Things you've probably overlooked

As part of a general series on the matters of Curb Your Enthusiasmⁱ, allow me to offer you this article in friendship, alongside a side story. The side story goes first and it goes like this : I am about to write an email to a friend pointing out that the very smart person she wants to work with that therefore has to clear some hurdles with me has managed to ignore everything I said that they weren't intellectually familiar with, contenting themselves with answering instead to the few unimportant bits they readily recognised and had answers for. This type of behaviour, needless to say, does not plead in favour of one's intelligence.

And speaking of pleading, favour and intelligence, I suppose you've already read my previous monster hit & blockbuster success, Variety speak. Which you proceeded to have understood, you think, and then therefore cast aside, as this sort-of humorous but not really attempt at your entertainment, as if I'm a bloaty puffy round head, here to amuse you. That I’m some kind of hey there hai there ho there come and join my jamboree punk on a kids’ tv show, is that what you’re thinkin’ ? That’s it! I’ll give you a fucking article.

First and foremost, consider the first line of the second part. It went like

Like “Mitch makes a pitch, and he’s gonna get rich” means someone’s got a movie that sold.

What's notable about this ? I'll give you some empty space to collect your thoughts below, please fill in with a soft #2 pen before you proceed with the rest of the article.

No, on second thought blank space is too expensive. We shall proceed directly :

• Someone making a pitch is newsworthy. Did you notice this, on your first pass ? Did it occur to you, wow, this enchanted tinseltown of celebrating creativity where I shall become rich and famous actually puts it in the fucking newspaper when someone manages to sell a new script ? It didn't, did it. Well... this doesn't bode well for your dreams and aspirations then.
• The seller is known by name. Not just by his boss, and not just by the person writing the article and his three musician friends with complicated shoes. The seller is known, intimately, closely, by the entire fucking audience, enough so that he's "Mitch". Not Joe Appleseed of Kenumborktport, Maine or whatever the fuck it's spelled. Not "that dude with the hair". Mitch. Do you know who Mitch is ? More importantly, do you reasonably expect that should I hear Dork or Bob or something immediately know it's you ?ⁱⁱ

The reason "no scripts are new" is the modus operandi of the world, not just Hollywoodⁱⁱⁱ is that a new script means a huge upfront investment. You're not merely proposing to make a fun new film, you're proposing to start a new franchise (or at least you might as well, especially if you knew what you were talking about). To put it in mundane and therefore readily accessible terms, you're a lonely guy looking for a quick fuck and all that's on the table is full time commitments with the whole nine yards : picket fences, Thanksgiving dinners, dogs and obnoxious screaming kids.

That's what it's really about, and them producers sitting down in fact are in the process of evaluating whether they wish to have your babies.^iv Yes, them, personally. And considering how little you've considered and how much you've overlooked, it's not even surprising that whenever someone actually manages to make a pitch they put it in the newspaper. Because it's fucking news.

So now : curb your enthusiasm. Whether it happens, be it a script or an IPO or sex on Saturday night has very little to do with just how ragingly hard your cock oops I mean "idea apparatus" got. In fact, that's possibly the last item on the checklist. Nobody cares, cocks^v literally are a dime a dozen.

Think things through and get something interesting on the table.

1. Which is a transparent reference to Larry David, that talentless but insecure hack known for his in-character concern with how much Ted Danza was making. [↩]
2. This line of inquiries ends in the classical "Are you even in show business ? Then why the hell am I talking to you ?" which point you are in fact expected to have noticed on your own. Seriously, you should have thought "hey, he's going straight there, is he". Because that's the level of cultural immersion we're talking about here.

   Meanwhile you were probably thinking of all the idiots ringing the doorbell or calling on the phone and going "hey, it's me". No cigar, and not at all close, either. Quite far, in fact, perhaps as far as it can get. [↩]

3. Really, inasmuch as it used to be free of "helpful" rules, regulations and so on, Hollywood got pretty close to reality. As Silicon Valley got pretty close to reality, back when it still worked. As everything has and everything will, once you and for as long as you gleefully piss right on the face of the retarded busybodies. [↩]
4. Not kidding. "Will this person be around in three years when we need the sequel ?" "Does this person look like they can keep it together or will the advance go straight into buying the props for a bunch of newspaper articles about how a guy crashed his new Ferrari into his new bowl of coke ?" "Who does he know, and who knows him and is willing to vouch ?" etc etc etc! [↩]
5. As in the expression "impudent cocklet", denoting your average redditard. [↩]