Author: Wil

Here are the remarks (I don’t think it’s quite long enough to be called a speech) that I’m delivering at Jimmy Doohan’s Farewell Convention Dinner in an hour-and-a-half.
Yeah, that’s right. I’m supposed to leave in 30 minutes, and I just finished them. Turns out I work well under pressure.
Or something. 🙂

Because of my involvement in Star Trek, I have gotten to meet some really interesting and cool people over the years: space shuttle pilots, a former vice president of the united states, men who walked on the moon . . . all of them are people who have made a huge impact on the world, and all of them are Star Trek fans. Guess who all the scientists and engineers credit with inspiring them to persue their careers?
That’s right: Commander Kang.
Just kidding. Of course, it’s Jimmy Doohan’s “Scotty.”
I can’t remember if I first met Jimmy when we worked together on Next Generation, or if I had snuck onto the set of Star Trek V. I don’t remember if I saw him through the eyes of the professional actor I occasionally was, or through the eyes of the drooling fanboy I always was.
I don’t remember if he was in a costume or street clothes, speaking with that wonderful brogue, or without . . . but the first time I saw him, he was Scotty. And he patiently listened to me geek out at him about realigning the warp core, and how excited I was to be part of Star Trek, and to work in Engineering — just like him. I babbled on about the mater / anti-matter intermix chamber and of course, the transporter. I imagine it wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard from thousands of Star Trek fans a thousand times before — well, except for the also-working-on-Star-Trek part — but he smiled, and listened, and when I finally calmed down enough for him to actually talk to me, Jimmy made me feel like he’d known me his entire life, and he was never just “Scotty” to me again. He was Jimmy, and he was my friend. Over the years, our paths often crossed on Star Trek cruises or whenever Paramount was celebrating yet another Star Trek milestone, and I gradualy became aware of something: the way Jimmy made me feel wasn’t unique to our relationship. He truly made everyone he met feel like he was their best friend.
And I think that is why so many of us are here tonight: to honor and celebrate our friend Jimmy Doohan.
I first read that Jimmy had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s on the Internet, at TotalFark.com, and I felt like a member of my family had fallen ill — actually, I imagine that anyone who ever spent more than a few minutes with Jimmy felt the same way — but the news struck very close to home for me. My wife’s grandmother was diagnosed in October of last year, and we’ve experienced the helplessness and frustration that accompanies any serious illness.
Gene Roddenberry’s legacy is the positive future depicted in Star Trek — a future free of war, prejudice, ignorance . . . and disease. People have been working to create that future since September 8, 1966.
Today, people travel into space so often, it rarely makes the front page of the paper anymore. Our cell phones look like communicators, our PDAs look like tricorders, and my brother-in-law drives a minivan that looks — and handles — like a shuttle craft. We’re not quite there yet with ending ignorance . . . but when we do, I think war and prejudice will quickly follow.
We are *very* close to ending disease. Scientists at the University of California are working on a vaccine, and Karolinska’s Alzheimer’s disease research centre at the Huddinge hospital, was just established south of Stockholm in Sweden. In July, Sheldon Goldberg, president of the Alzheimer’s Association, said, “A world without Alzheimer’s disease … is within our reach.”
And that is also why we are here tonight. I can’t think of a better way to honor and celebrate our friend Jimmy Doohan than by doing everything we can to ensure that Alzheimer’s disease is cured within our lifetime.
Thank you.

I’m getting ready to speak at Jimmy Doohan’s Farewell Convention tonight, and I’ve been writing and re-writing all afternoon. I spent all morning finishing my Dungeon Column, so it’s been Wil’s Big Day Of Getting Shit Done.
I’ve written more stuff in this one sitting today (I’m closing in on six hours) than in the last month, so I’ve been taking breaks and surfing the web to give myself time to recharge between furious bursts of creativity.
In my travels across teh intarweb, I ended up at the blog of my friend and fellow ACME writer, Shane Nickerson. Shane’s Good People, and he’s a fantastic writer. He’s also about to turn 33, and he’s blogging about some milestones in his life. Though Shane is a year older than me (ha! Old Man! Old Man!) and he grew up in New England, we share some remarkably similar childhood memories:

1977- My first movie in the theater: Star Wars. Later on in life, I would make the tragic social mistake of getting “Star Wars Sneakers.” I wore them with pride the first day and then instantly regretted it when I was lambasted by ALL of my friends wearing Zips.

A few years after 1977, I was caught in the furious grip of Michael Jackson mania, and wore a “Thriller” T-shirt to school on “Graffiti Shirt” day . . . and all the kids wearing Van Halen T-shirts brutalized me for it. After first recess, I ended up turning it inside-out, and lied to everyone that I had spilled punch on it.
Man, kids can be cruel, can’t they? I’ve often wondered . . . if I ever ran into one of my childhood tormentors, what would I do? Pretend nothing ever happened? Cock-punch? Point and laugh? I don’t know . . . I’d like to think I would rise above it and act like the mature adult and parent of two teenagers that I am . . . but I’m pretty sure I’d end up doing the cock-punch.

Tonight, I will be on the Computer America show.
I’ll be mostly talking about Just A Geek, but I’m sure I’ll geek out about Linux, my frustrations with my iBook, how cool it is to be a TotalFarker, and this cool wind-up Bender I have on my desk.
I’m on from 7PM to 8 PM Pacific. This handy link has all the listening details.
First Break Update: Well, I pulled a full-on rookie move, and talked right up against the break . . . but it wasn’t my fault! I didn’t hear the music starting. Grr. So far, the interview is fun. I feel a little long-winded, so I’m going to shorten up my answers in the second block.
Second Break Update: DAMMIT! I talked into the break again! I’ll have to get the exact times they go to commercial, so I can not suck. Still too long-winded. I’m sort of rambling in my mind, (too many thoughts jumping up after each question, each thought leads to a new thought, which leads to still another thought. It’s hard to tie them back together. Anyone who’s seen me speak live knows what I mean.) If I were a politician, I would be “off message.”
Okay. Next break I will be succinct and direct. I am so not going to suck!
Third Break Update: Much better! I didn’t talk into the break! Yeah!
Of course, I did sort of rush myself a little bit, and it feels weird to talk about how Just A Geek is doing. I think it’s doing well, but I don’t have anything to compare it to, you know? I can’t see actual numbers other than the Amazon sales ranking, so I sort of panicked and answered that I’ve heard from lots of people who have told me they liked it.
Hrm. So I didn’t *totally* suck, but I didn’t rule, either. Hopefully, I’ll hit the good balance in this next break.
Fourth Break Update: Best break yet! I stayed focused, kept my answers short, and even kept my head about me when I got a question from a caller that made me squirm a bit. These hosts are really great, and I’m really enjoyng myself.
Final Thought: So I didn’t totally suck, but it took me two full segments to get warmed up. Maybe in the future I should do some sort of fake interview with myself for ten minutes, so I feel comfortable when I get on the air . . . hrm. That actually raises an interesting thing: I’ve been so severely burned over the last few years by The Media, I feel a little nervous and stand-offish when I get started, because I don’t know if I’m going to get slammed or not. The hosts on this show were fantastic, though, and they totally didn’t make it all about Star Trek, or all about Computers or anything like that . . . and they’d actually read the book (!) which was a huge bonus.
To use baseball as an analogy: I didn’t hit it out, but I got a double, and stole third before scoring on a fielder’s choice.
Still with me?
I’m just now realizing that I haven’t done very much publicity for Just A Geek, in comparison to Dancing Barefoot, which is weird (and a little alarming) considering we (O’Reilly and I) thought Just A Geek was a much “bigger” book. Hrm. Maybe it’s also very early in the “cycle,” too. Maybe I need to send The Voice Of Self Doubt off to the Cornfield.
Maybe I need to get offline and go watch WSOP on ESPN.

It usually takes about 2 hours to get to San Diego, so Anne and I left at 10, leaving ample time to arrive for my 1:30 signing at Mysterious Galaxy.
We hit our first traffic jam in Norwalk, on the 5, where it took thirty minutes to go ten miles. No wreck, no construction, just congestion. Not a good sign.
We hit our second traffic jam — in the carpool lane, no less — in Santa Ana. I growled and snarled, and felt my shoulders tighten as we sat motionless while the cars on the regular freeway streamed past us at 80 miles per hour.
Ten minutes later, when we’d moved the quarter-mile past the merge that created the carpool jam, we stayed at normal freeway speeds right until about Irvine, where we stopped, and didn’t move more than a few miles in close to twenty minutes. If the traffic was this bad, this far north of our destination, I knew that there was no way we’d get there on time, and we were already too far down the 5 to try an alternate route.

“Argh! This is like the fucking 101 freeway at 5 PM on a Friday afternoon!” I said.
“We’re going to be fine,” Anne said. “We’ve still got a lot of time to make it there, and the traffic can’t stay this bad the entire way.”
Well, it turns out that the traffic could stay that bad the entire way. For the next three hours, we crept along at 30, or occasionally 45 miles per hour. It was the most infuriating drive of my life, made worse by the knowledge that I was not just going to be a little late, but I would be extremely late.
“Goddammit! This is such bullshit!” I said, as I hit the steering wheel for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I am so fucking unprofessional, and inconsiderate, and just –” I hit the dashboard this time “STUPID!”
Longtime readers of this blog are probably aware of how patient and understanding my wife is. When I freak out like this, she knows that it’s not about the traffic.
“We can’t make the freeway move any faster,” she said, calmly, “and all you’re doing is stressing yourself out worse and worse.”

As usual, she was right. As usual, I was too furious to listen.
“There are lots of people waiting at Mysterious Galaxy, right now, for me to show up, and I’m currently letting every single one of them down!” I shouted. “Hey! My blinker means that I want to get out of this lane, you stupid fuck!”
I looked at Anne. “Apparently, turn indicators now mean, ‘Please speed up so I can’t change lanes.'”
“Look,” she said, “I don’t want to listen to you freak out any more. So you need to stop now. We’ll get there when we get there.”
I fumed for a few minutes. It was one thing to be angry with myself for the poor planning that put me in this position, and it was one thing to be worried that I was screwing up a very important appearance . . . but it was another thing entirely to be upsetting my wife, who was just along for the ride.
We rode in silence for the next several minutes, as we crawled through San Juan Capistrano, and I calmed myself down.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “The traffic isn’t your fault.”
“I know,” she said.
“I’m just upset that I was so wrong on the planning,” I said.
“I know.”
“We should have just taken the train,” I said.
“I know.”
“I’m never making this drive again,” I said.
“I know.”
The traffic remained heavily congested all the way down to San Clemente, where it suddenly and miraculously opened up until somewhere around Encinitas, where we slowed back to a crawl again. I called the bookstore a few times to give them updates, and tried to remain positive, even though I was pissed. Maryelizabeth, from Mysterious Galaxy, was very supportive and encouraging on the phone, and assured me that the crowd wasn’t as upset as I was, and told me to just get there as soon as I could . . . which ended up being an hour late.
When I got to the store, I felt embarrassed, and had a hard time holding my head up when I walked in, even though the crowd applauded. It was even worse that I had to go straight to the bathroom, at the back of the store, before I could do anything.
After seeing a man about a mule, I took the podium, and started my reading. I was genuinely surprised that so many people had waited so long to see me.
“I’m really happy that you all waited so long to see me,” I said, “I wouldn’t wait an hour for me, that’s for sure!” Then I promised that I wouldn’t suck, and I began to read.
There is a fantastic account of the event in a weblog called “brianstorms,” that actually captures the essence of the whole thing, and has some nifty pictures of me and The Shirt, and since I’m on a deadline for Dungeon right now, I encourage everyone to go read it (and you’ll probably end up bookmarking the blog just like I did. It’s incredibly well written and very interesting.)
When all was said and done, the event was a lot of fun, and I think I did a good job with my material. This was only the third stop on the Geek Tour, but I’m already enjoying performing the material even more than I enjoyed writing it. Each reading (which I actually approach as a performance) is different, as I discover nuances in the material that I didn’t even know were there, and I’m keeping notes in my reading copy, so if O’Reilly ever does a second printing, or a paperback version, I can make some changes to improve it.
Before I left, I signed a ton of stock, so if you’re hoping for a signed first edition of Just A Geek, or a signed first O’Reilly edition of Dancing Barefoot, you can get them from Mysterious Galaxy.
And if you’re able to actually get into the store, you can see the best thing of all: I’m on the shelf right next to Ray Bradbury, and that, my friends, is truly the Cat’s Pajamas.

Stop number three on Geek Tour 2K4 is coming up tomorrow, at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego. I’ll be reading from and signing copies of Just A Geek and Dancing Barefoot starting at 1:30 PM.
Maryelizabeth from MG brought me to ComicCon when I was doing Dancing Barefoot with Monolith Press last year, and helped me understand a lot of the realities of the publishing world. Her support and encouragement is a huge part of this chapter in my life, and I’m really looking forward to the reading. I sort of feel like I’ve made it into AA ball, and I’m going back to the field where I finally learned to make my curve break. It’s going to be awesome!