So Long Mr. Spock

 

As the characters picked as TV Guide's Most Memorable Characters continue to leave us, each one, upon passing, will seem like the most memorable of the list.  Still, Leonard Nimoy's "Mr Spock" will be amongst the most missed, maybe because it seemed to me like he was always there. The show started in the mid 60s, when astronauts were American heroes. The show seemed like the continuation of something that was already taking place.  Space travel was our view of the future.  Popular shows of the time were The Jetsons and My Favorite Martian.
Star Trek was different, it was serious, with an underlying twinge of humor, it had philosophy, and it had a multi-ethnic crew, something very rare at the time. 
Spock (known also as Mr. Spock)  was an alien, but as he probably had the least human appearance of TV's interplanetary visitors, he also had maybe the most human qualities.  The idea of a character that was half earthling and half human was indeed a heavy concept for the time and may have caused Star Trek to be put in some of the worst time slots, perhaps forcing an earlier cancellation. 
The fact that Nimoy, who did not use a catchy stage name like many actors have, was able to imprint that character for life was a real tribute to his ability. 
It seems like throughout my life, Mr Spock was a character to talk about, to argue about and to analyze.   His death comes as a complete shock.  I feel a little older.

TV Icon Nimoy Dies

Leonard Nimoy,  who played Mr Spock on the interstellar 1960s TV drama Star Trek has died. More later.

Deli Patron Serves Baloney

Our family was on a long drive from LA to the Bay Area to visit family when we decided to grab lunch in a roadside deli.  This was the early 1980s so the details in my mind are a little sketchy.  A portly man with a beard was holding court inside.  We sat near him and he said that he was John Black, a TV writer who had penned many movies, as well as episodes of Star Trek and Bonanza.  My brother Danny is a huge Star Trek fan, and we were excited to meet a Hollywood insider.
Mr. Black said that he was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, who changed his name when he entered the U.S.  He also dished stories about well known Hollywood figures.
Fast forward to a few months ago,  my brother, Danny who now lives in LA went to a lecture by John DF Black, who did write episodes for Star Trek.  He said the man that we met some 30 years ago was not John Black but an impostor.  He had done this many times and had irked the real Black.  In 30 some years, we accepted his stories as the truth and many turned out to be.  It provided context for the actors that he spoke about.  In reality, we stopped in for lunch and was served a baloney sandwich.