being a Geek (or Nerd)

Yesterday, I posted about why the world needs Star Trek. I'm going to need to add a part two because there's so much that I left out. In lieu of doing that today, I have a related short video that I'd like to share. It's from a guy named Wil Wheaton (the H is silent in Wil - if you don't get it, you are not a geek, yet!). Wil played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. At a Star Trek convention in April, he was asked a question about being a geek/nerd. Click on the YouTube vid to see what he awesomely said:

Why the world needs Star Trek

I originally wrote this article sometime in 2005 after the movie Star Trek: Nemesis had underperformed at the box office and Paramount was considering pulling the plug on the series, Star Trek: Enterprise.

It's hard for me to imagine a world without Star Trek since the show and movies have always been there, touching my life in one way or another. Now that production of new shows (and movies) has come to an end, I wonder: What will the world be like without Star Trek?

Avery Brooks, "Captain Sisko" was my teacher and mentor at Rutgers.  His Alternate Styles (of acting) class was my favorite class, and I still draw on what he taught me when I need to create anything. He's a gifted musician and spiritual seeker, and when someone like Avery touches your life, you grow in many unforseen ways. The man is a nexus.

Gates (Cheryl) McFadden "Beverly Crusher" and Steven Culp "Major Hayes" were friends and roommates of my husband's when they were all at Brandeis. I don't know Gates, but Steven is one of my favorite people on the planet. He's one of the smartest, hard-working, talented, generous, kind-hearted and funny humans I've ever known, and if we didn't live so far away, I have no doubt that he and his wife would be among our closest friends. Another link has come from my screenwriters' group here in Los Angeles where some of the writers from Star Trek: The Next Generation and other series are members. It's a strange coincidence that these writers, actors and I have even connected. I've never been to a Star Trek convention and other than my fascination with the original series when I was a young boy, there is no reason I should have met anyone connected to Star Trek other than fellow fans.

It's 1966 and I'm a good-looking, outgoing eight-year old boy, who is not unhappy, exactly, but I feel like I just don't fit in. I'm too smart for my age and not athletic enough because I have no father in my life to teach me the things a boy needs to know to play sports. I'm too sensitive and empathetic, too curious, too visible to escape the fact that everyone can tell that there is something unusual, or alien about me. My eyes are way too blue and piercing, I keep hearing the adults whisper behind my back, and my mom doesn't help matters when she reminds our relatives and close friends that I was born with an lacy cowl or fatty membrane protecting me. From what I don't know. The biting sarcasm of demons perhaps?

It doesn't help that I used words that were too big for normal adult conversation, was constantly reading anything I could get my hands on, and whenever anything about the Space Program was on TV, it was like I was in my own impenetrable bubble, or the cone of silence from Get Smart. My first grade report card says something like "Richard is exceeding all expectations but when he gets up from his nap he sometimes wakes with a sadness, and hides the fact that he has tears in his eyes. When I ask him what is wrong, he says that the other kids are mean. When I ask him who is being mean to him, he corrects me and says, "they are mean to each other.""

One other thing you should also know is that I didn't speak for several months when I was five. Someone turned on the evening news with Walter Cronkite one May night in 1963 and as usual, I had my eyes glued to the TV when I saw young children being propelled on their backs with water from a firehose, and giant dogs were ripping and biting them. I loved dogs. I loved water! How could this be? It was horrific and I remember crying as if the world had just come to an end. To me it had. Those children from Birmingham, Alabama were being treated in a way that I found so monstrous that I believe all my nightmares for the rest of my life would come from those unspeakably heartbreaking images. I wouldn't be able to speak for the rest of the summer as I began to learn the long sad history of racism in America. I learned about the methodologies of meanness and cruelty that humans have perpetrated on each other since time began. I didn't belong on this planet. There must be some mistake.

So you can imagine what it was like for me, a few years later when a new color television broadcast the first episodes of Star Trek. Here was a world, a galaxy that I could relate to. Captain James T. Kirk was the father figure that I had hungered for all my childhood: he was clever, funny, strong, handsome, and the absolute embodiment of good. His crew was made up of all those lovely people that didn't look exactly like me but we were the same. They worked together to solve problems, stay alive, and explore strange new worlds. They did this without resorting to firehoses or police dogs. They were respectful, kind and helpful to each other. I was in heaven.

I knew that as long as there was a TV show like Star Trek, there were other people like me in the world. I would be OK. We would be OK as long as we continued to reach out, explore strange new worlds and seek out new civilizations. As long as we boldly went where none of us had gone before, we would not stagnate. We would not turn on each other as the world would get smaller and smaller.

Ender's Game and my thoughts on the boycott

My first blog for Geek Out On... , way back in June of last year, was about the film, Ender's Game, based on the novel by Orson Scott Card. If you read the blog entry here, you'll see that I was very excited about the cast and crew finally completing principle photography. I had been waiting since the award winning book was published in 1985 for the movie to be made, and my hope was in turns, renewed and dashed as rumors of the film project's development started and sputtered many times over the next 20 years.

I hadn't heard of Orson Scott Card's political views when I wrote my blog post, but I did become aware of them after my good friend, Stan Heller, having read my post, told me about Mr. Card's affiliation with the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a well known anti-gay hate group. Mr. Card serves on the board of NOM and has donated substantial money and time to keep people like me from enjoying the rights and privileges that he enjoys.

Deeply crushed by the news that one of my favorite writers had done and written some pretty hurtful things about me, it took me some time to shake off the damage, but I did... mostly. When you look up to someone and then find out that they're not who you thought they were, it hurts, no matter how old you get, it hurts. Granted, I'd been in a similar position before when I found out that Thomas Jefferson had slaves when he wrote the phrase "all men are equal" and Richard Wagner was a notorious anti-semite when he wrote his opus Ring Cycle; All heroes are human and full of inconsistencies. "I'm no longer a child," I thought, "why am I so upset about this?"

Though I don't think we've ever met, Mr. Card and I consider ourselves Christians (I'm not a Mormon, but I've had many friends who are, and my Jewish grandfather married a Mormon woman whom I loved very much), we've worked in theater for much our younger lives, we're writers, we love reading history and speculative fiction. Mr. Card is the same age as my eldest sister and he could probably pass as my older brother; I certainly looked up to him like a younger brother would. Maybe that explains some of the hurt. Emotions are funny things, illogical, trouble inducing, and the cause of all human suffering. Mr. Spock (Gene Roddenberry) was right.

A year had gone by and I hadn't made up my mind about whether I was going to go see the movie or not. It doesn't open until November 1, so like all clever humans, I defer difficult decisions until I absolutely need to act. A few weeks ago, I look at my blog stats and they're through the roof! Oh boy, my usually sluggish blog site that I've been barely posting to over the past year has much more interest. Why? I start searching around and the answer is clear: a boycott of the film has been called from a website called Geeks Out.

My first reaction was one of solidarity, but as time has worn on and I've reflected on how I feel, I'm not so sure. I've been able to rationalize buying very expensive CDs of Wagner's Ring, I am still a fan of Thomas Jefferson and his writings. I buy things all the time from those I don't agree with. I don't agree with anyone about everything. Who does?

The difference, though is Mr. Card gives his money and time to a group that actively seeks to reduce me to a second class citizen by keeping me from enjoying the same rights that he enjoys. He does this, even though he knows that he is wrong. He continues doing so because he is part of a group who has benefitted from scapegoating my group to gain money and power. If you don't believe me, then I dare you to read my blog post on the subject several times with an open mind.

At the prompting of the film studio who is backing Ender's Game, and fearful that a boycott of the movie would jeopardize box-office receipts, Mr. Card wrote a short-sighted non-apology in Entertainment Weekly stating that "With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot." He then cleverly taunts,"Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute."

Orson Scott Card is asking me to turn the other cheek and forgive him. As a life-long follower of Christ, I'm inclined to do so.


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