The word just came in: October 20. Jeremy and Carey Bear. The Price is Right.
It begins again.
...
Well, thank heaven, this post officially blows the embarrassing Jeremy "Bear" Moreland debacle into the archives. It's a chapter of my personal mythos I'm happy to close, frankly. My foolishness survives only in antiquity.
...
So, big step today: I paid off my car. Yes, I do mean the car that I can no longer drive. It was so disheartening, I wanted to throw up. I found out I only owed 800 more dollars, though, so I just paid the last of it over the phone this afternoon. It should speed up the process of the insurance company cutting me a check, though, because now there's no one to deal with but me.
Hear that, Mercury Insurance? CUT ME MY CHECK. Schnell!
...
Had a very frank meeting with Moses about the direction of the musical (and even met a couple cast members). It was a good meeting... well, enh, not 'good', per se. Important. There was one point, though, where I became fairly outraged and I didn't try to hide it much, either. Moses had composed a draft of his suggested changes. We'd just been talking about his scribblings on my Act I... some I liked, many I was neutral on, others protested fairly vehemently... when we moved to Act II. I opened it up and:
JER: Wh--! Where's the second act?
MOSES: Oh. Mindy and I had a lot of... dramatically, we felt... we liked what you did, don't get me wrong...
JER: Thanks, thanks, but where's the second act?
MOSES: Well, we had to remove a pretty sizeable chunk of your stuff. We liked it, we just felt it was a little too adult for a kids audience.
JER: Okay, but... there's almost nothing here. These are the lines you originally wrote a year ago that you asked me to re-write.
MOSES: Yeah, people really enjoyed the second act last year, so I thought we could just re-insert a lot of...
JER: Hang on. There's... whoa whoa. There isn't ANY of my stuff here. You didn't use ANY of it? I wrote an entire act for nothing?
MOSES: No, I think there was a couple of lines that we carried over... wait, let me see...
JER: A couple of lines? It's a whole act! I wrote 45 minutes of action and dialogue!
MOSES: Uh.
JER: Look, it's your play. I understand that. But... I mean...
MOSES: I think maybe we have different visions. For example, you've got Herod and his advisors as these vicious political figures... cold, calculated, intelligent... and, I don't know, I appreciate what you're trying to do there, but kids can relate more to a sinister, cackling bad guy and his crazy, bumbling sidekicks, you know?
JER: "Bumbling?" Dude, he ordered the slaughter of hundreds of babies in the name of anti-Semitism!
MOSES: I know. But, it's a kids's story.
JER: Ordering the slaughter of hundreds of babies is not a kids' story! It's utterly horrific! I'm not going to "comedy" that up, man, no way. That's like "a wacky, madcap take on the Holocaust... fun for the whole family!" It's crazy!
MOSES: Well, we might just have to disagree on a few of these story points...
JER: Look, again... this is your thing and I'm not out to be a prima donna... but there are some points... some points that, I don't know, I'll go down with the ship over it. I'm sorry, but...
MOSES: If we make it a serious scene... if we make the second act as serious as you're suggesting, I can't use the songs I've written. They're fun songs. It wouldn't work.
JER: I tried to write around your songs, I thought... hhh... okay. It's just a shock to see a whole act gone. A few lines you don't like here and there, of course. I'd even understand if you want to start from scratch with an entire scene or two... but a whole act?
MOSES: ...Your feelings are hurt.
JER: No, it's... well... it's just troubling. That's all.
--------
And from there I tried to describe the dramatic arcs that characters and stories should have and, even aside from the moral dilemmas, it makes much more sense for even the lightest stories to get a little heavier as the plot progresses and...
...and...
...and he says he'll consider it. Mainly, he doesn't want to cut any of his songs and that's what he feels he'd have to do. I understand that, but man... a whole act.
I mean really.
It begins again.
...
Well, thank heaven, this post officially blows the embarrassing Jeremy "Bear" Moreland debacle into the archives. It's a chapter of my personal mythos I'm happy to close, frankly. My foolishness survives only in antiquity.
...
So, big step today: I paid off my car. Yes, I do mean the car that I can no longer drive. It was so disheartening, I wanted to throw up. I found out I only owed 800 more dollars, though, so I just paid the last of it over the phone this afternoon. It should speed up the process of the insurance company cutting me a check, though, because now there's no one to deal with but me.
Hear that, Mercury Insurance? CUT ME MY CHECK. Schnell!
...
Had a very frank meeting with Moses about the direction of the musical (and even met a couple cast members). It was a good meeting... well, enh, not 'good', per se. Important. There was one point, though, where I became fairly outraged and I didn't try to hide it much, either. Moses had composed a draft of his suggested changes. We'd just been talking about his scribblings on my Act I... some I liked, many I was neutral on, others protested fairly vehemently... when we moved to Act II. I opened it up and:
JER: Wh--! Where's the second act?
MOSES: Oh. Mindy and I had a lot of... dramatically, we felt... we liked what you did, don't get me wrong...
JER: Thanks, thanks, but where's the second act?
MOSES: Well, we had to remove a pretty sizeable chunk of your stuff. We liked it, we just felt it was a little too adult for a kids audience.
JER: Okay, but... there's almost nothing here. These are the lines you originally wrote a year ago that you asked me to re-write.
MOSES: Yeah, people really enjoyed the second act last year, so I thought we could just re-insert a lot of...
JER: Hang on. There's... whoa whoa. There isn't ANY of my stuff here. You didn't use ANY of it? I wrote an entire act for nothing?
MOSES: No, I think there was a couple of lines that we carried over... wait, let me see...
JER: A couple of lines? It's a whole act! I wrote 45 minutes of action and dialogue!
MOSES: Uh.
JER: Look, it's your play. I understand that. But... I mean...
MOSES: I think maybe we have different visions. For example, you've got Herod and his advisors as these vicious political figures... cold, calculated, intelligent... and, I don't know, I appreciate what you're trying to do there, but kids can relate more to a sinister, cackling bad guy and his crazy, bumbling sidekicks, you know?
JER: "Bumbling?" Dude, he ordered the slaughter of hundreds of babies in the name of anti-Semitism!
MOSES: I know. But, it's a kids's story.
JER: Ordering the slaughter of hundreds of babies is not a kids' story! It's utterly horrific! I'm not going to "comedy" that up, man, no way. That's like "a wacky, madcap take on the Holocaust... fun for the whole family!" It's crazy!
MOSES: Well, we might just have to disagree on a few of these story points...
JER: Look, again... this is your thing and I'm not out to be a prima donna... but there are some points... some points that, I don't know, I'll go down with the ship over it. I'm sorry, but...
MOSES: If we make it a serious scene... if we make the second act as serious as you're suggesting, I can't use the songs I've written. They're fun songs. It wouldn't work.
JER: I tried to write around your songs, I thought... hhh... okay. It's just a shock to see a whole act gone. A few lines you don't like here and there, of course. I'd even understand if you want to start from scratch with an entire scene or two... but a whole act?
MOSES: ...Your feelings are hurt.
JER: No, it's... well... it's just troubling. That's all.
--------
And from there I tried to describe the dramatic arcs that characters and stories should have and, even aside from the moral dilemmas, it makes much more sense for even the lightest stories to get a little heavier as the plot progresses and...
...and...
...and he says he'll consider it. Mainly, he doesn't want to cut any of his songs and that's what he feels he'd have to do. I understand that, but man... a whole act.
I mean really.
posted by Jeremy Bear at
11:00 PM
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