Albert Brooks, Zach Woods, and Eva Longoria

plus the Delta Flyers finally launch "Journey Through the Wormhole," and TREKtalks3 is coming!

I’m still Canadian, so I will continue to apologize for the no-longer-weekly schedule of this newsletter, and things will remain erratic for a while. So be it.

Albert Brooks visits Marc Maron

I mean… seeing that listing that was a drop-everything-and-hit-play moment if ever there was one. I love Albert Brooks, and particularly Defending Your Life and Broadcast News, both of which are in my top ten movies of all time. What I’d forgotten about him is that he’s 76 and started in show business back when it was still called show business, so he has a billion stories to tell and he’s met or worked with everybody… hell, Rob Reiner used to take him to the Dick Van Dyke Show set when they were in high school.

I laughed out loud when Marc and Albert traded statements from their moms.

Marc’s mom, while he was chopping vegetables: “You know Marc, when you were a baby, I don’t think I knew how to love you.”

Albert’s mom, about therapy: “Well honey, just remember: The more truthful you are, the more money you’ll save.”

While I was on an Albert Brooks kick, I rewatched Defending Your Life and then checked out Rob Reiner’s documentary Albert Brooks: Defending My Life. Highly recommend.

Zach Woods chats with the Office Ladies

What a delightful conversation this turned out to be! Zach Woods always plays some sort of awkward weirdo (The Office, Silicon Valley, Avenue 5)…

…but damn if he isn’t just a sweet, warm, insightful guy who felt incredibly lucky to join the cast of The Office and beyond grateful to casting director Allison Jones for helping him with his career. (She sounds like an exceptional human being, by the way, and I hope someone makes a documentary about her work, which has left an indelible imprint on TV history.)

I wasn’t super entertained by the long digression into the viral videos they all love, but who cares? It was just fun to listen to them swap stories and ask each other questions.

Eva Longoria visits Dax and Monica

You know, I haven’t seen a whole lot of Eva Longoria’s work, but I’ve always liked her anyway, and this conversation just flew by. By the end, she and Dax were wondering why they don’t hang out and swapping numbers. I bet she’s great fun to spend time with and I loved her candor, plus she’s just so down-to-earth despite being a gorgeous, glamorous Hollywood type.

Finally: “Journey Through the Wormhole” begins on The Delta Flyers

I’ve been waiting forever for this one, but the SAG-AFTRA strike had to end to make it happen. And it finally did!

Armin Shimerman and Terry Farrell have joined Robbie and Garrett to go through every episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the very first (Patreon version of the) episode is over three hours long—and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m only halfway through and I’m LOVING it. I have always thought the DS9 series premiere was particularly brilliant, up there on the list of all-time TV greats, so hearing them go through it is a f-ing treat.

The combination of Armin (whose role was written for him), Terry (who was the last one cast and has never seen the final season), and Garrett and Robbie who haven’t even watched the show = perfection. I am going to love every step of this.

I also want to mention their terrific interview with my new pal, John Billingsley.

I am volunteering on a huge event with John called TREKtalks to raise money for Hollywood Food Coalition, an incredible organization I can best describe by using their own words:

Since 1987, Hollywood Food Coalition has been serving a nightly high-quality and nutritionally complete meal, 365 days a year, to our low-income and food-insecure guests. Leveraging the trust built through our Community Dinner program, we also connect our guests to on site health-care, housing navigation, ID document recovery, and hygiene and shower services. Through our Community Wellness we also distribute thousands of wellness items and articles of clothing.

Born in 2020, our Community Exchange program is a free, concierge food model that rescues high-quality food from more than 250 businesses and food recovery groups, organizes it efficiently, and redistributes it to over 140 small- to medium-sized nonprofits throughout LA, OC and Ventura County, providing the food they need, when they need it, so they can focus on their missions.

Our Vision is a city where everyone has food, community, and support.

We are planning an all-day marathon of fantastic Star Trek and Trek-themed panels to celebrate the franchise we love as well as “Trektivism,” a philosophy that applies Star Trek’s core values to foster community and bring about positive social change. I was so inspired by their first two (annual) TREKtalks that I asked the Trek Geeks if I could join the group and help with the third one, and I brought TrekMovie in with me, since everyone on the team also wants to help.

We’ve already booked some amazing panels and guests, including a panel about the Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover and a deep dive into a Voyager episode, plus the SyFy Sistas have something really special planned with Trek luminaries from across the decades. It’s going to be so fun!

And finally, while we’re still in a Trekkish state of mind, here’s my interview with the great Tawny Newsome. It always surprises me when I meet someone famous and wonderful who thinks we’ve already met… would you believe the same thing happened with Butch Vig when I interviewed Garbage?

I’m more used to people forgetting me—this is much nicer.

See you next time, whenever that may be.