Jay Kogan Made My Dreams Come True

With a tiny, little, all in fun dig at our Substack's Fun Villain.

Welcome aboard many new subscribers this week. I hope you have fun here and get to learn more about the life of a writer in Hollywood. Last week I wrote all about AI and how it is being used and not used right now. Generated some odd things like a fake book I wrote based on an Isabel Allende fake book that she never wrote.

And I got a lot of feedback emailed to me about it. I love all the connections we make here, and yet…

I’d love SO MUCH if you laid down all those cool things you email me in the comments to the articles. I’d love to get and keep conversation going there. In any event, here’s a snippet of that reaction for you.

“Love it. Funny, sharp, and quite beautiful at times. I remember seeing the news about the Chicago Sun Times scandal. This is a great response. Also, sorry to hear about the job that didn’t come through.”

That’s super nice. Rejection is maybe the hardest and also the most regular occurrence in my job. And I don’t think you can let the rejections pile up and make them harden you into an artist that doesn’t pour themselves into opportunities with your whole heart. That’s not serving your highest self, in my opinion.

How do you deal with it when it happens so often? Well, one of the things I try to do is to let it be something that happened TO me, not something that DEFINES me. And I don’t always do great at that, believe me. But I try. My stages of it are:

1. “Their loss.” In other words, “Fuck them if they don’t get my genius.” A lot of times this type of rejection comes with an email or a phone call from one of your reps, saying you made a bunch of new fans at the place that’s rejecting you. And that the door is always open. And most writers say, “Hmmm, can fans buy me dinner or pay my mortgage? Do I need more fans?” This can go on for days. And like grief, it can also disappear for long stretches of time and then out of nowhere, hit you like a ton of bricks.

2. “Move the files and put an “X” on the Slack Channel.” This is the “Get it out of my sight I don’t want to remember anything about this damn project” part. I have a folder nested in a folder nested in at least two more folders down that is marked “Dead Development.” Once someone rejects my project or my take on their project, down into the nested sub-sub-sub folder it goes where I won’t come across it by accident when I’m looking for things.

3. “What if they feed my great ideas to the person that got the job?” This one is usually only for the times you go in and pitch in what’s called a bake-off situation. Where a network/platform/studio has a project idea and they’re having people come in and pitch their takes on it, and then they’re going to pick one take. And the end of this concern is that there’s nothing you can do about it. If it rises up inside you, try and say this to yourself, “Yeah, but no one could have executed that idea like I would have.” If you’re not in a space of dealing with rejection, this is also a GREAT thing to be thinking as you’re working on a project. “How do I make this something that leans into my strengths and is something no one else could do but me?” Good as a motivator, and maybe helpful as something to get you out of the fear of being ripped off when they pick someone else.

Now all of this has dug up two great stories of Hollywood in my time here doing this thing. One is about someone getting ripped off and then getting their just reward in the end. And the other is about a conversation I had today in a first meeting I had with a fellow writer-producer.

Let’s start with today’s meeting. He’s won a prize at South By Southwest this year for a movie he made, and we have some mutual friends and we met up to talk shop and have coffee. He asked what I was working on and I told him about one of my projects that is a dream one, and that came about because of this substack. Not ready to announce it quite yet, but from something I wrote, someone reached out and we’re gonna do this idea in a way that is special and gonna blow you away, I promise. In talking with my new friend about it, I mentioned my agent had said to me when I was writing up the pitch to this dream project, “Does it have to have this big period piece/twist/overlay/sci-fi angle to it? That’s so expensive and it’s so hard to sell expensive right now, today.” I love when my agents push on me like that. I really do. It makes me think and makes me have to look at situations in a different way. The answer was, “Yeah. I do. Because without that period piece/twist/overlay/sci-fi angle to it, it’s just a procedural. And I’m new to drama and there’s forty people who can do that ahead of me. I’m the only one that can land the plane of this idea because of the period piece/twist/overlay/sci-fi angle.

I’m purposely saying it that way - period piece/twist/overlay/sci-fi angle – because I don’t want to tell you about it just yet. But it’s gonna be hot.

Now for the story about someone who did get ripped off. First this link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Montana?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Barry O’Brian was a showrunner who was one of my first bosses on a show called “Between Brothers,” where I came in to write jokes two days a week. Later on, he pitched a show to Disney Channel about a high school girl who was also the world’s most famous pop star. She had a Clark Kent/Superman secret identity going on so she could just be a regular girl in Malibu going to school, and then with a wig, was also this hugely famous singer. Disney Channel said, “No thanks.” A little while later, Barry was watching TV and became aware of a show called “Hannah Montana.” And wondered if he had dreamed that his pitch was rejected and that in real life, they bought it, and he was late to get to work on this amazingly successful show. As I understand how it worked out in the courts and legally, the two people that were credited at the time with creating that show DIDN’T know Barry had pitched Disney a similar/same idea. But someone had fed them enough of this idea that they went off and made this show. Barry ended up getting credited as a co-creator on that show. And receiving some money for his trouble. And in a way that ends happily for Barry on two separate counts, he’s been working on all kinds of things since then, I think most recently on Law & Order: Organized Crime. And he got credit on Hannah Montana without having to work with Gary Marsh at all.

During the course of this substack, I occasionally take a shot at Gary Marsh. I only do that because he deserves it.

Here’s some more amazing substack news. I had posted the script I wrote with Pete Holmes a few weeks ago, but here it is again.

Master Ghost Kitchen P Holmes P Murrieta 6th Draft 6

382KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

A multi-cam comedy pilot about someone working in a Ghost Kitchen. And when I was with Jay Kogen this week, he asked if I had asked Pete permission to post the script we wrote together. And I had not done that. And that was a good excuse for me to connect with Pete and get his permission, which I did. And to make plans to see him soon to catch up.

And yeah, I buried the lede. A few months back, I wrote something saying, “I want to be on Jay Kogan’s Podcast.” I think it was even in the title.

And once someone told Jay that I have a substack, he wrote back, “I’m going to make your birthday dreams come true!” We recorded it this week! I cannot wait for you to hear it. And on the podcast, he asked about rejection and I mentioned that for a long time, like almost 15 years of my career, every time I would get paid to write a pilot that didn’t get greenlit to shoot, I would blame myself for it. I didn’t do enough of this, or enough of that. I didn’t make that rewrite the absolute BEST I could make it. And he was surprised, “Oh, you’re one of those writers, usually it’s, “Screw NBC/ABC/Tubi/Chik-Fil-A/Hulu! They don’t know what they’re doing to not recognize the genius of me!” Yeah. I was not that. See item one on the list above. I know what that feels like, but for a long time it was, “I didn’t do enough.”

And I want to leave you with this thought. Lots of things are swung on a pendulum.

I wasn’t good enough SWUNG TO Screw that. they don’t get my genius
Let’s work hard to include more people SWUNG TO Screw DEI. We’re done with that
AI is replacing everyone’s job SWUNG TO Screw that. AI is amazing and a tool

I think the big swing is the thing to watch out for. Try and head to the center of these things. That’s where the good stuff is. If you don’t agree with me? Screw you. You don’t understand the genius of –

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

Keep telling people about this – word of mouth is the best way to grow things. And you are doing it. Almost about to hit another round number, so soon after the last one, too. We were going to have a special podcast guest this month, but COVID put that on hold. My guest is doing well, but Paseo Con Pete new episode will be up soon. And it’s a fellow substack creator that I’m excited to take a ride with.

Be good.

We haven’t done this one in awhile, but here’s a nice picture that has nothing to do with today’s writing. I just like the hell out of it.

It was Vin Scully Bobble Head Night. He’s a Legend. And as the dad of a catcher, the player there is Dalton Rushing, and he’s getting ready to play in his first major league game after getting called up to the Dodgers. I just love him soaking up the pregame ceremony honoring Vin Scully all by himself, being in the moment.