You need more flair
Plus This Week in Trek History and inspirational Idris Elba content.
The more I let myself scroll through Twitter, the more angry and then depressed I become.
So I am trying - TRYING - to stop looking. I mean, I’m pretty lucky, here in my house with my lovely wife and lovely kids. I want to appreciate that I am essentially an introvert, so I am a-ok with just staying at home all the time. And I want to know what’s going on in the world, but also I don’t want to have a rage stroke.
So I’m going to once again escape into the future. Although not too far into the future, because things seem to turn ugly somewhere around 2399…
But maybe I can have my favorite future today.
For instance:
YOU NEED MORE FLAIR
Just out of college I worked at a chain restaurant (not TGI Fridays but it was owned and influenced by TGI Fridays). And that experience caused flashbacks the first time I watched Office Space.
Manager: Brian, for example, has thirty seven pieces of flair, okay. And a terrific smile.
Jennifer Aniston: Okay. So you… you want me to wear more?
Manager: Look…People can get a cheeseburger anywhere, okay? They come to Chotchkie’s for the atmosphere and the attitude. Okay? That’s what the flair’s about. It’s about fun.
When I wore an apron that had to have a few pieces of “flair” I went crazy with it. I already owned too many pinback buttons — with images of Dr Who and Star Wars and Blade Runner and Natalie Wood and and and — well, why not wear just about all of them in public?
When I retired from restaurant service and entered a cubicle-based work environment, I also retired my many pins. Except the few small lapel pins. Because you know what? Lapel pins fit perfectly on your suit jacket lapel. Who knew?
“Why yes. Ms. Manager, that is Spider-Man on my lapel.”
So here’s what I learned about that. My flair-covered apron? Background scenery. Wallpaper. No one noticed my homemade “Laugh Til Your Guts Bleed” pin amidst the jillions of other pins on my apron — not to mention the pins on all the other aprons on all the other servers. The endless barrage of flair served as a visual assault on customers, a brain-numbing barrage of FUN. When images are plastered everywhere, the individuals seldom stand out.
But that Spidey lapel pin? Oh yeah.
A while back (when things were still “normal”), a grocery store clerk commented on the small Avengers logo pinned to my lapel. “I love that!” she said. “I see people all day with characters on T-shirts but your little pin really stands out.” And that put a giant smile on my face. Win-win.
Yes that conversation actually happened.
Notice what I haven’t mentioned? That’s right, starfleet insignia. It’s not because I don’t own any.
But there was always just something too on the nose - as well as too large - about wearing Trek insignia as flair. (Well, except for one piece, but I’ll write about that another time.)
That changed this week.
Because Fansets very generously sent me this pin.
I hope you can sense the scale of it. It’s small. I daresay it is perfect for a lapel.
Coincidentally, yesterday I watched the Voyager episode, “Timeless,” and it featured future Geordi wearing that exact insignia. It’s almost like the Picard production team did pay attention to some precedents.
Anyway, another wonderful thing about this particular pin, for me at least, is that it doesn’t immediately scream STAR TREK. Sure, look at it for a few seconds and that delta will identify itself, but it’s somehow a little more clever and a little less overt. And that, for me, is perfect. It almost makes me want to start leaving the house again.
It also makes me want to get more of these pins. For instance, this one seems like a logical choice. And they have also already sent me this one, speaking of Picard.
So thank you, Fansets, for the wonderful pin. I can’t wait to sneak it back out into the world. If I ever wear a jacket with a lapel again.
Too bad I don’t have a mantle.
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH
I bought this book many years ago and keep forgetting to read it.
![PRIME DIRECTIVE by [Bryan D. Dietrich]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6EKf!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd80ab943-1cc2-4f3e-9ecf-f51d205dfc11_318x500.jpeg "PRIME DIRECTIVE by [Bryan D. Dietrich]")
Here’s the description.
PRIME DIRECTIVE is about Star Trek. It's about ten year-olds and Talos IV, Kirk and Klingons, captains and colonels. It's about a suddenly single Air Force father who introduces his son to a TV show, one that brings them both together, offers them both new life if not new civilization, preparing them both to go where neither has gone before. Prime Directive is a book about a man with Alzheimer's who doesn't have long before beaming out of this world, but it's also about his son, father himself now, learning how to take the helm once his captain, his Colonel, is gone.
Seems like something I’d want to read. Looking it up, I’ve owned it since 2012(!).
The problem is that it’s poetry and, well, I have historically had trouble appreciating poetry. I took a poetry class in college in hope that I’d learn to better appreciate poetry. Didn’t work.
Anyway, in honor of National Poetry Month, and because I’m stuck at home, I guess I should finally read it.
Except I’ve also got a Captain Pike novel I’ve been meaning to get to and if I really get an urge to read some poetry, Warmed By Love is right there on my shelf…
Apparently this interview was not actually done from his home, but still -
THIS WEEK IN TREK HISTORY
Happy Ancestors' Eve!
On April 22, 2375, Voyager chef/morale officer Neelix invented a special new holiday to celebrate and honor the ancestors of the ship’s crew, leading Captain Janeway to get a shiny new photo of her, the main crew, and Neelix's garish outfit. Later (earlier?) on April 24th, 1987, the hu-mon Gabriel Bell was born. Bell would go on to be a celebrated freedom fighter against the fascism of the authorities in the sanctuary districts, although when members of Deep Space Nine's crew were transported back in time, he was killed, forcing Sisko to take his place. Funnily enough, if you look him up in the Starfleet database ("Alexa, who is Gabriel Bell?") you get a picture of Sisko instead of the actual Bell. Meanwhile, in 2153, the NX-01 underwent a quick refit on Earth after an attack by a Xindi weapon. The Enterprise gains a new set of weapons: photonic torpedoes, the forebears of the hardy photon torpedo, which as everyone knows is the universal greeting when you don't like someone. Great joke, Geordi!
Outside of the actual universe, April 20 saw the birth of two Star Trek and genre legends, Hikaru Sulu himself, George Takei, who was born on April 20, 1937 in Los Angeles, and Clint Howard, who everyone knows as Balok, captain of the Fesarius in "The Corbomite Manuever," who was born in Burbank in 1951. On April 21, 1947, Iggy Pop was born, appearing as the Vorta Yelgrun in "The Magnificent Ferengi," while on April 26, 1952, Spice Williams was born, forever known as the Klingon officer Vixis in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. She has vunderful muscles. April 20, 1999 saw the final day of filming on Deep Space Nine, with the last scenes shot of "What You Leave Behind" - the wrap party was on April 22. Also on that day in 2019, filming began on Star Trek: Picard. And finally, on April 25, 1986, Star Trek - The Motion Picture finally premiered in East Germany, a whole six years after V'Ger had hit cinemas in West Germany. Das menschliche Abenteuer fängt gerade erst an!
It’s more important than ever to keep creating art, my friends.
DIRECTIVES
“The conspicuously hip and cool patter panders to prospective new and younger fans and makes this 24th century culture feel remarkably like our own—complete with rampant substance abuse, profiteering and corruption—and, like a night of excess, the fun is regrettable.” Interesting review of Picard from the World Socialist Web Site(!).
Fun clickbait slideshow: 10 Star Trek story arcs you can binge in a day.
Shatner and Nimoy not only defeated Khan, they defeated Hollywood accounting.
My vote for dumbest tie-in product.
And in honor of that last item, 7 things you might not know about DeForest Kelley.
Some of my above discussion of flair originally appeared in a piece called Unleash Your Inner Geek.
What’s your favorite piece of Star Trek flair?
Please let me know. Maybe send me a photo. I’d love to share your flair stories here in future issues.
Until next time, LLAP.
And thanks for reading,