Via Wil Wheaton, the very cool news that George Takei, a.k.a. Sulu in Classic Star Trek, has had an asteroid named in his honor:
An asteroid between Mars and Jupiter has been renamed 7307 Takei in honor of the actor, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the original “Star Trek” series and movies.
The celestial rock, discovered by two Japanese astronomers in 1994, was formerly known as 1994 GT9. It joins the 4659 Roddenberry (named for the show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry) and the 68410 Nichols (for co-star Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura). Other main-belt asteroids have been named for science fiction luminaries Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.
I’ve had the honor of meeting Mr. Takei on two occasions. The first time was at one of those “meet ‘n’ greet”-style conventions I’ve written about before, those impersonal things where you pay an outrageous admission fee for the privilege of standing in line for an hour or three so you can experience 20 seconds of face-time with your celebrity hero, snap a personal photo (if you’re lucky, anyway; some stars — Shatner, for example — don’t allow those), and walk out with an autographed 8×10 glossy.
The second occasion was much more interesting and satisfying. It was intended to be a big meet ‘n’ greet with a lengthy roster of genre talent, but it wasn’t very well organized or advertised and, well, nobody showed up. To be honest, I wouldn’t have gone myself if a friend of mine who knew the promoter hadn’t gotten me some freebie tickets. My buddy seemed so pleased with himself for doing me this huge favor that I simply couldn’t find a reason not to at least check it out.
At first glance, it was one of the most depressing events I’ve ever attended.
It was held in one of the big exhibition halls at the Utah State Fair Park, so The Girlfriend and I walked in expecting to be confronted with an absolute mob of fanboys and girls. She was already grumbling, in fact, anticipating a long wait on hard concrete floors uncushioned by any convention-hall carpeting. Except… there was no mob. There weren’t any nice orderly lines, either, or even any lines at all. In fact, we saw only three people in the entire hall: a dejected-looking collectibles dealer sitting with his chin in his hand, Todd Bridges of Diff’rent Strokes fame, and George Takei.
As I recall, Bridges was talking on a cell phone and sending off “don’t even think about bugging me” waves (no doubt he was chewing his agent a new one for wasting his time with this disaster). George, on the other hand, positively beamed at the sight of Anne and myself. He waved us over like we were long-lost school chums or something, and then, since there was no one else in the place to keep him company, he proceeded to yak our ears off for a good 35 minutes. I’m sure his efforts to keep us talking stemmed as much from his own boredom and loneliness as from any genuine interest in Anne and myself, but to his credit, he at least appeared to be fascinated by our mundane lives. In fact, much of the conversation centered on my (then) occupation as a technical writer in the IT industry, rather than anything to do with him or Star Trek.
We left that particular meet ‘n’ greet with far more than the obligatory 8×10 (although I did, of course, get one, along with a very nice, personalized inscription); we had the sense of having gotten to know, if only briefly, a real human being who actually cared what his fans did when they weren’t watching television. Based on that 35-minute chat, George Takei strikes me as a very gracious, warm-hearted man who is no doubt thrilled to now be able to call a chunk of the solar system his very own. Congratulations, George…
