MIS-ADVENT-TURE

(I wish the title had anything to do with the rest of the post.)

Numerous Revelations to Recount:
I. It's generally accepted that sitcoms shoul have 8-10 jokes per minute.
II. Professional disappointment, unlike other disappointments, tastes much like a liquid iron-covered rice cake.
III. The better a television show, the less likely it is to be profitable, since television audiences perfer to be un-challenged, un-questioned, and asked very little of.
IV. And, contrary to popular belief, I may have a job in this goddamn entertainment world someday.

The events of my past Friday dip quite sharply and quite liberally into the realm of the surreal, lingering in the aforementioned existence for an unbearably lengthy period (read: twenty-four hours), and end quite anti-climatically -- so, don't get your hopes up.

The elevator to the twenty-second floor of 1515 Broadway (the home of MTV, Nickelodeon, and more...) is a fast mother fucker.

Eric and I announced our presence to the guards, who looked past us into a fluxuating vista of confusion, and, after a foolishly extended duration, the main guard (I refer to him as such because he was the one in front of the computer) glanced at the screen: "Go on in."

We were ushered into a conference room, and surrounded by other creative type individuals. Tension was buffered by packaged breakfast items and a thick, greasy layer of sleep deprevation.

We were told that "The N" -- described as a surly, fickle entity -- perfers multicultural casts with strong female protagonists, and strong female role models for said protagonist to emulate. We switched our pitch around to emphasize these qualities, being sell-outs and all, and regaled a panel of executives with our usual self-deprecating, shmaltzy (I don't really know what that means) humor.

The long story short, we sold ourselves without managing to succesfully sell our script. The concept of a "show-within-a-show," by no means revolutionary, is already a significant presence in their new lineup, and they couldn't justify another addition in that vein. On the other hand, the executives loved us as a creative team, and felt it was very important for us "to meet with them again in the future with a new group of ideas," (That is by no means a real quote, but I felt the projection of the statement as exact added unqualified weight).

Anyway, they seemed downright desperate. So, while we're not making sweet cash yet, there are still prospects floating, obscured, in the unpleasant, amorphous material ahead. What's that phrase? The one with the door shutting and windows responding somehow? You know the one. That.

We've been sent a certain insider document, a set of "development guidelines," normally reserved for established, working writers hoping to catch a glimpse of the exact specifications any given network is looking for in new shows, and we've been instructed to write a pilot adhering to said materials. Such action is, we're informed, lucrative.

I'm such a fuckin' sell out.