0:04

You're listening to a Rodbury

0:06

Podcast. Mission

0:12

Log, a Rodbury Star Trek

0:14

Podcast, supplemental number 79, catching

0:17

up with Norman. Welcome

0:27

into a supplemental episode of Mission

0:29

Log, a Rodbury Star Trek Podcast.

0:31

I'm John Champion. And

0:33

I'm Norman Lau. Each week on Mission

0:36

Log, we pick apart an episode of

0:38

Star Trek, examining it for the morals,

0:40

meetings, and messages contained therein. And

0:43

we ask ourselves if the whole thing

0:45

stands the test of time. But that

0:48

is not what we're doing

0:50

today. That's the old bit. Everybody loves

0:52

the bit. This supplemental, well,

0:54

it's been a long time coming. And

0:56

we have received your email, your

0:58

messages and inquiries about what's happening

1:01

with the show. Mission

1:03

Log has had a handful of guest co-hosts

1:05

recently. And we've got more coming your way.

1:08

But today's discussion is a bit of a

1:10

catch up. And it is all about my

1:12

buddy, my friend, my brother

1:15

in sound. So good to see

1:17

you, man. Norman Lau. It's

1:19

great to be here. It's great to see you again. It's great

1:21

to be on the

1:23

air with you, so to speak, quote unquote. And

1:25

behind the mic, there's a

1:27

lot that has transpired since

1:30

early May. And I

1:33

reached out to you

1:35

because of basically an

1:37

interesting iTunes

1:40

review. It was very short.

1:43

It wasn't either a positive or negative review. It was

1:45

just a really interesting question. What

1:47

happened to Norman Lau? Or do you

1:49

think that someone misspelled my name? I just got used

1:51

to him. Is he gone now? Yeah.

1:55

And at the time that review came out, I

1:57

wasn't exactly sure what kind of

1:59

information. I was comfortable sharing

2:01

because I have been sharing information with

2:04

you with Earl behind the scenes, you

2:06

know with Eugene and

2:09

of course with our discord and patreon

2:11

followers, but I haven't had a

2:13

chance to Discuss

2:15

that at large, you know

2:17

with you are wonderful and

2:20

supportive and caring and listening

2:22

audience And I think while I

2:24

told John this I think that all of you out

2:26

there deserve to at least know What

2:28

our plans are coming for the future.

2:30

Yeah, and by the way, you know,

2:32

we can't expect Everybody who

2:35

listens to mission log to

2:37

know Every bit

2:39

of business about mission log we try very

2:41

hard To get stuff

2:43

out on Twitter and Facebook. I understand that

2:46

not everybody is connected to every social

2:48

media But at mission log

2:50

pod we try to get everything

2:52

out there The best

2:54

vehicle that we have to convey things

2:56

to our listeners is the show itself

3:00

So that's why we're dropping this recording

3:02

in when we can but even then

3:04

I understand that some people just don't

3:06

get every detail Maybe they miss an

3:08

episode. Maybe they see that it's a

3:10

supplemental and they just think like I

3:12

don't really want to hear an interview I want to

3:14

hear the regular mission logs that they skip it. That's

3:16

all fine. That's all fair game But

3:19

then we still get messages saying hey what happened

3:21

to this or why wasn't the show on this

3:23

week? even though we try to get the word

3:25

out as best we can so we doing

3:29

what we can for you and all I ask of you is

3:32

You know send us a message follow us

3:34

on social media wherever

3:36

it's convenient for you again, it's not not a

3:38

requirement to enjoy the show and Hopefully

3:41

an episode like this where we do get to have

3:44

a bit of a catch-up take a breath That

3:47

will illuminate a lot of

3:49

what's going on But yeah, I got messages from

3:51

people during that little two-week hiatus we took at

3:53

the end of June We

3:56

came back on July 4th,

3:58

but we took that hiatus at the end end of

4:00

June, give you a little bit of breathing room, give

4:02

me a little bit of breathing room. And

4:04

we tried to get the word out about that. But

4:07

even then people wrote in saying, Hey, what happened to mission

4:09

log? I would say

4:12

mission log didn't go anywhere. We definitely

4:14

want everybody to know that the show

4:16

is coming back. But if

4:19

you miss the announcement, you

4:21

miss the announcement. Yeah, by the way, you

4:23

can always reach us again mission log at

4:25

Roddenberry comm and we will

4:27

absolutely do our best to reach

4:29

out to you. Now that said,

4:31

Norman, you mentioned something that obviously

4:33

we've been in touch with me

4:35

and Earl and Eugene and

4:38

with our Patreon group because that

4:40

that is a little closer,

4:42

a little more intimate way to

4:44

get messages to and from our

4:47

listeners. But there's a lot

4:49

of people who may have missed some of

4:51

that. You know, you mentioned going back to

4:53

early May of this

4:55

year, I don't know when you're listening to

4:57

this, but May of 2024. And that precipitated

5:00

some changes in the show, and

5:02

take a little bit of a break. And

5:05

why don't you why don't you walk us

5:07

through it? Tell us what's been going on.

5:10

Well, one of the reasons why John and I

5:12

chose to, to basically record this

5:14

show is to get

5:16

a lot of the information out there, whether it's going

5:18

to be helpful for some people that

5:20

may or be may or not be going through

5:22

this. I think that, you know, when something something

5:24

like this has happened to, quote unquote,

5:27

some of the, you know, personally, whether

5:29

it is, you know, someone in your life

5:31

or someone that you know, in terms of

5:33

a, and I use these air quotes, very,

5:35

very sparingly, celebrity ish, you know, and you

5:37

see like, oh, if this can happen to

5:40

someone else like that, it can happen to

5:42

me too. There's kind of like

5:44

a little bit of a shared kind of

5:47

sympathy, you know, that's going on there. So

5:49

I said, john, this

5:51

really needs to be talked about because one, I,

5:54

I try and bear as much

5:57

as I can, that it's tolerable

5:59

from my own personal experiences on the air.

6:01

I've talked about how cancer has

6:03

affected my family when it came to the

6:05

visitor, talking about my father

6:07

and his struggle with leukemia. John, you've talked

6:09

about your father and your family as well.

6:11

I think that that's what makes our show

6:14

like very important to a lot of people

6:16

because we're not just people on the microphone.

6:18

We're people that, you know, that we live,

6:20

we breathe, and we also are hit

6:22

by dire circumstances in life.

6:25

And at the beginning of May,

6:27

some of you may have noticed that I was

6:30

having some health issues at

6:33

the start of that. I had some issues

6:35

with my eye, my right eye. Some

6:37

of you on Patreon and seeing the uncut recordings

6:40

have, you saw me wearing an eye patch. And

6:43

because there was something going on with my eye and

6:45

my vision. And then at one point

6:47

in time I told John, probably around the second

6:49

week of May, that I'm having some issues with

6:51

my arm and my shoulder. I thought it was

6:53

from old shoulder surgery and I was losing a

6:55

lot of sensation in my hand

6:58

and mobility in my hand and my

7:00

arm. So I started going to a

7:02

chiropractor who, my wife Carol, really

7:05

helped her out a lot right before her hip

7:07

surgery. And she started to

7:09

evaluate me and she thought, well, there may be

7:11

some like scoliosis going on, you know, you're a

7:13

gamer, you're a podcaster, you spend

7:15

a lot of time in the chair.

7:17

So there's some of that going on. So she

7:21

worked with me for about a week, a week and a half.

7:24

And in one particular session, she

7:27

asked me to do a variety

7:29

of different mobility tests. And

7:31

while I was in the waiting room, while I was in

7:34

her, I guess would be like chiropractic bed,

7:37

she walked out. And

7:39

there's something that I've been either gifted with

7:42

or cursed with is incredibly good hearing. That's

7:44

like the one thing that left this in

7:46

me that works. And

7:48

I heard her talk to Carol and she

7:50

says, I am really, really concerned about where

7:52

Norm is right now from

7:55

a therapeutic recovery standpoint, because he

7:57

should be improving right now. not

8:00

declining so quickly. And

8:02

she goes, I really do think that you should

8:04

see a neurologist or a neurosurgeon because

8:07

she was, and I'm

8:09

gonna say a lot of this, right,

8:11

honestly with you all right now. So

8:13

please, if you are triggered by any

8:15

kind of specific health issues

8:18

or any kind of trauma that's

8:20

related with health, please understand that

8:23

this is the segment that's about to be discussed

8:25

in length. Yeah. Okay. So

8:29

she tells Carol that you

8:31

should go and see a neurologist because I think that

8:33

he may be suffering a stroke because

8:38

your husband Norman is, he's

8:40

showing signs of basically

8:42

what a stroke related event would

8:45

entail, like loss of strength in

8:47

his grip, loss of mobility

8:49

inside of his arm, et cetera, et cetera. So

8:52

Carol's like, okay, so she called a couple of her

8:54

friends that are local. And

8:57

I'm not gonna name names because we're

8:59

on the air here, but she

9:01

reached out to one particular person

9:03

who is well

9:05

established at the University of Florida. And

9:08

her friend told her that you have to

9:11

get normed to the University

9:13

of Florida emergency room to have him

9:15

checked out for stroke because

9:18

I know the symptoms because this

9:20

person's dealt with those

9:23

same symptoms personally. She

9:26

told Carol, it sounds like stroke, and

9:28

you have that addressed

9:30

within X amount of hours

9:32

so that there's the

9:34

possibility of recovery from the stroke damage. So

9:37

we drive to an emergency room and we

9:39

get checked in and we get checked out.

9:42

And we go through the

9:44

entire routine of CT scan, blood

9:49

tests, et cetera, et cetera. About two hours later,

9:51

the emergency room doctor

9:54

stands in front of Carol and myself and he

9:56

goes, well, I have some bad news. go,

10:00

okay, so I'm there. Carol's

10:02

there. And she got and the the emergency

10:04

room doctor said, we've discovered

10:07

a large mass in the left side

10:09

of your brain. And

10:12

it felt like for me personally, it

10:15

felt like, okay, so what

10:18

is the next step? For Carol personally,

10:20

she's like, it felt like the entire world was

10:22

pulled out from underneath her. And I

10:24

think for people that have been given

10:27

this diagnosis for either themselves or their

10:29

loved ones, about cancer,

10:31

and about brain tumor cancer, you

10:34

understand that feeling, right? Because

10:37

it just seems like you

10:39

can't wrap your logical

10:42

brain and your emotions

10:44

around the gravity, right,

10:47

of that statement from someone that you don't even

10:49

know, right, you know, I didn't

10:52

know if you wanted to jump in there and ask no, no, I just

10:54

I you described that moment.

10:57

Exactly as I was thinking about it

10:59

is that there

11:01

is nothing that can prepare you for that. And

11:03

I remember very well, all

11:05

those steps and all those kind of

11:07

adjustments you had made, like the eye

11:09

patch, and then, you know, working on

11:12

your arm and your shoulder and thinking,

11:14

okay, it's this next thing, it's this

11:16

next thing, it's this next thing, we're

11:18

just kind of clearing up these little

11:21

symptoms, these little things that are happening that

11:23

can easily be taken

11:26

care of physically. And then

11:28

you wind up with this

11:30

diagnosis in pretty short order,

11:33

relatively speaking, in

11:36

about two weeks. And then when the

11:38

doctor or the chiropractor said, you need

11:40

to do this, you need to find

11:42

a neurosurgeon that went from like 12

11:44

one o'clock that day to about six

11:47

o'clock that evening. And then

11:49

they basically said, okay, we're going to they

11:53

put me under a seizure protocol because the

11:55

brain tumor. Yeah. And they put me in

11:57

an ambulance and they basically emergency sped me

11:59

off. at

38:00

that moment or before or in

38:02

the history of my life that could

38:04

have controlled the moments that have brought

38:07

me to that particular diagnosis. Once

38:09

you accept that, that

38:12

means that you have the clarity of

38:14

being able to move forward with what

38:16

is the next step. There's a

38:19

really interesting scene in Band of Brothers, and I

38:22

don't want to sound maudlin about this scene because

38:24

I think it's very interesting. Lieutenant

38:26

Ronald Spears in

38:28

an episode said to, I think

38:30

his name is Private

38:32

Blythe, he said, this is what you need

38:34

to know about war. Once you've accepted the

38:36

fact that you're already dead, then you can

38:38

function as a soldier because you've already accepted

38:41

the fact that this is your fate as

38:43

a soldier. Now you have the clarity of

38:45

being able to function as you

38:47

have been trained. That goes into Memento

38:49

Mori, which we were talking about before.

38:52

The Memento Mori philosophy is that, and

38:55

this is Marcus Aurelius' philosophy on it, is

38:57

like, remember that you

39:00

too will die. Then

39:03

the continuation of that sentiment

39:05

is, use that

39:07

as the way to shape the

39:10

future of your life

39:13

right now. That goes into

39:15

what I'm talking about. When

39:18

I was in the hospital, I made

39:21

these decisions where I said, you know what? I'm

39:23

not going to put off what

39:26

I should have done years ago, decades

39:28

ago. I proposed to Carol in

39:31

the hospital. Now we're

39:33

engaged. We're going to get married next year

39:35

after I'm done with my chemotherapy. I've reached

39:37

out to friends again that I haven't talked

39:39

to in decades. They're all coming back and

39:42

saying like, wow,

39:44

these are people that I cared

39:46

about 30 something years ago still

39:49

do, but

39:51

why does it take this as a

39:53

catalyst to do this as

39:55

a change in your entire life? say

40:00

this the wrong way. But

40:02

there are too many times where you're watching

40:04

TV, or you're listening to the news or

40:06

listening to conversation where did you hear about

40:08

that plane crash? Did you hear about that

40:10

bush crash? Did you hear about someone who

40:12

got struck by light? You know, all of

40:14

those things, they didn't have a chance to

40:16

be able to make those changes in your

40:18

life. The worst,

40:20

the worst, I think thing that you can say

40:23

to yourself is, if I

40:25

only, right?

40:27

If I only, that's

40:30

the regret that you can't invest

40:34

in taking away the joy of

40:36

your life. Right? Yeah.

40:38

Because you're always looking back and you're not

40:40

looking forward. If something happened, look forward. It's

40:42

in the past. There's this, there's a great

40:44

scene. I know I'm all over the place

40:46

and I'm sorry, but there's

40:48

a great scene in Disney's Lion King where

40:51

Mufasa and Simba, the

40:53

older Simba, they're trying to figure out are

40:55

you going to be the leader and Mufasa,

40:57

not Mufasa, was

41:00

it Rifiki, the baboon? Yeah. Like

41:02

smacks Simba on the head. He's

41:04

like, what'd you do that for? It's like, why does

41:06

it matter? It's in the past. So

41:10

in the stoic philosophy, you don't dwell on

41:12

why did this happen? It's how do

41:15

you deal with it now? Right now.

41:17

And how do you shape the future

41:19

of that particular outcome with

41:21

this information and a better perspective?

41:25

And I find that so wonderfully Vulcan. I

41:27

really do. Yeah. And

41:29

I did actually text Eugene

41:31

about this and I said, did your

41:34

father ever study the stoics? Because

41:37

Vulcan philosophy is so very akin

41:40

to that. And he told

41:42

me, no, I don't know, like

41:44

in specific, but he goes, but it sounds like

41:46

something that he would have studied. Interesting. Yeah. Because

41:48

I think that that

41:51

represents the best of what we get out

41:53

of Vulcans now, depending on which episode of

41:55

mission log you listen to. And there's a

41:57

very recent one where, where we call out

41:59

the... worst of

42:02

Vulcan behavior, and maybe not necessarily

42:04

the worst, but kind of the

42:06

downside of taking that to the

42:08

extreme of denying emotional

42:11

investment in something. But

42:14

yeah, but I do think that the

42:16

best sense of that is using that

42:18

sense of presence

42:21

in the present, to

42:23

be able to adjust one's life. And

42:25

I love that you've been able to

42:27

share that with us. I mean, I feel like we could go

42:30

on and on and on about this. I

42:32

want to wrap it up because I want

42:34

to thank our audience for

42:36

joining us. And I really wanted to get

42:38

a perspective on where you are right now

42:40

and what the road ahead looks

42:43

like, so that everybody

42:45

understands. And I love that

42:48

you've been able to share

42:51

kind of where you

42:53

are and what's been going on.

42:56

And I'm glad that

42:58

you know that there are so many

43:00

people out there. I mean, obviously, you're

43:02

friends and family, but just this incredible

43:04

family of listeners that we have, who

43:06

have been interested and

43:08

care and pay attention and

43:11

love what you bring to the show.

43:14

And yeah, they're all thinking about you too, constantly.

43:17

So I bet,

43:20

you know, I know that you're aware of that.

43:23

You know, it is nice, you know, to feel

43:25

that kind of support, you know, from so many

43:28

different angles and

43:30

so many different, you know, groups

43:32

of people out there, especially, you know, the listeners. And

43:34

of course, I couldn't do

43:36

what I'm doing right now without the support, you know,

43:38

of you, you know, you are

43:40

like my family, like everyone in Mission Log

43:42

that's supporting here, Discord and

43:44

Patreon. But you know, Carolyn, my

43:46

family, I just

43:49

I don't I don't know where

43:51

the road would have taken me

43:54

if not for them, because

43:56

that's something that's a luxury, I think

43:58

that not a lot of people of

44:00

people have when they go through this kind

44:02

of, you know, life altering

44:05

event. There's a

44:08

wonderful quote by Joe Michael Shozinski, the creator

44:10

of Babylon Five, who I'm sure some of

44:12

you know, I'm a huge fan of. But

44:17

there's a quote that he said, in

44:19

one of his interviews, and I'm sure he

44:22

wrote it down somewhere else, he goes, there

44:24

are several IT moments in your life. And

44:27

then you have your life before it, and

44:29

your life after it. This

44:32

is one of those major IT moments for me, for

44:34

sure. And I understand

44:36

the life before it and life

44:38

after it again goes to the

44:40

stone philosophy of what you do

44:42

now. Yeah. But I'm so fortunate

44:46

and honored to have so much

44:48

support out there. And one of the reasons

44:50

why I wanted to share this with the audience out

44:52

there is because if any of you

44:54

out there are going through this, let

44:59

me know, contact me, contact us, send

45:01

us an email. You are not

45:03

alone out there. You

45:06

are not alone. Yeah,

45:08

if you're going through something that I'm going through, I know

45:10

what you're going through. Right? You

45:13

we have a lifeline out there for you.

45:15

That's what we do. This is that's the

45:17

philosophy of Star Trek is that we we

45:21

share in the human adventure, the human adventure

45:23

is just beginning. And we build communities to

45:25

support the people out there that need support.

45:27

That's what we do. Aside

45:29

from the merchandising and the TV shows

45:31

and the consternation and all that kind

45:33

of stuff. If you want to basically

45:35

embody Star Trek and what it's all

45:37

about, it's about being kind. It's about

45:39

being human and it's about being connective.

45:42

So anyone out there who needs help, you

45:45

let us know, right? And we'll do

45:47

what we can to support you. Yeah. Because

45:49

I have a very direct perspective on

45:51

what's going on with many of you out there. So

45:54

if that's the reason

45:56

why this happened, then that's the reason why

45:59

this happened, John. You know, and that's all

46:01

it can really do to make sense

46:03

of all this stuff. If my story can help

46:05

someone else out there that's alone and they need

46:07

support, that's good enough for me. Well

46:11

said, man. I cannot

46:13

thank our listeners enough. Thank

46:15

you, Earl. Thank you, Eugene. Thank

46:17

you to all of

46:19

the guest co-hosts who have stepped in

46:21

and who will be stepping in over

46:23

time. And Norman, I can't thank you

46:25

enough, man. You know

46:27

that I care about you. I love you like family

46:30

and it

46:32

has been incredible to stay

46:35

in touch with you, to hear from you during

46:37

this whole thing and your

46:39

sense of self, your sense of

46:42

humor, your energy and enthusiasm have

46:44

not flagged at all. That's

46:47

absolutely amazing to me. And

46:50

you know, I can say again, we're here for

46:52

you as well, just like you're here for everybody

46:54

else. So thank you for that. And

46:56

everybody who's been listening, we

46:58

appreciate you. We'll be back

47:00

next week. So make

47:03

sure you continue to listen and hopefully that answers

47:05

a lot of the questions that you had. And

47:08

as Norman said, we're here for

47:11

you. Missionlog at roddenberry.com, at

47:13

Missionlogpod on X, formerly known as

47:15

Twitter and on Facebook. And of

47:17

course you can find us at

47:19

missionlogpodcast.com and all of our shows

47:21

at podcasts.roddenberry.com. Norman, thank you again.

47:27

Special thanks to consulting

47:29

producers, Matt Esposito, Homer

47:31

Frizzell, Rand Hurl, Tom

47:33

Cozad, Julie Miller, Mike

47:35

Richards, Mike Shadwell, Paul

47:37

Shadwell, and David Tocchetti.