"I just met and had a conversation, directions giving with Dave Gruber Allen OHMYGOD"
Notes to Self are longer journal entries from Seven Yrs Ago. I was 21 in early 2014.
I just met and had a conversation, directions giving with Dave Gruber Allen OHMYGOD
Freaks + Geeks—”a show with a gun to its head”
Dave Gruber Allen update: Ran into him 2 more times outside the F+G theater—dude introduced me to director Jake Kasdan, Samm Levine—met Martin Starr, who is remarkably unfriendly and somewhat deadpan. And he (well he gave an order to a V+V girl) but he bought me coffee! A tall frappuccino! Holy shit!
<3 Mr. Rosso
Less backstory, more out front, weird advisory dialogue
Character informed by snippets of dialogue and set props
“Helpful hippie, kind of a douche, but helpful”
Almost all characters played amplified versions of themselves except Martin Starr (not nerdy or goofy from what I can tell)
“the least jaded experience ever;” “great comic instincts, intuitively, insanely funny”
“Cindy Sanders = most morally reprehensible character, boring, Republican, insults heirloom, doesn’t like The Jerk”
“I really wanted to bang this chick. But, it was like, you have no sense of humor—you’re not getting this.” [points to himself] —Nick? Bill? writer on taking unlaughing date to Airplane
Lindsay goes off to follow The Grateful Dead—victory because she’s getting to do what she wants—“ambiguous triumph” bc acid trips and non-final stuff
Jason Segel = tragic character—want him so much to succeed then when he does get his stuff together, it’s not really what he wants
“Victories will come when they’re adults, not when they are teenagers.” —writer when NBC wanted the show to have more victories
Gordon Crisp = “someone marginalized within a marginalized group”
e.g. Seth Rogen’s character with intersex girlfriend
unlikely person to deal with this
gender issues, what it means to fall in love at that age etc.
“They were adamant that Neal would never get any action on the show.” —Samm Levine
Age gaps throughout: Martin Starr made out with 21yo JoAnna Garcia crush while his nose was running
Little improvisation, jokes on page mosty, Martin Starr did a lot, Segel + Rogen riff a lot
Gruber’s nickname—Jim Healey, read all Kurt Vonnegut’s books, “Freak” was super cool and would walk down hallway and call people “groover.” No one got it. Combination of Grover and some contemporary thing at time so → Gruber
“You guys are insanely funny—you guys write something that facilitates that for you.”—Judd Apatow to Segel + Rogen
Diversify. Don’t pigeonhole yourself, so you’re not just able to learn 1 thing. Grow in other fields—creatively grow in all directions when you learn about writing, acting, camera work
For commentary seven years later, go here.