The Howard Stern Radio Show (Sirius Satellite Radio)
Has been better than ever. Without the sorely missed Artie, Howard has somehow brought the show to another level, and he and Robin are now center stage again. It's certainly a different show from the one he and Artie were doing, but the last few weeks of shows have been as good as they've ever been. The Willie Nelson interview was a standout. The couple that won the million bucks was also superb. If only Fred would talk a bit more and am I the only one that thinks bringing back Jackie Martling would not be the worst thing to ever happen?
Conan O'Brien was kind of great on 60 MINUTES.
FACES (DVD)
I love John Casavetes films. I watched over an hour of this and needed aspirin. I'm sure at the time (the 60s) this made a lot of sense. I didn't get it.
SNL: Betty White (NBC)
Not only did Betty White come through, but SNL came through with one of its better episodes of the season. Bringing back a lot of the past female players was a great idea, but Betty stole the show. Truly.
Grade: A
FAMILY GUY 150th (Fox)
A full half hour of just Stewie and Brian in a locked vault. No cutaways, no gimicks, almost like a 28 minute stage play. That said, some of this was as absolutely profane and vile as the show ever gets. I loved every minute of it. I hope this runs forever. The dance numbers that followed were fun, but that original episode was a real winner.
Grade: A
24 (Fox)
The clock is ticking and with every episode, this gains more and more momentum. What started out as routine as become one of the best seasons of the entire run. This last episode that had Jack deciding on Dana's fate was completely gripping and
suprising. The stuff between Jack and Chloe is superb and I even have to say - Freddie Prinze Jr. is terrific in this. Wow, I said it.
Grade: A
MEET NICK SANTORA:
Nick Santora is a writer who’s written some of this blog’s favorite subjects. His first produced work was the great 4th season Sopranos episode “Watching too much television” which had Tony & Co. subverting HUD funds and ended with Tony giving Assemblyman Zelman a beat down with his belt for having the audacity to date Tony’s ex-girlfriend. It was one of the great 4th season episodes. From there Nick went on to write and produce The Guardian and Law & Order. He also created and executive produced the reality show Beauty & The Geek. He then began on season 1 of one of this blog’s favorite all time shows “Prison Break” and stayed on all the way through all four seasons. He even penned the series swan song “The Final Break.”
Along the way he wrote a National best-selling novel and – oh yeah – he used to be a lawyer in Brooklyn. He’s also a great guy and a friend of mine, so I asked him if he wouldn’t mind me barraging him with questions about his life and career. The following is part one of a four part interview. I caught up with Nick as he was getting lost between the 101 and 405 trying to get to Burbank to do a final mix on the edit of his brand new pilot “Breakout Kings” which he co-created with Prison Break showrunner, Matt Olmstead.
These are heady times for Nick as he awaits word from Fox over his pilot, but despite the stress and anxiety of prepping a pilot, Nick was nice enough to grant these interviews and I thought the shows he worked on were of particular interest to readers of this blog:
NICK SANTORA INTERVIEW PART I
Digital Couch: So, where do we start? Sly Stallone said that before Rocky, he was as low as one could be in this business and you kind of weren’t even in the business when you started. Can you take us through that as best you can?
Nick: I was a lawyer in Manhattan. I worked for Sullivan and Cromwell, one of the most prominent law firms in the world. I was doing so much paper pushing I knew I’d never get into a courtroom and actually litigate, so I switched my place of business, and went from a huge high-end firm to a firm with five lawyers literally located above a pizza place in Brooklyn. I went from dealing with Fortune 500 companies to guys who got hurt on construction sites or slipped and fell in supermarkets.
On the whole, I was a very unhappy person. I was in my mid-20s, I was a lawyer, and by the time I got to my late 20s and saw 30 approaching I was miserable. My wife one morning comes out of the bathroom - she saw me in my boxers and wearing a shirt sitting on the edge of the bed, not getting ready for work – I had been there for an hour. I looked at her and said “it’ll get better.” I was talking about my depression over this existence I had chosen and felt stuck in. My wife answered “it better.”
The truth is, I was in a constant cloud of misery. I was looking down the barrel of 30 more years of practicing law, which is the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to write.
When I was 6 years old, I wrote a poem and I remember what it felt like to put words together and see how they “fit” in place…to me that was an electrifying experience and to this day I remember that poem:
I Would Like To Be An Orange
By Nick Santora (at 6 years old)
I would like to be an orange.
To have some orange skin.
I would like to be an orange.
To have a lovely grin.
I would like to be an orange.
To be washed and to be dried.
I’m always an orange.
I’m an orange inside.
DC: Nick, that was beautiful.
Nick: Dude, I don’t even like fucking oranges. But it started the idea of putting words together for me. I remember it so well because I still get that feeling everyday where you think you pick the right word…it’s a chemical release in my brain. It feels like you’re high – a natural high. All through my life I would write stories. Back when I was dating my wife and I was broke, (Law School and the loans added up to being poor) I would write novellas for her as gifts. But even though I wanted to write, I felt that I owed my family a law degree since they had put up the funds to get me a very expensive education. In fact, I was the first male Santora to graduate college.
DC: Sounds great, but also sounds like a bit of a burden.
Nick: A heavy burden. Anyway, so now I’m in law for a living, I’m hating it and miserable and I felt like she’d (my wife) eventually catch my misery and leave me because I’m such a sad-sack bastard. And I wouldn’t blame her.
A few days later, I’m in Manhattan and I’m covering a few motions that are being dealt with at he same time. I’m running from courthouse to courthouse. I’m worried that one of my cases would get marked off the court calendar because maybe I’d be late. And while I’m running , this blind woman on the corner says “would somebody help me cross the street?” So, I blow past this woman like she’s a statue, I’m half-way across the street…now this becomes a major moment in my life. Here I am, running around, literally ignoring a disabled person who’s asking for help to get to a job I fucking hate. I wondered what my mom would think if she could see me right now? So go back, grab the woman, and she keeps thanking me and I’m thinking “I have to make a change.”
My wife and I were planning a vacation. I asked her if I could take the last week of my time off and just stay home and try my hand at writing a screenplay. My wife said “Absolutely! Stop talking about it and finally write something.”
So I had that last week off. Took out my wife to dinner that Friday night, went to bed early, then Saturday morning, I sat down at our shitty kitchen table and really shitty computer in our completely shitty apartment, and I started to write. I started Saturday morning and finished around midnight the next Sunday. Nine straight days of writing and I finished a script called “Slip & Fall.”
I was so naïve. I figured I finished a script, now some agent’s going to want to represent me. See, the thing is, in California, everyone has a script. From the taxi driver to the doorman to the executives, everybody has a script. New York is a little different (at the time.) Back then in New York, nobody wrote screenplays at that time. So I went online thinking I’ll search for an agent. I typed in “screenplay agent.” What came up was a screenplay competition that had agents showing up at it.
There was also a film festival portion, and then a competition for unproduced screenplays. The directions on the contest were not to send a script but rather a synopsis. So I did. A few days later I got a call saying they’d like to read the script. But the guy from the contest said “we get hundreds and we only pick about 20 or so.” So I send it and figure that’s the end of it.
A few weeks later, I get a call saying “you’re in the competition.” I’m such a rube, I go out to Nordstroms with my wife and buy a new suit and tie that I couldn’t afford, so I can make a spiffy showing at the competition. I get there, all the other writers are dressed like slobs and now because of my suit, they think I’m an agent. So I’m getting scripts handed to me by writers, I’m getting cornered by writers, but eventually I get to pitch the judges my script and by the time I realized what was going on I realized I had somehow blown this opportunity to mix it up with agents all over this fucking suit I had worn.
A few weeks later, I’m alone in the office working on a motion and my phone rings. It’s the film festival. “Congats, we’re going to announce tomorrow that you won best screenplay.” I say “great, what do I win?” The person says to me “You win your life is going to change.”
Sure enough, I started getting calls from agencies. I signed with United Talent Agency and within a few months they got me a job writing for a show that had a 13 episode script order for a show called AT END OF DAY which was an original series for A&E. I remember the day I was supposed to start writing it. September 11, 2001.
The guy who hired me, the showrunner, Mark Rosner, called and said “you don’t have to worry. I can find someone else. I don’t expect you to finish this script with what’s going on in New York.” My response was “I want to do this more than ever.” The tragedy pointed out that any day could be your last, and I wanted this. The show didn’t get picked up, but that script did two things for me, it showed my agents that I could do the job and got me into the Writer’s Guild.
The showrunner called my agent and said “he did a great job! You should work for this guy.” A few months later I’m still doing law, and the agents call and say I have to take a meeting. I say “I can’t just pick up and take off to LA anytime there’s a possible job.” The agent said “Trust me, you want to take this meeting, and it’s in New York.”
I though a minute and said “It’s not…”
My agent replied “Yes, the meeting is with David Chase. The show is The Sopranos.”
To be continued:
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