Hollywood Horror Show: Development Hell, Part 2

This is a series detailing the strange, sometimes traumatic experiences I've had in the entertainment industry -- run-ins with celebrities, development execs, and douchebags of all shapes and sizes -- since I moved to LA 11 years ago. A link to the previous installments can be found on the right hand side of the page, and also here.

The exciting (not really) conclusion to yesterday's post in a moment, but one quick note first: I'm being purposely vague about the companies, projects, and names listed here to protect both the innocent and the guilty. I would like to work in Hollywood again, even if I'm not in Hollywood.

After losing two deals and my agent in the matter of a few weeks, I went into a depression, didn’t want to write, thought about how close I’d been to becoming For Real in the industry, ate a lot, slept late... You get the idea. But my mama didn’t raise no quitters. I wasn’t about to give up. I forced myself back into it, wrote a couple of decent scripts, got a new manager, and eventually hooked up with my current writing partner, Barry.

Writing with Barry, we had some success -- not at selling scripts, mind you, but at least we made some fans by the beginning of 2006. One was Brad, the old producer with Original Film, who we’d turned down twice. He was now running a company with overseas money looking to make genre films (comedies and horror) and wanted us to pitch him ideas.

For months we threw ideas at Brad, and he managed to find a small flaw in each of them. One of them had the exact idea which has since been written and made by someone else. One he loved, only to find out a similar idea was already in production elsewhere.

Finally, after three or four months, we found something. Our managers represented a graphic novelist who already had 10 projects in development, had a book Brad wanted us to adapt. It seemed to good to be true (usually a good clue) -- we didn’t even have to come up with the idea, just come up with a take on it and detail it in a treatment.

We did, then traded notes back and forth for another few weeks. Some of these were ridiculous -- first he said he wanted them to be stoners, then he didn’t; at one point he wanted us to put in a cameo for music producer Rick Rubin. Why? I have no idea at all. But finally, Brad had a treatment he liked, and just had to pass it by his boss. That was more than two years ago, and I’ve never heard from him since.

After about a month, he told our managers he could buy it, but not for another month or so -- after he got another project into production. He called a few months after that to say he still was interested, and loved the treatment, but said his company couldn’t make any comedies (despite the fact that was one of the only two kinds of movie he said they could make). Months later, our managers heard from him again, saying he still hadn’t given up on buying it.

Maybe he hadn’t, but I know I had. Barry and I had moved on, and in March 2007, nine and a half years to the day I moved to LA, we got an offer from a production campany on a pitch we’d made to them. It was a low-ball offer -- they knew we’re non-union and could acceot a less-than-scale offer -- but I really didn’t care. I’d sold a script. I was a failure anymore. I was a screenwriter! I mean, I’d been saying I was a screenwriter, but now it was really true.

I enjoyed that moment, and I’m glad I did, because it was all downhill from there. If I had thought getting random, nonsensical notes from producers on their project was tough, I had no idea what it was like to get those same kind of notes on my own project. But see, that’s the thing about selling a script -- they don’t give you that money for nothing. They get something, too: Your script. If not your soul as well. You don’t own your script, they do, so whatever note they give you has an ugly subtext: If you don’t want to do it, they can surely find somebody who will.

At first, the notes from the production company’s development team -- founding partners and exec producers, Marc and Trevor, and creative execs, Katherine and Anil -- were fantastic. I thought the first round of notes on our treatment -- mainly that we should change one character to a girl -- were very helpful. Their first round of notes on the script were even better. By the time we handed in our second draft of the script, I was actually looking forward to their notes. They then gave us the best round of notes I’ve ever had on a script.* I was thrilled.

And that’s when the roof caved in on me. The last round of notes is what’s called a “polish”: it’s supposed to be smaller -- and pays less -- than the other steps of the process. But it was at this time, that Marc and Trevor decided to drop a very big note of us: change the entire opening. That was a huge change to make that late in the process -- definitely a “screamer” of a note.

We did the best we could, but the new opening, based on a shaky concept given to us by them, didn’t turn out great. Both us and our managers prefered the original take (and still do), but the company went full steam ahead with the new script -- sending it out to directors, then studios.

They failed to attach anybody, or get the co-financing they hoped for, and I can’t help but wonder if the better opening might have pushed it over the top. Most people say a script either grabs you in the first 10-15 pages, or it doesn’t, and our first 10 were not as good as they had been just a few weeks before we went out with it. That’s hard to swallow.

Even harder to swallow was the handling of the announcement of the script -- or lack therof as it turned out. An announcement is vital because it tells the industry you’re a money-maker, someone they need to talk to. Most people I know of who’ve gotten announcements have had 20 or 30 meetings set up based on that along -- meeting where you can pitch your next project and often partner up with someone looking tom catch a rising star.

Upon selling them the pitch, they said they would announce it soon, and asked for publicity photos of Barry and I for the articles which would appear in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. We sent them in and waited.
Usually an announcement appears within a few days, so we were surpised when a couple of weks went by. They said it would happen soon, but hinted they wanted to have a copy of the script in hand before it hot the trades, so they could send it out to inquiring parties.

That made sense, so we wrote the script. When we were done, they wanted to wait until it was all polished and ready. When it was, they wanted to go to A-list directors first, because an attachment like that would make for a better story. Then they finally blew it off altogether and took it studios becuase they were so confident there would be a deal to announce in a matter of days anyway. There wasn’t. But that time, there was no point in announcing it -- everybody in town knew it didn’t get picked up.

The production company dropped the ball by not announcing not only because it cost us this priceless opportunity, but also because it could’ve gotten people excited about the project in a proactive, rather than reactive way. Our managers, who kept promising to announce it themselves if it didn’t happen soon, were also at fault for failing to follow through on their repeated promises. Though it was not the direct cause, the tension created by this, I believe, ultimately caused us to leave them.

And that’s how the sale of my first project -- as a pitch no less -- became the most frustrating, disappoint, and anti-clamactic moment of my career, if not my life. And it made me realize that even “success” in the industry (i.e. selling your idea for money) wasn’t necessarily going to make me happy. That was the first step to realizing I needed to move from LA.


* The best kind of development notes you get on a script are the one which make you wince just a bit when you hear/see them. A big wince (or scream) means they’re bad notes, impossible, or just stupid. No wince means they’re probably too easy to execute. But a little wince and queasiness in your stomach means the note is hard to execute, but badly needed.

Hollywood Horror Show: Development Hell, Part 1

This is a series detailing the strange, sometimes traumatic experiences I've had in the entertainment industry -- run-ins with celebrities, development execs, and douchebags of all shapes and sizes -- since I moved to LA 11 years ago. A link to the previous installments can be found on the right hand side of the page, and also here.

I’ve wanted to write about my mysterious, head scratching, and downright maddening experiences in the world of Hollywood development for sometime now, but some of the memories are painful just to think about. The first nine and half years I spent in LA were incredibly frustrating for me as I was unable to sell any of my scripts. Little did I know, the most frustrating episode of my career wouldn’t happen until I sold my first project.

I came here to make it as a screenwriter in 1997, and by 2000 that goal had not yet materialized. Sure, I’d made a little money as a screenwriter*, but it was uncredited, so officially I was still a nobody. I had encountered repeated rejections and failures, which never makes anybody too happy.

But I got a big break when my buddy Phil was coming off a big success (’Dude, Where’s My Car?’ grossed $50 million in theaters domestically) and wanted to co-write another idea based very loosely on my life -- my phone number somehow got confused with a man named Oscar Bertichevsky, and the mysterious phone calls and voice mails I recieved inspired an idea for a mistaken identity spy adventure comedy.

Phil and I wrote the script as a spec, then went out with it in February, 2001. Unfortunately, at that moment, the threat of a writer’s strike hung over the industry like a dark cloud. Studios had bought up scripts like crazy for a period of a few months in preparation -- “stockpiling” for the long winter -- and now the trades, usually filled with news of sales, had one had one or two a week.

I questioned if this was the wisest time to go out with the script, but was ignored by our agents -- in fairness, I am a screenwriter. The script, despite being taken to studios by several prominent producers (including Team Todd, who had produced the most recent hit spy comedy), it was ignored by studios. We never even got passes from all the studios -- they were just in a holding on everything until the strike was resolved.

The good news was (or supposedly was) several people liked the script a great deal and wanted to meet with Phil and I to talk about working together. One, Neal Moritz’s Original Film, wanted to discuss a rewrite deal on a script they already owned. I was thrilled...until I heard the title and concept -- ’Book ‘Em’: A library’s book detective investigates an overdue book only to stumble upon a big-time criminal.

It was lame, but I wasn’t in a position to be choosy, so we worked up a pitch. Brad, the producer at Original, was a big fan of ours, and Brian, the studio producer, was a big fan of Phil’s from his TV work. Everybody got along great, things were fast-tracked. Within a couple of weeks, we’d gotten down a pitch which the producer was ready to take to the brass. It was all happening so fast and easily -- just like all the people who’d know say it does. There was no way this going to fail.

Only it did. At the time, the “Greenlight Guy” at Paramount -- the man whose okay you needed to get a deal done -- was John Goldwyn, and he had an opinion we couldn’t have possibly anticipated. John Goldwyn didn’t like art thief movies, or at least, not comedies involving an art thief. See, that was what we’d pitched for our antagonist’s crime. “We’re not making ’The Thomas Crown Affair’” was the quote relayed from an incredulous Brian, who begged us to find another crime.

This as a bigger problem than it sounds like. Because it was a light comedy, a murderer was too dark. Because it had to do with overdue books, kidnapping didn’t make much sense. A bank robber wouldn’t need books either. Everything we thought of, either they had a problem with it, or we did. Finally, Phil became so frustrated, Brian actually told him to smoke pot. That didn’t work either.

Phil told me he wanted to pass on the project, which was heartbreaking to me -- to come so close to getting my first gig, a big studio job, only to say “no” -- but I understood. Our agreement was that if either of us wanted to pass we would. So, we passed.

The next day, I woke up with one of those, “Why even get out of bed?” moods. But when I checked my voice mail, I found a message from Brad, wanting to talk. He said he really wanted to work with us, and had another project we’d be perfect for. My spirits soared -- we still had a chance.

The new project, ’Employee of the Month’ (yes, that one), was a more palatable concept: Two best friends are torn apart by the love of one woman, fighting to win their company’s employee of the month award in order to win her heart. I knew it wasn’t Shakespeare, but it was a lot easier coming up with a pitch for this than for ’Book ‘Em’.

Brad quickly got us a pitch meeting with a producer from Lion’s Gate, and the Greenlight Guy at Sony, Matt Tolmach. Only that week, a stuntman had died on the set of ’Spiderman’ in Chicago, and Tolmach had gone to see to the situation personally. So instead we meet with another studio producer, Rachel. She heard our pitch, and clearly liked it. We waited while she relayed it to Tolmach.

Rachel came back with one note, which we quickly executed. We were ready to pitch it again, but Tolmach wasn’t back in town yet, but Brad relayed to us that Rachel claimed she was Tolmach’s “proxy”, and had the power to say “yes” to the project. Since it was hard getting everyone’s schedules to mesh, a conference call was arranged. We pitched Rachel, she had no notes, and once again we were on the doorstep.

We waited. And waited. After a couple of weeks, I could tell Phil started to sour on the deal -- he had another deal working for the ’Dude’ sequel. I tried to get our agent, Justin, to give him a pep talk, but he said that wasn’t his job. I prayed we’d get a offer from Sony before Phil completely quit.

Then, the very next day, Brad called. Surprisingly, there was neither an offer, nor a pass -- Rachel had tried to relay the pitch to Tolmach (despite the fact she supposedly had the power to decide on her own), and according to her, something was lost in translation. He needed to hear the pitch in person. I was pissed. Justin was pissed. Phil didn’t want to do it.

I thought Justin would understand this, since I’d just predicted it the previous day, but in stead he was shocked. He tried to give us a pep talk to do the meeting (despite the fact he said that wasn’t his job), but Phil wouldn’t budge. One meeting away from becoming a done deal, the project was dead. (At least with us -- obviously, the producers were able to find someone who would take that meeting). We had turned down two studio projects within two months.

Having two rugs pulled out from under me back-to-back like that was very difficult to take. Even worse, because of our “unprofessional” behavior, there was tension between myself and Justin, and soon he wasn’t returning my calls. I honestly thought my career might be over right then and there.

It wasn’t, but I hadn’t seen the last -- or even the worst -- the world of development had to offer. You can read about that tomorrow in Part 2.

* I’m sure just about everybody reading this knows this by now -- and at some point I’m going to get around to doing a post on it, so I can just link to that in the future -- but just for the record: ’Dude, Where’s My Car’ was written by my friend, Phil Stark, based on one my first nights in LA, when I (you guessed it) lost my car. I contributed a few ideas to the script, and got a nice little chunk of the big pile of money Phil sold the script for.

Hollywood Horror Show: How MTV Picked My Pocket

This is a series detailing the strange, sometimes traumatic experiences I've had in the entertainment industry -- run-ins with celebrities, development execs, and douchebags of all shapes and sizes -- since I moved to LA 11 years ago. A link to the previous installments can be found on the right hand side of the page, and also here.

I’ve thought long and hard about writing this story. While, I spoken about this before to most of my friends, I’ve never put the whole thing down in writing, and certainly not on the Internet. Considering the only party it might offend is owned by a global media conglomerate worth billions of dollars, that fact deserved a lot of thought.

But here’s the thing: Everything I’m going to write here really happened. Yes, I’m making one leap, one assumption, but it is based on so much evidence, I think anyone reading will agree it’s a reasonable leap to make. That makes me feel a little better. So does the fact I once heard the best legal defense for slander is truth (it’s not libelous if it’s true). Lastly, I’m also calmed by the fact I don’t think many people actually read this blog.

The story began a few years back when my friend (and now writing partner) Barry came up with the idea of a parody of Cameron Crowe’s ’Almost Famous’, re-imagined in modern times, centered around a kid obsessed not with classic rock, but hip-hop. The title: ’Almost Gangsta’. I thought it was a great idea, and we ended up writing a script together. Later, we produced a short film out of it. The film didn’t turn out as well as we had hoped, and Barry didn’t want the idea to die.

Eventually, he came upon the idea to turn the concept into a reality show: Young aspiring writers who loved hip-hop would write sample essays to The Source magazine, who we had worked with a bit on the making of the short, and the finalists would do pieces, which would appear in the magazine. The winner would receive a one-year internship as a reporter for the mag.

However, we couldn’t get the bigwigs at the Source to sign on, so we broadened the pitch to include another take – the show could, like the original movie, could center around Rolling Stone Magazine. We called this version, ’Rock Journalism 101’. This take probably had the broader appeal, but because MTV was the obvious place to pitch the idea, and their programming was becoming almost exclusively hip-hop-related, we decided to keep ’Almost Gangsta’ on the title page of our treatment.

I was worried about pitching MTV because a former lawyer of mine had cautioned me about their pitch meeting practices. She had multiple friends who had pitched them and were told the network already had something similar in development, only to later see their exact show hit the air. When I relayed this to my manager, who had a friend in development there he wanted us to meet, he admitted that was MTV’s reputation within the industry, but advised they were still our best bet.

We met with this high-level development exec and pitched our idea. She seemed to like it, and peppered us with questions for more details. At the end, she asked for our treatment so she’d have something to show her superiors, and complimented the idea. But she left us with one haunting last remark: “Let me just make sure we don’t have anything similar in development.” The thing that has always bothered me about this: How could a highly-placed exec not already know what their company has in development?

You can probably guess the rest. A couple of weeks later, we heard back from the exec via our manager – they were passing because…(drum roll please) they had something similar in development. I was furious because I knew what was really going on, but both Barry and my manager played it pretty cool, saying, essentially, it probably wouldn’t come to anything anyway.

Then, a couple of months later, Variety ran a story announcing a deal between MTV and Rolling Stone for a new reality show based on ’Almost Famous’, titled, ’I’m With Rolling Stone’. Though the concept of the show was almost identical to our alternate take, which was registered with the Writer’s Guild of America, our manager saw no real reason to pursue the matter yet. “Wait until they get pregnant with the show” was the general advice – once the show is in production, the network is more committed to the idea, and might consider a “payoff” just to avoid any legal entanglements from delaying production.

But by the time ’I’m With Rolling Stone’ got into production, we were with a different manager. His reaction: “I know how that feels, dude. I used to work in development at MTV, and they stole two ideas of mine, too.” So could we do? “Not much, dude.”

But we weren’t going to take this sitting down. The parents of Barry’s then-girlfriend, now wife live is Pacific Palisades, next door a top notch lawyer specializing in intellectual property. Barry’s future father-in-law got him a face-to-face with the lawyer, who quickly told him it was a good news bad news situation. The good news: The good news was he knew that MTV had a reputation for this and had quite a bit of litigation against them. The bad news: they had top notch lawyers to battle this and it was almost impossible to beat them, and he knew this because… (another drum roll please) they had him on retainer -- and used his services often.

So there we were, with no real recourse but to spend money we didn’t have to pursue a case we couldn’t win. Sure, I dashed off a strongly-worded e-mail to said exec, calling her out for exactly what she did. I never heard back, of course. And that was it. Or, that was it until the show actually aired. I tried to watch, but it made me sick to my stomach. In fact, I could barely watch the one MTV show I actually like, ’The Real World’.

But, thankfully, the show’s ratings stunk, and it quickly disappeared. I don’t know what I would’ve done if it had been a hit. Something bad, I’m sure. But it still hurt – much worse than I had ever imagined it might. It’s something akin to intellectual rape. You feel angry at the perpetrator, but also at yourself for letting yourself be taken advantage of. And there’s the innocence lost.

I’ve written before about how my love for screenwriting has dimmed due to effect of peripheral parts of the industry. This episode with MTV might have been the first slide down that slippery slope.

Hollywood Horror Show: Demented Love Story

This is a series detailing the strange, sometimes traumatic run-ins I've had with celebrities since I moved to LA 11 years ago. The previous installments can be found here.

The life of a freelance Production Assistant in Hollywood is an unpredictable one. When I first started doing it in 1998, I could barely find a job despite the fact I knew several Production Managers and Coordinators from my time at Crash Films, a production company specializing in commercials and music videos. But soon, I established myself as a reliable, hard worker and had plenty of job offers, so many I had to turn several down due to prior commitments.

Before long, however, the work dried up -– it’s a cyclical business -– and by the end of 1999 I felt as if I might never work again. I called all my contacts, begged for work, and was prepared to say “yes” to any offer, no matter how hard it sounded.* So, when I got a call at 11pm one night to ask if I could work a music video for the band Hole the next day, I took the gig without hesitation. That’s when the voice on the other end of the line dropped the bomb on me: “Great. Call time tomorrow is 5am.”

There was no backing out. And there wouldn’t be much sleep. That’s not pleasant news for an insomniac. I quickly downed a bunch of melatonin to start the process, and made two pots of coffee which I shoved them in the fridge for maximum chug-ability the next morning. Five-plus hours later, that iced coffee was the only thing that got me out of bed on that frigid morn (One of the huge unknown things is how cold the nights/early mornings can be in the winter).

The shoot was thankfully on a lot in Hollywood, so I was able to get there in five minutes with the early morning roads clear (about the only time in LA the roads are clear). Upon my arrival, however, I was told I’d have to stand watch in one of the satellite parking lots a block or two away. Knowing the weather would warm up eventually, I was wearing the typical PA uniform -– t-shirts and cargo shorts –- and froze my ass off for two or three hours, until I was called back inside. And I thought the most trying part of the shoot was over. Yeah, right.

Working inside, I quickly realized what kind of scene this would be. The band was already there, but their lead singer -– the infamous Courtney Love -- was not. She would arrive three hours late, and looking like she’d survived a rough night. Hours later, after Ms. Love had only completed a couple of shots, she would suddenly leave the set unexpectedly to entertain a visitor who'd just arrived on set and was scoping out the craft service table: Ed Norton -- then her boyfriend (as difficult as that is to believe now). And when I say, “entertain”, what I mean is “have very loud sex in her trailer with”. Everybody was ready to shoot and had to wait as PA’s and Courtney's assistant breathlessly reported her status (“It sounds like they’re done. Should I knock?”). Norton wasn’t the only movie star/significant other to visit the set that day. Drew Barrymore, who was dating the band’s guitarist and Nordic giant Eric Erlandson, also stopped by.

Barely any footage was shot before nightfall. As dinner time approached, I was asked to go around to all the band members with a menu to ask what they’d like. This went surprisingly smoothly until I reached the dressing room of Melissa Auf der Maur, the band’s bassist. Upon looking at the menu, she decided she didn’t have enough information to make a decision. To remedy this, she called her astrologer (Of course, I mean, who wouldn’t?), who had to be told the exact date before she informed Melissa what choices might be appropriate, astrologically speaking.

Though she had ordered with rest of the band, Courtney did not touch her dinner, and decided just after midnight that she wanted oysters. This was not negotiable. So I was quickly dispatched to Pinot Bistro, an upscale Hollywood eatery, where they had re-opened their kitchen after closing just to satisfy Ms. Love’s cravings (at a very hefty price). Later, a PA in a position to know informed me that she ate just “two or three” of the two dozen oysters ordered for her.

After a 20 hour day, I was finally told I could leave at about 1am. I’d be given 10 hours to go home and sleep before reporting back at the set at 11am. I don’t know how much sleep I actually got that night, but it seemed like about five minutes when that alarm sounded later that morning.

The second day began with a shot which required a chandelier to be raised or lowered a few inches after each take. To do this, several of us PA’s had to stand just off the stage tugging on a rope. Courtney didn’t like have so many crew members so close to her, and asked that all “non-essential” people be asked to leave the set. After each take, a few more people were asked to leave, until it was a skeleton crew, but Courtney still wasn’t pleased: “I mean everybody!”

Within moments the Assistant Director was ushering everybody out. This included Ms. Love’s entourage. “No, I didn’t mean you guys,” she explained. When told she had to be more specific, Courtney replied, “Anybody who’s seen me pee can stay.” Not wanting to be included in that group, all the PA’s streamed to the exit. But because we were still needed between each take, we had to literally run 100 feet into the stage, lift or lower the incredibly heavy chandelier, then run out again so they could shoot. Fun!

The shoot went on like that all day and into the night. Finally, as we approached the end of yet another 20 hour day, there were just a precious few shots left to get. One required Courtney to walk down a catwalk as four PA’s (myself included) held strings connected to her dress, which we were instructed to whip up and down to make her dress billow as if on fire (the CGI flames would be added later in post-production). Since I was the one positioned in front of her, it gave Courtney the opportunity to accuse me of staring at her exposed crotch –- an opportunity she apparently could not pass up. Needless to say, after almost 40 hours of work in a 50 hour period, I wasn’t amused.

As the sun appeared on the horizon, there was only shot left – in production parlance, this is called “The Martini Shot” (because after it's completed, you get to drink). The problem was that it was one of the most important shots in the video –- at least if you’re Courtney Love. See, just about every video shoot has what is called “The Beauty Shot” -– an extreme close-up of the band’s frontman/woman which is meant to very complementary to their appearance. Think about your favorite video, it's in there somewhere -- usually the singer belting out the song while looking right into the camera. This is the singer's chance to show the world just how awesomely sexy they are. Problem was, that shot is not meant to executed at the end of two long shoot days when said singer probably looks like crap.

“Beauty shot!” Courtney kept screaming as the sun came up, questioning if it was ever going to get done. It was like a kid screaming for their favorite toy. “Beauty shot!” Although this was annoying as hell, I didn’t blame Ms. Love for her concern –- she looked like absolute hell by then. But it’s amazing what Hollywood makeup people can do, and the shot was achieved without making Courtney look too un-dead.

So the shoot was over, and suddenly the sullen, uber-difficult, high maintenance rock star we had dealt with for two days suddenly became a sweetheart. She went around hugging each and every PA (even me, the perv who was supposedly staring at her cooter a couple hours earlier), thanking us for our hard work, and pleading with us not to tell our friends she was “a Faye Dunaway, diva bitch”.

We’d worked so long and so hard as a crew, the Production Manager actually gave us a bump ($25 extra dollars added to our daily rate) and let us go without clearing the set or returning the equipment –- a whole other crew of PA’s had been hired to do this for us because they knew we’d be too fatigued to do it well. The producers even gave as some beers which we drank in the parking lot (along with the half-finished bottles of liquor we took from Ms. Love’s trailer after she left) as we traded war stories from the shoot.

The more experienced PA’s talked about what 40 hours of drinking Diet Cokes and eating fast food can do to the human body, and how they were anticipating “spraying mud” upon getting home. I didn’t know what they were talking about… Until about 10 minutes after I got home. That’s when the damage I’d done to my digestive system finally hit, and I had to sprint to my bathroom. After a half-hour on the toilet, I knew quite well what “spraying mud” meant, and how horrific it truly was. But I’ll still take that half-hour over any I spent working with the lovely and talented Miss Courtney Love.** (Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I found the experience memorable enough to want a keepsake -- I scooped up the slippers Ms. Love wore during the shoot off the floor of her trailer and kept them for some time as a memento).

The fruit of all of our labors on the set, Hole’s video for “Celebrity Skin”:***


* Commercials were usually a better deal than music videos. Videos were typically 15-18 hour days (and crazy days at that) for $150, while commercials were typically around 10-15 hours for $175. I think this is due to the fact, advertising budgets are usually swelled with money (at least enough for the execs to enjoy lots of yummy catering, I noticed), while music companies had to watch their budgets due to the fact music videos are more of a vanity project and don’t actually make anybody any money.

** Not lovely.

*** As is par for the course on music video shoots, I had the song stuck in my head for about a week after then shoot (and veterans think Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is tough).

Hollywood Horror Show: Cockblocked by Cartman

This is a series detailing the strange, sometimes traumatic run-ins I've had with celebrities since I moved to LA 11 years ago. The previous installment, featuring crowd-favorite Richard Simmons, can be found here.

I’m less than a couple of weeks into this, and I’m already re-posting my second piece from another blog. I don’t feel as bad about this one -- because it’s more due to being incredibly into what I’m working on right now (a very good thing), and busy with “real” work (not so good) –- but it’s still pretty cheesey.

But I wanted to get something up today, and I’ve got a great post coming tomorrow (an NFL wrap-up, complete with copious bashing of Mike Nolan), so until then I can live with re-posting another great only-in-LA story. This one, however, displays a dark side of celebrity I never really knew existed:

A few years ago, I spent New Years Eve with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of 'South Park' -- I believe it was 1998/99. My good friend and writing partner at the time, Phil, used to write for the show, and stayed close with the guys, so they invited him to party with them at this club for the night and I tagged along. But not long after I sat down at their reserved table, I was pulled aside by this friend of theirs (I can't remember his name, but I'll call him "Joe"). He introduced himself as a friend of Matt and Trey's from Colorado and asked who I was and what I was doing at their table. I explained that I was Phil's friend, and Joe said that was cool, apologized for the 3rd degree, and explained that because the guys were famous they had to be careful of hangers-on and it was his job to "police the scene".

After that, everything was cool for awhile. We all got pretty hammered, the guys buying lots and lots of drinks and being very funny. I started to talk to this really sexy girl who was there, and although I was quite drunk, I got the feeling she was very interested. We talked and flirted for what must've been over an hour. Everything was going great and I thought I was definitely getting laid that night. Only when I go to the bathroom, my buddy Phil approaches me and tells me Joe asked him to deliver a message: the girl was not interested in me, was getting creeped out by my constant attention, and had asked Joe to get me to leave her alone.

I was completely shocked and embarrassed, but I figured I must've been much more drunk than I thought and was badly misreading her signals. Needless to say, I steered clear of her. But she kept coming back up to me, chatting playfully, obviously flirting. When I was distant, she asked what was wrong like she didn't know. Was this girl screwing with my head? I was really confused. That is, until I saw Trey glaring over at me every time I was anywhere near her. Then I realized that every time the girl wasn't at my side, Trey was all over her, trying to chat her up, buying her shots, etc. Finally, I confronted Phil about it, and he admitted that not only was this Joe guy there to keep hangers-on out of the guys' way, but quite possibly to recruit girls for them, and in my case, keep unwanted competition on the sidelines.

As I've now learned over the years, this is a common practice among male celebs -- having a friend tag along when they go out to act as bodyguard/pimp. Pretty sleazy, but that's Hollywood.

UPDATE: I forgot one interesting detail. Later in the night, the whole group was invited back to Trey's place in the Hollywood Hills, where we continued to party (and where I eventually passed out on the couch). There, Trey produced what I found to be the highlight of the evening -- his Cartman Bong. It had a ceramic statuette of Cartman as its base -- the glass tube springing out from the wool cap on his head, and his arm extending up to form the stem (with the bowl in his hand).

Hollywood Horror Show: My "Meet Cute" With Richard Simmons

I've written about this before, in the early days of McCovey Chronicles, but I'm lazy, and busy, and nobody (at least nobody with a life) is reading this anyway, so why the hell not just recycle a really funny story? Of all the crazy things that have happened to me since I've been in L.A., not only is this probably the craziest, it was actually the first. Talk about anti-climactic.

The main reason I'm re-posting this is that I want to start a semi-regular series where I ramble on about some of the only-in-LA moments I've experienced here. I've been feeling a touch nostalgic about my time here because (drum roll) my wife and I have decided to move Boulder, Colorado in '09! I'm not quiting screenwriting or anything -- many screenwriters now work from all over the globe, keeping contact with the industry by phone and e-mail, and face-to-face meetings are down anyway due to scaling back of development tracing all the way back to the writer's strike -- but I have to get out of this town. Like, now. My current nostalgia is rooted mostly in the knowledge I'm finally escaping*.

But why not enjoy the nostalgia while the tide is high, right? So, without any further ado -- like there wasn't enough ado already -- here's my first-person account of what it is like to be serenaded by the one and only Richard Simmons:

The year was 1997, and I had just moved out here to L.A., hoping to make my way in the business they call "show". I moved out in late September (on Brian Johnson Day), but purposely avoided getting a job for the first month, so I could watch every agonizing inning of the Giants getting swept in the NLDS to the Marlins.

When I finally did get a job, it was as a lowly assistant at a production company, Crash Films, which made commercials and videos. These types of jobs usually allow you to wear shorts and a t-shirt -- after all, you spend half your time in your car making runs and getting people’s lunch -- but after giving me the job, my bosses asked that I wear a dress shirt and tie. While this was somewhat of a hardship for me (as dressing formally always is), there I was on the first day, dressed in my Sunday finest.

My first assignment of that Monday morning was to go to the nearby Vons supermarket to buy a bouquet of flowers for display in the office's lobby, which they shared with a photography studio next door. So I was quite the sight entering the office that day -- dapper in my pressed shirt, tie, and khakis, and holding a giant bouquet of beautiful flowers. So much the vision was I, in fact, that I caught the eye of a man standing at the entrance to the photo studio. He, too, was hard to miss, standing there in his tight red short shorts, skimpy tank top, and perfectly picked afro.

Now, you have to remember, I'd only been in LA a month, and still prone to being starstruck every time I saw anyone I recognized from film or TV ("Hey, weren't you Calderone's Henchman #3 in an episode of 'Miami Vice' in 1986? You were AWESOME!!!"). So I was still getting over my shock at seeing Richard Simmons standing 20 feet from me when he raced over, dropped to one knee and began to serenade me with a very emotional rendition of Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond's "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" at the top of his lungs.

Before long, every employee from both offices had filtered into the lobby to gawk at the spectacle. I tried to laugh it off as my face turned red, and even inched toward the door, trying to make a sly getaway. But that Richard Simmons is quite an agile fellow (must be all that sweating to the oldies), and he managed to block my way, while never leaving his one-kneed stance. And since Mr. Simmons unfortunately knew the whole song by heart – and really, how could he not? -- I had to just grin, wait him out, and pretend like I wasn't in a living hell. As Richard finished his song with trademark flair, the place exploded with laughter and applause -- a standing ovation that seemed to last forever.

Needless to say, because of this incident, I was a laughingstock in that office for weeks. And that only ended when I provided more ammunition for mocking by getting torn a new one by former Whitesnake frontman David Coverdale, leading to enough Tawny Kittaen jokes to last me several lifetimes. But that's a "Hollywood Horror Show" post for another day.

*I'm planning on writing a longer post on this -- my reasons for leaving L.A., how I feel about it, Colorado, the whole shebang (What the hell kind of word is "shebang", anyway?) -- so you'll have to wait for the details until then. The two of you reading this, that is. (One of them being me.)