Way back in April, John Scalzi wrote on his blog:
Arrangements have been made. Wheels set into motion.
At this point, it is inevitable. Unavoidable.
Implacable would not be too strong a word.
What has begun?
I cannot tell you.
Suffice to say it is evil. And yet awesome, in its way.
And it will be visited upon one of you.
Cryptic, but amusing. I know John well enough to know that he’s a devilish schemer with a wicked sense of humor. What, I wondered, was he up to, and who, I pondered, was the unsuspecting victim?
Months passed, and then – on my birthday, no less – he wrote:
Finally. It is done.
And it will be visited upon one of you.
Soon.
Yes, soon.
You should prepare yourself.
Although nothing can truly prepare you.
Because it is evil. Yet awesome.
And it is coming.
It can be held back no longer.
And when it arrives, you will know.
And you will tremble before it.
BWA HA HA HA HA HAH HA!
I had no idea, in April or in July, that I was the intended recipient victim of John’s evil, yet awesome scheme.
But more on that in a moment, because some context is in order before we get to the punchline.
I had big plans to road trip up to Vegas with two of my friends and visit Star Trek the Experience one last time before they sent it to the land of wind and ghosts. Unfortunately, gravity and physics had other plans, and I’m not doing much of anything until PAX.
If you’ve spent any time reading my blog, or if you’ve read my first two books, you know that The Experience is very special to me, delivering some important perspective when I needed it most:
Until this moment, all I have been able to remember is the pain that came with Star Trek. I’d forgotten the joy.
Star Trek was about sitting next to Brent Spiner, who always made me laugh. It wasn’t about the people who made me cry when they booed me offstage at conventions. It was about the awe I felt listening to Patrick Stewart debate the subtle nuances of The Prime Directive with Gene Roddenberry between scenes. It wasn’t about the writers who couldn’t figure out how to write a believable teenage character. It was about the wonder of walking down those corridors, and pretending that I was on a real spaceship. It was about the pride I felt when I got to wear my first real uniform, go on my first away mission, fire my first phaser, play poker with the other officers in Riker’s quarters.
Oh my god. Star Trek was wonderful, and I’d forgotten. I have wasted ten years trying to escape something that I love, for all the wrong reasons.
I was looking forward to this road trip, because love Star Trek, and I love science fiction, but when I hurt myself, my motivation to play through the pain evaporated. See, I’ve been feeling some Star Trek fatigue recently. There are a lot of factors, including being dooced from the Vegas con and the return of the alt.wesley.die.die.die morons, but the bottom line is: I feel like all the stuff I didn’t like about Trek has started to overwhelm the things I love about it. I haven’t written a TNG review for TV Squad in months, because it hasn’t been as fun to revisit those first season days as it once was.
The thing is . . . maybe I’m taking the whole thing a little too seriously. I mean, honestly, why in the world should I give a shit about some random Internet guy who is obviously stuck in 1990? Sure, it’s upsetting that I was the only series regular to be excluded from the biggest Star Trek convention of the year, but it’s not like I don’t have other things to do with my time, and other conventions to attend.
A tangible reminder to not take this stuff too seriously arrived at my doorstep recently. It was, as promised, evil and awesome:
For those of you who are scratching your heads right now, that is, in fact, an authentic black velvet Wesley Crusher painting. It was sent anonymously, and all of my friends (truthfully, it turns out) said they had nothing to do with it (I guess I should have asked John’s co-conspirator, our mutual friend Burns! if he was involved) so I didn’t say anything publicly about it while I attempted to uncover the identity of my mysterious benefactor.
This morning, I sent John an e-mail with some of the awesome comments on yesterday’s post about Zoe’s Tale. In the ensuing conversation, he outed himself as the evil genius behind this particular artistic scheme.
For the last few months, I’ve been focused on the pain that came with Star Trek. I’d forgotten the joy.
Star Trek isn’t about petty grudges or anonymous insults from emotionally stunted people who are stuck in 1990. It is something I did twenty years ago, that inspired a generation of kids to pursue science and engineering. Star Trek is a fantastically entertaining show, even when it’s really, really awful, and I can feel proud of being part of it, without letting it define the beginning and end of my creative life.
Without knowing that I needed a reminder not to take this stuff so seriously, without knowing – in April, when the wheels were set into motion – that around the beginning of August I’d be feeling pretty lousy about getting cut from the show I look forward to attending every year, John did what good friends do: pick you up when you’re down, and provide reality checks when you need them the most.
Star Trek is something that I shouldn’t take as seriously as I’ve taken it lately. I’d given idiots way too much control over how I felt about it, and how I felt about that part of my life where Star Trek and me intersect. I’d lost perspective, and it took a velvet Wesley Crusher to bring it back.
It hangs behind me in my office now, evil and awesome, a reminder to remember the joy, and not take things so damn seriously.
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@hugh57 My favorite lines
Gordie: Suck my big fat one you cheap dime store hood.
Later
Chris: “Suck my fat one”? Whoever told you that you had a fat one, Lachance?
Gordie: Biggest one in four counties.
My boys HOWL huge at that, as well as the whole sicks balls.
Great story.
That is evil, but so very cool. How many people can say their friends found a velvet painting of them?
Honestly, though, it looks like they went Wayne Newton on your hair and Melanie Griffith on your lips.
It sucks that there are others who knock your time on STTNG. When I watched, I always sat there in awe, thinking “Wow, to be a teen on a starship.” I’m sure that there are many others who felt the same way.
Wil,
Don’t worry, me and my buddies are having a road (well, air) trip to Vegas this very weekend to enjoy ST:TE before it’s gone. We’ll have geeky fun for you.
The painting is awesome btw.
-Kevin
@ Jules – How could have someone posted a link a couple weeks ago? Wil only posted the pictures today! Did they go back in time? Or did someone leak the evil surpriseness elsewhere on the intarwebs?
Wil – I KNEW this was going to be an awesome post. Saw the pics on flickr before you posted your post. I am so glad you found the joy again. One should NEVER lose their joy. I know it happens, but finding it again makes it that much better.
SENDING HEALING THOUGHTS YOUR WAY! Love, Mama Gaea
Your blog entry reminds me of recent dating advice I read.
If you get to obsessive over one person, and come to believe the world will come to an end if something goes wrong while you’re dating that one person then you need to take a big rain check. You need to immediately go out and date 10 other women/men before going back to your obsession.
Or another approach in relationships. The one box approach. Suppose you have (A) in a box. And your whole life orbits around (A) as far as you are concerned. What happens when A goes away, you then get ( ) as your life.
Now if you have more than just one box in your life say (A) (B) (C) (D), then when A goes away you have ( ) (B) (C) (D).
So what I’m getting at, and I think it really goes with acting and creativity … you really have to be bigger and wider than whatever play or act you were in. You are bigger than the role you once played, and you ought to have more boxes in your arsenal than just a Wesley Crusher.
And I think you do. Your Blog, your family, your books, your reach for creativity.
Star Trek = just one fine aspect of WW (and many of us who grew up with it). A fantastic part of who we are, but certainly hardly reaches all of what we are and can be.
@Mama Gaea Not too long ago, in response to one of Wil’s blogs (I believe the one of the cartoon of Wil rocking out wearing the Geek shirt) someone posted a link to the velvet painting of him on flickr.
It was either that blog, or the blog of the Stand By Me inspired painting.
This seems to be the photo reference for the painting…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e6/WesleyCrusher2366.jpg
…which IIRC is Wesley’s first entrance in his “real” uniform, one of the moments on Wil’s Star Trek Joy List. And now it’s on black velvet, so there must be a setting higher than Joy.
@Magic Al I have tears in my eyes now. Priceless.
I hate Creation cons – they are too expensive. I’ve never been able to go to one.
While I completely understand how frustrating it would be to be excluded from a con you regularly are part of, you are better than a fan-gouging bunch of apparent jerks.
Personally, I prefer the San Diego Comic Con, which is a good value even at $75 for the weekend, and the smaller cons that don’t stick it to the fans so they can afford to, oh, eat or something.
Anyway, you have plenty of fans who buy your books and read your blog, and some of them are John Scalzi! That’s pretty good company, there.
Enjoy what you have, Wil. It gets taken away far too early.
You know they only dressed you weird and wrote your character a bit weird because you would have stolen the show. Everyone with a brain could see how cool you are despite it. I can’t imagine the pain that you’ve described, though. You’re even cooler that you rose above it.
HAhahahahaha. Yup I remember Twittering about that painting awhile back and I sent you the link wondering if you had seen it yet. Glad it made it to your art collection!
My first year at University, in halls, we would all crowd into the TV room for TNG. I well remember how cramped it was in there for the first Borg rematch…
“I am Locutus of Borg”
Da-Da– Dah! Dah! Dah!
‘The was the last in the current series of…’
Aaarrrghhhh!
All good clean fun. (About a year later, B5 came out – I’m so glad I stuck with *that* one past season 1, little did we know how good that’d get).
Yup my first thought was: Look It’s ensign Woods 😉
Very cool gesture by Scalzi and kudos to you for making it into such a valuable lesson.
You know, Greg Brown has a song called “Jesus & Elvis” inspired by a chance black velvet encounter. I think he’s going to have to update the song.
But paint me on velvet
And do not disguise
The bright silver teardrops
That you brought to my eyes
Hang me up by the roadside
For the whole world to see
Jesus and Elvis
The Confederate flag
And Willie and me.
— Austin Lounge Lizards, “Paint Me On Velvet”
For the record – Of all the Star Trek celebrities I’d like to meet, you’re one of the few I’d really like to just sit down and hang with for a few hours. I’ll admit to being pretty anti-Wesley back in the day, but I am very pro-Wil Wheaton and at this point in my life you’re one of my favorite things about Star Trek.
I was in Vegas a few weeks ago with my family for a dance competition/convention and I really wanted to see Star Trek – The Experience because of what you wrote about your experience. However, time and finances said otherwise and I never got to go. Oh well, maybe ST:TE will be rebuilt somewhere else. Don’t let the haters get you down!
Hi Wil, I hope you’ll start to feel like writing some more TNG reviews on TV Squad again someday, because I love them!
That painting is both frightening and wonderful. And I’m glad it put things in perspective for you.
Don’t let the haters get you down – I always found it absurd that STAR TREK fans, of all people – people who ought to know from their experiences in school how it feels to be judged and excluded by others, and who theoretically should have been taught better by the show – would turn around and treat someone like that.
Anyway, I always thought Wesley was alright. And you’re probably the one Star Trek actor I’d feel the most comfortable meeting at some con and talking to for five minutes (not to disparage the other actors at all, cause they are all cool, but you seem more in touch with stuff folks like me are interested in.)
And hey, how many Star Trek actors have their very own VELVET PAINTING?
(What are the chances of a remastered TNG series coming out in which that painting is put hanging in the background of EVERY POKER SCENE?)
I have been saving this little nugget of info, mostly due to its embarrassing nature.
When I was in the 6th grade, my Mom used to write notes on my napkin for the lunch she packed me. The only one I remember to this day said “Have a great day, my little Wesley Crusher!”
Now I’m pushing thirty, I work in a technology field I love, and yes, the character you played on TV inspired it.
Thank you!
For what it’s worth, Wesley was my favorite character – either because he was the personification of my “I wanna fly a spaceship” fantasies, or because, well, the awkwardness really connected with me. (As I was, well, horrifically awkward at that time of my life.)
That being said, I’m kind of regretting having read this post at work, because I just choked on some tea to avoid spitting it all over some paperwork… (;
Heh!
Andrew, you beat me to it!
I laughed like a maniac when I saw this…and I’m at work. I’m fairly certain they’re calling the nice men in the clean white suits to take me away…
On a side note, don’t let the idiots get you down – if they can’t see past whatever hangups they’ve got from the early 90’s, then they’ve got some nasty karma coming their way.
Never regret things in life. Everything you have done has made you who you are today.
For every person out there that knocks you down, there is at least 2 willing to help you back up.
Ok enough with the lifelong wisdom statements. In all honesty, yes at times Star Trek made you like an android, but the episodes that were bad for you, were also poorly written for everyone else.
Wesley was a fantastic character for me. I grew up watching you, grow up in that role.
Star Trek, and Wesley, made me fall in love with Sci Fi, and for that I thank you.
I think the crushed velvet Wesley is only evil if you either own it or are the subject matter. Lucky you gets the double dose of evil! For the rest of us it is just awesome.
Oh, and nice lip gloss!
I still say you look like a mix of Phoebe Cates, Tiger Woods, and a Thai lounge singer in that.
Evil and Awesome all in one.
And my wife still thinks you’re hot. So curse you.
That is pretty frickin’ cool – the post and the painting!
That’s really freaking cool … but … I suddenly have this urge to become a Maoist and move to China for some reason.
I am so going to sneak this on to my wife’s computer as a desktop picture. She’s away prepping her 4th grade classroom for the little vagrants, and will have no clue… Bwahahahahha, indeed!
GcB
Try to remember Wil, that a lot of us adore you! We appreciate all that you did on Star Trek: TNG, and adore the person you have become. Don’t let the haters get to you.
I’ve said this to you before, but Star Trek and especially your character as Wesley pretty much saved my life when I was a kid who suffered from extreme depression (due to my fathers passing). If it hadn’t been for you, who knows where I would be today.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a story like this, but if you ever feel down about Star Trek and start to take the critisism too seriously, remember your true fans and friends are here for you always.
That painting…it’s beyond words…looks like it has major lip plumping going on…
scary…
Wil, I love the site.. Don’t let those wesley crusher haters get ya down! I always enjoyed the character….
I’m totally keeping a copy of that picture on my computer…
That’s got to be one of the best “WTF” looks I’ve EVER seen…
Actually, if you centered on your face, you could make an awesome shirt with the caption:
Wil says… “WTF?!?”
That is, indeed, both evil AND awesome and now I’m happy to know what the evil thing he was talking about finally was. Star Trek is all about the joy for me. Don’t let anyone ever make it about the crap stuff for you. It was something awesome you started doing 20 years ago that is wonderful, even when it’s bad, and DID inspire lots of people, myself included.
Cheers to John Scalzi for sending it to you. He’s a really cool guy and sounds like he’s a really great friend. Good on him. And on you for reminding us about the good stuff in Star Trek.
Keep healing well! Cheers!
Now there’s a gift that’ll keep on giving. I know it’s superfluous to say that you’ve got one hell of a friend there, but you’ve got one hell of a friend there.
It’s bloody easy to get yourself lost in a maze of twisty upsets, all alike when you work from home and there isn’t a fluid social dynamic constantly squishing new throughts through the brain. Glad you’ve found a way out.
Stupid brain-grues.
I have also felt my love of Star Trek waning, but that is probably because of the lack of material out there right now. No TV show and no good movie in quite a while. I realize that there are a whole slew of comics and books chronicling the “expanded universe” of Star Trek but I just haven’t been able to get into it. I’m glad to hear you’ve had your passion re-kindled just in time for the new movie. I’m trying to get excited about that, but the little cynic in my head just won’t shut up.
The painting is awesome, and Scalzi rocks. I just blew through “The Last Colony” in 2 days and I’m going to pick up “Zoe” this weekend.
Hey Wil,
I and two other members of my Baton Rouge, LA based SciFi club, Star One Delta, will be driving straight from Baton Rouge this weekend to see The Experience before it closes! (voyage starts tomorrow!) I was bummed to hear you had planned to go but won’t make it. Perhaps our paths would have crossed, though I’d doubt you’d want to cross my path after I had spent 27 hours in a car!
Any other situation and I would have refused to kill myself on such a car trip, but I have never seen The Experience and if I don’t go this time, I never will.
I’ll be logging events from my cell phone to Twitter if anyone wants to watch the increasingly scary pictures:
http://www.twitter.com/ashleyxf
We’ll ride the Borg ride an extra time for you!
—Ashley
What a beautiful picture – almost as awesome as the poker dogs or maybe a black velvet elvis!
Now that would turn the evil/awesome to 11: a velvet painting of Wesley playing poker with Elvis and some dogs.
Hi Will
I’m pretty much a newbie to all this commenting stuff but I have been a faithful reader of your blog for ages now and remember the posts when you talked so wonderfully about your fond Star Trek memories.
I was about 6 or possibly younger when TNG first hit the UK and was hooked from the first minute watched it, I loved all the characters but I can always remember sitting with my Dad on a Wednesday night (my parents were divorced so I didn’t get to see him all the time) watching the episodes with you in and thinking he’s not much older than me (relative to the other characters)…if he can do it so can I…and my Dad would always say how Wesley had a great attitude always trying to do his best and that I should be like him at school if I wanted to be successful.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that there is a generation of kids just like me who grew up thinking that you were awesome and that if we worked hard maybe we would end up in Star Fleet…no joke…I once told a careers tutor that this was my life dream, he laughed…but I was happy.
Fast forward a few years and the Star Fleet thing didn’t work out…I’m now in my mid twenties and a college lecturer and that idea, those memories have stuck with me…if anything I try to communicate that to my students every day…that’s a legacy those TNG episodes and the memories of great times spent with Dad on Wednesday will always give me and in no small way I want you to know that.
Thanks, Matt.
(this comment ended up entirely too long, but I’m shameless and not cutting any of it. sorry?)
I’m leaving for Vegas on Saturday. We’re (Hubby and I) are going to be there a week.
The reason I’m going? Because The Experience is closing and I want to see it before it’s gone!
Yes, really…
Hubby’s seen it before (he was in the AF and did a TDY at Nellis) and came home talking about how much I would love it and how we have to go to Vegas some time so I could see it. Fast-forward 9 years to when I read your blog post about it closing. I looked over at Hubby with my sad eyes and told him about it.
The next day I jokingly looked up how much it would cost to go. I quickly found some ridiculously good deals and mentioned them to Hubby. After much contemplating (and wondering if we were nuts to go to Vegas with the main purpose being this One Thing) we booked our flight and room and we’re going to go!
I have no idea why I felt I needed to tell you all this, but then maybe you already understand, since you were planning on going yourself before you got hurt.
TNG was my doorway into the world of Star Trek. My mom never let us stay up late for anything, but when TNG came out, she let us stay up every week for that (because of her love of the original Trek). Watching it, I wanted to Be Wesley so much (I’m 5 years younger than you), how cool would that be? You know better than anyone the annoying/silly lines they wrote for that character, but it didn’t matter, I still enjoyed Wesley and wanted to Be him.
I’m rambling. I do apologize. I blame the fact that I keep coming back to this after getting called away and that I’m sick with a monster cold. It started yesterday, we leave Saturday. Huzzah for Awesome Timing!
Anyway, *thunked on th’ noggin with a flying keyboard* shutting up…
Wesleys character on TNG is what motivated me to get into the tech sector! Glad your not looking at that role in a positive way again! have a good one
My god, it’s full of stars…
Yeah, the painting is nice and all that, but what a cool Fark shirt you have on!
Dude, it looks like some evil Wesley Crusher/Miley Cyrus lovechild-hybrid.
I would challenge any one of those Wes Crusher hatin’ dicks to show us THEIR teenage years and see if there is any fodder for mirth! Don’t take the losers seriously man… anyone pokin fun obviously doesn’t read your stuff now.
And wow, that pic scares me… in a funny way.
You know, I remember how amateurish Creative was when they first started.
Frankly, you could probably organize something yourself.
Doesn’t take much if you think about it.
Have a them for your convention: Creative Nerds Anonymous
1. Rent floor space at some hotel or well known hall.
2. Use your name recognition to invite guests and other notables … bloggers from Internet, nerd creatives from all walks of life, actors, writers, singers
3. Find vendors for all types of merchandise: comics, memorabilia, books, games
4. Schedule events like films, raffles, discussion panels, games
5. Have a highlight for the convention. Some important guest or finale
You could probably do this. It would have to start off as mostly fun, but I imagine after a year or two of CNA it would be profitable.
Isn’t it strange how these things from the past keep cropping up in new ways? Must’ve been similar experiences that prompted Nimoy to write “I Am Not Spock” and later “I Am Spock.”
I had a similar (though less friendly) experience recently when an old-time “fan” cropped up via the internet (like the alt.wesley.InternetHaterzCanSuckIt crew) to slam on the development that I did something on the order of seven years ago for Mage: The Ascension (Revised Edition). Here I am finishing a computer science degree and moving into the video game industry when some stranger comes outta nowhere to tell me how much he personally hated my work, and how he happened to conflate it onto me so he hated me, too (never mind that like any employee I had directions to follow and producers to appease).
For years there I couldn’t even stand to talk about Mage, because the self-proclaimed fans had thoroughly ruined it for me as an experience. Then, just last year, one of my friends asked me for an unusual birthday present – he wanted me to run a Mage game for him. Putting it in a context where a friend reminded me of the positives helped to put a different spin on it, to remind how there were good times and cool things that I did and that it wasn’t all internet haterz all the time. I don’t have any of the old Mage books any more, but it’s perhaps something at which I ought to take another look.
Without the lenses of bitterness (a close cousin to the goggles of beer), the distorted past doesn’t look so bad after all.
In the final analysis, I suppose we both did things that were put in front of a viewing (or reading) public, and when you place your creations in front of thousands of people, some of them will take shots at it. Another one of those painful lessons – or the sort that parents always say “builds character.”
I think the hardest part about being happy with your work is convincing yourself of it. It’s tough when folks take potshots, and when you’re so close that you’re wrapped up in it and it’s part of your identity. It’s not until you’ve learned to find things that make you happy with your own work that you can come to grips with it, I think.
Enough pseudo-philosophical pandering! Now it’s my turn for Star Trek, since I have to write material for tonight’s Star Trek RPG session!
Right on, Wil! That’s the perfect attitude to have.
So, the painting… maybe the cover of your next book? HA! Just kidding.
Does this mean you’re going to get “back on the horse” and do more Star Trek episode reviews?
This oh, so, very wrong…
VERY WRONG.
But I have to ask – Is is just me or does that picture make Wil look just a wee bit like Chairman Mao?
http://iisg.nl/~landsberger/cult.html
(Could someone enlighten me on how to add links like this?)
That is simultaneously one of the best and scariest things I have ever seen.
It is so awesomely evil that it must have a PhD in Awesome Evil.
Though I am a little disappointed, because the “It Has Begun” entry was written on my birthday. *sigh* No Awesome Scalzi Evilness for me!
Feel better soon, Wil, m’k? And congrats on being the recipient of such Magnificently Awesome Evil.