Star Trek In My Head

Ear worm:  "a portion of a song or other music that repeats compulsively within one's mind."  This is an affliction.  Often times for me this will be hard-wired musical heroes like Gordon Lightfoot (bits of "Seven Island Suite" were stuck for weeks) or John Barry (ditto the main theme from Midnight Cowboy.  Rest in peace, sir).  For the last two weeks at least it has been the definitive eight bars played by French horn at the beginning of Star Trek.

I am Spock.

This has not been made any easier by the fact that Science recently aired Trek Nation, Eugene Roddenberry, Jr's, ode to his father, his exploration of both the myth of the "Great Bird" and the reality of his family through Trek fandom.  Gene, son of Gene, sometimes comes off as a recovered brat:  He repeatedly states that he didn't "get" Trek until after his father's death and that he didn't realize the value of his own relationship with his dad, or the importance of his philosophy, until it was too late.  I have (gasp!) never been to a Con.  Yet well before Lucas presented Solo as the epitome of cool, and when I was barely reading, I was watching Kirk, Spock, McCoy, et al on KTLA and defining the perfect world as equal parts IDIC and scantily clad green Orion girl.  Watching Trek Nation made me philosophical, nostalgic, and weepy.

Then I put in Star Trek, and within minutes I was gone...reveling in Chris Pine's young Kirk and Karl Urban's pitch-perfect Bones.  And the ear worm was renewed.  Yet it's really, if I may coin a cliche, a brain worm.  Piracy aside--tho' James Tiberius is nothing less than a swashbuckler--Trek, from NCC 1701 through 1701D and back to 1701, created an image of utopia far more substantial than booty and rum.  Yes, I know that utopia by its own etymology means both perfect and nonexistent.  But let us choose the second star on the right, the final frontier, or the undiscovered country.  It's the dream that won't stop repeating.