Variety and the Hollywood Reporter are all abuzz over the following internet email exchange, just leaked. They are calling it the Status/Quo memorandum.
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10/27/11 8:32 AM
from: Jeremy Quo >jquo422@hotmale.com<
to: Bernard Status >BernardS@StatusAgency.com<
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Dear Mr. Status,
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I have arrived in Los Angeles, and await your instructions. Tried reaching you by phone, and three times left a message with your answering service, but couldn’t even get through to your secretary. Please call me at your earliest convenience, at the number given. If I don’t pick up by the fifth ring, I’m not here. If someone else answers, ask for me at facility twenty-nine. It’s a rental unit where I’m storing my things for now. At this moment I am jacked into the phone near the office with my laptop. It’s the same computer that has my new screenplay on it. Look forward to meeting with you, sir.
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Sincerely,
Jeremy Quo
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10/28/11 9:18 AM
from: Bernard Status
to: Jeremy Quo
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Hi Jeremy—sorry, no time to talk right now, I’ve got three clients in the office & I’m very busy. Look, to be honest, I got no idea what you mean about instructions, or why you’re in L.A.. When I said that you really need to be in Hollywood to write for Hollywood, it was a figure of speech. It’s all about contacts. Who you know. Or who you’re related to. You may be a good writer, but you can’t expect me to spend time on unproven projects from unknown wannabes. I’ve got bills to pay here like everyone else, my friend. I’m a whisper from signing Quentin Tarantino’s brother San, and frankly I need to concentrate on stuff that actually matters to the bottom line. Hope ya understand. –BS
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10/28/11 4:31 PM
from: Jeremy Quo
to: Bernard Status
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Mr. Sanderson,
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Are you now saying you are not taking me on as a client? Don’t you want to read the rest of my new script? This was not the impression I received from you when I was back in South Carolina. Please explain. I’ve spent most of my money getting here, and don’t have enough for a return trip. I’ll be looking for work soon unless you can advance me something to cover expenses. I am not really expecting that, but can you at least see me, look at the new script, and advise me? Please. It’s only fair, given all you have said about my talent. I tried coming to your office this afternoon, but got rebuffed by that Byzantine doorman employed by your office building. Said he was a writer too, but then he wouldn’t let me call up to you like he sympathized or anything. Didn’t you get it?
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Hopefully,
Jeremy
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10/29/11 9:02 AM
from: Bernard Status
to: Jeremy Quo
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No, I didn’t get the message. What was it, again?
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10/29/11 9:41 AM
from: Jeremy Quo
to: Bernard Status
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I’ve got an original script here! No, it’s not “FROM THE MAKERS OF LOST” or anything, but that should be a plus, shouldn’t it? Did those guys have any idea what they were doing? I mean, what was it with those polar bears? And the ending to J.J. Abrams’ SUPER 8 made a lot of sense, didn’t it, what with that big pile of junk suddenly turning into a spaceship and flying whatever-it-was back to wherever-it-came-from? I mean, he introduced vampires into his CIA espionage series ALIAS! Wow, that was genius, right? My script has NONE of that crap. Do you want to read it, or not?
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11/03/11 9:43 AM
from: Bernard Status
to: Jeremy Quo
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Email it to me as an attachment in Word XP format. Can’t promise anything. I have your release form on file, don’t I?
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11/03/11 9:59 AM
from: Jeremy Quo
to: Bernard Status
1 Attachment
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Yes, you do. You have three of them. And yes, I do have the script registered with the Writer’s Guild, thank you for asking. It’s titled FAME ISLAND. It’s about a lotto winner who finances a coup attempt against a corrupt Caribbean island governor because he wants to be famous, and a hero to boot. Not just some rich guy who disappears from the public eye fifteen minutes after he collects his check. The islands in the story exist as described. I’ve done all the research, been there myself. Just please let me know what you think as soon as possible. I am already seriously considering the idea of applying for a job at Taco Bell.
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11/17/11 8:13 AM
from: Bernard Status
to: Jeremy Quo
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Read the first 10 pages. I don’t know, kiddo. Costs could be prohibitive. The opening moves well, but you bog down a little on page 8 with that typo in the middle there. Or is it a coffee stain? Email me a two page detailed outline, & I’ll read that first to see if it merits your entering the next edition of “On the Lot”. . .oh, & in the meantime? Try Dennys. More flexible hours.
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11/17/11 11:44 AM
from: Jeremy Quo
to: Bernard Status
1 Attachment
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“On the Lot” was cancelled in 2005, sir. Here is the outline you requested. I have taken a job at Denny’s, as you advised, but my hours seem rather rigid. Appears that it is going to be graveyard shift, too. . . washing dishes, cleaning grease off vents. This is not what I expected, sir, after paying my dues for twenty years, winning awards, and getting novels out that I did not self publish. True, no one has made a lot of money off my books, thus far, but the people I’m surrounded with now don’t read, although they do get books thrown at them. Is this really what it comes to in this city of a thousand award show panels? Out of work actors doing Borax-cut lines of coke while they trade one-liners from CSI or The Tonight Show? I outran a mugger this morning in Griffith Park. He was drunk. I was weak from exhaustion. You might say it was a close call.
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11/19/11 4:22 PM
from: Bernard Status
to: Jeremy Quo
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Eeeee. Well, it’s a strange town, kid. Did you hear the rumor that Pink is changing her name to Purple? Or that poor Z-list Christopher Cross lost his Topanga Canyon home to a freek brush fire, & then got double-crossed by the Red Cross? Who knows what ta believe anymore. Anyway, be careful on the street. Don’t walk anywhere. I’ll get to your outline as soon as I talk to Andrew Dice Clay’s cousin about his fenominal script about the French Foriegn Legion taking back the state of Maine. Chow for now. –BS
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12/13/11 11:01 AM
from: Jeremy Quo
to: Bernard Status
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Are you there? Haven’t heard from you in a long time. I trust you haven’t forgotten about me. Did you read my outline yet?
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01/20/12 11:01 AM
from: Jeremy Quo
to: Bernard Status
1 Attachment
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Please somebody help me. They want me to sign up for sub duty catering a “D-List” Oscar party at Denny’s featuring the former cast of Picket Fences. The transvestite hooker living in unit thirteen at Santa Monica Storage has been making advances. It has been three days now since I’ve slept more than two hours, and I’m suffering a horrific case of Ereuthophobia, which, combined with my Sanguivoriphobia and Chrometophobia, may prevent me from accepting money from vampires to work the red carpet. To wit, I just can’t come up with any new ideas out here, and now see why nobody else can either. To support my reasoning, I’ve attached a Polaroid shot of Retread Auto Tires, a store you can just make out through the smog over Santa Monica Boulevard. By the way, I tried to find you in a thick directory of agents seeking police detective pilots, but you aren’t listed. Are you more of a horror movie agent? Will you be at Denny’s the night of the Oscars, dressed as Jason? I’m starting to wonder if I might be insane, and not the only sane person here after all. Not only don’t people walk or read here, they can’t even spell. On the citation I was issued for vagrancy the cop spelled “pissing” with one s. Then he told me he was writing a CHIPS sequel in his spare time.
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01/28/12 9:01 AM
from: Bernard Status
to: Jeremy Quo
1 attachment
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Jeremy! Tried calling you several times this morning, but the manager there said you moved out. Fat Freddy at Dennys said you quit last week. Where the hell are ya, kiddo? Anyway, my first reader read the outline to your script, and wait til you hear this: It’s fan-f-ing-tastic. According to him, it’s great! I think we’ll have no problem getting this baby optioned. Give me a few days to read the script myself, okay? Okay, then what you do is, well, you bring me the attached contract, signed in duplicate. I’ll alert Lyle in the lobby that you’re coming. Got it? Okay. So how does it feel now, Mr. Jeremy Quo? Eh? You’re in. You’ve made it! You have a real agent now, I promise. & I hope you enjoy yer newfound Status! –BS
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01/28/12 1:07 PM
from: Jeremy Quo
to: Bernard Status
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New digs. No time to talk right now. I have acquired a new agent–a listed agent–name of Lew Apperson. So I will not be requiring your services. Ciao. –JQ
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01/28/12 1:14 PM
from: Bernard Status
to: Jeremy Quo
1 attachment
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Dear Mr. Quo,
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As per the attached correspondence, you will note that you have already retained my services as exclusive agent of record to your literary output for a term of one year beginning 05/14/11. This verbal & correspondingly written arrangement is herewith binding in the state of California, & prohibits you from contracting, arbitrating, querying [et. al.] for the purposes of financial gain outside stated agreement.
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Sincerely,
Bernard Status II, Esquire
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01/28/12 4:04 PM
from: Jeremy Quo
to: Bernard Status
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Do you know when the probability of a piece of toast landing butter-side-down is NOT proportionate to the cost of the carpet, but has more to do with the pile? Give it up, Bernie. Apperson’s lawyers looked over our correspondence and had a good laugh. Same kind of laugh they had when it was rumored Mike Tyson was buying Tyson Foods, or that the Blair Witch was haunting Linda Blair. &&& did you hear the National Parks Service has decided to re-sculpt Mount Rushmore into the images of the hosts of The View??? –JQ
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01/28/12 4:14 PM
from: Bernard Status
to: Jeremy Quo
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Apperson? He’s nuts! What ya want him for? He’s trying to sign Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears to a sitcom set at a rehab facility run by Kathy Lee Gifford! Come on, Jeremy, I’m telling you I can make you a star!
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01/28/12 4:14 PM
from: web administrator
INVALID ADDRESS—NO SUCH PERSON LISTED—TIMED OUT
Jonathan Lowe
Author website with fiction and drama
