Monday, June 14, 2010

W00tstock: “3″ Hours of Geeks and Music

Posted by Laura / 2 comments » / , chicago, funny, geekery, geekiness, music, weather

There are a lot of geeks out there, and most of the time, I don’t really consider myself one of them. I don’t play D&D (although I have, briefly, and it ended in disaster), I don’t read comic books, the only Star Trek I’ve watched is about 5 episodes of the original series and the new movie that came out last year (which was awesome). I have watched three of the Star Wars movies, but it’s been so long that I hardly remember them (and it’s not like they were even consecutive!). In short, I’m not a gamer or a programmer or a trekker(?/ie?) or … well, any number of things that seem to define geek culture. But I’m still interested!  I want to learn about these things. I guess the only real thing that makes me a geek is my interest in Linux and my awareness of things that are geeky. So maybe I’m a geek-lite? I don’t know.

But the fact is, I wanted to go to W00stock. I wanted to be a part of that. I mean, Wil Wheaton’s pretty cool, and so is Adam Savage, and I enjoy Paul & Storm! And there would be other funny, geeky people, too? Well, sign me up! the initial problem was that the concerts were, until recently, all taking place on the west coast. It kills me that there was a performance in Portland and I wasn’t there. I bet I would have loved W00tstock with the Portland crowd. Instead, we found out that there would be on in Chicago. Chicago isn’t too far from Cleveland. It’s most certainly within driving distance! I mean, 5.5 hours drive sucks, but it’s not impossible. So we got tickets to W00tstock, booked a hotel and made sure we could have the next day off. (I’d heard about the EPIC length of Portland’s, and there was no way I wanted to drive home from Chicago and go to work the next day. No way.)

We took the bus to the venue and got there about 2.5 hours before showtime. There were people lining up already when we walked up to get our tickets from will call, but we were hungry, so we went to get food. It was interesting to take a look at the people walking up and down the street. It was pretty easy to tell a lot of the people who were headed to the show. They were often dressed in geeky t-shirts, and, let’s face it, there’s just a certain way that most of us carry ourselves that makes it pretty easy to tell. I’m sure we didn’t get it all right, but there were some that were completely obvious. After our people watching stint (and eating some subs), we went to get in line. By the time we got there, it was already around the corner of the building. We lined up and were followed by many, many people. I couldn’t see the end of the line anymore by the time it was time to go inside. Part of that may have been because it started raining. The rain was not the drizzly, wimpy rain that I’m used to in PDX. These were serious raindrops. We happened to be right near an overhang, so Johnathan put the little camera-bag-poncho over his bag (built in – it’s so cool) and I squeezed under the overhang as best  I was able. Then someone had the nerve to want to use the door! Oh well, no more overhang. Then the line moved forward and we had a tree to shield us from the rain. Until the tree became saturated. Once the tree was saturated, it was all over. I was wearing short sleeves and was not in any way prepared for the cool weather or the rain. The couple behind us had brought two umbrellas and were nice enough to let us use their spare, which we did until we were finally let in at about 6:35.

I’m sure the merch table made a killing that night in t-shirts thanks to all of the cold, wet nerds. We made our way inside, and thanks to how early we got there, we pretty much had open choice of where we wanted to sit. We picked a spot about halfway back on a table a little bit toward stage left. Then it was a waiting game until the show started at 7:30. I knitted for a while and listened to everyone else chatting. Despite my general feelings that I’m not a true geek, I felt like I fit in with everyone there. I didn’t feel like I was somehow inferior to everyone else because of my lack of geek cred. So that was really nice. Johnathan got his camera set up and then we waited for the start of the show.

Wil Wheaton kicked it off by telling us to please not take flash pictures and also to let us know that the show was licensed under Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Attribution, Share-Alike. And then it was time for the show. I’ve been reading Wil Wheaton’s blog and I follow him on twitter, but I’ve never really had any other exposure to his work. I watched Stand By Me because Johnathan said that I should, but I’ve never seen Star Trek: TNG. He’s a well-spoken fellow.

Paul and Storm came out to kick off the show with Opening Band, because really, how else do you start off a show in which Paul and Storm are taking part? Then they left the stage. They promised to come back later, but that was all they had planned to do at the time.

I’ll be honest, a week later, I’m having trouble remembering the exact details of what happened from the beginning to the end. I do know that Wil Wheaton kicked it off with a fun story of how this W00tstock came into being (I’m sure it wasn’t embellished at all). And then, gosh. I cannot remember who went on stage first. How about some highlights instead?

• Wil Wheaton’s story of his first time seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’ve still never seen it live, although I can now attest to having seen it twice on DVD. I know it isn’t the same, but especially after Wil Wheaton’s story, I’m terrified of the hazing!
• Adam Savage. Well, okay, I’ll be more specific: Adam Savage’s Jamie impressions. Adam Savage’s dance club story (he does have the musical taste of a 14-year-old girl, but that’s okay). Adam Savage singing “I Will Survive” as Gollum. (No, really.)
• Peter Sagal doing a monologue an evil villain’s henchman. And then he swore. Brilliant.
• Bill Amend – honestly, I enjoyed his bit a lot more than I expected to, and it was one of the parts that had the most impact on me. I love the funnies!
• Paul and Storm’s epic – EPIC – 35-minute rendition of “The Pirate’s Wife’s Lament”. By that time, I think everyone was punchy and ready to go to bed, but nobody wanted it to end. And the cover band jokes… oh the cover band jokes. They went on forever, and then had Johnathan making them days and days later.

Really, it was about five hours of comedy and fun. My stomach hurt the next day after laughing so hard for so long. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, including the performers, which just added to the experience.

The one thing that I wish were different was that I wish the venue had food. We ate at about 5PM, and since the show officially ended at about 12:20AM, I was quite hungry by the time the show was over. But of course it was after midnight, so most normal places were already closed. Once we finally fought our way out of the theater (we didn’t have anything to be signed, so there was no real point in sticking around for the signing, and even if I would have loved to get pictures with everyone – we were hungry and tired!),  we made our way to the bus stop and it was kind of sad. We were still processing the whole thing, but I had a feeling of loss. I had been a part of a community of people who had gathered for an event that, while part of a series, was unlike any other. No other W00tstock will be exactly the same as the Chicago one, which, I think, is part of the appeal. We got a special set of jokes and antics with a special set of performers that can never truly reproduce what went down that night. (Case in point: Adam Savage did his “I Will Survive” song again in Minneapolis the next night, but thanks to a nose bleed, it was not at all the same as the one we saw.)

W00tstock was one of those things that I think I’ll remember bits and pieces of for a long time, and recall them to Johnathan so that we can have a little giggle. I’m going to end up cruising YouTube for videos to relive certain moments of the show. It was a wonderful night and absolutely worth the drive to Chicago. If I had it to do all over again, I would absolutely do it. I would stand in the rain and I would deprive myself of food and sleep to experience that again. There’s just no way for me to adequately explain the feeling I got from being there with all those other geeks who were just as excited as I was to be in that venue, seeing those people.

If W00tstock ever comes back to the midwest (or to PDX after we move), we are so there.

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