WWdN: In Exile

Geek in Review: The Big Goodbye

Hooray! This week's Geek in Review, The Big Goodbye, is live:

"So I thought we'd head over toward stage 9," the producer said to me, "and we'll shoot our host wraps in there."

"Wait." I said. "You mean we get to walk into stage 9?"

"Don't get too excited," He said, " there's nothing left from Trek in there."

Though I knew that there was no way they'd preserve our sets for twenty years, and though I knew that someone else would eventually move into our stages, just as we'd moved into the original series' stages, I still felt a little sad.

"Nothing at all?" I said. It was a stupid question. Of course there wouldn't be anything there. But like a kid who just learned that Darth Vader was just a guy in a suit, or that KITT didn't really talk, I had to ask again, just to be sure I hadn't somehow misunderstood the cold hard reality.

"They're building sets for some reshoots on a Farrelly Brothers movie," he said, "So we'll just shoot outside." I was struck by how blasé he was, which also shouldn't have surprised me. How could I expect anyone else in the world to have the same emotional attachment to those stages as I did?

I found a good place to break it, via a process that went something like this, "Hey, Andrew, I need to know where to break this. I think I should break it here. What do you think? Oh. I think this is a good place to break it, so I'll just break it here. No need to reply. I guess I didn't need to send this e-mail in the first place, huh? So. How you doing? I'm fine. Okay write back. Thanks. Bye!"

This GiR is important for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the very significant role it played in moving me past a pretty paralyzing funk on my new book. Writing the story that spans this and next week's columns helped me to step out of burst culture and work on narrative writing. It's more of a challenge than I think is obvious to a lot of people (including myself,) but Rogers explains why the two styles aren't very compatible quite clearly.

I also didn't realize how serious the advertising issue was weighing on me, and how negatively it was impacting my ability to just relax and enjoy things. I'm really happy that I removed it from my blog and my psyche, because it was causing an unecessary distraction that made the already lousy cost/benefit analysis even worse than I thought.

With those distractions addressed and gone, and this week's rediscovery of the joy of narrative writing, I can identify why I've felt so frustrated and stuck on the current book: the working title didn't fit with the material and the tone of the book, and our thought of dividing it into themed sections, like geek and family just didn't work. As a result, the current manuscript just didn't feel right. This is supposed to be like Dancing Barefoot, which was a pick-it-up-and-put-it-down collection you took to the beach, and what we had with the sections and stuff didn't serve that. This was all exacerbated by the anxiety about the length, and the need to cut some stories that are good, but redundant. If I can include the entirety of this and next week's GiR, the issue of length has pretty much been solved. With the issue of length solved, the redundancy issue kind of takes care of itself.

This is all a very longwinded way of saying that once I realized what was in my way, it freed me up to allow this book to simply be what it is going to be, and nothing more. I am, as Andrew would say, off the ledge.

For the moment.

little green bag

I stayed up until nearly three this morning writing and rewriting and tweaking my column, and I consequently look and feel like hell. This isn't the best way to look and feel, because we're shooting an InDigital later this afternoon. Hopefully, I'll get to take a quick nap and recover some HP before I leave.

I'm still messing with my column a little bit, even though it's due to go live in a little more than 90 minutes (this is normal when I have something I really like; I don't finish it as much as I reluctantly let it go) but I think WWdN readers will enjoy it. I've been so trapped in burst culture lately that I haven't had the time or correct frame of mind to write anything narrative, so it felt really good to get back to that.

It's going to be two parts, because it's over 3600 words in one chunk, so I have to find a good place to split it. I think I have a good place to do that, but I'm going to run it past Andrew before I turn it in. Coincidentally, 3600 words or so is about what I feel I need to add to the still untitled next book that really needs to be finished before the end of this month, so I feel pretty happy and satisfied with that, as well.

Oh, the whole reason I sat down to post in my blog was this nifty link I got from Richard Brodie. Ever wonder how big the Enterprise D would really be? I always figured it was exactly the size of the Paramount lot, because that's how big it was on a drawing they included in the writer's bible in season one . . . but this guy has determined that it's actually a hell of a lot bigger.

Movie Magic

From tomorrow's Geek in Review:

I looked around the empty stage for a moment. Something about it was incredibly familiar.

"Hey, you know what I just realized? I shot Family Ties here right before I started Star Trek."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I was cast as Tina Yothers' boyfriend. I only did one episode before I booked TNG, but the word on the street at the time was that Gary David Goldberg was going to write me in as a recurring character before I went into outer space." I said. "And, uh, the future."

I looked around while I spoke. The stage was completely empty, except for a couple of work lights, and the bleachers where audiences once sat. This stage, once filled with laughter and the energy of filming "live, before a studio audience," was little more than an empty room. My whole life, I've been in love with the magic that goes into creating the suspended disbelief of movies and television; but it wasn't until I stood in that empty stage that I fully appreciated the effort that went into transforming 12,000 square feet of soundstage into the Keaton's lives for eight years.

the great advertising experiment

In January, I began the great advertising experiment at WWdN. Back then, I wrote:

Google AdSense is a complete joke and colossal waste of time and space, so I have begun working with Federated Media (mostly because my friend Xeni is involved with the company and I trust her, but also because it's almost like "Federation" which invokes a Pavlovian response from my Star Trek brain) and I'm trying it out for three to five months. The guys at FMP tell me that it takes about three months for the campaigns to hit their stride, and around that time I'll know if it's been worth it to me to sell out, as it were. I have no idea how well this will work; it could bring in a substantial amount of cash, or it could take up a bunch of space on my blog and end up being a big waste of time, but it seems silly to me to not even try.

It's been five months, so it's time to see how it's going: It's been a complete joke and colossal waste of time and space. FM didn't sell a single ad for me, (apparently, I'm not the only person to have this problem, so caveat emptor, bloggers) and while I've been running Google ads where the FM ads should have been, that was more trouble than it was worth. It's just not worth less than $200 a month to deal with Bill O'Reilly and John McCain ads sitting there neo-conning the place up. I tried to take a hands off approach to advertising, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth, and since my blog is sort of an extension of me, what I still believe is a good business decision (content agnostic advertising) just isn't right for me personally.

I spoke with some people at FM, and while they tried to come up with some creative ways to possibly make it worth my while maybe if I wait it out for another three to five months and wish real hard for a pony, I decided over the weekend that it's just not right for me. My focus here needs to be on enjoying writing in my blog (the whole reason I started it) instead of worrying whether the ads are running and earning and not being lame. While I feel like I may be leaving a bit of money on the table, a cost/benefit analysis says it's not worth the constant headaches to try and make it work.

I'm very happy with the RSS advertising that Feedburner puts into my RSS stream, and those are actually returning a meaningful amount of college fund revenue, so that's going to stick around, but for the foreseeable future, there won't be any actual advertising on my blog.

notes on a weekend

My friend Chris came into town this weekend, so a bunch of us got a poker game together downtown at his friend's house to take all his money celebrate his brief visit to Los Angeles. I haven't played much live poker this year, and forgot how fun it can be to sit around an actual table with actual people and lose a coin flip for a full buy-in. Thank you, Ryan.

I played until about 3 in the morning, and though I left with a tiny dent in my bankroll, it was entirely worth it. If you get a chance to play poker in a loft downtown on a misty Saturday night while the soundtrack to Cowboy Bebop echoes off the concrete walls, I highly recommend it.

I spent most of Sunday afternoon recovering from staying up too late on Saturday, then headed up to La Crescenta to see my friend Darin and his family, and a friend of ours from high school who was also in town this weekend. It was a bit of a headtrip to stand in Darin's back yard, and watch his daughter play on a swing set in exactly the same place we used to play 40K twenty years ago. It was a total headtrip to go inside and sit in the exact same place we used to read comic books and talk about girls while his infant son rolled around on the floor and his daughter spoke to me in 3 year-old.

I needed to get out of the house, and spend time with my friends this weekend; I've been working so much without any real "me time" for the last six months that I feel overwhelmed and dangerously close to burning out. For the first time in my life, I feel like I really am getting older and time matters.

I'm saving the entire story for this week's Geek in Review, but it started last week when I went to Paramount last week to film some host wraps for the TNG documentary. I walked over to Stages 8 and 9, and everything was just . . . gone. The sadness nearly overwhelmed me as I stood there and watched a bunch of guys build sets where our Holodeck and Sickbay used to be.

Is it a midlife crisis? I doubt it; I have no desire to grow a ponytail and buy a sports car . . . but I sure would like to get a MAME cabinet and spend about two weeks just watching movies and reading books. Is that how geeks have their midlife crisis? Maybe we buy a faster computer and go on a Think Geek shopping spree.

honor their sacrifice

(Photo by Flickr user codefin, used under Creative Commons License)

one from the archives: Save Ferris

Looking at that picture of my awesome dog yesterday reminded me of a post I made all the way back in August of 2001, on the original WWdN. I think it's a cute story, but it's also an amusing illustration of just how much I've grown as a writer and blogger since then . . .

Save Ferris
by Wil

I'm listening to Cake right now. Have you noticed that Cake is one of those bands that evokes a visceral reaction in people? I mean, they either really, really love it, or they really, really hate it. I dunno, maybe it's just me.

Here's the story of Ferris:

My wife is the coolest, ever. You know that stupid corny hallmark-card thing about someone making you want to be a better person? Well, sorry, I like to be anti and all Emo and shit, but it's true. I love my wife more than anything, and she really does make me want to be a better person. I could gush about her for pages here, but I'm not gonna. I am going to exercise restraint.

Oh, fuck that. I knew from the moment that I saw Anne that I would marry her. Isn't that weird? Has that ever happened to someone who wasn't in some godawful Nora Ephron movie? And the way we met...it was all timing. My best girlfriend, Stephanie, worked with Anne for YEARS, but she never introduced us...I mean, she even babysat Anne's kids, at MY PARENT'S HOUSE when we were younger, and she never introduced me to Anne...because, when we look back at stuff, the timing was just all wrong. We weren't ready to meet each other. But when we did, it was bootylicious.

Anne is beautiful. I mean, she is fucking hella rad.

Hella.

Hella.

Hella.

I always joke that when we are out, people look at us and complain that there's another hot babe with a geek. I say that I am Bob Goldthwait to her Nikki Cox, David Copperfield to her Claudia Schiffer, Sigfried to her Roy...I truly adore my wife, and that's all I have to say about that.

One of the things I adore about her is how she has what Soul Coughing called "Boundless Love". Anne works every day, takes her kids to school, picks them up, deals with their dad, and still has time to make me feel like I'm important in her life.

We have this fake dog poop that someone gave us a long time ago, and we have the game that we play, where we try to put the poop in each other's stuff. Recently, I stuck it in the toe of her shoe, which was in her suitcase. She found it when she put her shoe on in Vegas. She put it in the exact middle of my bed, under the sheets, and it scared the hell out of me when I jumped into bed around 230 or something last week. My point is, my wife is cool, okay? Yesterday, when I was sobbing like a little bitch in our bedroom, she came in, sat next to me, put her arm around me, and just sat there, loving me. I could feel it. Then she gave me Kleenex, and told me that she'd leave me alone until I felt better.

So you need to know that to understand the story of Ferris.

Anne is a sucker for hard-luck cases, especially animals. One time a few years ago, she almost got hit on the freeway, because she saw a kitten running in the slow lane...so she stopped her car right there and got out to save the kitten, but it got hit by a car just before Anne could get to it, and Anne sat on the freeway, holding the kitten while it died in her hands.

She was fucked up about it for months.

So about 18 months ago, she and I are on our patio, and we hear this meowing coming from our garage. We both thought it was one of my cats, Biko or Sketch, (who are both inside cats, but occasionally get out), so we went to look...and out comes this skinny black cat with no tail. Anne immediately falls in love with him, and she takes him to the vet, to get him healthy again, while I make the "Found Cat" posters. Long story short: We thought he was going to die, the vet said he was just dehydrated, we got him shots, and Anne named him "Felix". He has lived with us ever since, and he is one ot the coolest cats, ever.

Shortly after Felix came to live with us, a woman Anne works with told us about this guide dog she trained, who was also named Felix. She told us that Felix works for a guy up in Canada (and you can't spell "runaway production" without Canada!), and Felix had been hit by a car, and they weren't sure if he would be able to work as a guide dog any more. I guess when a service dog has to be retired, they give the person who trained that animal the right of first refusal as a place to live out their life, but Rita (Anne's friend) lives in an apartment with her husband and young son. Not the best place for a 90 pound lab. So Rita asked her if Felix could come to live with us, and of course Anne said "yes". Long story short: Felix was okay, and he's still working with his guy in Canada. Which is great, because I can only imagine what the bond between service dog and owner must be like. I would just speculate that it's similar to parent-child, and I always hoped that Felix would be able to stay with his guy. In the process of waiting to see if Felix would come live with us, we got on a list for guide dogs who flunk their final exam, because we have wanted a dog for AGES, and we thought that would be the best way to get one.

We are ADAMANTLY opposed to pet stores selling dogs and cats, by the way /soapbox.

Anyway, cut to Memorial day this year. We have no dog. Anne is taking the kids to Home Depot, so they can buy the materials necessary to make a grind rail (they're all about the short boards. I'm all about the long boards. It makes for an interesting dynamic when we skate).

Funny aside: Ryan (12) and Nolan (10) were talking about how excited they were to get a grind rail, which they kept calling a "pole". Nolan says to Ryan, "We TOTALLY have to get some grinding wax, Ryan!" Ryan replies, "Yeah, so we can wax our pole!"

Okay, so they're leaving the Home Depot, and instead of going to the Left, to get back to the freeway like they always do, Anne goes right, and passes this bus stop, where this tiny little dog is chewing on a t-shirt. Anne says that she felt compelled to stop and save her. So she did. As soon as she got out of the car, the dog ran into some Oleander bushes, and Anne spent close to 30 minutes getting her out, and took her to an Emergency vet, for some shots and to get the ticks out of her ears.

So Anne brings home this skinny, 27 pound, depressed little dog, and, I must be totally honest, I was pissed. I was so mad that she had made this huge decision to take on the responsibility of a dog without consulting me. I mean, we have enough responsibilities already, you know? We really had it out. There was much gnashing of teeth, and Sir Robin soiled his armor. We finally agreed to keep her for a few days, and see how she was, and if she wasn't any better, we'd take her to a shelter where they don't euthanize the animals.

Well, she was terrified of me. She had CLEARLY been abused by a man, and she was terrified of men. "Great," I thought, "I'm going to be responsible for a dog who never lets me pet her. Terrific."

And for the first 12 hours--wait, I know I'm not supposed to start a sentence with a conjunction. But I can't spell for shit, so why are you complaining now? Jeeze. Get off my back, Mrs. Lee [9th grade English teacher who flunked me because she said I couldn't write. I win.]--for the first 12 hours, she sat by the side door, never moving, never eating, just looking depressed. But somehow, my amazing wife loved this dog enough, and totally turned her around. Within 12 hours she was wagging her entire body, eating, chasing a tennis ball, and generally acting like a dog. And she let me pet her, and started following me everywhere around our house.

So we decided to keep her. But she needed a name...and that was very important. I wanted to give her a name from Mythology..."Athena" or "Psyche" or something. I know, lame. Deal. The kids wanted to name her "Haley", which didn't work for me at ALL, because in high school I had the most painful crush on a girl named Haley...so we decided that we'd try on different names for a few days, and the right one would reveal itself to us.

Anne comes home from work the next day, comes in the door, looks at me and says, "Ferris."

"Bueller?"

"Sort of. Save Ferris!"

Okay, there is this band from OC that we LOVE called Save Ferris. They play with our friends fairview a lot. They rule.

Anne says, "Get it? Save Ferris. I totally saved Ferris!"

I looked at the dog, looked at her sweet, marble eyes and soft little puppy-fuzzy-head, and it was perfect. Not surprising, considering that it came from my wife.

So her name is "Ferris".

Isn't that a cool story?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Bueller?

ferris wheaton

comedy from our resident genius

Ryan ran into the kitchen and found me and Anne working on dinner.

"Hey, I think Jesus would definitely approve of my shoes," he said, holding one up one leg, in a brilliant display of balance, to show off a very torn up slip-on Vans tennis shoe.

"Why?" Anne said.

"Because they're totally hole-y." He said. "Oh yeah."

He clapped his hands together, shot fake finger guns at both of us, and ran back outside.

Oh yeah.

[UPDATED] AOL thinks I'm a spammer - can anyone help?

About two weeks ago, AOL started blocking me from sending e-mail to anyone with an @aol.com e-mail address. I'm getting the old, "users have reported you as spam" error, which actually leads me to believe that this is likely an abusive effort by some morons to fuck with me, which happens more frequently than you'd believe. I've spoken with my hosting providers at Logjamming, and AOL is apparently just giving them a big old runaround.

If anyone reading this knows someone at AOL, or can somehow help me get this resolved, I'd be most grateful.

This is like dealing with the DMV, except the DMV is in India.

UPDATE: Thanks for all the great advice, everyone. It turns out that my mailserver's IP is not on a single black hole list, and shows no signs of compromise, so this is entirely an AOL matter. I was contacted by a very helpful AOL employee . . . but when I attempted to reply, it was bounced. This really absurd and silly, and I've been able to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing. I mean, I can't even reply to the people who are trying to help me get off the blacklist, because I'm on the blacklist. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm asked to fill out at 27B(stroke)6 before it's all over.