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Today is my step-son Ryan's 13th birthday.
He is excited because he's turning 13 on the 31st, which, he pointed out to me, is a palindrome.
Okay, how many 13 year olds do you know of who even know what a palindrome is, much less care enough about it to get excited?
I know 1, and he is awesome.
Happy birthday, Ryan! I love you. :-)
Well, it looks like the time has come for me to step into the carousel.
While I am entering my 30th year on planet earth, WWDN isn't even officially 1 year old, although technically I had the old, lame website up at this time last year...craziness.
My "My Yahoo!" page says, "Happy Birthday, TVsWilWheaton!" and when I click it, it takes me to this page. Check out who's number 3 on the celebrity birthday list! This made me giddy with excitement last year, and it did it again this year. :-)
Since it's my birthday, I think I'll start out the celebration by posting 7 things I'm grateful for on my birthday:
Finally, I am amazed and grateful that people even give a shit about how I'm doing, and what I'm doing, and take the time to make things like this:
--
Thank you to everyone who sent me this image, and the cool site that posted it, and thank you to the scores of WWDN readers who have sent birthday wishes, especially those of you who have been visiting this lame website since it began.
An extra-special thank you is due to the Monkeys in the Soapbox. You guys RAWK, and you know why.
Update at 09:27AM:
The kids in Farkistan are even doing a photoshop for my birthday! It just keeps getting better!
Yesterday my little brother got married, and I was the best man in the ceremony.
It was wonderful.
I'm going to keep the details private, because sharing with the entire internet the particulars of a very special family event is just weird.
However, I will say: I have always felt that weddings should reflect the personalities of the bride and groom. Weddings shouldn't be about forcing the couple into anyone's particular mold or any one person's *cough*grandma*cough*'s idea of what a wedding should be. I just hate it that people feel like they must conform to certain ideals, and I was thrilled that Jeremy and Jenn did their wedding their way. It was very unconventional, fun, touching, and memorable.
One really cool thing they did was to welcome to the ceremony people who couldn't be there, whether they were living or dead, by ringing a bell. Jeremy rang the bell, and welcomed, among other people, my Aunt Val. It breaks my heart that Aunt Val didn't get to be there in person to see Jeremy and Jenn get married; she always called him "my little boy," and I know that they each kept large areas of their hearts reserved for each other. I was really glad that she was able to attend in spirit, and I thought that the ringing of the bell was beautiful.
The next time we have an important family gathering, I'm going to ring a bell, and invite Aunt Val to join us.
At the reception I saw lots of people who I don't see very often, and many of them told me that they've been reading my website...which immediately made me feel weird. It's easier to write what's on my mind when I don't think about the people reading it, especially people I know. When I wrote the story about 4th of July recently, my dad told me that he sent it to everyone in the family who was there, and how they remembered it and all that...it's just strange. Even writing this paragraph now I have had to resist the urge to delete it.
Strange.
Well, tomorrow is my birthday. I turn 30. Then Wednesday is Ryan's birthday. He turns 13. Holy. Crap.
I have already gotten some AMAZINGLY COOL Birthday presents, but they get their own entry in a few days.
I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Now go outside!
I turn 30 in one week. Almost to the minute, actually. I think I was born sometime around 12:30 in the afternoon. My great aunt used to tell me that being born close to noon was a good thing...so I got that going for me, which is nice.
Lots of people have emailed wondering what's going on, because my posts here have been less frequent, so I'll address that for a minute: It's summer. It's warm and beautiful outside, and I've been spending less and less time in front of the computer. This is quite the opposite of a year ago, when I was sitting here for 5 hours a day, working on the site, updating the weblog and answering emails...I guess my priorities have been reassigned, because there is really nothing in the world more important to me than hanging out with my wife these days.
Speaking of my birthday and my insanely cool wife, she had a HUGE surprise party for me on Friday night! She got all of my friends in on it, even convinced my family to come out, and totally surprised me. 100%. It was really cool.
See, she'd told me that our friend Burns was going to see James Brown, and he had an extra ticket, so he was going to take her. This left me without anything to do on Friday night, so my friend Stephanie (who introduced me to Anne) and I decided that we'd go do something, and that something ended up being going to see Save Ferris at the OC Fair.
I was all excited to leave early, get to the fair in the afternoon, and eat numerous types of food (all on-a-stick of course), ride the dangerous carnical rides (staffed by creepy dudes on work release of course), and learn many exciting facts about Emus and Ostriches (sitting in a pen right next to a stand selling Ostrich and Emu burgers...on a stick of course).
Trouble was, Stephanie told me, she couldn't leave until almost 7PM, because she was doing something really important (turns out it was setting up for my party). So I waited...played with Ferris, played Tony Hawk 3 (opened up the Cruise Ship level!) and ate some Chick-Nuggets, lamenting the fact that they were not on a stick.
Well, 7PM finally arrives, and Stephanie isn't at my house. 7:30 comes and goes, and she's still not there. Now I'm beginning to get anxious, because SF goes on at 8:30. Monique put us on the guest list, and I think it's extra rude to show up late when you're on the list.
It's 7:45 when Steph finally shows up. I run to her car, jump in, and tell her that we may need to push the speed limt just a bit so we get there on time...and she tells me that she needs to drop off an envelope at this guy's work for a friend of hers. She tells me that it's right off the freeway, so it should only take 1 minute.
So I tell her that I'm going to count once we get off the freeway...which I do. I'm approaching "50" when we pull into the parking lot. Stephanie tells me, "Run this envelope in, and give it to Terry. He should be right inside the door."
I hop out of the car, run up the stairs, and say, "I'm looking for Terry!"
Turns out there's not a Terry there, but my wife, parents, and most of my friends are, and they all yell, "SURPRISE!!!"
I was totally stunned. It was the last thing in the world I expected, and we went on to have an insanely fun night at this place. There were batting cages, lazer tag, basketball courts, video games...funny that we had a party for my 30th birthday at a place I would have loved when I was 12. This fact really sums up who I am. :)
The party was awesome. I played nearly an hour of lazer tag, learned that even though I'm left-handed, I bat much better from the right, and ate way too much cake.
The best part, though, was the feeling I had when I stopped to think for a second about how hard it is to pull off a surprise party. I know how hard it is, and it really made me feel loved by my wife and friends, because the pulled it off flawlessly.
Saturday was spent doing a bunch of nothing, and yesterday Anne and I took Ferris to the Dog Beach in Orange County. If you live with an hour of this place and you have a dog, you just gotta go. It was really, really fun.
One last word on updates, and the frequency of them: I'm writing this from work, because my computer at home completely blew up this morning. Smoke and everything. So until I replace it, we may all have to spend even more time outdoors...which isn't such a bad thing, really. :)
Last summer, at the Creation Grand Slam convention in Pasadena, there was a tribute to Gene Roddenberry. I was asked to speak at the tribute, and I eagerly agreed. However, the tribute was going to conflict with a show that I was in at the ACME, so I couldn't be at the tribute.
By the way, can I please say "tribute" again?
Tribute. Tribute. Tribute.
Well, I was very torn. I really wanted to be there to honor him, but I couldn't back out of the sketch show at the last minute. So, I asked my friend Richard, who was putting together the event (notice I didn't say "Tribute?") if I could write something down, and have it read on my behalf. He agreed, and I was able to be in two places at once. Sort of.
Earlier today, Anne and I were cleaning and organizing stuff in our house, and I found what I'd written, dropped behind a dresser, on a folded up sheet of yellow legal paper.
I'd like to share it with you all today.
"Gene Roddenberry's office door was always open to me, regardless of who was already there.He always made me feel important, like he was proud of the work I was doing, and that he was glad to have me as part of his great creation.
When we were shooting TNG, I had no idea that he had named Wesley after himself. I'm glad, because at the time, the sense of responsibility would have paralyzed me.
However, knowing that now, the sense of honor and pride is overwhelming, and hope that, somewhere, Gene is still proud of all of us.
Gene was an anachronism in Hollywood. He was a warm, caring, profoundly creative man who never compromised his vision.
I am proud to be part of his legacy, and it is an honor to remember him tonight."
Spudnuts is a familiar name to the regular WWDN reader.
He makes me, and everyone else, laugh and think, and laugh some more.
He also types in this form.
That.
Is.
Very.
Unique.
Well. I recently read something he wrote, and asked him if I could post it here, because I thought it was really cool.
Quoth Spudnuts:
I have this thing for cemeteries. Always have. I'm not morbid or goth or anything. They usually are just scenic, empty, and verdant.
But I always notice the generic script that accompanies even the most flamboyant tombstone. It makes no sense. Surely, there must have been some cut-ups, clowns, subversives, eccentrics, mavericks, firebrands, freakshows, or just someone who wants MORE on their grave than...
"Died in Troutdale."
What is so fucking sacred about a tombstone that you can't be shocked or amused when you happen upon the burial site of some HUMAN?
Jesus.
It's like being interred at the Christian Science Reading Room, laundry mat, or DMV.
So...
INSTITUTIONAL and sterile.
Then...
Who knows?
Maybe only the boring ones actually get a gravestone. All the interesting ones had their ashes scattered from a hangglider over Euro Disney.
Two years ago, I wrote down about fifty variations I would like on my tombstone. Here are a couple of the better ones...
-- Caucasian. Gamer. Hermaphrodite.
-- He was better than you
-- It's fucking dark in here
-- Buried with a big sack of emeralds. No, really.
-- Secret agent
-- He owned a television
-- He was kind of funny in an annoying sort of way
-- RIP BFD
-- He went straight to Hell
-- Feeds upon the blood of the Irving
-- He is in space now
-- Deposit urine here
-- He neglected his colon
-- Yet another dead guy
-- He was full of shit
It's nearly 10PM.
The kids are with their dad, leaving Anne and me in an empty, quiet house.
We sit at our dining room table, Ferris asleep at our feet, the 85 degree Southern California air stirred only by a single fan in our air-conditioner-less house.
We're reading. She reads a magazine, I read a book, and Charlie Parker travels through time from 1950, transported by our radio, tirelessly bebopping at us.
These moments that we share, just the two of us are precious few, and I cherish them.
I close my book and tell her, "You are the other half of my heartbeat."
They're not my words. I've borrowed them from Dizzy Gillespie, who was speaking, ironically, of Bird...
...but truer words have never passed my lips.
When I heard about the US Government's TIPS program this morning, I nearly choked on my breakfast. I've been struggling with my outrage and astonishment at this program all day, trying to compose myself long enough to write about it, but my friend Tom Tomorrow has managed to put into words exactly what I am feeling, far more eloquently than I ever could, so I'll freely steal it from him:
"Facism is a term thrown about too freely, and I don't believe we're at a point that its use is justified--but an oppressive and intrusive government, however you want to label it, does not ride into town wearing the uniforms and waving the flags of recognizable evil. It creeps in slowly, wrapped in the flag of your own country, and speaking the language of patriotism and duty, and at each step along the way, its actions seem plausible and defensible--until one morning you wake up and realize the gulf between the way things were and the way things are has grown so wide that there is no going back. Sinclair Lewis tried to point this out more than a half century ago, and given the current climate, It Can't Happen Here is well worth re-reading (or reading for the first time, if you've never come across it before)."
You know that adage, "Be careful what you wish for?" I should have heeded it. For months I was complaining about how bored I was and how I had nothing to do...there are few things in the world that I hate more than being idle...and, while I wasn't looking, I got busy.
Really, really busy.
I crammed months and months of work into about 8 or 9 weeks: Writing for Arena, two different sketch shows, preparing for the show we did on the cruise, trying to keep this website interesting and relevant...oh, and being a husband and step-father, too.
Actually, it was pretty cool, and I'm really grateful that I was so busy, but I'm glad it's over.
I have never been so creatively exhausted in my life as I am right now.
And get this: to end it all, in the last 36 hours I've been in 4 different states, and seen two major oceans with my own eyes. (More about that later, when I actually have the time to tell a long and interesting story)
So this morning, as I sit here, drinking my coffee, listening to Exodus, getting ready to go to the beach with my wife and kids for the first time this summer, I take a deep breath, look at my dog, and enjoy this moment.
I don't believe that we're ever given more than we can really handle, even if we don't think we can handle it.
Life is good.
I have been a baseball fan my entire life. When you cut me, I bleed Dodger Blue. I can remember stats and significant dates in baseball history as clearly as I can recall birthdays and anniversaries in my family.
I hate the DH, I wish they'd raise the mound. I sing "Take me out to the ballgame" when I watch the games on TV.
I buy the Baseball Prospectus each year.
I calculate player's OPS.
I play roto every season.
I keep score during most games I watch, and I save my scoresheets in a folder in my closet.
When I play softball, I hear Vin Scully and Harry Carry calling the game in my head.
Yeah, I am a baseball fan.
I watch the All Star game. Every year. If I'm not going to be home, I tape it, and if I catch a replay of a classic game on ESPN, I'm lost for the duration.
Yeah, I'm a baseball fan, and I am furious. I mean, vein-popping, ear-steaming, teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling furious.
Just when I thought that Bud "King Jackass" Selig couldn't do more damage to the game, just when I thought that we'd nearly hit rock-bottom, he calls the freakin' All-Star game!
A major comeback by the AL, amazing individual efforts from players on both teams, towering home runs and extra innings, the hated Barry Bonds being robbed of a homer in the 2nd only to hit a two run shot in the third.
The first game in a decade that is TRULY exciting and Selig calls it.
No winner, no MVP. Randy Johnson couldn't even be bothered to show up.
Those fans who paid their money to watch a game tonight in Milwaukee expected to see a full game. With a winner and an MVP ceremony. That's what they paid for, and that's what they deserved.
What they and we got was a nice big "thanks for your money, now please leave."
I don't buy this idea that the game doesn't mean anything, so the players shouldn't give their all. Maybe it doesn't mean anything to the players, but it sure means a lot to us fans. Sure, it doesn't count towards anything in the standings, but we baseball fans wait each year for this mid-summer classic, when the best of the best show us what they can do. It is supposed to be an honor to play in the All Star game. It is supposed to be a time when the owners and players give something back to the fans.
Major League Baseball should be ashamed of itself. During a year when Selig has talked of contraction, players are threatening to strike, and the spectre of steriod abuse looms large over each and every ballpark, this game was an opportunity for Baseball and it's players to transcend the controversy and just play, the way we all play in sandlots and back fields and vacant lots all across America.
Instead, they showed us what they're really made of, and it's outrageous.
I have been a baseball fan my entire life, but I promise you this: after tonight's disgraceful ending to an otherwise magnificent game, if there is even one day of strike or lockout, I'm done.
Let them play, Bud. Let them play.
When I was growing up, we always spent Fourth of July with my father's Aunt and Uncle, at their fabulous house in Toluca Lake.
It was always a grand affair, and I looked forward to spending each Independence Day listening to Sousa marches, swimming in their enormous pool, and watching a fireworks show on the back patio.
This fireworks display was always exciting because we were in the middle of LA County, where even the most banal of fireworks --the glow worms-- are highly illegal, and carried severe fines and the threat of imprisonment, should we be discovered by LA's finest. The excitement of watching the beautiful cascade of sparks and color pouring out of a Happy Flower With Report was always enhanced by the knowledge that we were doing something forbidden and subversive.
Yes, even as a child I was already on my way to being a dangerous subversive. Feel free to talk to any of my middle school teachers if you doubt me.
Each year, the older children, usually teenagers and college-aged, would be chosen to light the fireworks, and create the display for the rest of the family.
I was Chosen in 1987, when I was 14.
The younger cousins, with whom I'd sat for so many years, would now watch me the way we'd watched Tommy, Bobby, Richard, and Crazy Cousin Bruce, who always brought highly-illegal firecrackers up from Mexico.
I was going to be a man in the eyes of my family.
This particular 4th of July was also memorable because it was the first 4th that was celebrated post-Stand By Me, and at the time I had become something of a mini-celebrity around the family. Uncles who had never talked to me before were asking me to sign autographs for people at work, older cousins who had bullied me for years were proclaiming me "cool," and I was the recipient of a lot of unexpected attention.
I was initially excited to get all this newfound attention, because I'd always wanted to impress my dad's family, and make my dad proud, but deep down I felt like it was all a sham. I was the same awkward kid I'd always been, and they were treating me differently because of celebrity, which I had already realized was fleeting and bullshit.
Looking back on it now, I think the invitation to light fireworks may have had less to do with my age than it had to do with my growing fame...but I didn't care. Fame is fleeting...but it can get a guy some cool stuff from time to time, you know? I allowed myself to believe that it was just a coincidence.
The day passed as it always did. There were sack races, basket ball games, and water balloon tosses, all of which I participated in, but with a certain impatience. These yearly events were always fun, to be sure, but they were standing directly between me and the glorious excitement of pyrotechnic bliss.
Finally, the sun began to set. Lawn chairs were arranged around the patio, clothes were changed, and I bid my brother and sister farewell as I joined my fellow firework lighters near the corner of the house.
As the sun sank lower and lower, sparklers were passed out to everyone, even the younger children. I politely declined, my mind absolutely focused on the coming display. I wanted to make a big impression on the family. I was going to start out with something amazing, which would really grab their attention. I'd start with some groundflowers, then a Picolo Pete, and a sparkling cone. From then on, I'd just improvise with the older cousins, following their lead as we worked together to weave a spectacular tapestry of burning phosphor and gunpowder for 5 generations of family.
The sun finally set, the family was finally seated, and the great display was to begin. Some of the veteran fireworks lighters went first, setting off some cascading fountains and a pinwheel. The assembled audience cheered and gasped its collective approval, and it was my turn.
I steeled myself, and walked to the center of the large patio, casually kicking aside the still-hot remains of just-fired fountains. Casually, like someone who had done this hundreds of times before.
My hands trembled slightly, as I picked up three ground flowers that I'd wound together. My thumb struck flint and released flaming butane. I lit the fuse and became a man. The sparkling fire raced towards the ignition point, and rather than following the directions to "LIGHT FUSE, PUT ON GROUND AND GET AWAY," I did something incredibly stupid: I tossed it on the ground.
The bundle of flowers rolled quickly across the patio, towards my captive and appreciative audience.
Two of the flowers ignited, and began their magical dance of colorful fire on the cement, while the third continued to roll, coming to rest in the grass beneath the chair of a particularly old and close-to-death great-great-great aunt.
The colored flame which was creating such a beautiful and harmless display on the patio was spraying directly at this particular matriarch, the jet of flame licking obscenely at the bottom of the chair.
The world was instantly reduced to a few sounds: My own heartbeat in my ears, the screams of the children seated near my great-great-great aunt, and the unmistakable zip of the now-dying flowers on the patio.
I don't know what happened, but somehow my great-great-great aunt, who'd managed to survive every war of the 20th century, managed to also survive this great mistake of mine. She was helped to her feet, and she laughed.
Unfortunately, she was the only one who was laughing. One of my dad's cousins, who was well into his twenties and never attended family gatherings accompanied by the same date, sternly ripped the lighter from my hand, and ordered me back to the lawn, to sit with the other children. Maybe I could try again next year, when I was "more responsible and not such a careless idiot."
I was crushed. My moment in the family spotlight was over before it had even begun, and not even the glow of pseudo-celebrity could save me.
I carefully avoided eye contact, as I walked slowly, humiliated and embarrassed, back to the lawn, where I tried not to cry. I know the rest of the show unfolded before me, but I don't remember it. All I could see was a mental replay of the bundle of ground flowers rolling across the patio. If that one rogue firework hadn't split off from its brothers, I thought, I would still be up there for the finale, which always featured numerous pinwheels and a Chinese lantern.
When the show was over, I was too embarrassed to apologize, and I raced away before the patio lights could come on. I spent the rest of the evening in the front yard, waiting to go home.
The following year I was firmly within the grip of sullen teenage angst and spent most of the festivities with my face planted firmly in a book --Foundation, or something, most likely-- and I watched the fireworks show with the calculated disinterest of a 15 year old.
That teenage angst held me in its grasp for the next few years, and I even skipped a year or two, opting to attend some parties where there were girls who I looked at, but never had the courage to talk to.
By the time I had achieved escape velocity from my petulant teenage years, Aunt Betty and Uncle Dick had sold the house, and 4th of July would never happen with them again.
The irony is not lost on me, that I wanted so badly to show them all how grown up I was, only to behave more childishly than ever the following years.
This Fourth of July, I sat on the roof of my friend Darin's house with Anne and the boys, and watched fireworks from the high school. Nolan held my hand, and Ryan leaned against me as we watched the Chamber of Commerce create magic in the sky over La Crescenta.
I thought back to that day, 15 years ago, and once again I saw the groundflower roll under that chair and try to ignite great-great-great aunt whatever her name was.
Then I looked down at Nolan's smiling face, illuminated in flashes of color.
"This is so cool, Wil!" He declared, "thanks for bringing us to watch this."
"Just be glad you're on a roof and not in a lawn chair," I told him.
"Why?"
"Well..." I began to tell him the story, but we were distracted by a particularly spectacular aerial flower of light and sparks.
In that moment, I realized that no matter how hard I try, I will never get back that day in 1987, nor will I get to relive the sullen years afterwards...but I do get to sit on the roof with my wife and her boys now, and enjoy 4th of July as a step-dad...at least until the kids hit the sullen years themselves.
Then I'm going to sit them in lawnchairs and force them to watch me light groundflowers.
So the short version is: We're back. We had an amazing trip, and now we're home.
The long version is: We're both sick, I have a show tonight, and no time to write anything about what we did.
But it was just weird to me to see this big empty space...so I filled it.