Welcome to my every-so-often newsletter of recent Substack publishings and updates.

Here’s what I published on my Substack recently:

• 10 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings

• My Spec Script for AppleTV’s The Studio

• The Only Teacher Who Ever Hated Me

And now for updates!

Well, folks, I learned a lot about myself this year.

I learned I am not a blogger, I am not a vlogger, and I am not a podcaster.

I shut down my paid Substack. I want to thank all of you who pledged any amount of money to read my writings.

Perhaps it’s because I grew up in the days of MySpace, Blogspot and Wordpress, where we didn’t charge for Internet ramblings and we published whenever we felt like it and it was never a job. Those were the days.

There are definitely people on Substack who deserve to be paid for their publications, but I am not one of them.

Instead, I’ll be publishing mostly completed pieces every once in awhile, and keep you updated in a digest such as this.

That’s it for updates.

Oh, you want more updates?

Okay, here goes!

• I’m producing Chanel Ali’s Off Broadway debut Relative Stranger at Soho Playhouse and it opens this week! Learn more here.

• Come see me do standup at New York Comedy Club! Upcoming shows.

• Not in NYC? Subscribe to my YouTube or see clips on Instagram.

Thank you again for subscribing, and see you soon.

xoxo,

Sarah

A few months ago I wrote a spec script for The Studio called “The Script”. This was, of course, before I realized that if you want to write for a show, you shouldn’t write a spec script for that show.

But I’m still really proud of this. It’s the only spec script I’ve ever written and it was so much fun to put together. So I’m sharing it here for anyone waiting desperately for the next season like I am. Enjoy.

LOGLINE:

Continental Studios is producing The Luigi Mangione Story from an anonymously-penned script. But when Matt sees undeniable similarities between himself and the character of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, he must find out who wrote it.

Read it here.

IF THERE’S ONE THING a teacher’s pet cannot stand it’s when a teacher doesn’t like them. And my elementary school music teacher did not like me. At all.

His name was Mr. Joynes. Lawrence Joynes. Larry. And, like Larry on Three’s Company (who some would call the prototypical Larry) Mr. Joynes had shaggy black hair and a permanent 5 o’clock shadow. He wore baggy Dockers and Hawaiian shirts and boat shoes. But most importantly, he held the key to my dreams. For it was him, and him alone, who could confirm for me, the one thing I knew I was put on this Earth to do: sing.

I wanted to be a singer from as young as I can remember memories. I wanted to be Whitney Houston on Halloween and every other day of the year. And if you wanted to sing in my day, you had to be in the chorus: an elite group of 3rd through 6th graders tasked with the greatest task on Earth. Singing. And Mr. Joynes controlled the chorus. And I wanted to be in the chorus. Bad. But there was steep competition. 20 auditioning for 16 coveted spots. And I needed Mr. Joynes to give me one of those spots so I could begin my singing career. It was the only way. (Okay there was one other way, the spring musical, but Mr. Joynes controlled that, too. He was a powerful man.)

At this point in my life, I believed myself to be a naturally gifted singer. When I went to church and it was time to sing a hymn, my mom told me to just mouth the words but I assumed she meant because she didn’t want others to get jealous of my perfect singing voice. So I started lip syncing. That’s right, much like Whitney Houston, I learned how to sing (lip sync) in church. And I was a natural. At lip syncing. Which I thought was singing.

One summer, we went to an amusement park with my cousins and we did one of those music videos where you and your family pretend to play an instrument and form a band and sing a song. I pretended to play guitar and sing lead vocals for “Down on the Boardwalk”. The teenager working the booth remarked how great I was at singing. He meant lip syncing but I heard singing. During a talent show I lip synced “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” while prancing around in black jeans with bright flowers on it that I stole from Charmaine. I felt like the best singer in the world.

The night before my first chorus audition, I told my mom how excited I was.

“Shouldn’t you practice?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so?” I shrugged.

All I had to do was go into that music room, sing the “Star Spangled Banner” and let Mr. Joynes hear my beautiful voice (a voice I’d never actually tried to use before). And that’s just what I did. The next day, I went into that music room and sang as loud as I could – the louder the better, I figured. Let ‘em hear me! The more emotion I let out, the more I scrunch my face, and flail my arms, and fill the room – oh he’s asking me to stop. Okay, that was quick. I said thank you, and away I went thinking that went really well! I guess I didn’t need to finish the song, Mr. Joynes could see my talent from a mile away.

A few days later, Mr. Joynes came into our homeroom class with a nervous flourish and a yellow pad featuring the names of the 16 new chorus members. As he remarked that he was thankful to all who auditioned and it’s really a shame he couldn’t accept everyone, I squinted at the list to see if I could see my name, but the names were all in cursive and I couldn’t read them. But I was pretty sure I saw an S and a C – I was pretty sure I saw my name. When Mr. Joynes was done with his stupid preamble about how not making chorus didn’t mean there was anything wrong with you blah blah blah, it was time. Mr. Joynes proceeded to name each new chorus member, one by one. And instead of looking at him as he read the names, I bowed my head, laser focused on a deep scratch in the middle of my wooden desk. I didn’t want anyone to know how badly I wanted it. I didn’t want anyone to see the wave of shame I felt as I heard each name called out that wasn’t mine. Silently, I reassured myself, he’s gonna say my name next, he’s gonna say my name next, my name’s gonna be next, my name’s definitely gonna be next. But Mr. Joynes never said my name. Girls left and right squealed in excited delight as their names were called, over and over and over again, until – that was it. All the new chorus members had been announced. And I sat in veiled disbelief that I, Sarah Cooper, gifted singer (lip-syncer), had not made the chorus.

And that exact same scene played out every year for four years in a row. From 3rd grade to 6th grade, I auditioned for the chorus and never. Once. Made it. Every year I thought it would be my year and it. Never. Ever. Was. And I knew it had nothing to do with my voice. Because being a bad singer was obviously not something I was. I had a VHS tape of me singing “Down on the Boardwalk” perfectly to prove it. I loved singing. How could I be bad at something I love? That didn’t make any sense. No, the reason I never made chorus was clear: Mr. Joynes just didn’t like me.

How could Mr. Joynes not like me? Teachers LOVED me. Teachers could not not like me. I would always raise my hand. I knew they must love that! They could always count on me. I might not know the answer, but I would not stand idly by and watch the teacher ask a question and have no one respond. No way, not on my watch! I knew the success of every class was laid squarely on my shoulders and I accepted my responsibility with a grave sense of duty. I helped the teacher hand out milk cartons, I drew pictures of my teachers to be featured in the drawing newsletter, I cleaned the chalk board and the erasers – which I must admit I loved doing, the smell of chalk still gets me going. I was a board-certified teacher’s pet. All teachers loved me. Except Mr. Joynes. For some reason I was unable to cast a spell on Mr. Joynes. He was wholly, continually, painfully, unimpressed by me. Which obviously made me obsessed with him.

Mr. Joynes introduced me to The Beatles, I had never heard of them before. It was probably impossible for anyone growing up in the 60s to escape The Beatles but my immigrant parents certainly didn't introduce me to them, we only listened to reggae and Perry Como. Mr. Joynes was obsessed with The Beatles. He explained to us why people were convinced that Paul McCartney was actually dead. Trust me, to a 7-year-old kid who didn't even know who the hell Paul McCartney was, this was fascinating. He showed us the album cover where Paul isn't wearing shoes and explained to us that it was a British tradition to remove the shoes of the dead. He played some album backwards for us. We were supposed to hear some words about death and I think we all pretended to.

Once, Mr. Joynes played “Penny Lane” for the class and we were supposed to draw what we heard in the music. I sat there with my crayons and construction paper ready to impress Mr. Joynes. And when I listened to the song, I saw a bull pulling a cart.* So, I drew a bull pulling a cart. After the song was over, we each went up to the front of the class to share our drawing and then Mr. Joynes would put the drawing on the board. But when I shared my drawing, he said, rather disdainfully, “Penny Lane made you think of a bull?” And I said yeah. (I don’t know if the song actually made me see a bull pulling a cart or a bull pulling a cart was just on my mind because I was addicted to Oregon Trail.) He wasn’t pleased. He decided not to put my drawing up on the board, instead placing it on my head and balancing it there. I smiled, turning slowly, to make sure the drawing didn’t fall off my head as I walked back to my chair. I was smiling because I didn’t want the other kids to think Mr. Joynes didn’t like me. But I also convinced myself that this was just a funny little misunderstanding between me and Mr. Joynes, one we’d laugh about during chorus which I was sure to make next time. But when I kept not making chorus, it made me wonder… had he never forgiven me for thinking of a bull while listening to “Penny Lane”?

“Penny Lane,” I learn later, is a song whose lyrics are describing very visual images and Mr. Joynes was probably asking us to just draw exactly what we heard. Which explains why a lot of the drawings were firemen and poppies and blue suburban skies. But I didn’t realize there was a right and a wrong answer. Sorry Mr. Joynes, sorry for ruining your perfect plan to create a collage of images from your favorite song. Ironically, the song is also about the difficulty in assessing whether our childhood memories are real or fantasy, which makes these memories even more especially poignant, don’t you think?

Then again, maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it was in 4th grade when I missed my cue to enter stage left in the evening production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. That’s right, you heard me, I was in the evening production. There was a daytime production and an evening production and I was pretty sure the most talented cast was put in the evening, or so I told myself. Anyway I was very excited about my character: Pigpen. It was non-singing role. I mean, it was a singing role but they told me not to sing. But I did get to wear some fun jeans overalls and they put baby powder all over me so that when I entered the stage, I could pat myself down and create a perfect Pigpen cloud of dust. But my cue to walk on stage was when Larisa started singing. Yes, Larisa, the goddamn popular blonde girl who always made chorus. I was so jealous of her. She was so popular and so pretty and everyone loved her. She also dated the guy I had a crush on. Sam. Sam and I should have had a whirlwind romance, especially since he was Pigpen for the daytime production. But no, he liked Larisa.

Anyway, before she started singing, I was supposed to walk on stage and sit down center stage and I had a few lines, I think. But I wasn’t there. I was in the wing. I lost concentration because I saw Mr. Joynes panicking behind the stage. I had no idea this play was so important to him. He was like, freaking out and I was mesmerized. He was looking up at the ceiling, blinking fast and he looked like he was nervously praying? And then I realized I wasn’t supposed to see that, and also I’d missed my cue and they skipped over my lines and she was already singing. I locked eyes with Mr. Joynes and he shoo-ed me angrily onto stage. I was freaking out. I had to improvise. So, I walked on stage in the middle of her song, trying desperately hard not to let anyone notice, staring up at the ceiling pretending that everything was normal. But I didn’t get to create the dust cloud of baby powder because that would’ve probably been distracting. So, a known carcinogen just laid there on my body throughout the entire show. My first stage experience turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. Maybe that’s why Mr. Joynes hated me. I singlehandedly ruined the evening production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Or maybe it was what happened in the 5th grade… commonly referred to as “The Butt Slapping Incident of 1987,” “Butt Gate” or “The Slap Heard Round the Playground.”

I don’t know what was going through my brain. That’s not true. I do know. I secretly watched one of a friend’s brother’s porn VHS tapes and someone got their butt slapped and the guy said he liked it and in my feeble 5th grade mind, I thought: is this what Mr. Joynes wants? Is this what will make Mr. Joynes like me? Maybe he just wants his butt slapped?

And the next day on the playground, I came face to face, well, face to butt, with a golden opportunity.

I was running around the jungle gym with a few friends, and we suddenly found ourselves in front of where Mr. Joynes was standing at the edge of the grass, talking to a few other teachers. I turned away from my friends, and there it was, Mr. Joynes’ butt. It was a very flat butt. His khakis were really washed out, almost white. It did not quite match the butt I saw in the porn video but here it was, nonetheless. And I knew it was a sign, a sign that I should slap his butt. I took a deep breath. I put my right arm high above my head, and then I cracked my palm across Mr. Joynes’ flat, khacki’ed butt as hard as I could.

I made significant palm-to-butt contact. And it was done, I had slapped my music teacher on the ass in public and now I knew he’d like me. After I did it, though, I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe I thought he’d laugh. He’d see me as fun. I don’t know. He’d talk to me. I’d tell him how badly I wanted to sing. He would realize the talent he’d missed and put me on the chorus immediately. But that’s not what happened. What happened was, Mr. Joynes whipped around in a fury, bent down to my face, put a finger up to my nose and in the harshest of harsh tones, said, “If you do that one more time young lady, you’re going straight to the principal’s office.” Hot, right? I was shaking. I nodded. He turned back around. I was mortified. My friends saw it. The other teachers saw it. I just did an awful, horrible thing. I was in shock. I had an identity crisis. Sarah Cooper doesn’t get in trouble. And yet there I was, practically in trouble. Dangerously adjacent to trouble. Closer to trouble than I’d ever been.

Mr. Joynes and I avoided eye contact after that.

By the time 6th grade rolled around and Mr. Joynes was reading out the names of the new chorus members, I didn’t expect my name to be called. I decided to face the fact that I’d never be able to sing and changed my reason for being on earth to “actress.” I’m not an actress, I’m a failed singer.

The shame I felt around singing became a huge chip on my shoulder. Something I decidedly could not do despite priding myself on being good at everything. In Drama, I’d always have a part in the fall show, often a lead part, especially in the Shakespeare plays we did, I loved Shakespeare. But when it came to the spring musicals, I was nowhere. I was always in “the chorus”, which in high school wasn’t where I wanted to be. I wanted an actual singing part with solos and shit. But I never got those. Pippin. The Leader of the Pack. Bye Bye Birdie. Chorus. Chorus. Chorus. One of the girls who always got a lead singing role wrote me a note at the end of one of the spring productions. In it, she said what a great actress I was but how thankful she was that I couldn’t sing, or else she wouldn’t get to be on stage at all. That ho.

In my 20s I discovered karaoke and took it way too seriously and still do to this day.

I took singing lessons when I was 30 and did a little performance. And made my parents come watch me sing a song at age 30. It was Bonnie Rait, “I Can’t Make You Love Me”. I secretly dedicated it to Mr. Joynes.

Around age 34, I started taking guitar lessons with Dan Smith, the star of those flyers around New York that promised to teach you guitar, and I finally realized my entire problem with singing. I thought singing was singing. I didn’t realize half of singing is listening. And I was never listening. I couldn’t sing a note because I was trying to find the notes in my head, but I didn’t have to guess the notes, the notes are right there. Once I started playing guitar, I started listening and I started to get a little better at singing. If I can turn my brain off, I can sing, sometimes. Like even better than Whitney Houston. Okay, nowhere near Whitney Houston.

And for that, I blame Mr. Joynes. And my parents. And society. And perhaps an innate inability to stop trying so goddamn hard that I suck the joy out of everything but mostly I blame Mr. Joynes.

About 5 years ago I decided to look old Mr. Joynes up, see what he was up to, begin the painful process of forgiving him for ruining my singing career. Turns out he was alive and kicking and still in Maryland and also serving 40 years on child pornography charges. So, that was a shock.

And just in case you think I’m making this up in a some sick scheme to get back at the man who ruined my singing career, here’s a snippet from The Washington Post, August 28, 2015:

A former Montgomery County music teacher was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Friday for sexually abusing 14 young children at an elementary school. At the hearing, Lawrence W. Joynes spoke publicly about his actions for the first time and described himself as ashamed, frightened, and remorseful. “I’m so sorry I betrayed your faith and your trust in me,” said Joynes, a 27-year veteran of the public school system, addressing his former students in a statement. “I never, ever meant to harm any of you physically or emotionally. For any damage, any shame, any trauma that I’ve caused, I apologize from the depths of my soul.”

So many thoughts ran through my mind. I felt awful for those children. I wondered if he was he a pedophile when I slapped him on the ass, or if me slapping him on the ass turned him into a pedophile, or if he was he worried I knew he was a pedophile and I was going to secretly out him and that’s why he never let me on the chorus. All of a sudden I feel sad about the girls who always made chorus who I was so jealous of and I wondered if they were hurt by him. Part of me felt relieved like, maybe if I had been on the chorus, I would have been one of his victims. But mostly I kept thinking... Wow. My music teacher was a pedophile... and he still didn’t like me?

Maybe I really can’t sing.