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August 26, 2001
I can't stop shaking
Three days ago, after almost 170 letters, untold phone calls, six months of intensive writing, and an additional five months of contacting every living person we know who might have any connection whatsoever to the television industry, my writing partner and I have signed an agency contract to be represented as sitcom writers. No small feat this, as every unknown writer who wants to work in Hollywood is trying to obtain an agent due to the fact that film and television producers will only consider work from those artists who have one. (Thus, the theory goes, agents -- who receive a ten percent commission on all sales made by writers they represent -- will keep all literary fecal matter from said producers.) I know this empirically as I have been trying to earn a living wage in the entertainment biz for the last decade. And although I have succeeded in fits and starts, my lack of agent representation has only bolstered my already intimate relationship with Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
Actually, my writing partner and I have two agents. One's a veteran of the agency, heading its literary department and hungry for us to make him rich on commissions. The other is a smooth-talker, who peppers her telephone dialogue with intimate euphemisms ("darling", "baby") so sincerely that I can almost feel her hand reaching through the optic fiber to lightly touch me on the arm or soothingly brush dandruff off my shoulder. I imagine they cruise the deadly streets of Los Angeles in their cherry red '74 Torino in search of producers needing a literary fix. Aided only by their studio script-reading informant
Huggy Bear, they are...
Starsky and Hutch.
If I only really knew anything about them. The fact is, we have never met.
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