85.

William Shatner spoke at Smithsonian Magazine's "The Future is Here" festival. We sat down and asked him questions regarding his thoughts on politics, climate change, and the new Star Trek series. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

We're probably six minutes into a 10-minute interview when I ask William Shatner the question that's been dogging me ever since I found out there was to be an interview.

"Ted Cruz, the Republican presidential candidate, has said that Captain Kirk is a Republican," I said. "Do you agree?"

For Shatner, this could have been an easy question. Who better to answer it than the man who played the swashbuckling "Star Trek" captain on film for nearly 30 years?

Maybe he didn't want to color the way people view his character. Maybe he was channeling the post-partisan politics of "Star Trek's" 23rd century. Whatever the reason, Shatner did a very un-Kirk-like thing: He took evasive action.

"If you could define what 'Republican' and 'Democrat' means nowadays, I might be able to enter into that discussion," he said. "But the roles seem to be mixed. And what defines a Republican and certainly what defines a Democrat is so blurred, I don't quite know where anybody's standing."

So Shatner is very reluctant to talk about politics, it turns out. But if he could cast a ballot today, chances are he wouldn't be voting for Cruz.

You see, Cruz has been a vocal critic of man-made climate change. And Shatner's biggest fear? It's that humanity won't even live to see the 23rd century because of overpopulation and greenhouse gases. In fact, Shatner is disappointed in us all for making 2016 such a letdown compared to the sunny utopia laid out in "Star Trek."

"There was all kinds of interest in flying vehicles and health and the state of the world" among science fiction writers 50 years ago, Shatner said. "That we wouldn't be melting away, into the sixth extinction. It would be a much more pleasant. Peaceful. Humane world. Than it is."

Are there any technologies that worry you? I asked.

"The technology that worries me is the old technologies," Shatner said. "The technology of uses of energy and the spilling of toxins into Mother Earth, and we're killing our Earth and nobody is irate about it enough. And not enough people are irate about it. People like yourself — young people like yourself should be screaming at the top of your lungs to the people who lead."

It's a challenge not even Captain Kirk would be able to take on, Shatner said. Kirk was the captain of a single ship. Climate change is a big collective action problem requiring the input of lots of different actors.

I later asked him whether there was any role on "Star Trek" that Shatner, looking back, would have liked to try. He joked that he might have wanted to replace George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, the USS Enterprise's helmsman. Perhaps it was a dig at Takei, with whom Shatner is said to have a contentious relationship. But it was clear Shatner is preoccupied by bigger things these days than politics, on or off the set.

BLOGGER'S NOTE: Finally. We know Sulu's first name.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

May you stay forever young

I'm not doing this properly at all, because I'm in a hurry and not spending proper time on it. But I just found out William Shatner (one of my Glass Character obsessions) just turned 85. Yes. Eighty-five. THAT.

When you look at poor old Bob Dylan, in photos of him from the '80s and '90s, he looks like 20 miles of bad road. Shatner? I always think he made a deal with the devil, but he must have gotten the best part of the bargain.

When you see him walk confidently onstage now, you think: there's a good-looking man in his 60s, ruddy of complexion, obviously not Botoxed or facelifted like those awful male ruins, Burt Reynolds and Mickey Rourke. That's just him.

My daughter and I used to talk about "good-smelling men". Harrison Ford: good-smelling. Tom Cruise: (marginally) good-smelling. Brad Pitt: blecccchh.

Shatner's good-smelling, he makes the list. You can just tell.

Two people I always hoped to meet, and never will: Shatner and Dylan, both of whom made deals with the devil in their own way.

Whether it's genetics, good bones, spirit, will, or a combination, Shatner has come away with the prize: he never seems to age. Like that guy on Star Trek who was all those different famous people. . . and we sadly watched Nimoy shrivel away in the past year, the two of them exactly the same age, and spiritual brothers.

Never mind, got to go now, hate to slap this up but can't finish it now. The last two gifs are from videos taken about ten days ago. Right up to date. Try to believe that man is 85.

Nimoy and Shatner: before they were icons

This is just what you think it is: a pre-Trek, pre-Captain Kirk William Shatner, he who appeared on various popular SF (or sci-fi or whatever they call it now) TV shows of the mid-'60s. I believe this one was The Outer Limits. He also did a couple of turns on The Twilight Zone, the monster-on-the-airplane-wing one and another one, much more low-key, in which he became addicted to a sort of Satanic coin bank that was foretelling his death. Jeffrey Hunter,the original Captain Kirk in the failed pilot, didn't seem to have this paranormal/space epic background, or if he did I don't remember it. He was in Biblical movies, I think, and didn't know how to do that infamous wrestling throw that bested Kirk's worst enemy, the Gorn. He was just too bland, and what they seemed to need on the show was the sort of histrionic performance that led to his deathless soliloquy: "No blah-blah-blah!"

Which see.

But wait, there's more! Leonard Nimoy also did at least one turn on The Outer Limits (that I know of - he may have done some Zone/One Step Beyond as well. He had a family to support.) It's eerie how similar this shot is: both of them looking at something disturbing on a screen, though Nimoy turns away with a mildly perplexed look on his face and Shatner looks as if he needs a Pepto-Bismol. Though these appearances weren't on the same episode, guess what! . . . 

They appeared together on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1964. I probably watched this episode, since I was slavishly devoted to the show (and unlike all my friends, I liked Robert Vaughn rather than David McCallum). Like everyone else, I had no idea these two journeyman actors would become cultural icons, and neither did they. All in a day's work.

Betty White - all right (and Bill, you're my thrill)

I realize this blog, uneven as it is, has become dominated by the gif. The reason is this: I was born in 1954, and anything that helps me capture obsolete technology (particularly old TV) is magic to me. I can illustrate a point in ten seconds. And they're easy to make, boyo, even though I have come to the conclusion that my beloved Gifsforum is no more. 

What's even more curious is the fact that I can't find ANYTHING about it, not even on one of those message boards that has been pretty much been replaced by Twitter. Where did it go? It had infinitely more flexibility than Makeagif, though I will have to admit it got the proportions wrong and stretched a lot of them. They weren't nicely cropped like most of these are. But it was fast, and you could make things run backwards.

Anyway, enough complaining. Along with William Shatner, Betty White is the only living/actively performing person who remembers/was working in TV in the 1950s. I think this is pretty astonishing. Though Betty looks like a well-preserved older woman, Shatner looks about 65. You have to wonder what these two did, what sort of bargain they struck, and with whom.

Quite a fox, he was, and well before Star Trek, versatile, fit into any show, could play just about anything, and always worked. When the work fell through after Star Trek (type-casting: he is one of the very few actors who beat it), he lived out of his truck for a while and did Loblaws commercials in Toronto, some of which survive (we'll get to them later! He still does ads which I enjoy watching, but now he doesn't need to.)

Note from his  manner of speaking that he already has the Kirkian sense of drama. Jeffrey Hunter was the original Captain Kirk, and he was let go and replaced: too dull by half, I think, and he couldn't do those wrestling moves that became his trademark. Without the histrionics that made him famous, the show would have crashed and burned before it got off the launching pad.

No blah blah blah!

William Shatner as Alexander the Great!

An unsold TV pilot, of which I have only had titillating YouTube glimpses. Shatner in a skirt, or in a hot bath, or wrestling, or. . . That's definitely him on the horse, not a stunt double, no stirrups so it's the same as bareback, and if so, he rides as well as Gary Cooper.He even does a few of those impressive running vaults onto the horse. This was pre-Trek, and it's easy to see why they thought of Shatner when re-casting the failed Star Trek pilot. Jeffrey Hunter was too boring, no histrioncs, and couldn't do the stunts. Remember the famous Kirk wrestling throw?  Anyway, this also has Adam West, John Cassavetes, Joseph Cotten, and many other solid journeyman actors, so I am not sure why the pilot never sold. I think it was a Desilu production, but the costumes are at least a little less chintzy (though with no shortage of gold lame). The truth is, it may just have been too expensive to produce. In a few scenes A the G postures and poses, turning his profile this way and that, and damn, he really is a fox! Being 84 and still an able horseman and able at just about everything else a 35-year-old can do, I greatly admire the man and wonder what sort of deal with the devil he made to stop ageing at 60.

(Watch it here!)

http://free-classic-movies.com/movies-06/06-1968-01-26-Alexander-the-Great/index.php

The man himself. Not bad for 84.

What's $30 billion between friends?: Shatner's California pipeline scheme

THE MARGIN

William Shatner taps Elon Musk, Al Gore to join his assault on California drought

Published: Apr 21, 2015 1:18 p.m. ET

Shatner: ‘I want $30 billion… to build a pipeline like the Alaska pipeline’





PM Entertainment/Everett

SHAWN LANGLOIS

MARKETS REPORTER

William Shatner recently announced a $30-billion plan to boldly go and quench California by running a pipeline from the Pacific Northwest. His dearly departed co-star, along with a skeptical corner of the Internet, might call the concept highly illogical.

But what about Tesla’s TSLA, +5.30% Elon Musk and climate crusader Al Gore? Shatner gave this Twitter shoutout late Tuesday night, in an attempt at bringing the duo into the conversation about saving the Golden State.

No response yet. One commenter claimed Musk is probably too “busy inventing the square wheel,”

while another said Shatner lost him at the mere mention of “Mr. Global Pay Me Carbon Tax.”

As for the plan itself, Shatner gave “the scoop” to Yahoo last week.

“So I’m starting a Kickstarter campaign. I want $30 billion … to build a pipeline like the Alaska pipeline. Say, from Seattle — a place where there’s a lot of water. There’s too much water,” he told Yahoo’s David Pogue in an interview. “How bad would it be to get a large, 4-foot pipeline, keep it above ground — because if it leaks, you’re irrigating!”

Shatner envisions a pipeline running alongside Interstate 5 and perhaps filling up Lake Mead.

“They tell us there’s a year’s supply of water left. If it doesn’t rain next year, what do 20 million people in the breadbasket of the world do?” he said. “In a place that’s the fifth-largest GDP — if California were a country, it’d be fifth in line — we’re about to be arid! What do you do about it?”

Shatner, at the very least, said his plan will bring more attention to the severity of the drought, and if his fund raising efforts come up short, he’ll give it to a politician who can take up the cause.

Shatner is no stranger to crowdsourcing on Kickstarter. More than 1,000 people pledged a total of $60,000 to fund his book “Catch Me Up.” He was seeking to raise $50,000.

“Going the traditional route would’ve required a number of sacrifices including a change in the overall message,” Shatner explained on his Kickstarter page. “So I’ve decided to take a page from my own book, so to speak, and use crowdsourcing to fund this project.”

We’ll have to see if the Kickstarter pipeline campaign pans out. Judging from the reaction in cyberspace, that $30 billion isn’t exactly money in the bank just yet.

"Forget"

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

I know a guy. . . WILLIAM SHATNER!

"I know a guy!"

The Bill and Lenny Show: bring on the comic relief!

This has, somehow, been a very strange week, and it's even stranger that it would end this way: sitting in my office at midnight trying to stifle guffaws so my husband won't wake up.

This has got to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen. These guys are like two bratty little boys with very high IQs. They answer the questions (sort of) before they're even asked, or don't answer them at all but go off on bizarre tangents. You know of course that I have a thing for Shatner, which is odd because when the series was originally on, I was a Spock fanatic and nearly kvelled in that episode where he had his shirt off. (Who knew? His body was about a gazillion times sexier than Kirk's.)

But now things swing around, and it's hard to believe these two guys are almost exactly the same age, only a few days apart in fact. Shatner has decided not to age, and has this spooky thing where, behind that ruddy outdoorsmen's face, the much younger Shatner can peer out at you with those invincible, exotic wolf eyes. It's unnerving. Nimoy has become extremely thin and has not enjoyed good health, but he is sharp and cranky and funny as hell. Very Jewish, of course, but he also brings out Shatner's Jewishness (which some people are surprised to hear about  - he was born and raised in Montreal).

This is partly an artful dodge because this week has been so difficult. It has passed in a sort of dream. Terrorism has knocked down the front door in this country, and though it has not yet entered the building, it has now suddenly become "thinkable". The threat came from within, which is especially sickening: lost, confused, vulnerable, drug-addled and/or mentally ill young people are being coerced and seduced by pure evil. This complete absence of a moral compass scares me. It also scares me that, while we revile these people and rejoice when they are shot dead, we never think about their parents, their siblings, their friends, the people who loved them and may have tried to help.

If I even mentioned this on Facebook, I'd likely be slaughtered. This man was evil, therefore his parents must be evil! His siblings must be evil. Anyone who loved, or tried to love this broken human being is evil, and we know this for a fact so there will be no more discussion about it, ever.

I am also hearing, over and over again, variations on "he converted to Islam AND. . ." (began murdering people, blowing things up, etc.) In my mind, "he converted to Islam BUT" would make more sense, or "he WAS converted to a distorted, perverted, sick and twisted form of indoctrination which has co-opted the symbolism of Islam to its own vile purposes." Or words to that effect.

So what is all this doing under a hilarious, tear-wiping, even ridiculous ten-minute sit-down routine by two of our best-known cultural icons? I have no idea, except that I needed something to get that bad taste out of my mouth. I don't ever want Shatner to die because he just keeps going on and on without even changing very much year to year, just indomitable, somewhat tank-like to be sure, but with the same vitality he had 30 or 40 years ago. I want someone to remind me that it is possible to not only keep going, but to keep projects going in every direction without slowing down, with no seeming ill effects. Some people say he's an arrogant asshole, but he doesn't care and neither do I.

So I have to go to bed now, still feeling disoriented, and now wondering about the parents and loved ones of that man who fell dead after committing such an atrocity. I'm not much of a praying person any more because I grew tired of the futility of it, but if I DID pray I would. And maybe I still will.

Why fuck up your face?

It's not just Renee Zellweger.

Actors do this to themselves, which for some reason is supposed to make it OK, or at least "more OK": "well, MEN do it too, you know!" "Oh. Yeah." End of discussion.

For, you see, if men do it too, it is now OKAY to mutilate your face. It has been justified. Go home now.

This bizarre beforeandafter belongs to Mickey Rourke, an actor I never much liked anyway, but he must have gone to Acapulco for his surgery. It just looks bad. He has that bizarre OMG look, that instant recognition that something awful has been done to his face. He does not look "young"; he merely looks weird.

This one is really sad. I've never been a Kenny Rogers fan (except for that "know when to hold them, know when to fold them" thing - who doesn't like that?), but this was just desperate, and shocking. He really pulled a Zellweger here, and went from a rugged silver-fox-type cow-dude to a sort of mincing hairdresser with a Bugs Bunny smile, a brow-lift and a weave. He doesn't look like ANYBODY, let alone Kenny Rogers. Renee at least looks - well, if not attractive, then at least doll-like in her new guise. She looks kind of like Renee Zellweger's distant cousin (who has had a lot of work done).  As for Kenny, I wonder how he sees out of those things?. Maybe he can start a new career as a Kenny Rogers impersonator. That is, if anyone believes him.

Ah, um, her, uh, ugh. Barry Manilow.

Burt Reynolds, who no longer needs to buy a Halloween costume. He can go as Burt Reynolds and scare little children. Note how he never shows up in movies any more: I guess directors want their actors to look like they're alive.

It's slitty-eyes syndrome again. Women's eyes are pulled up slantwise (which is funny, because meanwhile Asian women are busy erasing every trace of their heritage from their faces), but for some reasons dudes' eyes are pulled sideways so aggressively that they can barely see. In this case, it looks as if his eyelids were simply removed.

Is there a "worst case" in this macabre house of wax? Yes, there is, and you're looking at it. Even on the left, he's had significant work done, especially around the eyes. But that wasn't enough. These guys never leave well enough alone, do they? They always go back for more. His eyes are now closer together than the Royal Family's, and have that disturbingly sunken look that makes me wonder if men aren't supposed to have eyes after a certain age. Cheek implants, chin implants, God knows what sort of other implants. When this monstrous freak walks out onto the stage in Vegas, the crowds scream with recognition, even though they don't have a clue who he is. But they've paid for Wayne Newton, so this must BE Wayne Newton.

But soft! What light from yonder window breaks? What former Shakespearian actor is this, what good Canadian boy, what Governer-General-Award recipient? This is the man who made a deal with the devil not to age. It has little or nothing to do with his face. He looks like a person. His face does not look messed-with at all. He has gained weight, but carries it so well it makes YOU want to gain weight too (well, not quite). He still sits a horse remarkably well at - Jesus, he's 83! He is 83 goddamn years old, and this past summer he was the Grand Marshall at the Calgary Stampede. The white hat looked pretty swell on him, too.

You don't look at Shatner's face and think. "Work done." You don't look at Shatner's face and think, "Ewwww." You don't look at Shatner's face and think, "83". You think "65-ish, ruddy, virtually unlined, outdoorsman, in good shape. Healthy." His voice, his energy, his endless new projects (always a few going on at the same time) are so astonishing that we don't even see them any more.

Shatner went through several phases: his young manhood, which makes me want to kvell:

(and I don't know why exactly, but I want to jump on top of this young god with the 100% self-assurance)

. . . his Star-Trekkian phase, in which he was older and more conventionally handsome;

. . . his little-bit-obvious-hairpiece stage, soon to be replaced by transplants or something else more natural. . .

. . . but NEVER did he go through a  "monster" stage like Kenny and Wayne and Mickey and all those other poor sods who were so afraid of the monstrosity of ageing that they ruined their faces.
He won't because "something" happened, he found the secret, the way to slow ageing down so much that it is barely perceptible. A deal with the devil? I've written about this before. The older he gets, the more ruddy-faced, the more of those Priceline ads he does, the more I love the guy. I love him because he is 83. I love him because he is fucking fantastic. I love him because he is the real deal.

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

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