What Would Captain Kirk do?

In honor of William Shatner’s recent 80th birthday; a paen to the Shat in the way we all know him best. Yes, yes, I’ll get back to more important and technical things later, but most of you who read my blog were inspired to go into the sciences and engineering by Star Trek when you were kids. Really, this is important, as the Shat and the characters he portrays embody virtues which are missing in modern men.

 

When I was a boy, I thought Mr. Spock was superior to Captain Kirk. This was a youthful error. Captain Kirk is the apotheosis of manhood.

 

 

It’s not that Spock sucks, it’s just that Kirk is insanely cool. Kirk even proved he could kick Spock’s ass in some episode or other. Kirk loves being Captain Kirk. Spock struggles with his mixed blood. Spock has issues his manly friend Kirk can help him with. Kirk can help because he knows what he is: he is a man. Kirk knows he is the living embodiment of what is awesome about being a man. Notice I don’t say humanity: being a man . Kirk didn’t go where “nobody has gone before” he went where “no man has gone before.” This is a non trivial distinction.

 

In many ways, Kirk is Jack Kennedy; the universal man of the era in which he was created, but he is even more heroic and even more of a womanizer. Kennedy decreed that men would go to the moon, which rules, but Kirk actually went there, which rules a lot harder, even though he’s science fiction. Kennedy was also enough of a tool to get married because his dad said it would be good for his political career: Kirk joined the space navy and sires bastards all over creation. Kirk’s bastards would have enslaved Kennedy’s nanny raised castrated Ivy League children with the sheer awesomeness of Kirk’s genetic code. All the subsequent Kennedy children have been self doubting drunks and morons, rather than the manly pirates embodied by Jack and Joe Kennedy. Kirk’s offspring have been suicide bombers and scientists, which is more than, say, Carol “uuuuum, like” Kennedy can say of herself.

 

“Even though I, a neuraesthenic bog negro, am hung like a yak compared to Shatner, and I look way better nekkid than he does, Kirk is still a better man than I am”

Even when Kirk looks ridiculous, he is awesome. Every woman I’ve ever met has said Kirk is kind of ridiculous, mostly because every woman I’ve ever met has been left in a puddle of sweat and goo by a guy just like him. Every last one of them would give it up for Captain Kirk, even in orange tights. Kirk exudes supreme confidence. He knows everything worth knowing. He commands. He is the epitome of an alpha male. The other Star Trek captains can’t even remotely compare to Kirk. In the episodes where they have tried, Kirk just laughs scornfully at them. Consider, could Captain Archer drop kick Kirk? I think not. If Kirk pulled up to Deep Space Nine, he’d just say, “filler up, bud,” and go pork some hot chick in the bar while waiting. Janeway would totally want to sit on Kirk’s meat stick, and Kirk would totally laugh at her, while wiggling his eyebrows and sticking his tumescent vein missile in 7 of 9’s ear. Picard? Lock them in a cell together, and who is more likely to take it up the space chute? There is simply nobody in any of the Star Treks whose ass Kirk didn’t or couldn’t kick.

 

“Where is that slut, Yeoman Rand, dammit?”

 

When a man is in doubt about what the right thing in life to do is, he should consider What Captain Kirk Would Do. Usually it’s the right thing. Cock your eyebrow and be effortlessly superior? Punch the alien in the jaw? Dress like a Nazi? Sex up the green alien chick? Run off with someone else’s dilithium crystals? Make a plan to subvert a civilization? Invoke the prime directive? You can’t go far wrong by thinking about what Kirk would do. Kirk rarely lets other men down, but more importantly as an example to others, Kirk never lets himself down. Kirk isn’t awesome in the same way that, say, Jon Petwee’s Dr. Who is awesome. Nobody can be like a Time Lord; they’re aliens with the ability to travel through time. It’s like being Superman. Kirk is the type of manhood any man with a set of working testicles can aspire to. That’s how a man should be. You don’t need a star ship to be like Kirk; you just need to believe in yourself.