Waiting with Delta

Not many pics today, as the early part of the day was spent in the domestic terminal at LAX, staring at a series of about 32 changing screens, desperately hoping to see my code "MCLE/I" appear (telling me that I had, indeed, secured a seat on my flight to Detroit). Then there was the flight itself, and an interminable wait for my bag to appear on the luggage carousel.

All of this panic and boredom - not helped by an understaffed terminal with no one to ask questions - was swept aside by the single snowflake that spattered against my wind as the plane landed in Detroit. By the time my bag had dared to show its straps, and the cab had arrived, there was a delightful dusting of snow everywhere. Arriving in Ann Arbor, at my penpal Olivia's house, the roads and footpaths were all white. Their first snowfall of the season, and it delivered me the White Christmas I'd come to see! It seemingly snowed for at least three days straight. Every view out every door and window was a northern-hemisphere Christmas card!

Day 2 photos:

Recreating the infamous first meeting of Ian and Olivia! — in Ann Arbor, MI.
We had not swapped notes about T-shirt themes, either! Serendipity!

Recreating the infamous first meeting of Ian and Olivia! — but this time outside... in the newly-fallen snow!

Ian and Olivia meeting in December 1983 (New Year's Eve, actually) - and on Christmas Eve, December 2012.

Olivia and I had "met" in the pages of the newsletter of ASTREX, the Star Trek Fan Club of New South Wales, and immediately bonded over penpal correspondence, Trek gossip, and articles about the Aussie TV soap opera, "Prisoner", which Olivia used to watch as both "Cell Block H" (in the USA) and "Caged Women" (via a Canadian channel whose signal strayed across the border into Michigan).

Archival pic: Ian (and his beard) encountering hamsters up close, for the first time, at Olivia's place in December 1991.

The delightful Dorothy Lenz (Olivia's mother-in-law) and Ian, 2012.

A taste of Jam Sandwich

In 1983, I renewed my acquaintance with ABC-TV director, Virginia Lumsden, who had overseen an episode of "Mr Squiggle and Friends" I did in January 1980.

"Jam Sandwich" was a children's afternoon magazine show, quite similar to "Simon Townsend's Wonder World". The night they featured science fiction media fan clubs: including Astrex (the NSW Star Trek Fan Club) and the Australasian Doctor Who Club. Young reporter Rachel Enright was making her "Jam Sandwich" debut. Her more experienced host, Tim Grogan, who'd been with the show since its first episode in October 1982, even forgot her name at the end!

We were invited to gather, in costume, one evening at the original 106a Bathurst Street location of Galaxy Bookshop.


The show's opening credits resembled a "Space Invaders" computer game.


Rachel Enright and Tim Grogan presenting; Rachel discovers Galaxy Bookshop - and K-9.




Assistant Manager Ron Serduik morphs into "Doctor Who" fan, Karsten John.


Therin of Andor (Ian McLean) and the Empress of Traken (Carol Bott) beam down.


Rachel and Karsten witness a beam-down!




A non-commercial network helps to promote my fanzine!


Aliens from "USS Hood Orientation Manual: Races of the Federation".








Gary Armstrong explains how he built his K-9 robot.


K-9's control box (80s-style miniaturisation); Therin goes browsing.


Chrissy Amphlett and the Divinyls accompany the episode's closing credits (above right).

Australia's first astronaut is 50!

"Happy 50th Birthday" to Mr Squiggle.


Mr Squiggle, the man from the moon.

He hasn't aged a day! (Sigh. Unlike moi.) He can draw with his nose. He rides a rocket to the moon every week. He's a marionette friend to talking steam shovels, snails and blackboards. I watched him on TV as a kid, even worked with him (briefly) when we were 21 and 20 respectively, and now we are both past the big 5-0.

I did the kite-making in a 1980 episode of "Mr Squiggle and Friends", entitled "Space Age Kites", directed by Virginia Lumsden. I appeared on the little TV which Gus the Snail wore for a shell, and I had to teach Miss Jane (real-life daughter of actor Willie Fennell) to make sled kites out of beautiful, shimmery, polymer film. (I was taught how to do them by my wonderful teachers college craft lecturer, Klin Sullivan, who is a long-time puppetry colleague of the Hetherington family; Klin recommended me for the gig.)

My episode was made in the January of 1980 but didn't air until the August. It was quite a fluke as to how I became involved. I had stayed in touch with Liz, a prac supervising teacher in my second year at college, and her school kept inviting me back for their end-of-term celebrations. Knowing I was finishing up at Christmas 1979, I was invited to do some volunteer work at the Marrickville kids' drop-in vacation centre - located at Tempe, in the old heritage-listed nunnery by the river. (The students were bussed over every day in a mini-bus, and they were great kids, who were so appreciative of my efforts as a then-fledgling craft teacher.) We did several all-day excursions over four weeks of the school vacation, including Taronga Park Zoo, Channel Seven TV studios and the Festival of Sydney in Hyde Park.

It was at the Festival's hands-on craft exhibit where I bumped into Klin, and she said that if I'd come back on the weekend she'd upskill me to make space-age sled kites for the "Squiggle" show. All I had to provide my own eyelet punch, and fame could be mine! When it came time to tape the episode, the ABC and Miss Jane were able to come to us at Tempe, where we had a ready made child audience - they loved me! - and then we drove to Centennial Park in the afternoon to fly the kites we made for the cameras.

Not a bad opportunity for a 21 year old graduate teacher with no experience.

You know, despite the glorious rainbow vibrancy of Mr Squiggle himself, and the amazing purple and silver sled kites, I've never seen the episode in colour! The week my episode was due to air on TV, there was a lengthy bread strike - I was working in my Dad's independent depot bread shop in Ramsgate. I had to take my portable b/w TV in, and the episode ran for the entertainment of the queue of customers who were lined up to buy their meagre rations of daily bread. Mum and Dad couldn't see the episode at all, since they were back at the Bexley store, serving their own queue of customers. There were no commercial home video machines yet, of course. I had even asked my old college to tape the episode for their archives (and me) - on U-matic video - but something went wrong with their aerial socket that day, and it taped in b/w! (Somewhere around here I have a fairly clear b/w crosstape, but it's probably on Beta. Sigh. Unless I once made a VHS copy.)

Also: a man named Terry Dowling sang a silly song about an alien in the episode - and it was a shock, years later, to meet him in Galaxy Bookshop and realise that Terry Dowling the folk singer was THE Terry Dowling, SF writer - and the husband of Kerry, a fellow ASTREX Star Trek Fan Club member! Small universe!

Free Maltz!

As I mentioned recently, I've uncovered a cache of old and fading videotapes from my ASTREX Star Trek club days. I've been without a VHS recorder/player for some years now - in this DVD age, when the VHS breaks doown one just... ignores it - but I bought a new VHS machine, hoping to find the time to make DVD copies. One day?

Meanwhile, here are some quick freeze frame images of me from the "Free Maltz" Star Trek fan film, as created, directed and produced by Ian McLean (and the Harpic Productions team) for the "Galactic Senate Elections" campaign at "Eccentricon", 5th National Australian Science Fiction Media Convention (3rd - 6th July, 1987). Maltz, of course, was originally portrayed by John Larroquette in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" (pictured left in the trio below), and was the only Klingon left alive at the end of that movie.



At the same time, I was studying for a university media course in a graduate diploma program, and we had to submit a short film to pass the course. I received permission to make this film instead, while my teaching colleagues did something more suited to primary (elementary) teaching. I also had to develop a script and storyboard. For a separate assignment, I did an illustrated procedure on how to make a life-mask out of plaster, which I had to do "for real" to make the Maltz latex forehead appliance.

My premise for this film, and to fit with Eccentricon's theme of the "Galactic Senate elections" being taken over by the anti-heroes, was that Maltz escaped from his Vulcan detention cell, ran away as fast as possible, hitched a ride back to the 20th century with Kirk and his crew ("Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home"), ran into an Eccentricon flier (advertising the Senate elections), caught a jet to Sydney, ran past various Sydney landmarks, and ran all the way to the convention. In other words, Maltz was running for election. It was the ultimate running gag:



Maltz behind bars on Vulcan. He is a Klingon of destiny...



... Saavik slips him a phaser; stock footage from ST IV on rear projection follow's Maltz's
escape to Earth and the 20th century, where a stray convention flier is found.



In the post-9/11 world, one could never get away with filming a rogue Klingon in a convict uniform in an International Air Cargo Terminal, but it was easy in 1987. (We asked permission and they just shrugged, "Sure!") Note the tiny figure, who has just emerged from inside the building, as indicated by the blue arrow. Thus, Maltz is "running" for the Galactic Senate.



Maltz is still running for the Galactic Senate. The yellow arrow indicates
an Eccentricon convention flier taped to the college sign.



Now Maltz runs into trouble with a 20th automobile - note the angry driver's
hand gestures; soon Maltz is again running for the Galactic Senate.



Maltz collapsed with exhaustion (not shown) as we fade to a promotional slide for the campaign; Maltz as Eccentricon compere, in footage of the convention coverage on the Nine Network's "Today" (6th July, 1987).



Maltz meets showbiz reporter Bob de la Lande from the "Today" morning show.

Maltz: I was a prisoner for three months in a Vulcan detention cell, but they let me out..."

Bob de la Lande: Ah, why?

Note that Maltz's unique calling card is a "Malt" cookie. We added the "Z" in black Texta.
People received them with all the "free maltz" (ie. malted milkshakes) they ordered/made donations to obtain.

So, did Maltz win the election? Nah, he came in third. But he did pronounce himself "Charity Queen" after raising the most money - by a huge margin - thanks to his hard-working election team's highly successful milkshake-making operation.