Martini Shot

I have a friend who, years ago, was an assistant to a big agent at a big talent agency. Assistants like that do something called "rolling calls," that is, they run through their bosses call sheet – the people she needs to call back, the people she wants to call her back, and the most crucial set, the people she needs to call right now...

I know two guys who make three-bean salad. A few years ago, they pooled their money, bought a small machine that fills jars, and they went into the three-bean salad business...

I was joking around with a friend of mine -– a fellow writer on strike -- a few days ago. He hurt his leg a week or so ago, so I sent him a text message. "Hey, haven't seen you on the picket line. Hope your leg is okay, and it didn't SCAB over." And I put "scab" in all caps. I was kidding, of course...

The letter from the studio came yesterday. It said this: Reference is made to the Agreement -– and then, in parentheses, they put the word "Agreement" in quotation mark, for some reason –- between you on the one hand and us on the other hand, in which you agreed to render specified services and for which you are being paid. Blah blah blah. Boilerplate, boilerplate, boilerplate..."

A few years ago, I heard this story from a friend of mine.  He's got a kid in elementary school –- he and the family live back east -– and one day, in his oldest kid's second-grade classroom, suddenly, without warning, all of the kids started to throw up...

The only time you really, truly know that you've made a sale in Hollywood – that the studio bought the script, that the network bought the pitch – is when they call your agent to get your social security or tax ID number...

I want to tell you a story. I started working in the entertainment industry in 1990. I was twenty-four...

Years ago, when I told my agent that I had written a book, she said to me, "Hey, if you want $800, I'll give you $800."

The great thing about the entertainment industry – well, one of the great things.  It's a fantastic industry in almost every way – is at some point, no matter who you are or how much power you have, eventually you're going to have to sit in someone's office – probably someone you despise – and pitch...

I had lunch not too long ago with a friend of mine. We sat down, the waiter came to get our drink orders – I ordered a Diet Coke, and he, he ordered a white wine...

Here's what I believe: I believe that if you're a writer in Hollywood and you want to have any degree of control over your career, you can't wait around for someone to hand you a writing assignment. You can't wait around to get a studio deal. You're a writer: write yourself into the business. Write yourself into a new genre, a new form, a new career. Sit down at the computer and write. No excuses. No dithering. Just sit down, focus, and do it. That's really the only way to succeed...

The chairman of a large movie studio once said that the movie and television business was a crapshoot. You make a bet, you play the (razor thin) odds and then you roll the dice...

When you're writing a script, sometimes you resort to a plot device that's totally implausible but necessary to the story –- a coincidental meeting of your two main characters, for instance, or, maybe, the only way you can free your hero from certain death is with a freak, unexpected earthquake that jolts the steamroller that's about to hit him -– c'mon, we've all done it. We've all resorted to these kinds of tricks, told ourselves, "hey, look, it's a buy, okay?" or "it's way deep in the third act, at this point, the audience wants an earthquake to happen," or, "it's happens on page six! It's a romantic comedy! The audience expects a certain amount of fanciful whimsy…"

I finished a book recently called Hollywood Economics by a brilliant mathematician named Arthur Devany. I say "finished" the book instead of "read" the book because it's filled with a lot of complicated graphs and tables, and words like "Gaussian curve" and "fractal" which resulted in me turning a lot of pages in eye-watering stupefaction. But I got the gist...

The professional code among comedy writers dictates that if you have a friend who is producing a pilot, you are honor-bound to volunteer your services for the pilot week...

So a few mornings ago, I'm walking my dog along Ocean Front Walk in Venice. It's an early weekday morning, and I'll be honest: I'm not looking my best. You know, it's in the morning. I'm walking the dog. I'm not, you know, pitching. So I have on a pair of shorts that may be tattered, and a t-shirt that may have been used, recently, to mop up some kind of spill. But I repeat – I'm just walking the dog...

I'm sort of a neat person. I try to stay organized. Not out of any creepy OCD kind of thing – I mean, I know a guy who, when he buys a new package of athletic socks, labels and numbers them with a sharpie – you know, 1L, 1R, for pair number one, left foot, pair number one, right foot. Just in case...

A guy I know tells this story: He and a student friend are in Paris. They're going to take the Metro somewhere, and as they're going through the turn-style, they hear the train arriving and its doors opening. The guy starts to run when his friend grabs him by the arm and stops him and says, "I don't run for trains..."

A few years ago, I went to cooking school, briefly, and I learned a lot. But one of the most interesting things I learned was about food safety...

I went to an event a few weeks ago for the launch of a new web media company.  I go to those kinds of things about once every, well these days, about once a day.  There are zillions of these new web enterprises around, all with the kinds of fanciful, made-up names that create the image of young, fun-loving kids in interesting t-shirts watching web videos as they sit in some cool bar waiting for their ultimate Frisbee friends to show up or text them or meet them where their favorite band is playing...