Surfing The Giant Life Wave with William Shatner! (Canadian) Lifetime Achievement Awarded!

William Shatner has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Canadian Governor General's Performing Arts.  Their official praise reads as follows:

William Shatner is one of Canada’s most celebrated cultural icons. In a wide-ranging career spanning six decades, he has recreated himself many times over, each time revealing a new alter ego who seems to completely define him for the moment. Famous for his roles as Captain James Kirk in the original Star Trek TV series and attorney Denny Crane on The Practice and Boston Legal, he has starred in five TV series (Star Trek, T.J. Hooker, The Practice, Boston Legal, andThird Rock from the Sun) and more than 30 films, including Judgment at Nuremberg, seven Star Trek movies, Airplane II: The Sequel, andMiss Congeniality. He is an award-winning actor, accomplished director, best-selling author, and dedicated philanthropist and environmentalist whose compassion, creativity, and irrepressible sense of humour are integral to his life and work.

He has written fiction and non-fiction, released several albums, made close to 100 guest appearances on TV, and raised millions of dollars for charity. He currently hosts three TV series (Aftermath, Shatner’s Raw Nerve, and Weird or What?) and several websites, and plays the irascible father on the hit show $#*! My Dad Says and the dramatically persuasive “Negotiator” for the discount travel site priceline.com. He is also working on an album, a book, and an autobiographical documentary.  “I’m an actor, a performer,” he says. “There’s nothing I’d rather be doing. I love to entertain, to make people laugh and cry. I love to create the vehicles to do that, or at least to contribute to that.”

Mr. Shatner was born in Montreal in 1931 and obtained a BA in Commerce from McGill University, where he acted in student theatre and radio productions. In the late 1950s he appeared at the Stratford Festival and on Broadway, and made his film debut in The Brothers Karamazov (1957).

Now if you head on over to The National Post you can read a short Q&A.  Hightlights from the interview include:

--Shatner's completed five chapters of his latest book (Shatner's Rules), which he calls "an autobiography, a continuation of Up Till Now."  

--He's recently completed four interviews for Aftermath.  One of which is with Daniel Ellsberg of The Pentagon Papers fame (who was portrayed by Boston Legal stalwart James Spader in an early FX TV Movie) and one with Jeffery Wigand, the tobacco industry whistleblower portrayed by Russell Crowe in The Insider.

--Best Shatner Quote:  "I'm probably happiest right now then I've ever been in my life...I'm surfing the giant life wave!"  

2 Days Till Shat Attack 4: The Revenge!!!

With just two days left till Shat Attack 4:  The Revenge, I've really had to kick it into full gear around the apartment.  Had to reach back into the big closet and retrieve all those classic posters and dvds from Shat Attack pasts.  Astute viewers might spot the Think Geek box in the bottom left.  Yep, the Star Trek bathrobe is all kinds of fuzzy gold awesome.  

Raw Nerve Recap: Scott Bakula

This was probably my favorite episode of the season so far and that's mainly because I think Scott Bakula is one of the coolest, most underused actors in Hollywood.  As a kid, of course, I grew up watching (and loving) Quantum Leap.  The time travelling adventures of Dr. Sam Becket and his hologram buddy Al were geeky heaven for this dork in training.

However, what really got me hooked on Bakula was his starring role in Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions.  To this day, I'm fascinated with this film.  Horror Noir with Bakula's P.I. Harry D'Amour leading the charge against evil cultists, stuck-up magicians, and one sexy Femme Fatale in the figure of Famke Janssen.  Check out this fanmade music video to get a taste:

Anyway...I was pretty excited that Bakula was sitting down for a Shat Chat.  Again, at just over 20 minutes the show never delves too deeply or philosophically about anything.  That's not a slight, not by a long shot.  What's great about Raw Nerve is that it gives you just a taste of the personality sitting in the hot seat.  It's just enough to get you excited about Bakula.  Time to pop in a Quantum Leap disc, or that Boston Legal episode he did, or maybe a Chuck or two.  

Shatner introduces Bakula as "a wonderful actor, great singer" and for the first half of the show they mainly focus on Bakula's love of song.  He talks about singing Elvis and Lennon on Quantum Leap, of which Shatner was completely unaware.  Shatner asks why he never sang on Enterprise and Bakula responds simply, "...we didn't make it long enough.  We only had four seasons-"  Shatner interjects, "Which is one more than I had!"  Chuckles.  Lots of fun moments between the captains.  But my absolute favorite part of the whole interview was Shatner acting as Bakula's father as Bakula acted as his young self informing Papa Shatner that he would be leaving school to tour with Godspell.  It's zany improv like that that makes Raw Nerve worth it.  Surreal genius.  

Unfortunately, the interview never steered to the infamous Playgirl shoot.  Maybe they're leaving that for Shatner's documentary The Captains which should be airing sometime later this year in Canada with an expected DVD release date soon after.  Fingers crossed.

Beam Me Up Scotchie!

Thanks to co-worker Valerie for finding this link!  The good folks over at Geeks Are Sexy have put together ten Star Trek themed cocktails to get any party properly started.  Heck, I think a few of these are just gonna have to make an appearance at this year's Shat Attack Party (Just Three Days Away!!!!!!).

Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch + Gremlin Art

Entertainment Weekly's online PopWatch has a quick little interview with Shatner.  Nothing super amazing, but it's still nice to hear the man reminisce on Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, the Twilight Zone episode I've been obsessing over ever since reading that Fangoria Richard Matheson interview.  


"[The episode] touches another universal in the human psyche, and that is the fear of flying. Buried somewhere in all of us when the going gets rough up there is: If God meant us to fly, we’d have wings. Why are we up here? We’re in the wrong part of the world. We should be on terra firma. That’s the only explanation I can come up with that makes that particular episode as popular as it is."


Bonus Gremlin Art:


While hunting the Internet for Twilight Zone related art, I stumbled across these two pieces of oddball Gremlin art.

"Nightmare at 20,000 Peeps"

 Sculpted by Allie Berg & Jonathan Herr for 2009s Peeps Show III, an art show celebrating the glory of all things marshmallow.  You can read about this annual madness here.  

"Untitled"

Sculpted by Wade Schin for Galleries One Nine Eight Eight's "Another Dimensions" 2010 Twilight Zone themed group show.  Check out other TZ art here.  

"Nightmare at 20000 Feet"

Illustrated by Steve Willaredt.  Check out the rest of his art at Battle Royale with Cheeze.

New Mondo Star Trek Poster Revealed!

StarTrek.com has unveiled the new Mondo Tees Poster for TOS episode City on the Edge of Forever.  And it's another gorgeous must-have peice!  12" x 24" pricing $40 and with a print run of just 325.  They go on sale at a random time tomorrow afternoon so if you want one like me you better be following MondoTees twitter feed pretty closely.

Previous Star Trek Mondo Posters:

New Priceline Commercials

The Shanter Project has just posted a new video featuring Priceline's Brett Keller discussing the two new Negotiator ads: