jay ay gee on en pee arr

A few weeks ago, I did an interview with NPR station WSKG in New York. We talked about the road that lead to WWdN and Just A Geek, and I was able to read a little bit from “The Trade.” I’m quite honored to be part of the program, because it is entirely about authors and their books. It was supercool to do an interview where I was Wil Wheaton the Author, rather than Wil Wheaton Who Used To Be Blah Blah Blah and He Wrote A Book.
Though we had some pretty significant technical issues at the top of the program which rattled me quite a bit, and I was in the early stages of a nasty cold, I’m very happy with the end result.
I meant to link to the interview when I did it, but I spent the first three weeks of December with that cold, and then I got swallowed up by The Holidays™. Follow this link if you’d like to listen. The interview runs just under an hour.

Discover more from WIL WHEATON dot NET

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

53 thoughts on “jay ay gee on en pee arr”

  1. You have really distinguished yourself as not only a talented actor and writer, but as a very well spoken speaker. Watch out Wil has become a tripel threat

  2. i just have to say that i am so impressed with you. i’m a bigger fan of yours now than i ever was in the TNG days (and believe me, i was a fan. okay, i still am. geez.) i missed the interview but i’m gonna go check it out now.

  3. hi. i just listened to the interview and i am just blown away by your creativity and humor. i just wanted to say i’m a huge fan and can’t wait for your next book.

  5. Oh my gosh Wil! You suck!
    Just kidding, I LOVE the book, and the interview is awesome. You rock my internet socks.

  6. oh cool! I will give this a listen.
    Since I can’t come to see you in CA
    this will be the next best thing 🙂
    *goes to listen to interview now

  7. Nice interview Will – you really are a relaxed speaker/reader. Nice to listen to you talk. Pity I can’t see you live. You had mentioned “problems” when working with a commerical publisher. I’d love to hear your perspective on working with O’Reilley. I’ve heard that they are a relatively fair publisher – compared to some.

  9. Is it just me or is the anti-bot code getting longer and longer? Maybe you should use a combination of letters and numbers so that you can use a shorter string.
    Great interview.
    I’m also a big fan of This American Life and David Sedaris, which, combined with my taste in music and fondness for poker, must mean that I’m a huge geek on the WWdN scale. What do I get?

  12. After searching to find your book for the past couple of months, I finally found it at Borders.
    I quickly put down the series of books that had grabbed my attention and decided to read your book.
    I’m so happy that I did so. I was a big fan of yours since Stand by Me, but had no idea you were going to be on Star Trek: TNG. ( even though I was a fan, starting with the first episode ) To see you on the series was great, because it was like seeing an old friend.
    I was a fan of your acting work, but it’s your writing that has touched me. Touched me enough were I’m battling my own inner demons. In the past I really haven’t been myself and have been miserable, because of it. After reading your book, I’ve decided that my opinion is the only one that truely matters. For that, I thank you.

  13. Great interview. I was glad to have to opportunity to listen to it. Like the caller who phoned in, I am one of those who found Wesley rather annoying but I also love to learn that I am totally wrong about people.
    Peace

  14. hey! i just finished writing a book report on “Just A Geek”. i flipping loved that book, and i dont read much.
    i laughed, i cried…. it was amazing.
    i had to write an obituary for you, if you’d like to see it, email me at [email protected] (yeah dont mind the SN… its from like 6 years ago… sheesh)
    Much love Wil
    -Em

  16. Nice work Wil, that was a very interesting interview. Was it live ? You sounded very smooth and your answers all held together well…what am I getting at…the average person might have trouble giving a long answer that didn’t wander offtopic, or be filled with “umm…err”. You didn’t do that, and you sounded confident and cool while doing it. Even though we know you’re not 😉
    Are you really going back to self-publishing ? Things not going well at Casa O’Riley ?

  17. Living on the east coast (moving back soon to the Great White North) pretty much guarantees I’ll never get to see you do a reading/con/book promo/whatever in person, so it was great to be able to hear a sample

  19. I’m usually a lurker, but I’ve been reading your blog since the beginning, and I just have to say that I’m quite impressed with how far you’ve come as a writer. I loved reading “Dancing Barefoot” and “Just a Geek,” and hearing you perform “The Trade” during this interview was so cool. Thanks so much for the link, and I’m really looking forward to your future books. But don’t give up on acting. I would have LOVED to see you with Jennifer Garner (sorry Anne). 😉

  20. You mean, you’re really *not* writing just for ME?? 😉 Just kidding. Great interview, Wil! I’m a huge David Sedaris fan, too. “Holidays on Ice” is a regular Christmas listen in our house! Hubby and I laugh our asses off; David is such an awesome author, and the deadpan way he reads just guarantees hilarity.
    You’re an awesome writer, Wil. I know you hear that a lot these days, but an author can never hear it enough. We tend to be an insecure bunch, as well as our own worst critics.
    I hope you make it on “This American Life” soon. Maybe we, your posse, should start an e-mail campaign. It seemed to work with Entertainment Weak-ly. *efg*
    Cheers,
    Aylaleia, Goddess of Justice and Vengeance

  21. This one’s for all us Old School Geeks, Wil!
    Subject: I Was Geeky When Geeky Wasn’t Cool
    Posted by: slyfoot.
    Time: 1:28 am.
    Link: http://www.livejournal.com/community/ubergeeks/257636.html
    […]
    I Was Geeky When Geeky Wasn’t Cool
    I remember wearin’ real thick glasses,
    Checkered shirts even when they weren’t in style.
    I remember singin’ with old Weird Al,
    In the classes of my high school with a smile
    And I was readin’ Douglas Adams
    When all of my friends
    Were diggin’ Stephen King or Sartre or Proust–
    I was Geeky when Geeky wasn’t cool.
    I remember sittin’ in the lunchroom
    Snackin’ up and smackin’ down tight code.
    I remember when no-one was lookin’,
    I was ridin’ where the Rohan riders rode.
    I took a lot of kiddin’,
    ‘Cause I never did fit in.
    Now look at everybody tryin’ to be what I was then.
    I was Geeky when Geeky wasn’t cool.
    Ohh, I was Geeky when Geeky wasn’t cool.
    I was Geeky, even way back in high school.
    I still act and look the same:
    What you see ain’t nothin’ new.
    I was Geeky when Geeky wasn’t cool.
    They called us nerds or dorky for hackin’ unix roots,
    I’m just glad we’re in a country where we’re all free to choose
    I was Geeky when Geeky wasn’t cool.
    Hey, I was Geeky when Geeky wasn’t cool.
    Yeah, an’ I was Geeky, even way back in high school
    I still act and look the same:
    What you see ain’t nothin’ new.
    I was Geeky when Geeky wasn’t cool.
    Yeah, I was Geeky when Geeky wasn’t cool.
    ~Slyfoot

  23. I don’t know if anyone here has ever heard of the comic Voices in My Hand ( http://www.voicesinmyhand.com/ – very Far Side-ish strip), but this week (January 10, 2005) has a reference to Wil…
    ————–
    Picture – Person talking to frustrated alien:
    Person: Say, after the probing…could you get me Wil Wheaton’s Autograph?
    Alien: That’s It!! Deploy the damn weapon!
    Caption: When one person asks, it’s funny. When tow people ask it’s irritating. When 36,371 people ask, it’s destruction on a plantetary scale.
    ————
    In the email version, Bill Charbonneau states:
    “As for the the Wil Wheaton reference… that was just because I needed a geeky sci-fi name to drop in there and who better than everyone’s favourite acting ensign-turned writer?”
    And provides a link to this site.

  24. The caption should have read:
    Caption: When one person asks, it’s funny. When two people ask it’s irritating. When 36,371 people ask, it’s destruction on a plantetary scale.
    – I really need to add the spell check thing to Firefox.

  25. hi. you have probably been asked this a million times but .. do any of you guys from the TNG crew still hang out from time to time? for a movie? for drinks maybe?

  26. I’m really looking forward to the next book you referred to. I especially enjoy your stories about your family, so a whole book of them would rock.

  27. Ok, I just have to say it…I sat thru Python this weekend to watch your performance…all I have to say is LOVE the hair…it was fun…and did you ever sell that house…HAHAHAHha Dragon

  28. Sorry, my bad, I guess you got eaten by the big snake before you could sell the house…it was gettin’ steamy there for a minute though..nice hands. Dragon

  29. Hey Wil,
    Thanks for posting up the link to NPR. I got JAG for Christmas, and I’ve been enjoying it very much. It’s delightful to read your progression from Dancing to JAG. Thanks, as always, for sharing.
    Cheers,
    Deirdre

  30. Great interview, Wil. Always love any chance to hear you read from JAG and DB. Also, it was cool to hear you talking about your voice work and how that whole process began.
    Maybe you’re the next Frank Welker or Steven Blum, eh? OK, sure, Welker does the cartoony voices, but Blum, he does some serious stuff (Cowboy Bebop is a great example)…

  31. I got through the first 19 minutes of the interview and then I had to go to class. (I am in college for the second time) So I tried to finish listening to it just now but my connection sucks at the moment and won’t let me.
    So from what I did get hear so far, I enjoyed very much. I hope I can get the interview to work later because I really enjoyed listening to you talk about your book.

  32. Wil — I’m the loser who was your first caller on that show out of WSKG — I thought it was great that my local NPR station managed to get someone other than the usual dry-as-dirt authors they usually have on (usually local college profs talking about books they’ve written about history or bugs or the history of bugs).
    Also, I have to admit, I do public speaking all the time, I’m not what you’d call a shy guy… and yet I was a stammering idiot by the time I started talking to you on the air.
    But it was nice to get a chance to say hi and ask you a question, anyway. Stay well.

  33. Hey love the new book, I just started reading, yet I can’t put it down, a must read. Also I loved your last book dancing barefoot. Now to be honest we are reading your weblog almost every week now. I hope you the best on your journey of life.
    your friends at http://casecomics.com

  36. I really enjoyed the interview and the book, which I ran out to buy after I heard the interview… But shouldn’t it have been in the Essay section of Barnes and Noble, ya know, with the Sedaris and Vowell, instead of in the Science Fiction section?

  38. YAY the computer Gods have been kind and let me finish listening to the interview.
    That was a wonderful interview. I really enjoyed that and I really enjoyed listening to you read from your book.
    I am also very excitied to hear that you are working on two more books 🙂

  39. Wil,
    I just listened to your interview about JAG on NPR. It was a great interview. You made one comment about a Star Trek fan who criticized JAG because it did not contain enough gossip about the terrible things that happened to you while you were Wesley Crusher. That fan may have been I. After reading JAG I remember sending you a comment saying “I was expecting more details about the (and I quote you) ‘tons of people who booed me at conventions until I cried’.”
    I was happy to hear you admit in this interview that these ‘tons of people’ were actually a statistically insignificant number of fans. I knew we all loved you as Wesley. I also know that the few critics hurt you deeply. Of course this is all ancient history, but the interview brought back lots of memories of times past.
    Freeman 🙂

  40. I don’t mean to get off topic here
    but I was roaming around Amazon looking at some movies and I ran across Secret of Nimh.
    I had no idea you did a voice for one of the characters in that movie!! Secret of Nimh is probably one of the best animated films EVER!!
    I grew up on that film,lol.
    Okay sorry again for getting off topic
    but finding that out totally made my day 🙂

  41. Sonia: Yes. It should be with the Essays, or the biographies.
    I’m sure it’s with the SciFi books because of, you know, all the laser beams and robots and spaceships and stuff.
    And maybe the Soylent Green.

  43. Hey, Thanks for turning me onto Something Awful. I stumbled into your web page somehow and started kickin around.
    Weren’t you in “Stand By Me”? Just saw that 2 nights ago at like 1 in the morning. That was cool.
    Peace Y

  44. Thanks for the link, Wil. SKG is my local NPR station and I’d meant to listen to the show at the time, but life did not cooperate. Now I get an instant replay. 🙂

  46. I am very happy to see that your book is out and once I’m done with the writers residency I am at in wintery Vermont I’ll return to sunny Hawaii and purchase it.
    I enjoy your blog very much and wish you continued success in all of your endeavors.

  47. Gejopr – is that the right spelling of your name – not much fiction for awhile except the DaVinci Code which someone gave me, hardcopy. I didn’t make it to the end but I don’t think it’s as bad a book as people think. Who cares.
    I started to try yours because I keep trying genre. I finally found a murder mysteries series I could manage. Sci Fi — er…
    Bye
    Well, bye bye.

  48. Hey Wil,
    I find you talks so funny, witty and entertaining. 🙂 Will you even get to the east coast, specifically MA to do one of your talks? Let me know as I want to attend. 🙂

  49. You suck Wheaton, and that’s why I check your site everyday and have spent hours listening to you read. It’s why I bought JAG, and it’s also why I just put that interview on my iPod so I can listen to you later. So in summation you suck.

  50. very cool interview Wil – you sounded great and I couldn’t help but relate to “The Trade” – brought back a lot of memories from childhood… i had completely forgotten about the landspeeder’s dashboard sticker. 🙂
    take care

Comments are closed.

Related Posts

Recent Posts