Random Thoughts

Writers write, even when they are on strike. We can’t help ourselves. We just don’t do it for television or film. And that includes big time celebs Jay Leno. He’s apparently using his free time to write newspaper reviews of cars. In the December 16th issue of London’s Sunday Times, he calls the new Jaguar XKR “a gorgeous machine” with “muscular haunches” and “a perfect rear.” And he can’t resist sneaking in a joke about automaker Tata’s purchase of Jaguar from Ford: “I guess instead of complimenting a lady on her rather nice Jaguar you’ll compliment her on her nice Tatas.”

I caught up with the last four JOURNEYMAN episodes. After getting off to a limp start, the show is actually beginning to find itself and go beyond being TOUCHED BY A TIME TRAVELLER. Unfortunately, rumor has it the show has been cancelled, a victim of bad ratings and the strike.

The American networks aren’t the only ones feeling the heat from the WGA Strike. I’ve been in Europe for the last three weeks doing some consulting and spending lots of time with producer, writers, and network execs. The networks are terrified that the flow of American shows is going to dry up and leave them without any programming in 2008. I can understand their fear. American series like HOUSE, MONK and CSI MIAMI dominate the ratings in France and Germany…and the home-grown shows are bombing. The writers and producers see this as fantastic opportunity for local producers to get more of their shows on the air. But it’s not working out that way. The financial reality in Germany, for example, is that they can buy three American shows for what it costs to make one German show. They simply can’t afford to replace their American programming with home-grown fare. And even if they could, they fear the audiences wouldn’t watch anyway. So where are the European networks looking? The same place the U.S. is – to reality shows and to series bought from the U.K.

While I was in Munich, I used the subway a lot to get around. One day, the train was mobbed and I got pressed up against a woman. I haven’t been that close to a woman who wasn’t my wife in 20 years. I felt like I was committing adultery. But I looked around and I seemed to be the only one on the train who was embarrassed and uncomfortable about being in that the situation. She certainly wasn’t. She made no effort to move away, not that she could. Nor could I. When I told my German friends about this they just shrugged it off. The only question they had, men and women alike, was whether the woman I was pressed against was young and attractive. She was. They said then I should consider myself lucky. I still get embarrassed thinking about it.

I went to Paris for a weekend to research my next MONK novel, MR. MONK IS MISERABLE. My wife is French, so I have been to Paris many times, but I have never looked at it from Monk’s point-of-view. I revisited the Sewer Museum and the Catacombs, and I ate dinner at Dans le Noir, where you dine in the dark and all the waiters are blind. That was cool, but I doubt anyone goes there for the food. There are more free, public toilets in Paris than in any city I have ever been to and yet I saw more men urinating on the streets than dogs. Paris isn’t the City of Light. It’s the City of Pee. I suppose it could be worse. I only saw dogs pooping on the sidewalks.

At the Virgin Megastore on the Champs Elysee, a guy stood on the grand staircase soaking wet from the rain and asking everybody in English where he could find the virgins. I thought he was just a jerk trying to be funny but our eyes met and I realized he was actually crazy. But by acknowledging him, I’d started something.

“They are at McDonalds,” I said.

“Thanks man,” he said and left.

WGA Crime Scene Rally

On Tuesday December 18th , the Writers Guild of America is holding a bicoastal “Scene of the Crime” Rally for writers of crime and cop shows. Writers
and stars of over 35 current and past crime/cop/law shows will be in
attendance in Los Angeles and New York.

This is a great opportunity for
fans of TV crime dramas to show their support for the writers who bring them shows like CSI, MONK, LAW AND ORDER, DEXTER and many more.

 
And here’s the best part – in Los Angeles, we’re holding the rally at the headquarters of the AMPTP. The Death Star itself.
 
In New York, the rally will be held at historic Foley Square downtown, in full view of the Federal and State Courthouses. Here are the details: 
Los Angeles: December 18th, 10 am to 12 pm PST
AMPTP HQ, 15503 Ventura Blvd., Encino, a few blocks
west of the 405 at the corner of Firmament.
 
New York: December 18th, 12 pm to 2 pm EST
Foley Square, Downtown NYC
 
I’m in Munich right now, but I am rushing back to be in Encino in time for the rally. I’ll be the Pierce Brosnan look-alike with the picket sign and the bloodshot eyes, staggering around in a jet-lagged haze… 

Mr. Monk and the Bookgasm

The fine folks at Bookgasm enjoyed MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE. The reviewer, Ed Gorman, says:

You know you’ve landed in an alternate universe when you meet “Mr.
Snork, security chief of the starship Discovery,” one of the many fans
also dressed up like people on the show – the ones who wear elephant
trunks being my favorite.

The only thing goofier than the fans is when Monk looks at them and
says, “I don’t associate with freaks like that,” and then proceeds to
do some riffing on the ’60s to “prove” that they’re all “high on LSD.”
A great scene.

This is probably my favorite MONK book…

A Subtle Clue

Here’s a true story from the writers room. We were helping a freelancer, a first-timer to crime shows, plot her story. We needed a subtle clue to link two killings that previously seemed unrelated.

"I’ve got it," the freelancer said. "What if there is a tiny hole in the victim’s head and we
discover his brain has been drained out of his skull and replaced with dog shit."

"I don’t think that’s subtle enough," I said.

"Why not?" she said. "It’s a small hole."

Needless to say, she ended up backing out of the assignment.

Tongue Tied

A friend of mine sent me this description of a kiss from ON CHESIL BEACH by Ian McEwan, one of the New York Times’ "Best 100 Novels of 2007."  If there’s an award for bad writing about sex, I would nominate this bit:

With his lips
clamped firmly onto hers, he probed the fleshy floor of her mouth, then moved
around inside the teeth of her lower jaw to the empty place where three years
ago a wisdom tooth had crookedly grown until removed under general anesthesia.
This cavity was where her own tongue usually strayed when she was lost in
thought. By association, it was more like an idea than a location, a private
imaginary place rather than a hollow in her gum, and it seemed peculiar to her
that another tongue should be able to go there too. … He wanted to engage her
tongue in some activity of its own, coax it into a hideous mute duet. … She
understood perfectly that this business with tongues, this penetration, was a
small-scale enactment, a ritual tableau vivant, of what was still to come, like
a prologue before an old play that tells you everything that must happen.

 

World’s Ugliest Book Covers

9780980073317100x147
I keep getting emails from J. Crowder at Lightsword Publishing. The emails have no message, just a link to their site. Brilliant marketing, huh? I finally gave in and clicked it. The link takes you to an astonishingly amatuerish website. But if you think the site21hrflmpiml_ss160_
looks bad, you should see their book covers. They must have hired a class of third graders as their art department. You have to wonder what J. Crowder hopes to gain by these emails…