MOTORCITYBLOG

Wild Bill Ketelhut provides the "blog" to this anti-blog












Wild At Heart

  After having a great weekend in Toronto, it nearly crushed me to hear that Neil Armstrong passed away at the age of 82.  In a year with Joe Paterno and Lance Armstrong being torn down, Armstrong remains an untouchable heroic figure and a great role model for a generation.  He very rarely spoke and avoided publicity in an occupation that catered a lot to big egos.

  Armstrong proudly served our country in the Korean War as part of the US Navy and went on to be a test pilot, logging over 900 flights, for what is now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center.  He also counted aerospace engineer and university professor on his impressive resume before joining NASA in 1962.  He was part of two missions including the Gemini 8 (1966) where he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft with pilot David Scott and was part of the most famous spaceflight ever with the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 (the year I was born which might explain why I love science and science fiction so much).

  I haven’t truly had time to process his passing yet but Armstrong was definitely a class act and a role model for me.  In time, I will appreciate this more but I can only recommend to my readers to track down informations, be it on the internet, books, documentaries, etc and take the time to learn about one of the more interesting and influencial men in this century.  I can also recommend traveling down to his hometown Wapakoneta, Ohio to visit the The Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum and the airport, named for him, in New Knoxville where he took his first flying lessons.  RIP Neil!

 

  I was at the Toronto Fan Fest from Thursday thru Saturday so I probably missed any talk about Neil Armstrong which probably would have shaken some people.  Still, this convention is a mixing of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Comics, Gaming, Cosplay, Meeting Celebrities, etc that creates an amazing atmosphere to meet like-minded individuals and share experiences. I will be talking about this for a number of posts since there was a lot happening and I have a lot to share.  I will start with an overhead shot of the convention lobby on Saturday which barely gives an idea of the thousands of people who attended this convention.  This area caters to the fan clubs and fanzines dedicated to shows like Dr Who, movies like Star Wars and Ghostbusters or genres like Steampunk (I have more pictures of these which will appear later but notice things like the Dalek moving through the crowd, the Storm Trooper barely visible and the Green Lantern just taking everything in).

  This area also showcased the Delorean from the Back To The Future movies.

  One cool things about the convention is meeting future creators like the guy below who belongs to Heroes Of the World, which is a project created by artists mark Williams and Joe Bonsu where they have developed a legion of superheroes that represent the world and the diversity that can be found.  They have created characters for just about every country and are using those characters in there comic to show the strengths of unity.  Below is a sidekick for the Canadian hero (we are in Toronto after all) despite the fact that I am not sold on the maple leaf design here.  They hope that they can take there concept and bring it to the small screen a la a cartoon series which I think could definitely have the potential to educate on the differences between cultures which providing some nice action.  For comic book fans, this kind of reminds me of the Global Guardians from Super-Friends but on a much vaster scale.

http://theheroesoftheworld.com/

  Don’t forget the on Thursday I touched upon Spiderman’s 50^th birthday which was honored by Stan “the Man” Lee who is looking damn good for someone who is 89.  The red velvet cake was pretty good also.

          

  The convention is also a good place to see displays from upcoming projects.  Last there they had the props for Green lantern and this year was dedicated to the upcoming Burton film “Frankenweenie”.  They had a number of cool set displays as well as Burton’s working desk with characters from the original Disney Short.  Burton has disppointed with some of his recent work like Dark Shadows and Planet Of the Apes, but his original works, like Big Fish have always been promising.  Look for a lot of themed merchandise when this comes out.

  They also had the throne from the TV Series “Game Of Thrones” which was cool and CTV brought in a photo booth to put people with their favorite TV shows like me in the Big Bang Theory picture.

            

  Lego was back again giving out free stuff as well as numerous displays around the con from World Of Warcraft to Super-heroes, LOTR and Star Wars.

            

            

  It is also a blast being able to meet and listen to celebrities talk and answer fan questions.  My girl Gillian Anderson was there looking very sexy signing autographs and the Jay And Silent Bob Podcast was hysterical.  My only negative from the weekend though was when they made me do a 30 minute walk to the other building to pick up a ticket despite having my online ticket in hand. Someone should have made a decision to move those online ticket pick-up closer, esp since they had a new ticket purchase booth about a 5 minute escalator ride away.  Anyway, it was fun listening to Kevin Smith (this guy is extremely intelligent) tell these really great stories about the Hockey Hall Of Fame or a touching story of helping Jason Mewes deal with his drug addiction revolving around tracking down rare Greedo action figures and then have that balanced with Mewes talking about having sex on an airplane or getting a hard-on at an message parlor my a male masseuse (he was holding his wife’s hand, but still).  You have to check these guys out if they come back on tour again.  And check out the fanboys dressed as there Bluntman and Chronic characters.

     

  Lastly for now, it was also cool to hang with the Suicide Girls who are promoting their new comic book so if you like girls that are a little different, here is something for the more mature audience.  The books set it a futuristic dystopia aren’t great but they are fun to read and some of the artwork is pretty cool and the girls were all wonderful.  Great fun if you are into nudity, tattos and piercings.  I especially like th e cover of issue three and was told that one of the girls actually had those piercing done which doubled as a make-shift sword holder on her back.  Talk about ouch.  On the other side of the spectrum was this guy dressed as the Count.  Just a lot of fun seeing that kind of diversity.

    

    Well, I will have more coming up with pictures of a lot of the fans, most wearing homemade costumes and some of the other thing I did when in Toronto, including meal, Ultimate Dinosaurs at the ROM, Buskerfest and the Tawainese Festival.  Take care!

  This was always one of my favorite weekends in Detroit, esp for music, having both the Detroit Jazzfest as well as Arts, Beats and Eats going on the same weekend.  Both festivals are bringing in some great music though I admit I am partial to the Jazzfest, esp since ABE moved to Royal Oak and you needed to be more careful with your parking.  The first year in Royal Oak, they gave out a lot of parking tickets when people removed no parking signs, etc.  So be careful and it might be worth paying for parking.  However it works out, enjoy this weekend and here are my recommended shows and bands to catch during the festivals.

Tuesday (8/28) – Built To Spill @ Mickey Finns (Toledo)

Wednesday (8/29) – Jason Mraz @ Pine Knob

Thursday (8/30) – Rock N Blues Fest feat Johnny Winter w/Edgar Winter and Rick Derringer @ Pine Knob

Friday (8/31) – Offspring @ The Fillmore, guitarist Bill Kirchen @ the Ark, Arts Beats and Eats feat G Love and the Special Sauce (also, Mayer Hawthorne, Stewart Francke, Candy Band, Roots Vibration, Larry Lee & the Back In The Day Band), Detroit Jazz Fest feat Terence Blanchard Quintet

Saturday (9/01) – Arts Beats and Eats feat REO Speedwagon (also Polish Muslims, Broadzilla, Thornetta Davis, Howling Diablos, Sights, Dirty Americans), Detroit Jazz Fest feat Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis Quintet, B.o.B. and Young Jeezy open for TI @ Joe Louis Arena

Sunday (9/02) – Detroit Jazz Fest feat Pat Metheny and Poncho Sanchez, Arts Beats and Eats feat Guess Who (also Travis Tritt, Ruiners, Twistin’ Tarantulas, Amy Gore & Her Valentines)

Monday (9/03) – Arts Beats and Eats feat Theory Of A Deadma (also Morris Day & the Time, Saving Abel, Pistol Day Parade, Dutch Pink, Jill Jack Band. School Of Rock, 60 Second Crush, Laith al Saadi), Detroit Jazz Fest feat Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Tia Fuller