The Comedy Writer (8 page)

“It didn't work because
I was there.
You humiliated him. The way this town works is you make people
look good
, not bad. Markey might've thought it was funny if you hadn't made him look like a fool in front of me.”

“I wasn't counting on you being there.”

“You should've had a backup plan.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Anyway, I read your script.”

“You did?” “It's not bad.” “Yeah?”

“Why don't we meet?” he said. “Do you work for Warner's?” “No, I'm an agent. Marshall and Pinson.” “Yeah?”

“I'll have my assistant call you in the morning. We're in Century City. She'll give you the details.” “Great,” I said. “Great.”

referred to the Marshall and Pinson group as a “boutique agency,” which sounded to me like a place specializing in gay films but was really just a fluffy way of saying they were small and preferred it that way. This was bullshit, of course. No agency
wanted
to stay small, and if they did, why the hell had they called me on a Sunday? But because they
were
small, they were able to give new writers more personal attention than the CAAs and ICMs of the world—or so he claimed.

Levine, as he preferred to be called, had long frizzy hair parted on the side and a very large hooked nose on a muscly face. A cross between Kenny G, Tiny Tim, and Fred Flintstone's phonograph. He'd graduated from Cornell and he still retained a New York accent. The man looked psychotic, but he was quite sane and he knew the business as well as anyone I would meet.

“So do you think you can sell it?” I asked after we'd bullshitted for a few minutes.

“The truth?”

“Lie to me.”

“Very likely,” he said.

“That a lie?”

“Yes.”

“How unlikely is it?”

“You've got a better chance winning a big dick competition in South Central.”

Levine walked out from behind his desk.

“Hey, hey, hey, come on,” he said, “I didn't call you in here just to break your balls. We're gonna be able to use this script as a writing sample.”

He picked up a small basketball off the floor.

“What do you mean?”

He took aim at a minibasket in the corner of the room, then retrieved his miss.

“You know, we'll run it around town, maybe get someone to hire you on another assignment.”

“If this would get me hired on another job, then why won't they buy it?”

“They just won't.”

“Why not?”

“Because the studios are looking for high concept.”

“What's that?”

Levine ran his fingers through his hair and I wished I'd gone to film school.

“A 'high concept' idea is one that any idiot can understand in one line. Three bachelors find a baby on their doorstep:
Three Men and a Baby.
A cop gets a new partner, and the guy turns out to be suicidal:
Lethal Weapon.
A bunch of middle-aged yuppies yearn to
be cowboys:
City Slickers.
A father shrinks his kids:
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
Notice a trend? Each one lets you know exactly what's going to happen before you set foot inside the theater.”

“And. that's what they want?”

'That's what they want. Mrs. Kornbluth in Duluth doesn't want to think—that's why she voted for Bush, remember? She wants to go to a movie she can trust. There can be blood, there can be death, there can be children burning in rice paddies—as long as she knows it's coming.”

“What about
sex, lies, and videotape?”

“A fluke. And it wouldn't have stood a chance without 'sex' in the title. Even so, the studios aren't looking to make those kinds of movies. That was a smash hit for what it was, and what did it pull in: twenty, thirty mil?”

“But it cost less than a million to make. That's what I'm offering them with
How I Won Her Back.
No chase scenes, a couple small special effects—if you did it at a major studio, it might cost three million at most. And it's a love story. Everybody loves a love story.”

“If it's original.”

“Mine's not original?”

“You did a good job. That's why I called you in.”

“But it's not original?”

“It's okay,”

“What's not original? I want to know.” He rolled his eyes and I said, “Seriously, I want to know.”

“All right. For instance, the opening—where he wakes up in the apartment with the beer cans everywhere, pizza in the bathtub, the alarm clock going off—you got that from watching too much TV.”

“He lost the love of his life. He'd been on a bender.”

“Yeah, and I've seen it a million times. I'm just saying there are fresher ways of showing a guy who's down and out.”

“It's not fresh?”

“Could be hipper.”

“Is it bad?”

“Not bad, just a little bland.”

“What do you mean, 'bland'? You mean boring?”

“I mean
bland.
Blandsville, Bland City, Blandarama, George Blanda.”

“Okay, I'll rework the beginning. I like that. That was a good note. So what else is wrong?”

“It's not so much that there's anything wrong, Henry, it's just that there's not enough set pieces.”

I kept a straight face and nodded, and then I thought, the hell with it and asked what a set piece was.

“A humorous situation or interesting scene, like for instance in
Lethal Weapon
when they put Mel Gibson on top of that building with the suicidal guy. That's a nice set piece.”

“But this isn't
Lethal Weapon
, it's a love story.”

“And that's why I can't sell it.”

“Okay, I'll come up with a few more set pieces. I'll add another layer—a subplot or something.”

“You're missing the point. That's not the problem.”

“Well, what's the problem?”

Levine took aim at his basket again and missed.

“What's the problem?” I repeated.

“The problem is this, man: Nobody gives a big ratfuck about how you won her back.”

“It's not
me”

Levine sat back at his desk, annoyed now. “I know that. I was just making a point. Stop being so sensitive. If you want to make it in this town, you've got to stop being sensitive. Look, Henry, if you want to try and raise your own money and do the thing yourself, you might be able to get it done. But I'm telling you as an agent who knows this business inside and out, the studios are not looking for this kind of complicated human relations bullshit—no offense—not this year anyway. Like I said, they want a movie they can understand in one line.”

“But you can understand mine in one line. The guy's trying to win her back.”

“That's not as clear as you think.”

“No?”

“No. It takes off in a direction I didn't expect. Like that … that God scene. What the hell is that?”

“There's no God scene. That's not God.”

“Well, who is it?”

“Does God have wings? I don't think so. Angels have wings.”

“God doesn't have wings?”

“No. And you don't call God 'Bernie.' “

“So what is that? Is it supposed to be real? Is it in his head?”

“Yeah, I mean no, I mean it's whatever you want it to be, that's up to the viewer.”

“You're leaving too much up for interpretation. You can't do that in a mainstream movie.”

“No offense, Levine, but I don't think you're giving the public enough credit.”

Levine whipped the ball against the backboard. It ricocheted around the room, knocking a pile of scripts off the windowsill.

“Goddamn it, if you want me to represent you, you've got to start paying attention! I'm not gonna argue with you, man, 'cause I
know
I'm right.”

Suddenly I felt very stupid. Who did I think I was coming up here telling the man his business?

“Now I realize you probably just spent the last year of your life busting your ass on this script, and you're hoping that everyone back in Peoria will see it on the screen, because despite what you say, we both know it's half-autobiographical.”

“Not really, and I'm from Rhode Island.”

“Start agreeing with me.”

“It's partly autobiographical, and I'm from Peoria.”

I was relieved to see him smile.

“Thank you,” he said.

Levine straightened the backboard, picked up the ball, left the scripts on the floor.

“You see, I'm thinking on a grander scale than you, Henry. I don't want to just get this movie made, I want to give you a
career'
His tone softened. “Let me ask you this: What are you looking for out here? What are your goals? You just want to get this movie produced and get the hell out of here?”

I hadn't thought much past getting this first movie made, but I didn't want to seem like an idiot, so I said, “My goals are fairly modest. I want to make movies. Nothing big, just a few good movies. And it would be nice if none of them ever aired on
USA Up All Night.”

“Would you like to direct someday?”

I'm a major dreamer and you can't be a major dreamer without having a healthy ego. Because if you don't sort of believe in your dreams—by that I mean
daydreams
—then what's the point in
dreaming? You'd have to be a damn psycho to dream about saving a house full of sorority girls from a raging fire, or spanking a home run over the Green Monster to win Game Seven, or spending a weekend on Nantucket banging the shit out of Elle McPherson if some part of you didn't believe it was possible. To imagine those things without believing would be hellish. Well, I'd had all those thoughts and many more outlandish ones, but never in my life had I permitted myself to dream about being a movie director.

“Sure, I'd like to eventually direct my own stuff. You know, have a little more control, do it right.”

“Well, that's what I want, too. And if you do what I say, you actually stand a chance. Your script made me laugh out loud a couple times. I never laugh out loud. And your stuff isn't typical, you've got your own style. Ninety percent of all comedies written in the last ten years were written with Bill Murray in mind. And they're all the same. Some are good, most suck, but it's the same smart-alecky shit that only Bill Murray can get away with. Yours is a little smart-alecky, too, but there's something about it I like. I like the way you go for it. If you can make people laugh, you can work around here, that's the good news. The bad news is … you're a loose cannon and it worries me.”

Levine looked me in the eye. I tried to send positive vibes, but what I felt coming out was pathetic.

“Listen, Levine, I know I can be a pain in the ass and I have a lot to learn about this business, but I'm a quick study. Give me a chance, and I'll do what you say.”

There was a buzz and Levine put his headphone back on. “Yeah, put him through.”

While the agent talked on the phone, I looked around the room. It was a real agent's office and I was pleased to be there. Two framed
movie posters hung on the wall behind Levine. One was
Lost Angels;
the other
Someone to Watch Over Me.
I hadn't seen either, but I'd heard of both and wondered what Levine had to do with them. On the desk was a picture of the agent on skis, up in the mountains with an actress. The woman wasn't particularly talented or famous, but I recognized her, and it made me feel even better about him.

Levine covered the mouthpiece, and said, “I've got to take this. Why don't you come back another day.”

'That's okay,” I said, “I don't mind waiting.”

“Set up a time with Meegan.”

“Should we make it a lunch?”

“No.”

I was fucking my younger sister's ugly girlfriend with the tremendous ass, which upon awakening I found upsetting. Not because I was fucking her, but because I wasn't. I looked at the clock. Four-fifteen. I was dazed and could still imagine a woman's approving moans. They became louder and more real. I climbed out of bed, opened the peephole on my door. My neighbor, Mount Tiffany, was leaning against the hallway wall, topless, her eyes closed and mouth slung open. A short middle-aged man wearing an Armani suit and an NBA coach's haircut was attempting to scale her. His teeth were clamped pitonlike to Tiffany's left nipple as if for dear life, which also accounted, I think, for her moans. When the man's pants fell to his ankles, the two of them tumbled to the carpet and struggled toward penetration. Tiffany's dress was suddenly up around her neck, right next to her ankles, and her pink fingernails were digging into the man's pale rump. I
felt a little creepy intruding on the lovebirds, but it was the closest I'd been to an aroused woman in months, so I said fuck it and started stroking my tool right up until Mr. Armani got his nut off with a melodramatic grunt and some shameless professings of love.