KCRW's Martini Shot Podcasts

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Veteran TV writer Rob Long shares his behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood life with Martini Shot, a four-minute weekly commentary heard during KCRW's broadcast of NPR's All Things Considered. Primary Format : Arts Also Listed as: Arts Entertainment Hollywood NPR Public Radio Television City : Santa Monica State/Province : CA Country : USA Country : NA User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: Commentary | View this Podcast on a Google Map. Add to iTunes Text Only listing of KCRW's Martini Shot Podcasts Trumix.com listings available of KCRW's Martini Shot Podcasts Click Here to Update the directory of this podcasts programs.

Trumix.com listings available of KCRW's Martini Shot Podcasts Build your own playlists with this podcast. He Likes That I know someone who works in advertising, and on his first week on the job, years ago, a more seasoned copywriter took him aside to give him advice. They were both on their way to the creative director's office, to pitch him some ideas for a new campaign... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can We Talk about This Later. The people who run KCRW only give me four minutes to make these little jewel boxes of commentary ---- something about wanting to broadcast the news or I don't know what ---- so it's hard to fit everything in sometimes.  Most of the time it's easy, of course, because everything I say pretty much boils down to: writin's hard... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website No More Cupcakes A few years ago, a friend of mine tried to fire his agent. It didn't go well. After a long, wearying phone call, in which the agent tried everything in his bag of tricks --- you owe me! This is wrong!  I screwed up, I know! Gimme one more chance! This is a bad career move! -- all of them, my friend finally agreed to the thing he had been dreading --- the thing that every single one of his writer friends told him, under no circumstances, to agree to... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Wonderful, Wonderful Me I have an actor friend who, early in his career, attended a very popular, respected acting class. On the first day, the teacher arrived, told the class to stand up and said, "Now, each of you wrap your arms around yourself and give yourself a big, hurting hug. And repeat, wonderful, wonderful me!" Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New Media Sometimes, certain things seem strange or stupid just because we haven't seen them enough. You know what I mean. They'll come out with a new car design, and it'll look strange and stupid and then you see them all over the place and soon they look normal. And a little while later you're thinking, "Hey, I like the look of that car..." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lunch Years ago, when I was based on the Paramount Studios lot, we used to order take out  lunch maybe twice a week from the old City Restaurant on La Brea.  It's not there anymore, but I can still remember every item on the lunch menu... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Call My Doctor Call My Doctor Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What's That Noise. You know that moment, in slasher movies, when the promiscuous teens who have been racing around the old barn, trying desperately to avoid the psycho killer, finally get him, somehow.... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Already Late Here's how I knew that the writers strike was over, really over. It wasn't the voting, or Nikki Finke's site, or anything like that. It was the email. From the studio... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What Are You Going to Do. People, I think you'll agree, can be awfully mean... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Iunno If you have a kid, or know a kid, somewhere between the ages of 12 and 17, you know that when they don---t know the answer to a question, they don---t say "I don---t know." They say, "Iunno..." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Good Agentry True story: A writer in his late 50's, who hadn't worked in a long, long time, but who at one point was well-paid and in-demand, found himself facing what we'll call Typical Hollywood Career Ending Number 3: private school and college tuitions paid, barely; 401k plan ransacked; home equity tapped; savings dwindling; cars, one; supermarket, Ralph's; area code 661... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Three Hole Punch Three Hole Punch Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lazy I was once stuck in a writers room with a really lazy writer.  And no, that's no redundant.  And no, it wasn't me.  I mean, yes, I am a lazy writer, but no, I'm not that lazy writer... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Money Is Important I was talking to a writer yesterday about the need for writers like us to be more risk-taking, more entrepreneurial. He was pretty enthusiastic: "You're totally right! We should just all say 'to hell with the studios' and go to Google or Yahoo or wherever and do stuff for them!" Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website My Friend's Place I went to a party the other day and I didn't talk about the writers' strike... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Solidarity I'm going to get in trouble for this. But, anyway. Let's be honest. If you're a writer, or a writer/producer, or any of the constellation of hyphenates that means that along with what you do that really brings in the dough, you also are a member of the Writers Guild, you've been on a movie or TV set before... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Continue Trading Continue Trading Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Three-Bean Salad I know two guys who make three-bean salad. A few years ago, they pooled their money, bought a small machine that fills jars, and they went into the three-bean salad business... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How Long Is This Going to Last. I was joking around with a friend of mine ---- a fellow writer on strike -- a few days ago. He hurt his leg a week or so ago, so I sent him a text message. "Hey, haven't seen you on the picket line. Hope your leg is okay, and it didn't SCAB over." And I put "scab" in all caps. I was kidding, of course... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Emoticons The letter from the studio came yesterday. It said this: Reference is made to the Agreement ---- and then, in parentheses, they put the word "Agreement" in quotation mark, for some reason ---- between you on the one hand and us on the other hand, in which you agreed to render specified services and for which you are being paid. Blah blah blah. Boilerplate, boilerplate, boilerplate..." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Strike A few years ago, I heard this story from a friend of mine.-- He's got a kid in elementary school ---- he and the family live back east ---- and one day, in his oldest kid's second-grade classroom, suddenly, without warning, all of the kids started to throw up... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Long Form The only time you really, truly know that you've made a sale in Hollywood --- that the studio bought the script, that the network bought the pitch --- is when they call your agent to get your social security or tax ID number... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The DeLorean I want to tell you a story. I started working in the entertainment industry in 1990. I was twenty-four... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website My Struggle with Addiction Years ago, when I told my agent that I had written a book, she said to me, "Hey, if you want $800, I'll give you $800." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Chit Chat The great thing about the entertainment industry --- well, one of the great things.-- It's a fantastic industry in almost every way --- is at some point, no matter who you are or how much power you have, eventually you're going to have to sit in someone's office --- probably someone you despise --- and pitch... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website White Wine I had lunch not too long ago with a friend of mine. We sat down, the waiter came to get our drink orders --- I ordered a Diet Coke, and he, he ordered a white wine... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Check Email Here's what I believe: I believe that if you're a writer in Hollywood and you want to have any degree of control over your career, you can't wait around for someone to hand you a writing assignment. You can't wait around to get a studio deal. You're a writer: write yourself into the business. Write yourself into a new genre, a new form, a new career. Sit down at the computer and write. No excuses. No dithering. Just sit down, focus, and do it. That's really the only way to succeed... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Casino The chairman of a large movie studio once said that the movie and television business was a crapshoot. You make a bet, you play the (razor thin) odds and then you roll the dice... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hack Tricks Hack Tricks Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Quality Control Quality Control Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Larrys The professional code among comedy writers dictates that if you have a friend who is producing a pilot, you are honor-bound to volunteer your services for the pilot week... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Homeless Guy So a few mornings ago, I'm walking my dog along Ocean Front Walk in Venice. It's an early weekday morning, and I'll be honest: I'm not looking my best. You know, it's in the morning. I'm walking the dog. I'm not, you know, pitching. So I have on a pair of shorts that may be tattered, and a t-shirt that may have been used, recently, to mop up some kind of spill. But I repeat --- I'm just walking the dog... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Summer Sign-Up 2007 Support KCRW's Summer SignUp: (http://www.kcrw.com) I'm sort of a neat person. I try to stay organized. Not out of any creepy OCD kind of thing --- I mean, I know a guy who, when he buys a new package of athletic socks, labels and numbers them with a sharpie --- you know, 1L, 1R, for pair number one, left foot, pair number one, right foot. Just in case... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Running for Trains A guy I know tells this story: He and a student friend are in Paris. They're going to take the Metro somewhere, and as they're going through the turn-style, they hear the train arriving and its doors opening. The guy starts to run when his friend grabs him by the arm and stops him and says, "I don't run for trains..." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Early Later Early Later Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Here's the Great Part I went to an event a few weeks ago for the launch of a new web media company.-- I go to those kinds of things about once every, well these days, about once a day.-- There are zillions of these new web enterprises around, all with the kinds of fanciful, made-up names that create the image of young, fun-loving kids in interesting t-shirts watching web videos as they sit in some cool bar waiting for their ultimate Frisbee friends to show up or text them or meet them where their favorite band i ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Bible The first thing an amateur writer does, when he sits down to create a television series, is to figure it all out.-- He'll map out characters, interrelationships, future story arcs, possible late season developments ---- you know, actually create a series... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Game the System A few years ago, a friend of mine shot a pilot. It was supposed to be a promising pilot, but somewhere between the script and casting, the network started getting concerned about the darkly comic tone, the suggestive, edgy storylines, and the sharpness of the writing. All of those items introduce a level of risk into the development process -- career risk for the executives, specifically -- so usually that's the first stuff they want out... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website My Bollywood Age I have an actress friend from India -- she's a Bollywood starlet -- and she tells me that over there, if you're a Bollywood star and you're married, and you want to stay a Bollywood star, you have to keep your marriage a secret... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jury Duty So, apparently, if you want to get out of jury duty, what you have to do is this.-- When they ask you what you do for a living, you say, "I write television comedy, your honor," and then you wait around a bit while the judge and the lawyers busy themselves with other prospective jurors, but you're eventually going to hear something like, "The court would like to excuse the television comedy writer with the expensive watch"... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Flashback When I tell people what I do for a living -- which, for the record, I try not to do; mostly I tell people that I'm a merchant banker and leave it at that; when you say "merchant banker," I've found, there are no follow ups -- but for the times when I actually tell people that I write and produce television comedies, what I hear back is either "You should do a sitcom about everybody in the payroll department. Crazy.-- Crazy funny," or something a little more aggressive and challenging, like ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Flashback When I tell people what I do for a living -- which, for the record, I try not to do; mostly I tell people that I'm a merchant banker and leave it at that; when you say "merchant banker," I've found, there are no follow ups -- but for the times when I actually tell people that I write and produce television comedies, what I hear back is either "You should do a sitcom about everybody in the payroll department. Crazy.-- Crazy funny," or something a little more aggressive and challenging, like ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Aflac Duck So, how do I do this.-- On the one hand, I want to share something about a certain network.-- This certain network ordered a pilot recently based on the caveman character in the Geico insurance ads.-- Have you seen them.-- Kind of funny.-- The idea is that if you're a caveman somehow living in today's world -- I don't mean like a caveman, I mean an actual caveman, with eyebrow ridges and stringy-- hair and like that -- anyway, the point of the commercial is that if you were such a caveman, ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Man It turns out that Viacom is suing YouTube, which isn't really much of a surprise. Viacom will eventually sue us all, for something. That's kind of how they do business. Here's how it went down... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bellweathers When Bob Crane, the star of TV's Hogan's Heroes, was found murdered in an Arizona motel in the late 1970's, among his personal effects were several hundred pounds of video equipment.-- Crane had state-of-the-art equipment for 1974: a huge video camera, a heavy playback tape machine (roughly the size of four microwave ovens stacked together), and enough lights to form a small production company. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Anything but That A few years ago, we had a pilot ordered to series.---- I know, I know: hard to believe.-- But there was a time, I promise, when thing like that did happen... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Man It turns out that Viacom is suing YouTube, which isn't really much of a surprise. Viacom will eventually sue us all, for something. That's kind of how they do business. Here's how it went down... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Anything but That A few years ago, we had a pilot ordered to series.---- I know, I know: hard to believe.-- But there was a time, I promise, when thing like that did happen... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Writing for Free No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.-- Said Samuel Johnson, at some point, to someone.-- Good advice... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Episode Two Now that I'm officially not making a pilot, and am-- deep into my seasonal I'm-quitting-this-idiotic-business muttering and stomping around, I need to get something off of my chest.... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Technically Dead This year, I had two pilot scripts in contention for the fall 2007 season.-- Both of them are now, in the words of the networks that paid for them, technically dead.-- Technically dead.-- Not dead.-- Not alive, certainly.-- But dead, technically... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website We're Going to Be Okay We're Going to Be Okay Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Bonus A few years ago, we shot a pilot for a network that didn't want it. They were cornered by something called a "pilot commitment" -- which means, essentially, that at some point someone at the network agreed to pay a huge penalty (something pretty close to the cost of producing a pilot) if they didn't produce the pilot. So, faced with the prospect of paying one-million-two for a something and one-million-one for nothing, they thought, "Okay, what the heck. Make it. But we hate it. But make it ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Enjoy the Process They've done surveys -- like that? They? Who's they? Doesn't matter. Just go with me on this -- They've done surveys that show that people would rather make $70,000 a year if everyone they know is making sixty, than make eighty if everyone they know is making ninety... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Funny But Let me tip toe carefully here. I don't want to make anyone feel bad. I've had some shows cancelled myself -- all of them, actually -- so when I begin this week by drawing your attention to the dozens and dozens of billboards up around town, all advertising a television show that is no longer on the air -- a show that, to be honest, aired only one time before it was scraped off the prime-time schedule like something squishy and smelly from the bottom of a shoe -- anyway, when I mention it, ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Enjoy the Process They've done surveys -- like that? They? Who's they? Doesn't matter. Just go with me on this -- They've done surveys that show that people would rather make $70,000 a year if everyone they know is making sixty, than make eighty if everyone they know is making ninety... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Phone Rings, I Answer It Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Funny But Let me tip toe carefully here. I don't want to make anyone feel bad. I've had some shows cancelled myself -- all of them, actually -- so when I begin this week by drawing your attention to the dozens and dozens of billboards up around town, all advertising a television show that is no longer on the air -- a show that, to be honest, aired only one time before it was scraped off the prime-time schedule like something squishy and smelly from the bottom of a shoe -- anyway, when I mention it, ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Phone Rings, I Answer It Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Winter Pledge Drive 2006 How much must regular radio suck, that you---re listening to the pledge drive?... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Libel About ten years ago, I wrote a book that was published in the UK. It was also published here, a little bit later, but there's something about having a book out in Britain -- about doing interviews on the BBC, about threadbare book parties where well-known authors stuff their pockets full of shrimp -- it all has a kind of Kingsley Amis/Evelyn Waugh vibe to it that's a lot more fun than getting up at four in the morning to do a 40-second drive-time interview with the guys on the morning zoo ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Winter Pledge Drive 2006 How much must regular radio suck, that you---re listening to the pledge drive?... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The C List A few years back, a local television station broadcast an expose of some popular local restaurants. With hidden cameras and undercover reporting, they revealed that some of the most popular Los Angeles restaurants are guilty of some of the most unsanitary practices... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Big One Likes Himself Right about now, in the majestic and dignified pageant we call the television production year, we-re smack in the middle of pre-production... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Certain Kind of Money I have a writer friend who has a Blackberry -- you know, one of those hand-held phone and email things -- and every day at 2pm or so, he gets an email from his Yahoo Finance account that totals up the value of his various stock portfolios at that day's market close... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Act Your Age "I'm sorry," I say into the phone."I think one of us is going through a bad cell or something. I thought I heard you say that you'd like the main character to be older."... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Libel Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website I am a Kurd A friend of mine has just come back from his third (and final) tour of duty in Iraq. He was parked in some pretty scary spots, apparently, and tells one or two genuinely hair-raising stories. But nothing he said to me was scarier than,"Hey, Rob, now that I'm back, I'm trying to get a job in the entertainment industry. Can we have lunch?"... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Act Your Age "I'm sorry," I say into the phone. "I think one of us is going through a bad cell or something. I thought I heard you say that you'd like the main character to be older."... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Temper Tantrum I heard this story recently. It-s sort of instructive and cautionary, which makes it appropriate for the end-of-the-year, in--06-I-ll-be-a-better-person kind of New Year-s resolutions... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website I am a Kurd Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Temper Tantrum I heard this story recently. It-s sort of instructive and cautionary, which makes it appropriate for the end-of-the-year, in--06-I-ll-be-a-better-person kind of New Year-s resolutions... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Year of No Scented Candles Here-s the problem: it-s about a week until Christmas, and so far the only gifts I-ve received are a box of chocolate mint cookies and an embossed copy of the 2006 Zagat-s restaurant guide for Los Angeles. The first, delivered in a giant tin, came from my attorney. And the second, wrapped in a highly effeminate bow, came from my agent... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Act Your Age "I'm sorry," I say into the phone."I think one of us is going through a bad cell or something. I thought I heard you say that you'd like the main character to be older."... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Eating Neatly One of the odd things about working on a writing staff of a television show is that you enjoy a kind of closeness with your colleagues that isn't really, when all is said and done, terribly pleasant... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Houseguests I had houseguests recently, in from New York. You know the kind: sophisticated urban know-it-alls, people who dismissed the celebrity-saturated vibe of Los Angeles with airy declarations of Celebrities? Who cares! And: I wouldn't know if Julia Roberts was standing right in front of me! And: Listen, we're totally not interested in creepy show business sleaze -- seriously, we just don't care... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Put Me on a Ladder The story goes that halfway through the first script reading for an episode of -Life with Lucy,- Lucille Ball-s final, doomed ABC sit-com in the late 1980-s, she stopped mid-sentence, waved her hand dismissively at the chunk of dialogue on the page, turned to the writers and rasped, in her unforgettable whiskey and Pall Mall voice, -Talk, talk, talk! Put me on a ladder!- Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website True Story True story. I-m driving in my car. It-s a green Chevy Trailblazer. It-s got a Yale University sticker on the back. Kind of an important detail, is the reason I mention it. I really am sorry about the sticker. It-s sort of a tool-ish thing to have on there... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What's That Suppose to Mean? A friend of mine just signed a big deal at a studio. He's deserved one for years -- he's a talented, funny, writer but even more, he's a born show-runner -- but he hasn't had the best luck -- he worked on some shows that never quite caught on, his timing in the business wasn't lucky (he missed the bonanza overall deal years of the nineties) and so when I read in the trades that he had landed a big, multi-year contract, I felt a strange, odd, unfamiliar sensation... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Pledge Drive Special Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Two Hats I have a theory. When someone makes a simple, clear declarative statement about themselves - you know what I mean, when someone says something like,"Hey, I'm the kind of person who just tells it like it is!" - the only thing you can be really sure of is, that person does not tell it like it is, ever... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Surfer Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website I'm Not Even Lying to You Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website I Don't Want to See Your Toes I went shopping last weekend for clothes. I don't know why. I don't need any clothes. I'm a writer, and therefore a creature of habit. Basically, I wear pretty much a version of what I've worn all my life. Jeans or khakis, loafers or sneakers, some kind of belt, some kind of shirt... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Half Empty I have a few friends who have shows on the air right now - shows that have premiered or are about to premiere this season. All of them are handling it better than I usually do... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Great Numbers Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website I Heart Scientology Here-s a great practical joke to play on friends who don-t know you that well. When the subject of Scientology comes up --- and, you know, it does - wait a few moments for one of your friends to say something disparaging about it - and, you know, they will -- and then fix him with an angry stare, plaster a forced smile on your face, and say in a falsely-cheerful, irritated voice, -Do you know anything about Scientology? Have you read any of the literature?- And for the next two seconds ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website I Heart Scientology Here-s a great practical joke to play on friends who don-t know you that well. When the subject of Scientology comes up --- and, you know, it does - wait a few moments for one of your friends to say something disparaging about it - and, you know, they will -- and then fix him with an angry stare, plaster a forced smile on your face, and say in a falsely-cheerful, irritated voice, -Do you know anything about Scientology? Have you read any of the literature?- And for the next two seconds ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Sandwich Makers They pay me an enormous amount of money here at KCRW to do these four-minute commentaries. Well, I exaggerate. They-re not exactly four minutes. But you get my point. I-m paid to talk about my life here in Hollywood, but today, I-d like to digress, just a bit, and tell you what I did on my summer vacation... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Remind You of Anything? A friend of mine pitched an idea to a studio last week. There were about six people in the room. And they passed. And here's what they said: Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Instant Message I went to a party the other day, for a show that had been abruptly cancelled. Well, it seemed abrupt to some people. Like, say, the people working on the show... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website My Twenty Years in Hollywood I recently ran into an agent I know at a screening. Agents are very affectionate, so at one point, he put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. I have been in Hollywood long enough to know that next, he was going to slip his hand up to my neck and lean in to whisper into my ear. This is weird the first couple of times, and then, suddenly, it's not weird anymore... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is That Supposed to Be Me? A friend of mine told me the following story, which I assume is true because it doesn't involve money... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hard Floor I live in Venice. I guess, these days, I should be a little more protective of my privacy. Maybe I shouldn't be broadcasting where I live, although after a year of doing these commentaries, it's impossible to imagine there's someone out there thinking,"I wonder where he lives? I'd sure like to get to know him better." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 1000 Monkeys People in Hollywood tend to give extravagant gifts, so I wasn't surprised, a few years ago, when a smartly-dressed messenger delivered a heavy gold-wrapped package to my door. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Race to the Computer Once, a famous writer gave a talk to a lot of aspiring writers.  This kind of thing happens all the time --- and not just at colleges and universities, but at weekend scriptwriting workshop seminars and writers'conferences, that sort of thing.  I've done a few myself... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website