Beam Me Up Scotty, One Last Time! The James Doohan Farewell Star Trek™ Convention & Tribute Saturday August 28, 2004

On Friday morning on the way to work, listening to Jamie & Danny on the radio for the Star e.i.p. Password of the Day (I know I'm a dork), I heard Danny mention that his wife Gretchen was going to be playing at the "Star Trek Convention" that night at 8pm. Looking things up, I learned that Gretchen Bonaduce plays in the band "The Muddflaps," and apparently so does James Doohan's son Chris. Then I learned that it would be the final convention ever for Doohan, who played the beloved "Scotty," Chief Engineer of the Enterprise on the first series. He's 84. There was a big 3-day gala event going on, and I knew I had to find a way to get to Hollywood and say goodbye. I'm a fan. I invited fellow Trek fans Marcus and Amanda to join me, and they said yes! I was glad we found something fun to do for Saturday, as they would be packing all of Sunday for a three week cruise they're going on that Monday! They woke me up the following morning (Saturday) bright and early at 1pm to find out why weren't already on the road, and soon we were.

As conventions go, this one was very inconspicuous. We didn't know if there really was one until we were on the second floor of the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. There weren't many people dressed up, and in fact, weren't many people at all. It was great, and only $10 to get in. We made our way upstairs quickly, as Scotty was supposed to already be done with his final public appearance of the day (and we wouldn't be back the following day for more of the bigger events, and entire original surviving cast). He was still in the room, and I have to admit it was a little thrill. I've been a Trek fan since grade school, and a few months ago I finished watching every episode of the original series ever, chronologically. There was a diminishing line of people who paid about $70 or so to get in a studio-style photo with him. He wasn't bothering to shake hands, or even look at most of the people. I guess he's that ancient. He's also missing a finger from a war injury, and has a pretty colorful past.

The three of us stood off to the side and watched, and when the line got small enough, and when I realized they weren't taking tickets or doing any other kind of authentication, I made my move. I casually walked up to the line and joined it. My heart was pounding a little, half because I was meeting a legend, and half because I was sneaking in where I didn't really belong. I knew something was going to go wrong, like they'd noticed I didn't have the right ticket or bracelet or something and cause a big scene. Maybe they'd throw the three of us out. Then all of a sudden I was at the front of the line, and the lady shoved me in front of the camera with Jimmy. As he was in a wheelchair, I knelt down next to him, put my arm around his shoulders and said hi. The picture was taken, he weekly said "Thank you" without moving, and then I was back with Marcus and Amanda for celebrations of a job well done. I figured there was no way I'd get the photo, not having paid for it, so we wandered the convention. Right away we found a room filled with stars that Marc & Amanda had never heard of. I knew all but about 3 of them, because of my recent original series marathon. It was a long thin room with tables down both sides, and a doorway at both ends. Each table had a different Trek legend or guest star, and thankfully they had their younger photos on the tables and walls, so I could tell who was who. These included Star Trek's first hottie, Grace Lee Whitney who played Yeoman Janice Rand (still hot like this, except 74 years old now, and still kicking - she tried to get me to buy her $40 signed autobiography - I didn't), Arlene Martel, who played "T'Pring," Spock's Vulcan wife, in a few episodes, Robert O'Reilly, "Gowron," head of the Klingon Empire (at least during the DS9 years), many many others that you probably don't know (but I did!), and some miscellaneous sci-fi types, like the two people who weren't HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey," (Dave and that other guy), and "Boomer" from "Battlestar Galactica." It was a lot of fun to be able to just walk up and talk to them all, with no lines or blockades. I would've gotten a lot of pictures in there, but since they were selling pictures of themselves, it just seemed wrong.

After that, we looked through all the memorabilia, props, signed things, $600 phasers that were awesome and made of metal, and saw a Clark Kent impersonator that looked exactly like Christoper Reeve, dressed in Daily Planet reporter outfit. We went back up to the Scotty room to see if Walter Koenig ("Chekov") and Nichelle Nichols ("Uhura") were signing autographs yet, and they were. Once again, I wandered past the line, into the room, right past Walter to the back corner where they were printing out the pictures with Scotty from earlier. I had to balance my question to make it seem that I was merely confused, and not entirely undeserving of the photo. I posed it: "Hi, I'm curious what I do to get the picture? I stood in line, got the pic, and now I don't know what I'm supposed to do." All of that was true. I felt like one of the Aes Sedai in Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, unable to lie, but bending the truth like a pretzel. She asked me where in the line I was for the pictures. Hearing that I was near the end, she said I had about an hour before she printed that one, but once it was printed, it would just be "on that table over there" for me to pick up at my leisure. I asked "That's it? I just pick it up and go?" "Yep!" SCORE! We went from there to the next room over where Nichelle and Walter were slated to host some panel disussion on something. We waited for awhile, and then it started. We were in the second row, and in came Chekov. Nichelle never made it before we got too bored with what was a real flop of a discussion. What we got out of it was that Walter Koenig is very sarcastically funny and entertaining, did NOT want to be there, and has an idea for the next Star Trek that we all agreed later was insane. Still, it was cool to see him up close and in person.

Here it is. There weren't any guards or anything. The big room was almost empty, and there were tons of pictures of people with Scotty, who looked exactly like this in every photo. It was creepy. It felt like he had been a cut-out the whole time. I'm wearing a "Gamer" t-shirt from ThinkGeek.

Having milked everything we could out of our $10 admission price, we got set to leave, and then ran into an oddly hot Legolas chick and Fiona from Shrek. We figured out they were from the same group of theatre folks who comes out to the Mann Chinese Theatre and surrounding area every weekend to get pictures with the kids for tips. They were on a break, and unwilling to pay the entry fee for such a short visit, so Marc gave the ogre his bracelet, and I donated mine to the elf. They thanked us, but neither of us got the kisses I think we were both hoping for. Marc has the protection of the king of Far Far Away, and I believe I've been granted safe passage through Lothlórien, so at least we got something for our kindness.

Outside, passing through Hollywood and Highland (you may know this 3-story outdoor mall as the location of the Ryan Seacrest Live show, and if not, awesome), we passed Chalk Fest 2004. This was the kids' area. You could draw on a square if you were a kid and had, or could steal $7.

This one was really stunning in the sunlight. It had a feeling of depth to it, like it was jumping out of or into the sidewalk. I used that old perspective hack thing I wrote to line it up based on the perspective lines on the sidewalk. Then I scaled the resultant rectangle for proportion in Photoshop, and tweaked the levels into this image. I think the drawing has odd proportion to begin with. I think there's a lot that can be forgiven when you're drawing in a 10' circle on the ground. I forgive her.

According to LA Weekly: "Artists from around the world will chalk it up on the pavement and give tourists something to look at on the boulevard besides stars of has-beens and never-weres. Kids can participate in their own chalk area for a $7 donation. Hollywood & Highland, 6801 Hollywood Blvd.; Sat.-Sun., Aug. 28-29, 10 a.m.; free. (323) 960-9171." Anyway, don't bother calling. You missed it.

I liked the technique this guy was using for hair, laying down thick bright lines of blue, red, and yellow, then smearing them with the grain with his whole hand.

Sidewalk artistry can be very exfoliating.

This lady gridded things out and got things done. This is one of my favorites. She's got that kind of deadpan stare that made the Mona Lisa so enigmatically famous.

The artwork in this one wasn't as tight as the others, but you have to respect that hat with all the markers jammed into it.

There were princesses all over the place, because one of the theatres does some Disney Princess weekends thing, where tons of little girls in princess gear go and watch various Disney princess flicks. There was even a girl in full Snow White attire (wig and all) in the parking garage. If you've got a little daughter in the Hollywood area, check it out - they all seem to be pretty thrilled about it.

On the way home we stopped at Astro Burger, one of our favorite burger joints (introduced to me by Marc & Amanda, finders of all great things in LA). There were two girls, blonde and curly brunette waiting behind us for their orders as we placed ours. I looked at the brunette and she looked at me with a wide-eyed scared look, so I looked away. Then they went to a booth, and I realized she looked a lot like Sara Gilbert, just as I heard Marc say the same thing to Amanda. It turned out to be Sara, perhaps best known as Darlene on the TV series "Roseanne," and her sister Melissa of "Little House on the Prairie" fame, youngest person ever to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Looking that up, I see Melissa's married to Bruce Boxleitner of TRON fame (he was Tron). I ran into him and the rest of the original TRON cast at last year's E3, when he was promoting Tron 2.0. Bringing this whole thing full circle, Melissa is the goddaughter of Charlie Brill, who played "Arne Darvin" in what is probably the most famous episode of classic Star Trek: "The Trouble with Tribbles." The Tribbles are what unmasked him as a Klingon, disguised as a human. Most recently, I saw him reprise his role as Arne Darvin in one of my favorite episodes of DS9, wherein the crew goes back in time with the future Arne for an awesome blending of original and new footage (Forrest Gump style) that saw two Arnes and two generations of Star Trek crews in one great episode. Btw, If you were wondering, the burger was awesome, as usual. The Gilberts ditched us commoners and sped off in a BMW SUV with to-go orders. This was one very cool day. Thanks again to Marcus and Amanda for going with me, and making it that much more awesome. And thank you, Jimmy Doohan. And thank you, Gilbert family, wherever you are.