Betting the Farm

Adventures in teeveeland...

Greetings from Haymarket, Virginia. Shortly after I sent out the last edition of Message from the Underworld, I received word that my mother had an unexpected setback with her illness and I came home to help out with her care. Although she’s rebounded from that episode, the full story is much more complicated. She’s receiving hospice care for a terminal disease and as much as I’d like to report that she’s better or that her condition has improved, the story, sadly, is more complicated than that. 

While the last few weeks have provided a glimpse of the challenges ahead, I’m grateful for the good times we’ve had enjoying meals, sharing stories, and watching movies and TV together. (As I type this, Family Feud is playing as my mother naps.) While I’ve been able to make time for work, I haven’t been reading much and my head is stuffed with thoughts about movies, game shows and murder TV (one-hour scripted crime dramas, true crime shows, and the criminals that inspire both). As a result, I no longer think I could outsmart a police detective (not that I would ever need to) but I now believe that I’d have a better than decent shot as a game show contestant. Not only do I have minor crushes on half the attractive people that have been on network television over the last ten years, but I may have cried during the finale to Monk.

My mom’s current favorite show is called The Chase, a trivia game show that pits three challengers against a large, portly trivia expert known as The Beast. It’s hosted by former Baywatch star Brooke Burns. What’s interesting to me about The Chase is that it’s very, very hard to walk away with any money. The Beast is extremely smart, and extremely quick, and because he’s on the show every day he’s familiar with the format. Even though each contestant starts with an advantage over The Beast, most are no match for him and he quickly surpasses them.

Here’s what I don’t understand. There’s a portion of the game where contestants can wager to double and even triple their theoretical stake, i.e. the money they will win if they beat The Beast, but hardly anyone ever does. Why is that? If you were on a game show and “earned” ten, twenty or even thirty thousand dollars and had the opportunity to turn that into a much higher payday, wouldn’t you do it?

I think I would. Granted, I’ve never been on a game show, so I don’t know how I would react under the bright lights in front of a live studio audience, but in a situation where you’re playing with house money and the odds of walking out with any of it are pretty small, wouldn’t you want to up the ante as much as possible? What compels people to be so conservative when presented with a longshot to win big? 

When I worked at a tribal casino, I learned that the only way to win the jackpot that every slot machine advertises is to maximize your bet. The manufacturers make this really easy to do by putting a max bet button on every machine. However, most people don’t play max bet because your money flies out of your pocket a lot faster that way. I understand this reluctance because it’s actual money. It goes away and it never comes back.

(Speaking of slot machines, I don’t think I’ll ever recover from these bizarre Slotomania commercials where spokesperson John Goodman plays a cadaverous finger.)

Game show money isn’t casino money. It’s a whole other deal. It’s not real, for one thing, and whatever money you’ve “earned” or “won” is predicated on winning the final contest at the end, which is always harder than it looks.  

Of course, what matters most is not that the contestant has a legitimate shot at winning, but whether or not the viewer watching at home thinks the contestant has a shot, and doesn’t change the channel and miss out on all that expensive advertising for insurance, cleaning products, and prescription drugs with terrifying side effects. That’s where the real big money game is being played. 

I just filled out an outdated entry form to be a contestant on The Chase so maybe I’ll get a chance to put my funny money where my big mouth is…

PssSST… (CYA Edition)

Last week Corporate Rock Sucks passed a very important milestone: the dreaded legal review. I got on a call with my publisher and a lawyer to discuss the book in great detail. The lawyer’s job is to comb through the manuscript and look for places that put the publisher in legal jeopardy.

Now anyone who knows a little about SST Records is aware that its owner is extremely litigious and has sued multiple members of bands on his own label. He’s even sued his own former bandmates. You could say he’s infamous for it. So I went into the legal review with more than a little trepidation. 

Obviously, I can’t go into details about what we discussed, but the meeting went very well and the legal team requested very few changes. Of course, this wasn’t my first legal review. I went through the same process with My Damage and Do What You Want and learned what I can say and what’s off limits. As for the gray area, sometimes how you say things is more important than what you say. 

Naturally, I find this fascinating. For example, let’s say you and I did a lot of blow together in the bathroom at a literary event in L.A.’s Chinatown. Now, if I decide to write a memoir and include that sordid episode, I can’t put you in that scene without exposing the publisher to a possible lawsuit unless one or more of the following is true: 1) you have been arrested for snorting cocaine 2) you are a self-confessed and/or notorious cokehead or 3) you’re dead. 

Comforting, isn’t it? It’s nice to know the sins of your past can safely stay in the past even if you spent your twenties in the company of a bunch of scumbag writers who wouldn’t hesitate to sell you out.

Anyway, even though I will probably be making changes right up until the proofs are due, the completion of the legal reviews means the book has been officially accepted for publication. Not only is that a huge relief, but this triggers that rarest of events for a writer: a payday. Because of the way the deal is structured, it’s not a lot, but it makes me feel a lot better about all the money I’ve been shelling out for licensing fees for photographs, which I’ll discuss in greater detail in a future newsletter.

I will say this: I am super excited to be licensing the greatest photo of Saint Vitus ever taken and no one has ever seen it…

Stay safe and give the person next to you a hug.