Just a Geek: Unflinchingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise
Wil Wheaton
Language: English
Pages: 298
ISBN: 0596806310
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Wil Wheaton has never been one to take the conventional path to success. Despite early stardom through his childhood role in the motion picture "Stand By Me", and growing up on television as Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Wil left Hollywood in pursuit of happiness, purpose, and a viable means of paying the bills. In the oddest of places, Topeka, Kansas, Wil discovered that despite his claims to fame, he was at heart Just a Geek.
In this bestselling book, Wil shares his deeply personal and difficult journey to find himself. You'll understand the rigors, and joys, of Wil's rediscovering of himself, as he comes to terms with what it means to be famous, or, ironically, famous for once having been famous. Writing with honesty and disarming humanity, Wil touches on the frustrations associated with his acting career, his inability to distance himself from Ensign Crusher in the public's eyes, the launch of his incredibly successful web site, wilwheaton.net, and the joy he's found in writing. Through all of this, Wil shares the ups and downs he encountered along the journey, along with the support and love he discovered from his friends and family.
The stories in Just a Geek include:
- Wil's plunge from teen star to struggling actor
- Discovering the joys of HTML, blogging, Linux, and web design
- The struggle between Wesley Crusher, Starfleet ensign, and Wil Wheaton, author and blogger
- Gut-wrenching reactions to the 9-11 disaster
- Moving tales of Wil's relationships with his wife, step-children, and extended family
- The transition from a B-list actor to an A-list author
Wil Wheaton--celebrity, blogger, and geek--writes for the geek in all of us. Engaging, witty, and pleasantly self-deprecating, Just a Geek will surprise you and make you laugh.
story—diaries as performance art. This is his account of himself and of growing up (at least partly) in public. It’s a lot of work, keeping a journal, inviting the world into your head. Sometimes you stay up much too late writing it, and you always reveal more than you planned. That’s the way of it. (Although Just a Geek is a lot more than a fix-up or a “best-of” wilwheaton.net. The journal entries punctuate it, but the story he tells is bigger than that.) As you read this you’ll learn about life
side. The tip of her tail wags against my cat, Sketch. “I really don’t think there are going to be that many people there. I don’t want to schlep a bunch of books up there and back,” I tell her. “Besides, my bag is full.” She looks into my suitcase. Sketch meows at Ferris and jumps off the bed. “You’re taking two pair of shoes for a 36 hour trip?” “Well . . . yeah.” “Why?” I resist the urge to shout, “I learned it from you, okay?! I learned it by watching you!!” Instead, I say, “Dress shoes for
assistant said that it would be no problem and I’d hear from someone at Nickelodeon about the screening. The next day, the phone rings and it’s totally Jonathan himself, calling me back, telling me how happy he is that I want to take my stepkids to see his movie and that he’s really happy to get me into the screening on Saturday. See, the thing is, Jonathan is what we in Hollywood call A Big DealTM and usually people who become A Big DealTM don’t usually talk to people who aren’t also A Big
20% occupied, so it really feels like, well, The Twilight Zone. I get there, park my car in the mostly abandoned garage and try to find the office where I’m reading. That post-apocalypse feeling is reinforced when I walk up three flights of turned-off escalators, which are lit by fluorescent lights and covered with dust. I mean, I really did expect to come around a corner and see Charlton Heston screaming, “Soylent Green is people! It’s people!” I finally got to the room where I was supposed to
who is reading with you is so overworked, he or she doesn’t take the time to learn what the scene is about and reads the other lines in the scene with a flat, monotone disinterest that throws off the best of us. I guess what most of them fail to realize is that the best acting is reacting and it’s tough to react to complete and utter disinterest. A notable exception to this rule is Tony Sepulveda, who casts at Warner Brothers. He is one of my absolute favorite casting directors to read for,