by Jon F. Merz, novelist (author of the Lawson Vampire novels), screenwriter, and now TV producer for the new TV show The Fixer
Note: This episode contains language that may offend some readers.
While I busied myself with other production factors – small things like writing episodes, getting graphic design elements and a website in place – Jaime continued our hunt for financing. It felt by now that we’d exhausted our lists of potential investors. Jaime had pored over issues of Fortune, Forbes, and Boston magazines in his hunt for locating wealthy benefactors – all to no avail.
When we’d first come up with the idea of doing THE FIXER, our first thought was to approach one of the Boston area’s most flamboyant businessmen, a local car dealer who had inherited his empire from his father, but who still used the same motto that his father had screamed at television screens for years. I’d made the initial approach but gotten no response. Jaime, demonstrating his normal inability to take no for an answer, had kept dogging the man’s personal assistant.
Finally, Jaime called me one afternoon. “Tell me I’m great.”
I paused. “Tell me you got us $20 million first.”
“Almost. I got us a meeting with Chalk.”
That got my attention. “How’d you do that?”
Jaime proceeded to tell me that he’d finally managed to get his assistant to look at THE FIXER website and see what a cool project it was. She had managed to locate some time on Chalk’s schedule for a meeting.
Monday.
3PM.
We were stoked. Given the fact that Chalk was all over television through his ads and in bit spots on one the best shows on television, we felt certain he might be our guy. We spent the better part of a week preparing for our meeting.
First, I researched as much sales data as I could find on the web about his empire and what figures he might be moving in a given year. Our plan was to show him how backing us would not give him a tremendous return on his investment, but also give him fantastic product placement opportunities, enable him to gain a larger market share over his competition, and much more. I wrote up five small character roles that he could play in THE FIXER itself if he wanted.
Nick, our web guru and one of graphic design wizards, put together a poster of one of the villains in THE FIXER and got it to me at midnight the day before our meeting, handing it over in the parking lot of a mall as if we were in a drug deal.
But Jaime and I felt certain that we had this thing locked up. Our presentation was solid; we had all the materials we needed to make our case, and things felt…good.
We drove to the business office where Chalk reigned supreme. My first impression was that it looked like someone had cornered the market on faux wood paneling. The place was pretty much a dump.
Inside, Chalk’s personal assistant greeted us warmly and had us take a seat. We waited for about three minutes and then Chalk himself came out. We shook hands and then he looked at us.
“Who are you guys again?”
After explaining who we were, and trying to quell the uneasiness I suddenly felt, he brought us into his office and had us sit at the conference table. As I sat and got my materials out, a magazine suddenly got shoved under my nose.
“Check it out!”
I glanced at the cover. Billboard. I looked up. “Excuse me?”
Chalk jabbed a finger at the Top 100 charts. “Check it out. That’s my record label. My first band.”
I looked back and saw that he’d sold 7400 copies of the CD for the band that he’d signed. I wasn’t impressed. The band had had national hits back when I went through Basic Training and if all they could muster was 7400 copies, I didn’t think it boded particularly well for the label.
But Jaime and I said “wow,” and “amazing,” until he seemed satisfied that we were impressed enough. Then he dropped his lanky frame into a seat and looked us over.
“So, a TV show? What’s this all about?”
We went through our pitch, which by now, we’d honed to a fine point given all of our other experiences. Jaime and I delivered it perfectly. Chalk, however, was anything but impressed, and let us know in a high-pitched whiny voice.
“What? You wanna do what? Why?”
I told him about the Lawson Vampire books sitting on the table in front of us.
“Wait-“ he grabbed one of them. “You wrote these?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my god, I have to get you to sign them.”
I said sure, and took out my treasured Mont Blanc. But Chalk waved it off. “No, no, no, no, you gotta use a marker. Don’t you have a marker?”
As I started to explain that the marker didn’t work well because the paper would make it bleed, he got up and raced back to his desk, returning with a thick Sharpee. “Ya gotta use a Sharpee.”
I dutifully signed the books and he patted them. “I’m gonna read these.”
Swell. Jaime and I got back into our pitch.
“So, I sold Bobcat Goldthwaite a car last week.”
Huh?
Chalk explained how he’d sold the comedian a car the previous week. He then proceeded to explain how he and Goldthwaite got into a conversation about a certain actress and her rather impressive physical attributes.
“She’s got great tits,” said Chalk.
I cleared my throat. “You know, that’s Bobcat’s ex-wife, right?”
Chalk stopped. “Really?”
Chalk’s phone rang. He looked at it. “Hold on, I gotta take this.” He then proceeded to have a fifteen-minute talk with the head of a record company. Jaime and I respectfully waited until he was done. Then we started up again. After this, we waited.
“It’s just so fuckin’ risky.”
This then became Chalk’s mantra for the remainder of our meeting. He would bring up problems and questions he had with the project and we would answer and address every one of them. Every time we delivered a suitable response, he would counter with his newfound mantra.
“You know what you guys need to do: you need to find someone who doesn’t mind losing a few million. You know, someone who can afford to do that.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “All due respect, Mr. Chalk, you’re a billionaire. And the Sultan of Brunei isn’t exactly returning my calls right now.”
Jaime and I had been in a lot of meetings by this point, but this was something else. Chalk was anything but professional. His manner betrayed a complete lack of grace and his speech was uncouth, given the nature of our meeting.
I’d had enough.
While Chalk looked over one of our handouts, I calmly eyed him and said, “Why on earth did you have us come in here today?”
He looked up. “Huh? Well, Christine (his assistant) told me about you guys and you know, I kinda like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and stuff, and so…” his voice trailed off.
Jaime and I gathered up our stuff. It was time to go. We thanked Chalk for his time and left.
There are a lot of colorful terms I could use to describe Chalk. But I think you have a pretty good idea of what he’s like and I’ll leave it to your creativity to conjure up a suitable moniker for him.
And just think: this is the abbreviated version of what actually happened.
Note: Jon's latest thriller PARALLAX is now out as an ebook! Check it out HERE!