If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you missed this trio of Tweets on Friday:

wilw @ 09:06 AM May 09, 2008
Kenny Loggins was at the ticket counter near me. The girl checking me in was early 20s and had no idea why her cow orkers were so excited.

wilw @ 09:12 AM May 09, 2008
I was unable to see if his destination was the danger zone, but it was clear that he was alright, so there was no need to worry about him.

wilw @ 09:25 AM May 09, 2008
I heard that the TSA made him kick off his Sunday shoes, right in front of everybody, but he was cool with it and just cut loose.

I am easily amused, and so totally hands-on-hips proud of my stupid self.

So apparently Jerry O’Connell was on the Howard Stern Show this morning, and claimed that I bullied him when we made Stand By Me.

I haven’t heard the interview, so I don’t have
context beyond, "Hey, Jerry says you bullied him when you made that
movie," and normally, I’d just laugh this sort of thing off because it’s entirely untrue, but I’m a little sensitive to being misrepresented, especially on a show like Stern where there are eleventy million listeners.

So.

This isn’t true, and you’ll shortly see why it’s so important to me to set the record straight.

Keep in mind that Jerry was 10 or 11 when we shot Stand By Me, and I was 12, so neither one of us is the most reliable narrator in the world about events that are nearly 25 years in the past, but my memory on this particular issue is crystal clear: River and Corey really picked on Jerry and me, because I was the nerd and he was the fat kid. It wasn’t constant — River and I were pretty good friends for most of the production and remained that way for years after — and I’m sure there were moments when all of us formed temporary alliances because that’s what pre-teen boys do when they’re in any social situation like we were, but I never bullied Jerry or anyone else.

I know this to be an unimpeachable fact because I’ve only been a serious bully once in my entire life. I was 10, and my brother was 6. We were spending the weekend at my Aunt Val’s house with our older cousins. My brother and I were pretty sweet little kids, because that’s how our parents raised us. Our cousins, however, were not. They were really cruel teenagers who delighted in tormenting us whenever they could, so on this particular weekend, in the interest of self-preservation, I made a cowardly decision to gang up on my brother with them, so they’d leave me alone.

Jeremy had a little parakeet at Aunt Val’s, called Mister Feathers. Jeremy adored this little guy, and I thought he was pretty neat, too, but when our cousins thought it was real funny to run their fingers across his cage and scare the shit out of him so Jeremy would cry, I went along with it. Eventually, Aunt Val heard all the commotion and came to Jeremy’s rescue. I only saw Aunt Val angry one time in my life, and that was it.

I felt terrible that I made Jeremy cry, because I knew that big brothers were supposed to protect their little brothers, but our cousins were relentless and ruthless in their bullying of us, and on this particular day I wasn’t strong enough to stand up for us both. I don’t recall why, and I’ve spent a lot of time over the years unsuccessfully searching for a satisfactory answer, but the best I can do is "I was a kid, I was scared, and I didn’t know any better."

The thing is, I learned from that experience. I felt so sick about it, and so guilty (still do) that by the time I was 12 and we shot Stand By Me, it is absolutely impossible that I would have bullied anyone, especially Jerry, who I really liked.

12:12pm: In comments, casbar says:

It wasn’t that bad. When asked if any of the other kids were assholes to him, O’Connell said he got along with Phoenix but Feldman and Wil Wheaton would bully him a bit cause it was his first job and he was the youngest. He clarified that it was because you guys were all Hollywood kids so it was some kind of "professionalism" bullying.. if that makes any sense.

Man, that’s actually worse than what I thought he said. Corey was an absolute nightmare the entire shoot: totally unprofessional, always looking to be the center of attention, and excessively cruel to me (when we shot the "dog pile" thing right before we discover the leeches, he delighted in jamming his knee into the back of my knee, and that wasn’t even the worst thing he pulled during production) so to be lumped in with him in Jerry’s memory makes me really, really sad.

NB: I understand that Corey’s finally gotten his shit together. If so, good for him, and I don’t hold a grudge. It’s just that when we made the movie, he was pretty terrible to be around.

Wil Wheaton’s Geek Tour 2008 rolls into Seattle this weekend for the Emerald City ComiCon!

From my original announcement:

I am so excited to announce that I’ll be going to Seattle next month for the Emerald City ComiCon!

This is an awesome show, with a focus fucos on indie
books and publishers. I think I’ll feel right at home, if I can keep
myself from totally geeking out too much. (Yeah, who am I kidding?)

The schedule hasn’t been finalized, but I’ll be doing a performance from Happiest Days and maybe Just a Geek
on Saturday, and I’ll be doing a more general Q&A about blogging,
writing manga, being a geek, the burdens of being awesome, and writing
humorous panel descriptions on Sunday.

I will have a booth to hang out in when I’m not empaneled, so I’m
bringing copies of all my books, pictures to sign, and my glasses and
my shoes, so I have them.

Details:
May 10-11
Emerald City ComiCon
Washington State Convention and Trade Center
Seattle, Washington.

Since then, my schedule has been finalized, and it looks something like this:

Saturday
2:00pm – 3:00pm WIL WHEATON PERFORMS THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF OUR LIVES
   
Before Wil Wheaton was a writer, he was an actor. He combines the two disciplines in this hilarious performance from his latest book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives. The Happiest Days
contains the stories Wil loves to tell, because they are the closest to
his heart: stories about being a huge geek, passing his geeky hobbies
and values along to his own children, and vividly painting what it
meant to grow up in the ’70s and come of age in the ’80s as part of the
video game/D&D/BBS/Star Wars figures generation.

Sunday
1:00pm – 2:00pm GET YOUR GEEK ON WITH WIL WHEATON
   
Wil Wheaton
(Author, Actor, Gamer, Geek, Blogger, Raconteur) invites you to get
your geek on during this hour-long Q&A. There may or may not be
punch and pie (most likely not).

The rest of the time, I’ll be hanging out in my booth, blasting my quads and blowing out my lats.

Slight little bit of not-so-great news: I am nearly sold out of Happiest Days. I have, like, 40 paperbacks because the second printing hasn’t arrived yet. My experience so far is that I tend to sell between 80 and 100 books at cons, depending on their size, and since ECCC has huge tracts of land, it’s unlikely that I’ll have enough for everyone who wants them. (Wow, don’t I sound like a douche there? "Hey, look how popular I am!" Sigh. I hope you know what I mean.)

However! I have some hardbacks, and I’ve planned all along to bring 50 copies to each con I attend this summer, as a sort of This Convention Only kind of deal, so I’ll have those. I will also have copies of the Star Trek manga. As always, I’m happy to sign whatever you bring me (within reason; keep your pants on, guys) and I will have a few other trinkets and whatnot. Like this cool Aqualad thing. Plus, as I said in my original announcement, all my glasses and my shoes, so I have them. Sadly, uncle Freddie will not be coming with me, because he’s dead.

OH! OH! OH! And you know what rules? Jeph Jaques from Questionable Content and Scott Kurtz from PvP will be at ECCC! I am so totally going to slime them.

Next week is Super-Con in San Jose, for those of you keeping score at home. Hopefully the new printing will arrive in time, or I may arrive with stone tablets and a mule. (Not The Mule, mind you. That would cause a Seldon Crisis for sure.)