Barely made it. As
exhausted as I've ever been, but I knew I had to
jot down some words tonight before I passed out. I'll
do a longer more intense entry on everything that
happened this weekend, but gotta capture the emotion
of tonight... which starts with the video:
Whew. I know I
have a lot of moments on this site where I show
emotion, but none as endearing to me as that. I had
just spoken to Jim, and was literally processing it as
I was describing it - then I heard what I was actually
saying and realized I did it.
SO WHAT DID HE SAY?!?!
I'll leave all the
day's events for the next entry - but after the show,
Jim came up to me very, very happy. He said he loved
it and then within 5 seconds of a handshake asked what
happened with Weller/Grossman. Gulp. I mentioned they
really never called back and I just went ahead
without them... but he wasn't a fan of that - he said
some more positive things about the show, andthen
asked again: "Really, what happened...". It was clear
he wanted to know everything, right that second, with
everyone around waiting to talk to me... so I told him
as much as I could at the moment. Everything I've
already covered. He seemed to really understand.
Especially their hesitancy about doing the show with
the TVs, etc... and how there was no way I wasn't
going to get to this level and not go all out. And
I believe he was impressed that I took the
initiative and literally produced everything myself.
I mentioned that Lieberman showed interest, and
voila - there was Josh who I hadn't heard if he was
comin' or not... so he joined the fray for a
bit.
The first thing he
mentioned was the promos/commercials I added. He loved
that. WHEW. This was, by far, the biggest risk of the
entire night. The birther bit was the 2nd biggest risk
(it went over perfectly), but to me putting Comedy
Central promos and commercials within the show as if
it were already on the air was incredibly presumptuous
and bordered on arrogant. If they didn't like the
show? I look like a fuckin' ass. If they did? It was a
great way to show them exactly how it would look/feel
on the air. At the last moment - I just did it. I
just had to have faith that the show was so good, they
would buy it all and amazingly - that was one of the
first things he brought up and he said "I could
totally see this on television! I really liked you
putting the commercials in there.". I deflected
the comment initially explaining my reservations about
the presumptuousness of it, but he came back with
glowing praise of it. Thank, fucking,
GODDDDDD.
He then said he
just loved how FAST it was. He said the show FLEW by,
and he actually snapped his fingers about how smooth
and quick it ran. SOOOOOOOOOO happy about this. I
must've have re-edited those bits forEVER for this
very reason. In and out as fast as humanly possible.
Never have one moment of lag. The show is actually 31
minutes (and the actual half-hour pilot would be
22:30) but watching it? You'd swear it was 20 minutes.
But he caught that, and loved it. He was just
incredibly positive and ended by saying "Call me next
week.". And there you go. I of course said absolutely,
went on talking to everyone else for a moment or two
and then ran into the dressing room to make that
video, and that's when it all kinda hit me -- as you
saw.
The key to reading
situations from people in extremely powerful positions
is understanding what they don't need to say.
They don't need to come up to you after the show to
begin with. Now considering all that happened leading
to the night, I never for a second thought that would
happen. But I really did expect a generic - "Great
show! We'll be in touch!". In which I would fight and
struggle through the next 45 days (the amount of time
they have to make a choice). He did not have to go
into specifics, he did not have to say "I could
totally see it on TV!" -- I mean sweet jesus he didn't
have to say that. And he most certainly didn't have to
ask me to call HIM next week. That's of course, the
clincher. That's where it's obvious that this is
positive. You can't reasonably think he wants me to
call him so he can tell me that he really didn't want
to move forward. He could've done that by simply
leaving, or saying he'd be in touch. He didn't. He was
happy and excited and from friends that saw him in the
crowd? He was laughing throughout. I think I did it.
Goddamn, I think I did it.
Josh also was very
positive saying that he was not expecting me to
be so good at the characters. That he completely
believed me as those characters -- and several people
actually mentioned the "realism". Which I feel is the
core to the whole show. These are not caricatures.
They have deep backgrounds, and as I always say, would
be completely comfortable walking into Cheers. I'm so
glad people see that. It really helps differentiate me
from so many other comedians/actors.
Alright - there's
tons more, but I'm so tired. I may actually get
more than 3 hours of sleep tonight.
I DID IT! I DID IT!!!!
WHAT THE HELL DOES HE WANT TO TELL ME NEXT WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!?!!?!
