True-Story Adaptation✦WGA West Registered✦U.S. Copyright Filed✦In Development✦Est. 2026✦Bobacat Productions✦True-Story Adaptation✦WGA West Registered✦U.S. Copyright Filed✦In Development✦Est. 2026✦Bobacat Productions✦

● An Independent Story Studio

One wild life. A whole universe of stories.

Money. Sex. Brands. Betrayals. Spectacular disasters.

Thirty years of outrageous true-life material. One man who helped build other people’s empires while spectacularly screwing up his own life.

And the story isn’t finished.

Explore the project

Est. 2026

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On the Slate · In Development

MILLENNIAL MISERY STORIES

Returning Scripted Television Series + Novel

The Premise

Some people build empires. I helped build theirs.

I grew up poor in wealthy Southern California.

My single mother raised my sister and me in Carlsbad, surrounded by enormous houses, expensive cars, and people who seemed to have everything.

I wanted their money, their connections, and their acceptance. I was also gay, and spent years running from that part of myself.

So I learned to perform.

I lied about family wealth, invented successful versions of myself, and became exceptionally good at reading people and convincing them I belonged.

Turns out, that made me one hell of a salesman.

By my twenties, I was building real businesses, driving a different car practically every year, chasing attractive guys, accumulating debt, and making outrageous decisions.

I was brilliant at making deals. I was equally brilliant at destroying my own life.

Mortgage fortunes. Avocado oil. Celebrity vitamins. Cannabis cookies. Luxury cars. Bankruptcy. Sex. Drugs. Corporate madness.

The biggest problem in my life? Frequently, it was me.

Today I’m opioid-free since 2020, living in Grand Rapids with my orange cat Boba, building Bobacat Productions, and learning to use my abilities without lying, exploiting people, or pretending to be someone else.

I’m still ambitious. I still love a good deal.

But now I want to build something meaningful, help my family, and make people feel better about themselves instead of using them to feel better about myself.

And because I’m still living it, the story keeps evolving.

● Concept ●

The people I wanted to be like

Fat Alex and the mortgage boom

One gay hookup. A mortgage empire. A $500,000 nightmare.I met the man I called Fat Alex through a gay dating website. We talked business, and suddenly I was working at Lending Gateway during Southern California’s mortgage boom. Alex could sell practically anything. In my recollection, his past included an Orange County luxury-car theft operation and an assumed identity. Later came a weight-loss venture built around a transformation story that I believed concealed the role of surgery. Expensive cars, trips, parties, elaborate business schemes, and promises of millions. I wanted in so badly that I put company expenses on my personal American Express account. I also made terrible decisions, including a retaliatory hookup with Alex’s boyfriend after our relationship collapsed. When the mortgage market crashed in 2008, my disputed American Express exposure reached roughly $500,000. I filed for bankruptcy. Alex wasn’t the only person selling a fantasy. I was selling myself one, too.

George Todd and Chosen Foods

Avocado oil, family drama, and a Grindr hookup under my desk.George Todd hired me when Chosen Foods was still a small operation. I remember being around the tenth employee, sourcing ingredients, negotiating supplier relationships, and helping expand the avocado-oil business. George was one of the hardest-working founders I ever met. But the family-business atmosphere could be complicated. I remember remarks about being gay that made me feel like an outsider. I wanted more than a paycheck. I wanted a seat at the family table. Meanwhile, I wasn’t exactly a model employee. One night, I invited a Grindr hookup into the office after hours. He ended up beneath my desk. Yes, really. I eventually quit. In 2017, Sesajal acquired a majority stake in the business. The brand kept growing. I kept wondering what might have happened if I’d stayed.

HelpingBags.com

Even my charitable ambitions came with a desire for fame.While working at Chosen Foods, I started HelpingBags.com and maintained it until 2019. It was a charitable venture, but here’s my confession: I wanted to be famous. I liked the idea of doing something meaningful. I also wanted attention, public recognition, and people to admire what I was building. Even when I was trying to do something good, I was chasing applause.

David Ghiyam and MaryRuth Organics

Celebrity vitamins, factory drama, and a Beverly Hills lifestyle.David Ghiyam went from Kabbalah teaching into the wellness business alongside MaryRuth Ghiyam. Through my company EP&A and relationships with Northwest PharmaNaturals, I helped reformulate and scale MaryRuth Organics’ morning and nighttime liquid vitamins. Ingredients. Formulas. Labels. Certifications. Factory delays. Getting the products manufactured was anything but glamorous. When the business moved forward after our relationship collapsed, I felt cut out of the long-term value I’d helped create. Meanwhile, in my telling, the story moved from small manufacturing batches toward a Beverly Hills lifestyle involving a reported $35 million mansion with a former porn-star connection. Then, in February 2026, Michelle Kwan appeared in a MaryRuth Organics commercial during the Winter Olympics. I recognized the products I’d helped develop. Suddenly I was digging through decade-old emails, contracts, and business records. That commercial sent me back through thirty years of my life and helped inspire Millennial Misery Stories.

Kenny Morrison and Venice Cookie Company

A former Hollywood child actor, cannabis cookies, and a crew straight out of a sitcom.Kenny Morrison played Atreyu in The NeverEnding Story II before becoming involved in California’s cannabis industry. I worked with him at Venice Cookie Company during the transition to recreational cannabis. I thought the business had an extraordinary opportunity. But the personalities I remember included stoner friends, kitchen conflicts, an older woman with a dog, a cash room, and a workplace where almost every conversation could become an episode of television. I also badly misjudged a workday edible. I could see the commercial opportunity. Getting everyone to agree on what to do was another story. Looking back, my impatience didn’t help.

Jarrow Rogovin and Jarrow Formulas

Millions in artwork, political rants, and an oxy pill rolling down a staircase.“Where have they been hiding you?” That’s how I remember Jarrow Rogovin greeting me. A probiotics pioneer, Jarrow introduced me to a remarkable world of art, science, business, and eccentric personalities. Our conversations could begin with paintings and end with passionate speeches about American politics and civilization. I liked him. I also recognized some of my own anger in him. Meanwhile, I was hiding a serious opioid addiction. On my first day at Jarrow Formulas, an oxy pill rolled out of my pocket and bounced down a metal staircase during an office tour. I stood there pretending I didn’t recognize the noise. I was functioning professionally while privately arranging much of my life around getting pills, including manipulating people and situations to feed my addiction. The contrast was absurd. A talented sourcing professional, surrounded by accomplished people, panicking over one tiny pill. By 2020, I had left opioids behind. The damage from years of dishonesty didn’t disappear overnight.

The friendships I destroyed

The people who opened doors

I was always trying to get into somebody else’s world.Kevin Sheppard came from the kind of Carlsbad wealth I envied. His family introduced me to expensive homes, beautiful places, and the excitement of film production. When I came out to Kevin, I hoped for an understanding that the conversation didn’t provide. I let that hurt contribute to another damaged friendship. Greg Smiley was another important friend from my youth. We got into trouble, explored neighborhoods, and navigated complicated questions about identity. After high school, intimacy, changing relationships, and his eventual move to Florida became part of a friendship I lost. Then came the social circles of Orange County and San Diego. Bryant Waters in Laguna Beach. Kris Carnegie in San Diego. Eric in La Jolla. I loved being around interesting people, attractive friends, impressive homes, and valuable connections. But I often treated friendships as opportunities to access other people’s networks. I crossed boundaries, pursued hookups and introductions, and eventually found myself excluded from groups I desperately wanted to join. I thought people were rejecting me. Sometimes they were simply responding to my behavior.

Farbod Barsum and the yellow Rolls-Royce

Rodeo Drive, $25,000 in pearls, and a friendship I sabotaged.Farbod Barsum worked for luxury designer Bijan Pakzad. Bijan’s famous yellow Rolls-Royce sat outside his Rodeo Drive store. Farbod drove a Mercedes ML and introduced me to the glamorous world I had spent years fantasizing about. During one shopping trip, I purchased roughly $25,000 in pearls on credit while bankruptcy was approaching. I eventually got a refund check and briefly thought I’d outsmarted the situation. I hadn’t. Around 2012, Farbod pursued his own luxury leather-goods and handbag business. Instead of supporting him, I criticized his ambitions. I was jealous. He was doing something I wanted to do myself. I damaged the friendship. Years later, starting Bobacat Productions would teach me how much courage it actually takes to build something of your own.

The pattern

Another deal. Another guy. Another car. Another disaster.

I was an expert at starting over. After Lending Gateway collapsed, I pursued a business selling products to military-base customers around 2009. Then I explored Los Angeles real estate. But I feared my earlier eBay fraud, criminal record, and real-estate licensing history would follow me. Sometimes I abandoned opportunities before anyone could reject me. Then came another business, another friendship, another car, another reinvention. I wasn’t only running toward wealth.

I was running away from shame.

The extraordinary part? I actually had the skills to succeed. I just kept using them to prove I deserved acceptance.

The turning point

Same man. Different choices.

In November 2025, my job at a Southern California protein manufacturer ended. Another setback. Another opportunity to get angry, blame everybody else, and invent a new success story. But this time, I recognized the pattern. I began examining the relationships I’d destroyed, the people I’d used, and the opportunities I’d sabotaged. I started improving how I communicate, listen, and treat people. I began learning more about technology, science, animal behavior, and the world around me. And I started Bobacat Productions. Not because Hollywood was waiting for my call. Because I had real experiences, original source material, and a story worth developing.

I even negotiated a Chase business-account arrangement that allowed me thirty days to fund the account without an initial deposit. The old me would have pretended the company was already an empire. This time, I’m building it through legitimate conversations, honest relationships, and actual work.

Recently, I asked a woman walking her dog if I could pet him. She warned me he wasn’t very social. I gave him space. He approached me anyway. She was surprised, and we both left smiling. Nobody made money. Nobody needed to be impressed. It was simply a genuinely good interaction. That’s the kind of impact I want to have more often.

I still want financial success. I want to help my family and eventually build a home base in Michigan. I want Millennial Misery Stories to become a commercial success. But I no longer want my self-worth to depend on any of it.

The ambition never disappeared. The reason behind it changed.

— Evan Pickens, Creator

The TV Series

Nine episodes. Two timelines. Thirty years of chaos.

In February 2026, a Michelle Kwan commercial for MaryRuth Organics interrupts an ordinary evening. I recognize the product, remember the people, and revisit a business relationship that ended years earlier. What begins as an investigation into an old commercial dispute becomes a reckoning with my past.

Season One moves between Southern California from the 1990s onward and present-day Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Episodes 1–3: Childhood class envy, hidden sexuality, early online fraud, the mortgage boom, and bankruptcy.

Episodes 4–6: Chosen Foods, HelpingBags.com, MaryRuth Organics, Venice Cookie Company, Jarrow Formulas, and the chaos behind recognizable brands.

Episodes 7–9: Addiction’s aftermath, damaged friendships, career setbacks, personal accountability, and founding Bobacat Productions.

The ninth episode ends in Grand Rapids, where I begin living differently. Then a family photograph takes us to late-1970s Redondo Beach and opens Season Two.

Development Status

Season One is fully outlined across nine episodes of approximately 45–55 minutes each.

I own the underlying intellectual property and original first-person source material.

The TV pitch and detailed development blueprint are available upon request.

The pilot and scripts will be developed with an experienced television writer/showrunner.

I’m seeking television representation and creative partners to develop, package, and commercially sell the series.

The Novel

Same life. More room to tell on myself.

The television series shows the spectacle. The novel explores the ridiculous explanations I gave myself.

Why did I buy $25,000 in pearls while approaching bankruptcy?

Why did I keep confusing sex with acceptance?

Why could I negotiate complicated business deals but repeatedly destroy friendships?

Why did I trade real opportunities for the appearance of success?

And why did it take so long to realize I could simply be myself?

The original source materials and literary development framework are assembled. The manuscript will be developed with an experienced author. Television remains the commercial priority.

Let’s Talk

Curious? Good, let’s talk.

Millennial Misery Stories is a returning scripted dark comedy-drama with a completed nine-episode Season One blueprint, television pitch, and extensive firsthand material.

I’m seeking television agents, managers, experienced screenwriters, showrunners, and producing partners who recognize the potential of an outrageous, character-driven, real-life story. The objective is to develop the pilot, assemble the creative team, package the series, and bring it to market. Professional development materials are available upon request.

Contact Bobacat Productions

Email 310-651-8918 LinkedIn

Closing Quote
“I want people who love sandals with socks to love my stories. And I want people who hate sandals with socks to love my stories, too.”
— Evan Pickens