On Leah Siegel of ESPN, Dez Bryant, and Comic Con 2010

Blogging thoughts on Leah Siegel of ESPN and the Dallas Cowboys' Dez Bryant, and posting videos on Comic Con from San Diego International Airport.

Leah and her kids 

Leah Siegel of ESPN

Leah Siegel, is a Dallas-based producer for ESPN, and mother of three, sadly lost her battle with breast cancer Monday at the young age of 43. That news is particularly hard for me, because I will never forget the January 14th day my mother first informed me she had breast cancer.

And although she has survived, 2005 was a year that, between her breast cancer, and losing both my father and step father to prostate cancer in March and October respectively, I'd never cried so much in one year in my life. I hope, before I die, we find a cure for cancer. But for now, we morn the passing of Leah Siegel, who's plight generated an online following.

According to her husband Eric Loehr, writing on her blog, Leah died at 4:30 AM. Funeral service will be held at Friday, July 30th, 2 PM at Sparkman-Hillcrest Funeral Home, 7405 Northwest Hwy Dallas, TX 75225.

Dallas Cowboy's Dez Bryant Is Terrell Owens?

Former Oklahoma State Wide Receiver, and Dallas Cowboys 1st Round Draft Pick Terrell Owens is being compared to former Dallas Cowboys Wide Receiver Terrell Owens, and for a really stupid reason: he will not carry Roy Williams pads!?

To that I saw, Roy Williams and the media need to grow up. No disrespect to the great Roy Williams, but he made this a really bone-headed story by running to reporters, who were eager to take it, and form it into another, drum-roll please, "BLACK MAN WON'T DANCE" tale. Want proof: they played the "Terrell Owens" card.

Oh brother.

That Roy Williams is black, which someone's going to blurt out with, as if that's significant here, is of no matter. According to ESPN, Williams said he carried pads, paid for dinners, and did other things NFL veterans asked him to do because he "didn't want to be that guy."

Roy Williams knows, and anyone else culturally honest enough to admit it will say, that being "that guy" means being a black guy who does not play by the rules set out for him by society. Thus, the "Terrell Owens" mention by the media.

It's an institutionally racist way of society reminding a black guy of his place, and aided by another black guy, in this case Roy Williams.

Considering that the Cowboys having won an NFL Championship since the '90s, maybe Dez Bryant's the guy the need. Roy Williams seems more worried about Dez Bryant being a black guy "who dances," rather than an NFL player who can help them win a ring.

Williams could have just talked to Dez Bryant privately about the issue, and not ran to the press. That was awful on Roy's part.

Dez, just play ball.

Comic Con 2010 is History

A sad Monday and not just for the news of Leah Siegel's passing, but for the end of Comic Con 2010. With the exception of the unfortunate stabbing incident, I've never seen so many happy people in one place in my life. Every day of the five days I was here, my days at the San Diego Convention Center started with seeing smiling people, young, middle-aged, old, and even toddlers. That was cool.

On the matter of the stabbing incident, I talked to David Glanzer, the Director of Marketing and Public Relations on Comic Con on video, here:

.

Briefly, Glanzer and San Diego Police Officer Sargeant Cecena both said that two friends got into an altercation and that the pen stabbing accident (more that than an assault) was "minor." It took 40 minutes to get the show back to normal that Saturday evening. Glanzer said he "could not remember anything that this happening at all" in the 41-year history of Comic Con. Part of the problem may be the sheer size of Comic Con.

Glanzer said they've outgrown the San Diego Convention Center, and even though they experimented with expanding events to the nearby hotels, they had to turn away 400 exhibitors. If an average booth cost is, say, $400, then Comic Con turned lost $400,000 because of lack of space at the San Diego Convention Center.

But fear not, Comic Con will be back in San Diego for 2011 and 2012; it's 2013 and beyond that's the issue.

Glanzer and the Comic Con staff will take a week off, but come next week they will be "right back at it" looking at proposals from Anaheim, Los Angeles, and San Diego for the future.

Buffy The Musical closes Comic Con

One of the most fun events I attended (the other being not really an event, but the day spent with the Hatchet 2 cast and crew, and I've got a lot more to blog about for that) was the last one called Buffy The Musical.

Basically, an audience of about 3,000 or 4,000 people watched and sang along to Buffy The Musical's songs, using the subtitled lyrics as a guide. Some people knew the songs by heart. My favorite song was "Where do we go from here."

Did I sing? Yes. But then, that's what happens when you're a black guy who doesn't dance.



A really good question. But I'd like to thank Lila King and my friends at CNN iReport for giving me a cool Flip Video Camera Mino HD, specially designed for CNN, and a nice CNN hat.

Stay tuned.

2 can play @ Breitbart's editing game!

By now you've learned what great lengths Andrew Breitbart will go to editing video to make people, such as Shirley Sherrod, look as though they're for something they're against - hey, video clips don't lie, right?

Right.

Now the folks at MoveOn have released the perfect counterpoint: video of Breitbart talking about having cocktails with terrorists while disparaging the people you and I think of as normal.

Mr. Breitbart's remarks, excerpted from a presentation at February's Conservative Political Action Conference -- months before he deftly edited Ms. Sherrod to defame and discredit her -- are shocking, really.  

But don't take my word for it - go see for yourself!

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, Democratic Campaign Manager, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Giuseppi Logan Over a Rainbow by Suzannah B. Troy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3grJe-g5Zw

It was a brutally hot morning here in NYC including really bad air quality but of course Giuseppi Logan was out early playing his sax to practice, to play because playing music is his life line, without music he is dead and because he needs to earn money.  I of course gave him some. 

I happen to send YouTube an email just now about some things that exceed dollars and cents and reuniting Giuseppi Logan with his son after over 40 years thanks to my YouTubes can only be described as a YouTube miracle.

Jaee  Logan lost his son to random gun violence.  His son was an honor student like his Dad.   Jaee flew to NYC to be reunited with his Dad and now he is back in California working hard on his career with the goal to get back here and continue work on his documentary. 

When Jaee and I first spoke I told him I saw a documentary but also a Hollywood film like The Soloist but better.

Here is Giuseppi Logan playing music because not to play is to be dead.  He had to live too long without his instruments.   Giuseppi still struggles big time but he has found some kind of redemption very late in the 9th inning so to speak including with his new album his first since his two he made with ESP in the 1960's.

Comic Con: Thor Trailer, Hatchet 2, Harry Knowles Ain't It Cool News

I still never saw Asgard

Comic Con 2010 ends today, Sunday, so before heading down to the San Diego Convention Center, end doing work to end the trip sponsored by The Kings Inn Hotel, let's clear the decks.

We'll talk about the buzz around the Thor trailer and the movie, Hatchet 2, and my interview with Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News and who's the new Editor for Comic Con, essentially, as he put it, it's "new face." But first, the Thor trailer.

As of Sunday morning "Thor trailer" was the 7th highest search trend at Google Trends, proving the sheer hunger to see the movie version of a generations-popular comic book and cartoon series. While this blogger didn't see the Thor trailer clips that were presented in Hall H Saturday evening, and because I and others were told Hall H was closed after the "Comic Con Pen Stabber" incident, there's is Collider to give us an idea of what happened.

Briefly, and so you can read the rest of the Thor trailer story there, Collider reports, first, that the Thor panel of Kenneth Branagh, Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, Tom Hiddleston and Clark Gregg, were blown away by the Comic Con audience and reactions. Second, Kenneth Branagh reports that Thor was the movie he really wanted to do, but that he's "excited and nervous" about doing the action scenes as director, because he's not done them before.

The Thor trailer clips consisted of scenes beginning with the hammer in the New Mexico desert, where Iron Man 2 ended. Then Thor's being interrogated by Agent Colson (Clark Gregg) because he destroyed "a whole team of his men." Then we see Asgard (or, as I put it, I never got to see Asgard), where Thor is banished to Earth for his reckless behavior. At the end of the clip, what's described as a "Destroyer" comes to Earth and takes out some cars. And all of that in Thor 3D. Yep, Thor and Captain America will be using a kind of 3D conversion process.

Hatchet 2 Thoughts

I have so much video from my day at Comic Con 2010 with the cast and crew of Hatchet 2, that I need a full day to deal with all of it, and that will come this week. In order to generate some buzz for the hard-working folks associated with the Dark Sky Films production of Hatchet 2, I created the most provocative clip of all, outside the movie scenes, which I'm not authorized to show. That's "Danielle Harris of Hatchet 2 - contest and vagina talk" video:



But Adam Green's Hatchet 2 is going to be a hit when it comes out on October 1, 2010. I will write that and stand by it. It's a movie that has a compelling story for a horror movie of it's kind, and about how Victor Crowley's father (played by Kane Hodder, who's also the head-smashing Victor Crownley himself)'s own sorrow essentially caused Victor Crowley's deformities. (You have to see it.)

Hatchet 2 also has some of the funniest, kill scenes I've ever seen in a horror movie. In Hatchet 2, teeth and gums are pulled out of heads, a giant saw cuts two men in half, and there's a lot of a very emotional Danielle Harris. When I asked how she got ready for that, Harris said she just got up each day and did it, then slept a lot after shooting was over.  Stay tuned for more videos from my Hatchet 2 day.

My Harry Knowles Ain't It Cool News Interview

The Harry Knowles Ain't It Cool News Interview will get its own blog post and soon, but I wanted to insert it here for more views because Harry's a true Comic Con legend who's finally getting his due. Harry Knowles' Ain't It Cool News blog has grown from obscurity to be recognized by Hollywood publicists as the online place to get the word out about their clients' new films. And now, Harry's the official face of Comic Con.

But with all that, Harry Knowles is still a very funny, smart, nice, person with a quirky sense of humor. Here's the video, where he says that he wants Comic Con to remain in San Diego, and that the Tron trailer has a sound that made "his balls shake." I'm not kidding.



Stay tuned for more from Comic Con.

Comic Con 2010 Stabbing at Hall H update

In this Comic Con 2010 "Stabbing at Hall H" update, reports are that the person who started the incident was detained by his own friend in Hall H.

According to Comic Book Resources, or CBR News, which did great work in blogging this, Sergeant Gary Mondesir of the San Diego Police Department said the following:

Basically, inside of Hall H during Comic-Con, prior to one of the showings, two males got into a dispute. One male attacked the other male, stabbing him on the side of his eye with a pen. Officers were relatively close by. Citizens within the hall detained the person. Officers came and arrested him, and right now we're processing the scene inside...The victim's friend actually assisted in taking the suspect into custody.

He'll be charged with assault with a deadly weapon due to the stabbing in the eye. We are still processing the scene. We have a field evidence technician who's taking measurements and collecting evidence...The show is still going on. It happened in an area where we didn't have to stop the show. We can actually work around it and process the scene. It happened inside the hall but off to the side.

(Visit CBR News for more info.)

The problem for those outside like this blogger was that Comic Con / San Diego Convention Center security were walking through the Hall H lines telling patrons that Hall H may be closed. That was as the line was moving, so the assumption my friend Krystyl and I made was that the people ahead of us were being told to leave as well. "Ahead of us," means over 1,000 feet ahead of us, and with security giving what turned out to be false information, we didn't know what was going on. So, we left, and missed the Marvel Panel.

CBR News also talked with David Glanzer, the head of Comic-Con Director of Marketing and Public Relations, who said "Sadly, an incident like this is something you never want to happen. Right now, we're deferring to the San Diego Police Department who was on site very quickly. My understanding is that they apprehended the suspect and completed their investigation in probably less than an hour. The programs were delayed for about 40 minutes, but everything is back up and running."

Which is great; but many who left the lines for Hall H didn't know that and departed because they were told Hall H might close and work got around that it was already closed.

Crazy.

Stabbing at Comic Con 2010 - Marvel Avengers panel security said was over, went on

I never saw Asgard...

Earlier Saturday evening at Comic Con, a man who was in the Resident Evil panel in Hall H, got into a fight with another man, stabbing him in the face with a pen. The next panel for Hall H was the one this blogger was waiting for, The Marvel Panel featuring Thor and Captain America, but really turned out to be a full introduction of The Avengers cast, did go on.

That means, according to the LA Times Steven Zeitchik, who was already in the Hall, I missed Robert Downey Jr., Clark Gregg, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, The Avengers director Joss Whedon, and producer and Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige.

Great.

This, even as Comic Con and San Diego Convention Center security people walked around the lines for Hall H announcing "Hall H may be closed." That's why a large number of people, including myself, left the line. And, as my video showed, there was a lot of chaos:



There was no clear communication of what was going on to anyone except by the Comic Con / San Diego Convention Center staff who walked around the Hall H lines.

The impression given to many was that the Hall H show was not going to go on. I'm happy those who stuck around managed to see The Marvel Studios' The Avengers presentation, but I'd prefer a much clearer line of communication in the future. It's totally irresponsible to the Comic Con patrons for security people to waltz around making announcements they weren't sure of.

Advantage to those who went to Hall H and stayed there, almost the entire day; disadvantage to those, like myself (and many of us with press badges), who did get in line for Hall H, only to be told it was closed, and first, due to health reasons and eventually because of the hot-head who decided to get mad over a seat.

Great. Just great.

Stabbing at Comic Con 2010 - Man stabbed in face with pen at Resident Evil panel

Comic Con 2010 had a criminal act that closed a big show on Saturday, July 24th. The Marvel Comics presentation of Thor and Captain America motion picture cast and production teams and set for 6 PM PDT was cancelled because a man was stabbed in the face with a pen and during the Resident Evil movie panel just before it.

Just as this blogger was waiting to get into Hall H for the Marvel Comics presentation, and texting with friend and social media expert Krystyl Baldwin, there was a rumor going around, but not confirmed that Hall H was closed. Krystyl told me that it was closed, but to me "closed" meant it was already shut and people were in it, and then it would reopen.

But then, as she and I were texting, it became clear that Hall H was closed, but no one knew why, or at least we didn't.

Photo by Krystal Baldwin 

Then, as we walked out of the line, a group of police officers walked by us with a man in a "Harry Potter" shirt in handcuffs, but Krystyl and I did not know why.  The people standing in the line knew something because they were booing him.  Since we were further into the line, the news of what happened had not trickled to us at that time.  Krystyl said the Hall H was being closed for "health reasons."

A woman, walking in the other direction, explained to us what happened: that a man was stabbed during the Resident Evil panel, and by the person in the photo here that was handcuffed.

According to the blog Techland.com, the issue was described as "a seating squabble."

UPDATE from YouTube commenter:

SoCalCCGs
55 minutes ago
I was in Hall H when it happened. They didn't let anyone in and there was only an hour delay. Police were they and they questioned witnesses, thats all. Problem was all 6,500 people were standing on their chairs to find out what happened, lol. It was kinda a side show.

All we know is as of this writing, the events set for Comic Con, at least for Hall H, have been cancelled for Saturday.

Comic Con is not known for crime problems. Indeed, the Comic Con environment is described as "chill." For this to happen is an indication as much of Comic Con's rapid growth.   While 125,000 badges were issued, there have been estimates of as many as 200,000 people in San Diego, many looking for badges to get into the San Diego Convention Center.

Comic Con is coming back to San Diego for 2011, but the future of the event in San Diego rests with what the city does to fit an event that's growing faster than it can keep up with.

Yes, fighting over a seat is childish, but it's also a byproduct of a very crowded event, the size growth potential of which is not known.

Stay tuned.