The Philosophical Frailty

I continued reading Final Frontier and grew fascinated by just how good the book was.  It's a paperback Star Trek novel written before Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered, but somehow it seems pretty relevant today.  I know it's a cliche to say that in this decade, but it seemed to touch upon the themes covered in Deep Space Nine and Enterprise, namely, how the Utopian society of Kirk and Picard's Federation came to be.

 

At the center of this story are three characters: George Kirk, father of the famed captain, here he is, a military officer to the core, he was kidnapped by friend and colleague, Captain Robert April, to take part in the Enterprise's first voyage, a top secret rescue mission.  April represents Gene Roddenberry's idealistic point-of-view, a counterpoint to George Kirk's military cynical practicality.  In the course of these events, they encounter a Romulan, T'Cael, a man intrigued by humans, Earth, and the Federation, who must navigate the political subtleties of a fleet of his own ships.

 

The result is an action-packed, swift 434 pages, but it's all couched in character-driven, thoughtful dialogue.  In addition there are other nice touches like the idea that George sends his two sons hand-written letters rather than comp tapes (this was written years before e-mail was common).  It's a touch that makes George all the more the stick-in-the-mud conservative who debates his more imaginative friend.  April relishes the debate a little more, but both are equally passionate about their sides.

 

The ship unnamed, George argues that its name should follow in the grand tradition of Enterprises past, while Robert April wants his ship to represent diplomacy, peace, and a new kind of government built on the idea of reaching out into the galaxy with open arms, built upon a new constitution, his choice for the name (most fans know it would become the name of the class of ship instead.  Which is the consolation prize?).

 

Through all this reading, I got a new assignment at the hospital.  Actually it wasn't at the hospital, but at one of its annexes.  Like James T. Kirk's father, I was being "kidnapped" by friends to help them on a mission: fix the filing system and possibly get promoted.  To further add to the Star Trek symbolism, they had a plasma TV playing Star Trek: The Next Generation on Spike.  It was the two-parter "Redemption" in which Worf leaves Starfleet to help the Klingons in their civil war, and to restore honor to his family.

 

What I found refreshing was how startlingly good the work ethic of the administrative staff was.  However there were a lot of differences in the way they did things, the biggest being they filed a lot more things.  The work piled up endlessly, I started second-guessing myself, was I filing everything in its proper section?

 

In addition to my stress, on my first day I went to the bathroom after my ride brought me from Westwood.  After lunch I went to the bathroom, I wasn't there to pee.  The toilet faced the door and my lock, unbeknownst to me, it didn't click far enough.  A nurse came in surprised to see me.  Though noone's fault, she apologized several times.

 

This new location was way out in Santa Monica, so on Friday, I was nervous about being back to Hollywood in time for my internship.  Jeff wasn't there this week, he had scheduled a substitute host and instructed me to help out where necessary, which of course I was happy to do.

 

Jeff's new Friday Night Frankenstein mixtape was at my disposal, so I could still use it for the show.  This ended up being especially useful because one of the shows that night called themselves "Electric Mayhem."  This was of course the name of Dr. Teeth's band on The Muppets, and one of the tracks on the mixtape was their song "Can You Picture That?" from The Muppet Movie.

 

I knew that would be the track I would choose for their intro and outro.  I kicked myself for telling the host because she mentioned there would be a surprise intro song for them, and to see if they could figure out why.  I wanted to be a little more subtle about it.  It turns out they got the reference, but said they were glad the host said something before hand doubting they would have gotten it otherwise.

 

The next few days were a bit stressful.  I didn't have an improv outlet that week, I received some bad news on Monday, and on an unrelated note, I had a physical the next day.  MB's Monday was also not particularly great, so we commiserated for a bit over the phone.  We realized that the timing of her trip was pretty good.

 

My physical was scheduled for Tuesday and she was coming in on Thursday, so the other two days I was in Santa Monica.  On Wednesday, I was told I could listen to the radio.  So, I put on FNX and listened to Boston's True Alternative.  It was good to hear home.

 

Thursday I picked up my cell phone and MB was on the other line.

 

To be continued very soon...

 

Thank you, I'm Eric Cheung.  I'm on MySpace and Live Journal.