Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue

Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 12

STUDIO 60 ON ROOSEVELT AVENUE
EPISODE 11
WRITTEN COMPLETELY BY AARON SORKIN TOTALLY ALONE AND UNDER GREAT DURESS
RELIVE THE EXCITING INAUGURAL SEASON!
PILOT | EPISODE 2 | EPISODE 3 | EPISODE 4 |
EPISODE 5 | EPISODE 6 | EPISODE 7 | EPISODE 8
EPISODE 9 | EPISODE 10 | EPISODE 11

LOGLINE: Once the nation’s best and most respected baseball GM, Sandy Alderson has been reduced to trying to revive a moribund franchise in the depths of deepest, darkest Queens. Along with his sharp-witted and adoring protégés, he fights off the seemingly endless series of controversies and crises that beset him while trying to run a sports team in the country’s most bustling metropolis, and still look fantastic while doing it. Can the pressures of such an important job crush this singularly talented and gifted individual genius?

ACT I

The office. PAUL DEPODESTA and J.P. RICCIARDI are standing near a Xerox machine as it whirs away, crumpling up pieces of copy paper and shooting them, basketball style, into a large, overflowing recycling bin.

DEPODESTA
If you could be any tyrant in history, who would you be?

RICCIARDI
Define “tyrant.”

DEPODESTA
Autocratic giant ruling his land with an iron fist.

RICCIARDI
Why would I want to be that?

DEPODESTA
Imagine you had no choice. Which one would you pick that would be the least distasteful to you?

RICCIARDI
I guess…Louis XIV. Seems like you’d be pretty far removed from most of the horror, and you could wear powdered wigs. How about you?

DEPODESTA
Abraham Lincoln.

RICCIARDI
What?! Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a tyrant!

DEPODESTA
The South thought he was. That’s why Booth yelled “sic semper tyrannus!” just before he shot him.

RICCIARDI
That’s a loophole. I didn’t know I could pick Lincoln.

DEPODESTA
Shoulda come with me on that trip to Gettysburg.

MACKENZIE CARLIN walks in, looking annoyed.

CARLIN
What are you two doing? You’re supposed to be copying all the 40-man-roster salary info for today’s meeting.

DEPODESTA
We are. And while we do, we are having a very important discussion abut tyranny, while also playing recycling bin basketball.

RICCIARDI
And I’m winning, mostly because I didn’t call Abe Lincoln a tyrant.

CARLIN
[grabbing the overflowing recycling bin] Is somebody gonna clean this thing out?

RICCIARDI
Yes, I assume somebody will. Could you put it down? I’m trying to line up a three pointer.

CARLIN
[rooting through the trash] What is this?

RICCIARDI
It’s you looking through garbage, for some reason.

CARLIN
No, this.

CARLIN pulls out something from the trash. It looks like a card. She shows it to RICCIARDI and DEPODESTA, who immediately look intrigued.

Cut to DAVID EINHORN’s office. He’s sitting on the edge of his desk with a large square of grass-covered sod in each hand, weighing them carefully. He hears a knock at his door.

EINHORN
Come in, but this better be important. I’m trying to choose grass for my dog’s new putting green.

CARLIN, RICCIARDI, and DEPODESTA enter.

CARLIN
I thought you’d want to see this.

CARLIN hands EINHORN the card. He too is immediately intrigued.

Continue reading Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 12 →

Adtacular

Ad Copy for Future 1800 Tequila Commercials

1 Comment

What’s the the deal with shirts these days? All these collars and buttons and other fasteners. Who’s got the time? We’re hard-working men, and men wear simple t-shirts with no more than four holes so you don’t get confused when you try to put them on in the morning and you’re still monstrously hungover. 1800 Tequila’s even simpler: Just one hole on top, so you can pour tequila down your hole, repeatedly, and sweat right through your simple shirt.

* * *

Have you seen tables lately? Painted up in frilly colors like a bunch of cheap whores. A table should be made of wood, with no adornment other than some stain or water seal, so a man can put his feet up on it at the end of the day without feeling like a god damn fruit. And when he puts up those feet, he should do so while enjoying shot after shot of 1800 Tequila. Because Wednesday only comes once a week.

* * *

You know what 1800 Tequila comes with? A shot glass built right into the cap. What man wants to root all over his kitchen counter and through all the dirty dishes in the sink for a shot glass? Especially if he’s already blurry-eyed drunk from drinking all that delicious 1800 Tequila. If your tequila doesn’t have a built-in shot glass, go kill yourself.

* * *

Everybody’s talking about all these different gods these days. Allah, Yahweh, Zoroaster–are you kidding me? What happened to just one god, who smited us with volcanoes and told us to burn unbelievers at the stake? Some men still believe in one god. It’s called 1800 Tequila, and I’m gonna offer up my mouth as a human sacrifice.

* * *

What’s th’deal with firepoles? These hotshot firefighters think they’re too good fer stairs? The rest of us slobs hafta walk up and down stairs n’ you guys get to be Batman? I coulda been a fireman if I wanted. Look at me, I’m turnin on a hose, I’m a hero! Everyone’s really impressed, guys. Bra-fuckin-vo. [slow clap] 1880 Terquilla.

* * *

Debbie? Don’t hang up Debbie, iss me…Yeah, I’m a little drunk, so what?…Lissen lissen lissen lissen, Debbie, you remumber when we went to that roof party and we watched the sunset n’ you said you never wanted it to end? WHY DID YOU LET IT END, DEBBIE?! Fine, I can hang up, too! [throws phone across room] 1880 Quesadilla.

Interweb, Sports

Support Your Local Sporting Scene

If you read this site and/or follow me on Twitter and the like, I’m guessing there’s a very good chance you’ve heard this news already. On the off chance you haven’t, have you heard the news?

It seems that a veritable supergroup of great writerly types is teaming up to make a brand new daily sporting web site called The Classical. Like who? The first name that caught yours truly’s eye was Tom Scharpling, whose Best Show on WFMU I’ve waxed about rhapsodically on this show many times. Aside from being one of the funniest people around, he is also an NBA fan ne plus ultra (see this interview for evidence) and can speak/write on the subject with the utmost authority, and thus is an ideal catch for such an endeavor.

But when it comes to the roster of champs involved with this endeavor, that is far from all. There’s Bethlehem Shoals of Free Darko fame (read their hoops books if you haven’t, because you should). Tim Marchman, one of the best and most criminally underused baseball writers in America. Eric Nusbaum from Pitchers and Poets. David Roth, whose weekly sporting chats at The Awl (w/David Raposa) never fail to crack me up. And that is but a sampling.

Okay, great, they’re gonna do a website. Why am I writing about it? Because in order to make The Classical “a sustainable business, rather than yet another blog or Tumblr” (their words), they need dough. So they’ve set up a Kickstarter page with the goal of raising $50,000 to make this a reality. If you’re on the fence about whether you’d like to contribute to the cause, I’d suggest reading the Project Description and the full list of contributors, and above all else, watching the accompanying video, which has some hilarious visual cues.

And of course, if you do contribute, you’re in line for some valuable schwag, including (but not limited to) a chip clip. But if you can’t swing a contribution (times are tough, I know), you can always like The Classical on Facebook, or tweet about it, or mention it on the social media platform of your choice. It’s free, and it helps.

From what I can tell, the response has been pretty great thus far; as I post this, The Classical has already raised over $11K. But that’s obviously not quite their goal, so if you’ve ever complained about call-in radio shows or lamented the general meatheadedness of sports commentary, please consider doing your part to elevating said commentary on the interwebs. Future generations will thank you.

A potentially explosive collection of verbal irritants