#james and his two weird dog-coded partners

[horsebf]

House 4.13 | “No More Mr. Nice Guy”

[gregwhite]

SOLD A SHOW

So a writing career is kind of made up of two jobs: getting staffed on other people’s shows, and selling your own shows in the hopes that one day you will be the one doing the staffing. I’ve been lucky since getting my first writing job in 2009 to basically be employed on other people’s shows on a fairly consistent basis, with only a few notable gaps*, but I hadn’t had much experience selling shows. 

I had pitched a bunch over the years, and I’m still very fond of a lot of them. One of them was called Lesser Gods (pitched with character designs by my very talented board artist pal Will Patrick)--it was set in the realm of the gods, and followed the Zeus character’s degenerate son as he is exiled into a life ruling the lesser gods, aka the gods nobody cares about (there was the god of smooth jazz, and so on). Very fun show, but I don’t think I pitched it very well. Then there was a show called Slice, pitched with Six Point Harness, which was more of a King of the Hill sort of tone set on a crappy public golf course. The show began when this slummy golf pro’s somewhat estranged daughter, a local government employee, is hired to make the golf course profitable, which basically makes her her dad’s boss. Another show I really loved, but I don’t think it really connected with the folks we took it to. 

And on and on and on. 

Then in 2015, I had partnered with Alex Bulkley at Shadow Machine (a great man, and a great studio) on another animated show of mine called Robot Daughter (my agents made sure my DreamWorks deal allowed me to pitch and develop to outside buyers). The premise of RD was basically Terminator meets Girls. A small-time inventor is kidnapped by the Russians (it’s always the Russians) and forced at gunpoint to create a killing machine for them, which he does, but he ends up developing paternal feelings for his creation, so he takes it on the run, slaps skin on it, and tries to hide it in plain sight by enrolling it in high school, passing it off as his teenage daughter. The joke of the show was that for this death machine, capable of anything, high school is a lot more complicated and confusing than actual war. It was funny and vulgar and we sold it to MTV. That was the first time I really felt truly confident in a pitch, where I could just talk about the show without little note cards or anything. It was just “here’s the hook, here’s what the show’s about, thanks for listening.” It was a good lesson in not only how to pitch, but also what to pitch. There are some things that you take out that you feel sort of like, “Yeah, this is a show more or less” and then there are things you take out that feel like, “Oh, this is definitely a show.” That isn’t to say they follow a template, quite the opposite, but that there’s something that just feels right about it. 

I wrote a pilot I’m still really fond of (it’s become a sample my agents and managers use quite often) but ultimately MTV decided, after buying our show, that they didn’t want to do animation anymore. Fair enough. It was a throwback to sort of that Liquid Television era of MTV, and in the end it wasn’t enough to convince them that animation was where it’s at. 

A note on animation for a sec. While I love it, I never intentionally decided that I was going to do primarily animation, it just sort of happened this way. And when it comes time for me to pitch something, the ideas I get most excited about take place in alternate universes and other realities with gods or animals or robots as protagonists. At this point, I just go with it. But on the selling side of things, a lot of studios and networks don’t really know how to approach animation. Is it its own thing? Can it exist alongside live-action shows? It’s a weirder, more niche thing to pitch it seems. I don’t let that really influence what I pitch or write, but it’s worth noting. 

Anyway, moving on. At the end of 2015, I was rewatching The Sopranos, and one episode ended with this beautiful Nick Lowe song called The Beast in Me and I became a little obsessed with it. Just the notion of this roiling monster living inside someone (basically all of us to some degree) and the person not knowing exactly how to deal with it struck me as particularly profound. It also made me think of my dog, Louie, a little wonderhound schnauzer, and how he seems to contain all these amusing contradictory traits. One minute he’s trotting along next to me, docile and obedient, and the next minute he’s vomiting blood and shrieking at the sight of a squirrel or one of his SACRED ENEMIES (pugs and other flat faced dogs). 

So with this in mind, I wrote a script for a show called The Beast in Me. It was basically, what if Bambi decided to get revenge on his mother’s killer, but in doing so, gets sidetracked and wanders off into a nearby city and gets a job at a data entry office. The show was very dry and odd and absurd, and was sort of just about this fox character learning what it means to become human (he gets a job, makes friends, experiences love, etc). I sent it to my managers at Principato-Young, as I often do, with a very self-satisfied note: “Hey! Here’s another script! I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done!” When we connected, they were less enthused than I (I get VERY enthused about things), but they said that there was something about the revenge aspect of this show that struck them as interesting. I recall one of my managers saying, “It feels more like a Western.” It was the end of the year, and I was leaving for the holidays, but they told me to fiddle around with it to see if maybe there was something there. 

So I went home to Jersey for a few weeks, and thought about it, and when I came back in January of 2016, we started talking about this idea weekly. First it was a change in the setting, from present day Hudson Valley to the 1800s Dakota Territories. And it needed a tone shift. So I made it about The Fox, now this sort of bizarre combination of a sweet, sentient animal who is at the same time violently hungry for revenge and yet weirdly naive about the world in his absolute dedication to his personal code. And he’s out there traveling with a Chinese immigrant who is searching for his own family, and this murderous crack shot Molly, who dreams of becoming the first female US Marshal. And then it needed a villain, so we rewrote history and made it Chester A Arthur, who we portray as a lunatic American Hitler with no moorings in reality. He murders James Garfield to snatch the presidency, and by the time The Fox discovers who killed his mom, the task is clear: kill the dictatorial president of the United States. (Who knew this would be so satisfying to write post November 8...)

So it took us quite a while to really land on the tone and the serialized nature of the story and to make sure it functioned as a bizarro drama and not just as a disposable joke machine comedy. And so by September of 2016 the adults started setting up pitches for us, and we basically spent 2 weeks or so in the early fall pitching once or twice a day. The pitch felt very good from the start. I knew the show very well, and was very passionate about making this show (basically, it was me doing Tarantino/Miyazaki fan fiction). Plus, the pitch was fun to do. I liked talking about it. I liked telling people about our alt Chester A Arthur. I liked walking them through five seasons of serialized storytelling. And this was a big difference. In the past, I worried so much about hitting certain talking points in the pitch, that I never really considered whether or not I even liked the words I was saying. This time around, the metric was: what is the detail in each section that I can’t wait to get to? No notes, no pages, just go in there and tell these people about our strange story. 

And it worked! This combination of a weird but familiar thing, and a straight forward telling of something very strange ended up resulting in two offers. One from a streaming channel, and one from FX. FX was always the target in our heads in terms of the tone they aim for, and the kinds of stuff they put on the air, and so we were pleased to be able to go with them. Then the adults started doing the deal stuff, and I went home for Christmas again. 

Now here we are, and I’m about to start writing. So far the conversations we’ve had with their execs have been very creatively satisfying. They want us to make something unique and they have been pushing me to do better work, and to consider the characters’ inner lives and all the things that are very easy to ignore. I pitched them a few pilot premises, and they were off the mark, and we’re** about to go back to them with what I think is a strong but simple premise that allows us to introduce the world and the show to an audience while still leaving plenty of room for the quiet stillness associated with the Western genre. We always said that the show was more anime than Archer. I love Archer more than anything else some days, but it’s a very quick, dialog rich show. This thing will work best in a slower execution. 

So that’s the shape of it. I wrap my very happy time at DreamWorks in a few short weeks, and then I’ll switch over to writing The Beast in Me pilot full time for a few months before seeing what comes my way next. Hopefully I can write a script on this thing that convinces FX to let us make a pilot, and then eventually get to series because I really want to spend a few years making this incredibly strange show. 

I hope to convey a few things here. One is: it’s ok if things take a while. I used to think if something wasn’t ready in five minutes or less, it wasn’t worth pursuing. But having had this experience, one that I enjoyed at every step, I’m okay with something taking longer than expected (in this case it was well over a year between conception and pitching and eventually selling). The other thing to point out is that it’s really not worth pitching things unless you’re very excited about them. This sounds obvious, and maybe it is, but I feel as though there’s enough stuff out there that nobody seems to care about. At the very least, you owe it to yourself and anybody who might watch or read your stuff to care more than anyone else does. There are easier ways to make money than selling cartoons. 

A few other takeaways from this experience: the outcome doesn’t matter. In other words, is this show more valid because we sold it? Would it have been less valid had we failed to sell it? Of course not. And yet a certain extrinsically motivated mindset would say that the opposite is true. Ignore extrinsic motivators. Be intrinsically motivated. Now obviously, you need to eat food and live in the world, so making a living is a valid reason for doing anything, but from a strictly creative point of view, this experience has bolstered my beliefs in doing good work for its own sake. Lewis Hyde would likely agree if I understand his dense writing correctly. 

Finally, this show I think taught me to be fully confident in my ideas, but also that confidence doesn’t come from blind faith, it comes from a true belief and connection to your work. I would take long walks while working on this idea with Lou, and I would play Morricone on my headphones and walk and walk for hours and let the show reveal itself to me in waves. I would then go back home and write down my impressions of what the music made me feel. It gave me a sense in the feeling I wanted to write towards. And in this process, I came to really love what I was thinking about it in terms of the eventuality of this show being made. And that made me very excited and knowledgable by the time we walked into rooms*** for our pitch meetings.

I don’t know if The Beast in Me will ever become something anyone sees, but I do know that I’m enjoying the process, and I promise you, if you can hold tight to that enjoyment, you will never fail.

*Such as the gap between April 2013 and October 2013 where I wasn’t on a staff at all...this was right before I started writing on Puss in Boots at DreamWorks and now here we are over 3 years later, still at it. Such is a freelance style career. The trick is to not let the external stuff influence your internal life. 

**I keep saying we or us because my managers are serving as producers on this, so often it’s a “we” more than “me.”

***A note on rooms and circular life paths. In 2010 or so, I was a very new-at-this writer, having just done a very short 7 episode season of a then-unaired show on Comedy Central called Ugly Americans. FX had a pilot called Duchess, later called Archer, and they were thinking that maybe the show would have a writing staff or maybe some freelance writers at some point. So I remember sitting in this room watching this pilot of theirs, just being so amazed to even be on the dance floor, and thinking how fortunate I was that things worked out as I had hoped they would. And then 6 years later, we sold The Beast in Me to FX in the same room. It doesn’t mean anything, but it does. It’s easy to let things slip by in an attempt to channel the Stoics, but once in a while it’s important to allow yourself a brief moment of satisfaction that your process is leading you down a rich and fulfilling path. 

[johnark]

TRUMP - PUTIN - TILLERSON

On the campaign trail I heard Donald Trump say “wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were friends with Russia?” At the time, I thought “ this is a weird statement.” Especially when Putin and Russia are involved in so much illegal and unlawful mischief. Then he began to occasionally praise Putin as a great world leader. And Putin reciprocated! Then Donald began to disparage China. Claiming that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by China. Then he accused China of currency manipulation. Whoa. What is going on here? China is our second largest trading partner after Canada and just ahead of Mexico. Russia is not in the top 15. China is the largest holder of our debt. Both China and Japan hold over $1 trillion with little Ireland third at $266 billion. Russia is 17th at $87 billion. Why is Trump cozying up to Russia and disparaging China? Something is going on here. Then I recalled that Paul Manafort had resigned as Trump campaign manager after it was revealed that he had worked to elect pro Russian Viktor Yanukovych as President of Ukraine, apparently being paid $12.7 million. Viktor spurned an offer of financial help from the EU and turned to Putin and Russia for a $15 billion bailout. This infuriated Ukrainians and Viktor fled to Moscow from a citizen’s revolt. He was completely discredited when his Versailles-like palace and life style was revealed. Putin used the unstable situation to seize Crimea and launce a covert military invasion of Eastern Ukraine. His forces shot down a Malaysian air liner during the operation, killing all on board. The European Union and the US (Obama) placed severe sanctions on Russia for this outrage against international law and civilized conduct. In Ukraine Manafort had many personal links to figures close to Putin. They formed a company in the Cayman Islands with Manafort as one of the directors, an offshore activity often used by the affluent to conceal and distribute untaxed and often illegal assets. In the 1990s Trump had some colossal bankruptcies, losing nearly a billion dollars. Surely, using the tax code involving Net Operating Loss (NOL), this has allowed him to avoid paying taxes for 20 years or so. When the NOL is taken there is a carry back for 2 years and then there is a carry forward for up to 20 years. My guess is this is one of the reasons Donald doesn’t want to disclose his tax returns. Anyway, with these bankruptcies, Donald was not able to raise capitol in the US for his worldwide projects. He went to Russia seeking funding and investment. After Donald broke the ice, his children were frequent visitors. Rosneft Oil Company, a state-owned monopoly, has its headquarters very close to the Kremlin in Moscow. It is reported that Putin and other high ranking government officials receive undisclosed income from Rosneft. So, it is widely believed that Trump and company received the funding and investment they needed for their world-wide luxury real estate projects from these people. Putin and associates want Rosneft to expand and produce more income. The petroleum industry in Russia is one of the largest in the world. Russia has the largest reserves and is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas. It has the second largest coal reserves. This is where Exxon Mobile Energy and its CEO Rex Tillerson enter the story. Rosneft and Exxon enter into contracts to explore the Black Sea, develop shale in Siberia, and drill for oil in the Arctic where the profits there alone are estimated at $15 billion. They formed a US-Russian Bahamas-based oil firm, Exxon – Neftegas with Tillerson as one of the directors. Another offshore operation in the mix. However, all this US-Russia oil activity, worth many billions of dollars, is on hold due to the sanctions put on Putin and Russia by the Obama administration and the European Union. Sanctions put in place because of Putin’s involvement in Ukraine. Of course his annexation of part of Georgia and meddling in Moldova and threatening the Baltic States are matters of concern, too. But the point is: I think I now understand why Trump said “wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were friends with Russia?” Is that paving the way for the relaxing or removing the sanctions against Putin and Russia after Trump gets into office and installs Tillerson as Secretary of State? Then Exxon – Rosneft can proceed, generating enormous profits that will greatly benefit Exxon, Putin and the contacts already established by the Trump organization. After the sanctions are removed, will Putin award Tillerson another medal? Maybe there is one for the Trump organization as well. Is it any surprise that Trump states that all US intelligence agencies are wrong in identifying Russia/Putin as the source of the political hacking during the presidential campaign? We can’t have anything interfere with the plan to remove the sanctions, can we? OK, Trump intends to put Rex Tillerson into the top cabinet position, Secretary of State. Let’s look at some of the other Trump appointments. Its Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. She is an advocate of “school choice.” This means developing a voucher system, diverting public education money to pay for private schools and home schooling. She is also an advocate of abolishing the Department of Education. For Environmental Protection Agency Administrator its Scott Pruitt. He is a ‘global warming’ denier. He wants to relax or eliminate many EPA restrictions and regulations and eventually eliminate the EPA itself. He advocates expanding the use of fossil energy. He also advocates dropping out of the Paris Environmental Accords. The department recently unsuccessfully tried to identify employees who believe in global warming. Secretary of Energy is going to be Rick Perry, former Texas governor. He is another ‘global warming’ denier and of course he wants less regulation and restriction on the oil and gas industry. He stated in the campaign debates that he wants to eliminate the Department of Energy. Secretary of the Treasury is going to be Steven Mnuchin. Steve is a former wall street banker, hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs partner. He wants to eliminate all these silly restrictions on the banks and Wall Street and return to the wild west financial sector that we had during the Bush administration. Senator Jeff Sessions is tagged for the post of Attorney General, the nation’s top law enforcement official. He is a big NRA supporter, opposed to any restrictions on our law abiding gun owners. His views on civil rights are well documented and prevented his being named a federal judge. Andy Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants will be Secretary of Labor. Andy opposes any increase in the minimum wage and has said that eliminating the minimum wage would be helpful. No expansion for overtime pay either. Wilber Ross, a billionaire distressed debt investor, will be Secretary of Commerce. He and Carl Icahn were bondholders in the Trump Taj Mahal as it stood on the brink of bankruptcy. He said that he and Carl could have foreclosed and ended the Trump organization, but instead they negotiated a restructuring with Trump that allowed him to save his brand. Ryan Zinke, Montana GOP congressman, will be Secretary of the Interior. He advocates for US energy independence. I hope this doesn’t mean more offshore drilling, drilling on public lands and an expansion of fracking. He has shown a commitment to public lands and conservation. Scientists are undertaking a frantic effort to copy decades of climate data that they fear could vanish under a hostile Trump administration. Trump has nominated Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina to be UN Ambassador. She was a prominent and frequent critic of Trump during the primary. They sparred bitterly. Could Trump have named her so that she would step down as governor and thereby elevate Lieutenant Governor Henry McMaster, who was an early and vocal supporter of Trump? David M. Friedman, an Orthodox Jewish bankruptcy lawyer from Long Island, and very close Trump friend, has been nominated as Ambassador to Israel. He is hostile to a two state solution for the Israeli – Palestinian situation. He advocates annexing the West Bank, relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem, and expanding settlements, especially in Jerusalem. He has compared liberal US Jews to WWII “Kapos.” He has called Obama an anti-Semite. Friedman has handled many Trump bankruptcies, including the debacle in New Jersey from 2004 – 2014 that nearly sank the Trump ship. You can be assured that Jared Kushner, another Orthodox Jew will continue to be a Trump confidant with some White House position. He’s married to Ivanka and is another Israeli hawk. Elaine Chao is nominated for Secretary of Transportation. Chao was Labor Secretary under Bush 43 and was assistant Transportation secretary under Bush 41. The four top national security position nominees by Trump are indeed interesting. Three of the nominees are retired military people. This is the first time in US history that this has occurred. Our society is based on civilian control of the military. Trump stated “I know more than the generals about ISIS.” A reporter asked him what his plan was for ISIS. He said “On day one I will ask my generals for a plan to defeat ISIS as soon as possible.” The reporter said “Is that your plan – to ask someone else for their plan?” Former Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis is nominated for Secretary of Defense. He is well known for being abrasive and difficult to get along with. Obama forced him into retirement for his ‘shoot first and sort out the consequences later’ attitude. Retired Marine General John Kelly for Secretary of Homeland Security. Immigration advocates accepted the nomination with measured approval. They wanted Kris Kobach of Kansas who has extreme hard-line views on immigration. General Kelly is blunt spoken and was US Southern Command leader which put him in charge of Guantanamo Bay and exposed him to immigration problems, drug trafficking, arms trafficking and other cross-border problems. National Security Advisor will be retired Army General Michael Flynn. He has been criticized for dabbling in debunked conspiracy theories and Islamophobia. He pushed the fake news story about the Washington DC pizzeria which resulted in shots fired at the establishment. He has financial ties to Russia and wants to improve Russian relations. Over 50 non profit groups advocated for his removal as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama resulting in his retirement from the post. He takes a very hard line approach to US security. He and Mattis should get along well. CIA Director will be Mike Pompeo, Kansas GOP congressman. He relentlessly attacked Hillary Clinton, accusing her of “criminality” regarding her emails and private server. He favors restoring torture as a CIA tool, opposes closing Guantanamo Bay, is a climate change denier, opposes the Iran deal and calls for an Iranian regime change. Does that mean invading Iran? He wants to continue and expand US government domestic surveillance even though it has been declared illegal by the courts. Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon, GOP presidential candidate and early Trump supporter has been nominated for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He knows nothing about this, but he is a clever, intelligent, well educated person. This is most probably a political payback for early support when it was needed most. Mike Mulvaney, South Carolina GOP congressman, has been nominated for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is one of the GOP’s most outspoken fiscal hawks. He often breaks with the GOP on fiscal matters. He is an advocate for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. He and House Speaker Paul Ryan should work well together. Hopefully. Who is going to be Secretary of Health and Human Services? Its going to be Georgia GOP congressman Tom Price. Price, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell all strongly stated their desire to repeal the ACA, privatize Social Security, privatize Medicare, eliminate Medicaid and privatize VA health care. The puzzling aspect of this is that they want to repeal the ACA before they have a replacement. It seems to me that that approach will create health care chaos. These people are not stupid. Surely there is a plan in mind somewhere regarding this process and they are just not disclosing it. I hope that is the case. I suppose they also were surprised by the election result and were caught off guard and without a plan other than “repeal and replace with something else.” A GOP Senator voiced the same concern on a Sunday talk show on 8 January 2017. Defunding Planned Parenthood is another priority of Price, Ryan and McConnell. The abortion issue, I suppose. Unfortunate, because PP does a lot of good in women’s health care. It’s already unlawful for them to use federal money for abortions. And they do give counseling and adoption advice when a women inquires about it. Federal funding is about 40% of their budget. Another action the GOP has put on the calendar that appears to have poor planning is the confirmation of the Trump nominees. Senate Majority Leader McConnell says nine of the nominees will be reported to committee this week, with the first being Attorney General, Jeff Sessions on Tuesday, 10 January 2017 at 9:30 AM. The Democrats are complaining that the documentation required for a committee hearing have not been submitted. According to the rules, a nominee must pass through a series of investigations by the FBI, the IRS, and OGE (Office of Government Ethics). Maybe this is why the GOP tried to strip the OGE of any power. The nominee must also complete and submit the Public Financial Disclosure Report and certain questionnaires related to the background check. McConnell says the process will start on Tuesday with or without the documentation. For Obama’s nominees he was quite adamant that all documentation be properly in place before hearings began. Does this mean that in the congress if you have the votes the rules don’t apply? Will Sessions be allowed to vote for himself? The schedule for the week is as follows: Attorney General, Jeff Sessions – 10 Jan, 9:30 AM; CIA Director, Mike Pompeo – 11 Jan, 10 AM; DHS, John Kelly – 11 Jan, 2 PM; Education, Betsy DeVos – 11 Jan, 10 AM; Labor, Andy Puzder – 17 Jan; Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson – 11, 12 Jan; Transportation, Elaine Chao – 11 Jan, 10:15 AM; UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley – 18 Jan; Housing, Ben Carson – 12 Jan, 10 AM. According to the rules the process is supposed to proceed like this: the documentation is submitted to the relevant committee, the committee reviews the documents, interviews the nominee, and votes to report the nominee favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation. After the nomination clears the committee, it moves to the Senate floor for a simple majority vote. Well, it appears that the GOP congress is not to be outdone by The Donald in the category of surprises and irregularities. I am concerned about global warming. George Bush was a denier, also. The longer we wait to take action, the more difficult it will be to recover if it is still possible. I’ll be watching The Donald and the sanctions on Russia with great interest. He cozies up to Russia with “wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were friends with Russia?” Praising Putin as a great leader several times. Agrees with Putin and Julian Assange on hacking. Strongly disparages and ridicules US intelligence organizations for stating that Russia under Putin’s direction hacked the GOP and Democratic parties and only disclosed Democratic data. What’s his objective? Laying the groundwork for removing the sanctions is the only reasonable thing I can think of. Trump seems to pay more attention to social media than to his 17 intelligence agencies. He did say “The daily briefing is a ‘mind-numbing’ repetition of the obvious that I’ll often skip.” On the national security side, I wonder if we are preparing for an invasion of Iran. There are hawks in key government positions and a real hawk as Israeli Ambassador. Netanyahu would be pleased with an invasion or with destruction, as in Iraq. It is really humorous to hear Kellyanne Conway and Reince Priebus on the Sunday news talk shows spinning the weeks Trumpisms and tweets. Well, Bernie and Hillary can stop thinking about getting the “1% to pay their fair share.” The 1% is now in charge of the government. And do we have a new Troika? Trump – Putin – Tillerson.