Bye bye, Portland. Get ready, Seattle.

37 Replies

Our show at the Alberta Rose Theatre last night was a whole lot of fun for me, and as far as I can tell, the audience enjoyed it as well (even the 28-minute Captain’s Wife’s Lament). John Roderick was amazing as always, and even let me write his setlist (Blue Diamonds, Honest, and Seven) to which he added the song he debuted on JoCo Cruise Crazy. The Doubleclicks sang a lullaby for Mister Bear, encouraged a Velociraptor, and reminded us about the benefits of classic literature. Paul and Storm added Opening Band at my request, because Anne had bought some outrageously obnoxious boxers to throw at them … and then forgot them at the hotel, so there was a break in the song when I came out, all excited to see a wall of panties thrown at them … only to give an extended Grumpy Cat thumbs down to the audience. There’s probably pictures somewhere.

I stepped out of my comfort zone again, and did about ten or so minutes of stand-up jokes before the usual storytelling. I thought it went well, considering it’s only the second time I’ve done that sort of thing and I’m still leveling that particular skill. It felt really good when the audience exploded into laughter at a joke I wrote, and I understood the appeal of standing in front of people on a stage, making them laugh. I owe Hardwick a case of Fresca for helping me work out my set, and making it easier for me to give myself permission to attempt something I’ve always loved watching, but always been afraid to do. I haven’t decided if I’m doing jokes at ECCC, because my show with Paul and Storm is so early on Saturday morning, and the audience may not be awake enough for it to work. I guess I’ll make a game-time decision.

I’m looking forward to sleeping for most of today, to save up energy for the con this weekend, and then getting my geek on until Sunday. Geek and Sundry has our own space this year, and I plan to spend a fair amount of time there, playing games when I’m not signing stuff.

In other news:

  • My brain doctor helped me increase my brain meds a little bit, and though he told me it would take five days to feel the change, I’m already feeling better and closer to normal. I’m a little sleepy, but that’s an expected temporary side effect that I am happy to endure.
  • The reaction to Tabletop Day has been as positive as I expected, but the sheer volume of responses and events planned already is blowing me away. I made a silly video that should go up today, but may be delayed until tomorrow because the initial announcement was delayed by a day. Check our YouTube Channel (and subscribe if you haven’t) obsessively for the next 48 hours or so.
  • This trip to Portland was shorter than usual, but we had a great show, and I got to spend an entire afternoon yesterday with my sister and my godson, so I’m choosing to view it as a visit of concentrated awesome, rather than a visit that was too short.
  • Scallops the ProspectARRRRR

 

  • More
This entry was posted in blog, Music, Travel on by Wil.

March 30 is International Tabletop Day

31 Replies

As promised, the Very Big Tabletop Announcement is here. Take it away, Felicia!

We have wanted to do International Tabletop Day since we premiered a year ago, and we’ve been working on making it happen for almost as long.

At tabletopday.com, you can find and join events in your town, or create your own! You can play wherever you want, but if you go to your friendly local gameshop, you may just get one of the Tabletop Day exclusive bonuses for games like Gloom, Dixit, 7 Wonders, Castle Panic, Smash Up, and more. It’s so so so awesome, you guys, and I can’t wait for you to see the amazing things our friends in the games industry have created for you.

The very best thing about Tabletop, for me, isn’t that I get to play games for my job or that I get to hang out with awesome people while I do it. I know that seems like it would be the most awesome thing about Tabletop, but it isn’t. The most awesome thing about Tabletop is the community of people who have rediscovered their love of gaming, or started a game night, or have somehow been inspired by our show to play more games. International Tabletop Day is all about you, and it is designed to celebrate the community that inspires me to work as hard as I can to make the best show I can.

I hope you’ll join us on #Tabletopday, and play more games!

  • More
This entry was posted in Games, Tabletop on by Wil.

Portland and Seattle, I am about to be in you.

56 Replies

Tomorrow morning, Anne and I are heading up to Portland to vist some family, eat some donuts, play some classic video games, buy some books, drink some beer, and do a show with Paul and Storm at the Alberta Rose Theatre. I got confirmation last night that our friends The Doubleclicks and John Roderick will be joining us for some happy funtimes, and I’m looking forward to the show.

When I was on JoCo Cruise Crazy 3, I forced myself to step way out of my comfort zone, and I did about 10 minutes of stand up comedy as part of my set. I haven’t seen video of it, so I don’t know if the audience liked it, but I recall feeling like it went pretty well, and besides, it was a lot of fun to write it and take the chance performing it. I think one of the best reasons for stepping outside of your comfort zone is to expand it, and by that measurement, it was a successful experiment.

So last night, my friend Chris Hardwick came over and helped me develop some material I’d been putting into my notebook in advance of the show, and we ended up putting together some stuff that I think is pretty goddamn funny. I’m terrified, but excited, to try it out in the show.

I know it’s cart before the horse (in the sense that there is no horse and the cart hasn’t been built, yet) but we even talked about maybe shooting a special with me doing jokes and telling stories and selling it on the Internets some day in the mysterious future. I think that could be really cool.

After Portland, I’m on my way to Seattle for the Emerald City Comicon. This is one of my favourite conventions of the whole year, and is the gold standard (with Phoenix Comicon) for how a con should be run, how fans should be treated, and what kind of value you should get for your money. Paul and Storm and I are doing a show (disguised as a panel) on Saturday morning, and I have a Tabletop panel on Sunday afternoon. The rest of the weekend, I’ll be signing pictures and books and boobs and action figures. Saturday night, the Kings are playing the Canucks, so Aaron Douglas and I are planning to find someplace where we can watch the game and talk all kinds of shit at each other. It should be fun.

I’ll have a limited number of books with me at the convention, as well as some pictures, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. I am still accepting dice for project How Many Dice Is Too Many Dice.

Now, as always, the thing I have to say before I go to a con:

I got the Swine Flu at PAX Prime, and it was the worst two weeks of my life. When we went to PAX East, all of us (Jerry, Mike, Kurtz, Straub, Paul and Storm, The Professor and Mary Ann) all agreed that we wouldn’t shake hands, give hugs, or engage in human contact with people, to limit the introduction of infection vectors. Most people understood, and we gave each other the old Iron Guard Salute (not the fascist thing, the gaming thing that looks like like “love” in ASL). The result: a few people were cheesed off, but none of us were too upset about that, because none of us got sick. It was the first con I’ve gone to in my whole life where I didn’t get some form of Con Crud, and I’d like to repeat that until we turn out the lights on Planet Earth. So, tl;dr: I’m not going to touch people at the con. I know it seems weird, but I hope you understand why. I’m not trying to be a dick, I’m trying not to get sick. 

 A non-zero number of readers seem to have a real problem with this, and people on the rest of the Internets are already giving me a hard time about it in very unkind terms. This makes me really sad; I hoped for a little more empathy and understanding. Not that it should matter, but I have Epstein-Barr, so my immune system isn’t as robust as a normal person’s; it is very easy for me to catch viruses and other nasty things. I’m not going to apologize for not wanting to get sick, especially after two weeks of Swine Flu. If you can’t understand that, it’s your problem, not mine.

People don’t like to hear this, and I hate that I have to say it. I’m not sorry, because I don’t particularly like getting sick.

Sorry that the big Tabletop announcement didn’t happen today. Something related to it wasn’t ready, so we have to delay it until tomorrow. Feel free to continue speculating.

I’m writing a new story. I’m aiming for 30,000 words, but it will be the length that it wants to be. I’ve been doing a little bit every day, and I’m up to about 4,000 words. I’m having a lot of fun writing it, and if it’s worth publishing when it’s done, that will happen.

  • More
This entry was posted in blog on by Wil.

We have a major Tabletop announcement tomorrow

119 Replies

…and it’s not what you think.

But feel free to speculate, if you like, (I can’t confirm or deny anything) and until tomorrow…

Play more games!

  • More
This entry was posted in Tabletop on by Wil.

Try now to take the next step

137 Replies

In the last 18 hours, I’ve been overwhelmed with supportive messages from friends, people I’ve never met, and total strangers. Thank you. It means a lot to me to be embraced by so many when I feel like I took one on the chin, even though it was, in a lot of ways, delivered by my own fist.

Having a crisis of confidence really sucks, even though I know it’s temporary and will pass. Having depression and anxiety also makes things that really shouldn’t be a very big deal into Very Big Deals. I’ve felt like my meds aren’t working as well as they used to for about two weeks, and after feeling so profoundly awful yesterday, I made an appointment to see my brain doctor to figure out if I need something different or a higher dose, or whatever will help me.

So I guess the success I’m making out of this failure is a kick in the ass to get my brain back into shape, which is really much more important than any job will ever be.

I used to write a lot about Balance, how it was important to not take the peaks and valleys of life too seriously, how life was (for me) much better when I made an effort to take a long view of things, striving all the while to live as close to the midpoint of the waveform as I could. (Or is it the baseline? It’s been a long time since I did real science instead of the awesome imaginary kind I did on the spaceship or at Global Dynamics).

So today? A little Balance from yesterday: I had a voice over audition that I recorded in my house and sent to my agent, who sent it along to casting. The producers of that show liked my take on the character enough to bring me in for a reading in person. I also had a meeting today with some producers who pitched me a show that [REDACTED] and could be really awesome.

I think that, mostly, I felt like an idiot yesterday. I felt like an idiot for being so excited and confident that I’d done a great job that I talked about it in public before I knew if I got the job or not. I think it’s just my brain fucking with me, but that felt embarrassing and awkward to me.

But I’m going to make my brain better as soon as I can, and remember that Depression Lies until I can metaphorically stab it with a Q-Tip.

  • More
This entry was posted in blog on by Wil.

living in a hallway that keeps growing

93 Replies

An all-too familiar coda:

My friend, who I saw yesterday, called me this afternoon. I missed the call, so I heard her message on my voicemail. She was so happy and positive. “I just tested for that show! I wanted to find out if you tested too, because it would be so much fun to work together again!”

Of course, I did not test and I will not test. The only feedback I got from the audition was: “Wil isn’t the guy.”

Thanks. That’s very helpful, and lets me know if I sucked and didn’t realize it, or if I was fine, but not pretty/tall/thin/what-the-fuck-ever enough for the role.

Oh, wait. I mean it’s the platonic ideal of not that. The not knowing is awful and maddening. In the absence of any meaningful and useful feedback, all I can do is tread water in an ocean of self-doubt and try really fucking hard not to drown in pretty heavy seas.

I work so hard to not have a single fuck to give about auditions once they’re done, but the truth is: I wanted this one. I wanted it even more when there was the prospect of working on a series with my friend who will likely book this job because she is amazing.

I’ve tried to remain positive, tried to accept that this is just how it goes … but I have to face a terrible and undeniable reality: I never book jobs when I audition. When I’m offered a job, I do great work on the set, and I haven’t done a single project in the last ten years that I’m not proud of, but something clearly is not working when I audition. Something isn’t clicking between my perception of my work and the actual work, and I can’t see it. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong, no idea how I’m not getting it done, and I genuinely don’t know what to do. I know I’m a decent actor, but I think maybe I’m just horrible at auditions.

I haven’t felt this awful after not getting a job since  … Jesus, I don’t know how long. But I know that I feel like it’s just a giant fucking waste of everyone’s time for me to audition for anything, because my batting average is so far below the Mendoza Line, I would be cut from a T-ball team.

After 33 years this should be easy. I shouldn’t feel this way, ever, because math just says I’m going to go on 20 auditions for every job I book, if I’m beating the average.

It should be easy, or at least easier … but it isn’t. It never is.

  • More
This entry was posted in blog, Television on by Wil.

exploration b

26 Replies

It was cold and dark and the wind was whipping up, pushing the cold through my body like I was naked in the snow.

But I was neither naked, nor in the snow. I was dressed normally and in the Valley, walking from my car to the front gate of CBS Radford for an audition at the end of the day, long after the sun had begun its journey to char the other side of the world and come back to us, and I was listening to Los Angeles so intently, I walked right through the gate and past security.

Wow, that’s a loud and obnoxious alarm, I thought, not realizing until I was stopped by a guy with a gun that I was the one who had triggered it.

“Can I help you?” He said.

“Oh, yes,” I said, “I’m, uh, here for an audition.”

“Okay, just give me your ID, please.”

I fished my ID out of my pocket and handed it to him. A gust of wind tried to tear my audition scenes out of my hands but only succeeded in blowing a bunch of dust into my eyes. While I wiped it out, he handed my ID back to me. “Okay, Mister Wheaton. Do you know where you’re going?”

“No, I haven’t been here in almost ten years,” I said. Because, you know, he really needed to know and cared about that extra information.

“No problem,” he said, and then gave me directions to the building where the auditions were being held.

I thanked him and walked into the lot. It was empty, the windows of the offices mostly dark, and the stages all closed up and locked for the night. I walked about fifty feet down one street before I remembered working on a movie here when I was around 20, called December. It was a tough shoot — I had nothing in common with the other actors, who were all incredibly difficult for me to work with for reasons best left to history — and I’m not thrilled with my performance as a result. I suppose that’s why I haven’t thought about it in twenty-ish years.

I pushed those unpleasant memories away and instead looked around at all the buildings as I passed them. This studio was built in 1928, and it still retains some of the adobe charm of that era around the glass buildings and modern production trailers everywhere. It’s one of the very few studio lots in this town where it’s easy to not just see but feel what it was like to make movies at the beginning.

Being an actor isn’t the easiest thing in the world. For one thing, lots of people think it isn’t a real job, and it’s very difficult to get enough work to support yourself and your family without doing what lots of people would think of as a real job. I’m incredibly lucky to make my living the way I do, and as I looked around at buildings that were almost one hundred years old, I marveled at the tradition I’m part of, and was grateful for it.

I walked down a street called “Gilligan’s Island Ave.”, named for the classic series Charlie’s Angels.

Just kidding. Gilligan’s Island was filmed on this lot, and I remembered that during a particularly frustrating day during production so many years ago, I took a walk down this street (which was then called something different) to see what was left of the exterior sets. It wasn’t much; all I recall is some sand and a murky swamp, but if you squinted and used your imagination, you could see Skipper whacking Gilligan with his hat before Gilligan ran into that water as the credits rolled.

It looked like Gilligan’s Island Ave. was all that remained from the show, though. A huge, modern, television production facility was where I remembered it being. The local CBS evening news was being broadcast inside it. I hope nobody recognizes me and puts together that I make a lot of jokes about CBS and KCAL on Twitter, I thought, because I know what happens when local news anchors have a vicious cock fight, and I don’t think I can keep my head on a swivel like that. I saw the building I was looking for, thought wow, that escalated quickly, then giggled a little bit.

It was a three story glass building, completely dark except for the bright white light spilling out of the ground floor. Inside, I could see a half dozen actors in chairs, pacing the room with sides in their hands, or talking to the glass, which I imagined must look like a mirror from their side.

I walked in, found the sign-in sheet, and wrote my name on the first empty line beneath a mostly-full page of other actors’ names, each one of us hoping that this is The Time and this is The Role and this is The Show. I noticed that a name of a very good friend of mine was written just above me, and when I looked up, I saw her smiling at me from across the room.

We both stood up, crossed the room, and embraced. I adore this woman, and she’s such an incredibly talented actor, I couldn’t believe she was auditioning instead of just saying “yes” or “no” to o