A Poison Tree

Recently I read a diatribe written by screenwriter Josh Olson, “I will Not Read Your Fucking Script” http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php. There are over 800 comments. First of all, the piece is a distasteful screed, entertaining, yes. And I felt, after a while, a degree of sympathy, though that sympathy is qualified to the point of non-existence. First of all, everyone in Hollywood is an asshole, so for one asshole to start complaining about the other assholes is a bit like New Yorkers complaining about aggression. Add to that that we are talking about writers here and it begins to look like bottom feeders turning on their own. The gist of his complaint is that he is successful and good at his job and he gets paid to do it. Every time someone hands him a script to read they are expecting him to do for free what he gets paid to do. He uses the example of a doctor or lawyer being asked for free legal or medical advice. The problem is multi-fold. For one, doctors and lawyers do work for free or reduced rates all of the time, or they at least are expected to. And yes, they have to give free advice at dinner parties and to family members and cab drivers and it is annoying to them. Of course doctors and lawyers perform a more important function than writers. No one cares if a movie or screenplay gets written or produced, or if a novel or poem is published. A person with AIDS or Avian Influenza needs treatment. Death Row inmates or tenants being abused by landlords need representation. Etc. For another it ignores the very long tradition of unknown writers asking known ones to read and comment on their work, FOR FREE.

The responses to the piece fell into 2 categories. I was disturbed to find that my initial response fell into the category of the resentful, unsuccessful, bile spewing haters. Every thought I had was there and it was embarrassing. But not more embarrassing than the folks who approved of what he was saying. These were vicious, condescending remarks of approbation. In the world of this piece and the responses to it there are either overweening egotistical monsters who forget what it is like to climb up out of the gutter and into the shithalls of Hollywood and poor deluded jerks who can’t write and are only interested whining and complaining that no one has time for them. The resenters accuse Olson of not being a real writer. After all, he only adapted his Oscar-nominated screenplay from a graphic novel. No no, says the other side. Adaptation is as difficult as writing an original script. And so on. The only thing to emerge from all of this is that everyone hates everyone else, that resentment and condescension are the two moods of writers. Successful people don’t deserve their success and forget what it was like to struggle, and unsuccessful writers are ungrateful big babies unwilling to learn their craft who want something for nothing.

What is amazing to me is the degree of vitriol, the incredible lack of respect, of generosity, of empathy, and the unbelievable self-importance of both sides.

The country seems to be divided along similar lines. When Bush was president I was convinced that we were experiencing a fascist take over. I would have been happy if someone had shot him. I wanted the republicans to be thrown out of office and into prison. Now republicans are saying all of these things about Obama. And I think they are lying hypocrites for it.

The Haves have not done a lot to Have what they Have and don’t acknowledge that what they Have comes from someone else who has less because they Have more. The help they got they don’t acknowledge, any more than Olson acknowledges that on his way up he probably imposed his freshman efforts on people who didn’t have to give him the time of day but did.

The Have Nots meanwhile are full of rage and resentment, though the Haves have been successful at deflecting this energy off of themselves and onto other Have Nots. The similarity is that in both instances the Have Nots simply want to become Haves and blame others for their failure to do so. I plead guilty to this on all accounts.

With these conditions it becomes impossible to accomplish anything. Hollywood movies suck. They suck when written by Haves and they suck when written by Have Nots. And our body politic sucks. In the past 40 years very little has been accomplished in the way of legislation. Staggering problems of importance to everyone have gone largely unaddressed.

I would be happy if the red states seceded from the ‘Union’. When they were in power I was in favour of a Blue secession, of a reality-based civilization instead of a god crazy mish mash of corporate tyranny and the bigotry of yahoos. But what would that accomplish? As my friend John Fousek says, secession would leave in place a nuclear armed theocracy in the South and parts of the West. What then?

I don’t think of myself as a revolutionary. I’m too invested in things working smoothly on a daily basis. I’m also a realist. Revolutions suck worse than this because revolutions unleash violence and destruction and bring to power only those who take pleasure in that destruction or are capable of controlling that violence. Those are not the people you want running things.

I think the literary problems we face are irrelevant and insoluble until the greater political, economic and environmental problems are addressed. America is a society without a solution. America is a society in which the people who hate and resent each other dominate the public discourse, and this has started to work itself out everywhere, not just in politics. We are divided against ourselves and within ourselves as never before.

America is a nation of shallow big babies who no longer have any sense of purpose. I love Obama but I don’t believe he can change that.  The problem is not rhetorical. It is not spiritual. I don’t know what the problem is, actually. The only way to function as a whole human being, or attempt to, is to withdraw, which for many people is unacceptable. And so we are left in the absurd position of having strong convictions about things we have no hope of changing, because those convictions receive no public notice, and the battle is over who sucks worse and who is the bigger asshole, this guy who got something for nothing or that guy who got something for nothing, and why can’t I get something for nothing too. But no one ever seems to talk about what that something is. Meaning. Security. Recognition.

The Divine Image

by William Blake

 

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

All pray in their distress;

And to these virtues of delight

Return their thankfulness.

 

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is God, our father dear,

And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is Man, his child and care.

 

For Mercy has a human heart,

Pity a human face,

And Love, the human form divine,

And Peace, the human dress.

 

Then every man, of every clime,

That prays in his distress,

Prays to the human form divine,

Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

 

And all must love the human form,

In heathen, Turk, or Jew;

Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell

There God is dwelling too.

 

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil’d the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree