by Wil Wheaton
When the turbolift doors open, and reveal the bridge of the Enterprise, I gasp.
The bridge is a nearly-perfect replica of ours, with a few minor differences that are probably imperceptible to anyone who didn’t spend the better part of five years on it. The hum of the engines, which had only existed in my imagination on Stage 8, is now real. I stare at the view screen, where a beautiful starfield gives the appearance of motion. I remember how much I hated doing blue screen shots on the bridge and how much I loved it when they’d lower the starfield. When I looked at those thousands of tiny mirrors, glued onto a screen of black velvet, I could lose myself in the wonderful fantasy that this spaceship was as real as the view.
I am consumed by hypernostalgia.
I am 14 years old, walking out of the turbolift during Encounter at Farpoint. Corey Allen, the director, excitedly tells me, “Picard controls the sky, man! He controls the sky!”
I am 15 years old, sitting in my ugly grey spacesuit at the CONN. My fake muscle suit bunches up around my arms. I feel awkward and unsure, a child who desperately wants to be a man.
I am 16 years old, working on an episode where I say little more than, “Aye, sir.” I want to be anywhere but here.
I am 17 years old, wearing a security uniform for Yesterday’s Enterprise. I am excited to stand in a different place on the bridge, wear a different uniform, and push different imaginary buttons.
I hear the voices of our crew, recall the cool fog that hung around our trailers each morning from Autumn until Spring.
I recall walking to the Paramount commissary with the cast, on our way to have lunch meetings with Gene before he died.
I have an epiphany.
Until this moment, all I have been able to remember is the pain that came with Star Trek. I’d forgotten the joy.
Star Trek was about sitting next to Brent Spiner, who always made me laugh. It wasn’t about the people who made me cry when they booed me offstage at conventions. It was about the awe I felt listening to Patrick Stewart debate the subtle nuances of The Prime Directive with Gene Roddenberry between scenes. It wasn’t about the writers who couldn’t figure out how to write a believable teenage character. It was about the wonder of walking down those corridors, and pretending that I was on a real spaceship. It was about the pride I felt when I got to wear my first real uniform, go on my first away mission, fire my first phaser, play poker with the other officers in Riker’s quarters.
Oh my god. Star Trek was wonderful, and I’d forgotten. I have wasted ten years trying to escape something that I love, for all the wrong reasons.
I am filled with regret. I miss it. I miss my surrogate family, and I will give anything to have those ten years back. Like Scrooge, I want a second chance, will do anything for a second chance. But Christmas day came and went 10 years ago.
The stars blink out, and I’m looking into the smiling face of Jonathan Frakes on the view screen. I’m smiling back at him and I notice that everyone is staring at me. I become aware of wetness on my cheeks. I am embarrassed and make a joke. I say to the actors walking around the bridge, “If you need any help flying this thing, I’ve totally got your back!” The group laughs. Garrett says something about helping out the security guys if they get into trouble and we laugh over that too.
Johnny tells us that we have to leave the ship now and board a shuttlecraft so that we may safely return to Las Vegas.
I don’t want to leave. I’ve just gotten here. I want to cry out “No! Don’t make me leave! It’s not fair! I want to stay! I need to stay! Please let me stay!”
Instead, I am silent and I stare hard at the bridge, trying to catch a glimpse of a dolly track, or a mark, or maybe my costumer waiting for me to come offstage so she can hand me my fleece jacket.
The group I’m with herds me into the turbolift, and the doors close. I remember all the times the FX guy didn’t pull the doors open in time, and we’d walk into them. The turbolift takes us to the shuttle bay, where we board a flight simulator that looks like one of our shuttlecraft. I don’t pay any attention to the voyage home – I am deep in my own memories, consumed by thoughts of days gone by and time forever lost.
The ride comes to an end and we walk back to Quark’s. Everyone we pass wants to know what I thought of the ride, if I enjoyed my Star Trek experience. I tell them, truthfully, that it was just like being back on the set. I tell them that it’s reminded me how cool Star Trek was. I keep the rest to myself. I don’t think I can even give voice to the incredible series of emotions I have felt in the past 15 minutes. I don’t even know if, in recalling that experience and writing these thoughts down, I have been able to convey how it affected me.
But it did. It changed me.
Being inside those walls, even though it was in a casino in Las Vegas, I was safe. I was protected from the bullshit that had been the focus of my life since I quit the show. When that bullshit was washed away, I saw Trek for what it is: a huge part of my life. I will probably never be bigger than Trek, but why try to avoid it? Why not love it, embrace it, and be proud of it? It was cool. Gene was cool. The cast is cool. Star Trek may never be what it once was . . . but I got to be there when it was great.
We stay at the party for another hour. We talk with friends and I pose for pictures, sign a few autographs, and shake some hands. We watch Armin and Max perform a very funny sketch, and I have my picture taken with a cardboard stand up of WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER, circa 1967.
Finally, the five days in Vegas catch up with us, and Anne and I need to leave. I seek out Dave and Jackie Scott and thank them for a great convention. I tell them that I’ll see them in a few weeks, never thinking that in just 2 days I will never want to board an airplane again.
We take a cab back to our hotel. Anne puts her head on my shoulder, and is asleep before we’re even out of the driveway.
We drive up a wide and empty street, about a quarter mile off the strip. This part of Vegas seems lonely, desolate. The carnival glare of lights along The Strip robs the rest of the world of any light, and the whole desert is black, like outer space . . . I stare out the window into the darkness, and imagine a starfield that’s fifteen years away.
I had forgotten how cool Star Trek was and how much I missed it. I feel a little sad.
The cabbie keeps looking at me in the rear view mirror, giving me that ‘I think I know you but I’m not sure why’ look. He says, “What brings you to Vegas?”
“Star Trek,” I tell him.
“Oh yeah? You a big fan or something?”
“Yes I am,” I tell him. “I love Star Trek.”
* * *
[1] In 2002, Bill and I played together on a special Star Trek edition of the game show Weakest Link. He was friendly and warm toward me the entire time. Several months later, I asked him on Slashdot, “Are we cool, or what? I mean, I always thought you didn’t like me, but I had a good time with you at Weakest Link watching the World Series. So are we cool, or was that just pre-game strategy?” He replied: “We are so cool, we’re beyond cool. We are in orbit man. I don’t do pre-game strategy. I look forward to some personal time with you.”
[2] Mike Okuda was the chief graphic designer for The Next Generation, and has since worked on all the series and movies. He also wrote all the official technical manuals. Along with Rick Sternbach, he is widely regarded as the authority on Star Trek technology.
[3] One of the most important elements of sketch comedy is the blackout that ends the scene. When I write a sketch, I always end it with a big laugh, or a big surprise and the lights must then immediately come down. If there’s even a three second lag, it can ruin the whole scene.
[4] In sketch comedy, when you do well, you “kill” when you do poorly, you “die.” We comics are obsessed with death, I guess.
Appendix A. Acknowledgments
When he sits down and commits some thoughts to paper, an author makes the bold assumption that a reader will spend her time (which could be spent a thousand other ways) taking the
journey he’s laid out.
The road from assumption to realization is long and complicated, and I could not have successfully navigated it without these people:
Dan Perkins said to me, “You know, you should write a book. . .”
Andrew Hackard edited that book, Just A Geek, from which these stories were excised. Without Andrew’s guidance and encouragement, I wouldn’t have gotten past the title page.
Bobby The Mat edited the Saga of SpongeBob Vegas Pants, and helped me find the beginning that I so desperately needed.
My family (the one I grew up with and the one I made myself) participated in the real-life events that inspired these stories, reminded me of stuff I’d forgotten, and didn’t get upset at the stuff I left out.
Thumper introduced me to DeHart’s printing, where Wendy patiently answered all my stupid questions.
Travis Oates taught me how to write sketch comedy, helped me overcome my fears of not being funny, and has been a treasured, faithful, reliable friend. He also wrote the awesome one-line descriptions of all the stories that’s on the back cover. And he told me to include an introduction.
Stephen King wrote stories I liked to read when I was a kid. One of those stories became Stand By Me, in which I played a writer – more than just a coincidence, it turns out. Before I started writing this, I read his book On Writing, and the information he shared in those 288 pages made all the difference.
Oingo Boingo, Underworld, Cake, Radiohead, The Ataris, and Scratch Radio all provided music to silence the rest of the world while I worked. U2’s cover of the wonderful Patty Smyth song “Dancing Barefoot” provided me with a title.
My wife, Anne, patiently supports everything I want to do, whether it’s writing a book or playing in the World Series of Poker.
Aunt Val loved me my entire life, and probably still does. I wish you could read this. I know you’d be proud.
Appendix B. About the Illustrator
Ben Claassen III is originally from New Orleans, but currently lives in Washington, DC. He has been drawing big foreheaded people without noses for a very long time. He stays up every night ‘til the wee hours of the morning with ink all over his fingers, dreaming of life in a castle on the beach with a swimming pool moat around it and an underwater pirate bar that would have a talking parrot for a bartender. The parrot would wear a small blue tuxedo and would be able to speak French, German, and a little bit of Japanese.
Ben likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, people who send him drawings of monsters, and dancing lemurs with tiny red cowboy boots. He can be contacted through his website, bendependent.com, or through killoggs.com.
Appendix C. About the Author
Wil Wheaton started acting at age 7. As a teenager, he starred in the Academy Award nominated classic, Stand By Me, and the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. After leaving Next Generation in its 4th season, he went on to star in several award-winning independent films before taking an extended hiatus from acting to write fulltime.
His website, wilwheaton.net, won weblog of the year in the 2002 bloggies, was named Best Celebrity Weblog by Forbes.com in 2003, and is read by a global audience of over one hundred thousand people a week.
He is lactose intolerant, loves Cake (the band, not the food) and lives in Pasadena, California. He wishes that his author bio was as good as Ben’s illustrator bio.
About the Author
Wil Wheaton may be one of the most unusual celebrities of our time. Born into stardom with the movie "Stand By Me", and then growing up on television as Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Wil was in the spotlight nearly his entire childhood. Instead of burning out as a child star, he left fame behind and became a computer specialist in what Hollywood might consider the middle of nowhere: Topeka, Kansas. Now, Wil considers himself "just a geek", and both Dancing Barefoot and the forthcoming biography Just a Geek are about his journey in rediscovering himself and coming to terms with what it means to be famous, or, ironically, famous for being previously famous.
Colophon
This book was written entirely in Open Office.org 1.0.1, a free and open source word processing program, on a computer running Red Hat Linux 8.0 (Kernel 2.4), a free and open source operating system. Images were scaled using the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, also free and open source. Free and open source is good. The typeface is Bookman L.
Appendix D. Also by Wil Wheaton: Just A Geek
Available Spring 2004 from O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Wil Wheaton may be one of the most unusual celebrities of our time. Born into stardom with the movie Stand By Me and then growing up on television as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Wil was in the spotlight nearly his entire childhood. Instead of burning out as a child star, he left fame behind and became a computer specialist in what Hollywood might consider the middle of nowhere: Topeka, Kansas.
Now, Wil considers himself “Just a Geek,” in a book about his journey to rediscover himself and come to terms with what it means to be famous, or, ironically, famous for being previously famous. Engaging, witty, and pleasantly self-deprecating, Just A Geek will surprise you and make you laugh. Sometimes the most shocking things about a celebrity are the simple things that make them commonplace. Wil is just a geek and that makes him something special.
Advance Praise for Just A Geek
“I admire Wil’s courage enormously. I talk about politics, which is easy, compared to what Wil does: he talks about his life. And he does so with grace and good humor, and after you follow his site for awhile, you begin to feel as if you’re there with him on the roller coaster ride which apparently comprises the life of a struggling actor: auditions, rejection, uncertainty, and sometimes even triumph. I could make some sort of Star Trek joke here, about how you should set your phasers on ‘purchase’ or some damn thing, but I’ll spare us all. Just buy the book. It’s worth your time.”
-Dan Perkins, aka Tom Tomorrow http://www.thismodernworld.com
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