I am a geek, a nerd, a dork, a dweeb, a nimrod, a drip, take your pick (none of which are to be confused with a pantywaist however). I am just going to come clean and put it out there now before you get too invested in this post. Why? Because we (that's you and me loyal reader) are going to delve into a discussion about Star Trek. Stop reading now if you want.

Note that I am not a Trekie. I have never been to a Star Trek convention, I do not know Klingon, I have never waxed poetic about Spock's struggles growing up half human, half Vulcan and I don't own a regulation Type II Phaser. That being said, I have watched the classic episodes from the 1960s, seen a few of the movies with the old cast (KAAAAAAAHN!!!!), watched some of the Next Generation stuff and those movies (I am a fan of Patrick Stewart, watch him in this episode of Extras, hilarious) and even saw the most recent redo by J.J. Abrahms (which I thought was very good). And my wife was even Uhura one year for Halloween (I was Prince). She is not a Trekie at all, it was my somewhat racist idea that she do it (she's black, and so was the actor who played Uhura, genius I tell you).

So, I was overjoyed when I was able to watch one of my favorite episodes (courtesy of the TV app on my iphone) from the classic series. Specifically, Season 2, Episode 9, entitled "Metamorphosis." And I am going to be so bold as to go where no man has gone before by saying that it's probably one of the best episodes of the classic series. It's that good.

Basically, Kirk, McCoy (Bones) and Spock are transporting Assistant Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford, a beautiful but hard nosed life-long bureaucrat (played by Elinor Donahue of Father Knows Best and The Andy Griffith Show), in the shuttle Galileo to the Enterprise. The Commissioner is to be sent to the planet Epsilon Canaris III to help prevent a civil war. Sadly, due to failing to get the proper immunization, she has contracted the deadly Sakuro's disease and is beginning to have symptoms. Unfortunately, before reaching the Enterprise, the Galileo is intercepted by some kind of plasma cloud which renders the shuttle inoperable and forces it to land on the planet Gamma Canaris N. Upon landing the group discover that the planet has an earth like atmosphere and begin exploring. In short order they encounter a young man named Zefram Cochrane (played by Glen Corbett of Route 66 fame) who claims to have been marooned on the planet. He states that repairing the shuttle is futile since there is some kind of dampening field in effect and offers to lead them to his modest yet cozy home where they can talk further. We soon learn through Kirk that Zefram was the original inventor of the warp drive and was supposed to have died 150 years ago (for those unfamiliar with the genre, this is the genesis of the Zefram Cochrane story line which plays out in later episodes and is the basis for the movie Star Trek: First Contact). Later, back at his home, Zefram reluctantly reveals that he has been on the plant since his supposed death and that 150 years ago he had cast himself adrift in space at the age of 87 to die. Luckily for him, the same plasma cloud that intercepted the Galileo also found him and brought him to the planet where it rejuvenated him (making him look young again) and provided him with his home and food. He goes on to explain that the plasma cloud, which he calls the Companion, brought them to the planet to keep him company. He states that he cannot control the Companion but does have the ability to "call" it using his brain waves.

Meanwhile, Nancy, who Zefram is clearly attracted to (he has not seen a woman in 150 years) is becoming delirious due to the worsening affects of her disease. Bones cares for her while Spock returns to the Galileo in an attempt to repair it. While trying to fix the shuttle craft the Companion, a shimmering blob of energy, appears before Spock and gives him an electric shock, rendering him unconscious. Kirk and Spock surmise that the Companion must be some kind of electrical life form and craft a device that will cause a short circuit which they hope will incapacitate it. They have Zefram call the Companion so they can use this device. Zefram seems reluctant to call the Companion and cause it harm but eventually does so. Regrettably, the device does nothing but anger the Companion and it proceeds to attack Kirk and Spock almost finishing them off for good before being ordered to stop by Zefram (again using his mind).

Having failed, McCoy suggests they use a different tactic by attempting to "speak" with the Companion using the universal translator. Kirk is skeptical since the translator was not intended to be used with such life forms but is willing to give it a try. To everyone's surprise, including Zefram's, the Companion responds with a female voice. It was assumed by the group that the Companion regarded Zefram as a hostage or some kind of pet but upon the revelation that it is female Kirk quickly surmises that the relationship is in fact something quite different. The Companion explains that the only thing that is important to it is caring for the man, which is how it refers to Zefram, and that it brought them here so that the man would not be lonely and "cease to exist." It is clear that the Companion is Zefram's lover. Zefram is repulsed by this revelation (though it could be argued that he must have had some sense of their relationship, having communicated with the Companion for 150 years and being so reluctant to cause it harm) and storms off. Nancy, who is in an extremely feverous near death state, has overheard the whole conversation between Kirk and the Companion and explains in a very emotional speech to McCoy that, having been a career woman, she would give anything to experience another's love and is in shock that Zefram would run away from it.

Kirk, who has now realized how much the Companion loves Zefram, makes an impassioned plea to the Companion to let them all go. He explains to the Companion that the man, Zefram, must be free and that keeping him on the planet will eventually kill him. He also tries to convince the Companion that since it is not human it can never be compatible with the man because it can never experience human love. The Companion seems to disagree and suddenly disappears. Moments later Nancy emerges from Zefram's house completely healed. She explains that she and the Companion are now merged as one being. It is implied that she would have died if the Companion had not done this. Zefram who has reconciled his initial disgust at having been the object of the Companion's affection (probably helped along by her new shapely human female form) is excited to begin exploring the universe with her. These plans are foiled however when Nancy/the Companion explains that she cannot leave the planet since that is where her "essence" is and if she leaves she will die (it is also implied that she and Zefram are no longer immortal and that they will both eventually die). Zefram realizes that he loves the Companion very much and makes the decision to stay on the planet with her where they will live out their lives together. Kirk, Spock and McCoy return to the Enterprise where they agree to keep their encounter with Zefram and the Companion a secret.

If you've gotten this far loyal blog reader (which I still believe is no one), you are probably wondering what makes this episode so special. There are no Romulans, no exploding space ships, no expendable crew members (i.e. red shirts), no alternate universes, no Borg, no broken dilithium crystals, no malfunctioning warp drives, not even one tribble. In fact, a majority of the scenes occur within Zefram's house. I would argue that it's the strength of the story that carries this one. A sad tragic love story! It's heartbreaking to see Zefram reject the Companion's love because he finds the idea of an inter species relationship disgusting. It's very much like someone rejecting interracial love. And yet it's touching that the Companion has loved him regardless of his ignorance as to their true nature. I guess that's the nature of true love. You can't help whom you love, regardless of whether they love you back. Yes it's a little forced, but Nancy's soliloquy about never experiencing love tugs at your heart a too. She deeply yearns to experience love. Who hasn't? And while admittedly cliche, one can't help but lament the Companion's choice to sacrifice the nature of what it is so that it can experience human love even if at the time it's uncertain of whether it will be loved in return. If there is an uplifting element it's that the Companion's sacrifice was not entirely in vein. By submitting it's life it has saved Nancy's. She and the Companion are one but both seem to be better off for it. Additionally, Zefram's belated recognition of his love for the Companion and his decision to remain with her redeems us all. He has overcome his prejudice (though it helps that the Companion now is a hot brunette, I will let that one slide). Overall, the entire episode has a tenderness to it which is generally not seen in main stream science fiction these days. Even Kirk's imploring monologue to the Companion about the nature of love is moving. We all can become blinded by love. The Companion never realized that it's love was actually smothering the man. It had to be convinced to set him free and in the end he came back to her. Super cheesy I know but sometimes I am a sucker for these things. Don't tell anyone.

If I have piqued your interest, you can watch the whole episode (for free) here.

A few weekends ago Ayesha and I flew to Florida for her cousin's wedding. This meant taking a red-eye Thursday night from Los Angeles, arriving in Miami at 5:30 in the morning, renting a car and then driving an hour and a half in the dark to Marco Island (located near Naples on the Gulf side). The trip marked my second "real" visit to Florida (I went to Orlando when I was nine or ten to see Disney World but that was pretty lame so I am not counting it). The many things we did over the four days included:

lounging on the beach,

playing some golf,

and, of course, dancing with some sweaty Pakis!

I have lived in Southern California for most of my life (Palm Springs and Los Angeles) and have had stints in the North East at several boarding schools (one in Deerfield, MA and the other in Exeter, NH) and in New York City when I attended NYU. I won't deny that Los Angeles or New York are normal. Los Angeles is fiercely divided geographically along socioeconomic grounds and its celebrity culture can be horribly wacko (basically watch any show on the Bravo Network these days to get an idea of how wildly insipid most of those people are). New York also has very strong class distinctions, but at least on the island it's not so geographic (if you live below the park I guess), an obnoxious Wall Street culture (which does not appeal to many these days) and, if you include the surrounding boroughs, is home to that most irksome creature known as the guido (see explanation here). But South Florida seems to take the cake in my book for being just plain weird. It is probably only supplanted in terms of creepiness by the Panhandle.

While Miami Beach has beautifully restored art deco hotels and shops lining Ocean Drive and most of South Florida's coasts have modern and expensive homes and condominium buildings, one only need venture a few miles inland to see that most of South Florida is a dump. It's the only place I've been where I can visit the dog track within minutes of leaving the airport. My wife's dad used to bet on dog races, in Ghana, in the 1960s! If it takes millions to own and race a horse, what does it take to own and race a greyhound? I am guessing a kennel carrier and a case of Alpo. To be fair, there is a race track located near the airport as well (so at least you have options).

Around Miami, there appears to be no concept of zoning regulations. I witnessed a rundown apartment building, next to a cement factory, next to a McDonald's. The only other place I have seen that is where my grandparents live, in India. The dog track, while not only being near the airport, is surrounded by houses on three sides and a Kmart (shocker) on the fourth. It's also bizarre to see all those canals. Some of them divide major roads, those big 4 lane ones, while some meander through various residential developments. The water is murky green and totally crawling with alligators. Some canals have sidewalks just so the alligators can poach unsuspecting joggers. They are also a great place to cultivate mosquitoes, if you are into that sort of thing.

Also, everything seems to be in a grid, hundreds of square miles of roads in a grid. It feels like you are stuck in Tron (fuck you Master Control). The only roads that have curves are the expressways and those on the coast (I am guessing because the coast curves, but they'd make it straight if they could). Our drive from Miami to Naples on Route 41 was so straight it had only two major curves, both heavily marked with signs and arrows in case you didn't see them. And our drive back on the 75, the Everglades Parkway, basically had none. Almost 80 miles of straight driving. The Parkway was also fenced on both sides with chain link for the entire 80 miles! Can you imagine putting up an 80 mile chain link fence in the middle of the everglades. That's one way to keep the alligators out or the humans in, depending on your perspective.

Let me also point out that the roads are enormous. Many around Miami and Naples were three to four lanes in each direction. That's more lanes than many freeways have in parts of Southern California. And yet with all those lanes I was constantly prevented from reaching my desired destination in any reasonable amount time. This was due to all the frightfully slow drivers. Imagine a Mexican roadblock 4 lanes deep. If was only after I noticed that I was always stuck behind either a Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Grand Marquis (as they say, "it's in a class by itself") or Buick Park Avenue that I remembered that Florida has lots of old people. Someone once told me that it's where Jews go to die. I didn't see any synagogues so I can't confirm that.

One thing that is clear (I saw this in Miami, Naples and Marco Island) is that Florida has lots and lots of land. When they need more, they just take some from the swamp (in Naples we saw 30-40 story condo buildings literally in the middle of nowhere surrounded by swamp, we learned the builder has gone bankrupt). And since there is so much land, everything is very spread out. In these post recession times, it's no surprise that Florida land prices are sinking faster than its abandoned yachts, there is simply so much supply. Speaking of recession, we saw numerous strip malls (it seems there are more around southern Florida than in southern California) that were almost totally empty. The only thing that was hopping was the Cracker Barrel (I reserve that description for another post).

To sum it up, South Florida is very big. It's full of old people who drive painfully slowly. It takes forever to get to where you want to go since you will probably be driving behind an old person. You won't need a high performance car since most of the roads are straight and you won't be driving very fast. Don't go near the canals because an alligator will eat you. And please don't buy any land as it won't be worth anything. Not even if it's in Glengarry Highlands and Ricky Roma is doing the selling.

As it turns out, I guess I am too lazy to blog every day. Maybe it's because I am such a busy guy. Anyway, I am sure all my readers are dying to know what I have been doing between my last post and this one.

Well, the Friday before last I had two auditions for the U.S. Census. Very glamorous. When I realized that one was on Cotner in West LA and the other was near Santa Monica Blvd. and Vine and I had only 45 minutes between the two, I decided to ditch the lower paying one in Hollywood and go balls to the wall with the one on Cotner.

If I may be permitted to go on a wild terrible tangent, I have been nothing but amused with my decision to audition as a male model for print and commercial jobs. I have probably gone to more than 20 auditions. They have been located all over this sprawling mess of a town and a few have even been in the valley (like Howard Stern, I have a small penis so don't get any ideas about the valley, ask my wife, except she doesn't even read this thing). Usually the audition spaces are cramped and random and located in places you would never expect them to be. For example, one space, where I auditioned for a German magazine (956 for lovers, and I must break you [Drago]), was a small craftsman style house in Hancock Park. Another, for a T-mobile add where they made me remove my shoes and took pictures of my feet (I promptly got my one and only pedicure afterwards), was above the Hooters in Santa Monica. And another, an audition for a Hyundai commercial (the only one that I have really wanted since I would have been suspended by wires 50 feet in the air), was in an office building in Korea Town. I have also learned that there are large audition spaces (warehouses really) which have multiple audition rooms so that several different and unrelated casting directors and producers can operate simultaneously. These are also in nondescript locations. There is one on Beverly just west of Robertson and another on La Brea above Petco. Y0u can get idea of the types of auditions taking place at these large spaces by looking at the disparate groups of people waiting to be auditioned. For example, at one of these large spaces where I auditioned for an Audi commercial (I had to sit at a pretend table and drink pretend coffee and pretend that an Audi drove past me that was so breath taking that I literally could not breathe, I just sat there pretending not to breathe [secret: I was breathing]) there were many swarthy men from the middle east and the sub continent in one section of the waiting area, six foot tall size zero blond girls in pumps and wedding gowns in another (maybe a wedding reality show about tall Aryan whores??) and a gaggle of children ranging from five to eight years old in soccer uniforms screaming, picking their noses and complaining about being hungry while their parents combed cow-licks and scowled at the other parents. As you can imagine I tried to sit as close as possible to the amazonian blonds (whores) since the swarthy dudes smelled, well, swarthy, and the children had a vague scent of feces.

As for the auditions themselves, some are what they affectionately call in the industry, "cattle calls." You get there, sign in, wait until someone feels like getting off their ass, and then they call you in, tell you to stand at a predetermined mark and hold a number written in Sharpie or Magic Marker on a piece of paper, take a frontal shot, two profiles and then they shove you out the door (and kick you in the butt if they can). It can't take more than five minutes. I estimate that if they hold auditions like that for several days, using this method, they must see hundreds if not thousands of people. You can actually hear the moos in the waiting room. Sometimes they have hay to tide you over. If it's going to be more than a cattle call, you may be asked to remove your shoes (see above) and sit on a couch with a telephone (T-Mobile), drink beer in the woods with your vampire buddies (HBO - True Blood), drive a car through hyperspace (Japanese car commercial), hit the sweetest drive of your fucking life (Cobra), change the score of a cricket match (Intel [the only one I have landed so far]), cheat at Blackjack (Ace of Spades, whatever that was), comment on the engineering specs of a new car hopefully while suspended 50 feet in the air (Hyundai) or snap into a Slim Jim like Randy "Macho man" Savage (I made that last one up, nobody can crank up the excitement more than the Macho man).

So, the U.S. Census audition. Apparently, the U.S. government is concerned that minorities will avoid welcoming fresh faced white college kids into their home to ask about immigration status, cleanliness habits and the abundance of children on the premises. To combat this, the government has devised a print and television campaign to run in minority magazines and television stations that feature people of the same minority as the intended audience of the magazine or TV station joyously carousing with census workers and/or proudly mailing in their census information. Thus the audition (the one on Cotner) was, as you can guess, full of Indian people (it's easy to tell which ones are the FOBs by the way, they usually smell like curry).

Permit me to go on another tangent, this time about parking for auditions. Audition locations never have parking for those that they actually want to audition. If there is parking, it is expressly noted that it is not for people who are there to audition. And there seems to be some kind of inverse relationship between the size of the location and the severity of punishment for parking in what looks like the numerous spots designated for parking there. This means that one is usually relegated to street parking. And since everyone and their mother (and their mother's mother) is there to audition and at the same time, there is never any parking. One time it took me 45 minutes to find parking (I looked like a wild hyena by the time I walked into the audition) and another I parked in the driveway of someone's house and just hoped they wouldn't come home before the audition was over (but who doesn't want a Porsche in their driveway?). I suspect the no parking on the premises thing is just another power play by casting directors. Since it's verboten these days to fuck out your dignity on the couch they'll try to fuck you out of it by denying you a parking spot :)

Anyway, after having to troll up and down Cotner for 25 minutes before settling with parking in a yellow loading zone, and after having to wait what felt like an absurdly long time with spicy/curry smelling Indian dudes (it rubbed off on me), the casting director ushered me into the audition room. I was there to play "groom." Unfortunately, after seeing me, the casting director explained that I should audition for the role of father. When I expressed my concern, she stated that it would be better if I play father (and she added that father paid more). It was in that moment that I realized that I am old (in the sense of what I thought an old person looked like when I was 18, which is someone above 30). Father is certainly not groom but father does pay more, does that make it okay? And what was father supposed to do, I asked? Well, she said, father is supposed to help his little girl mail the census information by putting it into the mail box which is too high for her to reach. Groom probably got to make out with the three non-hairy girls waiting outside while father probably has to hold hands and hug the hairy ones and then pick the hair out of his teeth. It should also be noted that there was no actual little girl, no actual mail box and no actual census information to be mailed. Once again, I had to pretend. Thus, after a demonstration by the casting director, it was my turn. When she yelled action, I looked into the wrong camera, then too high above the correct one, lifted up my "girl" in such a fashion that "she" must have been a three pound Keebler elf (rather than a 25 pound child), made "her" put the envelope in a mail box probably made for Andre the Giant (may he rest in peace) since I lifted "her" above my head, and then praised "her" for doing a good job, just like I do with Elke (the Schnauzer) when she takes a dump on someone else's lawn i.e. good girl, good job, good Schnauzer (pretty sure I added Schnauzer by accident). Needlessly to say, it's been two weeks and I have not received a call back. And it shot last week.

Other than that I think Ayesha and I went out to dinner that night from some good sushi. Saturday we hit the SC game with big Jay Mahapatra and A. Dugdale but not before Ayesha and I played a mean round of golf at Penmar. Sunday I can't remember and then Monday we saw Blitzen Trapper. I will skip Tuesday and Wednesday and save Thursday through Sunday for my next post about a wedding in Florida (think Pakis, white trash, and lots of Jim Beam).