A meeting at Universal
Exhibit A of why it’s good to live in California if you want to be a writer: Darby went to a bowling birthday party for Ollie. While there, she met a nice father of one of the kids, and they have a good conversation. Turns out he is a highly placed writer on Desperate Housewives, and when he found out I was a writer invited me to have lunch with him on the Universal lot.
That’s just not going to happen in Delaware.
We sat and ate and talked for an hour and a half. He was seriously the nicest guy. Actually VERY encouraging with some of the struggles I’ve been going through this past week in terms of writing, it was great to hear what he had to say.
It was pretty surreal driving onto the UNIVERSAL STUDIOS BACKLOT and walking around. Universal Studios! Abbott and Costello, WC Fields, King Kong, Schindler’s List, Jaws, ET, Back to the Future, Frankenstein, Dracula. Universal.
My mission was to find a place called “The Grill.” I found the commissary, which is basically a cafeteria, and assumed THAT was “The Grill.” So I called my lunchdate and told him I was there. He told me to “get a table, there was one under his name.”
Now this was a cafeteria. It really didn’t look like the kind of place where a table would be under anyone’s name. I asked someone in the cafeteria if he knew anything about reserving tables under names, and he nicely pointed out I probably wanted to be at “The Grill.” Which I did, of course. And he told me where it was, too.
So, ninety minutes later, I’ve made a friend that I genuinely want to see again, which is always good. And I think he wants to see me and Darby again as well, because he said we should get the kids together and hang out. While we were walking out, he was talking about a friend of his that was the head writer on Saturday Night Live for three years. He casually said, “I’m sure you’ll meet her, sometime at my house.”
What life am I living? Pretty cool. Even if it is stressful.
Jase, that is truly amazing! After reading about this “meeting” today, and remembering your very discouraging meeting the other day, I was thinking how wonderfully kind God is. How kind He is to turn things around for us. If I was completely honest, what I actually thought was this…how cool it is that you can slip in dog manure and come up smelling like roses! (Or is that not right to say?) ;-]
sounds like you had an awesome day! i’m glad you were able to talk to him about stuff and that you were able to feel better about how things have been going lately. if you’ve learned anything from alex and simon from real housewives of nyc it’s make connections! you are doing them proud! : )
Yes, I made sure to wear my leopard print dress, too.
great choice!
btw, I really LOL’d at picturing you going up to someone in a CAFETERIA asking them if you can reserve a table!!!
I told Ian the story too, and he laughed;-)
So glad this is happening, Jase!
I did preface it with, “I know this seems like a really silly question, but is there a way to reserve tables here?” I knew it was kind of a crazy question!
Cool!
But Wilmington, Delaware is A Place to Be Somebody.
That Rules, Jason. Great to hear about encouraging events after least weeks troubles. I’m really glad things are looking up.
Also, I totally hear you on the surreality of the Universal backlot. I went there a location scout in college and it was amazing–I got to set my feet were they shot Back to the Future. Pretty amazing stuff. Also been to the WB lot and it was equally awesome–saw Emilio Estevez riding a beach cruiser past the sound stages, and he looked like a nine year-old who got a new bike for Christmas. It was unbelievably hilarious.
I met the owner of a mushroom farm at the grocery store. That wouldn’t happen in CA.