TV writers rooms run on energy and vibe and any little thing can throw the balance off. 3,521 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.
My jokes fall flat.
I’m flailing in the room and have been for weeks, maybe months.
My one-liners are stepped on. My blows don’t land and my tags are talked over. My asides fall from the side of mouth, stillborn. My pitches sputter out as I’m met with angled heads and scrunched brows. And those are the rare spurts when I’m vocalizing. The bulk of the long days my mouth moves only to chew stale Costco gum. I stare at the story notes scrawled on the greaseboard like they were rocket science. I play mind games with the clock.
I used to be, what is known in the industry, as “good in the room.” Some guys are great at breaking stories, others have a knack for delegating, there are the anti-social ones who churn out killer scripts, ones who can’t write but excel at punch-up. Fitzy always said a room was doomed to fail without a token fat guy who laughed a lot for good luck.
I’m the all around utility man. “Meet Don,” I imagine my agents pitching me to employers. “He’s been around the block. He’s good in a room.”
At least, I was.
Then Ethan arrived. He replaced our previous assistant, Tonya who left mid-season after getting an offer from a streaming service to develop a series based on her social media feed. Or something like that. At least Tonya kept the fridge stocked with La Croix and tread lightly.
an old lady at 27. I remember 19 years old, 150 dollars a week. Like heaven, standing in front of the camera. Then $500 a week from Mr. Zukor when I was 21. I remember every year by money: how much I made. Almost more than a full-grown lady, though still an adolescent by his standards. But I let him consider me a child. “If it pays, it plays.” I didn’t mind calling him “Papa Zukor.” Tess Of The Storm Country is what he wanted me to make. After all, in 1914, it was just like playing myself in a boarding house at age 12, alone and battling to pay the rent. Stealing milk for a baby! What tripe for some, but for me almost a true story. I mean for Lottie and Jack, how we struggled. So many years since I shouted down Belasco on Broadway. I learned the word “thespian” from a British actor, a drunk. It sounded like a lisp. But when I found out it is the real word for Actor, I perked up, got all the craft out of the way, tried to read all I could.
Rock wore the white tux so at some point some guy in a bomber jacket would walk up to him on stage, hand a key and say, "It’s the red Lexus…" By the way, none of my business, but couldn’t they come up with a more empowering word for black people not showing up than "boycott?" I don’t think they’ll solve Oscars’ diversity problem by next year. But they will come up with the technology so the Teleprompter cannot contain the phrase "Rihanna’s panties." How about that Red Carpet? I haven’t seen this much side boob since Christie stood next to Trump. I’m confused. Before he started Apple, Steve Jobs was the "Sprockets" guy? Abe Vigoda was left out of the "In Memoriam" montage. But, to be fair, he’d been in it for the last 15 years. Forget his message, let me say this about Joe Biden. Clearly, he learned from listening to Jay Leno rattle off upcoming dates at the end of The Tonight Show… You can never have too many plugs. Right about now, Pope Francis’ publicist, Howard Rubenstein, is calling him saying, "Hey, you got mentioned in the acceptance speech for Spotlight!"
for TV shows. You may have heard some of them. “I believe in the separation of Church and Planet.” That was mine. Caused quite a stir. I don’t mean to cause trouble. It just seems to be what I do best. I make a pretty decent living writing and rewriting, but I have always wanted to write a novel, and this year, in January 2003, I decided it was time.
