MISADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE (or: Can Journalists Make It In Hollywood?)
IN WHICH: Sitcom writer and KCRW commentator Rob Long interviews visiting British journalist Toby Young about Toby’s new book, “The Sound of No Hands Clapping” then takes audience questions.
AND: A party, courtesy Pravda Vodka, in honor of:
Toby Young, who estimates he received about $85,000 for 3,000 words in his two-and-a-half years at Vanity Fair in the ’90s — making him the highest paid writer in the history of the magazine — until Graydon Carter finally fired him after a dispute over a restaurant bill landed Toby on the New York Post’s Page Six. All this and more was chronicled in Toby’s previous memoir about his misadventures in the N.Y. magazine world, “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.” The new book, “The Sound of No Hands Clapping,” is about his failure to conquer Hollywood.
Rob Long, a contributing editor of National Review and Newsweek International, who was a co-executive producer of “Cheers” while still in his 20s and is the co-creator of a string of (cancelled) sitcoms: (“George & Leo,” “Men, Women & Dogs,” etc.) Rob’s “Martini Shot” commentaries on life in Hollywood can be heard weekly on KCRW-FM, and he is also the author of “Conversations With My Agent,” the cult classic about real life in Hollywood, as well as its recently published sequel, “Set Up Joke, Set Up Joke.”
WHERE AND WHEN: July 5, at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Barnsdall Park (two blocks west of Vermont), at 4800 Hollywood Blvd. in the Hollywood/Los Feliz neighborhood. Free parking in lot. Reception: 6:30; onstage interview: 7:30-9pm; more partying: 9pm to 10pm or so.
Both Toby’s and Rob’s books will be on sale, and if you buy one they will sign it for you with a deeply sincere personal inscription.
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