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wild child

I have a small part in the 1987 television movie (failed pilot) version of The Man Who Fell To Earth. Lewis Smith played the titular character. Beverly D’Angelo played my mom, his love interest. (Fun Star Trek connection: Bob Picardo is also in it).

My character was a Troubled Youth, which I gotta tell you was not a stretch for me at all. I was deeply, deeply hurting at the time we made it. I was struggling not to suffocate on all the emotional and financial burdens my mom put on my shoulders, and fully aware of just how much my dad hated and resented me. You need a kid who doesn’t want to be an actor, whose eyes can’t hide the pain? I’m your guy.

Anyway, one of the scenes I was in took place in a record store, where Troubled Youth steals some albums, before he is chased by the cops and The Man Who Fell To Earth, uses a glowing crystal to save his life from … some scratches on his face.

We filmed the interior of the record store at Sunset and La Brea, in what I think was a Warehouse Records and Tapes, and at the end of the day, I was allowed to buy some records at a modest discount.

I was deep into my metal years, on my way from my punk years to my New Wave years, so I only bought metal albums. I know I bought more than I needed or could carry (I was making a point that I was allowed to spend my own money, mom), but the only ones I can clearly remember are:

Iron Maiden – Piece of Mind

Judas Priest – Turbo and Defenders of the Faith

W.A.S.P – The Last Command

Of those, Piece of Mind is the only one I never really stopped listening to, even through all the different it’s-not-a-phase phases. I still listen to it, today.

Ever since I became an Adult with a Fancy Adult Record Player And All That Bullshit, I have kept my records in two places: stuff I want right now, and stuff I keep in the library because of Reasons.

Generally, records move in one direction toward the library, even if it takes years to happen. I just don’t accumulate albums like I once did, because I’m Old and set in my ways, and every album in the library was something I loved listening to at some point in my life, even if I’ve mostly forgotten them.

Earlier today, I decided that I wanted to listen to an album while I cleaned up the kitchen, and because I wanted to make my life more interesting, I opened the library cabinet for the first time in at least five years. I reached in, and pulled out the first album I touched.

It was the very same W.A.S.P album from that day in March, 1987. I don’t have any of the others — I looked — but The Last Command was right there. I looked at it, curiously. Why do I still have this?

Before I fully knew what I was doing, I put it on the Fancy Adult Record Player and dropped the needle.

I watched four decades of dust build up with a satisfying crackle, and there was something magical and beautiful about hearing all the skips and the scratches, realizing I remembered them from before.

The first track, Wild Child, was just as great as I remembered. It struck all the same chords in me that it did in the late nineteen hundreds. The rest of the first side was … um. It just didn’t connect with me, and during the few moments I spent trying to find a connection, I realized that I don’t think it ever really did. I would remember.

What I did remember how much I loved making those mix tapes, and what a big part of them that song was. I did remember how empowering it felt to not just spend my own money that I earned doing work I didn’t want to do, but to spend it on music my parents hated, right under their noses. I did remember how impressed Robby Lee was, when I showed him my extensive heavy metal album collection, and he gave me a cassette with Screaming for Vengeance on one side, and Metal Health on the other, on one of those iconic Memorex tapes.

Remembering all of that, in one of those cinematic flashes of rapid cut visuals and sped up sounds, told me why I kept this record, while I gradually sold or replaced the other records I bought that day with CDs, then mp3s, then lossless digital files, before finally coming all the way back to records, where I started. This record lives in the library for reasons that have nothing to do with the music.

I didn’t listen to the second side. I didn’t need to. I took it off the Fancy Adult Record Player, and put it back into the library, next to the George Carlin records.

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this is correlation, not causation

Just a couple of days ago, I told Anne that though I am always a little sad to wrap a season of Ready Room, because I genuinely love my job that much, I was glad to have the time and energy to do stuff together. It’s always so weird how we can live together, sleep in the same bed, see each other every single day, and still miss each other because we’re just so damn busy, and going in opposite directions most of the time. I was so happy that she had the idea to go out together, which is something we just haven’t done in a long time.

Before I continue, you need to know that Anne and I opted out of the Hallmark Holiday Industrial Complex well over a decade ago, around the same time we passed the No Gifts Just Cards, rule, with a late vote breaking my way to adopt my Also No Surprises amendment.

That doesn’t mean we never express affection for each other like corvids dropping shinies on the porch. We give each other silly cards, flowers we picked in the garden, or some cute little thing we saw at the artist’s market that we thought the other would like, all the time. We just don’t need The Man to tell us how and when, you know? We Choo-choo-choose to give you one of THESE, pal!

So. About that. Uh…

Anne came home late in the afternoon on Wednesday, found me playing Donkey Kong out in my game room, and asked if I wanted to go get tacos.

“I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast that wasn’t some form of candy,” she said, “and I am starving.”

“Yeah, I’d love that, just as soon as I finish this game.” I secretly hoped she’d stay and watch, so I could totally impress her with how good I’m getting, but she was on her way back into the house before I finished the level.

I missed 5th place on the top five by 100 points, which honestly feels like I should win both showcase showdowns, if I’m being honest? But only resulted in the end of my game, a few minutes later, and no WIL entry on the board.

I went inside, where Anne produced the sweetest painting from behind her back. “I made you a present!”

She paints in a class every Wednesday, and she’d worked on it last week, and finished it Tuesday. It’s a tree with A+W carved into it in a little heart, and a few little red and pink heart-shaped leaves sprouting around the branches.

I reflexively clutched my heart so the joy bursting inside it did not splatter all over the room and ruin the painting.

“Dude! I love this! I love it so much!”

“It needs to dry for … probably several days,” she said, “but isn’t it cute?”

“It’s just the best. I love it when you paint!”

“Okay, let’s go. I’m starving.”

This is when Marlowe must have noticed we had not observed the Super Good Sit she’d been doing since we came into the room. She whimpered a little bit, and did a Big Stretch.

“Mars,” I began, as I reminded her that I already took her on a long W-A-L-K while Mom was out.

Dramatic, Big Sigh … and now we are doing a Super Good Down, and … the eyebrows are activated.

“Marlowe, I appreciate and respect the effort. But Mom is starving and we’ll be right back.”

One gentle tail thump, as sad as a dog who has never had a walk and will never get a walk again in her life. 10/10 Very Good Girl, no notes.

We hit every light between home and the restaurant, because I was in the car. This is The Way.

We sat at what was our usual table before the pandemic. I don’t think I have to tell you how happy and grateful we are that it still is. We used to go out all the time, and we just … don’t, anymore. We’re not comfortable dining indoors, and more often than not it’s just easier to stay home and order or make one of the five or so simple things we got used to over the last few years.

After the chips and salsa arrived and we had accepted the implied challenge, Anne said, scandalously, “Dude. We are on a date, on Valentine’s Day.”

“No! Nonononono. No we are not! We are out to dinner together on a date, on a day that SOME PEOPLE happen to have dates on because THE MAN tells them to. It is awesome that we are on a date, but the timing is purely coincidence.”

I took a sip of my water.

Very casually: “Also, did you find the card I hid in your purse?”

BAM! SWITCHEROO!

“What?” She picked her purse up off the chair, next to her. “No?” She dug through it, until she found the card I had secretly tucked in there, apparently a little too well, the night before.

It’s a pretty great card. It could be construed as a card for the day which shall not be named, but it just as easily could be given on any other day of the year, to a person you love the way I love Mrs. Wheaton.

“This is correlation, not causation,” I said as she opened it. I’m not going to reveal the specifics; that’s up to her to share if she wants. But she laughed at it exactly the way I knew she would, because when you love someone for nearly 30 years, you just know these things.

“This is perfect. This is, objectively, the best card in the world,” she said, laughing the whole time.

I laughed with her. It felt so good to laugh together. It’s been a really long Winter. It’s been, like, seven years of Winter, and it’s nice to feel just a little bit of warmth in the air, the promise of Spring.

We shared flan, as is traditional, then went home and watched True Detective, before she went to sleep and I went out to my gameroom to play Baldur’s Gate (wild magic is so much fun).

So … yeah. Dinner and a movie, I guess, and the exchange of simple reminders of our love for each other, in this life we’ve built together.

BUT NOT BECAUSE THE MAN SAID WE HAD TO. Fuck that guy. This was for us.

finally being included is everything to me

Last night, TNG was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 51st Saturn Awards. (The Saturn is the sort of the Oscar for genre movies and television, if you aren’t familiar.)

I have never cared about awards (I think I’ve mentioned that being nominated is more than enough), and I still don’t. I’m not minimizing this, to be clear. It’s fucking awesome. But I didn’t need an award to know that I am part of something special.

Photo via TrekMovie.com I was standing on the other side of Dorn, until Gates insisted I stand with her. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

The thing about last night, though, is that for the first time in almost 30 years, when the TNG cast was recognized and celebrated, I was finally included. (Put another way, I was not deliberately excluded). I got to stand on stage with my TNG family, arm around my Spacemom, while a room of our peers, including people I idolize, cheered for us.

And I got to be part of it. After all these years, that meant everything to me.

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look what you made me do

If I cared any less about the NFL, it would take effort. I get that it’s massively popular, and for some of its fans, “I like football” is their entire personality. Good for them. Sincerely. It’s just not my thing.

But! I love and admire Taylor Swift, which is the only reason I know that the Chiefs had some kind of huge comeback against Detroit and they are going to the Superb Owl against a team I can’t remember and don’t need you to identify. (EDIT: whoops. I mixed up the two playoff games. I still don’t care.)

I still don’t care about the NFL or the game, but oh my god do I love love love love love how outraged and furious and unhinged all these toxic right wing idiots are about Taylor Swift and her boyfriend the football guy. I love it so hard. I love how it’s waking them up at night, I love how they’re just so goddamn angry about it they feel sick. I love how self-inflicted it all is, and how they keep punching themselves in the dick about it, howling with what they think is righteous outrage, but sounds an awful lot like a toddler having a tantrum.

But the thing I love more than anything, the absolute best part of all of it, is watching a political party, under the complete control of the weakest, most pathetic, tiny little man, discover a new and novel way to alienate millions of voters they desperately need, while they push away countless voters who may have been open to their message, if only it wasn’t … this. LOL.

Republicans have already made it crystal clear that they hate women and want to have absolute control over every single thing a woman does. Voters have responded to that with record turnout to codify laws that protect women, and to replace as many misogynist lawmakers as they can.

So please join me in a robust round of mocking applause for whoever made the choice to attack and vilify and attempt to terrorize the most popular and influential woman of her generation, who polls more favorably than their entire party and all of their candidates.

Just a huge, roaring, standing ovation for whoever decided that the party of angry, toxic, predatory, authoritarian men will *absolutely* increase their support among a demographic they can’t afford to lose by picking a fight with their Joan of Arc.

Outstanding work, gentlemen. I have never seen a group of people slam their dicks in the door so beautifully and successfully. I wish you all the worst as you stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror.

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have your fondest wish, my friend

In TNG’s first … we will generously say “uneven” season, Q gives Riker his powers, with … unexpected … consequences. He goes on this “wish granting” spree in the fourth act, which includes a moment with Wesley that’s memorable for maybe not the reasons the writers intended. (Here I am, talking about it on Memories of the Futurecast)

This episode and its moment set the stage for this, from Star Trek Wholesome Posting on Facebook.

Some number of you are laughing at this because you recognize the references. But I have noticed that this is the first time a lot of people are seeing The Infamous Clown Sweater, so this is how I answered what became a FAQ:

“I did this fundraiser for EFF in San Francisco in … 2001? 2002? Something like that. It was at DNA Lounge, and after we were done, this person came up to me with this horrific sweater (jumper, for you non-Americans). They told me it was part of The Infamous Clown Sweater Project. What’s that, I asked. They told me they are getting as many people as possible to wear it and pose for a photo, which they would then upload to their webpage — not website, webpage, because it was 2001 or so — for all to see.

“Of course I was down for it, and that face I’m making in the first photo is my very real reaction to the awful stank that was just infused in the acrylic fibers.

“The second picture is from a con about … 2014? Something like that, based on how I look. Someone actually made their own version of that horrible sweater for me. One arm is too long, on purpose, the neck is all stretched out, on purpose, and it fits poorly, on purpose. It’s so damn funny to me, and it came along at a moment when we were doing this “then and now” thing on Twitter (before the fascists took over).

“I still have the second sweater. I have no idea what happened to the original. Last time I checked, the website that hosted all those pictures — so old it was manually coded in html, predating even Flickr — was lost to the sands of time.

“But it never fails to make me smile when this picture comes back around. It reminds me of a specific time, when there was just so much hope for the online future we were all building.”

I’ve done a LOT of things involving The Infamous Clown Sweater over the years. It’s never not funny to me, it’s moment has long come and gone, but when it shows up (which is does, about once a year), I always enjoy it.

And for those of you who are too young to know what Riker giving Wesley his “fondest wish” is, well …

Wesley wanted to grow up to be a blue-eyed blonde who I’m pretty sure the costume designer wanted to fuck?

GEORDI! GROSS! You’re not helping!

Look. I love you, Commander Riker, but … you’re gonna want to try again. Wesley’s fondest wish rhymes with “marathon betazoid orgy on risa”.