It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
And shock of shocks, Nikki Finke has proudly and gleefully posted the list on top of her site.
There are already posters over there wondering whether this could constitute blacklisting and thus open the WGA to potential legal action.
The tone of the letter indicates that Verrone and Winship have not learned anything from the strike, and if anything, are angrier now than before they went out. We’ll have to see how the WGA membership reacts in the next election cycle.
It’s also interesting that during the strike, there were repeated cases of the WGA insisting that soap writers were NOT going fi-core. This would seem to put the lie to that one, too. With all the attempts to rewrite history going on right now (most at Nikki Finke’s site), people are going to need to be very careful who or what they regard as a reliable source. The old joke of “Who do you believe? Me or your own lying eyes?” comes to mind…
When the OJ Simpson trial raged, the soaps suffered at least a halving of their ratings. Another multiple month loss could have killed them off entirely (or at least, killed off a few of the lower rated ones). Would WGA East or West have provided for the lost income to writers that have no jobs to go back to?
Feeling really disgusted by this move.
Good GOD. I know the WGA has always viewed financial core status as essentially profane, but it’s a right afforded to all unionized workers since, what, 1980!?
This is really, really grotesque.