Monday, March 3, 2014

And the Oscar Doesn't Go To...

I wasn't nominated for an Oscar. I wasn't even thanked in an acceptance speech. I can live with that. In June 2000, I graduated from a top film school in LA with an MFA in Screenwriting. My first novel, Rattlesnake Lawyer was published on graduation day, and I did my first signing at a Borders in Glendale California a week later. By July, I had a job writing on a show that Dick Wolf, the exec producer of Law & Order. My Hollywood future looked bright.

What the hell happened?

Life happened.

The show was canceled, I moved back to New Mexico and resumed my legal career. I put up a poster of the film "The Devil's Advocate" on my new office. My boss made me take it down within an hour...
I used to go out and sleep on my sister's couch in Westwood, a few times a year.

For one brief month, it looked like I would have a show optioned on a major network. There was a writer's strike and that project went into "turnaround." It's still turning...

I blinked and thirteen years has passed...I no longer have the proper screenwriting software and couldn't write a screenplay if I wanted to. All the people I knew in show biz have retired. I think my back wouldn't let me sleep on my sister's couch in Westwood anymore

The only Academy I thank, is Albuquerque Academy....

What would have happened had I stayed? The show I wrote for -- "Arrest & Trial" -- was a forerunner of the Identification Discovery Channel. I wrote the words "A brutal murder had rocked San Diego, and then police found a clue that broke the case wide open." That would have enabled me to write the words "A brutal murder rocked San Francisco..." or "Santa Fe..."

My gut instinct is that had I stayed I would be earning a living writing, but no closer to winning an Academy Award if I was in Westwood as opposed to the west side of Albuquerque.

I am still writing of course and I feel tremendous satisfaction as a criminal defense lawyer helping people facing the worst time in their life. I'm married, and I've built a life here...

But for one day a year, I always wonder ....

I want to thank the Academy...