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November, 1999, LOS ANGELES - Thanks to "Star Trek," a show with its sight set steadfastly on the future, I have come to appreciate the richness and the complexity of the past. Recently I did two Star Trek events that literally transported me into a deeper appreciation of the vast history of human civilization. One was a Star Trek cruise from Los Angeles down the coast of Mexico, sailing through the Panama Canal and across the Caribbean to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The other was a gigantic Star Trek convention in Berlin, Germany.
A cruise may not immediately seem like a journey into times gone by. It's fun, feasting and frolicking as one sails to exotic ports. And a Star Trek cruise is indeed all that. But this one, arranged by Cruise Trek of Agoura Hills, California, was also like a time machine that took me to three different centuries in our past.
One of our ports of call was a sleepy Guatemalan harbor called Puerto Quetzal. A 90-minute jet plane ride away, hidden deep in the dense jungle growth of centuries, is the ruins of the great Mayan civilization of Tikal. I wanted to visit it. But when we boarded our ship, the S.S. Veendam, in Los Angeles, we discovered that this off-ship tour was sold out! It was such a popular tour that the eager beavers had faxed in their reservation requests early and completely bought up all available seats on the jet to the jungle airport. At the welcome reception on board, actor Cecily Adams made an impassioned plea for more people to request the tour so that another plane might be chartered. I was already on the waiting list.
Happily, there were many others who wanted to view the ruins of Tikal and we got the required number to hire another plane. But this one was not a jet. To be charitable, it was a plane that amply qualified to be in a Guatemalan antique museum. But we aren't in Puerto Quetzal every other weekend and if this was our only way to get to Tikal, so be it. We wanted to experience the great Mayan ruins.
We boarded the old plane, our desire to go to Tikal greater than our confidence in the aged aircraft to get us there. As we climbed to cruising altitude, we wondered if there might be an omen in the music that wafted softly from the sound system. It was the theme from "Titanic." After a two-hour test of our nerves, we landed at the jungle airport a bit frazzled but intact and grateful.
Tikal blew away all apprehensions over that flight. It was astounding. Built some 2,500 years ago, central Tikal covers about 6 miles. We were told that there are over 3,000 structures --- temples, palaces, shrines, plazas both large and small, terraces, residences and ball courts all surrounded by a network of causeways. With our limited time, we would be able to see only the highlights.
Looming up out of the tangle of dense jungle growth, awe inspiring in its majesty, stood the ruins of four temple structures. Their bases were not pyramids but steeply slanted stepped shafts that soared up to a terrace in the sky. Imposingly ensconced on top were the ornately carved stone temples of the Mayan high priests. Climbing to the top was, literally, a breath-taking work out. Many in our group didn't even attempt it. Cecily Adams, fit athlete that she is, made it to the top. The view from that spectacular vantage was as breathtaking as the climb. Below was the great central plaza where the ritual ceremonies were held. Across the way were the other temple structures. And surrounding us all was the jungle that had claimed these awesome edifices when the Mayan nation mysteriously vanished long before the coming of the conquistadores. It boggled the mind to realize that this amazing civilization was built without the use of the wheel.
A delicious native lunch was prepared for us at a jungle compound. We could have roamed among the ruins for the rest of the day. But our guide rushed us on. We had to return to the plane, he told us, so that we could take off by three o'clock in order to land at the Puerto Quetzal landing strip while there still was daylight. The reason for the urgency being that the Puerto Quetzal airstrip had no lights for night landings.
We arrived back at the plane with time to spare. But once we were strapped into our seats, the pilot and co-pilot began inspecting the bottom of the ancient instrument panel with flashlights. Then a parade of people in sweat-stained work clothes began shambling up to the cockpit. They peered and tinkered and whispered cryptically among themselves. After a tense half-hour sitting in the tropical heat of an unventilated old plane, we were asked to return to the terminal building. I've never liked the word "terminal" associated with anything to do with flying, but now it was more unnerving than ever.
Riddled with apprehension, we filed back. Some headed straight for the bar and some good Guatemalan beer. Cecily, I discovered, is a woman with a remarkably low threshold of hysteria. She immediately placed a long distance call to her husband Jim back in Los Angeles and began a tear choked "I've always loved you and always will - forever and ever -- " farewell call. I felt more for the poor, hapless man than for Cecily.
Another suspenseful half hour later, a sweaty man came out to tell us that our plane cannot fly but that three small replacement planes were flying out from Guatemala City to take us back to Puerto Quetzal. If Cecily had an ounce of control left, that announcement blew it away. With panic flashing in her eyes, she began pounding on the glass wall of the waiting room. The terminal manager came out and rushed her into his office where she remained for the rest of our tension filled wait. The rest of us merely sat on pins and needles and waited. We had already lost more than an hour of precious daylight. The beer flowed freely as the Guatemalan sun slowly sank toward the jungle tree line.
It was twilight when the first plane arrived. Immediately, a semblance of a queue formed at the door. Through the plate glass window, we saw Cecily being hustled on board the first plane. The door was opened and people began to be let through, slowly and not too methodically, one after the other. Just three people before me, the first plane reached capacity. I didn't make it on to that plane. In a sense, I was kind of glad. When the passengers of one plane get divided up into three small planes, the risks are tripled. And I had an uneasy premonition about the one carrying Cecily.
The second plane landed just as the first was taxiing away. It was old and smaller but it didn't look as decrepit as the big one that brought us here. We boarded quickly and strapped ourselves in as rapidly as we could. But it was already dark as we began our taxi down the primitive runway. Everyone sat silently. But in the tense stillness, I sensed the one question screaming in everyone's mind. How is this plane going to land on an airstrip that has no lights?
The plane strained and heaved trying to lift itself off the runway. It coughed and gasped. I pulled up on my armrest hoping it would help. Just as the plane reached the end of the cracked concrete strip, it lifted off. It continued pulling and flexing, strenuously trying to avoid the treetops. It shuddered, recovered, then trembled wildly. Finally and thankfully, it reached its allowed flying altitude. The plane continued trembling as it droned into the darkened night sky.
Among the many activities on the cruise ship, I had been taking the yoga exercise class. The idea was to achieve inner peace by bringing one's mind and body into harmony with one's environment. If ever I needed peace and harmony with my surrounding, now was it. I closed my eyes and slowly began breathing in and out. I relaxed my mind and tried to become one with the droning, shivering world surrounding me. All of a sudden, that world turned electric white! Everything became a blinding, shocking, blazing whiteness. Was this it? Is this the way it happens? Was this the end? I was petrified. Then just as shockingly, everything turned back to as it had been. I saw the dark outlines of the passengers' heads ahead of me. The heads turned to each other in startled puzzlement. I realized then, that we had just experienced a silent lightening. Suddenly, it happened again. Another flash. An instantaneous splash of blue-white electricity that was gone as quickly as it came. We were flying through a tropical-lightening storm. A few more silent flashes and we were again flying through the ominously unchanging black sky.
After about an hour, I noticed a sprinkle of lights down in the blackness of the landscape below. Then, I noticed a river of moving lights snaking in the darkness. It looked like a road with automobiles. That must be Guatemala City, I thought. It was supposed to be the biggest city in the country and the capital. But it looked merely like a few dots and a squiggle of light. A few moments later, the landscape returned to black again.
The tension began to intensify as we sensed the plane beginning the descent into the darkness below. How is the pilot going to manage the landing without any lights to guide him? Our imaginations went wild as we girded ourselves for a rough landing. Our breaths held tight as the plane descended lower and lower. It was all blackness below. Then, far off in the distance, we saw something mystifying. We could make out what looked like a double row of lights. What was this? We were told that Puerto Quetzal had no landing lights. As we descended lower, we could surely see two distinct rows of lights beckoning us in the dark. Our pilot headed straight for it. Thank god, they had lights after all, we thought. It wasn't until we were almost about to touch down that we noticed that the lights were, in fact, a row of flickering flames. Standing next to the flaming lights, we saw the silhouettes of men carrying arms. With a hard, bone snapping bump, we touched down. We bounced and jounced down a potholed landing strip between the rows of flaming pots. When we finally came to a stop, we saw that the last part of the row of lights was made up of a line up of trucks and jeeps all parked with their headlights on. The Guatemalan authorities had risen to the challenge in a most creative way. They had improvised a primitive landing system by marshalling the Guatemalan armed forces to light fires in coconut shells lined up in a row together with the headlights of military vehicles. Necessity combined with human ingenuity had brought us back to earth, drained and weary but safe.
And dear Cecily. When we got back to the ship, we learned that the first thing she did when she got back on board was to place an international call to her anxiety-riddled husband back in Los Angeles. Their devotion to each other is genuinely touching. Such a contrast to the frazzled woman seated in front of me on the bus back to the ship. "When I get back to our cabin onboard," she groused, "my husband better not be asleep."
It was a nightmare trip back. But Tikal was worth it. In fact, the flight back seemed to underscore what we had seen at Tikal. The same original thinking and resourcefulness that produced the flaming night landing lights, had raised those amazing architectural splendors of Tikal without the use of the wheel. The power of human creativity and inventiveness is the one constant that defines civilizations through the ages. We would soon be experiencing another example of that from another age and another people --Americans with the Panama Canal.
The French tried for twenty years and failed to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama connecting the Caribbean with the Pacific. Despite their success with the Suez Canal in Egypt, they could not overcome two great adversaries in Panama -- a devastating tropical disease and an awesome mountain range. The disease decimated whole armies of their workers and the earth from the towering mountainside kept caving down into their excavation.
With characteristic bravado, United States President Teddy Roosevelt took over when the French finally gave up. The first task for the Americans was to overcome the killer disease, which they found to be malaria. When they discovered that the carrier was mosquitoes, a massive eradication program was launched. All bodies of water were either drained or disinfected. Then a new, sanitary village was built to house the workers.
The great challenge then became to conquer the formidable barrier mountain range of the Continental Divide. The solution the engineers came up with was ingenious. Rather than digging a cut into the daunting obstacle, their idea instead was to create a lake rising above the mountain range, then lifting the ships up and over the mountain. The solution was as brilliant as the engineering job would be formidable. First, a lake in the sky had to be constructed. Then, a series of locks had to be built to raise the ships up to the man-made lake. Then another set of locks on the opposite side would lower the ships back down to sea level. It was a mind-boggling project. But the Americans did it. The Panama Canal took ten grueling years to build but in August of 1914, the first ship made the virgin crossing. Since then, over 800,000 ships have gone through the waterway. Our passage in October of 1999 was to be one of the last transits under American administration. At midnight, December 31, 1999, the canal is to be handed over to the Panamanian government. President Jimmy Carter, who signed the treaty in 1977, will represent the U.S. at the ceremony. There was a sense of history for all of us on board the S.S. Veendam as we sailed toward our crossing.
We got up bright and early in the morning and crowded onto the decks and other good vantage points. I found a comfortable seat by a panoramic picture window in the Crow's Nest, the topmost cocktail lounge in the ship. In the pale light of dawn, I could see the metropolitan skyline of Panama City in the distant northeastern horizon. We were munching on a breakfast of Panama rolls and coffee by the time we sailed under the massive steel girders of the Bridge of the Americas guarding the entrance to the canal.
Promptly at 7:30 a.m., we entered the first of a series of locks, this one called Miraflore Locks. The water came churning in with massive force as the ship slowly rose up. I marveled at the colossal power of water. Forty-five minutes later, we were sailing out and onto the first of the stepped lakes, Miraflore Lake. Soon we entered the next series of locks, the Pedro Miguel Locks. These locks raised our vessel up to the top level of the system and a great waterway called the Gaillard Cut. This was the part that was the greatest challenge to the builders of the canal - the cut through the rugged mountain range of the Continental Divide. About 8 miles long, it was carved through rock and shale. It was here that the principal excavation was required and here that those devastating slides occurred during construction.
I stepped outside to the deck and gazed out at the semi jungle landscape on each side of the great waterway. The dense tropical air instantly wrapped around me in a sultry embrace. It was awe inspiring to imagine men just a century ago, struggling against this brutal heat, disease and the savagery of the jungle to carve out this massive system of waterways. I marveled at the sheer ingenuity of the engineers. The Panama Canal is a triumph of human will, creativity and determination. It is as incredible an achievement as that of the Mayans centuries ago.
It was lunchtime when we sailed out onto the huge man-made body of water, Gatun Lake, and I was hungry. We had a few hours to go before we would be entering the downhill set of locks. I decided to go down for lunch. The view of the lake from the air-conditioned comfort of the ship's dining room was superb. As I dined on an exquisite lunch of poached sole with baby asparagus, I couldn't help but appreciate the almost surreal world that we inhabited. Certainly, it would have been science fiction to those who had struggled so valiantly to make this fantastical existence so comfortably real for us. Ah, the wondrous rewards of man's ingenuity.
Promptly at 2 p.m., we entered the Gatun Locks, the system lowering our ship down to sea level on the Caribbean side. By sunset, we were again out on the high seas. Our historic 9-hour transit across the Panama Canal was over. On our way back to Ft. Lauderdale, we enjoyed an all-too-brief stop at the charmingly preserved colonial city, Cartagena in Colombia. Like a dream, our two-week floating Star Trek convention was over. But the rich lessons from the past, experienced on this ocean trek, will remain with me for a long time.
Two days after returning from the cruise, I flew off to another Star Trek event -- this one, a land based convention. It, too, was a rich experience in a city dense with history -- the former, and once again, capital of Germany -- Berlin.
The convention, "Galileo 7-III," was gigantic. Over 2,500 fans gathered from throughout Europe and even a few from the U.S. Berlin was the place to be for Star Trek fans that weekend. The huge attendance, however, seemed to overwhelm the management of the convention. There were program delays, interminable lines and confusion. Yet, bless their hearts, the fans' enthusiasm remained unabated. The applause at each program event was thunderous. They reveled in the joy of sharing a weekend with kindred souls. And the convention raised 30 thousand German marks for charity as well.
But what truly impressed me was the city of Berlin itself. Here was a city, mindful of its history, vigorously building a future of unity. At a point in time when Europe is struggling to join eleven nations in an economic union, and when Germany is heroically working to bring together its two parts brutally separated for decades by a political wall, Berlin was building a world city. To accomplish this, the city had gathered some of the best architects from throughout the world. There were dazzling buildings designed by architects from the United States, Italy, Japan, Holland and, of course, Germany. Berlin was the shining symbol of a people confidant of their destiny and building for the next millenium. I sensed it in the spirit of the people. I felt it in the dynamism of the city. I saw it in the architecture of the new buildings.
The most intriguing building was the Jewish Museum by American architect David Leibeskind. The museum was to open in 2000 but I was privileged to tour the completed but empty building. The shape of the zinc-clad, zigzag structure could be seen as a bolt of lightning, a deconstructed Star of David or a sharp, metallic prison. The windows cut into this structure look like slashes, shards or fragments of shattered glass -- jagged reminders from history. The building is entered from an underground tunnel. The sense one gets on entering the slate paved entrance corridor is one of chilly disorientation. The walls are canted. The floor slightly ramped. Other corridors intersect at sharp angles. Nothing is parallel and regular. There are unexpected spatial voids suggesting the absence of a part of the community that once made up the people of Berlin. The design is at once sobering and stunning. But I couldn't help wondering how the building would work as an exhibition space for a museum. How do you hang things on these canted walls? How do you arrange artifact display cases in these oddly formed galleries? How do you keep the architecture from upstaging the exhibits themselves? My questions on the practicality, however, were overwhelmed by my awe of the virtuosity of the architect. The building alone makes the most unforgettable statement on the history of the Jewish people in Berlin. The new Jewish Museum is an eloquent architectural sculpture.
The most exhilarating new symbol in Berlin, for me, is the restored German parliament building, the Reichstag. The architect is Sir Norman Foster. His British citizenship is as symbolic, it seems to me, as his architectural brilliance is world renown. He took the bold, stony Baroque edifice of the Reichstag with all its turbulent history and sensitively restored the shell. In it, he designed a starkly contemporary legislative chamber and offices. The reminder of the past containing the vigor of a modern nation. His most inspired piece of the design however, is the glass dome that he placed right over the legislative chamber. The transparency of government could not have been more clearly communicated. Even more significantly, he designed a bank of elevators that whisk the public - with no admission charge - up to the roof of the building. The view of Berlin from this rooftop terrace is spectacular. From this terrace, Foster designed a spiral ramp in the dome allowing the people to traverse up to the top of the glass structure. From there, the people, not only of Germany but of the world, can look down directly on the lawmakers at work in the legislative chamber below. It is a potent statement about a people's democracy. As I was walking away from this inspiring building, I looked back again to get another perspective on it. Even from a distance, the Reichstag was alive with movement. There was the constant motion of people going up and down on the ramp in the glass dome over the heads of the politicians. What a powerful symbol for the future of democracy.
The gift of Star Trek's incredible popularity has provided me with these undreamed of opportunities to know this world. These experiences have given me a keen appreciation of the inseparable link between our past and our future. The barbarism of man's inhumanity to man reminds us of our terrible fallibility. The extraordinary achievements of our antecedents, their determination against sometimes awesome adversity, their great organizational competence and their creative genius inspires us to face the many challenges that we confront today. The solid launching pad of our future is the confidence we gain from the glorious attainments from history.
June, 2001, LOS ANGELES - What an undreamed of invitation -- the Kentucky Derby! I had been to Kentucky many times before. My niece, Akemi Takei, the broadcast journalist in the family, had worked at a television station in Lexington. So I had visited her when she was there. And, of course, there had been many Star Trek conventions in Kentucky. I like the lush and gracious landscape and the warm hospitality of the people of Kentucky. But I'd never expected to actually be at the legendary Kentucky Derby at fabled Churchill Downs. This was fantastic!
Before departing L.A., on my way to the airport, I swung around to Twentieth Century Fox studios. I was squeezing in a quick voice-dubbing gig on another episode of "The Simpsons." It didn't take much time. I was off to the airport and Louisville, Kentucky, in about an hour.
On the flight, seated in the row just behind me, I recognized actor Bill Brochtrup from "NYPD Blue." In conversation with him, we discovered that we were guests of the same host, Michael Berry of the Kentucky Derby Festival. We would both be riding in the Kentucky Derby Festival's Pegasus Parade and going to the same Derby festivities. This was going to be great fun.
Immediately upon arrival, we were swept up into a whirlwind of activities - lunches, dinners, parties galore, and, on the Thursday before the Derby, the Pegasus Parade. The parade's Grand Marshal was none other than the second man to walk on the moon, astronaut Buzz Aldrin. I had met Buzz and his lovely wife Lois before -- at a charity fund-raising event at Paramount Studios. Our paths seem to have a way of crossing in the most interesting ways, in fiction as well as in fact.
In the parade, our vehicles were, unlike the futuristic crafts with which Buzz and I are associated, handsome treasures from the past. Buzz's car was an elegantly restored antique that I couldn't identify and mine was a classic red Corvette. The crowd was wildly enthusiastic and I shouted myself hoarse. That night, we recovered over dinner at Jicama Grill, a trendy restaurant that serves delectably exotic Latin American cuisine.
Kentucky Derby day was sunny and hot. But the dress, we were told, was sports coat and tie. As we boarded the air-conditioned luxury bus that was to transport us to Churchill Downs, I couldn't help but be taken by the elegantly dressed women who, almost without exception, wore enormous confections of feathers, flowers, silk or gossamer on their heads. The practicality of a large hat on a sun-scorched day was contradicted by the preposterous creations that almost covered their faces like some fantastical umbrella balanced over their heads. But as the bus approached Churchill Downs, I noticed that the mass of people surging toward the grandstand carrying their picnic baskets and aluminum lawn chairs, wore tank tops, halters and practical wide brimmed straw hats. There was clearly a two-tier dress code.
Indeed, when the bus parked, we were escorted directly to a bank of elevators that swiftly lifted us up to the sixth-floor clubhouse. It was air-conditioned, well provisioned with a beautiful buffet and a panoramic glass window that provided a spectacular view of the sun drenched racetrack below. In this cool and luxuriously coddled setting, the colossal hats seemed even more wacky. Friends greeting the behatted women couldn't reach them under those massive canopies - all they could do was blow friendly air kisses toward the faces hidden under the huge hats.
They told me that you have to have a strategy in the betting process. I had never bet on horses before. I knew nothing about racehorses. What was I to do? The Kentucky Derby itself was the eighth race of the afternoon. I decided to prepare by observing the betting process during the first race. People were talking about the lineage of each horse, their track records, how they looked in their warm up runs the morning before. They might as well have been speaking in Swahili. I knew then that I was on my own. I would have to depend on sheer luck. Nevertheless, I would try to craft a strategy.
I decided to dive in on the second race. I studied the list of horses on my program. The third horse on the list was named Lake Pontchartrain. It reminded me of the delicious Blackened Red Fish from Lake Pontchartrain that I enjoyed when I was in New Orleans. Aha! I had a connection with that horse. This strategy should be as good as any. I bet $2 on Lake Pontchartrain to win. The race began and the horses were off and running. They were all bunched together. I couldn't make out which horse was Lake Pontchartrain. A batch of horses came thundering in with one nosing out all the others. I couldn't tell which one that was. We all waited for the scoreboard to show the final result. At last, the board lit up with the name of the winner. It said Lake Pontchartrain! I had won on my first try! Astoundingly, my $2 bet won me $32!!! Lady Luck was definitely with this beginner horseplayer.
But she is a fickle lady. She left me for others for the next five races. My $32 was reduced to $22. Now the big one was on us - the Kentucky Derby. I studied my program. There it was - the twelfth horse - seductively beckoning out to me. Startac! This was such an obviously clear message. Could anything be closer to Star Trek? But there also was another horse with the word star in its name -- Balto Star. Not as close as Startac, but it still had the word star in it. And if you dropped the B from Balto, you would have alto, which in Spanish means "high." Star Trek soars high. This too could be telling me something a bit more subtly. I decided to bet $10 on both Startac and Balto Star.
The gates opened and horses were off and running. The announcer's booming voice narrated the race. "Balto Star is second," he intoned. The crowd and I cheered. "Come on Balto Star," I shouted. Thank goodness I covered my bet with two horses, I thought. But after the second bend, Balto Star began to fall behind. "Come on Balto Star! You can do it!" I urged. But that horse continued to fall back. Then the booming voice announced, "Startac is passing Balto Star." My gosh, I still have a chance! "Go Startac," I yelled. But Startac wouldn't move ahead. It continued to maintain its place in the pack. "Go Startac. Go," I pleaded. Suddenly, out from nowhere - literally from the back of the pack - came an incredible horse. It galloped past every one of the others and was thundering toward the finish all by itself. "Monarchos is ahead by four lengths," the announcer's voice bellowed excitedly. It was an awesome sight to see. A magnificent animal moving with powerful grace dashed across the finish line. "Monarchos has won the Kentucky Derby," the ecstatic voice announced. It was later declared that Monarchos' time, 1:59.97 minutes, was the second fastest in the Kentucky Derby's 127-year history. The fastest was Secretariat with l:59.4 minutes in 1973. This was an awe-inspiring experience - but I was poorer by $20. Startac came in tenth and Balto Star was fourteenth. My $32 winning from the second race was reduced now to $2 - the very amount I first bet on Lake Pontchartrain. At least I broke even. Thank you Michael Berry and all the wonderful people of Kentucky for an unforgettable - and not too costly - experience.
Two days after returning to Los Angeles, I dove into another major event - this one, a binational conference called the Japan-United States Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange at the Japanese American National Museum. As well as serving as the Chairman of the Board of the Museum, I am a member of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, a non-governmental federal agency. So I was doubly invested in this conference. It turned out a great success. Our panelists from throughout the U.S and senior officials from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, distinguished leaders from academia, business and culture were in accord that this conference in Los Angeles was one of the best ever held in its forty-year history.
I had another quick voiceover gig before flying off again. This one was the popular "Jackie Chan" Saturday morning animated series. I was the voice of a wise and benign Buddhist priest. Jackie Chan was voiced by a versatile young actor named James Tse. Then, I was off to Atlanta, Georgia, for Vulcon, another Star Trek convention.
The lucky bonus with this trip was that my good friend, gifted writer Peter David, was getting married to his love, Kathleen, a stage manager, puppeteer, editor and all around renaissance woman, in Atlanta on the same weekend as the convention. What blessed serendipity! I arranged with Joe Motes, the organizer of the convention, so that I could manage both the wedding and the convention. He was most cooperative.
Peter and Kathleen were married in a charming chapel on the picturesque campus of Emory University. It was a lovely ceremony. But it was the reception that really captured the spirit of the couple. The venue was a converted former warehouse now called the Shakespeare Tavern. It is a theater patterned after the old Globe Theater of Elizabethan London. So eminently appropriate. Both Peter and Kathleen are theatrical people - she literally and Peter in every sense of the word. His personality, if anything, is colorfully theatrical. His bountiful talent is of the theater as well as literature. Indeed, he even looks like he could play Shakespeare's Falstaff. To top off the theatricality of the reception, the best man at the wedding also became the master of the revels of the reception. He was none other than literary lion, incendiary raconteur and volcanically outspoken convention speaker - Harlan Ellison. He was touching in his fondness of the couple; he was hilarious with anecdotes about their relationship; he was ribald with his jokes; he was inexhaustible and never-ending. Finally, Peter broke in. Peter too is an expert raconteur. The afternoon became a bountiful banquet table of words, words, words as well as good food. Among the guests was Bill Mumy, who you might remember as young Will Robinson in the television series, "Lost In Space." We laughed, we ate and we drank - much too much. It was a fantastical wedding reception - as it should be for Peter and Kathleen. May this marriage live long and prosper.
July, 2001, LOS ANGELES - Tom Brokaw called them the "greatest generation" -- the men and women who served in the U.S. military during World War II. They fought against the forces of fascism defending the ideals of our democracy. We as Americans are deeply indebted to that generation.
I have a profoundly special debt to an extraordinary collection of men and women of that group of remarkable Americans. They are the Japanese Americans of the World War II generation.
Two events occurred last month on both coasts of this country that underscored the importance of my debt.
In Los Angeles, we commemorated the second year of the dedication of the "Go For Broke" Memorial.
This giant black granite cylinder, angled toward the southern sun, has the names of all Japanese Americans who served in the U.S. military etched into it. The "Go For Broke" name of the memorial comes from the motto of the all Japanese American unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. "Go For Broke" was their battle cry. They went "for broke" as they fought on the battlefields of Italy. They faced the fierce resistance of the Nazis in the Rhineland campaign in France and went "for broke." Their "Go for broke" determination helped crack the Gothic Line in the mountains of Apennines. The 442nd suffered the highest casualty rate and was the most decorated unit in military history. They gave it their all. This "Go For Broke" monument is also a tribute to all Japanese Americans who served in the U.S. armed forces -- in the Military Intelligence Service, in the 100th Infantry Battalion as well as with the 442nd. They are all amazing American heroes.
What makes their gallantry so extraordinary is that they served despite initially being classified as "enemy non aliens" by their own government simply because they "looked like the enemy." What makes them so amazing is that they wore the same uniform as that worn by the soldiers guarding over their families incarcerated behind the barbed wires of American concentration camps back in the U.S. What makes my debt to them so profound is that their valor under these incredible circumstances transformed America for me and my generation. These men and women unquestionably added another dimension to the meaning of Americanism. President Harry Truman, greeting them on the White House grounds on their return to the U.S. stated, "You not only fought the enemy but you fought prejudice -- and you won."
After the commemoration ceremony of the "Go For Broke" Memorial, I chatted with the veterans, proudly wearing their Veterans of Foreign Wars caps. Many were now unsteady in their steps. A few were in wheelchairs. Their thin and reedy voices had few words. They were modest in receiving our gratitude. The passage of time had altered the robust soldiers they once were. But I could see their pride beaming from their faces.
What they did over half a century ago had transformed this nation. Because of their incredible gallantry, their immigrant parents could, for the first time, become naturalized American citizens; their sons and daughters today are able to rise as far as their abilities could take them; live wherever they could afford to live and participate fully in the life of America. What they did on the battlefields of World War II gave substance to the campaign to win redress for Japanese Americans for their incarceration during that war. They indisputably made this nation a better democracy for all Americans. They did this with their courage, their blood -- and the lives of their buddies. The gratitude we felt was as big and as solid as the great granite memorial that stood in front of us.
I walked up to the monument and found the name of the U.S. Senator from Hawaii, Daniel Inouye.
He left his right arm on a bloody battleground in Italy. Last year, I attended the White House ceremony where, together with 21 others, he received a much belated Medal of Honor from President Bill Clinton for his heroism of over 50 years ago. Also on the monument I found the name of my mother's late cousin, Kay Kashiwabara. I touched their names with my fingertips and felt the grainy earthiness of the engraving. I stepped back to view the whole massive expanse of names etched onto the granite -- hundreds and hundreds of Japanese American names. Some died in battle. Some carried their wounds of battle throughout their lives. All served as Americans under the most incredible of circumstances. Staring at all those names, I whispered a silent "thank you."
The other event happened in our capitol, Washington, D.C. It was the commemoration of another monument to Japanese Americans, the National Japanese American Memorial. It is located on a triangular plaza just north of the Capitol. I could not be there in person for this ceremony, but I most certainly was there in spirit.
The granite wall of this memorial bears, not only the names of those Japanese American soldiers who perished in battle, but, as well, the names of all ten U.S. concentration camps scattered throughout the country from California to Arkansas where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during the war. The wall also carries quotations from distinguished Japanese Americans such as Senator Inouye, Cabinet Secretary Norman Mineta, and Congressman Robert Matsui.
The Memorial also holds a quote from the controversial wartime Executive Secretary of the Japanese American Citizens League, Mike Masaoka.
His is a stirringly patriotic quote. In part, it reads, "I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, for my very background makes me appreciate more fully the wonderful advantages of this nation. I believe in her institutions, ideals and traditions; I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her future." He wrote this in 1940. It was a time of limited opportunities for minorities; educated Japanese Americans were working at fruit stands. It was a time of restrictive housing covenants that gave rise to the Little Tokyo and Japantown racial ghettos. And it was a time when the dark cloud of the internment of Japanese Americans was looming ominously on the horizon. Indeed, when Executive Order 9066 ordered the internment, Masaoka was so eager to "prove" his loyalty that he cooperated with the government in the mass removal of Japanese Americans. The anguished irony of his super patriotic words heightened the angst and the division that the internment order wreaked on the Japanese American community.
Masaoka's tortured patriotism had a balancing counterpart of bold Americanism. They were the young men who took a courageous stand on the fundamental principles of this nation. When they were ordered to serve in the U.S. military while interned, they took the position that they would serve willingly if they could report to their hometown draft boards and with their families back in their own homes.
But they refused to go from behind the barbed wire fences of incarceration leaving their families behind in U.S. concentration camps. It was an audacious stand. For this principled stance, they were tried in court, found guilty of draft resistance and sent to federal penitentiaries. After the war and after they were exonerated, many of them served with honor in the Korean War. Although these patriots' names are not on the Memorial, by the inclusion of Mike Masaoka's ironically extravagant quotation, I am reminded of and honor the gutsy integrity of these young men who resisted military service on very American principles.
I owe my America to all these men and women whom we honor with the two memorials on both coasts of this nation. I take my inspiration from their contributions together with all those who have contributed to the making of this country. The greatness of this nation is that it is a constant work in progress guided by the core ideals of our Constitution. The challenge of this nation is that we all can and must contribute to this great work in progress to make it a better and truer democracy.
August, 2001, LOS ANGELES - I grew up listening to radio dramas. As a child, I memorized and recited the cheery jingles from children's shows like "Happy Theater." As I grew older, I thrilled to the adventure on shows like "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders" and "Sergeant Preston and His Yukon King." The big city kid in Los Angeles listening only to the sound of actors' voices coming out of a box was transported to the dusty excitement of the old West by "The Lone Ranger" and "The Cisco Kid." I listened to film dramatizations on "Lux Radio Theater" to relive movies that I had enjoyed before or to "see" those that I had missed. Radio was my magic transporter. And my conjurors were the actors that brought the stories to life - with only their voices, accompanied by sound effects, they magically took me to another place, another time and new sensations. I loved radio.
Radio was wonderful story telling. It was the ancient tradition of sharing a tale around the campfire - except that my campfire was a radio in our living room. It was the technological campfire of the times. The whole family gathered around the radio to be chilled by thrillers like "The Shadow."
Vocal storytelling still exists today. But it's not all on radio anymore. It's called "books on tape." There are superb readings of novels on audio tape. For those who commute long distances in their cars, it's a great way to "read" a novel as they drive. People taking public transportation can listen to them on their way to work. Hospitalized people can listen as they recuperate. I love audio tapes as I used to love radio dramas. They keep alive the wonder of spoken storytelling. And now that I am a professional actor, I am among those storytellers. I've enjoyed reading many novels onto audio tape. Of course, there are the Star Trek novelizations, but I've also read onto tape such classics as the "Sherlock Holmes" novels. I particularly enjoyed reading my own autobiography, "To The Stars," on tape. I'm happy that there is a medium where the simple sound of an actor's voice can stimulate the imagination and vicariously take the listener on fictional as well as autobiographical journeys.
After the cancellation of the "Star Trek" television series, we worked on the voices of our characters on the animated version of "Star Trek." It became another unexpected extension of the "Star Trek" phenomenon. I must confess, however, that working on the cartoon version was not as satisfying as acting in the television version because the scenes weren't read with the other actors. I did the voice of Sulu solo without my colleagues to bounce off of. It wasn't as much fun. But it was still using our vocal tool to give life to our characters. Actually, voice acting could be more challenging because that tool alone -- with only the rather stiff animation as the visuals -- had to tell the story. I'd like to think that the voice of the actor is still essential to the recounting of a good story.
Indeed, accelerating advances in technology have shot up the use of the vocal tool for Star Trek storytelling to amazing heights. For the last few years, I've been working with Interplay Entertainment Corp. on a series of Star Trek CD Rom games called Starfleet Command and another called Klingon Academy. This is no longer sitting around the old campfire merely listening to a story as it is told. CD Rom games suck the listener directly into the narrative as active participants in Star Trek adventures. And there I am as Captain Sulu, blazing across astoundingly real galaxies blasting away at Klingons - and the "listeners" are right there engaged with me as wily adversaries or full, decision making partners. My next one for Interplay, "Star Trek: Shattered Universe," will have Captain Sulu on the USS Excelsior caught in the mirror universe from the television episode, "Mirror, Mirror." My vocal chords are already aching to become the viciously scarred Sulu and then the heroic Sulu that we all know and love. The vocal challenges will be bracing.
This medium of work also provides the relief of greater scheduling flexibility than does acting on film or television. Voice work has granted me the blessing of maintaining my career, and, at the same time, managing the unpredictable needs of my mother's continuing illness. If problems should crop up at home, recording calls could be rescheduled without causing too much inconvenience to too many others. With film or television work, rearranging shooting schedules would be well nigh impossible. So, over the past month, I've been able to do voice work on Disney's new CD Rom game, "Freelancers," and animated shows such as "Team Atlantis" and "Samurai Jack." Yet to air are such animated shows as "Jackie Chan" and another episode of "The Simpsons."
From the kid listening to that radio so long ago in Los Angeles and transported to adventures in the old West to the professional actor who now transports fans soaring into galactic explorations, the sound of the human voice has always been my charmed vehicle of transport.
September, 2001, LOS ANGELES - People say that Los Angeles has no seasons - that there are no markings of the passage of time as the pages of the calendar turn. Although it's true that we don't have snow in winter and much changing of foliage in autumn, we have a delightful reminder of the arrival of summer. That's when the Hollywood Bowl season begins.
What could be a more enchanting announcement of the start of summertime than an evening outdoor concert at the Bowl. As the day's heat begins to cool down, we settle down in our seats, open up the picnic basket and uncork the wine bottles. As the sky darkens and stars begin sparkling against its dark velvet backdrop, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra strikes up the overture and the hills of Hollywood resound with glorious music. That's when we know that summer has definitely arrived in Los Angeles.
Two weeks ago, a banker friend and fellow trustee of the Japanese American National Museum, Tom Decker and his charming wife Denise invited me as their guest to their box for an evening of Leonard Bernstein and Johannes Brahms at the Bowl. The soloist was a gifted young violinist, Joshua Bell.
The conductor was the vivacious stylist, Keri-Lynn Wilson. The program began with Bernstein's "Candide" and moved on to his popular, "West Side Story." Joshua Bell's violin rendition of "Maria" was as mellow and rich as the California pinot noir that I was sipping. The second half of the evening was Brahms who took us on a musical journey a century back to classical old Germany. His "Symphony No. 2 in D Major" began as softly, as lyrically as fine chardonnay and ended as bubbly as the effervescence of champagne. It was an intoxicating evening under the stars, musically as well as by the fine produce of California's legendary Napa Valley. I was not driving that evening.
The boxes at the Hollywood Bowl are enormously difficult to get. They have literally become family heirlooms passed in wills from one generation to the next. Fortunately, I have a friend whose family has a box that they do not use for every concert. So, at the beginning of a season, I look over the schedule and buy through him, certain nights in his family box. I donate some of my nights to a few of my favorite charities as fund-raising auction items. In a couple of weeks I have my guests from the East West Players fund raiser for an evening of music from Broadway and Hollywood with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted by John Mauceri. This night always ends spectacularly with fireworks lighting up the summer night sky.
I remember when my parents first took me as a kid to the Hollywood Bowl. It was a pageant of California history. As darkness descended, we heard a trumpet call from a distant hill and Spanish conquistadors on horseback appeared over the hill with their troops carrying multi-colored flags. Then, spotlights suddenly shone on the opposite hill picking out a tribe of Indians. They came down the hills and met on stage to sign a peace pact. This was followed by the arrival of Father Serra and the Jesuit missionaries and a California mission magically rose up before us. Spectacular battle scenes between the Mexicans and Americanos, as well as a panorama of a devastating earthquake, were staged right before our enthralled eyes. The spectacle was brought to the point of the introduction of movies to the then rustic farm town called Hollywood. It was a thrilling and unforgettable introduction to the magic of a summer evening at the Hollywood Bowl.
As a teenager, I used to go on dates in the upper tiers of the Bowl. We took our sandwiches, fruits and soda pops huffing and puffing up the hillside to our lofty perches and looked down on the miniature orchestra playing in the tiny bowl in the distance below. It was a cheap date but the music was the same fabulous sound as that heard down in the pricey and remote boxes in the distance. As a matter of fact, I know that some of my friends sneaked in from the street above the Bowl, hid up in the trees and enjoyed the concerts for free.
Now I enjoy the concerts from the comfort and opulence of the very boxes I used to peer down on so wistfully. When Walt Disney's animated feature film, "Mulan," in which I was the voice of the Great Ancestor, had its gala premiere, it was there at the Hollywood Bowl. The opening was an extravagant affair. A gourmet picnic buffet was followed by a spectacular stage review of popular Disney animated films with a cast of a hundred dancers and singers. Then a gigantic screen appeared on stage and the premiere screening of "Mulan" began. Very appropriately for the Great Ancestor, I was ensconced in a great box smack dab in the center of the prime section down by the stage. The premiere finished with a dazzling fireworks display that had us arching our heads back to see the explosive spectacle. At the Hollywood Bowl, as we succeed in life, we don't go up, we go downward. We go down to our boxes right near the orchestra for gourmet food, fine wine and glorious music under the summer night sky. The Hollywood Bowl not only marks the passage of our seasons, it's our southern Californian summer rites of passage.