Why I Gave Lots of Deodorant for Hanukkah

My mom has patently refused to let me write about her. She once made me sit down for a painful three-hour conversation about how I humiliated her by mentioning in print how I had to see her in a backless dress at her second wedding. The backless dress, I naively figured, had accomplished that already.

So I knew better than to pitch the studios a sitcom about my own family. I had tried selling anything else: an actor addict who decides to reside permanently in a rehab clinic; a musical about a married guy who writes pop songs with his ex-girlfriend; a dysfunctional family who comes together when they get a Nielsen box. They passed on them all, even the Nielsens, despite the fact that it would be the highest-rated show ever because every Nielsen family would watch it. The studios wanted something real. And because I had used my occupation in a failed show last season, I had to exploit my family. I sold it to ABC, figuring no one would ever see it there. Then came “Desperate Housewives.” Now I’m secretly hoping my show doesn’t make it on air, or that my parents develop severe forms of Alzheimer’s before autumn. They have no idea why I gave them so much aluminum-based deodorant for Hanukkah.

But I felt much better when I found out that Wesley Clark Jr. sold a drama to the WB that’s at least loosely based on his family. Especially because his family includes his dad, Wes Clark, the former Rhodes scholar and supreme allied commander of NATO who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. Embarrassing a social worker and a retired vending machine company owner is one thing, but making an ass out of a guy who has a shot at running the free world -- that takes guts.

I was smart enough to sell my show to people my parents will never meet. But Clark sold his to producers Lauren and Dick Donner, who worked on his father’s presidential campaign. The general was going to hear every “my dad made me do push-ups and clean the toilets with a toothbrush” joke.

Clark is in his early 30s like me, the age at which you get back at your parents in more subtle ways, such as screening their phone calls and turning them into TV characters. And Clark didn’t hold back the anger, going straight for the most painful part of his childhood.

According to Jack Leslie, the Donners’ president of production, the show is about when Wes Clark relocated the family from a swank life in D.C. to a trailer on a military base in a tiny town in order to further his career, thus ruining Wes Jr.’s social life. And, I’m guessing from the fact that he’s now a writer, causing him to get beat up by Army brat kids. Plus, the script strips away the real Gen. Clark’s real Silver Star experience (getting shot in Vietnam) and turns him into a guy who’s never been to war and faces tension with soldiers returning from Iraq. If the WB doesn’t shoot the show, Clark will undoubtedly write a Fox sitcom starring Don Knotts as an old guy who can’t debate and gets passed over for vice president by Ted McGinley.

I know it doesn’t seem right to turn people into your marionettes without their permission. And I don’t want to hurt my parents. At least I mean the part about the marionettes. But when something happens to you, it’s yours. Life isn’t some constant secret you’ve promised not to tell. I wouldn’t exploit the confidence of anyone I love for profit, at least small-screen profit.

But the right to express personal history is what allows us to understand ourselves. And doing so to a community is what allows us to normalize the experience. (I’ve totally mastered throwing my mom’s therapy-speak right back at her.)

All I’m saying is that if Wes Clark loves his son enough to let him endanger one of the most important careers in the free world, then my parents can take a few jokes about their inappropriate dating experiences.

Seriously though, my dad referred to one date as “big up top.” I’d rather we had relocated to a base in Liberia.