Grudge Dinner

One of my basic expectations for my L.A. trip was that I'd have a slew of meetings scheduled. Beyond the big pitch meeting, I thought I'd have general meetings with producers, executives. People I should know, people I'd only met over the phone before, people who were fans of my work.

But since the trip overlapped with Labor Day weekend—and not planned very far ahead—we couldn't lock down any general meets. Which made the trip even more peculiar because I was suddenly stranded in a strange land where I didn't have many friends and, aside from two days of pitching, I didn't have a whole lot to do.

Thankfully, Stephen Susco reached out to me through Facebook. We'd made contact at the beginning of the year. He'd been hired on to do a rewrite of my BUTCHERHOUSE screenplay and he was a big fan of my original stage play. I was looking forward to meeting with him because he's further along in his career: he's got a few produced films, he's been busier than ever the past year or two. We share a manager which facilitated the connection.

The Tuesday after Labor Day, I met Susco for dinner at Panzanella in the San Fernando Valley. He was the nicest guy ever. It sounds like a cliché but you meet a lot of *fake* people in Hollywood. Let me clarify my use of "fake" here: I'm not talking flat-out lying scum, or people who are completely two-faced. There is a subtlety to the level of fake that you see in a lot of people. A level of friendliness/politeness that seems to be there to mask more honest appraisals. I think politeness is a GOOD thing... but when you meet so many people who are wearing that mask, it's like the weather being sunny and beautiful every day for the entire year... I imagine it could get numbing...

All of that is a long way of saying that Susco just seemed real. He wasn't trying to get anything out of me. He respected my work and was open to telling me about his own experiences with the business over the years. I broke into the business four years ago and this is the conversation I'd been wanting to have with someone for all that time.

He's the one who started to convince me that it might be a good idea to relocate to L.A. The conversation wasn't like, "You've GOT to move to L.A. if you want to be taken seriously..." or any kind of ultimatum like that. I've heard that before and it just makes me want to defiantly stick it out in NYC. Susco was more inviting than that. He talked about the possibilities that could open up if I were there. It was a very persuasive pitch...

... and the idea of moving out West has been haunting me ever since...