The Vulcan Factor
David Itzkoff sits down with Leonard Nimoy:
President Obama has drawn not-infrequent comparisons to the Spock character. Do you see any similarities there?
I’ve met him twice. The first time was a couple years ago, very early on when he had just announced his candidacy. He was in Los Angeles, speaking at a luncheon we were invited to. There was a very small crowd — minuscule compared to the crowd that he gathered later — at a private home in Los Angeles. And we were standing on the back patio, waiting for him. And he came through the house, saw me and immediately put his hand up in the Vulcan gesture. He said, “They told me you were here.” We had a wonderful brief conversation and I said, “It would be logical if you would become president.”
Good anecdote! I, too, have met Obama twice. So basically, I’m Leonard Nimoy.
37 Responses to “The Vulcan Factor”
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May 8th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I can’t figure out if this a long set-up to say you have met Obama twice or to compare yourself to Leonard Nimoy…
May 8th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I wonder if Nimoy ever gets tired of people conflating him with Spock.
Anybody else remember watching the show “In Search Of”?
May 8th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
It probably depends on the people.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Anybody else remember watching the show “In Search Of”?
Best show ever! I watched it as a kid and (half)believed everything on the show was true.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
This cult of personality has gotten really fucking old really fucking fast.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
“Best show ever!”
Agreed, that was a great show.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
It was illogical for Bush to be the President for eight years after losing the 2000 election. Time for something logical at last…
May 8th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Nimoy’s cool.
Every decent actor has to come to grips with the fact that, unless he’s Jack Nicholson, there are 5,000 other actors willing to replace or him on any given day at any given job or job interview. That’s 20,000 if you’re a female, Hollywood being the meat factory it is.
You catch a break, you get a successful series, you get famous for a couple of years and make some money, then it is one chance in a hundred that you do anything but disappear back into the crowd doing readings for the next fried chicken commerical. That’s all working hard and being talented gets you. Stay away from the ego trips and the cocaine, and you can make a respectable career out of not being a star.
Lenny made peace with his Spockishness decades ago and looks to be enjoying life as it is. Nice guy, per anyone I’ve ever talked to.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR SPOCK!!!
May 8th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Nimoy was great on The View this morning. (hey, I’m unemployed, fyi)
May 8th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
@8 Midland: “Stay away from the ego trips and the cocaine, and you can make a respectable career out of not being a star.”
Exactly right, Midland. There is similar ethic in sports, except the window for extracting something out of the profession -especially for the mediocre- is smaller. And there are no summer theater gigs when you turn 50.
The classic example is Latrell Sprewell. He turned down a 3 year NBA contract for 21 million when he was 34 years old. He felt the offer of such a pittance was an insult to his greatness. Five years later he finds himself 39 years old, jobless and bankrupt.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I spoke to Leonard Nimoy one time at the new Hayden Planetarium (I forget what they named it after they got rid of the Pink Floyd light shows). Good guy with a great sense of humor. I told him that I really liked his work in “In Search Of.” He (and his wife) couldn’t have been nicer.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
@9…thanks for the laugh. That was good.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Transitive Property?
May 8th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Well, Nimoy made a pretty public move to get away from his Vulcan roots when he wrote I am Not Spock, but then came to terms with it and wrote I am Spock.
He was on Colbert maybe a year and half ago and he absolutely killed. It’s not often you find a 70+ year old who spar hilarious with Stephen Colbert.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
If Obama is the “Spock” presiudent, was Clinton the “Kirk” president?
May 8th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
If Obama is the “Spock” presiudent, was Clinton the “Kirk” president?
Was Kirk ever married?
May 8th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
NERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD!
May 8th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
“If Obama is the “Spock” presiudent, was Clinton the “Kirk” president?”
No, Clinton was more of a “Riker” president. If anybody was the “Kirk” president, it was JFK.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Screw that. Spock Rules!
May 8th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I don’t know about you, but if I were to walk into a party and see Mr. Spock talking to Barak Obama I think my head would explode.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
eltoro@19–Nailed it! Thanks, man–I needed that.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I wonder if you read the linked article, which may or may not actually answer your question.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
That is a good answer. So who’s Picard? Sisko? Janeway? (pike is fdr
)
May 8th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Matt wishes he were Leonard Nimoy – namely, that anybody either knew his name or gave a shit about his opinions.
Matt as Spock is even more hilarious – you need LOGIC to do that, Matt.
Meanwhile, Obama isn’t even remotely like Spock in any way, shape or form. Logic isn’t his strong point either. And I doubt Spock would be “surging” in Afghanistan and threatening Pakistan and Iran in order to make money for a bunch of political campaign contributors.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
You know I agree with Hack. Obama is not Spock. Obama is Sisco (and *not* for the superficial reason)
May 8th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
On another note, Obama’s wedding ring appears to be quite loose. My wedding ring is also worn fairly loose. So basically, I’m Barack Obama.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Matt wishes he were Leonard Nimoy – namely, that anybody either knew his name or gave a shit about his opinions . . . Matt as Spock is even more hilarious – you need LOGIC to do that, Matt . . . Meanwhile, Obama isn’t even remotely like Spock in any way, shape or form. Logic isn’t his strong point either. And I doubt Spock would be “surging” in Afghanistan and threatening Pakistan and Iran in order to make money for a bunch of political campaign contributors.
One distinguishing feature of all the Star Treks: no Eeyores whose only function is to sneer at everyone trying to do or say anything constructive. Good or bad, all the series were about reasonable people trying to solve problems with courage, skill, and some sense of morality and duty. Makes the concept seem kind of dated, really.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
So who’s Picard?
Woodrow Wilson. I can picture Picard talking about “making the galaxy safe for democracy.”
Sisko?
Truman (”keep the Bajorans in, the Dominion out, and the Cardassians weak”)
Janeway?
Carter. With the Maquis representing Ted Kennedy’s insurgent campaign.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Wait, what?
May 8th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
[...] Leonard Nimoy on meeting presidential candidate Barack [...]
May 8th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
[...] Leonard Nimoy on then presidential candidate, Barack [...]
May 9th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Obama is Spock.
Clinton was Kirk.
Bush was Riley.
May 9th, 2009 at 11:05 am
“Bush was Riley” LOL!
Riley was basically a good kid, though. I see B*sh as Commodore Stocker in “The Deadly Years”, who foolishly steers the ship right in the neutral zone, gets surrounded by Romulans, and sits paralyzed in panic in the Captain’s chair until Kirk comes back to save his ass.
May 9th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
One distinguishing feature of all the Star Treks: no Eeyores whose only function is to sneer at everyone trying to do or say anything constructive
Wait, what?
A criticism on Star Trek over the years has been that it is a basically optimistic universe. Bad things happen, but reasonable people will work together and deal with them. This is a cultural attitude traditional American liberalism and conservatism had in common, much to the annoyance of our more world-weary European allies (Ref Graham Greene, The Quiet American.)
When you teach or otherwise deal with junior-high kids, you always have a few “troubled,” sulky characters too wrapped up in their own self-absorbed, self-indulgent sense of superiority to study, solve problems, cooperate, or just shut up and let someone else get on with their work. They just kind of slump in their chairs, sneering, rolling their eyes, muttering “what a waste of time,” “Yeah, like THAT is gonna work,” “The teachers don’t give a damn,” “Oh, for sick,” or “Nobody cares what you think, you loser.”
Most people grow out of it. Kinda hard to hold a job or keep a relationship together with an attitude like that.
Of course, you can still channel your inner 8th grader by getting on Internet forums, sneering at everyone’s ideas and motives, manipulating their words so you can denounce them as hopelessly stupid and throw the discussion off track, declare all outcomes doomed to failure, all politicians absolutely corrupt and utterly selfish, etc.
It’s right up there with the guys at basketball games whose sole source of pleasure is yelling personal insults at the players to distract them from the game.
Eeyore, while he was an ass, was a character written by an old-fashioned Englishman for his kids and didn’t sneer much while he declaring all situations hopeless and everyone a failure. You have to translate him a bit for the modern age.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
May 9th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Eeyore? Definitely not me.
SLC, on the other hand…
The problem with Obama being Spock is that while Spock was always effective as well as efficient, Obama seems to be flailing when it comes to foreign policy. Although his evident attempts to reign in the Israelis seem promising, we have yet to see the end game. And he clearly has no clue about Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iran.
I would expect much better of someone compared to Spock.