Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Son of Kirk
William Shatner has said he’s the luckiest man on Earth, and who could possibly disagree with him? Notice that he said “man” and not “human”. He’s obviously not as lucky as those women who can have 12 orgasms in a minute. Nevertheless, he is justly proud of his many achievements and good deeds.
“I've got a beautiful wife, three beautiful children and I've raised a large amount of money for charity,” he declared.
Now, there are some trekkies who think Picard was a better captain than Kirk. I don’t agree with them. Picard was an uptight character who never let his hair down in front of the crew, whereas Kirk was a cool dude who could horse around and flirt with the alien chicks. This made him a better ambassador for humanity than Picard, because no one wants to make friends with a goody-two-shoes species that hides all its vices and doesn’t know how to have fun. Picard was good for signing treaties after Kirk had pressed the flesh.
So why am I talking about William Shatner? I’ll tell you why! A 59-year-old man called Peter Sloan, who claims to be Shatner’s illegitimate son, is suing his alleged father for $170 million. What he has done to merit such a sum is a mystery to me. His mother put him up for adoption at the age of five, and his foster parents did a perfectly good job of raising him. Maybe they would be entitled to ask Shatner to recompense them for their time and trouble, but Sloan’s demand for cash is pure brazen audacity.
You could argue, of course, that Shatner should have done the decent thing and raised the boy in his own home. That would be ignoring the reaction of Mrs Shatner, who might well have sued for divorce on discovering her husband had fathered a bastard son. It’s a foolish captain who causes his ship to capsize by taking on an extra cabin boy.
Much as I’m rooting for Shatner in this dispute, one aspect of his strategy does worry me: he is denying paternity out of hand. His publicist made the following statement on his behalf:
“Mr Shatner has three lovely daughters, but no sons ... Mr Shatner is aware of the lawsuit, but there's nothing there because he isn't his father.”
Sloan insists that Shatner admitted to being his father in private and now wants a DNA test to settle the matter. At the age of 85, Shatner might be playing for time in the belief that he’ll be dead before the court orders him to comply. I would have preferred to see him acknowledge his son, while condemning him for his greed and unwarranted sense of entitlement.
Of course, this lawsuit could only arise because American courts have got a reputation for giving people large sums of money for no good reason. As we say in the Congo, if you feed one crocodile, be prepared to feed ten the next time.
Labels: Kirk, lawsuit, lawsuits, Picard, Star Trek, William Shatner
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
He lived long and prospered
Silly Trekkies have been bleating and tweeting at William Shatner for not going to Leonard Nimoy’s funeral. Beam them up to the Bozo Asteroid. Mr Shatner had a previous engagement at a charity fundraiser and sent his daughters to the funeral instead. It was a logical decision that Spock would have approved of. I’ve not seen the Shatner girls, but I bet they’re a pair of lookers who are in far better shape than their pop. Had I been Leonard Nimoy, I would have given them permission to snort my ashes until they got high.
Now if Captain Kirk had not attended Spock’s funeral, it would have been an unforgiveable snub. I lost count of the number of times that Spock saved Kirk’s bacon by keeping a cool head when the captain was chasing alien totty. Furthermore, a party animal like Kirk could only have outlived a celibate Vulcan if the latter had fallen in the line of duty. “To fear death is not logical,” Spock would have said, before embarking on a suicide mission to save the Enterprise from being flushed down a wormhole into cosmic oblivion. He would still have worn a space diaper, because no bladder in the universe is controlled by logic.
We should not forget that Spock was half human, of course. Spock’s mother was a schoolteacher from Wichita Falls with a thing for pointy-eared dudes. His Vulcan genes must have been dominant, though, because he could do all of their tricks, including the telepathic face-palm and the knockout neck-pinch. He also possessed superhuman strength, because I clearly remember him kicking Kirk’s ass when they got into a scuffle. I thought he was an even-money bet to successfully defend his honour against a female gorilla.
Did Spock ever show his human half? The only time I can remember him doing so was during his verbal jousts with Doctor McCoy. I don’t believe a full-blooded Vulcan would have allowed himself to be goaded by the doctor’s obvious trolling. Spock’s desire to have the last word and show McCoy up as an irrational Earthman had a distinctly human tinge to it. They never quite got to the stage of exchanging “Yo Mama” insults, but the spirit and attitude were very much the same.
One last fact we should remember about Spock, which reflects well on the late Mr Nimoy, was that quite a few ladies found him attractive. Not all them, by any means – it was the bookish type of woman who seemed most likely to find his angular eyebrows bewitching. Here is a comment I got on an ancient post from a blogging author and mother:
“As a child, I watched Star Trek and privately worshipped Spock. His detached air and beautifully articulated sentences captured my nerdy imagination; his pointy ears, intelligent face and unconventional good looks didn't hurt a bit either.”
Her confession amused me and made me wonder whether Spock’s aloof style could be turned into a seduction technique. It’s got to be better than moaning with your mouth full.
Labels: Leonard Nimoy, seduction, Spock, Star Trek, William Shatner
