Hmm...I know something interesting happened yesterday. What was it, though? If only I could remember...oh, wait a minute! That's right!

I became an intern on the Joan Cusack show!

Yeah, baby! Get ready to see me use a lot of exclamation points in this entry, because I'm excited, and I'm going to tell you all about it!

One of the producers finally called me Wednesday, just as I was thinking that the whole deal was going to be a wash. He asked me if I'd like to come down on Thursdays and Fridays, which is perfect since I didn't schedule any of my classes for those days. Carefully considering his offer, I finally replied "Fuck Yeah!' only it came out more like 'Sure, thanks, that would be great.'

I drove out yesterday to their huge studio complex in the Chicago suburbs. If you didn't already know, the show is shot here and not in LA because when the network offered Joan Cusack a series, she readily accepted, but only on the condition that she wouldn't have to move to LA. This show is unique, in that when it premieres in March as a mid-season replacement, it will be the only show produced (in all of its aspects) here in Chicago. I am extremely fortunate to have this opportunity to work on the show here. It's simply unheard of in the midwest.

Anyway, back to our story: I parked, and walked toward the studio entrance. I noticed plaques on the wall that had the names of the staff. I passed them one by one, recognizing the names of the people from the office who had called me. Then, suddenly, (I hate to admit) I was star-struck: There was the parking space belonging to James L. Brooks. He's worked as executive producer/writer on a few little projects you may have heard about, like, oh, Jerry Maguire, As Good As It Gets, The Simpsons, Taxi, and The Mary Tyler Moore show, to name just a few. Anyway, I felt a little flash of excitement when I saw that name, but it was nothing compared to what happened when I was finally inside!

So, I get in and go up to the offices. I meet with Chris, the associate producer who called me. He was really nice, and looked just a bit older than me, which I took as a good sign. He gave me a tour of the studio, showing me the offices, the writers room (!), the prop shop, the set shop, the costume/makeup room (which was staffed by girls who I think, by law, must be of the utmost level of cuteness...after seeing a documentary on Friends, this was confirmed) and finally, the set itself.

The interesting thing about TV sets is that they look so damn fake. You see the flimsy walls and the lights above, and you think to yourself that this is terrible, it'll never look real. Then, you see them throught the television monitors and you wonder whether they're actually filming on location in someone's apartment.

So, Chris introduces me to a few more people, who were all extremely nice. He then asks me what I'd like to do. I tell him to suggest what would be most beneficial to me at the moment, so he tells me to stay on the set and just observe. I readily agree, discovering that this internship is going to be extremely informal, and breathing a sigh of relief as I realize that I'm not going to be sitting in their production offices answering phones, as I feared.

I hunker down on the set and watch. This episode, written by Jon Vitti (who was also written numerous, numerous episodes of the Simpsons, King of the Hill, and The Larry Sanders Show) is being directed by Ed Weinberger, who is an associate of Brooks and a great producer in his own right. That afternoon, the crew was working on camera blocking with the stand-ins for all the actors, but I did manage to catch a glimpse of Kyle Chandler, now co-star of the Joan Cusack show and star of the former series Early Edition. Neat.

So, I stuck around for about three hours or so before the novelty wore off. I headed back to the offices, and Chris said I could go, or I could hang out at a desk and see what the office was like.

I elected to go.

He laughed, saying he didn't blame me. I asked him if there were going to be any regular duties for me, and he told me he hadn't really thought about it. He told me that there was 'a fine line between intern and indentured servant' and that I could do whatever I liked with this position. Cool guy. I told him about my TV writing aspirations, so he introduced me to the head writer's assistant. He promised to get me in on a few Monday morning table reads.

You can bet I'll be skipping a few Monday classes.

So, I'm a happy boy. I go out again today to watch them do the actual taping in front of an audience. Yeah! I promise to try to steal something from the catering table, because free food is half the reason I'm in showbiz.