Lust For Life

Am I the only one watching the train wreck known as "I Know My Kid's A Star?" Seriously, it's child abuse in real time. America is all about how the most important, valuable, rewarding thing a human being could ever do is reproduce. But you know what else is important? Realizing that not everybody can or should be a parent. These creepy, crazy mothers are living vicariously through their kids, destroying them in the process. They're acting like petulant children themselves. I know, big surprise, this behavior has always existed, but watching it be cannibalized for our viewing entertainment is a little sick, especially when kids are involved. And yes, I realize that I'm a little sick for watching it. Thanks for pointing that out.

Having kids is supposed to be the end-all, the final piece of life's puzzle that will finally make you feel whole and fulfilled. That's what America tells us, anyway. But watching these miserable shrews torture their kids and the other kids in the house made me think about fulfillment. And since this blog isn't about child-rearing or the lack thereof, I turned towards fulfillment in the entertainment industry.

Is it possible to feel fulfilled, or is that just a huge lie? Howard Fineman was on Jon Stewart a few nights ago (or a week ago; I am horrible at keeping up with my TeeVee) and Jon Stewart made a cogent point about how the press focuses on "the real Americans," insinuating that those of us who live in big cities and work in media are not real Americans, don't have any faith, eschew families and only eat whole grains. The audience applauded, natch. And Fineman got it, too. He had a decent excuse for why this exists in news -- the primaries are the great equalizers, when states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania become more important than the more populous states.

But still, we are supposed to have a self-loathing if we work in the entertainment industry. We're supposed to know, deep down, that we're doing a very shallow, narcissistic thing, that we're big old giant whores who are going straight to tell. In part, that's fostered and fueled by how "the real America" feels, too. Or, maybe, how they're told to feel by the media. If there's one thing the press and the entertainment industry absolutely loves with a slavish devotion, it's putting groups into little boxes. In politics, it's "African-American women, 25-34, who had two years of college and live in small urban areas," or "second-generation Latinos who are allergic to pollen." They go crazy for that shit. They're responsible for the whole red state/blue state total bullshit that's torn the country apart. This also leads to the whole auteur theory nonsense -- one person HAS to be completely responsible. That's how things WORK!

BTW, I'll get to the comments on the auteur post in the next post.

In entertainment, it's all about the demographic. Like the whoring that's going on in North Carolina and Indiana, so the whoring goes in TeeVee. These demographics are courted just as heavily. I love it, of course, when it works for me (Moonlight did very well in the demo on Friday), but still... it seems a little unfair, doesn't it, to base the success of an entire TeeVee show on the extrapolation of a very small group of viewers?

Anyway. This leads back to fulfillment. We're not supposed to feel fulfilled in our work. In fiction, people who are devoted to their work ultimately get their comeuppance. They learn their lesson -- you can't get real fulfillment from your work. If you don't fall in love and have a family, you're just lost. But isn't fulfillment supposed to come from within anyway? Can you really be fulfilled by following an external set of rules?

Does "be yourself" mean anything anymore, or does it only work in the context of society's rules?

It's easy to be unfulfilled in TeeVee. All you have to do is go, "Yeah, the show I'm working on is crap. Everything's crap. But you do what you have to." Distance yourself. Put yourself above it all. I don't like that mindset. I don't find that it's easy or fun to work on something you don't like. If you're constantly going from show to show and running everything down and hating on TeeVee, then what's the fucking point of being there? You HAVE to find some joy in it, some inspiration. But you have to find inspiration elsewhere too, especially creative inspiration. That's why you write spec features and pilots, and that's why I'm halfway through novel #2. You get a different kind of creative inspiration from things you work on outside the "job" of TeeVee. But that doesn't mean inspiration lacks in TeeVee. It's just different.

Speaking of inspiration, I went to see Budd Schulberg at the Writer's Guild theatre last week. If you don't know the name, Schulberg wrote a little film called "On the Waterfront." He also wrote the MAGNIFICENT "A Face In the Crowd," a movie that, like "Network," has never lost its resonance or relevance. And just for emphasis, he's the author of "What Makes Sammy Run?" The films were collaborations with Elia Kazan and according to Schulberg, Kazan was a terrific collaborator. Not an auteur; a COLLABORATOR. Schulberg talked about another film he and Kazan were going to collaborate on. Schulberg spent two years researching it, and then the film never came to fruition.

I wondered about that. I would be furious if I'd spent two years working on something that didn't happen but the way Schulberg talked about it made me think that the two years wasn't wasted. He was fulfilled by that research, even though he was frustrated by the film not getting made.

I think that maybe it was easier back then. The pace was different. Now, the pace is set by the corporate manner in which TeeVee and film are run. You simply don't have the time or the money to spend years researching a project that isn't going to get made. The pace is so quick that you just have to pump out ideas, one after the other. It's sort of a sad way to go about a creative enterprise. You can't really fall in love with an idea. Everybody's attention span is too short. That's what I like about the novels. I can spend as much time as I want in that world. That sort of offsets the other.

Fulfillment, right?

Awhile back, someone told me that I needed to work on something that would show my specific voice. I needed a calling card, in other words, to break away from the shallow, crap world of TeeVee. So I thought about it for a few weeks. I wrote some stuff down. But it wasn't very exciting, or inspiring. And I realized that I've already got that stuff. We've got several pilots I'm VERY proud of, and a feature that, I dare say, has a strong, specific voice. See, it's not about just writing it and then people will flock to you. It doesn't work that way. Just because we weren't accepting our Oscar for our version of "Juno" doesn't mean I'm not insanely proud of our work. I AM. And the fact that the powers that be haven't given us their thumbs up yet doesn't diminish the work.

That epiphany made me realize that the idea I was working on wasn't gonna happen. You can't force inspiration. You can't force fulfillment, either. There's no rule that says you have to be fulfilled doing a particular, socially acceptable thing. I like working in TeeVee. I'd love to have my own show one day, but I like working on staff, too. There's no need to downplay that, or dismiss it. Some people do, and I dunno... I'm certainly not the most positive person in the universe (no cackling, gentle readers), but I find that kind of sad. I like breaking stories, planning arcs, writing, being in the editing room. It's fun, and yeah, it's fulfilling.

This shit got long again, so I'll stop blathering.

For the next post, I'm going to talk about the Derby. The draw's tomorrow, so the post will be tomorrow or Thursday. Then Sherrie, Devon and I can talk about it and leave the rest of you, gentle readers, in peace.

And... our Moonlight episode airs Friday. Just FYI.

np -- Duels, "The Barbarians Move In"