Food-Related Parables

The best part of the evening was that the other table having dinner in our section of the restaurant comprised four men, one of whom was Fred Dryer, former football player and star of the late and unlamented TV series Hunter. The only part of their conversation I overheard had something to do with Keanu Reeves and Speed (probably because the buses going by always had a poster for Speed 2 on the side). The part Darin overheard had to do with Fred meeting two girls and only one of them recognized him. The entire anecdote had to do with how well-known he is.

Today I had lunch with a TV writer that Tiffany met and got the phone number of. (She got his phone number for me, not for her, thankyouverymuch.) I called him, we arranged lunch, we met.

And it was very nice, really. He was very honest and answered every question I had about the Biz. About working patterns. Some inside gossip about who was doing what to whom. Money.

But then I happened to mention something that changed the entire tenor of the conversation. I happened to mention that Darin and I are atheists.

            TV WRITER
        Atheists or agnostics?
        
            DIANE
          (ignoring the DANGER
           sign)
        Atheists.

Guess who's religious? Guess who believes so strongly in God, Jesus, and the battle between Good and Evil that he incorporates this belief into what he writes for TV, even on action-oriented "science"-fiction like The Burning Zone?

Guess who actually asked how an atheist can know right from wrong?

I was caught off-guard. It has been a long time since I've run into someone with firm and public religious convictions. I realized that everyone I know is

1. an atheist
2. an agnostic
3. a believer in God, but not a proselytizer
4. not going to waste their time trying to convert me.

Belief in God just doesn't come up. This is why, depending on your point of view, California is either a sophisticated, accepting melting pot of all types, or on a bullet train to Hell.

We didn't get into a hostile debate or anything. Lunch continued nicely and we continued talking about what we write and what our convictions are. He asked me if I could write for a show like Touched By An Angel; I said I probably couldn't, mostly because it feels saccharine and fake to me, not because it mentions God. However, if the show were about people finding a better path in their lives and making things better for themselves rather than waiting for some supernatural force to come in and save them without having to do a damn thing themselves, I could write about that, even if the messenger were an angel sent by God.

His father is a show creator and show runner, and every show his father has created (four of them, I think) has the expressly stated mission to dramatize the war between Good and Evil, both of the earthly and supernatural kinds. The writer discussed some of the stories that his father has put on TV and why this mission has gotten his father fired more than once. (This is one of the weird things about Hollywood -- being upfront about what you believe and following through on it will get you fired, whereas being obsequious and doing everything the network wants...will get you fired.)

He mentioned one scene from The Burning Zone (one of his father's shows, and one that he was a staff writer on) in which a dark governmental organization uses death row prisoners in strange experiments to contact Hell and they accidentally bring back a demon. As point of reference for my beliefs, I mentioned a scene from Twin Peaks in which Kyle MacLachlan asks if it isn't easier for us to believe that an evil spirit possessed Leland Palmer rather than that a man raped and killed his daughter. The writer, in reply, mentioned that he believes in both.

I guess I follow Occam's razor: a world in which a man could rape and kill his daughter has no need of evil spirits. There's a song by some Eighties group (note: I've since been told the group is XTC) called "Dear God" in which the singers talk about how horrible the Earth is and what a bastard God is for allowing life to be such hell here. One girl at Stanford I knew pointed to this song as the explanation for why she didn't believe in God. In response, I said that the evils the song talked about said nothing about the existence of God, but quite a bit about the existence of man.

As lunch wound down (he paid! I insisted, but he paid), we exchanged cards and he told me to call him if I had any other questions. I hope he won't mind if I take him up on that as I try to get started.

Anything Ceej has, I want too: I had been running my notification list out of Claris Emailer, and it was kind of a hassle. Ceej announced that she had started a mailing list on spies to announce new entries of the Battered Black Book. So I asked her to set one up for me too, and she complied, so I have a real, live mailing list to notify those who might be interested that there are new entries to The Paperwork.

Send mail to majordomo@spies.com with the text

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In a stunning bit of coincidence, Fred Dryer is mentioned in today's Variety Dish column on the back page. Cult Convergence: "Hunter" star Fred Dryer is hunting a feature deal for "11 Days," a true story by Donald Harstad that Doubleday has acquired...Harstad, an Iowa lawman who wrote about a harrowing experience investigating a murderous Satanic cult...Dryer feels it's a fact-based "Omen," and is looking for a feature deal to star and produce..."

So Fred's still working. That's nice to know.