William Shatner's 90th Birthday Celebration at the Star Trek Set Tour, Ticonderoga NY

July 24th, 2021 found me (yet again) in the parking lot of 112 Montcalm St. It was 7:30 AM. Sunny, but not yet hot from the long absent sun. I stood with my father in line amongst many waiting to check-in. All was right in the world for we were only minutes away from eating a hearty, delicious breakfast at Burlleigh's Luncheonette.

A day of of Trek awaited us.

There's no way Shatner is 90. This man is a machine! A fun, fast, and witty machine!

A day of like-minded humans gathered from near and very far to celebrate the 90th birthday of an actor who so vibrantly, so unknowingly (along with many talented others) helped turn three seasons of corporate television into over 50 yrs of hope and inspiration to millions. 

Like I said, a typical day of Trek.

And James? WOW! Your crew did a great job. YOU did a fantastic job performing Saturday night! Just wonderful. My post will not do it justice. Gentle reader, allow me to present award winning Elvis impersonator James Crawley, the creator of the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour.

I'm still debating with myself on HOW to present the day. Until I decide, I want to reach out to some people I did not have the chance to swap contact info with before I left dinner.

In no order at all:

1. Unexpected Lowe's Employee who has an amazing custom built Enterprise

2. 90% Shatner guy who has one of those pencil cases

3. Doc Brown hair father with a great laugh

4. Utica woman who sometimes falls asleep binge watching. 

If by some miracle you see this, please drop me a line. You helped make the day that much better. 

Until then...

Be well, gentle readers.

Sam 

II.

A bit more now. A bit of the tour.

One of the tour guides let my group know that each tour Bill gave was a crapshoot. He went where he felt and relayed whatever he wanted to. The tour guide was quite correct. The above pic from the recreation of the sick bay is bittersweet. Bill was relaying a story that came to mind about when he visited DeForest Kelley and his wife when they were nearing the end of their lives. It was hard to hear, like real-life often is. Bill paused after the telling. What he was thinking, I have no idea. He was lost in his own mind for several seconds. Then he moved us to the next room and carried on. It was a REAL moment. I don't know how else to describe it. 

Eventually, we landed on the bridge. That was pretty cool. He took questions and relayed stories about his work on stage and radio. It was interesting. It explained much of why Trek was not a priority in his life for so many years. Bill described it, if I understood him right, as: I did THIS. Now THIS is over. Time to move onto the next THIS. He used the example of how Paramount BURNED the original set. Then how they BURNED the set from the first Trek movie. Then they BURNED the set from the second movie! Trek was a part of his work, not the sum or goal of his work. It made sense. 

And through it all, Bill gave suggestions (and honestly some outright commands) to help keep the lines moving for the attendees. It was impressive to see him mold the event for the positive. He wasn't merely a celebrity in a chair, and this was definitely not his first rodeo. He signed five-hundred autographs in two hours! During the panel talk at the high school Bill, aged 90, was calling people in the audience out for yawning! It was hilarious. The above pic is a laser-etched copy of our (Strongarm Labs) "To Serve a Prince" story poster tying in classic fairy tale NPC's into the origins of Trek's Red Shirts. Shatner was handed the piece, flipped it over, asked the assistant, "What is this this?" I replied to him it was a story I wrote tied to Trek while dropping a reference to the question I asked him during the panel talk earlier that day. He nodded, smiled, and signed it. Did he read it? Not even close! Not a word passed his eyes!

Oh well....I had to remember he had all these other people to serve. 

 

Then it was time for lunch at House of Pizza. Yum. 

 

The lines spanned the length of the parking lot and turned down the street. You can't see the VIP line in this pic. There was a LOT of people. 

III. Afterward. 

The day was my father's first trip to the set tour. He's the reason why Trek is part of me. He watched Trek when it was on the air. He shared the re-runs with me when I was a small child in the 70's. We decided then and there we'd come back on a day NOT filled with lines or Shatner. We'll be back so my Dad can experience the tour as it is supposed to be experienced. He'll be able to take his time. He'll be able to re-live the moments that became examples to me on how to treat other people. He'll be able to enjoy the brief time television time shared his view of future. I can't wait.

Be well, gentle reader. All for now.

 

Come visit the tour for yourself.   www.startrektour.com

-Sam 

Star Trek Meant I Had A Future

People have argued for decades about the differences between Star Wars and Star Trek, and which is best. 

I have the answer. Star Trek. Case closed.

For me, at least.

Star Wars staked its second-place territory in the first few seconds of its birth.

Star Wars was the past. It was a history lesson. Might as well have been a documentary. Did I love it? Absolutely! A proper telling of the Hero’s Journey can shed illumination on many levels. Plus, it was just plain fun. However, it was left to me to apply those lessons, and there was not much of a point of trying since I would be dead soon. You see, it was the 1970's,

Star Wars debuted at toy stores everywhere on May 25, 1977. I was seven. Star Trek, however, debuted on September 8^th, 1966. My parents hadn’t even remotely had THE SEX event that caused my existence. Star Trek, opposed to Star Wars, took place in the year 2265. It was a HUMAN future grown from my own Earth. Star Wars took place somewhere else and was long gone. Star Trek was a future where we FIXED things. Yes, it took hitting rock bottom in another cycle of war, but we stood back up swinging. We were alive and thriving by our works, our efforts, and our embracing of what it meant to be human. We were explorers. Innovators. Enablers of advancement and the exchange of ideas. We finally decided to not kill ourselves. That’s important. Paramount, in fact. I watched Star Trek when it was in syndication in the mid and late 70’s. The Cold War was a laugh a minute party even us kids knew about thanks to the atomic bomb drills. We got to kneel under our little desks and pretend they would save us from what happened to the Japanese children living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yeah. Don’t teach kids about World War II and not expect at least some of them to connect data points. Especially when you tell them the bomb (Hiroshima) dropped at a little after eight in the morning on a Monday. A few of us looked at the clock and did the math. We also knew the joyous wonder of waiting in long lines at gas stations while our mothers and fathers swore and muttered under their breaths about a Misery Index and the fuel shortage. The President had to wear sweaters in the White House to keep warm. We were taught a new, unstoppable Ice Age was coming to swallow the world, if mass starvation and a Population Bomb didn’t do it first. The Club of Rome sold millions of its report on why the planet would soon be a husk. (Does any of this sound familiar in current year? Just curious.) Penny on Good Times wasn’t safe. You had a Death Wish if you walked in Central Park any time of day. Even Saturday morning children television programs weren’t immune. The live-action Ark II took place hundreds of years in the future on our (wait for it) devastated planet, foreshadowing the post-apocalyptic movies of the 80’s we consumed as teens. At least it had a jet pack. That was pretty sweet. Killer bees were coming from the south to sting all my friends to death. Disaster films competed with Nature Turned Killer films at the box office. Logan ran and ran until he bumped into a bunch of damn, dirty apes. And don’t get me started on 70’s music. I lost count of all the clowns sent into cat’s cradles aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald after the new kid in town showed up. Do you see the landscape I’m raking? Some of us early Gen X’ers didn’t have much to grasp in the hopes of a future. Except, perhaps, that one weirdly appealing sci-fi program with that guy from In Search Of. That one example of a future, not perfect, but there and striving. That five-year mission with a crew from my future. 

Image from Alpha Memory, (c) Paramount

Star Trek was an optimistic vision in the midst of times filled largely with the opposite. This is not an Earth-shaking new statement. Many have made this observation before, and its been the subject of many interviews and documentaries. Search “star trek documentary” in IMDB and you’ll find twelve different titles alone. Beyond The Final Frontier (2007), Trekkies (1997), The Captains (2011), and For The Love of Spock (2016) are a good start. So is How William Shatner Changed The World (2005). It’s well-known, for example, that Star Trek inspired Martin Cooper to create the first cell phone. Remember that the next time you're watching a cat video on Facebook or Twitter while sitting in your car, or while watching Netflix at work. You can thank Star Trek for that.  
 

Time to wrap this up. Like I said, there’s tons of material about the impact of Star Trek on society at large, right down to individuals all over the world. Like me. I simply want to say I am grateful for all the actors, writers, production staff and everyone past and present involved in crafting Roddenberry’s little space western. I am grateful for all the fans who have stayed passionate despite the ups and downs. I am grateful for people like James Cawley who turned a labor of love into a Trek shrine in Ticonderoga, NY you can visit and stroll through.

Check it out here:  https://strongarmlabs.blogspot.com/2018/09/star-trek-tos-set-tour-set-phasers-to.html .

From the efforts of all these individuals, from all YOU wonderful people, I learned the future is not lost. Thank you.

Be well, gentle reader. Live long and prosper.

Star Trek TOS Set Tour: Set Phasers to IMPRESSIVE!

If this were a travel blog it might start like this:

"Nestled in the rolling hills of the Adirondacks sits historic Ticonderoga, New York. Its name comes from the Mohawk phrase, "At the junction of two waterways." for here is where Lake Champlain and Lake George connect via the many falls and rapids of La Chute River. A site of industrial and military importance in the early days of America, Ticonderoga today is known as having the highest number of confirmed alien abductions per capita in the world. In fact, aliens have returned more people to Ticonderoga then they have taken, which accounts in part for its steady population growth since the late 1980's."

But this is NOT a travel blog.

I'm here because the most accurate recreations of Star Trek TOS sets ever made are in Ticonderoga. And did I mention they were built by an Elvis impersonator? Sometimes fandom is a wonderful and beautiful thing.

Don't let the exterior fool you. Nerd awesomeness awaits you.

I am in no way affiliated with Star Trek Original Set Tours but I want to promote it so allow me to borrow from their website.

Found here: Star Trek Original Set Tours

"Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour is Located in Historic downtown Ticonderoga, New York.

When the STAR TREK television series was canceled in 1969, the original sets were dismantled and largely destroyed, only a few small items of the actual sets remain today, and those that have survived are in private collections. Trek superfan James Cawley began the process of rebuilding the sets just as they would have been seen 50 years ago when the series was being filmed, a 14 year journey has culminated in the most accurate rebuild of the original sets, and is now open and welcoming STAR TREK fans from all over the world!

Our sets are complete recreations built using the original blueprints, hundreds of hours of serious research and thousands of photographs – both period images and images culled from extensive review and capture from the original episodes. The sets will NOT and were NOT designed to move from one city to another and are fully licensed by CBS. The Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour Invites you to come see the Desilu Studio as it looked during the years between 1966-1969 while Star Trek was in production."

That's 100% accurate. While filming is not allowed during the tour, taking pictures is encouraged. Walk with me, won't you?

"Ma'am! You dropped your bread stick!"

"Hug?"

Someone on my tour pressed the red button. Don't press the red button.

 

Working flat screen monitors. Cool.

Kirk's love nest.

"Get a life!" True fans get this...

"Ye cannae change the laws of physics!"

Set phasers to malky.

Can I sit there? Yes, yes you can.

Just a few of the props on display. 

I took a lot more pics but I won't post them here because I want YOU to see the place for yourself and hear all the cool tour info. And they have plans to expend into the Next Generation series! I don't want to give spoilers but THEY WANT TO MAKE THE TNG ENGINE ROOM! How cool is that! So who is the man behind the Blue Suede curtain that made all of this possible? Let me borrow again from the website.

James is not the guy in the chair.

"James Cawley grew up as an avid Star Trek fan.  He began collecting props and costumes from the original series in 1997 and acquired the original TOS  Enterprise blueprints  from William Ware Theiss when he interned on Star Trek: The Next Generation as a professional costume maker.  He then spent 15 years researching, crafting and refining his set replicas alongside other dedicated fans and craftspeople. Pouring over stills and frame captures from TOS and sourcing vintage materials and antiques, Cawley ensured that even the smallest details were accurately and lovingly reproduced. When not in the 23^rd century, Cawley is also an award-winning Elvis Tribute artist. "

For more on James here's an article on Memory Alpha : I'm a link 

This man brings two of his favorite fandoms to life entertaining people from around the world. How cool is that! Kudos, Jim! Keep building it and they will come. Pass the peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

That's all for now, gentle reader.

Be seeing you,
Sam