I love it when I hit command-Q when I mean to hit command-W, and Camino doesn’t say something like, “Hey, stupid! Are you sure you want to close down the entire operation? You sure you don’t just mean ‘close the Fark tab, so I can finish up the weblog entry?'” I heart my iBook, but I REALLY need to get it together and fix whatever the gdm / kdm issue is on my RedHat machine, so I can go back to using Konqueror.
Oh well. It’s my fault for not composing offline like I usually do. Let’s blame my tired little brain, mmmkay?
Here’s the incredibly brief version of what I just sent off to the depths of nowhere:
I had a fantastic time at the convention yesterday. I performed material from Just A Geek and Dancing Barefoot to a mostly-full theatre, and I think it was my best performance to date. I took material from both books, and I put it together in what I hoped would be a dramatically interesting order. I started out with two pieces from Just A Geek: the “Didn’t you used to be an actor?” story, which is a good introduction to me and my material, followed by a selection from “Still Cool.”
After that, I read “Can’t See Useless, which isn’t in any book (yet), but I think it’s cool, and I wanted to see how an audience reacted to it, especially an audience that expected mostly Star Trek material. (I think they liked it. It got some good laughs, and applause that was more than just polite when I finished.)
I read a selection from SpongeBob Vega$ Pants that I call “If you lived here you’d be home now.” It’s about the first time I went on Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas, and how it affected me. Then I read “Spare Us the Cutter” from JAG.
The auction thing that preceeded me ran way long (I was supposed to start at 2:10, and I don’t think I started until around 2:30) so I stopped at this point in my reading and told the audience, “I know that I’m running late, and William Shatner is about to start his talk in the big room, so if you want to go catch that, you should probably head out now.”
A couple of people got up, and a woman about 15 rows back shouted out, “I’d rather listen to five hours of you than five minutes of him!”
Applause. Applause. Applause. I’m pretty sure I blushed, and I thanked her . . . I was a little embarrassed . . . but I must admit, that felt pretty fuckin’ cool!
Most of the audience that started had left by this point, but there were still between 30 and 40 people in the room, so I took a moment look to look out at them.
These people are here to see you, Wil. That’s awesome!
“Can I read you one more?” I said.
“YES!!11!” They called back, in one mighty voice. (It was insanely cool, but not as cool as what happened next.)
“Okay. Cool!” I said, and turned to a new page in my notes.
“I first met William Shatner on the set of Star Trek V in 1988 . . . ” I said, as I started the WFS story from Dancing Barefoot, but that’s as far as I got, because they went NUTS!
Screaming, hollering, clapping, whistling . . . it was one of those Rock Star moments that happens from time to time, and I’d be the biggest liar in the world if I said I didn’t love it. I don’t feel “cool” very often, but I did when that happened, if only for a few seconds. I think it’s okay to enjoy that feeling when it happens, as long as I don’t let it consume me the way it would have when I was 18.
I finished the story, and then ended my performance with an epilogue from Just A Geek called “Hooters 2: Electric Boogaloo.”

Throughout the whole performance, I felt like the audience was 100% “with me.” I never felt like I was working to keep their attention, or that I wasn’t giving them what they expected. I had a wonderful time, and I’m grateful to everyone who showed up, even if it was only for a few minutes, to listen to me.
There is also a brief recap of some other stuff in my AudioBlog.