William Morris Will Pass

But not more than twice.

Not too long ago my girlfriend and I met one of her old high school friends, Dick Hamb, at a Starbucks in Santa Monica. They both had a smattering of mutual friends back in the day, so now that he’s an assistant agent (this is comparable to a penile extension, minus the aesthetic benefits) at William Morris, it seemed like a good idea to hand my director’s reel off to him.

Yesterday’s good ideas are today’s smegma infections.

Let’s bump back about six years in time. I was a soon-to-be college graduate, and my first attempt at depth and profundity, a one act stiflingly titled, “Waiting to be Exiled”, had just run at the American Collegiate Theater Festival – better known as, The One Week Drinking Binge at a Hotel in Bellingham, Washington for Theater Shits. A recognized playwright saw my play and we struck up a friendship. Over the next few weeks I rewrote the crap out of that pile of crap in the hopes of fame and riches not known to playwrights since David Mamet first wrote the word "Fuck."

The play, along with other stuff, wound up in the hands of a penile extension at William Morris, Max Roman. He promptly read and/or discarded what was my life’s work and proceeded to never get back to me with so much as a verbal shrug.

Fast-forward to present day. Dick calls me up to say that my stuff is good and blah, blah, blah. He says that I haven’t quite figured out what kind of a director I am yet, and that this is exactly where I should be in my career right now. He says that “making it” in this industry is like running a marathon, which I guess is supposed to be both inspiring and admonishing. I restrain myself from suggesting to this 23 year-old assistant to a piece of shit that he ought to run a few laps before waxing philosophic on my ass about marathons.

As for William Morris: Reject me once, shame on me. Reject me twice, um, uh…you’ll never reject me again.