My Indie Script

I went to yet another studio meeting regarding my "Indie Script". If you'd call it a meeting. It was me and some 25-year old VP so new into his promotion he flinched when I asked him to get me a cup of coffee. He told me he was the head of their "Indie" division. I told him said studio doesn't have an indie division. He told me he liked my script. I sighed. His unemotional eyes suggested he was on autopilot and probably trying to remember if he'd had meat with breakfast. Either that, or he was a serial killer.

The problem is when I write a dramady about a young cricket that must learn muay-thai kickboxing so he can rescue his brother from a high school biology classroom before he's fed to a turtle, the head of the studio buys me lunch. But when I write something I really care about, no one cares.

I could tell the meeting was going nowhere and was about to leave when the Head of Development ran into the room. Probably because he'd heard the screams. "You threw your coffee at Jim's face?" he yelled.

"Jim looked tired," I said.

The Head of Development looked at Jim. "Get some sleep," he said. "And when you're done with that, get another job."

There is nothing more exhilarating than seeing a grown man cry, especially if he's 25 and knows he can no longer afford the lease on his 300 series BMW. Especially if he looks like someone that might have made fun of you in high school. Especially if he bumps into a wall on his way out because the coffee you threw in his face has blinded him.

"I want to help people" I said. "My work, my art, it's supposed to help people."

The Head of Development told me my main character wasn't likeable enough. "You can make a cricket pretty damn likeable," he said. "Why don't you write something about an insect or something? Maybe a squirrel?"

"I got rabies from a squirrel when I was five," I said. "20 shots in the stomach. It was in the script."

He looked at me like I'd just peed my pants at little league tryouts. "So the script is about you."

I told him I used some stuff from my life, but it was only loosely based on me, and then I said to a certain extent, all that I write, all that anyone writes is about himself.

He inhaled slowly, leaned in close so I could see the sheen of his tan, and asked me if he could confide in me. "I know this script is about you," he said. "And not about you in some abstract art fag way. Really about you, about you like Patton is about Patton, or The Godfather is about the Mafia. This script captures your essence. You're a good writer, and this script shows you know your subject well. What is in this script gives people insights about you that it's taken me ten years of knowing you to figure out. I've never seen a more thinly veiled, or better constructed autobiograhpy in my entire life." He inhaled dramatically and continued. "The problem is," he said, "you're just not likeable enough."

I flashed back to the time I was five to twenty seven. It cut like a knife. "What", I said. "Was it because I threw coffee at your VP?"

"That and you're just not that, I don't know, fun to be around." He shook his head. "Maybe you should pretend you're a cricket."