Sports

This was the worst Kings season in years. It’s time to fire Rob Blake.

Posted on By Wil

Hockey incoming. If you don’t speak sports, keep on scrolling.

tl;dr: Hockey is supposed to be entertaining, even when teams are rebuilding. Teams are expected to be minimally competitive in the salary cap era. Kings fans have patiently waited through some very lean years, supporting an organization that’s fallen from its Stanley Cup years into a middling, rote, frustrating decade of missing the playoffs followed by three years of first round exits against the same team. The Kings need to clean house, starting with the GM and front office, or next season will be a repeat of this garbage season, which was the most frustrating and least entertaining season I’ve endured since the 80s. I mean, there were some really bad teams in the late 90s, but they could score power play goals, at least.

Rob Blake was a great player for the Kings. He has been a disaster as a general manager, and the Kings are going to be mid, at best, for years to come, due to his incompetence.

And I think his total failure to lead this organization comes down to two contracts: Cal Petersen and Pierre Luc DuBois. They should be hung around Blake’s neck like millstones, and he should personally write letters of apology to every season ticket holder (only mildly joking, there).

I want a reporter to ask him, and Luc Robataille, why they were the only two people in the entire NHL who didn’t see what DuBois has been showing the league since he was drafted: he has genuine talent, and he doesn’t use it. He coasts, he’s lazy, he’s selfish, he is — by all accounts — an absolute cancer in the locker room, he turns the puck over consistently, takes immature penalties away from the play, and drags down every single team he is part of.

None of this is a secret or should be a surprise. All you have to do is look at his numbers, take out the one season where he actually gave a shit, and have a very clear picture of a man who clearly does not care about playing in the NHL. If math doesn’t do it for you, talk to his former teams.

Rob Blake and Luc Robataille signed this guy for 8 years, taking up all the team’s cap space that was left after Rob Blake gave a 15 million dollar contract to Cal Petersen, who immediately unplugged his controller and will maybe play in the AHL, which is a shame. I really liked that guy and wanted him to succeed.

So at the deadline, when it’s painfully clear to everyone that the Kings need a goalie, they can’t do anything. Because this idiot tied up all the cap space with contracts that will take their place beside Lombardi’s curious choice to shovel money to Mike Richards when he had the opportunity to just release a clearly problematic player.

I sincerely do not understand how these guys can look at the same data that’s available to everyone, and somehow decide that it is actually the entire league and all of the former teammates of this cancerous boat anchor who are wrong; this is the guy who will step up to 1C and lead this team to playoff success.

The Kings are a decade away from the last time they were a genuinely competitive team. Kopitar and Doughty are legends, future hall of famers, and I love them. They are not top line, top minute players any more. That’s not on them, it’s just math, and they can still be valuable to this team in a different role. Put Kopi at 2C, move Doughty to the second pairing, and acknowledge that their amazing careers are nearing their end. Keep them in the room, on the bench, and providing leadership for Byfield, Anderson, Clarke, Thomas, and the rest. And go find and sign a fucking NHL goalie for fuck’s sake.

None of this will happen while the old boys club is in charge. These guys are just incompetent. They have nearly torn down all of the rebuilding work we have patiently endured for a decade, and they did it when we were within a year or so of actually accomplishing it. And why? It just doesn’t make sense. Why rush it when you’re so close?

I hope the entire organization cleans house from top to bottom. If that doesn’t happen, at the very least Rob Blake must be forced to answer for the damage he’s done to this team and its chances to be competitive.

I love this team and I love this sport. I love hockey dates with my favorite human. And I think I’m sitting out most of next year, because, win or lose, this team is just not entertaining. They are boring and frustrating to watch. I love Kopitar and Doughty. I can’t wait for the day their numbers are retired. But I am watching them struggle to keep up with the speed of the changing game, with no help from an overpaid, underachieving, turnover machine who doesn’t give a shit about his team. I watch them lead a power play that passes around the perimeter and shoots once, a rush that dumps the puck in for one shot, no rebound, a 1-3-1 that every other team in the league has solved, and I’m tired of it.

I will always be a fan of the team, but a night out to a hockey game isn’t cheap, and these guys aren’t earning it from me. As long as Rob Blake and Luc Robataille are in charge, the Kings will not be a serious organization.

If you’ve read this far, you probably know that my bracket is entirely blown up in both conferences (as anticipated), but I’m now pulling for the Stars, in memory of Stepto, and the Rangers, because Jonathan Quick.

If you’re a Kings fan, who do you want for head coach? How do you clean up Rob Blake’s mess?

Sports

Because nobody asked, here’s my 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs bracket.

Posted on By Wil

Because nobody asked, here’s my Stanley Cup Playoffs bracket.

Note this is not what I expect will happen, but what I want to happen because it would be fun.

Round 1 Western Conference:

  • Dallas Stars vs. Vegas Injured Reserve: Dallas in 5
  • Winnipeg Jets vs. Colorado Avalanche: Jets in 6
  • Vancouver Never Wins vs. Nashville Predators: Vancouver sweeps
  • Edmonton McDavids vs LA Kings: Kings in 7

Round 1 Eastern Conference:

  • Florida Panthers vs Tampa Bay Lightning: Florida in 5
  • Boston Bruins vs. Toronto Maple LOLs: Leafs in 7
  • New York Rangers vs Washington Capitals: Rangers sweep
  • Carolina Whalers vs. New York Islanders: Carolina in 6.

Round 2 Western Conference:

  • Dallas Stars vs. Winnipeg Jets: Winnipeg in 5
  • Vancouver Canucks vs LA Kings: Kings in 5

Round 2 Eastern Conference:

  • Florida Panthers vs Toronto Maple Leafs: Leafs sweep.
  • New York Rangers vs Carolina Hurricanes: Rangers in 5.

Western Conference Final:

  • Winnipeg Jets vs Los Angeles Kings: Kings in 5.

Eastern Conference Final:

  • Toronto Maple Leafs vs New York Rangers: Toronto ties it in the last minute of game 7 to force overtime, loses on an own-goal with 3 seconds left in the first overtime period.

Stanley Cup Final:

  • New York Rangers vs Los Angeles Kings: Kings in 6.

None of this will happen. But it sure would be fun if it did.

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i turned myself to face me – from star trek: the cruise vii

Posted on By Wil

When I was a larval nerd in the 1970s and early 1980s, the concept of a Multiverse, as it’s popularly known and understood today, never came across my event horizon. The closest thing for me was the Mirror Universe in Star Trek, which was literally a mirror of our own. That was a concept I could easily understand: it was its own thing, on the other side of a single doorway that separated it from the Prime Universe.

The concept of an infinite number of discrete realities, most with vanishingly small differences between them, each of them as real and unreachable as our own was probably a little much for my tiny mind, but since I read a book called Hyperspace in probably 1989 or 1990, I can’t imagine anything different.

Sometimes, I’ll think about this, and I’ll say hello to the other Wils in their own realities, just in case one of them exists in a universe where hearing me is possible.

The first time I remember encountering this in fiction was Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. It came along at the perfect time for me, and landed in that part of my Venn diagram where fantasy and science overlap.

The first time I encountered a tangible, tactile, oh-this-is-exactly-a-parallel-universe-metaphor was last week, on Star Trek: the Cruise.

I have spent a lot of time Backstage, in theaters, at theme parks, at too many performances to remember. The idea of an area that is specifically for preparing the show, that the audience doesn’t see, is not some profound Plato’s Cave revelation. But an entire ship, with its own public spaces, dining rooms, bars, personal quarters, and all the other things the crew needs to live, silently weaving itself alongside the ship that all the passengers experience for their brief voyage, was a memorable experience. I only saw about 2% of it, mostly elevators (tiny, tiny, tiny elevators oh my god so tiny and unsettling) and corridors, but I saw enough of it to remember reading Neverwhere, and whenever the cruise staff used it to get me from one place to another as quickly as possible, my imagination took off, and I had a lot of fun pretending to pop in and out of this universe.

One of the times I … TRAVELED … like this was to get from my room on the 10th deck aft to the 3rd deck forward, to a space called Studio B. That’s where we did our Crusher Family Comedy Hour, and it’s where I did Wil Wheaton is Still Just A Geek: readings from and inspired by blah blah blah.

Only I didn’t have enough time to do any readings from, so I did inspired by; three pieces, one longer than the others, that I have never done in public before. I hoped they would all fit together to tell a story, and I was scared to death the the story they told wouldn’t resonate with the audience if it did.

But I needed to trust myself, trust Anne and my friend who told me it absolutely was going to work, and take what felt like a very big emotional and creative risk.

So I did, and … I think it landed the way I hoped it would. The audience was receptive, which was not always the case at cons for me but has increasingly become the norm this century. For the rest of the cruise, lots and lots of people told me, in that way only other survivors can, that my story meant a lot to them. And every single time, I’m like, “I’m so sorry, but I’m so glad we see each other,” and they’re like, “yeah, it sucks, but we are here”, and we never do an actual secret handshake, but we also do a secret handshake we wish we didn’t know.

I use my phone to record all of my talks and readings, and then I put them with all my glasses and my shoes, so I have them. Most of them, I keep for myself, but from time to time I want to share them with an audience that’s a little bigger than what we could fit in the room.

So here’s a link to the first performance (of two) I did.

At the beginning, you’re going to barely hear my space brother, Ed Speleers, introducing me. You can’t hear the smile on my face, or the overwhelming joy and gratitude in my heart, but it was there. I had no idea he was going to introduce me, and he was just so kind and lovely and everything you hope he will be.

Then you’re going to hear me read something I titled I Turned Myself To Face Me, which I hope will be part of a larger work later this year.

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star trek the cruise vii was wonderful

Posted on By Wil

We disembarked from Star Trek: The Cruise Thursday morning at 715 in Orlando, waited in the airport for seven hours, and got home to Los Angeles just before midnight, which is when my brain decided to wake all the way up because of course it did.

Strangely, I woke up on my own just after 7am yesterday, and didn’t feel like a big bag of ass. Exhausted, wobbly, and dehydrated, but not like a big bag of ass.

I’m going to power down all nonessential systems and reroute warp power to life support for a few days, but before I do, real quick:

I want to take a moment to thank everyone involved in making this cruise happen for putting together such a special voyage and including me. I want to thank everyone I talked to (and who didn’t talk to me, because I was eating) for being so kind and gentle with me. I felt very Seen on this trip, and I didn’t realize how much I needed that until I did. (Shoutout to all my fellow grown-up Wesley fans!)

And I just want to share how completely in awe I am of my fellow performers, after they shared their tremendous talents with all of us in their shows. Seeing David Ajala and Armin Shimmerman perform full Shakespeare plays is now on my bucket list.

I know how privileged and lucky I am to share a fictional universe with all of these humans. I am so grateful that I can call so many of them my friends and family, and for times like these when I get to feel it in my soul so hard, it charges my creative battery to full power. (Even if all my other batteries are flashing red. It’s a fair trade.)

Oh, also? I got to take a HUGE risk and tell a story I did not know would work (it did), I got to play Doctor McCoy while Picardo and Stashwick killed as Spock and Kirk.

But best of all, I got to perform with my Spacemom for the first time in 30+ years, and my space brother for the first time, ever. What a week. What a gift.

Thank you, so much, to all the fans who allowed me to entertain you a little bit, and to everyone who shared with me that my work has mattered. It means a lot.

Okay. Time to beep boop send this.

Mr. Crusher, you have the Bridge. I will be in my quarters and do not wish to be disturbed.

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wild child

Posted on By Wil

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.