Author: Wil

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

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton wears the fanciest of pants.

Posted on By Wil

Sunday night, I took my entire family and a bunch of our friends to see Jonathan Coulton with Paul and Storm at Largo.

A special evening (it was the first time Anne and the kids saw them perform live) was made extra-special for me because I got to open the whole show.

Earlier this year, Paul and Storm ran this thing called Geek Madness, which was a bracket competition designed to choose Obama’s Secretary of Geek Affairs. Somehow, against all odds and a final round matchup against Joss Whedon, I emerged with the most votes. I think I can thank GeekDad and Fark for making sure that my platform (“a d20 in every dice bag and a slide rule in every pocket”)* was heard.

Paul and I talked about a week ago, and decided that it would be fun to do something together at the show, and ultimately decided that it could be awesome if I wrote and issued some kind of proclamation in my official capacity as the Secretary of Geek Affairs.

I did some research on the wording of these things, grabbed a list of some of my favorite JoCo songs, and came up with this:

DEPARTMENT OF GEEK AFFAIRS OFFICIAL PROCLAMATION

On behalf of the Department of Geek Affairs, I hereby make this special salute to Jonathan Coulton and hereby officially proclaim that Jonathan Coulton is the 2009 recipient of the Presidential d20 of Geekdom, in honor of his many contributions to Geek Culture. Jonathan Coulton, like Tom Lehrer and Al Yankovic before him has and will continue to inspire geeks, dweebs, dorks, nerds, spazzes, dorkwads, and neo-maxi-zoom-dweebies forever with his unique musical talents.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton reminds us that it will be the future, soon.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton makes us feel fantastic.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton is not unreasonable, and will not eat our eyes.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton singlehandedly preserves the rich historic legacy of Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton keeps trying, until he runs out of cake.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton risked his life to deliver greetings from Chiron Beta Prime.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton uses passive voice to show how gentle he will be.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton brought the lonely plight of the giant squid out of the depths of the ocean and into our hearts.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton likes Fritos, Tab, and Mountain Dew.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton makes the first of May extra special.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton wears the fanciest of pants.

WHEREAS Jonathan Coulton is a Rorschach test on fire, and changed the world in a tiny way.

NOW, THEREFORE, IN VIEW OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS BY JONATHAN COULTON TO THE WORLD IN GENERAL, AND TO GEEK AND MUSICAL CULTURE SPECIFICALLY, IT IS HEREBY PROCLAIMED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF GEEK AFFAIRS THAT

JONATHAN COULTON IS THE 2009 RECIPIENT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL d20 OF GEEKDOM

So say we all.

I read this in front of the sold-out Coronet theater, doing my best not to tremble with excitement, and the audience seemed to really dig it. When I was done, I presented the Presidential d20 of Geekdom (a giant d20 I bought at Orccon last year) to Paul and Storm, who accepted it on behalf of Jonathan (who they joked, “couldn’t be here tonight,”) as they took the stage to start the show.

The show was awesome. Paul and Storm were fantastic, and Jonathan was as wonderful as ever. They were joined by their friend Molly, who plays the hell out of the ukulele, for a few songs, and she was incredible. They all did a song together where they stepped in front of their mics and played 100% acoustically to a theater that was filled to capacity and utterly silent, hanging on every note that was played. It was delightful.

After the show, a few of us got together for this crappy cellphone picture, which makes me squeal with nerdy nerdosity, even though it’s a crappy cellphone picture.

Also, there was an earthquake about 5 minutes after I walked off the stage. Coincidence? YOU DECIDE!

*not actually my platform. I made this up just now because it made me laugh. Have I mentioned that I’m easily amused?

please don’t drive like an asshole.

Posted on By Wil

Want to know how I know that I'm old, out of shape, spend too much time sitting at my desk and writing, and not enough time exercising? I hurt my back yesterday … by standing up.

Yep. That's it. Doorbell rang, I stood up to go to the door, and the whole right side of my back seized up. Goodtimes.

It still hurt this morning, so I went out to see my massage therapist to get it worked on just after lunch.

She worked out a lot of the tension, reminded me (as always) that I need to take better care of myself, and I headed home … so I could write this story that my brain is demanding I write.

Shortly after I got on the freeway, I saw a huge crash happen, entirely because someone was driving like an asshole.

It really shook me up, because just this morning I said to Nolan, "Whenever you go somewhere with your friends, please make sure you are wearing a seatbelt, and never ride with someone who drives like an idiot."

"I do, and don't worry, because my friends aren't idiots."

"I have no reason to doubt you, but there are idiot drivers all over the place, and if one of them decides to crash into you, I want you to be wearing a seatbelt."

"Okay, Wil. Don't worry."

"Sorry, but I'm going to worry, because I'm your parent and that's just my thing," I said.

When I was on the freeway just about an hour ago, I was in the number 2 lane, cruising along with the flow of traffic. I saw that the number 1 lane was slowing down a lot, so I slowed down too, just in case people whipped out of that lane and into mine. It happens all the time, because people drive like assholes.

Sure enough, some asshole was speeding down the number 1 lane, and I don't know if he wasn't paying attention or what, but he whipped around into my lane – about 100 yards in front of me, I suppose – over corrected, spun sideways, and T-boned a van. The van flipped onto its side, and the asshole driver sped into the carpool lane. I'm not sure if he crashed into the wall or hit his brakes, but he stopped and got out of his car. I expected to see a 20 year-old kid, but it was a man in a suit who appeared to be in his late 40s or early 50s.

The van, on its side, was about two car lengths in front of me. I realized that I'd been holding my breath, and my hands were shaking so hard I could hardly grip my steering wheel. Just when I snapped out of it and thought I should get out to help, the door of the van opened and the driver climbed out. I couldn't tell if he was hurt.

I picked up my phone to dial 911, and saw that every car around me was already doing that. I started to get out of my car, and I saw that about six or seven different people had already gotten out and were checking on the people who were involved in the crash. I decided that I'd just be in the way if I stopped, so – very carefully – I drove around the scene of the crash and – very carefully – I drove home. When I got into our house, I immediately called Nolan to reiterate our conversation from this morning.

My hands aren't shaking as violently as before, but now I can't stop thinking that, if I had been less than 15 seconds farther down the freeway, I would have been in the car that was crashed into by the asshole driver.

Geek in Review: Star Trek Has Been Reborn, and it is SPECTACULAR

Posted on By Wil

For this month's Geek in Review, it was only natural that I write a column about the new Star Trek movie. This was much easier said than done:

Since I saw Star Trek a little over a week ago, I’ve struggled to write an adequate review of the movie, and what it meant to me, as someone who was part of the first effort to make Star Trek relevant to the, uh, next generation of fans. I’ve started and abandoned a few thousand words, mostly because I can say everything I need to say in just six:

It was awesome. I loved it.

Seriously. Whenever I tried to write more than that, I felt like it was gilding the lilly, as they say. But I spent a lot of time thinking about the movie, talking about it with my friends, and I noticed that we kept talking about essentially the same thing. That's what I decided to write about:

Star Trek has meant too much to too many people for too long for those of us who love it to blindly accept that whoever makes it will treat it with the same love and respect that we believe it deserves. I think it was normal and natural for all of us to have reservations, especially about Star Trek.

It turns out, I think, that a lot of our fears, while well-founded, were unnecessary. JJ Abrams may not be one of us in the convention-going sense, but I think he has something in common with us, and I think it's a big reason why Star Trek made so many of us so very, very happy.

If you want to know what that is, head on over to the SG Newswire and find out. As always, the content of my column is SFW, but Suicide Girls is NSFW. You have been warned. Approach with the appropriate degree of caution, and enjoy.

PS – A comment at SG pointed me to this strip from PvP, which I think is a brilliant companion to this column.

PS2 – This press conference with JJ Abrams (mp3) is another, longer, companion to my column.

wilco (the stream) happens

Posted on By Wil

I just got this e-mail from Wilco HQ:

Well, we made it nearly a month with copies of Wilco (the album) floating around out there before it leaked. Pretty impressive restraint in this day and age. But the inevitable happened last night. Since we know you're curious and probably have better things to do than scour the internet for a download (though we do understand the attraction of the illicit), we've posted a stream of the full album at http://wilcoworld.net/records/thealbum/. Feel free to refer to it as "wilco (the stream)" if you must.

We also have our usual guilt abatement plan for downloaders. If you have downloaded the record, we suggest you make a donation to one of the band's favorite charities, the Inspiration Corporation — an organization we've supported in the past & who are doing great work in the city of Chicago. Information and donation button here: http://inspirationcorp.org/.

That's all. Enjoy the stream. Tickets for summer shows, etc. http://wilcoworld.net/tours/ Note that we'll be holding a free online midnight screening of the "Ashes of American Flags" film this Friday night (at both midnight US Central time and again at midnight Pacific). So get the popcorn or whatever together and be sure to log on and tune in on Friday.

Wilco HQ

This is so smart, and I hope Wilco gets some public recognition for doing this. Sure, they could play whack-a-mole and try to get it offline until it's officially released, but what's the point of that? It's impossible to win that fight; it just wastes a lot of their time, money, and energy.

Giving their fans a legitimate way to hear the album reduces the incentive someone would have to steal it, builds excitement and buzz for the official release, and acknowledges that Wilco's fans love their music so much, they (we) just can't wait. They even suggest a really great way for people who downloaded the album to get some kind of "I was sort of a dick" offset.

I really admire the way Wilco embraces their fans (and reality) when they do things like this. I'll be listening to Wilco (the stream) in about five minutes, and I'll be purchasing Wilco (the album) as soon as it's available.

On the off chance that anyone from the band sees this: Thanks for all of your music, guys. I love what you do, and it's really meant a lot to me.