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August, 2000, SEATTLE - Have you ever seen music? I mean seen with your eyes the lunging energy of rock? Or the wail of blues? Or the joyful syncopation of ragtime? Have you ever seen music actually take on visual shape and architectural form? I have. I saw music transformed into wild, swoopy, fantastical shapes and spaces at the Experience Music Project, the new rock music museum in Seattle, Washington. The building is music as architecture and an architecture that becomes singularly musical.
Because the trustees of the Japanese American National Museum come from across the nation, we move our board meetings around the country. This quarter, the meeting moved to Seattle. So, while we were in town, we had the opportunity to visit, alas, only too briefly, the museum that is the sensation of Seattle and of the museum world.
Situated right next to the landmark Space Needle and a children's play land, with an elevated people mover system gliding right through it, the Experience Music Project is a structure that seems to have swelled up organically around its fanciful setting. It is an architectural crescendo of bright colors, wild forms and pulsating rhythms. Frank Gehry, the architect of the much-lauded Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, is the master-builder whose imagination produced this fantastical composition in ripples, swoons and hard rock riffs.
The inner workings of this singular structure are as futuristic as its architecture, dare I say, as high tech as the starship Enterprise. Everything runs on fiber optic sensitivity. On entering, I was fitted with what can only be called a Star Fleet tricorder, a set of earphones and handed a device like a TV remote control. You point the remote to a number on an exhibit and you hear either music or narrative. For me, all this advanced technology became simply a nostalgic transporter that took me back in time to my teen-age days of Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, and, later, the Beatles and Ramsey Lewis. Cutting edge technology was my vehicle for a sentimental journey back to music that defined a time, a mood and sentiments that no longer exist today.
Another part of the museum, however, is hands on immediacy. I became the drummer in a virtual rock band performing in a huge virtual concert hall.
Members of my band were made up of -- would you believe -- the trustees of the Japanese American National Museum! Our lead singer was Dr. Margaret Oda, a professor of education and an elegant lady. The virtual curtain parted to the deafening roar of a raucously expectant rock crowd. The music started and it was as deafening as the cheering from the virtual audience. I began drumming away wildly. Dr. Oda wailed out "wild thing�" like a rock legend. In the frenzy of my drumming, I lost my grip and my drumstick went flying off into the darkness. Dr. Oda continued wailing "wild thing." The music came down to a crashing crescendo. The sound of the wildly cheering crowd turned riotous. And the virtual curtain came down. Our concert was over. As we stepped out of the chamber, we were each handed a copy of the poster of our rock band taken as we were performing. It was rockin' good fun. The Board of Trustees meeting that followed seemed more energized than usual.
After our two-day board meeting, on my way back to Los Angeles, I stopped off in Portland, Oregon, for another wonderful event. It touched on three concerns that are important to me -- historic preservation, medical research and, inevitably, Star Trek.
The Friends of the Parkinson's Center of Oregon is an organization dedicated to research in finding a preventative and cure for Parkinson's disease. The organization's mission is to find creative ways to raise funds to support this important research. They knew the combination of baits to attract me. They combined their efforts with another dedicated group known as the Oregon Film and Video Foundation. This group of passionate people is committed to the revitalization of an historic movie palace. Built in 1925, the Hollywood Theater has a richly Byzantine exterior with an ornate rococo tower. In 1983, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. With so many of these unique palaces of entertainment having been lost throughout the nation, the Oregon Film and Video Foundation's effort to restore and bring new life to this beautiful movie house was something not only to be applauded but actively supported.
For the combined fund-raiser, the two organizations had decided to screen my favorite Star Trek movie, "Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country." It was an irresistible package. And the evening turned out to be an enchanting success. Yes, it was a kind of Star Trek convention. The Klingon nation, as well as the Federation, was well represented. There were the expected photo ops. There was the usual and unending autograph line. I signed until past 11:30 p.m. But this was a different kind of Star Trek convention. The proceeds went to support the revitalization of a beautiful historic legacy and the fueling of research to cure a dreaded disease. May the good spirit of philanthropy live long and prosper in Portland, Oregon.
March, 2006 It is hard to believe, but in September 2006, Star Trek will be 40 years old. Most of the fans of the show are younger than Star Trek. In fact, many were born after we were cancelled in 1969. That was the year that Astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. I remember thinking we, the actors who played the characters on Star Trek, were "beaming down" onto planets three years before that. Armstrong's moon landing looked so bulky and old fashioned. We were so much more futuristic. On Star Trek, we talked to each other on our "communicators" as we walked around the corridors of our Starship Enterprise. That was amazing science fiction - then. Now, it is a commonplace reality. We talk on our cell phones as we walk down the sidewalk. What was once eye-opening science fiction has now become reality. Today, Blackberry isn't just a fruit; Spam isn't just canned pork; I-pod isn't the husk of some exotic vegetation. They are just a part of the vocabulary of our everyday techno-world. Increasingly, the 23rd century envisioned by the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, is becoming the recognizable society of our times. So much has happened to change the world since that September night in 1966 when Star Trek, with its shiningly optimistic view of the future, made its debut on our television screens. America was so different forty years ago.
I remember the horror of a fiery night in August when the south central area of my hometown exploded in angry rioting. Years of racial injustice and despair suffered by African Americans ignited the southern skies of my beloved Los Angeles in black smoke and enraged flames. While the fires of race riots were breaking out in many other major American cities across our country, internationally we were frozen in the coldest of cold wars with another great world power, the Soviet Union. We lived in fear of a red button being pressed by either the President of the United States or the Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that could end civilization as we knew it. It was to that society of racial strife and global tension that Star Trek brought an idealistic picture of a starship in space with a crew made up of the many peoples of the known universe working as a team, "boldly going where no one had gone before." Of course, that was science fiction - then. Today, we have in fact a craft in space called the International Space Station with a crew made up of people of many races, citizens of many nations and - of all things - Americans and Russians working together in concert. Today, we have an African American woman serving as the Secretary of State of the United States. An African American man preceded her. There are two Asian Americans currently serving as Cabinet Secretaries. These are phenomena hoped for but quite implausible just forty years ago. So much has changed in forty years.
Those changes didn't just happen. They were the results of bold initiatives taken by venturesome people. Whether in the arena of politics, or the research laboratories and test chambers of the sciences, or the marketplace of entrepreneurs, or the streets of our cities by social activists, changes happened because of the energies, ideas, and imagination of dedicated people - optimistic people with a vision of a better society.
There will always be the Klingons, the adversaries of change. There will always be some setbacks. Today, we live with another kind of terror, both domestically and globally. There still is a racial divide in this nation - as we saw so distressingly during the Katrina hurricane disaster. Yet, look how far we have come in forty years - in our lifetime. Optimism, imagination, and hard work trump obstacles and setbacks. We have made amazing progress.
As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Star Trek with a host of conventions throughout the world, I will always be mindful of the fact that we, at the same time, celebrate the genius of the optimistic mind. We celebrate the science fiction world transformed into our very real society today by those visionary minds.
We celebrate the people, the fans, who connected with that positive vision of Gene Roddenberry. In September, on the 8th, the birthday of Star Trek, I will be joining the fans at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle for a big 40th Anniversary Convention. Then, most excitingly, I venture forth on a project I had never imagined in my wildest dreams. I begin filming a new manifestation of Star Trek - this time to be accessed only on the Internet! This miraculous rebirth of Star Trek called, Star Trek: New Voyages, is the brainchild of a venturesome young fan, James Cawley. James is an extraordinarily enterprising fan "boldly going" where no fan had ever gone before. He has already produced two Internet episodes, one with Walter Koenig, who spoke highly to me of his experience on the show. For mine, titled, "World Enough and Time," James Cawley has gathered a remarkable pool of veteran Star Trek talent. The gifted team of Marc Zicree and Michael Reaves are currently busily at work on the script. Marc will also be at the helm as director of the film. Ron B. Moore, a good friend and veteran of "The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager," will be doing the visual effects. In addition, playing the heroic Captain Kirk is the truly heroic James Cawley. He, in fact, personifies the adventurous spirit of Star Trek.
On this propitious fortieth year of Star Trek, we, most of all, celebrate the spirit that looks to the challenges yet to come - that vast unknown with such intriguing mysteries yet to be explored. I look forward to sharing that journey into our common future as we "boldly go where no one has gone before" for many more years.
January, 2006, LOS ANGELES - I am a person of the theater. I love theater, I make my living from theater, and I find fulfillment in theaters - on both sides of the footlights. Theater is my life. Fittingly, the year 2005 was book-ended by theater trips. It began with a trip to snowy New York in January and it ended with a trip to the West End of London in December. Every night and every matinee afternoon, I lived in theaters.
The past year will be forever defined for me by a single theater experience - my eight-month gallop with the East West Players as psychiatrist Martin Dysart in Peter Shaffer's modern classic, "Equus." The role was challenging, the drama was powerful theater, the director was terrific, and the company of actors gathered for this production was uniformly gifted. "Equus" was a profoundly fulfilling creative experience.
To be sure, the year was filled with many memorable experiences. Without doubt, the most talked-about event in my life in 2005 was my "coming out" interview in Frontiers newsmagazine that was covered by news media outlets worldwide.
I shared some of my thoughts about this in my November 2005 blog, and my partner Brad Altman and I will continue to speak out for gay and lesbian equality in 2006 and beyond.
My autobiography, "To the Stars," was published in Japanese translation in 2005. The promotional book tour for it took me through Japan from Tokyo to the ancient capital of Kyoto to the historic city of Hiroshima. Seizing the opportunity, we also took in the World Expo at Aichi. I served as a panelist at a U.S.-Japan Symposium in Tokyo sponsored by the Japan Foundation in conjunction with the Japanese American National Museum. From my service on the Independent Task Force on Television Measurement, which included travels to many of the nation's major cities, I learned a great deal about the dynamically changing demographics of this nation's diverse viewing audience and the many technologies being developed by Nielsen Research to accurately measure its viewing habits. There were trips to Honolulu and Lakeland, Florida, to narrate symphonic concerts - a musical performance arena that seems to be developing for me. Of course, there were Star Trek conventions with fans, now of many decades, gathered to share old memories and new experiences.
I even did a cameo performance as, of all people, General Douglas MacArthur, in a traveling musical from Japan in its southern California run. All the songs, dances, and dialogues were in Japanese - except for those of General MacArthur. His role, very authentically - and conveniently for me - was in English.
My deepest gratification and greatest commitment, however, was to "Equus." From April, when Tim Dang, the artistic director of East West Players, offered me the lead role of Dr. Martin Dysart, until December 4, when the play closed, "Equus" became my all-consuming dedication. I ate, slept, and lived Martin Dysart.
I had first seen the play in a provincial theater in Leicester, England, back in the 70's and I was blown away by it. The drama of a psychiatrist's struggle with a demented youth who had blinded six horses with a hoof pick was, at once, awful and compelling. Muscular men wearing hoof-like lifts and sculptural horse heads played the horses. The metaphors were powerfully theatrical. It was theater in all its elemental and electrifying force. "Equus" was a play that I could not forget. It haunted me long after I saw it.
A few years later, I saw the same play on Broadway in New York with Tony Perkins, and again, in Los Angeles with Anthony Hopkins. Then I saw the film version starring my idol, Richard Burton, who had played the role on Broadway right after Hopkins. Friend and Star Trek colleague, Leonard Nimoy, had followed Burton into that part on Broadway. The role had impressive pedigrees. There were huge shoes to fill. Now I had that opportunity. I was cast to play the psychiatrist, Martin Dysart.
The first challenge was the memorization involved. Dysart is a talker. There were a lot of words with the role - six long monologues, many extended scenes and Dysart is on stage from start to finish. He is a conflicted man who verbalizes on his anguish eloquently and extensively. I began work on the script from the day I accepted the role. I ran lines daily with Brad. No matter where we were in the world - in New York, in Tokyo, in Waikiki, or in Bison Ridge, Arizona - we ran lines. So much so that I joked that he knew the lines so well that he could be my understudy - if he only he could act!
Then, there is the very complex character of Martin Dysart - an accomplished professional but lacking in personal initiative, charming and witty but uneasy with deep relationships, eloquent but emotionally inarticulate, brilliant but profoundly envious of his patient, the demented boy. Dysart is a psychiatrist struggling with many demons.
Rehearsals began on October 20. We gathered in a huge warehouse in the industrial district of downtown Los Angeles. I knew some of the actors from past works; others I was meeting for the first time. First on the agenda was the table read. We felt the thrill and excitement of hearing the words being spoken by actors for the first time. Some of the actors already had a good handle on their roles. It was promising. We had only four weeks before we would be performing before our first preview audience.
The rehearsal process can be the most engaging, most trying, most frustrating, and ultimately the most gratifying part of the process. The director, Tim Dang, challenged us with probing questions. He made us explore areas of our characters we had failed to see. I love this part of the process. It is like sculpting a character with your imagination, your voice, and your body. I would come home exhausted but feeling great. We actors have to love what we are blessed to be able to do. That love, hard work, dedication, and, of course, talented artists delivered a production of "Equus" of which I am proud to have been a part.
East West Players' production of "Equus" opened on October 26 to glowing reviews. Daily Variety called it, "Striking and highly erotic." The Los Angeles Times deemed it, "A compelling revival gripping power." "Equus" was listed as the L.A. Times' Critic's Choice for our entire run. Our production became the fifth highest grossing box office success in the East West Players' forty-year history.
I was blessed to have worked with so many talented actors. Trieu Tran, who played the demented boy driven by his passion to commit the horrific act of blinding horses, is an impressive talent. Jeanne Sakata, the magistrate who is also Dysart's friend and confidant, delivered a nuanced and moving performance. Cheryl Tsai grew throughout rehearsals to create a charming and poignant character as the boy's girlfriend. Alberto Isaac and Dian Kobayashi, as the boy's dysfunctional parents, were at once touching and chilling. And, the six muscular young men who became the very theatrical embodiment of the horses were magnificently equine.
One of the gratifying aspects of the run was the many friends and fans that came from near and far to see me in "Equus." Star Trek fans that have become friends over the years traveled, not only from other states, but also across oceans to see me in the play. Ena Glogowska crossed the Atlantic from Staffordshire, England, and Sachie Kubo and Shingo Mizuno came across the Pacific from Japan to see me. I was so touched to have my Star Trek colleagues come to see my Martin Dysart. The night Nichelle Nichols came, I knew in advance that she was in the house because, when I stepped into my dressing room, an enormous bouquet of flowers from her greeted me. Leonard Nimoy, who had played Dysart on Broadway to great acclaim, came backstage with his wife Susan Bay Nimoy after the performance and embraced me with a hearty congratulatory hug. I asked him, "Well, how'd I do?" Always the gracious diplomat, Leonard smilingly said to me, "You were better." How can you not love a guy with that kind of graceful wit?
When I was cast in April, I thought the October opening of "Equus" seemed so far off. But, opening night galloped up on us before we knew it and soon closing night was approaching. The ride on that horse dashed through the year with amazing energy and speed. The year 2005 is now past. Time is such a precious and fleeting commodity. But, it was spent productively last year. I will always remember 2005 fondly as my year of the horse.
January, 2006 The twists and turns of life can be so unpredictable. The day after New Year's, a phone call suddenly presented an utterly unexpected prospect for me. It was from Gary Dell'Abate, the producer of the Howard Stern Show on the satellite radio network, Sirius.
I had been on the Howard Stern Show many times before - a few times intentionally, but more often, not. The times I went on the Stern Show with purpose were to promote a play I was doing or the publication of my autobiography, "To the Stars." But more frequently, I've been on the show via bandit recordings of phrases I said while on the show - like, "Oh my!" - or a phone conversation with a celebrity imitator with whom I talked, thinking it was the real celebrity - most absurdly, a brief conversation with a rather poor imitator of Ricardo Montalban. Howard Stern has had his fun with me - and his listeners seemed to be having a hilarious good time listening to his mischiefs. The Stern Show technicians even took my voice from the audiocassette version of my autobiography and manipulated the words to make it seem as if I were actually making some outrageously vulgar statements. They say they're doing all this because they love me, but, I must say, I've never been loved in such a bizarre way.
Gary Dell'Abate was calling me, only two days into the new year, with a question. Like Pavlov's dog, my muscles immediately tightened. What new prank is this, I thought. This was the producer of the Howard Stern Show calling! Gary quickly assured me that our conversation was not being recorded. A little wary, but still a little curious, I continued the conversation. Gary asked, "Would you be interested in joining the Stern Show as the announcer?" I burst out laughing. I was not going to be taken in by that tired old joke. "No, I really mean it, George," he insisted. "I'm serious." He did sound sincere. Very guardedly, I played along. "Well, it does sound intriguing," I responded. "But why don't you talk to my agent and see what happens? You may not be able to afford me." That should put an end to this trick, I thought. "Of course I'll do that," he assured me, "but I wanted to know if you would really be interested." I sensed that he was trying to keep me on the line.
So, I said to Gary that I would call my agent myself and tell him that I am intrigued by the invitation and gave him my agent's number. Then I hung up. From that conversation with Gary Dell'Abate, the year 2006 was off and running as I had never, in my wildest dreams, expected it to be.
Of all things, the invitation turned out to be true! It wasn't a prank. My agent had conversations with the Stern people, and, five days after that call from Gary, I was on a plane for New York to be the "announcer" on the Howard Stern Show.
Some people have questioned why I appear on a radio show so filled with disgusting talk and obscenity. I respond to them that, yes, the show has language and talk of body functions that really aren't my cup of tea. I try not to use those words myself, but don't we hear them around us daily? The body functions that Howard and gang talk about are what we all do daily as normal, healthy human beings. Howard simply talks about the realities of our life candidly. Some people seem to find life as it is - obscene. I don't.
However, Howard Stern is passionately against what is truly obscene in our society. He has railed at the obscenity of allocating billions of dollars of pork barrel money for a "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, while our soldiers in Iraq are dying because of deficient and ineffective body armor.
He has attacked the indecency of tax cuts for the wealthiest at a time of war. He has howled at the outrage of plunging our nation into war with bad intelligence, tough talk, and inadequate planning. He strongly believes that people who love each other, care for each other, and take responsibility for each other that happen to be of the same gender are entitled to equal rights. Howard Stern is a shock jock because truth naked can be shocking. Some of his humor can be adolescent. So what? We all could use a bit of adolescent giggle from time to time. It's good for us. And sometimes, for me it has been humbling, which is also good for all of us from time to time. Humility keeps us grounded. Laughter is the tonic of life.
Howard Stern challenges the status quo, politically, socially, and economically. He exercises our Constitutional freedom of speech vigorously. I admire his daring. I have high regard for his venturesome spirit in making the move from free terrestrial radio to the high-risk adventure of paid satellite radio. It was a singular distinction for me to be the first voice heard on the very first broadcast of his new show. And, Howard's brave move seems to be paying off. His loyal fans and others are switching in the millions as subscribers to Sirius. It is in the same bold spirit of "Star Trek" - to explore new frontiers, new technologies, and new ways of doing things - and laughing at the absurdities of life all the way.