Lavender Bells

I'm not taking the time to guarantee it plays at the moment. I'm actually in the midst of homework and this track came up on iTunes. I had to share it.

When FOX allowed Joss Whedon an intellectual property blank check so that he could create Firefly, his vision was profoundly unique and decidedly un-Star Trek. The Alliance, Whedon’s Starfleet equivalent, is portrayed as unwanted big government, both bumbling and oppressive. Gene Roddenberry’s starship crews were harmonious visions of a utopian future while the crew of the Serenity must struggle to get along and to survive. No replicators there. Perhaps that’s why Firefly (and also Star Trek’s own DS9) is part of my beloved television show pantheon. It took something I understood very well, and showed me a different way to look at it, and, rather than railing against my established conventions, I embraced the new layers that allowed me to love more deeply.

Now what does that have to do with The Naked Now, a terrible episode of television that I bid you not to watch?

Watching The Naked Now made me think about television fan miracles. I would say that Firefly is the first and finest of the modern TV and Internet era. Fans united online and purchased full-page newspaper ads. They demanded a DVD set and when it was made available it was purchased in droves. The movement caught the eye of Universal Studios, who then optioned and produced the 2005 movie continuation of the series, Serenity.

The more I think about it the more I think it’s an incredible story. The cancellation of Firefly was so tragic and sad while its resurrection was brief and bittersweet—like it was brought back from the dead just long enough for us to say our good-byes. There’s even an epilogue here, take for example, NBC’s Chuck: A show that’s never had the right ratings for survival but a vociferous, savvy, Twittering fan base there to have kept it afloat long enough for the production to go five seasons and draw its own self to a close.

So, that’s today, with the IN-TER-NET. Let’s talk Star Trek. 1960’s Star Trek. The visions and the settings may be different, but I’m reminded that Firefly and Trek are siblings in television history. The first two seasons of Trek suffered in the ratings and that led NBC to cancel the series. A grassroots fan campaign brought the series back to life for a third and final season. Sound familiar? Except this was before this IN-TER-NET thing! Incredible.

Throughout the 70’s Trekkies (My own preferred term—now you know) kept this thing percolating and ta-da, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now, we’ve had the pilot episode Encounter at Farpoint and you know what? It was kinda neat, kinda exciting, and certainly worthy of further exploration. Then, The Naked Now burns through the benefit of the doubt surplus so handily I am led to wonder how TNG ever survived.

The episode starts with our new heroes responding to a distress call from the Tsiolkovsky (I had to look that one up because the characters say the name like Boo trying to pronounce ‘Mike Wazowski’ in Monsters, Inc.). The odd bit is that the distress call sounds more like a cell phone call from inside the confines of a raucous frat party. Humorously enough the suspicions are confirmed pretty quickly when an away team beams over and finds the corridors strewn with what look like space-aged beer funnels.

It’s a little silly, but so far the episode isn’t actually doing so bad because there’s actually a decent silliness to creepiness contrast that’s not a very common mix. It all goes terribly wrong when the story makes its way back to the Enterprise. Quickly.

I mean, the crew starts with an alert response to the crisis, as in, they immediately consider a viral contamination as a possible explanation. We know this because on the beam back the away team is fully decontaminated via the transporters. There, good, now what’s the next step? For one thing, it’s not the cavalier approach to LaForge almost instantly appearing to be symptomatic of something. I’m sure he’s fine. And two, the only thing the crew decides to Space Google is Riker’s weak sense that somewhere, somehow, he’d once heard of “someone in the shower with clothes on.”

Truly bizarre, right? Here, let’s go behind the curtain. Back on 60’s Trek there was an episode known as The Naked Time where the same virus now affecting the TNG crew famously caused George Takei’s Sulu to swordfight half-naked in the hallowed corridors of the original Enterprise. I’m willing to bet you’ve seen the clip used for a spoof on YouTube, if not, go ahead, because there’s some really good ones out there. Riker’s odd remembrance is a direct reference to the original Star Trek episode.

That’s a big reason this episode fails. It tries to do too much. It tries to reference the original series but in so doing creates an odd plot hole where characters in this new present can’t efficiently respond to a disaster from a famous past (Dr. Crusher uses the original antidote about halfway through this trod and nope, doesn’t work. Why? Just doesn’t. Later she fixes it. Why? Just does!) It also tries to get the egg cracked on these new characters, hey, get ‘em “drunk” and we can see their secret desires, but it’s messy and there’s big hunks of shell in the frypan.

Let’s run it down. We learn that Geordi just wants to see like a real boy (the blind guy wants to see… alright, we’re taking some leaps here). Tasha Yar wants to come-on-get-happy because some bad people have done some bad things to her. Data was apparently partly designed to be a—shudder—robot sex slave. Troi hears the voices in her head including one that let’s her know she still wants some Riker action. Wesley Crusher wants power and fame equivalent to his boy geniousness. Beverly Crusher has woman needs and she’d be all right with having Captain Picard’s help with this, Picard finds the feelings to be mutual—very mutual. Finally, I guess we see that Riker is a functional drunk, and, did I miss anyone? Oh, and Worf’s a Klingon, so there’s that.

It’s awkward and bad. Bad, bad, bad. Data is one of my favorite characters and in this episode he is gross and detestable. My young self, likely through a lack of comprehension, used to forgive sex toy data and his romp with saucy Tasha Yar and her odd pasted down Superman curl of hair. It’s probably because we will get to watch Data grow nostalgic about this very human day in his past. So much so that it becomes an integral part of his story, much like embarrassing moments in our own lives.

The episode wraps up with the cure found and Wesley Crusher saving the day. This is after he uses a fancy voice changer to wrest control of the ship away from the actual, you know, crew, and in fact causes the very disaster scenario he’s destined to solve. Somehow, in a final off note for this episode, this earns the pesky brat more pats on the back than raps on the knuckles and tralalalala—away we go—next episode, please.

This is going to become my favorite show? Yep. Somehow. This is where I imagine the fans to come in. It’s an adoption that makes the show very nearly human. Like Firefly fans were able to awaken their lost love for one last romance, Star Trek fans will allow this child of a series to grow, make mistakes, and do amazing things with them. They are improbable stories, almost as fantastic and inspiring as the ones which will eventually grace our screen, and why I’m inspired to write about these stories, write my own, and live my own.

Lord, that’s cheesy. Eh, so is Star Trek.

Image via Wikipedia

There’s no way to pin down the exact date in time where I first saw an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Likewise, there’s no way to quantify the day I moved from seeing an episode for the first time and becoming a Star Trek fan. Twenty years ago, a nice round number and as good a guess as any, I was nine years old. I would have wrapped up fourth grade, a year of intense bullying and not entirely coincidental first signs of academic faltering—the worst year of my young life. TNG was wrapping up its fourth season and had just wrapped up arguably its best season ever. It was officially established as a worthy successor to the original and already stood on its own as one of the best science fiction shows of all time. We were meant for each other.

Like many real stories of true love TNG and I did not immediately find each other. Our start was rather auspicious in fact, like trying onion rings for the first time—it takes time to establish how great is the good and how awful is the bad. Perhaps my ability to overcome my first experience with TNG it is proof of just how drawn to the show I was.

I remember distinctly walking into the family TV room, an adult show on the TV, my father in his chair. My queries were answered patiently, I learned the show’s title, and maybe I gleaned some concept of… concept. Whatever I first learned as my dad explained Star Trek to me was short lived. My first viewing was cut very short. The episode on the screen was a repeat from season one, the infamous Conspiracy, and I had just stepped into the scene most infamous. Moments into my first viewing of Star Trek, a man was ripped apart by phaser fire, exposing an alien bug living in his exploded torso. I left the room, shaken.

While that memory is seared into my mind I can’t recall anything specific about how I crawled back to that television. Week after week I needed to learn more. This was my first adult show. My first exposure to “repeats.” My first understanding of “ratings,” or “syndication.” Character death. Character romance. Characters! Hope! Aspiration! This was my show, this was my childhood.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, as of July 1, 2011, is available for streaming, in its entirety, on Netflix. Since it has been available it has occupied my TV nearly every free hour of my day. Firefly is a must-see experience… and I love LOST, but this, this, this is my favorite show of all time. After a half-month of hunting and pecking for my favorite episodes, and after gaining some inspiration from the excellent TNG blog at the Onion AV Club, I realized there is a project here I almost have to do.

Although I highly doubt I can ever finish this, boot up your Netflix, set phasers to nostalgic, and trek through my memories while I watch the show that made me.

TNG premiered in 1987, some 20 years after the original (Twenty is a catchy number!) “The next generation” is a clunky tag, but could it be any more appropriate? As a child of baby boomers, the original Trek was for my parents, and TNG was for me. The original deserves a mention here. Oh, I’ve seen it. Oh, I respect what it tried to do, what it did do, and what it meant to my mother, but it will always be a show from the 60’s—a time I didn’t experience, and the disconnect will always be there.

When Encounter at Farpoint debuted, however, I wasn’t really a guarantee. My parents, fans of the former series, were. This made the new series painfully try to live up to its prototype in its early days—just like a bad spin-off but without the usual benefit of an actual former series regular. (Actually, McCoy is going to make an appearance here, but it looks like someone frosted his face with pancake batter). It wasn’t the series I grew to love, but it’s like sticking your nose in beer wort, when you know where the final product came from, you respect the beauty of the aging process.

What surprised me most about Encounter was just how not bad it was. The problem with this pilot is that it’s trying really hard to be two things: a pilot that introduces each character as completely as possible, and an action packed 1980’s made for TV sci-fi movie. It’s a problem for all pilots, even the great Firefly pilot Serenity felt clunky and forced in places, but on TNG the forced character backgrounds are a jarring surprise. That off-putting feeling, however, is not being fair to what Encounter is trying to do, it’s trying to introduce me to people I don’t know when, oops, I know these characters inherently. That’s why, as a writer, I found myself fascinated by Encounter.

There are some crucial character interactions in this pilot. Commander Riker is reunited with his Imzadi (which in Betazoid apparently means mega lover?), Counselor Troi, and while they feign indifference to one another in front of Captain Picard the view is treated to their telepathic soap opera dialog. Picard tests Riker as his new second in command with an unnecessary manual maneuver of the Enterprise—which apparently works because it immediately leads to a terrible conversation where Picard explains that he hates the kids these days and he’s going to need Riker’s help not being such an old man. There’s a truly great scene, a testament to actual decent expository writing and Patrick Stewart’s acting dynamo, where the Captain attempts to save face with his new Doctor, Beverly Crusher, by letting her leave her new post. In her flat refusal to accept pity we learn her prior acquaintance with Picard and that it somehow has to do with the death of her husband.

As a lifelong fan I know all that. The question, then, is why? Do I know facts because they’ve been established in these expository scenes of the pilot? Or, did I come to know it over time because of my faithfulness to these characters and their premise? I suppose what becomes truly great about TNG is that all of this overt characterization will eventually disappear below the surface of these characters, like the way the cops act on Law & Order, and that while these people may be dealing with deep, personal demons they will actually go on to be the best, and highest achieving officers in Starfleet. Instead of hashing themselves out and reorganizing their social structure on a weekly basis like Grey’s Anatomy doctors, these characters will spend the rest of the series being exactly who they are and associating with their comrades at an almost—human—speed.

While meeting the new characters and the sexy new ship is fun with only a few missteps (early data is too smirky, smarmy, and, well, icky) the movie in which they play is unfortunately muddled and at times tedious. I don’t hate it. I just eventually wanted it to be over.

The first mission of the new Enterprise is to go check out the mysterious Farpoint Station for reasons none other than its, uh, mystery. On the way they’re attacked by a space fishnet that makes banging garbage can sounds. This net is created by the omnipotent creature known as Q. John de Lancie’s Q, although my mother hates him for being mean, is instantly captivating. What is instantly gratifying is that Q is precociously malevolent and Picard handles his appearance with both calm and gravitas. It really sells the whole Star Trek premise. Beings from other worlds can zap into existence on a spaceship and hey, it’s just another day at work.

Unfortunately it’s a bad day at work because Q is putting Picard and his people on trial for the savage nature of humanity. How’s that for some science fiction impetus? After Q freezer burns a crew member here and there Picard is forced to concede that human history has been rife with warfare. He asks that before being put to death that this version of humanity (Humanity 2.0?) be tested to prove that Q’s claims no longer ring true. Hey, sweet! Now we can use the original plot!

So, to make a long post short (Checking, nope, still quite long), the Picard kids figure out the mystery of Farpoint Station. With the help of the sudden appearance of a monolithic purple (There’s a lot of purpling) alien spacecraft and the emotional transference capabilities of a character we shall never see again in the run of TNG, I shall call her Useful Troi™, we learn that both spacecraft and space station are giant space aliens. They’re a sort of giant, glow-y jellyfish with the ability to turn energy into matter. The reveal is really quite beautiful except that during take off the space station jellyfish literally high fives the spacecraft alien on take off. Can someone do a YouTube riff where the episode pauses there and the song from the end of The Breakfast Club starts playing?

This is a pilot, through and through, but man, was it stronger than I remember. It gives me high hopes for this project. At Camp Fowler there is a famous staff meeting every year where the staff grapples with what evening tag games we’re going to run for each week of camp. There’s an adult sentiment that childhood needs to be rerun for others just the way we remembered our own. It’s a one-time-only commodity and historically trying to relive it results in failure and disappointment.

I feared that diving back into TNG with adult eyes would tarnish the memory, like trying to play tag in the forest with creaky knees and a newfound respect for fire ants. Here, even the scenes I dreaded, like Wesley Crusher (Oh, I’m sure we’ll get to him) barging onto the bridge, are just the way I remember.

Like Picard at the end of Farpoint, Let’s see what’s out there.

Engage.

Worth at least two looks.

We watched a full year of Conan in good ol' 525. Mikey, Chrispy, JJ, and myself. If school work wasn't done by then, tough luck grades, we had more important things to do.

A++, 10/10, would watch again.

Jorge isn't the most tonal singer but he certainly cranks it out which makes it a lot of fun. This is song is one of the best from Make Believe so I might say that this is indeed a 'Perfect Situation.'

Mar mar mar.

Heading out of town for a wedding this weekend so the blog might take a break.

Knowing that three of your best friends are now living together in the same house makes me pretty jealous. Especially since I've done it before and I can verify it's pretty great. Here's one of my favorite stories from that time.

When you went up the stairs (we had stairs, how great was that?) in the apartment at 1051 Park you could go left into my room or you could head right into Jordan's studio. A few times that little corridor would really buzz with musical creativity.

One of these times Jordan called me in to listen to a hip hop groove he had laid down into one of his first ever sessions with Garageband. Even though this was an early recording it was definitely head bop worthy. He said he was working on the chorus and asked if I thought I could put a rap down over it. Definitely, I thought. There was a real sultry, seductive drive to the tune so I decided to go for it and write something a little out of my comfort zone. Later that same night this is what I returned to him:

I approach with words most intimate,
I got a car let's go, get into it.
Hands grasp the breeze through the window slit;
Sunset evening, to the night, it slips.
Engine turns to the tune of a heart beat,
Stars wink away the last of the summer heat,
Moon shines on a rocky shore,
We open up, like never before.
No place I'd rather be
Then riding by this silver sea.
We travel roads that never existed
'Til you came to me and then persisted
Upon my every thought and dream
Boiling over and building up steam:
Night ride to the world of Neverland,
You can be Wendy and I'll be Peter Pan.

He asked if I was ready to give it a shot and I was so we threw it down on the track with just a couple of takes. He had a funny business silence about the whole thing. Alright, great, he said when we had finished... now he played the chorus with a funny look on his face.

Out of the computer came Jordan's completely different take on the song. A somber and echoing falsetto voice pined these words:

Something's gone
It's gone away
It left today
Something's gone
It's gone away
It left today

"Oh," I said.

"Sorry," He said.

We didn't give up on the tune, we worked with the incongruous words and the end result is some of my favorite lyrical work we've ever done. Now I love that the first verse sets up how good the rapper perceived his romance, in the second he immediately let's the listener know that he's not actually experiencing his words but remembering them, and finally the third verse exhibits a new strength and maturity. The song has a real arc. Here's how it goes:

If I'd known-
I would have bought a camera.
Picture everyday,
If I only had the stamina.
A scrapbook in my hands instead of my head,
When you changed my life but left me for dead.(These lines did not make the final recording.)
I see our story in every sunset.
Happy ever after with daughters and sons, yet,
Something's gone, and it's gone away,
So you leave me again at the end of the day.
My mind and my heart, I live it again...
I know I shouldn't but I let it begin.
Over and in, the engine it spins
As I ride with the seat that you're no longer in.
Where to go when you're the destination?
Accelerate, and vent frustration.
Water shields the view from my eyes-
I'd use the wipers but the windshield is dry.

What is this story? Why is it a song?
Maybe it's yours, and you can sing along.
Absolutely necessary? Lesson to learn?
Would we know how to heal without feeling the burn?
Is there one among us who can really deny
They've broken a heart, or given a try?
Or find themself laughing over someone they cried?
If that person is here, then that person can lie.
That is why I'm driving this path:
To find out what is after the aftermath.
It's never perfect- more cloudy than clear.
But that's why there's headlights and a wheel to steer.
We know that we can only keep travelin'
And heed the messages in life's unravelin'.
I'll meet you all at the end of the road,
When the story we're telling is the story we've told.

This week I can do more then just tell you about this track. Why not listen for yourself?

Hip Hop 1

As you can see we never titled this track. Leave your suggestions in the comments!

This was going to be where my Hurley 'review' appeared. I was probably going to rail a bit on how stupid album reviews and then proceed to give Hurley 4.5 stars out of 6 lucky clovers. I was going to base my positive review on one of the best songs on a Weezer album I've heard since Butterfly faded out on the last track of Pinkerton. Then I realized I had a problem, the song I Want to Be Something only appears on the deluxe version.

When we try to consider the body of work that is Hurley does this song count? The same thing happened with Raditude. Far and away my favorite song on last years oft badmouthed Weez release is The Prettiest Girl in the Whole Wide World which is only on the now defunct deluxe version. Another great toe tapper, Run Over By a Truck, suffers the same fate. These songs are great and seriously increase the value of album seven.

Great songs are not all you get on a deluxe album. You also get crap. Garbage. The Red Album deluxe version is nearly entirely forgettable. Raditude's four extra friends are all really quite good but Hurley is just a little over two for four. The first, 'All My Best Friends Are Insects' is actually a lot of fun. The problem is that it's not really a Weezer song but rather a Yo Gabba Gabba song played by them. It definitely feels out of context. Then we get a live cover of Coldplay's 'Viva la Vida' which is the last thing I need on my Weezer album. You survive this track and you get ' I Want to Be Something' which has shot so quickly up my favorites chart I considered several times this week just posting the lyrics as an update. The last song is a rerelease of sorts. An update to 'Represent,' a fight song that Rivers wrote for none other than the US Soccer team. This supposedly the rock remix and it rocks... hard. I fully expect this thing to still be riling up US soccer stadiums when the World Cup is once again on US soil.

I hate the idea that as these albums go to press we're scraping the bottom of the barrel to make an extra three dollars per record sale. Give me one or the other. These extra terrible songs seriously diminish that value of these records but leaving some of these phenomenal songs on the cutting room floor does just the opposite.

Hurley sans deluxe version is an album almost without blemish. A good album with all good songs. I can't recommend you buy it. Spend the extra money and grumble the entire time. You should be happy by the time the CD stops spinning. I am!

Ha! Really?

Well, okay. Rules are rules.

Sometimes by Monkey Gone Mad, off the album Listen...

If you're a Scotian ya'll just cheered, groaned, laughed, or did some mixture of all three. Monkey Gone Mad, you see, was my band. Well, the band that I was a part of until I decided I was too cool for other people's bands and left for my own. This album was recorded after my departure and the great thing, yet sad thing, is it's really very good.

Sometimes is an interesting selection. Monkey Gone Mad was headed up by Ian Rafalak and MGM was the laboratory for this musical mad scientist. This song, however, was made by one of his henchmen, Brendan McLaughlin. Despite this the track ends up being a classic Monkey Gone Mad case study. When this song was first crunched out of Brendan's blue fender guitar it was simple straight ahead ska. It had a simple upbeat based horn part with a simple horn counter melody that I still find somewhat boring. By the time the song makes it onto this album Ian, that crazy guy, has clearly gotten his hands on it.

It still opens with the horn counter melodies and soon after that we hear Brendan's cheerful voice clearly enjoying the opportunity to act as lead man. The chorus has been touch up a little with sporadic Weezer-like octave harmonies that if you listen close and catch them are a lot of fun. After the second verse and chorus it's time to go full Rafalak. We of course first break it down, smooth and slow, and feature some saucy bass work from Jason Rafalak. This is an appetizer. Somehow we transition from this jazz and R&B inspired interlude to a full on 80's dual guitar solo riff that could have come from your favorite SNES game. Had enough? Good, because it's time for the unison hits. At the end of each line the band pauses and the silence is filled with, what else? Silliness. First, cowbell, then, a little bass gliss, third, an odd trumpet and sax quack, and finally, the song comes back to us. From here the outtro goes into double time and new overlapping vocal parts begin singing as the rock out begins to fade out. Then, just when you think you're done, the vocals are faded and replaced with bluegrass... thus ensuring that every musical genre makes an appearance on this record.

It's a cute and fun track. In my library it's currently unrated  (I'll give it four stars now), been played 7 times, and I've never skipped it.

Sometimes is available in the iTunes music store.

I bought some new music this week. Keeping track of the nerd circles that I do it was impossible for me to not already know of Jonathan Coulton. I was even in the same convention center as the artist earlier this year but I had to catch the T out of town and couldn't tune in. Thanks to the latest Nerdist podcast (Sidenote: A podcast shared with me by Michelle! A perfect match for my interests, she knows me well.) I was finally tied down to give the chap a listen. I was treated to a witty TMBG/Fruvous vibe and an infectious laugh. I bought a live collection of his music from iTunes that very afternoon.

Michelle is spending the weekend in the real world. I usually celebrate a little (just a little!) when I get the apartment to myself because while she might be up to her elbows in bread flour and breathing fresh ADK air I get to tune all the apartment televisions to the Sox game. Sadly the Sox are on the west coast this weekend so they won't even start playing until after bedtime. Jack and I will have to come up with something else to do with our dude time. He keeps suggesting playing with tin foil crumpled up and tossed in the guest bathtub but I somehow don't find that as fulfilling as he does.

The movie had two very strong connections to my entertainment network.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was a huge part of my childhood. As a series it was just finishing up it's seventh season right around that time I was beginning wrap my mind around just what episodic television was. I didn't know how to tune into a specific time but thanks to syndication I knew that if I kept my TV tuned to TNT in the evenings I could follow the lives of my new heroes reasonably well. Early in my childhood the first season episode "Conspiracy" was one of the first things to give me nightmares when I caught the episode running on my parents' late night television surfing. That was a regretful glass of water. By the time the series was over I had grown up alongside the program, and "All Good Things..." became the first time I watched a television series finale.

Today both Lost and Fringe are on my "must catch" list much like TNG once was. Fringe is a bit of a TV rookie... so we'll set it aside. Lost on the other hand is the ultimate in ensemble cast programming. Just as Lost has Hurley episodes and Sawyer episodes that delight the fans who have anointed them their personal favorites, so too did the Star Treks. Trek also moved slow and stately through the show's chosen themes being quite preachy most of the time, earning it high marks under the columns of "cheesy" and "boring." Lost is far more manic ("We've got a problem," "Grab a gun!"), but aren't we still wondering why way back in season one Locke held up a black piece and a white piece to the camera sure to promise a series riddled with faith verse science explorations? Lost and Fringe also feature top notch production values, well, that makes them quite different from Star Trek which eternally strained against its budget in the age before computers. That just made me even more excited.

I had a lot riding on this reboot. 

And it all came out. Through my eyes mostly and a little bit out of my nose. Yes, I cried during the open. Before the title even rolled. While Michelle (my willing victim for the first viewing... my second, I, uh... I went by myself) laughed at me.

First, emotional things were happening on screen. That got me started. Second, my expectations for the new pacing, the new care and polish, and the new imagining of the universe were being met, already. Third, this was my childhood. Also, my parents' childhood. Something I had put in a plastic bin with the Matchbox cars and Legos and everything else that was only as good as I remembered. Something that I definitely watched grow up with me post Star Trek: TNG (a fine show known as Star Trek: DS9), veer too far off course (a mostly digestible show Star Trek: Voyager), and then finally lose its luster all together (I never watched Enterprise and for the longest time pretended that the last Star Trek movie before this one, a bleak thing known as Star Trek: Nemesis wasn't so bad.) 

I was so ready for this movie. I live in my childhood room now but everything that once was a part of that remains boxed and sad. My dreams are taking a little break right now and so were all the tools that made so much of my original imaginings possible. Over the weekend I got to see a part of my past "rebooted," maybe you've seen that word kicked around describing the new movie. It couldn't be more true. To say any further would spoil a story I want you to go see for yourself.

As soon as I leave the theater after this movie I think to myself, "More!" and "Do my Star Trek next!" 

Why do I have that feeling? Amongst all the explosions, the jumping, the falling, and the punching (oh, the punching) there's something else. It's hope. Hope that we're going to have the honor to live this imaginary universe all over again. Hope that it will continue to freaking rock. Hope that maybe one day we're going to shuttle about on gleaming starships and glorious planets. And maybe... hope that either that world, or imagining that world, would be something I get to be a part of.

Make it so!