While executing a mission in the War on Shit All Over Our House (Operation Feng This Motherfrakkin’ Shui) last night, I came across a little bag of stuff in my closet. Inside it, with a bunch of business cards, some old incense (Nag Champa is a constant in my life, it turns out) and a bunch of change, I found my sides and call sheet from the first day I worked on Star Trek: Nemesis a few years ago. (One page of my sides is scanned and pictured at right. Click to embiggen, but it’s 1.3 MB, so don’t complain if your modem screams at you and doesn’t want to have a second date.)
There were a lot of things in my closet that were clearly important to me at one time, but it was as easy to throw them away as it was to open the closet door and dig them out: old T-shirts, shoes, hats, and a few little bags of stuff like the one which contained my sides. It was a sort of time capsule of the 2001-2005 versions of me, and I loved identifying the threads that have tied me together all these years: Converse shoes, collared bowling and lounge shirts, nerdy T-shirts, and baseball caps from the Cubs and Dodgers (why I end up with new caps at least twice a year is a great Mystery of the Universe.)
Every time I go through my stuff and find things that used to be important to me, only to jettison them into the great beyond, I feel a certain amount of freedom and serenity that I won’t trade for anything. It’s good to feel like my stuff doesn’t own me, because it’s pretty easy to get rid of my stuff. The other side of that coin, of course, is when I find things that I’m happy I kept, like these sides. I sat on my bedroom floor tonight and remembered holding those sides in my hand, even though I’d known the lines for days, when I was walking from the makeup trailer to the stage when I worked on Nemesis, and I’m glad that I have a physical touchstone from that day. The obnoxious red polyester shirt with the houndstooth pattern and slightly-too-big collar was a nice bonus, too.
Link to the big version is broken.
my browser (silly thing) doesn’t seem to think “<a href=”” is a valid link for an image. Oh well. Thats an awesome keepsake though, glad you kept it for moments like that.
An aside as you de-stuff the house… Not sure what your sorting through, but last I looked you were a bit away from your ‘team in training’ goal for the Rock-n-Roll Marathon. Ebay and a decluttering might make for some opportune fundraising.
Hey, Wil, any idea why I’m being told that the url isn’t found when I click on the picture?
Anyway, have fun decluttering the rest of your house. Sometimes, it really is amazing what you’ll find. Or just plain frightning. Depends on how you look at it, I guess. Have fun!
Shauna
“Save Picture As…” works, until he gets around to fixing the link. =)
I really wish they kept your lines in the movie, but I’m sure it was a great experience nonetheless.
Save Picture As… only saves the thumbnail, not the big version. I tried guessing at the filename, but was unsuccessful 🙂
Isn’t it neat going through all your old stuff. I’m a MtF trans (I think I’ve mentioned this before) and am still early in transition. That being said, having moved recently and having to toss stuff, it was weird finding all these clothes that I tried out when I first started. That and being an avid comic book reader that I am, finding old issues that I loved, though I hated having to ditch some of them. I’m a reader, not a collector, so none of my issues are in good shape (wincing in anticipation of the tongue lashing.)
OK folks- it was pre-6am and Wil forgot to put in the filename for the big image. Give the man some time to live his life before he corrects it.
I’m lucky if I have enough energy to pry myself and my kids out of bed in the first place at 6am. (That said, I’m looking forward to the correct link in there, too.)
I need to declutter my closet too :S
Not looking forward to it, especially since half the stuff is my boyfriend’s collection of random computer cables. And you KNOW that once you get rid of a cable, or put it in super storage, you’re just gonna have to dig it out again.
Then again, I’ve gone through a lot over the past couple of years, and right now, I still need “stuff” to remind me… sounds silly, I know… But it helps get over the tough days 🙂
Link to the big scan fixed. For some reason, Typepad decided to change my link into a couple of unicode characters. Brilliant!
Anyway, set your phasers to embiggen.
I am very proud to have donated a car full of clothes and other items to Goodwill yesterday. I can’t believe how much crap we had.
I didn’t come across anything as fun as your slides though. 😉
I wish we could read more of those sides… So Wesley was due to return to Starfleet after wandering around those “other planes of existence”? I would have liked to have heard more about that. Thanks for sharing!
Sounds like you need a proper scrap book or archive place for the stuff you decide to keep!
What a coincidence. I have been reading your blog for a while now and have just recently started listening to the audio version of Just a Geek and guess what part I just got done listening to. You guessed it, your work on Nemesis. Mad props on the book by the way and just as an aside as I am typing this comment I see you’re plugging Mike Doughty. He absolutley rocks. I was afraid I had lost him forever when Soul Coughing broke up but I recently picked up Haughty Melodic and really enjoyed it. Especially, Busting Up A Starbucks. Well, gotta go and get ready for a hockey game, GO HURRICANES.
I was just looking at that script, which makes me ask two questions.
First, WTF is with it saying Wesley is in a SF Lt’s uniform? Did the author know *anything* about Star Trek that he didn’t get off of the back of a cereal box?
Secondly, Suppose that my brother and I have written a Star Trek Movie Screenplay. Suppose for a moment that it’s far better than the previous few. Do you (or anyone here) have any idea of how to get it into the hands of someone who would read it? We’ve been searching for an ‘appropriate’ channel, but have been coming up zero, and now we’re looking for an alternative channel.
I suspect that simply stalking a producer, director or actor is probably not wise, nor terribly effective these days, but we’re a little shy of a plan elsewise.
Garrett
Wil, I’m so with you on the serenity of not being owned by your stuff — I’ve been on a house purge / clean / organize project with my wife for about 5 months now, and we’ve actually hired an organizational specialist, who really holds us accountable to the process. It’s wonderful to purge out the things that stand in the way of new things coming in. I can actually walk into the library or the office and feel like I want to be there. Also, it’s great appreciating those things you really do still want to keep but never give any attention. It makes nostalgia worth keeping if you actually look at it every once in a while.
I kind of wish they’d kept Wesley in Nemesis – actually, even though I didn’t much like Wesley the kid during the TV series, I think Wesley the man, all grown up and now a full-on Starfleet officer, would have been quite something. He’d have had so much more than your average SF officer – brought up on the flagship of the fleet & all that, with role-models like Work and Picard & “toys” to learn warp mechanics and the like such as the Enterprise’s own engines… It’d be interesting to see how he’d turned out.
Thanks so much for sharing that glimpse into the world of your sides.
And your closet.
To me, there’s nothing quite so satistying as looking at pieces of who you used to be and being able to cast them off, knowing they were there when you needed them – and you no longer do.
Something that I don’t recall star trek exploring was homosexuality… I can’t recall any brokeback moments.
Now, I’m not gay at all, but how revolutionary would it have been if Marina was a gay empath? Actually, that woulda sucked!
I’ve been throwing out tons of stuff that I’ve been holding onto for sentimental reasons for years in preparation for my move to Seattle. It’s weird how easy it is to get rid of some of this stuff. I think teenagers have an instinct to think they know more than everyone else as a survival technique to get out of the nest. I think people in their 20’s and early 30’s get a nesting instinct where they start hoarding lots of crap. Maybe I’m out of the hoarding insinct phase now. Then again, I still have three bankers boxes of role playing games I can’t bring myself to get rid of. Maybe I’m not quite out of it yet.
That’s it?! That’s all?! Two Wesley Crusher lines??!! And one doesn’t really count, because it’s merely a greeting!
One Wesley Crusher line is all we deserve? I thought we meant more to you than that, Wil! Why do you torture me so… WHY??!!
Can you put up the rest or will Paramount smack you upside the head? You know you wanna…
Don’t throw your junk away. Sell it and give the proceeds to the leukemia foundation. I would love to have a Dodgers cap signed by Wil Wheaton.
Throwing away junk is hard to do, especially now I don’t have a local charity shop, I used to get rid of countless vhs tapes there when I started to replace with dvd. As for other junk, I still take old gaming mags to the recycling bins but those drawers are just getting filled with comics and tpb’s now. And my gaming collection stands around 36 ps2 games and 18 xbox games, and probably 11-ish psone games, I am really terrible with games.
I totally commend you for clearing out your stuff. I unfortunately need to perform that horrendous task myself…I can’t believe how many articles of clothing that I have – ridiculous!
Yeah, I watched the Simpsons on Sunday and only managed a couple of chuckles – not the full on laughfest that it once was. It was great that the story involved the Isotopes as they haven’t been to a ‘topes game in quite some time. I think the baseball player and his wife was loosely based on this ball player who married a stripper(Can’t think of his name). Yeah, The Simpsons used to be must see TV for me, but I’m growing unenchanted and disillusioned (or is is disenchanted and unillusioned:-)
I know Wil is a Dodgers fan, but a friend of mine has a great joke he says everytime we go see the Giants play and SBC Park in San Fran (or whatever they call the stadium now).
Do you know why the giant baseball mit is missing its middle finger? Because we gave it to the Dodgers. My friends who are Dodgers fans are not amused.
Got another sports related joke for everyone…
How do Raiders fans propose marriage to their girlfriends?
“YOU’RE WHAT!”
Get it…ha ha ha – I knew you could.
Besos everyone.
I don’t want my first comment to be negative because I love reading your blog, and I have a lot of respect for you and your work, but gotta defend the Boys and their fans.
OK, let me get this straight: you like Grateful Dead music, you download and listen to live shows, you might even dress the part when going to a show, and incense is/has been a big part of your life. But you have this uncharacteristically unrestrained animosity towards the overgeneralized category of hippies? Sounds like you have some of their tendencies. From what I have read of your blog (most of it), you wouldn’t tolerate that kind of intolerance towards other groups. “Hippies” are usually pretty harmless people – save your animosity for people who deserve it. Disclaimer: GD fan, not a “hippie.”