Star Trek Meets Sex and the City, Jurassic Park Meets Eden
1. I linked to a parodic gay Star Trek video yesterday, but here’s a straighter Trek note to compensate: Let it never be forgotten, while you female readers are rushing off to see the new Sex and the City movie, that co-star Kim Cattrall was previously the traitorous Vulcan named Valeris in Star Trek VI. She’ll never occupy exactly the same place in normals’ fantasties that she does in nerds’ — and her betrayal of the Federation demands severe punishment, obviously.
But Kim Cattrall says she studied the life of Che Guevara as preparation for Valeris, and I have to applaud anyone who sees parallels between a communist mass-murderer like Guevara and a traitorous ally of the hated Klingons.
2. On another poli-sci-fi note, I notice the Wiki. entry for William Monahan quotes his fellow NYPress veteran (and mine) Dawn Eden (about whom more in tomorrow’s Retro-Journal entry) as saying he was witty and “libertarian-leaning.” It also says he was the writer of the Jurassic Park IV script draft preceding John Sayles’. I don’t know anything more about Monahan’s draft specifically, but Sayles’ sounds (from what I’ve read) like it’d be the greatest movie ever if they filmed it, pitting regular dinosaurs against a genetically-engineered team of trained super-dinosaurs with bits of human and dog DNA that give them team loyalty, high intelligence, opposable thumbs, and the ability to shoot machine guns — and they are all given Greek god codenames by the mercenary who frees them from captivity at the mountain HQ of an evil Swiss biotech firm. How could that not be awesome? The only thing better would be a movie version of Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur (but at least we’ll see his New Gods characters revamped in two weeks when Final Crisis issue #1 hits comic shops).
Unmentioned in the Monahan entry is his rejected NYPress essay “My Shits,” which would have been a chronicle of his bowel movements over several days, certainly a piece that someone had to write sooner or later, given the Family Guy-like ever-grosser trajectory of the Press back then.
P.S. I recently got what may have been the vaguest spam e-mail appeal I’ve ever seen — or simply a communication from a distant part of the Federation — with a subject header offering me “items for humans.” Who couldn’t use some of those?
P.P.S. In a reminder that humans aren’t the only possible customers, here’s a Scientific American piece on the poor guy who (really) “married” and got dumped by a robot — sort of like not being good enough for a Tamagotchi — pointed out to me by FrontPage’s Jacob Laksin, one of my many fascinating fellow Phillips Foundation Fellows (perhaps I’ll see one or more of them at tonight’s black-tie Milton Friedman Prize awards event at the Waldorf-Astoria).
Kim Cattrall was the first choice to play Saavik in Star Trek II (in the original script for VI, it was Saavik that betrayed the Federation). She was replaced by Kristie Alley for II. When Star Trek VI rolled around, the director decided to create a new character for her.
Your “nerd of the month” trivia for the day.
T.A.B. | 1:07 pm on the 15th of May, 2008
Was a Sex and the City reference the best you could come up in the interest of being straighter?
dave | 1:38 pm on the 16th of May, 2008
Did Bill Monahan really write a rejected NYPress essay called “My Shits”? Or are ya being funny? It’s definitely funny and such an essay woulda been funny too. When did Monahan leave the Press? Must’ve been 1995?
Douglas Fisher | 4:23 pm on the 17th of May, 2008
To the best of my knowledge, the Monahan story is true. Not sure exactly when he left the Press, but the mid-90s was when I was a contributor and heard of the essay.
Todd Seavey | 4:35 pm on the 17th of May, 2008
Oh cool. I went and pumped the information into the Wiki article. Was “My Shits” already written when it was rejected? Maybe I can read it on his web site.
Douglas Fisher | 5:11 pm on the 17th of May, 2008
Not sure.
Todd Seavey | 5:15 pm on the 17th of May, 2008
YES! I think you guys may have stumbled upon a big piece of the puzzle that is Monahan’s past. You may not know that Monahan used to publish some of his NYPress pieces in an offbeat lit mag from Massachusetts called Old Crow Review (See Wikipedia). He published “Heroin” there, and a really crazed but great piece called “The Virtual Career”. But in a rascally move, someone, in 2004, removed every issue 12 of Old Crow Review from all libraries across America that held subscriptions, so whatever was in that issue is a total mystery! It could very probably be that Monahan’s “My Shits” piece was in issue 12 of Old Crow Review.
Points in favor:
-If Monahan really did write “My Shits”, and didn’t just propose it, he would definitely seek to publish it later in Old Crow Review. He published the highly controversial NYPress piece “Heroin” there, in 1997. Why not, “My Shits” in 2004?
-People don’t just take any old issue of an obscure lit mag out of circulation. One of the libraries was located all the way in the heartland, at the Univ of Wisconsin-Madison. Issue 12 has to have something highly controversial/scabrous in it for someone to go to the effort of removing this issue from every library.
Points not in favor:
-Issue 12 was published in 2004. Many years after “My Shits” I’m guessing. So there was a delay, which could very well have a good explanation, but it begs the question why Monahan wouldn’t just let “My Shits” rest. Of course, his script “Tripoli” took more than a decade to sell–he didn’t give up–and a similar story is true of his novel “Light House: A Trifle”.
-Entirely possible the disappearance of issue 12 of Old Crow Review has absolutely nothing to do with Monahan. However, he did burn all copies (but one) of his novella Jejeune back in his youth, and even took his own novel Light House: A Trifle off the market in 2004 (same year Issue 12 disappeared).
There are probably other points to consider, but I think I’ve creeped you guys out enough with this “idea”. Hey, this is what scholars do, and I am almost one.
Billy
Billy C | 11:48 pm on the 20th of May, 2008
Uhhh… that’s creepy, no matter if Billy acknowledges his own creepiness. What kind of person was William Monahan, Todd? I get you weren’t close because you would have cheered for William Monahan’s Jurassic Park IV script otherwise but his personality must be a little familiar to you? Blog once about him maybe?
Dieter Ullrich | 10:55 pm on the 19th of June, 2008
I only knew him via his writing on the Press while I was there — but humor will hit a lot of odd topics eventually.
Todd Seavey | 8:54 am on the 20th of June, 2008
Hey Todd, you sure you don’t want to retract your statement that Monahan wrote an essay about his bowel movements called “My Shits”?
Dale C | 8:37 am on the 9th of July, 2008
He proposed it to NYPress, which rejected the idea (it is quite likely, therefore, that he did not proceed to write the thing).
But if you have some sort of superior shit-insight you’d care to share with us, Mr. C, I’m always happy to be corrected.
Todd Seavey | 10:07 am on the 9th of July, 2008
Yikes! Yeah, we’re gonna have to retract this guys. Todd doesn’t seem to be on sure-footing here. Todd, was it a serious proposal or an outright joke? I don’t know what kind of paper NYPress is. Why would anyone write something called “My Shits” about his own shits? Could that win a Pulitzer?
Dale C | 3:04 pm on the 9th of July, 2008
The Press back then published gonzo essays on everything from testicular self-surgery to the cover story “I Was a Towel Boy in a Titty Bar” (and perfectly serious things as well — like my insightful political columns), so Monahan wasn’t off-base when he pitched the idea. Whether he ever went ahead and wrote the whole thing out and published it elsewhere I just don’t know.
Todd Seavey | 4:01 pm on the 9th of July, 2008
Todd, your “My Shits” story is untrue and obviously a joke. Monahan would never write such a story. I have a better question for you: Why would the wiki-fucks delete their article about Alan Cabal? What ever happened to that minor Genius?
Dale C | 7:06 pm on the 9th of July, 2008
If you know enough about the Press to be familiar with Cabal, you should know it well enough to know there is no reason to be dismissive of the Monahan incident.
I couldn’t begin to tell you what the Wiki-participants think of Cabal. Perhaps they don’t like Satanists. I’m moving on to other topics.
Todd Seavey | 12:48 am on the 10th of July, 2008
Hmm… what? A Satanist? This is just getting weirder. I don’t mean to pry but now you’re saying this minor Genius, this Alan Cabal, who has been struck from the Wiki-roster because he didn’t have the credentials required in order to be notable is a Satanist? I don’t even know what that means. So you worked with a crew of people at this NYPress, where one writer felt it perfectly normal to offer to write about his bowel movements and another was an outright Satanist? Yet, you were going about your business writing “insightful political columns” as if it were The New York Times? Can you see now how I might be baffled? It can’t be true. It baffles. It confounds. It perplexes. I believe you owe us, the reading public, the audience you have captivated with your fanciful stories, an explanation about this “entity” called the NYPress and the animals inhabiting it.
Dale C | 7:43 am on the 10th of July, 2008
Hi: Dale, this is a blog so it can’t be used as a reference. Stop trying to verify the story. Per WP:BLP, “Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.” As interesting as this story is it cannot be put in Monahan’s Wikipedia article. Please spend more time helping us research Alan Cabal’s career so that we can bring his article back to mainspace. A couple of editors are working very hard to do just that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Smith_Jones/Alan_Cabal_(journalist)
That would be a more constructive use of your time. Thank you for your future cooperation,
Stifle
Stifle Z | 9:28 am on the 10th of July, 2008
Todd, did not want to get involved in this conversation but I have to correct your statement about Alan Cabal. He is, according to himself, an “apostate Satanist,” which, for anyone not familiar with the word “apostate,” is someone who has renounced their religion, although perhaps a peculiar reading of the OED can still render him an “outright Satanist.” Wacko-meter here is way in the red.
WiM | 7:28 pm on the 26th of July, 2008
Pseudo-Satanist will do for now.
Alan Cabal | 5:03 am on the 16th of August, 2008
Cabal is God.
Seul | 11:13 pm on the 31st of October, 2008
While I find it highly unlikely that the William Monahan would have proposed an article entitled “My Shits”, I find it even less likely that the NYPress would have rejected it.
Todd Durgin | 2:39 am on the 20th of February, 2009
Don’t listen to anything the irate Todd Durgin has to say. He’s been causing commotion at Wikipedia and I traced his name here. He thinks he knows better than all of us. I find it highly unlikely that Todd Seavey would make up such a story.
Bali ultimate | 9:37 am on the 21st of February, 2009
All you chiming chipmunks might want to read this to see how a real genius would characterize this rumor about a “My Shits” essay. This wasn’t that big of a news break. It didn’t need to be dissected to this extent.
Gran Mamma | 8:56 pm on the 2nd of September, 2009
The “read this” is here: http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/new_workshop/William-Monahan
Gran Mamma | 8:57 pm on the 2nd of September, 2009
The “read this” is here: http://www.squidoo.com/William-Monahan
Gran Mamma | 8:58 pm on the 2nd of September, 2009
Haha… “insightful political columns”.. yeah, why not. I enjoyed his “Fear Itself” columns. They were a nice twist on reality.
Peter Almonds | 2:11 am on the 9th of January, 2010
Alan Cabal was killed in a car accident three days ago in Nebraska.
Randall Flagg | 4:19 am on the 24th of January, 2010
Since this thread is a year and a half old, I’m abandoning it but moving discussion of Cabal and this death report to a new entry, leaping a year and a half forward through the timestream:
http://toddseavey.com/2010/01/24/is-new-wave-fascist-is-alan-cabal-dead/
Todd Seavey | 12:24 pm on the 24th of January, 2010