In Star Trek 4, Spock uses the Vulcan Nerve Pinch to knock out a punker while traveling on a bus in San Francisco. In 1986.
By this point the Beastie Boys were already a band, and had been for a few years. In fact, they were on tour that year as part of Run DMC’s ‘Raising Hell Tour’.
They are TWICE in California for that tour, close enough in Oakland to be near enough for one of them to either be on the bus that day, or overhear a story about this very event, and Mr Spock being named.
So it is entirely possible that the Beastie Boys put Mr Spock in their song because they remembered about THIS EXACT EVENT, which later became the inspiration for Amanda to name her son… after the song!
Tbh that’s an appropriate response to people listening to tiktoks on their phone without headphones too and we should bring it back.
