Author: Wil

Author, actor, producer. On a good day, I am charming as fuck.

kick out the jams, motherfu-

Posted on By Wil

@mickipedia at the roller derby

(Photo by me. Click to embiggen and get more info at Flickr.) 

Last night, Anne and I went to watch Roller Derby (which doesn't, by the rules of English grammar, need to be capitalized, but by the rules of capitalizing Things What Are Awesome does) live for the very first time. 

I used to watch it on TV when I was a kid, and grew out of it the same time I grew out of wrestling, for pretty much the same reasons, so each time my friend Burns, who is a referee at the Doll Factory, told me to come watch a derby, I always had something else to do.

About a week ago, Burns told us that he'd get us VIP tickets if we wanted to come out. He promised us that we'd have a good time. Anne and I have been looking for excuses to get out of goddamn fucking suburbia lately, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to see something our friend loves, experience something new, and get out of goddamn fucking suburbia all at once.

We fought through horrible are-you-fucking-kidding-me-it's-7pm-on-a-Saturday traffic (we can't move away from Los Angeles soon enough) and walked into the Doll Factory just before 7:30. I instantly fell in love with the scene: an incredibly diverse crowd of enthusiastic, interesting people mingled around The Doll Mall, a room off to one side of the main building where artists and vendors had all sorts of cool stuff for sale. Skaters from both teams cruised around, talking to fans and each other, and the vibe was overwhelmingly positive.

We found Burns, found our seats, paid way too much for two Newcastles (not the Dolls' fault, apparently, but come on, vendors: $7 for one can of beer is bullshit) and got ready for the derby to start. Checking Twitter, I learned that the people sitting next to me were friends of @Mickipedia, putting them one degree from me through a bunch of different friends, including Sean Bonner, who I've concluded is the nexus of awesome in Los Angeles.

(Fun fact: About two weeks ago, I taunted Paul F. Tompkins during his hilarious #verifypft efforts that I'd get reverified before he got verified. I didn't think it would actually happen, but I sat next to @trammell who works for Twitter, and he was able to speed up my process. I got reverified this morning. Your move, @PFTompkins.)

Just before 8, the derby started. The Dolls' fielded an all-star team called the After Shockers, while Arizona brought the Derby Dames. The match was a blowout – LA won by something like 80 points – but it didn't seem to bother either team, because it was obvious that everyone was having a hell of a good time. All the girls skated like they meant it, and I'm pretty sure most of them are feeling it today, because they beat the shit out of each other for every point.

Unlike the televised stuff I watched in the late 70s and early 80s, this was not scripted or planned or faked or stupid, and by the end of the first quarter, the only thing I regretted about coming to the derby was waiting so long. The entire experience was amazing, from beginning to end, and did I mention that the girls are incredibly sexy? Because holy shit, you guys.

Now that our kids are grown and becoming more independent, Anne and I finally have time for ourselves that we haven't had for over a decade. In the absence of being full-time parents, we're starting to miss all the art and culture that we used to experience before we moved out here for the schools. We both feel like we've been trapped in a Suburban world bounded by responsibility, yard work and the mall, and the only road out is so choked with traffic, taking it is an aggravating ordeal that's barely worth the effort … but I keep thinking about the quote from Ferris Bueller's Day Off about life moving by pretty fast, and I'm not quite ready to resign myself to missing it. Going to the Roller Derby last night, and being around all the non-suburbanized people there felt foreign and familiar and inspiring, all at once. It viscerally reminded me of all the things I've been missing, and I can't wait to go back.

Seriously, guys, if you live anywhere near roller derby, it's really worth making the effort to go and see it in person, at least once. Unless, as I said on Twitter last night, you hate things that are awesome.

the guild season three, recapped … and auto-tuned (contains spoilers)

Posted on By Wil

I'm organizing my thoughts for the obligatory w00tstock post, writing columns for Techland, trying to catch up on e-mail, and generally settling back into the usual work routine after an intense and crazy few days of travel and performance.

Until I can put together all the w00tstock thoughts, though, I had to post this:

Season Four is just around the corner! 

“In a lot of ways, for me, W00tstock felt like finally finding a home base.”

Posted on By Wil

When Paul and Storm and Adam Savage and I had our first conversations about what would become w00tstock, we knew that we wanted to put on an entertaining show for our fellow nerds that would be successful enough to warrant more than the three shows we originally planned.

Sunday and Monday, we're coming to Chicago and Minneapolis for our sixth and seventh shows in less than a year (Minneapolis is sold out, but there are about 100 tickets left for our Chicago show), and that just blows my mind. I mean, I thought we'd do maybe two or three cities in a whole year, and by Monday, we'll have done six in six months. 

Storm wrote a nifty thing at the w00tstock website to let people know what w00stock is, and why we think you'll dig it, but you don't have to take our word for it! Here's a blog entry from a wootstock attendee in Portland who wasn't sure she was going to enjoy the show:

I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to relate to a lot of things.

And then we got there.

For what is possibly the first time in my entire life, I was surrounded by people who GET IT.  They understand blogging.  They got my cultural references.  They tweet.  We joked about being “I play a bunch of 3 letter words on Words with Friends because I don’t care about strategy, I just want to make words” players.  We lamented people who throw sheep at each other and ask for help growing their livestock on Facebook.  We compared our various levels of geek for different things.  I could use the word “Dooce” in a sentence with someone I had never met before and it wasn’t followed by “Whuh….? Is that an internet thing?”   I told people that I write content for websites and didn’t have to explain that it is too a real job. Will talked with people who appreciated his “Gamer” shirt and compared gaming stories. I admitted to one person that I know jack crap about science and was told “but you blog! That’s so cool!”

There were fans and geeks of every stripe there and it was just fun.  Nobody was trying to “out-geek” anybody else.  Nobody was trying to explain how their form of geekiness was better than someone else’s because of x, y, z.  Instead of “really? You don’t like that?”  it was “Have you ever tried [this]? I didn’t like that either but then I [insert suggestion here] and was amazed that I liked it after all!”

For the first time since we’ve met, my husband and I had the exact same level of fun at something we chose to do together.

In a lot of ways, for me, W00tstock felt like finally finding a home base.  I was in a space with a few hundred other people who just…understand. It didn’t matter what particular brand of geekiness you subscribe to or if, like me, you don’t really subscribe to any particular subset.  We were there to have fun.  We were there to learn about cool stuff and hear awesome songs and listen to awesome stories and be introduced to new cool people to follow on Twitter and online. We were there to get our respective geek on. We were there to take part in the kind of thing we had always wanted to take part in but hadn’t because we’d had a bunch of people telling us that it wasn’t cool/serious/arty/enough.  It was amazing.

The best part about being a nerd right now, at this moment in time, is how easy it is to find other people like us, so we don't feel so goddamn alone and weird. My favorite part of being at certain conventions, like PAX, is that feeling of being surrounded by people who "get" me; it's that feeling of being home. I don't think any of us thought that we'd be able to recreate that sensation at w00tstock, but I keep hearing from people who come to the shows that that is exactly what happens. I don't want to overthink it or anything, but I'm overjoyed to learn that.

I don't know how long w00tstock will last, or if enough people will remain interested in it to do a full-on tour sometime in the near future, but no matter what that future brings, these shows we've done so far have been incredibly special to me, and I'm so grateful that I've been able to be part of making them happen.

woke up in the rain and everyone turned over

Posted on By Wil

The way I remember it, the last day of school was always the hottest day of the year, capping at least a week of warm and sunny weather that brought with it the promise of spending every day of our impending summer vacation by the pool or at the beach. I didn't care that my parochial school forced us to wear dark shirts and corduroy pants when it was over ninety degrees outside, because in just a few days, the only corduroy I'd wear for months would be in the form of two-toned OP shorts.

Invariably, the first day of summer vacation arrived under cloudy and cold grey skies, and June Gloom settled in and stuck around until at least the Fourth of July.

I always felt cheated and ripped off. Why did the weather tease us so cruelly, and with such unforgiving regularity? Moreover, why did I fall for nature's cruel tricks year after year, and why was I suddenly wearing corduroy pants to stay warm?

I thought about this yesterday morning, as Anne and I prepared to walk our dog around the Rose Bowl. Mornings are almost always cool and damp down in the Arroyo Seco, and fog is quite common, especially this time of year. 

"I think I should have worn long sleeves," I said to her as we got out of the car.

"No, it'll warm up soon, and you'll be glad you're in a T-shirt." 

Seamus hopped out of the car and thumped his tail against the side of my leg.

"Someone's pretty excited to take a walk," I said.

Upon hearing the word walk, Seamus began wagging his entire body.

We met our friend Marie, who brought her dogs with her. Seamus adores her dog Quincy, and always wants to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with him, which we don't mind at all because it's adorable.

It seems like everyone loves my dog. Almost all the people who came toward and then passed us made some comment about how cute he was, or how happy he seemed. 

"We really hit the jackpot with this little guy," I said.

"We really did," Anne said.

"I can't believe someone abandoned him."

"Yeah, people suck."

"Totally."

We walked around the Western side of the Rose Bowl, along the golf course. It seemed like every group I saw wasn't having any fun, which must have sucked for them because that course is expensive. I used to play golf about once a week at public courses that were close to La Crescenta, like Scholl Canyon in Glendale, De Bell in Burbank, and Eaton Canyon up in Altadena. Even though I was never any good, I still enjoyed it when I played with my friends. Most golfers took it way too seriously for my tastes, though, and getting grouped with guys who seemed to think that we were on the PGA Tour took all the fun out of it for me. If I play at all these days, it's usually at a 3 Par with one of my kids.

There's this saying that golf is "a good walk, spoiled", and I smiled to myself as I thought that I was on the better side of the fence between us, with little risk of anything spoiling my walk.

I guess we'd been walking for about ten minutes when I realized that the sun had burned off the last lingering vestiges of the marine layer, and my face and neck were warm. 

"Good thing I didn't wear long sleeves," I said.

"Told you."

While Anne and Marie talked about mom things, I let my mind drift and opened my senses to the world around me. I heard the familiar low drone of a distant lawn mower, the fairly regular tink! of metal drivers shanking tee shots, and the quiet white noise of the 210 freeway, nearby. I smelled flowers and chemical fertilizer and wet grass, and when I reached down to pet Seamus, I felt heat radiating off his black fur.

I've been working a lot, spending most of my days confined to my office when I'm not on the set for something, and I haven't made much of an effort to get outside and enjoy the world. I don't think it's coincidence that I haven't felt particularly creative or able to write much of anything narrative for my blog. Getting outside and experiencing a significant change of scenery, opening myself up to whatever sensory input I could, felt good; by the time we got to the clubhouse on the Eastern side of the golf course, just over two and a half miles into the three mile walk, I felt like my writing mojo was beginning to return.

"I'm going to write about this," I thought to myself. "I don't know what it's really going to be about, but I'm going to write about it, for the sake of writing. It probably won't be particularly interesting or entertaining, but if I'm going to get to the interesting and entertaining stuff again, I have to grind out some boring stuff."

I walked into the clubhouse to use the bathroom. It was cooler inside than it was outside, and the faint smells of sterno and banquet food lingered in the air. 

When I opened the bathroom door, there were two old white guys inside using the urinals. One of them leaned on a cane, nodding along as the other one said, "…and now that there's so darn many women everywhere, you can't just take a leak on a tree whenever you want to!"

He spoke with equal parts lamentation and indignation, and as they walked over to the sink to wash their hands, I knew that, even if I didn't have something interesting to write about, there was at least one small part that was going to be entertaining.

I washed my hands and went back outside to meet Anne and Marie so we could finish our walk. I told them about a world, forgotten by all but a few aging men who once lived in it, where every tree belonged to every man and no woman ever came between them.

"I'm really glad I came out here to walk with you guys today," I said.