My Blog

Dumbest Promo Tease of the Season

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The NBC promo department must have run out of things to say to draw viewers to new episodes of their shows. What other explanation can there be to explain this promotional tease for next week’s episode of SURFACE?

"The premiere was only the beginning."

Then again, I suppose it’s a bold promotional strategy, considering that for most new shows lately on NBC the premiere has also been the end.

The Horror of Being a Smurf

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The AV Club visited Fanfiction.net on a mission to probe the "outer limits" of fan fiction and found, among the REBA and SCHINDLERS LIST fic, stories about THE SMURFS.

SmurfSample: Not so "Raven Child2," whose sprawling trilogy ("The Smurfette
Village!", "Return to the Smurfette Village," and the still-in-progress "How
Things Smurf") follows Hefty Smurf on an epic journey that spans several
centuries. Separated from the other Smurfs after a devastating flood, Hefty
happens on a village that reverses the male-to-female ratio of the patriarchal
Smurf Village. Can he find true love with his female analog, Toughette? Will he
ever be reunited with his Smurf friends? Can they adjust to modern times when
they’re whisked into the 21st century?

Representative quote: "Many of the smurfs didn’t even try to block
away their tears when Papa Smurf reminded them of the horrors they
witnessed."

Sexual tension: Moderate. Smurfs can only be so sexy, but there is a
distinct sensuality to Raven Child2’s descriptions of Toughette.

Critical response: Mixed. While most reviewers offer vague words of
encouragement ("Keep smurfin’!"), "Jinglette," author of "Harry Potter And The
Search For Michael Jackson," isn’t so kind: "You have no life… Writing about
Smurfs… GO EAT A MUFFIN OR SOMETHING!" Ouch. And is it constructive criticism
or passive aggression when fellow Smurfs fanfic writer "Rowhena Zahnrei" points
out, "Proper tense use is vital if you want readers to be able to follow your
story easily"?

(Thanks to Bookslut for the heads-up)

What You Think About When You Win an Emmy

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My friend Javier won an Emmy the other night for LOST. This was what was going through his head as he stepped up on stage in front of twenty million people:

i wouldn’t be here if upn hadn’t cancelled “jake 2.0” in the middle of
its run! thank you tyra banks for doing twice our first run number on a
rerun of “america’s next top model” how is my wife going to find me
after this? I AM HERE FOR THE GLORY OF QU’ONOS! do i get my own trophy?
god, i love monkeys. the castaways should find a monkey and train it to
be their butler. wolverine! SNCKT! monkey butler. chips would be nice.
never be ru-uude to an arab! hey – that’s jj abrams! volare! whoa-oh!
cantare! i remember a small band of three men i saw while vacationing
in the island of bequia, they sang badly and their instruments were out
of tune – but they had HEART! shatner was just here! shatner. the
captain. hmmm. some dip would be nice with those chips. hey guinan?
where’s the rest of the el-aurian refugees? I AM HE AND YOU ARE HE AND
HE IS WE AND WE ARE ALL TOGETHER!

This was what was going through my mind as I watched him:  Who knew that writing dialogue for a dolphin was a step towards greatness?

You might wonder why I thought that.

It’s because two of my TV writer friends — who also happen to be two of the nicest and most talented men you will ever meet — have won Emmys and the well-deserved respect of their peers despite having worked with me on shows starring dolphins.  I like to think that means there’s an Emmy in my future, too…

Major Upset at the WGA

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I received an email press release from the WGA, portions of which I’ve excerpted below:

Patric M. Verrone, David N. Weiss, Elias Davis, and their slate of
eight Writers United board candidates have been decisively swept into the
leadership of the Writers Guild of America, west (WGAw).  In one of the highest
turnouts ever for the Guild, Verrone was elected President with a resounding 68%
of the vote, and the rest of his slate followed suit, winning their seats by
roughly a two-to-one margin.  The lowest vote recipient from the Writers United
slate beat out the next highest vote recipient by over five hundred votes.

Stated Verrone: "Our slate clearly selected a campaign platform — organizing
the creative community to better bargain with media companies — that resonated
with writers.  This is one of the few times in Hollywood history that the
leadership of a creative union has entered office with such a decisive
mandate."

Mr. Weiss will serve as Vice President and Mr. Davis as Secretary-Treasurer. 
Their running mates, Scott Frank, Robert King, Peter Lefcourt, Joan Meyerson,
Phil Alden Robinson, Howard A. Rodman, Tom Schulman, and Dan Wilcox, will join
them on the board and provide a working majority that will enable them to
implement their ambitious agenda.

NUMERICAL RESULTS: President: Patric M. Verrone (1301, 68.8%), Vice President:
David N. Weiss (1256, 65.5%), Secretary-Treasurer: Elias Davis (1227, 65.7%). 
Board of Directors:  Phil Alden Robinson (1425), Scott Frank (1355), Tom
Schulman (1305), Peter Lefcourt (1303), Joan Meyerson (1283), Howard A. Rodman
(1243), Robert King (1163), Dan Wilcox (1157).  The one-year term board seat of
newly-elected Vice President David N. Weiss will be filled by Melissa Rosenberg
(646).  The Officers and Board members will serve for a term of two years,
effective immediately.

Other results: Candidates for officers: President:
Ted Elliott (591), Vice President: Carl Gottlieb (661), Secretary-Treasurer:
Irma Kalish (642). Candidates for members of the Board of Directors: Tim
O’Donnell (576), Don M. Mankiewicz (552), Dan McDermott (510), Steve Chivers
(478), Doug Eboch (408), Mike Langworthy (379), Eric Heisserer (348), David S.
Weiss (212). 

It’s an astonishing upset, unlike anything I’ve seen in my twenty years as a WGA member. I think the message being sent is clear and shows the depth of the discontent within the membership with the way the Guild has been run in recent years (For the record, I voted for Verrone for President and Weiss for VP, but my board votes ended up being evenly divided between the two "slates").

Authors Guild Sues Google, Citing “Massive Copyright Infringement”

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Today I received this email press release from the Authors Guild regarding Google’s outrageous violation of copyright law.

The Authors Guild and a Lincoln
biographer, a children’s book author, and a former Poet Laureate of the United
States filed a class action suit today in federal court in Manhattan against
Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google
Library program.  The suit alleges that the $90 billion search engine and
advertising juggernaut is engaging in massive copyright infringement at the
expense of the rights of individual writers.

Through its Library program,
Google is reproducing works still under the protection of copyright as well as
public domain works from the collection of the University of Michigan’s
library. 

"This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law," said
Authors Guild president Nick Taylor.  "It’s not up to Google or anyone other
than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and
how their works will be copied."

The individual plaintiffs are Herbert
Mitgang, a former New York Times editorial writer and the author of numerous
fiction and nonfiction books, including "The Fiery Trial: A Life of Lincoln,"
published by Viking Press; Betty Miles, the award-winning author of many works
for children and young adults, and the co-author of "Just Think," published by
Alfred A. Knopf; and Daniel Hoffman, the author and editor of many volumes of
poetry, translation, and literary criticism, including "Barbarous Knowledge:
Myth in the Poetry of Yeats, Graves and Muir" and "Striking the Stones," both
published by Oxford University Press.  Mr. Hoffman was the 1973-74 Poet Laureate
of the United States.

Google has agreements with four academic libraries
— those of Stanford, Harvard, Oxford and the University of Michigan — and with
the New York Public Library to create digital copies of substantial parts of
their collections and to make those collections available for searching online. 
Google has not sought the approval of the authors of these works for this
program.

The complaint seeks damages and an injunction to halt further
infringements.

Hinckley Wants Some Action

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The LA Times reports that John Hinckley would like to get laid.

Asst. U.S. Atty. Thomas Zeno said Hinckley "wants to have intimate contact. His
parents want him to date, his father wants him to get married."

Hinckley’s desires, along with his thwarted efforts to woo women, were revealed
during a federal court hearing into his bid for visits to his parents’ Virginia
home, a three-hour drive from the Washington hospital where he has spent more
than two decades since shooting Reagan and four other people. Hinckley was found
not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982.

I see the makings of a WB reality show in this, don’t you?  Imagine what his feeble efforts to "woo women" must be like.

"Hey babe, I shot the President and live in an insane asylum. Would you like to blow me?"

or

"You’re a dead ringer for Jodie Foster. Has anyone ever told you that?"

or

"Want to come to back to my place and see my straight jacket?"

I’m going to call my agent and start setting up some pitch meetings.

The Lying Scum

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Reading about Harley Jane Kozak’s TV meeting misadventures, I was reminded of a meeting Bill and I had many years ago with a Major TV Producer. We went in to pitch a series adaptation of a property he owned. We did our pitch and loved it. Said it was perfect, brilliant, incredible. Did we have any other ideas? We did. We pitched them. He nearly had an orgasm listening to them. He liked the ideas so much, that he wanted them all. He couldn’t wait to work with us and told us we’d found a home.

We called our agent immediately afterwards, still high on the thrill of such stunning success, and told him to  expect a call within seconds from the Major TV Producer to make a deal.  The guy didn’t call.  When our agent called him  and asked how meeting went, the Major TV Producer said "Eh, they didn’t really wow me."

The experience taught me to never believe anything that’s said in a pitch meeting. More than once I’ve been fooled by enthusiasm and big promises (or have totally misread what appears to be utter lack of interest and open hostility). So now, I try not to get excited or dispirited until I hear from my agent whether we’re negotiating a deal or not.

The Major TV Producer later became a Major Network Chief and, years later, called us in to meet with him and his executive team about rescuing a troubled series they had. I was hesitant about meeting him again, but we did it anyway. We went in and, after telling us he’d been fans of ours for years,  he asked us was what we thought was wrong with the show. We told him what wasn’t working and what we thought  should be done to fix it.  And he said: "That’s exactly what I told the showrunner before I shut down his show and took it away from him. But somehow, hearing it from you, I don’t like it."

Needless to say, we didn’t get the job.  He’s back to being a Major TV Producer again and sometimes I wonder if its possible to be a nice guy and still survive in this business…or whether the key to success is being a lying scum.

Harley’s Adventures in TV Land

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My friend author Harley Jane Kozak shares more of her adventures in Hollywood  pitching her book DATING DEAD MEN as a TV series.

All the meetings go really well. While they’re happening. Then a
secondary reality sets in, wherein "I’d love to work with you” turns
out to mean, “I’d love to work with you, contingent upon a bunch of
other things, some of which will occur to me three days from now, after
I’ve talked to some other people.”

…conversations ensue, with Wendy, the producers, the producers’
people, our people, our people’s colleagues, Wendy’s husband, various
assistants, Other Producers Whom the Networks Love Who Might Be Right
For This Project. Our agent announces that Person X, who was so
fabulous yesterday afternoon is no longer desirable today, because of
something having to do with UPN. Or not. (The exception in all this is
Old Boyfriend who sends straightforward and unambiguous e-mails
directly to me. But he’s considered eccentric.)

I think I’m following it all until someone—e.g., my literary agent
from New York, where they speak English—says, “how’s it going?” and I
find I have no idea how it’s going or even what “it” is.

…and people ask me why I write books. I have to do something to stay sane while I work in the TV business.