I finally finished the rewrite of IN YOUR DREAMS for the guy who read my "log line" and synopsis on the Hollywood Script Reader's Digest. Then I called the nephew of the guy who tracks down our witnesses for us at work. The nephew, it turns out, is an agent who handles screenwriters at one of the major agencies (Preferred Artists). I'm all ready to pitch him APRIL FOOL, but while I'm on hold I take a deep breath and decide to chat with him a bit and see what he's interested in...
After a brief preliminary exchange he launches into a spiel straight out of The Player: "I don't want little movies, O.K. I don't know what you write, but I don't want small period pieces, I don't want 'Brazil 1921', I don't want 'coming of age', I don't want a warmhearted comedy set in a nursing home, I don't want Victorian England...I want big, I want event movies, special effects, The Mummy, star vehicles, Tom Cruise...that's what their looking for, that's what makes the money..." I said, "I have one of those.'' He said, "send it to me."
So I dusted off MERLIN, the first script I ever wrote, which I started writing 10 years ago, and began yet another rewrite -- more of a 'polish' actually. In the middle of the polish, I got a call from none other than Jon Sperry! He was in town and wanted to get together. I didn't hear from him for about a week after that, which was good because I wanted to work on MERLIN, but then I got a message on my machine from him saying that he and his wife, Ivana, had just rented an apartment in West Hollywood. Sperry is moving to LA!
Meanwhile, one day at work, I was interrupting Justin, one of the lawyers here, to get his signature on something, and he hands me the phone and tells me to talk to his friend Jim, who works for Gale Ann Hurd. She happens to be a producer (Terminator 1&2, The Abyss, Armageddon) and the ex-wife of James Cameron. Jim (not Cameron) told me to give one of my scripts to Justin to pass along to him (Jim). I say sure.
So Monday I send off MERLIN, and that night I call Sperry to remind him of the Jeanine Basinger reception at CAA. Tuesday I give Justin IN YOUR DREAMS for Jim (and Gale). And that night I go to the big party.
The first person I see at the party is Doug Bennett, president of WesU, and his wife Midge, who still remembers meeting my Mom in Florida two years ago. I also said hi to Jeanine, although I don't think she remembers me. I told her I saw her on TV last week on A&E (Lana Turner bio). She said she tried to tape it, but missed it.
Next I run into Bruce McKenna, another writer who wants to produce and has shown some interest in APRIL FOOL. With him is his beautiful wife, Maureen, who used to take acting lessons from: Jon Sperry! Maureen has blue eyes and red hair and I mentioned that that name McKenna suits her well, by the way what was her name before she married. Turns out it was Maureen Joyce. Now I remember, she's the girl Sperry told me about whose great-grandfather was this Irish writer named James Joyce. You may have heard of him.
Maureen and Bruce and I begin the Sperry-watch, checking in with each other periodically to see if Jon has showed up yet. In the meantime I talk to Bill Christopher (Father Mulcahey from TV's M*A*S*H) who knew my dad back at the Sigma Chi house, he wants to know who all the producers are, so I pointed out a few. One of them was Larry Mark, who agreed to look at MERLIN many years ago. I said hi and thanked him for that opportunity. Lately he's been busy with films like: As Good as it Gets, Simon Birch, Bicentennial Man & Hanging Up, among many others.
At last Sperry appeared, looking quite European, with Ivana, who is, in fact, European and who is also a beautiful redhead. (How come all these other guys get to marry beautiful redheads?) It was the perfect setting for a reunion, everyone was dressed up (except Joss Whedon) and there was free food and an open bar. I haven't seen Jon since he ran off to Paris, and I had never met Ivana (and in fact was beginning to doubt her existence) however, I ended up talking with her for a good part of the evening, and I can now confirm beyond the shadow of a doubt that she is real and she is terrific.
I was a lot more relaxed this year than last, even when I spoke with Akiva Goldsman, who apparently has hired Bruce to work on some new movie based on another comic book. None of the really famous people were there, which is kind of a shame because I really wanted to introduce myself to Dana Delaney this time, but I had more fun because I didn't feel any pressure.
Now what I'd really like to do is go out and see some movies.
Despite all of the warnings, I took no precautions against the so-called Y2K bug -- and now I am paying the price. I assumed it was all a bunch of hype brought about by millennium hysteria and the overzealous media. I should have heeded the warning signs: the scratchy throat, lightheadedness, slight chills... But by then, of course, it was already too late.
Christmas vacation actually started out quite well, I flew into Hartford on Christmas Day and met my parents who came up from Florida. Cindy and Susan picked us up and drove us to Woodbury where the rest of the family was staying. Somehow we all arranged ourselves in various rooms in Cindy and Angelo's house and set about the task of incubating the various viruses we had all brought with us.
My big plan for the Holiday was to get as many friends and family members as possible to meet in New York and spend the afternoon sight-seeing and shopping. Miraculously, the plan was a success: my parents, my sisters, my niece and my nephews met up with Kevin and Susie and the four Osborn-Kiley offspring plus David Hamburger at Rockefeller Center and proceeded uptown, stopping for pizza and sandwiches, before heading for the ultimate goal: FAO Schwartz. The plan kind of fell apart outside FAO Schwartz when half of the group balked at the massive lines to get into the fabled toy store and retreated to a fallback position in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel. Only a few of us were foolhardy enough to venture into the teeming cauldron of runny noses, irate parents and rampant consumerism. I spent the entire hour searching for my nephews, whom I finally found just as the last Lego "Boba Fett" Spaceship was snatched from the shelf right in front of their disbelieving eyes. (Fortunately, we were later able to purchase the same item from the catalogue at a much better price.)
Later that week I went down to Middletown to hook up with Dan Haar and catch some live music at The Buttonwood Tree. But the evil Bug had caught up with me, and after an enjoyable dinner, I suffered a complete meltdown and went straight to bed.
New Year's Eve was spent under the covers in the back bedroom (the sick room) at Cindy's house, waking up every few hours to watch the Eiffel Tower explode or to hear Tom Broke-jaw trying to say the word Millennium without spraining his tongue.
The next day I spent sitting on an airplane with a raging fever while all around me people coughed and sneezed and whined. When I finally got to LA and found my car, I realized that I had left my lights on and my battery was yet another casualty of the grim Y2K reaper. I waited in the parking lot for an hour before getting a jump-start. Ten minutes later the car died again and I had to flag down another car for another jump-start. Eventually I got home and went to sleep for 36 hours. When I got up I had to move my car, but the battery was dead again. So I had to pull it out and dump it into a shopping cart and wheel it up to the local mechanic to put a charge on it so I could wheel it back and put it back in and drive the car back to the mechanic to buy a new battery. The I went back to bed for 36 hours. The rest of the week was uneventful.
All in all, my Dad got the flu, my sister Susan got the flu, her son John got the flu but then it went away, My mom got the flu and it turned into double pneumonia, my niece got something like the flu but she was asleep most of the time I was there anyway. My sister Cindy who took care of us all, did not get the flu. But if she is smart, she will burn every sheet and blanket in the house. Thus, the insidious Y2K bug wreaked havoc on an unsuspecting population causing tremendous power outages, communications errors, echinacea shortages and Kleenex mishaps. But with pluck and determination and lots of suda-fed, we came through it with shining noses.
Meanwhile, back in Hollywood, I have to do a rewrite of one of my scripts: IN YOUR DREAMS. I had posted a description of it on a screenplay website almost a year ago hoping some producer or agent might see it and take an interest. Sure enough, one did. But it happens to be one of the screenplays that got electronically obliterated when I tried to transfer it to my new software. So I need to take an old copy and re-rewrite it with the notes I used before. You can view the description of this and three other screenplays now on my own EASTWORDS PRODUCTIONS website:
Thanksgiving was great. I flew to CT where I was met at the airport by Dan Haar, who is still wearing that same old "THC" hat he has had for years. We stopped at his exciting workplace and his lovely home with its brand new stoop and then met my sister Cindy at a truck stop off of I-84 for a late dinner. My sister doesn't usually hang around truck stops, but this was a special occasion.
I spent the next three days at Cindy's house enjoying the holiday with Annie, Angelo, Chris and Justine. Chris is playing Greenday songs on my old guitar, while Annie and Justine regaled us with wild tales of college dorm life. Not much has changed except they all have computers and pierced body parts. And Annie has a tattoo. Angelo cooked a sumptuous feast for us and we were later joined by Stephan who was on his own, as Susan and Saile ("John") were hanging out with my folks in Orlando. Stephan drove me to the airport early the next morning and I was home by noon.
No sooner did I get back than I made reservations to return for Xmas.
The next weekend, Mitch Cohodes showed up from Tucson where he has been living for some time (but I don't know why.) Mitch drove in with several fancy chairs that he picked up at various tag sales and second hand shops. He sold or consigned the chairs at a couple of upscale furniture dealers down on Melrose Ave. not far from my place. Apparently Mitch is some kind of chair expert. Anyway it was great seeing him again, he hasn't changed much, except for a few gray hairs. We hung out a Barney's Beanery, flirting with the waitress and watching the Arizona game on ESPN. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the waitress that I kissed on my birthday wasn't working that night.
Work has been very hectic lately and I've been finding it difficult to make time to work on my screenplay. I finally got a good chunk written last weekend and it's turning out to be pretty interesting and kind of funny.
I've shifted my Friday night run to Saturday morning as it is getting a little cool and quite dark in the evenings. On Saturdays I go up to Lake Hollywood where it is absolutely beautiful (and flat). Last weekend it was sunny and mild and I wore just a t-shirt and shorts. Hard to believe winter is almost here.
As far as Xmas is concerned, here are the facts:
I arrive at Bradley Int'l on Xmas day as do my parents, from there I assume we will go to Cindy's. On Tues the 28th Mom is seeing a Broadway show and the rest of us are going down to NYC to spend the day as well. Everyone is invited, bring the kids. We are still trying to come up with a plan that will allow for eating, shopping, sightseeing and of course, hanging out. That night I hope to take my Dad out to hear some Dixieland jazz if we can find some. Any suggestions are welcome.
I'll be heading back on Y2K day, assuming they still have air travel...
Response to the HOLLYWOOD DICK website has been lukewarm, with only one list of favorite movies received so far, from my cousin Randy, the rocket scientist. Am I to understand that it takes a rocket scientist to click on the highlighted text and type out a simple list of movies? I think not. I hope to post the results so that all may view them, but it sure would be cooler if there were some more results to post.
This may be the last newsletter I ever write, since the end of the world (as we know it) could be just around the corner. It's been a great year, though, and I think the next one will be even better.
