winter wonderland

Team Wheaton took a little vacation this week, to charge up our batteries before the work of the new year really gets going. So here’s a few pictures I took while we were away:

We stopped at a truck stop to get gas, and I put on this stupid stripper cowboy hat, because I thought it was silly. I was wearing my Wesley Crusher hoodie, and Anne said, “Oh my god, you’re Sparks McGee!” It wasn’t what I was going for, but, like Sparks himself, it was a happy accident.

When we got to Yosemite, the sun was about to set, and it made the valley absolutely beautiful.

I wish I could claim credit for making this magnificent Jabba Snowhutt, but alas I just walked past it.

We hiked up to Mirror Lake during some seriously heavy snowfall. I really loved how the world looked black and white.

I took the obligatory selfie, and Anne did the obligatory photobomb.

When we got back to the hotel, my boys were very tired from hiking 5 miles in the snow. I love that, even though they’re in their 20s, they are still my little guys at times like this.

It was a lovely trip, even though we almost got snowed in (that would not have been the worst thing, to be honest). I read a whole lot, played some games with the family, and relaxed with my favorite people on the planet.

That time I realized it felt good to feel sad.

I have started and abandoned this post at least a dozen times. Maybe this will be the time that it sticks.

I was a little too warm in my jacket and sweater, but I knew that by the time I walked back to my hotel, I’d be happy to have them both, so I pushed up my sleeves a little bit and soldiered on, up the street toward dinner.

I was missing my family and my pets, more than I’ve missed them in a long, long time. I was feeling lonely, and homesick, and I hoped that getting out of my hotel, taking a little walk, and eating dinner around other people would help. So I asked the concierge for a recommendation, and he sent me to this pub up the road.

About halfway to my destination, I stopped at a street corner and waited for a signal to change. I noticed that there was a plaque just off the sidewalk, commemorating some significant Civil War troop movements in 1864. I don’t recall specifically what it said, but I guess three large armies converged on this spot, marched together up what became the street I was walking on, and … I guess it was continued on the next plaque, which I didn’t find. My first thought was, “Oh, right, this city has been here for a long time, and a lot of history happened here.” In Los Angeles, much of our civic history isn’t even a century old, and what little history we have could be commemorated with plaques that say, “there was something beautiful here, but we tore it down in the 70s to build a strip mall.” My second thought was, “I kind of wish we weren’t still fighting the Civil War, even though as a nation we pretend that we aren’t.”

The light changed and I crossed the street. I walked past a parking lot that was filled with production vehicles, and I was surprised that they were working on a Sunday. I passed lots of people who were walking their dogs, and that made me miss mine even more. I was so lost in thought that I nearly jay walked in front of a cop, but some part of my brain screamed THERE IS A COP THERE STUPID GET BACK ON THE CURB just as I was about to take my second step, so I called on the Infernal ACTING! TALENT! of Calculon to make it look like I hadn’t seen the red light, turned around, and got back on the curb, apparently looking sheepish enough to mollify the cop. Or maybe she didn’t care at all. Either way, I gave myself an invisible gold star.

I got to the pub, and walked inside. It was early and empty, but for two groups of people who were watching sports on TV. One group was watching the MLS championship game, and the other was watching football. They were cheering enthusiastically for their respective games, and their energy filled up the place like it was packed with people.

I ordered a local craft beer and some dinner, and tried to enjoy being in the world with other people, instead of alone in my hotel with people on the Internet.

I couldn’t do it. I just felt too sad. I felt lonely, even though I was in a room with exuberant people, who were having a lot of fun watching their sportsball squads do sports. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, and scrolled through pictures of my pets, pictures of me with my wife, and pictures of home. I’ve only been gone for a little over a week, but it’s the longest I’ve been away in a few years, and I can feel the distance between me and the people I love more viscerally than I have in years.

That’s when Fairy Tale Of New York began to play. Jesus.

I finished my beer, ordered another, and deliberately thought about the good things I’ve experienced while I’ve been in Atlanta:

I have done work on Powers that I’m incredibly proud of, that I think will add something to the show, and may even help me get other acting work in the future. I found layers and desires and secrets and justified motivations in this character that made him come alive in my skin. I’ve worked with three different directors on this show, and every one of them has told me that my work has been incredible. One of the actors on the show told me that he was grateful and relieved that I was playing this character, because I could handle its complexities in a way that was truthful and believable. One of the other actors told me that she was so taken in by my performance, she got completely lost in it, and it motivated reactions from her character that she didn’t know her character could have. When I wrapped on Thursday night, after a nine hour day that was devoted to a single, intense, emotionally exhausting five page scene that’s the climax of everything this character is about, the crew burst into spontaneous applause for me.

On Saturday, I went to the Georgia Aquarium with Olesya Rulin, who is one of my co-stars and a new friend. We got to watch them feed whale sharks, and otters, and penguins, and it was magical. On Saturday night, I got to go to dinner with everyone in the cast who is in town, and then had drinks with a couple of the guys who are staying in the same hotel with me. I’ve made new friends, and that’s not something that comes easily to me.

Oh, and in my Couch to 5K training, I did a personal best run of 4 ten-minute miles without stopping for more than 30 seconds a couple of times.

So there is a lot to be happy about, a lot to feel good about, and a lot of joy to be found in the last eight days … but that doesn’t fill the empty space next to me in my bed, or when I go for a walk, or when I see someone with their dogs.

Then, because I wasn’t feeling sad enough, I read a story at Gawker about how Elmo is the worst (he totally is. Team Grover FOR LIFE). That story reminded me that when Mister Hooper died on Sesame Street, Big Bird had drawn a picture of him, and Big Bird was going to give that picture to Mister Hooper when he came back from the hospital, but Susan told him, “Big Bird, he’s not coming back,” and then Big Bird is sad, and hangs the picture he drew in his nest. And that picture was there for years.

I wiped a few tears off my face, and then I realized something: Yeah, I felt sad, but I just felt sad, like people feel sad. I felt a totally normal and healthy human emotion. I felt sad because I missed my family, I felt lonely, and I wanted to be home. I felt sad because I missed the things that people miss, but I also knew that I only had two more sleeps until I got to be back in my home with the people I love. I felt sad, but I didn’t feel the kind of cant-get-out-of-bed sad that I sometimes feel because of Depression. This was regular, boring, totally normal sadness that everyone feels all the time, and I wasn’t feeling it because I have mental illness, but because I just missed the people I love.

And then I felt really, really happy to feel sad. In fact, borrowing a phrase from my friend Jenny Lawson, I felt #FuriouslyHappy, because I was in charge of my own sadness, instead of being held down in it by my Depression. It was okay to miss the people I love, and it was okay to feel lonely, and it was okay to remember how ten year-old me felt when he experienced the loss of Mister Hooper with Big Bird, the same way he would soon experience the loss of his grandmother with his mom. All of that was healthy and totally fine, and knowing that made me feel happy while I felt sad.

So I finished my food, thanked my server, walked back to my hotel, watched my beloved LA Kings play a heck of a good hockey game, and went to sleep in a bed that felt a little less empty than it has.

Now, about twenty hours later, I’m listening to a Robert Johnson blues station on Pandora, and finishing a blog I’ve tried a dozen times to finish. In a few minutes, I’m going to put on my Runner 5 shirt and go down to the gym to do some training, because Doctor Meyers and Sam and Runner 4 are as much with me here as they are when I’m at home, and that makes me feel a little less lonely, and a little less homesick.

Hey, look at that. I started and abandoned this post a about a dozen times, and this is the one that stuck.

Nailed it.

I got brains but they ain’t doing me no good

I’m sitting in my hotel in Atlanta, waiting for my breakfast to arrive. My clock says it’s 1045, but my body thinks it’s 745, so I’m a little squishy in the brains. I also had epic and endless nightmares last night, the kind where I wake myself up and don’t know where I am, and then calm myself down by reminding myself that it was just a dream.

I haven’t had nightmares like that in a long time, since I started Operation Reboot, and I hope it’s just my brain and body dealing with the travel, jet lag, and uncertainty of playing a new character in a new show.

Maybe that’s why I had all these stress dreams and nightmares last night. I don’t know this crew, I barely know this cast. I have a pretty good sense of who this character is, and I’ve prepared my scenes and broken down everything into actions and beats, and I’ve done all the basic preparation and homework, but I’ve only lived in his skin for a couple of scenes, and I still don’t really know him, the way I will by the end of the day today.

Strangely, I sort of feel like being an actor is outside of my comfort zone, at least at the moment, because I’ve been putting myself into a writing head space more and more for the last several weeks. Because I’m American, I’ll use a baseball analogy to explain.

For me, being an actor is like being a shortstop: there’s no time to think, you’ve just got to be totally prepared, relaxed, and ready for whatever comes at you. You’re at your best when you’re honestly and naturally reacting to what’s happening, even though you know that you want things to go in a certain direction, and can reasonably expect plays to unfold in a particular way.

Being a writer is like being a pitcher: you get to decide when the play starts, and you have a tremendous amount of control over what happens up until it does. You have time to think, to reflect, and to observe everything that’s happening around you. It’s slower, more methodical, more precise.

Once the camera rolls, I have to be completely focused and present and out of my head. I have to be connected to the other actors, and totally committed to what my character wants, and honest in how I react to what he’s getting. I’m an experienced actor, so that’s not particularly difficult. In fact, it’s rewarding and fun to play make believe, and there’s nothing better than discovering something unexpected within a scene, and making it live inside me.

But as a writer, I’m a few beats behind everything around me. I’m thinking all the time. I’m in my head and processing everything, cataloging it, seeing how everything fits together, and looking for the hidden levers and strings that hold everything together, so I can mess around with them and make something happen.

Monday, on the set at Big Bang Theory, I struggled like crazy for the first time since my first episode, because I just couldn’t get out of my head (Meisner actors will know precisely what I mean by that). I was thinking too much, carefully measuring everything too much, and not just existing in the moment. Luckily, the director (who is amazing and massively experienced) got me through it, and helped me get out of my own way. Eventually, the scenes we shot were very funny and very real, but the entire time I felt like I had never worked before, like I wasn’t prepared at all, and like I was ruining it for everyone. In fact, the writer in me was hard at work making notes about the whole thing, so I could recall it later. That wasn’t particularly helpful.

I just heard from the set that the rain has stayed away long enough to allow them to shoot more exteriors, and my call time has been pushed into the afternoon. That’s great news, because I can do this writing thing right now, and then go over my scenes for today (I wish I could share a picture of my notes, my actions, my motivations for the various beats, but NDA), so I’m ready to take the field and go wherever the play takes me.

that time i hosted blizzcon

I’m sitting in Phoenix, hoping that I get on a flight that leaves in an hour, because the flight that should have put me home twenty-five minutes ago was cancelled after many delays. I’m on standby, and I’m cautiously optimistic. One way or another I’ll get home tonight, but I hope it’s earlier than later, because spending five hours in an airport isn’t my idea of a good time. Also, Fallout 4 is waiting for me.

Anyway, now’s a good time to catch up on some stuff.

First: Blizzcon. I was terrified. I thought I was prepared, but I just couldn’t shake the voices in my head that insisted the people who were going to hate me no matter what were right about how much I suck at everything. The stage was bigger than I expected (even though I expected it to be big), and the audience was enormous. At over 12,000 people, it was tremendously difficult to keep them all engaged at once, and even when I had around 7,000 people responding to what I was doing, I couldn’t think, “Wow, 7000 people are enjoying this!” all I could think was “You suck, Wheaton. Half the audience hates you.” For the first part of my hosting, my IFB was turned up way too loud in my ear, and I could hear myself cranked up to 11 in just my right ear. It was very distracting, and it really threw me off. I couldn’t take the IFB out, either, in case the director needed to say anything to me. Which he didn’t. Yay.

I thought I was … okay … but the feedback I got from everyone there, tons of people online, and everyone at Blizzard was very positive. In fact, other than the people who were always going to hate me, and the people who are determined to be angry about all sorts of things, everyone seems to feel that I did a good job.

If I were grading myself, I’d give myself a solid B. I made some embarrassing mistakes, like saying it was 2016 several times (I blame my brain for being excited that the next day was my 16th wedding anniversary) and for saying “Etcetera” when I was supposed to say “E T C” during the talent contest. In my (weak) defense, I didn’t (and still don’t) know who ETC was, which I guess will confirm that guy who was all “WIL WHEATON IS NOT QUALIFIED TO HOST BLIZZCON” so congratulations to him. Maybe they’ll find that guy and hire him for net time. To further defend myself, I read what was on my card, which said “Etc.” and not “E.T.C.” which probably would have saved me some embarrassment and some hardcore WoW players consternation.

The stuff I wrote, though? It seemed to work out mostly well. I asked Ryan to help me write some journal entries from the point of view of a character we called Boogers the Boggit, and while I felt like it died in most of the room, a ton of people have told me they thought it was clever and funny. I’ll repost it here in the next few days and you can decide for yourself if I’m the worst thing, ever.

Blizzcon itself, though, was incredible! The enthusiasm and passion and excitement was infectious, and I honestly feel sad for anyone who loves the Blizzard games who can’t embrace that sense of community because they need to be mad about stuff. The gatekeepers are really missing out on something wonderful.

After Blizzcon, a bunch of us went over to Trader Sam’s at the Disneyland Hotel, and we had all the flaming drinks until it closed. I may have been partially responsible for giving Randi Harper one of her first hangover, but I’d never admit to that. The next day, Anne and I celebrated our anniversary with some of our friends at Disneyland and California Adventure. It was incredibly fun, and Chris Hardwick and I posted a bunch of dumb pictures of us being silly while we were there. They’re on our Instagrams if you want to see them.

Monday, I flew out to Atlanta to work on Powers. I can’t say anything about it, but maybe I can after the episode airs. I guess that I can say that my day started at 430am, which was 130am as far as my body was concerned, but I was wrapped by 1pm, which is good because I was approaching an exhaustion I haven’t felt since we wrapped on Eureka and I went straight form an 18 hour day on the set to Dragon*Con without going to sleep.

I wasn’t prepared for how excited the cast of Powers was to meet me and to welcome me to the set, but I’m looking forward to going back next week to work with them again … right after I do another Big Bang Theory! Tomorrow, I start a few days on an episode that also features Bob Newhart.

Holy shit, I can’t believe that I get to meet Bob Newhart! I’m going to do my best not to go all When I Met Henry Rollins on him, but I will say that there’s a non-zero chance that, in the future, I’ll be doing a bit in my stand-up set that’s Bob Newhart’s agent taking a call from him about meeting a nerd who was embarrassingly excited to be there and made it really weird.

Okay, they’re about to start calling the standby passengers for my flight. Cross your fingers for me.

that kinda lux just ain’t for us

Anne and I went to Las Vegas on Sunday for our friends Matt and Doree’s wedding. We got dressed up like fancy adults, spent an evening with people we love, and got the hell out of there before Vegas could take any of our money away from us.

I had a stupidly good time playing a silly Star Trek penny slot machine for a quarter a pull, and somehow managed to turn my twenty dollars into one hundred while I was at it. My friend Matt and I found a stupid penny poker machine that let you play one hundred hands at a time, and spent about three dollars to have hundreds of dollars worth of fun for close to an hour.

We almost didn’t go, because I just don’t enjoy being in Las Vegas, but we had a great time, and I’m really glad that we went.

On the plane home, I was reflecting on how much fun we had, and I remembered this story, from a very different time.

For a lot of us who grew up in Los Angeles, a big part of being in your early twenties involves something like this:

The phone rings.
It’s one of your friends.
Your friend says, “Vegas?”
Before you can pull another breath of life out of the air around you, you reply, “VEGAS!”
One drive across the desert a few hours later, you’re in some casino on the strip, losing whatever money you budgeted for the trip, while trying and occasionally succeeding to find the energy that began your journey there, three or four hours ago.
The drive back home lasts for three or four hours, but feels much longer.
You swear you’ll never do this again.
Months go by.
You pick up the phone and dial your friend.
When the call connects, you say, “Vegas?”

When Anne and I were dating, we did one of these trips. We stayed at the Imperial Palace, which is just an appallingly outdated and rundown pile of regret in the middle of the Strip. Over the course of a few hours, we walked around it and its adjacent casinos, wagering twenty or so dollars at a time in various places, and never winning a single thing. At the time, we didn’t have a lot of money and had to stay on a tight budget, so the $200 I lost really hurt, to say nothing of the unshakable feeling of just being A Total Loser that clung to me like that cloud of dust around Pig Pen.

I remember, as our night was winding down, we walked into the Flamingo Hilton. We found a $5 blackjack table, and I bought in for my last $40. As the first hand came out, a pit boss came over to us, and asked to see my ID. I showed it to him, and he said, “I thought that was you. I love your work.”

At this time in my life, I hadn’t done any acting work that was worth a goddamn in what felt like an eternity, but was probably close to five years on the calendar(which is an eternity in the entertainment industry). “Thanks,” I said, trying to put on my best happy face, and hoping that the stinky cloud of Loser wasn’t as clear to him as it was to me.

“How’s your night going?” He asked.

“Not good,” I said. “I have literally lost every dollar I’ve bet.”

Because the universe has a good sense of humor, and because the person who is writing my life is lazy, I lost the hand in front of me. I don’t recall what it was, specifically, but if I were writing this, it would have been something like standing on a 13 with the dealer showing a 6, only to draw to 18. It had been that kind of night.

“Well,” he said, “I’m rating you right now, so we can get you some drinks or some breakfast.” He paused, then added, meaningfully, “at the very least.”

I looked at the last $35 dollars I had in front of me, and hoped against hope that somehow my luck would turn around. I knew we wouldn’t get a comped room, or show tickets, or anything like that, but there was something in his voice that told me that if I could just sit there and play for a little while, we’d get something that would make me feel like less of a total loser than I did. Hey, people got lucky in Vegas all the time, right? People sat down with two bucks, and became millionaires with one pull of the handle. Guys turned five bucks into a thousand in mere minutes, getting lucky at a craps table or hitting a longshot in roulette. Hell, people even won on Keno from time to time. Maybe it was time for my luck to turn around.

So I got ready to defy the odds and become a winner.

Five bucks at a time, I proceeded to lose seven hands in a row, and was broke. I stood up from the table, gathered what I could of my pride, told the dealer to have a good night. The pit boss came over to us (Anne had been standing supportively next to me the whole time, as I could not win a single thing, which was a perfect metaphor for our lives back then). “You sure you have to go?” He said.

“Yeah,” I said, unable to mask the totality of the defeat I was feeling, “I’m all out of money. My luck is just …” I didn’t need to finish that thought. At this time in my life, when I was probably around 24 or 25, My luck is just … was how I felt about pretty much everything.

“Well, here,” he said, not unkindly, “let me at least get you some food and a couple of drinks.” He gave me some vouchers, and Anne and I each had a martini, plus steak and eggs, on the house. We made our way back to our hotel room, fell asleep on a really uncomfortable bed, and slept for a few hours until someone woke us up, screaming in our hallway because she’d hit a jackpot on a slot machine.