#then this one-shot monday...first part of two-parter tuesday...

[otterknowbynow]

ALSO considering I have to drive six hours on friday I should....really try to be uhhhh pretty far ahead....by then

[goldbergjonblog]

Lobster Boy

"We got lobster boy! I think it's a two parter,” and then there was a bit of a celebration in the office. This was the high point of my first Hollywood gig, writing recreation scenes (like recreating a scene from real life, not recreation like volleyball or ping pong) for a 1994 tv show called Behind Bars. The show could be described as a low grade, reality based look at crime from all perspectives - cop, victim and criminal. The low grade aspect comes from the insane production timeline and the lack of...of...caring on anyone's part. A story would get a green light on a Thursday. Interviews of criminals, victims and law enforcement were held on Friday. We wrote the script on Sunday and Monday. Casted it Monday afternoon. Shot it on Tuesday. Edited it on Wednesday and Thursday. Aired it on Friday. Not much room for…thought or creativity. What gave it a bit of notoriety was that it was hosted by Darryl Gates. This was Gates' post riot, post retirement move, to host a show that sympathizes with criminals and victims, probably his two weakest demographics. The producers stuck with this head-scratcher for twenty five episodes. The final twenty five were handled by the more grounded and more respected Paul Sorvino. I was there for the transition and we didn't skip a beat, because we had no time for the beat to skip.

The process started with the news, not the front page, but more like the local crime blotter. We called this the research department. A producer would dig up "interesting" crime stories. Victims also played a huge role, as most of the time the stories would come from their transcripts, if they were still alive, as well as the transcripts of the criminals, who were ultimately the "stars". It was truly stomach turning stuff to work on, and these stories were generally ones that were passed up by the tv movie crowds, the Inside Edition crew and the 20/20's of the time, which I think was 20/20. But, hey, I got paid to write on a TV show.

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1992 I was committed. I went for it. I would write as much as I could - spec scripts, screenplays, anything, and while I was waiting for that big break I took any job I could find. My first one was as a pre-production assistant on the film "Amos & Andrew" starring Nicolas Cage and Samuel L. Jackson. Remember it? Exactly. Not my fault. It was being produced by Castle Rock and, at the time, there was no hotter place to be. Seinfeld was just taking off, they were making great movies and the top people in the industry were milling about. I would make copies, get coffee for auditioning actors, make sure they signed the sheet when they arrived, you know, a part of the industry. I drove my grey Jeep from Brentwood to Beverly Hills and parked it in a lot, with a pass, no validation needed. I was validated every day. The only things missing were money, fame and anyone seeing me as a writer. On one of those perfect days I was late, my guess is horrific traffic not just on Santa Monica but on Little Santa Monica too, and I rushed to get to the office, parked my car and started going about my very insignificant business. About an hour later a guy comes into our small office and just yells out "who the fuck parked in Rob's spot? A grey Jeep?". I think I blurted out an "oh shit" and just weaseled down to the parking lot where I saw as clear as day that my car was parked in a spot that said "reserved for Rob Reiner." Now most Hollywood stories like that end with the PA shlub getting his big break. But not this shlub. Still waiting.

I was writing spec script after spec script, almost getting the break and almost getting an agent. Because the biggest Catch-22 in Hollywood was that in order to get someone to read your scripts, you needed an agent but an agent wouldn't read any unsolicited scripts, basically a weeding out phase. But they did read the cover letter, so instead of writing a generic cover letter I made the letter my material, because I realized that was my only shot at them reading anything of mine. The cover letter exposed the Catch-22 successfully as I asked the agents not to read the enclosed material because I understood that they couldn’t read unsolicited stuff, but I asked them if they had a sister or a daughter that I could meet in order to get in good with them, take advantage of the pervasive nepotism and therefore make the work solicited or at least make the point moot. It actually worked as agents enjoyed the cover letter, gave me a pass and started reading my work, which got me an agent. It did little to move the needle but I made it through phase one. Naturally in Los Angeles you run into people going through the same struggle and frustrations. One night I had plans to meet up with my brother, who was in town for work in sports production doing a baseball game. The announcer of that game was from Boston and he had an actor friend that he wanted to see. We all met at a bar in Santa Monica and I started talking to Matt, the actor friend who, to double his punishment, was also a screenwriter. We shared our Hollywood horror stories and talked about the things we were working on. He mentioned that he and his buddy were in the middle of a feature script about two friends from Boston. We wished each other good luck and he must have gotten all of it because two years later I saw Matt Damon again, accepting an Oscar for that script. Me, I was slumming it, writing on TV.

I had been somewhat exposed to tabloid journalism as my roommate was a producer in that world. She had worked on Hard Copy and was in LA to make a made for tv movie about a killer in Texas called the Texas Twister Killer. It had something to do with a guy that killed his wife during a tornado, or after a tornado, or maybe he threw her into a tornado. She looked at news and stories completely differently than I did. When the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993 she didn't see tragedy, she saw opportunity, making calls to friends who were there to get the scoop on perpetrators and victims. She was looking for angles. One day the phone rang. I picked it up.

"Hello"

(heavy southern drawl on the other end) "Is Betsy there?"

"No she's not. Can I take a message?"

"Yeah, I'm calling about the Texas umm...murder thing."

"Oh right, right she mentioned you'd be calling. Sheriff...."

"Well no. This is...well I'm the...I'm calling cuz we had arranged a specific time to call. I'm only available like once a day and this was our scheduled time. I'll have to call back tomorrow."

Click

Later to Betsy.

"I think you're killer called."

"Shit! He's calling back tomorrow right?"

"It sounded like he could fit it into his schedule."

So there was an ick all around me. An old work friend of my Mom's who I reconnected with was a producer/director for Behind Bars and he mentioned that they needed writers that could take the crime and the sound bites and turn them into a story. I told him I was in. It had the title writer in it. All I had to do was transcribe the interviews, pick the key moments and write those scenes out. They had no money so they scraped together whatever they could production wise, costume wise and acting wise. Each episode consisted of some unbelievable mistakes in logic, appearance and just plain "why would they ever put that on film" moments. False mustaches would be falling off, clothes wouldn't fit or match from scene to scene, and actors would be seen reading cue cards like a Saturday Night Live skit. I had to transcribe lines like this doozy from a crack addict - "the rock was the monster". But I wanted to get a feel for the whole operation so I asked to go on a shoot. I picked the perfect one.

The story was simple, and remember we weren't doing The Great Train Robbery or Heat. This was lowlife scum who would be willing to talk to a camera out of some hope that it would free them from jail when dramatically depicted. The crime involved a man who was on line at a grocery store when he noticed the overweight man in front of him flashing a hundred dollar bill to pay for his food. So our hero (criminal) decides to follow the plump guy to his car, hit him in the head with a baseball bat, stuff him in his own car and drive off with his money, his car and his knocked out body in the trunk. Not exactly Ocean's Eleven. Easy enough for a re-creation scene. The rest of the scenes were interviews and recaps by our host, the esteemed Captain Gates in what would be his series swan song. The interior shoot of the store went great, the bad guy looked bad, like every Timothy Olyphant part in his first six movies, and the victim looked like he didn't see it coming, a nervous Josh Gadd type.

As the shoot moved outside and the crew began to block the scene something became very apparent. Clearly the nonexistent props department didn't cross reference with the nonexistent casting department because our victim was too big to fit in the trunk of the prop car, which was the director's gorgeous BMW convertible. They kept trying to shut the trunk on our portly thespian, and as the trunk kept bouncing back up there was an audible "ouch" from our victim, who was stuffed in there like silly putty in a container, parts just spilling out. They wanted to prove he could fit, with no care of how it would look on film, and we had to get him into the trunk because the real crime wasn't the theft of a hundred dollars or even knocking him out. The real crime was driving away with him in the trunk. Kidnapping was the reason the guy was in jail and the purpose of the entire episode. So we couldn't just knock him out and leave him in the parking lot.

Eventually these geniuses accepted the fact that they needed a different car for the stuffing of our victim. The other option we had was, I shit you not, a Gremlin. This was meant for our criminal. It was perfect for him. But it was deemed more perfect for our victim as he could fit, positioned fetally, in the hatchback trunk. All they had to do was switch the cars and no harm done right? Sure. This is how the scene was scripted:

-    Criminal drives his Gremlin to the grocery store parking lot just as our victim gets out of his brand new BMW convertible, an obvious target.

-    Criminal follows his mark into the store.

-    As they are in the check out line the criminal gets confirmation that he's chosen well as the target flashes a hundred dollar bill.

-    Criminal follows the victim to the BMW, waits as the victim pops the trunk to put his grocery bag inside. As the trunk opens the criminal sees a baseball bat in the trunk. He grabs the victim's bat and quickly hits him on the head with it, knocking him out.

-    Criminal stuffs the victim’s body in the trunk, shuts the trunk and drives off in the BMW, leaving his shitty Gremlin in the lot to be picked up later.

This made sense from a story standpoint.

Here is what was shot and AIRED because of our portly victim:

-    CRIMINAL drives his brand new BMW convertible into the grocery store parking lot just as our VICTIM gets out of his GREMLIN, a not so obvious target for our criminal.

-    Criminal follows his target into the store

-    As they are in the check out line the criminal is surprised that he's chosen well as the target flashes a hundred dollar bill.

-    Criminal follows the victim to the Gremlin, waits as the victim pops the trunk to put his grocery bag inside. As the trunk opens the criminal sees a baseball bat in the trunk. He grabs the victim's bat and quickly bops him on the head with it, knocking him out.

-    Criminal easily stuffs the victim in the trunk of the Gremlin, shuts the trunk and drives off in the shitty Gremlin, leaving his brand new BMW convertible in the lot to be picked up later.

This made absolutely no sense from a story standpoint. There was a lot of shrugging and acceptance. There was no time to contemplate the stupidity of the decision. So they went with it. And it aired, like that. Darryl Gates should’ve gone to jail for this.

With this as the bar it makes a little sense that there was a celebration in obtaining the "Lobster Boy" story. It was their biggest "get" yet as many family members, law enforcement and victims agreed to do it and it was actually a fairly infamous story, almost legit. It was worthy of a two parter.

Grady Stiles was born with an affliction called ectrodactyly, where his fingers and toes were fused together to form claw-like hands and feet. Stiles' stage name was "Lobster Boy". This was genetic and he was the sixth in a line that began with the birth of his great, great, great grandfather in 1805. Grady Stiles' father was a sideshow attraction in a traveling carnival when his son was born and added him to the act at a young age. As Grady grew up in the circus it became his life, really only being exposed to this world and not much else. Grady married twice and had four children, two of whom also had the affliction and joined Grady on the carnival tour as The Lobster Family. When not traveling with the carnival the family lived in Gibsonton, Florida where many other carnival performers lived during the winter season. Due to his condition, he was unable to walk and while he often used a wheelchair, he mostly used his hands and arms to move around, which lead to incredible upper body strength that, when combined with his temper and alcohol consumption, made him dangerous to his family and others. He was a scary guy and often followed through on his threats. In 1978, Stiles shot and killed his oldest daughter's fiancé on the eve of their wedding, but he wasn’t sent to prison as no state institution was equipped to care for someone with his condition. So he got fifteen years probation and during this time he stopped drinking for a bit and remarried his first wife, Maria. However, he soon began drinking again and his family claimed that he became even more abusive, one time Army crawling from the kitchen into the bedroom with a knife in his mouth until he got to a sleeping Maria, putting the knife to her throat and threatening her. In 1992 Maria and her son from a previous marriage hired a sideshow performer to kill Stiles for $1500. He shot him three times in the back of the head, killing Grady instantly. All three were brought to trial and convicted. In her defense, Maria told the judge, "My husband was going to kill my family. I believe that from the bottom of my heart. I’m sorry this happened, but my family is safe now."

Can you say goldmine? We had the script down and the story was quite compelling, with amazing characters and dramatic moments that we could heighten. But what was really going to make this episode sing were the prosthetics. We went the distance on this one and decided to build the claws. The day before the shoot the prosthetics arrived in the office and everyone was excited to see what the art department came up with. We gathered around to look at the artistry and sitting on the table was...an oven mitt...painted a flesh-like color. The team agreed that this was acceptable (let's remember where the bar is set for this collection of artists). Our actor could wear it and we wouldn't shoot it too close up. If Spielberg could shoot around a flawed robotic shark, we could shoot around six dollar Bed, Bath and Beyond oven mitts.

The script was snappy and rich but we didn't have a title for the show. The writing was on the wall that Behind Bars was not getting a season 2. Shocking. Was it the actors we found on the streets? Was it the poor communication between props and casting? Were we running out of stories? Why would this show not make it? Maybe because it was the campiest, sleaziest, most uncomfortable show I've ever seen. And this is coming from someone who in 4th grade was told by his parents to lie to his teacher about how many hours of TV they watch in a week. "Cut it in half", my mom implored, "I don't think the real number will be believable". So I lied and still beat everyone easily. But there was no saving Behind Bars as it only aired in 5 markets at around 3 am. My parents actually thought about flying to Tulsa, Oklahoma to see the show as that was the easternmost market. So The Lobster Boy episode was to be our Emmy entry and to win an Emmy it needed a title. Other episode titles included things like "My Husband, My Killer", "The Texas Terror” (not to be confused with “The Texas Twister Killer”) and "The Monster and the Rock". So there had to be some punch to it. I looked for my inner NY Post headline and it just came to me. So if you ever come across Behind Bars on YouTube or in some other digital, cloud-like thing that holds all the crap ever filmed and you see this episode, just know that for a week or two I was on a writing high because I surpassed the challenge presented to me, reaching the pinnacle of my art form, and The Grady Bunch was my opus.