Square Two

Yesterday was a study in contrasts.

I had a meeting with my manager around 3 over Whole Foods tuna sandwiches. The topic was Get Low, the script I've been trying to get made for just over three years. I've written about it before, but all you really need to know about it that I've lived with the project since 2001, and for a while there it looked like it was going to get made and put me on the Hollywood map. Soon the phone would ring and I'd go to meetings and I'd get assignments and I'd start to make a living and I'd maybe even get a blurb in one of the trades. I would have "arrived."

Alas, as with so many things, what I anticipated and what actually came to pass have been pretty disconnected. The upshot of our meeting was that, despite my manager's efforts to drum up some money, despite the hard work of the producers, and despite the attachment of two Oscar-winning actors, apparently no one wants to make the thing. Now, this is not to say that it will never get made, necessarily. But the manager's advice was to more or less forget about it. One day if it gets made (which could happen; Unforgiven took twenty years) then it'll make for a nice story in my memoirs. But until then, move on.

So, I am sort of back to square one. Sort of, but not really. Square One would be no one knows who I am or cares. Square Two is maybe where I am. A few people know who I am and a few people care. And maybe that's all you need. Taking stock, in the recent past I've co-written a feature screenplay that is being tag-team rewritten as we speak, I've developed a TV series & pitched it (still waiting to hear from VH1), and I'm in the middle of finishing Air Conditioned Jungle, a script I've mentioned before. And so maybe having a few people know and care means that should any of these get in front of the right people, and the right circumstances crop up, maybe something will come of it. You know, you gotta just have so much faith to be a writer, let alone a writer in Hollywood, let alone an actor in Hollywood. Although if you're an actor you need to have faith plus a smoldering, rough-hewn charm that complements your six pack abs and white, white teeth.

The flip side of the wave of dread known as square two is...

Last night I was invited to a table read of the new pilot "Heist," a really cool show that will be presented to NBC. The first episode is to be directed by Doug Liman.

It was a full house, a large room in a tres moderne office suite on the West Side of LA, stuffed with catered Quiznos sandwiches, cookies, chips and many bottles of water. This being my first "real" table read, I noted the details. Scripts on blue paper for anyone who wanted, and pens everwhere you looked. The only thing they didn't have in spades were chairs.

So my writing partner Matt - the guy that introduced me to the producers, these same ones who are helping he and I get our TV pitch around town - ended up reading all the stage direction: anything that the actors were not supposed to read. He had a heavy duty job since the show is almost all action. There were some great highlights to the night. Probably the best was Seymour Cassel having a very tender bit with his fictional ailing wife. Short scene but powerful stuff from the Cassavettes stalwart.

The script ran long (it was about 55 pages, and for the purposes of a one-hour TV show that times out to 44 minutes of screen time, should probably top off at 50) so immediately after the actors left, the producers and writers (including Matt and I, pro bono) repaired to the production offices across the street and got to work on punching up the text. It was a genuine thrill for me. I was born to be among writers. All thinking, all problem solving, all creative, all funny. Just sort of a little tiny dream come true.

The producers don't really know me that well. I've only really met them a half a dozen times now, and never without Matt at my side. Still, they treat me just fine and hear me out if I've got a suggestion, and they even laugh in all the right spots. So it's a good situation. I even pitched a jokey bit of dialogue that made it into he finished script. And I'm kinda proud of that - maybe no one will ever see it except for NBC executives, but maybe it will get picked up and then suddenly a spontaneous idea hatched in the boiler room of an office park mainly to crack up the writers will actually get seen by you, dear reader/viewer. After things wrapped up, Mark, one of the two producers looked me in the eye and sincerely thanked me for staying until midnight to work for free on his script. Nearly brought a tear to my goddamn eye. That almost made up for him calling me the Italian Woody Allen.

So there you have the two paths that I walk right now. Lost in obscurity and well-liked by a precious few. It could be worse, much worse. It could be raining. Wait, in LA?