Notes on the first draft of “Here’s the Situation” by Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino

Hey Mike,

We read the first draft of Here’s the Situation and all of us here at Gotham are are really excited about this project. And we just want to congratulate you on doing such an awesome job on the draft. Really great stuff. We do have some notes for you, though. Nothing major — we do this for every writer on every first draft, so don’t sweat. We just need to work out some of the kinks to make the book as good as possible. Alright? Great. There were just a few small things we thought could be better.

–We talked to the legal department and unfortunately, you can’t promote the use of Flunitrazepam. It’s not a legal street drug and we just don’t want to run into any trouble in that area. Is there something else you can substitute for it? A dozen roses, or something to that effect? Here’s how one passage would read with the change, “When she wasn’t looking, I slipped a dozen roses into her drink. If she’s a fatty, you might have to use two or three dozen roses for it to work its magic. If you don’t got the hook up, you can usually find a guy selling a dozen roses behind the Custard Stand on the Boardwalk.” It just reads a little nicer. Tell me what you think, though. We should work together on this.

–For the record, just because you use a racial slur in Italian doesn’t mean it’s okay to do.

–The four page fold-out centerfold of your own artistic rendering of your penis we could probably lose. I’m just not sure how much it moves the book forward.

–Confused: what does “stinkholio” mean? In this context in particular, I’m having trouble with: “I dumped the garbage into her stinkholio, stirred it up real nice and made a LBI Stew.” Perhaps we could add a glossary of terms at the end?

–I talked to Nicole’s manager and she is definitely not okay with the chapter “Snooki’s Body: A Detailed Diagram of Where God Went Wrong.” Also, where did you get those pictures? She looks like she’s posing.

–Let me just be clear: none of the things you compared President Obama to are things that you can compare President Obama to without being convicted of treason.

–I think we can lose the whole murder mystery angle. It came out of nowhere. Also, Vinny was obviously the culprit.

–I don’t know if it’s true that you had sex with Kathy Griffin in an outhouse, but you probably shouldn’t include it in the book. I don’t even mean that from a legal standpoint or that it might get you into trouble — you should probably just not tell people that you had sex with Kathy Griffin. The less people who know that the better. Also, not that it matters if you’re going to take the story out of the book, but you say, “And at the end, I literally donkey punched her.” Unless you coerced a live donkey into punching Kathy Griffin in an outhouse, you don’t need the word “literally.” Just a heads-up.

–The Sopranos is not based on true events. You should probably take out all references referring to it as such. I did a Find and Replace search on Word and the phrase “FREE PAULIE WALNUTS” appears 237 times throughout the manuscript.

–I don’t know. I thought I would address this last because I know you’re going to be upset, but maybe you don’t have to shoehorn the word “situation” into every single fucking paragraph. I know it’s your thing, but Jesus. We get it already. The nickname you made up for yourself and are forcing people to call you is “The Situation.” Everyone is well-versed in that already. When you call a lot of attention to it, it just seems really lame. I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel. I mean, just take this sentence, for instance: “We got to her place and she had to go use her bathroom. So I figured I would get situationized and relax.” The word you are looking for is “situated.” They have the same root word. It’s just so — you know what? Nevermind. Forget I said anything. You’re the fucking writer here. What the fuck do I know? I’ve just been doing this for twenty-seven fucking years.

The book’s great, Mike. Don’t change a thing. Forget I said anything.

George Macknair
Editor, Gotham Publishing