Yesterday, I wrote about the scary nature of facing the world outside of what I guess we'll call "your safety bubble."
At least that's what I was trying to write about. YMMV.
I also promised to talk about why Creation cut me from their 15th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation convention, and why I think it's a good thing.
To understand the events leading up to the cut, it's important to understand the realities of the Star Trek Convention (and all SF conventions, really): There was a time, long ago, when these cons existed by and for fans. They were places where fans could get together, safely dress up in costumes, debate the minutae of scripts, and generally geek out amongst friends without fear of The Jocks showing up.
Some folks realized that they could turn this phenomenon into a working business, and for better or worse, Creation was born.
For years, I had a great relationship with Creation. When I was a kid, I attended the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors shows at the Ambassador hotel. When I was on TNG, I appeared as a speaker at countless Creation conventions.
Then I had a not-so-great relationship with them for awhile. I felt that they had become the 800 pound gorilla in the convention world. They were the only kid on the block who had that cool football that all the other kids wanted to play with, and without any real competition, they charged too much, and I felt that the fans were increasingly getting the shaft.
Not the cool Richard Roundtree Shaft, either, so you can just shut your mouth right now.
In retrospect, there were many factors contributing to what I would describe as the decline and fall of the convention experience, and I think the guests need to be at the top of that list.
I never made very large speaking fees, even when I was A Big Deal™, but there were plenty of actors who did. It didn’t bother me too much at the time, because I felt that the fans were mostly showing up to see these headlining actors, and that meant Creation would earn a lot of money.
I always felt that the actors should share in that profit, until I became aware of the escalating costs to the fans, and the declining quality of the convention experience.
It was like I’d stepped out of the Ivory Tower for the first time, and I’d seen the suffering in the streets. I didn’t want any part of that world, and I didn’t want to do any more conventions. However, I was heavily pressured by my agents and publicists, so I continued to go.
I felt obligated, and I hated it.
I withdrew when I was onstage, I didn't give it my all, and I even stopped signing autographs in person. I guess I was 16 or 17 at the time. What I really wanted to be doing was playing GURPS and goofing off on this new computer network called GEnie where I could talk to people all across the country in real time!
After a few shows in this frame of mind, I quit entirely. I only did one convention that I can recall, when I was about 20, in Kansas City. It was horrible. There were about 50 people there, all crammed into the back of this auditorium because they didn’t want to pay for the “VIP” seats, so I was left talking to 50 people in a room intended for about 700, across 30 or so empty rows of seats.
I’m amazed that I didn’t climb to the balcony and jump off right then and there.
It was really hitting “Star Trek Bottom” for me, and I swore that I’d never do another convention again.
The convention world went on without me. My fellow cast members continued to regularly attend shows all over the world. I did one or two, including one in England, mostly because I love England and it was an opportunity to get over there on someone else’s dime. But in my heart, and in my ever-blackening soul, I hated it. So the cons were few and very, very far between, until I gradually stopped entirely.
Years passed, and I grew up. Like a battered wife, I began to forget the bad things and only remember how exciting it was to see OJ run for 500 yards in a game, how he would smile at me from the end zone, how sharp he looked in those Bruno Magli shoes.
I agreed to attend a convention in Pasadena, where I did the interviews that are in “Trekkies.” I don’t remember much beyond feeling like a complete loser for even being there, and embarrassed that my girlfriend, who eventually became my wife, was seeing me like this.
The world turned, and I eventually saw “Galaxy Quest.”
Seeing that movie reminded me about all the nice dinners I’d had with The Juice, how he always felt bad after he’d hit me, the fun trips we’d taken together, and how nicely tailored his gloves were.
I made a call to Adam Malin at Creation. I told him that I’d seen “Galaxy Quest,” and that it reminded me how fun Conventions could be. This was an entirely true statement. I told him that I’d be interested in doing some shows, if he’d have me. We had a very nice chat, and he invited me in for a meeting.
I went and saw him the following week, and we talked about what I was doing now, and how the convention world had changed. It was strange for me to be sitting in his corner office, on the top floor of a building in Glendale, looking out at the mountains where I used to live, telling him how grateful I was for the opportunity to talk with him about shows.
We agreed that I’d do some for him, and they’d be in touch.
What I didn’t tell him was that I hadn’t worked on anything meaningful in years, and I was really struggling as an actor. Anne and I had just gotten married, and we were under a mountain of debt.
I walked to my car, feeling dirty.
A month went by without any phone calls, and I thought that I’d been involved in yet another meaningless meeting featuring yet another string of empty promises. I began to feel depressed.
While I waited for the call to come, I spoke with Dave Scott, who owns a company called Slanted Fedora Entertainment. Dave had been doing lots of conventions, and had a good reputation amongst the fans, and more importantly, amongst my Star Trek actor friends. I told Dave that I hadn’t done a convention in a long time, and I was wondering if he would be interested in having me do one of his shows. He seemed interested, and said he’d get back to me.
Again, months passed. I did a few shitty, embarrassing, forgettable movies and I began to wonder if maybe it was time to get into some other line of work.
Something that involved exotic language like “Soup du jour.”
Before I could begin learning the art of up-selling wine, however, Dave called, and invited me to a convention in Waterbury, Connecticut, in March of 2001. In addition to me, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, and Denise Crosby would be attending. I was ecstatic. We agreed on a speaker’s fee, and I went to the show.
As an example of how long I’d been removed from Trek, I offer the following scene:
At the airport, I see Brent and Gates, standing by the gate, waiting to board our plane.
My heart leaps, and I walk towards them, beaming, with open arms.
They both looked up at me, like I am Hannibal Lechter, and begin to retreat.
They don’t recognize me, at all, until I tell them who I am.
Yeah, I’d been out of the game for awhile.
We did the convention, and it was really great. I had a wonderful time, and I thought that everyone there enjoyed my talk. I didn’t realize just how much they enjoyed it, until I read this review, though.
A few months after I got home, the call from Creation came. I was invited, not as a speaker, but as an autograph-signer, to the upcoming Grand Slam Convention in Pasadena.
Not as a speaker, like the rest of the cast, but as an autograph-signer, like that guy who played Transporter Chief #7 in episode 34.
This was a serious blow to my ego, especially after the success of the Slanted Fedora show, but I had swallowed my pride before, doing what I had to do in order to support my family.
Each time I’d done it, it had paid off in ways I didn’t expect: when I went to ComicCon in 1999, I met Ben, who introduced me to loren, without whom there would be no WWDN.
I can’t imagine where I’d be right now without WWDN.
I’d also gone to the Hollywood Collector’s Show, which is often referred to as “The Hollywood Has-beens Show,” where I realized that, no matter what anyone said, I really wasn’t a has-been. I was just a guy who was really struggling, having had too much success too young.
Hey, at least I wasn’t one of the Coreys, right? Yeah, that's what I'd try to tell myself.
However, at each of these events, as frustrated as I was, as much as it wounded my pride and bruised my ego, I knew that it was a much better alternative to, “Would you like to me to check your oil, sir?” I knew that I was very lucky, and I was grateful, if ashamed, for the opportunity to support my family.
So I accepted the offer to be a signer, rather than a speaker. I didn’t get a speaking fee. I got what I could by charging a fee to sign pictures, posters, trading cards…sadly, no boobies.
Although, at one point during the day, a very pretty girl came over to me, and I am not afraid to tell you, she was seriously putting the vibe onto your Uncle Willie. I mean, she was vibing me hard. She walks up to me, hips swinging, lips pouting, eyes leering, and says, “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No,” I tell her…expecting a replay of the hooters incident, “I have a wife!”
BOOYAH BABY! I await her chastened response.
“Oh,” she says, coyly, putting a finger in the corner of her mouth, and drawing her tongue seductively across the tip. “That’s too bad.”
And she walks away, hips swinging.
Swinging, man. The room falls silent as she walks out. A guy in a Red Dwarf T-shirt drops a box of unopened Magic cards.
I picked my jaw up off the floor.
Shortly after this convention, I was looking for posts about the con on UseNet, and I saw that some dude had taken a picture of this girl, who was like a piece of steak in a piranha tank around all of us geeks.
The message said something like, “Look at this hot girl who was at the Star Trek Convention!”
There was a reply, which said something like, “Look! Here’s another picture of her!” It was that same girl, alright, but she sure wasn't wearing the same Charlie's Angels T-shirt that she was wearing at the con...matter of fact, she wasn't wearing anything at all.
That’s right, the full-on porn model totally hit on me, right there in front of everyone. Not that I would have hit it, being married and all that, but it sure did make my inner geek happy.
That convention ended up being really great. I was able to promote my ACME show, and climb a little bit further out of debt. I did end up giving about a 20 minute talk in a very small room, which was intended to hold about a hundred people, but was packed to standing with about 150 or so. The talk went fabulously well, and Adam Malin sought me out himself to tell me that he was sorry for not putting me up on stage in The Big Room. He said that he didn’t know how much the fans liked me, or how good I was on stage. He promised to have me speak at the Grand Slam Show in 2002.
At that show, I saw Dave Scott, and he invited me to the Vegas convention that is chronicled in the as-yet-incomplete Saga of SpongeBobVegasPants.
I was back in the game, baby, and I was loving it. Cons were fun again. I’d been on the other side of the table, standing shoulder to shoulder with the fans, for a few years. I’d grown up. I’d spent time on stage in sketch comedy shows and improv shows. I understood what audiences wanted, and I was learning how to connect with the Trekkies, how to identify with them. I felt like I was able to make up, in some small way, for the years I’d spent being an ass, and I really liked it.
Then came 9/11. Then my Great Aunt died. Then the economy fell apart.
I had to cancel some cons, because of work and family commitments, and cons had to be cancelled because there simply weren’t enough people willing to buy tickets.
The promised invite to Grand Slam 2002 never materialized, but I did attend again as an autograph-signer, this time without any damage to the ego. I saw it as an opportunity to promote the WWDN, and get closer to that magic Zero on the Home Equity Balance Sheet. I did speak in that same little theatre, this time to about 14 people, because I was programmed opposite Ricardo Montalban, who was occupying The Big Stage.
The only cons I was able to attend were the Galaxy Ball, chronicled here, and the CruiseTrek trip to Alaska, which is in the as yet unwritten “Untitled CruiseTrek Project,” which is coming soon, I promise.
I was also invited to attend the Creation Celebration of 15 Years of Next Generation, and a Slanted Fedora convention in Las Vegas in early September.
Why do I do cons? There are several reasons. It’s a good way to support my family, first and foremost. It would be disingenuous to say otherwise. I also enjoy the attention. It’s nice to tell my stupid stories, and make my stupid jokes for an audience that wants to like me. But the reason that I’ve become aware of since that Waterbury show, the thing that I’ve really gotten in touch with, is the tremendous satisfaction I derive from giving something back to the fans.
Look, the way I see it, I'm getting paid a speaker's fee for these shows, and that fee is coming out of the fan's pockets, so I owe the fans a memorable experience. I work my ass off at these shows, because it is my responsibility to ensure that they get their money's worth. If someone wants to ask me a question I’ve been asked a hundred times, I’m glad to answer it, because it means I won’t have be answering a question that I’ve been asked a thousand times…but seriously, folks, try the fish.
Wait. If someone wants to ask me a question I’ve been asked a hundred times before, I’m going to listen, and answer it like it’s the first time I’ve ever been asked. I’m going to do everything that I can to let the people who are there know that I value their time, and their appreciation of what we do. I’m going to really make sure that people feel that it was worth it to come to the damn convention. I’m going to give something back to the fans, however small.
One of the things I've been doing, to make conventions memorable for the fans, is performing with my sketch comedy group. We do a show that is geared for a smart, sci-fi-oriented audience, and each time we do it, the fans go nuts.
When Creation asked me if I would attend the 15th Anniversary Celebration show, they also asked if I would bring my sketch comedy group to perform a show. They told me that they’d heard from people who saw it in Las Vegas, or on CruiseTrek, that it was great, and would I consider doing a show?
I told them I’d love to do that, and they asked me about fees. I did some math in my head, figured out what it would cost for my group, reduced my personal speaking fee (bad economy, people losing jobs and 401(k)’s and all that) and gave them a figure. They said it sounded good, and they’d be in touch.
They called back in early August, with a very different number. A low number. An insultingly low number.
I asked why the number was so low. I put my fees into perspective, alongside the fees commanded by some of the other Trek actors.
The terse answer came very quickly: “Well, we just don’t think of you as a very big part of the Trek family.”
Ouch.
They had a point, I guess. TNG ran for seven seasons. I did four as a regular and a few episodes in the fifth year. There have been five TNG movies, and was almost in one of them.
Yeah, I guess I wasn’t as big a part of the Trek family, from their point of view.
But I was an original cast member on TNG. This was a “Celebration of 15 years of TNG” convention. They’d just made several million dollars at a show in Las Vegas. Surely they could come up a bit, negotiate a little.
Not a chance. Take it or leave it, Wheaton.
I considered their offer, and did some math. I thought about what it would cost for my comedy group. There are eleven of us, and putting together a show is expensive. The people in my group are all professional writers and actors, and I have to pay them for their time. We have to pay for rehearsal space, costumes and programs. I did the math, and when it was all done, if I paid my comedy group what they deserve, I would earn a few hundred dollars. I was unwilling to make them work for less than they deserve. I told this to Creation.
They’d just made several million dollars at a show in Las Vegas. Surely they could negotiate a little.
I offered to do the show for the fee they were offering, but I wouldn’t be able to provide the comedy group. In place of the comedy group, I’d bring some selections from my website: The Trade, The Wesley Dialogues, Spare Us The Cutter, and I’d read them on stage. It would fill the hour, and it would give something really cool and unique to the fans. I read some things on CruiseTrek, and they loved it.
No dice, Wheaton. The offer is for your group. Not for you alone. Take it or leave it. You’re not part of the family.
This put me in a very tough position. I wanted to be part of this show. I wanted to see the cast again. The fans, I thought, would really enjoy seeing me. The fans, I told them, have been reading my website in huge numbers. The fans, I told them, and I have really made a connection in the last year. I think it’s going to suck if I’m not there. They’d just made several million dollars at a show in Las Vegas. Surely they could reconsider.
We’ve made our position clear, Wheaton. You’re wasting our time. Take it, or leave it.
Well, I had to leave it. I think that there is a certain value attached to having me at a convention, especially one which purports to celebrate 15 years of The Next Generation, and while I was willing to adjust that value greatly, They’d just made several million dollars at a show in Las Vegas, and I wasn’t about to undervalue myself.
It sucks, I think, that I won’t be there.
It sucks for me, and I think it sucks for the fans.
Sure, there are fans that will be as angry at me as I am at baseball players right now, and I can’t fault them for that.
But I hope that there are fans who understand why I had to make the decision I made. They’d just made several million dollars at a show in Las Vegas. I tried to negotiate with them, but they had decided that I wasn’t a member of the Trek family, and it is their business. I respect that, though I may disagree with it.
When I hung up the phone with them, I felt awful.
I walked Ferris, which I often do when I'm upset, or stuck, or need to gain some perspective on things.
During that walk, I realized that in the long run this will be a good thing.
Yesterday, I wrote about the scary nature of facing the world outside of what I guess we'll call "your safety bubble."
Star Trek has always been my safety bubble, and getting cut from this convention, along with getting cut from the movie, has pretty much burst that bubble.
As that bubble collapses and pools around me, I step out of its false sense of security.
I take another step into a brave new world, conquering myself until I see another hurdle approaching.
![group wedding picture](http://www.treknews.de/cgi-bin/gallery-treknews/imageFolio.cgi?action=view&link=Star_Trek_Filme/Star_Trek_10_-_Nemesis/Bilder&image=120.jpg&img=&tt="){kind=link}
