Harry was cheap and problematic but also funny and creative; a trade off.

It was December 1997, I was'nt working on anything else and I knew boys would be fun. (Look at them, how could I say no?)

I wrote a three hundred page script in a month, four one hour episodes.

I liked writing with a deadline but I worked so long and hard that I gave myself carpal tunnel. (Fortunately cured in a few weeks by acupuncture.)

My friend Crystal Carmen was playing ‘Melissa.’ She came over and helped me finish typing it.

We would sit cackling away as the script took shape.

We Ho Stories had good Doctors and evil twins, love triangles and lost weekends; kid napping, kleptomania, drug use, blackmail, insanity, a nude maid and a cross dressing nun.  It was provocative, sure to offend right wing wakko’s and everyone agrees that controversy is a great marketing tool.

I had finally gotten rid of my last bad roommate and  the spare bedroom was free. My friend Maxi was looking to get out of NYC for the winter, so I invited her to come to LA and help me. The two of us were a three ring circus for the next four months.

I put out a casting notice and got started with pre-production in January of '98. It was my most ambitious project to date. Ignorance is bliss.

Casting was hilarious. Always is. We received more than a thousand submissions over the next few weeks and slowly waded through them. I'm always amazed at the things people submit themselves for.

The majority of them weren't right but we had plenty of good ones to choose from. I even found an old friend that I used to work with nine years earlier; Aura Goode, who read for the role of Ashley.

We scouted locations. Most production companies use a Location Manager but we were on the ‘no budget’ budget. We needed locations that were free, ideally, or just a handful of beans.

My apartment complex became ‘We Ho Manor.’ Like Melrose Place, most of the main characters lived in the same building. My neighbor’s apartments became various abodes and friends houses filled out the rest.

My chiropractors office became the ‘Holloway Free Clinic’ run by the good Doctor Rosenblume and his mercenary partner Dr. Whitley.

Vivian’s Café in Studio City became the diner across the street from the clinic and the No Tell Motel with Jacuzzi’s in every room became the Catholic convalescent home that housed crazy Sebastian.

LA has a huge talent pool of very good actors, many of whom are homosexual. While I didn’t discriminate against straight guys and had a few brilliant straight actors playing queer, most of my cast was openly gay.

When we were reading actors for different roles, I had the luxury of incorporating what we saw into the story lines. John P. was really good and looked much younger than his twenty some years, so I wrote in the story of a teenage runaway.

Bob, a nice looking gentleman, could transform himself into ‘Bobby’ a tired, frazzled and frayed six foot five crazy lady. Maxi and I couldn’t believe the pictures he was showing us. Perfection! I wrote the character of Gigi.

Five major story lines with various intertwining su b plots. Twenty five actors and actresses. Murphey's Law in full effect (usually is) and it was fun and a great learning experience (usually is.)

Maxi and I climbed aboard the We Ho roller coaster and began principal photography Feb ‘98. We had organized a hundred wardrobe changes, picked picture cars, wrote and re-wrote scenes with specific actors in mind; we were prop department, art department, FX, stunts and catering.

What I was most proud of was the shooting schedule. I had over three hundred scenes to organize. Actors with paying jobs that weren’t available on such and such, locations that were only available on so and so, equipment that was cheaper to rent over the weekends and always plan for problems. (Keeps you from getting bitchy.)

I hired the ‘crew.’ I use the term loosely because I couldn’t afford a real crew. I hired a makeup artist and camera man with his own equipment and he promised production assistants. He was my first mistake. Mr. Magoo I like to call him, Thievery Magoo.

Harry thought we should have a gay camera man. He envisioned long, steamy, soft core, sex scenes. It was the first of many fights.

‘I’m not wasting my time on soft core, gay porn, give me a break!’
I envisioned something for television; maybe not network but not Skin-a-Max either; HBO or Showtime.

He was thinking straight to video; why not do both?

I had known Harry for years. He was locked into ‘sex sells’ thinking. He had long relationships with other distribution companies and had a formula; while it never made him filthy rich, he did all right by.

His production company did the ‘Witchcraft’ series and I was an actor in Witchcraft 7. Detective Lutz; a tough cop tracking down vampires.

(Lutz was a 50 year old man in W 6, ‘continuity is for sissies,’ laughed Harry.)

It was a humorous movie to work on. Nobody was under the illusion that we were making Ibsen, it was a paycheck; we were all friends by the end of it.A few months after W 7 wrapped, Harry and I were having lunch and got to talking about the perfect vehicle for low budget R rated drama. The first thing was to shoot it on Beta, not film. Hard to sell in the US but the foreign market wasn’t so addicted to film.

‘It would have to be about one character, preferably with voice over…’
‘Day in the life kind of thing, with a tiny cast, takes place within a week…’
‘Get a big house that you can shoot different locations in…’
‘No stunts, no FX, no extras…’ I was getting into the game.
‘Maybe a coming of age thing, it has to have a lot of sex…’

It hit me. ‘You know what? I have a short story that fits this.’

I had written ‘Jane’ a year or so earlier.

I had Catcher in the Rye in the back of my mind; thinking of Holden Caufield running amok in New York, looking for love.

He was short on change and dying to get laid. What if the character was female, having teenage angst in Bel Aire or Malibu?

A model with an expense account could have sex whenever she wanted, which causes it's own problems.

I faxed him the nine page short that afternoon.

Harry called, ‘Do you want to shoot it?’
Yes I did. I wrote a 90 page script and asked my friend Lana to help me produce. We shot Jane over a couple long weekends at my friend Savage Steve Holland's house.

It was a freshman effort but turned out fine. The only thing wrong with it was the love scenes - too long - but that’s the only stipulation I had from Harry. (‘You have to have a love scene every 15 minutes’ he drooled…)

Other than that he didn’t care what I shot.

Watching a character from my mind come to life was too cool. My actress (Tupelo Jeremy) was great and I loved the whole process. I loved directing, loved producing, I was hooked.

Harry sold Jane internationally but I never saw a penny of the proceeds.

At the time I thought, okay fair enough. I looked at Jane like a directing class. Instead of spending thirty K at UCLA or USC, I was given a fistfull of dollars and pushed out the door. Go forth and create!

It was worth it to get a project under my belt but I wasn’t going to work for free again.

When Harry tried to hit me up with the same kind of Dickensian paper work, (no broken fingers if you’re good and a bathroom break every Saturday) I said no, back end, and it's firm. I'm not changing my mind.

During one of our arguments he admitted the idea of a Gay Soap came from two gentlemen that ran a distribution company called Ariztical in Tucson. He was trying to freeze me out because he was just a go between. He wasn’t actually going to distribute it himself.

‘I could give you a little bag of gravel and a hand towel?’ He offered.

We couldn’t work out an equitable compromise so I gave him back his money. 

Producing a project with your own cash is a number one no-no, too many things can go wrong but I got hold of the boys in Tucson and they still wanted to distribute it domestically if it was ever finished.

‘It’s not going to be soft core,’ I warned them.
‘That was Harry’s idea,’ they assured me.

I already had this train rolling, so full steam ahead baby and watch for livestock on the tracks…

Thievery Magoo had to go, unfortunately not soon enough. He had shot the first three day weekend. A lot of scenes were out of focus or couldn't be heard.

He promised equipment he didn't have; nightmare. We tried, but didn't have enough time to re-shoot everything Magoo screwed up.

A half blind camera man who steals? He seemed like a badly written character out of a French farce.

His last horror show was stealing a credit card and maxing it on the internet. Photoshop and porn, if memory serves.

The production assistants he brought with him were young cuties that he was hoping to seduce. They didn’t know the first thing about working on a low budget shoot.

I persevered. I fired Magoo and hired my photographer from Jane. A great camera man but turned out he was homophobic. Would it never end? I sat him down for a talk.

Listen baby, women view homophobia as a clue to hidden identities, where there’s smoke.

The way to look gay is to be down on fags. A real man doesn’t care what anyone else does.

He got me and stopped being such a pussy. He also hired a decent sound guy.

The boys Magoo hired were turning out, too; with instruction and a little patience they were coming along. We shot long weekends through the month of February and into March. That was the year of El Nino and the rain hardly let up. The sky was overcast and gave a surreal overtone to the shoot.

Always the rain, dripping, pouring, water-falling in, around and on the set, every once in awhile letting up for a minute, when we would hurry outside to grab exterior footage.

Lilly is a friend and the office manager of my chiropractor’s.

They were closed Sunday’s and I could use it anyway I wanted, just be done and clean by Monday am.

That Saturday at midnight my phone rang.

It was Rebecca calling to cancel, something seriously wrong with her kidneys. She was in St Josephs waiting for emergency surgery. She was to play Dr. Whitley, the bitch on wheels.

She was in half the scenes at the ‘Holloway Clinic’ and we were shooting more than thirty. I said ‘Oh my God, of course you have to cancel! Call me when it’s over!’

Then fell to pieces helpless with laughter. Maxi and I laughed until we couldn’t move. Midnight, with a six am call and one of my leads had to bail.  The only thing to do was play her myself and that was funny. We were rolling on the floor of my bedroom clutching our bellies.

I was already wearing too many hats; ‘Actor’ was the icing.

We were almost finished shooting with just a few scenes left to pickup; taking a breather, walking through the American Film Market.

AFM happens like Brigadoon every spring in Santa Monica.

Hundreds of independent production companies go to The Lowe’s Hotel and sell their wares. I loved the Kasbah feel of the place, the circus side show of it all, always amusing.

Maxi and I ran into our old friend Lloyd (Troma Films) and after listening to our crazy We Ho stories he said,
‘Alisa, put me in it! I want to be in your soap opera!’
I scraped around my brain and thought of what we had left to shoot.

‘Well…you could be the nun who throws Sebastian out of the convalescent home…’
‘I’ll do it!’

[foto soon come]

When principal photography was done, I still had the daunting task of editing forty some hours of footage down to four one hour shows and laying the sound track.

I looked for help with post production from my friend Bill. He’s the senior editor at a huge, busy, post house in Hollywood.

Bill hooked me up with Hank, a great guy who had an edit bay in his pool house and a mortgage payment two months late.

Billl did the opening and closing credits and my final polish.

We Ho Stories was interesting, comical and I learned a lot, but it was also toil and effort and I couldn’t do stunts while working on it. Financially, it was a drain. My car needed repairs, my phone bill was overdue and Maxi wouldn’t even pay for wine.

Exasperated one day, I snapped at her about money for bills, groceries something; she got teary eyed and reminded me that she had been working day after day on my project for free - how could I be so cheap? I backed off, but the water was getting hot.

We had been together day and night for too long and had started getting on each others nerves. She had the luxury of a boyfriend (now husband) who always payed the bills and she’d been with him for years. She had a different reality. The day she came home with her arms full of shopping bags was the end of my frayed rope.

‘There’s a big sale at SAKS!' I incredulously watched her pull out suit after suit after suit. ‘This one was only $400, can you believe it?’

I couldn’t. I sent her back to her boyfriend in NYC with a sigh of relief and got a roommate with a job.

My friend Adam worked on the soundtrack for me and slowly, slowly the pieces came together. I finished editing the fourth installment in May of '98.
I went to the UK to see Ken [Russell, an old friend]. I was burned out, needed some R&R.

While there, I got the idea that Channel 4 might be interested in We Ho. Channel 4 is like ABC or CBS here; Network, corporate giant.

The UK was more open to new ideas than the big four in the US, and Channel 4 had recently done a week of ‘Gay’ programming.

Back in LA, I got a heads up from a producer of Ken’s that a producer from Channel 4 was in town - staying at the Hotel Bel Aire. After a bit of phone tag we connected.

I got my chance to pitch We Ho Stories to Maria Mac Monster in June ‘98. She was young, intelligent about my age. She couldn't say yes on her own but could bring it back and show it to the decision makers.

I gave her a copy of the finished episodes along with all the marketing and promotional stuff I had been working on. I was so naive. I honestly thought that since it was a finished piece, complete with soundtrack and dated copyrights, I was safe from larceny.

Two weeks later I got a call from Mac Monster, back in the UK.
‘We looked at it quite seriously, it’s very funny, but we’re going to pass. Good luck with it.’

I didn’t have any reason to suspect foul play. I was a stupid retarded baby playing with snarling beasts and filthy vermin covered rats.
 
When I first heard about Queer As Folk it was more than a year later. It started airing in the UK in fall ‘99. Ken called when he noticed it. (Being straight, it took awhile to blip his radar.)

‘There’s a show on here that looks suspiciously like yours, sweetie…’

Surprise, bitch.

Channel 4 had hired a production company called Red to do a gay soap opera that July - a month after looking at WeHo.

In 2000 they sold it to Showtime, who of course bought it in good faith. There was so much buzz about this new show that Channel 4 released a ‘Making Of’ video, available at my local Video Store.

They interviewed the writer, a cute gay Brit, and he enthusiastically told how exciting it was to write the script.

‘They told me exactly what they wanted and then it was put on the fast track! I first got the call in July of '98 and we were into principal photography by February of '99. That’s unheard of! Usually Channel 4 takes years to get an idea going…’

Indeed.

I rented the first episodes of the UK version of Queer As Folk and watched as actors with British accents re-did the show I had produced almost two years earlier.

The attorney with no morals, the runaway kid, (blatant as keeping his girlfriend black) even the opening scene with two hot male bodies in the steamy shower.

I was physically ill.

Having a ‘Created By’ nod from a network, (yes, she wrote this and look how much money it’s making) would have put me into the TV elite. They could have bought my rights for 100 grand (in a word - peanuts) I had 10 more shows in my head, and would have been taken seriously.

I shopped around for a lawyer who specialized in plagiarism cases and found one with help from my friend Leslie. He was in a Century City tower; hunter green leather, mahogany covered, Tiffany fixtured; an office that said, 'We'll take care of you, you're safe now.'

He had just successfully represented Mike Myers in a suit against Paramount and did some pro bono for Leslie's film festival. He listened to my tale and then asked to see the two shows.

A few weeks went by, his minions carefully watching each show and the smoking gun of ‘The Making Of Queer as Folk. ’ Then he asked me back.

You have a case, he said, I will waive my [four hundred an hour] fee, but you’ll have to pay for litigation expenses and we’ll have to file suit in London.

You will probably win, but they will appeal. The time line we are looking at is at least two years, could be longer. Are you ready for a big, drawn out battle? That’s how networks work. They know it’s wrong to steal; it’s just so easy to do it.

They have a slew of lawyers on retainer to handle their many, many plagiarism cases and they know that most writers just don’t have the resources to combat them.

It was easier to sue for breach of confidentiality. Did I notify Mac Monster that West Hollywood Stories was not to be disclosed in any of my correspondence?
I didn’t.

He told me that I would be appalled to hear how established this practice was. I believed him. Plagiarism had happened to friends of mine as well. (Walter Hill, Ken Russell, Joe Tobin …)

He told me it would cost thirty or forty grand to cover air fare, court costs, hotels, hookers, bla bla bla. Did I want to spend every bit of disposable income I made over the next two years fighting Channel 4?

Think on it. The statute of limitations for plagiarism is two years, we’d have file suit soon.

In hindsight, I would sue. At the time, I thought about it for a week and decided to let it go. I think I was still in shock.

Giving up was a big mistake for my psyche.

I had always known one of my projects would make a fortune. If I worked hard, nose to the grindstone and all that clap-trap, my ideas were interesting and I liked to work hard. Somewhere along the way tenacity and perseverance would win.

What a bunch of shit.

The reality of the corporate network system had been slammed into me with a couple body shots and a punch right in the kisser.

Yes sweetie, you are very good and we’re having you for a light snack. Now cheerio, piss off.

I went into a downward spiral. Why try to do anything when you will get ripped off? I started drinking too much, sleeping too late, pissed off employers, gained weight.

I couldn’t recover. Every where I looked, Queer As Folk leered at me. Huge Billboard’s on Sunset Strip, tons of advertising. The show about LA’s Boys Town made here, stolen in the UK, and brought back to Boys Town.

Everyone loved it. My friends and cast members called to congratulate me; it was so obviously the same show.

It was killin' me.

There’s an underground party scene that thrives in LA. It’s dark/ sexy/ illegal and no tourists. It snakes through beaches, downtown, out to tha’ hood, into the desert and back again; a step or two ahead of the police.

We would keep an ear open for our favorite DJ’s and go out dancing on weekends once or twice a month.  During my nine month 'lost weekend' I would do ecstasy and dance till dawn on a Tuesday.

Told myself I didn’t care.

Existentialism finally reared its goofy head and saved me. It had been lying dormant for years, since my college experiment.

Life is meaning less and devoid of reason, it reminded me, and there are a lot of people worse off than you.

Winter of ‘00- '01 was cold. I started going through my huge closets and bringing clothing and blankets downtown to Homelet.

There are so many homeless people in Los Angeles they make a third world city. The poor, the disenfranchised, the hurt, the old, the crazy motherfuckers, the drunks, the drug addicts; they’re more than homeless, they’re voiceless, invisible. I’d give away a sweater, a blanket, an umbrella if it was raining and just listen.

The Native American couple telling me their old pickup had had died on the way to her sisters in San Diego; they were otherworldly. White hair, soft spoken, I had to lean in to hear them.

The young boys pushing a sleeping girl in a shopping cart, they had been evicted from their squat. They bummed cigarettes, were animated, funny and loud as they told about the places they’d been that night. The girl slept through it all like a baby.

So many stories -  I started to heal with compassion for Homelet. I finally could let go of my disgust with the entertainment industry. I said so long to the Underground and went Vegan.

Ariztical Entertainment had distributed We Ho domestically (the boys from Tucson) and it made some change. It was nice to see it on the shelves of my local video store, but it was bitter sweet.

I went to Oz in the fall after 911. I still had a ‘five year plan’ for changing my career, but I had been shaken like a rag doll. I needed to re-group.

I fell in the love with the country and a man named Wayne; I was heading back. I could work in Oz (married to an Aussie) and 'runaway production's were being made down under. Our money used to be doubled.

I was going to move after the new year.

'This city makes you feel so cold 
its got so many people but it's got no soul
and it's taken you so long
to find out you were wrong
when you thought it held everything…’

-Jerry Rafferty