WIL WHEATON dot NET: Where is my mind?: screenwiter's blues

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June 28, 2005

screenwiter's blues

Jesus, man. Shane just keeps getting better and better:

During my ten years in Los Angeles, I have visited the Sunset Strip a handful of times. In my first year here, I was convinced that Hollywood Deals® happened within the "glamorous" nightlife of Hollywood. I showed up to places like Union and SkyBar, convinced that I'd find a door into the action; a route into "Hollywood, The Machine," not just "Hollywood, The City." "Hollywood, The City," as viewed from a depressing little apartment across the street from a fire station on Sierra Bonita, was not what I had imagined. Surely "Hollywood, The Machine" would be waiting for me in a dark bar tucked underneath the billboards and street lights. After all, Hollywood is decadent and shallow, so the key to cracking it's hull surely resided within it's nerve center: The Sunset Strip. Even before trucker hats and pithy clothing slogans, The Strip provided me no such door into the action. Instead, it taunted me with its money and lip gloss. Beautiful, empty people stared past me waiting for someone important they hadn't yet met as I envied their money and clothing and ability to blend into such a hip scene without having to worry about whether the whole place was wondering if your flannel shirt was intentional or tragic.

I don't want to be a "celebrity" blogger. I want to be a blogger who is really a writer, like Tony Pierce and Shane:

In spite of my obvious fashion savviness, I wore a ten-years-too-late western style shirt that a thousand other Urban Outfitters shoppers surely own, and a pseudo-knockoff-vintage tee-shirt from J Crew underneath it. It occured to me as I valet parked my car that my commonness was surely not masked by a 35 dollar daring shirt nor the mass-produced "one of a kind" tee shirt underneath it. I laughed at my own hypocrisy as we thanked the surly doorman who braceletted our arms with wristbands that were the envy of the line of hopefuls outside.

Please to go read Shane's entire entry, aging hipsters. I have not done it justice with these short excerpts.

Hey, Shane, when are you going to write a book, man? All the cool kids are doing it!

(bloglines keeps thinking this post is new. hopefully, adding this pointless bit of text will convince it to think otherwise.)

Posted by wil at June 28, 2005 08:02 PM

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Comments

But you ARE a real writer!

Posted by: Khali

at June 28, 2005 10:24 PM

Thanks Wil. It always means a great deal to me when you link to something I've written, especially when the link is accompanied by such kind words.

Hey, Shane, when are you going to write a book, man? All the cool kids are doing it!

As soon as Monolith Press starts publishing other bloggers. ;-)

Posted by: Shane Nickerson

at June 28, 2005 10:56 PM

Wil, another well-known (in Canada anyway) blogger who really does know how to write is Canadian singer-songwriter Matthew Good. He's at http://www.matthewgood.org/mblog/index.php

Posted by: Stephen

at June 28, 2005 11:06 PM

I just put it on my list of things to do before bed (*-*)

Posted by: joann

at June 28, 2005 11:15 PM

No doubt.

Posted by: naiah christine earhart

at June 28, 2005 11:31 PM

Wil, my good man,
you'd be quite surprised how close that just hit home with me.
I first arrived in Hollyweird in 2001, and lived just off Cahuenga and Santa Monica. I did paid audience work and the odd background gig.
I did as you did, and explored the dark backways of Hollywood, trying to find a better gig, and yes the people are all flakes, liars, backstabbers, cheats and shallow.
They do always look past you, hoping to see someone more important than them, to leach off, and become a hanger-on.
As a writer, I always got screwed over by people (can I say Brannon Braga*cough* and some other show writers, who love pilfering ideas they overhear in bars and food places).
Literary agents always never had time with new faces and wanted established people, which is stupid as if you're established then you already have agents.
But anyhow, they were the best of times and they were the worst of times. Mostly the worst.

So, Wil, your words are like gospel to me, and so I say preach on Brother Wil, and enlighten those less wiser into the pits of Hell that we all call Hollywood.

Posted by: Prydonian

at June 28, 2005 11:54 PM

And thank you Shane for being the enlightened one, when it comes to the depths of depravity in Hollyweird.
(an adendum to my above post)

Posted by: Prydonian

at June 28, 2005 11:56 PM

Wil dude - you are a real blogger. You also happen to be a celebrity. You've eclipsed the negative aspects of being just a "celebrity blogger" long ago, though. You're also a poker blogger ('ray!), and a political blogger, and a family/personal blogger - and guess what? That's what real bloggers do, they write about everything in their sphere of experience. The good ones do it well. Take a bow, man.

P.S. Didja' get Darwin his own shades yet?

Posted by: sparky1234

at June 29, 2005 05:54 AM

For what it's worth, Wil, you're not a celebrity blogger to me. I started reading your blog because I had heard via word-of-mouth that you wrote interesting, thoughtful, and poignant posts, and that's what I look for in my daily blog-reading.

So to me at least, you're a writer first and foremost.

Posted by: Ryan Freebern

at June 29, 2005 07:13 AM

Blog Blog Blog

And did you mean, screenwRiter? Or was the "witer" intentional? Like wit from the screen...

And any business (Movie, TV, is a big business) which deals in Mega-millions is going to be strange and attract the leeches, but not for medicinal purposes.

Blog Blog Blog

Posted by: Nyarl

at June 29, 2005 07:43 AM

Wil- Have you seen this?!
Jennifer Tilly wins a Ladies no-limit WSOP bracelet !
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/news/sns-ap-people-jennifer-tilly,1,1228474.story?coll=bal-entertainment-headlines

Posted by: Dani_P

at June 29, 2005 07:47 AM

This is completely off topic, but I thought you would like to know if you don't already.

I was listening to the latest TWiTcast (the podcast that Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, and some of the old TechTV hosts do now)and Leo was mentioning that he is going on a Geekcruise which is also a Star Trek cruise.

Anyway, Patrick Norton mentioned that he is a huge fan of you. Just thought you would like to know.

Posted by: Liz

at June 29, 2005 03:54 PM

Totally off topic, but I just discovered this...
http://www.milkandcookies.com/links/22937/
Quite possibly the most brilliant thing ever.

Posted by: kelly

at June 29, 2005 09:05 PM

Well, geez since everyone is going off topic, well dammit so must I. Hey Wil...I happened across your interview on SlashDot (thanks to BoingBoing ) And discovered you have a blog...I must ask if you are the very same Wil (Willie) Wheaton credited in the made for TV animated movie (2001) Flintstones on The Rocks? I was one of the Writer/Directors of it and just wanted to know. If so, cool! And also, if so, have you seen it?

Best,
Chris Savino

Posted by: Goodman_Beaver

at June 29, 2005 11:39 PM

It ain't just Hollyweird that gets the flakes, cheats, liars, and wannabes. There's more in common between that place and Wash, D.C. than either side would like to admit.

and let's not get started on academic and church politics...

;)

Posted by: spacewriter

at June 30, 2005 07:02 AM

Hey, another Soul Coughing reference... keep 'em coming.

Posted by: MisterSite

at June 30, 2005 06:27 PM

Wil, WTF is going on? Why does this entry keep coming up in your RSS feed? Seems like every time I go over to bloglines, this entry is there again.

Posted by: Ryan Waddell

at July 8, 2005 01:16 PM