on Writing: I've Got Too Much Time on My Hands These Days

The bar I used to work at closed their doors this past weekend. Heartbreaking. An incredibly lucrative side hustle gone just like that. Even more importantly, my second family dispersed into the universe in an instant. It’s all but certain that we will never be in the same room again. I’m not asking you to care about Emmit’s or any of us. If anything, it’d be better if you fucked off and let us grieve on our own.

What I would like is for you to read my shitty script. You see, if I’m one thing, it’s resilient. I unfollow. I unsubscribe. I opt-out. I drop out. I drop large objects constantly, baby. Try to keep up.

Being said, if I can’t make money working at a bar, I might as well go all-in on this writing thing. Let’s not waste any time. Even though I have way too much time on my hands these days.

I’ve been caught sneaking into my Notes app during Teams calls during work to write, “Funny when boomers can’t figure out technology, something there.” I’m constantly rolling over to scribble incoherently during one of my “inspiration naps.” Those seven-hour-long, Tito’s-soda-fueled fugues I’ve “accidentally” drank myself into a solid two to three days a week now. Going over my notes, I now realize that “Friends but social distancing, no one will Zoom with Ross character, funny but sad and REAL” means nothing. It never did. It’s nonsense.

I wish you guys could see me. I’m almost there, about to dust off the Final Draft, crack my knuckles, and start writing. But I’m here, literally on my knees, begging you to just… not. Please don’t do it. No one needs me. No one wants me. And no one is going to want me at any point in the future. I’m big enough to admit that I am wholly unnecessary. It’s time you understand this, too.

I know you think that “comedy is what we need to heal.” I’ve heard it said several times. Out loud. To Mandy. Your cat. But the show that you’re imagining, which according to your notes, has an episode in which “someone farts on Zoom but no one takes the blame but then it happens again” is not it, babe.

You believe that people want art that reflects their reality. But the current reality is so bizarre and unbelievable that I swear to you, no one will want to revisit this when it’s over. Have you ever once looked at those pictures of yourself from your 8th-grade dance? The one where all you threw up penne alla vodka all over the dance floor during Usher’s “Yeah!”? No, you have not. Because no matter how much time has passed, you have no desire to relive the night your whole grade gathered around you and chanted, “Pasta puker! Pasta puker!” while Usher was in the background, singing, “Yeah, yeah.”

This pandemic is the your 8th-grade dance of global history. Now that this is over, people want zero — count ‘em, zero — reminders of how many showers they didn’t take, how many bras they didn’t wear, or how many bread loaves they fucked up. People will simply never want a sitcom set during quarantine, especially a sitcom whose main character is “depressed but like cool about it,” which is a thing that you used up actual pen ink to write down.

So, please. I’m just an ill-conceived sitcom idea standing in front of a desperate TV writer who recently sat down to write and ended up spending three hours trying to learn a 45-second-long TikTok dance meant for teens, asking him to give up. Because “maybe it would be funny if Cheers but they can’t actually ‘cheers’ because they’re all in their own houses” is not anything anyone will ever want to watch. I promise.