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April, 2004, TOKYO - I have appeared at Star Trek conventions throughout the world - in Europe, Latin America, and, of course, all over North America - except for the one obvious place for me. I had never done a Star Trek convention in Japan. I speak Japanese. I visit Japan frequently. I even attended summer school in Tokyo in my youth. Most relevantly, I am an American proud of my Japanese ancestry. Yet, I have never been invited to appear at a Star Trek convention in Japan - until I got a call last year from an entrepreneur/Star Trek fan named Kyouichi Iwahori.
Iwahori-san flew into Los Angeles for a lunch meeting to share with me his plans to open a shop for collectors of sci-fi movie props in Tokyo and to produce the very first Star Trek convention ever held in Japan. He is a man of grand visions. And, I learned, he is a man who achieves his dreams. His business credentials were evident, and, as I spoke with him, I quickly sensed that he was a genuinely knowledgeable Star Trek fan as well. He knew each episode of the show, line for line, action for action. He even owned a yacht that he had named Star Trek.
I flew into Narita International Airport to be greeted by Iwahori-san and his team of crack professionals. On our way to the hotel, I was informed that there would be a delay in the opening of his Hollywood Prop Shop due to some construction problems but that there would instead be a gala pre-opening party across the street from the shop. That was fine with me.
The convention was to be held in the town of Toyama, where Iwahori-san controls the Civic Auditorium. We were to stay at a hot springs spa resort overnight in that town. That sounded fabulous. This would be a wonderful visit to Japan.
Toyama is on the Japan Sea side of Japan less than an hour flight northwest of Tokyo. It is fabled for its superb seafood as well as its natural mineral springs. That night we dined at an enchanting rustic inn sampling the many exotic delicacies unique to the area. Where else can one savor the subtle flavors of a "fire fly squid," a squid caught only at night by the glow that it sends out, or a fat, bug-eyed fish as delicious as it is ugly. The spa resort was reached after a winding night drive up to the top of a rugged mountain. I was exhausted after my travels. Changing into a "yukata," or cotton sleeping kimono, I went straight to bed.
There can be no more glorious way to greet the new day than a morning soak in a steaming outdoor mineral spring. Gazing out at rugged, ancient rock outcroppings and gnarled old pine trees with the town of Toyama off in the distance below was the most relaxing way to prepare for a full day of a Star Trek convention.
The elements that make up a Star Trek convention are the same the world over - the autographs, the talk, and the promotional visits to the local radio stations and newspaper offices. There are, however, cultural distinctions with each one. For this Star Trek convention in Japan, I dressed in my suit and tie. The talk was formally organized. Iwahori-san conducted an interview/conversation with me on stage which was projected on a giant video screen behind us to accommodate the audience in the vast auditorium. At the end of our conversation a cute young fan came onstage and presented me with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers bigger than he was. There was much bowing up and down. Backstage, he gave me a sketch of the Starship Enterprise that he had drawn himself. The autograph line was well planned and orderly and the fans were politely enthusiastic. This was distinctively a Japanese Star Trek convention - as punctual and efficient as their fabled bullet train operation. This is one convention that will remain in my memory. I will have to share my experience of this convention with my colleagues from the show. I know they will want to do one here too - but they'll have to start brushing up their Japanese.
We flew back to Tokyo that evening. As we drove into the great metropolis from the airport, I was dazzled by the soaring new office towers that had gone up in formerly low rise districts of the city. Shinagawa was now a shining new city of corporate headquarters. Roppongi, a lively entertainment district now had a new mega-complex of luxury hotels, apartments, international shopping, an art museum and a towering centerpiece high rise tower visible from anywhere in Tokyo. The economic vitality of this city never fails to impress me.
Iwahori-san's collector store, The Hollywood Prop Shop, was almost ready to open - but not quite. The display shelves and counters were not yet in. Some of the merchandise had not yet arrived. There was the hustle and bustle of staff in hectic preparation. After a quick inspection of the premises, I quickly got out of their way. The shop was well located - right in the busy Nishi Roppongi district. It should do well. If the gala pre-opening party was any indicator, the venture should be a smash success. Star Trek fans I had met on previous visits to Japan were there to greet me as an old friend. Stars of Japanese action movies were mingling with wealthy collectors. The buffet table was laden with delectable Chinese food. The speeches were generously congratulatory. The evening was a happy launching of an enterprise boldly going where Star Trek had not ever gone before - to the very heart of sci-fi collectors' Tokyo.
Iwahori-san topped off the trip with a final unforgettable experience. It was a visit to the futuristic National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. The museum showcases a vision of humankind's future of exploration, balanced with care for the environment; of experimental daring tempered by awareness of its consequences. Going through the exhibits was, at once, inspiring and challenging.
The Director and Chief Executive Officer of the institution was no less than a man who had himself been out in space, Japan's astronaut, Mamoru Mohri. I had met him on a visit to Okinawa in November 2000. My great luck on this call was that it happened to coincide with the visit of another space scientist, the woman astronaut from Japan, Chiaki Mukai. It would have been a rare treat just to visit an astronaut but to meet two astronauts - both from Japan - was an unexpected stroke of good fortune. Director Mohri amusingly observed that he considered me his "senior" because he saw me out in the galaxy years before he ever got out in space to the International Space Station. I demurred. I stated that Astronaut Mohri is a 20th century spaceman and I, as Sulu, played a 23rd century star trekker, so, in fact, he is three hundred years my "senior" - and my inspiration as well.
Life moves in fascinating ways. We were brought together in this museum of the future by the vision and genius of Gene Roddenberry who gave birth to "Star Trek." His creation merged time and space and still continues to have an effect. A student in Japan saw an actor portraying a spaceman of the future on television some years back. Today, he, as a genuine astronaut, and that actor share a convivial visit - 21st century fact and 20th century vision, meeting at a museum of the future in Tokyo, Japan. The power of human imagination makes wondrous things happen. Domo arigato Iwahori-san for your fantastic hospitality and my very best wishes for the success of your enterprise.
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.