Festival: Salty TV Writers Also Salty on Stage

09 Oct 2007, Martin Schneider, The New Yorker

” …The panel mostly agreed on the following givens: TV stations want to make money, and it’s good to tell your story and not the demographically dictated story that the higher-ups want you to tell. Halfway through, in full-on Crazy Uncle mode, Al Swearengen, er, Sipowicz, I mean Milch began calling spades spades (and I’ll allow the metaphoricity only if pressed), and it took the combined efforts of the rest of the panel to parry with the behemoth suddenly in their midst. A born thrower of bombs (and not only of the F kind), Milch goosed the audience with his story of a discussion years ago, when the prospect of a black man and a white woman holding hands on the air was still shocking to the network contemplating such a scene. Milch’s solution? Have the man place his penis on the woman’s shoulder, natch. The show duly fired him. The kicker? “That was the last note I ever took.” I bet! …” [more]