Swimming with Shrimps

So where was I?

Oh yeah.

There's a lot of great screenwriting sites out there which do their best to help out the next generation of writers by sharing tips, wisdoms, answers to form and process questions, etc. These sites serve a valuable function and if they weren't concerned with screenwriting you'd almost call them noble.

This is not one of those sites.

And why? Well, first of all, it's important for everyone to understand that I spend most of my day eating two-day old fruit salad from large tupperware containers while trying to keep my fifteen-month old son from blinding the family dog with a very sharp American flag he fished out of somebody's trash. (My son loves American flags and I do not look forward to the day when we break it to him that his parents are lefty pinko Democrats who think waving the Stars and Stripes while you're discovering your penis in the bathtub is a tad inappropriate.)

Secondly, if I did have time in my day I certainly wouldn't spend it writing. Seriously. If you're a true working screenwriter, you don't write. Actual WRITING is so late 1990's it's not even funny. Who writes anymore? Look at J.J. Abrams. That dude was about the writingest motherfucker there was for a while. Then he started producing and directing and bam--next thing you know he's on Dinner for Five and actually being shown ON CAMERA sitting in his seat at Award shows. If you notice they almost NEVER show writers at awards shows. And you know why this is?

Because writers are ugly.

But there's J.J. and God bless the guy he's still a writer as far as I'm concerned. (I'll always remember J.J. as the host of the first Hollywood Hills fancy party I went to--he had cases of Twinkies and Ding Dongs stacked to the sky. It made such an impression on little Joshie that a few years ago when I was throwing a housewarming party the first thing I did was drive straight to Smart N Final for a gross of Hostess goodness.)

BTW: When J.J. was on Dinner for Five he mentioned getting to know Tom Cruise during a meeting about War of the Worlds. It is my theory based on nothing but my own Monkey-sense that this occurred after I wrote my drafts but before Koepp was hired. I have no forensic evidence and we'll all just stay tuned to next week's CSI: Josh's Career and see if we can figure it out...

But back to our irregularly scheduled bullshit:

So writing's for amateurs and yet working screenwriters without Emmys still need to work. What do we do? Well, we go to meetings. I love meetings. I'd have meetings all day long. Pitch meetings, general meetings, the meet and greet...Meeting meeting meeting. If there's a room with some arty movie posters on the walls and a free Diet Coke on the table, you can bet your bottom bitch there's a caffeinated Infinite Monkey curled in the corner of the couch riffing about adapting some jackass idea into a tentpole for '07.

But my absolute favorite can't-get-enough-would-do-it-twice-a-day-meeting:

THE (FREE) LUNCH MEETING.

I love (FREE) lunch meetings. Love love love. (FREE) Lunch meetings remind me of being twelve years old and going out with my parents. Twelve's a great age because you're old enough to order for yourself and just aware of how cool it is that you're too young to pay for anything.

In my family there was always this fantastic tension whenever we'd go out to eat because my younger brother had this preternatural sense of how to drive my father insane. Even when he was a young child, younger than twelve certainly, my brother would go directly to the most expensive thing on any menu and order it. I cannot even count the number of times I saw my nine-year old brother eating surf and turf, stuffed crab, lobster claws, you name it. Even if we were at McDonald's he'd figure a way to sneak in an apple pie or a shake, or the large fries. And no matter where we went, you could always count on this from the little bugger: he was going to order a shrimp cocktail for an appetizer.

My brother could find a shrimp cocktail appetizer ANYWHERE. And he was ordering the motherfucker. For whatever reason my father never expected it. We'd go around the table and get to my brother and you'd hear: "I'll have the steak. With the side of gold-dipped crab...And the shrimp cocktail appetizer."

My father's head would slowly rise from the menu and face the biggest shit-eating grin you've ever seen on an eight year old. Then my dad would slowly glance down, check the price of the shrimp, shake his head and close the menu. The best part was always after it showed up and you'd watch my dad mentally counting the shrimp and amortizing the whole thing. At some point in the meal I'd always catch him mumbling to himself: "Two seventy-five per shrimp...Jeez..."

So I love me the (FREE) lunch meeting. Which isn't to say I won't take whatever free meal I can get. But I always start with lunch, downshift to breakfast and as a last resort will accept dinner. My breakfast/dinner ranking may seem odd to you given that dinner is the most expensive meal of the day. But I find dinner meetings a little dangerous.The Infinite Monkey's fond of his tequila but unfortunately he has the tolerance of a fourteen year old gymnast. This has led to a number of frank confessions to executives I've known for, oh, about an hour and a half. Dinner meetings remind me of dates I had in high school which would start out with drinks and some witty conversation but often ended with me missing a chance for sex because I was having an anxiety reaction and dry-heaving in the bathroom.

So I like lunch.

Now the reality is, most executives don't like to eat lunch with writers. Directors, sure. Directors are IMPORTANT and everyone else who sees you eating will recognize the director. But an anonymous writer? Might as well have lunch with someone not in the film business.

Whether I can swing a free lunch usually depends upon how much the person requesting the meeting wants to meet with me. It's usually a pretty accurate measure as to whether they're going out to other writers on the project or whether it's to me exclusively. And if they really covet my Monkey ass, I might even get the ultimate (FREE) lunch: sushi. Nothing says "rewrite our piece of crap we're already pay or play with a director" like a good piece of toro. Or six.

The other way to figure out how much they like me is how far they're willing to go to see me. I live on the East Side of L.A. and nothing pisses me off more than going west of Beverly Hills for a meeting. (Even going to Beverly Hills sucks hard but my agent's over there and I can always stop by after the meeting to pick up an all day parking validation for the Nike Store.)

But it's no different for executives. They're the ones with real jobs. And schedules. And bosses who may be sniffing through their desk drawers while they're gone...

They don't want to leave their office. Especially to meet with a writer.

I recently almost lost a job based on the location of the meeting. A friend of mine is a producer and he works for a big-time film finance type dude. They have an office in Santa Monica--a good forty-five minutes from the MonkeyHouse. So the Santa Monica meeting must ALWAYS be evaluated very carefully.

The day before the meeting I start thinking maybe the project in question isn't worth the drive across town. After all, I'm just meeting with MY FRIEND. He can certainly haul his ass out of the office and buy me lunch. Agent's Assistant calls Producer Friend's Assistant and says I want to convert Santa Monica meeting to a lunch. The assistant explains that this is not possible as Producer Friend's Fancy Boss wants to "pop his head in the meeting."

Uh...No. Monkey doesn't play that.

I explain to all those involved the problem here: if Fancy Boss wants to "pop in", and "pop in" means "stay for a half an hour and hear what this fucking monkey has to say..." Well I'm just not prepared for that meeting. This is just supposed to be a casual conversation and I won't be pitching to any Fancy Boss types.

Now if "pop in" really means "pop in" then that's also a non-starter. I'm not going to make a four hour trip out of something I can do in half the time with free food just so Fancy Boss can say hello.

I get a call from Producer Friend's Assistant:

PFA: (snippy) You need to come to Santa Monica.
ME: No. I don't think so. It's far.
PFA: You understand Fancy Boss is going to pop in?
ME: I do. Perhaps he'd like to join us for lunch?
PFA: He's not going to do that.
ME: Well I'm not going to Santa Monica. It's not that type of meeting.
PFA: I'll call you back.

Now understand something: many breaches of Hollywood etiquette have occurred here--some by me and some by the PFA. But I don't really give a fuck at this point. I call my agent's assistant.

ME: I just got some attitude from PFA because I won't go to Santa Monica.
AA: She called you? And gave you attitude?
ME: She did. She was very snippy.
AA: Whattya want to do?
ME: Pass.
AA: On the meeting?
ME: On the project.
AA: Sounds good to me. I'll tell Agent.
ME: Thank you!

Five minutes later Producer Friend calls me.

"You and me Josh. Lunch. Beverly Hills. Sushi."

And don't think I didn't figure out a way to order a fucking shrimp cocktail.