True Dreams of Wichita

Boy, I should really be in bed now, but I can’t sleep.
I think I’m getting sick, and my throat is just killing me. My sinuses are all dried out, and I keep coughing. I think all that smoke and recycled air in Vega$ got to me.
Anyway, so I’m in bed, just starting to doze off, which is a good thing because I have to be up early tomorrow, because we’re filming 2 episodes of my show, and I’m pretty sure the Big Men In Suits are coming to watch us…but as I’m dozing off, I get this idea for a sketch to present at ACME tomorrow night, so I hop out of bed to write it.
When I sit down here, I see that I have email waiting for me, that they’re talking about me at Mike Doughty’s BBS. Now, Mike Doughty was the man behind one of my favorite bands of all time, Soul Coughing.
Apparently, they were pokin’ fun at that stupid picture of me that Robert posted at RetroCrush a couple of weeks ago…
So I read through it, and posted:


“So anyway, Mike (can I call you Mike?), here’s some fanboy ramblings from the artist formerly known at TVs Wil Wheaton: Your band was and currently is one of my all-time favorites, and I was listening to Ruby Vroom this morning. You were a real inspiration to me (along with Burroughs and Rollins) when I was younger and wanting to be a writer.
Okay, that’s the end of my fanboy lameness.
Here’s my stickin-up-for-myself lameness:
We all looked like tools in the 80s. Anyone who denies that is either too young, or too delusional to remember. Unfortunately, I have the joy of my 80s lameness being forever preserved in magazine form for all eternity. And for the record, “Party Naked” was the pathetic plea from a confused and awkward 14 or 15 year-old for female attention. Pink Floyd was one of the few bands I had heard in 1987 who had anything meaningful to say (Listen to Animals, and you’ll get my drift).
In times like these, when I feel mortified at this photographic record, I thank the gods that I never wore anything like Corey Feldman.
Well, at least I was never photographed in my fedora.”

God, don’t I sound like a stupid fanboy, there?
Anyway, if you haven’t heard Soul Coughing, you really owe it to yourself to check out Ruby Vroom and El Oso, at least.
So when it’s 5AM and you are listening to Los Angeles, you can know if the Radio Man is laughing at you, or with you.

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77 thoughts on “True Dreams of Wichita”

  1. Good god, there aren’t any comments. How bizarre. Anyway, Wil! Have you heard Doughty’s collaborations with They Might Be Giants? He does vocals on two killer songs of theirs, “Mr Xcitement” and “Your Mom’s Alright”. Seek them out. Or hell, let me know and I’ll get ’em to ya.
    Anyway, this is only the second time I’ve ever posted here (first time was months ago), but I felt like sharing. Oh, and I have an audition tomorrow! Yay me!
    Okay, done babbling now.

  2. Gawd I look at photos of myself in the 80’s and wish that bastard with the camera had something better to do.
    You said it all Wil.

  3. I’m working on a non-ironic ironic mullet right now.
    Haircut nostalgia.
    Oh for the haircut my mother used to give me.
    Slap that bowl down.
    Hold that head… STRAIGHT!
    snip snip.
    snip snip.
    There. Now you look like the little shitful white kid from after Dif’rent Strokes jumped the shark.
    Thanks, mum.
    Ain’t I cute.
    As for Soul Coughing, well done wil. Almost makes up for that “prince monstrosity” comment six posts back.
    Almost.
    But not for the Cure reference two posts back.
    Don’t make me get my spoon out.
    Anyone else have their parents threaten them with a wooden spoon spanking when they had pre-non-ironic ironc mullet bowlcuts?
    Or is that just me?
    To this day I can’t stir bolognaise sauce without rubbing my arse.
    Or the back of my thighs.
    Or is that just me?

  4. Awww, I thought that was a cute pic! A bit dated, but aren’t all photographs eventually, anyway?
    Geeky teenybopper (is that an oxymoron?) pulling a late-nighter, but I actually have a reason. Sort of. *frowns*
    First time posting, so endure one more line before I get swallowed up in the darkness again–no “aol-kiddie-speak,” but does that include 1337? Sorry, just checking up on the nerdiness quotient. 😛

  7. The 80’s were bad, hey you looked beter than some people, think of it that way, (i.e. corey feldman)

  8. Soul Coughing ROCKS! I first got turned onto them on the X-Files soundtrack, Black Helicopters. I got hooked.
    You should check out the song he did with BT, it’s one of my favorites. I can still remember the first time I heard Super Bon Bon, ahh, good times.

  9. Hey Wil,
    I remember seeing some day time show (gameshow??) about ten or so years ago and the announcer person asked why you were wearing two watches. If I remember correctly, you said it had something to do with non-comformity. I cant believe that my brain has allocated storage for that tidbit. If only only it could have remembered physics this well back in college.
    Anyway, it was just a comment, not a dig. Have a great day.
    Little

  12. Yeah, those of us who lived through the 80’s have their share of really lame photos in even lamer outfits… Like those denim ankle boots, with pockets and all. And I saw the picture of our uncle Willie in his ripped jeans with all kinds of writing on them and it reminded me of my NELSON brothers inspired jeans…
    Yeah, but like Wil pointed out in his post, none of us have “the joy of (our) 80s lameness being forever preserved in magazine form for all eternity”.
    For that reason, Wil, we salute you – you are our hero!

  14. Hey, I’m from Mike’s BBS…. wanted to say hello and thanks for posting and being cool about the whole thing. We’re a bunch of silly folk… but we mean no harm. But I don’t have to tell you that. 🙂
    Thanks again,
    Kaj

  15. hey Wil,
    I’m really really sorry that you’re feeling sick. And it totaly sucks that they make you film w/e no matter what!!! I really hope you feel better don’t force yourself into anything!
    And no, you didn’t sound like a stupid fan-boy! you sounded just fine!!!
    Feel better, Wil, you’ve got me worried because they’re pushing you so hard when you’re sick!
    Lily

  16. I was wondering when you were going to mention Soul Coughing. I love that group, super bon bon super bon bon. I’ll have that song in my head all day now…geesh.

  19. Heh, don’t we ALL have scary photos from waaay back? Dare I mention parachute pants?! 😀 We should all have shirts saying, “I survived the 80s”…..but wait….were they really that bad?! I don’t remember..

  21. I’m glad I’ve never been famous. I can’t imagine all of the things that could be dug up, and posted about the internet. I think the picture is cool. It’s crazy to go back, and see what was in style back then. Just reminds me, that I’m getting older!

  22. Speaking of Soul Coughing – Lazybones, El Oso, Ruby Vroom, the Blue Eyed Devil… always seemed like great super-hero names to me. Moon Sammy less so, but a great tune nonetheless.
    Its sorta sad that there is the potential, with everyone turning to digital cameras and photoshop, to never have a dorky photo in the album.

  24. I adore Soul Coughing. I found them when they were a Hello band from They Might Be Giants. But I missed when they toured together… *pout*
    I definitely don’t think you were the worst of the 80s! I have some pictures that I refuse to ever let see light of day. Thank God I was never fodder for magazines. *grin*

  26. Wil, if you don’t have Doughty’s solo album (only available through his website, or at concerts), you gotsta gotsta get it. His term for the sound is “small rock” (vs. the “deep slacker jazz” of SC), but you suggested that what you really responded to in SC’s music are his lyrics/vocals, and he is in superfine form on Skittish.
    Also, the man needs to release a new damn album. So you should buy Skittish, tell him you really dig it and the apply Minor Celebrity Pressure to find out when he’s going to get a follow-up out there.

  27. (I’m just puzzled that he’s started going by “Mike.” When I was in college with him– he was a year ahead of me– it was always either “M,” “Ross,” or “Dode.”– with an accent on the final E. I don’t think I ever knew the first initial stood for Michael.) While I never particularly got along with him (his 17-year old obnoxiousness didn’t mesh with my 16-year old obnoxiousness), he was a pretty good guitarist/bassist even back then.
    But dig this– Wil, if you, in your Celebrityness, somehow get in touch with Doughty personally, talk to him about….drama. For while he’s a talented musician, he was one *hell* of a playwright even 15 years ago. His music’s great, but it’s depriving the world of an even more brilliant writer.

  29. PAINTER’S HAT..there is a friggin picture of me in a painter’s hat that was all the rage when I was in high school. I also seem to remember someone with a mohawk and parachute pants were everywhere. For God’s sake if the building caught on fire most of the students on the upper floors would have been safe just floating down in there parachute pants. We ALL looked strange in the 80’s. I think that was the point.
    And what is the deal with picking on you Wil. I know I haven’t been reading your site all that long but what the hell is that all about? Is it some weird new national past time that I haven’t heard of like dwarf tossing or cheering on the Kings (sorry I couldn’t resist I am a Penguins fan). Someone tell these people to get a life. Meanwhile I’ll get a sports store to send you a box of athletic cups cause man life is tough sometimes.

  30. I have never heard of Soul Coughing… but I will check them out later today. As a Wichita resident it would be interesting to hear their True Deams of Wichita.

  31. Wil you’ll always be cool..No matter WHAT DECADE
    we are in. Its your birth right!

  32. don’t ya hate insomnia?
    yeah, soul coughing is alright, i’ve heard them before. i just perfer Bad Religion and Save Ferris right now.
    i guess some people will just never understand.
    hey, i happen to like those pants, by any chance do you know where i can get some? 😛
    anywayz…
    fell better wil, being sick and having to work is quite shitty.
    peace, love, and bubble-gum,
    Ronda LOU

  33. Omigaw. Well, that pic must have been 85-86, judging by the fact I wore those pants in 86-87, and the 12-18 month lag for teen trends to move inland from the coast.
    We usually woked in negative relief, using bleach and q-tips to proclaim our teen angst and loyalties. We’d wear long johns or jammie bottoms to peek out the holes, because fashion or no fashion, winter in Minnesota is COLD! My jeans had The Cure, REM (pre-Life’s Rich Pageant), U2, the Suburbs and the Replacements, both of whom I saw in concert thankyouverymuch. Our class motto, the coolest of all time, was “life is free, but you can’t get something for nothing.” Highly profound, and much more useful at graduation than that optimistic claptrap.

  34. But the Gods really WANTED you to wear Cory Feldman……HA HA HA! Ahhhhh gramatical humor…It’ll get me beaten up one of these days.

  35. A man. With a dream. He had a plan. He had a system. He saved his pennies for years on end. Until the planets were aligned and the signs were right.
    He would make Vegas his bitch.
    Howard Hughes himself would crawl out of his grave and shake his hand.
    The Creme de Menthe would flow like water and the transvestite hookers would be in never ending supply.
    But Dubya’s call for insurance parity for mental illness came a little too late for our hero.
    Leaving him a broken shell. Wandering in the desert until he met his fate in a David Lynchian scene involving a coyote and a group of stranded, hungry, chorus girls.
    Let this be a lesson. Vegas will never be anyone’s bitch.
    And if you try, all you’ll leave behind are a few flu bugs to infect some wide eyed, innocent Californian just in town for the weekend with a few friends to do a little celebrating.

  36. I liked that picture of young kid you. I think the 80s kids as we were …are alot cooler..or should I say Rader than these kids nowadays. I think you had style. You still have style. Your clothing style woulda made you the coolest kid at my grade school during 1987. Of course you don’t have to take my word cause I was a pathetic geekish girl with hair clips and bandannas.

  37. Don’t feel bad about participating in your generation’s clothing and hairstyle debacles.
    I know I’m geezin’ here, but the 80’s were not my decade. I’m a relic of the late 60’s / early 70’s. I have shoes older than most of you guys. (I’m serious. I still have the first two pairs of Earth Shoes I ever owned – boots and sandals. What every well-dressed hippie chick was wearing in the 70’s!)
    Funny story about all of my old hippie wardrobe: In the 90’s, I was the office manager of a securities brokerage firm in downtown Washington, DC. A brand-new employee, a little girl about 20, 5′ nothing and cute as a button, came up to me and said she had to ask me a big favor. Could she have half a day off tomorrow? I asked why. She said she felt silly asking, but there was a movie being filmed and she wanted to try out as an extra. “Cool,” I said. “What movie?
    “Well, Tom Hanks is in it, and I think it’s about hippies.”
    “Really?”
    “Hey” she said. “Didn’t you used to be a hippie when you were young?”
    “Yeah, back before electricity….” I said, trying not to bitch-slap her.
    “Do you have any old tie-dyes or blue jeans I could borrow? They need extras to dress up like hippies going to a protest – it’s being shot on the Mall.”
    So, that next morning, I brought in my Earth Shoes, my best comfy patched blue jeans (the ones with patches from every other significant piece of clothing I owned…. more patches than denim and about a gazillion hand stitches) and my favorite tie-dye t-shirt that I MADE MYSELF, my brown suede stash sack with the beads that I bought at the Ann Arbor, MI music festival in 1969, my peace sign headband, my “Another Mother Against War” pendant, my macrame’ belt and my feather and bead earrings.
    That’s how my old hippie clothes ended up in the movie “Forrest Gump.”

  38. Ick! No getting sick! Sick is bad! I totally feel for you. I got the flu in Guam and it was extremely nasty. People coming in from all different ports with germs mingling adds up to a flu that people are hospitalized for. I ended up with tonsilitis and a sinus infection. I was sick for 7 months straight. It was not fun at all. Gargle some warm salt water.
    I have no radio or TV so I don’t know that band or the people in it. But the picture with the watches made me think of something… How did you fit those on your ankle? Were they extra long bands or do you have skinny ankles? Man, when I was that age I couldn’t fit watches around my ankles. I have my father’s legs. Big thick ankles and stuff. Definetly TMI eh?
    I’m bored out of my mind.
    I just went to read that weblog.. Star Trek: TNG is on DVD?!! GAH! Must.. get.. mom.. to.. buy…
    Oh well, I’m gonna go play EverQuest for another 20 hours…
    Have fun!
    luv,
    -Su

  39. That has really got to suck having people posting 80’s pictures of you and poking fun. The 80’s were a horrible time for pictures. I had a freakin mullet. Horriblr memories, and my parents have that picture.

  40. It was either the smoke, the 4.99 steak after hours special, Clinton at Green Valley, Tom Jones’ What’s New Pussycat, dehydration, or .50 cent beers.

  41. Hey Wil! I hope you aren’t getting sick, that would suck! Anyway, I think everyone should leave your pants alone, I am sure they were cool at the time. And did people really wear watches on their ankles?!

  42. Thanks Hot Soup Girl, for the Feldman link. I was having trouble remembering who he was… um, I mean is….
    Hey Will, look at it this way, at least you don’t have to post pics of what you *used* to look like on your website so people will remember who you are!
    OMG! He’s coming here??? On tour!!!! Must get round to digging that bunker I’ve been promising myself….

  43. I think we live in a parallel universes….or something of the like. Cuz it seems like everytime you post something I have experienced something similar in the same time span. Such as last night I was having lots of trouble getting to sleep, which rarely happens, and I knew I had to get up early and clean which always makes it more difficult. Plus I was getting sick last night and now today my sinuses are all blocked up and i itch everywhere. I think mine just might be allergies. Also I had a dream I was kidnapped and taken to the middle east and ended up marrying my kidnappers son. Ok so maybe there are areas in which we are disimilar 😉

  44. So I was loading the new duet CD-single featuring Corey Feldman and Alanis (“Get your freakin’ hands off me you geek”) into my brand-spankin’ new “computer with a neck” iMac and all I get is this metallic hiss.
    Plus a couple of scracky scratches too.
    Wondering what the fuck is up I hit eject and all of a sudden a barrage of sporks shoots out and nearly takes out my left eye.
    Nearly.
    Good thing I was wearing the titanium eyepatch today.
    Can’t think for the life of me what made me choose the titanium – the linen is much more flattering to the gentle ginger tones of my facial hair.
    But.
    There you go. Barrage. Of sporks.
    Incidentally, did anyone see the Australian Big Brother show last week where two of the brainless bimbos chosen to live in each others’ pants for six interminable months of ordinary arse-scratching “I love you all guys you guys are great” adventures where Aaron argues about whether baking soda is the same as bicarbonate soda and Turkan cries because she misses her mum and the whole house gets into fitness because of the cigarette-voiced shrew from Queensland who dresses exclusively in leotards and rugby tops and then if we’re lucky on Thursday night they’ll drop the blur-screens and let us see their charming bare arses for a second or too on the “X-Rated” version of the show, the scene where two of the nimrods were arguing over whether they’re called “sporks” or “splades”?
    Now, I’m not going to pretend I haven’t heard the word “splade” before, but I’ve always gone for “spork” because of its beautiful hybrid etymology.
    spoon + fork = spork
    Or foon. But no-one ever got credibility from saying “I stabbed my thumb with a foon.”
    But splade?
    spoon + blade?
    spade + let me eat this stuff with the impliment in my hand?
    spoon + lemonade?
    speech impediment + implosion + foreign aid?
    nah.
    spork.
    Take your splade and shove it, as J. Biafra once opined.
    Shove it nice and snug.
    But watch out for the tines.
    They can really sting.

  45. Har. My nickname is Spork. In longhand, Sporkney. It just is.
    Gette wore Wil’s pants in 86?
    Ya gotta take the elevator to the mezzanine, yo.

  46. Oh, and I just saw Todd’s post above (first post, first post)… I agree heartily on Doughty’s collaborations with TMBG.
    Then again, I’m partial to TMBG always. 😉
    “Your ass is grass, and I’m a lawnmower”. Hee.

  47. Ok, it has to be said, in that foto, you do have *scarily* big toes. Kinda like a puppy that’s yet to grow into it’s paws. Y’know how they have HUUUUGE paws that’re kinda “outsize”. I’m drunk and I’ll shurrup now.
    PS — Thanks for pointing me in the direction of some PHP stuff a few months ago, I’m flying with it and have actually made some freelance design money from it. WW.NET rox 😉

  48. That’s why I like having been a small child in the 80s. When you’re wee, and like, 5, you can’t be accused of bad fashion sense because you’re not the one dressing yourself. Someone else is buying your clothes.
    Did you put the thingie up on the Soapbox, Rob Matsushita? I must check…

  49. This website freaks me out. Besides being like a flashback to myself in the late 80s/early 90s (e.g., the writing/painting all over my own ripped up jeans and t-shirts), then there are things like the Soul Coughing fanboyism.
    Soul Coughing was an INCREDIBLE live show. I once gave Doughty a ride back to his hotel from the club First Avenue in Minneapolis, where he was hanging out the night after having played there. Well, it just happened that I was the one driving — let’s be honest and observe that it was my female friends that he was interested in hanging out with…
    Anyhow, I empathize with the “sound like a stupid fanboy” worry. I can certainly relate.
    Weird foreshadowing: I looked at this site this weekend for the first time ever, and for some reason it led me to spend the rest of the evening humming “True Dreams of Wichita.”
    (Air in Vegas casinos sucks. Every year we have a trade show there, and usually my wife comes down with a nasty cold/flu after we get back, and the super-dry over-air-conditioned air turns my skin into sandpaper. Ick!)
    #1 Soul Coughing song: BUS TO BEELZEBUB!

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