WWdN: In Exile

ECCC Programming Question: What do you want to hear at the Awesome Hour?

I've been working on Big Bang Theory for the last week. We tape tonight, and tomorrow I immediately start work on an audiobook*. The upshot of this is that I won't have a lot of time to build a setlist for my Awesome Hour at Emerald City Comicon this weekend.

So this is where you come in. I need your help, whether you're going to be there or not. What do you want to hear me perform? I haven't been able to write very much new material since the last ECCC, to I'm leaning toward some stories about gaming, and maybe something from the deep archives, like something out of Dancing Barefoot or Just A Geek.

Please, please, please leave me a comment here so I have some ideas about what you'd like to see me perform if I was on a stage in front of you. If there's a particular post from my blog (especially if it's one of the older ones) leave me a link. I think it would be really cool to build an entire "fan created" setlist.

 

*It's the first nonfiction book I've done that I didn't write; I'm not sure I can say what it is, but it's going to be a lot of fun to read it.

On the set of Stand By Me

This picture was originally posted on Tumblr by thefactory-:

You know that montage when we’re walking back home, near the end of the movie, and we go by in silhouette during sunset? It’s what they used as inspiration for the poster.

This picture was taken when we filmed that little bit. That thing we’re sitting on is called a Chapman Crane, and it’s a really neat piece of film equipment that allows for those big, beautiful, dramatic, sweeping panoramic shots you see in movies.

It’s a little dangerous, though, because there are weights and things on the end of that arm to perfectly counterbalance the weight of the camera and whoever is sitting next to it. More than once in film history, someone has stepped off the crane before it’s been rebalanced, and, finding itself a hundred or more pounds heavier at one end than the other, the crane has turned into a very dangerous catapult. 

The way I remember it, we kept asking Rob Reiner if we could sit on it when the shot was over, because the idea of sitting up in the sky next to the camera was so awesome, and he eventually said yes, because he was like that.

We were so excited to sit on this thing, and so excited to ride it up as high as it would go — it seemed like a hundred feet, but I’m sure it was more like thirty — but we had to wear seatbelts, promise to sit still and not step off the thing until it was balanced. I don't remember what everyting looked like from up there, but I do remember someone deciding to give the slate to River (who, of course, has his serious face on, like he always did) because it was a fantastic publicity photo opportunity.

I’m glad someone took this picture, because it reminded me of a joyful moment that I haven’t thought of in over a quarter century.

The Force Will Be With Him...

My nephew will be joining Team Humans sometime in July, so today we're having a baby shower for my little sister (who, at 33, isn't little, bit if you're a big brother or sister, you know what I mean.)

My brother in law is awesome, even though he's Dallas Cowboys SuperFan Number One Top Guy Forever™. I know that my nephew (who I suggested should be named Batman, but will probably end up with a muggle name that's more socially appropriate) will get plenty of sportsball in his life, so it has fallen to me, his favorite uncle Wil, to share with him The Way of the Geek.

I'm starting him off early (and right) by giving the following gifts* at the shower today:

I'm pretty sure he'll be on Team Sheldon, even though his favorite uncle is on Team Evil Wil Wheaton.

By the time he's ready to use a computer, it'll probably be controlled with his mind... but this way he can confuse the 2 year-olds of the future, or at least holler at them to get off his lawn.

I'm pretty sure they'd kick me out of the Star Trek family if I didn't get this for him.

I had this amazing fantastic idea to get him a Twilight Zone pinball machine that could live at our house, so he had something awesome to play with whenever he came over to visit, but Anne shot that down for some stupid reason that doesn't make any sense at all.

*I went nuts at ThinkGeek, for those of you who are wondering.

This is my new show, Tabletop

Last summer, Felicia Day asked me if I wanted to develop a show together for her new premium YouTube channel, Geek and Sundry.

Spoiler alert: I said yes.

She asked me if I wanted to do a show about gaming, maybe a review show or something like that. 

"I think it would be more fun do something where we play games," I said. Then, the light bulb went off.

"Oh my god," I said, "What if we did something that was like Celebrity Poker meets Dinner for Five, where we got interesting people we know together for tabletop games?!"

Felicia thought it sounded awesome, I was really excited about the idea, and we got to work. It took a few months to develop, and in December we finally shot our first block of episodes. In February, we got the band back together and shot another block of episodes, and just last week, I finished locking down the final edits for all the shows (that's why I couldn't come to Wondercon on Friday.)

In season one of the show, we play games like Settlers of Catan, The Last Night on Earth, Munchkin, Small World, and Alhambra. Some of the players include Grant Imahara, Sean Plott (better known as Day[9]), Dodger Leigh, Ryan Higa, Beth Riesgraf, Phil Lamarr, Morgan Webb, Garfunkle and Oats, Veronica Belmont, and Colin Ferguson.

My ulterior motive with Tabletop is to show by example how much fun it is to play boardgames. I want to show that Gamers aren't all a bunch of weirdoes who can't make eye contact when they talk to you, and that getting together for a game night is just as social and awesome as getting together to watch Sportsball, or to play poker, or for a LAN party, or whatever non-gamers do with their friends. I want to inspire people to try hobby games, and I want to remove the stigma associated with gaming and gamers.

I'm pretty sure we succeeded. By the second day of production, our crew was grabbing games out of our games library to play at lunch. All of our interns and production assistants have become complete game fanatics, and whenever I edit a show, all I want to do is go home and play that game until my face falls off.

I hope you'll subscribe to our channel, and please tell your friends about Tabletop.

In which my wife is a super villain

Yesterday, I told Twitter: If Anne was a super villain, she'd be The Earworm, and she would terrorize the citizens by putting horrible songs into their head.

Twitter worked its magic, and a short time later, this appeared:

Thank you, @jadegordon, for making something awesome.

If Robocop was a bad 80s sit-com

I am easily amused, so earlier today, when my brain said, "You know what would be funny? If there was a Robocop sit-com, where he was always screwing up. Every time he did something, the other officers would put their hands on their hips, cock their heads to one side, and do this sing-songy "Robocop!" catchphrase. Then he'd just shoot everyone."

I mentioned this to Twitter. A few people quickly replied with funny ideas of their own... then I got excited and made a thing:

 

INT POLICE HEADQUARTERS -- DAY.

Robocop comes toward camera, doing that weird marching walk thing. He stops in front of a vending machine, and precisely turns to face it.

FLASH TO:

ROBOCOP POV

Through Robocop’s HUD, we see the nutritional information of the various items in the machine as he scans them. A can of soda has a mouse in it, a chocolate bar has traces of cocaine, a bag of chips is actually a bag of fingernails. All that skips by so fast, though, the audience doesn’t really notice it consciously. A crosshairs appears on the HUD and selects a bag of OIL-FLAVORED MICROCHIPS. They’re actual chips, with a cartoony, smiling Robocop drawing on the front. He’s giving a thumbs.

BACK TO SCENE.

Robocop puts a crumpled dollar into the machine, which spits it out. He does this three or four times.

ROBOCOP

Dead or alive, those chips are coming with me.

(Laugh track)

ROBOCOP

Accept my money.

You have ten seconds to comply.

He tries to put the money into the machine. The machine spits it back out.

ROBOCOP

I have ordered you to accept my money.

You have seven seconds to comply.

He tries to put the money into the machine. The machine spits it back out. It falls to the floor.

(Laugh track)

ROBOCOP

You have attempted to assault

a police officer with his own money. 

You are under arrest.

 

An older, grizzled SERGEANT comes out of his office down the hall.

SERGEANT

Robocop, what the hell are you doing?

ROBOCOP

Making an arrest, sir.

The Sergeant rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

SERGEANT

Would you mind tellin’ me how you’re going

to arrest a vending machine?

(Laugh track)

ROBOCOP

By. The. Book.

 (Laugh track)

SERGEANT

Robocop, you crazy. Let me help you.

The Sergeant picks up the dollar bill off the floor. ROBOCOP pulls his gun in a flash! He points it at the sergeant!

ROBOCOP

You are tampering with evidence.

You are under arrest.

 

SERGEANT

You can’t arrest me, Robocop! I’m your boss!

 

ROBOCOP

You. Are. Under. Arrest.

 

SERGEANT

Robocop, I ain’t got time for this. I retire in two days!

(Laugh Track)

ROBOCOP

Arrest. Arrest.

Arrrrrest. Arrrrrreeessst.

 

SERGEANT

(sighs)

Aw, dammit. You’re stuck in a loop. I’d better reset you.

The Sergeant makes a move toward Robocop.

(Audience: Ooohhhhhh!)

The Sergeant puts his hand on Robocop's shoulder. Robocop snaps out of it.

ROBOCOP 

Assault on an officer.

Use of deadly force is authorized.

Robocop shoots about a thousand bullets into the Sergeant, blowing him across the hallway where hits the wall and slides to the floor, leaving streaks of blood behind.

SERGEANT

(gasping, dying, yet somehow still alive)

Dammit… Robocop… I had…

two days… until… retirement.

The Sergeant dies.

 

ROBOCOP

Thank you for your cooperation.

I am not arresting you any more.

(Laugh track, cheers.)

Dozens of officers rush into hallway, stopping short of the grisly scene. They look at Robocop, incredulous. Robocop turns back to the vending machine.

ROBOCOP

Your move, dirtbag.

Suddenly, the bag of chips drops from the vending machine for some reason, startling Robocop. He whirls toward it and destroys it in a hail of epic gunfire.

POLICE OFFICERS

(sing song, in unison)

Robocop!

Robocop turns to the camera and innocently shrugs.

FREEZE FRAME as the synth-tastic theme music plays.

(Audience cheers)

 

Insomniac Theater: The Rock-afire Explosion

Unless I'm working on a show that requires me to get up at a normal hour to get to the set, I usually sleep for about eight hours, starting at one in the morning. When we do the stupid goddamn Daylight Saving Time*, it's really hard for me to get to sleep before two in the morning, which annoys me, because I don't like sleeping until ten am. I'm not sure why, but if I get disturbed even the tiniest little bit in the first hour of sleep, I'm fucked and awake for at least two more hours. It's really frustrating when it happens, which is (thankfully) not very often.

This is why I seriously contemplated setting my cat on fire last night: as I was nearly in sleep's restful embrace, she decided that it was really important for her to jump up onto my bed, right next to my head, then spring up to the window over my bed, where she pushed herself behind the blinds and repeatedly hit them. So that's why I was awake until four-fucking-thirty this morning, watching movies on my iPad, which is really what this post is about (after two hundred words of bitching about stupid things).

I rewatched the final episode of Sherlock's first season (OMG IT IS SO AMAZING), because I'm sure they'll eventually get around to releasing season two in America... and then I watched a documentary called The Rock-afire Explosion, all about the animatronic band from Showbiz Pizza Place. It was a fascinating, bittersweet film that focused on the guy who invented the band, and a few of the people who loved his creation. Much of the film's focus is on this guy who bought a complete band and built his own Showbiz Pizza Place at his house. He's a little odd, I suppose, but comes across as gentle and kind, and sincere in his desire to recreate some of the happiest days of his youth.

I was impressed that the filmmakers did not choose to make a documentary that was a freakshow, or that made fun of its subjects, but instead told a sweet and sort of sad story of how one guy invented something in the 70s that touched the lives of a generation -- and continues to affect some of them to this day. It's only 71 minutes long, so if you have the time to watch it, I highly recommend it.

*I really hate Daylight Saving Time. If I were boss of the universe, we'd have one time and just fucking stick to it? Among the many reasons I hate it? Even though it's only one hour, it fucking jetlags me for a week or more. I know, stupid, right? But that's what happens to me. Every year. Twice a year. It makes me want to buy a hammer for the express purpose of hitting the guy who invented Daylight Saving Time.

 

The Tournament of Books: State of Wonder vs. The Sisters Brothers

I am a judge in this year's Tournament of Books at The Morning News. The Tournament is a bracketed competition that pits sixteen books against each other, two books at at time. It's sort of like March Madness, if March Madness didn't bore me to death.*

I love to read, and I have so much going on**, I don't have as much time as I need to read everything I want. When something like this comes along that basically gives me an excuse to read books and not feel guilty because I should be doing something else, I always get excited.

The round I judged went live today. Here's a little bit:

I’ll spare you any sort of contrived suspense (there’s plenty of that in State of Wonder) about which book I picked to send to round two, and just cut to the chase: I had to restrain myself from reading The Sisters Brothers in one sitting, and State of Wonder felt like the most tedious homework assignment I’ve ever had in my life. The Sisters Brothers easily and handily wins this matchup.

Of course, there's much more to it than that, but why bury the lede? I hope you'll take a moment and head over to the tournament and check out the whole thing, then come back.

Okay. Welcome back. I hope my judgement entertained you. I knew that I wasn't going to write as intellectually as the other judges, so I just embraced who I am, and wrote my judgement the same way I'd write a blog post or one of my columns. I made a deliberate choice to be direct, hopefully humorous, and unapologetically opinionated.

I expected to be savaged in the comments over there, but they've been almost entirely awesome, whether they agree with me or not. In fact, it's one of the rare times I've actually enjoyed reading a comment-based discussion. See, kids? Reading makes you a smarter and better person than not reading. And that's a fact!

*themoreyouknow.jpg*

*Insert sportsball joke here.

**I'm kind of a big deal. /smirk

I spent way too much time on this.

So this incredibly entertaining bit of spam arrived in my inbox last night:

I just want to thank Nash Morton (who I'm sure owns a yacht, wears the finest silk shirts and only the fanciest of pants) for giving my e-mail address to his friend, who is so concerned about how many wild runnings I miss out on because I have no erection.

Some of you are too young to recall a time when you could run wild just because you felt the need to run wild (it's true, they were days long ago), but in our modern times, if you don't have an erection, you simply aren't allowed to run wild. I vividly recall the following scene:

Me: Is this the place you come to when you want to run wild?

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: It is indeed! Aloha-hail, fellow!))

Me: Oh, thank the gods! I've felt a need to run wild -- a compulsion whose origination I know not -- and I've finally found the place to do it!

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: That's fine news, friend; fine news indeed! Just show me your erection, and I'll grant you entrance to a place where men run wild.

Me: Oh, nuts. Well, the thing is... I don't have an erection at the moment.

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: WHAT?!

Me: I'm ever so sorry, sir. If you could find it in yourself to allow an erectionless man to run--

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: CERTAINLY NOT! WE HERE AT A PLACE WHERE MEN RUN WILD STAND FOR CERTAIN THINGS!

Me: But--

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: CHIEF AMONG THOSE THINGS IS AN ERECTION! (Calls off, behind an opulent curtain) Jenkins! Jenkins! Come out here a moment!

Jenkins, who has an obvious and enormous erection: Yes, sire?

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: This ... man ... here, wishes admittance to A Place Where Men Run Wild!

Jenkins: Bully! (to me) Show us your erection, and be ready for the time of your life!

Me: About that...

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: He has no erection!

Jenkins: Oh, that's a jolly good joke, sire! (to me) So, present your erection and I'll personally guide you through the curtain into a place where men run wild!

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: Jenkins, do you have an erection in your ears? I said that this "man" here has no erection.

Jenkins: Forsooth?! (Jenkins faints)

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: Well, I hope you're happy. You've given Jenkins cause to faint.

Me: I'm ever so sorry. I merely wanted to run wild!

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: Please leave.

Me: May I just--

Burly Man With A Wilford Brimley Moustache At The Entrance To A Place Where Men Run Wild: No. No, you most certanly may not! I bid you good day, sir. Come back when you have an erection. Perhaps you could talk to Nash Morton.

Me (fighting back tears): Yes, yes, I'll do just that.

So, thank you, Nash Morton. I look forward to taking my future erection to a place where men run wild. I am forever in your debt, sir.

Things every person should have

Things every person should have:

• A nemesis.
• An evil twin.
• A secret headquarters.
• An escape hatch.
• A partner in crime.
• A secret identity.

What else?