Happy Birthday Max Grodénchik!

It’s a rather idyllic place to raise kids, and the baby’s doing great, so in that sense we know we made the right decision. Whether we’ll move to some big city with a theater/film/TV scene is a question for the future. It might happen down the road, but for the time being, we’re good here. 

The catch is the producers keep saying “We’re trying to get the money.” One of these projects has been in the works for years now, so I’m not exactly holding my breath. But I understand, that’s the nature of show biz, no matter where you are. And it’s very nice of them to think of me. That they even know of me over here is kind of mind-blowing, and quite flattering.

I’m working on getting my German better. It’s a little tough here in the countryside, where the accent’s thick as Scottish brogue. I taught English at the local Berlitz school last spring, and I’m hoping to do that again. Part of me always wanted to teach, so, now I have my chance. And most importantly, of course, I’m working on raising a child.

I also do spend time trying to come up with new songs for Creation’s “Rat Pack” show, featuring Armin Shimerman, Jeff Combs, Casey Biggs, Vaughn Armstrong and myself. We’ve performed it many times in a number of cities, and we’ve been the last act at the annual Las Vegas convention the past two years, and are already contracted for next year. We actually close the show, which is quite an honor. And this past August, James Darren sang with us, which was pretty cool!

In Hollywood they generally don’t call when you don’t get a job. You call your agent and ask if the role’s been cast and the standard answer is something like, “He read great, we’re just going in another direction,” something like that. The news would’ve come from me calling my agent and asking her to see what, if anything, happened, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t make that call in that situation. Yeah, I could be wrong, but I don’t remember that piece of news being broken. I do remember that the time between the first and second auditions was maybe three weeks… I’m repeating what I said earlier, that after the phone didn’t ring right away after the first audition I figured I wasn’t getting called back and that there would be no second audition.

I don’t know how much later – but then the phone did ring. They wanted me for one day as a Ferengi Pit Boss. They paid me more money for one day than I’d ever gotten up to that point in time. Of course, I did it. I thought, “Well, that’s nice of them, they’re giving me a little bit of a consolation prize. OK, that’s truly sweet, like they actually did like me, but they couldn’t use me, that happens, so sweet of ’em, thank you very much.” Sincerely, that’s how I felt.

So Rom appeared and he was me or I was him and that was really great, but I thought it was a one-time thing. Never ever did I think I’d be back – for almost every episode the first three seasons or so, I thought, “Well, nice, they gave me another one. Each episode’s a nice little gift and thank you for that. You’ve done more than enough for me, so it’s quite OK that you’re done with me. I totally understand.” And that’s how it was in my head.

People have asked over the years if I knew how Star Trek would change my life when I first began working there. No, didn’t have a clue. It’s kind of nice that it all came as a series of lovely surprises.

Well, I didn’t realize how much there was in that episode. At the end of it I bring Nog into the bar, presenting him as a “cadet,” which he wasn’t yet, but Rom was being such a proud father. I remember holding Aron’s hand as I escorted him into the bar, because my own dad would sometimes hold my hand in a situation like that and I always thought it was a very loving gesture. But Aron hated it. I insisted. We both went to Armin to arbitrate and, of course, Armin worked out a compromise.

It’s an extremely serious episode in which Nog loses a leg in battle. I think the writers wanted the scene there so that the episode would have at least one lighter moment. I don’t think that little scene made the heaviness of what was to come any easier to take, but boy, I really got a kick out of them wanting me to sing.