I'm Your Friend, Eddie

A number of you have written me (or one of you with multiple personalities) and asked if I'm still represented by the dumb fucking lesbian from my last post. The answer is no. But I love her like the crazy sister I never had, was ashamed of, denied being related to until forced by my parents, and then ultimately appreciated for all her quirks. Despite her absolute stone cold inability to keep a straight face during negotiations she was one of the best agents a boy could have. Here's why:

FIRST SOME OF WHAT WE PROFESSIONALS LIKE TO CALL "BACKSTORY."

If any of you have checked me out on IMDB you'll note that I wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay to Keanu Reeves's most famous movie "Chain Reaction." I've only got a shared story credit now but it began as a spec script sold by yours truly some months after making his first $20,000 on the previously discussed serial killer movie. I got paid pretty well but I was still living in the attic and driving my mother's Honda. In the future I'll write about selling this script but all you need to know right now is this: There is ONE line in the movie left over from my spec.

"I'm your friend, Eddie."

I was fired after writing three drafts which included three totally different third acts. The studio told me they thought I was "burned out." This happens when people set you on fire.

My original script (called Dead Drop) was set in Washington, D.C. and concerned a married, fifty-year-old inventor for the CIA who goes on the run with his wife after discovering one of his inventions was used to kill a Senator.

The movie Chain Reaction is not about that. It's about cold fusion.

For those of you who don't know, cold fusion is a scientific process by which development executives set young writers on fire and create jackass movie macguffins in the resulting oxygen vacuum.

So I'm fired because clearly I'm not qualified to fuck up a good idea like the adults can. I'm sent to the kiddie table (also known as "the unemployment line") while a series of writers (at least eight) take their seats around the Idea Lazy Susan (also known as Development of an Action Movie).

Months go by. The movie is greenlit. Pre-production comes and goes...Film rolls...

Then the fun begins. RING. RING.

PRODUCERS: Hey Josh. Long time no talk.
ME: How's it going?
PRODUCERS: Well, you know we're in production here in Chicago.
ME: I heard.
PRODUCERS: Thing is, we kinda don't have a writer.
ME: Hm?
PRODUCERS: Our writer left. We need one.
ME: Really? But you had so many of them.
PRODUCERS: And a third act. We need that, too.
ME: Don't have a third act, do you? With all those writers?
PRODUCERS: So whattya say...why don't you come on out to Chicago for ten weeks? We'll put you up in the Four Seasons. Pay you a weekly rate. It'll be great.
ME: Sounds...hm...spectacular.
PRODUCERS: It is YOUR script. You OWE IT to your work. Oh and by the way...You'd need to come the day after tomorrow.

I'm beginning to suspect that Eddie may not actually be my friend.

Now I have not seen the script for months. They send it over and I read it before lunch. It's...well, let's just say a lot of cold fusion has taken place. I try to communicate my dismay to Agent but she's just too excited by this AWESOME AMOUNT OF MONEY I'll make if I take this job at a weekly rate. I ask her to read the script over lunch so we can talk. But I know where she's at: she's a 25 year old newbie agent whose client has a shot to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Who cares if the script's drifted a little bit?

She reads the script and calls me.

AGENT: This isn't your script.
ME: They claim it is.
AGENT: It's nothing like your script. What do they expect from you?
ME: They said Mamet was fired off of The Verdict and he came back and won an Academy Award.
AGENT: They went back to Mamet's script on The Verdict. They're already shooting this movie.
ME: Not the third act.
AGENT: Don't do it.
ME: What?
AGENT: Don't do it. Don't be your own hack.

Now understand that I did not have another job at this time. And she had approximately...three clients. Between the two of us we could've used the gig.

So of course I didn't do it.

I would love to say that some wonderful job came around the corner soon after that--a job I would not have been able to do had I been freezing my ass off in Chicago. But nothing did. Still I don't regret the decision and love my old agent for supporting me as a writer and not just a paycheck.

I also love her for this:

The premiere rolls around and I take Agent along with Girlfriend Before Wife. I watch the movie like anyone else would: I have no fucking clue what's going to happen. Especially in the third act. When it's over I stagger out mumbling something about my Eddie. I tell Agent I'm going home instead of to the party. She goes ballistic on me:

"THE FUCK IF YOU ARE. THIS IS YOUR FIRST MOVIE. I DON'T CARE IF YOU KILL YOURSELF AFTERWARDS BUT YOU ARE GOING TO GO TO THAT PARTY, SMILE A FUCKING SMILE, EAT THEIR FUCKING FOOD, AND DRINK THEIR FUCKING ALCOHOL. THEN AND ONLY THEN MAY YOU GO HOME."

So I went to the party and I would love to say it was this total Molly Ringwald "Pretty in Pink" moment where I'm in my homemade dress and Girlfriend Before Wife is Ducky but here's the reality:

I smiled my fucking smile. I ate their fucking food and drank their fucking alcohol. I sat in a corner with Girlfriend Before Wife and only one person approached us the whole night to say hello. It was bitter and awkward and felt a little like Jewish Summer Camp.

And I'd have been really pissed if I'd missed that.


In my next post I'll conclude my Dumb Fucking Lesbian Trilogy with the Demise of our Partnership...