The Man in Back.

My sister Stella and our resident exchange student, Carl, took my dog, Biscuitface, out for his nightly walk so I have time to blog.

Off and on, Im still reading my book about Johnny Cash. A few things I've learned; he was called "The Man in Back" because growing up, his church was crowded and he had a big family so he always offered to stand...in the back.

Other questions were resolved in a dramatic fashion:

Q. Johnny, why were you in prison?

A. Never was.

Q. Why do you always wear black?

A. I don't.

These were real questions he addressed in the book (I may have to re-address the back/black thing). Although I'm not one for celebrity gossip, I find myself flipping ahead for some sort of dramatic revelations.

Meanwhile, I received an e-mail from my agent. I bring this up because it's astounding for several reasons.

#1 I thought he was dead.

I sent a sympathy card and everything. And that was fifteen years ago when he was over 100 years old!

But apparently, he's still alive and living in his birth house in East Vancouver. Even when I visited him back then, I don't think reality had caught up with him. (Whenever he heard the term "crack house" he always giggled thinking it a rude term for something else.)

As my fervent readers know, I used to write a lot of childrens tv back in the day. But I gave that up when my ideas started being rejected as "too old." The final straw came when a Vancouver producer told me after I submitted a first draft for a Bart Simpson-esque show, that I was out of the loop.

"The dialogue is too Bart Simpson-ish."

I was flabergasted. (And up to this point only my grandmother ever been flabergasted in our family. But Ireland, at the time did not consider that illegal or even in bad taste.)

Ummmm, how do I respond to this? The debate was between "wanna eat and goddamn common sense basic writing". But my cable bill was due so I said "tell me how to make it better" and my internal voice continued "oh great one who wouldn't know story, if story came up to you wearing a sign saying "hi, I'm story" and bit you on the ass!"

But she then fired me and gave the script to her "right-hand man" of a story editor. (Who later stabbed her in the back which was bad, but who would I root for there?)

So, I never had the opportunity to incorporate her "notes" and only got paid for the first draft. I thought at the time,"my bad" which was a popular saying at the time.

Then a year later, I'm watching TV and the show in question comes on and dammit; they're airing my episode. Well, as a writer, this is a perfect opportunity for me to learn where I went wrong by studying the changes made to the script I wrote.

And I watched slackjawed.

Nothing had been changed from my first draft.

Who do I call; the producer? The Broadcaster? Telefilm? My Mother?

Aw, life.

But maybe my agent, is back in the game and inviting me to play again. What the hell, I've got nothing but time.