The REAL 50th at last!—and if in L.A., come toast with us

After all the big conventions and events, after all the special merch, after all the other hoopla... it finally all comes down to Thursday....THIS Thursday, Sept. 8...at 8:30 pm Eastern*... at the hour when "The Man Trap" first flickered across NBC's airwaves.

So where will YOU celebrate Star Trek's actual 50th anniversary of its aired debut?**

Lots of folks are having get-togethers in their homes ... or nearby watering holes, or pop-culture storefronts: many will be screening "The Man Trap" at its debut hour—all over the world, actually. Feel free to take snaps of your own celebration and share with us on the Trekland Facebook page that night! 

But IF you're in SoCal with no prior plans and want to share the night with Trekfans... please do so! Here's an invite to join us that night to toast Star Trek's 50th at Lucy's El Adobe, right across the street from Paramount Pictures and a onetime watering hole of Gene Roddenberry and friends. You can check out his autographed photo to the joint (right)!

Together with co-host John Champion of Roddenberry's Mission Log podcast, my Portal 47 will be lifting a toast at 6:30 pm* to the debut of Star Trek on the equivalent of its premiere in Eastern time—and then twice again on the half-past hour for Central/Mountain and Pacific times. 

You're on your own for drinks, and some of us are getting dinner around 7:00.

 

But we'll have a giant 50th Anniversary card to sign ... and some other fun and a surprise or two as well. Most of all, we're coming together to mark this landmark that has meant so much to so many.

And for those around the globe not with us in person, you can join us in spirit: I plan to film each toast, and any fun surrounding subspace chatter, all live on Facebook Live online at my Trekland Facebook—again, at 6:30, 7:30 and 9:30 PDT.*

For a Thursday night, and after all the big extravaganza of the past few weeks, I just wanted to do something relaxed, in an LA venue of even a tenuous Star Trek connection... with a vibe where folks with no plans otherwise could come for fan fellowship and fun. There may even be recent tales of Vegas, New York and elsewhere...or memories from further afield in fandom, back further on the timeline.

Hey, we only get one shot at the true golden anniversary moment for Star Trek—just make you sure to mark it somehow, somewhere, with fans you love and enjoy. Maybe that means we'll see you at Starbase Lucy's!

If you do plan to come by... PLEASE just help us keep tabs on turnout and click the "Going" button on the Facebook Event page—thanks!






*As my talented buddy and fellow STC'er James Kerwin pointed out, Daylight Savings Time was not created until 1967—so, techincally, celebrants this year ought to mark "The Man Trap"'s 1966 debut at *9:30* PM EDT—an hour later—to compensate.

**And yes, we all know by now, thanks to the wackiness of younger-brother sales and marketing, Star Trek actually flashed on-air before an audience the TWO DAYS before NBC's Sept. 8 premiere— on the CTV, in Canada!

LAST CHANCE tickets for BEYOND fan event May 20!

You've heard all about it ... and likely seen the official, now-closed contest for giveaway tickets... to the big May 20 fan event and Trailer #2 preview hosted by director Justin Lin and cast for the third "alt-verse" Trek film BEYOND, due in theaters July 22.

You've even likely seen the other ticket giveaways from other sites, blogs and podcasts. Did you miss out?

If so, here's your LAST CHANCE... from Trekland and Portal 47:

WIN one of FIVE pairs of tickets to this 7 p.m. event right on the lot of Paramout Pictures in Hollywood with Lin and more—NEXT FRIDAY.  I'll be there, too! 

How? It's simple: Just email me your answer to this question, to larry@larrynemecek.com:

What is another aspect of the Kirk-era "Prime" universe that you feel should ALSO be a change seen in the current alt-verse Trek feature films? *

Now, alt-verse haters, back off. I mean this all in fun: Let's see how deep YOU can dive on this. And I don't need an essay—short answers are fine.

The first FIVE answers I receive that I judge best (creative, original... you know) will be declared winners, and each win a pair of tickets. 

The brief rules:

—Deadline is midnight Pacific time, THIS Sunday, May 15. Simply email to larry@larrynemecek.com.

—Your full name, along with your email off the entry, is required. You can name your second ticket-mate, or just go for now as a +1. 

—MOST of all, this prize is admission for two for this one Friday evening event only—no dream trips, sorry. If you are not IN Los Angeles already that evening or plan to get there yourself if you win, then these won't be much good to you stuck on Rigel VII or Tellar Prime.

Once winners are turned in to Paramount, the studio will get in contact about any further information, guidelines, etc.

BTW, here's how that official Paramount release described the night:

The one-time only special event, taking place at the historic Paramount Pictures studio lot, will include the premiere of the newest Star Trek Beyond trailer, an exclusive first-look of never before seen footage from the upcoming film, a Q&A with Lin and the cast and crew, special guests appearances, and other surprises. The Q&A will be streamed via Facebook Live.

And hey—I'll collect the five winners (and maybe some runners-up?) and post them next week. We'll have to grab pics of our Trekland/ PORTAL 47 winners that night at the event, too, of course.



*ie, Random or not—in the alt-verse, Vulcan is gone, Amanda is dead and George Kirk died early; Kirk was born in space, Chekov was born four years earlier, and the Enterprise and most all tech is vastly more advanced than their Prime equivalent at the same time due to the  leapfrogging info downloaded off the century-later Narada. SO—what's an aspect of the Prime timeline that you WISH was changed in the alt?

Red Shirt Diaries: Ashley, Jason—and who's Bones?!

The truth HAS been out there for some time, but it hit home today: The Red Shirt Diaries is the cutest, bestest and yet heart-felt little Trek parody webseries out there: The fans are flocking, even before last year's "Season 2" Indiegogo that upped the bar this year … the buzz is growing… and now—yes, I got to don McCoy's dark hair and blue tunic once again!

THANK YOU, ASHLEY AND JASON.

That's Ashley V. Robinson and Jason Inman, of course, who not only announced their engagement recently but also have quite an up-and-coming profile—doing RSD as well as their awesome Geek History Lesson podcast/ YouTube, Jason's  DC All Access webshow co-hosting, and Ashley's burgeoning acting career (listen to this clip!). And of course, they first came on Trekland's STV radar a year ago during that Indiegogo drive (and yes, I still need to post the rest of the vidchat). 

This nighttime fun on Hollywood Boulevard came last Sept. 11 as they held a mini-season premiere screening at IO Club and Theatre for crew, cast and local backers, but I held off the posting until our McCoy spoiler was closer…which, of course, with "Operation: Annihilate!" meant late in the "season." Never fear—you can catch their "finale", RSD's angle on "Amok Time," on Monday next—and of course gotta catch 'em all on YouTube or via the RSD site. (At 5 minutes each, tisn't difficult).

Quite aside from moi's return to solid/dotted-rank, this is quite a landmark episode for Ashley's Ensign, er, Lieutenant Williams as well—and remarkably a big dose of pathos in what is admittedly a winky fun vibe of a series. And how many past World of Williams references can you catch? 

WILL there be a Season 3? WILL their Mirror Universe dream come true? Will Ashley's crack about Commodore Decker bear fruit? It's up to you guys and what they call "online analytics," of course—so, and she says, "SHARE AND LIKE! SHARE AND LIKE!"

STV: Watch Gerald Fried play his OWN '60s Trek music

A little Trekland gift for all Trekfans everywhere... and one that is long overdue: 

This, posted at last, is the HD video I shot of what can only be called an amazing night in Star Trek history—shot off guard, from my seat, on hand-held zoom, on Dec. 3, 2012. It was already an electric evening at Hollywood's Egyptian Theater—the ballyhooed launch party for LaLa Land Records' incredible 15-disc original Star Trek complete soundtrack box set, a landmark moment for Trek and true film audiophiles everywhere. Friends Jeff Bond and Neil S. Bulk, among others, had all labored with love over it. And I have more vidchats from that night to share as well.

But the breathless moment of the evening was its climax, when an audience sat spellbound and delighted as TOS composer Gerald Fried, then 82, not only presented a duet medley of themes from his three classic scores for "The Paradise Syndrome,"  "Amok Time" and "Shore Leave"—but took to the oboe to play them himself, with pianist Rich Ruttenberg deftly adding the undertow.

It was simply 9 minutes of music intersecting history for a result I'd never experienced before, much less in Trek—and with no other apparent video cameras around, I'm just glad to have been able to capture it and share it now. The audio alone would be one thing—and those audience recordings are out there, I believe—but this decidedly unfancy video still adds the visual joy and drama as well...including the audience's delighted reaction to you-know-what from that Vulcan episode, and their 45 seconds of final applause.

Maddeningly, I ran out of chipspace just before the piece ended, but was covered by my iPhone mic—so I hope you enjoy what I edited together here, with sounds and sights alike:

Happy birthday, De—94 and still so young!

As is our habit over the years here at Trekland, we always mark the birthday of my favorite of them all, DeForest Kelley, and share some of our stack of De non-Trek images.

And this year, a twist: A full-page spotlight from, as you can see, a 1948 Hollywood movie star fan magazine—around the time of Variety Girl and just after his debut in Fear in the Night. (And I bet that life lifelong friend, the late great A.C. Lyles, help cobble the text together for the mag in his guise as a Paramount publicist.) Note that even here, they don't include his first name "Jackson" before his other two when listing his "real name."

As if it was possible to up my feelings any more, you all know the past year has put me into an even closer relationship with De and his legacy by twice playing McCoy for Star Trek Continues, and the study actually gave me an appreciation for the darker sides of both actor and his role that I never considered as a fan. Just know that even though I've stepped back from the role now, I'll never step back from my appreciation of his understated performance legacy, the real-world path that De and McCoy both climbed in Star Trek, and the effect they had in getting me mixed up in this crazy franchise.

So once again, raise a glass of Finagle's Folly to De, or even a mint julep, and enjoy:

An Oscar moment for Charlie—watch TONIGHT!

One of my favorite moments of the Academy Awards broadcast each year, though bittersweet, is the “memorial reel” of those of distinction in the film industry—household name, or not—who have passed away during the last 12 months.

But you can bet that I’ll be watching this Sunday with even more interest, if that’s possible—and I hope you will be, too.

I hope you recall when I wrote of the passing of CharlesWashburn last April 13 when he succumbed to kidney failure. That’s his full name, but for the old gang at Desilu Studios from 1967-69 he’d be better known as “Charlie Star Trek”—a take-off on the way he answered the phone onstage in his role as an assistant director.

I felt met Charlie just six years ago now, while working on a 20^th anniversary timeline for The Next Generation for the old startrek.com—but I had long wanted to track him down for my TNG Companion book for his AD memories from two generations, after I realized he was one of the “old guard” Gene had first assembled for TNG who had worked on the original series.

See, efficient and quietly polite Charlie Washburn was a true pioneer in the industry: he landed in Hollywood in 1967 from his native Memphis, Tenn., on scholarship for the Director’s Guild trainee program—and soon became the first African-American DGA trainee graduate in history.  In that tumultuous time of social change, the fact that Charlie went on to become the first black full-time 2^nd A.D. in TV as well when he finished just adds to the luster. And the fact that a big chunk of this occurred during classic Star Trek’s second and third seasons (one as trainee, most of the next as 2nd AD)—well, that’s worthy of a trophy any day.

“When I started at Desilu, there were only three black employees on the whole lot,” Charlie told me once: “Nichelle Nichols, myself, and the guy who had the food truck—who closed it up after lunch and then shined shoes.” If anything can put Gene Rodenberry’s original creation smack in the middle of the times from whence it came, that was it.

He went on to many more film and TV production credits, of course, like the Bill Cosby Show, Vega$, Batman, and The Six Million Dollar Man.  Over his long career Charlie worked with the likes of Diana Ross and Sydney Poitier, and even did a little acting with Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, to name a few.

At his passing I wrote that piece in his memory here, and included a couple of photos, including a recent shot I’d taken myself. Many fans here and elsewhere have thanked me for preserving his story, but—like so many other “little” tales of Star Trek yet to be recorded or told—it’s one I was thrilled to share, even if in a moment of passing.

Flash forward 10 months: It was only two weeks ago that the unit compiling the memorial reel wrote me to say they had been looking for Charlie items, found my blog, and wondered if I had more photos to share. Did I! We got them in touch with his grateful family, as well, who were thrilled and honored to get the news and share even more pics from his career, in and out of Star Trek. As of Tuesday, I was told it all was a “lock” in the final edit.

It's only fitting—and hurray for Charlie— when you recall that the Academy omitted our beloved Westerns bad-guy star DeForest Kelley from the memorial reel in 2000—and did the same with Jimmy Doohan in 2006, then "revisited" him a year later to make up for it.

Charlie was a bit of a pack rat, but that was because up until the end he filled his days still keeping busy researching and pitching scripts, knowing that some of his historical and unique angles would catch fire with some producer. They never did, but they should have.

As if turns out, they won’t use any of Charlie’s Star Trek shots for his moment in the limelight—makes sense, being the Oscars and not the Emmies of TV—but will use instead a brief clip he assistant-directed from 1972’s Lady Sings the Blues starring Diana Ross.

That—plus my portrait of him at his office desk just a year before he died. I was stunned to hear that news.

 














  
So be watching with me tonight, will you, as the honor roll of Hollywood takes their final bow. It will only be a couple seconds, but to bid a fond farewell to a good friend in such an arena—and to have had a small hand in making it happen, with a visual to boot—is a “memorial” I will treasure forever.   
And now, when you see his name flash by in the “TOS” credits those last two seasons—or even when you hear Scotty say “Washburn has a report” during “The Doomsday Machine”—I hope you’ll smile and think of what an unassuming and talented pioneer Charlie truly was.

He must have been. He’s on the Oscar reel!



This column ran on the startrek.com home page on Saturday, but we have added here one new on-set photo, and the mention of De and Jimmy's past history with the Academy memorial.  

LA ALERT: Proud to help Walter's Walk of Fame Star events

UPDATE: Here's the latest on various tickets for the weekend:

We will continue to sell the weekend and Sunday passes online until Saturday evening. We will stop selling the Bester and Chekov package on Thursday [tonight] at 9 PM PST. We will have limited banquet tickets for sale on Saturday night and Sunday at the Beverly Garland.
_______________________________________________________________________


It's not often that you actually see history coming at you, so listen up.

It's only fitting that Walter Koenig finally receive his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Sept. 10, making a complete tribute to the original Star Trek cast—and doubly fitting that a bevy of events mark the occasion next weekend.

I'm honored to be a part of those events—leading a "Trek the Walk of Fame" Star Trek star walk Saturday on Hollywood Boulevard with Walter and a Trek panel on Sunday with him.

Do you know about all the weekend screenings, panels, party AND banquet ? For my part, in short, after I co-lead our Walk of Fame Trek with Walter, I'll welcome folks to the historic Grauman's Egyptian Theatre  showing of Walter's Inalienable, "Spectre of the Gun" episode and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Con, with the Gary Graham Band playing at a party that night at the nearby Beverly Garland Hotel. Next day Sunday, the hotel hosts a series of panels across all of Walter's career, including his Bester days on Babylon 5, with actors and other guests on hand with autographs and photos. I'm again proud to lead Walter's appearance regarding his Star Trek career on Sunday at 3:30 p.m.. A gala banquet and roast of Walter follows Sunday night at 7:30.

Check out the full celebration weekend guest list and info here.

Again, for this generation of Star Trek and its fans, this truly is a moment to anticipate and celebrate—it won't come round again. Monday morning's public Star unveiling ceremony is set to include Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, and J. Michael Straczynski, who is flying in just for the event.

Oh, and event-goers Saturday will also get a debut sneak peek at the brand-new teaser trailer featuring Walter for Star Trek: Renegades, the follow-up to the indie Star Trek saga, Of Gods and Men. In fact it is VERY new: teaser scenes with Walter and director Tim Russ were just shot this past week!

A TOUR of the real Trekland? Guess who's leading it?

So, this guy walks up to me at the Vegas Khaaaan last year ...

And stunzap! —next thing I know I've been tractor-beamed into leading a tour for fans taking in 4 1/2 days worth of Star Trek film sites, around L.A. and en route to Vegas so as to end up—and extend through—the annual Creation Vegas blowout next August.

Well, actually, he didn't really have to stun me. Or even twist my arm—as if I had to tell you that.

You can read all about the facts of the "Exploring Trek Sites: Hollywood to Vegas With Larry Nemecek" here, but I want to talk about the feelings this all conjures up. Like how I'm flattered  to have Teras Kassidy approach me to partner with him on this Trek sites tour ... and how I'm confident to do so, knowing that his Geek Nation Tours has been doing theme tours for various flavors of "geeks" around the U.S. and Europe since 2009. And how I'm thrilled that this has been a great add to his travel agency of 13 years—so I know I've hitched my good name to one that's equally dependable.

I'm also excited to think of Trek site touring in terms of a group dynamic, and a big crowd. But not too big: one example being Teras' quality control, insisting on a one-bus limit so there's no "second class" tour-fans on the "second" bus getting just the faceless audio off a wireless mic pickup from Bus 1, or an exhausted host (ahem) hopping back and forth between stops. I've hit the Trekland sites over the years with friends and visiting "scholars," of course—I'm lookin' at you, Jorg!—but never considered how to maneuver a busload of Trekkies into these sites. And in a schedule that makes sense for fans who are also human beings needing food, shelter and plumbing.

I'm also curious to see what climes and time zones' natives decide to beam in and make up that busload, which will spend a couple days in greater L.A. and then actually hit the road for some rarer sites before we pull into Vegas just in time for the Creation clambake.  Seriously, Teras' agency reaches from Oz to Japan to the Americas and then cross the pond to the U.K. and Germany... so I hope we have quite the World Wide Warpcore of fans in the mix for this thing. They ALL can speak English, you know.

Most of all, I'm delighted to do double-duty once again: researching Trek's filming location for all series and movies. My archive of call sheets and memos, and those hundreds of interviews back to 1992, are the best source—but this has been a great poke in the butt to finish doing the legwork.

Of course, we can't go everywhere. Some are not open to groups, and we've only got 4 1/2 days! And—do you go to the obvious sites anyone can get to, like a Paramount studio tour or Vasquez Rocks? Do you play the numbers and favor Original Series or TNG or movies, or include a broad swath of the series? I've tried to factor in all series and their movies—including JJ Trek—and we have the known as well the obscure. For one thing, fans on their own won't get to go to those places with a great tour guide, and for another—well, again, I think a boatload of Trekkies from around the world will be just an awesome experience you can;t easily replicate. Of course, there are planned outs where you can take off on your own if you need your own space, so to speak.

I've already lined up one special: none other than Bobby Clark the Gorn will meet us at Vasquez Rocks—you can see him at the big cons,incuding Vegas, but how many get to hear him talk about that inhabiting that Gorn suit right on the iconic site where he so famously fought James T.? We may add a few more surprises in, too; we already have some "fudge factor" sites bneyond what you will read about, just in case we get a chance at, or have to adjust, to a Plan B due to factors beyond our control.

Seriously, folks, I just can't get across how excited I am to be a part of this. And Teras has all kinds of options for accomodating your not-so-fannish travelmate or spouse... or if you already have your Rio or other Vegas hotel reserved ... or in matching you up to a "double opccupancy" partner.  I know it has a pricetag, but if there's any way you can beam in and join us this Aug.  4-13 in Los Angeles ... and wind up in Vegas to survive the Khaaann—well, be there or be dunsel!