Star Wreck

https://youtu.be/1nLuokOL_2E

The scene above, from Star Trek (the original series) is from the third season episode “Requiem For Methuselah”. It is the final scene of the episode. On an uncharted planet, the Enterprise crew finds a lone human named Flint. How he’s come to be so far from Earth is a bit of a problem, but nevermind that. Flint has an android he made by hand named Rayna, and Kirk being Kirk, he falls in love with her. But Flint loves her too, and designed to her to fit his own needs. In one of the dumbest scenes of the series, they fight over her, and she demands they stop. Kirk smiles and says, “She’s human!” Oh boy.

Seeing two men she cares about fight because of her, she has a breakdown and dies. This scene takes place after the death of Rayna, when Kirk is heartbroken and probably feeling a bit embarrassed that he fell in love with an android and then accidentally killed her with his testosterone.

I watched this show as a young teen, probably around 1970, when it went into syndication. Local independent stations carried it in the afternoon.

I watched every episode, again and again, for years. It was an escape. A good one, because it worked on so many levels as a series. There was only one two-part episode, but continuity still counted, production values on a low budget were good, and it made me use my imagination. For one thing, the sets were not that extensive. The sets for the Enterprise corridors were very short, only twenty feet or so, if memory serves, and there may have only been three of them. So I had to imagine those sets were on various decks of the ship, and since the ship was crewed by 430 people, it was huge. The imagination of the viewers was always part of the show. That was part of its genius.

I digress, but here’s what I’m getting at. See, I always loved this scene even though I hated the episode. And as I grew older, into my mid-teens, the scene became an obsession. I was always in pain. Never happy. I hated so much, could not function well socially, and was growing ever more alone. And I wished Spock was around to help me forget. I wished he would do to me what he does to Kirk in this scene.

Now, critics through the decades have torn this episode apart. First, they say the Brahm’s piano piece Spock plays is nothing like what Brahms ever composed, that it is merely a few notes repeated several times, and that the entire premise and its sub plots are bullshit. I’ll go along with that; the third season of Trek was mediocre at best, a horror at worst, with only a few episodes that were watchable, and one that was good enough to have been better placed in season two. So, sure, rip on the episode. But this scene made me cry back then. I guess it’s the music, but it’s also the overwhelming series of nightmares my life had become. I did not know of anything like “child sexual abuse”, in fact I never heard the word “abuse” without the word “drug” in front of it. And I thought, I guess, that the term was just another way of saying drug addiction. Which back then was misunderstood, and to our collective shame, is not much more understood today.

And as I grew older, and it started to become apparent to me that I was more dysfunctional than I could bear to think about, I wished for a Spock mind meld, because forgetting would mean healing. And I needed a healing.

The only fan letter I have ever written was to Gene Roddenberry. I was getting deeper into a life-threatening crisis, going from job to job, with a wife and two children to support, and still wishing for the mind meld. But I just wrote to thank him for a show that, for a time, saved my life and helped me to cope.

I of course was lucky to even get the form letter in response that said “Thanks for your thoughts on Star Trek … Mr. Roddenberry is too busy to respond … ”

I knew that. He’d been getting tons of mail for decades. He probably never read it. No one likely read it. They just opened it up, saw the series title mentioned and sent the computer printed letter. I know more about how things are in Hollywood than I wish I did, since it takes some of the joy out of the entertainment I get to see, but what the hell.

But some time after that, this train wreck of a feature film came out. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. It was a hot mess, and I never blamed anyone for it; except maybe Harve Bennet, who was a producer. And who just had to do a cameo scene. In the film, Spock’s half-brother, Sybok, raids a colony and holds hostages; a Klingon, a Terran, and a Romulan. His demand is for a Federation starship to be sent. He intends to hijack it and take it to Shaka Ree, or the home planet of God, known to humans as “Eden”.

He “recruits” followers by doing a mind-meld on them, taking away their pain. As McCoy would later put it, “Sounds like brainwashing to me.”

And then Kirk delivers the only lines in the entire movie that are worth hearing.

https://youtu.be/gJGwEP7AZHg

Kirk is right. Although bad things happen to us all, they become a big part of our lives. They shape us in ways we never truly understand. I consider this tragic; I wish there were ways to learn and to grow without enduring horrors, mistakes, dishonor, embarrassment, shame and victimization. I wish we did not need to hurt so much.

And trial, abuse, and trauma, those are cruel teachers. Sometimes what’s left is just someone like me: an asshole. That’s okay; life isn’t fair, so maybe it isn’t always supposed to end well.

Still, I would never have made it this far if not for being who and what I am, the good, the bad, the unforgettable, the painful, and the terrifying. I wish I knew whether the screenwriters ever heard of my letter. Because I told Roddenberry exactly why I needed his distractions. If he did, and of course I couldn’t have been alone, then this is a scene written with us in mind. Strength and will, endurance, those are things born of trial, things life has to teach you by kicking your ass. And for the record, no, I am not one of those “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” kind of men. I’m an asshole, not a prick. I’ve been kicked in the ass so many times I no longer function well socially. If someone gets too close, I’ll find a way to cut them out of my life or at least place them at a safer distance. I’ve had enough goddamn pain. Knowing that there is much more to come makes me all too willing to avoid any extra shit.

I’ve learned several weird things about trauma in my life. For one, there is a high degree of correlation between PTSD subjects and the sensitivity to the paranormal. It’s true; I’ve known so many like me. In that regard, we have too much in common.

Another thing I’ve learned is that heart disease, substance abuse and social-and-sexual dysfunction are common in PTSD subjects.

There’s more. But one other thing you should know is, yes, it really does show up on brain scans. If you have a stupid-assed doctor, he won’t see it. It’s a relatively new discovery, so not even all neurologists will even believe it’s what they’re looking at. All they’ll do is, at most, request another scan, or, at least, see nothing life threatening and tell you to go home. And make an appointment with a headshrinker.

I’m sorry, but there is no fucking shame in seeing a psychiatrist or a therapist. But healthcare is being fucked with and if you’re on Medicaid, those co-pays will stack up fast. I was seeing a therapist for years, but when I lost Medicaid, I couldn’t afford it anymore. I have to see a psychiatrist for medication, and I’m always in the hole with her co-pays. A therapist would refuse to see me after a few visits.

So for now, I’m just an asshole, fading fast, and really not all that fucking upset about it. I think life is teaching me another lesson.