Where did Gene Roddenberry get the idea for the Star Trek Theme?

I was over at IMDB a little while ago and noticed that someone else had figured out why "Daisy" was used as the song that the computer, HAL, sang in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I had been aware of this information for several years but never thought to blog about it before.
Then I remembered a video I put together last year. It explains where I believe that Gene Roddenberry came up with the idea for the opening of his Star Trek Series. It's from the Outer Limits episode that starred William Shatner entitled: "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" (1964)

So I include the mashup here and see if you don't agree.

Please leave any comments about this observation below.

Stroke

Marcus Tee

Optical Contusions

Here are a couple Optical Contusions I came up with recently.

I call this first one "Self Exam."

This next one I call "Holey Hand."

Marcus Tee

A couple photoshopped images

Here are a couple Photoshopped images I threw together the other day combining two things I really enjoy.

Marcus Tee

The Final of Finals

When I lived in southern Cal I used to listen to KPFK radio on Sunday nights. They had a show called Hour 25, hosted by Mike Hodel and Mitchell Harding, that usually included some pretty interesting things. I was in the habit of recording these programs and I wish I had kept them but, alas, they have been lost along with a great many treasures of mine over time.
One thing that I heard on that show was a short piece that one of the hosts read called "The Final of Finals." I really thought it was inventive and I transposed it and stowed it away somewhere. I just fond it the other day and I did a search to see if anyone else knew what it was. Apparently many people are aware of it, But I also noticed that ever one of them have a bit more tacked onto the end of it than I had heard originally. So, in the interest of accurate history, I give you the original "Final of Finals":

The Final of Finals

1.) Medicine

You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have 15 minutes.

2.) Public Speaking

Twenty-five hundred riot-crazed aborigines are storming the classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.

3.) Biology

Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had devoloped five hundred million years earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English Parliamentary system.
Approve your thesis.

4.) Music

Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum.
You'll find a piano under your seat.

5.) Psychology

Based on your knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following:

• Alexander of Aphrodisias
• Ramses II
• Gregory of Nicaea
• Hammurabi.
  

Support your evaluation with quotations from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not necessary to translate.

6.) Political Science

There is a red phone on the desk beside you. Start world war III. Report on the social-political effects, if any.

7.) Sociology

Estimate the sociological problems that might accompany the end of the world.

8.) Engineering

The disassembled pieces of a high-powered rifle have been placed on your desk. You will also find an instruction manual printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel appropriate. Be prepared to justify your decision.

9.) Economics

Develop a realistic plan for re-financing the national debt.
Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas:

• Cubism
• The Donatist Controversy
• The Wave Theory of Light.

Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criticize this theory from all possible point of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view as demonstrated in your answer to the last question.

10.) Epistomology

Take a position for or against Truth.
Prove the validity of your stand.

11.) Physics

Explain the nature of matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of the impact of mathematics on science.

12.) Philosophy

Sketch the development of human thought. Estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any other kind of thought.

13.) General Knowledge

Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.
You have four hours.

Marcus Tee

Wally Cleaver?

On Saturday, June 14, 2008 my daughter and I went to Santa Rosa to a car show. Well, we really didn't go to see the cars. We went to see Tony Dow (Wally Cleaver) from Leave It To Beaver. It was a really cool experience. He is a very likable and friendly guy. My daughter was very impressed by him also. He and his wife, Lauren were there along with Jon Provest (Timmy Martin from Lassie) and his wife, author Laurie Jacobson. Also there, was Frank Bank (Lumpy from LITB) and his wife, Rebecca Fink.
I asked Tony to sign the book I wrote on LITB, which he did. That was awesome.

So I now have met Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Frank Bank and have been in touch by Email with Jeri Weil (Judy Hensler from LITB), Stanley Fafara (Whitey Whitney from LITB), Patty Turner (Linda Dennison from LITB)and Justin Restivo (Lumpy Rutherford in the LITB movie of '97).
So, all in all it was a very good day.

Marcus Tee

And so it goes...

I have two older brothers between me and my sister. My brothers are a couple years older than me but my sister was born seven years prior to my birth. They say when a sibling is born that far apart that the relationship is more like Aunt and Nephew as opposed to sister and brother. That was how it was between my sister and I. She would always stick up for me when my bratty brothers were picking on me and would defend me to the bitter end when we would fight.

Her I.Q. was two points above mine but still I had it all over her with knowing all the stupid, inconsequential things that guys enjoy knowing. I was never into sports so much, so my vast acquisitions were more to the leaning of TV and Science Fiction and Comics. Some times we would get into heated discussions on some minor point that she would insist she was right about, but, in the end, I would prove her wrong and she would steam for awhile until the next subject would arise.

I remember once she was sitting along side the dirt road we lived on in southern California, talking to a repairman who was fixing something on a telephone pole. It was very hot that day and before long she had succumbed to the heat and passed out. That scared me, thinking that something bad could happen to my only sister. I was 5 at the time.

She took after my dad who had a very stubborn streak and would back down from very little. When the two of them had gotten into a discussion, where each knew they were right, it very seldom ended well. They loved each other a great deal. She was very saddened when he died a few years back.

As the years passed my sister moved away to live with some friends in the Bay Area near San Francisco. She met a guy there and they soon were married. They had three great children and I had two neices and a nephew. My wife and I moved to the Bay Area with my parents and we were all back together again as even my brothers had moved there also.

It is a great place to live but since we moved here our health hasn't been too good. I acquirded diabetes and CHF (congestive heart failure) along with high blood pressure and I was diagnosed with a bad ticker resulting in double bypass surgery a few years back.

Not to be outdone, my sister also became diabetic. She too has high blood pressure and she had a blood clot in her leg on two different occasions. At one point she was admitted to the hospital where upon it was determined that the carotid artery on the left side of her neck was comepletely blocked. The doctors said that she would be alright as there are two, one on each side of the neck, and the other one would take over and she should be fine. She went home and I was admitted into the hospital that week for a nine-day stay with Cellulitis.

This is all kind of tough since our mother is 82 years old and runs circles aound us, literally. I can't understand how she can be in such good shape at that age.

So it appeared that my sister and I were in a race to see who would die first. Her with her clots and other goods or me with my bad ticker and both of us with HB and diabetes.

It's really unfortunate that today, at 4:45 pm after suffering a massive stroke, she won.



Marcus Tee