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February, 2001, LOS ANGELES - I continue to be captivated by the popularity and the longevity of the Star Trek phenomenon. It remains a pervasive factor in my life, whether professionally, personally or in my public service activities. And this gift has serendipitously expanded my horizon and enriched my life.
A direct professional tie-in can be viewed on February 18th when an episode of "V.I.P." starring Pamela Anderson is aired on the Fox network. I play the voice of an omniscient super computer that was programmed by a brilliant techno-genius who is a fervent Captain Sulu fan. Hence, my casting as the voice of the computer.
The Star Trek conventions, of course, keep on trekking. My first convention of this year was in the charming city of Portland, Oregon. It was a lively gathering on a cold, damp weekend. Long-time fans mingled with a growing number of young, first-time conventioneers. And, as well, the con gave me the chance to indulge my preservationist interest and again explore the imaginatively restored turn-of-the-century historic district of Portland.
I did voice work last week on a feature film project, cryptically titled, "Noon Blue Apple." I play a mysterious voice that haunts the mind of the lead character. No direct Star Trek connection here other than the fact that the director knew of my work from the original series.
But Star Trek has also afforded me the opportunity to contribute more effectively in a myriad of other areas not related to my professional career. This month, I was honored to serve as the star of a fund-raising dinner to help build a planetarium on the campus of Long Beach City College. With this facility, young students will be able to expand their study of the heavens and let their imaginations soar to the stars. Clearly, without the Star Trek association, I would not have been able to support this important cause as effectively as I was able.
On another occasion this month, I addressed a group of young interns at the Japanese American National Museum on volunteerism. Here again, I was able to connect with them more successfully as Captain Sulu of Star Trek than as the Chairman of the Board of the Museum.
We have a mayoral election coming up this spring in the city of Los Angeles, my hometown. I am supporting the former Speaker of the California Assembly, Antonio Villaraigosa. I know that I was asked to speak at his press conference largely because of the draw of my Star Trek linkage. As well, when I spoke at the Japanese seniors' intermediate care facility, Keiro Services, Star Trek combined with my association with the Japanese American National Museum, were the factors that attracted the large audience of seniors. I chatted with one lady who was 104 years old. She was born in 1896 - having lived in three centuries! In so many unexpected ways, my association with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's visionary creation has opened doors that have expanded my life horizon.
But when any hint of self-importance might begin to creep into me and I start believing that my Star Trek association is free entrée to anything, a humbling reminder always seems to bring me back to reality.
This month, my niece, Akemi Takei, sportscaster for KING-TV in Seattle, got married to David Louchheim, a radio sportscaster, on a beautiful beach in Maui, Hawaii. It was a singularly romantic affair, the bride and groom barefoot, with waves crashing in on lava rock outcroppings behind them. The reception was held at a hilltop restaurant overlooking the Wailea Country Club and the turquoise blue Pacific beyond. As we sipped cocktails, nibbled hors d'oeuvres and waited for the sun to set, I slowly became aware of a generational divide. The parents of my niece and David's friends were thrilled to meet me. They were eager to have their pictures taken with me. They told me they were long-time Star Trek fans from back in their college days. The young people, however -- Akemi and David's friends -- were gracious and friendly but rather blasé. In fact, some weren't really that familiar with Star Trek. They, I realized, were the post-Star Trek generation. The passage of time brings with it the larger context of life.
I was forcefully reminded again of the larger context of life on a hike into the crater of the now-dormant volcano, Haleakala on Maui. The crater is vast. And it is heart-stoppingly beautiful. There is a narrow, lava gravel trail that leads down to the bottom. It was irresistible. I had to go down into it. As I tramped down the sere landscape, rich with the burnt colors of inert lava, I imagined what this scene must have been like millennia ago. It was, we were told by a ranger, an inferno of blasting, bubbling, molten red lava. For centuries it spewed up flaming magma from the belly of the earth forming the island of Maui. This place was a hellhole of exploding liquid fire. But now, it was dead calm. Only this scorched and arid crater of unearthly colors remains.As I huffed and puffed my way back up to the volcano's rim - 10,000-feet above sea level -- I thought of the ardent excitement of the middle-aged Star Trek fans of the evening before, and, in contrast, the nonchalant affability of their children. Intense fire and cool, youthful calm. There didn't seem to be that much difference between the human generations and geologic time.
March, 2004, NEW YORK CITY - To a theater lover, New York is the proverbial candy store of a delighted child. The happy dilemma is "what to see and what show has seats available." February is usually a slow month for Broadway theaters so the chances are good. And, for the child I always seem to become when I'm in New York, my luck was with me. I was able to get great seats for some wonderful shows - two musicals and two dramas.
"Fiddler on the Roof" is a musical I saw ages ago starring the great Zero Mostel. It was an unforgettable performance in a transportingly moving production. The revival of "Fiddler," this time starring Alfred Molina as Tevye, was wonderful. The music, especially, "Sunrise, Sunset," was as moving as I had always remembered it. The choreography by Jerome Robbins was as lively a copy of the original as I had seen. It did not, however, replace my still glowing memory of the first production. The key is the central performance - the role of Tevye. Zero Mostel's was both bigger than life and, at the same time, so achingly human. You truly believed that he had conversations with God. Mostel's Tevye had that rare quality called soul. Alfred Molina turned in a fine performance in the current revival, but the ghost of Zero Mostel's Tevye always seemed to be hovering over him.
The other musical I caught was "The Boy from Oz" about the life, the music, and the struggles of the flamboyantly gay Australian musical performer, Peter Allen. This, unlike the revival of "Fiddler," was a production where the star was the whole show. Hugh Jackman as Peter Allen was a dazzling dynamo that compelled audience attention and commanded center stage. He sang, he danced, and he was Peter Allen. What a brilliant theater talent he is! He was so completely the glitzy Peter Allen that it was hard to ever imagine him as Wolverine in the movie "X-Men." Yet, he was! Stunningly so! Reading the program bio, I learned that he had also won Britain's Olivier award playing the quintessential American cowboy, Curley, in Britain's National Theater production of "Oklahoma" in London as well as Australia's top theater award as Joe Gillis in the Australian production of "Sunset Boulevard." "The Boy from Oz" is a musical that belongs to Hugh Jackman as much as "Fiddler on the Roof" still belongs to Zero Mostel.
All the plays I saw this trip were ones in which the actors made the show. The actors were the reason for the play's success. And the most luminous performance of all was that by an artist named Jefferson Mays. He was the entire cast in a one-man drama titled, "I Am My Own Wife" about the harrowing life of a transvestite during the years of Nazi domination of Germany. It was a virtuoso performance that combined voice, movement, and body with dramatic imagination. Mays became the very embodiment of a man living in a woman's body with dignity, resilience, and the wit of a survivor. He made a complex and unusual character touchingly human and, indeed, inspiring. Jefferson Mays' performance was a consummate demonstration of the actor's craft.
The final play I saw was one of my favorites and a classic of American theater, Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." On the marquee was an all-star cast, Ashley Judd, Jason Patrick, and Ned Beatty as Big Daddy. Two performers shone in this starry production - Jason Patrick and Ned Beatty. Tennessee Williams' plays always contrast opposites: the strong and the weak, the sensitive and the brutal, the beautiful and the vile.
Jason Patrick as Brick, the ex-football hero now a deeply troubled and perhaps homosexual husband of a desperate wife and Ned Beatty as his coarse, powerful, and determined father are the opposites here. One is the sensitive soul and the other is the brute. Yet, both Patrick and Beatty suggest the complexities in their characters. Patrick's Brick has a tensile core of strength and Beatty's Big Daddy reveals his hidden dread of mortality. Theirs were richly textured, deeply felt performances that should be candidates for Tony award consideration in a few months. It was disappointing that Ashley Judd couldn't rise to the level set by her two fine colleagues. Nevertheless, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" was a production that had me on my feet shouting "bravo, bravo, bravo," as the actors took their curtain call. Broadway can be proud to have this American classic back on the boards.
I left New York exhilarated. "The play's the thing," Shakespeare wrote. But it is still brilliant actors that make the play.
February, 2004, LOS ANGELES - More persuasively than almost any medium, movies bind us as a global community. Words can connect or divide us with ideas. Pictures can touch or repel us with images. The best movies, however, bond us as members of the human race - regardless of language, race or culture - with images and sounds that embrace us with the understanding that comes from the heart. An astonishing film, "Osama," that comes from the most unexpected place on earth, Afghanistan, is such a film. It is shocking, exotic, brutal, and powerfully moving.
"Osama" is about the condition of women in Afghanistan during the time of the despotic rule of the Taliban. The central character is a young teen-aged girl from a family without men. Her father was killed in the war with the Soviets. Her mother, a doctor, cannot work because she must have a male family member to accompany her wherever she goes. And she has an aged grandmother. It is a family of women - all of whom cannot work simply because of a decree by the Taliban. Under the Taliban, women have to live with their entire body covered from head to toe in a tent-like shroud. They have no visible place in society, no rights, no existence.
In a desperate effort to provide for her family, the teen-aged girl cuts off her hair, disguises herself as a boy, and gets a job at a milk-seller's stand on a busy thoroughfare. With this daring act, her harrowing struggle to stay alive masquerading as a boy begins. The suspicious eyes of the Taliban guards are everywhere. The smallest feminine gesture, a slip of the tongue, the slightest mistake, could expose her. The horrors she endures are both chilling and blood boiling. The suspense is agonizing. The film makes the appallingly cruel and unbelievable world of the Taliban forcefully convincing. The actors are all compellingly authentic.
The camera work captures the arid and menacing setting brilliantly. "Osama" is a violent, heartbreaking, and ultimately profoundly affecting film.
This, as a foreign language film with English subtitles, will probably not get wide distribution. But for a transporting film experience, to better understand the world we live in, and to be truly touched by the human condition, "Osama" is a film well worth traveling even to a nearby city where it might be playing to see.
January, 2004, LOS ANGELES - Happy 2004! Despite the elevated terrorism alert, America managed to carry on with spirit and energy through the New Year holiday. Hundreds of thousands continued gathering at Times Square in New York as they always did, whoopee on the Strip in Las Vegas as they had before, lined Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California, as they had for the last 115 years to watch the annual Rose Parade, and millions more celebrated the holidays with friends and family throughout the nation. We were careful and prudent but not daunted by the madness of fanatics.
The year 2003 ended for me with a joyful cruise around the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curacao, St. Maartens, and St. Thomas. Seatrek, a cruise with Star Trek fans, organized by Carroll Paige and hard-working Joe Motes, was our defiant thumb in the nose at the terrorists. What a glorious way it was to spend December. Bobbing around a sun-sparkled sea with fans that have become friends over the many years of Star Trek fan gatherings - cruises, conventions, and not just a few serendipitous crossing of paths was a great way to wrap up the year.
I love traveling to places I've never been before. All of the islands on our itinerary were firsts for me. Apart from the shared fun of the cruise, I learn so much about the world we live in on these trips. On Aruba, we went on a tour to, of all places, an aloe skin lotion factory. It was fascinating to see how the lotion was made. It is freshly processed at the site of the aloe fields, then bottled and sold right there. The cactus-like aloe plant, from which the lotion is derived, was brought to the island about seventy years ago when they discovered that it had powerful skin moisturizing and healing properties. The growing and production of a skin lotion was a good industry for the island. There was, however, a second agenda to bringing the aloe plant to Aruba. It was a time of worldwide depression. There was high unemployment on the island. The cultivation of aloe and the production of the lotion would create hundreds of new jobs for the islanders while raising, at the same time, the economy of the island. This creative political and economic leadership of Aruba impressed me. I felt good about buying an ample supply of the aloe lotion - and righteous to boot.
Curacao was impressive in a different way. I'm a historic preservationist. Significant old buildings teach us so much of the history of the place. We learn much about the culture, government and spirit of the people from historic structures. How well the built heritage of a community is preserved speaks volumes for its pride. I found Curacao to be a vibrantly proud island indeed. Curacao's colorful old, Dutch colonial buildings were stylishly restored and adapted to new uses as shops, restaurants, and museums. The great, stony fort that guarded the entrance to the harbor had been converted into a lively shopping bazaar with whimsical shops and fun restaurants. Old mansions had been transformed into elegant boutique hotels. On Curacao, I found as well, historic preservation of a very different kind. We explored a primordial cave of stalactites and stalagmites - icicle-like formations created by particles in mineral rich water dripping through the ages. These ancient forms seemed like fantastical works of modern art by Mother Nature. The cave had once served as a hideout for runaway slaves from the sugar plantations during colonial times. Slavery was abolished in the Dutch colonies in 1863 - the same year that President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in the U.S. Half a day on Curacao just was not enough. There is so much that is intriguing about this island. I will definitely have to return to Curacao, an island with a richly preserved history.
The island of St Maartens has a dual colonial heritage - French and Dutch. There is a border running smack through the island separating the two parts. Yet, despite this division by virtue of its colonial past, the islanders have lived in harmony throughout its history. There are few cultural distinctions. However, we were told that the French side has nude beaches. The Dutch side does not. A few from our ship did spend some time at those beaches on the French side and later were complaining about sunburns in places where the sun had never shone before.
St. Thomas was our last island on the cruise - and a singular discovery. Here, I made - completely by chance - a great find. I was roaming around the busy main shopping district when I found a charming passageway between two ancient buildings. I walked through and found a small courtyard with a series of stairs leading up. My curiosity led me up. The second level had an even smaller open balcony with another set of stairs leading up. I followed it up to find an inviting art gallery at the very top. It was filled with works by local island artists. In chatting with the gallery director, I learned that I had stumbled onto a major historic landmark - the birthplace of the master of impressionist art, Camille Pissarro. Indeed, the gallery was named the Camille Pissarro Gallery. Pissarro was born and raised in this very building and his family had continued to live there after he left for France to become the father of impressionism.
By happy accident, my nosiness had led me to a wonderful historic discovery. I looked out the windows of the gallery. Each view seemed to have been composed by an artist - the planes of the rooftops, the aged tiles of the balcony below, and, most of all, the voluptuously luminous Caribbean clouds in the sky. It was no wonder that someone born there would become a pioneering artist. To commemorate the happy occasion, I bought a beautiful print of an island scene by a local artist named John Chinery. It will always remind me of my serendipitous discovery of the birthplace of Camille Pissaro.
The days at sea were times for socializing and enjoying the ship's many amenities. A feature on this ship that I had not seen before on any other cruise ship was a rock-climbing wall. It is a sheer wall the height of a two-story building studded with protrusions and nicks and crannies - sort of like a cliff decorated with odd shaped Christmas tree ornaments. When I was a student at U.C. Berkeley many decades ago, I used to do a little rock climbing. As a matter of fact, I was pretty good at it. So, I studied the wall and strategized. It didn't look too difficult to do. I decided to take a crack at that wall. I got into the helmet and had the attendant strap on my harness as I mentally plotted out the path of my climb. It'll be a piece of cake, I thought.
But, as I started to climb, I realized that the footings weren't as easy to stay on as I had figured. The grabbings weren't as easy to reach as it looked. With raw determination, I struggled on up. I pulled and I reached and I huffed and I puffed as my muscles began to tremble. Two thirds of the way up, I realized I was not a college student anymore. Gratefully and very humbled, I had the harness lower me down. But, I still did make it up two thirds of the way!
A memory of the cruise that still glows is the sunset catamaran cruise when we were at Aruba. It was all Star Trek fans on board. There were Casey and Aileen, Jack, Chuck, Ann, Donna, Paige, Sallie, Sondra and a whole crew of fun loving trekkers. The clouds on the horizon glowed like luminescent cotton candy - all pink and delicate with a softly shining halo around it. The bartender created a special Caribbean drink - a mixture of blue curacao, orange juice, vodka and something else. The mixture magically turned a Vulcan blood green and it was delicious. Soon, I was glowing like the now pale pink sunset. We chatted and sipped, laughed and sipped, and danced and sipped as the rhythm of the Caribbean music played on and the sun slowly sank into the darkening romantic sea.
December, 2003, LOS ANGELES -- It was sixty years ago that my family and I came to Arkansas. My father had told me that we were going on a "long vacation" to a far away place called Camp Rohwer. Together with some eight thousand other Japanese Americans, we arrived at a barbed wire enclosed campground of black tarpaper barracks. Soldiers with guns watched over us from high guard towers. Outside the barbed wire fence, thick, wooded swampland surrounded us. All we had was the luggage we carried. President Roosevelt had signed an executive order imprisoning Japanese Americans in 10 camps like this one simply because we happened to look like the enemy.
I had never gone back to Rohwer since we left. This was my first trip back to a place about which I actually have fond boyhood memories mingled with my understanding of the break down of American democracy under the stress of war. I remember the fun of catching pollywogs in the ditch and watching them turn into frogs. I also understand now the tears I saw well up so often in my mother's eyes at the sight of the barbed wire fence that symbolized her loss and confinement. I remember the joy of that wondrous winter morning when we woke up to find everything covered in white - my discovery of the magic of snow that first winter in Arkansas. And I cherish now so much more deeply my father's resilience, energy, and dignity under conditions of groundless injustice. I returned to Rohwer resolved that America must not forget the lessons of its history. I was coming back as the Chairman of the Japanese American National Museum working with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to plan a series of exhibits next year on the internment camp history of Arkansas. I was returning to the place of my childhood memories to build a better future for our democracy.
The Rohwer that I came back to, however, was not that of my memory. It was utterly changed. The swamp that I remembered had been drained completely. The trees of the dense forest that surrounded us had all been chopped down. Rohwer today was mile after mile of open farmland. The only reminder that there had once been an internment camp was the cemetery - the rows of markers of those who had died in imprisonment. The most prominent of the markers was a tall, crumbling concrete monument to the Japanese American young men who left the internment camp to fight for this country and had perished in the war. The irony was excruciating. Standing before that soldiers' monument in an American internment camp, sharp, painful tears welled up in my eyes. These incredible young men had fought and died to make my America today possible. I vowed then that the ideals of this nation, the civil liberty for which they so bravely fought, shall not be tarnished - not in my time, when the tensions of war are again challenging those ideals.
Funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Japanese American National Museum are planning a series of major events in Little Rock to coincide with the opening of our exhibits there in September 2004. One of them will be a bus trip back to Camp Rohwer. I will be there again. I hope many of you that live in the South - or, for that matter, anyone interested - might join us for that journey.
The much-vaunted southern hospitality certainly more than lived up to the legend while I was in Little Rock. I still savor the warmth and graciousness extended to me by so many people of Little Rock while I was there. A special treat was a hardhat tour of the construction of the President William Jefferson Clinton Library conducted by its President and CEO, Skip Rutherford. I was flattered to learn from him that a copy of "To The Stars," my autobiography that I'd sent to the White House because of our mutual Arkansas boyhoods, was to be a part of the preview exhibit of the Clinton Library. I will certainly look forward to the opening of the President Bill Clinton Library in November 2004.
Two days after returning from Arkansas, I was before the camera playing a Japanese priest in two installments of the CBS soap opera, "The Young and The Restless." Neil and Drucilla of the series run off to Japan to get married. The character I play, Rev. Tanaka, officiates at their wedding. It reminded me of Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett's marriage in Japan. Gene and Majel were married in a full Shinto ceremony elegantly dressed in formal wedding kimono. In "The Young and The Restless," however, I was the only one in formal Japanese attire. When the dresser came into my dressing room to dress me properly, I understood why the other actors were not similarly dressed. There were layer upon layers of under kimono. Each layer of kimono had to be worn in a specific way and tied with a certain kind of knot. Not only was it complicated, the process of putting on the kimono was extremely time consuming. But, for me, it was great fun wearing the costume. As I walked about, the layers of silk rustled softly with each movement. I felt elegant and transported in time and culture. It was hard to believe that only a few days before, I had been laughing and joking, enjoying southern fried chicken with Arkansans. The two episodes of "The Young and The Restless" in which I appear will air on December 22 and 23. I hope you'll be able to catch me on the show.
Immediately upon finished the soap opera, I was on a plane again to appear at a Star Trek convention in El Paso, Texas. I was once again back in the south - but the rhythm of the accent this trip had a different sound. That's what I love about regionalisms. They come in such wonderfully varied flavors - drawls, brogues, burrs, and that unmistakable Texan twang. Accents make language so savory.
This convention brought the four of us from the show, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, Jimmy Doohan, and me, together again. I hadn't seen Jimmy in ages and it was wonderful to be with him once again. He had lost a lot of weight since his illness and had slowed down considerably but that bullheaded spirit of his was unchanged. The El Paso convention is one that we will all fondly remember seeing lovably irascible Jimmy back in action. It's hard to believe but Christmas decorations are starting to appear everywhere. December is already upon us. So, as we all start making lists and preparing holiday greeting cards, I extend to all of you, my heartiest holiday cheers. May the New Year bring us all health, wealth, and peace.