I Didn't Know Uhura Had a Cleft in Her Chin!

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Title:	I Didn't Know Uhura Had a Cleft in Her Chin!
Creator:	Winston Howlett
Date(s):	February 1978
Medium:	print
Fandom:	Star Trek: TOS, cosplay
Topic:
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I Didn't Know Uhura Had a Cleft in Her Chin! is a 1978 essay/meta fic by Winston Howlett.

The topic is his journey to playing Uhura in the 1977 skit, Stour Treq: A Musical in Search of a Key, at SeKwester*Con, Too. This skit featured the entire cast "in drag."

The essay was printed in Tetrumbriant #14.

There were two other skits at this con: Where No Man Has Gone Lately by Winston Howlett (also in drag). The third skit was an epilogue to a story in Delta Triad #4 called "The Sword At the Gate," a sequel to the episode "The Paradise Syndrome." It was performed with Gerry Downes reading the lines aloud while the story was narrated by Dorothy Martin in Indian Sign Language.

Blurring the Lines

Howlett wrote a similar essay/metafic called I've Got Friends. In both of these fanworks, he gives characters, including himself, coded names and titles.

While not exhaustive, these are some of them in this essay:

• Bonnie Radish = Connie Faddis
• SuperCon on Labor Day Weekend = Star Trek America, one of the Schuster Cons
• Zine*Con Two = SeKwester*Con, Too
• Chicken Leg = Lansing, Michigan
• Warren James = Winston Howlett
• "an Uhura story I'd written and published" = The Goddess Uhura
• Larry John = Jeff Johnston
• Rainbow Magazine = Spectrum
• Jerry Daniels = Joel Davis?
• Linda Markham = ?
• Rebecca Carlson = Laura Basta or Margaret Basta?
• Rachel Carlson = Laura Basta or Margaret Basta?
• Michelle "Mike" Darnell = M.L. "Steve" Barnes?
• "putting out a fanzine at the con" = The Cage
• Mona Simmons = likely Leslie Fish
• "a STAR TREK Con Federation Masquerade, my first attempt" = Schuster Star Trek Conventions/1975 New York City Schuster Star Trek Convention, see the 1976 essay by Howlett called The Conning of a Con (OR THE "OH MY GOD THE MUGATU WANTS TO PLAY GAMES!" Syndrome)
• Barbra Howard = Winston Howlett cosplaying a woman who is eight and a half months pregnant
• Fan Writer's Hugo Award = Fan Q Award
• Tina West = ?

Author's Afterword

The above story, though based on fact, is fiction. Not only were names changed, but -- in some cases -- several people are compressed into a single character. Some actions and attitudes were exaggerated, while others never happened at all. You try to figure it out.

From the Essay

Zine*Con was an invitation-only con for fanzine editors, writers, illustrators and anyone else who could afford the transportation costs of getting to Chicken Leg, Illinois. Actually, it wasn't an 'invitation-only' affair, but the only way one even heard about its existence was by being in the inner circle of non-Trekkies. This was a gathering of intelligent adults, without STAR TREK cast celebrities and their blithering worshipers (and fantasy-rapists) around to get in the way. Thus, attendance was less than two hundred people.

I hadn't been able to attend the first one, but had heard a lot of good things about it...including my name being respectfully mentioned because of an Uhura story I'd written and published.

"I'd like to," I said, "but I'm not sure if I can."

"Well, we hope you can, because we have this idea of doing a skit there, in which the whole cast will be in drag. We want you to play Uhura."

After I uncrossed my eyeballs, I laughed. The idea fascinated me. I'd made myself think like her in order to write that story everybody liked, but to actually play her...

"Bonnie Radish found out I'm going to Zine*Con Two, and has buffaloed me into playing Christine in some play! (Was that panic creeping into his voice?) I don't know anything about going around in drag! She said I should contact you..."

After calming him down, I assured him that I'd be able to supply him with everything he'd need. "Just send me your body measurements," I said, and I'll take care of the rest."

You know, sometimes I have a soft heart and a very soft head. How in the world was I going to put a female costume together for a male body that was over a thousand miles away?!

But first, it was back to the 'TV' boutique for another padded girdle and other necessities. By now, I was making so many trips to that place that Jean and his friends were considering me to be one of the boys, or should I say "one of the girls"? (In the subculture, that is not an insult, by the way) They even invited me to a 'Queen's Ball' they were planning for New Year's Eve. I declined.

After the bus ride to Chicken Leg with about fifty other Trekkers, and after Jerry and I got settled in our room, the convention began a day early. One of the things con registration rewarded us with was large membership badges with our names typed on so small that you were practically in a person’s vest pocket before you could read it. Thus, women were saying "Oh, so you're So-and-So!!" and hugging that person all in the same split second.

I got tired of the National Greeting Matches very early in the game, and wound up just cooling it with a tossed aside fanzine in the con committee room. Eventually, Jerry stuck his head in the room with, "Hey, Warren! Mona Simmons just arrived!"

"Terrific," I said, and turned the page.

Mona Simmons and I had very different views about homosexuality in Trekfiction, and had argued about the subject quite loudly in letters to each other and fanzine letter columns; she was pro, I was con. (status is still unchanged). A lot of people had been rubbing their hands together in anticipation of a Battle Royal when the two of us would meet. One even wanted to sell tickets, proceeds to go to charity.

What actually happened was that the two of us pretended not to see each other for all of Friday and most of Saturday. By early Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t even thinking about her any more, with the banquet and the subsequent performance just a few hours away, and my stomach so jittery that I couldn’t even touch my lunch.

I covered my nervousness with jokes, made mostly to other members of the cast. A majority of it was self-depracating [sic] humor, done in an attempt to keep the female jokers off my back by beating them to the punchlines. It worked so well that some of them complimented me on my self-assurity [sic].

The play itself was a real ball. And we got more laughs from bloopers than from lines done correctly. I would've had even more fun if my strapless bra hadn't kept slipping.

I did the third transformation [as my alter ego, Barbra Howard]. As I worked I talked, I thought I was speaking to Larry, but actually it was to myself vocalizing everything that came to mind, rambling in 'female' thoughts.

Basically, it was the same 'dinner outfit' I had worn in the Carlson's house, with a curly afro instead of the Uhura wig. However, an addition was accomplished with a terry cloth bathrobe (Jerry's, used without his permission) and a very large panty girdle (Don't ask me where I got it from 'cause I don't remember). The slide show in the banquet room finally ended, The lights came back on. and Mrs. Barbra Howard came waddling into the room. She had to waddle because she was about eight and a half months pregnant,

The room fell down. And they applauded. Not just because of the absurdity of it, but because the women — most of them, I am convinced — understood what I was saying. Oh, the jokes would keep coming, but now a lot of them would be laced with...respect? Is that the right word? All I know is that they would at least think twice about that aspect of the sexual double standard. As to what would come of it, well...

"Why did you do that?" She pointed at my swollen stomach. "...Because it's outrageous," I smiled.

"No," she shook her head. "It's more than that. You don't just like to play roles. You're a ham, A one-hundred-seventy-pound, brown sugar-coated, baked Virginia ham. You like being at the center of attention, and don't care how you get it."

[...]

I bumped into someone at the corridor junction. She stared at my stomach, while I looked at her face.

"Hello, Mona. I hear you've been nominated for the Fan Writer's Hugo Award this year." I held out my hand, "Congratulations."

"...Thank you,.." She shook it almost reflexively, her eyes and mind fixed on my exterior. And she looked ever-so-slightly perplexed, which I could understand.

I mean, how would you like to debate the pros and cons of homosexuality with someone who was dressed like that? How would you start?"

Hey, Warren! Did you see the second page of that zine that Larry John and his crew put out at the con? "You're getting this zine because..." Two of them are great! "...You know where Warren James buys his clothes." And "You have the negatives of his new wardrobe!"

The wardrobe. I packed it away in a locking closet, along with my other costumes from Halloweens, school plays, church playlets... and material for a costume for a STAR TREK Con Federation Masquerade. My first attempt.

The costume is coming along quite nicely. "Jua Mfalme, Ebony Prince of the United States of Africa" will be quite impressive.

Rebecca Carlson is playing my wife, the Ivory Princess. She came by last night to pick up her cape.