Thread by @garywhitta

THREAD. I have decided to tell my story about meeting John Milius this weekend at Silicon Valley Comic Con, because I think it’s too good not to share with the widest audience I have. It is a story I will be telling until the day I die. Strap in for this one. (1/???)

If you follow me you probably know who John Milius is. In case you don’t, he is one of the great legends of American cinema. He wrote Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn, he wrote and directed Conan the Barbarian. He also famously wrote the USS Indianapolis Speech from Jaws. A legend.

There are a million insane stories about Milius. A great lion of a man. I doubt we would get on politically (he’s famously a very pro-NRA guy) but I was in awe at the prospect of meeting him. All you need to know is that Walter from The Big Lebowski is partly based on him.

(If you’re interested in learning more about John, there’s a great documentary about him called MILIUS that came out several years ago, which you should absolutely watch.) Anyway…

John had a stroke back in 2010 and has rarely been seen since. I was kind of amazed that he was booked to appear at a con and nervous that he was scheduled to appear on a panel about storytelling with me. The idea that I belong on the same stage as Milius is ridiculous to me.

I also didn’t know what to expect him to be like almost a decade after his stroke. I met him on the first day and he was very jovial and kind but clearly still has a lot of difficulty moving and particularly speaking. He has always someone with him who kind of translates for him.

He manages a few words at a time, but it’s slow. I had a brief chat with him about how he had recently watched a new print of Apocalypse Now with Francis Coppola. His verdict - “very good.” It was a huge thrill to meet him but I worried how he would be able to perform on panels.

He was originally scheduled to appear on three panels, one a spotlight Q&A with just him, one about Conan, and a third panel with me and @jon_paquette from Insomniac Games. The first two panels were canceled, which was the right call as it clearly would have been too much.

@jon_paquette So Sunday rolls around and it’s time for the panel with me, Milius, @jon_paquette and moderator extraordinaire @THEDHK. Milius doesn’t show up right away or for the first 20 minutes or so so we assume this appearance has been canceled too and go on without him. Then he shows up.

@jon_paquette @THEDHK He sits at the back of the room for a while, surrounded by his handler and some convention people. From where I was sitting it seemed like they were asking him if he really wanted to go on. He looked very tired, but seemed to be insisting to them that he wanted to do it.

So, Sunday rolls around and it’s time for the panel with me, Milius, @jon_paquette and moderator extraordinaire @THEDHK. Milius doesn’t show up right away or for the first 20 minutes or so so we assume this appearance has been canceled too and go on without him. Then he shows up.

I watch as he sits at the back of the room for a while, surrounded by his handler and some #SVCC people. From where I was sitting it seemed like they were asking him if he really wanted to go on. He looked very tired, but seemed to be insisting to them that he wanted to do it.

At about the half-hour Mark John is carefully escorted up onto the stage. I stood up and clapped and it turned into a standing ovation. I still can’t believe I’m on a stage with this guy. Ridiculous. His handler sits next to him on the stage to help translate anything he says.

I had given the moderator the heads-up that John struggled to speak so she knew not to lean on him too much. And by this time the panel is already wrapping up and going to audience Q&A. The first guy at the mic asks Milius what his supposed sequel to Conan would have been about.

Again, John struggles to speak but you can tell his mind is still very much there - he knows exactly what he wants to say, he just struggles to articulate it. In answering the Conan question he just used single words… “Ascension… succession…”

I was really hoping nobody would put John on the spot with a difficult question because it was clear he couldn’t articulate anything too elaborate. I think the audience sensed this and the rest of the Qs were directed at me and Paquette. Until the last guy stepped up to the mic.

The last Q of the panel was for all of us. The guy asked us for a single word we hoped people would use to describe us and our careers after we were gone. I really appreciated that because I think he deliberately phrased it that way so John would be able to give a simple answer.

Anyway Paquette and I both kind of fumbled for an answer, neither of us come come up with anything funny or profound or whatever. We totally whiffed on it. And then it was Milius’s turn to answer.

He thought about it for a long time. I could see the wheels turning, the moment that he realized he knew exactly the word he wanted to use but was struggling to articulate it. And then he said it.

“Bushido.”

And I almost cried on stage.

Anyway, that’s it, that’s the story. FIN

Here’s a picture of us all on the panel in which I look kind of drunk/stupid but I don’t care because I’m sitting next to John freaking Milius.

CORRECTION: That last question, about coming up with one word to sum up our career, actually came from moderator @THEDHK, not from a member of the audience. My apologies to Dana for mis-remembering that, the whole experience was a blur!