What It Feels Like to Follow William Shatner to a Star Trek Convention (Esquire - unpublished submission)
My first TV gig was as a PA on the CBC documentary The Life and Times of William Shatner. We tailed Cap’n K from his Montreal birthplace to a cosmic zoo of a Star Trek convention in the final frontier of Pasadena, California. It was the first time on earth (Stardate: 03.07.98) that the original four Trek captains (the gay one, the black one, the woman one, and the Canadian one) would all materialize at the same event. Still neutralizing fallout from his infamous SNL “Get a life!” sketch, and wanting to gauge the current mood of his people, Shatner went undercover - pulling on a rubber Ferengi mask to survey the holodeck of the Pasadena Howard Johnson.
As the Trek-rock house band’s lead theraminist busted a swirling solo, Shats waded anonymously through a monster mash of Klingons, Vulcans, Romulans (and Darth Vaders, Scott Bakulas, and Smurfs), stopping frequently to banter with ninja sword salesmen and flirt with Spockish spokesmodels. And when he finally strutted onto the main stage and revealed himself, a thousand Trekkies gasped in awe (Oh my God, it’s him! He walked amongst us!”; a 300lb Scotty in Starfleet pajamas wept (“Captain Kirk you gave me a reason to live!") and I remember thinking, man, all that imaginary power and responsibility could really fuck a human being up.