I met a BDP (big deal producer) today who was amazing. When he was a PYT, he optioned a magazine article from New York Magazine that became Saturday Night Fever. Saturday Fucking Night Fever. Bam! Better yet, he wasn’t a one hit wonder or the kind of person who keeps talking about his one big thing. I once had lunch with an agent who had one hit, and he literally talked about it all through the lunch. I had no idea what he was talking about but played along, or played dumb. When I got back to the office, I discovered that the book he was talking about was TWENTY years old.
My BDP became a studio head, had a great run, and is producing again with a very cool slate of MMP. (Off the record, in my heart of hearts, I believe I could have been a studio exec if I hadn’t been derailed by twenty years of depression. Totally ridiculous and arrogant, but there it is.) Anyway, this man struck me as the quintessential producer: curious, passionate, disparate and wide ranging taste, the ability to bring people together, working like a conductor who brings the forty-odd instruments together in a Mozart symphony.
Tonight’s question is, and I leave it to you to make the leap, what will be in your obit? Mine will say that I was never convicted in a court of law for allegedly putting a candy corn in Amy Hahn’s ear at Janet Granger’s sixth grade birthday party sleepover. (Her parents took us to see Dr. Zhiviago which we were very upset to discover was in black and white, and add insult to injury they brought cut veggies and wouldn’t let us buy junk food even with our OWN MONEY); I wrote a CLASSIC on writing, a sink-under-the-waves memoir, I represented some thieves and geniuses. And please remember this above all: I never lived for the present nor did I make the most of every day.
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It’s the Jon Stewart hour after a long Monday. I have a stack of manuscripts that still need reading and a 378 page Restoration Hardware catalogue. It is the mother of all RH catalogues. There’s a also a Garnett Hill and Eddie Bauer, but they seem lame compared to this tome from RH. I realized some time ago that home decor catalogues were almost as good as Valium and twice as addictive. I tell myself to read at least one more proposal. But I just want one little peak inside the catalogue. One little peek at the nickel finishes, the “antique” sconces or the generously proportioned mirror recalling the shape of Moorish windows — a zinc finish lends the wood molding an aged patina. I wonder if I could do mash up of Pride and Predge with Restoration Hardware? Maybe I could do a mash up of my ass and my face.
I have a little problem, among many larger problems, and I’m going to break the news here and first on my blog, among my nearest and dearest strangers: Whenever I write, I fall asleep. Boom! One minute I’m typing and the next I’m out, nodding off in front of the monitor. It wouldn’t be so embarrassing if it didn’t also happen in front of my writing partner. At first, I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, like the way you head snap at the movies or the opera and hope the person next to you doesn’t notice. As if.
It’s that time of the year when Publishers Weekly releases its “Facts and Figures 2010” issue. I fuckin’ love this issue. It’s pulling back the curtain on real sales figures which publishers, agents, and writers all lie about, inflating their performance like a frat boy on a Sunday morning. Plus, it’s just damn fascinating to see what sells and sells. Going through the list this year didn’t yield any major surprises or screamers. Though a new fiction king was crowned:
I didn’t read my horoscope today, but if I had I think it would have said: you will meet a sexy, tall, blue-eyed blond rock star, a friend needs you, and spring is almost here — stay on your meds! It might have also said, a “colleague” is going to try to treat you like dog shit — don’t let him! You will eat sushi with Jews! And someone you love hates you!
Betsy
First day back from vacation, mother Louise. Over 300 e-mails, two blasts from the past, still chasing money, still hammering contracts, signing a new client, getting a new project out the door, notes to three writers, (call my accountant, dog walker, airline, mother), three manuscripts delivered, send 
I’ve been so preoccupied with my heating pad that I’ve completely forgotten to make arrangements for next week when I’m on vacation. I have no guest bloggers lined up and these things don’t write themselves.
A lot of people ask me why I, Betsy Lerner, read Daily Variety. Excuse me? I’m a baller. Do the words executive producer mean anything to you? Have you understood nothing, that I would gladly wrap my legs around a television and fuck it to death. And here’s another reason: the announcement of new pilot orders. I think my favorite this season might be the one where Amanda Peet stars as a recently divorced mother who tries not to fall for her surfer-dude contractor. I have one word for the casting director: Keanu. Another one that sounds really spooky involves a family recovering from a brutal murder who move to an island off Maine where they discover a mystical doorway. We had one of those in the house where I grew up only it led to a Polish pogrom. I also like the pilot where two young, smart female detectives who are bff’s can “discuss fashion while solving crimes.” I know it sounds good, a little like Legally Blonde. But hey, there’s nothing new under the sun lamp. I would kill to have my show listed in Variery and while I couldn’t really opine on hemlines, I could fall for Keanu and remind both of us while we’re making love in a dental chair that when God closes one door, that door is closed.
Betsy Lerner 