Showing posts with label Star Trek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Trek. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Your Guide To Easy Reading



-WELCOME, GENTLE READER-

And Lo! An index was born.

!NEW! posts are marked accordingly. History. Science. Fiction. Horror. Comedy. Pop Culture. Commentary. Interviews. DIY's. Lots to see here so look around and have fun. 

My Amazon Author page with three collections of my favorite short works, 
along with my science fiction novel "Saint Five" CLICK HERE 
 
I also have an occasional YouTube channel. CLICK HERE. 

If I you laughed, learned, found something new, or just liked what you read then please consider supporting my work by buying me a coffee. It is much appreciated and I need the caffeine. Thank you.
 

 
Be well! 

And so should you!


FICTION 
 
Awake at a Wake  - in which four people sharing a long history find themselves in a funeral parlor - 
The Wedding Piece (Southern Gothic for Tracey and Alex)
They are at the window again  (It's a love story. With zombies.)
The Death of Joe Average  (What happens when the deathtrap works?)
Potatoes are what we eat. Potatoes are what we ride


HISTORICAL

"The Second Going" by Yeets  

Maggot's Work - A poem. A story. A life.  
A Definition of the Martial Arts
Two Collections and One Novel - Now Available on Amazon 
Speak Loudly, Do The Ghosts We Carry  
This Thanksgiving I am Thankful for YOU 
Goodbye, Stan. EXCELSIOR!  
The Stranglers meet the Mystery Men  
ALL FIXED! THANKS, POLITICS!   video
Dear Dear.  A trail cam vid and 150th post!      video
A Rocket, A Tesla, and Some Horse Poop Walk Into a Bar   
How Creativity Works   
'He said, She said' aka 'Coyote Argument, Mostly Chemical'   video
Something to Chew On About Zombies and the Living  
Hello Kitty and the Vermont Comic Con 
Wise Words, Parallel Worlds 
Happy Fourth of July (with a few well deserved shout-outs) 
Of Life and Gratitude (not my usual kind of post)
I Am the Terror That Croaks in The Night
Predatory Remains of the Calcium Kind
My Everyday On This Planet 
Welcome to Night Vale, the All Hail tour 2017  
Happy New Year 2017, Humanity!
We Want Your Business
STOP READING THIS BLOG 
Baby It's Cold Outside: Revisionism, Clickbait, and Bullshit. Any Questions?
Did You Hear That?



INTERVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS THAT NEVER HAPPENED

Digging for an Oak Island interview  (Attempted)
Robert Clotworthy: You Know His Voice 
The 12,500 yr old Interview. Kind of…    (Graham Hancock attempted)
So this guy on the Great Space Coaster walks up to me at a con…  
This Interview Would Have Been Bullshit   (Matt Page aka Master Ken attempted)
Here’s to hope! (Tsoukalos attempted)
Strongarm Interview 3: Dr. Steel 
Strongarm Interview #2 Smeff 
Strongarm Interview: John "Widgett" Robinson



STUFF YOU MAY FIND INTERESTING

Trying to bring Kung Fu movie sound effects into the real world video  
Doctor Strange 2 to be MCU's first horror film. Sweet. **(overdue 2024 update) 
Funko's Alien 40th Anniversary Breakfast Cereal
Star Trek TOS Set Tour: Set Phasers to IMPRESSIVE!
SCP-4082 "Real Heavy" (A SCP submission. REJECTED)
Farewell Steve Ditko, Harlan Ellison, and Cinamon Hadley
Cinemassacre interviews Joe Bob Briggs. A post for fellow B-movie fans.
Skyrim on Alexa: The joke that FUS RO DAH'd into reality 
How I Built My Floating Deck on Uneven Ground    video 
The Nightmare Before Christmas on Broadway?   video
Proof of Time Travel. YOU CAN RELAX NOW! 
Touch My Anchor and I'll F*#% You Up! 
Slowing It Down   video
Where is your center?  video
My Captain America Shield is done!   video
The Circle of Internet Life
Cooking With Vsauce
Geek Moms and Geek Dads  
Hail! Our new Alien rulers!  
WALL-E you look at that! 
TAKE MY MONEY. LEGO® Scooby-Doo Sets and...YOURS?!
(Not new anymore) NEW STUFF NEW STUFF NEW STUFF



IT INVOLVES ME FOR SOME ODD REASON
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Monday, July 26, 2021

William Shatner's 90th Birthday Celebration at the Star Trek Set Tour, Ticonderoga NY

July 24th, 2021 found me (yet again) in the parking lot of 112 Montcalm St. It was 7:30 AM. Sunny, but not yet hot from the long absent sun. I stood with my father in line amongst many waiting to check-in. All was right in the world for we were only minutes away from eating a hearty, delicious breakfast at Burlleigh's Luncheonette.

A day of of Trek awaited us.

There's no way Shatner is 90. This man is a machine! A fun, fast, and witty machine!

A day of like-minded humans gathered from near and very far to celebrate the 90th birthday of an actor who so vibrantly, so unknowingly (along with many talented others) helped turn three seasons of corporate television into over 50 yrs of hope and inspiration to millions. 


Like I said, a typical day of Trek.

And James? WOW! Your crew did a great job. YOU did a fantastic job performing Saturday night! Just wonderful. My post will not do it justice. Gentle reader, allow me to present award winning Elvis impersonator James Crawley, the creator of the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour.


I'm still debating with myself on HOW to present the day. Until I decide, I want to reach out to some people I did not have the chance to swap contact info with before I left dinner.

In no order at all:

1. Unexpected Lowe's Employee who has an amazing custom built Enterprise

2. 90% Shatner guy who has one of those pencil cases

3. Doc Brown hair father with a great laugh

4. Utica woman who sometimes falls asleep binge watching. 

If by some miracle you see this, please drop me a line. You helped make the day that much better. 

Until then...

Be well, gentle readers.

Sam 


II.

A bit more now. A bit of the tour.


One of the tour guides let my group know that each tour Bill gave was a crapshoot. He went where he felt and relayed whatever he wanted to. The tour guide was quite correct. The above pic from the recreation of the sick bay is bittersweet. Bill was relaying a story that came to mind about when he visited DeForest Kelley and his wife when they were nearing the end of their lives. It was hard to hear, like real-life often is. Bill paused after the telling. What he was thinking, I have no idea. He was lost in his own mind for several seconds. Then he moved us to the next room and carried on. It was a REAL moment. I don't know how else to describe it. 



Eventually, we landed on the bridge. That was pretty cool. He took questions and relayed stories about his work on stage and radio. It was interesting. It explained much of why Trek was not a priority in his life for so many years. Bill described it, if I understood him right, as: I did THIS. Now THIS is over. Time to move onto the next THIS. He used the example of how Paramount BURNED the original set. Then how they BURNED the set from the first Trek movie. Then they BURNED the set from the second movie! Trek was a part of his work, not the sum or goal of his work. It made sense. 



And through it all, Bill gave suggestions (and honestly some outright commands) to help keep the lines moving for the attendees. It was impressive to see him mold the event for the positive. He wasn't merely a celebrity in a chair, and this was definitely not his first rodeo. He signed five-hundred autographs in two hours! During the panel talk at the high school Bill, aged 90, was calling people in the audience out for yawning! It was hilarious. The above pic is a laser-etched copy of our (Strongarm Labs) "To Serve a Prince" story poster tying in classic fairy tale NPC's into the origins of Trek's Red Shirts. Shatner was handed the piece, flipped it over, asked the assistant, "What is this this?" I replied to him it was a story I wrote tied to Trek while dropping a reference to the question I asked him during the panel talk earlier that day. He nodded, smiled, and signed it. Did he read it? Not even close! Not a word passed his eyes!

Oh well....I had to remember he had all these other people to serve. 
 
Then it was time for lunch at House of Pizza. Yum. 
 

The lines spanned the length of the parking lot and turned down the street. You can't see the VIP line in this pic. There was a LOT of people. 

III. Afterward. 

The day was my father's first trip to the set tour. He's the reason why Trek is part of me. He watched Trek when it was on the air. He shared the re-runs with me when I was a small child in the 70's. We decided then and there we'd come back on a day NOT filled with lines or Shatner. We'll be back so my Dad can experience the tour as it is supposed to be experienced. He'll be able to take his time. He'll be able to re-live the moments that became examples to me on how to treat other people. He'll be able to enjoy the brief time television time shared his view of future. I can't wait.

Be well, gentle reader. All for now.
 
Come visit the tour for yourself.   www.startrektour.com

-Sam 









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Tuesday, June 9, 2020

The 2020 Post: Humans, History, and Hope.


History will tell many tales of this latest pandemic, if history tells us anything. Some we today may scarcely recognize depending on how differently the night sky looks in those future ages. Yet, even then they will hold value. Ancient stories still strike intimate chords today, still carry Truths to teach. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait that long. Clever humans, at this very moment, are weaving medicinal tapestries from the threads of daily events. When their looms will stop, I do not know. I can say many will carry fear long afterward. This is understandable. Disease is only a little younger than Life itself, let us remember. The Fourth Rider and its pale steed have always cast a cold shadow near our doorway. Will it enter? Will it pass? we ask in the long night. And what of the shadow’s umbra? Its name is Uncertainty, mother of Panic. As I said, flinching in their presence is understandable.

I offer these words as a small balm for the stream of tribulations 2020 seems hellbent on throwing at us: We’ve been through worse. We’ve learned from it. We’ll get through this.

Our ancestors braved storms and gales to travel unexplored oceans.
Our ancestors raised structures of breathtaking height and sophistication around the globe. Some of which we, who now plan to walk the surface of Mars, still cannot fully explain or replicate.  
They invented Art and Philosophy and Music and the Scientific Process.
They dug themselves out from under earthquake rubble to rebuild larger and stronger than before.
They set aside time for special celebrations despite (and to spite) the precariousness of daily life.
They saw lobsters and boldly declared I am going to eat that! With butter!
They survived other humans.  

All of human history is within YOU. Give yourself the gift of learning about your past. It is your birthright. Your inheritance. Rest upon it. Take strength from it.  

Then, gentle reader, please help ME remember to do the same! I have those dark, cold nights, too. What reminded me this time round was a re-watching of the extended version of “The Lord of The Rings” trilogy. My hope was the pandemic would have long passed when the final credits rolled. Alas, no such luck. Instead, two ideas smacked my skullcap. The first was Theoden’s story arc. I have no idea how the tragedy of his character eluded me all those previous viewings. Some squirrels don’t make it to the top of the tree, as the old saying I just made up goes. Much has been written about him over the decades (I’ve since learned) so no need to expand that. The second smack came from a visual. Felt like a hammer. Here is the clip posted by Warner Brothers Entertainment on YouTube.  


Every time I see the families in the cave it gets me. Every. Damn. Time.

Orcs, Humans, Elves, and a stone wall. It dawned on me that this scene is an analogy of human history, and by extension a broad model of the human psyche. Let’s start with that wall. A wall is a line lifted into the third dimension. Its sole purpose is to set boundaries. This one is scarred from the many times it fulfilled its role as protector. Outside the gate comes destruction and chaos under the cover of night. Animalistic yet not unintelligent, Orcs are a constant threat. They steal, kill, burn, or destroy to suit their own ends. They are kept in check by strength alone, ruled by strength alone. These new Orcs, however, are far worse. They have been augmented and organized by the intellect of a once ally. Behind the wall stand humans and Elves. And Gimli. Elves are everything Orcs are not. Remember, Orcs were created by the purposeful spoiling of Elves. They are negative images of each other in both action and thought. Elves embody grace and order. They value knowledge and taught the Ents to speak in the deep past. Then we have humans. They exist in a mired middle ground between Elf and Orc. Humans can embody grace and knowledge. We can demonstrate bravery and kindness. We can also grow apathetic or spiteful. Indifference leads to stagnation. Wisdom rots from memory until what’s left is human in form, but Orc in spirit and nature. The Wildmen were aptly named.

The battle was new to the participants, but the setting was old: a line, an enemy, and a battle to survive. Change the names. Adjust the ideologies. Martin Luther attacks the walls of a religious bureaucracy with words nailed to a door. La Malinche whispers a calculated suggestion into Cortez’s ear to guide his eye toward victory over the Aztec empire. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis argues handwashing saves women’s lives despite the fierce objections of colleagues and the medical establishment. It costs him his life. A victim of violence, slavery, and hunger decides stability must be imposed upon his world, thus Temujin becomes Genghis Khan. Off the Cuban coast in a Russian sub, Commodore Vasili Arkhipov weighs patriotism and sworn duty against the fire of nuclear holocaust. Lenny Bruce keeps using schoolyard vulgarities in front of adult audiences.  

And again. And again. 

The Established battling The New. Rulers battling Revolutionaries. The Invaded battling Invaders. Home battling Visitors. Brother Order twirling with Sister Chaos across the floor of Time without a care, save only for their dance. We live in their wake. We are of their wake. Life, after all, depends on them, not the other way round. Humans can see the dance, for some reason. Seems that way, anyhow. I think it’s linked to knowing we’re mortal. Most days I suspect the perception of personal mortality (I have an ending?!) came first. Something went into our Options and switched off the ‘Live In The Moment’ setting. Time and Memory orbited a new version of Self thereby inventing questions, which lead to symbolic language to ask better questions. The primal, predatory Why? was born. Maybe it was the Dance that changed our Options settings. Maybe. Whatever the reason, our mind’s “Territory” dial turned to Eleven to match our rapidly expanding mental landscape. We drafted metaphysical lines, build mental walls, and dropped symbols on whichever side of the map worked best for achieving our needs. Flags, ink, and paper replaced urine. I wonder sometimes if early material maps looked that dissimilar from mental ones. Here be monsters might be truer than we thought. Do they look dissimilar today in our enlightened, sophisticated current year? All maps tell a story, so probably not. As Robert Anton Wilson used to point out, “The menu is not the meal.” Which is, of course paraphrasing Alfred Korzybski’s, “The map is not the territory.” and “The word is not the thing.” Both were influenced by the Surrealist movement in art. (The human mind? Surreal?) Perhaps you’ve seen this piece from ninety-one years ago.

“The Treachery of Images” by Rene Magritte 1929

Perhaps you know this other work by Rene.

“The Son of Man” 1964. I’ll let you decide how it fits in to my words.


Let’s briefly turn back to Middle Earth for a possible explanation for the above.      

Orcs = ID
Humans = Ego
Elves = Super-Ego

Helm’s Deep as a model of one model of the intermingling operators within our psyche. This popped into mind when I asked myself why (There’s the old thorn again.) human history seems so repetitive. Then I remembered how old and cliché even asking the damn question is!

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
                                                                          Ecclesiastes 1:9   Circa 935 BCE

That was almost three-thousand-years ago. Put another way: Thirty centuries ago, humans were complaining there was nothing good on television, movies were all the same, and new music sounded like recycled crap. Nothing changes. Similar software running on similar hardware yielding similar results. My words have been written before. They will be written again. The cycle triumphant.

And yet.

Our ancestors braved storms and gales to travel uncharted oceans.
Our ancestors raised structures of breathtaking height and sophistication around the globe. Some of which we, who now plan to walk the surface of Mars, still cannot fully explain or replicate. 
They invented Art and the Scientific Process and Philosophy and Music.
They dug themselves out from under earthquake rubble to rebuild larger and stronger than before.
They set aside time for special celebrations despite, and to spite, the precariousness of daily life.
They saw lobsters and boldly declared I am going to eat that! With butter!
They survived other humans. 

But, Sam. You’re hopefully asking. Aren’t you contradicting yourself by making large number level observations on human behavior while citing those specific individuals? They all altered this immutable cycle you’re rambling on about despite having been a byproduct of it. 

Noticed that, did you? Yeah. Funny how individuals can do that. Funny how a single person can tip a scale carrying millions. Funny how the Dance sometimes sways to a single person moving to their own music. It’s almost as if there is an odd profundity to the Individual that’s fueled by the nature of their intent. And it just so happens I am talking to an individual at this very moment.   

Oh no, don’t drag me into this. I have enough on my plate. 

Ever wonder when Hope was invented? 

I’m wondering when this blog will end and hoping it’s soon.

Not the ‘wanting’ hope, the visionary Hope. The 'look around and wonder how better existence could be' Hope. 

Invented? You mean like a light switch or diet soda? Never thought of it that way. Weird to think that Hope didn’t exist until the second it did. But, “invent”? Is that the correct word?

Someone wiser than foolish me probably has a better one. Still, somewhere along our long path with all the hints of ages lost, there was a moment when Hope came into being. We’ve never let it go since. Maybe that was in our Options, too? To install the Hope DLC, press X. Who knows how many names or origins or sources we’ve given it over the millennia. Think about all the greeting cards that never would have existed without it.

A staggering observation.

I deal in the hard Truths. Explains why I don’t sleep well at night. 

So, take your own advice.

What do you mean?

You’re going to great lengths to encourage people to have Hope, to use Hope, based on what humans have endured since humans existed. Pandemic upheavals sparked this blog, but 2020 was just warming up. Here’s the reminder you asked for: We have endured much, yet still created much. We have endured much, yet still done much good. We’ve an established track record that doesn’t need platitudes, because we invented platitudes. We can picture the possible, then marry the image to action. A human is a spec of flotsam bobbing on an ocean of time that miraculously found ways to build ships and draw maps in the Hope of one day harnessing the storms that threaten to drown them. That’s you. That's Us. Don’t forget it.

Huh...you got me figured out. 

Of course, I do. I am you. I know what you know. I know what you’ve been through. 

I can't argue with a good point. Can I ask you, er, me some clarifying questions? I feel like we’ve just scratched the surface of all this...........Hello? 

Hello?!

I guess it’s just you and me again, gentle reader. Interesting. We’re all a product of and a producer of. And more. We often fall under the step of the Dance, yet sometimes we pick the beat. We can make decisions. Well, I certainly gave myself a lot to think about. 

I Hope I gave you something worth thinking about, too.

Be well. Stay well. 

I believe in you, fellow human.
Sam
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