An inspiration becomes a dream

"Carl Macek was a man of immense writing talent, skill, style, class and intelligence." - Rebecca Forstadt Olkowski, Voice actress (Lynn Minmei in Robotech)

On April 17, 2010, one of the original producers of Robotech passed away from a heart attack.


Robotech has been - and continues to be - a huge inspiration to me as a writer, as a storyteller and as a person.  What Carl Macek wrote was an amazing drama that is still relevant today, and appeals to adolescents and adults, males and females.

What makes Robotech an even more amazing work is that the animation is taken entirely from a Japanese anime series, Macross.  For as much as the two series have in common, they are also completely different.  The characters are new, the dialogue is new, and the story has a fresh twist to it.

As Robotech character Roy Fokker once commented, "Once you get this Robotech stuff in your blood, it's there to stay."

So, since I cannot attend his memorial service in California on Saturday, May 1, my tribute to the late, great Carl Macek and the spectacular series he fathered will have to come in the form of hosting a Robotech marathon on the same day.

In closing, as Grig (The Last Starfighter) said, "Death is a primitive concept; I prefer to think of them as battling evil in another dimension!"  Another dimension, that is, where the United Earth Government is in possession of a Super Dimensional Fortress.


You can read the original news article (as well as continuing coverage) at Robotech.com by clicking this link.

Robotech Prophecy: The Segway

These law enforcers might look goofy on their Segways, but you won't be laughing when next year's budget passes and they get the upgraded state of the art Bioroid Terminator Edition Segways!

If you're as obsessed with Robotech as I am, then you've probably noticed some strange parallels between real life and the show. If you've never heard of Robotech, you'll probably want to turn back now because the nature of blogging (as I learned) doesn't allow me enough space to explain the show while keeping your ever decreasing attention span focused on my thoughts and opinions.

Anyway, I always thought Segways were really goofy inventions. If Paul Blart: Mall Cop tells me anything, so do a lot of other people. While I was waiting in an airport not long ago, however, a security guard whizzed by me on a Segway. Apparently he was trying to remember whether or not he left his oven on because he stopped in the middle of everything for no good reason. When he stopped, though, it was as though he were hovering and, I hate to admit it, it was kinda cool.

I guess the officer decided he had not left his oven on as he proceeded to whoosh off along his merry way.

As you can plainly see from the photos above, we're already on the path to becoming the Robotech Masters (also known as the Tirolians). Segways are just the first baby step to developing military hovercraft capable of providing increased maneuverability to giant mechas, which will eventually be piloted by cloned triplets when Congress declares that it's inhumane to allow "real people" to go to battle. Of course, being able to mass produce cloned triplets would require extensive stem cell research, which I think we ought to achieve within the next couple of years if we really put our scientists' minds to it.

One of my many goals is to one day pilot a Valkyrie (or an Alpha or a Beta Fighter...or a Cyclone...), but I'd certainly settle for a Bioroid Terminator if that was all that was available.

So here's hoping my fantasy comes to fuition!