{"id":2675,"date":"2012-02-20T23:01:45","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T04:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/?p=2675"},"modified":"2012-10-16T23:13:53","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T03:13:53","slug":"book-review-just-a-geek-by-wil-wheaton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/archives\/2675","title":{"rendered":"Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\n [rating=4] ‘Just a Geek’<\/a> promises “Unflinchingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise”.
\nI’m very happy to say, it delivers on that promise.<\/p>\n

In 1991, I was 13 years old and Wil Wheaton was about to retire from Star Trek at the ripe old age of 18. My friend Alyssa and I went to a convention in Toronto to hear Wil speak. <\/p>\n

I was floored by the difference between the character I’d seen on TV – clean shaven, immaculate spandex attire, smiling, polite and dripping with 1950s ‘Leave It To Beaver’ purity – and the brash young man standing on the stage, decked out in a Canadian tuxedo (head to toe denim), black leather jacket and backwards baseball cap, affecting a slacker drawl.<\/p>\n

Who WAS this man? This wasn’t Wesley! He was wearing LEATHER!!!<\/p>\n


\n(Please note: I am not the lady with the silver ponytail photobombing Wil)<\/em><\/p>\n

Wil Wheaton was the first celebrity I ever met in person. The experience caused me to wonder about the huge divide between the media I consumed in theaters and on TV and the people who worked to create them. He woke me up to the Industry side of magic, fame and alternate reality. It was a key moment for me, and kept me from wetting my pants later in life when I got to meet Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver!) and Kevin Smith.<\/p>\n

These days, you can follow celebrities on Twitter<\/a>, watch interviews on YouTube<\/a>, read about an actor’s life history on Wikipedia<\/a>, or connect with him on his mad popular blog, WWdN<\/a>. Information was far more limited in my teens, so it was a unique revelation to have this insider peek into what was happening to Wil back in the 90s.<\/p>\n

Wil Wheaton had debt issues? He had stepsons? He fought court battles with his wife’s ex? WHAT? You mean, he wasn’t regularly enjoying tea and crumpets with Patrick Stewart, in a band with Jonathan Frakes, attending Levar Burton’s friends-only bookclub? Damn. Life is cruel.<\/p>\n

At points, the tone of this autobiographical work became a bit too sentimental, too whiny, waxed political, waned wistful, grew sassy, felt self-important. But I forgive those wee faults because they are human and true, and they live up to the title: Wil Wheaton is really just a geek, looking for love and acceptance and some money to pay his bills. <\/p>\n

The happy ending comes in real life, knowing that he’s now doing well, showing up as Evil Wil Wheaton on TV in ‘Big Bang Theory<\/a>‘ episodes and on the web in ‘The Guild’ with Felicia Day<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Four solid stars: not big on fancy style, but clean, honest and intimate.
\nRead the FAQs at the end, some of his best writing is in the ultra-short answers IMHO. <\/p>\n

4 of 5 stars \/ bookshelves: read, 269 pages, Publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc (2004)
\nRead from February 16 to 20, 2012<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[rating=4] ‘Just a Geek’ promises “Unflinchingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise”. I’m very happy to say, it delivers on that promise. In 1991, I was 13 years old and Wil Wheaton was about to retire from Star Trek at the ripe old age of 18. My […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1532,1380],"tags":[1421,1422,924,1383,10,1423,1419,1420],"class_list":["post-2675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-fiction","category-book-reviews","tag-autobiography","tag-big-bang-theory","tag-geeks","tag-memoir","tag-star-trek","tag-the-guild","tag-wesley-crusher","tag-wil-wheaton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2675"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2919,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions\/2919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}