Chapter 1

Monday, January 24, 2000

I met my manager, Al Piercy, in front of the UBC Tower.

"So what's the deal with this naked TV show?" I asked as we went inside.

"You've heard of the Naked in School Program?"

"Yeah, there's a rumor going around school that they're planning to start doing it next year, but what does that have to do with television?"

"They want to shoot an after school special showing two teens in the Program, and I managed to get you the lead part."

"How much money?"

"About $8,000, but it'll lead to bigger things."

"That's what you said about that Tim Allen road-trip movie*."

"Well, Tim Allen just doesn't work well behind the camera."

"Yeah, and I don't work well when I can't sit down."

"That's another thing, stay out of the way of your parents while you're filming this. You don't want the tabloids getting pictures of weird bruises."

I rolled my eyes, Al had no idea how hard it was to stay out of the way of my parents, especially now that my career looked to be in free-fall. Mom and Dad had started developing expensive tastes when it turned out their only kid made a cute actor. It was getting harder to pay for those tastes now that I was 14 and the cute kid shtick wasn't working anymore. To top it all off, my last movie was a huge flop, and I was getting blamed in the papers.

We stepped out of the elevator and into the office of Vanessa Branson, President of the United Broadcasting Corporation. She was seated at the head of a conference table around which sat an array of executive types. I recognized a few of them, Mike Merida had produced my big breakout role in 'The Brainy Bunch' (If you didn't watch it, and I wouldn't blame you, I played the "precocious" youngest child in a family of supergeniuses), and Sheri Macaluso had worked on the aforementioned Tim Allen flop. I recognized Tonya Mosley from school, but we'd never worked together before. Most of her work was targeted to black audiences. She'd had her own sitcom on BET for awhile, but it got canceled when they retooled their format to focus on music videos. I shot Sheri a dirty look and sat down next to Tonya.

"Jack, they didn't tell me you were doing this," she said.

"I'm surprised you are," I responded, "I didn't think this would be the type of role your parents would go for." Her parents had a reputation for being somewhat overprotective, and tried to keep her a lot more sheltered and 'normal' than is standard in show-business.

"I convinced Mom that it'd be good practice for doing The Program next year, what about you?"

"I don't think my parents were listening when I told them the part about being naked."

"You're not worried about when they find out?"

"I haven't decided I'm gonna do it yet."

"What's going to decide it for you?"

"The script," I raised my voice just high enough for Sheri and Al to hear, "I can't afford another flop."

After Branson's opening spiel about the network's "commitment to addressing the issues of the day," by which she meant "commitment to airing 42 minutes of a couple of teenagers previously known for family-friendly roles cavorting around in the nude at 3:00 in the afternoon in a desperate hope to gin up enough controversy to get out of 5th place in the ratings," the script was handed out. Sheri and Mike presented their 'visions' for the project, and Branson asked if we were "all on board."

Chapter 2 »