#30. "The Hatfields & the McCoys" and always rewrites

#30.  "The Hatfields and the McCoys.  And endless re-writes.

Now a few words about the History Channel's TV miniseries "The Hatfields and the McCoys," the award-winning ratings bonanza from a few years ago.  It turned out to be my last job.  And outside of a annoying little page 1 rewrite late in the game, oddly one of my most fulfilling.

Back in the mists-of-time Eighties, I was hired by producer Leslie Greif and CBS to write a four hour mini-series about the legendary family feud.

We were to start from scratch; the true story of two families' civil war that grew and grew until it swallowed whole generations.  Agonizingly, this was in the days before Google and Wikipedia, so I headed to Book Soup on Sunset and left with four tomes on the subject.  Then on to the next bookstore.  And the next.  My credit card was actually warm when I got home.

I probably should've gone to the public library but they have always filled me with dread.  I mean all those cards...and numbers?  Eeuuu.

Starting a big historical project is hard.  WHERE to start is one reason why.  Fortunately I had one of my favorite producers on hand.  I have worked with older producers, more experienced, sideboards groaning with awards and buddy celebrity photos.  But I have never worked with a more focused, tenacious, funnier guy, and one that I treasure.

Los Angeles Leslie is his family's Crowned Prince; why he would be so obsessed with this violent hillbilly saga from a hundred-and-fifty years ago is anybody's guess.  Very soon, partnered with the legendary Al Ruddy on the project, Leslie became my guy.  He believed in the primacy of writing, and in the first ten years, before he replaced me with "Deadwood's" Ted Mann, I was his guy.

I had been living back in North Carolina then and Leslie and I were both fans of "L.A. Law."  Since he was often out at night, I taped the shows for him and FedExed it the next day.  He didn't know how a VCR worked or, more likely, just liked the idea of me taping it for him.  He especially loved all the local southern commercials.

Once my parents passed, my marriage and my cat followed suit.  I had suddenly run out of reasons to stay Southern.  When I moved back to Hollywood, I found sweet little house on Alfred Street to rent that would accommodate a couple of Chows like me and Roxy.  With the expert help of a move-in specialist (LA is covered up in specialists): a woman who had once, back in her day, been a British horror movie queen at Hammer Studios with Christopher Lee, we set up one of the bedrooms as my office first, then the TV.  I loved my new little house.

Once I was ensconced, I called Leslie and we immediately buddied up on seeing Stupid Guy Movies like "Batman" and "Tin Cup" or anything with Bruce Willis. 

I was still finding unopened Bekins boxes in the garage, when I made my first Hatfields-McCoys research trip to Eastern Kentucky and Western West Virginia, the two feuding families' homes.  I talked to people, I went to small town libraries, I looked at Bibles, often a coded fount of odd family information.  I remember someone had written "Peeuw!" beside some wayward McCoy cousin's name.  Grist for the mill.

I stopped at historical societies and burrowed into old land purchase and sales records.  I sorted through process services, arrest records in old courthouses, up rickety wooden stairs where, in Pikeville, an ancient marmalade cat followed me from room to room.  I talked to local politicians, veteran newspaper folks, and even a large animal veterinarian.  And then I went home to write.

But first -- being me, no surprise -- I whipped through a copy of Syd Field's "Screenplay."  He'd finally written it!  All those plot points and paradigms apply to most all dramatic narratives.  In fact each scene should have those wheels.  I made a massive 3X5 card display taped to my dining room wall and invited Leslie over for a little walk-around read.

He was mesmerized and most of his suggestions were like, "Flip those two scenes, Pup."  Or "Take that card out, we don't need it." And time after time, he was right.  This is a crucial ability given to only a few producers.

Four months later, when I finished the first rough draft at 250 pages, I thought I had something.  So did others.  We polished it, cut it, revised it, worked it over like a blurry speed bag.  Got it where we wanted it and then officially Sent It Out.

As they say: crickets.

We couldn't get anyone we and/or the network wanted.  No one would pull the trigger.   People liked it, some even liked it a lot.  Just not the Right Ones and not quite enough.

After I went through all my rewrites and polishes for the network and a director, there was nothing left for me to do.

I didn't want to go, I didn't.  These characters and their real history had become archetypically real to me.   But eventually, I drifted away to another project; I knew Leslie would never let The Hatfields and the McCoys die.  And sure enough, he didn't.

Released to my new life/career course, I passed from pitch to pitch, from draft to draft, from show to show -- some got made, some didn't.  Some were good, some not so much.  One even brought me back to Leslie; a low budget war movie taking place in modern Korea.  I got paid, it got made but as the kid said in the McCoy family Bible, "peeuw."  The best thing about it was it co-starred R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine Corps drill instructor which he then brilliantly portrayed in "Full Metal Jacket."  If you want to know what Parris Island was like for ten generations of Marines, see this movie.  It is the experience itself.

Finally, months turned into years.

And one December, my year count added up to sixty plus.  Momma mia, how does this happen?  In my mind, I'm like forty-something.  But suddenly, I have trouble putting on my socks!  And my agent was honest enough to tell me that he was encountering resistance getting me jobs because I was...too old.

When that shock wore off, I looked around and realized I actually was pretty old for a Hollywood pup.

So I called in the rest of the dogs and pissed on the fire: I retired and began my Hollywood uncoupling.  First to the Valley.  Then to Santa Barbara where my sweetheart Paula became my wife.  Finally, all the way up to an island in the Pacific Northwest.  But I never stopped thinking about the Hatfields, an epic that, during its long night, had entered my bloodstream.

And speaking of blood, a brief note about open-heart surgery.  They call it CABG ("cabbage") which stands for Coronary Artery Bypass Graft and bubba it is one of the medicine-man's better tricks.  Eleven years ago, at Providence Hospital, I had it.  A quadruple!  And in four hours of surgery with four days of recoup and four weeks of rehab, my actual heart GOT REWRITTEN!  Thank ya, Jesus!  And thank you Dr. Pat Ryan, my surgical lighthouse.

Somewhere in those years, Leslie encountered his three lighthouses -- Kevin Costner, Ted Mann, and the History Channel.  I don't know which came first, but one morning -- years later -- up here on island sleepy land, I got a wild-ass Hollywood call from Leslie.  "We're a GO!  We got
 Kevin Costner and Kevin Reynolds to direct, we're shooting in Romania, six hours, and I promise you'll get credit!  It's happening, Dog!"

I was thrilled and dead flat sure I had been rewritten, maybe even re-rewritten.  Whoever did that was likely rewritten.  As I may have mentioned, the movie and TV biz is fueled by fear and doubt.  Until the big Kahuna (usually a star or a director) gets there and says "STOP!  This is the script we shoot."  I believe in our case that was Mr. Costner who I never met but who has my everlasting gratitude.

When they were done eight months later, I read their scripts and looked at the DVD they sent me.  They covered much of the same ground mine did, the same events, the same characters, even many of the same moments.  I liked what they'd done; even though theirs was more violent, Ted Mann is a very good writer.  But hell, I still liked my version better.  Just the way of things I reckon.  And it was somewhat ameliorated by getting a big ol' single card first position story credit in the main titles.  On all three nights!

A few months later, it hit the air and all hell broke loose.  The reviews were kindly and the record setting ratings went through the roof.  Those three nights were some heady days for all of us.

When I look at my "Hatfields and the McCoys" Emmy nomination certificate, I think of Costner and Leslie.  When I look at my bronze Writers Guild Best Teleplay Award, I think of Leslie and Costner.  And when I get those green envelope residual checks, I think of the whole gang of 'em, right down to craft services and the Port-a-Potty honey-wagon guys (in one end, out the other) slaving away in the wilds of Romania, shooting a mammoth historical six hour mini-series that I birthed and pretty much almost kinda wrote!

My night at the Emmys was...something.  There is one winner per category and four losers.  That night us screenwriters found ourselves in the latter group.  Hey, somebody has to do it!  But for a second or two, it was great.  When they called out our names, instantly and without thinking, we grasped hands and squeezed tight.  Instant fellowship, hard work, ascending prayers.  Ahhh, if we could only bottle that moment.

Then the other dork's name was called out and we were crestfallen.  In that huge room, for us, the air was gone.

Of course it's great to be nominated but when you get that close to that big Kahuna Emmy trophy, the one everybody knows everywhere, the hit to the heart is serious.  And since I'm totally retired and unlikely to ever be there again, I will share my unused acceptance speech with you.  Here it is in its entirety.

"I would like to thank Kevin Costner, our star and rabbi for saying yes.  And producer Leslie Greif, who would not let this die.  And finally, Margaret Swann, my high-school typing teacher."

                        ****

When someone rewrites you, it's catastrophic and you take to the bed.  When you rewrite someone, it's an interesting and lucrative way to pass the time while you take to Musso & Frank's restaurant, waiting for The Big Score.

I found these rewrite assignments can be fun and keep your rep and your writing chops sharp.  The best writers in the business as well as the worst do them.  Somewhere on that sliding scale, I did enough in my time.  Here's what I found.  Even the most wonderful journey has unforeseen stops at ugly out-of-everything places.  Deal with it, keep going.

After you've carefully read the script the studio or network or producer sent you, you have to decide if it's a job you want.  What can you bring to the party?  Who is involved?  I recall years ago I was being poached to work on "Hillman," a good but odd script by Don Petersen.  It would be produced and star Paul Newman.  Did I want the job?  Oh, mamma, does a cat have an ass?!

Once I had made up my mind, there was a Big Meeting scheduled wherein all parties sniff each other carefully for type, possibility, and skill.  I always found it best to tell them clearly and succinctly what you liked about their script and, if pressed, what you didn't.  And tell them that inside of a month with their input, you are the one to get this off life-support to a green light.

Then, you will patiently take all their notes.  Some will be good, some bad, some will seem like a Chinese crossword puzzle.  Take 'em anyway, don't argue (I was very bad at this), and whatever problems arise, figure it out later in the privacy of your own home.

I found it was a good idea to make the first script shorter.  Most early drafts are over done, over long, with way to much sugar.  Jump in making cuts, tightening wherever possible.  Your fealty is to the narrative arc, to the story itself.  Not the Poetry.

The most important question one can ever ask: "What is this movie about?"  Rent, food, getting a car that runs, paying off your AmEx bill may all be true but none of them are a good enough answer.

How do your characters face this question?  How are we drawn deeper and deeper into its web?  You have to know these things or you will die and this fifty million dollar project will die, too.

The ABOUT question is, I believe, the most massive inquiry a project can face.  That's why you can never let it go.  Why are we huddled masses gathered together in this theatre on this night looking at this movie?  Director Sidney Lumet once said, it's not just the plot, it's the beating heart and soul of the film.  As Ben Affleck pointed out, the plot is the meat you throw to the various guard dogs.  The "about" is why you must climb over that wall in the first place.

In the effort to tighten things up, cut words, lines, even scenes if you can.  If the story flows without it, sayonara sucker.  Was Steven King's thousand page version of "The Stand" really better than his earlier, shorter one?  And if possible, rewrite as much of the first twenty pages as you can.  Because that's when they are really paying attention.  And show some class by leaving the first writer's name on it; the Writer's Guild will work all that out later.  But at this point, don't be a credit hog.

And understand this -- as you are contemplating rewriting someone's script, somewhere, someone has that same furrowed brow contemplating rewriting yours.  Nearly EVERYONE gets re-written.  In my years in Hollywood, the only times I wasn't rewritten were on "Dadah is Death" made in Australia during a writers strike.  And on "Lakota Woman" for which I thank director Frank Pierson and producers Lois Bonfiglio and Jane Fonda who held the line for me.  God love 'em.  There was nothing for the Guild to work out.

If you are lucky, they will hire a spiffy writer to come in and mop up.  On "The Rose" I got rewritten by Bo Goldman, two time Academy Award winner.  He did some really good stuff (along with an uncredited Bruce Vilanch) and now, thirty plus years later, I can no longer tell who did what.  But the Guild can.

I rewrote the legendary Terence Malick on "The Dehon Brothers."  He was so pleased with my efforts that he changed his name on the movie to David Whitney.  And then fifteen years later, he rewrote me on some movie I can't remember the name of.  Maybe "Great Balls of Fire."  Alan Sharp and I rewrote each other many times.  Keep in mind, I have never met any of these people.  But the Guild had.

The line between so-called success and failure is thin, twisty, and fades in and out.  Especially in show business.  If you get real close to it, you can hardly tell the difference between a home run and a strike out.  Because longing is an actual currency in Hollywood.

If they're rich, they don't have quite enough.  If they're on a roll, they have nightmares about the next two being failures.  When folks would ask the great 40s director Preston Sturges what he was doing, he would tell them he was "between flops."

Hollywood rookies' complaints sound indistinguishable from the high rollers: the biz is in the hands of idiots, there is no justice in This Town, he couldn't direct a two car funeral and he gets a goddamn Oscar, we got so screwed by being put in the wrong Emmy category (hey, waid a minit, dat waz us!).  Why is it only tentpole D.C. and Marvel movies get green-lit?!  We are poor little lambs who have lost our way, blah blah blah.

And, truth to tell, I was often a soloist in this choir.

Yet, I was ever grateful to have a job.  That became a calling.  That miraculously morphed into a career.  I thought I would be forever lost.  But somehow... somehow I was found.

Right up to the present moment wherein I recently got word that a rock and roll movie I worked on (see posting #15) back in the Pleistocene Era finally came together with some producers that 20th Century Fox trusted enough to begin work on a Broadway-bound musical.  And magically, wonderfully, we are all still inspired by two wildly talented women at its original heart: star
Bette Midler and Amanda McBroom who wrote the timeless title song "The Rose."  Of course, "many a slip..." but still.

A young, very smart woman I knew once described life as just things coming in and things going out.  To me, that about nails it.  And with that, I bid you farewell.  Because -- for a while -- this is your Chow Puppy thing...going out.

But as always, he is probably watching TV and thinking happily about Show Biz: the very cat litter box of our hopes and dreams.

#29. The Bad Dog phone call...

#29.   The Bad Dog phone call.

According to his biographers, John J. Nicholson grew up in New Jersey thinking the woman who raised him was his mother.  Turned out to be his grandmother.  And his "Older Sister?"  His mother.  His father in that odd mix?  Who knew?

In his early twenties, Jack Nicholson wanted to make it big in Hollywood.  But in the era of Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson, his singular looks and sideways talent weren't an immediate fit.

So he bounced around in early TV westerns and the Roger Corman stables, learning to write, direct, and act for the camera.  Many of those cheapies are memorable because of Nicholson.  And when he finally did "Easy Rider," with that million dollar smile, overnight George Hanson became a made man.  Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson: Jesus Calhoun, what's not to love?!

When I met him, he had already racked up "Five Easy Pieces," "Carnal Knowledge," "The Last Detail" ('I am the Shore Patrol, motherfucker!'),  "Chinatown" and had just finished shooting "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."   With these hits, he became the biggest movie star in the world.  No one else was even in second place.

He was living with Angelica Houston (who he called "Toots") up in the Hollywood Hills at the end of a short driveway off Mulholland that was known as Bad Boy Lane, the drive servicing just two houses, his and Marlon Brando's.

Jack had a dog, some kind of Lab, one of many over the years, apparently all named Guinn "Big Boy" Williams.  He also had a semi-permanent houseguest named Helena who was nowhere near as friendly as the dog.  His best buddies back then seemed to be Warren Beatty (who he called "Maddog") and Bruce Dern (known as "Dernsie"), legendary Ur screenwriter Robert Towne, and maybe his agent Sandy Bresler upon whom he relied for much.

Another of Jack's friends was Scott, a nervous New York hipster who was in all the meetings.  Scott Farcus was charming, smart, and had the dead eyes of a cobra.

Jack had bought the film rights to a Don Berry historical mountain man novel called "Moontrap."   Turned out Farcus would produce this project.

I don't know how I got the job -- these guys weren't exactly my homies -- but with some John Ptak agenting magic dust, I did.  In the Nicholson biographies, I was one of the faceless writers who "trooped in" on the project.  Jack had enough bread, used carefully, to finance the script versions.  I am not at all sure where on his road of troopers I was, but mamma, the deal closed, the check cleared and suddenly I was working with Randal P. McMurphy!

Up at Casa Jack, we smoked a lot of dope, made a lot of plans, and rode the high-flying talk to movie heaven.  At first.

But after one extended afternoon of surefire weed and wonder, that evening I perused my screenplay notes and absolutely could not make sense out of a single item.  It looked like scrambled ideas over-easy with a side of onion rings.  From then on, I stuck to Winstons, coffee, and soft drinks.  Former one-meeting-mentor Sam Peckinpah would've been disgusted with ol' Bob.  The problem, as we continued working, was this new way allowed me to see -- in real time -- our collection of "Moontrap" ideas was still an inchoate mess.  The spirit was willing but the brains seemed to be AWOL.

These days were well before I encountered Syd Field's "Screenplay" so I was mostly thrashing around on caffeine, excitement, guess-work, and outrageous dialogue.  And whatever movie I had just seen.  It was enough to keep me employed but not to do very good work.  I could've used ol' Syd's unwritten book trying to unpack that mountain man's saddlebags and bedroll.

Finally I came up with a treatmenty-outline from the novel that didn't make too many eyes roll.  "Go get 'em, Wild Pup," said Jack.  He was addicted to nicknames too.  Okay, John J, I said, gathering up my notes and heading for the door.  On my way out, Helena gave me a deep scowl as she turned away.

What I didn't know was that would be my best day on the project.

At home on my trusty Selectric ll, everything seemed to misfire.  At that early point, I hadn't yet learned the 3X5 outline card trick,  hadn't learned about cutting all the pages out of the "Moontrap" paperback, copying them on large format paper leaving plenty of room for notes and ideas, and crucially, hadn't learned the three act paradigm that Syd Field made so famous a few years later.

Everything I wrote looked bad.  I'm pretty sure every writer has these moments, at least that's what I kept telling myself.  I'd look at the scene from the book.  Then, at my scripted version.  My cat Tector could have done a better job.

With that, my cat stopped as he sauntered through the room.  "That's right, I could!  But I'm not going to.  Because you're a bad dog."

It bottomed out for me one afternoon when I saw a Writers Guild screening of the Robert Redford memorable "Jeremiah Johnson."  Um, maybe a little too memorable,  I had seen it when it first came out, but this time I was shocked at how similar our two stories were.  And how alike our dialogue was.  I thought I'd been recycling my own from my first unmade script for Warner Bros., "Clay Allison."  Which is embarrassing enough, but it turned out it was way more John Milius and hardly any Chow Puppy.

Unfortunately, I had already turned in the rough first draft because I was still young and dumb and apparently hadn't learned the immutable lesson: do NOT EVER turn in "rough" material because everything in Show Biz is an audition.   No one really wants or knows how to read anything but your very best offering.  And then, only maybe.

That's when I got The Phone Call.  In all my days, including the ones since, I have never heard anything remotely like it.

Producer Scott Farcus was screaming.  There was no prelude, no small talk, he was already at the E above high C.  Apparently, he'd seen "Jeremiah Johnson" recently, too.  Oh oh.  He put together excoriating insults like King Lear's storm scene rewritten by the "Bad Santa" guys.  For minutes he howled on until he finally stopped and said, "well, aren't you going to say anything, you fraudulent hack asshole?!"

"I think you have the wrong number," I said and hung up.

I immediately called my agent in a blind panic.  I was in trouble.  I had brought it on myself.  I was utterly lost and terrified.  What could I do about this?  "J.P., what can we do about this?!"

"Take your phone off the hook and wait an hour," he said.  "Then, call me back.  I'll reach out to Farcus.  Is it really that bad?"

"Yes."

About the longest hour of my young life.

I called my agent back.  Against all odds, he had somehow made it better.  When smart people in Hollywood 'reach out,' amazing things can occur.  Upsides are illuminated, some form of reason is seen, the famous Favor Bank is alluded to.  I can't remember the gory details, but I took my leave of "Moontrap," keeping the start money but relinquishing everything else.

"Don't worry, Puppy," J.P. said.  "Live and learn.  We'll get you another job.  And Farcus promised not to call you back."

About fifteen minutes later, my phone rang.  "You no talent dildo," said Scott Farcus and hung up.  I never saw or spoke to him again.

I sent a dozen red roses up to Nicholson's dog Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams and called it a day.  Jack went on to cinematic immortality and I went on to the stories in this blog.  Don't get me wrong; I'm dead flat happy about who got what.  Especially when I pulled that draft of "Moontrap" out of my files last week and had a look.

Oh, me.  Bad dog.  BAD DOG!

#28. Legal World, legal hell.

#28.  Legal world, legal hell.

A little less than half way through my time in Hollywood, it came to pass that I got Tar-babied in a thirty million dollar lawsuit against Universal Pictures.  Ill prepared and quaking, I was forced to enter...dom dom dom...Legal World.

I had written a script called "Frat Rats" with producer Jim Hart (one of my favorite guys), a wild ass comedy about college fraternities.  Into this 117 page flaming rubric, we had shoehorned every ridiculous moment, every outrageous event we had ever heard of or experienced in our checkered four year different college careers (although mine took nearly five).  This testament was never going to win us a Polk Award although maybe a poke award wasn't out of the question...because while many readers found it ludicrous and semi disgusting, they also found it funny.

I had some early but minor heat from "The Rose" (Fox had just cast Bette Midler in the upcoming film) so "Frat Rats" was making the rounds.  Jim and I took meetings at various studios -- one being Universal -- trying to set the project up for development.

Maybe a year later, Universal released their fraternity blockbuster "Animal House" they had made for under 3 million which went on to gross 141 million, one of the most profitable studio films to that point.  Jim and I instantly knew that our "Frat Rats" was dead and if we continued to tart it around, folks would think we were pathetically trying a coattail run for a straight-to-video slot.  So we packed up our Selectrics and stole back into the night.

Jim (a fountain of ideas) and I (a slow drip of idea) had come up with a new story anyway.  It was to be a script about a lovable Dallas swindler named Eddie Bud Newhaus and the Texas-Oklahoma football game rowdies which, as we put it together, often made us laugh so hard we literally fell to the floor.  Turns out, I would follow Jim's laughter any place.

Lame, I know, but fun.

Somewhere along in here, Jim heard that his former executive producer had contacted his firm of attorneys because he felt like Universal's "Animal House" had somehow ripped off "Frat Rats."  I never paid much attention to all this; many people in Hollywood are either suing each other or are planning law suits or are, at the very least, talking about them.  Law suits and tennis are two of Hollywood's favorite sports.

Then, one day it hit -- huge headline and front page story in Daily Variety.  "Universal Sued For Thirty Million."  Below in slightly smaller headlines, "Animal House gnawed by Upstart Frat Rats."  Or something like that.

And our names were shot through the Variety article, followed religiously by everyone in town.  Suddenly people who'd read "Frat Rats" began to tell us about the 'similarities' between our script and Universal's, now this megahit.

I didn't know what they were talking about.  "Animal House" had become a pop cultural touchstone but all I could think about was how we were going to keep Eddie Bud 'alive' until the end of our new script.  Finally we decided on a hotel bathtub full of room service ice cubes.  And this was all before "Weekend at Bernie's."

Eddie Bud may have bought the farm but "Frat Rats" lived on.  Because  apparently in America, anybody can pretty much sue anybody for anything.  And once it starts moving, slowly but inexorably, it has its own engine, fuel, drivers, passengers, and destination.  Whether it'll ever get there is up for grabs...but it's on its way.

Oh shit, oh dear.

The last thing you want said about you in that town is that you are litigious.  On so many levels, far deeper than truth, it's the kiss of death.  Your phone goes into cryonic slumber.  And I didn't want anything to do with this lawsuit.

But it was too late.  Because once these things start, until it's heard by a judge, stopping or even turning them is like driving a huge 69,000 ton displacing supertanker doing 20 mph.  You spin the wheel like mad (yelling panicked things you learned in submarine movies like "Right full rudder! and Reverse ahead stern!") and about a half hour later, the bow slowly begins to inch around.

Then came the phone call ushering in one of the worst days of my life.  I was being deposed!

We met the next day in some huge law firm's conference room.  I was early, heart slamming so loud I started apologizing to people who looked at me like I was mental.  As it got closer to 9, the room began to fill up.  I recognized my attorney but who were all these other stern-faced suits?  Keep in mind this was light years ago and I was dressed in my semi-cowboy drag; I had shined my Tony Lama boots, combed out my ponytail, and put on a decades old tie.

As someone once said, "There is a Mark in every room.  If you look around and can't find him...it's probably you."  That morning, Chow Puppy's first name turned out to be Mark.  And all those drill-down cadavers were Universal's lawyers, massed and out for blood.  I looked at my lawyer and swallowed hard.  He stifled a little yawn.  The only advice he had given me was to tell the truth.

I will describe, as best I can, the flashing moments that I recall.  It was so scary, humiliating, so racking that, at times during the long, long day, I actually thought I was having an out-of-body experience.  Or they had lapsed into some arcane language I'd never heard.

My lawyer and I sat on one side of the long table.  No cameras but several recording devices and a stenographer taking it all down.  And we started rolling.

Is your name Chow Puppy?

"Yes."

Are you from North Carolina?

"Yes."

Were you in the Dog Marine Corps?

"Yes."

Did you go to the UCLA film school?

"Yes."

Are you now a screenwriter?

"Yes."

Were you a writer with Jim Hart on a screenplay called "Frat Rats?"

"Yes."

Well, I thought this isn't so bad.  They're asking questions that I can at least answer.  And it was beginning to have a kind of comforting rhythm.  I looked over at my attorney whose face was in a beam of morning sun.  His eyes were closed and I thought maybe he was mind-reviewing our defense.  Until I saw his mouth drop open a little.  My guy was asleep.

Mr. Puppy for reasons best known to yourself, I see you decided to show up today in costume.

"What?"  And then came the question that is verbatim.

Are you primarily known in this town as a hack writer?

"WHAT?!"

That was when I realized it was not only Universal lawyers but those representing "National Lampoon" which apparently gave birth to "Animal House" concept.  And suddenly it seemed like a slow motion feeding frenzy.  My attorney finally seemed awake.

This was Legal World and their phalanx of lawyers began to list every problem, real and imagined, that producers, studios and networks had ever had with me.  All dialogue, no structure.  Late on deadlines.  Contentious, whiney, and funnier-looking than Bobby Blue Bland's hair!

Where had they come up with this shit?  As they reeled off the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, I hoped my shocked silence might be taken as stoically butch but I knew my twitching red face probably nixed that.

My attorney finally called for a bathroom break and, just as quickly as it had disappeared, suddenly all the air came back into the room.  Their lawyers turned to each other to schmooze about the back nine at Riviera and drink coffee and they seemed almost human.  As I blindly made my way to the hall and what I hoped was a bathroom, my lawyer caught up to me.  "It's going pretty well, don't you think" he asked as he put his arm around my shoulder.

"Compared to what: the Manson trial!?"  His face tightened as he turned and walked away.

The rest of the day seemed to last six weeks.  Each of their attorneys sharpened their little interrogatories on my face and occasionally my man would object which didn't seem to matter.  They kept rolling.  Depositions are about the sued grilling the suer until it all becomes a sewer or their office building is struck by a meteor.

Mr. Puppy, did it take you two tries to qualify with the M-1 rifle in the Dog Marines?

"Yes.  I had bad eyes --"

Just answer the questions please.  And a year later did you wash out of the Naval Aviation Cadet Program?

"Yes."

And in 1964 did you crash and burn on the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy?'

"Um, yes."

You seem to have a well-worn record of failure.

"I do?"

Were you looking to break this cycle with a raid on the overwhelming success of 'Animal House?'

"Raid?  I didn't bring this lawsuit!"

Just answer the question please.

The character shredding went on like this until they were through with me about six.  They hadn't even broken a sweat; I had to have help getting to my feet.

When I left and went down to the echoey parking garage (the fuckers didn't even validate), I got into my old Ford Woody and started to cry.  I was grateful for the silence but my mind was scrambled by the legal onslaught I had just been though.  A kind of public hating.

When I got home I put on a homeboy Marshall Tucker record, heated a Lean Cuisine, showered and got directly into bed.  It was nine and I was completely stove in as "Can't You See" played again and again.  Gonna take a fast train....  I think I fell asleep about midnight.

And for the next three weeks my phone didn't ring once.  From five or six calls a day to zero.  But the best thing about Hollywood Memory is that it's just about as bad as mine.  And on week four, my agent called with a check, two studio meetings and an offer.  Like Gloria Gaynor, I had survived.

Five months later a judge threw the whole lawsuit out.  It was over just as quickly as it'd begun.  There.  Not there.  That supertanker had taken a summary judgement torpedo amidships and sank without a trace.  "Animal House" went on to successful gross-out legend and Jim and I went on to a frozen Consicle Eddie Bud and the rest of our lives.  I have never felt so much relief at being shed of a project before or since.

I'm thinking about naming my next dog "Starry Decisis."  And that is the very last thing I have to say about Legal World.  Ever again.

Or until I actually need a lawyer...which ever comes first.

#27. Our national mania for lists, and mine

#27.  Our national mania for Top Ten Lists, and mine.

I've had some requests about a Favorite Movie and TV list.  With the availability of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, On Demand, and your local library, you will have to go fishing.  But it's worth it and that's why these lists are tons o'fun to read, make, and revise.  So here is mine, not in any order except the first two, on this day and date.

Make yours.  Tell your friends.  Let's discuss.  Can there ever be too much talk about movies and TV?

                            MOVIES

Driven by the outrageous talents of Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, "CITIZEN KANE", 1941, is still The One.  The mysterious skillionare Great Man dies and a reporter is tasked with finding out what his last spoken word meant: "Rosebud."  Poor Charlie.  He loved things and even some people but the only way he knew how to express it was to buy them and then slowly crush them.  Although there's a lot of yelling from its mostly theatre actors, its big gulp narrative structure and inventive staging rings true for every generation.  Even now, it could be the Donald Trump story with Melania as Susan Alexander Kane.  And, standing right next to it, is

"THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS" that Welles made a year or so later.  Ambersons was a rich story from Booth Tarkington's book about the multigenerational love and loss we all suffer as a down payment for living our lives.  After Welles finshed principal photography, and full of Kane boy-genius success, Nelson Rockerfeller personally proposed a Brazilian 'important' diplomatic documentary adventure (only you can do this, Orson) Welles left the editing of Ambersons to others who promised they'd do it precisely as his detailed notes directed.  Suuuure they would.  Just as soon as they cut an hour out of it and butchered the ending.  Yet, it's still the Two.  Because even though he was three thousand miles away on a South American fishing boat, you can't kill Superman.

"BLADE RUNNER."  1982,  Ridley Scott directing Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and the exquisite Sean Young from a script by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples.  The compleat noir dystopian Sci-fi film, the production design and music score are breathtaking.  The story is a mission search for malfunctioning lethal replicant robots who are equally determined not to be "retired."  It ends up being about who is a replicant and who isn't.  So rich on so many levels, it's Death by Chocolate Upside Down Cake.

"LAWRENCE OF ARABIA."  1962,  everyone's greatest work (including uncredited Black Listed screenwriter Michael Wilson); except for maybe the guy who did the putty nose on Anthony Quinn.  I am a river to my people...goddamn it, stop looking at my nose!  Noel Coward once said if O'Toole had been any more beautiful, they would've had to call it "Florence of Arabia."  As you watch it, you will see the matrix of many of the problems in the mid-east.  This movie is on nearly everyone's Top Ten...as are the next two.

"2001, A SPACE ODYSSEY" by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke in 1968.   Open the pod doors, Hal.  No matter how many times you've seen it, it always sucks you in and it's still two steps ahead of you.  Not many can say that.  And thanks to Douglas Trumbull, mamma mia, that Stargate sequence.  With his early films "The Killing," "Paths of Glory," "Spartacus," and "Dr. Strangelove" not many have ever gotten to the middle of their career with such walk-off home runs.  And these were all before "2001."

"THE SEARCHERS."   1956.  John Wayne and John Ford at their best from Frank Nugent's script of the Alan Le May western novel.  Often listed by the top rank of Seventies directors as the movie that influenced them the most.  This is the movie you finally understand why John Wayne was more than just John Wayne.  And why John Ford is the Chesty Puller of the film world.  Filled with great cinematic moments, some of them so sublime your heart will catch in your throat.  Especially that last, lonely bookended shot...

"OPEN RANGE"  2003, with Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, and Annette Benning.  I also like Costner's "Dances With Wolves" but this one relies on sweep and characterization more than story tricks.  And notice that director/producer Costner gives Duvall top billing.  This is a great movie with a heart-felt ending.

"THE EXORCIST."  1973.  My wife, the venerable Mrs. Puppy, will not see this movie and I don't blame her.  But I still love it.   When I got out of that theatre years ago, I had to go home and change my shorts.  A real movie-movie by W.P. Blatty and William Friedkin and with wonderful performances from Ellen Burstyn,  Jason Miller, Linda Blair, and Max von Sydow.  When you are in such trouble you have to call in The Knight from "The Seventh Seal, you know what trouble is.  And projectile pea soup will soon be involved.

"NIGHT CALL NURSES."  1972.  Only kidding.  Yet it's a list of movies; Roger Corman deserves to be on it someplace.

"THIEF"  1981, by Michael Mann with James Caan, Tuesday Weld, and Willy Nelson.  This is a drop dead modern gangster film about a legendary professional safe-cracker with some truly indelible moments.  It will remind you of what a great actor Caan could be.  Relentless and dark as ten feet down.

"POINT BLANK"  1967, by John Boorman from a script by Alexander Jacobs and the Newhouse brothers starring Lee Marvin at his all time best.  Count the times Marvin kills somebody in this one.  You are likely to be wrong.  And you will bless the day you found it, cheap, on Amazon.  The younger salesman in the used car sequence is Lawrence Hauben who later co-wrote and won the Academy Award for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," to my knowledge, his first and last produced screenplay.  Ahhh, show biz.

"INSIDE MAN,"  2006, a strong heist thriller with Denzel, Clive Owen, Christopher Plummer, and Jody Foster.  It was directed by Spike Lee who, of course, got his possessive credit.  But after I saw the movie, I read Russell Gurwitz's script which had EVERYTHING in it, all laid out for him.  And I mean everything.  Possess this, Spike.  Even Woody Allen doesn't take a 'Film By' credit.

"THE GUNFIGHTER" 1950 (by Wm. Bowers and Nunnally Johnson) and "TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH"  1949 (by Sy Bartlett and Bierne Lay, Jr.) both movies with Gregory Peck, both directed by Henry King.  The first, a classic American Western with a different take: Fame kills.  The second, a WW II bombers-over-Germany film with one of the greatest openings ever.  The rest of the movie is about General Frank Savage himself becoming a casualty.  How's that for a name?

"SINGIN' IN THE RAIN."  1952.  As you may recall from earlier, I once told Gene Kelly I thought it was the musical "Citizen Kane."  He turned that billion watt smile on me as he agreed and strode down the hall.  Moses supposes his toeses are roses...

"BAD SANTA," 2003.   My all-time favorite Christmas movie with Billy Bob Thornton and some pudgy little Canadian kid they couldn't have made the movie without.  Completely outrageous on every level.  Rated R but should be rated Z.  No admission unless accompanied by a priest.

"MOON," a 2009 low budget, high intelligence clone sci-fi movie with Sam Rockwell, Sam Rockwell, and Sam Rockwell.  It was directed and co-written by Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son.  If this one doesn't make your heart pound, call the Neptunes: you're already dead.

"TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY" 1990.  By Anthony Minghella is the British "Ghost," but the better one that packs live ammo.  Do not attempt this movie without a full box of Kleenex.  The tragically underseen Juliet Stevenson has lost, to an early death, the love of her life Jamie played by Alan Rickman.  Her world shattered, the scenes with her shrink are truly painful to see.  She has, very tentatively started a relationship with Bill Patterson but it's not jelling.  One day, she goes home from work to drink and cry...and finds dead Jamie waiting for her!  Oh-oh.  From here on out sunlight and humor begins to float her grief away as Jamie keeps turning up the furnace and inviting his dead friends over to watch videos.  This is all beginning to irritate her.  She just wants to be alone with him.  He says tomorrow for sure but tonight they have a triple bill of "Five Easy Pieces," "Fitzcaraldo," and "The Wild Bunch!"  Oh, really?  With that voice, he probably has a goddamn list of movies...

"THE WILD BUNCH," a 1969 turn-of-the-century Western by Sam Peckinpah and Walon Green that is so well acted, designed, and cut, that pretty soon you can smell the road apples and gunpowder because you are actually there.  The slow-mo blood ballet at the end is the stuff of legend.  But more importantly, it is the movie that gave us Bo Hopkin's immortal line, "How'd you like to kiss my sister's black cat's ass?"

"DR. ZHIVAGO"  1965.  Is the Russian revolution, WW I, with Julie Christie and Omar Sharif.  Man, can that guy suffer.  A true David Lean - Robert Bolt epic. I mostly remember the snow, the myriad heartbreaking stories winding together and the huge red star and whistle screaming on Strelnikov's on-coming locomotive at the intermission break.

"MAN ON FIRE"  2004.  Denzel plays a mysterious broken warrior (his specialty) with the best leading lady of his career: a ten-year-old Dakota Fanning.  Ridley's younger brother Tony Scott's hard core Mexican kidnap movie from Brian Helgeland's script has more moves than a monkey on a hundred yards of grapevine.  Plus Christopher Walken!  Its classic ending leaves not a dry eye in the house.

"GALAXY QUEST" 1999.  Directed by Dean Parisot and written by David Howard and Robert Gordon is a loving parody of the world wide "Star Treck" phenomena.  With Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman, this Sci-Fi comedy is about a group of has-been TV actors who troupe from convention to convention to scratch out a living.  At the same time actual aliens land on earth to save their own civilization light years away because they think that the cheesy "Galaxy Quest" was a documentary!  David Mamet, famous writer and Ur grump, called this a nearly perfect movie.  In the end (spoiler alert), both Earth and the Alien world are saved by the show's fans...who are the only ones that actually know how to separate the science from the fiction.  Thrills, spills, and laughs aplenty.

"SALVADOR" 1986.  By Oliver Stone and Richard Boyle with James Woods and Jim Belushi.  A truish story about the Washington sponsored terrorism and chaos in Central America.  Woods brilliantly plays photo-journalist Boyle, a fast-talking weasel who finally finds a reluctant heart hidden in his double time brain.  My favorite scene is Woods trying to make a salvation deal with a befuddled priest in the confessional.  Both Stone and Woods were nominated for Oscars.  You'll see why.

"LARCENY INC."  Comedy 1942, from a play by S.J. Perelman starring Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, and Jack Carson.  Tough guy Robinson as "Pressure" Maxwell gets out of prison with a plan.  He has a Manhattan bank robbery in mind; right next to the bank is a tatty luggage store for sale.  He will take over the failing business and drill sideways into the bank's enormous vault.  Things he didn't count on: the savior soul of his beautiful daughter who wants him to go straight...and the sudden success of the luggage store, now full of customers who wonder what the annoying sounds of the jackhammers and drills are about.  They save one of their best jokes for the last shot.  Why Warners never remade this hilarious movie is a mystery.

"TRUE GRIT," 1969, the first version with John Wayne (for which he won his only Oscar), Kim Darby, Dennis Hopper, Robert Duvall, and Glen Campbell.  This movie, written by Hollywood Leftie Marguerite Roberts from a once-in-a-generation book by Charles Portis, is a language dance of the highest order.  "You will think a ton of brick have fell on you."  Directed by tough old bird Henry Hathaway; the legend was that on the first day of shooting, Wayne came to the set and announced he had some script changes and he was not going to wear that goddamn eyepatch.  With that, Hathaway yelled out to the crew "All right, that's a wrap.  Shut it down," and walked off the set.  The next day, a very quiet Wayne showed up minus the script changes and wearing the eyepatch.  Roll camera...

"ZULU," 1964, by blacklisted American Cy Enfield and John Prebble is an overlooked true story masterpiece of the 1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift in colonial Africa which pitted 150 fortified British soldiers against 4000 Zulu warriors.  The epic sweep of this movie gives me goose bumps just to think about.  It's Michael Caine's first film also starring Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Suzanna York, and Nigel Green.  The music score by John Barry is cripplingly beautiful.  In a lull before the big battle, dried blood caking his face, a bewildered young fusilier turns to his Sergeant Major and ask "Why us?"  The grizzled old vet simply says "Because we're here, lad.  And no one else."  The ensuing battle is a thing of horror and glory.  They fear to make 'em like this any more.

And of course "Grapes of Wrath," "The Godfather" 1&2, "Saving Private Ryan," "Alexander Nevsky," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Deliverance," "Seven Samurai," "Network," "Les Enfant du Paradis," "Touch of Evil," "Paths of Glory," "Psycho," "La Dolce Vita," "Alien" 1&2, "The Leopard," "8 1/2," "Tom Jones," "Casablanca," "Breathless," "The Conformist," "Shoot the Piano Player," "How Green Was My Valley," "Jeremiah Johnson," "The Philadelphia Story," "Sullivan's Travels," "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "Face in the Crowd" "Once Upon A Time In America," and hundreds of others.

Oh, boy, we LOOOOVE movies!  And of course

                      TV

"SLINGS AND ARROWS" is a Canadian TV series about the misadventures of a down and out Shakespeare Rep company like Ontario's Stratford only broker and funnier.  The hammy targets are easy but the sniping is brilliant.  I once did two summers in a Shakespeare rep company (I played, criminally unheralded, half a Siamese twin with John Lithgow in a "Measure for Measure" crowd scene) and "Slings and Arrows" is so real, so funny, it gave me the willies.  But the good ones.  It was designed to run for only three short seasons; trust me, you will want more.

"THE WIRE" is always listed as one of the top shows in TV history.  It was an HBO crime series about Baltimore: dealing with the criminal justice system, education, the port, and the press.  Like all great TV, it relies on great casting and writing from David Simon, George Pelicanos, Dennis Lehane, Richard Price, and David Mills -- a typing Murderer's Row if there ever was one.  It's a grim portrait of saints and sinners, just trying to make it through to the weekend...you know, when they can take a deep breath.  And really fuck things up.

"LIFE" ran for only two seasons on NBC, created by Rand Ravitch and Far Shariat (why the hell didn't my mom name me 'Far Shariat?')  It stars Damian Lewis as a disgraced former LAPD detective who went to prison for murder only to be found innocent.  His lawsuit against the city settled leaving him a multi-millionaire.  He's back on the job with the great Sarah Shahi as his new partner.  This  L.A. police procedural that is never quite what you think it is.  Everybody has troubles, is on the make, running from their past, dealing with betrayal and an endless parade of people who want to destroy them.  The whole story is shot through with sly humor and jaw-dropping surprises.  Perfect hypnotizing TV.

"IN PLAIN SIGHT" was a five season crime show from the USA network about the U.S. Marshal Service working out of Albuquerque.  Created by David Maples, starring Mary McCormack and Fredrick Weller, it was a odd view of mid-size city Feds running the witness-relocation program amid their TV turbulent lives.  The acting is stellar, the writing exemplary.  And nobody left their sense of humor back in L.A.  I love this show.

"SAVING GRACE" was Nancy Miller's super highway of Holly Hunter.  Another cop show, this one on TNT about Oklahoma City and the ultimate redemption of an out of control, driven detective (Hunter) trying to make sense out of the new man in her life: A sixty-year-old angel named Earl played by unforgettable Leon Rippy, wings and all.

"MY SO CALLED LIFE" 1994.  This ABC show by Winnie Holzman with Claire Danes and Jered Leto was, during its nineteen episode run, was my favorite.  A simple concept done well -- a realistic portrayal of high school kids dealing with love, betrayal, alcoholism, sex, homophobia, bullying, homelessness; you know, just the normal patchwork of teenaged fun.  When I wasn't cheering, I was cringing.  Once at a real life dinner party, I was seated next to Carolyn See, a well-known California novelist.  I hadn't read any of her books yet and she hadn't seen any of my movies.  So we spent the whole night talking about how much we both loved "My So-Called Life."  All the way through desert.

"MAD MEN" was a brilliant, grueling look at who America was in the early Sixties as seen through the Madison Avenue advertising eyes in New York City.  Created by Matthew Weiner, careers are made and ruined.  Backs are stabbed.  Cigarettes are smoked.  Way too much booze is drunk.  If it weren't so well done, I would've quit after the pilot.  But it was and I bet you won't want to leave it either.

To me, Aaron Sorkin's "THE WEST WING" was the greatest political series of all time.  Looking back, it was NBC's seven years of Camelot viewed through the smokey fires of what has happened to us since.  Again, brilliant writing and casting wins the day; somehow its scope was both narrow and huge, its stories both personal and institutional.  Just the best.  To see more of Sorkin, check out his series "Sports Night" and especially "Newsroom."

"THE L WORD" was Ileen Chaiken's nighttime soap opera about lesbians that takes place in West Hollywood (my former home) so I'm in!  But even with all the soap in these stories, I totally fell for the characters and the actresses who played them.  Especially Katherine Moennig who was Shane.  And, again, Sarah Shai.  I felt like I was suddenly looking at a world I knew but not exactly.  Not really.  Maybe not at all.  But it turns out there's all kinds of 'knowing.'

"JUSTIFIED." Love, hate, revenge and sometimes even justice comes to Harlan County.  Created for FX network by Graham Yost from an Elmore Leonard short story, starring Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins.  Who is Walton Goggins?  Well, if Warren Oates had hooked up with Meryl Streep, their love-baby would've been Goggins.  It was a six season series about the beleaguered U.S. Marshal Service in crime-ridden rural Kentucky.  Wound tight with family, lovers, friends, and mortal enemies, this show has it all, including the most lethal Bad Guys ever.  And the worst is a woman: Mags Bennett played by Margo Martindale who won an Emmy for it.  Her gimlet-eyed weasel son Dickie, played by Jeremy Davies who also won the Emmy, is so horrific that, if he came to my front door at night, I believe I'd just go on and kill him.  As my best friend used to say, "No judge in the world..."  Especially one who'd been to Harlan County.

"THE GOOD WIFE" is the brain child of Robert and Michelle King.  Taking place in Chicago, it is a brilliant, poisonous mix of law and Illinois politics where the phrase "vote early and vote often" came from.  The good wife is Julianna Margulies and her sometimes less than good husband is Chris Noth.  This is a soap for the brain while retaining (a lawyer pun, get it?) enough love and humor to keep the concentration headaches to a minimum.  The casting is perfect, especially the law firm's beautiful, devious fixer Archie Punjabi.            

"BRAIN DEAD" is a most unusual mix of horror creepy and hysterically funny, also by Robert and Michelle King, their off season CBS followup to "The Good Wife."  I would've loved to hear this network pitch: an alien spaceship crash lands in Washington D.C. and is immediately covered up by the CIA because it was piloted by billions of tiny bugs which got loose and are crawling up the drain pipes and stone stairs all over D.C. and into people's ears while they sleep, rendering them (mostly politicians) brain dead!  WHAT?!  They only got one soaring season so watch it.  But not over dinner.

Oh, sure, for six seasons PBS's "DOWNTON ABBEY" was gunnel deep in upper class British twits and their long-suffering staff, and sometimes it looked a little like "Upstairs Downstairs" or "Brideshead Revisited" but still it was better than all its elements, created as it was by Julian Fellowes who wrote nearly all the episodes, a Herculean feat.  And they saved many of the best lines for the manor's dowager empress Maggie Smith.  Of whom, let's face it, one can hardly ever get enough.

"NYPD BLUE" a classic cop show from the early 90s by Steven Bochco, David Milch, and former NYPD Detective First Grade Bill Clark.  Many of its early episodes were either produced or written by Emmy winning Ted Mann (more about him later) and a nonpareil staff.  It went for 12 seasons with many cast and writing staff changes, and all seemed to be as good or better than the ones "replaced."  They found a brilliant whip-pan fast cut format and rode it to glory.  Great binge watching but lay in the Cheetos, brother.

"MI-5" by David Wollstonecraft was called "Spooks" in its U.K. home.  This epic (86 episodes) spy series had, to me, the greatest array of cast ever.  An embarrassment of riches right down to the day-players.  And you could never be sure of continued life either; even though their ratings fell off, some of the best characters disappeared into a deep foreign retirement or all manner of death.  More than almost any other series, this one is like a drug; the only way out of it is through it.  But it's a great journey when you have actors like Peter Firth and Nicola Walker with you.

"MAJOR CRIMES" started out to be a decent cop show called "The Closer" with Kyra Sedgwick.  I never bought her "southern" accent.  But it was okay and fairly successful.  Then Sedgwick decided to move on.  Most of the cast remained but her honcho job was taken over by the wonderfully odd Mary McDonnell and that's when it really got good.  On TNT, you can plug in anytime but I suggest going back to its changeover beginning because when Capt. Sharon Rader is cooking, you'll be eating.

"GOLIATH" is an Amazon eight episode series from 2016 starring Billy Bob Thornton and William Hurt as the creepiest villain in years.   Wait for his cricket clicker.   Eeww.   It's a law show co-created by David E. Kelley who, years ago, did "L.A. Law," "Aly McBeal," "The Practice," "Chicago Hope," and many others.  Brothers and sisters, he's back!  When you see this kind of story telling you'll remember how much you miss him.  Billy Bob alone is worth joining the Prime part of Amazon.  Even though this series has a definite ending at episode 8, I pray they go on.  Saddle back up Billy Bob -- you're not done yet!
 
And of course, "Hill St. Blues" "Maverick," "The Simpsons," "Seinfeld," "Breaking Bad," "Letterman," "The Sopranos," "Frontline," "Cheers," "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Antiques Road Show," "Sex in the City," "The X-files," "L.A. Law," "Howdy Doody" (I had a pre-teen crush on Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring, sue me), and a hundred others.

Holy ranchero, we LOOOOVE television.   And I'm sorry these lists have way more than ten items.  But it's my list and I can have however many I want.  The twin engines of my life, I've probably seen more movies and TV shows than you've had hot meals.

When I'm too old and in a home, come check on me.  Please?  Even though I will have forgotten your name, I probably love you.  So make sure I have a tiny private room, lots of decaf, a small high-def TV and an idiot proof remote that will alternate me from Turner Classic Movies to Bravo to Home & Garden Network to Audience.

I'll find the football games.