STV: Ensign Williams logs in from 'Red Shirt Diaries' !

Finally… on the last day of their Indiegogo…I finally get this posted. Good thing it's not as if they needed my help! 

Meet Ashley V. Robinson and Jason Inman, whose Red Shirt Diaries web series is the slyest, most inventive little take on what NCC-1701 lower-decks life for redshirts 'n' redskirts might have been like…and now an Internet cult hit, to boot. It's all in bite-sized, three-minute weekly "log entries" from Ensign Williams of security, her friends—and, yes, her famous superiors. Organized, of course, by historical records otherwise known as the first 10 outings of Star Trek—original series style.

Are YOU hooked yet? It's so simple—and yet more addicting than a cordrazine slush.
If you're a noob, give a look here on their YouTube channel at the 10 episodes up so far—the TOS classics in aired order, through "Corbomite Maneuver"…told of course, through the long-suffering yet surviving ensign's oddly eventful personal logs, right from her simple quarters on Deck 8.  

Want to see more? Today is the last day of their very modest campaign and they've met two stretch goals already—including a bonus show and location shooting! So, you can still help them out with their drive for RSD's "Season 2", which would get the enterprising duo (and more) through the remaining 16 episodes of TOS' Season 1…and maybe even to Vulcan and plak tow...

Give a listen and find out all the backstage secrets, the genesis, what lies ahead for as we present this first of a four-part visit with Ashley and Jason RIGHT ON THE SET (ie, their living room)—and even a surprise visit from Gertrude/Beauregard. 
 

Happy birthday, Bill: What NOT to get The Shat (video)

At 81, he will keep running right through those years one by one right up until the moment he simply can't run (or drop-and-roll) any more.

Yes, it feels as if everyone the world over today is singing happy birthday greetings to our newest one-man roadshow star, William Shatner.

But that's about all they can do. I mean, what do you get The Man who has everything?

For one thing, he certainly doesn't need to get A LIFE:




By the way—and without any intent to imply a copyright holding on the NBC video involved— that 1986 SNL sketch had more to do with promoting the current image of the "fanboy" ... and away from the female-driven, zine-writing/con-throwing FEMALE fan icon that first emerged in Trek fandom from the 70s. …

..and that—pssst!—never really ever went away!

So, today's true birthday gift to us all is that the old pizza-faced basement-dweller meme has morphed back into:
—... the Geek Revolution
—… the Geek Girl "movement" (though she's always been there)
—… and The Big Bang Theory being viewable on three or four channels every day, laughing all the way to the bank.

Star Trek [The Experience] LIVES!—or at least a little bit

As co-creator (and ST:TE actor/staffer-now-archivist) Vernon Wilmer himself says, here's a little gift to all those flocking to Vegas this long weekend for the big cahuna Creation blow-out—otherwise (now) known as Vegas Khhaaaan!

That's Vernon and writer-director April "Commander Tahryn" Hebert  at right in this brilliant flick—and it's for all you bittersweet fans missing Quark's, the museums, the rides and the "time station" at Star Trek: The Experience. Or, even more so, for all you young'uns since '08 with no memories of your own—just photos and tall tales to cling to.

But if you go looking in official sources about The Experience for any of Tahryn's topics heard here in this brilliant little flick, you will come up short. Nothing these guys talk about was ever planned—it simply grew: first as actors' therapy and the need for context and backstory in a random assignment as aliens at a Las Vegas tourist mecca ... and, later on, because the STTE family simply became its own monster and universe unto itself. Because Star Trek is hardly just your garden-variety tourist theme ride, you know; the Canon Continuity Monster devours all, of course.

I had a front-row seat on the building and opening and updating and closing for The Experience, 1997-2008, but Vernon's ongoing blip.tv series Star Trek: My Experience begins to catalog all the between-the-lines "other" that we at the old Communicator, startrek.com and the like never really got a chance to catalog until it was too late—and what many fans remember today as the BEST PART.  Thank Kahless for him!

And, in turn, both of them for this...



(Oh, and if any of you first-gen fans get a bit of a kick out of that headline... my pleasure.)