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One crafty writer’s never-say-die quest to tell a story for the screen.
Hey! I’m that guy trying to collect a Hollywood bag as a storyteller or die trying.
In DIE TRYING, you will get an unvarnished look at a bitterly honest writer struggling to make it. No name-dropping or Hollywood phoniness. Just the facts ma’am on what the media landscape is really like behind the curtain.
In TODAY’S ISSUE, we study the star quarterback and celebrate a win with caution.
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OFF THE MAT
You don’t have to be an inane sportsball jockstrap to care about what is going on with the hype machine and promising young college football quarterbacks.
Michigan Quarterback Bryce Underwood was a five-star coming out of high school with unbelievable hype. He was a huge human being with a cannon for an arm and as fast as a gazelle spiriting away on the African plains. If you don’t care about Underwood, substitute Texas QB Arch Manning or whoever has a golden arm and feeds the hype monster.
Underwood et al. were young designers who would revolutionize the fashion industry. Then Underwood’s middling freshman year happened. Too many interceptions tossed to the other team and bone-headed plays.
His first-year coach was more interested in messaging IG models, and when he imploded, people blamed management rather than the employee. Michigan got a new coach, and there was hope year two would prove the hype for the young gun.
El Segundo started on September 5, 2026 against an undermanned Western Michigan University. David nearly slew the Goliath Michigan team, which survived on a last-second Hail Mary from Underwood.
The near-loss unearthed the hate machine, the other arm of our hype machine. We build up these young people with impossible expectations and then delight in tearing them down when they falter.
Underwood was a bum. Couldn’t “process” the cerebral aspects of playing the most important position in football.
In the next week, Underwood got off the mat. Beat a solid Oklahoma team with a swarming defense. Redemption for the young man.
If you are a globalist, Americans aren’t the only ones with the savior complex when it comes to hyping and trashing talent with two fists from the same lazy body. K-pop girl group BABYMONSTER never really lived up to the hype of being the next BLACKPINK.
The media needs content and clicks, and latches onto a young person with talent. The impossible expectations are sold to a gullible public who then proceeds with the tear-down job.
The cycle continues. Searching for the next green shoot in the forest to sacrifice.
LIFE ISN’T A FAIRY TALE
Last August, I lost my job. The business owner went broke after some questionable investments. I was out of a high-paying job. You’re probably wondering where the hell I went if you had been reading this thing.
I just didn’t have the energy to create while looking for work and fending off creditors and neo-loan sharks who don’t break your leg when you can’t pay, but just trash your credit and financial progress.
Last month, I got the good news that I made it to the semi-finalist round of this year’s Austin Film Festival (AFF) script competition with my sci-fi neo-noir action feature GOING PERM.
Like Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood, I was off the mat. The Cinderella moment probably won’t come, however. Underwood had some real bad games after the OU victory, and Michigan has been a middling team.
I will go to Austin, press the flesh, but the industry is in a dark place. There is so little work that established writers are filling entry-level jobs. It’s a brutal time to try and get exposure (and money) as an emerging writer.
I’m still trying to find a day job that can keep my family and me financially afloat while still allowing me time to concentrate on writing screenplays. Even with the good news from AFF, I fear my dreams of becoming a paid storyteller will always remain a hobby rather than an occupation that pays real cold, hard cash.
If you only dug into this issue or have been a faithful reader, you know that I am a possessed Michigan fan. I hear on podcasts that Mr. Underwood lives in the football building in Ann Arbor. Lifting weights. Watching film. Trying to incrementally get better. One day at a time.
Nose down, I’ll continue working despite the outside noise. See you next week.
POLL: HERE’S A GLASS HALF FULL
In the Epstein & Associates economy, how do you celebrate good news?
- Bank it, baby! Take the family to McDonald's and save the rest to pay a rapacious health care megacorp when you get cancer from too many microplastics in your genitals.
- Spend it, baby! Like a Trump-era Press Secretary, You Only Live Once!
- Sorry bro, but I saw a Godard film where the genius lectured me that "wins" are mere capitalist, consumer-economy conceits that mere proles scrounge together in their quest to be the haute bourgeoisie.
- What wins? I am an existentialist eating my own tail which actually is an Ouroboros sculpture of a snake AI bot eating its own tail.
