Look At His Butt!: Show 304

Look at my butt.

Show number 304 of Look at His Butt, the longest-running show about William Shatner.

Hey, listeners, or maybe I can call you fans.

I bet you're wondering where we've been.

And, well, this is the first half of the last official episode of the show.

I can't believe we did more than 300 shows talking about Star Trek and Bill and all the fun things we did together.

And doing this show has been a constant source of happiness in my life since we started it way back in 2005.

And now, sadly, it's over.

I wrote this all out, and I'm trying to read it.

But you'll hear.

I'm going to cut to the chase for people who don't want to listen to the whole show.

The news is that my co-host, the fabulous, amazing Jungle Kitty, passed away really suddenly at the end of 2022.

And when I say suddenly, I mean within a few days of her being really, really sick.

I didn't have a chance to see her.

I didn't even have a chance to talk with her.

The last time we actually talked was when we recorded.

The last show that we posted, which was back in October.

And she was still coping with long COVID, which she'd had for a long time.

But she seemed okay.

She was her usual self.

We made plans for the next podcast.

We talked about what we were going to do for Christmas and all sorts of things.

And then she was just gone.

She was with her family, her sister Nancy, who we've mentioned on the show before.

She did some fun stuff with us.

And her other sister, Diane.

And Nancy told me that they talked to her and they sang to her.

And they even read one of Bill's books to her when she was in the hospital.

So she was surrounded by so much love and laughter and song right up until the end.

And that is a very small consolation for the reality that I have lost my best friend.

And Nancy and Diane lost their beloved sister.

So I don't want to do the podcast anymore.

I can't do it by myself because it was our project.

And it only worked because it was the two of us.

And she is irreplaceable.

So I want to take this time to thank everybody who listened to us being idiots.

Who stuck with us over these long years.

Who sent us email and comments and things.

Actual physical things.

We loved it all.

We loved talking to you.

We loved just knowing you were out there.

We had parties with you guys.

We showed that tape of out to lunch to dozens of people in hotel rooms.

And people's minds were always blown by it.

It was so much fun.

And we made so many friends from you guys out there.

As we said so many times, we started and pretty much continued 300 episodes worth.

We made the show for ourselves.

And we were always delighted and amazed that people listened to us.

So I want to thank you.

It meant the world to us that you listened.

So for you guys who are curious, I will give you a little bit of backstage glimpsing into the show and our friendship, some of which, you know, and some you probably don't.

So first of all, her name wasn't Jungle Kitty.

You know that her name was Pat and Pat and I met online in the very old days of ask him, which was all Star Trek, creative erotica.

And she was moderated back on the Usenet groups.

And we've talked about that many times.

It was purely happenstance that we met there because we were both looking for a place to talk about Star Trek and to talk about fan fiction.

And the moderated group was the place to be.

The unmoderated group was full of garbage.

So moderated was great.

And then we met in person and we started hanging out at each other's houses.

At first, it was often with our mutual friend, Junk.

And sometimes we would hang out.

We just stayed up until four in the morning talking and watching Star Trek and going out to diners and just having a fucking amazing time.

We were like instant best friends and we stayed best friends through a lot of life changes, which included Pat moving to Chicago with her then husband.

And then she got divorced, but she did keep the dog, Jack, the podcasting dog.

And I went through a lot of life changes myself.

So I went to Chicago twice.

I went to Chicago twice to help her move.

I believe this is all well documented within the podcast.

And we made so many other trips besides.

We did so much stuff because of the podcast.

Every day that we got to spend together was just crammed with fun and events and fine dining and watching things together.

Pat was the planner.

She was an expert planner.

And really all I had to do was show up.

All of the adventures that we had that we talked about on the show was us seeing something and going,

we should do this.

We should do this.

We should do that.

And then Pat would go, yes.

And she would make the plan.

And I would say, OK, tell me where to be at a particular time.

And then somehow it all worked out.

Aside from the podcast, this was also the case for the cruises that we took before COVID.

They were amazing.

And she planned them all.

And really, I just showed up.

I'm so grateful that we got to have those vacations together before the pandemic made travel absolutely impossible.

They were.

They were some of the best times that I've ever had.

I look through those pictures so often and I see all the places we went and the fun things that we did.

It was incredible.

So we managed to keep the podcast going through janky technology and time zones.

And I am so proud of our little homemade podcast.

And we kept it going, honestly, through sheer force of will.

Sometimes we were one of the first Star Trek podcasts.

And the only one that focused on William Shatner, as far as I know.

When we started it back in those days, I just looked around at podcasts and I said, why are there not more Star Trek podcasts?

And why is there not one by women that talk about all the fun things that we enjoy with Star Trek and not just give episode reviews?

That's how it started.

We never had advertiser money to pay for anything like equipment or travel or tickets to shows or anything like that.

Everything was all advertising.

We did everything out of pocket and done as cheaply as possible, which occasionally involved sneaking into places or pretending that we were the real press in order to get press passes.

We did that an awful lot.

We never got thrown out of anything.

Although, as you all know, I did regularly get yelled at for touching stuff that I wasn't supposed to touch.

But I will never stop touching stuff.

I can't help it.

There are so many things we didn't get to do.

There's a long list of places.

There's a long list of places that we wanted to visit, including the Cheese Castle, which we talked about like a million times.

But top of the list was going to Ticonderoga.

We were thinking maybe we'd go this year, 2023, if we could swing it.

Finances and health and pandemic.

I would still like to go, but I think it's going to be a while before I could manage it emotionally.

I talked on the show jokingly that I would get there and just sort of fall to my knees.

And weep because it would be like being in Star Trek.

And now, going by myself, I don't think I could do it.

I think if I went, I would just break down.

And nobody wants to see that.

And I'm, you know, I'm still not really watching Star Trek.

I never finished Lower Decks.

I will watch it.

I will get back to watching Star Trek.

Picard is going to be starting soon, and I want to watch that.

But, oh my God, it's just too painful.

So.

I thought about doing a greatest hits show, but I hate clip shows.

So, you have 303 back episodes to listen to if you want to revisit things.

I would particularly recommend show number 193, because that's where we discussed Bill

hugging Pat after she made him laugh on stage at a con.

I think that was one of the highlights of her life, honestly.

And that whole event is so her.

It just captures her.

She was.

She was so fearless and so quick and funny.

And she got exactly what she wanted from Bill, of all people.

And he was impressed with her that she was able to just go with him riffing on whatever

he was saying.

He noticed her shirt.

What would Kirk do?

And she just jumped right in there.

And he thought that was the funniest fucking thing.

And he was, he should have been impressed with her.

We were always worried.

You know, we talked about it.

What would happen when Bill passed?

And I don't think he ever will.

I think he's going to live forever.

And I never, ever thought it would be one of us first.

So, Pat's sister Nancy is going to send me most of her Trek stuff, which is incredibly

kind of her.

And I am so grateful.

Some of it is the Trek crap that we bought for each other over the years, which we talked

about on the show when we gave each other gifts.

You know, the tall votive candle with Kirk's face on it like he's the Pope.

And then there.

Other things that I made or had made, like the comic panel of Carol Marcus saying, I

slept with Jim Kirk again, when will I ever learn, which I had framed for her.

And she had proudly displayed in her bedroom.

I loved when I visited and I would just see that there because that was such a great thing.

I think when I open that box of stuff, I will have a little breakdown as I hold and touch

all of the things that were special to us.

One year.

I gave her a salt and pepper set of Captain Kirk in his captain's chair.

And I think he's salt and the chair is pepper.

And she had that in a very prominent place in her apartment so that he could watch over

everything and be on guard.

And I will put him in my living room so he can watch over me, too.

So I don't know what else to say.

The podcast will be available forever.

I'm never going to take it down.

And the blog with the show notes.

We'll stay up so you'll always be able to go back and search for things and look for

stuff.

I will continue to run the Facebook page because it's nice.

It's a cozy little place for us to hang out.

And I like posting things that I know you'll be interested in.

It's possible I would do a special podcast if I ever go to Ticonderoga or like if I meet

Bill again or something momentous because I feel like I owe that to you guys.

If you would like to do something in Pat's memory.

You could either donate to the Chicago Cabaret people because she was a crucial member of

the cabaret scene there.

She performed live.

She supported all the things that went on.

She did unpaid work for them with their newsletter and things.

Or there is a pancreatic cancer fund, which is associated with Star Trek.

I believe Jonathan Frakes was one of the people who was associated with it.

And that's what she passed away from.

So I will put the links in the show notes and also on the Facebook page if you would

like to donate as a memory of her.

So as I said, this is kind of the first half.

The second half is going to be the last, last show.

I mean, never say never, but that's how I'm thinking of it now.

And I think it would be really nice to put together some tributes from you guys to my

beloved co-host and friend.

One of our...

One of our longtime listeners, Amanda, who we met in person and had a great time with

and her husband, has graciously offered to kind of coordinate things and collect whatever

you might want to contribute.

It can be written or you could record it, whatever works for you.

So we'll post that on the Facebook page.

And you can always send email to me now at lookathisbutt at gmail.com.

I will keep that email address open forever, pretty much, in case you want to send.

And it would be nice to hear from you guys.

And I think it would be really sweet to put together some tributes from our friends and

our longtime listeners and people who have really stuck with us.

So, you know, it's February and I'm sitting here and I'm looking out the window and I'm

thinking that I really don't want to stop making the podcast, but I kind of have to.

And it's been really hard.

And just...

Facing the reality that Pat's not with us anymore and I can't talk to her about Star Trek and things.

And there are 10 times every day when I think, I need to tell her that or she needs to see this thing.

Or, you know, there's a thing that we've been planning on, on watching or doing.

And then I have to remember that that's not going to happen.

So anyway, I just wanted you guys to know what was going on and I will be here.

And I would love to hear from you and we will definitely put together another show.

So, from me and from Pat and from Marjorie and all of our other fun characters that we created for the show,

I would like to tell you all to live long and potluck and keep on enjoying Star Trek and stay safe.

And I hope that everybody is doing okay in these very unprecedented and complicated times.

And I'm not exaggerating when I say I love you all and thank you for being there.

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