Filed by Bil at 10:55 pm under Pop Culture, The Media

I heard the news today that Ricardo Montalban has died, and with him my dream of shouting KHAAAAAAAN into his face at a Star Trek convention. He would have liked that.

I don’t really have a dream of going to a Star Trek convention. I’ve never been to one, and as yet I have no prospects to. I’m not really a Trekkie, per se – only as much as one can be by association, which is more than your average globe-trotting billionaire but less than your average suburban white male. I know people who are total Trekkies, and I have learned from them what I never learned growing up watching “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space 9″ with my family. (My family of nerds. Yes.)

I know enough, at any rate, to know that the passing of Mr. Montalban is significant. The news was presented to me by a non-Trekkie, meaning without any kind of gentleness or bedside manner. And I still don’t know how I feel about it; I am not especially sad, nor especially glad. Mostly, I am grateful for his contribution to the massive subculture that lives and thrives throughout this nation of ours. It struck me enough that I wanted to write something about it…But I know very, very little about the man himself or his work outside of the role of Khan.

In recent months I had a moment of grad school fever. It seems like people all around me are in or applying to grad school, and like a typical middle child, I decided that I wanted to, too. This desire was compounded by the fact that I’m bored with my day job and would like something more exciting than customer support.

In a very short self-survey of what I might like to do, I came across the online description of a journalism program at Columbia College here in Chicago. I thought, shoot, I’d like that – research stuff, talk to people, then put it all together in a blog-like article. I told myself I’m good at interviewing people on specific topics and independent research. I’m not sure why I told myself this; I have no real experience in either to speak of. But I feel like I might be good at it. I’m interested in interviews and research, that’s true enough.

And now, I feel like maybe this is my chance to experiment. “The Wrath of Khan” is an iconic movie. Many would argue it’s the best Star Trek movie. The depth of the Star Trek culture is unfathomable. In the interest of proving whether or not journalism is as great (or as terrible) a career move as I think it might be for me, I want to write a piece on Khan’s influence in the lives of people. The sub-culture as a whole has been investigated, but not (as far as I know) the specific character of Khan. That’s my challenge to myself: can I find any kind of clear effect this character has had in the world by using specific people as examples. I’m not going to worry Montalban’s other work and life and all that…that’s way too much and I would be basically starting from ground zero.

If I can create a decent piece of good length in a short enough time and get someone to at least look at it, then perhaps there’s some merit to this journalism idea. We’ll see.