Dancing Barefoot

by Wil Wheaton

  A woman dressed as Doctor Crusher stands up and says, “Say hello to your mother!”

  “Okay . . .” I say, and turn to my real mom, Debbie, who is sitting on the opposite side of the theatre. “Hey mom! Thanks for coming! Do I still suck?”

  The whole room turns to find her.

  “No. You’re doing great, honey,” she says.

  “Thanks, mom,” I say.

  I call on a cute girl who wears a babydoll “Social Distortion” shirt.

  “What was it like to kiss Ashley Judd?” she asks.

  I smile broadly. “Come on up here, and I’ll show you!”

  Huge laugh. She stands up!

  “Oh! No! I’m just kidding!” I hold up my hand, and point into my palm, “my ifeway isay inay the eaterthay!”

  I glance at my wife. She’s laughing and shaking her head, and she winks at me.

  I feel good. They’re laughing with me, and having a good time.

  I call on an older man, who sits near the front, several bags of collectibles at his feet.

  “Do you have a favorite episode of Voyager?” he asks.

  “Well, The truth is, I’ve only watched Voyager a couple of times, and I really don’t like it.”

  There is a little bit of a gasp. Did Wesley just say he doesn’t like Voyager?

  I try to explain. “The episode was called Scorpion, and I watched it because my friend designed the monster that terrorized the crew for the entire episode.”

  I hear angry sighs. People turn to talk to each other. Some of them leave.

  What happened? All I said was that I don’t like Voyager! What’s the big deal? Lots of Trekkies don’t like Voyager. Maybe I should have called it “V’ger.”

  A guy waves his hand rather urgently, fingers spread in the Vulcan “Live long and prosper” salute. I point to him.

  “What was your favorite episode of Deep Space Nine?”

  “Well, the truth is, DS9 and Voyager just never appealed to me. The stories didn’t interest me as much as the stories on Next Generation, or Classic Trek,” I say.

  Big mistake. This is not what the fans want to hear. They want to hear how I love and care about these shows as much as they do, because that’s exactly what they hear from the other actors. They get up on stage, and they give the fans exactly what they want.

  Well, I don’t do that. I tell them what it’s truly like for me, warts and all. The truth is, sometimes being on Star Trek was the greatest thing in the world. Other times, it completely sucked. And, as blasphemous as this sounds, at the end of the day it was just a job.

  But when all is said and done, I am still a fan at heart. I loved the original series. I am proud of the work I did on Next Generation. I cried when Spock died, and saw Star Trek IV in theaters six times.

  I failed to mention all that, however. Without that information, it can piss people off that I don’t have the same unconditional love for Star Trek that they do.

  I look at my watch, and I have ten minutes left to fill. I have nothing to lose, so I reach into my back pocket . . . and find it filled with material.

  “I have the limited edition Star Trek Monopoly game.” I say.

  “Of course, it’s a limited edition of 65 million. But it’s extremely valuable, because I got a number under 21 million.”

  They laugh. It’s funny, because it’s true.

  I go one better. “Plus, it’s got a certificate of authenticity signed by Captain Picard!

  “Yes, that’s right, my Star Trek Monopoly game, which I’ve rendered worthless by opening, comes with a certificate of authenticity signed in ink by a fictional character.”

  I see a guy in the front row say something to his buddy, and they both nod their heads and laugh.

  “Cool thing about the game, though, is that there is a Wesley Crusher game piece in it, and the first time we sat down to play it as a family, Ryan grabbed Wesley and proclaimed, as only an 11-year-old can, ‘I’m Wil!! I’m Wil!! Nolan!! I’m all-time Wil!! I call it!!’”

  I see some people smile. I start to pace the stage. I’m hitting my stride, and the stories flow out of me.

  “One time, when we were renegotiating our contracts, we were all asking for raises.

  “We all felt a salary increase was appropriate, because The Next Generation was a hit. It was making gobs of money for Paramount,” (I like that word – gobs) “and we felt that we should share in that bounty.

  “Of course, Paramount felt otherwise, so a long and annoying negotiation process began.

  “During that process, the producers’ first counteroffer was that, in lieu of a raise, they would give my character a promotion, to lieutenant.”

  I pause, and look around. I wrinkle my brow, and gaze upward.

  “What? Were they serious?”

  A fan hollers, “Yeah! Lieutenant Crusher! Woo!”

  I smile back at him.

  “My agent asked me what I wanted to do. I told him to call them back and remind them that Star Trek is just a television show.”

  Okay, that was risky to say. It’s pretty much the opposite of just a television show to these people, but I’ve gotten the audience back, and they giggle.

  “I imagined this phone call to the bank,” I mime a phone, and hold it to my ear. “Hi . . . Uh, I’m not going to be able to make my house payment this month, but don’t worry! I am a lieutenant now.” I pause, listening to the voice on the other end.

  “Where? Oh, on the Starship Enterprise.”

  I pause.

  “Enterprise D, yeah, the new one. Feel free to drop by Ten Forward for lunch someday. We’ll put it on my officer’s tab!”

  Laughter, and applause. My time is up, and Dave Scott stands at the foot of the stage, politely letting me know that it’s time for me to go.

  The fans see this, and I pretend to not notice him.

  “In 2001, startrek.com set up a poll to find out what fans thought the best Star Trek episode of all time was. The competition encompassed all the series. The nominated episode from Classic Trek was City On The Edge Of Forever. The entry for The Next Generation was Best of Both Worlds Part II. DS9 offered Trials and Tribble-ations, and Voyager weighed in with Scorpion II.”

  As I name each show, various groups of people applaud and whistle, erasing any doubt as to what their favorite show is.

  “Now, look. I know that Star Trek is just a TV show. Matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I just said that five minutes ago, but there was no way I was going to let my show lose. It just wasn’t going to happen. Especially not to Voyager – er, V’ger, I mean.”

  I pause, and look out at the crowd. I wonder if Mr. “V’ger” is out there.

  “So I went into my office, sat at my computer for 72 straight hours, and voted for TNG over and over again.

  “I didn’t eat, and I didn’t sleep. I just sat there, stinky in my own filth, clicking and hitting F5, a Howard Hughes for The Next Generation.

  “Some time around the 71st hour, my wife realized that she hadn’t seen me in awhile and started knocking on the door to see what I was doing.

  “’Nothing! I’m, uh, working!’ I shouted through the door. Click, Click, Click . . .

  ’I don’t believe you! Tell me what you’ve been doing at the computer for so long!’

  “I didn’t want her to know what I was doing – I mean, it was terribly embarrassing . . . I had been sitting there, in crusty pajamas, voting in the Star Trek poll for three days.”

  Some people make gagging noises, some people “eeww!” But it’s all in good fun. They are really along for the ride, now. This is cool.

  “She jiggled the handle, kicked at the bottom of the door, and it popped open!”

  The audience gasps.

  “I hurriedly shut down Mozilla, and spun around in my chair.

  “’What have you been doing on this computer for three days, Wil?’ she said.”

  I look out across the audience, and pause dramatically. I lower my voice and confidentially say, “I
was not about to admit the embarrassing truth, so I quickly said, ‘I’ve been downloading porn, honey! Gigabytes of porn!’”

  I have to stop, because the ballroom rocks with laughter. It’s a genuine applause break!

  “She was not amused. ‘Tell me the truth,’ she said.

  “I sighed, and told her that I’d been stuffing the ballot box in an online Star Trek poll.

  “’You are such a dork. I’d have been happier with the porn.’

  “I brightened. ‘Really?’

  “’No,’ she said. She set a plate of cold food on the desk and walked out, muttering something about nerds.

  “I stayed in that office for another ten hours, just to be sure. When my eyes began to bleed, I finally walked away. It took several weeks of physical therapy before I could walk correctly again, but it was all worth it. Best of Both Worlds Part II won by a landslide.”

  I pause dramatically, and the theatre is silent.

  “And it had nothing to do with my stuffing the box. It’s because Next Generation FUCKING RULES!”

  I throw my hand into the air, making the “devil horns” salute that adorns my satanic T-shirt, and the audience leaps to their feet, roaring with applause and laughter.

  I can’t believe it. I got them back. I say thank you, give the microphone to Dave Scott, who is now sitting on the stage pointedly checking his watch, and exit, stage left.

  I walk down the hallway, and meet my cast.

  “Man, they loved you, then they hated you,” Kevin says, “but you made them love you again! You’re good, man.”

  “Thanks,” I say, “I think it mostly sucked, but the end was fun. Let’s eat, and get ready for the show. We’ve got to be in the theatre in 90 minutes.”

  We’ve all performed on the ACME stage many times together, but we’ve never performed this lineup of sketches. They’ve never performed in front of Trekkies before; matter of fact, most of them don’t even watch Star Trek, and this convention is their first experience with the show, and its unique following. The guy who is doing our music and our lights has never seen our sketch show, or read our scripts. It’s just over an hour until our stage call, and there are far too many uncertainties. I begin to freak out. Somehow, Travis keeps me under control.

  We’re all hungry, so we use 50 of our 90 minutes getting some food across the street from the convention at the Hard Rock Hotel. I order a sandwich, but don’t eat a single bite. I’m way too nervous.

  We race back to the convention, and gather in a suite that’s being used as our dressing room. We all clean up, make sure that we have our costumes and props, and run a few of our scenes. There is genuine excitement in the air. We are in our element: actors preparing to take the stage.

  We are expecting to be let into the theater at 7:30, so we can have a quick run-through of some blackouts, get our props set, and have five minutes to catch our breath . . . but the clock says 7:45. The show before us has run long, and we’re not even going to get into the theater until 8:30. The audience has been lined up for over an hour already, and I know from experience that an audience’s willingness to enjoy your show is inversely proportional to the amount of time you keep them waiting past the time on the ticket, which is, in this case, 8 p.m.

  I’m pacing the dressing room, running my hands through my hair, occasionally swearing, and stressing myself out.

  My friend Travis asks, “Why are you so worried? Trekkies are the most supportive audience in the world! They will love anything you put up there! All we have to do is show up, and they’ll go nuts, right?”

  “Wrong.” I tell him, gravely. “They can be the most hyper-critical audience in the world. They’ve booed me off the stage. They’ve marched up to me at conventions to tell me how much they hated me. Some of these people have a sense of entitlement that you’ll never see anywhere else. This particular audience will be filled with people who’ve paid lots of money to see our show. Some of them paid as much as 1500 dollars for ‘all access’ passes to the convention. So they expect, and deserve, an amazing show.” I pause. “I also have a lot to prove to them, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Travis says.

  I don’t say it out loud, but I have something to prove to myself, too.

  There is a knock on the door, and the stage manager tells us that we can get into the theater.

  We get our props set backstage.

  We find an appropriate lighting level.

  We give the list of blackouts to our tech guy.[3]

  “The last line of each scene is on this list,” I tell him.

  “And the lights come down right after that line, right?” he says.

  “Yeah.” I say. “Do you have our body mics?”

  “Body mics? Nobody said anything to me about body mics.”

  Oh shit. We have no body mics. This means we don’t have any mics at all. This means it’s highly unlikely that the back of the house will be able to hear us. This means we are screwed.

  I call a huddle of the actors. Jim, the sound and light tech joins us.

  “Guys, we have a situation. There are no mics.”

  Travis, who was just trying to calm me down, freaks out. “There is a full house! It’s over 500 people! How are they going to hear us?!”

  Maz is calmer, “I think we should just project like crazy.”

  Tracy agrees. “Yeah, we’re all good actors. We’ll just play to the back row.”

  Kristen nods. “When you introduce the show, just mention that we have no mics, and encourage the audience to keep it down . . . and we’ll just have to project our voices. Pretend we’re in Ancient Greece.”

  “How Greek is this show going to be?” Kevin asks, saucily.

  “Not that Greek.” We all laugh. Crisis averted.

  We are going to run through our blackouts, but it’s now close to 8:30. I can feel the audience outside the theater trading their “We love you, Wil” signs for torches and pitchforks.

  I decide that we’re not going to keep them waiting any longer. We’ve prepared like crazy for this show, and anything we do now isn’t going to make it any better. We’re just going to get ourselves backstage and open up the house.

  I give my CD of “Warm Up The House” music, (Ataris, MXPX, Save Ferris, and other indie rock bands,) to Jim.

  Kris Roe intones, “Last night, I had a dream / that we went to Disneyland / went on all the rides / didn’t have to wait in line . . .” and the doors open.

  I hear the house begin to fill. The voices mingle to create a familiar white noise. Occasionally, I’ll hear a word above the din, or my father’s distinctive and very loud guffaw. Anxious moments pass while we all go through our pre-show rituals:

  Tracy stretches in some yoga poses. Maz recites his lines to himself and walks in a circle. Travis and Kristen talk about odds bets on craps. Chris and Kevin run through a scene called “Dude.” I stand alone to one side, reciting lines in my head, trying to calm my nerves.

  Dave Scott comes backstage, smiling broadly.

  “You’ve got a full house. We even sold some standing room only seats. They are really excited! Are you guys ready to go?”

  We all look at each other. “Just give us a second, okay?”

  Dave walks over to talk with Jim, and we all step close together, forming a circle. I extend my hand, and it is immediately covered by Kristen’s, which is covered by Chris’s. Maz and Travis come next, then Kevin, and finally Tracy. We lock eyes, all of us, and I say, “You guys, this is going to be the best show, ever! Thank you so much for coming out to be part of this. Don’t forget to play to the back row, and improvise if you get stuck. If you’re not on stage, listen . . . we may need to call you out if we get into trouble.”

  We chant a secret actor’s chant, ending with our hands stretched skyward. I am overcome with excitement. I can’t wait to go out and show these people that I’ve grown up, become funny, and (most of all) that I’m not Wesley Crusher.

  Dave comes back over to us, and asks if we ne
ed anything else.

  “Scotch,” I say.

  “Hookers,” says Kevin.

  “A pool boy,” says Tracy.

  “Can we replace Wil?” says Travis.

  We all laugh. We’re ready to go. This is what we live for. Dave laughs with us, and takes the stage.

  I hear the crowd applaud, and there is some wolf whistling. They are in a good mood. I am thrilled.

  “This show has been in preparation for several months, and I am just as excited to see it as you are,” he begins. “However, if you video or audio tape the performance, we will hunt you down and kill you.”

  The audience chuckles. They have all heard the warnings before.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the director of Mind Meld, Wil Wheaton.”

  I walk onto the stage, trying to hold my head up, and keep my shoulders back . . . but walking across any stage has never been easy for me. I feel awkward, and studied, like they’re sizing me up. If I ever get on Letterman, that walk across the Ed Sullivan stage will absolutely kill me.

  I take about five steps before I realize that Dave has decided to play a little practical joke on me: the entire audience is wearing “Groucho” glasses. It is insanely funny to me, seeing all these people, in various levels of space-suitery, enjoying a mass giggle, like a bunch of school kids putting one over on the substitute.

  I take a long look around the room, lift the microphone to my mouth, and say, “You’re all related, aren’t you?”

  Huge laugh. The laugh I’d hoped for earlier in the afternoon. Much happier that I have it now.

  I am hugely relieved – they’ve traded their torches and pitchforks for Groucho glasses. They’re on my side.

  “I can’t begin to tell you all how excited I am to be standing here tonight. I have brought with me some of the most talented writers and performers I know, and we hope to present you with a show you’ll never forget. We are Mind Meld, and our show is called, Assimilate This!”

  There is wild applause, and the lights dim. I walk offstage, trading places with Kristen and Tracy who are to begin the first scene.