Me Me Me

Bonding

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Lee_with_haggis2 Greetings from Cologne, where I spoke today at the Cologne TV conference about how the "American" approach to writing and producing series could be applied to German programming. But the highlight of the day for me was having a chance to chat with Paul Haggis for a while about James Bond, his experiences in network TV, and his short time on WALKER TEXAS RANGER (which he co-created). He expanded on those subjects later in his interview on stage at the conference and also told some very funny stories about developing FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS and EZ STREETS. I had a lot of fun, made some good contacts, and am looking forward to attending the German TV awards on Saturday (their version of the Emmys).

I Suck

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I am at that horrible, seemingly inevitable stage of writing my novel when I become convinced that my plot doesn’t work, my characters are lost, and that I am a talentless fraud and that this will be the book that outs me (I know there are many of you reading this blog who believe that already happened long ago). Coincidentally, today the royalty statements for my first three MONK novels arrived along with the contracts for my next two. It didn’t help. It only added to my anxiety.

My brother called me tonight just to say hello… and I unloaded on him.

He just sighed and said "You say this shit every two months. You said it when you were at this same point in your last book and the one before that and the one before that and the one before that. And they all turned out fine." 

I know that he’s right, but it doesn’t help or make the writing any easier. Tonight,  I suck. But I will keep writing and rewriting and agonizing and procrastinating (by posting on my blog) until it becomes fun again.

I guess that’s what makes me a professional. Or a fool who is deluding himself.

In Flight

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I traveled home from Germany today. I woke up at 4:15 am to make a 6:30 flight out of Munich. At the airport security checkpoint, there are posters and videos alerting you to restrictions on liquids, etc. in carry-on baggage. A young couple went through with two overnight bags loaded with cosmetics, scissors, etc and couldn’t understand why security wouldn’t let them through.On the flight from Munich to Dusseldorf,  where I was catching a connecting flight to the U.S., the businessman who was sitting next to me to me grabbed his crotch at take-off and again at landing. I dont know what he was protecting himself from. In Dusseldorf,  the couple in front of me in the security line had bought a ton of drinks and cosmetics at the terminal gift shop. I warned them that they couldn’t bring their purchases on the plane, but they insisted that since it was bought at the airport, it was okay. I showed them the signs, and they still argued with me. So I shut up. They were shocked and infuriated when security made them throw it all out.  I just smiled and went on my way.

On the flight home, I caught up on five episodes of HEROES and the last few BOSTON LEGALS of the season on my iPod. I think that HEROES is getting too twisty for their own good…to the point that it has become ludicrous and maddening…not to mention nearly impossible to follow. I still have two more episodes to watch and I will have seen the whole season. But it seems to me the show started out with a lot of promise and hasn’t delivered on it.

Back in May, BOSTON LEGAL did yet another episodes where the lawyers are held hostage…this time the bad guy was the troubled son of a murder victim wants revenge from Denny Crane (William Shatner) for getting the accused killer acquited forty-some years ago. But what made this tired plot special was that David Kelley cleverly incorporated footage from the original, black-and-white pilot of THE DEFENDERS, which co-starred a very young William Shatner as a lawyer. Kelley used the old footage as flashbacks of a younger Denny Crane defending the killer. I had to admire the episode as a TV geek, a pilot nut, and as someone who has done much the same thing (using reruns of MANNIX as flashbacks for a new Mannix story on DIAGNOSIS MURDER). I’m surprised the episode didn’t get some attention…or did it?

I see that last week TWO AND A HALF MEN was the highest rated show on television. What has happened to America while I was gone!?

I have been up for over 24 hours now…I want to try to stay awake until 8 or 9 pm. So if this post is riddled with typos and incoherent thought, now you know why.

Munich

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I am sitting in my hotel room in Munich, getting ready to go out for some network meetings. I won’t bore you with all  the details from my travels, except to say it was great to see the cast of FAST TRACK in Berlin again and that it was hell being in London for a day during the subway strike (though  I managed to run into someone I know amidst the crowd on Oxford Street…what are the odds of that!?).  The weather has been rainy and miserable here and I haven’t managed to conquer my jet-lag. I seem to be tired all the time. I have a 6:45 am flight home tomorrow and am looking to getting some sleep, seeing some sunshine, and making more headway on my MONK novel.

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Singing in the Rain

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Potsdamer_platz_berlin It has been a hectic week  bouncing all over Germany…and my bouncing isn’t over yet. I was in Cologne on Friday for meetings then back to Berlin that same night. On Saturday, I took a long walk around Mitte, worked on my MONK novel for a few hours, had a two-hour nap (which I really, really I needed), then had a wonderful dinner at a riverside restaurant with the FAST TRACK line producer and his lovely girlfriend. Today began with another long walk and after I finish this post, I’m going to work on MONK for the rest of the afternoon, and then I will go to our composer’s studio to listen to the FAST TRACK score. Roomgallery_18 I’ve been staying this trip at the Grand Hyatt Berlin in Potsdamer Platz and it’s a great hotel. The rooms have flat screen TVs that also plug into your MP3 player. The bathrooms are beautiful and also have flat screen TVs. The shower is in a seperate, glass-walled section and is mounted beside the bathtub, which also has it’s own hand-held showerhead.  There’s a mirror in there that doesn’t fog, so you can shave while you’re showering. I love it.  The showerhead is called something like rainstorm or cloudburst…and it just drenches you. I’ve taken two or three scalding showers a day since I’ve been here.. I’m probably the cleanest American in Berlin.  I could spend all day in that shower. If only I had a waterproof laptop

Oh Canada

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Greetings from Montreal. My flight was fine…but it took us 90 minutes to get through customs, and that was before I ever got to the luggage carousel. Other than that, the trip went smoothly. We got to our hotel, the St. Sulpice in Old Town, at about 5:30 and after stowing our luggage in our rooms, we went out for a walk. My associate, the international sales guy for Action Concept,  wanted to visit Notre Dame…but it was closed. There was another Church he wanted to visit, but that was closed, too. I guess God keeps bankers hours in Canada. The weather was fantastic and it was nice to get some exercise.

We had dinner with Andrew Walker, one of the stars of FAST TRACK, and his girlfriend Cassandra, and then took another walk through Old Town. When I got back to the hotel, the episodic budgets and shooting schedule for FAST TRACK were waiting for me from Germany. I spent a few hours reading through them, making changes, and preparing for the next day’s meetings. By the time I was  done, it was 1:30 a.m. and I was practically asleep in my chair.

The next morning, Andrew picked us up in a restored 1973 Chevy Caprice convertible and took us on a tour around town. It was fun, and the way people stared at us, you would have thought we were in a Ferrari. We had lunch with him at Schwartz’s smoked meats. The place was packed, so we  where we shared a table with three guy who turned out to be the producers/stars of an Outdoor Network show who’d just come in from a week spent hunting caribou. After lunch, our tour continued…and then Andrew dropped us off for our meetings a distributor/broadcaster for FAST TRACK.  The meetings went very well, and I learned a lot about how the distribution and financing business works up here.

We went back to the hotel to make some calls to Germany, change our clothes, and then we went out for dinner with Andrew and the distribution folks who, as it turned out, have done several movies together. We had a great night, I learned even more about how the financing annd distribution side of the international TV business works, and I didn’t end up getting back to the hotel until well after midnight.

Now I’ve just packed up and am heading to a recording studio to do Andrew’s ADR for FAST TRACK and to have lunch with him and his parents. Then it’s off to Prague, where I will get a connecting flight to Berlin…and arrive tonight.

The only downside to this trip is I haven’t had a chance to write and it’s making me anxious. I will have to make up for it big time this weekend…wherever I am.

Another Rave for HOLLYWOOD & CRIME

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51umlwe7gul__ss500__2Booklist has praised HOLLYWOOD AND CRIME, a new anthology coming out next month that includes my short story "Jack Webb’s Star":

As veteran crime writer Randisi notes in his introduction, when some people think of Hollywood, they think fame, glamour, and Disneyland. Others think of the Black Dahlia, O. J., and Fatty Arbuckle–the dark side of the Tinseltown dream. Among the authors represented in this collection of original short stories with a Hollywood theme are marquee names Michael Connelly, Max Allan Collins, Bill Pronzini, and Stuart Kaminsky. Among the best of the 14 selections are Collins’ "Murderlized," featuring Moe Howard of Three Stooges fame investigating the death of his mentor, and Connelly’s "Suicide Run," in which Harry Bosch extracts justice for a series of murdered starlets. Veteran television screenwriter Lee Goldberg has some fun with a small screen legend in "Jack Webb’s Star," and Dick Lochte brings back private investigator Leo Bloodworth–still listening to Dinah Shore but on an MP3 player–in a mystery that ends with a devilish poke at the quality of modern screenwriting. This consistently high-quality collection offers readers a nice mix of big names and lesser-knowns who deserve larger audiences.

This follows a rave review from Publisher’s Weekly, published a few months back before the book’s release date was changed:

The 14 stories in this entertaining anthology from Shamus Award–founder Randisi span Tinsel Town history from the 1930s to the present and intersect, literally, at Hollywood and Vine. Top billing should go to Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch story, "Suicide Run," and to Lee Goldberg’s "Jack Webb’s Star"—the former for the detection and the latter for biggest laughs. Other highlights include Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens’s reinvention of one of the Three Stooges, Moe Howard, as a detective in their clever "Murderlized," about the 1937 death of the Stooges’ mentor, vaudevillian Ted Healy. Robert S. Levinson delivers a wicked portrait of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper in "And the Winner Is…," which turns on her lackey’s efforts to stop a Nazi sharpshooter at the 1960 Academy Awards. From Harry Bosch’s visit to a photographer at Hollywood & Vine Studios to Moe’s meeting at a coffee shop at that intersection, all the tales pay homage to the storied Hollywood street corner.

Traveling Man

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I am off to Montreal tomorrow to meet with Canadian broadcasters and to record the ADR for one of our FAST TRACK stars…and then I’m going to Berlin, Munich and Cologne for more post-production on FAST TRACK and some important meetings on other projects. I won’t be back until Sept 8…but I will try to post here from the road.

Chiseling

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Ah1l14poin I spent the day writing yesterday…but I am being generous. I only got a few pages done and it was like chiseling at stone. Today I looked at the crap I wrote yesterday and was convinced that I’ve lost whatever minimal talent I had. My days as a writer are over. Then I read an excerpt of Walter Mosley’s book THIS YEAR YOU WRITE YOUR NOVEL in Oprah magazine…and felt much better.

If you skip a day or more between your writing sessions, your mind will drift […] You will find that you’ll have to slog back to a place that would have been easily attained if only you wrote every day.

He’s right, and of course I already knew this, but I’m a writer, so I am naturally insecure. The fact is, I didn’t write for two days because I was bogged down with catching up on my life (after four months away from home) and with FAST TRACK stuff. So when I finally sat down with the book again, I was starting from a dead stop. It should go a bit better today…then even better tomorrow.

Back in the USA

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I got back to the U.S. late Sunday after nearly four months in Europe and it feels good, though I was wide-awake at 4 a.m. this morning.

I’ve already starting wading through the unbelievable mountain of mail I’ve accumulated while I was away…it’s like the back room of the post office. It’s also like Christmas…the boxes I’ve opened so far include maybe 100 Emmy screeners, some copies of the Polish editions of my MONK books, and stuff I forgot that I ordered on Amazon, DeepDiscount DVD, and eBay.

But I am not stowing my suitcases just yet.  I’ll be returning to Germany in about four weeks to finish post-production on FAST TRACK and to be a keynote speaker at the Cologne Conference 2007, along with guys like Steve Bochco and Paul Haggis. And I may be hitting the road with Action Concept’s international sales team to help secure worldwide presales for FAST TRACK in advance of the broadcast of the pilot in Germany (which will happen some time before the end of the year).