Back in the Saddle

Well, well, well... It's been a while. Where have you been?

This past weekend I was at Coachella, where I had the socks knocked off my ass by Tool. But where have I been since, oh, April, when I last wrote on this thing? I've been through the Hollywood mill, through the network roundabout, through the ratings war. OR I just got consumed with working on the show, and then the show got cancelled. Low numbers, you see. There were some other factors involved, like most of the episodes that aired made no sense, but that doesn't really matter as long as eyeballs are on the TV set. Since that didn't happen, they gave it the old Terry Shiavo. And per my generous NBC contract, I continue to receive a paycheck for six more weeks. I am unemployed and yet not unemployed. I am getting paid to write this right now. I am getting paid to stay at home and watch the DVD's of Showtime's Sleeper Cell, which fucking rocks.

The last few weeks I've tried to decompress from the job, which while not hard had very erratic hours and short, intense bursts of concentration and effort in the middle of long lulls of boredom. It was basically Vietnam without the rice paddies. And we all know how those guys fared when they got back. Now that I'm back to civilian life, I'm just sitting in my apartment, going through the DVR and the stack of New Yorkers and returning some emails and updating my MySpace page so that I can rejoin the brave new 21st Century social scene.

And then it struck me. Convert the garage into a writer's annex. Sweep that shit out and put all the surplus crap from the apartment up there, make it a cozy (and dusty) little work barn so as to get a little sunshine, a little respite from the oppressive sameness of my apartment, and a little motivation to shower and clothe myself each and every morning. Walk up the back steps to the garage with confidence and purpose, and try not to embarrass myself by still rocking a head full of cowlicks and a saggy pair of pajama bottoms at 3pm. Nothing worse than that look from the UPS guy who's been up since the ass-crack of dawn delivering you a package in your underwear.

Needs a little work, specifically a coat of paint and maybe a rug or a little astroturf (my production designer girlfriend's sassy suggestion). But for now, it's just a good little spot to seek refuge from the neighbors constant yammering and neverending construction.

But Chris, but Chris, but Chris, what fresh Hollywood adventure lies ahead?

Yes. That. So I've now got an agent, which is a big step in the right direction, and I'm thinking of just leaving it all in his hands. Or maybe, probably the better idea, yeah, is that I should come up with a plan. I have sort of a plan, but built into that plan is a three week vacation to Italy. That's gonna be hot. As far as the Hollywood plan, I'm working on an idea for a screenplay that I am hoping I can crank out in the few weeks I have before I go to Sicily -- which is an ambitious timetable since my last screenplay took, oh, four years to poop out. I can do it. One thing I learned on the show - and don't ever let anyone know I said *that - was that writing can be done in not a lot of time, and often it can be not terrible. In other words, sometimes just plowing through and getting something down on paper can be a great thing. So long as you don't then put that on the air. No, if you scribble down a few thoughts as a placeholder just to HAVE A SCRIPT, you then can go back and fix and tweak and adjust and Make Better. That's the whole gig, by the way. All writing is rewriting. I think that was Hemingway, or my Dad; not sure, but I know it ain't mine.

So there you go. The latest and greatest from yours truly, a suddenly slightly more established Hollywood TV / Screenwriter / Douchebag. Next post will come sooner than fifteen weeks, I promise. In the meantime, I'm heading up the writer's barn to chip away at the new thing.

Ciao, ciao!