The Screenwriter’s Friendly Internet Forum (and Lessons Therefrom)
by Lawrence MeyersThe only thing worse than a Bitter, Liberal, Angry, Hollywood Screenwriter is an Unemployed, Bitter, Liberal, Angry, Hollywood Screenwriter (“U-BLAHS,” as I adoringly refer to them). There are several thousand U-BLAHS hanging about, primarily in Los Angeles. They haunt the revival cinemas. Some dicker around, half-heartedly attempting new “careers,” like being a poker dealer in a market oversaturated with same (that’s Liberal thought for you — no understanding of a free market, much less a saturated free market). Some U-BLAHS film clumsy internet videos from their computer, concocting a list consisting of the dozen most unintentionally bad jokes they can think of in a desperate attempt to deflect their self-hatred onto Conservatives.
You might find them at the Arclight during December and January, when their WGA memberships permit free admission for themselves and a “guest” (long-suffering spouse/partner? Homeless guy they promised a meal to?). Otherwise, they likely couldn’t afford the premium ticket prices there. Poker dealing doesn’t pay what it used to.
Theirs is a lost generation, having witnessed their dreams of boarding the luxury cruise ship of the Hollywood Elite dashed — instead relegated to the ship of fools, a half-constructed government-funded behemoth inadvertently launched prior to completion, now residing limply on its side as seagulls crap on its hull. Flailing madly in the bay, arms slapping the waves of excremental runoff from L.A.’s shores, the U-BLAHS emerge onto dry land, greeted by two herds eager to welcome them. They recoil from the initial herd, despising it as they do, refusing to accept the herd’s membership card involuntarily thrust upon them: that of the Has-Been. Stumbling for escape, the U-BLAHS run into the arms of the only other herd awaiting new membership, the Never-Weres. (more…)







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