Just a Geek (24 page)

Back in mid-May, I was asked to participate in an infomercial, selling 3D glasses for computer games. It was a Rubicon in my career. Would I cross it?

I discussed it at length with my wife, manager, and some trusted friends. Everyone agreed the decision was mine, and I agonized over it for a long time. I was committed to supporting my family in any way I could, but I was certain that this was a one-way bridge that I'd be crossing. If I accepted the offer, I'd also be accepting the end of my chances at ever being on the "A" list again.

^[
13
^]
That interview on
Radio Five
led to me covering California's Recall Election in 2003. I'm still a BBC correspondent. Even though I only file reports once or twice a month, I'm intensely proud of my contributions to Auntie Beeb.

27 AUGUST 2002

Reflections – Artificial Sweetener

Sometimes we know in our bones what we really need to do, but we're afraid to do it
.

Taking a chance, and stepping beyond the safety of the world we've always known is the only way to grow, though, and without risk there is no reward
.

Thoughts like this have weighed heavily on me for the last year or so, as I look around and reassess my life.

This past year has involved more self-discovery and more change than any so far in my life. It's been tumultuous, scary, exhilarating, depressing, thrilling, joyful.

I've realized recently that I have changed dramatically since I started this website. When it began just over a year ago, I was very adrift, terrified that the Internet would tear me apart.

Well, it did and it turns out that was a great thing. The Internet kicked my ass and it forced me to find strength within myself and not to derive my sense of self-worth from the opinions of others.

This website has introduced me to amazing people, weird people, scary people. This website and many people who read it have also helped me figure out what is important to me in my life, what makes me happy.

I guess the feeling has been building for a long time and I knew it was there, but I wasn't willing to acknowledge it. It was—is—scary. It's a major change in my life, but I can't ignore it and to ignore it is to ignore myself and cheat myself out of what I think my real potential is.

Back in the middle of May, I was asked to do this commercial. Well, not just a commercial, more of an infomercial, really. My first reaction was, "No way. Infomercials are death to an actor's career."

But then I thought about the last few years of my life as an actor. The daily frustrations. Losing jobs for stupid, capricious, unfair reasons.

I looked back and saw that it really started when my friend Roger promised me a role in
Rules of Attraction
, then yanked it away from me without so much as a phone call or e-mail or anything. Then there was the roller coaster of
Win Ben Stein's Money
and missing family vacations so I could stay home and go on auditions that all ended up being a huge waste of my time.

Throughout this time, this painful, frustrating Trial, I began to write more and more. It's all here on WWdN. I can see my writing style change, as I find my voice and figure out what I want to say, and how I want to say it.

The e-mails changed, too. People stopped asking me to do interviews for them about
Star Trek
and started asking me if I'd contribute to their magazines, or weblogs, or books.

When this phone call came for the infomercial, I took a long walk and assessed my life.

The bottom line was: they were offering to pay me enough to support my family for the rest of this year. I wouldn't have to worry about bills anymore. I wouldn't have to view each audition as This One Big Chance That I Can't Screw Up.

Accepting it would mean some security for me and my family. It was also a really cool computer-oriented product (which I'll get to later, don't worry). It's not like I would be hawking
The Ab-Master 5000
or
Miracle Stain Transmogrifier X
!

It would also mean, to me at least, the end of any chance I had of ever being a really major actor again. That elusive chance to do a film as good as, or better than,
Stand By Me
, or a TV series as widely watched as
TNG
would finally fall away.

I thought of all these things, walking Ferris through my neighborhood.

It was a long walk.

I thought of Donald Crowhurst.

I thought about why actors—and by actors I mean working, struggling actors like myself, not Big Time Celebrities like I was 15 years ago—suffer the indignities of auditions and the whims of Hollywood.

I remembered something I said to a group of drama students just before their graduation, paraphrasing Patrick Stewart: "If you want to be a professional actor, you have to love the acting, the performing, the thrill of creating a character and giving it life. You have to love all of that more than you hate how unfair the industry is, more than the constant rejection—and it is constant—hurts. You must have a passion within you that makes it worthwhile to struggle for years while pretty boys and pretty girls take your parts away from you again and again and again."

I listened to my words, echoing off the linoleum floor of that high school auditorium and realized that those words, spoken long ago, were as much for me as they were for them.

I listened to my words and I realized: I don't have that passion any more. It simply isn't there.

I am no longer willing to miss a family vacation, or a birthday, or a recital, for an audition.

I am no longer willing to humiliate myself for some casting director who refuses to accept the fact that I'm pretty good with comedy.

I am no longer willing to ignore what I'm best at and what I love the most, because I've spent the bulk of my life trying to succeed at something else.

I walked back to my house, picked up the phone and accepted the offer.

It was tumultuous, scary, exhilarating, depressing, thrilling, joyful.

I would spend the next three weeks wondering if I'd made the right decision. I would question and doubt it over and over again.

Was it the right decision? I don't know.

Things have certainly changed for me, though. I have only had three auditions in the last three months. A year ago that would have killed me, but I'm really not bothered by it now.

I've made my family my top priority and decided to focus on what I love: downloading porn.

Just kidding.

I've decided to focus on what I really love, what is fulfilling, maybe even what I am meant to do, in the great cosmic sense: I am writing.

I write every day, and I see the faint outlines of something really cool. I occasionally catch glimpses of an ability, unrefined, long-ignored, coming to life.

Sometimes we know in our bones what we really need to do, but we're afraid to do it
.

Taking a chance and stepping beyond the safety of the world we've always known is the only way to grow, though and without risk there is no reward
.

Risk was always one of my favorite games.

It seems like such an easy choice, now, but as I stood at that crossroads, one road uncertain and the other clear, The Voice of Self Doubt wasn't about to stay silent. It screamed at me,
"You will prove right everyone who called you a washed-up, has-been loser!"

Just a few months earlier, I would have listened to him and dismissed the offer immediately, but now I said,
"I've made a commitment to let the pursuit of fame go. I've grown up, and I'm doing what's best for my family."

I was certain that doing this infomercial was the final nail in the coffin of my once-promising career. I mean, who goes from infomercial guy back to respectable career? I said
respectable
, so you can put your Steve Garvey away, buddy. If they'd asked me to hawk
The Ultimate Ab Machine 6000
, or
Even More Mega SeXXXy Girls Going Wild!!
or
The Super Amazing Hair Restoring Formula Number 29X That Doesn't Even Look Like Spray Paint!
, I would have declined without a second thought. But the X3D system that I was asked to sell was actually very cool. It really worked the way they claimed it would, so selling it wouldn't compromise my integrity in any way.

I struggled with many questions. Was I ready to admit defeat? Was I ready to admit that I'd given it my best shot, but I really
was
a washed up has-been? Was I willing to say out loud that I was . . .
That Guy
?

I was. I did.

The money I earned from the job gave me the financial security I needed to provide for my family. With that financial security, I was able to focus on my newfound passion to write. It was like I had a patron named X3D!

Accepting that I was
That Guy
was more liberating than painful, and it took the shame away from doing that infomercial. My career wasn't really over, it had just changed. I didn't worry about what critics said. I worried about feeding my family. I didn't worry about landing an acting job. I looked forward to writing. Like all the other things I'd agonized over, the process of making the decision took more time and energy—and was more painful and scary—than the result.

I was done trying to run out of the shadow of my youthful success, and I had accepted that I couldn't change the results of my teenage excess. I felt good. I felt free.

This resolution could not have come at a better time. In September of 2002, there was a huge
Star Trek
event right in my backyard, at the Pasadena Convention Center: a celebration of 15 years of
Star Trek: The Next Generation
. When I was invited months earlier, I'd accepted with some reluctance. But after Vegas, after
The Wesley Dialogues
, I wasn't reluctant at all. I was actually very excited to attend. I had cast off the baggage I'd been carrying for years. For the first time in over a decade, I was actually looking forward to speaking at a
Star Trek
convention!

28 AUGUST 2002

I See Another Hurdle Approaching

Yesterday, I wrote about the scary nature of facing the world outside of what I guess we'll call "your safety bubble."

At least that's what I was trying to write about.

Today, I am going to talk about why Creation cut me from their 15th Anniversary of
Star Trek: The Next Generation
convention and why I think it's a good thing.

To understand the events leading up to the cut, it's important to understand the realities of the
Star Trek
convention (and all sci-fi conventions, really): there was a time, long ago, when these cons existed by and for fans. They were places where fans could get together, safely dress up in costumes, debate the minutiae of scripts and generally geek out among friends without fear of The Jocks showing up.

Some folks realized that they could turn this phenomenon into a working business and for better or worse, Creation was born.

For years, I had a great relationship with Creation. When I was a kid, I attended the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors shows at the Ambassador Hotel. When I was on
TNG
, I appeared as a speaker at countless Creation conventions.

Then I had a not-so-great relationship with them for a while. I felt that they had become the 800-pound gorilla in the convention world. They were the only kid on the block who had that cool football that all the other kids wanted to play with. Without any real competition, they charged too much, and I felt that the fans were increasingly getting the shaft.

Not the cool Richard Roundtree Shaft, either, so you can just shut your mouth right now.

In retrospect, there were many factors contributing to what I would describe as the decline and fall of the convention experience and I think the guests need to be at the top of that list.

I never made very large speaking fees, even when I was A Big Deal™, but there were plenty of actors who did. It didn't bother me too much at the time, because I felt that the fans were mostly showing up to see these headlining actors and that meant Creation would earn a lot of money.

I always felt that the actors should share in that profit, until I became aware of the escalating costs to the fans and the declining quality of the convention experience.

It was like I'd stepped out of the ivory tower for the first time and seen the suffering in the streets. I didn't want any part of that world, and I didn't want to do any more conventions. However, I was heavily pressured by my agents and publicists, so I continued to go.

I felt obligated, and I hated it.

I withdrew when I was on stage, I didn't give it my all, and I even stopped signing autographs in person. I guess I was 16 or 17 at the time. What I really wanted to be doing was playing GURPS and goofing off on this new computer network called GEnie where I could talk to people all across the country in real time. Ohh! Nerdy!

After a few shows in this frame of mind, I quit entirely. Several years passed, and, other than a couple of cruises that I did mostly because I wanted to give my family a vacation, I only did one convention that I can recall, when I was about 20. It was in Kansas City, Missouri, and it was horrible. There were about 50 people there, all crammed into the back of this auditorium because they didn't want to pay for the "VIP" seats, so I was left talking to 50 people in a room intended for about 700, across 30 or so empty rows of seats.

I'm amazed that I didn't climb to the balcony and jump off right then and there. It was really hitting
Star Trek
Bottom? for me, and I swore that I'd never do another convention again.

The convention world went on without me. My fellow cast members continued to regularly attend shows all over the world. I did one or two, including one in England, mostly because I love England and it was an opportunity to get over there on someone else's dime. I had a wonderful time while I was there, but it was an oasis in a desert of discontent. In my heart and in my ever-blackening soul, I hated conventions. So they were few and very, very far between, until I gradually stopped entirely.