More of what it’s really like to be a successful TV writer, from someone who definitely knows:
by Earl Pomerantz
So I’m working on my latest blog post one morning and I get a call from my daughter Anna:
“Dad! My coworker just listened to a podcast where they interviewed Lorne Michaels. And he mentioned your name!”
It’s the strangest phenomenon. I can go months without ever being reminded that I was once somebody who did something. Suddenly, as I wrote about [previously], Jim Belushi, a guy whose sitcom I had worked on, says hello to me on the street. And then the very next day – not even a whole day, the “Belushi Encounter” happened at night and this next thing happened in the morning, so less than fourteen hours later… Lorne Michaels mentions my name on a podcast.
I’d have preferred if they had spread these things out. It is less of a shock to the system.
It’s like coming back to life two days in a row. That takes a lot out of a person.
I was thinking that one reminder of previous glory was sufficient, and that I would pass on listening to the podcast. Why did I need to hear my name mentioned? It is not like I do not know what it is.
“Earl Pomerantz? Really?”
But I had gotten that phone call from my daughter. And I subsequentlyreceived two e-mails concerning the same issue. One was from a guy who had done a podcast with me. And the second e-mail was from the guy who had originally asked me if I was interested in doing the other guy’s podcast. Both of them, thinking I’d be interested, left links to the Lorne Michaels podcast.
In which the “Mogul of Post Primetime Media” had apparently mentioned my name.
(Note: The podcast was a substantially big deal. For a podcast. The interviewer was Marc Maron, who I knew had a popular Internet talk show and had recently gone one-on-one with the president, I believe in his garage. Not the president’s garage. I once visited the White House, and I did not see a garage. Maybe it was in the back. Where they could shoot you for snooping around looking for a garage.) …