"The Fear of the Horror"

Hi! How have you been? I've neglected this blog, and have been meaning to update it, but life was a whirlwind of fun, with a lot of lightsabers and sonic screwdrivers mixed in, and I didn't think my doubting the direction Star Trek was going, for example, was enough of a temptation to put work - and, by that,  I mean time and tears- into a post. That's Mister LAZY Tibbs to you! I said to no one ever but should have.

Good grief. So many things are happening. I didn't even know how, or where, to begin, truth be told; I had to use a Doctor Who episode title generator to come up with a title for this one, which is, yep, lazy, but it did distract me for a while, which was nice... 

But: to business! Yes, Star Trek has lost me, and I will share why, but it'll be difficult, and will require my doing so over the course of a few posts, because while this breakup with Trek was an amiable one, and I still respect aspects of Star Trek, and always will, one needs to get the words right and, erm, respectful, knowwhatImean? 

But that's not what's happening, is it? Things are currently happening in the world that are affecting my fandom, and I need to mind-map/distill my thoughts via this forum. This. My blog. My blog that I had to bring back from the dead so that I can feel like I'm doing something about it.

Hope you don't mind. I'll try and keep it light and fun. Promise.

By No Means the Final Word on Vegas KHAAAN 2012

I awoke to see the cityscape of Downtown LA, buildings that are so well-known to me from years and years of staring at them, envisioning what tragedy or ho-ho! good-times went on within those offices and suites. My trusty a/c unit was buzzing away, and it has been all night, and will be doing so all day; spinning my head around I could see my mismatched furniture, and various what-nots, and there's a story behind each and every one of them. Everything is familiar: STLV did happen, didn't it? No panels to attend. No friends to meet up later with. None of it.

I know the preceding was trite stuff, and probably not worthy of the first blog I've posted in over a year, but that is what the fingers wanted to type. And my guts and soul know that this won't be my last word on the subject. How can it be? The Vegas KHAAAN is a grand affair; it's insanity, and exhausting. It's a fucking frolic, nirvana, lifting a fan of Star Trek to sublime heights ("Celebrities! Goodies! People who 'get it!' Costumes!"), and then harshly plopping them back to Real Life, yanked away, à la Dr Soren from ye olde Nexus; and like that villain from the tepidly received Next Generation film, some of us desperately want to get back. Especially when some of us make connections with people who are still in the "Nexus." Pass me a beer, Mr Surly Bartender from the Masquerade Bar.. oh, wait, that's right: I'm no longer there. I'm here.  We've got to back to the Island, Kate.

But, you know: Real Life. The bills, the responsibility, the Mundane friends who don't get it but are still 'friends' so we adapt, and temper our geek references, and get puzzled when they go on and on about college/professional sport teams, and the jerseys of their favorite teams, and the ungodly amounts of money spent on sports packages with their cable providers or the season tickets. And don't get me started with their face painting or those bizarre head-things they wear. Or I can live and let live, right? Just don't tread on me, Mr and Mrs Sports Figure Bobble Head People, ya dig?

Trifle Deluxe, this be. I'll post something soon with photos, and impressions on individual days (actually, I probably won't do the latter, as I made the mistake of bringing a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey, which meant that there were a few odysseys in Booze-ania... note to self: DON'T bring the hard stuff next year!), and all of that other bloggy stuff.

Spiderwebs and Dust Bunnies

I realized that I haven't blogged in months (and months and months...), and I promised myself that I'd, as the kids say "get on it," one of these days. But the days goose-stepped on, and I couldn't think of a damned topic, and the doubts and the confusion kept raging on, until I realized that my ailing computer was the (probable) suspect (more than likely it was writer's block on overdrive, but I don't want to think about THAT), and I got angry and furiously wrote a first draft regarding my introduction to a particular sci-fi property, when- bam! - my ailing computer just upped and quit on me, seemingly forever, and I'm left with only a smartphone to guide me...

Rats.

In any event, bright days are ahead: a new and ostensibly shiny computer is forthcoming, as well as a renewed focus on this lil' blog of mine.

I wrote it, so it must be true.

Wherein I question my status as a geek

I haven't blogged in months-- I could tell you that I was away on a months-long mission of mercy, or that I had a brief affair with an eccentric Eastern European magnate's daughter, or that I was hospitalized with a contagious disease that baffled the world's scientists, and was only just cured by extra-terrestrials (or some sort of mystical entity), and sworn to secrecy by the shadowy Illuminati...  

No, no, friends, the truth of the matter was that I was waiting to hear from my alter-ego, who abandoned me months ago to try his hand at the Gaming Room of the Sky with the King of Curiosities, and got shanghaied by conspiring members of his Royal Court, and recently escaped, knocking on the door of my apartment at 4:47 yesterday morning with strange, horrible tales that left me catatonic with their perversity...

The Line

These are, of course, all lies, and as I still don't know the truth, I decided to try and find the answers at a comic book convention this past Saturday in the City of the Angels. If not by being surrounded with my familiars, then with whom?, I asked myself, while sitting in the subway train filled with ne'er do wells ("Spare a buck?" one such miscreant asked me while I was sitting on a dubiously clean seat, Moleskine in hand, pages as blank as a red-neck's imagination. "Spare me a story?" I snarled back.), faded beauties, scruffy Oliver Twists, and other mediocrities. I didn't know where my inspiration went, I wanted to tell the lot of them, feeling like Amadeus' Salieri.

Names Have Been Removed to Protect the etc., etc..

I didn't think I could milk another tale from last year's Star Trek convention in Vegas, but while I was watching the Star Trek series after Deep Space Nine, and before Enterprise, and seeing the what-has-been-described-yet-never-really-saw-as "courageous" Mayan Native-American First Officer of the Intrepid-class vessel lost in the Delta Quadrant, this little morsel came to mind.

Now, years ago, I dabbled in the theater arts, and I loathed dealing with the audience after the performance. I never liked chatting with them, and after the play would finish, I'd purposely wait in the dressing room, taking my time to remove my make-up, and if by the time I finished some folks were still outside, I'd open whatever book I was using as research, and read, baby, read. And my reasoning for this was two-fold: I didn't like how they looked at me as if they knew me, and, more importantly, I detested the questions ("Why did you say that that way?" "Why did you do that?"), because the answers were my tools to pull the role off, and I'd be damned if I was going to share my creative soul with them. Besides, who really wants to know what the actor thinks about the story? I mean, really? It's about the viewers' perception, and that, at the minimum, what they leave with after seeing the play should be slightly different than what they brought into it...

I say this because I have a teeny-weensy inkling of what it means to be asshole-ish when it came to dealing with theater-goers/fans. So when I heard that [the actor who portrayed the "courageous" Mayan Native-American First Officer of the Trek show from the late 90's] was a jack-ass on the Star Trek convention circuit, I nodded my head, and thought that it was silly considering that in the grand Trek scheme of things, with all of the wondrous people that populate the Trek-verse, that his character was so vapid, but I didn't really give it more that a passing thought. They say he's a jerk? Okay. Whatever.

Back to the 2010 Trek Con in Vegas: Saturday morning. My friends and I were having our morning coffee before the day's festivities, and were seated at a choice table that was smack dab near the main walkway, giving us a prime location to people-watch. As we were gazing at the folks walking past us, some in costume, others in "civilian" clothes, I saw a Caucasian male hovering around middle-age, who was about average height, average build, with dark-but-graying hair slicked back, wearing a Command Red Starfleet Duty Uniform, and had the same tattoo on his face that the aforementioned Mayan Native-American First Officer had.

We got his attention, called him over, and he told us his tale...

Star Trek: True Love

I've often been asked which Star Trek character I find to be the hottest, sexiest, and the one I'd slit four thousand throats in one night for. I usually respond with "Deanna Troi" or "Jadzia Dax" — the brunette bombshells — but truly it's something I really haven't given a lot of thought to, until now, and, frankly, the real answer would probably creep out even the creepiest of Trekkies (and I've been to conventions, and, may the Prophets bless my eyes, but I've seen some world-class creeps at those things).

But a few words on those two women: Troi! With her gorgeous cleavage and cute teeth: I'd buy her Tim Tams cookies and grow old with her, sleeping every night with my head nestled on her pillowy breasts, and we would share chocolate-covered frozen yogurt at the Pinkberry on La Brea Avenue. Dax! Curvy, wonderful, beautiful Jadzia, dots running up and down her body, enigmatic smile, and a mistress of hundreds of years of sexual wizardry. She can teach me Klingon moves, and I'll introduce her to the stamp collection that I accumulated from my Junior High school years. No, forget that stamp stuff!  We'll instead discover new hobbies together, and could play sudoku on a park bench, occasionally glancing at the old men playing chess on the tables next to us, and I would listen to my beautiful Dax critique their sloppy moves under her breath. And I would be loyal and would dump the Dax symbiont when it moved on to the spritely Ezri — Bashir could have her — but then I wouldn't have let Dukat kill Jadzia in the first place, so there wouldn't be a reason for the symbiont to leave, and — ergh. I got carried away...

Friends Part I

My friend Joe was like a brother to me. We met at one of those humongous hardware warehouse stores: I worked in the Paint department, and I believe he was over at Electrical. We were casual acquaintances --very much of the "Hello, Goodbye" variety -- and didn't really talk much. But, after one day coming up to me and apologizing for being so dismissive over a warning I gave him a few weeks earlier about a certain coworker who was a back-stabbing bastard, our friendship was galvanized. For you see, Joe was a fiercely loyal fellow, and took offense that I would dare to say bad things about someone he thought he knew so well. So, after being burned by the aforementioned bastard, he came up to me and apologized, and invited me to hang out with him and a couple of his friends (who later became very good friends of mine, as well), as those who are often burned do.

"Is there drinking involved?" I asked him.

"Yes. Beer," he responded.

"Okay."

Joe and I became thick as thieves: I would be the calming force and the one who challenged him intellectually, the godfather to his daughter, the only one he ever really trusted and loved as a brother. I was more Spock to his fiery Bones, with both of us having the slick intensity of Kirk-- which, of course, led to many battles, threats, haranguing, snarling, and the severing of our friendship countless times. But, after a while, one of us would ring up the other, and all was well. Until the next confrontation. Like I said: brothers.