The Scoop:
David Mosley (The Martian Reporter skit*) couldn’t convince himself about what actually happened the day he met the reporter from Mars, so he wasn’t terribly surprised that none of his friends and coworkers believed him either. Eventually, he pawned the whole affair off on a particularly spicy lasagna and beer he’d had the night before and went about his life. While the significance of the incident and the revelation that followed seems to have been buried beneath the taunting he received for going on about little green men, David did find a passion for writing science fiction stories. Over the next few years he carefully, subconsciously, skirted around stories that touched on the topic of those many early sleepless nights, and he never, ever wrote about little green men.

Struggling with alcoholism and his obsession with his work, David wrote 2 novels, a screen play and a handful of mediocre short stories. Only the screenplay ever fell into the hands of anyone who cared to do something about it, though in truth, his first novel was the most compelling of the lot. It was also the one he would never let anyone see, for it delved too deeply into matters of the soul, issues he would allow himself to write, but never accept himself. He was after all, a fiction writer - it was safer. So, he set aside his book, A Dangerous Message, and turned his attention wholly to science fiction. The screen play, Seven Days in October, was purchased, slated for insertion in the popular New Twilight Zone, then due to reasons that were never adequately explained, was shelved a year later. The script resurfaced after the series had been canceled, and laid around just long enough to get noticed by the right people.

While the screen play never materialized, David was offered a staff position on a new science fiction series for cable called Strange Space, a tight-budgeted kitchen sink like show that was neither as inspired as the Twilight Zone, nor as clean, making up for questionable special effects by a liberal supply of scantily clad aliens and bucket loads of blood.

A recovering alcoholic, David nearly missed his big chance, but convinced Bob Bender, the producer of the show, that he was the right man for the job by working long hours, for next to nothing during the early episodes. After losing a second staff writer due to health problems at the beginning of the second season, and to keep costs down, Bob Bender replaced the other screenwriter his sister, Judy, who’d been riding on his coat tails for years doing editing and whatever else he threw her way. Judy took to the position like a bull rider, hanging on for dear life, and together, the team thrived, catapulting Strange Space into its sixth season strong, though they were both beginning to wear thin by that time, and the stories no longer came easy.

For more on David and Judy, check out the skit, Better Than Science Fiction, loosely based on Bob Snook’s, script, “The Easter Story is Better Than Science Fiction,” edited and performed by Bob Whitely with Kelley Page.

*The Martian Reporter, a skit performed in the early 21st Century by Haven and Bob Whitely, was based on a script by Bob Snook, edited by Bob Whitely.

Secret Lives was written by Bob Whitely ©2007 The Drama Guild