Star Trek, Celeste Yarnell, Nichelle Nichols, Michael Dorn, Denise Crosby, Jessica Mann, Dianka Minko: One Cool Night

This is how my weird life works. And I’ve made the decision to blog and vlog more about it, as much as news, events, or anything else. It all starts with Thursday night and Jessica Mann.

I met Jessica Mann, who’s the new Zennie62 vlogger, at the Oakland Bar Make Westing late Thursday Night, and just after my dinner at Luka’s where I made this video rant about the poor service:

But since I wanted to get out for a spell before departing Oakland for Atlanta for Thanksgiving and most of the holiday season, desire pulled me toward Make Westing to hang for a spell.

Now, lately my standard mode of dress has been a black suit or black clothes and a StarFleet Command Logo Pin that was given to me by Tori Mell of Rodenberry Entertainment at Comic Con 2012. This guy:

He set up a special ceremony where they made me an honorary member of StarFleet Cammand. That’s where the pin came from.

At any rate, the pin’s a good conversation-starter and that’s how I met Jessica – she asked me about the pin, as she’s a Star Trek Fan. Ms. Mann even made her own Star Trek costume for Halloween. So, to make a long story short, I was convinced she would make a great video-blogger on all things Stark Trek and science fiction related, and so she agreed to meet me on Friday and work out the details. We did, and she’s on board!

(Although I have to say our Make Westing meeting was not without its interesting moments. There are some strange dudes who hang out at that Oakland establishment at times. In this case, there was one guy who was actually hovering around us as the time inched closer to the close of the bar. He then seemed to be trying to get Jessica and her friend away from me, and eventually into his car. I called him on his intentions, giving us enough time to get away from him and into a cab. For some reason, some black men can’t seem to stand it if other black men happen to be in the company of women who happen to be white. I don’t get that attitude, but it’s a funny dynamic. But this guy also seemed like he was up to no good. I got a weird bad vibe from him.)

So, that Friday, after I met Jessica to go over particulars and what we were going to vlog about (Kirk v. Picard), I went to San Francisco and to The Balboa Cafe. It was there that I met Dianka Minko.

What happened was that I was outside on the phone when Dianka and her male friend and as it turned out business partner came out of a Lincoln Town Car an went into The Balboa. You can’t miss her because she looks like Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, the model and actress who played in Transformers 2.

When I walked back in, it turned out that the two of them were sitting next to the only place one could easily slip in to order a drink. After doing so, the woman who turned out to be Dianka was a conversationalist, and we started talking about what was her first visit to The Balboa Cafe.

The Balboa Cafe can be a frenetic place – small, crowded, and teeming with a combination of young adults out of college, middle-agers, and all sorts of entrepreneur types, and a lot of lovely women. All of this can be overwhelming to the newby, which is what Dianka was. But they were there, she said, to network. And that is how I came to meet her friend Dave who’s firm invests in companies. So, we talked about Zennie62Media. We also talked about Portland, where she’s from, too.

Eventually, I was more interested in getting back home to Oakland and before BART stopped running, just after 12 midnight. So I gave them my contact into, and Dianka gave me her email, but not her number. I note that because later I saw some guy record her number in his iPhone. That was interesting, but also a “whatever” moment for me.

The next day, Saturday, I was to meet Jessica to make our first video – kind of romp through the Star Trek Convention at the Westin St. Francis, and asking Trekkers if they preferred Picard or Kirk as Captain. That was totally fun. Along the way, we ran into my friend Celeste Yarnell, who starred in Star Trek TOS, and who I met at Comic Con in 2011, here:

We have stayed in touch, and so it was at the SF Star Trek Convention last night that she gamely played along with our video. After her segment we started to catch up, and Celeste told us about a party thrown by Unbelievable!!!!! producers Steven Fawcette and Angelique De LaCroix that was being held on the 31st Floor at the Windsor Suite. So, Jessica and I went up there and walked in.

Wow, what a room and what a party! We met and talked to Michael Dorn, who played Commander Worf and who is currently known as The Future Guy in the Dodge Dart commercial series. Michael’s a good guy, and loves to talk – in this case about how his career has enjoyed a second growth that started just before the Dodge commercial, and is now being enhanced by it.

Not far from Dorn was Denise Crosby, who played Lt. Yar alongside Worf in Star Trek TNG, and plays Capt. Sullivan in Southland, and who I also met at Comic Con, here:

And then there were the hosts of the event, I’ll call them the two Steves, who are producing a movie called Unbelievable, which is a kind of parody that will include every member of the casts of all of the Star Trek TV and movie shows. They want to get William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, and so are looking for, as of this writing, another $200,000. I think they’ll get it.

I then met and talked to, and interviewed Nichelle Nichols, the original Lt. Uhura. We had a great time conversing and I can’t wait to get the video uploaded and out for view. She talked about meeting President Obama, who’s a huge fan of hers, and admitted he had a crush on her when he was young (So did I.)

But as I was networking and talking with other stars like Bobby Clark, who played The Gorn in The Arena, one of the most popular Star Trek episodes from TOS, and who I also met at Comic Con, here:

Guess who walked up?

Dianka Minko, the woman I met at The Balboa Cafe.

Yeah. She looked great, as usual, and said that she was in the restaurant downstairs, when someone invited her and another fellow that, as it turned out, Jessica and I interviewed for our video, up to the suite. So, I introduced her around, because I figured with her effort to find properties to invest in, she was in the perfect place. So, that’s what I did, and eventually Dianka got the contact info she needed. I also told her I didn’t get her number, but she told me that she and Dave were talking about me and Zennie62Media. That was great news.

So, later, I thought Dinka was going to come back, after she said that she was going to make a phone call. She told me to wait, so I did, as we were going to talk more about what Zennie62Media was all about. So, she walked out with Jessica, and I waited – Dianka never returned.

What happened, I do not know. Plus, she never put her number in my phone so I could text her. I tried emailing, but no answer back. Whatever the case, I think it’s important to always do what you say you’re going to do, or if you can’t, tell the person why. Fortunately, she did finally contact me to let me know she had to go, which was fine, I just wanted to know that so I wasn’t staying around waiting for her.

(The good news is we finally did connect! She followed up via email.)

But in sticking around, I did get a lot of quality time with all of the people involved with the movie so far, got a copy of the script and the movie business plan, and I got the ultimate treat: walking Denise Crosby to her hotel room.

Yes, I have a cool life.