I was only writing this blog to try and learn humor writing. Humor's hard for me as I'm cranky while writing. Blogs are passé, so I never gathered a huge following. I did, however, gather a few seriously avid fans.
Seriously avid. I had no idea.
A few months ago, I posted a piece I received from an anonymous whose email is "Hellz_Housekeeper." It was a synopsis of a proposed sequel to Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog. The email said I could do whatever I wanted with it. That's all it said. I tried emailing back, but heard nothing.
I was going to toss it (I had figured it was fake) but it's hard to come up with new material every week, so I threw it up here. I'd kinda hoped I'd get a cease and desist letter from Mutant Enemy; it'd certainly boost my readership. Sadly, I got no response. Either what I got from Hell's Housekeeper was just fan fiction, or I didn't rate a response from Whedon.
I had forgotten about the incident until I was contacted by H_H again. If met her at the Gilroy Starbucks, she'd give me something she'd taken from the Barrett house. It took me a while to figure out what she meant by "Barrett house" (also which Starbucks, there are three near Gilroy).
Barrett meant Majel Barrett. Majel Barrett was married to Gene Roddenberry. Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry.
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| She also got to flirt with Spock |
My reaction was immediate: I refused to post anything stolen. Well, actually, my first reaction was to ask if we could meet somewhere closer. Then I asked why she contacted me and not a news organization. But then I told her I refused to post anything stolen.
She told me she didn't have a car, so had to meet in Gilroy, that she read my blog religiously (because she has good taste), and that she'd taken the script from Ms. Barrett's trash (so it wasn't technically stealing).
So I met her. I've agreed not to mention her appearance or any other personal information that might lead the Bavarian Illuminati back to her. Yes, you read that right, she's suffering a bit from clinical paranoia, or maybe she spends too much time online. Anyway, for the price of a nonfat vanilla latte, she let me read this:
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| "Into the Beyond." Oddly, he didn't hole punch or bind it. |
It's a hand-typed manuscript from Roddenberry himself. Look at the date. February, 1965. If you're not familiar with the original Star Trek, Roddenberry made two pilots. The first one was filmed in late 1964 (called "The Cage") and was rejected. They retooled the series with a new captain and created a second pilot in June of 1965 called "Where No Man Has Gone Before," which more people are familiar with.
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| Not so familiar with the original velour shirts. |
This draft comes between those two pilots and varies significantly from the final pilot script. Roddenberry was trying to be more advanced in his portrayals of technology, and Lucille Ball asked him to scale them back for the final draft.
H_H let me take a few pictures of script pages. I think her hope is to generate enough interest to get a buyer for the whole script. I'd like to post what I have, but I'm conflicted. Is it unethical? What do you think? I'll go with the majority of what people think and post it next week if people want me to.
Note: I just realized this week is the 50th anniversary of the shooting of the first Star Trek pilot. Now I'm more inclined to post it.
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