Lee Goldberg

My Brother Is Too Damn Funny

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My brother Tod’s Letters to Parade feature on his blog should be a book. But until that happens, you’ll just have to visit his blog every Monday for the latest hilarious installment. This week’s is one of my favorites. Here’s an excerpt:

In the case of G. Martinez of Jamaica, NY, the fetish is James Bond.
And G. has a very important question so that he or she can finally
complete their very special project:

As a James Bond fan, I’d like to know who was the tallest 007.

This
question has obviously been edited. What the crack editorial staff of
Parade snipped off when they created this stupid fucking question when
they realized they didn’t have anything on Bond in Personality Parade
on the weekend before the opening of the latest installment, was this:

It
is very important that I get the exact measurements of whichever Bond
this was  — I hope it was Lazenby! Oh, how I have longed for Lazenby!
— as I am building a cage in which the actor could live. Additionally,
I’m creating a suit made of skin I’ve stripped every day from my
thighs, the bottom of my feet and that space between my plumbing so
that Mr. Lazenby could wear me like a tuxedo, a very snug tuxedo,
covered with the aroma of my glands. Please, could you also tell me if
any of the actors who played Bond are claustrophobic? And it would be
very helpful if I could get the address and phone number of the
gentleman who played Jaws in the Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.

Walter Scott probably never even saw this part of the question because, well, he doesn’t exist.

Anti-Heroes

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Ever since shows about a mob family (THE SOPRANOS) and corrupt cops (THE SHIELD) hit it big, we’ve been seeing a lot of attempts to do other series about anti-heroes. Most of them have been about bank robbers and thieves, and most of them have failed.

But now there’s a new breed of anti-heroes on TV. On WEEDS, we have a housewife who sells pot. On DEXTER, we have a detective who is a serial killer himself. And now comes word  from Variety that AMC is developing a series about a high school chemistry teacher who manufactures and distributes crystal meth.

Pilot script, which previously was set up at FX, concerns a
desperate man who discovers he is terminally ill and tracks what he’s
willing to do to ensure his family’s survival.

AMC execs say
they’re confident that "Breaking Bad," should it go to series, will
have the support of Madison Avenue — in spite of a protagonist who is
both a teacher and a drug maker.

"It will be much more about the
storytelling and the way we handle the material that will make it OK
for advertisers," net exec VP-general manager Charlie Collier said.
"The story is about a guy who turns to a life of crime because he’s
trying to change his life. … In the classic antihero sense, you’re
rooting for him to figure it out."

Rob Sorcher, AMC exec VP of
programming/production, said the network is willing to take more risks
because of its commitment to find "cinematic" series to pair with its
arsenal of theatricals.

Why is it when networks want to be "cinematic," they think it means going very dark? I find it especially odd considering that whenever you hear movie executives talking about dramas now, they’re saying they want projects that are as compelling as the shows on TV… where all the best drama is being done now (and why so much movie talent….writers, director and actors… are migrating to television).

The Double Life is Finally On Sale. You Can Breath Again.

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Dm7a
In case I forgot to mention it, my seventh DIAGNOSIS MURDER book, THE DOUBLE LIFE, is now available in finer bookstores, truck stops, and places of worship nationwide.
I like to think of  THE DOUBLE LIFE as the second book in an unofficial trilogy that began with DIAGNOSIS MURDER #5 : THE PAST TENSE and that will conclude in May 2007 with the eighth and final DM novel, the appropriately titled THE
LAST WORD.

You can order your very own signed and/or personalized copy of THE DOUBLE LIFE from the friendly mystery babes at Mysteries To Die For, who will gladly send your order anywhere in the world…and to most State and Federal prisons.

Who Says Writing is Easy?

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Sandra Scoppettone has written 18 novels. She must, on some level, love to write. But it seems like doing it for her is agony.

I feel like throwing the manuscript into the water and deleting all
copies on my computer and back ups.  I know I won’t.  But I wonder how
much of my discouragement is laced with my bookstore blues.

Still,
I’m on page 178 and I feel I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m going
or who these people are.  My closest friend just told me she wishes she
had a tape to playback to me because I always say these things. 

But this time it’s real.

It’s always real. And she doesn’t need a tape playback —  all she has to do is look back at her blog, where she left virtually the same post about her last book. She’s been successful, critically and financially, as a writer. A couple of her books were even made into movies. So she’s had plenty of validation over the years that she’s really good at what she does. But it’s not enough. It never is.

But what this post proves is that no matter how long you do this, or how successful you are,  this job never gets any easier. I’m not sure what’s harder  — the writing itself or overcoming your insecurities about your writing.

I know how Sandra feels, though not quite to her angst-ridden extreme. I love to write, I need to write, and even when I am in creative hell (which is often), I am usually enjoying myself more than I am suffering… otherwise, why would I keep doing this?

UPDATE 11/10/2006:  Sandra elaborates on her feelings about writing.

Casino Royale Theme

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William Simon sent me this link to a Chris Cornell song "You Know My Name" from for the new 007 movie CASINO ROYALE.  I hope this isn’t actually the theme song…because if it is, it’s the dullest 007 title tune since Garbage’s "The World is Not Enough."

Don’t Miss UNDERFUNDED

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The Hollywood Reporter gave a deservedly rave review to my friend David Breckman’s hilarious pilot UNDERFUNDED, which the USA Network is quietly burning off tonight at 8 pm.  It’s about a spy for the Canadian Secret Service and it’s great fun, closer to THE ROCKFORD FILES than GET SMART.

Why is it that nothing about Canada can be taken seriously? Is it the
speech pattern that ends everything in "Eh"? The fact that the populace
seems so sweetly guileless and lily-white? The complete lack of
pretension? Whatever the case, the Great White North takes one on the
chin again in this lighthearted and surprisingly entertaining subtle
procedural spoof, a rare TV movie that plays it all for laughs.

"Underfunded"
is a production freak of nature: a movie filmed in Canada (Vancouver)
that’s actually about Canada, featuring no name stars and a scrappy,
unassuming, take-nothing-seriously tone that proves mostly endearing.
Kudos to USA for greenlighting something this far outside the telepic
norm.

Now if only USA would greenlight the series…

Another Clueless Moron

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This advertisement was in Variety yesterday (click on it for a larger image): 

Varietyad

All Nick has really done with his $5000 is announce that he’s a clueless moron to all the entertainment industry executives enjoying their morning bowel movement.

But in his own way, he has performed a public service. His advertisement is actually a primer on how NOT to sell your novel, TV series, movie, game show, photography, music, or 1997 Honda Civic to Hollywood.

(Oh, and here’s a helpful hint to all the future Spielbergs, Camerons, Eastwoods and Nicks out there — before you set out to write your next book, TV series, movie, game show, song, or ad in Variety, you should know that an apostrophe S doesn’t make something plural).

I couldn’t resist checking out his site. Among his projects for future Spielbergs, Camerons and Eastwoods is a treatment for THE RETURN
FOR MAGNUM PI, which he registered with the WGA in 1994 despite the
fact he doesn’t own the underlying rights.  Since then, he’s apparently changed his name from Nick Oliva to Nick Bold, perhaps to embrace the new boldness of his writing. I also read the first five pages of his important new book. Here’s one of my favorite passages (the italics are his):

I felt my heart pounding in an uncontrollable tidal surge of affection as we sat and laced up our skates.

And this:

She embraced herself and gracefully slid her hands down opposite arms, creating bountiful cleavage that she stared into before looking over to me, offering herself with an outward shrug of her right shoulder much the way a cat lifts its bottom.

He’s threatening to give this novel away free, but I think even that is charging too much. I wonder if Nick is a member of the Colonial Fan Force? If not, he should be.

UPDATE 11-20-06: He ran the ad again today…because there were typos on his website.  He didn’t bother to correct the grammatical errors in his ad, though. What a moron.