The Naked Now
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?
Remote
It was beat up and ugly, the remote. It was old, too. Older than both the boys, which would make their parents wince if they'd ever thought about it long enough to do the math, but no one in the house would ever think that long about the remote. It was, after all, just a remote.
Encounter at Farpoint: Parts 1 & 2
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.
Nerdy is the norm
The "tshirt store," if we want to call it that, just got expectedly nerdier. This is for a very select handful of geeks that grew up playing role playing games with Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition. I don't really expect you to understand.
Just know.
The dice are watching you.
Also available sexy style for you classier nerds:
This is real
One of my favorite things I've ever, ever, ever, ever done was to design a line of tshirts for Camp Fowler.
Well, I've gone into business for myself.
Completely for fun, I present my first tshirt:
From the Notebook: Unused Skunk With a Porpoise Era Monkey Gone Mad Graphics
From the Notebook: Songs or stories unearthed and shared from the notebooks and hard drives I still have lying around. Not necessarily good but hopefully interesting.
I was setting up a new scanner with my computer last night for a secret project when I stumbled on an old folder on my hard drive. These pictures are amazing to me. My hard drives in the old HP and iBook have crashed 3-4 times by now and I am disbelief these are still floating around.
The Monkey Gone Mad EP, in one of the most amazing strokes of genius ever, was titled 'Skunk With a Porpoise;' a bad pun derived from the phrase, 'Skank with a purpose.' We knew a cartoonist but there was a concern we wouldn't be able to get artwork from him for the cover. I drew this during my 'Geek Rock' days as a backup plan so that we had something that 'could work' if our professional arrangement fell through.
We also wanted to use a shot of our practice space in Ian's basement as a part of the EP packaging. I have no idea why this intriguing shot was passed over.
Click that to get the large size for sure because there is some interesting hair to check out on the ghost me. Also, I still own and wear that shirt. That was a present I got from Fowler friends for my 18th birthday. Fun facts!
From the Notebook: Hip Hop 1
From the Notebook: Songs or stories unearthed and shared from the notebooks and hard drives I still have lying around. Not necessarily good but hopefully interesting.
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,(These lines did not make the final recording.)
When you changed my life but left me for dead.
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?
As you can see we never titled this track. Leave your suggestions in the comments!
From the Notebook: Waiting for Phil!
From the Notebook: Songs or stories unearthed and shared from the notebooks and hard drives I still have lying around. Not necessarily good but hopefully interesting.
This song is from before I even knew how to play guitar. I use the word song loosely. My method was to write poetry (again, a term used loosely) and then whimper to Ian that I wanted to make a song out of it. Then I'd half-tonally honk a melody at him and he'd try to provide some logical chords. My memory might be foggy but I believe the ska-rap-opera known as Dengali was written this way. That song ended with fruit snacks being tossed into the audience so there were definitely positive results.
Waiting for Phil! never survived this process. The song itself remains intriguing because it makes me remember places, people, and things that I might have just as easily forgotten. Here are the words in their entirety.
Waiting for Phil!
I'm waiting!
Waiting for Phil!
Phil, why must you roam?
I want to go home,
I'm waiting,
Waiting for Phil!
'Cause Phil (Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil)
The milk's exploded!
And Phil (Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil)
This fork's corroded.
I want my eggs boiled hard,
This london broil's been a bit charred,
Someone's faked their ID card,
His job must be real hard...
'Cause I'm waiting!
The origin of my angst was my first and only campus job for Ithaca College dining services. It was two forty-five minute shifts a week cleaning up the bakery located above the Terraces Dining Hall. The titular character Phil was the Terraces manager. He would let the three of us working this shift up into the bakery and then go back downstairs to run the actual meal operations happening at the time. We could go home when the work was done.
It was awful work. It wasn't toilet cleaning, no, yet somehow the sticky, saccharine mess was all the more sinister just because it was so innocent. This was the bakery for all the treats provided to the entire campus dining system and all those tasty Hansel and Gretel-like cookie buffet breadcrumbs laid out to entice incoming students and visiting high schoolers to stay. The spoons and bowls left behind after these delicacies weren't morsels for licking. These were 10 pound mixer blades caked with flour and egg. The bottoms of the barrel sized mixing bowls would have upwards of three to four inches of frosting remaining. When you added soap to the mix you ended up with a sweet smelling, citrus tinged, sudsy, slippery, stubborn goo. Our tool for wringing this out into the sinks were nothing more than a handful of white terry wash cloths. One of the three of us didn't even bother to return the next week.
Even if we felt it was a successful shift the real issue was getting Phil to come upstairs to inspect the work. The worst possible scenario was having Phil spot a dollop of coagulated jelly inching down the side of an oven and getting the request to nab a couple of these touch up spots. Then he would descend back downstairs never to be found again.
By December I had had enough. A semester of free meals on Thursday nights and this unfinished tune was the only thing of value that ever came out of the Terrace Dining Hall Bakery.
Heath’s Twitter
- Sports are stupid. They make me mad. And that's stupid. 4 hours ago
- Aaaaah, who am I? This is not what I do!! http://t.co/1G1wt9Rp 2 days ago
- Watching NOVA always reminds me of my dad. Half of what I know in this world was learned Tuesday nights at 9. 4 days ago
