Midweek Musings

             Another welcome addition...
 
After reading another recent post by Gavin Polone -- this one on the perils of the big Hollywood ego -- I've become a fan. I know only two other sources of such truth-telling above-the-line, Rob Long's weekly Martini Shot commentaries on KCRW, and Kurt Sutter’s blog. Rob takes a wry but sober stance towards his end of the biz (writing and producing multi-camera shows), while Kurt Sutter's unvarnished soul-baring reveals him to be a troubled creative soul engaged in a constant battle with his own personal demons -- and all that while enduring the pain and joys of being the showrunner for "Sons of Anarchy," and wading through the relentless tsunami of bullshit Hollywood generates each and every day.

One isn't better than the others -- all are fascinating in their own way -- but Gavin Polone's calm, informed  dissection of our Industry is a welcome addition to the ranks.

For reasons I do not understand, Blogger, NY Magazine, or my own digital incompetence will not allow me to embed a direct link to that Hollywood Ego post -- so you can cut-and-paste the following URL to get there...

 http://www.vulture.com/2012/05/polone-the-perils-of-the-big-hollywood-ego.html

.... or just click here and scroll down to uncover a treasure trove of Polone's posts.  Not coincidentally, that same link now resides under my Industry Blogroll for future reference -- yours and mine.

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It's spring-cleaning time here at BST, so I moved a few inactive blogs -- and if you haven't posted in two, three, or four years, I consider your blog inactive -- to a new blogroll over on the right side of the page named (drumroll please), Inactive but Interesting. 

Yeah, I know -- such an appalling lack of imagination.  Really, I should be ashamed... but I'm not.  In any event, these are blogs I like and looked forward to reading while they were actively posting, but  now they've gone into hibernation.  The material therein is too good to lose, so rather than dump them, I created a new repository.  There's lots of great stuff in there for readers who haven't bothered to check them out.

I keep the door open to these hibernating blogs because every now and then I need to clear my head with a 480 volt arc-flash blast of smart, funny, cynical truth-telling about life in Hollywood – and that’s when I go back to re-read something like Bee Season (not the movie), or Snakes on the Motherfucking Catwalk... and there's a lot more where those two gems came from.  But unless somebody shines a light on these darkened treasure troves, they'll slip into the trackless wasteland of cyber-space. 

After all, lighting is my job.

There are many reasons to stop writing a blog.  Posting anything coherent on a regular basis is an incredible time-suck -- a black hole into which hours of one's life and creative energy vanish, and at a certain point it no longer seems worth the effort.  There's no money in it and damned little objective satisfaction beyond the occasional comment or e-mail response... but I suppose it's a dirty job, and someone's gotta do it. Besides, there is a degree of highly-subjective satisfaction in telling a story as best you can.  It's never good enough, of course, but that's writing.

  Still, the time eventually comes to pull the plug on everything in life, and one of these days this space will join those other inactive blogs, a cold, dark cinder drifting through the void.  Not today, though.  I'll keep slogging through the swamps of Hollywood until the red light flashes and it's time to stop.  Meanwhile, do yourself a favor and take a stroll through some of those Interesting but Inactive blogs. 

You just might be glad you did...