Hot Steamy Writing Nerds, Get Your Hot Steamy Nerds Write Here!

If you've ever dreamed of being a Hollywood screenwriter, but would rather live vicariously through gossipy micro-bios of now-famous writers like Allan Loeb, check out the LA Times new "Scriptland" weekly feature. This week they look at former compulsive gambler and now hot property Loeb and washed-up has-been Joe Esterhaz.

I realize that for 99% of the population outside the City of Angels this LA Times feature has no attraction whatsoever, and that's what I like best about it. Writers are, by and large, notoriously un-notorious and therefore don't warrant weekly columns in newspapers on their craft. Outside of the New York Times Review of Books and a few other creaky sources, newspaper print media has almost no coverage of books whatsoever.

So to have a major newspaper acknowledge that enough interest exists in LA to have such a column not only gives credence to the idea that every single resident of Los Angeles County has a movie script they are working on in their spare time, it also glamorizing a profession that 99.9% of the national population thinks is unglamorous.

And I'm in the .1% who thinks it is, and derives considerable lurid pleasure reading about famous screenwriters the same way far higher percentages of the population are fascinated with Jennifer Aniston, runway models and football players.

This LA Times weekly column is a NY Post Page Six for screenwriter wannabes. A check-out stand tabloid for scribbling nerds. I love it.

P.S.: Yes, this makes another post that has nothing to do with the 2006 Election. I admire but do not understand how some people can stick to the Election Cycle daily for such long periods of time. I especially admire but do not understand how polticians can practice their craft and crafty dealings unceasingly for months and months and months. I need constant breaks, and I'm just reading the newspapers and watching ads that escape my remote control switching prowess. One does not have to have Attention Deficit Disorder to seek frequent sanctuary from the Election Wars, and I wonder what sort of physical/mental constitution is required to withstand the uber-pervasive onslaught of our now pretty much continuous campaigns. I'll get back to some vacuous election blogging in a day or so. Right now I'm contemplating this tree outside my house and dreaming of being the next Joe Esterhaz.