Things are moving right along.
For awhile there, there seemed to be a lull in the action. I was plugging, plugging, plugging and getting nothing back in return. But that’s always the way it works. The key, I’ve always believed, is to continue to put as many things out there. It just increases your chances in having one…POP!
(POP! is the name of an album by Erasure.)
On the book front – I now have finished my three book proposals and sent them off to my book agency. One is a book of essays whose subject is so groundbreaking I cannot mention it here for fear of it getting stolen (sorry, friends). The second, another quick humor book like Consumer Joe but not with letters. It’s theme is related to love, and we’ll leave it at that… The third, is still-non fiction, but will contain a real narrative through-line. There are stories to tell in this third book, and it represents the furthest departure from what I’m known for, even though my passion has been to tell unique stories from the day I was born…
(Paul Seth Davidson. Born August, 1971 in Long Island, NY.)
Comedy Central passed today on turning Consumer Joe into a television show, but it wasn’t a surprise for one particular reason. When we pitched them the series, they were already in the middle of setting up a deal to do a show with Lewis Black…and they told us since his show and ours had a similar tone, they could only do one. They went with Lewis. They did, however, love the treatment for the show and asked if they could keep the books. They thought they were hilarious. It’s not bad news, because they’re now aware of the book — and what came on the heels of this news, was that we were finally moving forward to secure a deal with a well-known television Producer who has a deal at a Major Network for the TV version of Consumer Joe. We will now sign the agreement, and go out and pitch it to the networks.
(The 1976 film “Network” won four Academy Awards, including Best Actor & Actress.)
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was working on a Joan of Arcadia spec. The initial goal was to have some new samples ready for the upcoming TV staffing season (where shows figure out how many slots they’re going to have open for hiring new writers…then agents go hungry trying to get their clients jobs) and since I didn’t already have a one-hour drama spec on the shelf. Fortunately, that spec got to some very influential people, and the reaction has been nothing less than “amazing”.
(“Amazing” is an Aerosmith song that sounds like twelve other Aerosmith songs.)
I had also mentioned a few weeks ago that my latest feature-film screenplay ‘H20’ had gone out as a spec to studios, with a bigtime Producer attached to the project. In the never-ending world of Hollywood, I can look back at the last couple of weeks and say that the script did well. It did not sell, mind you. But, studios basically told us that since it was such a visual project, they wanted us to come back with a Director attached and they’d revisit it. So that’s what we’re doing. In the meantime, however, about 90% of all the studios who read it, loved the writing — and are now ready to schedule a meeting with me to hear my latest movie pitch.
(The fastest pitch ever thrown in a Professional Baseball game was 100.9 mph by Lynn Nolan Ryan (California Angels) at Anaheim Stadium in California on August 20, 1974.)
Finally, although some have already seen the finale of Celebrity Mole Yucatan last night — ABC Family will be airing all seven episodes this Sunday as a marathon. During the marathon, however, Corbin Bernsen & Stephen Baldwin will be hosting the show — and will show up at every commercial break to let the audience in on some behind the scenes information and be awfully genial. The reality of it all, is that all of their dialogue, over the course of 42+ commerical breaks, were written by yours truly. So, if you care to see how great I am at writing mediocre cable-tv reality-show marathon dialogue — Sunday is your ticket to paradise.
(Eddie Money’s song ‘Two Tickets to Paradise’ was used as the theme song to the ridiculous FOX reality show ‘Paradise Hotel’.)
A lot to digest, and still I have to constantly remind myself that there’s a lot of potential goodness waiting in the wings. It’s just funny – in this town, you slowly start to convince yourself that nothing is happening because so many things appear to be happening when they’re not.
It’s like living in an Oasis…
(…who wrote the song ‘Wonderwall’, which was recently re-done by Ryan Adams and used in this week’s ‘The O.C.’ and is available for download from the iTunes music store…and rocks the casbah!)
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