Category: Current Affairs

creative writing

the shady bunch

Posted on By Wil

Here’s the story of a dork named Donnie
And every single thing he touches dies
Like the steaks the Taj Mahal and the election
He lost in court sixty times.

Here’s the story of a crazy lady
Who told a lot of crazy crazy lies
And she got together with some looney lawyers
To steal some votes they tried.

Then the loser set his mob upon the Congress
And Giulani’s hair dye ran right down his face
And the crazy lady said the vote was stolen
By Jewish lasers shot from satellites in space.

And when they all got caught for doing some light treason
Chesebro flipped and Kraken lady, too
And Donnie you’re in real big fuckin’ trouble
Because Fanni Willis is coming for you

And the Treason Bunch
The Treason Bunch
A criminal conspiracy called
Treason bunch

blog

If not now, when?

Posted on By Wil

In 1960, SAG and WGA struck to force management to adapt to the new technology of television. Without that strike and the agreement it birthed, residual use payments would not exist.

Wil Wheaton and Gates McFadden support SAG-AFTRA and WGA at Paramount Studios

My parents forced me to be a child actor, and stole nearly all of my salary from my entire childhood. My Star Trek residuals were not much, but they were all I had, and they kept me afloat for two decades while I rebuilt my life. I have healthcare and a pension because of my union. The AMPTP billionaires want to take all that security away so they can give CEOs even more grotesque wealth at the expense of the people who make our industry run.

We must now fight for the future of our industry in the face of changing technology, the same way our elders fought for us in 1960.

To give some sense of what is at stake: There are actors who star in massively successful, profitable, critically acclaimed shows that are all on streaming services. You see them all the time. They are famous, A-list celebrities. Nearly all of those actors don’t earn enough to qualify for health insurance, because the studios forced them to accept a buyout for all their residuals (a decade of reuse, at the least) that is less than I earned for one week on TNG. And I was the lowest paid cast member in 1988. They want to do this while studio profits and CEO compensation are at historic highs. Nearly 9 in 10 SAG-AFTRA members does not earn the $26,470 required to qualify for health insurance. Meanwhile, studio executives are pocketing tens of millions of dollars of bonuses and compensation. Each. (CNN: “When Iger rejoined Disney as CEO in November 2022, he agreed to an annual base salary of $1 million with a potential annual bonus of $2 million. The agreement also includes stock awards from Disney totaling $25 million [and] Netflix’s co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters made $50 million and $28 million, respectively, in 2022, according to a company filing.”)

Those billionaire CEOs complain that what we are asking for is unrealistic and unsustainable. They say we — we — are destroying the industry that was so profitable and successful for a century before they arrived.

I realize they want to remodel their third vacation home so they don’t embarrass any of the guests they take there on their yacht. My heart just aches for them as they struggle to keep up with a changing business model. Here’s the thing: if the current business model of the industry only functions when labor allows itself to be exploited so that executives make thousands of times their salaries, that business model should be destroyed.

If workers refusing to be exploited makes a CEO’s bloated salary unsustainable, I think that’s kind of the point.

We in Labor aren’t hurting our industry. We’re fighting to save it from predatory sociopaths who will gleefully watch people lose their homes and go hungry, rather than release 2% of their grotesque wealth to ensure a healthy industry for everyone.

I mean, if not now, when? And I haven’t even touched on AI and working conditions. I’m only talking about the fundamental ability and opportunity to make a living, to survive and hope to thrive, in the entertainment industry.

We must now fight for the future of our industry in the face of changing technology, the same way our elders did for us in 1960. So today, my Spacemom and I went to the place where it started for us, way back when, to do just that.

I see all your support. It means so much. Thank you.

blog

the wait

Posted on By Wil

We aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, even when they were monsters in life who hurt countless people.

Okay. But nobody said we couldn’t write fan fiction.

The Wait

Pat Robertson walks past thousands of souls, smugly and full of pride, and cuts to the front of the line at the velvet rope in outside the entrance to his version of Heaven.

The bouncer looks up from their clipboard, observing Robertson with thousands of eyes in a swirling cascade of light.

“Pat Robertson,” they say. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Pat Robertson silently congratulates himself. He swells with joy. All those people who died from AIDS, natural disasters, even 9/11 … they all deserved it. They were sinners!

The bouncer speaks into their headset. “He’s here.” They listen. “Yep. At the front of the line.”

The bouncer turns most of its gaze back to Pat Robertson. “Just wait here for one moment, please.”

Pat Robertson steps to one side and waits.

After one thousand years, he begins to wonder if there was a miscommunication.

“Excuse me,” he says to the bouncer, “I am Pat –“

“Robertson. Yes. We know. We’re just getting everything in order for you. It will just be one more moment.”

Tens of thousands of victims of gun violence walk past him and enter Heaven. The population of an entire village, lost in a typhoon that was intensified by climate change, is welcomed. And still he waits.

They file past him, all the people he looked down on. All the people he hurt, directly and indirectly, don’t even notice him as they pass. It’s like he isn’t even there.

Another thousand years pass. Pat Robertson realizes he hasn’t had a thing to eat since he died and he is so very hungry.

“Hey!” He shouts at the bouncer. “What’s the problem? Don’t you know who I am?”

The bouncer rolls half a million eyes at once. “We know exactly who you are.”

“Well, alright, then!” Pat Robertson spits out, exasperated, “if you aren’t going to help me, get someone here who will!”

The bouncer speaks into its headset again. “We’re ready.”

A gibbering mass of what is mostly human flesh — or was, once — slithers / rolls / flops into Pat Robertson’s view. It is covered with mouths that bleed and weep and click their teeth together. Enormous open sores swirl and burst and close and reopen and drip pus and viscera across blistering skin. The faint memory of a smell surrounds it, something like very old cigar smoke and very expensive liquor.

Pat Robertson tries to scream. Arm-like stalks extend from the quivering shape. One resembles a hand at the end of an arm, dripping viscera.

In a flash, it grabs Pat Robertson’s hand and shakes it. Something hot and acidic splashes up on his arm, blinds him in one eye. He feels weak. Afraid. Alone. Confused.

Hundreds of mouths try to speak. Dozens of them vomit acrid bile that splashes across his chest. Dozens more silently spit out the lies they’ve been cursed to repeat for eternity to an audience who will never hear them again.

One mouth speaks clearly. So clearly, it’s inside Pat Robertson’s head and everywhere else all at once. “I’m Rush Limbaugh,” it says. “I’m your new roommate. Come with me.”

And that’s when Pat Robertson knows. That’s when it all hits him, all at once. He’s getting everything he deserves.

The line to get into Heaven does not see or hear or notice him, or the Limbeast. They can’t hurt anyone, anymore. They are, finally, invisible.

The cancerous mass of hate wraps its arm around his shoulder and just like that Pat Robertson finds himself in a vast parody of a cathedral. It’s built of bones and flesh and lies. The walls writhe, and he sees that they are not bricks and lathe but bodies wrapped in confederate flags and wearing red hats.

The pews are filled to capacity with the souls of people who followed him in life, hated who he told them to hate. Only their hate is now focused on him, hot and unforgiving. Relentless.

Pat Robertson looks for his companion, but it has vanished. It has left him alone to suffer.

A sermon rises in his chest and pushes against his throat. Pat Robertson is compelled to speak, and as he does each word tears through him like broken glass. He spews his hate and his lies, just as he did in life. Only in this place, he doesn’t feel the glee and the satisfaction he always did. No, he feels the pain and the suffering and the agony of every human being who he deliberately hurt. He. Feels. All. Of. It. He tries to stop speaking. Of course, he can not. He can not ever stop.

And Pat Robertson’s eternity begins.

Current Affairs

there is no middle

Posted on By Wil

Remember how much fun it was to harmlessly TP your friends’ houses? How silly and goofy it was to ding-dong ditch someone? Just to do silly, childish, ultimately harmless expressions of being a kid who’s fooling around? Or how about playing hide and seek? Remember how fun that was?

Thanks to the Republican fascists who have gerrymandered and suppressed their way into minority rule In 21st century America, any of those things will now likely get you killed by a paranoid gun nut who won’t suffer any consequences. And when it’s a white man who murders a BIPOC child, his state’s Republican governor will pardon any consequences that somehow slip past the barriers to justice they’ve built.

Pick a side. There is no middle.

You’re with the fascists and terrorists, or you are with the rest of us. There is no middle. There is no “both sides”. One side wants as much death and terror on the streets as possible. The other side wants all of us to have healthcare and a home.

Pick a side. There is no middle.

You are with us, or you are with the domestic terrorists. There is no middle.

And to be clear: if you are with the domestic terrorists, you’re not welcome on my page or in my life. It’s not dIfFeREnT OpInIoNs. It’s literally life and death. There is no middle.

Maybe, thirty, forty, fifty years ago, there was some redemptive quality in the GOP. (Like, at the very LEAST there were Republicans who wouldn’t support a coup, or flood our streets with weapons of mass murder, for instance). Maybe it’s real hard to consider voting against the party you’ve always supported. I get that. Thing is, that party doesn’t exist now. That party has been replaced with violent, christian nationalist, white supremacist, fascists. And they are ALL in thrall to Tr*mp and Marjoriefuckyfuckfuck.

You can try to tell yourself that you don’t vote for their policies, that your candidate isn’t extreme. But when you vote for ANY Republican, you’re voting for those policies, because Republicans do as they are told by their fascist supreme leader, Donald Tru&p. They fall in line with the extremists. So if you aren’t an extremist, what do you do? If you want the endless slaughter to end, what do you do?

You pick a side. You’re with America, or you’re with the MAGA movement.

There is no middle.

Books

“The library is a safe place.”

Posted on By Wil

This morning, I gave a keynote at the Southern Kentucky Book Festival. Here are my prepared remarks.

Good morning. My name is Wil Wheaton. I am the New York Times bestselling author of Still Just A Geek. My narration of Ready Player One debuted at number one on the same list. I created, produced, and hosted the series Tabletop on Geek & Sundry, and I currently host The Ready Room, your online hub for all things Star Trek Universe.

I am so proud and grateful for all of that. I have an amazing life doing what I love. I’ve been married for 24 years to my best friend, Anne. We have two amazing kids, a pretty great dog, and a cat who allows us to believe we are in charge. I get to travel all over, talking to audiences like this, about things that are important to me.

I’m going to say it again: I have a fantastic life. 

To get here, I had to survive what most of you probably know me from: my childhood acting career. In 1985, when I was 12, I starred in Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, which has gone on to become a generational classic. At 14, I was cast as Wesley Crusher, in Star Trek: The Next Generation. 35 years later, I am introduced at science fiction conventions as an elder in the community, representing Legacy Star Trek.

I was really good at it, but I never wanted to be an actor. My mom forced me to do it, and gaslighted me about that truth until I finally had no choice but to end contact with both of my parents, so I could work on healing the CPTSD I have carried for as long as I can remember.

Today, I am a full-time writer and part-time host. I’m as happy and fulfilled as I have ever been, and for the first time in my life, I am doing what I want to do, what is important to me. Today, I want to talk to you about how I got here from there, and the librarian who made it all possible.

(more…)