Confessions of a Lurker

Depending on how you look at it, online writing forums and message boards are either a tremendous resource or a great waste of time. The same could be said of any number of blogs geared to wannabe screenwriters and novelists. I confess to spending about an hour a day checking various social media sites, Yahoo groups and online communities, but almost always as a lurker. Rarely do I post my own views or observations, which in the eyes of some means I’m not “contributing” to the discussion.

It’s not that I don’t have an opinion — believe me, there have been many instances I wanted to vigorously argue about a particular topic, be it a bit of advice, a movie or book, politics, religion, whatever. I mean, I’m a writer… that’s what we do. We create characters whose sole purpose is to be in conflict with other characters we invent. In effect, we spend much of our time arguing with ourselves when we write, putting ourselves in the shoes of diametrically opposed individuals who may or may not reflect our own values. Is it any wonder writers relish opportunities to argue with someone else, even if it’s just an anonymous poster on some seemingly trivial matter?

When I visit sites like Done Deal, I come for the information shared by working pro screenwriters… but I stay for the 15-page threads that degenerate into huffy diatribes and inane debates over who-said-what-about-so-and-so. What amazes me are the number of pro writers who participate in those marathon threads — I think they actually welcome the chance to put aside pay-for-hire projects and engage in snarky word slinging. Why else would they do it?

Anyhow, it got me to thinking about whether most writers are naturally argumentative… or do they wind up in arguments because writers have an innate curiosity about things in general, which leads them to questioning any given statement or commonly held belief? It reminds me of an incident in a Philosophy of Art course I took in college, a long, long time ago…

Back then I was news editor of the college paper, so I purposely took some easy credits since I knew the 40 plus hours per week I was spending on writing/editing news stories meant I had to skip a few classes here and there. I actually enjoyed the Philosophy of Art lectures, but my notes were incomplete from missing one out of every three classes on average. That was a problem because the professor gave a midterm exam that was “open book” — except there was no text book. You had to rely on your lecture notes.

It was a simple essay question: Choose one definition of art you agree with, and explain why. Then pick another definition you disagree with and tell why. Man, this is easy, I thought. I leafed through my notes and found an intact definition. As a writer, I had no trouble filling up a couple of pages extolling the virtues of that philosophy. However, I really had to hunt through my scattershot jottings before I found another semi-coherent definition to argue against. But I came up with a pretty good refutation of that statement… or at least, I thought I did.

After we turned in our essays, I was chatting with a classmate who asked me which definitions I chose. After I told him, he started laughing and said: “You picked the same one — didn’t you realize it was just worded differently?” Um, no I didn’t, obviously. I felt like an idiot. Here I was taking an easy course with an open notebook test, and I managed to screw it up.

A funny thing happened though at the next class when the professor began handing back our graded papers. He said there were some interesting arguments, pro and con, and he launched into a defense of a particular definition. Then he stopped and said, “On the other hand…” and proceeded to pick apart the very same definition. “That’s called dialectic thinking,” he said. “It’s the basis of all philosophy. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.”

Unwittingly, I had written a dialectic argument for and against a philosophy that I agreed/disagreed with. He gave me a B+ on my essay. I should have argued for an A.

Lost in Venice

Note: This is from a Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper column that appeared in their 2008 Christmas Day print edition. Of all the articles, columns, blogs and other stuff I’ve written over the years, this one best sums up the story of my life… and why I feel so grateful to be where I am today. Mele Kalikimaka!

A Wrong Turn Leads to the Right Place by Rich Figel

Like many people, my wife and I collect Christmas ornaments as souvenirs from places we’ve traveled to. My favorite is a delicate piece from Venice made of green, white and red glass shaped into candles. It’s missing one candle though. That’s why it holds special meaning for me.

In recovery, we’re taught to live in the present because we can’t undo the past. I try not to dwell on the wrong turns I made. But I can’t minimize the wreckage alcohol and drugs caused in my life either. My flame could have been snuffed out by two drunk driving accidents I had when I was a reporter in New Jersey, fresh out of college. I was lucky. No one was injured by my reckless disregard for others. Instead of giving up drinking, however, I gave up driving and moved to New York.

All of that was a distant memory when Isabel and I took our first trip to Italy in the summer of 1999. This was a reward of sorts for living sober. To make the most of it, we studied guidebooks, listened to Italian language tapes in the car and carefully planned our itinerary months in advance. Nothing was left to chance — or so we thought.

After nearly 24 hours of flying economy class and long layovers in Newark and London, we arrived in Venice. Our luggage did not. Wearing smelly clothes, we checked into our hotel on the Lido, a small island across the lagoon. International movie stars flock here for the annual Venice film festival. But when we opened the door to our room, my wife’s face dropped. It looked dingy and rundown, nothing like the charming photographs on the website. The trip of a lifetime was off to a disappointing start.

Things began to look better the next morning. The hotel’s breakfast room had a a glorious view of San Marco, where the Doge’s Palace and the Basilica are located. We hopped on the vaporetto, an unglamorous water bus, and as we cruised down the Grand Canal, I became oblivious to the stifling heat and the B.O. of tourists crowded around us. I only saw the fading grandeur of this dream of a city.

Venice on foot is a different matter. The guidebooks are useful as long as you stay close to the major tourist sites. Venture into the heart of the city, and you soon discover that streets often go by two names, smaller canals and bridges don’t correspond with maps, and many passageways are dead ends. We got completely lost, which can be fun if you’re in the right frame of mind. But we were like those couples on “The Amazing Race” TV show, who blame each other for every mishap. When we returned to the hotel and saw our luggage had been delivered, I thought we had turned the corner.

Wrong again. The next day was even hotter. Shorts and bare shoulders are forbidden in Italy’s centuries-old churches, so we had to dress appropriately and sweat it out in line with hundreds of others who were waiting to get into St. Mark’s Basilica. You’ve probably seen pictures of it: the Byzantine domes in the background while lovers embrace amid flocks of pigeons. Since we were quarreling, the grubby birds were merely a nuisance to us. We came to see the church treasures — not for romance.

A group of German tourists were ahead of us. They seemed to know where they were going, so I followed them. Awed by the marble geometric designs under our feet and the ornate ceilings above, I missed the entrance sign for the museum where the church relics are displayed. Before we knew it, Isabel and I were back outside the Basilica. Despite my pleas of ignorance, a guard told us we had to stand in line again if we wanted to reenter.

Screw it, I said. We decided to move on to a less famous church. According to our map, Santi Giovanni was a short walk from there. But I made a wrong turn somewhere. What should have been a 10-minute stroll became another frustrating excursion that stretched into an hour of wandering around in a steamy maze.

Finally, we found Santi Giovanni. It is huge. Inside, the soaring vaulted arches resembled the bow of a gigantic wooden ship turned upside down. The stained glass windows and altars were works of art. Yet it felt strangely empty to me. We walked over to another section that was like a small chapel. As we were leaving, a priest walked past us with a beatific smile on his face.

Back in the main area we saw the German tourists again, standing in the center of the church. The men had cameras around their necks and their heads were bowed. They stood in a circle, holding hands, and began to sing a hymn in perfect harmony. Their voices filled the church. It was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

Tears streamed down my face. Perhaps it was their devotion, or the acoustics … or maybe it was the collective effects of being weary and flustered, but the church that seemed cold and dead to me was brought to life by their singing. I looked at Isabel and she was crying too. Neither of us is religious, but I felt blessed to be there with her. Had we not gotten lost and taken so many wrong turns, we would not have been here to witness this moment. I held my wife’s hand and listened in rapt wonder.

When the men finished, they simply smiled at each other — the same smile I saw on the priest’s face as he walked past us. Then the Germans quietly left and we never saw them again.

That was in 1999. Two years later, after the devastation of 9/11, we went through the ritual of decorating our Christmas tree. It was a somber time. Isabel’s business, which depended on tourists visiting Hawaii, was struggling. I worried about the future, and stopped writing. What was the point? Nothing made sense.

A couple of days later, the tree toppled over. It was a mess. The strands of lights were tangled and twisted. Ornaments were strewn about. A glass candle from the Venice piece had broken off. Isabel was at work, so I asked a neighbor to help me stand the tree back up. I restrung the lights and was able to glue together some of the broken ornaments, but the glass candle wouldn’t hold. I couldn’t fix that one.

While I was washing my hands and thinking to myself that the tree didn’t look quite as nice as it did before, I heard a commercial on TV. It said it was all right to grieve for the victims of the 9/11 attacks, but the best way to respond to terrorism is to live.

I broke down and cried. There I was, fretting and cursing earlier because our tree fell over and some ornaments broke. It was nothing compared to what happened three months before. I thought about the church in Venice, and how lost I felt at different times in my life. I can’t say if it was chance or fate that I survived the car wrecks and alcoholism, to wind up here with Isabel in Hawaii. I can only wonder, and be grateful for what I have.

So each year when I unwrap that ornament, I remember how fragile life is. I think about the missing candle, and it puts everything in perspective.

*******

A Simple Gift

I originally posted this piece in my Honolulu Star-Advertiser blog, but felt the story reaches beyond the local audience in Hawaii. Mele Kalikimaka, as we say here in the islands…

********

In addition to producing the Career Changers TV show for Oceanic Time Warner’s OC16 channel, I was commissioned to create short videos about human trafficking in Hawaii. Our first one, which can be viewed at www.808HALT.com, focuses on the sex trade and how local organizations are helping survivors rebuild their lives. The second video will be about trafficking related to agriculture. However, it was difficult to interview actual victims for a couple of reasons: they were fearful of being deported if they went public, and many do not speak English.

Through Nora at the Pacific Gateway Center (mother of Project Runway fashion designer Andy South) we were able to sit down with a Thai farm worker named Samian. His tale is similar to many trafficking victims. They had a simple plan. Come to America through recruiters, make enough in the first year to pay off the fee ($15K to $20K each), then send back money to their families during the second and third year. Considering they were making less than $2K per year in Thailand or Laos or Vietnam, you can see why it seemed like a good idea on paper. But there was no way they could ever pay off the recruiters’ fees and make a profit because they also had to pay for food and housing in an expensive place to live.

Samian’s odyssey began over six years ago. He left behind a wife, a toddler and a young son. I’m not sure of exact ages and dates because much was lost in the translation — even Samian had trouble recounting the details. Through Global Horizon, the company that imported these foreign laborers for farm owners, he was sent to Florida… Colorado… New York… Washington state… then he worked in California before he wound up on the Big Island. Of all the farms, he said conditions were the worst in Hawaii. He lived in a 2-room shack with eight men sharing one bathroom. They often went hungry because they weren’t paid what they were promised or only given small increments.

It took years for him to be certified as a trafficking victim. But with the help of immigration attorneys and the Pacific Gateway Center, he was reunited with his two sons in Hawaii. By then, his wife had divorced him, and the boys had grown up in his absence. Can you imagine being separated from your kids for five or six years at such a young age? Yet many of these foreign laborers are willing to leave for two or three years just to provide a better life for their families. That kind of sacrifice is not unusual for them.

My cameraman and I drove up to Samian’s farm on the North Shore last week. Through the Pacific Gateway Center, he was given a small loan to raise and sell fish (tilapia and giant catfish). Unfortunately, it hasn’t been making much money, so he’s attempting to level out the hilly farm land and intends to plant lemon trees and grow bananas. When we first arrived at the farm, Nora wasn’t there to translate and we had a hard time communicating. He would gesture and speak a word or two of English, but to be truthful, I really didn’t have a clue as to what he was saying.

He picked up a folding table, carried it across the field he’s been trying to level by hand (no tractor), then carried over four white plastic chairs to the spot. We just needed to pick up some b-roll shots of Samian and Nora walking around the farm — background stuff. I guess he thought we were going to do another sit-down interview though, so he was trying to find a good spot for us in the shade with a nice view of the valley below. He brought over a plastic wash basin in which he had bottled water for us. I sat and waited for Nora, but she got stuck in a typical North Shore traffic jam, which happens whenever surf is up and the two-lane road gets clogged with residents and visitors who want to see big waves.

After awhile, I walked over to Samian’s house on the farm. It’s really a shack, but he doesn’t have to share it with a bunch of other men, and he has a satellite dish, plus running water and electricity — unlike some of the other places he lived in over the past few years. I noticed he had a stalk of apple bananas propped against the front wall and a green coconut next to it. Probably tomorrow’s breakfast, I thought. When I turned, I saw Samian was moving the table and chairs over to the area where I was now standing, about a hundred yards away. I tried to tell him it wasn’t necessary since we we didn’t need the chairs or table. But he just wanted to accommodate us and make me feel comfortable while we were visiting.

Finally, Nora arrived and began translating to Samian what kind of shots we wanted to get. I asked if he had photos of his family from before he left Thailand. He went inside and rummaged around. Five minutes later, he emerged with a broken picture frame that had some photos of the boys. Nora explained to me that the oldest son (age 18) is living in town now. The 8-year-old is living with Samian on the farm, which is difficult because Samian speaks no English and the boy is trying to adapt to school here. I kept thinking to myself how hard it must be for him and his sons…

After we finished filming, I was about to get in my car and Samian waved at me. He picked up the banana stalk and coconut to give them to me. There had to be at least fifty tiny green and yellow apple bananas on that stalk — and I didn’t know how to crack open a green coconut or what I would do with it if I succeeded. But I couldn’t say no to his act of generosity. I’m not sure if he had intended to give them to me from the start, or if it was just a spontaneous gesture.

When I got home, I shared the bananas with my neighbors and told them they came from a farmer in Kahuku. They have no idea how many miles that man has traveled, how many hours he’s toiled in fields all over the U.S., or how many years he was separated from his children, relatives and friends in a faraway country. Yet he wanted to give me something of his for no other reason than kindness.

It made me think about how fortunate I am. It is a gift I will always remember.

******

Addendum: I mentioned that Nora is the mother of Andy South, a finalist on the Project Runway television series a couple of years ago. She was a refugee from Laos, who came to Hawaii after the Vietnam War. The Pacific Gateway Center helped her family get settled before Andy was born. And now she works as a translator for them, assisting people like Samian. (Here’s a video we did about Nora and PGC.)

I wanted to get Christmas gifts for Samian and his sons, so she asked him what they would like. For himself, he wanted a rechargeable hunting flashlight because he sometimes has to check out noises on the farm at night. He said the 8-year-old would like a handheld electronic game, and the older son could use a nice dress shirt. That’s all he asked for.

Getting the Call

Sorry for the long delay between posts! My wife and I are going to Australia in January as part of our Grand Slam tennis tour — we’ve been to the French Open in Paris and U.S. Open in New York, so after Melbourne next month, we just need to do Wimbledon to complete the circuit. We also combine a love of art with our tennis travels, and like to watch movies/TV shows about certain artists and read up on them before we visit museums that display their works. When you know something about the person holding the brush and the subject they portrayed, it changes the way you view each piece. It becomes a living thing.

While my blog is no work of lasting art, I try to instill a sense of who I am and why I feel compelled to share my stories. Unfortunately, not everyone I write about agrees with my representation of the way things happened. I recently got an email from one such person, a highly respected Hollywood professional, who asked me to delete some old posts that mentioned him by name. In rereading those entries, I saw why he was a little perturbed that I shared personal information about him that wasn’t meant for public consumption. So I deleted the entries and apologized to him… and will be more careful about naming names in the future. You never know who is Googling themselves!

In any event, I’ve been extremely busy trying to put together my next two Career Changers TV episodes before we depart Honolulu. Each monthly half-hour show usually consists of four or five segments that run between three to five minutes each. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s actually harder to produce shorter pieces because you have to trim each story to the bone without losing the meat of it. You have to get your interview subjects to focus on the key turning points and convey real emotion on camera, which is not easy for most non-actor types.

Which brings me back to the original point of this post: how to act when you get a call from an agent, manager or producer after you’ve done the hard work of writing your script and getting people to read it. In my last post, I mentioned how my Eddie Murphy contact led to me writing a pitch that wound up in the hands of an agent at WME. His call came unexpectedly at night while I was watching TV. That was good because I didn’t have time to get nervous waiting to speak with him. Even though I’ve had a few calls from managers/agents and producers, I still get butterflies in my stomach when I talk to those types. Ironically, when I put on my local TV producer hat or direct shoots, it’s me who has to put the subject at ease and tell them there’s nothing to be nervous about when the camera goes on.

And I think that’s the main thing you have to remember when you have a phone meeting or get face time with industry execs and reps. They’re just people once you get to know them. But we tend to worry so much about what they will think of us that we forget to ask them something about themselves. I asked the WME agent how he got the job there. It turned out his background was in the news biz — and since I started out as a newspaper reporter, we had plenty to chat about before returning to the project at hand. More importantly, I had a better idea of where he was coming from and the kind of things he was personally interested in… which gave me the confidence to pitch him a TV series idea in the same convo that he really liked — and wants to see pages for that too.

But my first Hollywood phone calls did not go so well. The year I was a finalist in the Austin Film Festival screenwriting comp, a snooty assistant from Nick Osbourne’s Underground Management company, rang me up to request my script. He said they had a first-look deal with Phoenix Pictures — Mike Medavoy’s company. The name sounded familiar, but I didn’t connect it with the Oscar winning movies he was associated with. The assistant asked for my email address so he could send me the release and details on where to mail my screenplay.

I was so nervous though that I accidentally left out part of my email address — and I hung up without taking down their phone number. I also blanked out on the name of the company. All I could remember was Medavoy and Phoenix Pictures. It didn’t occur to me to use the star 69 phone feature to call back. Instead I called Phoenix and said someone with a first look deal with them had contacted me, but I didn’t know the guy’s name or his number. I also referred to Medavoy as “Mark” and the Phoenix assistant sort of snickered at me through the phone and said, “It’s MIKE Medavoy.” Oh, okay. He did connect me with Nick’s assistant, however. (Nick himself was very nice and actually called me after he read my script to tell me he didn’t care for it much.)

After that first botched call, I made a point of writing all my important personal contact info on my desk pad calendar: email address, phone number with area code, cell number and mailing address — just in case I blank out when I get an important call. Yeah, I know it sounds silly, but even intelligent people can become blithering idiots when they feel intimidated by Very Important People. I also keep my loglines and short pitches on my desktop to use as cheat sheets during phone meetings. The most important thing, however, is to let them do the talking and really listen to what they’re saying before you launch into your spiel or tell that witty anecdote you’ve been saving for the VIP. Always leave them wanting more.

Eddie Murphy Connection, Part 3

The day after I posted my EM Connection, Part 2, I was watching TV with my wife around 8 PM here in Hawaii when the phone rang. On the television screen, I saw the Caller ID: WME with a 310 area code. It took a couple of more rings for it to register. William Morris Endeavor, L.A., one of the biggest agencies in the entertainment business. Yep, this was a result of my Eddie Murphy contact that I’ve been blogging about. And it was in regards to a mini-treatment I had sent to my contact a week earlier.

The next hour I spent on the phone pretty much sums up my experiences over the last 15 years of screenwriting — which you may find discouraging or give you reason for hope, depending where you’re at in your personal timeline of trying to break into the TV or movie biz (or any other kind of artistic pursuit, for that matter). So let me quickly recap what happened prior to that call.

Long ago, I did freelance copywriting for a guy I met in Hawaii named James Arceneaux, who got into the music business, moved to L.A. and then wrote TV series pitches for him that sparked some interest among the Pointer Sisters (he was living with Anita Pointer) but didn’t get any traction with his other entertainment contacts. One concept was called REHAB, based on my personal experiences with recovery — this was before reality TV shows like A&E’s Intervention or Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab on VH1. Another was set in a Vegas pawn shop, where the Pointer Sisters characters worked during the day while pursuing their dreams of musical success by singing in lounges and casinos at night — this was before CSI and other series came along that used Sin City as their backdrop, and long before the reality show Pawn Stars became a huge hit on the History Channel.

James and I also developed another TV series drama concept that was really good… and I won’t tell you what it is, because that one is back in play now through the WME agent I talked to on the phone. It just goes to show that perseverance is everything, especially in an industry with such a short term memory and faddish mentality. You have to be prepared to keep your head in the game for the long haul. It might be five, ten, fifteen years before you get the call or email that changes your life. So if waiting that long is going to deter you, might as well pack it in now.

Anyway, about three or four years ago, I got a call from James, telling me he was now Eddie Murphy’s personal assistant. I’m not exactly sure how that came about, but I recall that James used to golf with Arsenio Hall (a good friend of Eddie’s) and other celebs when James was one of singer Bobby Brown’s managers. Of course, I tried to get James to pitch some of my movie ideas to his new boss, but he seemed reluctant to broach the subject since he hadn’t been working for Eddie that long. However, he did tell me Eddie was looking for a heist script and he wanted to play a character who was “smart” in some ways, but also a fish out of water… you know, like in TRADING PLACES and BEVERLY HILLS COP.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any clever ideas for heist plots/characters at that time. So I forgot all about it, until this past year when I read that Eddie and Ben Stiller had teamed up to make the TOWER HEIST movie. I kicked myself for not listening to James and really working harder to come up with something he could show Eddie. Jump cut to a month ago, when I get another unexpected call from James with another concept for a movie… which I can’t divulge since we’re getting a little heat on it.

Basically, James laid out his idea in broad strokes, adding that he had been talking to producer Brian Grazer — Ron Howard’s partner at Imagine — and director Brett Ratner about movies, and even got some screenwriting tips from them on what they look for in a script. Interestingly, the first thing James said was NOT to write actor-specific parts for Eddie or anyone else if we were going to try and get Grazer to read it. I thought those heavy hitters were all about packaging, but Grazer told James they would prefer to read scripts that weren’t tailored to individual stars because it gave them more flexibility and options. That makes sense. It also freed me up to create characters without having to worry whether so-and-so would want to play that part or not.

There were problems with the concept James came up with though. Namely, it was kind of derivative — in a good way. His instincts were on the money, but the trick was spinning the premise and adding enough twists to make it feel fresh and different. So I contacted another writer I’ve collaborated with in the past to see if he was game for this spec project. No guarantees, no money upfront. Just a chance for us to get our writing in front of my buddy’s contacts — like Grazer, Ratner, possibly Eddie, or maybe Eddie’s people, such as his team at powerhouse WME.

Using Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat beat sheet approach, we came up with a story outline. Then we wrote a six-page mini-treatment to send James to see if he felt we were on the right track before we attempted to write any script pages. Didn’t hear back anything for a week, so I hit him up with an email. James called and said we had nailed it — his ideas were in there, plus we had come up with some cool stuff that would differentiate our project from other similar movies that were being pitched around town. So he sent it to his agent friend at WME and was going to meet with an A-list actor, who is building a new house down the street from Eddie’s place.

Sheesh… I’m at a thousand words into this post, and still haven’t gotten to the phone call details! Well, looks like there will be a Part 4 coming up. Have a Happy Thanksgiving. Today I’m feeling extremely grateful… although I still haven’t made that big script sale or gotten any of my stuff produced yet, I have reason to believe all my effort and work hasn’t been in vain. If just one person believes in your talent and has faith in you — whether it’s someone like James, a rep or your significant other — then you’ve accomplished something that’s worth being proud of. Thanks for reading my long, rambling missives. Now get back to writing!

Eddie Murphy Connection, Part 2

This weekend, my wife and I watched the documentary LIFE IN A DAY, then the Terrence Malick film, TREE OF LIFE. I liked them both, but have to say there were puzzling choices made by the directors of both movies… puzzling in a good way though, because I’m still thinking about what those choice of shots or vignettes really meant.

Readers of this blog may be wondering why I write about the stories I choose to share, and what those anecdotes have to do with screenwriting — or anything else for that matter. It’s like I’m directing/editing my own personal movie, I guess. If I don’t tell these stories, who will? Further, I do think they illustrate how anyone can make connections in the entertainment biz if they really try. You just have to be creative and take advantage of opportunities that might not seem like door openers at first glance.

Eg., freelance writing gigs. Long before I harbored any ambition to be a screenwriter, I was a newspaper reporter. The pay sucked, so I went into marketing and learned how to write ad copy. When I moved to Hawaii, I used my sales job in direct marketing services (more commonly referred to as junk mail) to pick up side copywriting jobs. That’s how I met my Eddie Murphy contact, James Arceneaux.

Back then, James had started a local publication called The Budget Gourmet, which featured food-related news and tips. I did restaurant reviews and came up with the idea for an advice column called “The Hapless Homemaker,” which centered around real life household problems encountered by a newlywed couple — me and my wife, Isabel. It was actually kind of comical, and readers would send in suggestions to me on how to remove wine stains from clothes, hide cigarette burns on furniture, or salvage badly-cooked meals. James liked my writing.

Which brings me to another life lesson: no matter how little the job pays, treat it like it could be the most important thing you’ll ever do. Because you never know who is appraising your work, or where that person may wind up. As it happened, James had bigger plans. He had already started a successful bodyguard business before dipping his toes into publishing. His next goal was to break into the music industry — specifically, song publishing. He did his homework, tapped into personal contacts (he was related to Dionne Warwick, who I think was related to Cissy and Whitney Houston) and began repping local talent in Hawaii.

However, James knew he had to go to L.A. to make the next step. So he needed a promotional package with write-ups about himself and the songwriters/musicians and singers he was representing. I’ll always remember his generosity for paying me more than I asked when I finished the job. It was just before Christmas, and after paying off our monthly mortgage and other bills (not to mention my drinking tabs) I didn’t have much money to buy gifts for my wife. But James peeled off a couple of extra Ben Franklins, and became my Santa Clause that year — a big, black tough-talking Santa.

Well, James moved to L.A., and I didn’t hear from him for three or four years. When he called me out of the blue, it was to invite me to be his backstage guest at a Pointer Sisters concert on New Year’s Eve in Waikiki. He was living with Anita Pointer in her Beverly Hills mansion, and was one of Bobby Brown’s managers at that time. In fact, he told me about Whitney’s cocaine problems long before it became public knowledge… and also told me about June Pointer’s drug addiction. Since I had told him about me going to rehab, he thought I might be able to help her. I never did get a chance to talk to June, but did meet Anita — who liked a pitch I sent to James about a TV series idea I had been working on, called REHAB…

You see, James didn’t just call to invite me to the concert. He decided he was going to use his music connections to get into the TV business. He figured that my promo package was good enough to help him get meetings when he moved to L.A., so he wanted me to write up his ideas for TV, which were primarily meant to be starring vehicles for the Pointer Sisters. James is a savvy dude. He was a former pro football player, and he recognized that Hollywood celebs and music people like being around athletes. So he took up golf, and started playing with agents at Willie Morris (who repped the Pointers) and folks like Arsenio Hall… who was good friends with Eddie Murphy.

Before I tell you what happened with those TV pitches, which led to James telling me about Eddie looking for a heist script, I have to comment on the events of the past week — another example of my bad luck with celeb connections. As you probably know, Eddie was supposed to be hosting this year’s Oscars. Then Brett Ratner, the director of TOWER HEIST, made a dumb remark using the word “fag.” The resulting flak forced Ratner out of producing the Academy Awards show.  A couple of days later, Eddie announced he was dropping out. On top of that, his movie got mixed reviews and did only so-so at the box office.

I imagine things around the Murphy mansion were kind of… interesting. (Speaking of “imagine,” Brian Grazer is now taking over the Oscars show — he produced TOWER HEIST, and has been hanging out at Eddie’s place. He even gave James some screenwriting tips and advice, which James then shared with me… and I’ll share with you in my next post.)

Oh, back to my bad timing: when I was repped by Cathryn Jaymes, the manager who launched Tarantino’s career, one of her higher profile clients was Isaiah Washington. You remember him, right? He was the rising young black star of Grey’s Anatomy. Then he made a comment about a fellow cast member being a “faggot” and the ensuing uproar pretty much derailed Isaiah’s acting career. I remember it vividly because I was pitching ideas to Cathryn for projects that could star Isaiah in lead roles. We were talking on the phone, and she suddenly had to cut the “convo” short because he was having a meltdown. At the time though, I didn’t know it was because the news was about to break about the faggot incident.

That’s the other lesson or takeaway. Words matter. Feelings matter. Being careless or saying something stupid, even if it’s just one small word, can do irreparable damage to your reputation and career. The irony in this case is that when I lived in NYC, I worked at a legal publishing company that was predominately gay… and I heard them jokingly refer to other gays using the “f” word quite often. But it’s like the “n” word: if you’re not gay or black, or Quentin Tarantino, don’t take a chance and use words that could come back to haunt you.

My Eddie Murphy Connection

In many respects, I’ve led a charmed life. Two, actually. The one when I was emulating my writing idols — F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson — and my second incarnation as a recovering alcoholic screenwriter. In my last blog post, I said I know why I write, and alluded to my desire to connect with others (i.e., impress girls when I was single). But left unsaid was the need to tell stories. In my younger days, alcohol was the elixir that transformed me into a hero/villain/fool at the center of real life stories that sound like fiction now.

Ethel Merman threw a drink in my face. Bruce Willis, who I knew in college, eighty-sixed me from a bar he was working at. I got in fights, smashed up cars and woke up in jail a few times. After rehab though, I had scripts optioned by the co-writer of Robocop and another optioned by an Oscar-winning writer. I was repped by the woman who discovered Tarantino, and was friends with famous jazz musicians when I lived in New York — guys who played in the Letterman band and Saturday Night Live orchestra. I also have a personal connection with Eddie Murphy through an unlikely source.

In fact, I had an opportunity to pitch him ideas for a heist movie a few years ago… and I blew it. As you probably know, he’s got a new movie called Tower Heist, which Eddie collaborated on with Ben Stiller. I read that Ben says he doesn’t recall whose idea it was in the first place, but I knew Eddie was specifically looking for a heist movie script about four or five years ago. I heard that from an old friend, James Arceneaux. He was Eddie’s personal assistant, and still is. Before I recount how that all came about, I have to hit the rewind button to tell you about my first brush with Eddie Murphy long before I started writing screenplays…

Pre-rehab, pre-internet, around 1986 my wife and I took a deferred honeymoon trip to the Mainland. Isabel used to work in marketing for a rental car company in Hawaii that had “trade” all over the place (rental car use or ads in their drive guides in exchange for hotel rooms, etc.). Here’s lesson number one on networking your way to the top: be nice to everyone, even if you’re having a crappy day or hate your job. People liked working with Isabel, so when she mentioned we had put off our honeymoon due to a tight budget, one of her trade contacts offered to set us up with rooms at the MGM in Reno and L’Ermitage Beverly Hills — free.

We were in our mid-20s and so naive that when we went to the casino for the first time, I bought my drinks at the bar. I didn’t know they gave free drinks to gamblers. On that trip, after a few cocktails at a MGM show featuring Pat Collins, “The Hip Hypnotist,” I wound up on stage with other audience members who were chosen because we showed signs of being susceptible to suggestion during her screening routine (she asked the entire crowd to stand, then had us do stuff with our eyes closed to weed out resistant types). I’m not sure if I was more receptive to suggestion, or merely drunk… but there I was, acting out ridiculous scenarios she had us perform in front of hundreds of people. It was weird because I was conscious of what was happening on stage, yet it felt like a lucid dream.

Her big finale involved having a subject lying flat, with only the top part of a chair backrest supporting the neck and feet. That chosen subject was me. I remember being scared to death that I was going to fall when I got stretched out between the chairs. My entire body went rigid and was shaking. The Hip Hypnotist noticed and put a hand on my chest, then joked to the audience that my “engine was running” or something like that. I kept thinking, finish up before I fall for Christ sake! And then it was over. The other chosen subjects told me they didn’t remember anything that happened on stage. So was I really hypnotized or just acting? I dunno.

From Reno we went to this chic little hotel in Beverly Hills. Years later I would learn that L’Ermitage was known as a place where the rich and famous could hide out. Women and celebs stayed there after undergoing plastic surgery. The hotel had stretch limos to chauffeur guests around, which we took advantage of. On the hotel rooftop, there was a pool and lounge area next to the bar, which went into the kitchen inside where the fancy restaurant was.  It was up on the roof where I saw Eddie Murphy and his lady friend (not sure if he was married back then).

He was wearing a hoodie with the hood up, but having seen him many times on Saturday Night Live, then in Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop, I instantly recognized him. Since I had already met a lot of celebs in New York when I lived there, I wasn’t really starstruck. I didn’t stare or try to get his autograph. Instead, I went to the bar and proceeded to get hammered while befriending the bartender and restaurant staff who were hanging around. Pretty soon, the staff were bad-mouthing some of the snobby clientele and sharing stories about the spoiled celebs. Next thing I know, the cook is giving me shrimp cocktails and the bartender hands me a bottle of champagne on the house to take back to my room. Things get a little fuzzy after that.

All I remember is somehow I wound up in the hallway wearing nothing but the plush bathrobe the hotel supplied to its guests, and the bottle of champagne was in one of the over-sized pockets. I was waiting for the elevator, possibly going back up to the rooftop bar or to my room… and the bottle fell out of my pocket and crashed on the floor. Broken glass and expensive bubbly was all over the place. I went back to my room, expecting a knock on the door because I figured the staff would deduce who did it. The next day I saw the bartender and he gave me a nasty look. After all the talk about how the spoiled celebs made them work extra hard, I had done the same by making them clean up my mess. I apologized for my drunken behavior, but there were no more free drinks or shrimp after that.

I don’t recall seeing Eddie Murphy or his entourage again while we were at L’Ermitage or walking around Beverly Hills. Yet I was going to cross paths with him again, indirectly, through someone I was doing writing work for back in Hawaii… and that contact would probably have laughed had anyone told him he would be working for the superstar a few years later.

I’ll get to that in Part 2 and tell you how it led to another chance for me to write a movie project that my Eddie Murphy connection is involved with… hopefully, I won’t blow it this time.

iWriter

“Life is short, and full of ironies.”

J.D. Fili, an English teacher at St. John Vianney High School in Holmdel, NJ, wrote that in my yearbook when I graduated in 1974. I’m not sure why he inscribed that to me, but I know this: he inspired me to be a writer. His encouraging comments scrawled in the margins of papers I turned in, made me think I had potential literary talent. He even read one of my essays out loud to a class, which led to an unexpected encounter.

Between class changes, a wholesome beauty named Vanessa Carlson approached me. She was smart and funny, and like a lot of guys, I had a secret crush on her. She was also dating a star jock who was quick to punch out rivals, so there was never any serious consideration about making a move on Vanessa. Yet she walked up to me and said, “I really liked what you wrote.”

And that’s when it hit me. Writing could be a way to impress girls! I suppose when you get down to it, that’s probably the number one motivation for most male writers. We want attention, respect, admiration… we want to be loved for our minds, and what we think or create. It’s all part of the seduction.

When I became a reporter for the college newspaper, once my byline hit the front page, I discovered a new persona within me. In the age of Watergate and “All the President’s Men,” journalists were heroes. There were also gonzo reporters like Hunter S. Thompson typing wild first person screeds for the Rolling Stone. You could be a hero and a rebel at the same time — unpredictable, even dangerous. Which a lot of the ladies liked.

I guess my point is I know why I write. I know why I write. It’s to make that one-to-one connection, to seduce strangers with words and stories. Metaphorically, it’s about getting The Girl, and all that is implied with winning her affections. Because it’s those guys we envision as being rich and famous. I want to be somebody — not just another faceless, nameless soul who toils in anonymity. Isn’t that what most of us want?

What got me to thinking about all this was hearing that Steve Jobs passed away. A million people will tap out Tweets and blog posts about how he changed the world, or how he taught us to think differently. For writers though, it’s even more personal I think. At least for me it is. I’m sitting in front of a 27-inch screen iMac, telling you about stuff that I wrote either in longhand on paper or using a manual typewriter when I was the ace reporter for my college rag. I remember seeing one of the first personal computers on display in the Student Center and asking the sales rep how much it cost. He said it was about $500 and I rolled my eyes — tuition for an entire year of state college in the late 70s was $500! You could buy a decent car for that amount back then.

So I was perfectly content to write on yellow legal pads and bang out final drafts on my trusty manual typewriter. If we needed to change copy before it went to the typesetter, we did cut and paste editing jobs with scissors and tape. Even when PCs began to infiltrate the work place in the early 80s, I was still in no rush to join the computer revolution. Until my wife brought home an early Apple model from her office. It intimidated me at first. But there was just something so… I dunno, likeable and friendly about that Mac. Steve Jobs seduced me with his creation.

I’m not ashamed to say I loved my first Bondi Blue iMac, then the lamp model and now my big screen baby. Although I would have continued writing regardless of whether Steve Jobs or Apple ever existed, I’m not so sure I’d be the person I am today. A writer without an audience is like a monk living in silence. The very first iMac made it so simple to connect to the internet that anyone could become part of a worldwide community, by very narrow or very broad interests. It didn’t matter to me whether I had one reply to a message board post or a hundred blog readers. My words were out there. Not just my words though — scripts that I’ve sent to producers, managers and agents I met online through message boards or email queries… my blog for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser is read by hundreds of people each week… and now, videos I produce for my local Career Changers TV show (using Final Cut Pro, which was developed for Macs) are online too.

And it’s just me, the guy who wanted to impress girls like Vanessa Carlson by writing something worth thinking about. My desire to sell a script or write a book was just a larger scale version of that goal with bigger stakes, bigger rewards attached. But the death of Steve Jobs reminded me that no matter how much success we achieve, all the money and fame in the world will not buy you more time on this earth. He was just 56, one year older than me.

So if you really, really want something, don’t put it off.  Put it out there for others to see, and don’t worry about it not being good enough. It’s the doing that matters.

*******

This was going to be a post about my personal connection to Eddie Murphy and a possible movie project I got a call about, quite unexpectedly yesterday from Eddie’s personal assistant, who I happen to know… which was odd, because I had not heard from the assistant friend in a long time. But this is the power of words: the friend from Hawaii still remembers me from TV/movie pitches I wrote 11 years ago. And now he gets to hang out with people like Brian Grazer and Brett Ratner at Eddie’s mansion. Anyhow, it’s a crazy story I’ll share later!

Playing the Odds

When I go to Vegas, which is like a second home for most Hawaii residents, I am a fairly cautious gambler. My wife and I start out with a set amount to play with, then stop betting or decrease the amount of our wagers if we hit our daily limit for losses. We try to play the odds, and know what “the book” says you should do at the black jack tables, depending on the cards in front of you.

Yet there are times when I just go with my gut. I’ll see a slot machine or roulette table, and feel lucky. Sometimes my hunches have paid off in jackpots. I once got so hot at roulette, the croupier looked at me as if I was crazy because I cashed out after I kept picking winning numbers while only playing three or four chips per spin — and no one else was playing at that table. It looked like I was psychic. But I knew if I kept playing, eventually the odds would even out and I’d lose back my winnings.

And so it goes with any game of chance, or even screenwriting contests. Yes, talent and skill matter. However, there is always an element of luck involved in who reads your script, what that person likes, and where your work stands relative to the competition. Sometimes it’s a numbers game, and the “points” or score a single contest judge gives a script can mean the difference between making it all the way to the finals, or just being another first round dink.

Still, there are things you can do to improve your odds of advancing or winning contests. In past years, I’ve been a finalist in a bunch of competitions and won thousands of dollars. More importantly, doing well in bigger contests led to script requests from producers, agents and managers. Some of the smaller contests were judged by Hollywood people with clout too, so you shouldn’t dismiss those kind of opportunities.

Which brings me to my first tip on boosting your chances: enter more contests. That should seem like a no-brainer, but over and over I hear writers say the only ones worth entering are the Nicholl Fellowships, Austin Film Festival, and maybe the Page Awards or the TrackingB.com contest. Think about it though. If you truly believe your screenplay is good enough to beat out 5,000 to 6,000 Nicholl/Austin/Page submissions, why would you pass up better odds to win money and prizes in contests where you’re competing with “only” 300 to 600 entries?

I’m not saying you should enter dozens of contests just for the sake of spreading your bets around. Be selective. Pick the ones that have more than one winner because the odds are you will not come in first place. But placing in the top three in some contests can earn you enough cash to pay for all your other contest entries that year. You can also win some nice prizes for being a finalist in smaller competitions, or receive discounts to attend film festivals and screenwriting conferences — which can be good for networking and making personal contacts that could help you.

Also, choose contests in which finalists will be read by industry professionals who have good reputations. Even if you don’t win, there’s the possibility one of those judges might be impressed enough to contact you and ask what else you have to show them.

Speaking of judges, here’s another tip: you can learn to “read” the contest admins and judges. How? Check out their blogs and contest websites. Look at what type of scripts have won before, and what the contest director said about those screenplays. They may claim to be objective in the way the scoring is set up, but who they hire as early round judges usually reflects their own opinions and values. Some are sticklers for things like formatting and structure. Others are more interested in story concept or character development.

I’ll give you an example: one year I entered THE DOLL in a medium-sized contest that is run by a script consultant. It made the quarterfinals, and that was as far as it got. After the semifinalists were announced, she wrote in her blog that there were good scripts that didn’t advance because they scrimped on details in the opening. I had purposely written a minimalist type opening for THE DOLL because it’s a bizarre plot and I didn’t want the writing to get in the way of the story. In other contests that were judged by working TV and film professionals, they told me they really, really liked that script… in part, I think, because it was a very fast read with lots of white space — the minimalism this other contest director didn’t care for.

So I decided to re-enter it two years later and made some revisions in the opening. I added details to the descriptions of the protagonist and her apartment. Nothing else was changed. This time though, the script became a Top 10 finalist. It was the contest director’s perception that changed — not the story or the characters. And you’ll encounter the same thing with agents or managers. They’ll suggest revisions, and even if you don’t agree, you’ll have to at least make it look like you did what they requested (sometimes they’re right, so be open minded).

Another intangible is timing. For whatever reason, it seems certain topics and scripts get “hot” while the next year that very same script fizzles. It could be the zeitgeist. Or maybe word of mouth and news of other contest results prime professional readers for that particular script. Who knows. This year, I dusted off an old sci-fi spec that had never done well in contests… and it placed in the top 10 percent of both the Nicholl and Austin contests. The changes I made were minor. But since it was about genetically-engineered seafood turning humans into food, it seemed to resonate more with today’s readers than it did when I first wrote it 10 years ago. (Back then, there was a little event called 9/11 that was on peoples’ minds.)

Ultimately though, your goal should be to become ineligible for these contests. And you do that by putting yourself in a position to actually sell a script — the real jackpot. Everything else you do is about getting in the game, and doing whatever it takes to keep playing. Placing all your bets on one or two contests is going to be a losing proposition for 99 percent of the writers who enter. Play smart, but don’t be afraid to take some risks. Trust your intuition.

Strange Obsession

One thing that good movies and TV series have in common is this: obsessed characters who will stop at nothing to get what they want. Lately though, I think television has been the superior venue for stellar roles that actors would kill for. Look at Friday Night Lights, Breaking Bad or my new fave thanks to Netflix streaming, Damages. Man, oh, man what great characters — especially for older actresses like Glenn Close (and younger ladies like Rose Byrne).

The male corporate villains in Damages are well written too. Actually, it’s hard to tell who’s the good guy or bad guy, which makes it even more fun and morally perplexing. Ditto for Breaking Bad. As a recovering alcoholic/drug addict, I was initially repulsed by the idea of making light of such a heavy topic: producing and selling crystal meth for profit. Oddly enough, my wife and I find ourselves sort of rooting for two drug dealers: the science teacher with cancer protag, and his young partner, a loser who becomes a sympathetic character as you get to know him better. As with Friday Night Lights, the acting in Damages and Breaking Bad is terrific throughout the cast, and even minor supporting roles become memorable thanks to great writing.

Of course, a TV series allows for much more character development and subplots than your basic 90-minute popcorn flick that has to make every second kinetic because time is money in the movie biz. They literally have to move customers through the theaters, churning them quickly in the hopes they get back in line for a repeat “ride” as if it were an amusement park or fast food place. Television, on the other hand, does best when it builds audiences and communities who want to keep coming back weekly for NEW shows and stories that expand the fictional universe these characters inhabit. In some ways, TV writing has to be even more compelling and hooky because you have to keep the viewer from flipping to another show during the commercial breaks or waits between new seasons. Not coincidentally, the other thing FNL, Breaking Bad and Damages have in common is they end each episode with a cliff-hanger moment that keeps you coming back for more.

Speaking of commercials, I also love Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings, which has been running on the IFC Channel. These guys are funny, smart and very creative. It’s a simple premise — find odd/interesting small businesses that need advertising help, then help them by producing low budget commercial spots that will get attention for being, well… goofy and funny. But in many ways, the commercials do everything you expect from slick ad agencies. They get your attention. They identify a problem that the product or service addresses. Then they ask for your business with the call to action. I’d love to see a parody or skit pitting the 60s Mad Men ad guys against Rhett and Link!

If you watch Commercial Kings, you’ll see that most of the business owners they feature are obsessed characters too. They really believe in what they’re doing, whether it’s daycare for pets, running roller skating rinks, or providing “green” coffins for eco-friendly burials.

It’s a clever idea for a TV show. By showing the “making of” the commercial stuff that goes into producing a 30-second spot they are promoting that business and, in effect, tricking you into watching a 30-minute commercial. In fact, I think I may try to do the same thing for one of our sponsors on my local TV show… but it’s not easy finding obsessed real life characters who are willing to expose themselves on television for all the world to see.

And that’s what makes series like Breaking Bad and Damages so entertaining to watch. When you think about it, the things we want so badly really won’t mean much when we’re dead and rotting away in an eco-friendly coffin we saw on Commercial Kings. But we go through life acting like everything we strive for is of the utmost importance. Then we tune into a TV series where people are so driven to protect their interests or reputations that they will lie, cheat, steal or kill to come out on top, and you realize that your comfortable little life isn’t so bad after all. At least you don’t have to worry about crazed meth dealers or ruthless lawyers knocking on your door in the middle of the night.