Take 98 - Writer, Producer and Showrunner Brannon Braga, Star Trek: The Next Generation, 24, The Orville

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for shore, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default. Like everything in our business here and being told by my badger.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And I probably lost it. And everything lost well, that's it for me. I do my one big spot when I've realized what that will be. It's never one big bot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation. The Emmy Emmy Award.

SPEAKER_05 1:06

Oh, it sounds awful when you say it. Let somebody with a more charming accent do this bit. Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy Award-winning app for anyone that reads scripts. Makes notes, organise them into layers, and save hours of time by automatically transferring those notes into new script revisions. Stiffer listeners can get a free month of scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash stiffer. Now that's how you do it, Noah. Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am your non-entertainment co-host Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

And I am in still in the entertainment industry co-host Noah Epsling. On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, I'm excited to introduce TV writer, screenwriter, show creator, director, producer, and showrunner Brandon Braga. Brandon has written on such shows as shows and movies as Star Trek Generation, Star Trek First Contact, Mission Impossible 2, Threshold 24, Terra Nova, The Orville, and others. He's also created the shows Star Trek, Enterprise, Flash Forwards, Salem, and most recently, The End Is Nine. Welcome, Brennan.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Thank you. A smattering of failures in that list, appropriately.

SPEAKER_05 2:37

So but thanks for having me on. So a feature of our shows is uh obviously Noah works in the industry and watches everything, both from a sort of as a fan, but also from a sort of professional point of view. I actually, for somebody who hosts a podcast about these things, don't actually watch as much television as you'd think, uh, apart from sports. But I do, my it's very rare this comes on, but one of the Orville is um one of my favorite shows. I find it absolutely extraordinary.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

Oh, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'll I'll pass that along to Seth. We we appreciate the fans of the show.

SPEAKER_05 3:16

Um so you have a, as Noah read out, and obviously that's not all of them, a remarkable list of credits of some very big shows that have done incredibly well. But no one's career in Hollywood is that straightforward. So tell us about some of the probably early in your career where things were not going so smoothly and where you hit either a complete wall or certainly a low point that made you question whether this is the industry for you.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

Um, well, I never questioned whether this was the industry for me because I've dreamed of being a filmmaker from a very young age. Uh, but I dreamed of being in movies and making movies, and television never occurred to me. And I applied for an internship with a really great program called the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences Internship Program, and they offer internships in all sorts of different categories, uh, from makeup to wardrobe to uh sound to uh writing. And I applied for writing. I didn't really have an interest in TV writing per se. So I I went into this internship uh grateful for the summer job, uh having just left college not knowing what I was going to do, but kind of secretly thinking, I don't really know if this part of the industry is for me. Uh TV's uh TV's crappy, movies, movies are the real art form. And I, needless to say, didn't have any idea how television was made or what a writing staff was. And I learned very quickly that it might as well have been magic. I I couldn't believe how they were coming up with ideas so quickly. Uh I became enchanted by the whole process almost immediately. I was very lucky to have my internship be on Star Trek The Next Generation, uh between seasons three and four, and um at a really good time. So it was a good show, a good fit for me, in that I like science fiction and I like the anthological storytelling aspects of the show. But even as I was marveling at the process, I was thinking to myself, I could never do this. It's just it, the the difficulty level and pressure is so high. Um, and uh I was lucky in that I was given a chance to do it. At the end of my internship, I got a script assignment. It was a co-writing job with Ron Moore, a uh writer on the show at the time. And um, luckily I was I had good collaborators. At what point did you and and and and look, it was up and down. You know, I I always assumed when they hired me on staff, you know, I wrote a couple of good scripts. Uh, and then my third script wasn't so good. And that was uh, and and from that point forward, I just assumed any week now I'd be fired. Um, and kind of lived from script to script. I I said to myself, I can't ever write a bad script again. Of course, I I've written many bad Star Trek scripts that got made, but uh but um I'm not really answering your question except to say I wasn't sure from the beginning that television was something I could do. I knew it was something I wanted to do once I saw it, but um I was it started off very as a very insecure time.

SPEAKER_05 7:14

At what point did you realize, as you say, it's a it's a difficult skill, and obviously you're you're young and there's people in the room who are doing incredible things. At what point did you realize that actually it's a skill that you could master or indeed did master?

SPEAKER_04 7:30

It was when I uh co-wrote that first script and really kind of put pen to paper that I thought I can I can do this. Um and you know, one of the most important things that I learned and appreciated about working in television is how collaborative the writing process is. Uh when writing staffs were in person, um, you know, the the in my mind, writers sat alone at the keyboard with a bottle of scotch and a pack of cigarettes and and a lot of despair. You know, it working with really smart, talented people who can help you, and vice versa, was uh really a revelation. And it made me feel more secure moving forward that I wasn't in peril as much as I thought I was, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Does that fear, I mean, you talk about not the feeling of not being so much in peril, but that fear as you go up in your career, you talk, you know, early on that you talk about getting the fear of being fired. Does that ever go away as you go up higher, or does the stakes just get higher?

SPEAKER_04 8:42

The stakes get higher. It never, I mean, I can only speak for myself. Um there was a you're always you you do gain confidence, um, and you you know when you're doing writing something that's working and not working. So in that regard, I guess the the fear subsides. And uh but again, it's it's all it's all about other people. You know, I I remember a crucial moment when uh one of my mentors, a woman named Jerry Taylor, who was one of the executive producers on uh Next Generation. I had I was getting getting notes from her on a script, and she could see how nervous and scared I was. And she stopped and she she said, You are not in peril. We believe in you as a writer. You really you have real talent, you have a lot to learn, but we you're not in any danger here. This is normal to get notes and do all this stuff, and that had a huge impact on me. Um and enough cannot be said uh uh about the importance of people helping you along the way. You know, nobody succeeds in a vacuum. You've got you have to have people who take an interest in in you, you know. Um, but the stakes do get higher, and I I think the fear of being fired is less than the fear of the show not working, or as a showrunner, uh not having scripts and the the big fear of having to shut down production. Um, you have fears about how the show will do when it comes out, though those that even changes the further you get in your career. Um because you know, one of the things that, you know, in thinking about coming on this podcast, I was thinking about the concept of failure. And um I was thinking about my failed shows, which we'll talk about. But I what I've one thing I've learned is that you have to enjoy the process of making of doing this, because most of what you do isn't going to work out, or a lot of what you do won't work out. And if you don't enjoy the process of writing and making stuff and making new friends and collaborating, it's and all you're focused on is the end result being successful, you're in for a lot of pain, potentially.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Can can you elaborate a little bit on when you the quote unquote failed shows? You've been on a lot of big shows. Why do you think some of these shows fail?

SPEAKER_04 11:40

Well, let me start, you know, with a show I co-created called Star Trek Enterprise, which I really enjoyed doing and I'm very proud of. But it was came under heavy fire at the time because Star Trek had been on at that point for you know 15 straight years or something. Um there were almost a thousand episodes. People were like, why do we need another one of these shows? And it and the show was heavily criticized by you know a lot of fans. And I wouldn't call that a failure, but it was it was it was hard because you know it's hard, you know, you want to please the fans, you want to please your audience, and now it's so inter it's very interactive. You know, you can't ignore what people are saying on the internet. It's actually really valuable to hear what people are saying. So I would call that a failure, but it was the first time in my career that I was getting heavy flack. Uh it was the show I did after that, um, which was called Threshold, which was uh in uh 2005, that was was a I guess a traditional failure, and that it only aired for 13 episodes before it was canceled. Um and that was on your network, Noah CBS. And um and there were many, there are all sorts of reasons I think that that failed. I'm not sure what aspect of failure you guys want to talk about.

SPEAKER_05 13:21

I'd like to ask one about so Star Trek. So obviously, it's a huge franchise. It has very engaged fans, and there've been enough episodes that some of them possibly think they know more about what characters may or may not do or what to write than the people in the room. Um, they certainly feel like they have that, and also the world of social media has changed a lot from obviously the beginning of Star Trek through to you know where we are today. When you're in the room writing, how much are you thinking about sort of obviously you've got to think about the notes you're gonna get from the studio, but how much are you thinking about the notes you're gonna get from the fans, and how much do you talk about what they might think? And does that influence things and change things and add pressure?

SPEAKER_04 14:15

Well, and Star Trek is a special case in that when I worked on the franchise, we didn't get studio notes, or very rarely did we get any studio notes at all. The show was successful and they kind of left us alone and it was this its own thing. Um but in the room, you know, we didn't talk about the audience a lot, though we would pay attention to the audience reactions to things, but it's I it would be hard to say in a room when you're discussing a particular idea or episode, what do you think the fans will think of this? It's it's I think that's kind of coming at something from the outside in. When I I tend to write from the inside out, and if I'm in the reality of the story and the characters, and what would they do? And I'm not thinking about the outside world at that point.

SPEAKER_05 15:14

And in terms of, as you say, when you're creating it, but you but you are aware of their feedback. Um and have you been not that you necessarily argue the fan, but have you been sort of uh hurt by feedback that you've had in terms of obviously some thing, you know, there'll always be people who think things are bad and whatever, but something that somebody's written that or said that's uh cut you deep because it's not just you know, a bit of fan feedback, it's something more, it's deeper than that for you.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

Well it's all it's all you know. It is hard.

SPEAKER_04 16:00

I've gotten so uh I've developed a very thick skin when it comes to to fan criticism. Um it can be very harsh at times, and it always hurts to some degree, you know, particularly if it's coming from a source that I know and respect. Um you know, the most recent case being uh, let's say the Orville, the last season three of the Orville, which we were really proud of and thought objectively was good. And when I would there weren't a lot of negative reviews, but when I read something critical, I was just uh surprised, I guess. You know, it's like I thought it was good. Someone doesn't like it. Um it's never easy to read criticism. Um, some of it gets really nasty and profane, and that's stuff you just kind of try to ignore. But um it's I'm just grateful to still be talking about stuff I did 30 years ago. You know? I'm I'm still I'm happy to still be here at all.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

We had Jeffrey Lieber come on talking about his soul work. Have you been able to write your soul's work in in the things you've done so far, or is there still that project out there that's your soul's work that's on a shelf that you're still pitching, that you're still striving for?

SPEAKER_04 17:31

That's a really great question. And I think about that all the time. I think about you know, show runner creators. You can I always felt like they there was that one show, that one show, that soul's work, as you call it. Like David Chase, it was the Sopranos, had to be. That was his soul's work. Um, and there are many examples I could probably point to. I'm not sure they would agree necessarily. Uh for me, I feel like uh uh not no, not quite yet. I mean I don't the honest answer is close, but not fully completely. I feel like there's something that I have left to do. I'm not sure what it is, but I mean I've been super lucky. Um, I think moving into the realm of from science fiction into science with my work on cosmos was perhaps the most the most deeply gratifying and and came the the closest to something that really spoke to me.

SPEAKER_05 18:43

Given where you are career-wise in terms of success compared to where you if you were earlier, when uh when you're deciding what to do next, either to accept a project that someone's offered you or what to take out to pitch, because you are in the rarefied air of having the success you've had, do you find your decision-making process is, you know, how do I get close to my soul's work? Uh, more than maybe it was before. And, you know, are you turning down things now because you don't have to do them financially at all to get the extra credits that you've got from other places? So you're being much more selective?

SPEAKER_04 19:31

Well, first of all, I always hate turning stuff down because I feel like it might be the last thing, you know. It's and and I can generally get excited about you know most things. Um, but yeah, I mean, look, I have to, I'm at a point in my career where I have to start kind of thinking about how many things I have time for. You know, how much how many more projects can I really do? So I I am pretty selective. Um, and there are a couple of projects I really hope happen that I can't mention at the moment, unfortunately, but um would be amazing. Um so I I I do tend to focus on what I really want to, you know, what is it I really want to do? Um, and I I haven't done everything I really want to do. There are projects that haven't been made yet that I still would like to make. And they may never get made, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Is is is while we're on the subject, is there a a project? I know I know you mentioned there's some that you can't mention, but is there a project or a situation or a phase in your career that you sort of can't shake that keeps you up at night, where it's just that one thing that went went wrong or the one project that went sideways?

SPEAKER_04 20:54

Well, yeah, I think that would be Terra Nova, um, which was a uh on by all appearances an amazing project. I got to meet meet and even work to some small degree with Steven Spielberg. It was a high concept science fiction show, um big budget, big fancy show. Um and I just feel like um it just didn't really work. It was kind of kind of a mess, to be honest, for all sorts of reasons. But one of I can only speak to my part in it. Um I'm not entirely sure I was behind the idea. Though it was a a great concept by a writer I'm friends with named Kelly Marcel, a great screenwriter. And um, but I never really it was a project, speaking of turning things down, that had come my way twice before in different stages. Um Terra Nova is a project that came to me twice, and I turned it down both times. Uh one it was a script at one time, it was a story treatment at another, because I didn't um I felt it was a concept I couldn't quite wrap my head around, which is people from a dystopic future, dystopian future travel back to the Cretaceous area Cretaceous area to restart humanity. And I thought, how do you do dinosaurs on a TV budget? And I don't, this just seems huge. And um, the third time it came to me, Spielberg was now attached, and I was like, Well, I don't know that I entirely creatively am bonding with this idea, but I'm going to do it. I want to meet Steven Spielberg. I want to um do the studio wants me to do this, and I'm gonna do it. Um then came the issue of it being a straight to series order, which at the time was a somewhat new newer idea, and I learned all the lessons I learned on that show, the hard way, I would apply to future straight to series orders. But for me, it was the first time. And when you're trying to rewrite a pilot, assemble a be in pre-production on a huge pilot, assemble a writing staff and start writing episodes and pitching to the studio, all at the same time, when normally those steps are set are separate steps over time. If you don't know, if you don't have your shit completely together, it's it's gonna be a mess. And I did not have my shit completely together.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

What happens on all of this now in this phase of your career, when you get a note that you don't agree with? Can you? I mean, you've done more TV than than most people have in their careers, and definitely most executives have at this point. How do you kind of relay that you have a fear that the note might work or that the direction that's going might not work? Because based on things that you've seen in the past.

SPEAKER_04 24:13

Well, first of all, on Terra Nova, the stud I I learned that if you and I learned rather late, and I was spoiled on Star Trek. You know, the first 15 years of my career were on Star Trek in a very kind of hermetically sealed environment. Like I didn't get notes from the studio. Um on 24, I didn't get, you know, they weren't really giving a lot of notes. Um on Terra Nova, I learned you have to you all have to see the same show or you're screwed. The studio, network, and Spielberg's camp all saw different shows, pretty radically different kinds of shows. And the one I came on board with was Spielberg's, which was a darker in tone and much more of a tense thriller. And the network wanted a family-friendly, kind of colorful show with standalone stories, not a continuous storyline. And I don't remember what the studio wanted. And so I was getting notes from three different place sources with that were conflicting. And I just wasn't in a headspace that I could, you know, what I needed to do was follow my path. And I was trying to please everybody, I think. And that was a mess. So what I the way I handle notes is I listen to, I I look at every single note that's given and I and I give it its fair consideration, every one of them. And if it's a good note, I'm gonna do it. If it's a note that is uh debatable, but I can do it in a way that helps the show, uh turn it into something, you know, uh address it maybe in a different way than they might be expecting. And if it's a note I really do disagree with, I'm gonna push back.

SPEAKER_05 26:21

Where do you sit in terms of uh you've obviously through your career worked with some extraordinarily uh extraordinarily talented people? Um and obviously give you on because you were on uh big successful shows early, you've had a chance to learn from people. When you first uh became a leader yourself and moved into leadership positions as sort of showrunner, show creator, what uh what are the main things that you took away from your formative experiences that shaped you? And how would you describe your leadership style as a result?

SPEAKER_04 26:59

Well, my leadership style when I first became a showrunner is quite different than uh it is now. Um when I first started it was on a show called Star Trek Voyager in the I think the fourth season. Um it was uh terrifying. I I actually didn't aspire to be a showrunner. They they some they started making comments about me taking over the show and I that came out of the blue for me. I it's nothing I s indicated I wanted to do. Um I was excited to do it. Um the main you know, look I wanted it to be I could do anything I wanted to do, because it was my show, kind of my vision now. And so I was excited about that, but I was also you know th terrified of how am I gonna get 20? Because we did 26 episodes a year, how am I gonna get 26 hours of television written in such a short period of time? You know, I remember thinking, would I have a finger cut off if I could have those scripts appear on my desk? Um so in some ways, uh my style was really hunkered down nonstop writing, rewriting. Um, I think I was a little less collaborative at first because I was so paranoid just about getting everything done. Um I probably did more rewriting than I really needed to. And um and uh I became a more collaborative showrunner as time went on.

SPEAKER_05 29:00

You know, the experience of being terrified, we've heard other people say the same. Um, you said that you maybe weren't collaborative enough. Did anything go horribly wrong or nearly go horribly wrong in those early days of being a showrunner because either circumstances and bad things happen to good people, or because of mistakes you made?

SPEAKER_04 29:24

I mean, look, in in my second year of running the show, um uh my dear, my dear friend Ronald D. Moore came aboard and we were close collaborators, and we just and he came aboard the show, and we just right off the bat weren't getting along. It's like Cain and Abel or something. And he ended up leaving quitting the show. It just it wasn't working out. Um, I take full blame. I felt threatened. I I looking back, I think I was um I don't know what I was thinking. So I it was it was just that was you know, Ron and I are are past it now, and um I have nothing but profound love and gratitude for Ron uh to Ron. But that was a brutal situation, you know, and I I consider it my one of my greatest personal failures. Um you know, being so insecure in my position that I would feel threatened by a forber a former collaborator.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

So is is there any and that's a fascinating answer, thank you so much. Uh both of you guys have created some of the best science fiction the modern era has seen. But uh what um anything that keeps you up at night right now, not not necessarily about your own writing, but the state of the industry as well.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

I think there's a part of me that always fears um if I'm gonna be able to keep doing this. I mean, I feel so now more than ever at this stage in my career, I realize how lucky I am. And no, perhaps you feel the same way. I'm doing what I love to do. Uh people sometimes will ask, what do you have any hobbies? I'm like, well, this is my hobby. I mean, if this I'm every aspect of my job is some something I love doing. Um, whether it's the production or editing or writing, I love all of it and I'm paid to do it. And I just feel so incredibly lucky. So I I think if something keeps me up at night, I think it's just that little insecure voice saying, Are you how long, how long are they gonna let you keep doing this? Because I'd I'd you know, I'd do it as long as possible.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

I'm glad that you brought up that this is the greatest job on the planet because we spend our 99 episodes or something talking about all how hard it is this these jobs are and how uh miserable it can make some people. Yet there's moments when you're in it, when they're shooting something or you're doing something, or for me, I'm in Hawaii and I get to make a TV show in Hawaii. I get to, you know, you pinch yourself going, like what like like this is the coolest thing in the entire world. You mentioned, you know, uh in your answer, last answer about sort of just longevity and you've had a really long career. What do you see yourself doing in the next five to 10 years in regards to you know projects you're taking out? Where you're you said your interest has gone from sort of science fiction to science. Like, where do you see yourself moving towards?

SPEAKER_04 32:49

I would like very much to keep doing uh science-based shows um in a in addition to drama-based. Um, I would love the Oroville to keep going. We we're still waiting for word on that, um, whether that's gonna happen. I would like to do another season at Seth, and I would like to do another season of that. Um, I've got some science projects in the works. That's it, that's an important thing. I I really want to keep going. I enjoy doing it, and I enjoy doing something uh educational. Um and um and I want to keep also uh directing. Uh when I first got into the business, I wanted to be a movie director, and it it took me a while to start directing. You know, I didn't start directing until about 10 years ago. And um, I like doing it. It's really fun, it's uh it's really, really fun to do. And especially, you know, it's it's getting harder to hand off the concept of handing off your script to another director while you watch them work. Why not just do it yourself, you know? So I'm hoping that continues.

SPEAKER_05 34:05

You said I think right in the beginning that when you wanted to get into the industry, you wanted to be in movies. Because it was I don't think you used the word sexier, but a version of it's sexier than TV. And then obviously you've had an extraordinary career around TV. Um in terms of how you see how TV's sort of come closer to movies in the last few years, in terms of obviously the budgets, the actors, the audience, and so on. Is the reason you've done so much TV because TVs became more movie-like, or is it because TV actually wasn't what you thought it was and is the place that is right for you?

SPEAKER_04 34:48

TV is TV is I love both, but there came there kind of came a point, you know, right after I did Mission Impossible 2, I was in the movie world. Like I had done a couple of really successful movies. And so I was a screenwriter. I and I was getting job offers, and I was doing rewrites here, you know, paid rewrites here and there. And I really was at a point where um I could have pursued that. I don't know how what long-term success I would have had, but I went back to TV full-time. And I didn't work on another movie for for years. And it just at that time, I can't speak to now, um uh the a movie writer, unless you're Tony Kushner or something, you know, you uh you were you weren't treated the same way. And the you know in TV, I'm the I was the boss. And I liked being a writer on television better. You know, it's it had nothing to do with money or glamour. Certainly, TV has changed. You know, when I first started uh in the business, I remember you know, George Clooney couldn't get off ER fast enough. And the concept of a movie star being on a TV show was unfathomable. And uh obviously it that's changed. And I'm really happy about it because TV really is an amazing art form.

SPEAKER_05 36:27

Yeah. It saddens me enormously, as it often does, that we're now nearer the end of the podcast and the beginning. And I have to ask the final question which we ask every guest, which is if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody wanting to enter the industry, what would that single piece of advice be?

SPEAKER_04 36:52

Collaborate. And that has several meanings. Uh one, uh if you're struggling to get a piece written on your own, find a find a partner. Um writing with a partner is fun if it's the right person. Um don't it doesn't have to be uh totally solitary and give your material to other people to read if you have written it yourself. Uh get some opinion get some opinions on it. Um ideally, you could get yourself into a collaborative environment with other writers. So I I was in writing interns. That was a great entree point. Um my one of my most one of my former assistants, who was my assistant for several years, uh, is Terry Metallas, who is now running Star Trek Picard, and um is a very is a successful showrunner himself. And I I I think it was extremely beneficial that he was my assistant, just in terms of not necessarily learning things, uh, but making connections and if you know, be around other writers if you can.

SPEAKER_05 38:17

Yeah. That's a great answer. Look uh Bran and Brager, thank you very much indeed for I feel like we didn't talk enough about failing, but all right. Well, no, we can look I'm not I've never if you've got a good story of a failure, are we in the case? I've said enough. Um but no, well no, the problem is sometimes I guess they're too successful, so we can't find enough failures. But thank you.

SPEAKER_04 38:41

They're all they're always there.

SPEAKER_05 38:43

Thank you very much for being part of our podcast.

SPEAKER_04 38:46

Thanks, guys. It's a cool podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Well, that's a wrap on this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss. As always, this episode was brought to you by scriptation, screening, writing, and annotation software that at the very least has made my life easier and will make your life easier as well. Uh, we'd like to thank our wives who put up with us recording these episodes in our offices and basements and closets and bathrooms and anywhere we can get a little space to record an interview. And of course, we want to thank James so much who provided us with great info and outro.

SPEAKER_05 39:22

If you want to find us on social media, you can find Noah at NFLin on Twitter, tweeting a variety of writer-based nonsense and uh some terrible puns and occasionally begging for sponsorship. Uh if you want more refined tweets, mostly about football and whiskey, you can find me at Dan Ruttein. If you're interested in buying a copy of Scriptation, if you go to www.scriptation.com backslash stiffer, S-I-T-H-A, you will receive a special discount. Thank you very much for listening. As always, we appreciate you. Uh please give us any feedback, mostly positive stuff about me, and we will see you next week.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

And if you do say a negative thing about Dick and the is a chance, I might pay you a free copy of the scripting.