How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Or Is Los Angeles Really the Capitol of the Klingon Empire?
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Or Is Los Angeles Really the Capitol of the Klingon Empire? |
| Creator: | Jill Crabtree & Diedre Mathews |
| Date(s): | 1973 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Or Is Los Angeles Really the Capitol of the Klingon Empire? is a 1973 account of several fans visiting various Star Trek venues at NBC, as well as meeting people involved in show.
It was printed in the zine, Memory Log, a zine that narrowly escaped being ingested into the maw of Paula Smith and Sharon Ferraro's zine, Menagerie.
It is an example of fans on sets, a popular activity.
Some Topics Discussed
- the traffic, smog, and chaos that is Los Angeles
- Detroit Triple Fan Fair
- meeting many PTB
- meeting Jimmy Doohan, George Takei, Gene Coon, Gene Roddenberry, and William Theiss (the latter who seemed to go everywhere with these fans and was VERY solicitous: dinner at his house, dinner at a restaurant, personal tours, giving them costume advice for their masquerade plans at Detroit Triple Fan Fair, hanging out under their hotel balcony...)
- a jabs at Robert Bloch, the Post Awful, and more
From the Essay
Having taken total leave of our senses, and having a pious regard for the great ghod STAR TREK, we decided to take total leave of Detroit and journey to Los Angeles. We undertook this epic trip to determine whether the sabotage of the DTFF-STAR TREK Con was strictly a local problem or a deliberate attempt by the Post Awful to eliminate STAR TREK Fandom forever.
William Ware Theiss hereafter referred to as Bill, suggested we meet him at International Silk and Woolen to peruse the material used in the manufacture of the original STAR TREK costumes. Little did he know what he was letting himself in for... our resident fabric freak spent her return fare and had to be put in restraints. As we led her away, she was crying "I can get a job here!" Tranquilizing her by using William Shatner's dress uniform as a strait-jacket we managed to get her out the door. She was stroking this holy relic and babbling insanely, "This touched HIS body...this touched HIS body."
Very carefully following Bill up the canyon roads, we at last arrived at his home. Walking into his living room caused nosebleeds due to the immediate confrontation with extreme altitude, I mean, what can you say when the panorama of L.A. spread out before you resembles nothing more closely than a slightly lumpy pocket handkerchief with a fatal disease? After three hears of total ecstasy we retreated to the comparative sanity of our dreary motel room. Trying on those costumes was something else...and they look even better on a warm breathing body than they do on the tube. Two minutes after we arrived at the motel, we received a call from Bill inviting us to join him for dinner about 9 pm. Great News! Not being totally insane, we accepted with pleasure.
... we received a call from Jimmie Doohan. He said if we didn't mind, he'd meet us in an hour or so. MIND? Have you ever seen three women dive into the bathroom at once? Cries of "Where the hell is my hairbrush?" were punctuated by sobs of "what do you mean, there's no more towels? I am NOT drip dry!"
[...]
One pint of Scotch and two hours of scintillating conversation later, we all adjourned to the bar of the Sheraton for more of the same. Jimmie, hereafter referred to as a one man forest-fire is definitely one of the more memorable specimens of Actor Canadianus in captivity.
Finally having located L.A. Fandom in the person of Cheryl Etchison, Admiral of Star Fleet and Shatner Freak Extraordinaire...
[...]
Delighted to find another Shatner addict, we spent several hours discussing the vagaries of network executives (and some of them are pretty vague) and the eventual destination of the NBC peacock...do you prefer yours roasted or fried?
Monday remains memorable as the day we met Gene Coon... alias Leo Crooin, the perpetrator of SPOCK's BRAIN, discussed STAR TEEN - the chances for revival, and the time a wildcat sat on Mr. Coon's head. S'truth!
All romantic notions to the contrary, Mulholland Drive was obviously planned by Robert Bloch...in one of his less lucid moments. Would you believe the streets really DO go straight up and down?
Monday is also the day we met George Takei...By this time we were shell shocked.... At last I discovered that some of the FAMOUS share my plebeian tastes for McGovern and Spanada.
We had an 11 am appointment with Gene Roddenberry for which we were only one hour late. The first thing we spotted was a photograph of the Enterprise hovering over NBC Burbank. We can only hope it was a bombing run. Other notable relics include the plant which Harlan Ellison ate during his frustrating interviews re CITY. We have it on the best authority that he really did stand on the Great Bird's desk, however it was NOT verified that he left when they set out a mousetrap.
[...]
After a brief discussion of STAR TREK, the Detroit Con, and some of GR's new projects, he told us we were going on a tour...Okay, now let's hear how you would have gotten out of going on a tour you didn't have tome to go on in the first place, Particularly when the person sending you is the Great Bird himself. We took the grand tour. Unfortunately, this left us without time to see either Fred Phillips or Bob Justman...but enough bellyaching. It was, after all, a once in a lifetime type thing, and we DID enjoy it.
Bill Theiss was kind enough to volunteer to guide us back to civilization and food...it was now 5 pm and two of our hardy company had not yet had breakfast. Unfortunately, when we stopped to eat, we lost Bill, and with our customary talent, we promptly got lost. Any comments made by our Infamous Leader regarding the L.A. freeway system, gas station maps, and rather surprising allegations concerning the ancestry and personal habits of her navigators might be considered libelous and have therefore been omitted.
[...]
[Much later at our hotel], we saw a familiar figure beneath our balcony, so we told Bill to come on up. He was kind enough to approve the designs we had done for the women's Star Fleet dress uniform and several of the outfits our extra-terrestrial ambassadors are to wear for DTFF-STAR TREK Con.