To establish my bonafides, I,m a screenwriter; if I gave myself proper credit, you could confirm that in the IMDb. I've done it for 25 years, so I have that rare thing in Hollywood - "perspective."

My "film school" was several years of lunches with Billy Wilder, due to his friendship with my writing mentor (who wrote Wilder's least-favorite "Billy Wilder movie" - the film nerds can figure out which that is), due to the fact I was the only person who hadn't heard his stories ten times. I believe I know him well enough to know he'd call Norman's book "pretentious crap." Of course, he'd have used a more forceful version.

That Norman worships the Bourgeois Bolsheviks makes it unsurprising he's a leader in the latest charge-against-the-windmills. As David Freeman once said in his collection of short stories "A Hollywood Education" (still worth picking up and reading the stories in order, you'll get an education, given that nothing ever really changes here other than the cars and the clothing styles): "Hollywood is the last respectable outlaw profession for upper class white boys."

Allow me to paint a different picture of what's going on.

The truth is, most screenwriters aren't any good. Screenplays aren't The Great American Novel. Paul Shrader's right - it's a blueprint. The ability to use words effectively is important, but equally important is the ability to "see a shot." A knolwedge of photography helps. Over the years I've wsupervised younger writers, and every one who took my advice to go buy a camera and learn to see a shot went on to professional success. Guys like Norman will never get that, since they're busy being Great Writers instead of competent draftsmen. Dalton TYrumbo used a similar system, the best result of which is that Kirk Douglas' favorite "Kirk Douglas movie" - Lonely Are The Brave - was shot using Trumbo's first draft. (For aspiring screenwriters, the other secret is to speak your dialogue aloud it and be sure it can be said - the actors will appreciate you for this.)

Furthermore...

Twenty years ago, writers in Hollywood actually got paid. For everything. No free options of work created; when one pitched a story and interest was germinated, one was paid to write it. The system allowed a writer who not from the upper classes could write and survive, and what got made was a wider range than the angst of the young upper classes we get today.

And then we struck, and settled after 23 weeks for what we could have had after 23 hours. The result was the destruction of that world. Within months, the "Screenwriter's Lottery" was on, with everyone writing "high concept" scripts on spec in search of a million dollars. (One has a greater chance of being struck by lightning) The only people who could afford to break in were from the trust-fund classes who'd graduated from film schools where the teachers are failures - who would do that job for that little money if they actually had any talent and had a chance of making it for real in the movies?) Of course, being good little students, the new crop all parrot what they have learned from the failures, and you can see the result on the screen.

And now to the Real Truth of Screenwriters in Hollywood today:

20 years ago, the WGA stated that the average WGA member made $50,000 a year - a sum created by taking all money paid to screenwriters and dividing by the number of union members. Today they say the average member makes $60,000 a year.

For starters, that means writers haven't kept up with inflation over the past 20 years, assuming that figure actually meant something, which it doesn't.

20 years ago, 80% of members qualified for health insurance at any time, meaning they had made at least the equivalent of a "guild scale" 30-minute script in the preceding 12 months ($13,500). Today, 80% do not qualify for health insurance, meaning they didn't make $24,500 in the previous 12 months - hardly a princely sum. Yes, a few writers are being paid a helluva lot (and they're the ones pushing the strike) but the average writer either has a crappy day job or thanks their tribal deity for the accident of birth that provides the trust fund.

20 years ago we couldn't win against stand-alone studios . Today we're supposed to go against minor arms of intergalactic corporations. What part of this picture doesn't make sense???

I'm so glad that the only time I have to waste time watching TV is during the summer, when something actually worth watching can be found on basic cable ("Mad Men" "The Closer," "Damages," "Rescue Me," "Dr. Who"), while the fall and winter is dominated by the unwatchable crap on "mainstream network TV", like the shows you discuss here, which were each easy to turn off after the first 5 minutes, being bullshit created by halfwits and approved by numbskulls. It's soooo much easier to get all sorts of interesting things done now. So thank you Hollywood TV for saving my limited time for me.

At risk of being thought ill-mannered, I have always wondered when I drove past these exurbs how anyone with any intelligence and a modicum of taste could inflict these places on themselves. Well, now I understand: the buyers of ugly SUVs and oversized trucks to compensate for their itty-bitty wee-wees always impressed me as being most likely Republicans, since they clearly could pass the IQ test low enough for membership. Now we see that the idiots who pride themselves on being "hard-headed realists" were the biggest suckers for the get-something-for-nothing real estate bubble. How unsurprisingly consistent.

It all leads me to remember another apt quote from H.L. Mencken: "In this world of sin and sorrow there is much to be thankful for. As for me, I am thankful I am not a Republican."