For most artists, capturing a true likeness of the human form is a difficult task. The art of portraiture requires a person to understand the finite aspects of the body, and recreate them on canvas. Each brush stroke is essential, because if one eye or finger is off balance then the entire portrait is shot.

The Toledo Artists’ Club (TAC) will host its “People and Portraits Exhibition” Oct. 28 with a reception Oct. 30. The TAC is an organization dedicated to the fellowship of artists and educational growth in fine and visual arts. Each month they spotlight artists with an opportunity to submit work for exhibition within a theme.

Artist and chair of the “People and Portraits” exhibition Bruce Watrol said that this month’s theme is inspired by notion that, “People like looking at people.”

“It’s sort of fun to watch people walk by,” Watrol said. “I think of a football game, or Las Vegas. We know what we look like in the mirror, but here is an opportunity to look at other people. Sometime’s people avert their eyes when they know they’re being looked at. But with portraiture, there is an opportunity to really look at somebody. I think people can realize how difficult painting a portrait really is.”

For the “People and Portraits” exhibition, artists submitted their work October 20th and 21st to be judged for the show. According to Watrol, last year’s “People and Portraits” exhibition had approximately 100 submissions, and 60 were selected.

“We’re trying to embrace portraiture,” Watrol said. “We’re looking for what is hard for artists to capture, which is a recognizable likeness drawn to figure.”

Although the TAC’s juror cherry-picks certain pieces for the show, the work that is not selected is showcased in the TAC’s studio gallery at the reception so that viewers can appreciate the entire body of work.

“Sometimes work is rejected for one reason or another,” Watrol said. “It’s the juror’s idea of what was best for the show. You have to let really nice work go. This way, people who submitted their work still have an opportunity for exhibition.”

The reception is an event for artists, their models, and viewers to gather and experience the work come to life. Watrol exclaimed the value of having the models present at the event. It allows the audience to contemplate intricate differences between the art and the reality of the subject.

The body of work is composed of independent, academic, and professional artists from Toledo and the Northwest Ohio area. In the past, work submitted to the TAC’s “People and Portraits” exhibition has gone on to be showcased at the Toledo Museum of Art and honored by members of the Portrait Society of America.

“We’re trying to reach out to all of the artists,” Watrol said. “This is something that they can help make the best in this area. It is not just a show for professional elites. You will see all levels of work being exhibited.”

The “People and Portraits” exhibit opens on Oct. 28 and the reception will be held on Oct. 30 from 2-4 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public.

First Solar’s stock (NASDAQ: FSLR) took a tumble with the sudden resignation of its CEO Rob Gillette announced by the company Oct. 25.

First Solar stock opened at $58.11 per share on Tuesday and closed at $43.27, a 25-percent drop in one day, the biggest decline since the company’s initial public offering in November 2006.

First Solar shares lost a quarter of their value and fell to the lowest level since 2007.                                                                                                            The company’s board of directors asked its founder and chairman Mike Ahearn to serve as interim CEO and he accepted the offer.

The board has formed a search committee and is initiating a search for a permanent chief executive officer, according to the announcement.

No reason was given for Gillette’s immediate departure, but the board thanked him for his service in a statement. Gillette had served as CEO since Oct. 1, 2009.

With respect to Gillette’s departure, Ahearn stated, “We thank Rob for his service, but the board of directors believes First Solar needed a leadership change to navigate through the industry turmoil and achieve our long-term goals.”

The company’s stock was selling for as high as $175 per share in February 2011 but has declined steadily throughout the year.

“It’s going down by what’s going on in the market and a drift away from solar energy more than a CEO stepping down but it certainly doesn’t help the situation there,” said Dock David Treece of the Treece Investment Advisory Group and a regular columnist for the Toledo Free Press.

One analyst noted than only one of the top six corporate officers listed in First Solar’s 2008 annual report remains with the company.

The solar industry is in poor shape hit by weak demand, low prices, and too many solar panels being made in China, according to a Dow Jones report.

First Solar announced its financial results for the third quarter that ended Sept. 30, 2011 that were originally scheduled for release Nov. 3.

The company reported net sales of $1 billion in the third quarter, an increase of $473 million from the second quarter 2011 and up from $798 million in the third quarter of 2010.

Third quarter net income per fully diluted share was $2.25 up from $0.70 in the second quarter of 2011 and from $2.04 in the third quarter of 2010.

“First Solar’s performance in the quarter reflects our superior technology, strong execution capacity, and integrated business model, all of which have enabled us to weather a difficult market environment relatively well,” Ahearn stated in the company’s announcement of its earnings.

“Going forward, our goal is not just to survive the current environment, but to transcend it by creating and expanding markets worldwide that do not depend on today’s subsidy programs. This requires that we re-focus our strategy and commit our resources to solving the pressing energy needs that exist in much of the world,” he concluded.

First Solar employs more than 1,000 workers at its manufacturing facilities in Perrysburg upon completion of a 2010 expansion project to increase production at that location.

First Solar is headquartered in Tempe, Ariz. and operates manufacturing facilities in Perrysburg, Ohio; Frankfurt (Oder), Germany; and Kulim, Malaysia. The company, founded in 1999, employs more than 6,400 associates worldwide.

Abel Cooper

October is a special time of year for Adrian rap trio 10/31, its name a reference to Halloween. The group is made up of Adrian natives Abel Cooper, Heath Hemphill and Andrew Morgan, who wear masks during performances and go by the stage names Kaos, ZigZag and Durrty Dru, respectively.

“Halloween night of 2003 is when we really decided that we’re 100 percent serious that this is what we want to do,” Cooper said. “Our original name was ‘Sadiztik Asazzenz.’ Our very first show was supposed to be at the Powwow in Adrian. My dad is the president of the Len Nah Weh Native American Organization (LNAO). When I told him what are name was, he told me straight to my face, ‘I’m not promoting that.’ Apparently society wasn’t accepting of the name. Halloween was a really big influence. That’s where the masks and everything come from. On Halloween you can be somebody that you are not.”

Cooper is active with the LNAO, helping mostly with security. Since the band changed its name, Cooper’s father has allowed it to play several events at the reservation.

“He’s really supportive of the music, especially with the Native side of it,” Cooper said. “If you look at Native history, that’s how they used to communicate was through song. They’d tell all the stories of their life and the land through song. He loves the fact that I’m doing music and getting out there.”

The band will soon be getting out there more after signing a distribution deal with Division X Records in Detroit to make their debut album, “Basement Games,” available on download sites such as iTunes and Amazon.

10/31 might have never formed if Cooper hadn’t decided to return to high school after dropping out his senior year.

“I realized it was a bad decision,” Cooper said. “I decided to go back to school. When we first met before I dropped out, these guys were still in middle school. When I decided to go back, they had started high school. We became friends.”

It took the group some trial and error before realizing their calling was in rap music.

“When we first started doing music, we tried out a couple metal bands and nothing seemed to pan out,” Henthill said. “Me and Drew were always good with words. Ever since we met Able, he’s been doing this on smaller degrees. None of us really got serious about it until we all moved in together in 2003. We started messing around with beats, and here we are today.”

The group’s sound combines a wide array of musical styles.

“There’s not exactly one distinct style,” Morgan said. “I’m not saying we break boundaries or anything, but we don’t stick to just one style.”

“We’ve got stuff that sounds like nowadays underground, and we’ve got other stuff that could be related to the ‘50s Doo-wop-type harmonizing,” Henthill said. “It’s a wide spectrum.”

Cooper listens to everything from R&B to country music, and his interest in rap developed at a young age.

10/31

“I remember a verse from Bushwick Bill one time where he referenced the movie ‘Psycho’ in one of his lines,” Cooper said. “I was 12 years old in a juvenile institution. That’s when I wrote my first verse that went along with that. It was horrible. That’s how I got started with writing, but my whole life people have always told me I was good with my words.”

Underground rappers like Bushwick Bill had a significant impact in shaping Cooper’s writing style.

“A lot of my influence came from underground rap,” Cooper said. “I really liked ICP when I was a kid. It was fun for me. It was something that was different and crazy. I used to get in a lot of trouble for listening to it, but I couldn’t give it up.”

Like ICP, the band enjoys having fun with its lyrics, which is most notable in the song “Feel Free.”

“‘Feel Free’ is probably our most popular song,” Cooper said. “The beat around it is more clubby like a mainstream song, but the lyrics are far from mainstream. We really got tired of hearing everybody talk about the money, the cars and everything like that when we know that it’s fake. We know they don’t have money and cars like that. We decided to make fun of that a little bit with our own club banger talking about how we’re broke. We don’t have the beautiful girls. I like fat girls.”

10/31 is performing Oct. 28 at Headliners in the Sixx Digits Halloween Blowout featuring Lil Wyte. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door and are available at Culture Clash Records, Ramalama Records and all Ticketmaster locations. Headliners is located at 4500 N. Detroit Ave.

“Our shows are really energetic,” Cooper said. “I tend to lose some clothes at every show. I’m almost 400 pounds. You’re not used to seeing this big of a guy completely shirtless and bouncing around, jumping around in circles and standing on top of things. It’s something different that people aren’t expecting to see. We love the shock value of it.”

Cooper is also organizing a benefit concert for Jan. 7 at Headliners to raise money for Dawn Lerma and her children who lost their father Matthew Davis on Oct. 15 in a head-on collision on I-75. The group is accepting donations at WePay.com/Donate/193910.

“I am collecting donations for this family as they have touched a very special place in my heart,” Cooper said. “We recently performed in Toledo, and this family was in the front row. As we got off the stage, we felt a tugging at the bottom of our shirts, and to our amazement it was this little 9-year-old boy who only wanted to shake our hand and get us to autograph his shirt. It doesn’t seem like much, but believe me, me and the group still talk about it because to us, it made us feel like the biggest superstars in the world, even though we’re just a local act. We are raising funds to help pay for any bills they may incur during this tragic time including funeral costs and medical bills.”

Few things put you in the Halloween spirit better than to bash in the skulls of a few zombies. Since Harold Camping was wrong once again about the world ending, “Dead Island” serves as a nice consolation.

The open-world gameplay of ‘Dead Island’ takes you everywhere from a beach resort to the slums to deep in the jungle, and the environments are beautifully designed. Banoi, the fictional island located of the coast of Papua New Guinea, looks like it would have been a nice place to visit before all hell broke loose.

The highlight of the game is its immersion into emotion and they psychology of battling a zombie infestation. This includes insanity, contemplating suicide and debating how to deal with infected loved ones. A character who killed her own infected father tried to reason with another character facing a similar situation with his wife. She said, “It’s easy killing a million faceless nobodies, isn’t it? But what about killing someone you love?”

Unfortunately, the game’s biggest strength is also its biggest shortcoming. It does a great job of getting into the emotion and story of secondary characters, but the main characters and their backstories are almost untouched.

There was potential for great flashbacks with four main characters each from unique backgrounds. Sam B is a one-hit wonder with his rap song “Who Do You Voodoo.” Xian Mei moved from Hong Kong to work at the Royal Palms Resort on Banoi. Logan Carter is a former NFL star whose career ended after crashing in a street race. Purna is a former Australian police officer turned body guard.

The characters’ stories will be further explored on the big screen after Lionsgate announced Sept. 27 it optioned the film rights to “Dead Island” from Deep Silver.

The decision was based largely on the success of the game’s trailer, which reached more than 10 million views within two days of its release and earned several awards such as the Golden Lion in Cannes at the International Festival of Creativity.

The first-person combat in “Dead Island” makes it feel like you’re immersed in a classic zombie movie. The limited amount of stamina available to characters helps create a more realistic feel.

There are a wide variety of weapons available for disfiguring zombies including bats, crowbars, axes, knives, explosives and a small amount of guns. Each character has their own specialty with weapons. Sam B prefers blunt weapons, Xian Mei uses sharp weapons, Purna is a firearms expert and Logan Carter throws weapons. Weapons degrade with use, eventually breaking, and can be repaired at work benches throughout the game as well as modified with enhancements such as barbed wire, electricity and poison.

The storyline could have been put to better use, but the emotion, environment and realistic feel of “Dead Island” make it stand out as the best zombie game to date.

During the Halloween season, few images are as iconic as the hockey mask of Jason Voorhees, the murderous character portrayed in the “Friday the 13th” horror franchise.
Kane Hodder, the man behind the mask in four of those movies, will visit Ault Acres in Toledo on Oct. 26 to promote his new biography “Unmasked: True Life Story of the World’s Most Prolific Cinematic Killer.”
Life as Jason
When Hodder entered the motion picture industry, he never envisioned the success he would have with the “Friday the 13th” franchise. Hodder originally planned on just being a stuntman.
“I went into this business with the idea of being a working stuntman,” Hodder said. “I loved the idea of doing stunts for a living and that’s all I expected to do. I never thought in a million years that I would be in the position that I am now with the Jason character and the notoriety.”
The 56-year-old had a small part in the 1988 movie “Prison,” for which he also was the stunt coordinator. In the movie, Hodder was dressed up in prosthetic makeup as a rotted corpse, a costume which took between 3 to 4 hours to create.
Hodder’s performance made an impression on Special Makeup Effects Coordinator John Buechler, who later that year was named the director of “Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood.” After Buechler got the job, he wanted Hodder to follow him and take the role of Jason.
“[Buechler] liked how I worked in the makeup,” Hodder said. “It’s not easy to work in full prosthetics. First of all, it’s very physically tough but it is also a challenge to make facial expressions read properly when you have all that stuff on your face. He just liked how I worked in the makeup and thought I did a good job.”

Kane Hodder

Hodder went on to star in the next three “Friday the 13th” movies, the only actor to play Jason in more than one film in the series’ history.
“I feel very fortunate and very lucky to be in this position,” Hodder said. “I always considered putting that hockey mask on as an honor. I had watched the character for years. I just wanted to do whatever I could to bring something new to the character and make it believable and evidently I did.”
Hodder soon found out that the challenges of acting in full prosthetic makeup, however, were nothing compared to playing Jason. While in his previous role he needed to exaggerate facial expressions in the makeup for them to be apparent, Jason’s mask hid all expression on a character who already didn’t speak.
“If you ask any actor the two main tools that you use in your performance are your voice and your facial expressions,” Hodder said. “If you take both of those away and then say ‘Now I want you to be scary‚‘ it is intimidating. It’s like, ‘How?’
“I was able to be convincing enough that people said ‘Wow, that’s what we have been looking for‚ and they kept me around for a while.”
The road to becoming a stuntman
Hodder grew up on an island in the South Pacific known as Kwajalein. Even as a child, Hodder loved to scare others. Whether it was pranks or stunts, Hodder enjoyed fear and instilling it in others.
“I love [scaring people], I have always done it,” Hodder said. “I mean really scare them to where they thought I was going to do something crazy. I love doing it, I really do. Even scaring an audience with something I shot months before is pretty satisfying.”
Once, while Hodder was on a trip to Hawaii with his high school basketball team, he and a group of teammates were climbing the stairwell of their hotel, which had a balcony at each level. When Hodder and others got to the 35th floor, he decided to scare into the rest of his group.
“We were up so high that everybody was a bit nervous,” Hodder said. “I said ‘What do you mean? What’s so scary?’ To prove that I wasn’t nervous about the height I went over to the railing on the outer side of the railing. My feet were still on the outer deck of the railing and my hands were on the railing but I was on the outside.
“My friends started getting scared. They started saying ‘Don’t do that‚‘ so I would briefly take my hands off the railing and put them up in the air [gesturing] as I said ‘What? What’s the matter? They about s— themselves. They went back into the hotel and didn’t want to watch anymore.”
That experience was not only a look into Hodder’s future of frightening others, but also demonstrated his lack of fear. He quickly realized that it was something he could capitalize on.
“That was not only fun, but the danger part of it was exciting,” Hodder said. “I realized that people get paid a lot of money to do that type of thing and I do it for fun. That’s what made me start thinking about doing stunts.”
Severe injury sidelines stunt career
Hodder’s career got off to a rocky start. In his first year as a stuntman, he worked on a fire stunt which required his body to be engulfed in flames. The stunt went out of control and Hodder suffered third-degree burns on about 50 percent of his body.
“Obviously the physical part was traumatic,” Hodder said. “The pain was ridiculous and I can say quite confidently that getting burned is the worst pain you can suffer. I know there are other pains that are as severe, there’s a lot of painful stuff that you can go through, but most of the time the pain is localized in one spot. With burns you have that same pain over such a large area of your body.
“Emotionally, it was ridiculous. Here I was, 22 years old and thinking that even when I get through this horrible pain then I have to carry those terrible scars for the rest of my life. It’s really hard to mentally get through knowing that even when the injury is healed you are not done yet. You have to deal with people staring at your scars and stuff like that. It has got to be one of the worst things a person can go through.”
Hodder was hospitalized for the next 5 to 6 months. He still wears gloves on occasion to cover up the scars on his hands. Despite that experience, however, Hodder would not give up on being a stuntman. He even returned to fire stunts during his career.
“I still carry the scars from it,” Hodder said. “That was my first year in stunts but I still went back to it and still went back to fire stunts because I just loved the business so much.”
As for his stunt career, Hodder has had 93 roles as a stuntman or stunt coordinator. Among the features he has been involved in are “Batman Forever,” “Enemy of the State,” “Gone in 60 Seconds,” “Lethal Weapon 3,” “Monster,” “Se7en,” “Spawn” and “Under Siege.”
“I love every aspect of doing stunts, I always have,” Hodder said. “It’s such a great job because every day you go to work it’s going to be something different. You certainly never get bored doing stunts. You may get killed, but you don’t get bored.”
Early troubles with bullying
Burns weren’t the only obstacle he would have to overcome before stepping into the shoes of one of the most intimidating characters in the history of horror. When he was a young boy between the ages of 10 and 12, Hodder struggled with being bullied.
“I was bullied severely to the point of getting beaten badly,” Hodder said. “It’s so prevalent and so horribly destructive of a kid’s psyche. It wasn’t the physical pain, even though I was getting beaten with fists, it was the humiliation and how you feel about yourself not doing anything to stop it. That’s what drives kids to suicide sometimes.”
Hodder said he still remembers the names of the kids who beat and abused him so long ago. He has not forgotten what they did and is not ready to forgive them for it anytime soon.
“One day I would love to run into them, and I know it sounds like I’m trying to be a tough guy but I would smash them right in the face.”
Hodder said. “I would just so love to run into those motherf—–s again. I have a job where my criminal record has no bearing on my success. If anything, it would probably enhance my career.”
Passed over for ‘Freddy vs. Jason’
After starring as Jason in installments VII through X of the “Friday the 13th” franchise, Hodder was set to once again don the goalie mask in the 2003 feature “Freddy vs. Jason.” But New Line Cinema chose Ken Kerzinger for the role instead.
Hodder’s biggest problem with the decision was how it was handled. He said he had a lunch meeting with a New Line Cinema executive who told him, “We are finally doing this,” and handed him the script for ‘Freddy vs. Jason.’ The studio then hired director Ronny Yu and Hodder said they began ignoring his phone calls before he discovered they gave the part to Kerzinger.
“I got f—– over with the whole deal in ‘Freddy vs. Jason’,” Hodder said. “I thought I was doing it and suddenly I wasn’t. I was never given a reason for that.
“If they didn’t like the performance, if I was difficult to work with or if it was about the money then I would say ‘I kind of had a hand in being replaced.’ There was nothing like that. I still haven’t been given a reason. Just give me a reason, even if I don’t agree with it. Just give me a reason because the fans weren’t happy. They had grown to like how I played the character, so it was kind of a slap in the face to them too.”
Regardless, Hodder still would jump at the chance to play Jason again in any future films.
“If it was offered to me again I would absolutely put that mask back on because I wasn’t done wearing it in the first place,” Hodder said. “Even though I think I was slighted, I would still do it. That’s how much I love the character.”
Recent projects
With future “Friday the 13th” installments now in question, Hodder has focused on his biography, “Unmasked: True Life Story of the World’s Most Prolific Cinematic Killer.”
“The burn story in itself is a book,” Hodder said. “Then you have 35 years in the motion picture business with all kinds of cool, funny and ridiculous stories on the sets. That’s almost another book in itself. I always knew I had an interesting story, I had just never ran across the right author to help me tell the story.”
That changed when he met author Michael Aloisi, who agreed to write the book in the way Hodder wanted the story to be told.
“I’m very happy with the final product,”  Hodder said. “It’s just exactly how I want it to be. A lot of reviewers are kind of saying the same things, that at one point they had tears in their eyes and had to put it down, which means it’s pretty powerful, and then later they were laughing out loud. To me, that sounds like a pretty good effect to have on a reader.”
As far as films, Hodder is planning to resume his role as Victor Crowley in the third installment of the “Hatchet” franchise in early 2012. He also finished shooting “Robin Hood — Ghosts of Sherwood” in Germany over the summer, in which he was cast as Little John.
Hodder also has an upcoming part as a bisexual sadist in “Tag” as well as the short film “No Rest for the Wicked: A Basil & Moebius Adventure” starring Zachary Levi of the NBC show “Chuck.”
Hodder will sign autographs from 8-11 p.m. Admission to the event is $20 and includes a meeting with Hodder and an autographed poster. Ault Acres is also offering a $30 ticket, which includes a Haunted Trail ticket and an outdoor movie ticket for “Friday the 13th: Part VII,” Hodder’s first movie as Jason. To reserve your spot, visit www.AultAcres.com.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Regardless of your religious affinity, childhood costumes or opinions on chocolate, it’s very difficult to avoid conjuring up images of skeletons and ghosts around the Day of the Dead (which, by the way, is Nov. 1 and 2, not Oct. 31). In celebration of Halloween’s ghoulish apparitions, we’ll dig a little deeper into corpse pose.
Corpse pose is the most difficult yoga pose that exists, and no, I’m not kidding. Lying on your back as still as death is yoga’s most complex posture. Let’s look at why.
For most of us, getting into this posture is simple, but accessing that limbo-state between awake and asleep is what presents the challenge. Savasana is typically, and more pleasantly, translated from Sanskrit as “final relaxation,” but sava literally means corpse. However, the real problem arises when we begin to define “corpse.”

Not all belief systems see a corpse as something completely inanimate. Many believe in the existence of something more, something less tangible. Obviously, though, most would not argue that when dead you are not truly “alive” in the common physical sense. This is the general idea behind corpse pose. When taking corpse pose, the yoga practitioner is trying to drift away from being actively mentally and physically alert, without falling asleep. With this in mind, corpse pose’s difficulty becomes more understandable.
Let’s take a stab at corpse pose. Lie on your back with your heels a few inches apart and let your toes simply fall out and away from each other. Lengthen your tailbone toward your heels, but retain your spine’s natural curvature. Momentarily reach your arms up toward the ceiling to help broaden your back body. Allow your shoulders to drop away from your ears as each arm rests alongside your torso at a 45 degree angle, palms facing up. Tuck the chin slightly and find length in your neck as you lift the base of your skull away from the release of your shoulders. Consciously find symmetry throughout your entire body before letting go. Make sure your nose points straight up and is not tilting to one side, feel both hands rest on the same knuckle; experience openness in your collarbones and a slight lift of the heart.
Scanning your body slowly, let tension go from every cell of your being —including but not limited to your forehead, cheeks, tongue and jaw. Scan your body a second time, and this time let each soft inhale bring new life into your still body. With each exhale imagine residual stress and tension leaving you. Feel your body become heavy, your eyelids so heavy that you cannot open them.
As your body becomes more relaxed, allow yourself to welcome the thoughts and emotions that come to you. Without judging, feel every sensation and then let it go.
Corpse pose has more to offer than any other pose, hands down. Letting go of attachment to our bodies is not easy, but we are so much more than our physical selves. We play dress up every single day, whether it’s in a princess costume, suit and tie or yoga clothing. This Halloween, I invite you to take a moment (even if it’s in bed right before you fall asleep) to welcome awareness of the deeper you with corpse pose.

Jennifer White is a certified yoga instructor. Email her at yenniwhite@hotmail.com.

Toledo:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Archbold:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Bedford Township, Mich.:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Blissfield, Mich.:
5:30-7 p.m. Oct. 31.
Bowling Green:
Downtown businesses, 4-6 p.m. Oct. 27;
residential, 6:30-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Delta:
6-7 p.m. Oct. 31.
Elmore:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Erie, Mich.:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Findlay:
6:30-8 p.m. Oct. 27.
Fremont:
5-6:30 p.m. Oct. 30.
Genoa:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Grand Rapids, Mich.:
5-6:30 p.m. Oct. 31, followed by parade at 7 p.m. in front of fire station.
Holland:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Leipsic:
6-7 p.m. Oct. 27.
Liberty Center:
5-6:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Maumee:
Children ages 1-13, 3-5 p.m. Oct. 31, uptown from police station courtyard; residential, 6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Monclova:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Napoleon:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Northwood:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Oak Harbor:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Oregon:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Ottawa Hills:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Pemberville:
6:30-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Perrysburg:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Port Clinton:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Rossford:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Spencer Township:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Springfield Township:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Swanton:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 29.
Sylvania:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Sylvania Township:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Walbridge:
6:30-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Washington Township:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Waterville:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Wauseon:
6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
Whitehouse:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.
Woodville:
6-8 p.m. Oct. 31.

I’m a monster! That is to say, for one night I was a monster. I didn’t ride any roller coasters in my latest trip to Cedar Point, but it was by far my most memorable time at the park. I got to spend a day in the life of a monster at HalloWeekends.
For the transformation, I spent 30 minutes with first-year makeup artist Joe Wasserman. I had to stuff cotton balls in my ears and keep my eyes and mouth shut while he applied a base coat of copper latex acrylic paint with an airbrush. The airbrush is cold and the process is awkward and uncomfortable but once you get used to it, it’s oddly relaxing. Wasserman used stencils to airbrush gears onto my face then touched everything up with a brush.

Mack checks Wasserman's work.

“It’s a pretty good challenge to do makeup for the wide selection of all 10 fright zones,” Wasserman said. “It keeps you on your game, especially since you want each zone to look different from the others. On any given night, each artist can see 18-25 monsters, each needing an individual look different from the others. Previous research on each of the zones is very helpful, so you can adapt your early ideas to meet individual monster’s wants and needs. It’s amazing what you can accomplish in 15 minutes with a trusty airbrush, some hand-cut stencils, a liner brush and paint.”
Once I was painted up, they completed the outfit with a puffy shirt, an overcoat, a hat with LED goggles, gloves and a can filled with metal to use for making noise. The result was a golden robot with a disdain for man rivaling that of any machine before me. After a monster pep rally, we all marched to the middle of the park for a sort of opening ceremoy speech from the head monster, after which we all sprinted to our assigned scare zones, mine being Maniacal Mechanical Screamworks.
I received some contradictory advice prior to the opening of our zone. One leader warned me about invading patrons’ personal space. Then he paired me with a monster who explained that one of his favorite tactics for scaring is to get right in patrons’ personal space. One strategy he taught me was scraping my can along the ground near people. Another was sneaking up behind someone, shaking the can on one side of them and popping up on the other. Both methods were successful.
I had a hard time keeping my smart aleck attitude out of my character, popping up at people on the phone and yelling, “Who are you talking to?” and sneaking up on people who had just been scared and yelling, “That monster’s pretty good!”
Two scares stand out above the rest. The first was in the entryway to the scare zone. I jumped out of the mist at a woman, and she leapt to the side directly onto a woman in a wheelchair. It was like something out of “Scooby Doo.” For a moment I thought I might have brought a lawsuit upon Cedar Point, but after a couple of seconds of shock the woman in the wheelchair laughed it off and kept moving. The second scare was when a teenage girl moved alongside a fence in an alleyway to get away from the action. As she called to her friend to come over to her, I snuck up from behind and yelled, “Why so scared?” She screamed and was nearly curled up into a ball fighting tears as I apologized while fighting back tears of laughter.

Marching with monsters.

Not all of my attempts were that successful. There were plenty of people unaffected and there was some ridicule involved, including a group of teenagers imitating a dance from a character called Party Boy on “Jackass.”
Two hours and a rip in my jeans later, I was exhausted, all scared out and ready to go home. One monster I met has been with HalloWeekends a lot longer than my two hours. Gabe Russell, a Toledo resident since 2005, has been with HalloWeekends for seven years and has been in the haunted house industry for 19 years.
“I love the job, but I think what keeps me coming back is the people,” Russell said. “I get to have fun with all my friends, act silly and get paid to do so.”
Russell performs in Maniacal Mechanical Screamworks as a slider, which involves special knee and elbow pads designed for sliding across the ground in front of guests.
“It’s a very hard job, but it’s fun and rewarding,” Russell said. “It was a little overwhelming at first. There’s a great risk for danger. We start practicing every year with the old and new sliders in March so we don’t run into problems when the park is full of people.”
After so many years with HalloWeekends, Russell is an efficient monster.
“I’ve seen it all,” he said. “I’ve seen people urinate, defecate, vomit and pass out. Not all at once though. Peoples’ reactions are priceless.”
HalloWeekends is open from 6 p.m. to midnight Oct. 28, noon to midnight Oct. 29 and noon to 9 p.m. Oct. 30. Tickets are $49.99 for adults and $24.99 for juniors and seniors. Visit CedarPoint.com for more information. Check out Facebook.com/ToledoFreePress for more photos from HalloWeekends.

The Sylvania Police Department is seeking information leading to the identity of the suspect shown in these photos.  On Monday, October 24, 2011 at approximately 5:00 pm the suspect entered the Lucas County Library Sylvania Branch and fondled a 9 year old girl.
The suspect is described as a white male approximately 23 to 33 years of age. Dark, shorter, scruffy hair.  Approximately 5’10” tall and stocky or overweight.  The suspect was wearing  dark jeans with tan pockets,  a maroon shirt and dark rimmed glasses.  The suspect was described as having a round face.
Anyone with information regarding this suspect’s identity is asked to call Det. Laura Bliss at the Sylvania Police Department at 419-885-8900 or call Crime Stoppers at 419-255-1111.

For many horror fans, Halloween wouldn’t be the same without the works of John Carpenter to keep them company.
The influential director helped sire the modern slasher genre with his seminal 1978 horror classic “Halloween.” But he also continued to bring his wonderfully twisted cinematic vision to the screen in the two decades that followed. “The Thing,” “Escape from New York,” “Big Trouble in Little China,” “They Live” and on and on — Carpenter’s work commands a huge cult following and much of it can be described as being definitively ahead of its time.

Then, in 2001, he just stopped. Following the release of his sci-fi feature “Ghosts of Mars,” Carpenter, who had been one of the most prolific and consistent directors in Hollywood, dropped off the map. He wouldn’t direct a feature film again for nearly 10 years, until the recent release of “The Ward,” a film about a haunted mental hospital.
Why the decade of delay?
“I was burned out. Toasted. Exhausted,” Carpenter said in an interview with Toledo Free Press Star. “I’d been working steadily since the 1970s. I needed a break. ‘The Ward’ was the first movie ready to go when I decided to go back to work.”
He said the new film’s structure intrigued him.
“My experience working with an ensemble cast was the biggest attraction to this little ghost story. Every day I spend on the set I learn something. The talented actresses, the advances in digital technology, the challenges of low-budget filmmaking … every aspect of directing ‘The Ward’ gave me enormous satisfaction,” Carpenter said.
During his career, Carpenter has worked with numerous young actors who would go on to bigger stardom — Jamie Lee Curtis, a post-Disney Kurt Russell — and “The Ward’s” casting of Amber Heard, who with roles in “Drive Angry” and “The Rum Diary” seems poised to break through to the next level, falls right in line with that trend.
“Amber is very beautiful and very talented. Like everyone else in the movie business, she has to deal with what’s offered. It’s a treacherous business and I think she’s navigating the storms quite well,” Carpenter said.
The storms do not except Carpenter from their wrath, however. Entertainment’s ever-changing business model is always looking for the next big thing, often at the expense of the legends who came before. Now, as streaming video begins to reign, the options for filmmakers are becoming more limited — even for Carpenter.
“These days, the DVD market has shrunk from what it was,” Carpenter said. “Downloading movies from the Internet has shaken the traditions of the movie business. It’s getting harder out there.”
But another facet of entertainment is its desire to cash in on valuable franchises. Such is the case with one of Carpenter’s most popular films — his 1982 horror opus “The Thing,” about a group of researchers in Antarctica who face an alien entity which can imitate other living forms.
On Oct. 14, a new version of “The Thing” was released, ostensibly a prequel to Carpenter’s version, though he said he had “no input” into the new film.
“I thought the idea of the Norwegian camp was interesting,” Carpenter said of the new film’s setting. “I wish the filmmakers well and hope their version of ‘The Thing’ is a success.”
Carpenter’s “Thing” first received a cool reception from critics and audiences, though as time passed the 1982 film garnered a cult following and has become recognized as a genre classic.
“The hopelessness of the situation in ‘The Thing’ was evident in the story,” Carpenter said of his film’s bleak, unforgiving tone. “Other stories provoke different emotions and ambience. There are really no general rules about horror. It all depends on the story.”
He rejected the suggestion that on-camera, practical effects, such as the ones used in his 1982 film, are more convincing than digital ones.
“Used correctly, digital effects are most powerful and a major breakthrough in special effects. I think of the dinosaur charge across the valley in ‘Jurassic Park.’ Breathtaking,” Carpenter said.
As for Carpenter, it appears fans won’t have to wait another decade to see another work by one of the true masters of the macabre.
“I have projects I’m developing,” Carpenter said when asked what was next for him. “And I’m in mourning for the NBA season that won’t be.”
Asked if he had any advice for young filmmakers, Carpenter kept his words short and true.
“Steel your spine and dig in for the long haul. Don’t give up.”

Email Jeff at PopGoesJeff@gmail.com.