DIE TRYING 004

Not too many years ago, former Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh announced that he would beat arch-rival Ohio State or die trying.

People laughed at him. The Wolverines had been unable to beat the hated Buckeyes for many years. Until they reeled off four consecutive wins in The Game after Harbaugh’s war cry.

As an obsessive Michigan fan, I adopt Harbaugh’s do-or-die proposition. I’m not trying to win at ball. Instead, I’m a plucky writer trying to sell my latest screenplay, publish it as a novel or die trying.

In DIE TRYING, you will get an unvarnished look at a bitterly honest writer struggling to make it. No soft-focus glamour close-ups. No name-dropping or phoniness. Just the facts ma’am on what the media landscape really is like behind the curtain.

In TODAY’S ISSUE, we protest with a tiny sign and offer tips on how to improve your text’s readability.

I can feel my sphincter tightening as I write this. I’m about to editorialize. Against Big Brother.

Everyone’s caught the chill. Everybody on pins and needles. 

The fallout from the murder of a young political activist who had many followers. Now a dead father of two babies.

But first, we distract from the grimness with a delusional writer. 

A delusional writer angle is always in the cards. It’s a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon dynamic. 

After 47 got his Kimmel scalp, an aspiring late-night comedy writer got mad as hell. He wasn’t going to take it anymore. 

He went to a protest outside the theater where the late-night funny man’s show is beamed to the world. 

I watched the short video online. There were two other protestors in the shot.

They carried signs. The messages were too small to read for the TV cameras. 

A sad protest. Like the college football coach who kicks a field goal to get points on the board when losing in a blowout.

I’ll call this writer UnBitter Dalton Trumbo. 

The dream is alive. The idealism hasn’t faded. The fight persists despite Cancel Culture The Sequel written by The Blacklist: Folie à Deux.

Criticize the government. Get punished.

I try to stay out of politics. Julius Caesar Redux grieves for two syllables in front of the cameras. Changes the subject to his majestic ballroom under construction. 

The losing candidate leads the inspired resistance by writing a book where she states a fact that absolutely no one saw coming. Maybe Joe was too old…

Jeez Louiz, Coconut Lady, who woulda thought????

It’s all so mind-numbingly dumb.

Back to UnBitter Dalton Trumbo. He’s not delusional.

He didn’t cryptically complain. He DID something.

Laid down his blue line.

Hope you enjoyed mine.

Would you read through the above?

It’s from a script I wrote after the pandemic. An agent read it and complained about readability. 

A screenwriter who actually gets stuff made gave me good advice:

• Write in paragraphs no more than four lines long.

• Leave plenty of white space.

• Avoid long text chunks without dialogue to break up the thiccness.

“JOHNNY: All right, I’m not sayin’ that life will end, or the world will end, or the universe will cease to exist. But Man will cease to exist. Just like the dinosaurs passed into extinction, the same thing’ll happen to us. We’re not fuckin’ important. We’re just a crap idea!”

Naked screenplay by Mike Leigh

My question: Is David Thewlis’ Johnny doomscrolling a bit too much, or is it time to cancel him for silly prophesying?

Hit reply and weigh in.

See you next week!

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