Author: Wil

It’s amazing the things you can learn from the Wikipedia.

During a bit of research just now, I ended up at The Mullet. The list of well-known people who have worn The Mullet over their lifetimes is quite impressive. Here is an incomplete and randomly-ordered sample:

• Jaromir Jagr
  – Hockey player. Used the mullet most of his carreer, but changed to
  short hair in late 1990s. His point totals have dropped since getting
  rid of the mulllet.
• James K. Polk – U.S. President in the 1840s. Appears with a clearly defined mullet in most photographs
• Keith Richards – spent the Rolling Stones’ peak years in a mullet.
• James Hetfield – musician; lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Metallica.
  Many would see Hetfield’s as the mullet that finally put an end to
  their acceptability. In 1995 his mullet was one of the most extreme
  mullets featured in the Beastie Boys‘
  article, with very short top and sides, and perhaps without such a high
  profile proponent, the Beasties might never have been moved to write
  their article. His cutting of his mullet in 1996 was taken by many fans as a sign that he had sold out.

I’m Wil, your guide to the world of facts. (With apologies to Futurama.)

Ah, one more bit of praise for WikiPedia: A few months ago, I noticed that there was an error in my filmography there. I posted about it in my Slashdot journal, and the error was corrected within ten minutes. Contrast that with my entry at IMDB, which contains numerous errors. I’ve repeatedly contatcted IMDB to get the errors corrected, most recently over a month ago. To date, the IMDB has never responded to my requests, either via e-mail, or by editing the content.

Jason Kirk is a fellow writer, poker player, and poker blogger. Last Friday, he interviewed me for PokerMagazine.com:

JK: You’ve already alluded to your history
with pocket Kings in no-limit holdem. What goes through your mind today
when you look down and find them?

WW: "Oh no, not again." (laughs)
I’ve also learned not to talk to the poker gods. Of all the gods in the
world — a lot of gods derive their power from being acknowledged —
the poker gods are the fundamental opposite. They’re kind of like Fight
Club: You don’t talk about them.

At the same time, when I’m playing with people who know me and my
history with Kings, I’m really happy to go broke with them because it
creates a good story.

JK: The semi-private WilWheaton.Net weekly
tournaments on PokerStars have been a pretty big hit since they
started. Someone called them the "world’s biggest home game." Did you
expect such a response when you held the first one?

WW: No. Sort of like Benny Binion in 1972, I hoped someday my tournament would have 50 participants.

JK: What do you think has made them so successful?

WW: I think people enjoy the company. I
know that’s why I like to play. It’s the hardest $10 tourney I’ve ever
played in. If I wanted to play in an easier field, the $22 180-man
sit-and-go’s on PokerStars are way softer. With the Thursday and Friday
games, if I can make it into the money I’m thrilled — I get giddy like
a schoolgirl. And my hourly return if I make the money is about $2. I
made more than that in a $.01/.02 blogger no-limit side game last week!

It was a fun interview. I talked with Jason while I walked around my neighborhood on an impossibly beautiful and warm afternoon, and because he’s a fellow poker blogger and we’ve played together several times in WPBT events and WWdN tourneys at PokerStars, I felt like I was talking with a peer who I could trust to get the story right.

Remember when I wrote about how Annie lost a bet?

Well, she paid up, and it is brilliant. Please enjoy Annie’s blog, which we decided needs to be called Jesus’ Favorite. She has to update it once a day for a week.

I lost a bet. 

So now I have to start a blog. 

It’s that simple. 

Apparently the Kings of Nerdville decided this would be fair
punishment. Not a shot, or a drink, or something normal! But a blog. A
fucking blog. And can you guess who these kings would be? Yep. Bingo.

Wil Wheaton

and

Shane Nickerson

(Actually I think Wil is the King and Shane is the Duke).

Now we have Annie’s, my, and Shane’s recollection of the cast party. It’s like Rashomon, but on blogs. So it’s actually called blogshomon.

I think Annie is my favorite blogger in the history of the world. She
was already one of my favorite writers and performers, so she just
nailed a trifecta. Annie may have lost the bet, but I think she won
this round of our nerdwar.

Elbow and send.

Pauly wrote,

I forgot I had to go eat lunch with Briana and her mother, who hates
me. She’s suspicious that I’m just after her family’s money. "I’m not,"
I told her, "I just like sleeping with your daughter." No wonder the
woman loathes me. Rich people hate it when you tell them the truth. Briana’s father likes me only because he knows that her mother doesn’t like me. I’m just a pawn in their world.

I love that so much. It tells us everything we need to know about the narrator, and boy does it set us up for one hell of a fucking story.

Shane took a picture of the placemat he, Annie (where’s your blog, Annie? Shane’s got other pictures, you know . . . ) and I drew on at the cast party. If you know how to read it, it tells you everything you need to know about the three of us, and why we loved working together at ACME so much.

"so everybody put your best suit or dress on

let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once

lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn

as thirty dialogues bleed into one"
    -The New Year, Death Cab for Cutie

Cast parties at the end of movies or plays are always filled with sadness for me, because while we’re together to celebrate the show, we’re also saying goodbye to each other as we return to our real lives. Sometimes, if I’ve really bonded with the cast and crew, I won’t even go to the party, because it hurts too much to say goodbye.

Cast parties at ACME, though, are always insanely fun celebrations, without any sense of sadness. Because we’re such a small company, when one show ends, it’s likely that many of us will be performing together again in another show within a few weeks. But Travis recently changed our writing and performing schedule, and because many of us are working writers and actors who can’t make the commitment to a show that will start six months or a year later, last night’s show could very well be our last, or at least our last together.

I could not have asked for a better way to end the run, though. Because it was a best of . . . show, I got to take a bit of a nostalgic tour through my last year at ACME: when we did Tribute, and Living and Dying in DWP, I realized how sad I was that I got sick and missed most of the run of A Day in the Life. While Kevin and I set props in the blackout between Breaking Up is Hard to Do and William’s Tell, I flashed back to the epsrit de corps we had during Love Machine, and remembered how I truly found my comedic voice as an actor and a performer during that show. NOW That’s What I Call ACME Volume One wasn’t an easy show to do, and a couple of the performances were frustrating and demoralizing, but I love and respect these actors so much. We’ve grown a lot together, and I’m really going to miss them.

After we did our curtain call, and after we thanked our friends and family for coming to the show, we all gathered in the bar next door for beers and shots and pizzas and gnocchi. Shane and I talked about poker, while Annie teased us about being poker blogging nerds. Kevin and I lamented that we discovered a hilarious beat in William’s Tell during its final performance, but we all agreed that each of our sketches went out on top, performed for a house of thirty that laughed and applauded like a sold-out house of one hundred.

The conversation eventually turned to the show, as we were forced to acknowledge that it was over.

"This is like the last night of high school," Annie said.

I looked at Shane, then to Kevin, and Jodi. Chris, who has always been the fundamental grounding force in any show I’ve done with him, sat at a table behind Annie and Shane with some friends who came to the show to celebrate a birthday. I was sad that he wasn’t with us, and indulged in a bit of middle school jealousy as I looked past Anne at him. She was right, and I hated it. Though we’d all try to stay in touch, and though we all hope to be BFF, we all knew that the show was over, and without a reason to get together every Saturday night, we would slowly begin to drift apart, back into our real lives.

We joked with each other, we hugged each other, we took embarrassing camphone pictures of each other, and we teased each other. A lot. (Annie lost a bet to me, and has to start her own blog as a result. "Look, I play Roshambo with Phil Gordon," I told her, "are you sure you want to take me on?" I successfully psyched her out, pegged her as a "scissors," and busted her with my rock. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shane laugh so hard at anything. My middle name is William, Annie, and you’re so busted. Nailed it. Elbow and Send.)

Like teenagers who don’t want to go home to the watchful eyes of their parents, we looked for any excuse to stay out, to stay together, to make the night last forever, just like in a movie. But we’re old and tired, and we have families and responsibilities, and just after one in the morning, I surrendered to them.

"You guys, I have to drive all the way to Pasadena, and I’ve got a mountain of work to do around my house tomorrow," I said, "so I have to go."

Hugs were passed around, goats were thrown, and the final curtain fell.

I walked back into the theater, and down the hallway toward the dressing room to clean out my locker. The din of the bar faded until I was alone with the lonely echo of my footsteps.