Lee Goldberg

Greetings from Germany

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I’m sorry you haven’t seen me much around here, but I am currently in Cologne, where I am writing, teaching, pitching and going on helicopter rides (my friends at Action Concept love their helicopters). Over the weekend,  I was taken out by an experienced race car driver to Nurburgring,  where we drove a BMW M5 on a winding track that’s  considered one of the most demanding in the world.  When I say "we drove," I mean I sat in the passenger seat while he sped at 240+ km around unbelievably tight turns.  I loved it. I thought it was incredibly exhiliratiing. Unfortunately, before I got my turn at the wheel, the car completely crapped out.  Somehow we managed to blow the transmission. We had to push the car into a parking spot, where we waited three hours for a tow truck to take us back to the nearest BMW dealership. It was great fun anyway and I got to see a lot of cool cars. Speaking of cars, I also visited the Daimler-Chrysler HQ in Stuttgart, which was fun, too.

But the best part of my trip so far has been all the conversations I’ve had with German writer/producers and network executives. I think I’ve learned as much from them as they have from me. The exchange of ideas, methods, and philosophies about writing, showrunning,  and the television business has been every bit as exhilirating for me as my high-speed race around the track.

I Love It When Tod Gets Hate Mail

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My brother Tod gets the most amusing hate mail from the strangest people:

You’re perhaps the most unlikable, trivial, angry person I’ve ever read
online. You would be an incredibly successful female middle-school
student. Try inserting a few spurious capital letters and misspelling
(more) words, and you could fit right in at MySpace. Your photograph
looks very Arabic and not very Jewish, and it’s also extremely creepy.
Some people were born to write (not you) and some born to be
photographed (not you, either).

Naturally
my Arabic-looking brother, who clearly has too much time on his hands since my Mom moved from his neighborhood to mine, responded right away and asked the writer to be his mentor. He wrote, in part:

My mother and father, while both Jewish, were apparently quite ugly,
which lead to the unfortunate photo of me you saw that apparently makes
me me look Arabic. I guess looking Arabic would be a bad thing? I’m
sorry if my Fertile Crescent appearance in that photo doesn’t please
you, my mentor, but I assure you that there are other photos of me
online where I look Italian, which might please you. There are also
some where I look Persian, which probably wouldn’t please you too much.
Others still make me look like a Russian Jew, which I am, but that
might make you think I’m a Communist. I assure you, Neal, I love
America and am not a Commie. I do like Russian dressing, but only on a
certain chicken dish…

[…]I’m sad that you find me the most unlikable person online. That means
you’ve never visited my brother’s blog. He could use your help, too,
Neal, to see the way out of failure toward success. […]Will you be my life coach? Will you teach me how to write midnight
letters to novelists who you stumble upon while searching for the
lyrics to The Ballad Of Irving? That was you, wasn’t it Neal? Writing
me from the Lutheran Medical Center in Denver? Neal, I feel safe in
saying that I need you in my life now more than ever.

Neal immediately wrote back:

Now, the most important part of my advice. Masturbate one more time (it’s the closest you’ll come to  losing your virginity) and then kill yourself. Don’t stretch it out for twenty-odd more years of sucking dick to pay for your meth, getting turned down by crack whores, and constantly referring to your family as if anyone knows them. Just get it over with.

I am not kidding, the world will thank you. Your funeral will be a party, and we’ll enjoy dancing around your unmarked cardboard box.

Neal also cc’d his lawyer on his reply, which is the perfect punchline to the whole thing.  I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at a blog post (though it was probably one of Tod’s famous Letters to Parade columns).

Airing Tonight in Oblivion

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A year ago, I wrote abou lost TV series that were ordered and shot but never aired. Variety reports that the new CBS series WATERFRONT is destined to be another show that will only be broadcast in oblivion.

Over at the Eye, "Waterfront" was originally slated for midseason.
But with few holes to fill on its sked, CBS execs decided to pull the
plug on the drama from Warner Bros. TV.

Jack Orman created the
skein, which starred Joe Pantoliano as the mayor of Providence, R.I.
William Baldwin, Mary Stuart Masterson and Larenz Tate also starred.

Four
episodes, plus the pilot, of "Waterfront" had already been shot.
Insiders said net execs weren’t completely pleased with the show’s
direction; without a pressing need to schedule it, the net decided to
pass.

Each episode of the show  probably cost at least $2 million to produce. Plus it’s likely that the producers and cast have pay-or-play deals, meaning they will have to be paid for 13 episodes whether they are shot or not. So this decision essentially means that CBS  will be flushing over $10 million down the toilet.

Inhuman

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I’ve never written a biography, but I must get two or three emails a month from complete strangers who want me to write a book about their lives. Here’s one I got today (I took out the name of the person and the company she mentions):

I am 70 years old and I have been told that my autobiography should be written.I won an inhuman case against XYZ COMPANY.As you know that it is not the money you win, but I have been in therapy for many years. I have Newspaper clipping of the Inhuman treatment I received.I do hope you can help me, or know someone that can.

If you’re interested in writing about this woman and her inhuman case, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with her.

Off To Germany Again

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I am leaving today for another two week stint in Germany, where I will be teaching for The Media Exchange and doing some consulting work for Action Concept, the country’s leading producer of action shows and movies (you’ll be hearing a lot more about them, and the work we are doing together, in the coming months). I’ll try to report back here occasionally…but don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me much. Note: While I am away, I am holding all comments for approval before posting them. When I return, I will deactiviate the comment-moderation.