Charlie Sheen! When he was fresh out of rehab in 2011, he bad-mouthed Chuck Lorre, his boss and the creator of their hit TV show Two and a Half Men, and stated he would return to the series only if he was given a 50 PERCENT RAISE. He was promptly fired and many folks were dumbfounded at how things could have ended that way. I wasn’t! Carlos Irwin Estévez being so unreasonable at the start of negotiations is shit a person does when they have no intention of staying at that job. Seriously, the average person might suggest a 10, 12, maybe even 15 percent raise (if they’re bold), all the while knowing they’ll settle for something in the 5 to 8 percent range. But opening with 50 percent? Dude dropped that number because he had probably already started the termination process before publicly disrespecting his boss. I bet like six hours prior to TMZ reporting on this nonsense, heauxes were already getting email bounce backs because Charlie hit up the IT department to have them cancel his [email protected] email address.
Now, I could keep going with examples of people ctrl + alt + deleting their lives, but you get the point: It’s not all that uncommon that when one is burdened with too much responsibility, whether real or imagined, they might feel trapped and seek ways to free themselves, and often those ways are categorically destructive. And as you know now, somewhere deep down, I, at times, have this same impulse, but lack the courage to do something so inconsiderate. Still, more often than not, I’m the one turning to the Universe and saying, “Gimme the ball, coach; I’ll bring home the victory.”
If I’m being honest, these conflicting parts of myself have existed for as long as I remember. After all, I spent all of my teenage years coasting because I was too afraid to put in the effort only to end up failing; too knowledgeable about the fact that anything I wanted to do would require immense amounts of energy; too lazy to do the work because living in my head is easy and safe; too terrified that all my work would pay off, I’d finally get what I wanted, and then I’d have to deal with newfound responsibilities. Well, as I’ve learned time and time again, when I did get what I dreamt of, I simply rose to the occasion, then took everything I learned and welcomed the next challenge. Each challenge, no matter the outcome, filled me with more confidence and the conviction that I could handle more, not less, hence how I ended up thirteen years into my Hollywood career with a mini empire in the making. Clearly, despite fantasies about dismantling everything I painstakingly built, every day I continue to make the choice to do the opposite. In fact, doing the opposite doesn’t fully encapsulate what I’m doing. I’m aggressively doubling down whenever I can, assuming more and more responsibility, which will only prepare me for whatever new and exciting opportunities are bound to come down the pike.
So how did I end up in a leadership position where the stakes are constantly raised and I have to stifle the #JokesNotJokes urge to burn my life to the ground? Glad you asked.
* * *
You know the saying: “Yes, hardworking Beyoncé can have an even harder-working and sassier alter ego of Sasha Fierce, but what’s actually cooler is that Phoebe Robinson’s hardworking self has an alter ego of Black Garfield: just lounging in bed, eating lasagna, and avoiding wash day.” Oh, you’re not familiar with that old adage? Then you should probably read less James Baldwin and more of my diary. And yes, this is the first time in Black history that someone has suggested reading less James Baldwin, which is why I will never be a professor, because I’d be like, “Class, did y’all read what happened on the Shade Room last night?” and then give everyone A’s regardless of their answers. Moving on.
The point is that while some folks possess two modes—work hard and work harder—I, on the other hand, am made up of opposing philosophies—alpha leader and lazy piece of garbage—that are constantly duking it out, and what typically ends up being the deciding factor that overrules my listless tendencies is that I’m a visionary. Not in the sense of folks like Frida Kahlo or John Rockefeller, who changed the world and left their marks on history, but in the sense that I love the process of creating. More than sleeping in, enveloping myself in a wool blanket on a couch, or binging my favorite TV show, I get the biggest high when a bolt of inspiration strikes and a fully realized image pops into my head as I become almost obsessive with making what I envision a reality, or when I have a germ of an idea and collaborating with others elevates it to a level I never would have reached alone, or simply when I or the Universe asks the question of “What if?” A query innocent enough that’s usually born out of “I mean, yeah, maybe this seems outrageous at first glance, but is it really? What if this is actually pretty reasonable and the only outrageous thing is that it hasn’t happened yet?” That curiosity is how I ended up going from freelancing to launching a production company and publishing imprint within a year of each other and overseeing a handful of employees.
After the second batch of 2 Dope Queens HBO specials premiered in 2019, I was secretly happy to put that project to bed (Jessica Williams and I started it as a live show back in 2014) so I could focus on my dream of having my own scripted half-hour comedy series on TV. Except the Universe was Dikembe Mutombo’ing this hope every chance it got. It was either not the right idea, or the right idea and not quite the right collaborators, or the network / streaming platform enjoyed the idea, but not enough to put their energy and money behind it. Whatever the case was, it yielded the same result: rejection. Enter ABC. They were casting a show that received a pilot order* and sent me an offer to be one of the leads without having to go through the nerve-racking audition process. Pause. If you don’t know, that is a big deal. Usually, you schlep your wares (aka self-esteem and acting talent) all over town in the hopes of booking a job, only to have Hollywood mostly turn their noses up at you as if you just opened a Tupperware container of grilled salmon and asparagus,* so when an opportunity presents itself to bypass all that desperate “choose me” energy, the word “yes” should just tumble out of your mouth, especially because starring in a network sitcom can be life changing.
But I was reticent. Locking myself into someone else’s vision that I had no hand in shaping felt, well . . . not like prison, which is what people usually say. You know what I’m talking about. Sometimes, famous actors will occasionally complain by saying, “Working on such and such show was like being in prison,” and I’m like, “Have they been to pris? Do they know anyone who has been to pris?” Clearly, I haven’t and I don’t because I’m giving it a cutesy nickname like “pris”! But what I do know is an acne-free person getting paid obscene amounts of money to kiss other acne-free people and becoming famous and, in exchange, having to prioritize that TV show over other things they want to do from time to time is not prison. That’s a champagne problem. Like when a bottle of Veuve Clicquot (how do you pronounce that brand because every time I make a go for it, I sound like Elizabeth Berkley saying “Versayce” in Showgirls) has lost a bit of its fizz, but it will still get you tipsy. So no, I refuse to compare ABC’s sitcom offer to pris; it simply just didn’t fit right with my spirit because I still wanted to bet on myself and create a TV show.
A few weeks passed and I was in the middle of the slow-churning process of developing a pilot for my own scripted series (which was serendipitously falling apart) when ABC Signature (a studio under the Disney/Fox umbrella that creates shows for ABC, Hulu, Freeform, FX, and other platforms) hit me with: “Ever thought about running your own production company?” Call me naïve, but I didn’t know you could tell a big entity no and they would come back with something juicier that’s impossible to refuse. But more important? Y’all, I accidentally played hard to get and . . . it worked? WHAT?! I always thought “getting what you want by playing hard to get” was a myth, like shaving your arm hair makes it grow back thicker, but I’m now filing “turning down one offer can potentially lead to being presented with a completely different and better one” under shit that’s actually true alongside the neck test (aka wrapping a pair of jeans around your neck and if the waistline comfortably meets at the bac
k of your neck, the jeans will fit) and that Black people always have a case of unrefrigerated bottles of water around their houses.
In all seriousness, this offer from ABC Signature made me realize I should’ve been keeping it coy my whole life! Instead, my thirsty and eager-to-please Midwestern self has been walking around like, “MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE? I AM AVAILABLE AS FUCK! For employment, friendship, romantic relationships, to give my uninformed opinions on everything, to give business advice, read other people’s writing, help pick out presents for loved ones, talk shit, convince friends to buy a Peloton bike, etc.” Not to say that my tech-avail energy hasn’t benefited me thus far, but as this business proposition taught me: Playing it cool sometimes just feels more badass than being an emotionally exposed Earnest Ernestine. Moving on.
The point is I always assumed I would start a production company in my forties, but ABC Signature wanting to take me off these dodgy freelancer streets and put a ring on it trumped any arbitrary timetable I had set for myself. If they believed I could handle all the responsibilities that came with running a production company in my thirties, then why shouldn’t I? After all, it seems as though many people are good at their jobs because they developed many of the skills on the job, and I’m a quick-ish study, so this shouldn’t be too difficult of an endeavor, right?
Call this a classic case of “you don’t know what you don’t know.” Because I’d been freelancing for several years, I assumed that starting a production company would be like any of my other hustles. Anyone who has freelanced before can understand that assumption. You start out hopeful and rosy and then immediately you are bedraggled as fuck. Every single day of freelance life was comprised of endless mini heavy lifts: drumming up work, booking stand-up gigs, auditioning, doing paid and unpaid writing gigs, tracking down payment for work I did weeks and weeks ago, strategizing which bills I could be late on so that I had enough money to pay my rent, and sometimes taking jobs that underpaid but overextended me because some money was better than no money, etc. Therefore, as exciting as the offer of running my own company was, part of me was too locked into a grizzled vet mindset and believed it would be taxing the way my work had always been, so I didn’t fully comprehend just how my career and life were going to change. No longer was it going to be just Mai (you’ll learn all about my second-in-command in my “Black Girl, Will Travel” essay) and me against the world. Contracts were signed. Expectations from everyone, especially myself, were born. I was founding a company. I was going to be a boss . . . with THREE whole employees——and counting, as I would soon find out. We’ll get to that in a second, but first, more about Tiny Reparations.
The production company was put together while I was in the middle of my stand-up tour. So when we weren’t on the road, Mai and I looked at office spaces, interviewed people to fill the head of development and personal assistant positions, wrote an employee handbook, and had countless discussions about everything from the fundamentals (monthly overhead costs, health insurance plans, defining the office cultch aka culture) to the minutiae (where do we want to hang the artwork, how many team-building lunches do we want, is it a bit much to get matching U2 T-shirts for everyone? The answer is yes, but I still did it and then ended up keeping all four shirts for myself because, thankfully, I realized how ignorant I was being). Then there was the matter of the production company, ya know, producing something. The studio wanted me to come up with a TV show for me to star in, so I was meeting showrunners and began brainstorming and before I knew it, months later, Tiny Reparations officially launched while I was in Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Word to the wise: If you have to start a business venture remotely, make sure it’s not in a place like Edinburgh that’s just unseasoned food and personalities.
Once I returned home, Tiny Rep demanded my undivided attention (I started production on a limited-run talk show for Comedy Central while developing an idea for a scripted series with showrunner and all-around wonderful human being Jonathan Groff), and then I did the only sensible thing: I put my dream of running a literary imprint on the back burner. Yeah . . . I’m aware how this sounds. I spent so much time at the beginning of this essay lamenting how much I secretly want to get out of all my responsibilities, yet the more I write, it’s obvious that I was on the path to building an empire.
What can I say? I contain multitudes, y’all! And I’m not the only one. All of us do, which is what keeps life interesting or tiring, depending on who you ask. So, this is why despite my countless protests about working too much, I would still dream about launching an imprint. Speaking of which, the idea for that came about over a rainy afternoon lunch with my then soon-to-be lit agent, Robert, way back in 2014.
He and I quickly bonded over our shared love of pop culture, corny jokes, attractive men, and a penchant for planning for the future. Sensing that I’m not a one-book-and-done kind of author, he asked me what my endgame was. I knew that, for a time, Toni Morrison was a book editor while she wrote her own, and though I’m forever impressed by her ability to juggle, I also felt that was—youguessedit!—waaaaaaaay too much work, so I told Robert, “Editing is too time-consuming, so I’ll just have my own imprint instead.” I still chuckle at this. The word “just” is so hilarious and lovably innocent. Just. “I’ll just have an imprint” was said with the same casual energy I have when, after a waiter presents all the dessert options, I say, “I’ll just have the check. Thanks!” I swear I wasn’t trying to play it cool; I honestly had no idea really what all went into running an imprint. I just loved reading books and believed that having my own imprint would allow me to be surrounded by books all the time . . . which is actually correct. My apartment with Baekoff currently looks like an indie bookstore called “One Day I’ll Read All These Books, but Honestly I’ll Just Keep Buying More and Trip Over Them.” This store is not very successful, guys. Anyway, ever since that lunch, Robert and I would briefly talk about an imprint and I’d claim it wasn’t the right time because my plate was full, and late 2019 / early 2020 was no exception. And yet . . . I decided to do an exploratory call with Plume, the publisher of my two previous books.
Ooooooookay, we can all agree this is getting ridiculous, right? I was behaving the way politicians do when they create exploratory committees to see if they want to run for president. These politicians make announcements about how they’re not running for office; they’re merely thinking about it. Mm-hmm. They’re full of it and so was I. Telling myself and everyone around me that this call with Plume was not going to set things in motion was nothing more than a sweet little lie that I justified with the following stream-of-consciousness thinking:
This is just to loosely talk about maybe, somewhere down the line when I’m older, what running an imprint would look like, even though I’m not really entertaining the thought because, again, now is NOT the right time, but if we can have an hour-long conversation and then someone can send me a follow-up email with a PDF deck of what the company structure would look like if I were to run my own imprint, which I am not gonna do because Iamverybusy, so busy that I haven’t given it much thought except that I would call it Tiny Reparations Books, I’ve already written a mission statement, I’ve decided that I want to publish literary fiction, nonfiction, and essay collections, and I would like to be heavily involved and read submissions / meet with authors and agents, which, now that I think about it, let’s THOROUGHLY walk through my bullet-point list of questions and the three-page document I created about how Tiny Rep Books fits in the marketplace, but, again, and I don’t know why no one understands this, I will not launch an imprint at this time, but also, I will 100 percent launch it and be overwhelmed even though working this hard is the high I chase. END SCENE. Yep, I tire myself, too. But this was the story I was sticking to even after the call and through the early parts of Covid.
I was reading for hours every day not solely for pleasure, but also to distract myself from the fact that the coronavirus upended every
single project I was working on. The additional free time meant that besides reading, I also had time to think, which is how the idea for this book came to be and why the literary imprint seemed more realistic than ever before. Diving into a new business venture could be just (there goes that word again) the thing that would lift me out of my depression. When I reconnected with #TeamPlume and my publisher, Christine Ball, after our initial conversation, it happened to be shortly before #PublishingPaidMe went viral, which only further proved the timeliness of my mission to have a highly inclusive imprint, not just on the author side, but behind the scenes. On one hand, it’s frustrating that it takes a collective uproar on social media for there to be transparency about how authors of color earn significantly smaller advances than their white counterparts, but on the other hand, you bet your sweet ass I took this industry dustup as a sign to get my piece of the pie so I can spread it around, because I remember what being a newbie author was like.
When I was shopping around my first book in 2015, every single imprint (except for Plume, obvs) flat-out rejected it for the following reasons: “Black female authors don’t sell,” are “not relatable,” and “readers aren’t interested in funny stories from Black women.” Mm-hmm. Only a year prior, in 2014, Pew Research revealed that the person most likely to read a book is a college-educated Black woman, so what were these publishing execs talking about? Did they think Black women in 2015 all decided to decide not to read Black female authors? Like we’re hitting each other up in Slack, “Girl, we gotta talk about Ernie Hems”? This was not to say that Black women only read books written by Black women. That’s equally as limiting a narrative as the notion we don’t read at all. Matter of fact, we’ll throw some white authors in the mix, like one puts parsley on garlic bread, while at the same time we love reading Black female authors. We are hungry to have them promoted and marketed to us, so we can discover their works. This assumption that the dominant demographic would want to read everything EXCEPT works from folks who look like them and have shared experiences is simply nothing but racism.
Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes Page 6
