·

A Taste of Armageddon

The other night we watched an episode of the original Star Trek — A Taste of Armageddon. This was episode 23 of season one.

These shows hold up well.  I don’t watch much prime time TV these days. Actually, I don’t watch any, so this next statement is just me talking trash, yet I stand by it with all the conviction of a Trumper saying no one would ever vote for Joe Biden. Here is the statement…

No prime time show now deals with the variety of topics that the original Star Trek did. From this episode, about a computer-simulated war with real casualties, to overpopulation, to racism and more, this show covered a lot of ground, and did it well.

The versions you see these days, sadly, have much better computer graphics substituted for the special effects shots. They look great, but I’d rather see the old ones. They aren’t critical for the story, and is it really necessary to go back and “fix” everything?

Toward the end of this episode, there’s a great scene where Spock, the ambassador, and three enterprise crewmen run into a room to rescue Kirk, only to find that he has single handedly captured 8 or 9 people. Do not mess with Kirk. There’s also a great Kirk soliloquy I always call ” I will not kill TODAY,” about humankind’s killer nature and our ability to overcome it.  I can’t do it from memory, but like most of these shows I can speak it all right along with the cast.

I enjoy reading the history of these shows and films, and learning a bit about the actors.  Gene Lyons, who played Ambassador Robert Fox in this episode, died at 53 in 1974. This episode was broadcast in 1967, so he only only lived 7 years after this was aired. I suppose he would have been 46 at the time he made this. He looked a lot older ot me. He died of alcoholism. Apparently Lieutenant DePaul was played by an actor names Sean Kenney, who played the disabled and burned version of Captain Pike in the episode The Menagerie. I always figured the same person played Pike in the wheelchair and in the flashbacks, but no.

The idea of the antihero is so played out. Wolverine, Batman, all that stuff. Tiresome. Star Trek didn’t have that. It always lifted the human spirit up.

 

·

The Mystic Weasel

This is a trick I’ve been working on. I guess it’s a trick. It’s more like series of little movements. The goal is to connect them with no hesitation between the little pivots. I’m getting closer. A few years ago I learned a similar series of moves I called the Magic Weasel, inspired by my friend Stefan Albert, in Germany who moves like a magic weasel. Smooth. So this is also inspired by him.

I like moves like this because they are useful in a freestyle contest run but are also fun on a street board. I practiced it today on my 9″ wide Mode pool board and my 8.25″ Mode pops. I’m going to try adding another 1/8th inch riser to the pops, and moving up to some 56mm wheels for better tail clearance during 360 spins.

As I’ve worked on this, I’ve come to understand a few things about it that make it good.

  • It isn’t just a series of pivots. What I’m trying to do is a series of pivots while I move in a greater circle. Sometimes if I cut part of it too short, the circle becomes more of a spiral, which is fine. Or it can be fine. It all depends on…
  • The transitions from one pivot to the next need to be smooth and instantaneous. I’m not quite there yet. Close, but not quite. In particular, after the first carving fakie 360, the transition to an endover pivot off the nose needs to be smoother, and to really keep it going it needs to project the motion a lot more behind the back.
  • That same transition into that endover — I do endovers that way all the time but I have never tried to draw them out and use them to project the motion in a curve. I’m getting better at that, and I think it will pay off on some other tricks I’ve been contemplating. This has been the most challenging part of this sequence by far. I’ve thought of bank/ditch tricks using this motion, but have never done them because I didn’t have it down. Now I will.

Anyway, I worked on this for an hour today. They started sort clunky and got better. Back at it tomorrow. This is how I do things. I just do that same thing over and over and over until I’ve got it.

Mystic Weasel Practice from Bob Loftin on Vimeo.

·

Media-free weekend

Yesterday (Friday, at about 6pm, I started a weekend long social media and news media blackout. I need a break from everything. Going to skate, write, read, and relax, and not worry about things I can’t do anything about. So pretty much what I should be doing anyway.

I’ll post some stuff on Instagram though. Not much there to upset me.