Author: Stoller, Fred
Date: 2012-01-17 09:00:00+01:00
Keywords: Biography
Description: You'd know Fred Stoller if you saw him. He has appeared on practically every great sitcom you've ever seen - Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, and Murphy Brown just to name a few. But he has never been a regular on a series, always the guest star. He longs to find a showbiz home. Instead, he is a television foster child, shuttling from show to show in the vain hope that one will finally agree to keep him. "My Seinfeld Year" tells the hysterical and bittersweet story of what happened when Stoller finally got a shot at the showbiz stability he'd always dreamed of -- as a staff writer on one of t

MY SEINFELD YEAR

by Fred Stoller

I'm to the side of the set of the hit Disney teen show, Wizards of Waverly Place. I'm playing a doorman of the apartment building Selena Gomez's character lived in. My character is supposed to break up a noisy party of zombies, wizards, vampires and an ogle. My line is, "No loud parties, and not only that, you didn't invite me, and I happen to be the life of the party!" And then I do a demented little dance showing how "wild" I am.

Selena is teaching me how to do the Dougie, a dance her boyfriend, pop superstar Justin Bieber, helped make famous. I cup my hand under my chin, and then sway and contort my lanky middle-aged body to the side as I say, "Lean and brush. Lean and brush." I feel like a Gumby with the wires removed from it. Selena laughs. Of course I wasn't supposed to be good. I was just supposed to do a moronic version of it.

I head to the craft service table to munch on some cookies and other crap when David Henrie, the nineteen-year-old hunk who plays Selena's brother Justin, comes over. David had been stressed that week. He was rehearsing, and then going to auditions hoping to land the lead in The Hunger Games, a three-part studio movie based on the popular book series. I remember giving him some advice about over-preparing or something, that at his level they don't judge him syllable for syllable at the reading. I also told him that paying an acting coach wasn't necessary. You're either the guy or not. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

"Wow, here I am, the 52-year-old guest star wearing a red Pee Wee Herman bellhop uniform and a monkey cap with a strap under my chin giving you career advice."

"You're 52?" David said. I wasn't sure if he thought it was sad that at my age I was still playing the moronic sight gag, or that I didn't look that old, or maybe it was just my own negative perception of his words.

But he was very respectful. He thanked me for my helpful advice and headed off. I looked behind me and saw one of the writers had been watching that little exchange.

"Um, Fred, let me ask," he said, as if getting the nerve to ask me something uncomfortable. "Didn't you once write on Seinfeld?" He looked at me shrugging his shoulders, holding his hands out as if to say, "Um, but what happened?"

I had gotten that look, that question many times before. And this was a writer. That Seinfeld credit was supposed to change your life, your career, they thought. It was the ultimate validation. You're supposed to get deals, big agents, or at least opportunities after that. He would've killed for that writing credit.

"Yeah, I did, but didn't go that route I suppose, started getting these acting roles, went that way."

He nodded his head, saying he understood, but I knew he didn't.

With some writers I get the feeling they're relieved I became the weird quirky delivery guy, clerk, nebbish. It means one less aggressive writer for them to compete with.

***

In sitcoms, I'm usually the jerky guy that delivers the package or the guy at the deli that makes the sandwich the wrong way or the guard at the sporting event who takes his job too seriously and doesn't let the star athlete in without their proper ID.

Or I'm the sad sack. I've been the mopey relative the family is trying to help get a job, or the hypochondriac hanging out at a doctor's office, or the guy who is too nervous to ask out a woman, or even speak for that matter.

When people stop me at the mall and demand to know where they know me from, usually it's as Elaine's annoying date on Seinfeld, Ray's mopey cousin on Everybody Loves Raymond, or the jerky waiter on Friends.

I'm not bragging when I say how naturally these off-kilter parts have come to me. On several auditions, directors have said to me, "Don't be so pathetic," when I had no idea I was being that.

To outsiders, not to mention most fellow comedians and actors, it looks like I've got it made. My credits are several pages long and every so often I get diminishing checks in the mail when my episodes are rerun. I'm thrilled to be working in a union where only 2% of the members work, but after 15 years of being the bridesmaid, I long for a stable situation, a home.

I have had some years where I have only worked once or twice. I am lucky (mostly in the last fifteen years) to have stayed afloat with unemployment, but am still looking for that one situation that sticks, that one good working environment that will shelter me from the humiliation and rejection of auditioning or from the despair of not having any auditions at all. I'm trapped in a weird kind of showbiz sitcom purgatory — I get enough work not to quit, but never enough to feel I can take a deep breath and stop struggling.

Being a perennial guest star is like being a foster kid who's passed around some really great foster homes. I would love for one of them to keep me, but it's a hell of a lot better than being abandoned.

***

I head over to the set where the prop master fits me for a heavy set of black wings I have to wear on my back. Turns out my jerky character morphs into the angel of darkness. The wings are heavy and I almost tip over trying to walk with them strapped to my back. The writer and one of his co-workers see me stumble as they pass with a few sandwiches they have loaded up at the craft service table. I laugh to myself. Not everyone gets it. Many times I don't. But, sometimes I step back and realize that just the fact I'm on a TV show saying words with a dumb small hat strapped to my head, wearing wings is a miracle, considering my past.

THE MAKING OF A GUEST STAR GUY

It's not hard to figure out how I ended up with a career as the low-self-esteem schnook. It's a role I was born to play. Most kids grow up idolizing decisive, macho heroes like Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford. I identified with the outcasts and misfits. On long car rides I'd sit in the backseat with my head pressed against the window, pretending I was Ratso Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy on his doomed bus ride to Florida.

And I'd spend hours pretending to be Billy, the deaf mute from The Last Picture Show. Billy spent his time constantly pushing a broom while wearing his baseball cap backwards. At the end of the film, we see poor Billy lying in the street dead after being hit by a truck. So, I'd wear my hat backwards and walk around pretending to sweep. Then, I'd lie on the floor like I was hit by that same truck.

Another, less disturbing hero was Donald Sutherland as the goofy character amongst all the other macho stars in The Dirty Dozen. I also connected with guys like Herb Edelman and Ron Leibman, and any other quirky character actor, who made me sit up in my seat like a lone dog when it sees another of its own species.

I loved TV and movies, but the world of show business was galaxies away from mine. I thought to be on TV you had to start real young, like the kids from The Brady Bunch. I envied these actors. I'd see the cast of Happy Days or The Partridge Family having fun and kidding around with each other on talk shows and Challenge of the Network Stars. They seemed like they were a part of something together.

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in a neighborhood that consisted of rows and rows of identical two family houses. In my home there weren't a lot of expectations for life or for me excelling in it. My mother tried her best, but was saddled with many fears that she passed onto me with the highest anxiety. I'm pretty sure I'm the only nine-year-old who set up a lemonade stand, whose mother reacted by panicking: "What if it goes under? Don't do it, Freddie." And my mother also panicked about my imminent rejection when as a teenager I wanted to work at Burger King to earn my own spending money. "Yeah, right! They're waiting for you," she brutally informed me.

Most of all, my mother was afraid of me not doing well in school. She had been left back in first grade because she had been very ill and had missed a lot of days. So, I could never miss school, no matter how sick I was. I could be gushing blood out of every pore in my body, and she'd say, "School goes on whether you're there or not!"

For three years in a row, I won a perfect attendance certificate. Other kids may have been good at sports, or drawing, or music. My greatest accomplishment was sticking my arm up in the air and saying, "Present!"

It may have been hard for me to do well because my mother made school so life and death. Not only did I have a regular tutor, but I'd later find out that she had also paid several people to secretly tutor me. She gave my babysitter, older sister's friends, and even my own friends small amounts of money to sneak math lessons to me in any unsuspecting way they could. Most, though, had no math skills and just pocketed the cash.

Although I had that impeccable attendance record, I still felt invisible in school. I only had one or two friends. I was a shy skinny kid who could barely make eye contact with a cat or a photograph without turning my head away. I was jealous of the kid who always got chased and beat up. One day when he was absent, they chose me to pick on; they chased me and pulled my string tie through the fence and threw me down. It was actually kind of thrilling. For once, I wasn't invisible. The next day, when the other kid returned, I felt a little sad it was over.

I grew up petrified about my future. I had no faith that I had the skills to become a grown-up with a daily job. My father's life did not inspire confidence. He was a commercial artist who designed displays for department stores. Each day, he'd spend almost two hours in rush hour traffic driving to work from the outskirts of Brooklyn to Manhattan and back. He'd always come home and sit two feet away from the TV with a Martini in his hand. But, for some reason, he never sat facing the TV. He always sat parallel to it. It looked to me like he was going to have a drag race with the set.

My father never talked. He was able to. He wasn't mute. But, he hardly spoke more than two sentences in a row. My mother, on the other hand, talked and screamed more than enough for both of them. I'd tell her I was going to Coney Island, and she'd scream, "It's so rough there! You'll come home in a box! Morris, say something! Say something to him!" My father would just withdraw by pretending he was reading. One time he just stared at a blank calendar for about fifteen minutes. Another time, I swear he spent twenty minutes reading a matchbook cover. In this environment, let's just say my imagination was not exactly encouraged. My mother threw out my GI Joe action figures because she thought I was a sissy for playing with "dolls". So, I resorted to clothespins to enact my mock battles.

Then when I was in high school, I discovered another way you could get on TV, even if you didn't start as a kid. I heard that actors like Jimmie Walker from Good Times and Freddie Prinze from Chico and the Man did routines at a comedy club in Manhattan and were spotted for The Tonight Show. From that, they got to be on a TV show. Even though both Walker and Prinze would end up as subjects on E! True Hollywood Story, back then they were gods to me. The idea of my putting an act together began gestating. For the first time in my life, I thought there could actually be a place in the world for a guy who so far had only been noticed for raising his arm in the air.

"YOU'RE TOO DEPRESSED TO BE A COMEDIAN"

Before taking the guest tour of almost every TV sitcom, I had a stint on many shows as a stand-up comic. I did my routine on The Dom DeLuise Show while DeLuise cut my hair, won one round on Star Search in 1984 before losing to future Raymond co-star Brad Garrett (after winning my first round, the producers instructed me if I won the next round, I needed to try to look happy). And my shot on Late Night with David Letterman was marred by being on the day the space shuttle Challenger exploded. No one watched late night comedy that evening.

It's kind of amazing when I look back at the decision to get onstage in front of strangers and tell jokes, since at seventeen I was so shy I practically needed to ask for permission to enter a supermarket.

My mother did not quite comprehend my career choice. "You're so depressed, how are you going to make people laugh?" But my family actually ended up helping me develop my best material. They'd just open their mouths, and all I had to do was repeat what they said verbatim:

"My mother's not very proud that I do this. She doesn't tell her friends that I'm a comedian. She tells them I'm retarded."

"My mother freaked out because I quit college to do this. She's always saying you got to get your degree. I say what for, what's it going to do for me? This is her reason: She says, 'You'll be able to say you're a college graduate.' Like I'm not able to say it now? Like I try, 'I'm a cogger gradugate. I'm a coleberagabubate.' Damn, four credits short, I almost had it!"

"I asked my sister why my parents like her better than me. She said it's because she's older and they've known her longer."

The onstage persona that I was gradually developing reflected who I was, or rather, who I wasn't. I hardly had any life experience. I was still as socially adept as a battered timid kid who had awoken from a coma after twenty years. I didn't have much self-esteem to be conversational. I'd just shoot out morbid non sequitur one-liners with my head down, keeping my hands busy by making a noose with the microphone cord.

I was never a die-hard "Let me slay this crowd!" comic who loved being on stage. It honestly never felt natural being up there for more than three minutes or so. And that had nothing to do with my act doing well or not. It just didn't suit the style of quick-hit, depressive jokes; I had to stretch it out. Outside New York City, my act was pretty hit-or-miss. Too many times my low-key style wouldn't go over in the suburbs with the rowdy drunken patrons in their hometown bars. It seemed they'd much rather see some high-energy act run around the stage singing TV theme songs or insulting them in some way. So often, I'd bomb and the act following me would blow the roof off the place.

After a while I got burnt out from the stand-up comedy world. I had enough of vying for stage time in Los Angles. On any given night the likes of Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld or Robin Williams would pop in and bump us unknowns off the show.

I got tired of being on the road where you needed nearly an entire hour of material, and I quickly realized my style and cadence didn't lend itself to keeping an unsophisticated, drunk audience's attention for an hour.

I got tired of being at the airport and waiting for the cook to pick me up who forgot, or being put up in a comedy condo with the other comedians begging waitresses for sex, or having to kick out the comedian from the week before who had no place to go. I got tired of the club owners showing me all of the negative remarks from the patrons who'd been encouraged to voice their opinions on the comment cards at their tables. "Wasn't fast enough." "He sucked." "Didn't make me laugh and I hated him." I made a commitment to stay away from the clubs and declared acting classes would be my way out! Becoming a committed trained actor would be my edge.

***

After hundreds of cattle-call auditions, going into credit card debt for ridiculous acting classes where we shoved each other while hopping on one foot, and severing ties with a manipulative acting coach who told me I'd never make it if I broke off from her, I finally started getting some guest star work.

I was so thrilled to be on a set and off the road I didn't mind the stress of walking on eggshells as a guest star, being afraid that if I flubbed a line, or didn't score with every half a line I had, I'd be written out.

I booked a part as a jerky usher on Murphy Brown, which led to several other episodes and eventually other shows when those producers left. I was still scraping by, but things were looking fairly promising, and then I went to Steve's surprise birthday party.

MY SEINFELD DAZE

I wasn't going to go to Steve's surprise party at first. I wasn't feeling that social, though I was painfully alone at the time. I do things like that. I'll moan to myself how isolated I am, go outside, see someone I know and then hide from them. It's not always because this person is the most annoying. Sometimes with some people I just know what the conversation is going to be and I don't have the strength to relive it in real life after experiencing it in my head.

"What's been up, Fred?"

"You know, plugging along. Did a spot on Murphy Brown last month. And you?"

It was 1994, and there I was with twenty of my fellow stand-up comedians standing in the dark in Steve's living room in LA, waiting to surprise him on his thirty-seventh birthday. Like most of the guys in the room, I'd met Steve in 1980 in the New York comedy club scene. Most of us had been pushed out of that scene, which had boomed in the early eighties, peaked by the mid-eighties, and busted by the early nineties. After getting stage time so effortlessly for so many years, it became too difficult to vie for the few remaining venues. Some of us had gone on to attempt lives away from the comedy clubs by pursuing sitcom-writing careers. Some had intermittent success. Some had done very nicely. And others were just as in the dark about what to do next as they were standing in that unlit living room.

About an hour after we surprised Steve, Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfeld, entered. Knowing Larry, I bet he planned on coming late so he wouldn't have to scream, "Surprise!" and feel like a fool.

I was a little nervous seeing him there. I had known David, a stand-up turned Saturday Night Live writer also from the New York club scene, and now that Seinfeld was a hit I had written him a letter the previous year asking him to please keep me in mind, if there were any acting parts on his show.

I didn't feel awkward so much because he hadn't responded, but because I was possibly making him feel awkward. I worried that he would think, "Here's another one who has asked me for something and now I have to acknowledge him."

My interactions with him were always awkward. As he revealed years later on his own HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, he's not the most socially adept person. And as I may have mentioned, neither am I. If I'd try to give him a compliment or even just attempt small talk, he'd grumble something and get this suspicious look on his face. One time, I bumped into him at another party where he greeted me by saying, "You don't have to shake my hand." And then he just walked away.

As a stand-up, he had the reputation among the other comics as someone who would suddenly storm off stage at the slightest sign of disrespect from the crowd.

But at this party, he was more open to me than I expected. He wanted to know about my dating life. In the past, he had explained to me that I was doomed, "You're a loser. You're a Jew from Brooklyn!"

He wanted to know when was the last time I got laid. I glossed over the subject. I said I wanted to have someone tell me that a woman likes me and that by coincidence it's a mutual attraction. He said, "That's never going to happen to you. You're too neurotic!"

He asked what I was doing with my career. I knew I couldn't fake confidence around him. It had been a while since my last job. He asked why I had not written a Seinfeld spec script like so many others had.

That's why I hadn't, because so many others had. At the time, every aspiring writer was writing a Seinfeld spec script, and almost every civilian thought they had a premise for an episode.

You write a spec script to show a sample of your ability. As a general rule, show-runners looking at prospective writers never read scripts of their own show. They know their show so well, they can pick apart an outsider's attempt too easily. I told him it was hard for me to find the incentive to write something I knew would never get made just so I could have a sample of my writing. He insisted I write a Seinfeld script. He stressed several times that nothing would happen, but he would read it.

I went home and thought about it, going back and forth, trying to decide whether I should bother. I did have some writing aspirations. I had several notebooks filled with movie ideas, scenes, and situations for myself.

But, I wasn't sure about going the sitcom staff-writing route. Although it had been six years since I had arrived in Hollywood, I still dreamed of making it as a well-known character actor. One fellow comedian grew up watching The Dick Van Dyke Show and dreamed of being Rob Petrie, sitting around a writer's table cracking jokes with the rest of the staff. For me, that's a situation I couldn't run fast enough away from. Being trapped at a table playing poker, let's say, and shooting the shit, puffing on a cigar never appealed to me.

Being a staff writer seemed like a whole other crapshoot. It could prove very rewarding financially, but the time commitment would leave me no time to do anything else.

Then I thought about all those people who'd do anything for the opportunity I had been given, even though it was one where "nothing will happen" had been reinforced many times over. I had heard that when Jason Alexander (George) was a guest speaker at a Learning Annex seminar, the place was packed with anxious writers trying to get him to take their Seinfeld specs.

I got a copy of a Seinfeld script and watched tapes of episodes while looking through old premise books of mine. I came upon an idea I had when a friend told me she wanted to fix me up with a woman, who was out of town. Since this woman was away for months, I needed to have a strong image of her to supplement the possibility of this fantasy. I imagined the desperate extreme of needing to know and taking my friend to a police composite artist for an accurate picture of this prospect. I decided that that might make a good story line for George.

And in 1990, I had met a woman in London who I really hit it off with when I did my stand-up act on a Comedy Central show there. I paid for a costly ticket so she could come visit me in LA, hoping it could actually turn into a real relationship. But when she arrived, she didn't act like the woman I knew in England. It was as if the woman I had met had given her ticket to someone who just looked like her. She got upset when I said or did things unlike the proper way they do it in London. She would cringe whenever I said "What?" instead of "Pardon?" After a few days, she led me to believe that she was going back home, but then I later discovered that she had stayed another few weeks in LA off the ticket that I had paid for.

That became my Jerry story. I wrote that he keeps seeing her pop up arm in arm with various hunks at all the hot spots of Manhattan.

From start to finish, the whole process of writing the script took close to a month. A week after I sent it, I got a call from Larry David.

"I read your script, and I really like that composite story."

"Really, think you might do it?"

"I don't know. Let me show it to Jerry."

I was quite surprised. I hoped that maybe he'd buy that story line. I wasn't sure how that worked, but would sell it at any price. A week later, he called again.

"Want to be on staff?"

This time, I was more than surprised. I was dazed. I still had dreams of making it as an actor, and was making some strides being the jerky, annoying shnook in several sitcoms including, Murphy Brown, Empty Nest, Amen, and several long-forgotten shows. But I knew it was an opportunity I could not pass up.

"Wow, yeah. I wasn't expecting this. I guess I'll put the acting on hold. But I do have a day in a movie coming up."

It was one of my first and few movie parts. I had auditioned for the role as one of the bad guys chasing Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber. I didn't get it but was offered a small role as an impatient guy banging on a phone booth. He told me the writing job wouldn't start for a month. Dumb and Dumber wouldn't be a conflict.

"Okay, also I was starting to make my Screen Actors Guild medical insurance."

The minimum required basic plan was $8,000 back in 1994, and I was finally getting covered.

"You'll make Writers Guild Insurance," David said. He was very patient with all my questioning. "It's a better plan."

I told him that I didn't have an agent, but trusted whatever he'd give me. He assured me that he'd give me exactly what he'd give me if I had an agent, so I could save that 10% commission.

There was this minimal position given to first-time staffers called "Program Consultant". The salary was $2,000 a week for forty weeks. He had the option to let me go after just thirteen weeks. And at that level, there was no extra compensation if a script I'd written was used. When you get higher up the totem pole, you get $17,000 per script.

All of a sudden, I had fantasies of being a regular person with a real life, having a day job, going on vacations and not having to check my machine every second hoping for that next job. I was also excited by the prospect of not being the guest guy actor who is always an outsider. In the past, I'd find myself on too many sets sadly watching the regular crew laughing, trading inside jokes and playfully catching up with each other.

There was never any point in palling up to someone like me. It's like war, where you don't want to get too close to someone because they might get picked off. And in the guest star's case, your fate is already a forgone conclusion: They know I'll be gone by the end of the week. But now I'd finally have a show business "home".

***

But I knew, even if I pushed aside my acting aspirations, I wasn't in for an easy ride, that the job was a tough environment to survive. At that time, Seinfeld was eating up many comedians and writers each season. Some of these writers went on to do extremely well, but many were struggling even after being on such a well-regarded show.

Word got out about my job, and an agent I didn't know tracked me down to represent me, even though he wouldn't be getting a commission. He claimed he wanted to cultivate a relationship with me. That's how things work in the town: If I had just written my script on my own and circulated it without a connection of some sort, it's unlikely anyone would have signed me and tried to pitch me. This agent turned out to be Ari Emanuel, the wheeler-dealer agent Jeremy Piven's character was based on in HBO's Entourage.

Larry told me to keep a log of my everyday experiences as a source of possible story lines. He thought my day-to-day life lent itself to bizarre misadventures possibly suited for Seinfeld premises.

One of the first premises I pitched was inspired by a puzzling situation on the set of Dumb and Dumber, where there were two wardrobe women. I was equally attracted to both of them and was looking for clues about which one was available or which one might like me, if she was available. My dilemma: which one should I pursue? If I paid too much attention to the wrong one, I might turn off the right one. No one likes to be asked out as a last resort.

Dumb and Dumber would be my last acting job before my writing career started. In the film, I had to knock on the payphone where the bad guy (J.P. Mental) was doing business with his boss. The film was the directorial debut of the Farrelly Brothers, who told me to improvise, just go on a rant and be pissed that that guy won't get off the phone.

So I paced back and forth, "This is where it all ends, at a payphone. Great." And then I paced some more. "Sir, did you ever hear of the concept of other people, me being that for the phone, sir?" I am still ignored. "Oh, you got me mad. I almost like that."

Finally, the bad guy punches me out right through the booth. A stuntman, who had been fitted with my clothes by the two women I had crushes on, took my punch.

From that one day of work, I got not only a Seinfeld premise, but recognition from diehard Dumb and Dumber fans for years to come. I'd later bump into each wardrobe woman separately only to discover that what I thought was a dilemma was a moot point. I, in fact, never had a shot with either of them, with or without the other one there.

***

I drove onto the lot at Radford Studios in Studio City, California. Being a character actor, driving onto a studio lot is never a relaxing venture. I associate it with either going to an arduous cattle-call audition, where it's stressful enough having my material prepared, now I have to listen to the guard give me instructions where to park, and where the audition is. He'll give me a map and use his yellow highlighter to outline the path to my goal. Except, I'm map-illiterate. They're so complicated. They have little streets that aren't really streets: "Make a left on Clark Gable Way and turn right by the monument to Mickey Rooney, and then you go through two double doors." There's always those double doors. And they all look alike.

And even if I booked a guest spot on a show, studio lots were also stressful because there was always the concern my name wasn't on the drive-on list. This indignity happens more often than not when you're guest-starring, and helps rub in your temporary status. For what seems like an eternity, the guard will tap the keys on his computer, trying to find my name. He will shake his head in frustration, as if I had asked him to decode an enemy espionage document.

But I was lucky that day. Terrance, the guard, knew me from my first job in 1990, Singer & Son's, a short-lived show about a New York Deli where the executive producer was fighting vigorously with the NBC executives trying to get me fired.

"You got an audition, Fred?" he asked.

"No, an actual job," I said tentatively, still not sure if it was true.

"What show? What you playing?"

"No, um, I'm gonna be writing."

"Writing?!" he responded as if he could only picture me being the delivery guy, clerk, or other nebbish I usually portray. "What show you writing on?"

"Seinfeld, I think."

"Wow! Good luck," he said as I drove on.

***

To the right, I passed the offices where the writers of Roseanne worked. I had heard horror stories how she made them wear T-shirts with numbers on them and only referred to them by their number.

As I drove on, I observed frantic actors walking around with their highlighted maps looking for their appointment for their audition. It looked like the lot was littered with actors using their little treasure maps mining for their pot of gold: their week, 3 day, or one day of work — not terrible, but not the biggest jackpot.

Lee, another security guard, was waiting for me at the far end of the lot to show me the spot that would be mine for the next nine months. I pulled my 1988 Toyota Corolla in, thanked Lee, and grabbed my notebook, terrified of what was to come.

I arrived early that first day to the Seinfeld offices on the CBS Radford lot in Studio City. About twelve offices on the upper level of the structure were allotted for its writers, producers and editor.

I thought you were supposed to dress up. It was summer, and I wore a new nice cotton shirt from the Gap, a pair of dress jeans, and a belt. Soon, the other writers made their way up. First was Peter Mehlman, who had been on staff the longest. He was dressed in what he'd usually wear if the temperature were above 70 — a dirty shirt, gym shorts and sneakers. The other new writers for the start of that 94-95 season were Marjorie Gross, whom I had known from the New York stand-up scene in the early eighties, and Sam Kass, a playwright from New York, starting his first TV gig. Returning for her second season was Carol Leifer, another comic from those old stand-up days. Tom Gammill and Max Pross were a writing team that had written for Late Night with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, among many other classic shows. Finally, there was a writer I'll call Perry, a scraggly little guy with a panicked look on his face, who had actually survived the season before. He was nervous even before the season started. The first thing he said to me: "It's going to be rough. Let me tell you, the vacation is over! This is ‘Nam, man. It ain't pretty here."

Shortly thereafter, Larry David showed up, and then Jerry himself. I had known Jerry from both the New York and LA comedy clubs. A few weeks later, two other writers were hired, which made me panic a little. I took it as a message that I wasn't single-handedly making it a great season. A young writing team, right out of college, who had worked on the first few weeks of the brand new Late Night with Conan O'Brien were hired after getting a shot to pitch some premises that Larry liked. They also hired another writer, who had faxed in dozens of ideas the season before. He also worked as a Sinatra impersonator on the weekends and always turned on a white noise machine in his office.

There must have been something about me that made it obvious that I was trying too hard to seem dressed up. Maybe my belt was a little off. I usually don't wear them and perhaps it showed. Maybe it didn't go with my pants or didn't quite fit correctly.

"Nice belt," Jerry commented.

That was all I needed never to wear that belt to work again. All during the course of that first week, Jerry and Larry made a point to ask me, "Where's the belt?"

That first day, we milled about a few minutes in the conference room before Larry assigned everyone offices. In the conference room, we'd eat lunch every day at a long table. Cabinets were stocked with pretzels, cases of Snapple, and cereal, lots of cereal. Grown-up choices like Cornflakes, but a lot of sugary kiddie stuff like Lucky Charms, Count Chocula and Cap'n Crunch.

My office was larger than I needed. It had a huge desk with a computer on it and another large wooden desk of drawers behind. There were also a bulletin board and a dry erase board for outlining my stories.

They brought in a nice chair for me. It was a big comfortable leather swivel chair with a high neck support. Larry walked past my office and spotted it.

"That's a better chair than mine. How'd you get that chair?" He came in and ogled it.

"Take it. Take the chair. It's yours." I didn't want to make waves and claim in any way that I deserved a better chair than Larry, the co-boss of the whole show. He sat down in it. He sat there for a few moments as if he were recalling the comfort of his own chair and comparing it to mine. After a long pause he shook his head.

"No, I'm keeping my chair." He abruptly got up and left.

There was a brief fifteen-minute meeting, discussing possible story arcs for that year. I made a suggestion or two that I have erased from my memory bank due to the humiliation I felt after getting no reaction at all. Even a shaking of the head or an "I don't think so" would have encouraged me to participate more. No one gave any of my few ideas the possibility of gestating in the room for more than a second. I'd suggest something, and the next person's pitch would practically overlap mine.

We discussed whether George should keep his job as an administrator with the New York Yankees or go back to being unemployed. Larry felt that they had exhausted the George-out-of-work theme. A writer from the year before suggested that perhaps George's parents get divorced. Aside from lunches, that meeting was one of maybe five all year where all the writers were gathered in the same room. After that, we were basically all on our own.

"Well, come in when you can and start pitching your ideas," Larry said. Then, he shut the door of his office. Right away, he started working on the season premiere and the next few shows all by himself.

To start writing an episode, you had to get approvals on a story each for Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. Then you had to get Larry and Jerry to approve how you planned on connecting all four stories together.

Back in my office, I composed myself after feeling slighted for not being acknowledged in that first meeting. I told myself that story arcs for the year were not my specialty. I had the notebook that Larry had told me to keep with crazy life experiences and little observations suitable for story ideas. I hoped that when I'd pitch to him alone, it'd be apparent that he hadn't made a mistake bringing me onboard.

On my way to pitch, Perry, the scraggly little nervous guy, stopped me.

"I know the best times to bother them. I'll help you, bro. I'll guide you. I'll tell you when I think they are in good moods. You may have a great idea, but if they're not in a good mood, they'll shoot it down and then that idea is dead for good. I know Larry. I know how to read him."

At first I was grateful. It would take a while to realize that this "help" was something else. I'd be walking toward Larry and Jerry's office, mustering all my confidence that I had a good idea to pitch, but then he'd see me and shake his head, "Not a good time, bro. You got to wait."

I'd retreat back to my office. There was not much to do until I got the ideas approved, so I'd check my answering machine messages. After that, I'd just sit there not sure what to do. Eventually, I'd pop back out, but Perry would again shake his head, "I would not go in there now. They are very pissed. A very bad time."

Unlike Perry, my interactions with the other writers were merely passing nods "hello" on the way to the bathroom or a snack. They were all very cordial, but I didn't bond with anyone. Once in a while I'd inform Marjorie Gross and Carol Leifer if I had bumped into a fellow stand-up comic, who had sent their regards. The others might have had camaraderie, but I honestly wasn't part of it. To me, it was like working in a homicide division. Everyone was isolated, working on their own cases, and every once in a while you'd report to the captain (Larry), who would tell you which leads to follow.

Gammill and Pross would sit outside on the thirtysomething porch, the exterior set of the house from the ABC hit show next to our offices. Sometimes, I'd run my ideas by them. They would listen, but they, like all the other writers, seemed so busy trying to flesh out their own premises, I didn't want to keep bugging them. But Perry, my "mentor", made the time for me. Early on, I wondered if that was such a good thing. I desperately needed anyone to whom I could spout my ideas, but his reactions to my premises and to life in general were not exactly encouraging. He'd say things like, "After forty, that's it as a writer. After forty, we're all through." When I received this dire forecast, he was already a few years over 40, and I had about four to go.

Those words were eerily similar to ones I heard all my life from my mother. Early as a kid she'd say, "It's almost over, what do I have, twenty years left," and for the last thirty years it'd be, "It's almost over. What do I have, ten years left?"

Perry would barge into my office and ask what I was working on. He'd then rest his chin on his fist and contemplate intently for what seemed minutes at a time.

"I'm very concerned, very concerned about that idea. I don't think that's going to work. I told you this is ‘Nam. I barely survived last year. Almost had a nervous breakdown."

True, it wasn't the homiest, most nurturing atmosphere, but I quickly realized that a lot of his torture was self-inflicted, "Fifteen hours! I slave fifteen hours to perfect every damn line in my script."

I couldn't tell if he was boasting about his work ethic or complaining. On that job, it was insane to agonize that long over a line, because almost every line would be changed when the script was handed in and rewritten by Jerry and Larry.

On Seinfeld, when all four of your character stories were approved, Larry would give you permission to write it up. Then, he'd read it, and if he liked it, he'd tell you to start pitching on a new episode. The doors would close and he and Jerry would rewrite the script. Sometimes, just the story line remained along with just a fraction of the dialogue.

What Jerry and Larry did when they took someone else's script and reworked it was different than other sitcoms, on which all of the writers sit around a large table together and punch up or make whatever changes are needed to the script as a group. Many shows even come up with all the show's story lines at what's called "the table".

I'm not sure which situation is better. There are some writing jobs that are not too extreme in either direction. I had heard horror stories of what it was like to be at a writer's table sometimes for over ten hours a day for months at a time with a group of aggressive competitive writers.

When I had something to pitch I would wait outside their office for the door to open. Once inside, it wasn't always a comfortable experience. Sometimes, I felt like a pest. I felt as if I were asking to borrow money from my ex-girlfriend's boyfriend. I'd pitch, and many times Jerry and Larry would make disconcerting comments that had nothing to do with my idea.

For instance, Jerry remarked that when I made a pitch, I'd always hit the same mark on the floor. (Stand-ups appearing on TV always come out and have to stop and stand on a spot where a line of colored tape is marked.)

Larry once stopped me before I could even get a few lines into my pitch to ask about my shirt.

"Where'd you get that shirt? Do people help you? What's the process with someone like you buying a shirt?"

He was too distracted trying to figure how an oddball like me functions to follow what I was proposing. Perhaps he was trying to extract a premise at my expense. Well, if that was one of the reasons I was hired, fine.

My idea about the police composite artist from my spec script wasn't materializing enough for a story at the time. But, they did seem to like the idea I came up with on the set of Dumb and Dumber, where George is equally attracted to two women who are always together. A friend who had had a rocky year two seasons prior to mine at Seinfeld told me that coming up with Jerry stories were the hardest. It was easier to come up with George and Kramer stories, because they each had a lot of flaws and neuroses.

I was having trouble getting a Jerry story approved, until I got lucky walking around the mall one evening. I bumped into a fellow comedian, who asked me what suit size I wore. I honestly didn't know. He said he had a great Armani suit that didn't fit him anymore because he had "gotten huge" from working out at the gym. He gave me the suit and said all I had to do was take him out for a free meal, and we'd be squared.

I took him to Jerry's Deli, an overpriced restaurant in Beverly Hills, where he just ordered soup and a soda. It looked like I was going to get off easy until he explained that he was going to "save the meal for another time". I ordered the same thing and the bill came to around twenty bucks. I took him out two more times and it still didn't count as "the meal". I didn't want to seem cheap and say, "You're costing me money. This should be the meal."

It seemed to be a good situation for Jerry, trying to determine how to get rid of this pest, and what, in fact, constitutes "a meal". When is he out of his obligation to this guy?

Jerry and Larry liked that idea. I had two story lines approved with two to go.

When the actual season started, and the shows began getting filmed, trying to get Larry and Jerry alone to pitch ideas became even more difficult. They weren't just in their office writing one of their scripts or rewriting someone else's. They'd either be in a casting session, on the floor watching a run-through, in the editing room trying to cut time off an episode, or any number of places having to do with the actual making of the show.

One time, I stood outside their office for over an hour, waiting for the door to open so I could pitch an idea. While I sat there, one of the young, more confident writers just opened the door and went in ahead of me. What fearlessness, I thought. I was Billy Bibbit, the stutterer from One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, trying to compete with the salesmen from Glengarry Glen Ross. So, I decided to be strong, opened the door myself, and went in. Before I even got a few words out, the phone rang. They had to take it. My idea would have to wait. I went back outside. I was so mentally exhausted that I walked back to my office, shut my own door, and took a nap.

Once it seemed that Larry was sympathetic to my plight. He stepped into my office on his way to the editing room. "I see what goes on here," he said. "I see you're not in the clique. I see that."

"No, everyone's nice," I said. "People connect on different levels, I suppose."

He said, "When I wrote for Saturday Night Live, my desk was right by the elevator, and I'd see all the other writers going for lunch and not including me. I remember that."

It felt good getting that nice dose of empathy. "I know I'm hard to reach," he said. "But, you've got to get aggressive, track me down on the set. Look for a moment and run what you have by me."

I took this in. His little pep talk gave me the confidence to not censor myself, to bravely throw out any germ of an idea, because I had him right there. There was a new character on the show that year, Mr. Pitt. He was Elaine's new boss and was a very staunch, meticulous man. And Jerry Stiller played Frank Costanza, George's argumentative father.

"Know what hit me?" I said. "What if Mr. Pitt and George's father had it out? I think they should butt heads because they're both so bull-headed. There might be something funny there."

All of a sudden, his face turned red with rage, as if just suggesting that idea had ruined his show.

"What!? That's not an idea! That's stupid!" he said. Then, he turned around and stormed out of my office.

I felt stupid, excitedly opening up like that and being slammed down. Before I could think of something to say to save face, Larry relented a little. He stopped, turned around and said, "Okay, I did tell you to try anything out on me. I did say that. Sorry."

Eventually, I did get my Kramer and Elaine stories approved. Both came from personal experiences. A nutty friend of mine back in New York was an extreme minimalist. One summer, he traveled around with all of his possessions — an extra T-shirt, underwear, and his keys — in a tennis ball can. He also had his refrigerator removed from his little studio apartment to give himself more space. Whatever foods he brought home he kept outside on his window ledge to keep cold. Throwing out the refrigerator would pass as something Kramer would do. My horrendous experience with the woman I flew in from London became my Elaine story.

A writers' assistant patiently showed me how to use the computer software to write my first episode. Before the actual writing, I had to get Larry and Jerry into my office to show them how I was mapping out the whole story. They'd point to my chalkboard and suggest where plot points should occur. "Have the annoying comedian bring over the suit right away. That's too many scenes later," Larry said. After that, it took about two weeks to write it up.

After Larry read my draft, he told me to start pitching for the next script. There was no clue how much he liked it. I was just glad he was going to do it and I didn't want to push the matter.

On tape nights, there was not much for the writers to do except watch. Since Seinfeld was more situational and less joke-oriented, there was never much need for punch-ups or rewrites on the floor. Unlike most shows I'd known, after Larry and Jerry had gone over a script, it hardly ever changed during the production week.

Basically, about twelve writers and a few producers stood together in a packed group on the floor watching each scene. After a scene was over, the assistant director would yell out, "Moving on to Jerry's apartment!" or "Moving on to Monk's Diner!" We looked like a bunch of cows herded together slowly making our way to the next set. I felt like a security guard at a big-time sporting event where nothing ever really needs to be protected. All you have to do is watch and pick up your check. But to be on that floor witnessing the creation of some classic television was an experience I'll never forget. The writing was brilliant, but I also learned a lot watching what some of the actors did to get extra laughs where there wasn't even a joke in the script.

I saw Julia Louis-Dreyfus come up with the move where when she was amazed by something, she would shove Jerry and yell, "Get! Out!" Michael Richards was one of the best physical comedians I'd ever seen. All of those quirky entrances were meticulously rehearsed. Over and over he would practice different funny ways to open Jerry's door and spill into the room. He also had facial reactions and takes impossible to write. He had a way of stealing scenes. For instance, if he wasn't directly involved in a dialogue, he might make noises or gestures that would call attention to him and sometimes Larry would have to tone him down. Jason Alexander could sell every line given to him. He had not a vague moment in him. Jason was Larry's alter ego in the show and as a result got some of the best speeches.

But, it was also frustrating being on that floor. I wished I could be on a show with a great juicy regular role like Kramer or George. I even saw guest star parts I would have loved to play. There was a part of a pesky clerk, working at an expensive stationary store played by character actor Jerry Levine, who extorts a few dates from Elaine before he'll order the top of the line pen her boss had demanded. During the taping, Sam Kass, the writer I came the closest to bonding with because we were both loners, looked at the guy playing the part and then at me.

"You should play that part. I totally see you as that guy."

I just shrugged my shoulders. I knew enough not to pester Larry about appearing on the show. I wanted to prove that I was concentrating on what I was hired to do, to come up with ideas and write them out, but I did long again to be on that curtain call at the end of the show. I did miss that aspect of my former career.

My only contact with the cast members other than Jerry came when I initiated my own small talk. Michael Richards lived just a few miles away from the studio and rode his bike to work each day. One day after a run-through, everyone was surprised to see it was actually raining in Southern California. Richards called after me as I was getting into my car, asking for a ride home. He carried a bowl of soup he had taken from craft services. I drove slowly so he could enjoy the soup he carefully had balanced on his lap. We weren't in the car for more than five seconds when he asked me to turn off my radio. "I don't want to get any subliminal messages," he explained. I didn't have much of a reaction to his request. It made sense to him and that's what seemed to matter.

I enjoyed our brief conversation before we arrived at his house. He told me that he had always done well. Even before Seinfeld, he had a run of several short-lived NBC series, but still was able to afford a nice home. I was pretty dismayed realizing how just his pre-Kramer career alone was something I hadn't even come anywhere near.

He asked how I was coming along with my script and I told him that I was excited that I had a lot of fun stuff for him to do in it. He nodded approvingly as he said, "Looking forward to it." So was I. But this conversation would come back to haunt me.

It was very exciting to see my show finally produced. It was called "The Soup". Three of the four story lines stayed fairly well intact. The one about George trying to decide which woman to ask out was changed to him blowing it with this woman when he says how much he likes the word "manure". I was okay with that story being changed; by then, I knew that's how TV worked. But my "Vietnam" mentor, Perry, made it look like I was miserable about it. In front of everyone else he kept saying, "It's okay that they did that to you, bro. But you got to stop being so pissed. Man, you're hurtin' over this. Want to go out and talk?" He then looked at the others and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Can you believe this guy's moping around like a sad sack here? What a downer."

I didn't want Larry to think that's how I really felt so I took him aside and said, "Look, don't listen to him. I'm really not upset that you redid one of my story lines. You're Larry David. Who am I to argue with you?" Larry looked at me suspiciously. Perry had put me in a bind. I was upset. I was upset at having to explain that I wasn't upset. I could tell that I wasn't very convincing, so I decided to drop it before I dug myself any deeper.

After years of treacherous auditions, I actually got to be on the other side, when they cast my episode. I learned a few things being an observer. Jerry and Larry were two of the best to audition for I had ever seen. They laughed heartily after hearing the same material over and over and gave a big thanks to each person when they left. Many actors had their agents call up, positive that their clients got booked, because they heard their reaction was so strong. No one nailed any particular beat or line that aced it for them. With most, it was an essence, just a general feeling that Jerry and Larry went for. And I discovered that everyone has trouble leaving the room when it's over. They all do that awkward walk out, practically backwards, as they coyly wave and thank everyone again for seeing them. It's as if they're walking out hoping to get what hardly anyone gets after an audition, a definite "yes" right there on the spot. I vowed to not do that again myself, but it's so hard to not want to know you got it right then and there.

Five actors came in and auditioned for the role of Kenny Bania, the annoying comedian who argues that soup shouldn't count as a meal. They all did well, but Steve Hytner, a former stand-up comic I happened to know from New York brought just the right over-the-top in-your-face element to it.

The first day of every five-day taping starts with a table read, a reading of the first draft of the script, where the cast sits around a long table with the director and producers at the end. There are name placards indicating which actors are supposed to sit where, and chairs surrounding the table for network, production company executives, and anyone else involved with the show. At these table reads, I usually didn't sit at the main table. I self-relegated myself to a chair a bit to the far side with Sam Kass, some wardrobe people, and some of the stand-ins.

For the table read of my episode, I got to sit at the end of the table with Larry. I was relieved to see Larry laughing heartily throughout the reading. The other writers and executives also seemed to be enjoying my script. But I was fixated on Michael Richards. After it was over, The "Nam" guy patted me on the back and said, "Awesome reading. Killer, bro!" I headed right to Richards and did something so stupid, I can't believe it.

In my draft, I had Kramer doing lots of physical shtick when he picked up his refrigerator and removed it from his apartment. That didn't make the final version of Jerry and Larry's rewrite. Maybe it was the neurotic part of me that wants to be a hero and have everyone like me. Or maybe it was that crazy irrational part of me that feels bad for people when there's no reason to feel bad for them. Kramer's part was very light in my script. I was nervous that he was pouting. He didn't look happy. I actually felt sorry for this millionaire with two Emmys, who had told me that he's always done well.

I wondered, "Was he mad at me?" I had told him when I drove him home that I had written a great part for him in my episode, but it turned out that that was not the case. I hoped he knew that my version of the script had drastically changed.

When I got to Richards, I explained myself, "Hey, you know in the version I wrote I had you doing lots of physical comedy. I had you stumbling with the refrigerator on your back as you took it down the stairs. I wanted you to have a big part."

I should have had the sense to see what I was doing. I didn't mean any harm. All I was doing was trying to tell him to not be mad at me. But I opened up a can of worms.

"I love doing the physical comedy," he said. Now, I felt like I was teasing him, telling him about the great fun physical shtick he could have be doing.

"Could you please ask Larry to put it back? Could you please say something for me. I want to do the physical comedy."

Like a fool, I gave him my word that I would say something. I approached Larry as he headed back to the offices.

"Larry, I was talking to Michael, and he sort of asked me if there was any way we could put physical comedy in the script. I had mentioned that originally there was some stuff with the refrigerator and…"

"What?! What did you do? You don't talk to the actors! Don't you talk to the actors!"

He walked ahead of me, and I shook my head. Any goodwill I might have earned from Larry because of the strong table read had just evaporated.

Back at the office, another writer informed me that Perry had taken him aside and said, "That was the worst table read I have ever heard." He said the script was "awful". I felt disgusted. Even though at that point in the season I knew my nervous mentor wasn't above being so two-faced, I still felt kicked in the stomach. I considered telling him how phony and pathetic he was, but the other writer talked me out of it.

"Look who you're dealing with," he said. "What's the point?"

He was right. My nervous mentor was agonizing over his script, laboring over every line and wasn't close to finishing it. He simply needed to bring me down with him in his fear and misery.

***

At the taping, Hytner scored big as the annoying comedian. When he gave Jerry the suit and said, "And I don't even want anything for it," the crowd erupted. They knew what was to come and couldn't wait. He then shrugged his shoulders and said that if Jerry wants, he could take him out for a meal. The crowd ate it up when moments later, Hytner calls up Jerry and asks if he could have his meal that same night.

After the taping, some of the other writers congratulated me, and I heard Larry tell Hytner that they had to get him back. (He did return four more times.) As a writer, I was very pleased that a character I had created had made such big impression, but the actor in me was envious.

I tried hard to enjoy my day and forget that I was failing miserably, trying to get stories approved for my next script. When the taping was done, I knew the party was over. It was back to swinging and missing again and again. It wasn't that different from acting auditions, but there was one big difference: I was getting a weekly paycheck.

I was elated that they did my episode. Seeing a Seinfeld with "Written by Fred Stoller" in the opening credits has to be the one thing that I've done that has impressed my mother the most. Using one of her favorite malapropos, she told me it was "mind-bottling".

***

Eventually, they actually approved stories for a second script, but something was amiss. Larry told me to write it up, but he wasn't as involved in helping me plot out the story as he was on "The Soup". He seemed vague. "Yeah, okay, write it up," is all he said.

In my next episode, Jerry works a cruise ship, makes an off color joke, and then becomes the pariah of the boat. I put George in a situation I had been in back when I did stand-up comedy in New York City. The comedian, Sandra Bernard, had rejected me. The only problem was: I had never even asked her out. I had found out through Marjorie Gross that a journalist from Rolling Stone, also named "Fred", had been calling Sandra up. She had told Marjorie, "Fred Stoller somehow got my number. He said he's going on the road with The Pretenders, and when he gets back, he wants to get together. I'm not really interested." After putting some clues together, the two women laughed when they realized that she had rejected the wrong Fred. Thus, thanks to Marjorie, who thought it was amusing, I found out that if I were ever interested in Sandra Bernhard, I would have been slammed down. I had this happen to George, who, even though he is not attracted to this woman, becomes obsessed with winning her over.

They seemed to like my Kramer story the best. When I was a kid, our family visited an animal resort in Florida called Monkey Jungle. We saw these men throwing rocks at the monkeys. When the guards ran over to stop them, this one guy pointed to the monkeys and said, "Hey, they started it!" So I wrote up a similar situation in which Kramer has a confrontation at the zoo and has to apologize to the monkey.

Larry read the script, but said he wasn't going to do it. He just didn't buy a story about Jerry and Elaine being on a boat. I was puzzled. Why then did he have me spend all that time writing it up?

After scores of other ideas had been rejected, I felt demoralized, but heard that Carol Leifer was trying to flesh out a story about Kramer making extra money lending himself for police line-ups. I suggested she use my original police composite story in her script. I thought I might score big points as a team player when I didn't ask to get a story credit for my contribution. She thanked me, but no one else acknowledged me for the assist. (Years later, when Leifer starred in her own show for the WB called Alright Already, I was offered a fun guest part as an annoying cousin, who sues her for sexual harassment. I felt that was a fair payoff.)

I had exhausted all my Seinfeld-esque life experiences. I dumped out my journals and did everything short of going to a psychic to dig up experiences I might have blocked out. One of the young writers, hardly a year out of college, commented that unlike me, he had to make up stuff, because nothing bad ever happened to him. I was stunned. I had never met anyone like that before in my life — a person who claimed that nothing bad ever happened to him. But, I'd soon open my eyes and notice that there were other writers like that, too. And they all did very well. He and some of his colleagues were already on their third episode by that point.

So I tried to also make things up. Forget my life. That didn't seem to be working. When I did stand-up, sometimes I would do something called non-jokes, which were non-sequiturs that sounded like jokes, but just missed. For instance:

We were so poor growing up, we could only afford a blue car!

My girlfriend talks so much, she has pom poms on her phone!

She's so fat, when she goes to a nude beach she has to bring a bookmark!

And in writing these, I had discovered that sometimes by accident I'd actually write one that some friends considered a "real joke". So, I decided to write down nonsense ideas as fast as I could. I wrote faster than I could think. I hoped that maybe by accident here too a real premise might emerge. Here are some I knew well enough not to pitch:

JERRY INSULTS MANUTE BOL.

JERRY PUTS COINS IN HIS CLOSET AND THEY LEAK DOWNSTAIRS.

JERRY DATES A TRAFFIC REPORTER WHO LOVES BEING STUCK IN TRAFFIC.

AT THE PHARMACY THEY WANT TO KNOW HOW JERRY USED EVERY ONE OF HIS BAND-AIDS.

JERRY'S PARTNER IN A CANOE TRIP BY ACCIDENT FILLED THEIR CANTEENS WITH YOO HOO.

HE COMES UPON AN OLD DIARY AND CAN'T REMEMBER WHO A CERTAIN WOMAN IS.

HE FINDS A KARATE SCHOOL IS USING HIM AS AN EXAMPLE OF A TYPICAL BULLY.

JERRY GOES TO A KNICKS GAME AND AS A RESULT HE IS IN THE BACKGROUND OF A BASKETBALL CARD.

JERRY GETS A ROLODEX FILE DELIVERED AND THEY BY ACCIDENT NAILS IT TO THE WALL.

JERRY HAS A PACK OF INDEX CARDS THROWN AT HIM BECAUSE SOMEONE THOUGHT HE SAID HE WASN'T THAT ORGANIZED.

JERRY GETS A BULLETIN BOARD AND FINDS OUT IT'S BETTER TO STICK THINGS ONTO THE OTHER SIDE OF IT!

JERRY GOES OUT WITH A WOMAN THAT WANTS HIM TO HOLD HER BILLY CLUB.

JERRY CROSSES OUT A NAME IN TV GUIDE AND THEN THE GUY THAT WROTE THE SHOW IS MAD AT HIM.

JERRY FINDS OUT THAT HIS PLUMBER HAS BEEN SLEEPING IN HIS SINK.

JERRY HAS A CREDIT CARD THAT IS ONLY GOOD FOR BUYING WATER.

JERRY PRETENDS THAT HE IS ON A SEQUESTERED JURY TO AVOID SOMEONE.

HIS HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER COMES ACROSS AN OLD TEST OF JERRY'S AND REALIZES JERRY REALLY DIDN'T PASS THE TEST.

Three other writers were struggling like me. They may have gone to different desperate measures than writing up non-jokes, but we were all in a slump. So Larry assigned us old orphaned ideas from years past that never found their way into a script. I wrote up these stories along with the monkey story that they still liked. After Larry read the script, he said, "I'm not doing it. Well, no reason to start anything else up. Season's almost over." The other three writers had been told the same thing, including my panicked "mentor".

There were still six weeks to go, six more shows. Did he mean that there was no point in coming in? He didn't say that. He just said don't start anything else up. It was actually similar to an older Seinfeld episode where George was not sure if he did or didn't get hired for a job. We didn't talk much about our predicament. The others may have been in too much shock and denial to deal with the humiliation. Some of them were even working on premises for the next season, still hoping they would be asked back. But, I sensed all too well that I was gone.

I did want to get my last six checks and didn't want to do anything to aggravate anyone, so I came in. That seemed to be the right thing to do. For the most part, the four of us came in for just table reads, run-throughs, lunches and tape nights. Larry never asked why we were there. We just didn't say or do anything. I felt disconnected from the show before; now I felt like a ghost. We were the walking dead.

I'd come in at noon, eat lunch, and then go home. I tried to make the most of my time. I tried calling my new writing agent, Ari Emanuel, but he didn't return my calls. Apparently, he was done cultivating me.

I tried to work on other ideas for films, sketches and my own comedy video. I had an idea about how I could package myself and break through to much bigger success. Even though I wasn't doing stand-up comedy anymore, people who remembered me really seemed to like my thrill-seeker jokes. My "thrill-seeker" would do dangerous things like step into a pool right away, not ten minutes after eating a tuna fish sandwich, or eat an apple at a deli without washing it first.

I decided to make a video of myself doing lots of those jokes in the context of a song. Even though I can't sing, I fashioned it after Rodney Dangerfield's song, "Rappin Rodney", in which Rodney told a lot of his "no respect" jokes to the beat of a song.

George, an old New York friend who always seemed to prefer messing around making music in his room by himself than hanging out at comedy clubs, was going to write the background lyrics and music to the song. Rudy, another misfit comedian I'd hung out with from my early days of stand up, had the recording equipment.

The song was goofy and rather corny. I recorded lots of thrill-seeker jokes while the other guys did a great job putting the music down. Someone who was a fan of mine got the song to the Dr. Demento Show, a long-running radio show that features novelty songs. Then, as a favor, he called up and requested it. Some of my friends requested it too, and one week it became the #1 song!

I wrote another video, in which I played an inappropriate marriage counselor who had more problems than his clients. I counseled a couple who complained that they only had sex three times a month. I kicked them out exclaiming, "I wish I had sex three times a month!" I then asked another couple if they had anyone they could set me up with.

I showed the video to some contacts I knew at Comedy Central. Nothing happened but it felt good to express myself. I needed that.

I then started to sneak out onto some auditions again. I had called the producers from Murphy Brown and told them that I was available. It turned out that they had something for me. The FYI crew was down South covering a hurricane. I played an inept clerk at a motel who didn't have any essential items they needed.

I didn't tell Larry I was working, even though I'd miss a run-through and a tape night. I figured they didn't care at that point. It felt very satisfying to act again. The bit went well. I even enjoyed doing that little curtain call at the end. I realized I had missed it a lot. During the curtain call, I bumped into George Shapiro, Jerry's longtime manager and one of the executive producers of Seinfeld. He also managed Peter Bonerz, who directed that evening's Murphy Brown episode.

"Great job, Fred!" he said. He didn't say anything about my moonlighting.

A few days later, during lunch at Seinfeld, they were discussing possible cliffhangers for their last episode. It was rare to talk about the show all together at lunch like that. Larry was thinking of a cliffhanger in which George gets engaged. I mentioned that they were doing something similar on Murphy Brown.

"You seem to know a lot about Murphy Brown, Larry said, as he dumped his food into the wastebasket and headed back to his office.

I was busted. George Shapiro must have said something. But what did Larry expect of me? What was I to do those last exiled weeks on Seinfeld?

In the last episode of that season, they actually ended up using my monkey premise, when a monkey spits at Kramer. I got a shared story credit with Larry David. On the set, the monkey's trainer started pitching other story lines to me for his other animals. He said he had a chicken that could play the piano and a dog that could fish. I didn't have the heart to tell him that as superb as those ideas sounded, he was pitching to the wrong guy.

***

On the last day of my contract, I finished emptying my office and said good-bye to Larry and Jerry, who were in the editing room, trimming one of the last episodes. I thanked them for bringing me on and said that I hoped I had helped and not hurt the show. They said "no problem," but didn't say anything about my coming back. They didn't have to. I had mixed feelings a few weeks later when I got a call from the president of the production company, informing me that I wasn't returning. I felt pleased that he told me but a little sad that Jerry and Larry couldn't that last day. I realized that it must be hard for them to have to do that.

I was truly grateful for the experience. I had saved some money that would keep me off the road and away from the depressing comedy condos and the unruly crowds screaming, "Show us your dick!" In an attempt to settle down, I fixed up my apartment with nice drapes and a coffee table and got a cat I named Mitchell. I promised Mitchell that I would stay in town to take care of him.

Many people over the years have asked me why I didn't use my Seinfeld credit to get other writing jobs. My overall writing experience on Seinfeld had left me feeling confused, numb and not very confident. On the other hand, the first thing I had done in months that made me feel good was that guest star appearance on Murphy Brown. It made me want to devote myself to my acting career and be available for every audition. I also wanted to try to write premises for a show of my own, even though I wasn't quite sure how to make that all happen.

My Seinfeld experience had been great for my mother. She was quite sad when it was over. I dreaded the call telling her it was over. I fudged the truth a bit when I said that the job was never intended to extend forty weeks and that no one else was being brought back. She was a bit stunned, almost as if in a state of shock. It was one of the few times she was at a loss for words.

"Oh, really? Oh, okay I guess," was all she could say. I could tell she was very disappointed.

As it turned out, I got swept up in some guest spots rather quickly that next season. I felt I had to be on the right track, that I was close to that one job that sticks or that breakout film role that gets me to the next level. I didn't know it at the time, but my varied guest tour of many sitcoms was just beginning.

MAXIMUM GUEST STAR EXPOSURE

Six months later, I was about to drive my friend Joel to the airport after his four-day visit when the phone rang. The casting director of Seinfeld wanted to know if I could make it to the set right away for a table read. There was a part for me. I was a bit more than pleasantly surprised.

"Wow, um, sure. How long do I have to get there?"

"We're starting in about twenty minutes."

"I guess I can just about make it." I lived about 20 to 30 minutes away depending on traffic.

"I haven't shaved or anything you know. They know it's last minute?"

"Yes. Just get here as soon as you can."

I hung up and handed Joel thirty bucks for a cab to the airport. I then ran quickly to the bathroom to wet and comb back my hair the best I could on such short notice.

I'd later find out that when they were casting my part no one seemed to fit, and then Larry said, "Fred. Fred could play this."

So many thoughts raced through my head as I maneuvered my ‘88 Toyota Corolla through the winding hills of the Laurel Canyon Pass as fast as I could. Needless to say, I was thrilled. To be associated with Seinfeld as an actor was just as exciting as when they produced my episode. Everyone already knew that this series would be around for ages. There were hits, but Seinfeld was a phenomenon.

And I was glad to be thought of again by those guys. I honestly thought that when my contract was up, they'd forget I was ever there. I had no idea that they thought of me as a performer at all. Sometimes at table reads, Larry would ask various writers to read the roles of parts that hadn't been cast or of guest actors who couldn't make it that day. I was never considered for one of those when I worked there. Usually, those parts went to the writers higher up on the totem pole. There was no money for reading one of those roles. It was just an honor to get to perform at a Seinfeld table read. I don't know about them, but I at least wished I were assigned a table read part with the hope that Larry might give me a real part on the show.

I had no clue about what part I'd be reading at that table. A good comedic part on Seinfeld was as big a showcase as any one-shot deal around. Even if it were just one or two lines, I honestly didn't care. I was still eager to do it.

I made it to my spot at the table with a few minutes to spare. Jerry teased me about my facial hair.

"You didn't shave. Make sure you shave for the taping."

The director introduced the guest star cast. "And please welcome back to play the part of ‘Pete'— Fred Stoller!"

I got a hearty round of welcoming applause from the cast and crew, who remembered me from the season before. I felt I was getting a little dose of unexpected redemption.

The episode was called "The Secret Code" because George couldn't trust his fiancée enough to tell her his bank PIN code. Jerry's story involved his foot constantly falling asleep. He stomps it to wake it up and inadvertently causes a fire. Kramer's story line had him riding the rear of a fire truck. I was playing a sad sack who drives Elaine crazy. She was attracted to me because every time I bumped into her, I didn't remember her.

Perhaps it helped that I didn't have time to prepare my lines. I might have agonized too much over them. I basically did what I always do. I read the lines as me and hoped for the best.

My first line was in the diner, just passing Jerry and George. "Hey Jerry, hey George."

It wasn't a funny line, but Larry and some others cracked up. They must have realized at that moment that I definitely fit what they were looking for.

After the table read, Michael Richards, hearing me read for the first time, came over and said, "I like what you did. I do that too sometimes, where you hold back." He thought I was making a conscious choice to underplay it. I just nodded. He didn't need to know that I hadn't given it any thought at all.

In the next rewrite, Larry actually changed the character's name to Fred and even seemed to alter it more for my persona. My moping around the office the year before must have made an impression, because he wrote some great lines that fit me rather effortlessly.

For instance, when Jerry says on the episode that his foot fell asleep, I comment, "You're lucky, at least you got something to do."

And one of the times I bump into Elaine, I say, "I'm depressed. I bought this new shirt. The button fell off. Once the button falls off, that's it. I'll never fix it."

Julia Louis-Dreyfus was very nurturing. She kept reassuring me that I was doing well and gave me a few tips. She told me to pause for laughs, since we weren't doing it in front of an audience. There were too many complicated, outdoor scenes. They'd get the laughs by screening the entire episode for a live audience before the taping of their next episode.

"You don't want them laughing over one of your lines," she told me.

I took her advice. In the middle of this monologue, I took a long pause anticipating a big laugh. When it was screened in front of a live audience, there wasn't one, but hopefully it looked like I was taking a brilliant dramatic pause.

Julia couldn't quite put her finger on it, but I reminded her of someone. She asked Larry about me, "Who does he remind you of? Who's he like?"

"I don't know," he said, "the proverbial schmuck, I guess."

That was my only minor letdown of the week. I had hoped Larry saw me as more than that.

I couldn't tell at that point how big my part would be when it actually aired. Seinfeld was notorious for going as long as fifteen minutes over before it was edited to the allotted twenty-two minute format. When time needs to be cut, it's always the guest actor who gets snipped first. Experience told me that some or maybe most of my scenes were vulnerable. But regardless of the final cut, I knew I had just played the funniest role I had ever had on a sitcom up until that time, tailor made for my persona.

For the second time in six months, I thanked Jerry and Larry for the privilege of being part of their classic show. But this time, I was a lot more upbeat and hopeful that the work I had just done would really propel me to something amazing. I couldn't wait.

***

When Seinfeld aired, a few of my lines were trimmed but it still remained a fairly good-sized guest star part. For the first two weeks or so, I was recognized and complimented for the part more than any other I'd had. Suddenly, I had an influx of auditions. Casting directors would greet me by telling me how much they liked my spot.

The panhandler standing in front of my local 7-11 saw me and said, "Hey, you dated Elaine!" Contemporary actors I'd see at auditions and about in Hollywood of course had seen it. Two high school students waiting for the bus near Fairfax High School said, "Hey, you're funny." One of them pointed up to the illustrious Hollywood Hills and said to his friend, "He must live up there!"

I was tracked down by old campmates from Camp Sequoia and an old English teacher from Kingsborough Community College. My former teacher told me he made a motion to nominate me for the school's wall of fame. (A few months later he called to tell me I had been turned down. That's always my favorite, unsolicited rejection.)

I really felt I was headed in the right direction and toward my dreams. I felt I was on the verge of breaking through as a character actor in a very big way.

For a while, I even started getting some work without having to read for it. That had happened before but mostly from people I had worked for in the past.

The casting director of Wings saw me on Seinfeld and called my agent immediately, requesting me. They needed a masochist who was attending a masochists' convention. I don't know what it says that I was the obvious choice for one who craved uncomfortable beds, bad food and abusive bosses, but I was glad to be on board.

Steven Weber was a big Seinfeld fan. He recited to me the lines I had done just a few weeks before.

I enjoyed hanging out with this very friendly cast, although I had to be on my own for lunch. Sometimes, it's fun going to different commissaries, though. Wings was filmed on the Paramount tot, where they shot Star Trek. I enjoyed seeing all of the different characters made up in their alien attire.

One afternoon, I sat down at a table with my chicken burger and lemonade, feeling quite confident. I might have been eating alone as usual, but I was working. I had a purpose sitting there at that commissary. I felt a bond with my fellow diners, so I went over to make conversation with this woman who had the whole Star Trek alien thing going on, silver skull head covered with moon craters.

"So, you're on Star Trek. That seems like fun."

Okay, not the wittiest line, but I tried. She grunted dismissively as if to say, "Brilliant observation," and turned away from me. It's not like a woman had never done that to me before, but this had to be my all-time low: rejected by a Klingon.

Amy Yasbeck, who portrayed Crystal Bernard's sister, was very comforting. She reassured me that I'd soon meet a very good woman. Of my own species.

***

I was on a roll. Soon I got cast on Caroline in the City, a brand-new show filmed on the CBS Radford Lot, where Seinfeld and other Thursday night NBC shows filmed. Lea Thompson (Caroline) also welcomed me with the enthusiastic Seinfeld validation.

There was an exterior set on the lot made to look like a New York City street that had been designed at Seinfeld's request. Sometimes, on a Thursday night you could see that same block used on Seinfeld, Caroline in the City, and another show called The Single Guy.

I was standing in the alley of one of the exterior sets with a gun, playing an unlikely mugger who robs Caroline after she has a horrific date. A few Seinfeld writers happened to be passing by and saw me rehearsing my scene. One of them commented that it was going to look like the guy from Seinfeld who dated Elaine had snapped and now was mugging people in Manhattan. There might have been some truth to it.

After that, I got a small part in the film Dear God. Two of Garry Marshall's assistants told him that he should check out a great funny guest star actor from Seinfeld. This time I wasn't doing the mugging. I played a concerned passerby, who asked Greg Kinnear if he was okay after he was mugged. But it ended up getting cut.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD AFTER SEINFELD

Besides people treating me like I was a starting pitcher for the Yankees who quit to become a paperboy because I didn't parlay my Seinfeld writing credit to be a real person who owns a house, has a family, and a real career, and a little bitterness about not coming back again, or working with any of those guys in anything else, I'd say there was only one thing negative from my Seinfeld exposure and experience: I had to be in Manhattan. I had to fly myself there and put myself up hoping to be part of this movie that ended up falling through, or wasn't even a real movie, actually. It was just some people pretending they were producers to feel important to the idiots who fell for their rap, me being one of those fools.

It might have not been too much of a hassle if I had places to stay while back East. Hotels prices in the New York area are obscenely high. That was out of the question. My friend Joel in Brooklyn was married and lived in a little studio apartment with no room for me. Other friends had moved west. The options weren't good. At first, I tried staying with my parents in Brooklyn. Being back in the house where I grew up felt like no time had passed at all. Just like when I was a kid, my mother had notes plastered everywhere, reminding me what to do and when to do it. There was a note on the kitchen table telling me that there were apples in the refrigerator. She put up a Post-it note reminding me to lock the door if I went out. I found a note reminding me to shut the lights off when I left a room. In the refrigerator, there were notes on containers describing the foods inside, including "applesauce", still in the original store-labeled jar. That's because her notes went a bit farther. The note on the applesauce told me not only to "eat it" but when to eat it. She obviously felt that my just knowing it was applesauce wasn't quite enough information.

I'd take long train rides to Manhattan to see old friends and get away from that house. In Manhattan, I got another offer that at first seemed like my savior, but I'm still adding it up to see if it was in fact better than Brooklyn's house of pain.

To get out of my parents' house, I would have to endure one of the more humiliating experiences of my new Seinfeld fame: In exchange for housing, I found myself in a tour bus full of Seinfeld nuts touring sites the show had made famous. It was all Kramer's fault — the real Kramer, Kenny.

Kenny Kramer had heard I was in town. Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld, had lived down the hall from Kenny in New York City and had based the character played by Michael Richards on him. The real Kramer had the same lanky build as the fictional Kramer and the same sort of wild hair. I had only met him a few times, hanging out at The Improv, which is why I was surprised when he offered me the extra bedroom in his modern, air-conditioned apartment in mid-town. He lived in Manhattan Plaza, a government subsidized complex for people in the entertainment field. Like the TV character, Kenny Kramer was a crafty fellow, who never seemed to have a real job and was able to score this apartment despite having, as far as I knew, little connection to anything close to legitimate entertainment.

An admitted opportunist, he was not as innocent and goofy as the TV character, and I'd soon discover that he had a little bit of an agenda for me. By 1996, he had found a sly way to cash in on the enormous popularity of Seinfeld. For thirty-seven dollars, he and a sidekick would take sightseers on a two hour "Seinfeld Reality" bus tour. Even though the show was filmed in Los Angeles, Kramer would stop at sites in Manhattan where supposedly certain scenes had taken place. The tour ended at the Upper West Side diner, which had just been used as a stock exterior shot representing the famous "Monk's Diner", where Jerry and his friends spent so much time.

He told me right off that he wanted to exploit my writing and acting connection to Seinfeld. I wasn't sure what that meant, but figured it couldn't be as exhausting as staying with my parents. All I'd have to do was go on his tour once and answer a few questions on the bus. That seemed worth the free stay in Manhattan.

As soon as I arrived, he videotaped me telling all my stories of working with the Seinfeld characters. He milked as much information as he could from me.

In his apartment, a constant rotation of cronies came in and out, hoping to be part of whatever fringe success Kramer had promised them. A struggling actress and part-time clown showed me the photo from People magazine with her standing next to the great man. Sitting at his desk was this guy who worked for free as Kramer's publicity agent. Kramer chided him for not being professional in the way he answered the phone, reminding him about all the movies, TV spots and merchandising he could be part of if he stuck with the booming company.

"You should do it like Bobby. Listen how Bobby answers the phone."

Bobby was the sidekick on the "reality" tour, a bulky 50-year-old with a big, round face, always smiling, and a little too excited about everything. Being Kramer's bus sidekick was his biggest showbiz break. He helped run the operation, made some money and got the chance to entertain a captive audience.

On the tour the next day, I had to watch as Bobby, for over two hours, ran around the crowded bus, trying to keep the tourists excited screaming out famous lines from Seinfeld.

"Everyone, say it together, ‘No soup for you!'"

Then, he'd point to a bum and say, "Everyone, he is picking his nose. Or as Jerry would say, ‘The Pick! The Pick!'"

Bobby had a slight lisp, which caused him to spit on me, when he led the crowd in a hearty chant of, "Hell-oooo Newman!"

In spite of my distaste for the whole thing, Kramer prodded me to sit in on the tour again. For the second day in a row, I had to hear Bobby scream out all of the catch phrases at all of the same places. I'm sure the tourists were wondering why the Seinfeld special guest star was covering his ears.

I just shook my head, amazed that a show as brilliant as Seinfeld could be made seem so lame. In the gay-dominated Greenwich Village, I had to hear Bobby make everyone scream out, "Not that there's anything wrong with that!" Once wasn't embarrassing enough, so he'd scream it out again like some sort of deranged cheerleader, "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

Many of the bus riders had seen me on the show and seemed excited that I was on the tour. I was happy to tell them some of my stories before getting on the bus, but once the tour started, I just couldn't hide the pain I was in. I rode with my hands pressed hard against the side of my head to drown out Kramer and Bobby's shtick. I was also agitated because I had arranged to meet my parents and was running late. When the bus stopped at a bakery and Kramer bought everyone black and white cookies, just like the ones that were eaten on the show, I tried to escape. The tourists watched as I pleaded with Kramer to let me go, but he talked me into getting back on. Everyone stared at me as I slinked to the back of the bus. When the tour mercifully ended at Tom's (the real name of the fictional diner), my parents were waiting for me. I apologized for making them wait for over forty minutes, but they seemed to get a kick out of the fact that several tourists were eagerly snapping photos of them.

That week, Kramer also found a way of using me for a free meal. In the episode I wrote about Jerry taking the annoying comedian, Kenny Bania, for a free meal, I had named the restaurant Mendy's. As far as I knew, there was no place named Mendy's. I just made it up because I always thought Mendy was a funny name, sort of demented. The late NBA basketball referee, Mendy Rudolph, was the only person I had ever heard of with that name. When a writer handed his draft in to Jerry and Larry, names were always vulnerable to change. I called the annoying comedian Rory Feldman, but for reasons unknown to me, they changed it to Kenny Bania. And for some reason, they changed the name of the monkey that got into the altercation with Kramer from Mitchell to Barry. But low and behold, somehow Mendy's prevailed!

As it turned out, there happened to be a Kosher restaurant in Manhattan also called Mendy's. Mendy, the owner, also tried to cash in on the show's immense New York popularity. I saw in magazines and on billboards all over town, "Come to Mendy's from Seinfeld. Where soup is really a meal." He was being deceptive. Jerry and Bania didn't go to a kosher deli. How could he say that his restaurant was the one they used on Seinfeld? At least the soup Nazi place was based on a real guy and a real soup restaurant.

But Kenny Kramer, a master of manipulation, paid a visit to ‘Mendy from Seinfeld' to tell him that he knew the guy who wrote the episode that mentioned his restaurant. Mendy told him to bring me over, and we'd get a free meal. So now, one opportunist was taking advantage of another opportunist.

Add to that a third opportunist, me. I sat in that restaurant with Kramer and Mendy and lied about it being my favorite just so we could get that stupid free meal. What was I going to say? "You idiot, take your ads down. Do you really think Jerry was eating at your restaurant? Does it look anything like your place?!"

No, I couldn't ruin his plans. He had photos of the cast and wanted to have Seinfeld theme nights. If you dressed up as one of the characters, soup was free. And Kramer tried to think of ways to merge his shtick with Mendy's. Maybe his tour could make a stop there. Maybe he could host "Mendy's Soup Night".

All week, in addition to being a living attraction on the "Seinfeld Reality Tour" as part of the price I paid for freeloading, I also had to hear tons of Kramer's unsolicited advice. He was not shy about reminding me of all my social flaws, how wimpy I was, how I had to be more confident, and how I would never attract a woman, if I didn't completely overhaul my personality.

"Are you going to wear a shirt like that if you want a woman? Would you walk so droopy like that? You know, macho is not bullshit."

He took pleasure in preying on my vulnerability. I was not at my best, beginning to doubt that my investment of time away from LA was worth it. I was getting a strange feeling that this movie might not be the quirky breakout hit I thought it would be. Finally when the film fell apart, I was able to go back home. As I thanked him for letting me stay there, Kramer boasted again that he had helped me enormously for all his life lessons about being a man.

"You think I'm a pain, but you know I'm right. If you stayed here longer, I could help you even more."

I nodded my head in exhausted agreement.

ON THE LOT AGAIN

It's April, 2011 and I'm back on the Radford Lot in Studio City, but it's changed since my very first job as a deli clerk in 1990 in Singer & Sons, and since my Seinfeld chapter in the 1994-95 season. It's no longer a quaint intimate boutique lot anymore. Massive expansions had added two 6 level parking structures, and probably dozens of more sound stages and production offices. Like most visitors, I have to park in one of the adjacent twin parking lots. After my audition for Fran Drescher's new TV Land show, Happily Divorced, I literally spent 40 minutes looking for my car in the wrong parking lot.

But I booked the part. Fran Drescher was playing a part a lot of critics blasted as farfetched and silly, when it was in fact based on her own life. John Michael Higgins portrays her childhood sweetheart who all of a sudden comes out and breaks up their marriage confessing that he's actually gay.

I had a long confusing trek the first day finding the sound stage. Walking toward it, as if nothing had changed but the structure of the lot, I saw scores of actors looking for their production office for their audition with their studio map in one hand, while clutching their script and photo and resume in the other. I passed Stage 9, the old soundstage where Seinfeld was filmed. Outside was a plaque commemorating the great show Seinfeld that had been filmed there from 1990-1998.

It's tape night and I stand by the bar in the set that's made to look like a fancy restaurant. I'm playing an annoying waiter who makes Fran feel self-conscious at her first meal eating alone at a nice restaurant. The second assistant director, a thin man in his early sixties finds me, and is pleased I'm already on set and he doesn't have to find me. I look at him quizzically. "You look familiar. What have we worked on together?" I ask.

"Actually back in 1990 I was answering phones on Singer & Sons."

"Wow, that was my first job playing a jerky clerk, and now here I'm playing a waiter."

"Yup, you're still doing what you're doing," saying it like it was a good thing. And I think it might be.

THE END