Tuesday, April 01, 2003

Pauly Goes to Hollywood... and Gets a Job!



Great news y'all! I was offered a paying job as a television writer. My Vegas luck stuck with me for a few more hours, and less than 12 hours in Hollyweird, I got an agent (pimp) who quickly found me work (whored me out) with Capital City Studios (ABC). I'll get a union card for the Writer's Guild which means dental & health insurance coverage for one year. Scale pay for TV writers is close to $2,300 a week. Oh, and the best part of being in LA... is that I get to drive to Las Vegas every other weekend to gamble after I get my paycheck!!

With the War getting serious and extensive coverage, many of the networks are scrapping their (ratings slumping) reality programming (finally)! And decided that those shows are unable to compete with the reality of war, death & destruction. So now they are turning to old fashioned half hour TV shows. People that want reality will watch CNN or Fox News. If they want to escape, they need an old school TV show, a sitcom or a drama.

OK bad news... I have to move to LA and work in Hollyweird. Which everyone knows is like returning to high school all over again, except LA has all the hookers, drugs, and all the sunshine and smog you can eat. It's a small group of people that run the industry, and it's all about image. Blah.

More bad news... I have to drive to work everyday. Boooo! I hate California drivers worse than LA traffic. Uggggh!

Worst news... I failed to tell you what I'll be writing. That was intentional. I'm not proud, but it's work right? As long as I get paid, that's all that matters. OK, please don't laugh. I needed a break, and somewhere to start. OK, ready? I'll be writing for a revitalization of Davey & Goliath. (I'll now pause for a few seconds, to wait for you to stop sneering) Yeah, folks... Davey & Goliath is that Christian claymation, animation show from the 1960s & 1970s which featured a God fearing boy named Davey and his sidekick, a talking, scripture quoting dog named Goliath. The show will NOT be animated, nor claymation, and instead will have real actors, and a real dog but with special effects doing the dogs voice... I assume if they had a REAL talking dog I would have already been told. But, then again, if talking dogs do exist, I'm sure they'd be working in Hollyweird.

How did I get this job? I nailed the interview and was offered the job on the spot after I was able to recite the Our Father prayer in Latin. My Jesuit education just paid off.

Davey & Goliath is now in pre-production and it's supposed to shoot in a few months, and air in the fall on the ABC Family network. Capital City is working on a deal that will air the episodes on local ABC affiliate stations in the Bible Belt (parts of Texas and the deep South).

Wow, just a couple of months ago I was pitching stocks and bonds... now I'll be pitching the Word of God. Life throws you curve balls everyday. Only in Hollyweird.

Thanks for all your support! And don't worry, I'm still not a Jesus freak (yet!) and my bi-monthly trips to Vegas and the dark side will keep me a real existentialist in a not-so-real place called Hollyweird.

I guess I'll leave you on this note... God bless America!

A Los Angeles Blog... from McGrupp

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