“Dare to be strong and courageous.
That is the road.
Venture anything.
Be brave enough to dare to be loved.”
I was born in Manhattan to a lawyer and a college professor and grew up on the Upper East Side. My grandmother had a cottage in the Hamptons where we spent each summer. I was a gifted student, especially in English, with a poor attitude for the most part. I attended prestigious schools that all threw me out for poor behavior, yet I managed to make my way to a world class university where I lasted only one and a half semesters due to binge drinking, drugs and in general being an immature insufferable prick.
My parents refused to let me live back at home after I was tossed from college, so I boarded a bus at the Port Authority and took it to L.A., where I lived with a cousin of mine who was an aspiring actor. I lived on her couch and worked at a 7-11, liquor store, and waited tables at a touristy restaurant on the Santa Monica Pier.
I took an unpaid internship with a literary agent where all I did was read screenplays and pass along to him anything I thought was “good” or checked a few of the boxes for themes he was looking for. This was eye opening for me because there were:
A) So many screenplays. Each and every human in L.A. at some point writes one.
B) So many horrid, unimaginative, boring, self-important scripts being sent in daily.
C) A few fantastic ones that simply hypnotize you. The writer creates a world of their own story that exists in vivid color within the reader’s head. They attack your emotions, imagination and senses. You can’t put them down. They are magical, inspirational and for me educational. Few of them are ever produced or sold.
After three years living this life in L.A, I made my way into a role as a production assistant for a T.V. show my cousins friend was on. I managed to befriend a few of the writers. Slowly, I infiltrated their team and arranged a lunch with the head writer. I told him about my writing experience, and he asked me to give him a “spec” (hypothetical) script of the show we were producing. He liked it well enough to introduce me to his agent, who asked for spec episodes of “Cheers” and “L.A. Law”, two very different shows but it would show my ability to write half hour sitcoms and hour-long drama. She liked what she’d read enough to sign me.
For two years almost nothing happened. I wrote some dialogue for a sitcom pilot and was hired to do a re-write for a ridiculous horror movie. My work in production provided me just enough for the one bedroom I rented with other aspiring struggling lost souls in a larger house in then (still?) seedy Venice.
Then I caught a break of sorts. Friends of mine I’d met from working at the liquor store lived in Ojai, California, and they asked me to house sit while they went to Asia for a six-month consulting assignment. The impeccably serendipitous timing enabled me to get out of my lease and write that screenplay that’d been dancing around in my head. I’d written several at this point but nothing that made any waves.
I also knew time was running out. I couldn’t go on like this forever, the pressure from my family and friends to bag it, return to New York and do something sensible for a living was building. I had six months’ rent free and it was time to run the two-minute offense, an on-sides kick, or the Philly Special. Whatever you want to call it, it was time to pull a rabbit out of the hat.
I wrote a screenplay that was somewhat autobiographical and exactly the type of movie I’d like to see. I simply said “f*ck it” and wrote what I wanted to. I took chances and wrote some very unconventional scenes and had some fun. I cried while composing much of it and obsessed over each and every detail. I was invested in each and every word. I worked all day on it while drinking espresso at the kitchen table, and from dinner until bed I’d drink wine from the cellar (they gave me an allowance) and listen to music while looking out over the Topatopa Mountains thinking of the next day’s scenes. After six months, I had a final product I was proud of. I dropped it off with my agent, prepared for her to tell me it was terrible. But she loved it.
Hollywood side note. If one studio, production company, producer or any power that be likes a script, the writer’s agent then contacts other such people and says “so and so likes this and wants to option/buy it” (whether or not that’s actually true is besides he point) and that creates a buzz and hopefully a bidding war. That was exactly what happened with my script. Within three weeks it sold for just under three hundred thousand dollars, which wasn’t bad at that time for a new writer.
And it was never produced, which is par for the course. It did however lead me into a job as a staff writer on a notable successful hour-long drama, which led me to some steady work rewriting scripts, two of which became lucrative franchises. I sold another spec which also went unproduced, worked on a few other primetime shows and eventually on a series for both HBO and Showtime.
I then got into table (think team) writing for animated films, where the story arc is decided in advance and the writers contrive the dialogue (yes, I used that word purposely) which was actually great fun. For a film of this nature, I had the good fortune to be one of those random guys in the back onstage with a dozen other people accepting an Oscar.
Early this century, I finally sold a screenplay that was produced into a widely released film that was a box office success. By the time it reached the screen it had been rewritten so many times it was unrecognizable from my original spec. But that’s the business and I couldn’t complain; I’d been fortunate to get some much-needed rewriting work in my career.
I flew first class back and forth to New York when I wasn’t working, to make it seem like I was working just in case I saw any showbiz people, and I flew in coach when I was actually working. The hope is that they go “hey I saw Johnny Metropolis on the plane and he was in first class. We should call him and see what he’s been up to.” Sadly, this is a common practice in the business.
I developed a cocaine addiction, which is an occupational hazard for writers in Tinseltown. To help beat it, I became a Buddhist and took up Yoga and meditation, which helped with the unsteady nature of my work, which was certainly a root cause.
I got married and had kids. Years went by. There were good steady ones, and awful dry years that shake your soul, especially as your children and needs grow. Writing work in Hollywood is hard to come by and success is as fickle as a coin flip. You get desperate. I began spending a lot of time trying to write what I thought people wanted. I was risk adverse. Writing began to be a task rather than the thrill ride of passion it once was.
And yet I’m a lucky guy. We purchased a nice but modest house in a great neighborhood in Encino. I’d say my career is in the top 15%-25% of all the writers in Hollywood, meaning I’ve made a living from it. That was the goal and all I can ask for.
Late March, 2020. Covid has come rolling in and things got weird fast. Schools closed, production in entertainment came to a halt. We’d rented our home out periodically to production companies, and one company gave us a standing offer for a longer six month or year long stretch. It looks like your typical American suburban home and therefore can be used for many different types of shoots.
I mentioned my grandmother’s house in the Hamptons at the top of this story for a reason (I wasn't just trying to seem like a douche). My wife and I decided to rent our house to the production company, take our high school and college age daughters, drive across the country while only stopping for gas, and live in my family’s spartan waterfront cottage for the spring and summer. It has no insulation, the only shower is outside and the only source of heat is a wood-burning stove, and in April and early May it was cold. Needless to say, this took some getting used to, but we collectively did our best to view it as an adventure.
On a late June weekday morning I was getting my car fixed at a place called Joe’s Garage. I’d been into Joe’s a few times during my annual visits, and I’d become friendly with Joe, the owner. I was sitting on a bench waiting for my car to be ready when Joe approached and handed me a book. He told me that the author was a local guy, the garage was mentioned in the book, and the author was in the parking lot with his kids. Joe asked if he could introduce us and he did.
And so I met Tade. I congratulated him on the book, we talked for a while, exchanged info and agreed to be in touch. I told him I’d “give him notes” on his novel and help him however I could, given I’m the experienced Hollywood guy who knows everything.
That afternoon, I was in hammock when I began reading “Conscience Point” which I frankly wasn’t excited about, but I’d given my word. I read half the book that evening and the other half the next day. When I say I couldn’t put it down, I’m not exaggerating.
The word I’m going to use to describe the book is cocksure. It’s bold, intelligent, unapologetic, well researched, nuanced, funny and touching. It makes zero excuses for its exuberance, and the universe it presents is one I wanted to stay a resident of. It’s the opposite of self-conscious and while the story line is a classic one, its completely unconventional. It's so sure of his terrain, material and characters that regardless of the type of scene, it doesn't seem ridiculous even with some extremely dramatic, hard to pull off plot twists. It makes no apologies and revels in its own glory to the crescendo on the very last page, which had weeping hysterically.
There’s a guy named Scallop who’s a surfer, farmer, ex-Navy Seal and single father who can swim underwater for ten minutes. The lead woman Rachel is a fascinating, sexy, complicated and charismatic human who made me happy to be heterosexual. Baseball legend Keith Hernandez is a side character and a hilarious one at that. A limo driver steals each scene he's in. It's packed.
And it reminded me of why I became a writer way back when. When I wrote that screenplay in Ojai that sold long ago, I had this sort of conviction. Fearlessness. Balls. And somewhere along the way, I lost that. I stopped having fun. Maybe I had to so I could just survive and work in the system. I don’t know, but reading this book revealed that fact to me clear as day. I had to find that passion again.
One of the main themes the book has to do with chance encounters and the impact they can have on our lives; the one I had at Joe’s Garage reinvigorated this tired old soul. You never know where you can learn something new, or where inspiration will come from. Thanks Joe.
We’re back in L.A. now, and I spent a lot of time talking to my family on the trip home about the epiphany I received from reading Tade’s book. In fact, my family desperately wanted me to shut up about it. At one point they threatened to leave me at a gas station in Oklahoma if I didn’t relent.
Reflecting on why the story struck such a chord with me, it donned on me that it reminded me of what entertainment was like when I arrived in town on a bus in 1983. It was like some of the great films of the 80’s in its structure, tone and unabashed strut. After all, that's when Tade started watching movies given his age. That's how I made of my mind to make sense of it.
The other night my younger daughter persistently told me she had a YouTube video she wanted to show me. As any parent knows, this is usually something to be avoided if possible. But she barged into my office and demanded I watch what she’d discovered. She thought it would be important to me based on all the things I’d been saying lately. She told me some work of my own was in. I gave in and watched it.
What she showed me can be seen right here. You’re all working from home and you know you have the time. I viewed this video perhaps 25 times in a row that night.
And I cried each time. Excited the possibilities, joy and excitement of it all.
I believe I’m on a path that can lead me back to the beginning.
Thank you. Have a great weekend.