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Speaker 1: Creating a TV show. Getting to make a TV show

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Speaker 1: is very much like a far fetched dream, is what

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Speaker 1: it feels like, because how many people are trying to

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Speaker 1: do it versus how many people get to do it.

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Speaker 1: I think the last time I looked, like three percent

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Speaker 1: of book authors are Latino, which is crazy, like three percent.

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Speaker 2: From Fudro Media and PRX. It's Latino Usay, I'm Maria

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Speaker 2: Ino Josa. Today writer Shay Serrano and his journey from

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Speaker 2: school classrooms to TV sets. Say Serrano is a Mexican

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Speaker 2: American author born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. He

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Speaker 2: is the co writer of Miguel Wants to Fight, a

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Speaker 2: movie that was released last year.

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Speaker 3: Miguel, have you ever gotten into a fight? Yes, it

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Speaker 3: was me and that one dude. We're both aggressively hugging.

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Speaker 3: Does that count? Oh my god.

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Speaker 2: He's also the creator of the TV series Neon streaming

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Speaker 2: on Netflix.

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Speaker 1: We're Moving to Miami, I Love You, the biggest eight

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Speaker 1: thumb show in the world.

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Speaker 2: And he's also the author of Primo, a semi autobiographical

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Speaker 2: comedy that got a stunning one hundred percent rating on

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Speaker 2: Rotten Tomatoes.

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Speaker 4: How many uncles are that five? It feels like fifty

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Speaker 4: most of the time. Now, look still, guys, we don't

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Speaker 4: have all day.

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Speaker 2: But if you think that writing a TV series was

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Speaker 2: Shay's biggest dream, well you're going to be absolutely surprised.

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Speaker 2: Today Shay is going to take us from his first

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Speaker 2: job in construction to the unexpected encounters that, paired with

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Speaker 2: his talent, allowed him to create and run his own

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Speaker 2: TV shows. In his own words, here's Shay said Reno

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Speaker 2: on how he carved a space for himself in an

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Speaker 2: industry where Latino representation remains pretty scarce.

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Speaker 1: My name is Chay Serano, and I write about things

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Speaker 1: for a living. So far, I've written four New York

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Speaker 1: Times bestsellers, created a couple of TV shows, co wrote

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Speaker 1: a movie, and started an independent publishing company that I

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Speaker 1: now run out of San Antonio, Texas. So I worked

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Speaker 1: for this construction company called Ryland Homes, and this was

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Speaker 1: in Houston, Texas in the mid two thousands. It was

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Speaker 1: a first job that I got out of college because

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Speaker 1: my brother in law he asked if I wanted to

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Speaker 1: come work, and I thought, oh cool, Yeah, I want

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Speaker 1: to learn how to build houses.

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Speaker 3: And like that seems like a fun thing to do.

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Speaker 3: It was awful.

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Speaker 1: No, I did not get a ton of muscles from

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Speaker 1: doing that job. I just got bored and sunburnt. I

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Speaker 1: wasn't out there for twelve hours a day like those

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Speaker 1: guys are put in the brick or painting the houses

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Speaker 1: or land tile or whatever. I was doing like customer

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Speaker 1: service calls. So if something went wrong with a house,

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Speaker 1: they would send me out there.

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Speaker 3: I would go.

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Speaker 1: I would figure out what the issue was and then

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Speaker 1: try to get it fixed.

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Speaker 2: Shay soon realized it wasn't the kind of job you

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Speaker 2: wanted to get stuck with. So after two years.

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Speaker 1: I had intentions or dreams of being a middle school

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Speaker 1: teacher with a job I had wanted to do since

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, And so while I was working

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Speaker 1: at Ryland, I started taking night classes and weekend classes

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Speaker 1: to get an alternative certification to be a teacher, and

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Speaker 1: then eventually left to do that. It seemed like an

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Speaker 1: important job to have because when you're growing up you're

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Speaker 1: in a teacher's classroom. That's like the ultimate level of authority.

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Speaker 1: You get to go to work every single day and

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Speaker 1: you have the chance to make an impact, like a

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Speaker 1: direct impact on somebody's life. I applied at all of

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Speaker 1: these Title I schools, which are schools that serve the

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Speaker 1: like a poorer population is how they describe it. And

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Speaker 1: it was important to me to work at a school

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Speaker 1: that was predominant le people of color. Growing up in

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Speaker 1: San Antonio, that was all that I saw that I

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Speaker 1: got a job in South Houston as Scho was ninety

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Speaker 1: seven percent of Hispanic, started teaching there, started coaching all

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Speaker 1: of the sports.

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Speaker 3: It was great.

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Speaker 2: Both Shay and his wife, Laramie, were middle school teachers

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Speaker 2: early in their marriage, and that's when they found out

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Speaker 2: they were going to be having twins.

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Speaker 1: At four months into the pregnancy, who went into labor,

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Speaker 1: like one day at work, they rush her off to

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Speaker 1: the hospital, they do this emergency surgery, and then they

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Speaker 1: tell her, you can't work anymore. You got to like

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Speaker 1: lay down for the next four months because if you

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Speaker 1: get up, the babies could just come out. We were

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Speaker 1: a family of two living on two teacher salaries at

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Speaker 1: that time. We were probably making like maybe around forty

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Speaker 1: forty one thousand dollars a year each, so eighty two

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars total for two people were doing okay. And

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Speaker 1: then we went from that to now a family of

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Speaker 1: four soon to be on one teacher salary. And it

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Speaker 1: was very apparent, very quickly, that the money that I

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Speaker 1: was bringing in about eleven hundred bucks every two weeks,

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Speaker 1: was not enough to pay the money that needed to

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Speaker 1: be going out, Like our rent was sixteen hundred dollars,

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Speaker 1: and you know, you have student loans, and you have

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Speaker 1: electricity bill and groceries, and then all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: two babies as well, Like I fits me, my wife

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Speaker 1: lared me and the two twins, and everybody's got to

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Speaker 1: eat at least three times a day at minimum, that's

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Speaker 1: twelve meals I got to provide. And so I needed

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Speaker 1: another job. I started applying at Target and Poppadot and

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Speaker 1: Walmart and wherever I could, trying to get just like

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Speaker 1: a part time job. But nobody would hire me because

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Speaker 1: I was working a full time job, so I couldn't

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Speaker 1: work the hours they needed me to work. I just

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Speaker 1: started googling work from home jobs. A writer was one

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Speaker 1: of them the things that you need the internet and

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Speaker 1: the computer, and I said, well, I got both of

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Speaker 1: those things, so I'll try and do that. But I

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Speaker 1: was not trying to be like a full time writer.

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Speaker 1: When you grow up where I grew up. They're not like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you can go be a writer and you could like

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Speaker 1: write about sports and.

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Speaker 3: Music and people will pay you money.

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Speaker 1: All I was trying to do when I first started,

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Speaker 1: I need to make like four or five hundred bucks

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Speaker 1: a month. And then the sucky thing that ended up

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Speaker 1: happening is we make it through those months of like,

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Speaker 1: all right, Laramie's ready to go back to work, and

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Speaker 1: then we go to like look and see how much

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Speaker 1: is daycare going to cost? Because if Laramie's going to

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Speaker 1: be at work and I'm going to be at work,

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Speaker 1: who's going to take care of the twins? Full time

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Speaker 1: daycare for twins was like two thousand dollars a month.

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Speaker 1: That was the cheapest we could find. It was such

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Speaker 1: a weird position to be in because you know, you

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Speaker 1: grow up and you watch my mom worked at the

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Speaker 1: corner store for thirty plus years, right and my dad

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Speaker 1: drove a bus for the city for thirty plus years.

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Speaker 1: You watch them get up every morning at four in

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Speaker 1: the morning to be out there to drive the bus

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Speaker 1: or to be at the store when it opens. Every

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Speaker 1: single day of your whole entire childhood life. You just

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Speaker 1: watch them do it, watch them do it, watch them

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Speaker 1: do it without even really thinking about it, And then

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Speaker 1: you become an adult and you're in that position now,

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Speaker 1: and then you realize, oh man, they were really busy

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Speaker 1: in their butts to make sure that we had our

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Speaker 1: plates of food and to make sure that we had

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Speaker 1: a place to lay down and a.

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Speaker 3: Place where we felt safe and comfortable in love.

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Speaker 1: Like they were doing all of the hard parts without

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Speaker 1: talking about doing the hard parts, And so you end

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Speaker 1: up in that same position and you're like, all right, well,

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Speaker 1: I guess it's my turn.

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Speaker 2: For about seven years, Shay would keep his full time

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Speaker 2: job as a school teacher and coach while freelancing as

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Speaker 2: a writer at any publication that would give him a chance.

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Speaker 1: The first real publication that I got to write for

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Speaker 1: was this place called the Houston Press, which is an

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Speaker 1: all weekly in Houston. That was really where I learned

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Speaker 1: how to be a writer. I had an editor there

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Speaker 1: named Chris Gray. The editor in chief was this woman

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Speaker 1: named Margaret Downing, and they both decided they were going

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Speaker 1: to sit me down and teach me how to be

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Speaker 1: a writer. Here's how you report a story, Here's how

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Speaker 1: you interview somebody, Here's how you request public records for information.

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Speaker 1: They're teaching me all of this stuff for whatever reason.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea why they chose to do that.

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Speaker 1: Then I started writing for La Weekly or The Village Voice, MTV, ESPN,

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Speaker 1: Rolling Stone. You're trying to work your way up through

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Speaker 1: those ranks. And then eventually what ended up happening is

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and thirteen, somewhere around there, one day

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Speaker 1: I was on the computer. I went on Facebook. I

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Speaker 1: had a message from this woman named Molly Lambert, who

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Speaker 1: was a brilliant writer, a pop culture writer, and she

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Speaker 1: was at the time working at this place called Grantland,

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Speaker 1: which was the pop culture section of ESPN, created and

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Speaker 1: run by Bill Simmons, and he was running this website

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Speaker 1: that everybody wanted to write for. It was like writing

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Speaker 1: Utopia because they didn't care about web traffic and they

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Speaker 1: didn't care about reporting something as fast as possible. All

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Speaker 1: they wanted to do was make cool stuff and make

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Speaker 1: good stuff. I started pitching them stuff, and I remember

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Speaker 1: I wrote something for them. They published it, and then

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Speaker 1: when they posted a link on Twitter, I got a

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Speaker 1: hundred messages about it, more than I had evergotten about.

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Speaker 3: Anything that I'd written.

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Speaker 1: And eventually they were like, hey, we like the stuff

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Speaker 1: that you're doing for us, and you should come right

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Speaker 1: for us full time.

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Speaker 3: I was still teaching.

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Speaker 1: I didn't want to leave teaching, and I told them that,

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Speaker 1: So now I really enjoy teaching. This is like the

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Speaker 1: job I want to do for the rest of my life.

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Speaker 1: Maybe there's a part time sort of situation we can

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Speaker 1: work out. Then they were like, we see what you

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Speaker 1: have done if you're working on this part time. Let's

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Speaker 1: find out what it looks like if you're working on

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Speaker 1: it full time. And I talked with Laramie about it,

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Speaker 1: and I said, I think this is the thing I

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Speaker 1: want to try.

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Speaker 3: What do you think?

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Speaker 1: She sort of walked me through the pros and cons

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Speaker 1: of the situation, and eventually we decided on all right,

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Speaker 1: we'll try it for a year. All right, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to leave teaching. I'm going to go try to be

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Speaker 1: a writer full time. And then, like a jackass, I

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Speaker 1: signed this contract in July of twenty fifteen, and then

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Speaker 1: in October of twenty fifteen, three months later, ESPN shut

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Speaker 1: Grantlin down, and all of a sudden, I didn't have

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Speaker 1: a job. It took me a year to talk myself

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Speaker 1: into taking his job, and then I did it, and

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Speaker 1: then immediately it was taken away and welcome to journalism, baby.

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Speaker 2: But Shay had also been working on his first book,

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Speaker 2: which was published that same month, October of twenty fifteen.

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Speaker 2: The Rap yearbook would become a New York Times bestseller,

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Speaker 2: and it was turned into a documentary series for AMC.

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Speaker 1: I was very excited about all of that, but then

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Speaker 1: also I lost my full time writing job.

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Speaker 3: Then it was this weird glimbo.

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Speaker 1: It felt like, so me and my buddies started a

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Speaker 1: newsletter through Mailchimp that eventually became the next book that

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Speaker 1: we did together, basketball and other things. That book came

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Speaker 1: out in twenty seventeen, and that's when things really changed

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Speaker 1: in a way that felt almost tangible, because that book

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Speaker 1: came out and it made it to number one on

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Speaker 1: the best seller which is like a whole different thing,

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Speaker 1: and it's sold, I don't know, thirty three thousand copies

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Speaker 1: the first week. It was like a oh man, this

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Speaker 1: is a real I could just write books for the

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Speaker 1: rest of my life if I want to do that.

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Speaker 1: And then Bill Simmons is starting a new website. Everybody

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Speaker 1: it seems like everybody's talking about the Ringer, and I

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Speaker 1: was like, all right, all I got to do is

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Speaker 1: hold out until they start that and then maybe they'll

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Speaker 1: let me go work over there, which.

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Speaker 3: I eventually ended up doing, and that ended up being like.

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Speaker 1: Another very meaningful I worked there for six years and

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Speaker 1: I was like, man, this freaking rules, and I started

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Speaker 1: doing more books, creating a TV show, getting to make

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Speaker 1: a TV show. It's very much like a far fetched dream,

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Speaker 1: is what it feels like, because how many people are

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Speaker 1: trying to do it versus how many people get to

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Speaker 1: do it. The numbers are pretty abysmal. I think the

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Speaker 1: last time I looked like three percent of book authors

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Speaker 1: are Latino, which is crazy, like three percent, and so

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Speaker 1: that's in your head a little bit. But it's also

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Speaker 1: it's not easy for anybody to try to go do

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Speaker 1: so it wasn't like a thing I was fixated on.

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Speaker 1: This is going to be harder for me because I'm Mexican.

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Speaker 1: I didn't think about that part of it, probably just

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Speaker 1: because of because I was a naive, but I just thought,

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Speaker 1: I don't I want to try a thing. It probably

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Speaker 1: won't work, but I'll try it. And I didn't have

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Speaker 1: any experience in TV. I had never written the on

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Speaker 1: a show before, or had any sort of like meaningful

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Speaker 1: experience writing the script or anything like that. But again,

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Speaker 1: same as with the books, or same as with writing,

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Speaker 1: I've never written before, and then I'm going to try it.

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Speaker 1: I've never written a book before, and then I'm going

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Speaker 1: to try it. I said, all right, I think I'll

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Speaker 1: try and create a TV show that seems like a

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Speaker 1: fun thing to do. And again, this all sort of

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Speaker 1: ties back to the writing that I was doing before,

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Speaker 1: because I ended up taking a bunch of meetings. One

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Speaker 1: of the meetings that I took was with Mike Sure,

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Speaker 1: and like an idiot, I'll never forget this, I walked

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Speaker 1: into Mike's office.

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Speaker 3: I didn't know who he was. I just looked and

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Speaker 3: I saw him and it was it's Mo's from the office.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, this is great. I walk in and

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Speaker 1: I shake his hands. I'm like, oh, man, big fan

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Speaker 1: of gear, of your work on the office. I think

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Speaker 1: maybe he thought I was talking about the writing or

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Speaker 1: what I didn't even know he wrote on the show.

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Speaker 1: And I sat down and in his office he had

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Speaker 1: a framed picture of parks and rec and a framed

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Speaker 1: picture of Brooklyn ninety nine and a framed poster of

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Speaker 1: The Good Place, and like all of this stuff. And

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Speaker 1: in my office I have a framed poster of the

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Speaker 1: movie blood Sport and a framed poster of the movie Desperado,

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Speaker 1: and a framed poster of the movie blood In, Blood Out,

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Speaker 1: like my favorite sort of movies. And I thought, Oh,

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Speaker 1: he's got these posters like I do. Like he's a

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Speaker 1: big fan of these shows. Didn't even realize that he

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Speaker 1: had created or co created them. We talked for an

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Speaker 1: hour and as I was leaving, just very casually, oh,

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Speaker 1: we should you want to do that show? We should

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Speaker 1: do that show. I'll help you with that. And I

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, sure, that's sure. If you want to

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Speaker 1: do it, I'm down. And then when I let the

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Speaker 1: agents know who had set up all the meetings, I'm like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that guy Mike seemed cool and he said he wanted

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Speaker 1: to work on the thing together, and they'd lost their minds.

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Speaker 3: They're like, you don't know who this guy is. He's

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Speaker 3: the king of comedy showrunners.

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Speaker 1: It turned out he's the biggest guy doing it, and

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Speaker 1: we went and made a TV show together, which was great.

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Speaker 4: My dad left when I was little, so all my

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Speaker 4: uncles are always around and they're super protective of my

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Speaker 4: mom and me. What was that for, Like, mostly it's

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Speaker 4: like being inside of cart of these except that these

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Speaker 4: are always cussing and punching at each other.

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Speaker 1: Primo is a coming of age comedy in the tone

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Speaker 1: of Parks and rec or the Office. I worked on

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Speaker 1: it with Mike.

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Speaker 4: Sure.

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Speaker 1: It's a show that you watch and hopefully when you're done,

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Speaker 1: you feel a little bit better about the world and

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Speaker 1: your place in it. They might be arguing or fighting

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Speaker 1: amongst each other, but they're doing it in a way

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Speaker 1: that lets you know they all care about each other.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting because a family and the show is made

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Speaker 1: up of a mother and her five brothers. They don't

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Speaker 1: speak Spanish because it's loosely based on my life growing

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Speaker 1: up and in my family we don't speak Spanish. My

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Speaker 1: dad is like directly from Mexico, right and when he

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Speaker 1: got here back at that time, it was like a

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Speaker 1: bad thing if you spoke Spanish. They put you in

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Speaker 1: special classes in the school and it prevented you from

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Speaker 1: having certain opportunities. So him and my mom made a

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Speaker 1: decision when I was born, when my sisters were born.

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Speaker 1: We're not going to teach them Spanish. They're just only

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Speaker 1: going to speak English. That way they could fit in

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Speaker 1: and we don't got to worry about them being shoehorned

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Speaker 1: into the ESL class because they heard them say a

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Speaker 1: sentence in Spanish or whatever.

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Speaker 3: It just felt more natural.

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Speaker 1: Like if I would have gone in there and changed

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Speaker 1: things around and had it to where they were speaking Spanish,

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Speaker 1: to me, it would have felt been sincere. It would

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Speaker 1: not have felt as real. I would have been less

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Speaker 1: comfortable making the show trying to pretend that we were

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Speaker 1: one thing that we weren't, and that authenticity was more

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Speaker 1: important to me than trying to pretend otherwise. I've been

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Speaker 1: taking Spanish classes for a while, and eventually I'll get there.

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Speaker 3: I speak a little bit.

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Speaker 1: If you're going to say some stuff in Spanish, I

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Speaker 1: might be able to understand it, but I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to be able to say anything back to you.

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Speaker 3: At this moment.

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Speaker 1: I don't have like aspirations of trying to direct I

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Speaker 1: don't think I have. It's a little too intimidating of

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Speaker 1: a process right now to be in control of all

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Speaker 1: of that and have to make all those decisions I

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Speaker 1: like to write a thing and then let a director

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Speaker 1: direct the thing. Right, But I would like to write

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Speaker 1: another movie. I want to write a teacher movie, or

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Speaker 1: a heist movie, or an action movie. Or what would

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Speaker 1: be really cool is a thing that I've not done

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Speaker 1: yet that I would like to do. Is same as

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Speaker 1: what Mike did for me, where he was like, come on,

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Speaker 1: I'll teach you how to do this, or same as

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Speaker 1: what Bill did at grant Lander the Ring, come over here,

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Speaker 1: I'll teach you. I'll do this, or Chris and Margaret

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Speaker 1: at the Houston Press, like I would like to be

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Speaker 1: in that position to do that for another like a

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Speaker 1: writer who's coming up right, let me help, Let me

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Speaker 1: help you make a TV show. Let me show you

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Speaker 1: some of the things that they taught to me. I

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Speaker 1: think that would be a cool career accomplishment to just

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Speaker 1: look and be like, oh man, that show that everybody

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Speaker 1: loves that's on TV, or that movie that everybody saw,

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Speaker 1: it's on in the theaters, like the person who wrote it.

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Speaker 3: I got to help a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I would say, if I had to recap my career,

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Speaker 1: it's been a bunch of work and a bunch of

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Speaker 1: luck and a bunch of help all roll together. When

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Speaker 1: I look back, there are definite moments that I can

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Speaker 1: point to and go, oh, that's when a thing changed

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Speaker 1: right there. In every one of those situations, it was

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Speaker 1: a reaching down to pull me up, and not because

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Speaker 1: it was going to make their career any better. All

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Speaker 1: that was more work for each of those people. But

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Speaker 1: they did it because they wanted to do it, and

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Speaker 1: so I'm very thankful, and I just want to make

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Speaker 1: sure that when it's my turn to do that, that

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Speaker 1: I'm doing that any chance that I can. I gave

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Speaker 1: a talk at a career day and here in San Antonio,

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Speaker 1: and it was for like seventh and eighth graders, and

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Speaker 1: it was so nice to just be back in a

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Speaker 1: school and standing at the front of the classroom and

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Speaker 1: answering questions and making jokes.

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Speaker 3: And I do that maybe like once or.

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Speaker 1: Twice a year, and it always I fill that pool.

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Speaker 1: I fill it inside. All I wanted to do was

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Speaker 1: be a teacher. That's the only job I wanted to have.

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Speaker 1: I didn't have aspirations of being a full time writer.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to teach at a school for twenty five

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Speaker 1: thirty years and be part of the community. And feel

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Speaker 1: important in that way. At some point, I would like

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Speaker 1: to find myself back in a classroom and teaching middle

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Speaker 1: school kids and coaching a middle school football team and

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Speaker 1: a basketball team, and a soccer team and a track team,

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Speaker 1: just like I was doing before.

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Speaker 3: That would be awesome.

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Speaker 2: That was writer she Last month, News wrote that Primo,

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Speaker 2: the show Shay created, had been canceled after what he

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Speaker 2: called a short but beautiful run, but Shay continues to create.

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Speaker 2: In May, he released a new book under the title

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Speaker 2: A Real Human Being, dissecting nine essential Ryan Gosling movie roles.

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Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Fernando Nandez and edited by

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Speaker 2: Andre Lopez Crusado. It was mixed by steffrie Lebo and

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Speaker 2: Julia Caruso. The Latino USA team also includes Victoria Estrada,

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Speaker 2: Renaldo Leans, Junior, Lori, mar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent,

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Speaker 2: Nur Saudi, and Nancy Trujillo. Benille Ramirez is our co

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Speaker 2: executive producer. Our marketing manager is Louis Luna. Our theme

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Speaker 2: music was composed by Zanga Roubinos. I'm your host and

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Speaker 2: executive producer Mariaojsa joined us again on our next episode.

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Speaker 2: In the meantime, look for us on all of your

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Speaker 2: social media and as always, I'll see you on Instagram.

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Speaker 2: Astella pro Mainoa yas Joao.

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Speaker 1: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Ford Foundation,

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00:20:42,560 --> 00:20:46,560
Speaker 1: working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide,

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Speaker 1: and the John D.

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Speaker 3: And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Funding for Latino USA is

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Speaker 3: Coverage of a culture of health is made possible in

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Speaker 3: part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,

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Speaker 3: oh