Hollywood Jock: 365 Days, Four Screenplays, Three TV Pitches, Two Kids, and One Wife Who's Ready to Pull the Plug [Paperback]

Rob Ryder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 27, 2006

Rob Ryder made that pledge to his wife, and he was determined to stick to it. As technical consultant on blockbuster sports films, he had seen up close how the film business works and what kind of chaos can, and usually does, ensue. And now he was ready to take it on!

Hollywood Jock is the suspenseful, dramatic, outrageous, and honest true story of the year when Rob Ryder, screenwriter, laid it all on the line -- and kicked, scratched, wheeled, dealed, and fought like hell to hit the Tinseltown big time. It is a chronicle of schmoozing producers, shopping screenplays, corralling sports legends, and dodging irate actors -- a fascinating perspective on the highs, the very lows, and the behind-the-scenes madness that makes the world of Hollywood so endlessly compelling . . . and infamously brutal.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although the conceit for Ryder's sloppily entertaining book is to cover one year in his life—at the end of which he was determined to decide whether or not to just quit Hollywood and find a real job—there's no real drama awaiting readers at the end, as it's perfectly clear he'll never leave this life. Ryder's a semijock and gifted scrounger who's been making a living in the nexus of film, journalism and sport since the mid-1970s, experiencing everything from getting whacked with a baseball bat on the set of The Warriors to serving as technical consultant on sports films like White Men Can't Jump. The weekly "Hollywood Jock" columns he wrote for ESPN.com, detailing his daily hustle of pushing new projects and trying to keep the money rolling in, are the bulk of Ryder's book. While professional freelancers will likely be uplifted by Ryder's braggadocio and impressive ability to cadge a small paycheck out of seemingly every random wrinkle in his life, readers looking for the true inside dope on celebrity and athletes won't find much to gawk at. (July)
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Review

“Ryder’s got game...it’s In Living Color meets Get Shorty on the hardwood of the Staples Center!” (Will Staeger, Executive Producer of ESPN Original Entertainment and critically acclaimed author of PAINKILLER )

“[A] nice companion sports piece set in a La-La Land we all know and loathe. Uhh, love.” (Long Beach Press Telegram )

“[Ryder’s] unmitigated enthusiasm for both industries [pro sports and showbiz] proves contagious, making him an often sympathetic narrator.” (Kirkus Reviews )

“[A]n immensely talented writer. This book is an insider’s look at Hollywood--a world few people truly understand.” (Beau Bridges, Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor )

“So you want to be a screenwriter? Lunacy, heartbreak and more than a few laughs -- ­this book delivers.” (Ron Shelton, writer/director--Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump, Blue Chips and Cobb )

“This book is fantastic. It brings together the two things I love the most: movies and sports.” (John Cheng, Head, Feature Development, Rat Entertainment )

“This is a sharp, funny and brutally honest account of life as a Hollywood writer...A slam dunk!” (Bill Walton, NBA Legend )

“This one will stand out proudly amid the usual Hollywood tell-alls.” (Library Journal )

“Part Entourage, part Sporting News, part Daily Variety and part Family Circus. Somehow Rob Ryder gives you everything.” (Travis Rodgers, producer of the Jim Rome Show )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: It Books (June 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060791500
• ISBN-13: 978-0060791506
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,423,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wild, uneven ride into Hollywood weirdness, July 5, 2006

By 

Author Bill Peschel "Writers Gone Wild" (Hershey, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hollywood Jock: 365 Days, Four Screenplays, Three TV Pitches, Two Kids, and One Wife Who's Ready to Pull the Plug (Paperback)

If "Hollywood Jock" were a movie, the log line would run: "A sports-mad writer gets a shot at redemption when his wife gives him a year to sell a project to Hollywood."

This book collects the 34 "Hollywood Jock" columns written wrote for ESPN.com, and another 19 that continues the story of Rob Ryder, Hollywood Hustler. We follow him as he tries to sell anyone he can get ahold of on the merits of scripts such as "Zulu Wave," about a black surfer in apartheid-era South Africa, "94 Feet of Hell" that takes you inside a fictional college basketball game; and businesses such as a 4-on-4 summer pro basketball league. He's calls on agents for pro athletes who want to get into producing, directors he has worked with (such as Rob Shelton, who directed "Bull Durham" and "Tin Cup"), production companies, money managers, agents, anyone who knows anyone with two cents to rub together who might be able to get a movie launched.

When he's telling his war stories, Ryder is a genial companion, and you can sympathize with his struggles to get his projects off the ground.

But "Hollywood Jock" is also a mess, a shapeless diary that's as chaotic as the way Hollywood puts together movies. The "wife gives him a year to make good" conceit holds no drama or emotion -- and once he loses his paying gig at ESPN.com, the chapters move away from the look at Hollywood and pro sports and becomes a recitation of e-mails, meetings, appointments and cancellations, writing sessions and what Elmore Leonard would call stuff readers would skip over.

If you can handle that, "Hollywood Jock" is a good example of how Hollywood works and how it doesn't.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful book, May 7, 2007

By 

Granville Burgess - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hollywood Jock: 365 Days, Four Screenplays, Three TV Pitches, Two Kids, and One Wife Who's Ready to Pull the Plug (Paperback)

I LOVED THIS BOOK! All right, so the author went to Princeton, where he played on the basketball team. We won't hold that against him, especially since the team he played on almost beat #1UCLA in the NCAA's(lost by a point.) Perhaps that near victory prepared him for life as a Hollywood screenwriter, where he suffers the "plight of intermittent reinforcement": every once in a while he'll get a rat's pellet of reward, just enough to keep him "bashing his head into a cinder-block wall."

See the way I'm quoting the author? This is the kind of book where you underline all the time. (Mine is NOT a library copy, I own it.) Some samples:
' Comparing how men and women cross a dance floor differently when they're drunk. A man will "do these flanking motions, like a sailboat tacking upwind, stumbling left...then heading back right, like you improve your odds of finding your destination by covering more territory somehow..." A woman will cross "like she's on a mission, walking that straight line.. putting one foot in front of the other, steps short and quick, knowing as long as she keeps leaning forward and staying focused she's gonna finally get there."
' Or his example of "due diligence:" "When people are young, they sleep together before getting married to find out how good the sex is gonna be. Second time around, it's to find out how bad's the snoring. Due diligence."
' Quoting a teacher friend of his: "Moviemaking is the slow disintegration of a good idea."
' Quoting another friend's mother: "Closed mouths don't get fed."
' Quoting a doctor on why his friend developed a lump in his scrotum (non-malignant--this book is for laughs, not for downers): "Forget firefighters, forget steelworkers. Writing's the worst--high stress, constant rejection, alcoholism, drug abuse, heart disease, phlebitis, self-contempt, you name it, plus you sit around on your balls all day."

Part of the book is based on columns the author wrote for espn.com. That means he writes short, snappy chapters, which make it an easy read. He also puts in web addresses that will help writers and others with their work. And he's not afraid to personalize the book, be it his relationship with his wife (Where did he find such an angel?!), his sons, or his genuine feelings about our troops in Iraq (sadly, though the book chronicles the year 2005, the troops are still there.) But mainly it's funny. Who knew watching some other guy face constant rejection could be so entertaining?

Finally, Ryder actually had me hooked so much that I HAD TO KNOW what happened to the one screenplay he finally managed to sell. What's the exciting climax? I won't tell you, because you'll have such a great time finding out yourself. You'll also learn a whole lot about the in's and out's of the screen trade, viewed through the lens of a sports consultant, but, most enjoyably, as seen through the eyes of a sensitive, funny, compassionate writer who's been there, done that. If you're anything like me, once you've finished this book, you'll quickly give it to someone you care about so they can love it, too.

4.0 out of 5 stars The story plays like a movie..., August 17, 2010

By 

Joel B. Kirk (Bay Area, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hollywood Jock: 365 Days, Four Screenplays, Three TV Pitches, Two Kids, and One Wife Who's Ready to Pull the Plug (Paperback)

Some of the other reviews have already explained the plot of the book, so I'll give a (hopefully) short and snappy review:

This book by Rob Ryder plays like a movie, as he tries to make a living as a screenwriter...always coming up against obstacles (as his contacts are Hollywood big-wigs who fit the stereotype of living the fast life..i.e. parties, fast cars, expensive life-styles, etc...) Meanwhile, Ryder continues to make a living writing a column on [...] (bits of it which are still online to this day, which is basically this book in parts); and Ryder's wife is the individual mainly bringing home the bacon.

Anyone is who looking to get into the entertainment business (in any capacity) would possibly find this book interesting, as it seems like every man and woman is for his or herself, and one has to be very thick-skinned to succeed.

Moreover, it questions: Are you wanting to succeed in the business for the art, or for the expensive life-style? For Ryder, he comes off as an individual who doesn't mind being around those living the big life-style; of course, in that circle of individuals from sports or films, he comes across some who are corrupted--either in a big or small way--by the 'glitz and glamour' life.

I wouldn't mind an sequel to this book.