On Mentoring

I have several unfortunate hobbies, two of them involving truly bad television shows, and one involving a good and interesting one that is nonetheless derided by many serious people. (The other two, I’m mainly in the closet about, because any genuine *good* in them is *completely eclipsed* by hack writing and/or rotten special effects)

They are unfortunate because many “serious minded people” think that other “serious minded people” ought to move on to something more serious, and in addition, that if one begins something serious, like say, working for a living, or a marriage, or a professional ‘career’… it’s time to put unfortunate hobbies aside.

“When I was a child I spoke as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things…”

People who wouldn’t be caught dead paraphrasing St Paul’s advice on wives and marriage..well, they’ll line right up behind his admonition to grow the heck up already.

I also had the unfortunate tendency to introduce the younger members of my family to the least offensive of my unfortunate hobbies, and *they* also have taken it and ran with it well into their thirties…

When my mother discovered that I had indoctrinated one of my cousins in my (least) unfortunate hobby, she said: “It’s so “nice” that **** has someone to share her insanity with.”

Well, some good has already come of that unfortunate hobby, and more still may arrive soon…

And since I’m no longer a screaming adolecsent I generally wait to share these things via email, like the adult I have been forced into becoming….

But last night was too important to wait for the email…Damn the time difference…I called back east and got the cousin on the phone.

There were important developments about the unfortunate hobby…. and some other new film gossip and casting that simply had to be shared via the phone.

I got his wife (a lovely person, resigned to the unfortunate hobby), and then I got my cousin on the phone.

Talking to these cousins…It is quite simply the unalloyed perfect, uncluttered with ambivalence, joy of my life to listen to their successes and trials and share mine with them.

“Are you sitting down? No, wait, you need to be sitting down and drinking a beer at the same time.”

“What? Why? What happened?” Is it about the movie?” Because they’ve cast–”

“No. No wait… it’s about *me* and writing, and [the unfortunate hobby] *at the same time!*”

“Omigawd *what?* *What?* That’s *amazing!* ” and laughing and virtual backpounding are heard across the phone lines… and the real reason I hate being poor is that I cannot simply get on a plane any time I want and go where they are and listen to them and hug them… and then we get down to the business of discussing his latest play, and is that Indiana Jones movie *ever* going to see the light of day …

I’m at the “It’s a joy, just to be nominated” phase, and may not actually be the one that gets to write the piece. But possibly.

Off to work.

(Crossposted to my serious blog)

In the spirit of

This post, here comes another guess at what some of the crew are thinking...

All Characters are owned by Paramount and "Star Trek"
No Copyright infringement intended or implied.


"I don't know why we had to pick Ten-Forward for the celebration...The holodeck could have taken us anywhere..." said the man with the artificial eyes, in between libations.

"It was neccesary to include everyone...who has sailed an Enterprise..." said the machine serenely, now having well come to terms with his own odd method of rebirth.

The Vulcan and his Captain, at another table, spoke quietly...

"Was it worth it? All the dangers we faced to reopen this connection? to have an impact on their past and future again...? for at least a small bit of time...? Look who we *lost* to get here!" The captain was uncharacteristically morose for a moment, thinking of Scotty lost in the first trial when an entire station working on restoring the connection had blown up, due to the incompetence of one of his underlings that he just had to go in and rework...

"And", softly by the Vulcan, "The good Doctor..."

They both fell silent again for a moment, remembering their good friend, so upset and volatile at the loss of the connection two years back, that he had again dissapeared and not communicated with them for many months. There had been a justifiably prideful communique some small while ago regarding the cures he had been able to create for nearly a third of the population of an entire planet decimated by an immuno-deficiency virus. Then, the grim one that followed a week later confirming his death, executed by a local warlord for treating "the enemy."

The Vulcan continued..."Both of them would have appreciated another attempt to communicate, connect with the past and future. Both would see this as a worthy thing. If they were at this table now, they would be pleased," he said with the certainty that is peculiarly Vulcan.

"You're right, of course, as always," the Captain admitted. "Risk has always been out there."

Suddenly, the Captain's mood shifted, to an irritated stuffy persona he did quite well, that hid a geniuine bit of curiousity..."Don't see why we're going to have to rehash all that business that went on when we were..."

"...Beginning our careers, and exceedingly inexperienced..." the Vulcan said, in that diplomatic mode he had learned at his father's knee...

"Young and and stupid is more likely..."

"Can the two of you please be still? The Frenchman asked in a jovial manner, passing by the table..."There's a bit of time to wait before it begins...and everyone wants to come at this fresh....don't spoil it."

Just under his breath, the Captain groaned...
And the Vulcan raised an eyebrow...

Resurrection Day

"That green-blooded son-of-a-bitch! It's his revenge for all those arguments he lost..."

---The late DeForrest Kelley, as Dr. Leonard McCoy in "Star Trek III The Search for Spock"


Well, since this place was originally set up to be a "Star Trek" wake...since Trek has been turning endings into beginnings for more than forty years....it follows that a "Star Trek" wake has a bit of a different ending/beginning than your typical wake. I hereby eat my words.

...I knew about the JJ Abrams film due in 2008....but the details of this resurrection are falling into place .

Nimoy is set to reprise Elder Spock for us (wonderful, wonderful yay, yay, happydance yay...I'm actually a bit misty about it, now that I've recovered from fainting dead away at the news, laugh)....and EEEEEE! One of my 'Heroes' favorites will be there too.

And perhaps Denny Crane will make an appearance as well...

A Flashback of sorts.

Once, I was the wife of a comic fan. I knew nothing about comics except that I scorned them mightily, they not being (my words at the time) 'real books.' We would go to the famed Twilight Book and Game store, a five hour drive away....and he'd head for the comic racks I'd go for the speculative fiction, and our meeting in the middle meant that there *might* be a high end Green Arrow graphic novel that I'd consent to read, and that he would grudgingly purchase for me...

The late husband started out working for Tony Isabella in the late seventies in his comic store...and writing his own mimeographed stuff...blessedly, the late spouse decided remaining on the 'fan' side of the equation was best, and so would haunt local dealers and conventions mostly buying, but sometimes selling, a collection that once filled an entire room of his family home.

In the comic world at the time, my perception was that there were the two camps DC and Marvel (rather like Mac and PC, back in the day) and that 'niver the twain shall meet..'

I confessed shortly after marrying him that I 'had' in fact loved the Spiderman comics (and the rarer Sub-Mariner) when I was a little girl (The 1967 Superman and Spiderman TV cartoons had fostered a hunt for the comics...) This was slightly troubling to him as he was a DC guy all the way....but it wasn't a marriage ender...

Like almost every other comic fan I ever encountered 'brash' and 'opinionated' leading to 'brusque and alienating,' were definitely parts of his emotional soup. But real life changes and growing up had turned these things in another difficult direction....

But before his focus left the world of comics, he did say the single funniest thing I ever heard him say about comics... and it is only funny to comic fans and only pleasing to the ear for that part of comic fandom that agreed with him.

I know I'm going to attract some trolls here. Bear in mind please as you chomp up my comment list....that I'm merely the reporter of what was said...It's in the next paragraph or so that I get nasty.

He said, after reading John Byrnes revamp of Superman in the eighties---which he liked!---

"That John Byrne...Ego, the Living Planet!"

I'm (sacrilige!) a Peter David fan mesel'

Mostly because Peter is on my list of The Only Trek Fiction Writers Worth Ponying up Some of My Paycheck For.

Peter David

Diane Duane

Diane Carey

Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Marshak and Culbreath, a real oldie


After my husband's death, I did, in my last attempt *ever* in this lifetime to date anyone... date another comic book fan....a person who was as fiercely in the Marvel Camp as the husband had been in the DC Camp. I was impressed and pleased that one of the minor perks of this connection allowed me to admit to my love of Spidey.

Maybe, I thought, this is some kind of Cosmic Do-Over and this guy won't die soon, and I can perhaps have all of the pieces of a long term relationship that I was denied due to a nasty connection between a childhood ilness and the business practices of BighPharma....It'll work. It'll be okay...I'll just....

But No.

It ended badly. (Very Very Badly)

And thus, my connection to the divisive, talented, bitterly feuding, charming in it's own earnest twisted sort of way, self important world of comics ended...

But, when I need a laugh and need to remember the late husband in a good way, I just rewind the tape in my head and remember..."Ego, the living Planet!'

Bwahahahahahahaahhaahahhaahha.....

Tangled Webs, Straight Lines

Disclaimer: I am *not* an official Marvel comic book nerd. I know very little of any Marvel character history outside of the films and cartoons. I have no investment in some argument about what is, or should be canon in the Spidey flicks.

*Spoilers Below* so if you haven't seen Spiderman 3 yet, *don't keep reading* if you want to be kept ignorant of plot twists etc.

It is my considered opinion that multiple villain stories are *great* for comics....the day that a reader woolgathered and said to themselves, "How great would it be if Character A and Character B interacted from different universes, different moral sides, even different comicbook makers...Also the multi-hero Justice League thing has some of the same juice...

But.... I've noticed...

For *films* featuring comic book villains and heroes...Meh, not so much.

I wanted this Spiderman flick to be all about the tensions between Harry, Peter, and Mary Jane. The two guys wrestling with their dark sides, or dark parents, and Mary Jane realizing that if she married Peter, it wasn't going to be all goofy love all the time.

I *wanted* Harry to get his licks in with his fights with Peter, because from his perspective he was avenging his father's death, just as Peter went after
Sandman...

But both Sandman, and the wanna-be photographer, distract the viewer and pull attention and time away from the main story.

And the Sandman and the photographer also get shorted because there's not enough movie for them...Sandman in particular isn't a one-note dry cleaned version of Ben Grimm from the Fantastic Four...He's complicated and driven, from the first moments you see him with his daughter, and I wanted to learn the backstory....

Loved the black hero costume, and the total asshat behavior of "Darth Spidey." (right down to the symbiont "acting like" some meteor that fell in "The Seventies," and Peter Parker's patently ridiculous Travolta strut with the 70's funky backround music in the black tailored suit.)

Did anyone else catch the joke of the photographers red hair....reminscent of Toby Maquires red hair in Seabuscuit? They *had* to differentiate them, in part, because IMO the actor who played the photographer looks a lot *like* Toby McGuire in real life from his stint on "That 70's Show..."

Two hours of great cgi, regular stunts and special effects...*should have been spent* on Spiderman,Goblin redux (and satisfyingly 'redeemed...) and the girl having trouble choosing between them.

One last cavil.

Parker bounced back from killing two people just a bit too quickly...one used to be his best friend...

My opinion, of course.

"In The Beginning...."

A guest post from my cousin The Journalist:

"OK, by now we've all heard about Matt Damon, Adrian Brody and Gary Sinise possiby being

cast as the big 3 in "Star Trek XI." It sounds like it might be pretty cool, but I'll believe it when I

see Matt Damon on Jay Leno talking about how he's playing Jim Kirk. Frankly this sounds like

something a bunch of Trek geeks - like us, let's face it - would come up with while we're sitting

around thinking, hmmm...who would WE cast as Kirk, Spock & McCoy?That being said, if it

actually happens....This talk among fans about possible damage to continuity and canon has got

to stop. We've got to let it go. Yes, like many fans, I would love to see the movie include

characters like Gary Mitchell, Carol Marcus, Finnegan & Ruth, Sam & Aurelyn Kirk, etc. But

these are pipe dreams on our part. There's no way these people who are new to the franchise

like J.J. Abrams are going to care about continuity and canon. Even longtime Trek heads who

ran "Star Trek Enterprise" made blatant cointiuity errors. For crying out loud, "Voyager" would
flat out contradict things that were going on in "Deep Space Nine" WHEN THE TWO SHOWS

WERE ON THE AIR AT THE SAME TIME! We just need to accept that this new movie will be a
new take on the franchise, and hope it's a good story, and not worry about whether it "fits in"

with what we know from past incarnations of Trek. It will make it much more enjoyable, and

that's the point, right?

Just my two cents..."

RunAmok Time

And, they did it *again!*

The enhanced Trek "Amok Time" did give a wonderful matte type shot of Kirk, Spock and McCoy going to the place of marriage across a rock bridge reminiscent of the Mount Seleya shot from Star Trek III. They showed this matte twice...

But they couldn't resist.

Not only did they cut one of Celia Lovsky's great lines as T'Pau, they actually *cut it in half!"

The Original Original Series has her saying to Spock...

"It is said. Thy Vulcan blood is thin. Art thee Vulcan? Or Art thee Human...?" with as close to contempt as I ever heard any Vulcan admit to.

The Futureized Original Series has her say...

"It is said"/and then immediately cut to another shot or line of dialogue with the rest of the line never recovered...

Am I splitting hairs? Yes, absolutely I am.

But if the point of this was to introduce TOS to a new generation of fans, they need to be aware they are not getting the whole picture...and to carve up one of the best shows of the series? Nuts.

Personally, I'll be happy if they replace "The Apple," "And the Children Shall Lead" "Spectre of the Gun" and "The Way to Eden" with a buncha cool special effects and eviscerated dialogue...and if they can surgically remove most of the women's lines from "Spock's Brain"

"I put upon my head the Teacher..." Gaah. I'll thank the adapters of this new version of TOS

But *not* the best of it. Not "Amok Time."

What's next? Journey to Babel deprived of "Tellarites do not argue for reasons. They simply argue."

City On the Edge of Forever without: "...Do as your heart tells you to do...and millions will die who did not die before."

"Balance of Terror" without: "You and I are of a kind...in a different reality, I could have called you friend..."

"Errand of Mercy" altered minus Kor's lament, "It would have been glorious."

...

Count me now in the "These Suck" Column

Regarding the "Futureized" Trek.

Because...


Well, first let's back up....

Anyone who is a TOS fan, pay attention.

Saw "The Doomsday Machine" last evening.


And, they put in an amazing first shot of the decimated Constellation, roiling in space with asterroid chunks flying in erratic trajectories all round... as well as cool semi maneuvering scenes by Decker's shuttle.

Not to mention that the Planet Killer is now about forty times scarier, which is fantastic...

So, if I *like* that stuff, what's my beef?

While they left in....

Decker, full of crazed snark, to Spock: "I don't recognize your authority to relieve me..."

They took *out*...

Decker, cagey : "You're bluffing."

Spock at his most certain and assured: "Vulcans..never..bluff."

And they also cut about five seconds out of the nerve jangling countdown at the end.

*Who* said that TOS would bring in a new generation of fans if they glitzed it up, but cut dialogue and altered thematic impact as shamelessly as any syndicator in the 1970's who "stripped" it ever did.

I love the new FX, but the episodes are diminished without every beloved line.