Vegas 2004 - Friday!

Friday

Friday was actually when we landed (after midnight) and arrived at the *shudder* Hotel San Remo. After the move from 104 to 1001 we finally fell asleep and didn’t get up till around 9 am. Our plan for today was to go to the Hilton, see Wil Wheaton read from his book and then later that evening see the Earnest Borg9 comedy team do improv. Now there was a bit of a glitch in that we were not going to spend another night in the San Remo. I call Embassy Suites. Yes, they have a room. We reserve it. We decide to just leave the stuff, come back between the reading and the improv show. There is a new monorail in Las Vegas and we are across the street from the MGM Grand which has the southernmost terminal. We walk across and get on the Monorail. The Monorail goes from the MGM Grand to the Sahara and then back. There are 6 or 7 stations on the line. The system worked pretty well, isn’t too expensive and was comfortable. The only time we were in a crowded car was when the system was delayed for awhile and people had gotten backed up waiting.

The trip to the Hilton was pleasant and when we got there we registered for the convention (unlike last year I didn't leave the tickets at a bus stop), got our forearms stamped and went over to the little deli cart set up outside the dealer's room for a bite to eat. As I mentioned we got into town after midnight and hadn’t eaten since 5 the previous day. Not wanting to risk salmonella we didn’t eat at San Quenti…uh, the San Remo so I was very hungry. After a nice ham sandwich and chips we noticed that people were starting to file into the meeting room where Wil Wheaton (Stand by Me and Star Trek, The Next Generation “Wesley Crusher”) would be reading from his book Just A Geek. We followed the gathering crowd into the room. There was someone already there finishing up a talk on collectables as well as doing a little “Antiques Roadshow” for the Trek collector by giving folks some idea of the value of their collectables. Meanwhile the room is beginning to fill up.

Finally the roadshow ends and Wil comes to the stage. He’s wearing his converse sneakers, jeans and an Earnest Borg9 tee shirt. He looks fairly fresh for someone who drove up from LA (www.wilwheaton.net for his blog of the trip) and kicks things off by immediately sitting down to read. No canned talk, no Q&A, which is fine with me, just a little promo for the Borg9 group.

He begins with a passage early in his book, it’s about how he had an encounter with a waitress at Hooters who said “didn’t you used to be…” I won’t give a blow by blow of the reading but he really connected with the audience. He, as an actor, performs the reading with his voice and his face. I’ve heard author read audiobooks and many are a bit flat. Authors don’t train to speak, they write. I’ve also heard actors read works they didn’t write and although they are beautifully spoken I haven’t had the experience that they connected with the work at a very deep place in themselves. Wil, in my opinion, did a wonderful synthesis of author/actor. At one point Wil got a bit choked up, he’s still very close to the work and not ashamed to share that with his audience. It’s a truly great experience because it seems like he isn’t holding back anything. I’m very happy to be in the audience; I think I’ll be able to say, “I was there back when!” when Mr. Wheaton is a “Big Deal Author” someday.

Right near the end of his reading, he’s up doing something from Dancing Barefoot “Saga of Sponge Bob Vegaspants” when there’s a commotion in the back of the room. A voice calls out “would you finish up in here and let these folks come here me speak?” It’s Brent Spiner (played Data the android crew member on Star Trek with Wil, sat beside him in a number of episodes as Wil was flying the ship). Anyway they exchange some good natured words that I’m missing because I’m struggling with my new digital camera. I get it out of the purse and up but I can’t figure out how to get it to work fast enough to get a shot. Damn. I press the button and press it again, but it’s not flashing. I try holding it down, also wrong. Ah, f* it.

By the way, I have issues with the damn thing until Glenn finally tells me for the 3 millionth time how to do it, that’s on Saturday night as we’re heading to the Stratosphere. I caught quite a few shots of him looking at me disgustedly as I take the pictures wrong but get a shot…I’m sure by this time next year I’ll have it figured out but for the remainder of the trip I’m able to get the thing to take a picture if there’s time to do it slowly.

Wil finishes the book, gets a rousing round of applause and we all file out. Most of us wander across to the ‘big stage’ to hear Spiner. He does a very short warm up but goes almost immediately to questions. I think he’s a bit tired of some of the questions because he doesn’t answer a few. We leave before he’s done. I’m thinking that if we do that we’ll get to Wil’s booth for a signed copy of his book before the crowd that went to see Spiner gets out and makes waiting the line a marathon event.

I was on the money. When we get there the line has 5 or 6 people ahead of us and the wait isn’t too bad. There’s a young woman in front of me that looks a bit like one of the British Soapbox members, I ask her, no, she’s not. Glenn is not happy but I’m to extroverted to be ashamed or embarrassed. So “nyah nyah.” Anyway he wanders around a bit and the line moves up one more, then one more. He comes back and we’re in front of Wil now. I hand him a book and explain that it’s from a fellow Monkey from the Soapbox and I’ve bought an autograph ticket, etc. etc. Then I let him know I need to purchase 2 books and tell him the name of the other Soapbox Monkey. Finally I say the last one is for Glenn and I. He’s signing and being very gracious, he even apologises for not posting as much as usual. For goodness sake, he’s got a lot going on. I try to say in my most facetious tone possible “Oh yes, we’re very upset about that” and then ask if he’d sign my convention program as well as sell us a couple of WWDN tee shirts. He jokes with us that the money we’ve spent will feed his family and not just any old thing, but a really nice night out. I wish I had a better memory or that I had gotten around to writing this sooner (it’s really hard to take time out for this in Las Vegas…we got in well after midnight every night) He was a bit puzzled that he couldn’t find an XL tee shirt…lots of mediums. He finally goes through an entire box and comes up with a large. Glenn picks up the tab on the tee’s. The one thing I did want though and Glenn didn’t get was a picture of Wil signing the books or talking with me.  oh well, there’s always next year!

Now we have several hours to kill. First we eat at Quark’s bar. I won’t go into details about what that is or who Quark is. I will eventually finish my story about last year’s con and it does mention those facts. Our waiter is a real character, he’s got his patter down and has little factoids to share. He’s great fun. The story about the Flaming Targ Ribs is great…’tastes like baby back ribs’ and they set them aflame at your table. Glenn has the hamborg-er and I have the Kahless salad (it’s a Caesar) and the Steak Picard. He tells me the Kahless is a full sized dinner salad and offers to make me a half serving, for which I am very grateful. Then we get to watch him do his act at a couple other tables before he serves our meal. He also chats a bit with us, tells us we should have the OoMac dessert (another Ferengi in-joke) but we pass, get our checks and head back to the *shudder* San Remo detention hotel for serial offenders since Glenn’s not feeling so well. I pack, he naps. I take pictures of the squalor. I get Glenn up with barely enough time to make it back to the Hilton for the Borg9 show (we’re thinking). When we arrive back at the Hilton and go to the auditorium there’s a film clip being run and we realize we didn’t have to hurry. We get fair seats and settle in. One of the Star Trek people, Judy something, is talking about props. She has some interesting stuff to share, takes some questions and then it’s time for Borg9.

Wil and the troupe come onstage. There is a keyboard player, Wil two other guys and two gals. They do game improvs and some sketches then at the end there’s a bit where Wil leaves the room and we set up his next improv. He’s supposed to guess where he is, what crime he’s committed and who his ‘accessory’ in crime is. Someone chooses the Ice Planet Hoth (Star Wars) as the locale, another person shouts out Ashley Judd as his accessory and finally the crime is ripping the tag off a mattress. I should digress a bit to explain the Ashley Judd choice. Back on TNG Wil has an episode where Ashley plays Robin Lefler and they kiss. It’s a trekkie thing. Anyway they do the skit and I get a few shots of Wil. The other thing about the evening is that Wil is wearing ‘the shirt’ which is a red shirt with some embroidery in white down the front. This is one of his favorite shirts I guess as it gets mentioned quite a bit by people on the Soapbox as in “and he wore The Shirt” anyway the entire group was quite clever and funny. We’re glad we came.

Another quick digression…my mind just wanders aimlessly, deal with it. One of the games they did was “Worst thing…” and the set up was what is the worst thing you can say at a ST Con? Very early on one gal says “Where’s Princess Leia?” gets a laugh and she throws it out a few more times in the show. Later Glenn and I are walking through the area in the Hilton that is all done in the Star Trek theme and we pass a group of young ladies. One of them is staring intently at her convention program. “Why isn’t there anyone from LOTR?” she says. And yes, she says the letters L O T R instead of Lord of the Rings. I don’t see this but I hear it clearly, as another girl says in a voice completely dripping in scorn “Because this is a Star Trek Convention” she leaves unsaid the final epithet which I KNOW she’s thinking, “Moron!” It becomes doubly funny after having been at the Borg9 show. Well, to me anyway.

There's more to come for Friday but it's about Vegas not the Con. I tried to get this up as quickly as possible, there's editing I need to do (spell check too!) but for the one or two Soapboxers who might stumble across this I wanted to get as much of the Wil story up as I could before I stumble off to bed...which is where I'm heading now!

Posted by Dawno at August 2, 2004 10:00 PM