Dancing Barefoot (11 page)
[
1
]
In 2002, Bill and I played together on a special
Star Trek
edition of the game show
Weakest Link
. He was friendly and warm
toward me the entire time. Several months later, I asked him on Slashdot, “Are we cool, or
what? I mean, I always thought you didn't like me, but I had a good time with you at
Weakest Link
watching the World Series. So are we cool, or was that
just pre-game strategy?” He replied: “We are so cool, we're beyond cool. We are in orbit
man. I don't do pre-game strategy. I look forward to some personal time with you.”
[
2
]
Mike Okuda was the chief graphic designer for
The Next
Generation
, and has since worked on all the series and movies. He also wrote
all the official technical manuals. Along with Rick Sternbach, he is widely regarded as
the
authority on
Star Trek
technology.
[
3
]
One of the most important elements of sketch comedy is the blackout that ends the
scene. When I write a sketch, I always end it with a big laugh, or a big surprise and the
lights must then immediately come down. If there's even a three second lag, it can ruin
the whole scene.
[
4
]
In sketch comedy, when you do well, you “kill” when you do poorly, you “die.” We
comics are obsessed with death, I guess.
When he sits down and commits some thoughts to paper, an author makes the bold assumption
that a reader will spend her time (which could be spent a thousand other ways) taking the
journey he's laid out.
The road from assumption to realization is long and complicated, and I could not have
successfully navigated it without these people:
Dan Perkins said to me, “You know, you should write a book. . .”
Andrew Hackard edited that book,
Just A Geek
, from which these
stories were excised. Without Andrew's guidance and encouragement, I wouldn't have gotten past
the title page.
Bobby The Mat edited the Saga of SpongeBob Vegas Pants, and helped me find the beginning
that I so desperately needed.
My family (the one I grew up with and the one I made myself) participated in the real-life
events that inspired these stories, reminded me of stuff I'd forgotten, and didn't get upset
at the stuff I left out.
Thumper introduced me to DeHart's printing, where Wendy patiently answered all my stupid
questions.
Travis Oates taught me how to write sketch comedy, helped me overcome my fears of not
being funny, and has been a treasured, faithful, reliable friend. He also wrote the awesome
one-line descriptions of all the stories that's on the back cover. And he told me to include
an introduction.
Stephen King wrote stories I liked to read when I was a kid. One of those stories became
Stand By Me
, in which I played a writer â more than just a coincidence,
it turns out. Before I started writing this, I read his book
On Writing
,
and the information he shared in those 288 pages made all the difference.
Oingo Boingo, Underworld, Cake, Radiohead, The Ataris, and Scratch Radio all provided
music to silence the rest of the world while I worked. U2's cover of the wonderful Patty Smyth
song “Dancing Barefoot” provided me with a title.
My wife, Anne, patiently supports everything I want to do, whether it's writing a book or
playing in the World Series of Poker.
Aunt Val loved me my entire life, and probably still does. I wish you could read this. I
know you'd be proud.
Ben Claassen III is originally from New Orleans, but currently lives in Washington, DC. He
has been drawing big foreheaded people without noses for a very long time. He stays up every
night âtil the wee hours of the morning with ink all over his fingers, dreaming of life in a
castle on the beach with a swimming pool moat around it and an underwater pirate bar that
would have a talking parrot for a bartender. The parrot would wear a small blue tuxedo and
would be able to speak French, German, and a little bit of Japanese.
Ben likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, people who send him drawings of monsters,
and dancing lemurs with tiny red cowboy boots. He can be contacted through his website,
bendependent.com
, or through
killoggs.com
.
Wil Wheaton started acting at age 7. As a teenager, he starred in the Academy Award
nominated classic,
Stand By Me
, and the television series
Star
Trek: The Next Generation
. After leaving
Next Generation
in
its 4th season, he went on to star in several award-winning independent films before taking an
extended hiatus from acting to write fulltime.
His website, wilwheaton.net, won
weblog of the year
in the 2002
bloggies, was named
Best Celebrity Weblog
by Forbes.com in 2003, and is
read by a global audience of over one hundred thousand people a week.
He is lactose intolerant, loves Cake (the band, not the food) and lives in Pasadena,
California. He wishes that his author bio was as good as Ben's illustrator bio.
Wil Wheaton may be one of the most unusual celebrities of our time. Born into stardom with the movie "Stand By Me", and then growing up on television as Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Wil was in the spotlight nearly his entire childhood. Instead of burning out as a child star, he left fame behind and became a computer specialist in what Hollywood might consider the middle of nowhere: Topeka, Kansas. Now, Wil considers himself "just a geek", and both Dancing Barefoot and the forthcoming biography Just a Geek are about his journey in rediscovering himself and coming to terms with what it means to be famous, or, ironically, famous for being previously famous.
This book was written entirely in Open Office.org 1.0.1, a free and open source word
processing program, on a computer running Red Hat Linux 8.0 (Kernel 2.4), a free and open
source operating system. Images were scaled using the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, also
free and open source. Free and open source is good. The typeface is Bookman L.
Available Spring 2004 from O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Wil Wheaton may be one of the most unusual celebrities of our time. Born into stardom with
the movie
Stand By Me
and then growing up on television as Wesley Crusher
on
Star Trek: The Next Generation
, Wil was in the spotlight nearly his
entire childhood. Instead of burning out as a child star, he left fame behind and became a
computer specialist in what Hollywood might consider the middle of nowhere: Topeka,
Kansas.
Now, Wil considers himself “Just a Geek,” in a book about his journey to rediscover
himself and come to terms with what it means to be famous, or, ironically, famous for being
previously famous. Engaging, witty, and pleasantly self-deprecating,
Just A
Geek
will surprise you and make you laugh. Sometimes the most shocking things
about a celebrity are the simple things that make them commonplace. Wil is just a geek and
that makes him something special.
“I admire Wil's courage enormously. I talk about politics, which is easy, compared to
what Wil does: he talks about his life. And he does so with grace and good humor, and after
you follow his site for awhile, you begin to feel as if you're there with him on the roller
coaster ride which apparently comprises the life of a struggling actor: auditions,
rejection, uncertainty, and sometimes even triumph. I could make some sort of Star Trek joke
here, about how you should set your phasers on âpurchase' or some damn thing, but I'll spare
us all. Just buy the book. It's worth your time.”
-Dan Perkins, aka Tom Tomorrow
http://www.thismodernworld.com
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