Latest / How To Talk To Humans / Inside the Sitcom Writer’s Room | Anne Flett-Giordano Interview (Part 2)

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Inside the Sitcom Writer’s Room | Anne Flett-Giordano Interview (Part 2) · How To Talk To Humans

• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Larry Wilson, and thank you again for joining us for another episode of How to Talk to Humans.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: And this, of course, is a very special episode because I interrupted the interview last week with my very special guest, a sitcom producer, writer extraordinary, Anne Flett Giordano, because she had so many incredibly valuable things to say about communication.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to try and pick and choose and lose any of this.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: So I decided we'd split it into two parts.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Today we're going to pick it up, and this is a woman with five Emmys sitting on her mantelpiece.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Her book, Marry, Kiss, Kill.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Those are three choices you can make.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: To marry someone, to kiss them, or kill them, uh, is a very funny, quick.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I think of it as one of those summer books you buy on to have on the beach.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: It's a fun, fun read.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: It's also out there.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Um, we're going to jump in right in mid-stream and pick it up where we left off last week with producer writer Extraordinaire Anne Fletano.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Now, I also have to tell listeners, because Anne was talking about how shy she is.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: There's a reason this podcast is only, it's audio only.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: There is no video.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Ann doesn't like to be on camera.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: She really doesn't, doesn't like to have her picture taken.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you, this is just the way some people are.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: This is an incredibly beautiful woman.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Picture a statuesque blonde beauty.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Now double it.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: All right?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: That's what she looked like.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: That's what she looked like.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: And the fact that she doesn't like to be on camera, well, that's her business.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: She doesn't like to be on stage.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: She likes to create the words that other people say.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Well, that's just our good luck that she likes to.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: It's also really interesting that you said when a joke works in the writers or whatever left, just offhand, on average, how many writers are in the writers?
• 3:18
  Anne Flett Giordano: When I Kate and Allie, we do the three people, uh my partner Chuck and I, and um and Bob Randall.
• 3:24
  Anne Flett Giordano: And um and then Howard Corter, a fabulous writer who did oh my god, he ended up doing um well, he he wrote a lot of good plays like Boys Life, and he ended up doing boardwalk.
• 3:37
  Anne Flett Giordano: He he's terrific.
• 3:39
  Anne Flett Giordano: He came on for a while.
• 3:40
  Anne Flett Giordano: That kind of sitcom wasn't for him, but that was his choice.
• 3:44
  Anne Flett Giordano: He's terrific.
• 3:45
  Anne Flett Giordano: Frazier, we usually had about well well, we started with five.
• 3:50
  Anne Flett Giordano: Mom, we had like eleven.
• 3:53
  Anne Flett Giordano: The process has really changed.
• 3:56
  Anne Flett Giordano: It we always wrote our own scripts.
• 3:59
  Anne Flett Giordano: You would work out a story with everybody else, but we always wrote our own scripts.
• 4:05
  Anne Flett Giordano: What is going on now or and different people have different ways of doing it, so I'm not generalizing, I'm just saying it's it's kind of happening a lot.
• 4:16
  Anne Flett Giordano: And this is how we worked on mom.
• 4:17
  Anne Flett Giordano: You came in with an idea and somebody would jump on it, and then you just pitched it to screen.
• 4:26
  Anne Flett Giordano: You just pitched uh lines, you pitched uh actions, you pitched scenes, and it and you had to just do it in the room.
• 4:37
  Anne Flett Giordano: And that was much, much harder for me than being able to just say, Okay, I've got this story, what do you think?
• 4:43
  Anne Flett Giordano: And then going around everybody.
• 4:45
  Anne Flett Giordano: And let them criticize it and then fixing it, and then the actors get it, and then it's a table read, they read it, they just read it, they don't act it out, then you go fix it.
• 4:56
  Anne Flett Giordano: Then you watch the first rehearsal and you fix it.
• 4:59
  Anne Flett Giordano: Meanwhile, you're also working on future episodes and you're editing past episodes.
• 5:04
  Anne Flett Giordano: But so yeah, you gotta keep a lie in your head.
• 5:07
  Anne Flett Giordano: It was very difficult for me to adjust to the new uh way of working where everybody is just working on the same script and that you have to communicate really quickly what you're thinking and why you think it would be funny because everybody is talking over everybody else and trying to get, you know, everyone else to understand what what they think would be funny.
• 5:33
  Anne Flett Giordano: So it it was much more difficult, but I'm glad I did it.
• 5:37
  Anne Flett Giordano: It it frightened me at first, and it was the first year I just thought I was gonna quit every day.
• 5:42
  Anne Flett Giordano: But stick with it because I really like the people, they were absolutely delightful, and I think Chuck Laurie gets a bad rap.
• 5:50
  Anne Flett Giordano: He's he's pretty great.
• 5:51
  Anne Flett Giordano: But um I'm sorry, tell tell our listeners who Chuck Laurie is.
• 5:56
  Anne Flett Giordano: Chuck Laurie is the creator of so many shows you love.
• 6:01
  Anne Flett Giordano: My favorite is Big Bang, which he did with uh Bill Crady.
• 6:05
  Anne Flett Giordano: I love him too.
• 6:06
  Larry Wilson: Yeah.
• 6:06
  Anne Flett Giordano: Um, but also two and a half men and mom and uh about a thousand others.
• 6:14
  Anne Flett Giordano: He he is really and he is stressed out all the time because he's working on ten million things all the time.
• 6:20
  Anne Flett Giordano: So sometimes, yes, he is he is abrasive.
• 6:24
  Anne Flett Giordano: Um but he's a really club guy and he's a and he's a very kind guy at heart.
• 6:29
  Anne Flett Giordano: People don't know all the nice things he does.
• 6:30
  Anne Flett Giordano: But in that room, i i you know, everybody is pitching at the same time, and people get annoyed with each other, and we we were lucky to have someone, and this I'm gonna flatter you now because Nick Backay, who ran the room, was very much like you.
• 6:48
  Anne Flett Giordano: He was just naturally funny, he was naturally good at just telling stories, and you just loved coming to work, and he kept everything calm and level, and if anybody's able to, he would just cut it down in a nice way, in a lovely way.
• 7:09
  Anne Flett Giordano: He was just a great guy.
• 7:10
  Anne Flett Giordano: He still is a great guy.
• 7:12
  Anne Flett Giordano: I just don't get to work with him anymore, and I I really miss him.
• 7:15
  Anne Flett Giordano: But having the ability to uh always not you know, just not be so rabid about your own stuff and have a sense of humor, even when it's not the stuff that's going into the script up um 50% at least, maybe 60% of the jokes and the things you talk about in the writer's room and you laugh about in the writer's room, it has nothing to do with the script, would never go in the script.
• 7:43
  Anne Flett Giordano: Um, you'd be arrested.
• 7:45
  Anne Flett Giordano: So one thing that's going on right now that I I find good in many ways and bad in many ways is the political correctness because uh when it's taken too far, it takes creativity out.
• 8:03
  Anne Flett Giordano: And sure, of course.
• 8:04
  Anne Flett Giordano: You because if you're too nervous to say something, usually a writer's gym we just call it safe space.
• 8:10
  Anne Flett Giordano: And unless someone's thoroughly obnoxious and or racist or something, then horrible, no, get out of here.
• 8:18
  Anne Flett Giordano: But in terms of just like people now are so sensitive that uh I you know, I and I'm I think I'm a pretty sensitive person, but it got so ridiculous that uh I it it it really changed the whole dynamic of that.
• 8:39
  Anne Flett Giordano: So to have somebody like Nick who is a great communicator like you are, who can make every who can make everyone laugh about anything and so there's no hurt feeling that is really important and it takes somebody like that to stir the pot and to be in charge.
• 8:54
  Anne Flett Giordano: Well otherwise otherwise the the big voices will take over and then you're dead because no one else no one else gets anything in and so suffer because we all listen to each other.
• 9:07
  Larry Wilson: It's interesting when you you mentioned about political correctness because one of the things uh that we talk about sometimes in Willson Method is how political correctness wants to alter uh the language so that it doesn't mean what the words actually mean.
• 9:25
  Larry Wilson: And uh looking at it from a different perspective, I'm always opposed to this because it feels like bad communication to me.
• 9:35
  Larry Wilson: You know, it's like somebody uh handing you a tuna sandwich and saying, How do you like this hot dog?
• 9:44
  Larry Wilson: And you want to say, it's not a hot dog.
• 9:47
  Larry Wilson: It's a tuna sandwich.
• 9:48
  Larry Wilson: But everybody you look around the room, everyone's acting like, no, it's called a hot dog now.
• 9:52
  Larry Wilson: And you want to go, no, it's not.
• 9:54
  Larry Wilson: That that uh seems to be the antithesis of what you brought to all these shows.
• 10:03
  Larry Wilson: I think when you talk about on Frasier, the shows being based on people's real lives, that's why it was so relatable, is that we see this stuff and we think, that's just like my family, or that's just like me, or that's just like my best friend.
• 10:21
  Larry Wilson: Which I think, of course, is mission critical to making real connections with people.
• 10:30
  Larry Wilson: And to me it seems like political correctness is the antithesis of that.
• 10:35
  Larry Wilson: We don't want real connections, we abhor that.
• 10:39
  Larry Wilson: Which actually leads me to discuss your science fiction background.
• 10:44
  Anne Flett Giordano: Well, first let me c do you mind if I say something about political correctness?
• 10:48
  Anne Flett Giordano: Please, please do what what what bothers me about it is that you can't have a bad character.
• 10:56
  Anne Flett Giordano: And every good comedy or drama needs bad characters who think badly.
• 11:04
  Anne Flett Giordano: And and if you can't have uh I mean if you can't have an Archie Bunker, there's no Archie Bunker show.
• 11:10
  Anne Flett Giordano: He's supposed to be laughed at.
• 11:13
  Anne Flett Giordano: They're supposed to be laughed at.
• 11:19
  Anne Flett Giordano: They're supposed to, but they represent a real thing that that you need to face and you need to talk about.
• 11:29
  Anne Flett Giordano: And if you can't do that because no one's allowed to say anything, my second point about this, that's one thing, as a writer, is very frustrating.
• 11:38
  Anne Flett Giordano: It just makes you want to write a book instead.
• 11:41
  Anne Flett Giordano: The other thing is being a woman, um, which I still think I am, even though I'm older.
• 11:48
  Anne Flett Giordano: Um there was a certain point in time when I suddenly was getting calls from all kinds of magazines and newspapers and things, and oh, tell us how hard it was.
• 12:02
  Anne Flett Giordano: Uh, you know, I'd speak at USC, they did it and and they'd say, Oh, tell us how hard it was being a woman, and I'd say, It's not my personal experience.
• 12:10
  Anne Flett Giordano: I know it was for a lot of people.
• 12:12
  Anne Flett Giordano: It's not my personal experience.
• 12:15
  Anne Flett Giordano: And the minute you say, All the guys I worked with were great, then everybody doesn't want to talk to you anymore.
• 12:21
  Anne Flett Giordano: They want to find somebody who's upset.
• 12:23
  Anne Flett Giordano: Um, and the the the the other thing that kind of goes with that, really frustrating that um that people take a slant, especially the press, and decide that this is how they want to go.
• 12:39
  Anne Flett Giordano: And if you ha only have nice things to say, they don't want to hear it.
• 12:44
  Larry Wilson: Wait, wait, you're saying the press comes in with preconceived ideas?
• 12:49
  unknown: Yesterday.
• 12:52
  Anne Flett Giordano: Yesterday there were more press at the Trump rally than there were Trump supporters.
• 12:56
  Anne Flett Giordano: It was ludicrous.
• 12:57
  Anne Flett Giordano: They were literally like ganging up on those thousand press people trying to talk to one person because there's nobody there.
• 13:04
  Anne Flett Giordano: So hilarious.
• 13:06
  Larry Wilson: Well, it is funny.
• 13:07
  Larry Wilson: Now, I'm notoriously apolitical uh on the show because I feel I don't want to be sad.
• 13:15
  Anne Flett Giordano: Exactly.
• 13:15
  Anne Flett Giordano: And I'm sorry, I'm sorry, fans who love it.
• 13:17
  Anne Flett Giordano: No, no, no.
• 13:18
  Anne Flett Giordano: No, no, no.
• 13:18
  Anne Flett Giordano: I'm just saying what happened yesterday.
• 13:21
  Larry Wilson: No, I I absolutely welcome what you said because I was struck by the comedic value that I noticed yesterday.
• 13:31
  Larry Wilson: Uh of course, we're uh recording this uh April 5th, 2023.
• 13:36
  Larry Wilson: For those of you listening to it in the year 2083, um, all kinds of things happened at this time that you won't believe when you read about on the holo deck or whatever's going on.
• 13:48
  Larry Wilson: But what I thought was hysterically funny was the media people clearly wanted to do something with this story, but for most of the early part of the day there was nothing going on.
• 14:03
  Larry Wilson: And so, like you say, Ann, there were a million media people on the street and they were interviewing each other, and they were interviewing people, you know, they're interviewing like a guy who sells hot dogs from a cart.
• 14:17
  Larry Wilson: And of course, nothing had happened.
• 14:19
  Larry Wilson: So all they could say is, well, what do you think it's gonna feel like when Trump comes to the courthouse and the guy with the hot dog cargo, it's really gonna be something, I'll tell you that.
• 14:30
  Larry Wilson: I mean, in other words, they they were so desperate.
• 14:34
  Larry Wilson: And the only uh this is as close as I will ever get to saying anything of any political nature on the show is that I have heard from more than one source that let us not worry about what they actually say, but that many people in the media love Trump because he provides them fodder for media.
• 14:59
  Anne Flett Giordano: And I have I will tell you a personal experience just of that kind of slant.
• 15:04
  Anne Flett Giordano: Um I on Frazier, I was interviewed by um LA magazine, and I won't say by who, but um I spoke for a long time about Chris Lloyd, who is just a terrific guy, terrific writer.
• 15:19
  Anne Flett Giordano: And I I just said how wonderful he was, and there was a joke in the script that they that was on the floor that week that they happened to watch that I had written.
• 15:34
  Anne Flett Giordano: So when the article came out, I was back in New York and I read it and I just had fit.
• 15:42
  Anne Flett Giordano: And I called Chris and I said, Chris, it was about Joe Keenan, who is also, by the way, a brilliant, brilliant writer.
• 15:50
  Anne Flett Giordano: But I said, Chris, I talked all about you and I talked about Joe too, but there's nothing about Chris at all.
• 15:59
  Anne Flett Giordano: And he had just had a baby and his baby was crying.
• 16:01
  Anne Flett Giordano: He said, Yeah, that's my ego in the background.
• 16:04
  Anne Flett Giordano: And but the slant was the slant was, as it turned out, which we didn't know, gay riders in Hollywood.
• 16:14
  Anne Flett Giordano: So and and so all they did was take what I had said about Joe, but they hadn't told us since.
• 16:22
  Anne Flett Giordano: They left everything about Chris out, and he was the guy running the show.
• 16:25
  Anne Flett Giordano: The other thing they did was I had written a joke based on the postman Always Rings Twice, and um of course that was brilliant.
• 16:33
  Anne Flett Giordano: And they attributed it to Joe.
• 16:36
  Anne Flett Giordano: So when I called and said, Do you have fact checkers that you know this guy interviewed me and blah blah blah?
• 16:43
  Anne Flett Giordano: And even a joke I wrote, he attributed to Joe.
• 16:47
  Anne Flett Giordano: And so he got on with me and he said, you know what, we don't, and we're not gonna fix it because we really don't care.
• 16:54
  Anne Flett Giordano: It's about our story.
• 16:55
  Anne Flett Giordano: So sorry.
• 16:56
  Anne Flett Giordano: And I was so uh I was so naive.
• 17:01
  Anne Flett Giordano: I was but that yeah, that goes on all the time.
• 17:04
  Anne Flett Giordano: I mean I don't know, George Santos was speaking yesterday and he's he's the best communicator in the world, if you ask me, because he can tell a lie like nobody's business and somehow end up in with a seat in Congress.
• 17:19
  Anne Flett Giordano: I couldn't do that.
• 17:20
  Anne Flett Giordano: I'm sure you could be a good liar.
• 17:22
  Anne Flett Giordano: I think I need to be some kind of sociopath.
• 17:25
  Larry Wilson: I'm sure you could.
• 17:26
  Larry Wilson: I mean I want to go on record right now as saying that I would vote for you and such your daughter for Congress.
• 17:34
  Larry Wilson: I would vote for you repeatedly, more than once.
• 17:36
  Larry Wilson: I just want that to be right here.
• 17:39
  Larry Wilson: Uh, but again, the stuff you're sharing is incredible because I know there's people listening to this.
• 17:46
  Larry Wilson: Some of them may have been turned on to this episode in particular by someone else saying, you should really listen to what this woman has to say, because you're uh you have reached a level of accomplishment in this world that very few people ever achieve.
• 18:06
  Larry Wilson: So for you to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that that normal people feel like, oh, that's just me.
• 18:16
  Larry Wilson: If if I was a successful writer-producer on a sitcom, I wouldn't have to deal with this.
• 18:21
  Larry Wilson: No, you would have to deal with it.
• 18:24
  Larry Wilson: Just a different kind and in a different way.
• 18:27
  Larry Wilson: But I think it it's very, very enlightening to hear you share it because I think it's important for people to, again, understand the difference between good communicators and bad communicators.
• 18:43
  Larry Wilson: And there's a lot of people in the media.
• 18:46
  Larry Wilson: I mean, you just heard Ann say this, that she called up someone to say, she was politely saying, hey, that wasn't Joe's joke.
• 18:55
  Larry Wilson: I wrote that.
• 18:56
  Larry Wilson: But she just said, Do you have fact checkers?
• 18:58
  Larry Wilson: And they're like, No, and we aren't gonna fix it because we don't care.
• 19:02
  Larry Wilson: Well, that's an example of bad communication.
• 19:08
  Larry Wilson: Unless, of course.
• 19:09
  Larry Wilson: Welcome to Fox News.
• 19:12
  Speaker: Well, well, I mean I know you're not political, but I am.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: No, no, that's perfectly right.
• 19:16
  Anne Flett Giordano: You're I would never it has it has legitimately come out with the emails that they just absolutely lied for because it's the story that they're they are listening to what the audience wants to hear and putting that on instead of the truth.
• 19:30
  Larry Wilson: Absolutely.
• 19:31
  Larry Wilson: Now I can't go forever.
• 19:33
  Larry Wilson: Well, I won't take a political position on it.
• 19:35
  Larry Wilson: But I but I definitely will say that you're right that when people start trying to tell you what you want to hear, the of course the casualty there is the truth.
• 19:47
  Anne Flett Giordano: Absolutely.
• 19:47
  Anne Flett Giordano: And the liberals do the same thing with I had no bad experiences with men, so they didn't want to say that.
• 19:57
  Anne Flett Giordano: They just left that out.
• 19:58
  Anne Flett Giordano: They left me out because you didn't have a complaint.
• 20:01
  Anne Flett Giordano: And what scares me.
• 20:03
  Anne Flett Giordano: Oh, this brings me back to the other point that I wanted to make.
• 20:06
  Anne Flett Giordano: Yes.
• 20:06
  Anne Flett Giordano: Once you start saying, Well, men can't write women, then you're saying women can't write men.
• 20:14
  Anne Flett Giordano: Then I couldn't write Fraser, I couldn't write Niles, I couldn't write Martin, I and I find that ridiculous.
• 20:21
  Anne Flett Giordano: We all have men or women or trans people or whatever in our lives.
• 20:29
  Larry Wilson: Right.
• 20:30
  Anne Flett Giordano: Gay people, I am not gay, I can write gay, I'm not uh a man, I can write a man, and I find it really offensive.
• 20:38
  Anne Flett Giordano: I do think there should be everybody represented because there are things that are very particular to a sex or a race or whatever.
• 20:48
  Anne Flett Giordano: And I do think it's really important that we make this a better um and I think it's happening, I hope, um, experience for everybody because everybody's stories, like I said, the writer's room are the stories you know.
• 21:04
  Anne Flett Giordano: So the more people from different backgrounds with great stories, the better anything gets.
• 21:10
  Anne Flett Giordano: But I do find it really offensive when people say men shouldn't write women because that puts me in a position where I can't write men.
• 21:19
  Larry Wilson: Quite right.
• 21:20
  Larry Wilson: Well, I mean, the whole thing I always think of is we all have imaginations.
• 21:26
  Larry Wilson: And humanity.
• 21:28
  Larry Wilson: Well, we're hoping.
• 21:30
  Larry Wilson: Now I I've been in show business as long as you have, and there's a number of people I've met in show business that question their humanity.
• 21:37
  Larry Wilson: But for the most part, I would say you're right.
• 21:40
  Larry Wilson: I mean, I think of the quote of Jules Verton, uh, wrote around the world in eighty days, but had never traveled more than twenty miles from where he was born.
• 21:52
  Larry Wilson: Right about yeah, yeah.
• 21:55
  Larry Wilson: Exactly that that it it's so demeaning.
• 21:59
  Larry Wilson: To writers, I think, to say, oh, uh, yeah, we have a character here uh who only has one leg, so we have to find a one-legged writer to write this.
• 22:10
  Larry Wilson: It's so insulting.
• 22:12
  Larry Wilson: And like you say, i truthfully, it is dehumanizing because it suggests that we aren't all really in this experience of life together.
• 22:27
  Larry Wilson: No, we're all individual little isolated units, and we're gonna band together all, you know, uh Invonnegut in one of his books, he makes a thing about in the future, they've made all these artificial families where they've given people middle names that are just random, like buttercup or dinosaur or firecracker.
• 22:49
  Larry Wilson: And then they number them uh one through twenty-five, I think.
• 22:53
  Larry Wilson: So you might be a buttercup eleven.
• 22:55
  Larry Wilson: So if you meet someone else's a buttercup 11, then you you have special uh experience with them in connection.
• 23:02
  Larry Wilson: And then Vonica very wisely says one thing they didn't anticipate is that all the people whose middle names were a 13 formed another subset because 13 is you know an unlucky number.
• 23:18
  Larry Wilson: So, and he talks about one of the characters.
• 23:21
  Larry Wilson: One point, uh, some woman, a guy comes up and says, You're a firecracker 13, right?
• 23:26
  Larry Wilson: She goes, Yeah, he goes, tell me, I've heard there are these private 13 clubs and stuff.
• 23:31
  Larry Wilson: She goes, Yeah, yeah.
• 23:33
  Larry Wilson: And he goes, Well, what's it like?
• 23:34
  Larry Wilson: She goes, you know, all this corny kind of, you know, like stuffed black cats in there and, you know, witches' hats and stuff like that, you know, it's just a regular club, you know.
• 23:46
  Larry Wilson: And I mean, I I couldn't agree with you more that it's a terrible injustice to all creatives.
• 23:55
  Larry Wilson: When I, well, again, I I don't want to go down a particular road that uh I really enjoy doing this and uh I don't want to stir the waters and make people unhappy.
• 24:07
  Larry Wilson: But I appreciate what you're saying, and and I know that people listen to this are too because it's an important message that oh well yes, please.
• 24:17
  Anne Flett Giordano: Well, Vonnegut is a perfect example of the mixing, the best in my opinion, of the mixing.
• 24:24
  Anne Flett Giordano: Well, if you look at Flatterhouse 5, that is the mixing of his true story in World War II and science fiction, which is totally imagination.
• 24:37
  Anne Flett Giordano: And I think he's absolutely brilliant, and he can he wrote Space Aliens just as well as he wrote his own story and in the same story.
• 24:49
  Anne Flett Giordano: I mean, that was freaking brilliant, and uh Unbelievable.
• 24:54
  Anne Flett Giordano: I had a partner for a long time, Chuck Randberg, who you know well because we had it at school.
• 24:59
  Anne Flett Giordano: We were both we were R A R R A um Rall.
• 25:03
  Anne Flett Giordano: And Chuck and I started writing together at that time in college, which was fantastic.
• 25:08
  Anne Flett Giordano: And that's uh we stayed together forever.
• 25:11
  Anne Flett Giordano: But um um he wrote a letter to to Vonnegut because he just uh we both just thought Vonnegut was brilliant, and Vonnegut wrote a letter back to the letter.
• 25:25
  Anne Flett Giordano: I wish I could remember exactly what he said, but we just were it was brilliant and of course very concise and very brilliant, and you just go, man, I wish I could do that.
• 25:38
  Anne Flett Giordano: Um well this book a book I read recently, um two two books, but my favorite was a gentleman from Moscow.
• 25:47
  Anne Flett Giordano: He also wrote the Lincoln Highway.
• 25:49
  Anne Flett Giordano: Um he was not in Moscow in in a hotel uh being held, but he wrote the most beautiful, beautiful book about someone who was, and you believe he knows that person.
• 26:05
  Anne Flett Giordano: That's what writing is, you don't have to be it to write it.
• 26:09
  Anne Flett Giordano: And sometimes you have lived it, and that just is makes it better.
• 26:14
  Anne Flett Giordano: So it's a wonderful combination.
• 26:17
  Larry Wilson: Because you mentioned Vonica, and because you mentioned well, I brought him up, but you pointed out the genius of Slaughterhouse Live.
• 26:24
  Larry Wilson: And it really is.
• 26:26
  Larry Wilson: If you haven't read this book, uh you should stop listening to his podcast and get a copy of that book, because it will really blow your mind.
• 26:36
  Larry Wilson: Um I can't say enough about it.
• 26:40
  Larry Wilson: It is uh an extraordinary work of fiction.
• 26:43
  Larry Wilson: And unlike sometimes when people say that, maybe they mean something like Tolstoy, and that's sometimes hard going to get through that.
• 26:52
  Larry Wilson: Vonega is the easiest read in the world.
• 26:57
  Larry Wilson: The words flow so easily and the ideas are so seamlessly integrated.
• 27:03
  Larry Wilson: Like Ann just said, uh uh a brutal World War II experience with the wildest flights of science fiction fantasy on the planet Troutfamador, uh, where they communicate in the uh schizophrenic telegraphic manner.
• 27:22
  Larry Wilson: Um, but it also brings up my uh allusion to your uh greatest science fiction writing accomplishment.
• 27:33
  Larry Wilson: Well, I can't wait to hear what that was.
• 27:36
  Larry Wilson: Now, I'm teasing Anne because she's thinking clearly Larry's had a stroke.
• 27:41
  Larry Wilson: I he doesn't know what he's talking about.
• 27:44
  Larry Wilson: I've never written science fiction.
• 27:46
  Larry Wilson: Oh, but she has.
• 27:48
  Larry Wilson: Uh and I'll I you know what?
• 27:50
  Larry Wilson: I'll reference Vonnegut again.
• 27:52
  Larry Wilson: In one of Vonnegut's books, maybe it's the Breakfast of Champions, he uh talks about a this science fiction writer he has, Kilgore Trout, and he likes to go around sometimes pick up old copies of his writing that no one cares about.
• 28:06
  Larry Wilson: And he frequently finds them uh adult bookstores.
• 28:10
  Larry Wilson: And he says, at first it seemed odd that the science fiction stuff would be with pornography, but he said, really, it's because both science fiction and pornography imagine an impossibly hospitable and friendly world.
• 28:26
  Larry Wilson: And I have pornography Well, well, by that he I think he's alluding to the idea of, you know, oh, I'm the pizza delivery man.
• 28:36
  Larry Wilson: I don't have enough money to give you a tip.
• 28:38
  Larry Wilson: What can I give you?
• 28:40
  Larry Wilson: Please come in.
• 28:41
  Larry Wilson: You know, that kind of ridiculousness that uh I mean, uh, I must confess it's been many years actually since I've looked at pornography.
• 28:49
  Larry Wilson: So perhaps it's all changed now.
• 28:51
  Larry Wilson: Perhaps it uh is all made with subtitles and all kinds of other stuff and this complete divorce.
• 28:58
  Larry Wilson: But I think that Vonica's idea was that somehow things that people fantasize about or wish about that could never happen in real life.
• 29:08
  Larry Wilson: And you wrote an extraordinary show.
• 29:11
  Larry Wilson: Um I should quit the teasing and tell you, Anne wrote a show that had a very successful run in 2010 called Hot in Cleveland.
• 29:21
  Larry Wilson: And I consider this it is science fiction, isn't it?
• 29:29
  Anne Flett Giordano: It is totally science fiction, and it was delightful.
• 29:32
  Anne Flett Giordano: What a joyous experience that was.
• 29:34
  Larry Wilson: Oh my god.
• 29:35
  Larry Wilson: Now I'm gonna tell the audience what it was, and then you correct me because I'm gonna say something.
• 29:41
  Larry Wilson: But the idea is that some women in Los Angeles of a certain age are on their way to are they on their way to Paris?
• 29:52
  Larry Wilson: Paris.
• 29:52
  Larry Wilson: They're on their way to Paris, and their flight gets diverted and has to land in Cleveland for some layover or something.
• 29:59
  Larry Wilson: And they have an extraordinary uh revelation.
• 30:03
  Larry Wilson: In Los Angeles, it's such a crazy world and filled with so much uh fake uh idolatry of looks and wealth and status and all sorts of stuff.
• 30:17
  Larry Wilson: But these women who are actually charming, intelligent, funny, attractive women, in Los Angeles they're overlooked because they aren't 18 years old.
• 30:30
  Larry Wilson: In Cleveland, they're considered very hot.
• 30:34
  Larry Wilson: And so they decide to stay and not go to Paris.
• 30:39
  Larry Wilson: And they remain in Cleveland.
• 30:42
  Larry Wilson: Is that a fair assessment of the show?
• 30:44
  Larry Wilson: That is a perfect assessment of the show.
• 30:47
  Larry Wilson: Well, I am a master of communication, so you are.
• 30:51
  Larry Wilson: You should expect nothing less.
• 30:52
  Larry Wilson: But tell us about this because I thought this was so brilliant.
• 30:56
  Larry Wilson: Now, of course, again, you have incredible actresses, unbelievable actresses, uh Wendy Malik and uh the incredible, the iconic Betty White.
• 31:10
  Anne Flett Giordano: Jane Lees from Fraser and uh Jane Lee.
• 31:13
  Anne Flett Giordano: Of course, Melanie was Valerie Burt Millie.
• 31:17
  Anne Flett Giordano: Melanie?
• 31:18
  Anne Flett Giordano: Brilliant.
• 31:18
  Anne Flett Giordano: I met her on Fraser too.
• 31:20
  Anne Flett Giordano: And it did so.
• 31:22
  Anne Flett Giordano: But that was my friend uh Suzanne Martin's idea.
• 31:28
  Anne Flett Giordano: And it I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
• 31:31
  Anne Flett Giordano: And she and I met on Fraser.
• 31:33
  Anne Flett Giordano: She was another writer on Fraser, and she's still my friend, we're very good friends.
• 31:37
  Anne Flett Giordano: Um and I was just delighted to work on it.
• 31:41
  Anne Flett Giordano: It's totally fancy.
• 31:43
  Anne Flett Giordano: It's it's um uh woman's, you know, a woman over forty's wet dream.
• 31:50
  Anne Flett Giordano: It's just absolutely fun.
• 31:52
  Anne Flett Giordano: And uh I really we had fun doing that show.
• 31:55
  Anne Flett Giordano: It was just great.
• 31:56
  Anne Flett Giordano: I even went to Cleveland and it's a great place.
• 31:59
  Anne Flett Giordano: I really loved it.
• 32:00
  Anne Flett Giordano: I like Cleveland.
• 32:01
  Anne Flett Giordano: Yeah, the and we just did ridiculous episodes.
• 32:04
  Anne Flett Giordano: We did ridiculous things.
• 32:06
  Anne Flett Giordano: It could never happen, but we had loads of fun doing it, and the that was the silliest show I ever worked on, but I really I mean we I did desperate housewives too, and I had no fun there.
• 32:19
  Anne Flett Giordano: And um that was a desperate situation, but Hot in Cleveland was just a blast, and making up all that really silly stuff was really fun.
• 32:32
  Larry Wilson: And I think I think you're describing what science fiction is, you know?
• 32:37
  Larry Wilson: True.
• 32:38
  Larry Wilson: It's it's wild flights of fancy of of things that could never be, and yet we're gonna make them.
• 32:47
  Anne Flett Giordano: We're gonna make them work.
• 32:48
  Anne Flett Giordano: Three women could good luck ending up with Betty White.
• 32:53
  Anne Flett Giordano: She was unbelievably great.
• 32:55
  Anne Flett Giordano: But three women could move to Cleveland and at 40.
• 32:58
  Anne Flett Giordano: And also I will tell you, London, um, you can go there, and it's a very different experience than being in Los Angeles.
• 33:07
  Anne Flett Giordano: Los Angeles is a special kind of but what I loved about that was Did anyone notice that Anne just cut herself off and get them?
• 33:15
  Anne Flett Giordano: No, but people got it, and that was really great.
• 33:18
  Anne Flett Giordano: I also wrote a book that was an absolute parody of Los Angeles, much like hot and Cleveland, and about 90% of the people who read it got it and thought it, you know, just understood and thought it was funny, and about 10% still wrote, well, obviously, thinking that I was not making fun of, but liking the things I was making fun of, and that was just a shocker.
• 33:48
  Anne Flett Giordano: So talk about communication.
• 33:51
  Anne Flett Giordano: Well, did not somehow I did not convey to this 10% or or maybe more 15% of the readers that this is making fun of these people.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: But this is this is a very important lesson.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: No, but this is a very important lesson that you're communicating here.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Once again, in her modest way, Anne is taking responsibility for these uh Yahoos not understanding her message.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: But in fact, Anne's message is always laser, sharp, clear.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: And the book she's referring to is a Merry Kiss Kill.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: And it's available wherever book.
• 34:33
  Speaker: I'm not trying to plug the book.
• 34:34
  Speaker: No, no, I'm just saying.
• 34:36
  Speaker: I'm just saying it's really shocking when you think you've communicated well and you find out that someone has totally missed what you were trying to do.
• 34:45
  Speaker: Well and that happens quite frequently.
• 34:47
  Speaker: How do you think Jesus must have felt?
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, it must be the same thing.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Well, you're right, Matthew.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: But I mean, the point is you have this incredible message, and there's always some tiny percentage of people who will totally twist it and get it a hundred percent wrong.
• 35:08
  Speaker: Well, I'd say anyone who has a slogan that puts Jesus with guns together, which is quite frequent now, is missing the is missing the boat on what he was trying to say.
• 35:18
  Speaker: But I would think so.
• 35:19
  Speaker: Yeah, no, but it's shocking.
• 35:21
  Speaker: It's shocking when it happens, and you you think you've communicated well, but you have not.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Well, well, it's funny that you should say that.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: And uh again, I I talk that up to your self-effacing nature, which is of course very appealing, and we talk about in Wilson Method uh how important that is, because that's a quality about you that makes people instantly drawn to you and uh like you because they see that you're really willing to show them who you really are.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: And as you mentioned before, we were talking about political correctness.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: When people are afraid to say anything other than what they think they're supposed to say, we don't have any idea of who they really are.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: We don't get any indication of what I mean, that's the scary 1984 thing.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: We just don't really know what's going on with anyone.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: And of course, that's not a good way to go.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: But um I'm I'm so pleased to hear that the experience you had on Hot in Cleveland was as positive for you as it was for us watching it.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Once again, Anne is so funny.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: She says, I mentioned the name of her book, and she says, I'm not plugging that.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: I know you aren't plugging the book.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: But people listening to this, I wouldn't be surprised if they want to see your shows, read your book.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: If they aren't compelled, I would be, if I didn't know you and heard this, I'd want to know all about you.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I'd want to see the work you've done.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: If I mean, uh correct me if I'm wrong, but Hot and Cleveland must have run three or four seasons, yes?
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Six.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Forgive me.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Forgive me, six seasons.
• 37:09
  Speaker: No, no, that's quite all right.
• 37:11
  Speaker: Betty White is a draw.
• 37:13
  Speaker: She is just and also the other actresses, I I I won't take anything away from them.
• 37:18
  Speaker: And I've just never had so much fun.
• 37:21
  Speaker: They were just a blast.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, also, this of course is an important thing for show business.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: When the people making the show are having a good time, it shows.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: We can feel it.
• 37:34
  Speaker: And again, and again, when the when the actors can trust the writers and the writers can trust the actors.
• 37:39
  Speaker: There are shows where actors will tank things on purpose because they don't like them.
• 37:44
  Speaker: And you can't trust them to do a good job because they have their own, you know, ideas.
• 37:49
  Speaker: I have not been on a show like that, but I don't think it exists.
• 37:53
  Speaker: I have had I have had guest stars that do that.
• 37:57
  Speaker: But it's, you know, uh so it's really it's very symbiotic.
• 38:01
  Speaker: It really truly is, and that is good communication.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: I could go on with Anne for hours, but I suspect she has a real life she would like to continue with.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Um, but I think you kind of wrapped it up there beautifully, which is the exchange of ideas is what communication is really about.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: If it's just going one way, then it's just you lecturing someone or shouting at them or something.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: When we we have that uh back and forth is what makes life rich and wonderful and fulfilling.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: I don't want to suggest that everyone listening to this can achieve the success that Anne Flette Giorgiato has, but I would tell you that if you were to emulate her hard work, nothing but good will come of it.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: If you're writing sitcoms, if you're writing dramas, if you're writing books, if you're writing speeches to present in front of people, if you were to devote yourself to it the way I know Anne does, to her writing, then nothing but good will come of it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Because I'm I'm also reminded uh funny, another science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein, who sometimes referred to as the Dean of American science fiction, uh was once quoted in something that magazines asking, what advice do you have for aspiring writers to get their stuff sold?
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: He said, Well, there's two things, there's just two steps.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: One, keep writing no matter what.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Keep writing.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: And two, keep submitting your s stuff to different venues no matter how many times it gets rejected.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Just keep submitting.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: That was his advice.
• 40:00
  Speaker: And I don't know Do I have the time to speak to that person?
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: You have you have all the time in the world.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: I'm ready to go on for another five hours.
• 40:10
  Speaker: Uh y yes, I totally agree.
• 40:14
  Speaker: And I agree in part because when we were trying to break through, Chuck and I, um we were just not getting anywhere and we were submitting every place, and especially with news shows, because they don't already have a big staff and you just jump on it as quick as you can and write us back is what they're called.
• 40:36
  Speaker: Um, an episode for the show that shows that you can write the characters.
• 40:41
  Speaker: And what happened to us was I we had sent a couple of things out.
• 40:49
  Speaker: One was to Kate Nally, one was to another show, and the person from the producer from the other show was kind enough, and I later worked with him, he's a great guy, he was kind enough to call me and tell me why it absolutely was wrong and wouldn't work, and so on and so forth.
• 41:07
  Speaker: And I was devastated, but I thought he was very kind to call.
• 41:11
  Speaker: But he said he would leave it there because he was leaving the show, and another producer was coming in, Michael Whitehorn.
• 41:18
  Speaker: And so meanwhile, the Cape Nally thing was kind of percolating, and on the day that we got our first job, which was on Cape Nally from Vilpersky, and I was so excited, and as soon as he called and said, We want to hire you, we want you to move to New York, I was so thrilled, and I put down the phone to call my mother to say, I finally did this.
• 41:43
  Speaker: And the phone rang, and I picked up and it was Michael Whitehorn, and he said, You know, what was the script on my desk?
• 41:53
  Speaker: And I love it.
• 41:53
  Speaker: Do you want to work for us?
• 41:55
  Speaker: So, and I had to say no.
• 41:58
  Speaker: And this is the same, literally minutes apart.
• 42:01
  Speaker: So that's how it happens.
• 42:04
  Speaker: It's very weird, it's crazy, and you just all of a sudden you couldn't get arrested, and suddenly you told, you know, two people want you, and you're just sweet.
• 42:13
  Speaker: And we didn't have an agent at that point.
• 42:16
  Speaker: So, um absolutely keep writing.
• 42:20
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 42:21
  Speaker: If you believe in something, keep writing.
• 42:23
  Speaker: Also, I was I'll just finish with this and then you can wrap up.
• 42:27
  Speaker: Um, communication is is is 50% listening or maybe 80% listening.
• 42:33
  Speaker: Um I have a tendency all my life to actually be very rude and tell the people I'm with, or I'm they could see it.
• 42:43
  Speaker: I'm not listening to them, I'm actually listening to a conversation at another table, a conversation.
• 42:49
  Speaker: Total strangers.
• 42:50
  Speaker: I am totally fascinated by strangers' conversations.
• 42:53
  Speaker: And I write down what they say.
• 42:55
  Speaker: And it just because not I if I only wrote about people who are exactly like me and my friends, it would not be interesting.
• 43:04
  Speaker: But I find what other people say.
• 43:07
  Speaker: Um, my boyfriend, do you remember Mark Wynitsky, had a crazy story in London, and a woman just walked by him and said a knife in your gut.
• 43:17
  Speaker: And I always loved that.
• 43:19
  Speaker: And we wrote a we wrote a Seinfeld about that.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 43:25
  Speaker: So it you listen to everybody else.
• 43:28
  Speaker: Listening is it listening is communicating.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Well, you're and now you're finishing, I'm sorry.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: No, you're preaching my tune, baby.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I can't shut up and I'm talking about listening.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Well, no, I you you are a great communicator.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: If you didn't know it, I think the evidence of all these hundreds of episodes of shows you've written should give you some clue.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: But on this podcast, uh, you've shared some things that I don't Think other people have ever said before.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: If they have, I've never heard it.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: And it may be because they didn't think it was important or they wanted to be flashy or something.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: But uh wrapping up as you did on that story, which is uh unbelievable story, and I can only assure people who are listening that uh Anne Flet Giordano is not making this stuff up.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: If she says this is what happened, that's what really happened.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: She's not uh, you know, embroidering it to make it a better story.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: That that really is the key, uh, if you're concerned about writing, is that you've got to just keep doing it and sending it out.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: And of course, Ann Sprett is not a graduate of Wilson Method Training, but she Well, in a way I am.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: She's she's very sweet to say that.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: But truthfully, she hit on the importance, as we've talked about, of listening.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: And if you go back and watch some of the sitcoms, I'm partial, of course, of love, love, love Frazier to death.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: If you go back and watch it, you will see sometimes that there are lines of dialogue that are missing because they're unnecessary.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: Because you can see a character is listening to another character.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: So they don't have to then say, Oh, I hear what you said, you mean blah blah blah.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: We don't need that.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: Because the way it's been written shows the characters listening to each other, unless it's for comedic effect, where someone is telling about the importance of listening and somebody else says, I'm sorry, were you talking?
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: You know, that sort of gag, but uh she couldn't be more right of that importance.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: I cannot thank you enough for your time and fletch your Donna.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: When I asked her originally to do this, she said, I'm a terrible interview.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: She said, I'm very boring.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: I said, I know you are, but I'm not.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: I'm very excited.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: And I will make you very exciting.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Of course, I was teasing her.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: She's not boring one little bit.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: She's just a treasure trove of incredible knowledge about communication.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: I'm eternally grateful to you for this.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: For those of you who are listening, I can't sick you on Anne.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: That's not really fair to her.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: But if you have questions about what we've talked about here, you can always write to me at Larry at WilsonMethod.com because I read every single one.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And uh I hope that if you're if you're oriented towards writing in particular, I've re-listened to this episode a couple of times.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: There's some extremely valuable stuff here.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: Next week we're off on a whole new path.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: I look forward to seeing you then on how to talk to humans.
• 47:19
  Larry Wilson: This has been Larry Wilson.
• 47:21
  Larry Wilson: I want to thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you found this information.
• 47:27
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking for more, you can find it at Wilson.com.