Priorities

Anne just called me, very upset, from her cell phone.
She told me that she and the kids are missing me, because I’m spending so much time online. She said that she’s tired of feeling like I’m married to the computer and my website, and that she’s been going to sleep alone for the last 2 weeks, and I wake her up at 1AM when I get into bed.
I was all ready to argue with her that I need to spend time here, and that I have a responsibility to my readers and all that…but something stopped me. It was that little voice in the back of your head that sometimes saves you from saying stupid things to cops. The self-preservation voice. My SP voice said to me, “Dude. Listen to your wife. She is telling you that you’re neglecting her, and the family. Not cool. Not cool.”
Now, here’s something about me: I don’t do well with ultimatums. More than once in my life I’ve gone and done something, specifically to spite someone who tried to tell me what to do. Matter of fact, it was a major contributing factor in my desicion to leave Star Trek.
So I did listen to her, and she didn’t give me an ultimatum. She said that she was starting to resent the computer, and me, because the family is suffering. I could hear the sadness in her voice, as she told me that it was up to me to figure out how to balance this stuff out.
Thing is, she’s right. I didn’t realize it, but I’m putting in more than half of my waking hours on this, between reading and replying to emails, reading the comments here, and (recently) at fark, and posting comments of my own. I mean, I am constantly listening for the new mail sound, so I can run over here and reply, and I’m checking the site a few times an hour for new comments and discussion. Anne told me that the kids are bummed that I’m doing so much stuff on the website, and not just hanging out, and that’s just not cool.
In my efforts to make myself accessible to people who I’ve never even met, I have made myself inaccessible to the people who love and need me the most: my family.
Thing is, if my relationship with my wife is not taken care of, and isn’t the first priority in my life, everything else seems to fall apart. It’s corny and cliche, but Anne is everything to me.
So here’s the deal:
I love my wife and I love my step-kids, and, while I feel a sense of responsibility to everyone who comes to visit here, and I really do want to reply to all the emails, and take part in the discussions, I’m going to have to let this take a back seat for a bit, and focus my time, attention, and energy on my family.
The short term result of this will mean a greater lag time in replying to emails (sorry in advance, though you’ll still get the autoresponse) and even less AIM time. I will still update the blog, because the Vega$ story really is cool, and I’m having a fun time writing it, but cut me some slack if I don’t get right back to you, okay? It’s nothing personal. It’s just a re-focusing of my priorities.

Call To Action

I don’t, and won’t do this very often. The purpose of my weblog is to tell my stories, and let you know what I’m thinking about. I get on my soapbox, to be sure, but not like this, and not very often. But these are dangerous times that we’re living in, and this is very serious.
The summary is: John Ashcroft is trying to force through laws that run completely counter to the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and he is doing it right now because we’re all scared of terrorism.
But the terrorist threat will be taken care of someday, and these laws will still be around, for the gleeful abuse of anyone who wants to silence you.
I listened to Congress “question” Ashcroft today. I put “question” in quotes, because, as a member of the SAG Board Of Directors, and through serving on lots of committees there, I have learned to discern the difference between posturing and speechmaking, and actual questioning to help inform debate, and help someone decide how to vote.
What I heard today, on NPR, was posturing and speechmaking from the committee, not real questioning, because everyone knew what would happen: no one dares oppose this sweeping legislation that Ashcroft, Bush, and Company are asking for, lest they appear “soft on terrorism”. We have seen the amazing success of a congress who refuses to be “soft on drugs”, right? I mean, they’ve done a great job, right? There’s no drug problem anymore, right? Our prisons aren’t full of first time, non-violent offenders, right? Yay. Go Congress!!
The Electronic Frontier Foundation posted the following background today. I quote it here:

Attorney General John Ashcroft distributed the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act/Mobilization Against Terrorism Act to members of Congress after Monday’s press conference at which he indicated that, among other measures, he would ask Congress to expand the ability of law enforcement officers to perform wiretaps in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Ashcroft asked Congress to pass anti-terrorism legislation including “expanded electronic surveillance” by the end of this week. The PSCSEA bill appears to be a “backup plan” for S.A. 1562; if it does not pass as part of H.R. 2500, it can be reintroduced separately in slightly different form as a new bill. Sen. Patrick Leahy is also expected to introduce a more moderate proposal sometime early next week.
One particularly egregious section of the DOJ’s analysis of its proposed legislation (ATA/MATA) says that “United States prosecutors may use against American citizens information collected by a foreign government even if the collection would have violated the Fourth Amendment.”
“Operating from abroad, foreign governments will do the dirty work of spying on the communications of Americans worldwide. US protections against unreasonable search and seizure won’t matter,” commented EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien.
Additional provisions of the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA)/Mobilization Against Terrorism Act (MATA) (whatever the final name will be) include measures which:
make it possible to obtain e-mail message header information and Internet user web browsing patterns without a wiretap order;
eviscerate controls on roving wiretaps;
permit law enforcement to disclose information obtained through wiretaps to any employee of the Executive branch;
reduce restrictions on domestic investigations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA);
permit grand juries to provide information to the US intelligence community;
permit the President to designate any “foreign-directed individual, group, or entity,” including any United States citizen or organization, as a target for FISA surveillance;
prevent people from even talking about terrorist acts;
establish a DNA database for every person convicted of any felony or certain sex offenses, almost all of which are entirely unrelated to terrorism;
EFF Executive Director Shari Steele emphasized, “While it is obviously of vital national importance to respond effectively to terrorism, this bill recalls the McCarthy era in the power it would give the government to scrutinize the private lives of American citizens.”
During the Congressional session considering the Combating Terrorism Act, which was introduced as amendment S.A. 1562 to an omnibus appropriations bill, H.R. 2500, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) expressed concern that he was asked to vote so rapidly on such important legislation within minutes of receiving it and without conducting hearings in the Intelligence, Armed Services and Judiciary committees:
Maybe the Senate wants to just go ahead and adopt new abilities to wiretap our citizens. Maybe they want to adopt new abilities to go into people’s computers. Maybe that will make us feel safer. Maybe. And maybe what the terrorists have done made us a little bit less safe. Maybe they have increased Big Brother in this country.
If that is what the Senate wants, we can vote for it. But do we really show respect to the American people by slapping something together, something that nobody on the floor can explain, and say we are changing the duties of the Attorney General, the Director of the CIA, the U.S. attorneys, we are going to change your rights as Americans, your rights to privacy? We are going to do it with no hearings, no debate. We are going to do it with numbers on a page that nobody can understand.
EFF shares Senator Leahy’s concerns in this time of national crisis. EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn commented, “These proposals significantly impact the civil liberties of Americans. We urge legislators to please slow down and consider the long-term consequences of your votes.”
“I believe that deep in their souls, Americans understand that the reason this country is so great–is so worth defending–is because it is free,” explained EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. “We should be very careful to make sure that any legislation that passes is truly needed to address national security concerns.”
During World War I, the US Congress hastily passed the Espionage Act which was notorious for decreasing freedoms without improving the security of the American public, under which Congress granted the Postmaster General (who delegated it to 55,000 local postmasters) the authority to read any mail and remove any material that might “embarrass” the government in conducting the war effort.

So here’s the call to action: Gohere, and write, call, fax, and email your congressperson, and let them know that this scares the shit out of you. EFF has sample letters, and a very easy form to use to email your government officials.
Ashcroft is seeking to broaden the definition of “terrorist” to include ludicrous things, that defy common sense. I quote something I posted at Fark today:

If I remember my American History correctly, the founding fathers that Bush & Co. are so gleeful to invoke when it serves their message founded the USA the way they did, because they felt that governments had a tendency to oppress their citizens.
Keeping our critical thinking pants on, and taking off our emotional, angry, freaked-out-because-of-september-11th-pants, let’s think about this: things like a national ID card, backdoors for crypto, and expansion of search-and-siezure abilities for law enforcement have been things The Man has been trying vigorously to get over the last few years. Historically, government has taken advantage of times like these to expand their powers…and I don’t like that.
Does it bother anyone else that we have an “Office of Homeland Security”? Sure, it’s a good idea now, but I see the ghost of McCarthy looming just over the horizon.

Anyone who is not terrified by this cynical powergrab either doesn’t understand the issues, is living in a dreamworld, or is George W. Bush.
Please, please, please, if you never do anything else I ask you, please, I implore you, don’t sit on this. Our American way of life is in grave, grave danger.

Tnagent

This started out as “The Return of the Son of SpongeBob Vega$Pants”, but it devolved into a long tangent, and now I have to leave. So read on, and expect a REAL addition to the story later today.
When we left our hero, he had just signed a bunch of autographs, and was grabbing a much-needed nap.
Now, before we roll the tape again, there’s something that happened to me while I was signing autographs that was really funny, and I forgot to mention it before.
I was wearing this T-shirt that I really like, made by a very cool, subversive company. It’s a black T-shirt, with a picture of a hand making rock-and-roll devil horns, and it says, “Keep music evil”.
About 200 or so people into the day, this woman comes up to me, to get her collectible plate signed, in gold, because John DeLancie signed his in silver, so now silver is the color reserved for “Q”.
She sees my shirt, and she becomes hysterical. She is pointing, at my shirt, and she screeches at me, “You are going to hay-ell! You are going to hay-ell!”
“Why am I going to Hell, ma’am?” I asked back, trying to figure out if she was joking.
“You’re wearing that shirt! And that shirt promotes SATAN!”
Okay, she’s definately not joking.
“So I’m going to Hell, because I’m wearing a shirt? Is that right?”
“Yes! You! Are! Going! To! HAY-ELL!”
“Well, as long as I’m not going where you are, ma’am.”
And she leaves, but not without her plate…
So, I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.
Okay, back to our story…
So I took a nap. One of those naps that lasts only 30 minutes, but feels like a whole night’s sleep.
I woke up, ate, showered, changed, packed my bags with costumes and props, and headed back to the con for the talk, and my show.
For those of you who don’t know what Star Trek conventions are, I’ll make a feeble attempt at an explaination. Conventions (or “cons”, as the cool kids call them) are part trade show, part collectible show, part geek-fest, part love-in. Well, not the love-in part, but it’s prolly better that way.
Promoters hire actors, writers, producers, etc., from the show to come to a hotel conference center, and give a talk and sign autographs for the fans. There are also people who sell collectibles and bootlegs and stuff, and they usually run episodes of the show on a big screen. Think Rocky Horror Picture Show, but slightly less cool.
Going to conventions used to be lots of fun, because we could get onstage and talk about what was coming up this season, dish dirt about each other, and let the fans see us as we really were, not just as our characters.
But since I stopped making the show, going to cons started feeling lame. I felt like I was resting on my laurels, and, quite honestly, I felt like a tool being there, especially since there were 2 other shows on (DS9 and Voyager)–
Oh! Tangent!
This guy comes up to me one day, and he is *SO* out there. For those of you who know what this means, you’ll get the image, perfectly: He was a Gamer.
So this guy corners me, and starts his conversation by saying, “I’m not that big a Trekker, but…”
Okay, here’s the deal. “Trekker” is a term devised by fans who don’t like being associated with the “wierd” ones, whom they refer to as “Trekkies”. So when a guy who looks like a Gamer tells me that he’s a “Trekker”, it sends off a few warning flags. Methinks the Trekkie doth protest too much, you see.
He must have sensed my unease, because he went on, “I mean, I really like the show, but I’ve never been to a convention. Conventions are for wierdos. I own all the episodes on video, and I can quote most of them, but I’ve never been to a convention. Conventions are for wierdos. Sure, I have lots of the technical manuals, and I’ve read them a few times, and I wrote Mike Okuda about some inconsistencies between the movies and the series, but I’ve never been to a convention. Conventions are for wierdos. And I just want you to know that I always liked Next Generation the best, I mean, I watched all the episodes of DS9, but I only watched about half the episodes of ‘V’ger'”…Yes, he called “Voyager” “V’ger”, in a throwback to Star Trek: The Motion Picture…anyway, he finishes up his disclaimers, and begins asking me all these questions about Star Trek, like, trivia and shit, and when I don’t know the answer, he snorts, he snorts! and tells me what the answer is. Now, keep in mind that I am simply not allowed to say, “Dude. You are the Freakest Link. Goodbye,” and walk away. I have to stand there, and take it like a man…which I do.
/tangent
So I didn’t want to do cons, because it made me feel like a loser, standing there, talking about what I did so many years ago…then I saw “Galaxy Quest”.
I *loved* “Galaxy Quest”. I thought it was brilliant satire, not only of Trek, but of fandom in general. The only thing I wish they had done was cast me in it, and have me play a freaky fanboy who keeps screaming at the actor who played “the kid” about how awful it was that there was a kid on the spaceship. Alas.
When I saw “Galaxy Quest”, I remembered how much fun I used to have at conventions, and I missed it. I missed the interaction with the fans. I missed the chance to tell stories about my life on TNG…but mostly, I missed the sex. The hot, Klingon-forehead-wearing fansex.
WHAT?! Just kidding. I just wanted to see if you were skimming or not.
Okay, serious: I missed it. I thought it would be fun to do one again, and I did, and it was, and Dave Scott, the promoter, asked me to come participate in the Vega$ show.
Something about the market for conventions: It’s really changed over the years, especially for the guys from the original Star Trek, and TNG. There just aren’t that many stories to tell that the fans haven’t heard, and it’s not like they can get up on stage and talk about what’s coming up next week, you know? And most of the people who want to collect autographs and pictures have already gotten stuff from all the people they like. Add that to a few evil, shitty, dishonest promoters who’ve come and gone over the years, and the result is: most people are over conventions. So a few actors and promoters got this really nifty idea. This wonderful, awful, Grinchy idea…they needed to add something to the convention experience, to make it worthwhile for the fan to come to the show, and they [the promoters] needed to make sure that they would continue to earn money, so the whole thing was worthwhile for them, too. So the idea, which I hear was hatched by John DeLancie, was to sell an extra ticket for a dinner event, and invite the actors to come to that event, and, when the fans are done with dinner, perform for them.
This is the coolest thing, ever, I think. From the fan’s perspective, it is a chance to see an actor they love, in the flesh, performing for them. Lots of actors wrote their own plays about their characters, and they perform them at these cons. I mean, if you’re a Trekkie, how cool is it to see Nimoy and DeLancie perform “Spock meets Q”? I’m not a huge fanboy, and it was exciting to *me*, so you can imagine.
Now, from the actor’s perspective, this is a great thing. We love acting. We love performing. Is there anything better than having an audience, who, by all accounts, wants to like you, come and see you perform? It’s great!
So, to make this longer without telling you anything new about Vega$, Dave Scott asked me if I’d be willing to do something for one of these cabarets. I thought it would be rad, but I didn’t know what I’d do…see, I really wasn’t interested in writing some sort of “Where’s Wesley Now?” play, and performing that. That would have just been lame. But, there’s this other thing I do…this sketch comedy thing…
As most of you know, I am a writing and performing member of the ACME comedy theatre in Hollywood. We’re a great company, and we have some VERY funny people in the group, so I approached them about doing a sci-fi oriented comedy show for some sci-fi fans. The ones who didn’t run away came with me to Vega$.
We named the group “Mind Meld” and we called the show “Assimilate This!”
…wow. I’ve really just gone in a big circle here. I’ve been writing for an hour, and I haven’t gotten close to telling the stories I want to tell. And now I have to leave for an interview (With the Los Angeles Times, thank you very much!).
So I guess The saga of SpongeBob Vega$Pants will have to continue this afternoon.

Nothing New

I am wildly, passionately, madly, head-over-heels in love with my wife.
Who has been much funnier than I have, the last week or so.
If you read this, baby, I love you, I love the boys, and I love that I am your husband.
🙂

Fark me.

I really want to add a new entry in the ever-expanding saga of SpongeBob Vega$Pants, and his adventures across the 9th dimension.
Really, I do.
But the thing is, the story is filled with lots of very funny things that happened, and I’m not feeling very funny the last couple of days.
I’m feeling really sad. I’m feeling really scared, and I’ve been feeling really depressed.
Thing is, I can’t get those firefighters out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about the people who were on cell phones with their loved ones when the towers came crashing down. I am haunted by the images of people holding hands as they jumped out of the World Trade Centers.
I get angy, and I think, “I hope they find the people who are responsible for this, and I hope they bring back some of those torture methods from the middle ages…I want to be able to watch ravens pick at the bodies of the terrorist leaders, while they die slowly, and painfully.”
Then I think, “I have a 12 year old step-son. If Bush & Co. get us into this multi-year conflict, he could be sent off to Afghanistan to fight in our next Vietnam.”
Truth is, I don’t know how to feel. But I’m getting tired of this “If you’re not with us, you’re against us! My country, right or wrong,” attitude that pervades every place I go.
Fark linked to my WFS story, and someone pointed out my Noam Chomsky entry. And now they’re saying things like:

09-22-01 02:25:33 PM Reave
I am more interested in his previous article ( http://www.wilwheaton.net/greymatter/archives/00000051/*.php )
He is suggesting that basically the US shouldn’t retaliate and just let whoever – bomb the US into oblivion while we try to make peace. Peace is not a bad thing, but I think you need to defend yourselves.