The wolfPAC Network* {7}

Episode 7: "Write-Out"

If there was one mantra when it came to producing sports series with Jim Jorden, it might have been that Writing is an Indispensable Afterthought.

On the one hand, writing will single-handedly determine the success or failure of virtually any given show.

On the other hand, rarely was any amount of time longer than an overnight shift or two or three hours immediately prior to the scheduled narration session budgeted into the show for writing. It was reduced to something that was done only after all of the editing had been completed and the show had already been cut to time.

That left literally no wiggle room for writing. It meant I could might only be able to re-edit a shot just so much — sliding it maybe ten frames at the head, or maybe at the tail. (NOTE: 24 frames = 1 second.) And even then, I had to do this without changing the overall run time of the sequence or show.

Usually the VoiceOver session would double as my first and only chance to proof-read my first draft.

Considering that I’d earned Emmy Award nominations for both Writing and Editing; and compounded with the fact that I was a perfectionists who pulled double-duty as my own worst critic, the overall process might best be described as nightmarish.

But that was petty much par for the course, considering that the most days during my time out on the Left Coast had been fairly nightmarish.

I remember arriving back at the Oakland Marriott a little after 9:30am.

We went straight to Jim Jorden’s hotel room and knocked.

We were supposed to be the meeting with the PAC-12 Network in just a little over an hour from the time I knocked on Jorden’s hotel room door.

And we still hadn’t written the script yet.

I think Jim had been wearing shorts and a plain tee-shirt when he opened the door.

As I walked in, he was on speakerphone. I immediately recognized the voice on the other end. I believed it belonged to none other than Rory Karpf.

That wasn’t good.

Or at the very least, it wasn’t good for me.

And I say that because it felt like anytime I was ever involved with anything that might’ve involved Rory, the results had a tendency to turn out poorly.

What I very much remember was that he was on speakerphone with Rory Karpf.

It sounded like they were wrapping up their conversation. I recall Rory reassuring Jim that hopefully they'll be able to work together soon on some project — perhaps some project specifically of Rory’s choosing. It struck me how their relationship had seemed to have changed. To paraphrase Star Wars: it was as though when I left them, Rory was but the minion. But now the minion was the master.

I’ve always wonder whether sociopaths are even capable of seeing themselves as subordinates. They are, after all, primarily defined as almost entirely egocentric.

I’ve wondered how it is that sociopaths don’t recognize other sociopaths as threats. Instead, it seems too me that they often seek out one another and “travel in packs.”

The best I can come up with is this:

Sociopaths seem to essentially be social mimics. They mimic the behaviors of those whom they are interacting with.

If you place an individual “sociopath” into a group of individuals who demonstrate normative behaviour, then you should expect for the “sociopath” to mostly mimic the normative behaviour of that group. However, if you place a sociopath into a group of like-minded individuals who are prone to antisocial behaviour, then you should expect for the sociopath to not only mimic the antisocial behaviour and that group, you will should also expect to see each of the individual sociopaths develop a sense of codependency with the other members of the group, which you should expect to resulting in not only the normalization of sociopathic behaviors, but a group facilitation which will result in increasing sociopathy.

Thus, if a sociopath’s social circle is made up other sociopaths, then it would be reasonable to expect to see each of the individual members begin to mimic one-another’s sociopathic behaviors. This, then, would feed into a cycle of continuously increasing degrees of antisocial behavior.

In the relatively short time I was with the PACk-12 Network, I believe I watched firsthand as Jim Jorden’s behavior degraded. I believe this behavior grew worse as he continued to reconnect and rebuild his inner circle.

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An open MacBook Pro sat on Jim’s desk. The final sequence had been pulled up and had appeared to have been cut to time.

I remember that next to the MacBook were several piece of stationary which I believe had the Marriott  logo printed at the top.

They looked to be script notes. Because they were borderline illegible, I’d assumed they’d been written by Jim. His Dad had been a doctor, and I remembered having joked with him that he should never have learned handwriting from a doctor.

On this morning, though, Jim seemed anything but jovial.

I believe the first thing he did was reiterate that he was scheduled (note that it was no longer we were scheduled) to meet with the PAC-12 Network in an hour to watch the show; and

I remember that Jorden had suggested he was ready to give up. I think he then said something along the lines of there being no point in even bothering to start writing the script.

I remember recommending that maybe he should jump in the shower and get ready. And while he was doing that, I’d take a crack at the script. “Look, why don’t you start getting ready?” I remember telling him as I drew my oversize MacBook Pro out of my oversize book bag and powered it up. “I got this.”

I saw Jim shaking his head and I heard him muttering as he disappeared into the bathroom. Moments later I remember hearing the shower turn on.

I remember taking stock. I had in front of me a 22:30 sequence which I hadn’t watched containing footage I’d never seen, along with a couple pages of hotel stationary on which were written barely readable notes.

Hell, I was in pretty good shape, compared to some of the shows I’d written. I mean, at least at notes. And notes meant that at least Jim had an idea of what he wanted the show to say.

So, I went to work.

It didn’t matter that I battled daily with a traumatic brain injury, post-concussion syndrome, PTSD, and fibromyalgia. It didn’t matter that I had short-term memory problems. It didn’t matter that in a few weeks I probably wouldn’t be able to recall most of what I’d written. (Not that it effected the quality. I'd won a number of Emmy Awards for writing and producing shows which I couldn’t quite remember having written or produced.)

All that mattered in that moment was managing to focus past those disabilities long enough to channel a pretty unique talent which I miss very much.

I wrote while watching the show at x2 speed.

Less than twenty minutes later, Jim emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist.

I’d just finished the last line of the show.

Somehow, I’d just written an entire show in realtime.

At that moment, I doubted there was another sports-television writer in the English-speaking world who could’ve pulled that off.

It might’ve been my finest hour… And it only took me twenty minutes.

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I it was either that day or the next when freshman quarterback Jared Goff, whose family lived in the Bay Area, extended an invitation to Sunday Dinner.

Jared was a great kid. He always seemed to have a good sense of humor and a good-natured disposition. He seemed like the typical 18-year-old off the field. But on the field, he carried himself like a leader who played beyond his years.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Jered’s experience with the Los Angeles Rams and my experience with the PAC-12 Network was a lot more similar than dissimilar. During the NFL playoffs in 2024, I noticed that same haunted look when he was asked to remember his past and the toll that took on him.

I believe it was later that morning when I was asked by Cal if I would replace Jim Jorden as the Golden Bears’ direct contact for the show.

I think I told them that I’d have to first have talk it over with Jim and he’d have to decide whether or not he agreed that it was in the best interests for the show.

When I saw Jim later that afternoon, I passed along Cal’s request. I remember that Jim answered with an enthusiastic “Sure!”

And that was about the time when things went to hell.

But when it comes to sociopathic and narcissistic behavior, it can feel like there’s never a break from the gaslighting; there’s never an end to the manipulations.

Even if I’ve said this before, it still bares repeating: most people who’ve never been the victim of a narcissist have a hard time understanding what a “narcissistic rage” even is, or what triggers this behavior, or how targets are selected.

Perhaps it’s not enough to simply narrow their focus on one person and target them as their prey. Perhaps they’re driven to widen their web to include as many other targets as possible with whom they’re all acquainted. And to this end, perhaps the goal is to destroy the prey utterly.

Perhaps individuals exhibiting behaviors consistent with Cluster-B Personality Disorders may be, unlike popular culture stereotypes, rather brilliant at directing and understanding human behavior. After all, such an ability would allow them to better steer their prey to where they want it to go.

And perhaps, just as the suspected sociopathic behavioral strategy of “love bombing” appears to be carefully choreographed, so, too, may be the subsequent campaign of vitriolic hate which so often follows.

They’re both the same picture.

But sometimes, it may seem that when a suspected narcissistic sociopath is unable to utilize crucial strategies such as love-bombing potential prey with other people’s money, they not only tend to be perceived with a noticeably off-putting vibe.

But should that mask of sanity subsequently slip, allowing another to see the suspected sociopath for what it truly is, it seems all but certain that the suspected sociopath tends to turn quite quickly toward tantrums targeting whomever has seen their true face.

After that, the target of a sociopath’s prey could spend the rest of their life trying in vain to convince people who they once called “friend” that they’re not “crazy” or that they haven’t done those things that the sociopath swears they saw them do.

Anyone targeted by a suspected sociopath could eat up years with self-loathing and wondering what he or she did wrong — never realizing that the trigger for all this rage may simply be that the target might’ve momentarily seen their mask slip.

Again: I cannot overemphasize that the decision to work again for Jim Jorden was a decision made as a family and was a foolhardy decision born of desperation.

One thing our family learned was that if you don’t have a support system in your world such as family, you’re f*cked. Unfortunately, my Wife and I were essentially a pair of orphans trying to do the impossible by finding our own way through the Wendigo Forest. But for anyone with a family who has their back, I believe that our Map of Life would’ve led us on a path with more Light.

There’s another behavior which I’ve noticed may be associated with sociopathic/narcissistic personalities. They appear to feel a thrill when they’re able to control what might be called the ‘narrative of reality’. And, by extension, they also seem to thrill in controlling how other people perceive their chosen prey. And in order to achieve this pseudo-euphoria, it seems like Gaslighting is one of a primary go-to. In the world of sociopathic behaviors, it almost seems as though the perpetrator needs their prey to be seen by the rest of the world as not only evil, but crazy as well. After all, crazy people can’t be believed. And thus, the lie becomes the truth and the victim becomes the pariah. In this respect, targeting one person can be spun into a spiderweb where more and more victims can be ensnared.

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After his meeting with Michael Tolajian and the PAC-12 Network on Monday, Jim Jorden announced that it was time to post our first show on Tuesday.

Now, I used to import footage into by MacBook Pro Laptop, edit picture, edit sound, import music, mix music, mix sound, and write all my own features for NASCAR Raceday.  Features were usually around 3-4 minutes in length. It only took a couple minutes to output the features in 1920x1080 HD resolution and 16 bit AAF. If I happened to be producing a 22:30 (half-hour) show or 42-minute (one-hour) show, it usually took under 10-minutes for a half-hour show and around 20-30 minutes to output an hour-long show.

I remember that despite setting up camp up at Cal to take advantage of their state-of-the-art facilities, it would nonetheless last well into the night.

While Jim was still struggling in one office, I was in another room with the Cal crew.

As evening settled in, Jim suddenly said it was time for he and I to go.

We drove back from the Cal football facilities to the El Cerrito house.

This told me we were on a tight schedule so I needed to pack quickly. He told me to pack only what I needed to be away for just a few days. He instructed me to leave the rest of my stuff — clothes, medication, computer, etc. I wouldn’t need any of it.

I grabbed my laptop all the same and packed what I thought I’d need in my book bag. I included three days of meds — just to be safe.

Then we hopped back in the car, hopped back on the freeway, and headed off in the direction of the Oakland Marriott.

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We passed Exit 21A for the Oakland Marriott.

We weren’t going to the Marriott.

That’s when I remember Jim revealing my surprise birthday present:

He’d apparently already been planning to fly back to Charlotte on Tuesday night to take care of some business which I think he’d said he needed to deal with in person. So, he’d explained, he’d cashed in some of his frequent flyer miles in exchange for a second ticket — which was apparently for myself. This way, I remember he’d told me, I could enjoy spending my birthday with my family.

“If this is a one-way ticket,” I remember saying, “I’d rather know now.”

Yes, absolutely this was an oddly ungrateful way to say “Thank You.”

But there was cause for me to suspect there was some serious f*ckery afoot.

So f*ck any “Thank You" right at the immediate moment, I remember thinking.

I remember how empathetic he was that we’d fly back out on Thursday.

And wasn’t Jim Jorden’s word as good as gold?

And so off we went toward the San Francisco International Airport.

Along the way, I remember Jim had started telling me how a young woman had started stalking his wife.

I assumed he was probably telling me because I knew her.

She’d worked at NASCAR under Jim Jorden. Jim was believed to have maintained a years-long extramarital relationship with her.

I recall that Jim was now alleging that she’d been leaving threatening and vulgar letters in the mailbox at the Jorden home back in Charlotte.

I listened as Jim said with mustered sincerity how sad it was that the young lady simply refused to let him go, accept what happened, and move on with her life.

That’s funny, I remembered thinking. I could’ve sworn that both our Daughter and I had seen the young lady — and her new beau — in May of 2012 at the All-American Rejects concert. I’d heard that several months later they’d married.

That had been our Daughter’s favorite band and first concert, so I’d gone all-in. I bought VIP seating with backstage passes. Afterwards she’d got to meet the band and her teenage crush: lead singer Tyson Ritter. Ritter had been amazing toward our Daughter. He and the band talked to her in a way that was totally cool and friendly while at the same time not weird at all. Afterwards, they all signed the cover of a vinyl LP. Ritter had written, “…Thanks for making us your first concert! It’s an honor!”

That had been a good week. Just a fews before the concert, I’d been honored with the Paul Robeson Award for advancing the mission of diversity in sport. I remember how surreal it was to attend a dinner where I was the guest honor.

And of course our Daughter was with me. She was my best buddy.

We were basically just kids ourselves when she was born. She went through college with us. Sometimes I had to bring her to class with me or even to the football office. When she was a wee toddler, she used to call me “Big Brother.” She literally thought that I was her older brother and not her dad. It made sense. Just about all we did was have fun together. She was the glue.

I think we must’ve waited around at the San Francisco International Airport for at least a couple of hours.

And in all that time, I remember thinking how odd it was that Jim Jorden checked us both in at the counter instead of going through self check-in. And I remember how it seemed strange that he would hold onto both tickets. I believe he’d waited until just before boarding to hand me me my ticket.

I’d already figured what it was that he presumably didn’t want me to see.

He handed my boarding pass to the U.S. Air ticket taker (who, by the way, looked nothing like Tom Hanks) Only then did Jorden hand it to me.

“Mother Frickin' Fricker,” I cursed under my breath.

It was a one-way ticket.