When David Gerrald first contacted me on FACEBOOK I knew nothing about him.
He wanted a couple of classic 1950s 3D films I have.
He offered me some of his books for them.
This was new as generally people offer me nothing.
His books arrived.
THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES is the wonderful story of a young person starting his career as a writer.
In his book he charts the course young writers generally travel without charts.
I had seen the Star Trek TV show THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES several times, always with joy but nothing like the joy of the first time.
I don’t know how kids today view those early episodes of STAR TREK when few thought the show would become what it has become.
Talk about mustard seeds.
I caught them in syndicated reruns.
This book tells the tale of how something simply perfect came to be.
In that telling it is the perfect book for every young person who has set themselves on the path of being a writer.
In his book Gerrold hails all the great SF writers of our youth (he was born in 1944. I was born in 1946) except the greatest.
The greatest is Judith Merril whom J. G. Ballard hailed as “the strongest woman in a genre created by weak and ineffectual men” which is one helluva put down.
Nonetheless, I’m with J. G. Ballard.
That does not mean those men were not good writers.
Writers as a rule tend to be strong on the page and weak on the stage.
Judy was strong on the page and on the stage.
This book captures the enthusiasm and the idealism of a young STAR TREK fan meeting all the people behind the show before they became cultural icons.
Gerrold pants a picture of William Shatner as man who does not take himself seriously while at the same time taking his work with 100% of the seriousness it deserves.
He paints a picture which shows cast and crew equal partners in the creation of the work.
Which is refreshing because I’m getting more than tired of hearing people shit on Shatner.
Not that Shatner can’t handle it.
He’s a good shit.
I’d have sent Gerrold the stuff he asked for without getting his books.
All of us are working not for today but for tomorrow.
Today is the moment before tomorrow’s people get recognized.
This book is about the moment BEFORE a young writer got recognized.
The main thing I get from reading this book is that the right people always are generous.
Young people are always looking for teachers.
What they too often fail to realize is that the right teachers only come along once we put our foot firmly on the path.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”― W.H. Murray
Daniel 2:41-43 New International Version
41 Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. 42 As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. 43 And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
This world runs after men of iron.
The thing is that all of us stand on feet of clay. This means the supports can’t carry the weight.
I think the wonderful thing about STAR TREK is that it was created by people made 100% of clay who allowed themselves to be moulded by necessity.
This book put me at the doorstep of that moment.
One of my favorite images from it is Leonard Nimoy in full SPOCK makeup riding a bicycle on the lot.
Who knew that out of something seen as silly in the moment so much that we now see as great would grow.
That my young writer friends is what each of you are.
STAR TREK took its viewers where no man had gone before in its first three seasons.
That “where no man has gone before” evolved into “where no ONE has gone before.”
STAR TREK is a series that learned while doing.
Unless learning and doing are one both are dead.
It is written that the first mas was called Adam because he was red like the clay out of which he was moulded.
“We’re an impossibility in an impossible universe,” Ray Bradbury said. “There’s really no split between science and religion. When facts stop, faith has to take over.”
I am here, we are here to boldly go where no one has gone before.
In THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES David Gerrold does just that.
The human plant is the only plant that asks HOW DO I BECOME.
The acorn becomes the oak without ever once asking how do I become.
When Moses asked The Burning Bush it’s name the best Translation of the answer he got I have found is, “I AM THAT I AM BECOMING.”
All of us are what we are becoming.
“You have the wrong attitude. If you leave this school today you will starve to death in two weeks,” my high school principal told me in my last year.
Had I not left I would not have met Judith Merril who invited me to become part of Rochdale College in Toronto in 1968.
What was Rochdale College?
It was the boldest experiment in alternate education ever undertaken.
At Rochdale there were no teachers.
Each Rochdalian was to be their own teacher.
What there was were resource people who were there to talk with anyone who wanted to talk with them however they were not there to teach.
Judy was there as a resource person.
I went to Rochdale to meet her because I knew her name from her anthologies of THE YEAR’S BEST SF.
I had just begun living the life we are called to live in THE I CHING which teaches learning and doing must be united otherwise both are dead.
Rochdale, the building, was murdered in 1972.
Rochdale the idea is immortal.
At Rochdale we boldly went where no one had gone before.
“I want to be a teacher,” a young person told me.
We have too many who would be teachers.
We have not enough who are learning and doing.
“Most teachers say you should go to school to get your degree to have something to fall back on. Aside from being a huge lie, that also creates a very high level of mediocrity, because nobody who really believes that is going to take the leap of faith required to be a serious artist. Stay out of school.”–Ellis Marsalis to his sons Branford, Delfeayo and Wynton.
David Gerrold took that leap of faith.
As well did the cast and crew of STAR TREK.
ROCHDALE took that leap of faith in 1968.
STAR TREK took it in 1966.
We do not know where we are going.
We can only speak of where we have been.
Boldly go where none have gone before.
–Reg Hartt
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