A screenwriter’s Christmas story
So yesterday I noted here how I frequent the progressive blog DailyKos. Yes, because of the politics — if you want to know up to the minute what’s really going on, this is the one blog to frequent. But also because there’s such interesting and talented posters there.
Like Jeff Lieber. During the run-up to the recent election, Lieber contributed one great post after another like here, here, here, and a touching post-election one here.
Every time I’d read something from this Lieber guy, I’d mutter, “Geeze, this guy can write” and only grind my teeth a little with jealousy.
Then lo and behold, I discovered that Jeff is a certified, WGA card-carrying, Venice, California-based screenwriter and TV writer! And involved with not just any TV show, but a little something called “Lost”. Yes, that “Lost.”
Actually Lieber’s story re that series is a good news / bad news tale, the sort of writing saga common in Hollywood where your agent might tell you, “Look, you got fucked, but you got fucked with a golden dick,” as my first agent once told me after I was replaced on a project. Here is an article about Lieber’s personal tale, one you really should read to give you some sense of roller coaster ride which passes itself off as ‘business as usual’ in Hollywood. An excerpt:
The ABC series Lost is the sort of extraordinary hit that TV dreams are made of.
Centering on a band of plane-crash survivors marooned on a mysterious island, Lost has mixed sci-fi and plot twists into a huge phenomenon, attracting millions of viewers and propelling ABC out of a long prime-time ratings slump. When fans tune in to the show for the start of its fourth season in February 2008, one of the names they will see rolling in the opening credits as co-creator is Jeffrey Lieber. That’s Jeffrey Lieber, Evanston Township High School, class of ’87; U. of I., class of ‘91.
Lieber’s success should lend itself to a heartwarming tale about a local kid who defied odds and made it big in show business. But the story is not that simple. In the Chutes & Ladders world that is Hollywood, Lieber finds his biggest triumph discomfiting. The network fired him after he wrote Lost’s original series pilot. He doesn’t know the crew or cast. He has never visited the writers’ offices for the show and never set foot on the set in Hawaii, where much of the series is shot. Lieber won his credit only after a fight for recognition with ABC.
Nobody needs to feel sorry for Jeffrey Lieber: because of that successful arbitration, Lost has served him quite well financially. But he finds that a hollow victory. “It’s money for therapy,” he says, with a laugh.
Fortunately for us readers, Lieber has evidently undertaken some self-therapy by crafting one wonderfully entertaining DailyKos post after another. So I thought it only fitting to link to his latest post entitled “I’ve Just Discovered My Wife Has Been Unfaithful”, Lieber’s comical take on the Nativity Story which begins:
Look, I understand times have been pretty tough; what with half my flock suffering from footrot, the constant sandstorms across the Judean, this Census of Quirinius which is nothing more than a pain in everyone’s donkey (excuse my French) and, y’know, the road back from Nazareth is just one sig-alert after another (Beth-Lehem Ephratahian drivers are the worst… THE WORST I tell you!), but no amount of suffering can excuse my wife’s LYING TO ME in order to cover up her wanton, marital indiscretions!
“An angel of God came and impregnated me,” she told me on that fateful Silent Night.
I mean, REALLY, do I look like I was born since the last daybreak!?!
So a lowly writer (Lieber) manages to take on and ‘defeat’ a mighty network (ABC)? Kinda makes that whole virgin birth thing seem a little less improbable now, doesn’t it?