Saturday, November 02, 2013

Rock out with your Spock out!

Spock t-shirt design as worn by Irish guy

Yesterday, I got on a train to Petersham, just as I did one month earlier, to attend a meeting. A heavily-tattooed and facially-studded blond guy with a bicycle came into the carriage. He was in his 20s and wore a T-shirt with Leonard Nimoy on it, and the legend that read, "Rock out with your Spock out". I remembered seeing him in the same outfit four weeks ago, on the same train. A ponytailed guy in his 30s immediately complimented him on the T-shirt and engaged him in conversation about "Star Trek" - and soon they were trying to out-trivia each other: eg. Zachary Quinto had to cheat to do the Vulcan salute in the new movies; "The Wrath of Khan" and "First Contact" were the best films; "Nemesis" kinda sucked but they both liked it anyway, etc.

I chimed in with an anecdote about the Vulcan matriarch in "Amok Time" needing a piece of cotton round her fingers to do the salute correctly.

"Oh, you mean T'Pau?" they both asked. The younger guy had a thick Irish accent.

"Did you know that 'The Wrath of Khan' was on at the Dendy in Newtown a few weeks ago?" asked the Irishman.

"I was there," I boasted.

"I'd never seen it on the big screen before," said the Irish guy. "Hey, I remember you!" he said to me. "You were wearing a Starfleet uniform. You were in my row!"

"That's so cool," said the ponytailed guy. "I wish I'd been there."

Whoever said Trek geekdom was dead?

Retro screening of Star Trek II