Month: February 2006

As many of you know, I love my Chuck Taylors. They’re comfy, simple, and allow me to maintain just a little bit of my former punk rock attitude as I take meetings with my kids’ teachers.

Recently, though, I’ve developed a bit of a conflict about my Chucks, seeing as how they are no longer made in the USA, and are, in fact, outsourced to one of the beautiful Nike sweatshops happy factories that are such an important part of the Chinese economy (especially among 10 year olds young go-getters.)

I just now came across a company which sells shoes that look almost exactly like Chuck Taylors, but are made by union workers in completely non-sweatshop conditions. And the best part? They cost just about the same as Chucks.

The company is called No Sweat Apparel. They sell their low tops for $40  and their high tops for $42. Shipping to Los Angeles cost me $6, so when all is said and done, I figure that I’m spending about $3 more than if I went to Shoe City or something, but I have the convenience of shopping in my underpants while drinking a Stone Pale Ale, easy shipping to my office, and the warm, fuzzy, happytown knowledge that no people were exploited in the production of my future footwear.

For the cynical among you: I’m not getting anything from No Sweat. I just think this is a really cool company, doing a really cool thing, and  any group of people who are supporting the concept of Trade, Not Aid are doing good stuff, as far as I am concerned. There’s a bunch of news stories about the company at their website, and you can learn more about truly fair trade (not the bullshit Republican kind) at Wikipedia.

My nifty new shoes should arrive in a few weeks. I’ll follow up and let you all know if they’re as swell as I hope they are.

(discovered via boingboing.)

One of Anne’s clients, who works for Disney, hooked us up with passes to Disneyland, so we took the kids on Saturday. Holy shit – did you know that it costs over $80 for an adult ticket now? That’s insane.

So we started out in California Adventure: Tower of Terror (awesome), California Screamin’ (awesome, but made me sick this time) and Soarin’ over California (probably my favorite ride in DCA). We then made our way across the entry plaza to Disneyland.

"Where do you guys want to go first?" Anne said.

"Space Mountain!" Ryan said.

"Yeah! Space Mountain!" Nolan said.

"Back to the tortilla factory in DCA!" I said.

Believe it or not, there were actually crickets chirping near the turnstiles. Weird.

Disneyland wasn’t crowded at all, even though it was a Saturday, and we quickly made it over to Tomorrowland, where we discovered that, even at 11 in the morning, there was already a 90 minute wait for Space Mountain. We picked up Fast Passes, and decided to head over to Indiana Jones.

You know what would be so cool? If Disney redesigned Tomorrowland to look and feel very similar to the way it did in 1955. Bring back the people movers, and move the rockets back up to the top of the people mover loading platform. Get rid of that stupid Innoventions atrocity, and put Inner Space back in its place. The idea is that our world is dangerous and uncertain, and looks to stay that way for a long time, so why not give people a place where they can enjoy the safety of 1950s nostalgia, and a "future" world that’s ultra modern? I bet it’d be a big success.

On the way to Indiana Jones, Ryan suggested that we go to Haunted Mansion, then Pirates, the Indiana Jones, so we could work our way back through what little crowd there was.

"The thing is," I said, "Pirates is closed for four months."

"Why?" Anne said.

"Because they have to totally screw it up, and make it tie in with the movies."

Anne gasped a little bit, as we passed the Tiki Room.

"Yeah," I said, "I read about it at blogging.la and Miceage. They’re replacing the big old pirate ship with the Black Pearl, and they’re putting animatronics of actors from the movie into the ride. They closed it down yesterday."

We rounded the corner into the heart of Adventureland. 

"That’s sad," Anne said, "but there are a lot of people who will see the movie before they’ve ever been on the ride, so maybe that makes sense to Disney."

"But the ride has been fine for over thirty years," I said, "even if they made those stupid PC changes in the 90s. I don’t know if the movies have that sort of trans-generational appeal."

We walked into a huge crowd of people around Indiana Jones.

"Did you just say ‘trans-generational appeal?" She said.

Before I could answer, I saw something I didn’t expect: a huge line of people, going into Pirates of the Caribbean!

I squealed, hopped, and pointed.

"Look! Pirates! Open! Wheee!"

I grabbed Anne’s hand, and pulled her with me, as I ran like a five year-old to the line. The kids kept up, and didn’t seem to be embarrassed when I did a little "ohmygodthepiratesarestillopen" dance in line.

"Oh my god," I said, "this is so cool! I am so happy that I get to ride this one last time before they change it!"

"Yeah, that’s pretty awesome," Nolan said. I looked at him to make sure he wasn’t being sarcastic. He was sincere.

The line moved quickly, and twenty minutes later, we were at Laffite’s Landing, boarding our little boat, right behind the guy who figured his infant child would have a really good time in the dark, with the loud noises.

Yeah. After the first drop, the kid screamed and cried. When its dad tried to comfort it, he actually ended up pointing the kid over his shoulder at me and Nolan, so the kid ended up screaming in our faces. Awesome.

Anne and the kids all looked at me. I just shook my head and sighed. I did my best to tune out the crying, which stopped for a few brief moments near the bridal auction scene but really picked up again when we passed the jail scene.

When the ride was over, Nolan said to me, "Why do people bring little babies places where they are just going to cry?"

"I have no idea," I said.

"Even I know that the loud noises and sudden movements would freak a baby out," he said.

"Yeah. I guess that guy really wanted to go on Pirates."

We headed out into New Orleans Square, and turned to go to the Haunted Mansion . . . which was closed.

"Aw, crap." Ryan said. "The Haunted Mansion is closed."

"They must be taking down Nightmare Before Christmas," Anne said.

"Okay, we’re going to Indiana Jones!" I said.

We did, and it was awesome. Then we went over to Frontierland so the kids could play at the shooting gallery, and then to Fantasyland to ride Mr. Toad. That line moved crazy fast, like less than ten minutes, and before we knew it, we were at the front of the line.

Nolan rode with Anne, and Ryan went with me. "Do you want to drive?" He said.

"No," I said, "you have your permit now, so let’s see how you do."

He laughed and sat down into the car, named "Mac Badger."

The ride operator lowered the safety bar, and we launched out of toad hall, crashing through the library, exploding out of the fireplace, and speeding out into the countryside.

Ryan spun the wheel, while I shouted out, "Look out for the cop!" and "Left! Left! Left!" and "don’t drive off the end of the dock!"

We were seriously cracking each other up, and as we burst through the exploding TNT room, I took a mental snapshot of the moment: here we are, on our way to nowhere in particular, laughing like crazy, and enjoying the simple joy that comes with being together.

That’s when the ride broke down.

Suddenly, flourescent lights came on, and the magical world of Mister Toad evaporated. From somewhere else in the ride, I heard a voice cry out, "booooo!"

"What?" Ryan said.

"Please stay in your vehicle," a voice said over a loud speaker. "You will be escorted out of the ride shortly."

"Clearly, you broke the ride with your terrible driving," I said.

"I did not!"

"You did so."

I held up my hand and extended one finger. "You knocked the guy off the ladder."

I held up another finger. "You crashed through the fireplace."

Another finger. "You almost hit the bobby."

A fourth finger. "Then there was that whole thing with the bridge," a fifth finger, "and the dock."

Ryan’s face broke into a huge smile as I held up my other hand.

"Then there was the warehouse, and the exploding TNT. That’s seven –" I showed him my fingers, "seven brushes with death. Obviously, they had to stop the ride before you crashed the car."

"Yeah, and ended up hitting a train and going to Hell," he said.

We cracked up together, and waited until we were walked out of the ride a few minutes later, picking up Anne and Nolan on the way out.

"Did you break the ride?" Anne said.

"I think it was for my own good, mom," Ryan said.

After Mister Toad, we picked up our jackets from our locker (where I gave my locker combo ticket thingy to a guy with two little kids who couldn’t find an open locker, because we didn’t need it any more. I like to do things like that, because helping people is awesome, and it increases the kindness in the world by +1) and headed over to the Matterhorn.

"I’m going to sit down and have a time out," I said. "So you guys go on the ride, while I sit here and recharge."

"Okay," Anne said. It was a nice twenty minutes or so for me to just sit down and reflect on how much fun we were all having, and how great it felt to spend the day together. I spent a lot of time at Disneyland when I was in my teens, because my best friend and I had annual passes. Consequently, Disneyland is more than just the happiest place on earth to me: it’s a real touchstone to some of the happiest days of my life, and it was so wonderful to sit there, recall those carefree days of my youth, and feel good about where I am now, sharing this joyful place and all its associated memories with my family.

After Anne and the kids came off the ride, we headed over to Space Mountain, which we’d been looking forward to riding all day. Anne always gets sick on it, so she sat down for a time out of her own while the kids and I walked up to the entrance, and discovered that Space Mountain was broken down.

We patiently waited for about twenty-five minutes, before the ride was back online, and the line started to move again. Thanks to our fast passes, we were inside the ride in less than five minutes.

I hadn’t been on Space Mountain since they refurbished it, and it’s amazing. First of all, Disney got rid of all that stupid Federal Express advertising bullshit that was everywhere, and made it more of a retro space adventure again. The track has been rebuilt, and the ride is smoother than ever. The projections are beautiful, and the starfield effects, which had really lost their luster over the years, looked as magical as I remembered them being when I was a little kid and rode Space Mountain for the first time.

We met up with Anne after the ride, and told her how much fun it was.

"Mom, you totally should have gone on it!" Nolan said. He then proceeded to describe every minute detail of the entire thing.

"Man, now I wish I’d gone on it," Anne said. "Oh well, next time."

It was about 7PM, I guess, and as we walked out across Tomorrowland, all four of us hit "the wall."

"Hey, guys?" Ryan said, "I’m kind of tired."

"I was just going to say the same thing!" Nolan said.

"Yeah, me too," I said. "My feet and legs are killing me."

"Are we done?" Anne said.

We all looked at each other. Yeah, we were done.

"I think so," I said. "I know we all wanted to see the fireworks, but I know that I’m going to be really gumpy in two hours."

"Yeah, I have maximized my funtime," Nolan said.

And just like that, we headed for the exit.

At the hub, right in front of the castle, Anne said to me, "Hey, did you want to try for the Jungle Cruise?"

The Jungle Cruise is one of my favorite rides, ever, especially when the skipper has his or her pun-o-meter spiked up at 11. I’m not ashamed to admit that. In fact, I’m proud of it.

I looked at the kids. "What do you guys think?"

"Sure, let’s see what the line looks like," Ryan said.

"Yeah, if it’s too long, we’ll blow it off," Nolan said.

"w00t." I said.

We walked over to the Jungle Cruise, and saw that the wait was, in fact, over thirty minutes. I like the Jungle Cruise, but I don’t like it that much.

"I like the Jungle Cruise," I said, "but not that much."

As quickly as we walked into Adventureland, we walked out. When we passed the Tiki Room, I said, "Hey! Let’s go into the Tiki Room!"

"Yeah! The birds sing words and the flowers croon!" Nolan said.

"How did you know that?" I said.

"I don’t know," he said. "I just do."

"Isn’t it lame?" Ryan said.

"No, Ryan," Nolan said, "it’s so cool."

"I’ve never been in the Tiki Room," Anne said, and that sealed it. We walked through the turnstile just as the doors opened to seat a new show.

Okay, I don’t think I’ve been in the Tiki Room in at least fifteen years, so I’d forgotten most of it . . . but it’s just awesome. We all loved the show, especially the singing tiki guys.

On our way up Main Street, Anne said, "I love it that we went into the Tiki Room, because I’d never been in it before. It was so cool to experience something new at Disneyland, after all these years."

By the time we made it back to the car, we were all exhausted. The kids were both asleep by the time we got to the freeway, even though it wasn’t even 8PM. It was an incredibly fun day, and it wasn’t until I wrote this all down that I realized how many of the rides broke down. It’s cool to me that we had such a great time there, we didn’t even notice.

There’s one thing I forgot to mention: While we were standing in line for the parking lot tram, Nolan looked up at me, held one hand up in the air dramaticaly, and sang, William Fucking Shatner-style, "It’s! A! World . . . oflaughter! It’s! A! worldof . . . cheer! It’s! A! World! Of! . . . hopeand . . . a world! ofFEAR!"

He went on to sing the entire song, complete with very emotional facial contortions and dramatic pauses. By the time the tram arrived, I was laughing so hard, my sides hurt and tears rolled down my face. It was so funny, and so unexpeected, I forget to ask him where he picked it up.

Though I suspect he may have answered, "From you, okay?! I learned it by watching you!"

I didn’t get in my ten rambling minutes this morning, so how about now?

I had the weirdest dream last night: I was sitting in a cardboard box, and by sheer force of will, I was able to make it race along the streets in my neighborhood.

I sped down my block, around the corner, and down three streets to The One With A Hill On It, where I saw my friend sitting on someone’s porch, with three other people (random dream extras from central casting, no doubt.) I waved at him, he waved back at me, and my box sped away. The next thing I knew, I was in Huntington Beach, and the box wouldn’t move any more. Then I woke up.

A different friend (I guess I should just fudge here, and say it was the same friend, but I’ve already typed all this out so I’ll leave it as is) of mine can be described thusly: if we’re having a party, and we invite him, more often than not he’ll tell us that he can’t make it. If we ask him to help us move, or paint, or install sod in the yard, or whatever, he’ll drop whatever he’s doing and be at the door before we hang up the phone. If you have a friend like that, you’re lucky as hell. If you are a friend like that, you rule.

It was sunny, and in the mid-80s here today, a perfect day for getting the hell out of the house. I wrote all morning, then took a huge walk around my neighborhood, where I saw that a lot of my neighbors had the same idea as me. I came home, and with about 90 minutes to spend however I wanted before I got the kids from school, I watched Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket. Man, I really liked this movie, more than Royal Tenenbaums, almost as much as Rushmore. Owen Wilson is a better actor and writer than he gets credit for.

The 90s were a great decade for indie movies, weren’t they? Films like Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, plus Swingers, Pulp Fiction, Dazed and Confused, Party Girl, Office Space, The Day Trippers . . . I’m sure there are more, but these are a few that I can pick right off the top of my head. I remember that we used to joke that there were two kinds of films in the mid-90s: those with Erick Stoltz, and those without. (It was much funnier then, especially among movie geeks, as was its Parker Posey variant.) It was easy to feel inspired back then, because for every Godzilla, there were five Killing Zoes.

I‘m doing three hours tonight on my friend David Lawrence’s show, which is conveniently titled The David Lawrence Show. You can tune in on Sirius and XM, or stream online. Links and instructions are at David’s site. The show starts at 7PM PST, and I’d love to take phone calls, instant messages, or e-mails from WWdN and WWdN:iX readers.

Earlier this week, I wrote on CardSquad that other than my Tuesday and Thursday games at PokerStars, I’m taking a serious break from playing poker. I have been running so bad lately, and I’ve been so consistently unlucky, it’s just not fun. So while I’ll continue to write about it, and I’ll continue to enjoy watching it on TV, my own play will be limited for the near future.

This pays off, I promise. So don’t think this is another one of those poker stories and skip over it, okay?

I also have to take a break, because losing in poker games has struck a very raw and very exposed emotional nerve with me: I’ve felt like a complete and total loser the last few weeks, and not just because I’m not winning at cards. In real life, I’ve been withdrawn and depressed, even (especially) around my wife and kids. So yesterday, when I walked to the bookstore, I was honest with myself about why I feel so lousy: I am still hurt, and angry, and disappointed with the way O’Reilly completely fucked up Just A Geek. More than that, I’m hurt, and angry, and disappointed at the way I was treated, as a person and as an author. It’s completely out of my hands, now, and I’ve learned an awful lot from the experience about the vast gulf between what people say and what people do, and the importance of getting things in writing, but it still makes me want to alternately break things and cry when I think about the totally wasted opportunity, and how mislead I was during the whole thing.

I worked hard on Just A Geek, and I put my faith and trust into other people to help me share it with the world. At the end of the day, I just feel like I worked real hard so I could get a miniscule cut of the profits, and my work wasn’t even shared with anyone I couldn’t have reached on my own. The fact that they insisted on promoting it as a Star Trek book, which I correctly warned them would severely limit its audience and appeal, after I was promised that they wouldn’t, just adds to the feeling of betrayal and disappointment. It’s very hard for me to even look at the book on my bookshelf and feel good about it, and I hate that. I know that there’s nothing to be gained from wallowing about it, but it’s there. I guess I just have to accept that I was mislead and taken advantage of, and never let that happen again. Taking control of future publishing is easy — I already proved that with Dancing Barefoot. But getting over that sense of betrayal anddisappointment . . . well, it’s not as easy. But at least I’ve honestly identified it, and maybe I’ll be able to move on from it now. I feel like a loser because I wanted so badly to believe everything they said, that I ignored my instincts when my instincts told me it was too good to be true.

In Radio Free Burrito Episode Zero, I talked about an audition I had for a sitcom, where I totally nailed it. I left feeling better than I’ve ever felt about an audition in my life, and I knew that I was, as they say, "The Guy." The casting people, producers, writers, and everyone else felt the same way, and I was one callback away from booking an awesome job, on a hilarious show, with all the freedom, success, and opportunity being on the next Friends would bring.

The callback happened while I was out of the country for the poker tournament in the Bahamas, and there was no way at all to make the schedules work out. I told myself that if I was meant to get the job, they’d find a way to reschedule, but that was incredibly unlikely since it would be over ten days until I’d be back. Of course, they couldn’t reschedule, and I lost the job. Actors spend their entire careers trying to get an opportunity like that one, and when I finally got it, I lost it. I feel like a complete loser because I don’t know when another opportunity like it will come along, or if I’ll ever have another chance like that in my career, where I pretty much just have to show up to get the gig.

I understand that by any rational metric, I have a fucking great life, and I’m not going to pretend that I don’t, or be ungrateful for the things I have. But the fact is, I’ve felt frustrated, tired, and depressed for weeks.

So what? What am I going to do? Sit in the corner and feel sorry for myself? That’s not going to do anyone any good. Go on a raging bender, crash my car, pick up some tabloid press and get my own reality TV program? That is so 2002.

Aware of the reasons I have felt unhappy, I decided to spend some time thinking about what makes me happy. What makes me feel good about myself? What do I look forward to, everyday? It should come as no surprise to anyone (myself included) that the answer is my family. The very people I’ve been so withdrawn from while I’ve felt like shit about myself for things that are totally out of my control. It’s put me on this downward spiral of idiotic self-loathing and self-pity, where I’ve asked myself on an almost-daily basis, "Why am I doing any of this? What’s the point in even trying?"

"Well, stupid, the answer is right in front of you. You work hard to support your family because you love them. You try hard to write good stuff and get acting jobs because you’re an artist and nobody ever said that any of this would be easy. In fact, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing. You can’t change any of these things that have already happened, and you’ll never be able to control how many acting opportunities you get. But you can control how much time you spend with your family. You can choose to make an effort to play games with the kids, take walks with Anne, and be present and involved in their lives. Or you can be a whiny little bitch and boo-hoo-hoo your way into misery. But take responsibility for your choice, whatever it is, especially since you’re now aware of why you feel shitty, and how to not feel shitty any more. No excuses, Wil."

No excuses. I take responsibility for my choices, and I accept that there are things I just can’t change that are beyond my control. I also resolve to embrace the things that are within my control, and not take my family for granted. If I’m completely honest with myself, the brutal truth is: I feel like a loser because I haven’t been there for my family. That has to change.

Yeah, it was a pretty good walk. Two big things, both essentially opportunities that missed after I’d worked so very hard to get there. And poker? I play tournament-style poker, which means that most of the time, I’m going to work very hard to get there, miss the money, and have nothing to show for my efforts. When I made that connection, I understood why I was getting so irrationally angry when I took a bad beat, or finished in 19th when 18 places paid. But my family is entirely different. I don’t have to work very hard to get there, because there is here. Somehow, I’d lost that forest because of the trees.

So last night, I grabbed the Whole Foods Cookbook — which I can’t endorse strongly enough — and made dinner for all of us: borracho beans, cilantro and lime rice, plus grilled tequila-marinated chicken breasts. It reminded me of how much fun it was when I made The Chicken Soup last year. My family sat together at the dinner table and I knew why I am doing any of this. I understood the  point in even trying.

When dinner was done, I had about 90 minutes until my Thursday night poker tournament began, so Nolan and I played Dungeon. We played three games, and we realized that there is a tiny bit of unbalance in a two player game: If you play the Wizard, and take two teleport spells, you can poof down to level 5 right away, cast your other spells into rooms without risking death if you miss, and collect treasure fairly safely if you hit. When you run out of spells, you just poof back to the main staircase, reload, and head back to level 5 or 6. Since the Wizard needs 30,000 to win, you can get it in eight or nine turns at the lower levels, and easily win against the Paladin or Warrior. Interestingly, though, if a Wizard is playing against a Dwarf, it’s a much closer race, since the Dwarf only needs 5,000 to win and can pull that off without ever going deeper than level three.

We played three games to test these hypotheses out. During the second game, Ferris grabbed one of the Dwarf figures out of the box and chomped on it before we could do stop her, so I played the last game as two little feet. When Nolan won, I said, "In my defense, getting 7,000 when you’re just a pair of shoes is pretty good."

"Yeah," he said, "You have mad kicking skills."

After we were done, I sat down to play my poker tournament. It was really fun to play with my friends from the WPBT, especially when my friend Chris was moved to my table a few hands into the tourney. Chris is a well-known aggressive player, and I knew that he’d be picking on my blinds whenever he got the chance.

The third hand after Chris came to my table: I am dealt pocket aces in the big blind. I am confident that I can goad Chris into making a play at stealing my blind, so I type, "I dare you to raise." Of course he does, and I re-raise him. I hope he thinks I’m just trying to steal from him, and I’m thrilled when he pushes all his chips in. I insta-call, and he turns over two queens.

The flop comes K-T-x, and I type, "oh crap, you just picked up some outs."

The turn is a queen, and my only hope is an ace on the river. Instead, another queen comes out, and I lose to quads. I think I was the second or third player to go out.

"It’s Groundhog day . . . again." I thought. "I was only an 82% favorite on the flop. Of course I lost."

If I hadn’t taken that walk yesterday, if I hadn’t spent the entire evening with my family, goofing off with Ryan while I prepared dinner, playing nerdy games with Nolan after, enjoying and appreciating the love that fills my house, I probably would have gone head first out the office window. Instead, I cussed like crazy in irc, sent Chris an e-mail that said, "nice hand, fucker. now go win this thing," closed the office door behind me, and watched CSI with my family.

"I thought you were playing poker," Nolan said, when I sat down next to him on the couch.

"I was." I said.

"Did you get knocked out already?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"It’s not important," I said. Then, "this is important."

"Huh? CSI?"

"This. Us. Family. Together." I pointed around the living room.

"Uh . . . okay, Wil." He said in the "my stepdad is nuts" voice.

"What I mean is," I said, "I love you."

"I . . . love you too, Wil." He said, in the "it’s real good that you did that, now please don’t wish me into the cornfield" voice.

I smiled at him.

"You’re kind of creeping me out," he said with a smile of his own. "No offense."

"None taken," I said. "I understand."

Yeah. I understand.