Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Vel Jaeger

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Vel Jaeger
Interviewer:	Megan Genovese
Interviewee:	Vel Jaeger
Date(s):	August 27, 2017 and September 3, 2017
Medium:	audio recording
Fandom(s):
External Links:	interview and transcript
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

In 2017, Vel Jaeger was interviewed by Megan Genovese as part of the Media Fandom Oral History Project.

Length: 1:09:47 (part one) 1:09:07 (part two). A written transcript is available.

For more information about the origins of this interview, where it is housed, contact information, suggestions regarding future interviewee candidates, and how to become volunteer interviewer, see the Media Fandom Oral History Project page.

Some Topics Discussed

• why Jaeger occasionally used the pseuds "Ellen Hulley" and "Artemis"
• the fan gatherings called "San Diego Second Sunday Pizza Pig Outs"
• writing fannish poetry
• her story, "Hello Darkness, My Old Friend" in TREKisM at Length
• the formation and creation of TREKisM
• combining being a fan and being married to an enlisted soldier, life and community on military bases
• being involved in the WISH Weekends

Excerpts

One of those things that is always amusing about fandom is that people are so scattered, geographic, ethnic, you name it, blend with this commonality, so we had been—the reruns, the Star Trek reruns were on so we enjoyed those, and a group in Florida called Florida Federation of Fans decided to put on a convention in West Palm Beach. One of the guest actors was George Takei who played Sulu on Star Trek, and there were a number of other writers who come to mind—Keith Laumer was one of the writers; Kelly Freas was very well-known science fiction artist and dozens of—Noel Neill who played Superwoman on TV. All of these people were going to be in the hotel. I had no idea how many there were but they pretty much sold the hotel, and that’s how it all started. We talked to everyone and anyone. That was Labor Day Weekend, 1975

...my husband and I would go up to Atlanta for DragonCon. We were both volunteers there. I didn’t do much but help support my friend, but he and my long time friend started out reading my zines when we were stationed in California, rented a convention suite for DragonCon—60,000 people if you’re not familiar with the size of DragonCon. They’d provide food for them so the kids don’t spend all of their money in the Dealers Room and have nothing to eat. That’s how I got started! We had entered the costume contest. I made a black caftan with gold braid everywhere, and she was an alien nun, and I made a costume in homage to “Bread and Circuses,” the episode of Star Trek where ancient Rome never fell. So you had gladiator games on TV! It was the most natural thing, and I made a glittery gown—I still have it and had to alter it a little bit over the years—and I wore it last year for the last time. Not the last time, but I’ve always—Halloween was one of my favorite holidays simply because of the costuming. I had started sewing as a teenager, and that was just one more facet.

“Trek Con ” was run by a sci-fi—at that time, Star Trek clubs—it was the mid-seventies, and at just about the same time that everyone started being aware of each other, like a tumbleweed convention (laughs). You just kept running into people, and now, of course, it’s just assumed that (unintelligible) you’re blonde, and “oh wow!” There are others out there, and it’s funny how I had to find out how someone feels the same way. I enjoy all the rest of science fiction, too, but the movies don’t have that much to offer, as the books did. I used to read voraciously, but that’s one of the casualties of time with all of the surgeries and

[I won a prize in the first costume contest I ever entered]. The title we called it was “Militant Alien Nun.” She got first place. I got third place with all of my glitter cloth, but it was very [stunning one?] that I did—Star Trek did the original Starlog design with the corona and the sun, so it was a black disc and then the flames surrounded it. That’s what I did, only I did it was two-inch-wide braid tapered at the points, and I just played with it, which is pretty much what design is, moving things around and seeing what will work, and then I just put stripes of it on every edge, and I made a scarf, put more stripes on it. It looked very striking, and she used gold eye shadow all over her face, and it was first. It was just – you go have fun with it, and that’s what I always enjoyed what used to be the traditional costume calls, masquerades. The concepts people would come up with and illustrate them. It’s hard to pick out one. One was a [Florida] snow bird that came dressed as a snow bird with a camera and a scarf and flipflops and socks, all the little tweaks, just a few little extra tweaks to—it doesn’t sound that funny when you describe it, but this was 30 years ago, and I still picture this guy as a snow bird (laughs).

Then you add the sci-fi themes to it, and literally, the sky’s the limit! And I enjoyed it. I’ve always enjoyed making things with my hands, so I could get a lot more money for material plus my mother was only five feet tall, and I was 5’8” so both of us had to alter our clothes to begin with. Nothing ever fit off the rack, so I would alter full outfits for her and then just learned. I had taken the home ec classes, but they weren’t very good at teaching technique, so I learned more on my own by booting up the scale. Vogue had a line of patterns, coutures, that had all of these extra little steps in it. They’d teach you how to do these couturier techniques.

I did start dabbling in the arts more, and I started just illustrating, and the first one was in 1978-79, somewhere in there. I just thought I’d try drawing the faces, and I sent a copy to a friend of mine who happened to be Della Van Hise, who was one of the better-known editors. She also wrote and sold professional Star Trek stories. But she was from Florida! All of these people from Florida pop up here and there. So, in 1981, I had gone to the FebCon in New York. We were stationed in South Carolina in ’80, maybe ’80-81. That’s right, and I went to—it was in one of the universities in North Carolina. I think it was Greenville, and that February-March, and then in July, my husband had orders to California, so we already moved down to Florida in May of that year, and William Shatner was having a gathering with his fan club. This was the first big official fan club that he’d had. So they decided to have a weekend and rented a hotel, so I flew out there a few days ahead, saw my husband. This was in LA, right at the airport, and then I went to the convention. In the meantime, I had been—because I was already involved with the MENSA group—I was made the regional assistant for wherever I happened to be. We got to meet him separately on one of the days. It was the days before the computers and cell phones especially. We had mail chains going and phone chains, and we would communicate by that, so I already knew dozens of people before I even got there, so it was one big party. We had a banquet. That was in 1981.

Creation Cons had just been starting around that time, in the mid-eighties; they were small. They would have a few guests and then they would show slides or had writers—the same people who do the big yearly ones now. They were on a much smaller budget, and eventually they got into a routine.

I didn’t get to actually shake hands with Leonard Nimoy, but I did get to watch him filming for Star Trek IV aboard The Ranger in San Diego Harbor, so I didn’t mind that I didn’t get introduced. I’d seen him. I’d seen him before. I was more of a Kirk fan anyway. Kirk and Bones. That’s was thanks to Harve Bennett who I had gotten in touch with when he was first assigned to the movies from the second one, and he was just an absolute delight, and he said, “Is there anyone you think I should contact, whose thoughts…?” I sent him a two-page list of names and what they did, and I had a whole correspondence with him. It was just fabulous. I saved all of the carbons.

My kids were the cutest. My daughter was about three when she was dressed up as Ilia from the first movie. A little bald cap and a little white miniskirt, and my son—let’s see, she was three, so he was six—so he, I think he was five—anyway. He was a little kid and dressed as one of the security guards from the first movie. The oldest one had to be Spock in what was called “the blackbird outfit,” black with the Vulcan lettering on the front, and moleskin makes very good ears. You just kind of fold it around, take an eyebrow pencil and draw, pull some hair in front of it and nobody could tell. Of course, draw on the eyebrows, so…

I don’t have very many pictures for the number of outfits that I put them in, but that was just. The two cutest have to be the ones that are Spock from [the Kol?] , with the desert outfit. These were beautiful. They were, I think, about ten and eight, the boys, and my daughter was one of the priestesses in a little white, flowing robe, and kind of tinfoil stuck (laughs)

I did the same thing with her, with the hood. She was hysterical. She could have been an actress. She’d strike these poses with this very stern look, and then break out in a big grin with a tooth missing. Vicarious for my kids. They always enjoyed whatever mom came up with for Halloween.

It’s kind of hard to be a fan of William Shatner and not enjoy all of the different roles he does, so if you didn’t like sci-fi… Although he hasn’t done that much sci-fi since Star Trek, but that’s still been what keeps calling him back, and for the most part, there are people who have enjoyed celebrities and being around them, and some people will go for that. I just enjoyed his acting, and the more we learned about him, his background, the incredible amount of things he does for charity. He started the whole Hollywood Horse Show, and that’s now part of—the weekends that they have, they went on to have them all weekend. It started off with his star on the Hollywood Boulevard. The first one was in—not the first party; that was a different group. That just lasted two years with Sonni Cooper, and then several of the members who were already working in the club, signed a new contract, and it has changed hands over the years, but the yearly get-together became part of it. It wasn’t always yearly, but it was however his schedule would work.

It was more of the same thing. You’d gather at a hotel. They liked going to Griffith Park, so eventually that became the base, and that they had the club get-together. I think there are only a few dozen people that go now at the same time as the Hollywood Charity Horse Show, in April, I believe it is. Spring some time and raises a lot of money, a huge amount. Before then, it as just getting together, and they’d pick a charity for fundraising or selling signed photos. It evolved over the years, but it was really fun to have a group of people, especially the year my husband went off to Japan again.

Oh! I thought slash was pretty neat. I thought it was a possibility, and it seems like the writers have to be even better to sell their stories than the non-slash. I could care less one way or the other, but this will make me angry. In fact, I enjoy a lot of it. Same thing with other adult stories. I know it’s hard to think that there was ever a time when people were just so very, just really, angry, but then some people feel that way about the new Trek movies, so… Just enjoy what you want and— It’s writing. I’ve always had that attitude towards—you can’t start forbidding books. That’s just—it’s a narrow ground, and this area, I’d prefer to keep the personal aspects out of it but they’re free to speculate the same as anyone else is. You don’t have to read it, so that’s—I do insist, if kids are around, just keep it out of the way. You don’t need to be raising questions or answering questions at this point. That’s not the proper place. It’s adult entertainment so keep it for the adults, and that’s the way it’s been. Of course now everything is online, so it’s hard to imagine going to a convention.

I think I am an artist, [rather than an illustrator]. That’s an old argument. Yes, you’re illustrating a story, but by bringing so much else to it other than just the visual depiction, and—well, portraits have always been my first love.

[...]

You can get more into a portrait of a face—and even when I was taking life drawing, the full nudes, I had the outline sketch, and then I’d be focused in on the face. (laughs)

I’m not very good at figure features. I tried for a while, but it was pretty bad. If I’d had the time to—I had started taking an anatomy course, which I would have improved on, but I also problems with headaches and had to drop out of classes. The timing was off that year and just never got back to it, to that. That takes a lot of study. The same thing that people don’t realize how many hours that it would take to turn out some of these. Well, it would seem fast to some and slow to others, but I could turn out a face portrait usually in about three to four hours, and that’s just with pen and ink. Sketch in with pencil and then, since it was for reproduction, it didn’t matter what it looked like. Then you could just—sometimes I’d even use Magic Marker because I was sending a copy anyway, so it didn’t matter what it looked like. It’s one of my projects—to clean them up a bit, the ones that I really do like and had them preserved. I especially had fun playing with the art nouveau for the backgrounds.

[Gayle Ferrer] was the one who clued me into art nouveau being behind—I knew about it but not really all that much, and she is absolutely one of my favorite artists ever. Just the designs. She actually gave me some advice when I was first starting out, which was the late seventies, and she’s still working! That is such a kick!

It was such an incredible honor to be chosen with her among the six for the University of Iowa for the 50th anniversary. As it turns out, that’s the only thing I did for the year because I was sick all year and had to cancel.

That came about in the late 70’s. The first issue came out in 1978. I had joined MENSA in 1975, and then we were stationed in North Carolina, and there’s not a whole lot going on there. It’s a little small town. You’d have to drive forever to get to anywhere, plus when I moved there, I was pregnant with our third child, and I had two preschoolers on top of that. So, within MENSA, they have special interest groups that are a large part, and they’re sort of an independent—they’re not official publications but yet they’re a part of MENSA but they don’t represent MENSA because they don’t—as opposed to the local groups, which are the local membership chapters. I asked if there were any Star Trek groups, and if not, could I start one? I’d been familiar with some of the others. There was a science fiction group that I had subscribed to, but there was that part, and in fact, when they wanted a new title, I came up with a name for it, which was Interdimensional Journal, and the letters for the word MENSA were in caps within that. That was a little play on words that was popular with the special interest groups. That’s where the TREKisM came in, with the TREK in caps and M in caps with the little “is” in between. That was in 1978 that we started publishing that and at the time, they had lists of areas of interest, and they added Star Trek when I asked “where’s Star Trek?” so they added it, and they would send me a printout every so often with a list of people who had checked the box, and every month I’d send ten or so samples out, and that’s how we built our base.

It stayed fairly steady at around 200 for I’d say about the mid-80’s until ’91 when my world came crashing apart, because I did it all myself. There was no one to fall back on.

[...]

It was something for me to do that I could do at home.

I created the first years on the Staff NCO Wives Club mimeograph machine. That was the other thing to do, that was to volunteer for Senior Enlisted Wives Club and also for Navy Release. They made layettes for babies born to sergeants and below, and they had 100 babies per month born at Camp LeJeune Hospitals, the Navy Hospital there. That was busy, and we also worked in the office. That was pretty much what you had to do in that area, find something to do. I had several friends who were also into Star Trek, and they were involved in all three areas so that made it even better. It was something I could do at home and reach people around the world, literally.

Emotions. Moods. I liked the longer [poems]. The longest one I wrote was called Idols in a Romulan Mode, but the concept of an idol—it’s descriptive. I’m trying to think back. I lot of personal emotions went into it. Robin Hood was always very good. She would comment be dead-on accurate that this was what brought these feelings about. I said, (fades out), I looked at them as more exercises though probably meditations might be a better word. Haiku were a little too short. That’s why I liked the longer sonnets. I really enjoyed the sonnets and I had fun playing with the word structure. I liked wraparound words. The line broke midsentence but flowed into the next line, and playing with the rhyme. I had a book on—I forget what the title was—a grammar book on poetry, an introduction to poetry and went through that. I put Star Trek themes in. There’s a certain iconography, most obvious being the colors, blue and gold and red, of the different divisions and uniforms. Spock’s eyes were black, and Kirk’s are hazel, and McCoy’s are blue. I had fun playing with them with that, without actually hitting you over the head with it. I still remember the one phrase, as soon as it popped into my mind that McCoy’s eyes were the color of the Georgia summer skies. The line has actually slipped away, but it was “eyes the color of the Georgia summer sky,” something like that, and you immediately knew who that was referring to, and I had fun writing the poem without mentioning names, but the people familiar with all of the descriptives—

... there were people already there [at the next base] that I knew from mail correspondence or from meeting at conventions that I went to on the east coast. It was like readymade, especially the Shatner Fan Club. When that began, I think I was in North Carolina. The first one was two years long, and it was ’79 to ’81 for the first—not really convention. I’ve forgotten what they called it, but they had about 180 people that came out to LA for that first party/gathering. I think we just called it a weekend. The group acronym was WISH, the first two letters of his first and last name, and then when he got the star—he was the first one to get the star on the Walk of Fame, so we did a lot of the background work on that, and were volunteers as hostesses for the party, and the banquet. It was a whole weekend of things to do. I think I averaged about five rolls of 36-exposure millimeter film at each weekend because I’d just run them through, and there’d be three days of shooting film...

Yes! Yes, that is true that there were many more male members. Most groups—the writers themselves, probably about 90% are women, when you look through. MENSA has more, I’ve forgotten what the percentage is, but there are more men than women, but when you go over to original sci-fi, it was originally more men. So, why? Star Trek was much more emotion involved than the hard science that typically attracted the guys, so that could be part of it; but I enjoyed working with women much more than men. That’s simply the way it is, and I’ve had very few authors to deal—they were men! I didn’t strictly go looking for them, to limit them to all women, but it’s one of those interesting work, one of the reasons I enjoy the people I meet. And I meet a lot more academics, a lot of library people, and writers, and even on the Facebook page.

I wrote the letter to Paramount when they announced that they were making another Star Trek movie after the first one, and my letter was forwarded to him by Gary Nardino, one of the execs, who also wrote back to me, and he said that he was forwarding to Harve Bennett, and so, absolutely. In fact, he sent me a note with his home phone number to call him and let him know what I thought after we saw The Wrath of Khan. Which we saw at Mann’s Chinese with a dozen or so of our fellow Shatner fans, with its huge 70-mm, whatever, screen. It just blew us all away, so I had to leave a message that it was so deep. That’s the level of connection that he had with the fans. And Gene Roddenberry, also, was very—I was invited to attend the party at Paramount afterwards, where his star—that was in September 1985, so we had the, I had the, golden envelope with the star on it, and then seeing that in the mailbox was just incredible. To actually drive onto the Paramount lot again. That was, came out in 1982? ’83? I think it was ’82, and then the third one came out in 1984. That’s right. That’s why they had brought Harve Bennett into it, because he had done TV films, and he was used to— They were looking for someone to bring in a movie on a TV movie budget, and that’s just what he did, and the quality of what he did just blew everyone away, and the second, third, and fourth makes a wonderful trilogy. I find that I’m partial to the third. That was my first visit to the set when they were doing some filming and getting to wander around Paramount, and I had a meeting with Harve Bennett. We talked on the phone, and I have all of the correspondence. I almost got all of it trans—I’ve got it all scanned, and people are astonished at the—I’ve forgotten how many letters there are back and forth. I believe that in following fans, he kept the tradition going that Gene Roddenberry started, who was always very involved with the fans. That didn’t happen with the TV series, the people actually doing that. You didn’t get the contact, and I’ve not heard any stories of JJ Abrams doing much fan communication.