TO: FAM CHAT
Guys—Katie, excuse the use of “guys” for a sec here, but honestly, didn’t we always kind of think that was one notch over the woke line? Well, I did. There’s no suitable uh… alternative and… Anyway…
Okay. So. The thing of it is that a TV writer I know just wrote a memoir. And the fact checkers called because the good news is…
I made the memoir! I’m in it!
And I am described as…
Well, a few ways… network senior vice-president of content, of course. And…
In other language. Colorful language. Writerly language.
That is the complicated part, and why I’m communicating here is to kind of foreshadow to you guys, especially Katie and Thomas, because you didn’t sign up to be our kids, at least Mommy knew what she was getting into, but…
I think I have told you before how much I love and respect the writers we hire and how well we treat them when they are on a show or running a show. I mean, I have heard you say to, like, your friends and also, like, in your high school application essays that you grew up around books and scripts and have a great appreciation for the written word.
Which comes from me! And Mommy, too, obviously, even though her work is more in the business affairs part of the industry, and I do creative.
But mostly, the important part is the part about the written word and loving it, but more than that, appreciating it. Which I do! And we do, as a family. Even Mommy.
So in the memoir, this writer, and I do know him and his wife, too, who also is a writer… a bigger writer than him actually which must create a fascinating dynamic at home… ugh, I can hear you, Katie, asking why that dynamic in particular would be fascinating and, yes, honey, you are right that it is outmoded but also besides the point, so let’s just keep going a second.
In the writer’s book, I am, in fact, mentioned by name. More than once.
This is why I am texting the group chat and kind of getting in front of it, but first, you should know that I am referred to, in the book, as a decision maker at one of the top streamers. So that’s great.
When Todd and Bruce and Donna see that, maybe it’ll remind them how the industry sees me, someone who says yes or no. A decider. Not as a glorified development person, which someone said to me last year around review time.
But let’s not get lost on that right now.
So, yes, the writer painted me as an important and, I think I can say, Solomonic figure, in that I decide what to do with the baby.
But then he does indicate that I sometimes said other things.
I guess I should always remember that writers listen differently than other people. A different kind of close. Oooh, also, I need to remind myself of that for an episode title I can pitch to a showrunner.
But so even when we are just having a conversation, the writer was, like, listening, I guess, and not just having a back and forth where you are just talking to each other. Or waiting to make your points, which in our meetings at the streamer is what I have to do or I will never get to speak!
So.
Well, I doubt that any of your classmates’ parents will read this book. Only the ones that work in the business. Which is only like 25 to 50 percent of the parent body at the high school. So we should be good there. You should be.
He claims, and I don’t remember this, exactly, that when he pitched his heist show, I asked him if the heist could be elevated. And that when he asked if I meant that it should feel more prestige, that I said, “No, I mean like up on a rooftop. That the robbers come in from high ground. Elevated entry.” Which, although I do love the way helicopters look and especially sound as far as production value goes, I don’t think that I… Anyway…
It also seems that I might have inadvertently insulted him when I asked if one of the scenes was inspired by his real-life marriage to a more powerful woman. This was a scene that involved a certain carnal act where the woman uses an implement and…
I really don’t remember asking that, but at the same time, you’re sitting there in a pitch, and a guy is telling you about a scene like that, and you know he’s bringing home less than his wife, and his voice is kind of whiny and…
The good news is that in the current age, I think more people feel this way, and maybe I get bravery points for being willing to ask.
One thing that might come up at school is that I asked for a chart and diagram to show, and this was to make sure the pilot episode was propulsive and sticky, to highlight who exactly was fucking who in the series.
And he says that I emailed him a follow-up asking him to make a deck, using famous actresses’ faces and bodies, that showed the “sexual dynamics at play.” I think it best if you don’t respond to anyone asking you about that part, and maybe you ought to stay home for a couple of weeks anyway. As I think about it now. Yeah. Stay home.
There are a few other exchanges, but the good news is that in the end, I passed on his show, another network took it, and the show bombed.
So I was right. The writer was wrong. And in a way, to the town, that kind of makes me the hero of the memoir.
