Not Watch Star Trek

Unlike Boston Legal and The West Wing, Star Trek is a show my friends have no problem whatsoever understanding why I like it.  The original series was a little before my time, but TNG hit right in the sweet spot of my college years, and I gobbled it up along with its first two successors.  The usual schedule of violating parietal rules in Farley Hall my wife's senior year involved watching the latest TNG by candlelight, with wine and Papa John's pizza.  By the time Enterprise came along, I was a little burned out on the concept, although Jolene Blalock was usually enough to ensure a pause if I cycled past an episode on the remote.

But while I was into TNG, I wasn't Into TNG, so I managed to avoid some of the phobias and manias that affected other members of the fanbase ... most particularly, the antipathy towards the character of Wesley Crusher, played by Hwil Hweaton.  Given that Wheaton is about my age, he was the character with which I could identify most closely, so I didn't have (or perhaps unintentionally overlooked) any problems with the way the character was written.

Given that I'm not the go-to-conventions type, my fandom was limited to the occasional syndicated viewing.  So it wasn't until I got into social media a little more that I stumbled across Wheaton's blog.  After reading a couple entries, I was amazed how much in common we had.  We both were rudimentary web programmers.  We both enjoyed RPGs.  Heck, via a recent Twitter post, I came to realize he's also a Dr. Who fan.  If I'd taken that 5th grade role of Winthrop further....  So I set up a feed from his blog into my Google reader and enjoyed the occasional update.

Don't worry, as promised last time, this relates to the blog's genesis.  This is one of those "I'm telling you that story so I can tell you this one" moments.

On the Thursday following my Alan Shore moment at the Hammes, I had a same-day business trip to Charlotte on the docket.  As you'll probably learn more about next time, I absolutely loathe flying.  I'm willing to take the occasional voyage on SWA or UAL, but it's always a means to an end I embrace reluctantly.  So I'm always interested in things I can do to distract myself from my aerophobia, and one of the healthier distractions I employ is a new book.  Two 90-minute flights in one day was going to require quite a distraction, so I cast about looking for something new for my Kindle.

That's when I found out Wheaton and I have something else in common -- we're published authors.  I came across a reference to his autobiography, Just A Geek, and figured this would do the trick for my North Carolina jaunt.  It more than did the job, especially the flight home when we spent the first 20 minutes playing chicken with Isaac Newton due to multiple thunderstorms in the area.

But it did something more than that -- it solidified in my head the idea for this blog.

Wheaton pulls no punches in his book, least of all those directed at himself.  He made the decision to leave TNG just as it was hitting its stride popularity-wise, and he's watched his co-stars create lucrative careers for themselves via the show and its subsequent movies, while his acting career -- recent appearances on The Guild and Eureka (another fave) notwithstanding -- stalled out.  He's very candid about his efforts to get beyond the Crusher character, and how when acting seemed to be failing him, he used other interests like his blog to keep his name out there and keep his career alive.  Far from a puff piece or self-congratulatory paen, JaG is the story of a man willing to admit to his mistakes, foibles and weaknesses so he can own all of them and get past them.

Needless to say, I was emotionally poleaxed.  It really takes a lot of balls, I thought as I sat in a pressurized tube 35k feet over Indiana cornfields, to put yourself out there in permanent print like Wheaton did, refusing to gloss over your fuck-ups and giving an incredibly honest self-portrayal.  This is a guy comfortable enough in his own skin to do something that will benefit him in the long run while risking the slings and arrows in the short.

WWASD was born on the ride home from O'Hare.  I needed a writing outlet.  It probably wouldn't be pretty shaking the rust off (and might not get prettier after that), but private expression is not a useful exercise for someone trying to get a style back.  I had to be willing to risk public failure if I was going to make success possible.  Wil Wheaton did it.  Why couldn't I?

So that's how we got here.  I promise I'll get less narcissistic in the coming weeks and maybe try and approach some current events.  Also, the NDN blog is finally up and running, and with basketball season approaching, I'll be making contributions there as well.