Remembering Blake Snyder - Four Years On

Another Summer of Discontent

Summer is the season of loneliness.

Now, in my mid-Fifties, it’s not often I feel the loneliness that blighted the greater part of my life.

In my 20s, 30s and early (although less so, later) 40s, I used to look at friends with partners and children and fantasise about their perfect lives, while I sat in trains, planes and bars alone, thinking that I had missed out.
  
That all stopped when I hit 50. On the last day of my 40s, I decided to treat myself to a trip to Los Angeles, a city I had visited and loved 30 years previous. I continue to spend most of my time there, loving the work ethic and relishing the TV and film industry that pervades every corner.
  
But, every summer, my heart sinks. Summer is me at 13, when my grandfather died in Wales. I remember the sun and smell of freshly cut grass outside and welcoming its freshness after leaving the dark wood and shadows of his bedroom, sticky Lucozade rings on the bedside table like the patterns my Spirograph made at home.
  
Summer is 1989, the last one I spent with my dad, who died in January 1990: him trying to force Mum to put the spare butter pats from their Plowman’s lunches into her handbag and her refusing because they would melt.
  
Summer is the memory of my childhood holidays in Cornwall as a family: jars of pebbled sweets, whose smooth grey and white surfaces made each one a jewel.

Summer is hacking into the cliffs at Southerndown, near where we lived, and alighting upon a tiny insect, stored for centuries, its legs spread-eagled forever in time.

Summer is late night hot doughnuts and milk at Butlin’s Pwllheli, the joy of watching the wet batter emerge solid and sugary like a life transformed.

Summer is that terrible day in Los Angeles four years ago on August 4th, when I heard that my dear friend and mentor, Blake Snyder, had died.
  
What is it about summer that brings memories to the fore? What is it about those memories that, last night, had me consumed with a loneliness I have not felt for some years, as I sat by myself watching other holiday-makers locked into their own August world?
  
Everyone is away with somebody else. Friends, partners, husbands and wives, children – I feel like the cripple in the Pied Piper of Hamelin, left behind because the Piper has led everyone into the secret holiday mountain -  except me.

Away on work, I sat in the Marbella Club listening to the Hammond style organ playing “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” It had that incessant beat beat beat that these instruments bring to all songs, and, as usual, accompanied by a very mediocre singer who delivers every note at exactly the same pitch.

On the dance floor, a lone couple smooched, separating only when the organ and singer launched into Abba.

Were they in love? Were they high on Sangria? How long had they been together? Had they only just met?

I wanted to know their story, but whatever it was, it made me feel infinitely sad. Suddenly, I wanted to be in a cheap summer dress with bleached blonde hair, being held by a man from whom I would, in all likelihood in daytime, run away from.
  
I tried to think of the disastrous men I have been involved with during summers past (all the names have been changed). Tony, with whom I sat on a table outside a Primrose Hill café and he told me he was falling for me in a big way – and phoned the next day to say he had come out in a facial rash and it was all over.

David, who told me on a hot summer’s day in Paris that I was the brightest, funniest, most wonderful woman he had ever met – but he just didn’t fancy me.

Alan, who enjoyed the five star hotel I paid for one summer in the south of France – and then ran off with Bonnie the nurse from Boston.
  
When I moved to Paris in 2001, I recall sitting on a café terrace in St Michel, alongside the Seine, reading a book, drinking a glass of Rose but feeling sorry for myself, when I rang a friend and she told me who they had round for lunch.
  
In my mind’s eye, I saw a huge ballroom, couples dancing, happy children running round in gingham, dinner plates piled high with every luxury – and then, in the background, I heard: “Look, if you don’t shut up, we’re going home right now!” followed by loud screams.

“I would give ANYTHING to be sitting by the Seine with a book and a glass of wine,” said my friend.
  
I have never been someone who thinks the grass is greener on the other side; I love the side I am on.

In fact, most of the time, I don’t know how anyone can bear not to be me.
  
But there is just something about summer that brings out that little bit of wasteland in me when I recall summers past.

And then, I remember Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and these words: “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date”.

For me, it can never be too short.

I comfort myself in the knowledge that it will soon be autumn and, as Keats said: “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.”

Oh, yes.

      

The Angel Gabriel

For months, I have been waiting.

Months of longing, tears and frustration. Months of checking the TV schedules in magazines and throwing them across the room when it failed yet again to materialise.

Then, a few weeks ago, the TV announced that it would be returning on June 16^th.

  

I stayed in. Waited again. More longing in my heart and loins. Then, I discovered that the return date was July 16^th. I was a whole month early. More tears.

  

But this week, it returned. Suits. The brilliant, fantastically produced, stunningly written, Suits. Even repeating the word thrills me. Suits.

  

Gabriel Macht in a suit. A handsome, sexy man playing handsome, sexy lawyer Harvey Specter. In a suit.

  

And all would have been well with the world, had I not been in the UK. I would never have booked that flight, had I known the television trauma I was about to endure: awake at 5am in my UK bed, unable to sleep, knowing what I was missing thousands of miles away on the other side of the world.

  

My flight schedule meant that when I returned to the US on Wednesday, I would have had two episodes to watch. Delayed gratification is good, I reasoned. But I have had to change my flight again, as I have the chance to interview Eva Longoria in Spain at the beginning of August.

It was a tough call – the world’s most beautiful woman versus the world’s most beautiful man. Eva won out (mega close call, but I was being paid to interview, not to drool). By the time I return to the US, there will be five episodes of Suits to catch up on. I just hope that the delayed gratification doesn’t kill me before I get my hands on the remote.

  

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love Suits, which is also perfectly cast, with not a glimmer of a weak link in the chain. Macht is, quite simply, superb. When I recently bumped into E L James, author of 50 Shades of Grey, I begged her to get Macht cast in the lead role of Christian Grey.

He really would be perfect. Please, please, please. He’d be great. On and on and on I went. Alas for her, flying at 35,000 feet, she had no escape route. I just pray it lodged somewhere.

  

Specter’s sidekick, Mike Ross, played by Patrick J. Adams, is the maverick turned good guy to Specter’s mean and bad.

And Rick Hoffman’s Louis Litt is a character with barely one redeeming feature, and whose attempts to be a better person are always doomed to failure as a result of his weaknesses – namely, paranoia and insecurity. But it is those weaknesses with which the audience identifies, and that is why we still like him.

The USA Network is my favourite station  - my other big worry at the moment is the date of the season premiere of White Collar; I am very worried about what is happening to Peter in jail. Maybe that, too, has already returned, and, when I finally get back to the US, I will be able to spend an entire week in my dressing gown, catching up.

In the meantime, Twitter people, stop giving the game away in Tweets before the rest of us have had chance to view. I may not be a fan of delayed gratification, but at the moment it’s the only thing keeping me going.

Well, that and the fact that I’m going to meet Eva Longoria.

  

    

     

Give Me a Richard Branson Lounge and I'm Happy

There was a major crisis at LAX, and the man causing it was going nowhere fast.

   

Virgin Atlantic, which has a spectacular lounge at Heathrow for Upper Class passengers travelling to LA, has always had to make do with Air New Zealand’s less than spectacular offering when travelling LA to London.

   

It is, however, managed by the wonderful manager Thierry, who beats everyone else hands down when it comes to airline customer care. It’s not his fault that ANZ catering has heard of nothing other than butternut squash soup, nor that their idea of a salad looks like the staple diet of an anorexic rabbit; he looks after the people – often making valuable introductions and forming friendships between passengers that, in my case, certainly, have continued for years.

   

But inferior as the ANZ lounge is to Virgin’s (quite why Virgin does not have one at LAX has never been fully explained to me), it is still the best of a bad bunch. So, imagine my surprise when, last week, I looked down at my Welcome card and saw that the “new” venue for Virgin passengers is now Air France.

   

The man in front of me was having none of it. He demanded to speak with Virgin. He demanded to speak with ANZ. They, alas, were having none of him. So I snuck up the stairs, went to the ANZ lounge, told them of my immense distress at this tragic turn of events, and hey presto, I was suddenly sitting all nice and cosy before another bowl of butternut squash soup. For all I know, Mr Angry is still at the check-in desk, shouting for Sir Richard himself.

   

It was harder to come back to the UK this time, as I confess to being very LA Loved Up. Having lived in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica – the former like the Rigor Mortis Saloon before the Grim reaper calls your name; the latter, beautiful sunsets but might as well be Wales for all of its proximity to any action – I decided to move. To West Hollywood. And I love it.

   

I am The Only Straight in the Village. Well, pretty much so, and I feel incredibly safe. It’s a lot more lively at night, and several UK friends are within walking distance of my rather gorgeous apartment, which is not only a darn sight more upmarket than my Beverly Hills one (honestly – someone should really give those landlords a lesson in the meaning of “high spec”) but a darn sight cheaper.

   

So, it was hard to leave it, although obviously, I am pleased to be seeing friends and family. My first stop was Denise Welch’s wedding in Portugal (I was almost The Only Straight in the Wedding, too); after Cardiff and London, I am off to Marbella to interview Eva Longoria – and I am literally palpitating with excitement over that. I might invite her round for tea when we are both back in LA, although I suspect Danish pastries are not high on her list of afternoon treats.

   

And so to the UK weather. Dear Lord. Are the Brits ever satisfied? The last few times I’ve returned home, they banged on endlessly about how long the winter was, how cold they were, how they would never see sun again. And now, here they are in the middle of a heat-wave, and it’s oh dear, will this awful sunshine never end, blah blah blah.

   

And now there’s a whole new breed, who love the sun, but don’t like people who don’t; so while one group moans about the weather, the other people are moaning about the people moaning about the weather: the Second Degree Moaners.

   

So far, I’ve spent just half an hour in the pub garden with them, as I am sitting indoors catching up on all the US TV I crave when I leave LA.

   

I’ve had to change my flight to fit in my interview with Eva (it’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it) and at least I’ll have the Virgin lounge on this leg of the journey on my way back. This time, though, it’s a one-way ticket. That Air France lounge will just have to wait. 

Come on, Sir Richard, get building! Your passengers need you. 

More than that, they need your lounges.

Overdosing on Zimmerman, Judge Alex and CNN

Is it possible to overdose on Judge Alex? Is it possible to overdose on court TV in general? Do I really need to know the minutiae of Florida law, when I live in California? Am I really a closet criminal/juror/lawyer? Am I just finding more reasons for avoiding the work I should actually be doing?

  

These, and many questions like them, have been occupying me this week as I have sat down to watch the minute by minute coverage of the George Zimmerman trial. For those not in the know, he is on trial for the murder (Second Degree) of 17 year old, unarmed Trayvon Martin, whom he claims he shot in self-defence – or defense, as I now have to write it (along with color, favor etc. . . . but that’s another story). 

So far, so relatively straightforward. But here’s the crux: Zimmerman is white Hispanic, Trayvon was black. And the black community is up in arms over what they perceive to be a racist killing.

    

Actually, up in arms is putting it very mildly. They have taken to Twitter declaring that Zimmerman will be raped and/or killed if he goes to jail, and certainly killed if he “walks” and tries to resume normal life.

   

I am gripped. I am gripped by everything. 

Why George has put on so much weight (he hasn’t just eaten all the pies, he’s eaten the factory that made them), for example? Why is the Prosecution  fielding witnesses that help the Defense (more of that anon)? Why had the Prosecution’s “star” witness, Rachel Jeantel (who was the last person to speak to Trayvon on the night he was killed), not been coached beforehand (“You listenin’?” she aggressively asked Defense Attorney Don West)? When the judge announces that the jurors’ lunch has “arrived”, what is it?  

   

In my office, during the day, I have the live feed from Fox 35 in Orlando, where the trial is taking place. In my living room, I have the trial live on CNN, but with intermittent analysis. At night, I watch HLN and Fox, and Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan on CNN.

    

Judge Alex Ferrer, whose courtroom show Judge Alex entertains me every weekday at 2pm, has been on everything. He seems to be the only person who is up to speed on Florida law (such as the reasons behind the prosecution having to field witnesses that potentially damage them) and the legalities of a case that has “experts” responding emotively, rather than delivering unbiased opinion. Women with big hair and tombstone teeth shout at frightened men with glasses as they all try to second-guess what the jury is thinking (six people – allowed under Florida law). 

You see? I am learning, so it’s technically work).

    

The women’s dress sense varies according to age. The younger ones go casual, like Sporty Barbie; the older ones look like Norma Desmond after a night on the tiles. Judge Alex looks like an ad for Savile Row: impeccably dressed, perfectly ironed (or “pressed” as I now call it over here), shirts and exquisitely chosen matching ties. He is by far the best looking expert and stands out as a Greek god in the Fraggle Rock of men before us, so, naturally, I agree with everything he says.

    

It’s not hard to do that, though, when he applies reason and the law to the evidence. But although I have always been in favour of cameras in the courtroom, what worries me with these big, publicity generating cases, is that viewer access spawns a level of hysteria from people with preconceived ideas (long before they have heard the evidence) that I suspect, with Zimmerman, will end in violence – not least because, so far, the prosecution (to me) is not proving its case, and Zimmerman looks likely to go free, or, at most, have the charge reduced to manslaughter.

    

The hatred and aggression appearing on a second by second basis on the Twitter feed that accompanies Fox 35, is truly disturbing. If they had to weed out this kind of prejudice during jury selection, small wonder that it took them so long (interestingly, the jury is made up of six women). These are not people who want to pass judgment when presented with the facts of the case; they are vigilantes who, in reality, are mimicking the very vigilante behaviour of which they accuse George Zimmerman. This probably says more about the nature of social networking than it does about the pros and cons of cameras in court, but, in this case, the ethics of the two seem inextricably linked.

    

The public is nevertheless fascinated by the workings of the law and, as Judge Alex points out elsewhere, if the public is allowed into the courtroom (which they are in the UK, as well as the US), all the cameras are doing is making the proceedings available to a wider audience.

    

Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher’s 1986 series LA Law ran for eight seasons on NBC in the US and was picked up, to huge critical acclaim, in the UK (I have every episode on videotape – remember videos? They were those bricks you started to chuck out at the turn of the Millennium). Dozens of law-based shows, on both sides of the Atlantic, have followed. I reckon I have seen every episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit at least half a dozen times.

    

The truth is, that all human life can be seen in a courtroom - love, jealousy, sex, death, prejudice, empathy, hatred – and when several of these factors come together in a big case, it is as if we are united as an audience in the very essence of life’s daily dramas, but magnified a thousand fold.

   

I’ve missed my daily Zimmerman dose today, as the trial is off air for the weekend. But the week’s appearances of Judge Alex are still stored in my Time Warner Cable box, so my legal fix is never more than a click away on the remote. Yes, I’m afraid I really am that sad.

Or just someone who really cares about nice laundry.  

   

  

   

    

James Gandolfini and the Art of Twitter

It was a little after 4.30pm in Los Angeles on Wednesday when Twitter went into overdrive after Variety and the Hollywood Reporter confirmed the death of James Gandolfini.

    

On holiday in Italy, the actor, who was just 51 years old, had apparently died suddenly from a suspected heart attack. The outpouring of shock, disbelief and despair that the world had lost this genius of a man was immense.

    

Gandolfini is best known for playing Tony Soprano, a capo of the New Jersey-based DiMeo crime family in the HBO drama, The Sopranos (from series two, he was the acting boss). First broadcast in January 1999, it won a multitude of awards, including five Golden Globes and 21 Emmys - three of the latter for Gandolfini. In its time, it was considered the most financially successful series in the history of cable television (and remains HBO’s highest rating series ever), and in 2013 the Writers Guild of America named it the best-written series in television history.

    

Its success (and ongoing success thanks to box sets) is in no small part down to Gandolfini’s performance, which is strong, warm, funny, frightening, tender – and he brings to the character a complexity that, despite the violent themes, makes him immensely likeable, especially to women. An unlikely sex symbol (overweight, overbearing, cruel), Tony’s struggle is trying to balance his life in the Mafia with a complicated family life and his bouts of depression. Visits to his psychiatrist, Dr Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) complicate his life still further, owing to the sexual tension between the pair (although the good doctor never openly shows or acts upon it). He is that lethal but attractive combination in a man – powerful and vulnerable.

    

At first, people thought the news of his death was a hoax; Twitter is renowned for some sick individuals announcing the sudden passing of celebrities. I recall on the day that Michael Jackson died, I was in the gym and a friend texted to say that he had just heard that Jeff Goldblum had been killed while filming. That, thankfully, turned out to be a hoax.

    

For the next couple of days after Gandolfini’s death, it was as if the whole world united on Twitter to send their condolences to Gandolfini’s family. People who had worked with him spoke about his kindness and warmth; all proclaimed his incredible talent.

    

It is at times like this that social networking operates most successfully, providing a platform for people to share their thoughts and emotions. While Twitter has its fair share of trolls, whose personal comments cause great distress, and while it is also a platform for rumour-mongering, it still provides a great social service.

    

With increasing numbers of people having to work away from home (I spend most of my time on the other side of the world, over 5000 miles away from most of my friends and family), social networking stems the feelings of loneliness and isolation that are often felt. More so than Twitter, Facebook shares photos, stories, TV and movie clips, book extracts – anything that people have enjoyed personally or professionally that they think others might, too.

    

Through Facebook, I have touched base with incredibly talented people the world over whose work I would never have known had it not been for this online contact. I rely on Twitter for most of my news, as it reaches the Twittersphere long before it reaches traditional broadcast and print routes. The problem with this is that it might not be entirely accurate but, for the most part, it is.

    

I keep up with famous court cases and have learned a great deal about the law as a result of comments and discussions on Twitter. I have been directed to TV shows that have never reached my radar. Twitter and Zeebox have also resurrected the pleasure of watching live TV, as Tweeters share comments while a show is actually on the air. The disadvantage if you have recorded the show is that social networkers have a habit of giving the game away, thereby ruining that night in front of your stored programmes you were so looking forward to.

    

But social networking has undoubtedly changed the way we look at the world and our communication with it. Just think, if it hadn’t been for social networking, you would not have just read this blog. 

And that really would be tragic.