The weather was with the crafters this weekend at Plymouth's Art in the Park -- well, at least on Sunday. If you missed the festivities, a lot of the artists move on to Ann Arbor's version starting on Wednesday, July 15th.

Ray Drecker is the main character in HBO's new series Hung, which is based and partially filmed in the Metro-Detroit area. Whether or not you like the show, it is still fun to try to figure out where in the metro area a particular scene was shot. For instance, in the show's second episode (that aired on Sunday, July 12th), the main characters had a working lunch in a Bennigan's Restaurant. It sure looked to me like the Bennigan's on Ann Arbor Road by the I-275 entrance ramp in Plymouth.

Recognize anywhere else?

The R&B-tinged rock music of The Rationals will undoubtedly bring on a wave of nostalgia to people who grew up in Detroit and Ann Arbor in the 1960s. The group started off as a hand full of junior high school students in Ann Arbor, who played in their parents' rec room and eventually graduated to roller rinks and teen dances. As the band evolved, however, they became known regionally for their instrumental rhythm and blues and eventually their own unique versions of popular hits, including songs from Chuck Berry and the Beatles. You might remember them from shopping malls, but they played along side Bob Seger, Iggy Popp, Al Green and the Yardbirds at venues throughout Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Windsor. In fact, they were named the most popular group in Detroit by WKNR radio in 1966.

Some of their hits include Gave My Love, I Need You, Leaving Here, Guitar Army and, most notably, a version of Respect that pre-dated Aretha Franklin's version and made it to number 92 on the Billboard charts. Their uniquely stylized Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah and Danby's Men's Stores promo, Turn On, may also bring about a fond smile.

The last few years of the 1960s had the band playing more original music and uniquely stylized versions from other artists, including the Youngbloods, Little Richard and Ray Charles, before they changed direction again in 1968 from soul music to psychedelic -- a time that was characterized as the band's "experimental phase" on lead-singer-and-guitarist Scott Morgan's website. Their first LP, cut in 1969, was their last. By the time it was released in 1970, management problems and horrible gigs in the middle of clothing racks in Sears led to the band's breakup.

The band came together for a sold-out reunion show in Ann Arbor in 1991, which led to more reunion shows. Unfortunately, the reunion shows also led to more disagreements between band members. The band is coming together again, however, at The Magic Bag on July 24th to celebrate the release of their first anthology CD, Think Rational!.

HBO's new series Hung revolves around Ray Drecker, a forty-something, high-school teacher (Thomas Jane), who is struggling to make ends meet. As a result, he is forced to make a desperate decision regarding his biggest asset: to moonlight as a male gigolo. The show is set in Detroit, which, as always, plays the city in decline, its economic plight paralleling that of the show's main character.

Outside of a montage in the show's pilot that includes shots of old Tiger Stadium being ripped down, an abandoned auto plant and the still-standing Michigan Central Depot, the other locations in the series give a more balanced view of the Metro-Detroit area, including RiverWalk, Hart Plaza, Lafayette Coney Island, MotorCity Casino Hotel, Harpo's, and a house along Middle Straits Lake in West Bloomfield.

Check out the show's opening-title sequence that has Jane disrobing as he walks from Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit all the way to one of the city's more remote northern suburbs -- quite a hike in reality.

Rumor has it that future episodes will feature Metro Beach, Kodiak Creek Inn in Commerce Township and Portofino's Restaurant in Wyandotte.

More Information:

• Blog about Kodiak Creek Inn
• An article in The Detroit News describes the house on Colony Drive in West Bloomfield that serves as Drecker's home
• Post on Detoityes.com that lists the shooting locations in Wyandotte