Lee Goldberg

The Presumptuous Stranger

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A successful screenwriter I know recently shared with me an experience he had with a stranger that's becoming more and more common these days among my writer friends who have any kind of online presence…

A complete stranger sent me an email informing me of the glorious news that he's coming to LA to try to sell his book as a TV series, and that he wants me to have lunch with him to tell him how the business works. He presents this as something of a treat for me.

I want to be polite, so I told him that I will be out of town that weekend, but good luck.

He writes back and asks for an agent recommendation.

I told him the only agent I know is my own, and he is not even considering taking on new clients, but good luck.

So he writes back and asks me to read his spec pilot.

Now I feel like the Terminator, running down that list of appropriate responses, from "No, but thanks for asking" to "Which part of fuck off and die did you fail to understand?"

I have had this experience so many times myself  that I now believe that being polite to these presumptuous strangers is a mistake, that it's seen as an invitation to intrude even further. So now I am very blunt. I tell strangers the obvious — that I don't know them at all, that I am very busy, and that I have have no interest in meeting them or reading their work.  I get one of three responses: 1) a polite "thank you,"  2) a nasty diatribe about how I'm an ungrateful, self-centered, selfish, insecure prick or 3) no response at all.

But I do wonder what is going through the minds of these strangers. Do they really expect me to drop everything to meet someone I have never met before, online or otherwise? It would be different if we were "pen pals" and had established a relationship of some kind… but these are complete strangers I am talking about. Do they think just because we have websites, or blogs, or Facebook and Twitter accounts, that we are at their beck-and-call?

Mr. Monk and the Promo

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My short story "Mr. Monk and the Seventeen Steps," an excerpt from my January 2011 novel MR. MONK ON THE ROAD, will be published in the December issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, which will be out in October. The editors of the magazine asked me to make a trailer for the short story. Don't ask me why. I think they were drunk. I must have been, too, because I went ahead and made it.

 

Lori Jareo’d

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No surprise:  Faster than you can say "Lori Jareo, " delusional fanficcer Lady Sybilla's self-published TWILIGHT sequel RUSSET NOON has been yanked off of Amazon. It's also now "on hold" on CreateSpace.

Lady Sybilla issued a press release after Hachette Group slapped her, Amazon and CreateSpace with a cease & desist order. She says, in part:

[…]However, the question still remains: Is this the end of Russet Noon? Does Lady Sybilla really need Amazon in order to continue to sell her controversial book?

And, last but not least, will Hachette Book Group go as far as suing Lady Sybilla in order to get a judge to determine whether or not Russet Noon is a parody?

Only time will tell.

For the time being, Russet Noon is still for sale via its official website at www.sequel-to-breaking-dawn.com. Moreover, according to a statement issued today by AV Paranormal Publishing, "Lady Sybilla has no intention of backing down. She will gladly stand before a judge to prove that Hachette's claims are unsubstantiated and that Russet Noon is, in fact, a parody, as it has undergone major rewrites since its online publication in 2009."

Let the legal battles begin.

Oh, I hope this goes to court. Hilarity will ensue.

The Glades

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Jim-longworth-forms-hypothesis Bill Rabkin and I wrote Sunday night's episode of the hit summer series THE GLADES on A&E. Our episode is called "The Girlfriend Experience" and I hope you enjoy it.  Our next episode, "Booty," is shooting now and will air sometime in September.

Mrs Potato Head is Back…Again

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Lady Sybilla, the dimwit who tried to sell her own TWILIGHT sequels on eBay, is back. Now's she's self-published RUSSET NOON through CreateSpace and is offering her swill on Amazon as a "parody" in a pathetic and transparent attempt not to get slapped with a cease-and-desist order. The product description of her craptastic opus clearly indicates that it's not a parody…but a lame attempt to sell a sequel to a book, and characters, she doesn't own. This delusional fanficcer must have studied at the feet of the master, Lori Jareo.

(Thanks to C.S. Winchester for the  heads-up)

UPDATE 8-10-2010: No surprise:  Faster than you can say "Lori Jareo, " delusional fanficcer Lady Sybilla's self-published TWILIGHT sequel RUSSET NOON has been yanked off of Amazon. It's also now "on hold" on CreateSpace.

The Triumphant Return Of The Goldberg Brothers Band…Plus A Rabkin

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51bwbQd18mL._SS500_ From my brother Tod's blog…

Yes, the rumors you've heard are true: My brother Lee and I are putting the Goldberg Brothers Band back together for a limited engagement summer tour. We'll be playing all of our hits, a bunch of the B-sides you used to love, the songs with the backward masking and, of course, we intend to do our patented Hot August Night show where we cover, in full, Neil Diamond's original live album of the same name. And despite Lee's late career marriage to Cher, his weight gain and the time he spent in prison for cutting a fan with his glass-beaded shirt, folks I swear he still rocks. It all starts this coming weekend and then all of August will be spent hitting some pretty major county fairs, parks with well-lit gazebos (Pioneer Park in Walla Walla, I'm talking to you!) and then one final night at the Cow Palace. Scorsese is filming that one for a concert film.

We'll be joined by William "Billy The Axe Man" Rabkin for a few dates, too, so keep your radio tuned to your favorite AM rock station for the details. 

Here's where we'll be this coming weekend:

Saturday, Aug. 7th, 1pm

Mysteries to Die For

2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd.

Thousand Oaks, CA 91362

Lee will be signing his new Monk book (his 109th, I believe), Bill will be signing his new Pysch book, and I'll be signing my new Burn Notice book.

 Saturday, Aug. 7th, 4pm

The Mystery Bookstore

1306 Broxton Avenue

LA, CA 90024 (that's Westwood Village)

Same as above, but we'll have perfected our jokes and witty banter from the previous event. 

 Sunday, Aug. 8th, 1pm

Mystery Ink

7176 Edinger Avenue

Huntington Beach, CA 

Just me and Lee this time. Bill has a parole hearing that day. This is a new store, so there's a good chance it will just be me and Lee and no one else, really. So if you've ever wanted to have a private conversation with us about, you know, whatever weird shit happens to be on your mind, this is your chance.

 

Remaindered Cast

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We've cast my short film REMAINDERED, which I wrote and will be directing in Owensboro, Kentucky in early September, thanks to Zev Buffman, Roxi Witt and all the other terrific folks at the RiverPark Performing Arts Center. 

DSC_0520
Eric Altheide is Kevin Dangler, a once-bestselling author trying to get back to the top… 

Resized Bill Spangler shot 3
Sebrina Siegel is Megan, his adoring fan (perhaps too adoring)

Todd Reynolds
And Todd Reynolds is Detective Bud Flanek, Owensboro's answer to Columbo (as he also was in my buddy David Breckman's film MURDER IN KENTUCKY). Robert Denton and Lisa Baldwin play supporting roles. I can't wait to start working with these terrific actors, who were found thanks to the tireless efforts of our casting director Lori Rosas and our producer Rodney Newton.

I'll be keeping you updated on the production of the movie here and on the Remaindered Production Blog...and the Remaindered Facebook group. 

Mr. Monk and Romance

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The folks over at the Love, Romances and More blog are in love with Mr. Monk. Here's part of what they had to say about MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT.

Lee Goldberg has become a genius in my book![…] As a reader, this novel delighted me in many ways. There was not a bad page in this book; each page is filled with humor, drama and emotion. While I cannot as a person understand Monk's obsessive compulsive disorder, I sympathized with the characters surrounding him. His problems were heartbreaking yet laugh out loud funny at the same time. Lee Goldberg has taken a serious disorder and turned it into one of the funniest drama's I have ever read – or seen.

Mr. Monk Gets The Scoop

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The folks at Gelati's Scoop like MR. MONK IS CLEANED OUT a lot. They said, among other things:

Lee Goldberg’s gift of humor is, I think, the main ingredient in making this series of novels work at such a high level. Taking such every day mundane situations or objects (like a bottle of water), and weaving them into a well-crafted novel that is moving and insightful from start to finish is no small undertaking, but he succeeds novel after novel. Mr. Monk Gets Cleaned Out is a fun summer read. It took the pain of missing the series out for me right away

Curiosities, the Curious Book News blog, also liked the book. They said, in part:

This highly entertaining tale takes place in San Francisco before the events of the show's final season It adroitly explores the obsessive-compulsive behavioral problems of the brilliant but flawed detective.[…]This is great fun if you were addicted to the popular television show – you don't even have to read others in the series to enjoy it.

Thanks to both blogs for the great reviews!