Book review: Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton
This review will address two themes: ST geekery, and a more sober discussion of life and adulthood and all of that self-reflection schmack.
First, some geekery. I must begin with full disclosure: I am a huge Trek fan, and have been since I was 8 or 9 years old (I was always Captain Kirk in the role-playing I did with my friends—yes, even at that tender age I was domineering). In fact, I recently unearthed a calendar from 1984 among my possessions where I had written in which TOS episode aired each day. Now that’s some good blackmail material.
When TNG started up, though, I was going through a phase of Geek Denial and didn’t watch it. Actually, I’m not sure I even knew it was on; 1987–88 was a particularly crappy time in my life. It wasn’t until the fourth season that, under the influence of roommate Marc, I started watching ST again. It’s probably for the best that it happened that way anyway, considering that the first two seasons were fairly awful, and seasons 3 and 4 were excellent. Anyway, let’s just say that I am now and shall always be deeply in love with TNG. I think it’s the best ST series by far. Some obscure cable channel has been re-running them lately, and I find it damn near impossible to keep from watching them every night. (One of the greatest hours of TV ever was on the other night, in fact, when they showed “Family.”)
Despite all the love, though, I thought (and pretty much still think) that Wesley Crusher was the biggest L0ser in the known galaxy and I always thought his character was completely lame. (I shall not weigh in with my opinion of his eventual fate, except to roll my eyes.) Steve and I nicknamed him “The Weasel,” and lo there was much mockery. Things remained in this state for the entire decade of the 1990s and the early years of the 2000s.
Then, a few years ago I discovered Wil Wheaton’s blog. I don’t remember how I found it, or what I expected, but I ended up spending a fair amount of time poking around. I do recall the first realization that struck me: he and I are about the same age. Since I had watched the early TNG episodes only in reruns, I always assumed I was older. We also have both played a hell of a lot of Nethack. Other than that, I noticed his writing style was engaging, and he wrote pretty openly about his family and whatever was going on in his life. He seemed like a real person, rather than some 2D, glossy celebrity. The fact that he had his own presence on the Web, all done himself, was cool. And the site was damn popular—every post had comments numbering in the dozens at least, so clearly the dude was writing something interesting. Then it dawned on me: Wesley Crusher might not be cool, but it was distinctly possible that Wil Wheaton could be cool. They were, like, orthogonal and shit.
So last Christmas I found myself asking for Just a Geek, which he was plugging on his site, and so I got it. Fast forward to last month, when I finally took it off my huge stack of planned reading and cracked the cover.
Suffice to say, I devoured the whole thing in a few sittings. If I had to sum it up, I’d say that it’s a narrative of Wheaton’s struggle to come to terms with his past as Wesley Crusher. Somehow over the course of his time on TNG, he went from successful child actor to starving adult actor, and at the same time he suffered a fair amount of rejection from people at Paramount and the convention circuit as they treated him far worse than the other regular cast of the show, even after the series ended and everyone could be considered former cast members (Wheaton had left partway through season 4).
But the message is larger than that. When Wheaton hits his late 20s and early 30s, life gets pretty nasty and complicated as he has to confront the fact that acting might not ever pay the bills again. I think many people can identify with this arc, since I think for many of us our career path, determined by choices made in college or grad school, will at some point naturally start to reach a lull (or smack into what turns out to be a brick wall). So Wheaton’s struggle to confront this, and his eventual success in overcoming everything that was holding him back, is engaging reading and inspiring to those of us trying to avoid the same traps. Even though this isn’t All About Me, I would also humbly point out that his own blogging and book-writing have provided some of the impetus for me to get off my ass and finally create this blog.
All of this, plus a few hilarious anecdotes about TNG and some warm recollections about his fellow cast members, made this book a very satisfying read. In terms of design, I thought O’Reilly did a good job even though it’s not their usual fare. I especially dug the sans-serif typeface they used for Wheaton’s quoted blog entries. (That was an obligatory warm comment about O’Reilly, should they take an interest in hiring me—hint, hint.) I might not ever give The Weasel the time of day, but Wheaton will definitely get the Fingers of Rock if the opportunity ever comes up.
Despite all the love, though, I thought (and pretty much still think) that Wesley Crusher was the biggest L0ser in the known galaxy and I always thought his character was completely lame. (I shall not weigh in with my opinion of his eventual fate, except to roll my eyes.) Steve and I nicknamed him “The Weasel,” and lo there was much mockery. Things remained in this state for the entire decade of the 1990s and the early years of the 2000s.
Then, a few years ago I discovered Wil Wheaton’s blog. I don’t remember how I found it, or what I expected, but I ended up spending a fair amount of time poking around. I do recall the first realization that struck me: he and I are about the same age. Since I had watched the early TNG episodes only in reruns, I always assumed I was older. We also have both played a hell of a lot of Nethack. Other than that, I noticed his writing style was engaging, and he wrote pretty openly about his family and whatever was going on in his life. He seemed like a real person, rather than some 2D, glossy celebrity. The fact that he had his own presence on the Web, all done himself, was cool. And the site was damn popular—every post had comments numbering in the dozens at least, so clearly the dude was writing something interesting. Then it dawned on me: Wesley Crusher might not be cool, but it was distinctly possible that Wil Wheaton could be cool. They were, like, orthogonal and shit.
So last Christmas I found myself asking for Just a Geek, which he was plugging on his site, and so I got it. Fast forward to last month, when I finally took it off my huge stack of planned reading and cracked the cover.
Suffice to say, I devoured the whole thing in a few sittings. If I had to sum it up, I’d say that it’s a narrative of Wheaton’s struggle to come to terms with his past as Wesley Crusher. Somehow over the course of his time on TNG, he went from successful child actor to starving adult actor, and at the same time he suffered a fair amount of rejection from people at Paramount and the convention circuit as they treated him far worse than the other regular cast of the show, even after the series ended and everyone could be considered former cast members (Wheaton had left partway through season 4).
But the message is larger than that. When Wheaton hits his late 20s and early 30s, life gets pretty nasty and complicated as he has to confront the fact that acting might not ever pay the bills again. I think many people can identify with this arc, since I think for many of us our career path, determined by choices made in college or grad school, will at some point naturally start to reach a lull (or smack into what turns out to be a brick wall). So Wheaton’s struggle to confront this, and his eventual success in overcoming everything that was holding him back, is engaging reading and inspiring to those of us trying to avoid the same traps. Even though this isn’t All About Me, I would also humbly point out that his own blogging and book-writing have provided some of the impetus for me to get off my ass and finally create this blog.
All of this, plus a few hilarious anecdotes about TNG and some warm recollections about his fellow cast members, made this book a very satisfying read. In terms of design, I thought O’Reilly did a good job even though it’s not their usual fare. I especially dug the sans-serif typeface they used for Wheaton’s quoted blog entries. (That was an obligatory warm comment about O’Reilly, should they take an interest in hiring me—hint, hint.) I might not ever give The Weasel the time of day, but Wheaton will definitely get the Fingers of Rock if the opportunity ever comes up.
3 comments:
Ah, but sans serif on the printed page is a no-no! Isn't it?
Yes and no. If it's Helvetica, I'd say no no no. But there are really nice sans-serif faces that have a lot of visual interest and are quite readable. You read that Bringhurst book on typography, right? He sings his (characteristically) poetic praise of some faces on pages 255-264. I'm a big fan of Gill Sans and Myriad, to name a couple.
Plus, as a design decision, it works well in Wheaton's book because it separates his quoted blog entries from the main text. You never get confused as to which you're reading.
In sum: we are nerds. :)
Post a Comment