I mentioned a few months ago that I had again purchased annual passes for Disneyland for the family. So near the end of February, the wife and I decided to have a quick little visit and just use Downtown Disney parking for our visit (to save $20 on parking). We'd tried this the last time we had annual passes, but without buying anything in Downtown Disney to receive validation, so we were only able to park for free for two hours - which made the trip seem a little less worthwhile since the round-trip to Disneyland takes at least this long.

This was before the current, more stringent, no-longer-free parking validation rules were put into place that require validation with a minimum Downtown Disney purchase of $20 for the first three hours in the Downtown Disney parking lot. I did a little research on Downtown Disney parking validation and discovered that if you buy a meal at any of the Downtown Disney the table service restaurants, you can get validated for 5 hours of free parking. Granted, the table-service restaurants are going to cost you more than parking at the satellite Disney lots - we generally spend between $40 and $50 for just the two of us. But the cost of parking in the other lots doesn't include a meal. So depending on the amount of food ordered - I suspect the number of hours they validate depends on the amount spent on food, but I'm not 100% sure about this - and the planned duration of your stay, this may not work out to be a big money saver. But there is one definite added benefit: you don't have to take a bus or tram in from the parking lot to get into Downtown Disney. You just walk into Disneyland like you did in the good ol' days of Disneyland.

As luck would have it, there was rain in the forecast on the day we planned to go. And rain it did - for about 10 minutes. It even hailed for a few minutes. We had already arrived at our Downtown Disney dining establishment of choice, The La Brea Bakery Cafe, and were seated during the brief downpour, waiting for our food so we didn't get to experience the rain pelting down on us (we enjoyed the discomfort of the employees and light crowds walking past the restaurant from our dry, but outdoor, table).

You may be wondering why I thought it lucky to be at Disneyland on a rainy day. These photos may help explain my love for rainy days at Disneyland.

Because of the cooler temperatures and the rain, the crowds were really light. It would have been a perfect day to park in all-day parking and enjoy the the park, but we ended up just going on a couple of rides, having some ice cream, and buying a shirt for the wife (because you know what good deals they have in the shops on Main Street) - leaving around 4 hours later. We could have stayed another hour, but the parking ticket we received from the Downtown Disney lot said validation was only good for 4 hours of free parking, and the big red "4" validation stamp on the ticket seemed to back this up, so we didn't want to take any chances. We found out, after asking the waiter on our next visit, what the real deal was. But I'll be blathering on about that in a second.

But first, some thoughts on one of the many books I've read recently (actual physical books, not eBooks I was asked to read and review)...

The Bassoon King My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy

I found The Bassoon King on the discount book rack at Barnes and Noble. I'd like to say that I'd been aware of Dwight Schrute's literary opus before I saw it there...but I wasn't. I hadn't heard anything about it on any of the the podcasts I listen to, web sites I visit, or book-related emails I receive. And yes, I intentionally said this was Dwight Schrute's, not Rainn Wilson's, literary opus because even though Rainn Wilson isn't Dwight Schrute (as you'll become very aware throughout this book), he will always be Dwight to me.

But speaking of Dwight, if you enjoyed Rainn's character on the office, you'll love the book's introduction, penned as Dwight.

I do not read books for funny stories or whimsical insights. Ever. If I am reading a book, it is for the purpose of absorbing factual information about what is happening on Planet Earth, Middle Earth, Westeros, Galactica, Asgard, Mount Olympus, or Lackawanna County.

This writer, "Rainn Wilson," is a laughable idiot. He thinks he's funny, but he's merely pathetic. Unless you think stories about weird religions, nerd-loving parents, bassoons, and acting are fascinating. I sure don't.

Ooooh, you did live plays in the theater. Big deal. So did the cast of Glee and nobody cares about them anymore.

Oooooh, so you were an actor on TV shows. Well so was Jack Bauer. You don't see Jack Bauer writing a book about his life. (He's got serious work to do, plus his life is classified. And when the hell would he write, anyway? I've seen every minute of his day, the guy doesn't even have time to urinate!) Actually, maybe he has Written a book about his life. I wouldn't know. The last time I was in that section of the bookstore was a long time ago, and I stormed out in anger because they did not have a book by Sam Neill that I had gotten my heart set on during the long drive to the Wilkes-Barre Borders (now defunct) from my farm (still in business, thank you very much).

OOOOH, YOU'RE A MEMBER OF AN OBSCURE, STRANGE-SOUNDING RELIGIOUS MINORITY. WELL, WHY DON'T YOU RENT WITNESS AND WATCH THOSE TEENAGE PUNKS DAB ICE CREAM ON ALEXANDER GODUNOV AND LET'S SEE WHO'S BEEN PERSECUTED WORSE!

Also, why is this privileged Hollywood windbag writing a memoir when he's in his forties? It doesn't make any sense. He's not even close to death. (Although, after reading this pile of steaming goat feces, I wish he was.) Fact: NO. ONE. CARES.

Rainn isn't Dwight, but in some ways (judging by the Dwight comments above), he very much is Dwight. They both have the same uber-nerd interests.

• 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.: Run around in the woods with Chris Cole's bow and arrow and shoot it at a bunch of old tires.
• 3:00 - 9:30 p.m.: Strive to finish clearing out the dungeons of Aktar, making sure to find Hosgurd's key (which we would need to get the treasure from Klur the Copper Dragon, of course).
• 9:30 - 10:00 p.m.: Snack on fruit from the giant boxes of free produce the Higginses had stacked in their garage from their divorced, absent father who ran a food distribution company and supposedly sent bananas and apples over by the pallet in lieu of making child support payments.
• 10:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.: Attempt to finish level nine of the dungeon and slay Klur the Copper Dragon in order to obtain entrance into the Castle of Garadrel.

Sunday

• 10:00 - 11:00 a.m.: Eat runny scrambled eggs with parents (eye-roll a lot, classical music plunking away in the background).
• 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.: finish the Castle of Garadrel. Celebrate with Twizzlers and Slurpees and some furtive, adrenalized glimpses at a stack of Cheri porno mags that Tim had found at the bottom of some old boxes in the corner of their basement. (This was the late seventies. Porn wasn't as ubiquitous and "one click away" as it is now. We had to work for our porn back then!)
• 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.: Do all of the next week's homework while watching Colombo.

About once every month or two we would forgo a day of gaming in order to head out to one of the rare gamer/comic stores in the Seattle area. The best one was in Kent, Washington, which was a two-hour bus ride away. The trip would be a daylong event but totally worth it. A bus full of dork meat, meandering its way to the hobby shop, where we would stock up on the little metal miniature figurines of orcs and trolls and warriors and the model paint to adorn them with, the multisided dice that drove the game, and, most important, the dungeon maps and books of monsters and spells that were our bible. I will never forget the musty smell of those stores and the mystery of their aisles, filled with magical possibility and the strange, almost-always-bearded man grumpily gargoyled at the cash register, reading The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks for the seventh time.

Before Hollywood discovered the world of comic book nerds and sci-fi geeks, before the cultural tastemaking explosion of Comic-Con, there was a special yearly event at the saddest Hyatt in the world: Norwescon.

This was (and still is!) a yearly fantasy and sci-fi convention that would draw out all the nerd vermin from the mossy burbs of Western Washington. There was a huge bookstore and D-level actors who had once guested on Star Trek signing glossies. Favorite sci-fi authors like Philip Jose Farmer and Frederik Pohl were treated like rock stars there, signing copies of their books and walking the halls like members of House Lannister. And the capper was a big party called the "Masquerade" on Saturday night, where you were encouraged to dress like a Klingon or barbarian or alien.

My dad would go every year to sign a handful of copies of his book and speak on various panels, and I would proudly watch him among the other author-gods. Yes, there were actual panel discussions on science fiction, fantasy, comics, and gaming. I remember once ducking into the back of a conference room where a team of dandruffy professor types were intensely pondering whether it would be in character for Conan the Barbarian to boil water during his travels.

There was a "screening room" (i.e., dilapidated conference room) that had movies showing in it twenty-four hours a day. That is where I first saw Silent Running with Bruce Dern, Zardoz with Sean Connery, and The Fearless Vampire Killers by Roman Polanski. The unwashed sci-fi hippie contingent who didn't have the money to get a hotel room would simply sleep in the screening room in their sleeping bags with loud, poorly projected sci-fi movies blaring and flickering around them all night long.

I even played an elven thief in a Dungeons & Dragons competition, taking second place at age fifteen. A group of ten lost souls sat in a boardroom at the Hyatt, playing various imaginary characters for an entire day, while outside in the real world, hearts were broken, sacrifices undertaken, connections made, babies born, tears shed, and lives lived. Not in the Evergreen Room at the SeaTac Hyatt, though. There, chaotic-neutral dwarves and half-orc magic users pranced about in imaginary caves for hour after hour seeking treasure, glory, and magic scimitars.

Eventually, because of my dweeby exploits, I would be given the key to a magical, mythical city. A city that others can only dream of. The renowned municipality of Nerdopolis. I would also be made its lord, mayor, and spokesperson (as you're about to read).

As with most biographical-type books, there's a middle section in the book full of photos (there are a few black and white photos elsewhere through out the book, as well).

But the Fantasy role-playing, convention-frequenting nerd was just the tip of the iceberg. He was a member of every club that would get you a beating from the cool kids.

I ASK YOU TO SAVOR THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE: FOR SEVERAL years, off and on, I was a member of the following clubs at school: marching band, pep band, orchestra, debate club, computer club, chess club, Model United Nations, and pottery club.

Note: The above list does not include my aforementioned role-playing gaming, Baha'i youth activities, medieval weapons sketching, kung fu movie obsession, or vast Columbia Record and Tape Club^* cassette collection featuring Journey, Styx, Asia, and REO Speedwagon.

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^* The Columbia Record and Tape Club was the most brilliant scam perpetrated on young Americans since the Vietnam War. For one dollar you'd get like twelve cassettes sent to you just for joining. Then you'd have to buy a handful of tapes at the "regular" amount (which was like $16.99 or some similarly astronomical price) over the course of the year. You'd get mailed a brochure of new releases, and if you didn't mail the postcard back saying, "No, thanks, I don't want anything this month,", they'd automatically send you their selection of the month and BILL YOU FOR IT. It was a duplicitous scheme, preying on knuckleheaded teens who didn't have the wherewithal to return a postcard every month and who would end up with a Peter Frampton cassette they never wanted and a bill for $l6.99. It did, however, launch many a young person's Van Halen cassette tape collection!

Returning to the nerdly life of Rainn Wilson, at this point in the book I had begun to feel some kinship with Rainn, having been a fantasy role-playing nerd in my own High School career. I was almost a band nerd, but abandoned that path well before High School. And I was never social enough to be in any clubs, so I escaped all those nerd trappings. But I really felt a kinship with Rainn when I read Chapter 6.

TWO THINGS HAPPENED TO ME WHEN I TURNED SIXTEEN. I discovered punk rock and I moved to Chicago.

In suburban Seattle there were two radio stations: KISW and KZOK. If you didn't listen to those you were pummeled into oblivion by the rockers that be. They played one kind of music only: CLASSIC ROCK ROCK rock rock rock!!!!

Then, out of the blue, a friend gave me some cassette tapes she had recorded from her hi-fi player: the Clash's London Calling, the Police's Reggata de Blanc and Outlandos d' Amour, Squeeze's East Side Story, and Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True. My world was turned upside down and inside out in an instant, and my ears pinwheeled in delight.

After years of Billy Squier, Van Hagar, Air Supply, and Styx, I had never dreamed music like this existed anywhere. Sure, classic rock was awesome in its way, but the bloated, obvious, macho crooning and endless midtempo guitar solos were becoming an ear-sickening cliche. Nineteen eighty-two brought us some great radio fare, such as Queen and the Cars and Cheap Trick and Blondie and ELO, who all crafted some delightful tunes, but the angry young men of punk and new wave, with their whip-smart lyrics and rebellious melodies, made musical and lyrical explosions that completely captured my soul.

But enough about me. Let's get back to Rainn...

The book is primarily a Rainn Wilson biography, but there are a few chapters devoted just to stories about The Office. And let's admit it - that's what I really wanted to read about. I enjoyed the rest of the book, but The Office is what we all know Rainn for and that's why we bought the book. This excerpt is pretty lengthy, but well worth the read.

I believe my first audition was in November, but I wouldn't get a call back for a "network test" until January.

Normally screen-testing for lead roles on network television shows involves traipsing into a conference room filled with ADHD television executives who are furiously thumbing away at their phones, doing a couple of short scenes in the most nerve-wracking environment known to man, and then waiting an hour or two to hear if you got the part or not.

Greg Daniels, our exceptionally bright creator/show-runner, did things completely differently. The pilot for The Office was to be shot on a soundstage but in reverse. We would shoot the scenes in the upstairs production offices and prepare for the shooting down in the giant soundstages below. This had never been done before in the history of Hollywood, I believe.

It was up in those drab offices above the enormous stages, over the course of a weekend, that Greg, our keen director Ken Kwapis, and the other producers held the final auditions for the finalists. It was there that I would first work with Jenna Fischer, John Krasinski, and Steve Carell.

There were five or six people testing for each of the major roles. The producers mixed and matched all of us over the course of a weekend in scripted scenes as well as improvised ones.

There were some really interesting and talented actors, but the only scenes I really remember doing were with Jenna and John, who were absolutely adorable and hysterical in the roles. I remember thinking that they WERE Jim and Pam. They WERE the characters, effortless and charming as all get-out.

The other actresses were kind of nervous and flustered in the waiting room, but Jenna just sat there, reading Wired, a John Belushi biography. I remember asking her about the book and her offhandedly saying something about how it was a book Pam would probably be reading.

John was SUPER young back then (seventeen? twelve?) and had a fun, exuberant energy that was really positive and infectious. The funny thing was that the NBC New York casting agent told his manager that John was only right for the character of Dwight and insisted that he would only bring him in for that role. John rightfully refused to go in for Dwight and kept trying to get an audition for Jim. Eventually, of course, they relented and allowed John to try out for Jim Halpert, and the rest is history. We did some mix-and-match, scripted audition scenes, and then came the fun part: the improvisations.

I remember doing an improv with Jenna where Greg instructed me to let her know that if she was breaking up with Roy, I was available to date.

I was off to the races. I knelt in REALLY close to her (too close, creepy) and started telling her about my girlfriend, Regina, who was stationed in Kuwait City, and how much I missed her. I went on and on in a really hushed, conspiratorial way, and Jenna just sat there with an impossibly pained expression on her blank, lovely face. I let her know that I was a good sympathetic shoulder to lean on if she ever wanted to talk about her problems with Roy and with men in general, and that we should go out sometime and get a smoothie.

Here was the most brilliant thing about this improvisation: not my silly prattling on, but the fact that Jenna said almost nothing. Many actors when improvising believe that talking more is the key to being more interesting and/or funny. The very best improvisers have the ability to use silence and understand that less is more. Most actors in her situation would probably have started babbling and trying to get some jokes in. Not Jenna. She bravely just sat there looking disgusted, polite, sweet, and constipated all at the same time. I knew that she was going to be Pam.

For YEARS afterward the writers talked about giving Dwight a former girlfriend who had been stationed in Kuwait City and would come back to town and butt up against Angela. I begged them to cast Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica in the potential role. It never quite happened. But the card with the idea written on it, based off of the improvisation from my audition, hung on the wall in the writers' room for years and years.

During this endless and incredibly fun audition process, I got to do a number of improvs with John Krasinski. It was a blast and we had amazing combative chemistry right from the start. We did a scene where he had to ask me to mind his phone while he went to the bathroom (I refused, of course, infuriating him). And another where he generously gave me a glass of water (which I was terrified of and paranoid about to an impossible degree). Our characters butted heads in a visceral, exciting way from the very beginning of our coming together at that now-famous desk clump.

(To the very end there was no one I had better chemistry with than John. As different as we are as people, there was a strange, almost psychic rapport we had while acting. We would often know exactly what the other was going to do and say, and play off of it. I also really appreciated the working relationship in that we could direct each other without any ego. We would often give each other lines to try out and little comic bits to play. Some of Dwight's funniest moments came actually from the fantastic brain of John Krasinski.)

All I remember about working with Steve at the audition was an improvisation where he was taking me to task for borrowing his coffee cup and leaving it dirty on his desk. I denied it, of course, and that's when he told me with disgust and venom that he had found OVALTINE in the cup! I started laughing and I couldn't stop. They had to end the scene right then and there.

Later I found out that I was the only person the producers submitted to the network for approval for the role. Soon thereafter I was cast as Dwight and my life was transformed.

Our show got picked up for five additional episodes in the spring of 2004, but we didn't air until the spring of 2005. And then when we did, we tanked.

Everybody hated us. Our reviews were awful.* People either didn't understand the show or HATED the fact that we had done a pilot that was 90 percent similar to the lionized British Office. I know this because I sat in front of my computer for hours reading all the online comments with a sad, long, diarrhea face. (I now know better than to do this.) I was called "over-the-top," "annoying," and "pig-like" on countless online message boards. The show was reviled as an ugly-looking, unfunny train wreck by some, and a blatant, pathetic, unfunny rip-off of the classic BBC gem by others. "Unfunny" was the common ground that both camps could agree on, apparently.

The reason we did essentially the same script as the BBC Office was a very simple, practical one. When you do a pilot for a television studio and network, they are notorious for meddling with the material. They give notes on every aspect of the script and shoot. They want control of the casting. They want the set design to be brighter

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* A note about reviews: Pretty much everything I have ever done, other than Juno, has gotten slammed in the reviews. I have been eviscerated by hundreds of film and TV critics for over a decade. l believe it is much easier to write a negative, snarky, contemptuous review than to write an evenhanded one. It also gets more reads. But the thing that gets me the most is comparisons. The Office was compared (unfavorably) to the British Office. The Rocker was compared (unfavorably) to School of Rock. Super was compared (unfavorably) to Kick-Ass. Backstrom was compared (unfavorably) to House MED.

See a pattern here? There are a limited number of stories on the planet. Shakespeare told most of them. And The Sopranos and The Simpsons the rest. The easiest, laziest thing for a reviewer to do is to compare something to another work that is a classic and has some similarities. It's a gross misuse of critical power and a disgusting waste of ink and time. Take the Rocker. There are similarities to the flawless classic School of Rock in that there is an older character who loves rock and roll and he's interacting about said music form with younger people. But that's where the comparison ends. One is a movie about an unemployed rocker who gets a job teaching at a prep school and charmingly and chaotically coaches his twelve-year-olds in a battle of the bands. The other film is about an old former metal drummer who accidentally becomes a YouTube sensation and goes out on the road with his eighteen-year-old nephew's band. Yes, there is an older rocker character and younger characters, but past that the comparison just doesn't hold water. And yet, every single review of The Rocker said it was trying to be School of Rock and wasn't as good.

As for Backstrom, is every single show that has an antisocial, destructive, and brilliant lead character going to be compared to House until the end of time? when does that stop? ls it not a viable setup for a television show? The differences between Backstrom and House FAR outweigh the few similarities. (Not to mention the fact that the entire conceit of Backstrom is based on a series of Swedish books.Do the reviewers believe that the crime novelist Leif G. W. Persson based his books on the American TV show House?)

Now, is an occasional comparison warranted in a review? Yes. Occasionally. But for the most part it's a lazy, easy, obvious way to review work. But let's face it, for the most part reviewers have never created or made anything. They righteously pass judgment from their laptops on other people's work and have simply never laid out their hearts and minds and souls to an audience attempting to entertain, uplift, and challenge. So suck it, critics.

Here's one last quote from the book that I thought was worth sharing. And it has one last footnote. And also explains the title.

It was through the creation of SoulPancake and Lide that so many of my personal passions have been pulled together: comedy and spirituality, entertainment and big ideas, the arts and service to humanity. I've been blessed with these two great outlets in my life. With SoulPancake I've been able to combine creativity, humor, and service in a tangible, impactful way, and with Lide, I've been able to use the arts to help heal, educate, and transform.

Actually, I should say, three great outlets. Because when I need to get a little crazy, just throw out all the rules, and vent the wild, untamed part of me, I break out my old bassoon. AND. I. ROCK. To quote Jim Morrison: "I am the Bassoon King! I can do ANYTHING!"*

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* I may have gotten this quote wrong.

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