Alex Russo was named after Alex Reiger.

We're all in a Time Machine, but it's also a dumb one

Just hung up with someone on a call who ended it by asking, “Why the hell are you so happy!”

Yeah? Why am I so happy? Haven’t I looked around at the world? Looked at the business I am in? Looked at the other business I am in? How about my inability to find parking on Larchmont Blvd during dinner time? That has to make you frustrated. How about the fact that after moving my youngest back into the house after they graduated from Northwestern, I had to immediately move everything out of the upstairs because we’re doing construction up there and I just had to save money by not hiring movers to do it, and afterwards it’s taken me over a month to physically gain the use of my right arm because I’m not twenty-five anymore? That has to piss you off. For god’s sakes, have you watched CNN? Read the news? Walked outside? Come on, man!

I’m happy, you see, because all of that stuff up there is going to happen to me whether or not I decide to be happy or sad or mad or angry about any of it.

I suppose if I ran into Gary Marsh on the street, maybe I’d let a flash of the old Angry Peter come alive as my shoulder would meet his soft belly the exact moment of contact as I tackled him in the middle of the crosswalk by the Quinta Inn. I’m not sure why we were both at the Quinta Inn, but things happen there. Scores get settled. Ask around. They’ll tell you. Quinta Inn keeps its secrets, bro.

La Quinta, not Hotel California, not that evil. But you see it, right?

Now let’s make no mistake. I’m not happy because I’m an idiot or because my head is in the sand. I’m happy because as the great animator Phil Roman once said, “Laughter keeps you young.” But I am also a real big idiot, for sure. I got up to give a speech on Wednesday night and opened my speech by remarking that someone who spoke before me had mentioned just enough about the Aristophanes play, “Lysistrata,” that I now could tell people I had read it, when in fact I have never done such a thing.

I may not know my famous Greek playwrights, but I do know what my favorite episode of All in the Family is – the one where Archie and Meathead get locked in a basement and have to spend the night together. I also know the number of the Taxi Cab, 804, in the “Taxi Dance” episode of Wizards was important. And why it was important. Because in the 1980s comedy series “Taxi” there was this cool episode, “Memories of Cab 804.” In it, this one taxi cab everyone likes gets totaled in an accident. All the characters share their favorite memories of driving Cab 804 and how it brought them luck.

Saying Goodbye to their favorite Taxi Cab. Alex Reiger, second from right

Sitting around the Wizards writer’s room, we were talking about doing a story on Wizards about taxi cabs, I said, “Hey, we’re in New York City with Wizards, Taxi was set in NYC, let’s have the place Alex goes be The Sunshine Cab Company and let’s have the cab be numbered 804. Everyone loved “Taxi” in the writer’s room, so we were all into it. Even if Wizards was a show aimed at people 9-14 we always wanted to put things in there for the parents to enjoy.

Saying Goodbye to Taxi Cab 804, Alex Russo, second from left

And then we came up with the wonderful idea of using cab number 804 to build the backstory that Alex Russo was born in the back of that exact cab. And that would be why Jerry and Theresa Russo named their baby daughter, Alex. After this very kind cabbie who helped them with the birth. Name of the cabbie? Alex Reiger (played by the sublime actor, Judd Hirsch). And we did that. And it was fun. Even though Gary Marsh was involved.

What the hell am I talking about?

I’m talking about making sure to find a way to make things fun. Even difficult things. Like, pretend for the moment you’re in the midst of the unraveling of society and you just graduated from college with a degree they told you when you started school would guarantee a six-figure income. Something like Computer Science. Now just four years later, you have that diploma rolled up in your hand and you want to beat yourself with it, because apparently AI has destroyed the entire sector that you were an expert in – coding. You have to laugh at that crazy shit. You are now as employable as the BFA in Creative Writing in poetry that you wanted to become but decided not to because you thought it would never pay enough to get you out from under your student loans.

I know someone who graduated this May and applied for an entry level job at a museum, as a docent. They scored an interview and during it, were told there were 1,000 applicants and they were one of 10 people who advanced to an in-person interview. And of those ten, the museum was going to hire three. These are the type of numbers I used to hear about the odds of becoming a professional baseball player. For a job as a museum docent. Wild.

This past Wednesday night, when I gave that speech where I also learned all about Greek Plays, I listened as another speaker shared that some staff writing jobs on TV shows were getting 800 -1000 submissions for one job. Some TV shows were dividing up submission scripts to read among the writing staff because there were so many people up for the one available job. The odds were getting more astronomical. Like Museum Docent astronomical. What can you do but shake your fist and laugh at the universe for being so absurd.

It’s a weird ass time for people trying to break into anything. Sometimes it feels like we all got into a time machine in March of 2020. It wasn’t a time machine that HURTLED us forward like Marty McFly in Back to the Future II, or SPED us backwards to try and fix the universe by “pretending” to sexually assault Marty’s own mother so his father could look like a big strong guy by punching his son out at the big dance? Cuz that was the plot of Back To The Future, as I remember it. No, the extra special March 2020 Time Machine we all got blasted into just flattened all of time so you never knew if a week or a month or five years had just happened. You wait to hear back from an agent about a meeting and three months later you assume everyone forgot, then you find out they want to move forward. Or that they don’t even remember meeting you, ever. During the flattened time era, I had a pilot I was writing for a streamer. We pitched it around and sold it to HBO MAX (before it became MAX and of course way way before it became HBO MAX again because flattened time, duh). It took so long to close the business deal with HBO MAX that by the time we had our kick off meeting (a meeting where everyone gathers to say nice things to each other and give any direction before you start writing the script) that the exec I sold the show to announced at the top of the meeting, “I’m so excited about this one. When I read the synopsis this morning, I remembered I loved the pitch and I wasn’t sure if we bought it or someone else did.” Because? We are in Flattened Time. And what can you do in these times?

Laugh. Because the times are gonna happen to you no matter what. Laughing is free. They can’t take it away from you. Only you can take it away from yourself. So don’t. Lay back and laugh at how crazy this universe seems every single day that lasts five years.

Know who else laughs at this shit because he knows that if they see him laughing they’ll wonder if they kicked him enough and knocked him down enough?

The Most Important Chicano In Hollywood That You Don’t Know.

You didn’t think the answer was Gary Marsh, did you?

Go have a great weekend. Me? I’m off to be inducted in my High School’s Hall of Fame. Considering the kind of student I was, a truly remarkable honor that I will treasure. Wild. Do yourself a favor and have a laugh for yourself in front of someone who thinks you should be crying. It’s really fun. I promise.

Biggest month so far last month. Thank you all so much for reading and letting me know about it. Appreciate it. Let’s keep it going. Tell a friend about our space here. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow things.

I hope next week to be able to tell you the name of the artist who has signed on to do my comic book, “TEQ.”