T.R. Pearson's Blog

The NBC book I've been working on with Warren Littlefield, Top of the Rock, is excerpted in the new issue of Vanity Fair. It's the TV issue with a quartet of half-naked actresses on the cover. Can't miss it. The link to the web teaser for the excerpt is below. If you think you know everything about Friends that you'll ever need to know, you're sadly mistaken. Borderline delusional.



http://www.vanityfair.com/online/osca...

I'm currently teaching a class in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the football team (as it turns out) has a university. Last April's tornado left a scar through the place that is about a mile wide and runs from the southwest corner of the city, diagonally across town, to the northeast corner. Even almost a year later, the destruction is breath taking.

Tuscaloosa was known for its druid oaks. Now scores of them are just trunks and shattered limbs. I came across one the other day full of battered aluminum siding. This place will be a very long time getting back to normal -- whatever that is.

I thought I'd take this occasion to update Ray Tatum progress. We're still pressing forward. The pilot script is written, and I'm closing in on the final polish. I think we'll begin courting the networks in June.

It's still a longshot, but it's ALIVE!

I'm told that Top of the Rock, the NBC book, will be excerpted in Vanity Fair. I'm not yet sure of the issue, though I suspect the excerpt will run in either May or June [the May issue, I'm now told, available around April 15th]. It's wonderful exposure for the book and a real tribute to the caliber of entertainment our interview subjects brought to the story.

Expect lots of behind-the-scenes photographs as well. Also expect to come away smelling like Sensuous Nude, from Estee Lauder. You're welcome.

The first pre-publication review for the book I wrote with Warren Littlefield about NBC's Must See TV glory years came in the other day. It's a good one. This is a very entertaining book thanks to all of the professionally funny people who contributed to it. Take a look.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0...

This whole "let's put on a show" thing is kind of involved. I started pitching Warwolf as the basis for a TV show back in the summer. July maybe. The process went in fits and starts, but now I can say I'm just about to begin the pilot script for 20th Century Fox. I'm working with a producer I like quite a lot. Her story-telling instincts are impeccable while mine can be a little suspect at times. And we get valuable input from a studio exec who's also very sharp and incisive. It's a good mix.

The odds of this show ever popping up on your TV are still quite long, but you can't win if you don't play. I'll let you know if anything momentous happens. Pray for Ray. I'm about to put him through the wringer.

The electronic editions of Cry Me A River and Gospel Hour are up for sale at B&N for $2.99. The Kindle version of Gospel Hour is available at Amazon for the same price. Cry Me A River is being held up "in review" because the geniuses at Amazon (oh wait, that's Apple) don't seem to believe I am the author and hold the copyright to the book. I don't quite know why they've decided this. I'm not sure they know. I've asked, but so far I'm getting monolithic silence.

I have been informed that Amazon cares deeply about copyright issues. I wouldn't know anything about that being . . . you know. . . a writer.

Like the New York City subway, Amazon is great when it works and a Kafka fever dream when it doesn't. More later.

UPDATE: Cry Me A River is now available in its Kindle edition at Amazon. Apparently, I wrote it.

In the coming weeks, Cry Me A River and Gospel Hour will be available for the first time in electronic editions. The price will be a staggering $2.99! Look for them soon.

I am a TV business ignoramus. Let's get that out of the way first. My agents in L.A. -- two savvy, plugged-in women -- guide me in what to say, supply me with an itinerary, and send me out into the mean streets of Burbank (mostly) to pitch. That's what happened a couple of weeks ago anyway.

As I result, I now have four production companies competing to be in business with me on a TV show inspired by Ray Tatum and Warwolf. As I understand it, once we've decided (read: once I've been told) who we'd prefer to partner with, I will reshape the pitch to their liking and head back out to meet with the networks, new producers in tow. That'll happen in September.

So I'm about to strike what is called in the biz an if/come deal. All of the details of the offer are negotiated, including my price for writing the pilot script (there's a Writers Guild standard for that) and a price for securing the rights to Ray Tatum. (He's featured in four novels. Just now I wish it were twelve.)

Here's the kicker. I only get paid IF I deliver a successful network pitch and COME through with permission to go to script. If the pitch doesn't go, I will have enjoyed two weeks in L.A. at my expense, mostly seen from a severely stunted Chevy Aveo. [Do not buy one of these. If you've already done so, my sympathies. I had the "no cup holder" model. Are Chevys now made in Albania?]

While working with Warren Littlefield, I did learn that this sort of deal is routine with actors auditioning for parts. Each actor goes in with a negotiated deal in place, right down to the precise dollar amount the actor will be paid. The network doesn't want some guy holding them up for a fortune after he's wowed everybody at his audition. This is the writer's version of the same thing, though wowing seems a lot less likely.

So there it is. I'm told I'm in a very good spot and have what my agents refer to as "high-class problems." I only know I'm renting a slightly bigger car in September.

And one more thing. You barristas in L.A. should learn how to make an Americano. It's not a drowned espresso. And I'll be drinking more than a few of them in a couple of weeks. I'll have a cup holder. Maybe two.

I'm halfway through my L.A. pitch week. Two days worth of meetings behind me, two more days ahead. I think there's a decent chance we'll see Ray Tatum on the TV. You never know with this sort of thing, but signs are more encouraging than not.

Everybody I've met with has read Warwolf and is prepared to comment on it incisively. I've never gotten this sort of response out of publishing people. Manuscripts will sit in their in boxes for weeks or months before getting a cursory reading and a rejection, usually of the "it's not for us" variety.

Even the turn downs here are thoughtful and informed. These folks are good readers, quick readers, and they're attentive to tone, character, texture -- the kinds of things TV can still do well.

Maybe nothing will come of this, but it's eye opening. TV production is what publishing used to be, particularly on the cable networks where virtually anything is possible, much of it ambitious and quite good.

And the Bob's Big Boy in Burbank -- open since 1949 -- serves a mean stack of flapjacks. There are worse things to wake up to.

I'm going to L.A. next week to pitch a TV show based on Warwolf. The reading public might be trickling to the novel, but TV producers have jumped all over the thing for some reason. Go figure.

My job is to work up a pitch -- characters, setting, pilot plot, possible season episode plots, that kind of thing. For the past few days, I've been taking long walks and trying to put the pitch together in my head. I took another such walk this morning in the company of a dog friend of mine. He's a handsome Belgian Shepherd named Rufus, and I'm keeping him while his people are away.

I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and there are old logging roads through the woods near my house that serve as trails. Rufus and I were on one. I was knocking my pitch together with an eye out for rattlesnakes. Rufus was well ahead of me, probably forty yards, when he plunged into the ferny undergrowth off the trail, yelping.

Then he plunged directly back out with a black bear just behind him. A full grown sow, almost surely protecting a cub. I know Rufus pretty well, so I'm intimately acquainted with his "Oh Shit!" look. There was no mistaking it, even from forty yards. Naturally, Rufus came running back to me, and he brought the bear with him.

I've been living here for fifteen years, and I've seen a lot of bears. Bears in the pasture with the cattle. Perched high in oak trees eating acorns. On my back deck turning over my grill. And just generally in the wild where they typically get one look at me and run the other way. I've even been bluffed at by a few, and that's pretty unsettling. But I've never had a bear run at me from distance until this morning.

I kind of know the bear rules. Don't try to out run them because you can't. Or out climb them because you can't. Don't turn your back. Don't scream (Yeah, right). Just speak to them in a firm, calm voice (Ha!).

So let's say I was doing all that. Rufus comes sailing past me. He gives me a glance -- "brought you something" -- and the bear breaks off and charges me. She's snarling, growling, chuffing. Swinging her front claws at me. I've backed into a puny stand of saplings, and I've picked up the only available stick and am whacking her with it.

This is a lot closer to a bear than I have ever in my life hoped to be. I didn't have time to be scared, but I somehow did find the time to think to myself, "How can I work this into my pitch?" Further proof, if any were needed, that writers are self-involved idiots. Particularly this one.

As the bear backed off about five yards, so did I. I suggested she stay where she was, and she did, so I backed up some more. I got onto the trail again and just kept walking backwards until I bumped into Rufus.

He was sitting there waiting for me. He gave me his "So what do you want to do now?" look. Rufus is diabolically articulate that way.

It being a Sunday, I should have come home, dropped to my knees, and prayed to Jesus. Instead, I had another cup of coffee and thought of the timeless words of philosopher/filmmaker Francis Coppola: Never get out of the boat.

And the bear story? Yeah, I've already worked it into my pitch.