w00tstock presents: Wil Wheaton vs. Paul and Storm at Largo

Later this month — March 29, to be precise — I will be joining Paul and Storm for a show at Largo, here in Los Angeles. This show will be a sort of concentrated w00tstock, expanding my 20 minute set of one story to about 60 minutes of probably 3 stories, and doing approximately the same for Paul and Storm. There will also be as much Captain's Wife's Lament as the audience can stand.

Look:

Tuesday, March 29 – Wil Wheaton vs. Paul and Storm
Largo at the Coronet, Los Angeles, CA – 7:30 pm
Tickets:

I'm excited for this show, and if it's well-received, we'll know that we can take it on the road with a reasonable expectation of success.

See, w00tstock is awesome, but it's expensive and complicated to produce. The four of us who are in the core of the show have busy schedules that don't always compliment each other, so blocking out a few days where we can all go to the same place at the same time isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world. If we can produce shows with some of us, instead of all of us — a sort of w00tstock presents kind of thing — then it significantly increases the chances of a w00tstock-style show coming to your town.

Yes! Your town! Can you believe it!? It's just that easy! Act now!

Um.

So, to the point: I've loved performing the same two stories at the various w00tstocks we've already done, but it's time to retire them and do something new. This is where you come in: if you're familiar with my published work, it would be really helpful to me if you would tell me what story or stories you would like to see performed live, with musical madness provided by Paul and Storm.

Here are a couple of examples from w00tstocks past, to inspire and entertain you.

Rocky Horror Picture Show at Chicago (w00tstock 2.2)

The Trade at w00tstock San Francisco (1.0)

Wow, watching about 5 minutes of those clips made me simultaneously nostalgic for those shows, proud as hell of what we already did, and positively giddy with excitement for what we're going to do in the mysterious future.

If you're in or near Los Angeles on March 29, I hope you'll come out to see us. It's no secret that Los Angeles sucks balls for live shows, because people just won't come out to see shows unless you tell them things like, "Hey, San Francisco sold out two shows, and you can't even sell out one?" and "What happened to you, Los Angeles? You used to be cool." Or maybe just, "This is a new show, different from the last one you saw, and I promise you'll have fun."

So, tell me, potential-future-w00tstocker: what would you like to see me perform at a w00tstock near you?

Seattle! You can see Marian Call with Molly Lewis and Jason Finn on Thursday! GO GO GO!

One of the great joys of w00tstock 2.4 in San Diego was finally getting to see and hear Marian Call in person; she is brilliant, and totally One Of Us.

I was talking with Marian this morning, and she told me that she has a show coming up in Seattle:

Well, we're having a sort of mini-w00tstock 2.4 reunion up here, with me, Molly, and Finn this Thursday night. I am very very very excited as I get to have a full band and strings and such for the show, which my usual gypsy-ing about prohibits. I'm also releasing a single tomorrow in conjunction with the event — that'll be at http://mariancall.bandcamp.com.

Marian was incredible with a typewriter and a guitarist … I can't even begin to imagine how wonderful she's going to sound with a full band and strings! And Molly will be there! And Finn!

If you live in or near Seattle, and you like things that are awesome, you simply must go see this show. I promise that you will hear great music, and – even more important – you'll be supporting a rising indie star, who just happens to also be an awesome person.

Details:

Seattle, WA // Thurs. 09.09.10 – Fremont Abbey: the Very Very Big Seattle Concert 

Marian almost never plays with a band, but this September in Seattle it shall come to pass. Strings, drums, and every good thing, including the unsinkable Molly Lewis opening (#freemolly!). 8pm, all ages, tickets $10-18 with student/senior/military/disability/starving artist discount. Tickets will be available in advance at http://mariancall.com starting August 26th and at the door. 4272 Fremont Ave N, Seattle WA.

Marian thinks the show will sell out, or get very close to selling out, so you people who are lucky enough to go see the show should buy your tickets in advance, or at least follow @mariancall on teh Twitters for sales updates and last-minute panicked buying.

Oh, and Vancouver? You're next! Marian is coming to entertain you on Saturday.

memories of w00tstock 2.4

I walked across two sets of train tracks, through a tangle of nerds and normals, and navigated my way up Fourth Street toward the theater. My Bag of Holding, slung diagonally across my body, rested comfortably against my side. Inside, my costume changes (read: Nerdy T-shirts) and script (read: Happiest Days of Our Lives) waited patiently to be called upon for w00tstock.

It took longer than I expected to walk up to B Street, so I used the journey to prepare my introductory remarks. Instead of reading a modified version of the intro I'd used in the past, I was working off some bullet points, to keep the intro short, and to allow myself the freedom to improvise a little bit. What had seemed like a good idea earlier in the week was beginning to feel like the opposite.

I paused briefly at a red light. A pedicab rode by, blasting the Macarena. "That's a very effective way of announcing that you don't want any passengers," I thought.

The light changed, and I continued on my way. A few blocks later, I walked into the theater and found Paul at the sound board.

"…so, there's a little, uh, 'w00tstock wrinkle'," he said.

"…okay, what's that?" I asked.

"The venue is 21 and over, and there is some liquor law that prevents Molly from being inside the theater at all."

"Wait. What?"

"They have to have security escort her on and off the stage, and she can't even sit inside the theater with us for the rest of the show."

I waited a moment for the Bazinga, but he was serious.

"Wow, that … that really sucks," I said.

"Yeah. She's outside the stage door." He pointed across the theater.

"I'll be right back," I said.

I walked through the empty space while staff set up chairs and Marian Call waited to do her sound check on the stage. I waved to Jason Finn. "You better grow your beard back," I said, "the council of beards is trying to remove your seat. I'm doing my best to hold it for you, but there's a faction gathering strength against you."

I realize that this doesn't sound nearly as funny now as it did to me at the time.

"I'm glad you've got my back," he said.

A square of bright daylight streamed in through an open door and stretched out, almost to a rectangle, on one side of the stage. Motes of dust danced in it, and I squinted as I walked through them to the loading dock.

Molly and her boyfriend Chris were outside. She was sitting on a chair and didn't look nearly as sad or upset as I would have been.

I opened my arms, she stood up, and I hugged her. "This sucks," I said. "I'm so sorry."

We talked for a few minutes, and I was impressed by how good her spirits were. It was like she'd decided there wasn't anything she could do about it, and had decided to make the best of a bad situation.

"You know what you should do? You should totally play a cover of Save Ferris' 'Under 21'!"

Before we could talk about it more, I was called into the theater to handle other pre-show tasks. I went to our dressing room, where I was delighted to find lots of beer from Stone Brewing for our performers. We always try to get some local craft brew when we do shows (Portland presented us with an embarrassment of riches) to have backstage, and I was pretty excited that Stone hooked us up.

I set down my bag, and pulled out my notebook to go over my intro notes. I was seriously doubting my plan to simply give a brief history of w00tstock before the show. I felt unprepared, and a little queasy as a result.

About forty minutes later, an hour before the show was set to begin, I walked out to check on Molly again. She and Jason Finn were listening to Under 21 on her iPhone, and working out the chords and changes.

"I may add a key change here," Molly began.

"Yeah, that's hashtag-things-drummers-don't-care-about," Jason said.

We laughed for a long time about that. I left them alone to get ready.

About 20 minutes before showtime, all of the performers, including our super-secret guests, gathered backstage. Paul gave the pre-show pep talk, and I found an empty hallway to go over my introduction.

I paced around, talking through my points, directing myself, and trying to find that elusive intro I was convinced I should have just written.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but in the dim light of that corridor, with the growing murmurs of the audience filling the theater – the sold out and standing-room-only theater! – it came to me: this w00tstock is special because it's at Comic-Con. I didn't want to do this show, because I didn't think anyone would come, on account of how many things there are to do at Comic-Con. I was wrong, and that's awesome.

Once I had that, the entire introduction came together, and not a moment too soon. "You have about five minutes," our stage manager (who we call our Dungeon Master) Liz, told me.

"Thank you, five minutes," I said. For the first time since I walked into the theater, I felt more excitement than fear about talking the stage and introducing the show. I may have done a very subdued bit of pogo-ing in the empty corridor after Liz walked away.

The show began. The audience went crazy. We went crazy. We all threw themed underpants at Paul and Storm during Opening Band (mine had 8====D on the front, which is twice as funny if you know the reference). We all crowded around the side of the stage to watch the show.

Molly came out early, accompanied by security, and began her set. "Would you be Molly's music stand?" A voice said.

I turned around and saw Chris, holding a sheet of paper with lyrics written on it. Across the top, it said, "OMG LEARNING A NEW SONG!"

"I would love to do that," I said. I took the paper and carefully held it while Molly sang about breaking up with Wikipedia.

She called me up to the stage, and I had the most fun I've ever had being a music stand. If you were there, you know how great it was, and now you know that she and Jason learned the song and put it all together in a little less than one hour. (I know, right?)

One more Molly memory before I move on to the rest of the show: Molly played an all-request ninja show in the parking lot during the intermission that was watched by all of the performers, and about 1/3 of the audience. It was simply magical, and I am not ashamed to admit that I may have wiped a few proud tears off my face while she sang. I mean, when I was her age, if I'd found myself in a similar situation, I probably would have been pissed at how stupid and unfair the whole thing was, and that would have been the end of it for me. Molly, on the other hand, learned and modified a song – and performed it for a sold-out theater – and then played an acoustic show in the parking lot during intermission. I once said that Molly Lewis is a national treasure, and now you know why.

The majority of the show is a blur of squee and laughter and OMG. Adam observed that everyone came off stage just beaming with joy. As a performer, to have that feeling … it's one of the greatest things in the world. If you were in that audience, and you helped us feel that way: thank you.

A few things stand out for me, though, like how amazing Marian Call was live, how much Chris Hardwick killed with his set, how Jamy Ian Swiss blew our minds so thoroughly, nobody could hear me yelling "WITCH!" over the applause and cheering. I got to stand next to the stage while Rifftrax did Lunchroom Manners (aka Mister Bungle) LIVE. Matt Fraction destroyed the audience with THE BATMAN DREAMS OF HIERONYMUS MACHINES, just like he did at w00tPDX.

I know that I'm forgetting things, and for that I am sorry. Like I said, the show really was a blur of squee and laughter and OMG, and I know I'll remember things in the days to come, so until the updates begin to shake themselves out of my brain, let me close with this:

One of the great surprises for everyone was when my friend
Aaron Douglas, who played The Chief on BSG, came out during my Rocky
Horror story (the joke was, "Hey, I asked for toast, not a toaster!").
It was so much fun for me to introduce Aaron to everyone backstage, and
watch them squee to various degrees. It was especially fun for me to
stand on the stage when Aaron walked out – in his frakking flight suit from the show! – to thunderous applause. It was incredible.

When the four hour show was over (The Captain's Wife's Lament was especially fun, and clocked in at a relatively-reasonable 25 minutes), we all went out to sign autographs and meet the audience. We signed for close to two hours, and finally finished a little after 2am.

I traded hugs and thank yous with everyone, and headed out of the theater with Fraction.

"Do you want to take a cab to the hotel?" Matt asked.

"No, I need to walk off the adrenaline of the show, even though I feel like I'm going to fall down any second from exhaustion."

"I totally get that," he said.

We walked down Fourth Street, toward the convention center. Homeless people slept in doorways and drunk nerds staggered out of bars and clubs. An energy crackled through the cool, foggy air: It was Comic-Con weekend, and w00tstock was just the beginning.

“In a lot of ways, for me, W00tstock felt like finally finding a home base.”

When Paul and Storm and Adam Savage and I had our first conversations about what would become w00tstock, we knew that we wanted to put on an entertaining show for our fellow nerds that would be successful enough to warrant more than the three shows we originally planned.

Sunday and Monday, we're coming to Chicago and Minneapolis for our sixth and seventh shows in less than a year (Minneapolis is sold out, but there are about 100 tickets left for our Chicago show), and that just blows my mind. I mean, I thought we'd do maybe two or three cities in a whole year, and by Monday, we'll have done six in six months.

Storm wrote a nifty thing at the w00tstock website to let people know what w00stock is, and why we think you'll dig it, but you don't have to take our word for it! Here's a blog entry from a wootstock attendee in Portland who wasn't sure she was going to enjoy the show:

I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to relate to a lot of things.

And then we got there.

For what is possibly the first time in my entire life, I was surrounded by people who GET IT. They understand blogging. They got my cultural references. They tweet. We joked about being “I play a bunch of 3 letter words on Words with Friends because I don’t care about strategy, I just want to make words” players. We lamented people who throw sheep at each other and ask for help growing their livestock on Facebook. We compared our various levels of geek for different things. I could use the word “Dooce” in a sentence with someone I had never met before and it wasn’t followed by “Whuh….? Is that an internet thing?” I told people that I write content for websites and didn’t have to explain that it is too a real job. Will talked with people who appreciated his “Gamer” shirt and compared gaming stories. I admitted to one person that I know jack crap about science and was told “but you blog! That’s so cool!”

There were fans and geeks of every stripe there and it was just fun. Nobody was trying to “out-geek” anybody else. Nobody was trying to explain how their form of geekiness was better than someone else’s because of x, y, z. Instead of “really? You don’t like that?” it was “Have you ever tried [this]? I didn’t like that either but then I [insert suggestion here] and was amazed that I liked it after all!”

For the first time since we’ve met, my husband and I had the exact same level of fun at something we chose to do together.

In a lot of ways, for me, W00tstock felt like finally finding a home base. I was in a space with a few hundred other people who just…understand. It didn’t matter what particular brand of geekiness you subscribe to or if, like me, you don’t really subscribe to any particular subset. We were there to have fun. We were there to learn about cool stuff and hear awesome songs and listen to awesome stories and be introduced to new cool people to follow on Twitter and online. We were there to get our respective geek on. We were there to take part in the kind of thing we had always wanted to take part in but hadn’t because we’d had a bunch of people telling us that it wasn’t cool/serious/arty/enough. It was amazing.

The best part about being a nerd right now, at this moment in time, is how easy it is to find other people like us, so we don't feel so goddamn alone and weird. My favorite part of being at certain conventions, like PAX, is that feeling of being surrounded by people who "get" me; it's that feeling of being home. I don't think any of us thought that we'd be able to recreate that sensation at w00tstock, but I keep hearing from people who come to the shows that that is exactly what happens. I don't want to overthink it or anything, but I'm overjoyed to learn that.

I don't know how long w00tstock will last, or if enough people will remain interested in it to do a full-on tour sometime in the near future, but no matter what that future brings, these shows we've done so far have been incredibly special to me, and I'm so grateful that I've been able to be part of making them happen.

making a note here: HUGE W00TSTOCK SUCCESS

Friday afternoon, Anne, Storm, and I walked up the street in Seattle toward a towering red brick building. Next to the kind of ancient metal fire escape that inspires poets to write about life in the city, a sign was painted on the side of the building. It identified the building as a theater, that was available for, among other things, Legitimate shows.

"Also, you guys can do a show here," I said, in reference to us, using a voice I'd made up a second earlier and assigned as The Voice Of The Building.

We walked through a backstage door, and entered a twisty maze of passages, all alike. It took us a few minutes, but we eventually found our way to the stage. I was entirely unprepared for what I saw: a towering space with two balconies, epic ceilings, and magnificent lights everywhere.

"I can't believe I get to perform on this stage," I said.

A few hours later, the house was almost full (I think we got just over 1000 people through the doors, and capacity is around 1400) and w00tstock 2.0 began.

For my contribution to the show, I read When You Dressed Up Sharp and You Looked Alright from The Happiest Days of Our Lives. Paul and Storm joined me for musical accompaniment, and I had an insanely good time performing it. I guess I should have expected audience participation, on account of it being a Rocky Horror piece, but I wasn't prepared for how enthusiastic the response was. When I left the stage, I wished I'd written more opportunities for audience call outs. There is a chance I may release a patch to the story before I do it live again, just for that purpose.

Our special guests were amazing. Stepto read from the Big Book of Enforcement while Paul and Storm chanted the Halo theme, Molly played an unfinished song about how she wants to have Stephen Fry's babies, Hank Green put the whole theater in his hug bucket, and Loading Ready Run killed me with the funny. MC Frontalot rattled our bones with bass, Jason Finn added so much more than "just" drum beats, and that Adam Savage guy some of you may have heard of played some unreleased footage from a future episode of Mythbusters that was as hilarious as it was jaw-dropping.

Over and over again throughout the show, I kept thinking to myself, "I can't believe that I get to be part of making this happen."

It was, as advertised, just over three hours of geeks and music. I'm pretty sure everyone who came to the show had a great time, and I know all of us who were in the show loved every second of it.

The following morning, Anne and I rode the train from Seattle to Portland (seriously, guys, if you live in either of those cities, it is so worth forty bucks to make the trip) and discovered that it was MOTHERFRAKKING NATIONAL TRAIN DAY when we arrived. I mention this because it was awesome, but also because it provided these adorable paper conductor hats that Molly collected and gave to all of us who sang the Schoolhouse Rock classic "Conjunction Junction" with her in the show. It was one of the highlights of my life to do the part that starts out, "In the morning when I'm usually wide awake…" twice this weekend.

We didn't have Frontalot in PDX, but we did have my friend Matt Fraction, who gave an amazing presentation about comics, why he writes them, why we read them, and why they matter. He did for comics what I've tried to do for gaming in both of my PAX keynotes, and it was just wonderful to watch.

We've done w00tstock five times now, and while I've loved every show, the show we did in Portland was especially meaningful to me, because it's the first time in years that my parents have been able to see me perform. After the show, my dad told me how proud he was when the whole theater went bananas as I walked out on stage … so if you were in the audience at the Aladdin, thank you for that; it meant a lot to both of us.

The PDX show went really, really long and ended up being closer to 4.5 hours. We won't let that happen again, but I was relieved to hear from lots of people in the audience that they didn't mind.

When the show was over, I was ready to fall down and sleep for 14 hours, but there was this plan to go to Ground Kontrol for an unofficial after party. I seriously had to drag myself there, but once we walked inside, I was really glad that I did.

I collapsed into bed around 4am, slept until noon, and spent the rest of the day with Anne and my family, which was awesome. We flew home yesterday afternoon, which I presented to Twitter thusly:

wheatonix$> mv /usr/portland/wil /usr/losangeles

@dragoncontv replied:

airlinex$> sudo mv /usr/luggage/wil /dev/random

When I landed, I said:

wheatonix$> file transfer complete

and there was much rejoicing. Well, by me, anyway. And a big high-five to Alaska Airlines for not dropping any packets the whole way back.

Paul and Storm are in LA for the Nerdist podcast tonight, so we were able to meet up at Lucky Baldwin's last night to discuss our future w00tstock plans. I can't reveal any of the things we talked about, but I think it's safe to say that we have only just begun.

Before I try to get caught up on all the e-mail and stuff I missed while I was gone, I wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank everyone who came out to watch the shows this weekend, and to everyone who was in the shows this weekend. I am incredibly grateful that I get to be part of making something like this happen, but it's nothing without all of you guys.