I’m almost finished with my first *real* rewrite of Just A Geek. I’m right up to just about the end, when I found out that I got cut from Nemesis, and how I dealt with it. After that, there’s really just two brief chapters to clean up (mostly cutting a LOT of stuff out, plus some minor rewriting) before I write a whole new chapter that talks about Dancing Barefoot, and some of the stuff that’s happened since I finished the first draft of Just A Geek over a year ago.
It looks like I’m going to make my April 2 deadline! w00t!
So. I am a little fuzzy on some stuff, and I’ve been reading lots of old comment threads, to help jog my memory. I noticed a TON of comment spam in some of the old stuff, so I was manually deleting some things . . . and I just now came across an entry that I started, marked as a “draft” and never finished.
I have no idea what story I was going to tell here, but I thought it was kind of cool. An “unfinished symphony,” if I may be so bold.
It looks like I wrote this on June 21, 2002, at 11PM. It’s untitled.

Growing up, we never had very much.
We were poor white trash from The Valley, but my parents never let us know that. They never once made us aware of precisely how little we had, or how many sacrifices they must have made just to give my brother, sister and me birthday and Christmas presents.
I lived in a small and very unassuming house in the northeastern San Fernando valley community called Sunland/Tujunga. Back in the late 70s and early to mid 80s, our claim to fame was being a regular location for the hit TV series CHiPs.
Around 1982, one of the numerous times CHiPs was filming in our neighborhood, the kid next door (Steven, who was always putting his hand in his pants) rode his Huffy over The Big Hill, went over to the set, and returned with autographed photos of Larry “John Baker” Wilcox and Erik “Ponch” Estrada. Steven’s sister Tina was a few years older than we were and she was quite taken with Ponch. So I sold my autographed picture of Ponch to her for 5 bucks.
I guess 5 bucks had become synonymous with real wealth in my young mind, since it was the value of my precious Death Star, and I felt great pride shaking down Tina, extorting 5 glorious dollars from her in exchange for the picture that I didn’t care about having, anyway.
That 5 bucks went into a fund, which eventually was used to purchase an Atari 2600 at KMART. It came with Combat and 2 joystick controllers, and Invisible Tank Pong with the most walls remains one of my favorite games to this day.
I tell you this because I’ve just been hit with a painfully lucid memory of being 10 years old, sitting on the shag carpeting of our family’s den in Sunland, playing that Atari 2600.
That memory was brought on when I was sitting here, just an hour ago, playing Circus Atari on an Atari 2600 emulator.
I loved Circus Atari, but we didn’t have it, because playing it required the purchase of paddle controllers, which my parents just couldn’t afford.
But Kent Purser, one of The Cool Kids, had Circus Atari, and I always hoped for the casual invitation to come to his house on the weekend, and play it with him…

Maybe I was going to talk about Atari? Or how I never fit in with the cool kids? I can’t recall if I was invited to Kent’s house or not. I *do* remember an invite to this kid Steven’s house to watch Jaws on Beta, where the Cool Kids all ended up playing Atari and never gave me a turn (and we never watched the movie) . . . Maybe it was going to be something about how we were super poor White Trash when I was a kid, but my parents never let us “feel” poor? I have no idea. But I thought, “Hey, this is kind of cool,” when I saw it.
So there.
Goddammit. I’m supposed to be working, and all I want to do is go play Yars Revenge.

I had the best time ever when I recorded Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go.
I got there a few minutes ahead of my call, because it’s the first time I’ve ever worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation, and there was a ton of paperwork to fill out.
Filling out the forms was a challenge, because I kept losing my focus when I’d hear the voice of Brain, as in “Pinky and the” come out of the guy sitting across from me. Then there was the jaw-droopingly beautiful Tia Carrere, who positively floated into the lobby to work on Lilo and Stitch.
The fact is, the lobby at that studio was filled with a “who’s who” of voice talent, and I was just stunned that I got to be around them.
I got my forms filled out, signed in for the session, and sat there, breathing deeply and repeating to myself, over and over again, “Don’t go fanboy. Don’t go fanboy. Don’t go fanboy. Don’t go fanboy.”
By the time I was called into my session, I was (more or less) calmed down. Well, as calm as one would expect, given the circumstances.
I walked down a long hallway, and into the recording studio. It looked just like you’d expect: Two engineers sat at a huge desk covered with dials and faders, a producer sat on a small couch, and another producer sat near him at a table covered with pages from the script, character drawings, and a sweating can of Diet Coke. The whole room is dominated by a large glass window that looks into the sound booth, which is empty except for a music stand, headphones, and microphone.
When I walked in, I shook hands with the producers, who introduced me to the actor who had just finished. You wouldn’t know his name, but you’d sure know his voice! He said to me, “It’s great to meet you! I’ve been seeing your name all over town.”
“In a good way?” I said.
“Yeah! You’re on voice sheets all over the place. What have you been working on?”
“Well, I’m Aqualad on Teen Titans . . . ”
He snapped his fingers. “Yes! That’s it! I was just over there. Man, they love you!”
I had to bite down on my lip to prevent a Howard Dean Scream from escaping. I smiled, and hoped nobody noticed my trembling hands.
“That is so cool!”
One of the producers said, “Did you see the Master of Games episode that was just on?”
“Oh, you mean the one where Aqualad gets punked by Speedy?” I said with a laugh. “No, I was out at a show the night it was on. But I think they’re sending me a tape.”
He laughed along with me. “That was my episode.”
Uh-oh. Did I just piss him off?
I tried to save it with a joke. “Why you gotta be hating on Aqualad?”
“It was part of setting up Speedy,” he said, “but I tried to make Aqualad as scary and tough and cool as possible.”
“Rock.” I said, and threw a little, mini-goat by my waist. I noticed that my pinky was still shaking, so I put it down quickly.
“Well, I’ve got to get out of here,” the actor said. “It was great to meet you!”
“You too,” I said.
The producer called me over to his table, and showed me the character sketches. He gave me a run down on the show, and then he said, “I really like your voice, so just do whatever you want to do with this.”
“Really? Cool!!”
“Yeah. When Disney asked me who I wanted to play this role, I told them to get you, because I knew you as Aqualad.”
This is where I would have done a backflip, just like Todd Bridges on Diff’rent Strokes, if I was able to do that sort of thing. See, until he said that, I didn’t know why I’d gotten this job. I thought it may have been because I used to be on Star Trek, or because I was a minor celebrity, or something like that. Those are okay reasons to get a job, I guess, but he just told me that I earned this job because of my work on Teen Titans,and that’s the greatest feeling in the world.
“Gosh, thanks, man. That’s so cool! I hope I don’t disappoint you.”
The session director, a young woman who immediately puts me at ease, tells me that they’re ready, so I walk into the booth.
When the door closes behind me, it’s like I’m standing in the Cone of Silence. The only sound I hear besides the ringing in my ears is the excited pounding in my heart. On the other side of the glass, I watch the director press a button on top of what looks like a garage door opener. Her mouth moves as she looks at her script. A moment passes, and she looks up at me, expectantly.
I realize that, in my excitement, I’ve forgotten to put on my headphones. Whoops.
“I guess I can hear you better with these on,” I say with a laugh, and they laugh back.
The producer and director talk a little bit about the character, and give me incredible creative freedom to play around with different voices.
This is the most amazing thing in the world. I can feel their confidence in me, and it creates twice as much confidence in myself. I feel like I can do no wrong, so I clench my hands into fists, grit my teeth, tense up my whole body, and deliver some lines into the mic in this voice that I think sounds kind of cool.
“Hold on, Wil.” She says, and turns to the producer. Her thumb slips off the “talk” button, and all now I can see them talking, but I can’t hear a thing they’re saying. Judging by their body language, they’re happy. There’s a lot of nodding and smiling.
Wow. This rules!
I watch as the director nods vigorously, and thumbs the “talk” button. “That’s fantastic, Wil,” she says, “Let’s record this.”
What? I hit it on my first try? Really?! Cool!
This is the same thing that happens when I work on Titans: all the people involved, from the producers to the director to the actors, are super supportive, and encourage a creative environment, so I feel comfortable taking huge risks and playing characters that I’d never try on my own. I know it probably seems like it would always be like this, and maybe it is in the voice over world, but for the past several years, the bulk of my on-camera “acting” has been in auditions where that supportive, creative environment simply doesn’t exist.
We roll tape, and start recording. After most of my lines, I watch through the glass as the producers and the director talk with each other. I can tell that they’re happy with what I’m doing, and my spirits just soar. I totally haven’t let them down, and a few times, the producer talks to me himself. “That’s just awesome, Wil,” he says, “That was really, really cool.”
Man, I wish I could do that backflip. This is really fun.
I only have 17 lines in this show, plus some crowd voices, a few random kids, and stuff like that, so I’m finished in less than an hour. When I take my headphones off, and step back into the Cone of Silence, I understand why so many people work so hard to make it into the voice acting world, and how lucky I am to be here.
When I walk out of the recording booth, one of the producers, who has been sitting on the far side of the room with a sketchpad, (either looking at character models to see if the voice I’m doing matches up, or sketching character models based on my voice — I’m not sure) jumps up and meets me at the door. He extends his hand, and tells me how much he liked what I did, and says, several times, “We’re going to have you back. We’re going to work with you again.”
I try to remain professional, but I can’t completely contain my enthusiasm. I tell them how much fun I had, and that I hope to come back for more shows in the future. They all assure me that I will.

Anne worked late tonight, and I was too lazy to cook dinner, so I took the kids to a local hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint where we all love to eat. Especially when it means an opportunity to get away from “all that stupid healthfood” I like to cook (according to Nolan).
Ryan told me about a debate he had in school about media, and how media influences people, especially children. I realize that I’m not the most impartial observer here, but I was very impressed with the clarity of his arguments, and his responses to my challenges. In the end, we decided that media is a big influence in kid’s lives, but so are their parents (or at least, they should be.)
Nolan tuned us out most of dinner, and watched the NCAA tournament on a TV that hangs in the back of the restaurant, but he did add, “I think that kids want to be cool, and they see these people on MTV, like Outkast and Britney Spears, and the kids see how much attention they are getting, so they want to be like them. So the kids can think they’re cool.”
Like I said, I’m not the most impartial observer here, but I was impressed again by the depth of his thinking.
On the way to the car after dinner, Ryan said, “Hey, Wil, can we go . . . somewhere?”
“Somewhere? What do you mean?”
“I mean, anywhere that’s not home. I just want to hang out.”
“Yeah,” Nolan said, “I want to just hang out, too.”
I thought for a second about where we could go to just hang out. Before I could answer, Ryan said, “Hey! Why don’t we go home and play D&D?!”
I winced. “Oh man, I would love to do that, but I have been working so much, I haven’t had time to finish the adventure. I’ll work on it over the weekend, I promise.”
“Are you working a lot, now?” Nolan asked.
“Yeah, I guess I am.” The answer surprised me. “I’m on a deadline for Just A Geek, and I’m doing publicity for Dancing Barefoot . Plus, I got a job writing a monthly column for a magazine, and a bi-monthly column for another one.”
“Wow. That’s a lot of work,” he said.
I smiled. “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?! I didn’t realize that. Plus, this animation thing seems to be picking up.”
“That’s cool,” Nolan said, as we all piled into my car. “Does that mean we get to put air conditioning in our house?”
We’ve suffered through five brutal summers without A/C, and every time we think we’re going to get it, something unexpected comes up, and we buy a 15 dollar fan instead.
“Yeah. I think it does. We’ll have to see what the royalties are next quarter.” I pulled away from the curb.
“So . . . can we go do something? Ryan said.
“Yes. Yes we can.” I said.
“Oh! What?!” He said.
“Yeah! What?!” Nolan said.
“We can . . .” I paused dramatically, “Go to,” another pause, “the carwash!”
In unison, they said, “Oh man!”
I laughed. “C’mon! It’ll be an event. I haven’t washed my car in two months.”
Before they could say anything, I dug up the most saccharine voice I could muster and said, “I really want you guys to be part of this.”
We all laughed, and turned up XM. It was Rush played “Limelight” on Top Tracks.
“What the hel– er, heck is this?” Ryan said.
I affected a gasp. “Ryan, it’s RUSH! Your mom hates Rush, so whenever she’s not in the car, I crank it up.”
And I did. I cranked it up, and sang:
“Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation,
Get on with the fascination,
The real relation,
The underlying theme.”
Then there was much air guitar, and drumming on my dashboard.
In a dry voice, Ryan said, “Yeah, you see, this sort of undermines your whole, ‘your parents influence you’ thing that you said at dinner.”
I held up a finger, finished a drum solo, and turned the radio down.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I mean . . .” he paused. I looked over at him and saw his brow furrow. “I mean, kids at school tell me I’m funny, and my teachers tell me I’m a good writer. I obviously get that from you.”
He said it with total nonchalance, like it was just an accepted fact.
It took every ounce of self-control I have in my body and soul to not burst into tears. Ryan’s never told me that he gets anything from me. For most of our life together, there’s been an unspoken distance, a gap that I didn’t open, but could only be closed by him. In that moment, Ryan built a bridge. I don’t know how long it will stay there, but I intend to cross it every chance I get.
“Wil?”
“What?”
“Did you hear me?”
Of course, I was off in the magic land of Stepparentia, and I did not.
“Sorry, I was . . . thinking about something,” I said. “Tell me again.”
“I said that I obviously get my musical tastes from my mom. Except for the emo stuff that you like, and Cake.” He frowned. “Okay, so maybe I just get my 80s musical tastes from my mom.” He frowned again. “Okay, what I mean is, I have gotten a lot of influences from both of you.”
From both of you.
I nodded my head, and swallowed around the lump in my throat. “I think I get it.”
“Hey, when this song is over, can I put in a CD?” He said.
“Yeah! Put in a CD!” Nolan said.
I looked back at him in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, Wil,” he said, “but Rush sucks.”
I chuckled. “You are totally your mother’s son.”
The song ended, and Ryan put Comfort Eagle into the CD player. He skipped ahead to the title track, and the three of us sang along together.
“He is in the music business
He is calling you DUDE!”
We pulled into the Chevron station where the carwash is located.
“I’ll be right back, you guys.” I hopped out of the car, and ran in to buy my ticket.
I wish I could hear the attendant tell the story of the guy who came in tonight and wiped tears from his eyes while he ordered “The Works.”

Poker Blogger Grubette (inventor the The Hammer Challenge) sent me this informative and hilarious breakdown of poker players as Star Trek aliens:

Alien race #1: The Klingons. Even people who don’t like Star Trek have heard of the Klingons, those ferocious warriors whose foreheads grew considerably lumpier in the interim between the original Star Trek show and Next Generation.
The Klingons represent the ultimate in aggression and courage, two traits that grow more and more important to success the higher you go up the poker ladder (that is, as the opposition grows tougher or the stakes get higher). The Klingon saying, “Today is a good day to die,” doesn’t mean they have a death wish. It means that they aren’t going to let the fear of death interfere with their best efforts as a warrior.
As a poker player, you’re constantly faced with situations that generate fear: surprises, famous opponents, the huge payoffs that get close as you advance far into a big tournament, and more. How you face that fear will have a lot to say about how successful you become. You can’t play poker scared. You can’t be worried that your opponent always has the best possible hand, or that a Famous Player is so much better than you that you have no chance.

He also covers Betazoids, Romulans, Vulcans . . . even the Borg make an appearance.

I’ve got a Saint Patrick’s Day story up at the old Cult of the One Eyed Cat
Here’s a taste:

I was well into my fifth Guinness when I saw the leprechaun. He sat at the edge of the bar, gazing sadly at something in his wee hand.
I looked around the pub. Nobody else seemed to notice him, so I casually stood up, held onto the bar for balance, and moved to the seat next to him.
“Excuse me,” I said, “but are you a leprechaun?
He quickly closed his wee hand into a wee fist, and looked up at me. In a wee voice he said, “Aye, laddie. Me name’s O’Malley.”
I looked around again. It was only ten in the morning, so the only other people in the bar were three professional drunks and the barkeep, who was watching Arsenal beat the crap out of Blackburn on the TV.
“Can anyone else see you?” I said.
He sighed a wee sigh. “There used to be a time when the whole world could see me. But now, I’m only visible to people who are drinking Guinness.”

BUT! Before you read mine, you simply must read Kathleen’s How to Survive a Pub Crawl with Real Irishmen:

St. Patrick’s Day is almost upon us. It’s a glorious holiday, filled with song, dance, green beer, and even greener vomit. Many of you have plans to celebrate this fantastic holiday by driving the snakes out of Ireland, or wearing a shamrock to signify your solidarity with the Irish people. Or, like most of us, you’re planning to get so drunk that you forget you have opposable thumbs.
But if you’re up for a real challenge, something that will require you to gather all the strength, courage, and liver fortitude you can muster, we’ve got you covered. We give you: the guide to surviving a pub crawl with real Irishmen.

Oh, and I just want to add one editorial comment for everyone out drinking today: putting green dye into Corona doesn’t make it IRISH, you fokkin’ bastards. Hoist a pint of Guinness, or get the hell out of my bar.