Before Our Meeting at Playboy. Photo: Ron Brody

The other day, I “took” a Hollywood pitch meeting, something I rarely do.  Like most Hollywood meetings, it wasn’t actually in Hollywood, but in Glassell Park between Glendale and Eagle Rock, at the corporate offices of Playboy Entertainment.  Of course, Playboy is a huge international icon, but I wasn’t meeting with the icon, not that day anyway.  I was meeting with the executive in charge of original programming and development for Playboy TV, a very nice young lady named Wendy Miller, the kind of nice young lady who doesn’t look like she even watches Playboy TV, let alone develops its programs.

As soon as I arrived with my husband Max and Ron, our other partner on this project, we were ushered into a conference room the size of a bowling alley gleaming with corporate opulence.  Having just come off the dusty roads of LA, I was thirsty and looked expectantly for the usual corporate pitcher and crystal goblets on the table–so vast and shiny I wanted to ice skate on it–but none was too be found. Perhaps a Playboy Bunny might hop by, offering to get me coffee, tea or herself, or at least a glass of water.  But alas, no bunnies with water, not even a St. Bernard with a brandy.  I cleared my parched throat plaintively, but the meeting was already starting.  As Ron started to pitch Wendy, flanked by two associates, one of whom cordially disclosed that he “grew up” watching me on cable TV (I wonder how fast I helped him “grow up”…), it occurred to me that this might have been a part of the Playboy TV pitch meeting strategy: keep the pitchers thirsty and off their game.

After Ron spoke and I managed to cough out a few parched words, Wendy explained to us, very nicely, that they weren’t really interested in our idea for a sex therapy reality show because Playboy TV already has a sex therapy reality show that they’ll be rolling out in just a few months.  They weren’t interested in our sexy makeovers of real couples because they’ve got another reality show all about sex makeovers in the works too.  Now I was getting dizzy from dehydration coupled with the realization that we were stuck in this palatial, waterless wasteland with people who just weren’t interested in us.

Then Wendy, appearing to my vertiginous eyes like the patient and wise Wendy Darling in Peter Pan, uttered the magic words (or something to this effect): What we are interested in is you. For a few seconds, my mouth flooded with the moisture of awareness.  Perhaps they’re interested in the thing that no sex therapy show, clinic, shock jock broadcast, adult studio or sexy makeover anywhere can duplicate:  The ultimate, really real, ongoing and amazing  reality show of the Speakeasy at the Institute in the Soul of Downtown LA.

We closed the meeting with an exchange of contact info so they can come visit us some Saturday night soon to see how we “work.”  Nothing is even close to confirmed, of course, but I felt a clear sense of purpose and excitement in the air, as we fairly skipped down the jazz art-lined corridor and almost  waltzed into someone’s private office.  Finally we found our way back to our vehicle where I immediately sucked down a warm but cosmically refreshing slurp of agua from the bottle I’d left there and had another realization: This might be a lot of fun.

And yes, I’ll try to remember to BYOB to future Hollywood meetings.