No, not as an actor. All that gets you is a lot of money and possibly a short-lived talk show later in life. No, I'm talking about screenwriting, which can get you... well, something, I'm sure. But regardless of et me tell you one thing kid, if you haven't written a tv pilot, you know what you are? YOUR'E SHIT! EVERYBODY writes tv pilots these days. All my friends have written them, all of my family has written them, Rosie O'Donnell's dog has written one... Even frickin' Kenny G has written one (for some reason NBC just wasn't interested in a show called "Blowsie and the Jazz Cats", I don't know why. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Kenny G doesn't actually play jazz...). Anyway, in order to get the jump on Rosie's dog and Kevis Kostner's gerbils, I decided that I, unfortunately, had to join this odious cult of cinematic kitsch creation. My first instinct was to create a taught drama miniseries based on the space shuttle Challenger tragedy. The story had huge dramatic potential, but I ultimately decided that it would be a rather tasteless exploitation of the brave people who were really on it, as well as of the dozens of rural Texans who perish attempting to leave the Earth's atmosphere by their own means every year. (Nothing against the Lone Star State- I have several dear friends who hail from it, but you have to admit that some of its more rural citizens are, for lack of a better word, "creative" when it comes to accidental deaths).
So, rather than walk on eggshells trying to create a tasteful, yet interesting television drama, I went back to the drawing board. But, since drawing boards are rather hard to come by these days, I decided to go into an empty classroom in the sociology building to get my thoughts out on a blackboard. Well, needless to say, by the end of the session, my entire outline for a bittersweet comedy on the life of Mary Pickford amounted to a 4'x10' cartoon of a giant nipple battling malevolent diaper-commercial babies on the streets of Portland, Oregon. I felt dejected, and understandably so. But my meloncholy sooned turned to panic as I realized, to my horror, that all the while I had been drawing on the board with... gasp!... permanent chalk! (seriously, why do they even MAKE that stuff? Just inhaling it's dust once gives you an incurable form of lung cancer, and hearing it scratch against the board gives you an incurable case of the jimmies). I heard the slow, deadly footfall of the janitor approaching and knew I had something drastic. However, since my space and time are quite limited, I will leave the details of my escape to your imagination for the time being and try to skip foreward to the point of this little story... [Fast-forwarding noises.... WWHHHHHRRRRRR!] As I snuck along disguised as Carmen Miranda, it suddenly dawned on me that you simply can't get away with writing deep, thought-provoking material these days unless you are willing to draw the ire of a significant portion of society (side note- go see Brokeback Mountain, it is an amazing movie. This is possibly the only statement in this post that is not utter bs, except maybe to Cori, who has already seen it). Since I had already been reduced to darting through the shadows of the quad wearing a giant fruit hat, I decided that I simply could not afford to brought any lower by society. Then as I walked through Stanford's Memorial Court, it suddenly hit me. I had to devise something so inane, tasteless and sensationalist that no American could possibly say no to it. The statues in the quad inspired this little piece of... uh... inspiration whose working title is: THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS. I trust that all of you are familiar with Rodin's famous bronze sculptures, but you have never seen them ALIVE!...AND KICKING ASS! The concept poster is pictured below:
As you can see, the series captures the playful, yet angst-ridden life of students on the Stanford campus while being educational about... art or something, I don't know, I'll let UPN marketing make up that shit. Anyways, it's details are still in formation, but the basics of the show are pretty much in place at this point.
The characters are members of the Kappa Sig fraternity on campus and are fully committed to the organization's noble social mission, so much so that they have become... UNDERGROUND CRIME FIGHTING FRAT BOYS! They have pledged themselves not only to party hardy (which, by contract, the script must have them do at least twice per episode) but also to protect the Bay Area from such evils as bike-theft, racism, and... um.. not partying. Chad is the leader of the group. He has the talent of always keeping the group's principles in mind, rallying them when they feel down, and most importantly, is tall and blond. Keith is the techno-geek of the band of bronze brothers, and communicates only through email and variants of the words "owned", "pwned", "lol", "rofl", "GG", "gosu", and "thnx". The emotional center of the series is Brian, who is chronically unsure of himself and his feelings, but never fails to come through in ways he never even imagined possible. Chase, finally, is the dark horse of the club, who seems to be with a different woman each episode (actually, that's in the contract too...). Now, the fifth character is a more dramatic departure from the statue it was based on, but something had to be done to make the show more... politically correct. Queen Latifah plays the final member of the group, a black lesbian named Coceaux (pronounced "COCO"). She is the comic relief on the show (ok, well maybe it's not politically correct after all, but hey, it's UPN!), always ready to keep it real with stereotypical remarks and hijinks.
She can be exasperating to the other characters, but they all love her predictable antics and find comfort in the fact that she is both sexually off-limits and unattractive, a combination that is hardly ever encountered in women these days, it seems. She never fails to make them smile, even though she often proves a foil for the missions, only to save the day and sy "That's what I"M talkin' 'bout!" or something like that. Finally, we are currently in negotiations to get aging 80's pop-star Billy Idol to play Stanford President John Hennessy, but he refuses to sign with the show until we agree to show off his back-tattoos in every episode. The show is expected to be the highlight of UPN's summer lineup. Well, there you go, Rosie's dog has nothing on me!
