Gutterballs, Zipping, and Paul Anka

Most workweeks begin with an extra large green tea and a countdown. Monday, 10am: Only 39 more ‘official’ hours until the Sabbath. This past week, however, started on a much better note.

RINGGGG!

Me: Hello?

VA: Josh?

Me: Uhhhh…. (Checking call display to verify identity of unknown caller)...yeah?

VA: It’s me, your agent. (Note: She does not in fact refer to herself by occupational title, BTW) Good news.

A smile. I paused my online Family Feud (Name something your dog pees on…). 'Good News'. Two words. I’ve been waiting for them. Those two beautiful words, eight exquisite letters were all I needed to hear to set ablaze my office malaise. I picked up the Hewlett Packard HP75 computer monitor and smashed it to the ground a la ZOOLANDER… which is a la 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I was halfway into the ‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, fuck you…’ routine from HALF BAKED when I realized that I better get more details on this ‘news’ before quitting my job and irreparably offending my colleagues.

Me: (stay calm, Budd…) What kind of good news?

VA: The Spill. You have a treatment done?

Me: I suppose you could call it that.

VA: Well pony up, pamplemousse, because...

Me: (interrupting) Did you just call me a grapefruit?

VA: It sounded cool in my head. Anyway, quiet and listen. InsertNameHere Productions is interested in reading it.

Me: They’re interested?

VA: You surprised?

My mind said ‘Fuck yes’, but I couldn’t let on. I had to lie - couldn’t show her my hand, not yet. Institute poker face.

Me: Surprised? As surprised as a Western traveler in Thailand who’s bangin’ a girl that…

VA: What?

Me: Nevermind.

VA: Right. Send the treatment over to me, I’ll make some notes. She want’s it by EOW. (a day job acronym – there’s one for everything; apparently everyone is too busy talking about the work they’re too tired to do to actually use the English language for communication.)

So, it was early Monday, and I already had a goal for the week: Make THE SPILL good. I sent off what I had mid week for some feeback and received some good notes, some horribly bad (including some from a friend who later admitted to being ‘pretty drunk’ when writing them), then set out to make it readable. I think in the end, at the very least I’ve put together something not totally derivative and somewhat entertaining.

This my first experience with someone asking for something in particular – other than the one-on-ones at the CFC, which I’ve chosen not to count because I think anyone thrust into the awkward situation of being placed in a room with a thirsty starving artist would kindly offer to ‘read’ (in quotations for a reason) a sample of your work. It’s just polite.

Case and point: My 15-yr. old sister recently had the pleasure of meeting Paul Anka (A heartthrob from your youth? Mine too! Total dreamboat...) My sister, while possessing some vocal talent, is about as close to making a living singing as I am to playing in the NBA. Just because I can put the ball in the basket, doesn’t mean I'm automatically qualified for the draft. Anka asked her what she did, and when she responded that she had a band, the man responsible for Michael Buble gave her a business card and offered to give a listen if she sent him a tape. It was a polite gesture and all that – but he kinda had to, didn’t he? Much like the producers visiting the CFC – they would have to be really put off - even borderline allergic – to whomever was in front of them to not offer the requisite courtesy. Actually reading it is another story…

But anyway, I’m cautiously excited. I’m told that our ‘angle’ will be that the project is young and pliable (that’s how I like my women – zing!) and that I’m really into collaborating. Sound dangerous? You betcha. I’ll let you know if anything comes from this – but for now I’m going to wait to hit the draft until I get feedback one way or the other.

In the interim, I plan to outline CHUB, get into Henchman Draft 2, and I also think I’m gonna take a stab at an early teen spec TV script. I hear from every corner that it’s a smart thing to do – that money flows like goat’s blood from the fangs of children’s programmers.

Onward: With last Monday’s exciting news, I could hardly hope for the same this week…or could I? I received an email from a producer with a comedy series in development at Global, saying that Miss May had given her my name (along with the other 7 residents, I’m quite sure) and that they would love to read some of my work. Not enough can be said for the kind efforts made by the established screenwriters I’ve met to help introduce and integrate us youngin’s into the industry. You’re good people, and I promise - knock wood - to one day pay it forward. End obvious yet sincere ass-kissing here. Here’s hoping they find my amusing yet unstructured scripts funny enough to want to meet me.

As an aside, I finally did what so many people have already done and signed up for zip.ca. I then spent the next two hours of my day marking 72 film and TV masterpieces to ‘zip’, whatever that means.

(An honest truth: I’ve been avoiding this whole zip revolution because I thought that the process of receiving movies had something to do with the whole process of ‘zipping’ large files on the computer – a phenomenon I have never been comfortable with. This, along with the whole ‘bit torrent’ mystery, continue to be the two most successful technologies at preventing me from downloading the episodes of Family Guy and Lost that I miss. Apparently, the two zips are completely separate entities and not only do they have nothing to do with one another, but I’m also a huge asshole for thinking so.)

Anyhow, I’ve got about 60 films I’ve never seen as well as a few seasons of TV coming my way sometime or another. I’ll be sure to share anything that I, in my infinite wisdom and good taste, deem worthy of sharing.

Giving myself a softball segue, I’ll leave by sharing my opinion that C.R.A.Z.Y. is one great movie. I watched it at the Spoke Club this weekend with Whitzman. That I’m not cool enough to be watching the film in their dining room never fazed me – that’s how good the movie was. If you haven’t seen it (but I’m sure you have), you’re a bad Canadian.

Whatever you say, I stick by my statement. After all, if I wasn’t from Jamaica, then why would I wear this silly hat?

(A reference to probably the worst movie referenced in this posting. Referencing a reference - I’m SO Po-Mo.)

By next post, I should have already experienced my company bowl-off. That’s right, we’re going bowling. Two things that make this suck exponentially more than regular bowling:

1. There is a theme. 80’s trash. Since the announcement it has expanded to encompass trash of all eras. Truth be told, I know their initial theme was White Trash, but they deemed the phrase ‘irresponsible’ and instead diluted the title while maintaining the elements of White Trashiness that are so inherently funny.

2. Some newly-engaged khaki-and-baby-blue ‘workin’ hard or hardly workin’ gal had the gall to make me ‘Team Spirit Leader’. Talk about poor planning. I’m responsible for ensuring all my teammates show up in costume.

Trust me, I’m getting RIGHT on that.