We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you this breaking sociopolitical rant.
This past winter, in the immediate wake of an inspiring, hopeful, historically unprecedented act of political esprit de corps, untold thousands of New Yorkers made the dispiriting conscious choice to literally treat their city like shit.
When the snow stubbornly carpeting New York in January and February finally—finally—began to recede, I was shocked to discover the property of my Bronx apartment complex studded with dog turds. Call me naïve, but I couldn’t believe my neighbors would disrespect our shared home like this.
The scene was no different around the rest of the neighborhood: the sidewalks and curbsides a minefield of thawing scat. When I would text friends in the other boroughs to see how they were surviving the long, cold winter, the response was some variation of, “Fine—except for hopscotching around all the dog shit.” The problem was so pervasive, it was covered on the local news:
Frustrated New Yorkers took to Reddit to vent. They posted personal appeals for decency on scaffolding poles and lampposts:
All of which reminded me of a scene from State of Grace (1990), a movie I’d already been thinking about in light of St. Patrick’s Day, in which Jackie Flannery (Gary Oldman) laments the yuppie gentrification driving the Irish out of Hell’s Kitchen:
“It never used to be that way. Used to be you dropped a cone, you could pick it up and finish it.” Hear, hear.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. How’s sidewalk-forsaken dog shit, after all, any different from the ubiquitous sixteen-ounce Poland Spring bottles filled to the spout with urine, capped carefully and tossed carelessly into the gutters along the parkway’s service road?
Or the thoughtless dicks on the subway—or the express bus; or the Metro-North; or the elevator—watching TikTok videos at top volume, sans headphones, like we’re in their personal media room?
Or the daily instances of drivers honking angrily at the morning rush-hour traffic in which they’re ensnarled, creating needless noise pollution over a universal vexation that’s no one’s fault and can therefore only reasonably be met with patience?
Though I suppose laying on the horn is preferable to the other common demonstration of their petromasculine preeminence: blowing through (solidly) red lights at busy intersections (often around cars ahead of them and head-on into oncoming traffic) because they’re late for some job they hate.
We live in a country of “everyday heroes”—assholes for whom the rules don’t apply, who treat everyone else as obstacles to be circumvented or steamrolled, who see themselves as the righteous protagonists of their very own heroic narratives. The rest of us? We are merely players, performers and portrayers, in their ongoing dramas.
Far more virulently than any “scourge of wokeness,” however one defines that, a spirit of Trumpian nihilism now pervades nearly every aspect of American life. And while this in no way excuses the fuck-off, me-first mindset—and certainly doesn’t apply to everyone who espouses it—when the state fails to honor its commitment to the social compact by providing a modicum of safety and stability for people, is it so hard to understand why they no longer feel obligated to live up to their end of it? Nihilism, after all, is a self-perpetuating cycle.
What are folks supposed to do when they can’t get access to the mental-health services they need? When the cost of living has far outpaced wages? When the specter of A.I.-driven mass unemployment looms over blue-collar and white-collar professions alike? When that draft-dodging, warmongering orange fuck is $4 billion richer than he was a year ago while the price of Froot Loops—the thing he was ostensibly supposed to bring down on Day One—has only gone up?
When people feel like all they get is the shit end of the stick, is it really so surprising when they leave shit itself in the public commons? Not a particularly abstruse metaphor, as those things go.
In State of Grace, Jackie and Terry weren’t merely bitching over beers about the yuppies coopting and defiling the streets of their hometown; they were lamenting a way of life in the real-time process of being lost to Reagan-era neoliberalism—the way the poor get squeezed, anything of value they may actually possess inevitably extracted from them for redistribution to the rich.
“Taxi Driver” (1976), “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975), “Dirty Harry” (1971), “Death Wish” (1974), “The French Connection” (1971)
It’s no coincidence that violent, vengeful, desperate, and/or disillusioned urban antiheroes overtook cinema in the 1970s—just as the welfare state was being systematically dismantled—and have proliferated ever since. Reflecting on Death Wish (1974) for its fiftieth anniversary, film critic Charles Bramesco says this of liberal architect–turned–bloodthirsty vigilante Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson):
Paul’s stand inspires his fellow New Yorkers to stand up to their sidewalk bullies, who are duly cowed by any firm act of resistance. The copycats imply that Paul is acting on impulses everyone shares, channeling a culture-wide spirit of frustration in a way markedly similar to the riot-sparking Joker of Todd Phillips’ 2019 film—another guy who snapped after being pushed too far. At least the Clown Prince of Crime was honest about the simple indulgence of his violent whims, where Paul sees himself as some fashion of civil engineer keeping urban America from going off the rails. Anyone actually schooled in the discipline will tell you the most effective method of lowering street crime has more to do with outreach and pre-empting the circumstances that leave the economically precarious with no other options.
— Charles Bramesco, “Death Wish at 50: a reactionary and repugnant revenge thriller,” Guardian, July 24, 2024
Look around. This is what a half-century socioeconomic experiment in upwardly funneled wealth redistribution looks like. Pretty shitty, no? That is, quite literally, the message on the streets. Christ, you can’t avoid stepping in it.
Hard to remember that just last autumn, New Yorkers made a different choice—a truly extraordinary and even altruistic one: We decided we deserved a better quality of life, a fairer standard of living, a renewed investment in social services and public programs, and we entrusted City Hall to a democratic socialist. That is a Big. Fucking. Deal.
For those whose only impressions of democratic socialism are informed by the distortions and prevarications of right-wing media:
That’s it—that’s what it means. I hear a lot of bad-faith bullshit about how it’s about taking money from hardworking self-starters and doling it out, no strings attached, to the “undeserving.” That ain’t socialism—it’s neoliberal capitalism, baby. That’s what we’ve been doing for the entirety of my lifetime. Such is what ushered the Second Gilded Age through which we are all suffering. Well, not the Epstein class Trump serves; they’re doing fine. The rest of us, I mean.
Zohran Mamdani is a man, not a messiah. He’s neither savior nor devil. I want him to be a great mayor; I think New York deserves one. I want him to prove to the rest of the country that democratic socialism can make our economy fairer, our society more secure and sustainable—that progressive governance is the way we right this listing ship. So far, he is off to an encouraging start.
But we have to do our part. We all have roles to play in our community and our democracy. Through both my activism and my writing, I have come to believe we will never emerge from the nihilistic morass in which we’re mired (despite past instances on my part of premature celebration) until we commit, individually and collectively, to living by an ethos of We’re all in this together.
Well-intentioned public policy, necessary though it is, is not by itself enough. Just ask Joe Biden, who tried his damnedest to put the country on the right track—passing historic investments in infrastructure and manufacturing with the slimmest of majorities in Congress—but we weren’t ready for it. I mean, he didn’t lower the cost of Froot Loops, so—fuck it—any chance the January Sixth guy’s up for another go?
Neither Biden nor his ambitious legislative miracles—and that’s what they were (something his successor recognizes, having shamelessly seized credit for them)—could rehabilitate the mentality of an electorate demanding overnight magic-wand fixes that would immediately improve their lives (or, barring that, sate their bloodlust) without pausing for a look in their mirror to ask what they might do for their country.
If that’s what New Yorkers expect from Mayor Mamdani, his administration, regardless of any political accomplishments he may notch, is destined to disappoint. Same as Biden’s. Ask not what your community can do for you, ya know?
To be sure: There are plenty of New Yorkers—plenty of Americans, for that matter—who live by such a community-minded ethos. I’m fortunate to work with many of them as both an environmental activist and member of my co-op board. Those are true everyday heroes—sans quotation marks—of all different temperaments, ethnicities, professions, and socioeconomic backgrounds who routinely invest their time and attention in initiatives from which they themselves do not profit (save the considerable satisfaction that comes from serving their communities).
When you associate with folks like that, you see their footprint of compassion everywhere. I noticed it the other afternoon, waiting in the car for my wife’s train across the street from a Friendly Fridge on Broadway by Van Cortlandt Park, where locals were patiently picking up prepared meals free of charge—and adhering to the posted honor code:
Take only what you need and leave some for others; clean up your mess same as you would at home; be kind and respectful. Rules to live by, methinks.
To that end, “doing for one’s community” can be as simple as merely acknowledging that community: recognizing we share this world with others—that the people we pass on the sidewalk, sit beside on the subway, wait alongside at red lights, stand in line with at the pizzeria and post office, etc., aren’t NPCs in the Story of Me.
That’s the noxious Randian worldview Hollywood romanticizes, that Ronald Reagan invoked to justify shredding the social contract in 1981, and that Trump has harnessed so impressively to stay in power (and out of prison): crush your enemies; own the libs; “hate the right people”; take whatever you want; lie with impunity; apologize for nothing; cast blame elsewhere; everything’s for sale—democracy included. Anything less is for suckers and losers.
Mamdani offers, to state it moderately, an alternative approach. I’m glad we elected him. Regardless of how his mayoral tenure ultimately turns out, it was the right decision—made for the right reason: because New Yorkers felt we—all of us—deserve a better, fairer New York. It was a hopeful vote from all who cast it, not a nihilistic or vengeful one—not a thumb of the nose to otherized people we’ve been trained to blame for our problems.
Hold fast to that spirit. Let’s give Mamdani the time and support he requires to do what we elected him to do at City Hall; in the meantime, let’s be the change we want to see, to invoke an admittedly starry-eyed cliché, on our city streets. Only then, when we’re all in this together, will we truly realize the New York we deserve.
Or, at minimum, one a little less shitty. That would be a welcome start.
Coming this spring: A deep-dive analysis of the 1990 coming-of-age drama Pump up the Volume.
Glad to read a new post from you
Sorry it’s on such a shitty topic
How have you been?
Thanks, Dell! Good to hear from you, too!
You know, I’d been itching to write a new essay for a while, but it’s always a challenge because, as you’re aware, I wind up turning them all into goddamn doctoral theses! LOL! This seemed like the perfect excuse to get “back in the saddle” — to write something (relatively) short and sweet that was merely intended to be an off-brand political rant (because it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want here!). Despite myself, however, I nonetheless managed to tie it into the broader pop-cultural landscape. That was gratifying. Writing about movies per se seems so trivial in light of, ya know, everything.
Still, I am preparing a lengthy post on the old Christian Slater movie Pump up the Volume that I’m really excited about. It ticks all the boxes, operating as both an analytical case study and an intimately personal essay. When I conceived the thesis, I got that flush of excitement that comes from a moment of inspiration — that feeling of, I have to write this. And whenever the title of a post immediately suggests itself, as it did in the case of my Pump piece, it won’t stop nagging me until it’s written.
But it’s going to be a characteristically thorough examination of the movie’s narrative structure and themes (like I’ve done for Superman IV and Heat 2 and Buffy ’92 and Die Hard and so on), so I don’t expect it to post any sooner than May or June. Whenever it’s ready.
And in place of transcribed excerpts, like I’ve traditionally used, I plan to intersperse edited video samples of the actual scenes to which I’m referring within the body of the essay. In that sense, incorporating those brief clips from State of Grace above was a “trial run” for me. Using video will (I hope) help make these essays a little cooler, a little more fun, more visceral. Especially in a movie like Pump up the Volume, in which so much of the narrative energy derives from its alt-rock soundtrack, to say nothing of Christian Slater’s electrifying performance — the one-man show he puts on at the microphone. So, I’m excited for that post.
Beyond that, I have been very busy revising a collection of novellas and researching a nonfiction project. Also hope to resume work on my languishing novel-length adaptation of “The Lost Boys of the Bronx” this summer. All good things. What are you working on these days…?
Fifteen years ago, when I started “The Best Advice So Far” (the site, the blog and the first book), this was one of the very first principles I built everything else on:
“Treat people as real people—with lives as full, interesting, meaningful and complex as our own—not merely as background noise, obstacles to overcome or means to achieving our own ends.”
I don’t just tout this. I live it to the best of my ability.
The fact that I found this to be necessary to say at all—let alone to be one of two cornerstones supporting fifteen years of content—means it was a noticeable problem even back then.
But you are right, Sean. I could never have imagined when I first wrote that the depths of egocentrism that would eventually permeate America.
In short, I think we’ve simply been permitted—with blatant example after example from “the top”—to think only of what I want. Right now. Or else.
It’s ironic that the WORD “America” (or just the letter “A”) or the symbols of it get bandied about far more often now, from red hats to gigantic flags waving precariously from the backs of pickup trucks. And yet the concept of “America” and “patriotism” has moved entirely away from “United” and “one nation”… to “me” and… well, “ME.” The 1775 concept of “Don’t tread on me” is no longer a stand against tyranny. It’s a threat. An “I DARE you!” to anyone who even looks at us sideways as we tread on whomever or whatever we damn well please.
I find it ironic that people are so up in arms about AI replacing humans. We’re doing a bang-up job of replacing our humanity, all by ourselves.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that “You ALWAYS have a choice” (which is the other, and foremost, principle foundational to “The Best Advice So Far”).
And I live by it. I cling to it even, at times.
Each of us only has a limited amount of time, focus and emotional capacity. If we squander it on all of the areas where our choices make no difference (e.g., doom scrolling), then we have none left for the many, many areas of life where our choices CAN make a difference.
At every turn, I ask myself, “Is there a reasonable chance that a choice of mine can change this situation?” If the answer is YES, then I make that choice. If the answer is NO… then I choose not to give that thing any more of my time, focus or emotions. Some might at first think it’s “irresponsible” not to keep knowing everything bad happening out there. Yet I can’t help but feel that it’s actually irresponsible to waste my limited resources of time, focus and emotion on areas where I know they will be wasted.
Instead, I envision the world as I wish it were. Then I make the world that way, one choice at a time, even if only in my own moving sphere.
I will tell you: it makes a HUGE difference.
Rather than feeling continually drained, I feel encouraged. Excited even.
And I see those small choices spread to others—often without any words at all.
I’ll give one small example.
I am a regular at the gym. When I started at my current location about two years ago, the parking lot was strewn with trash. Inside the gym, people would throw sweaty paper towels or water bottles on the floor wherever they were—despite the fact that they were within 10 feet of at least two trash cans at all times. Plates were left on bars when people were done with their own sets, and dumbbells were left wherever they dropped them. Everyone wore headphones and ignored eye contact. No one spoke.
This is not the world as I want it to be.
I asked myself, “Is there anything any choice of mine can do to change this situation?” And, in fact, there were several choices I could make. So I began making them:
• I introduced myself to people, gave my name, asked theirs, remembered theirs next time, and used it. As I “collected names,” I introduced others I was just meeting to someone else nearby and said, “I just like people to feel welcome, even if it’s just a wave and a hello when we all come in.”
• If someone’s first language wasn’t English, I spoke to them however I could in whatever other languages I know (e.g., French, Spanish, Russian, Sign Language)—and I whipped out my translation app if it was a language I know little to nothing of (e.g., Turkish, Haitian Creole, etc.). I have yet to have a single person not engage with this.
• On my walk between my vehicle and the door, I’d stoop and pick up one or two pieces of trash, throwing them in the receptacle by the door. (Others coming in would see this, of course, but I said nothing.)
• Inside the gym, I’d do the same. As I moved between sets and areas, I’d stoop to pick up one piece of trash, one bottle, and throw them away in the nearest trash can, saying nothing.
TODAY:
• Everyone knows everyone. They shout each other’s names across the gym. They talk, joke, laugh, do silly stunts with foam rollers, and even dance together when certain songs come on. Headphones are worn far less frequently, and they’re taken out whenever someone else walks by. Phone numbers are exchanged often. And everyone has a translation app at the ready.
• “Hellos” became fist bumps. Fist bumps became claps on shoulders. Claps on shoulders have become *gasp!* actual hugs: young or old, muscled or skinny or overweight, men or women, Christian or Muslim, atheist or other, straight or not.
• The parking lot and gym floor are clean. Not only do people not throw their “shit” anymore, virtually everyone stoops to pick up and throw away the stray item or two when they see it.
• Weights are always racked. Wiping down equipment is the norm. Naturally.
• I drive to the gym every night with a guy named Mike, because we realized in talking that he lives in my town (25 minutes from the all-night gym) and had been going right by my house to get to the gym. Mike is now one of my closest friends.
None of this was ENFORCED. It was just modeled. And people liked how it felt to live that way. So they made similar choices.
My observation is that, if people are presented in tangible ways with how “ME, ME, ME!” feels as compared with how “WE!” feels—they virtually always like how the “WE!” feels enough to choose it.
Erik!
First off: So great to hear from you, my dear friend! I’m elated you “stopped by” to visit and to share your thoughtful take on the topic du jour. Thank you.
Secondly: It’s clear to me now I really should have just called and asked you to write this piece! Your response is more powerful and eloquent than anything I expressed. I second all your keen observations: that “united” seems almost an ironic adjective at this point; that the meaning of “Don’t tread on me” has been tragically warped; that we’ve preemptively devalued what it means to be human all on our own, any (very real) threats from ASI notwithstanding. Well said, sir.
I am, as you know, a devotee of your writing — I enthusiastically encourage everyone to read The Best Advice So Far, TRIED & (Still) TRUE, and ALTERNATE REALITY — and I absolutely believe small, momentary choices, be it discarding trash left behind by someone else or, alternatively, flipping a fellow driver the bird as you cut them off in traffic, have appreciable and rippling influence. (That’s sort of what the crime thriller Heat 2 is about, in its hypermasculine way.) The culture is not set by grand acts (for good or for evil), but rather by millions upon millions of everyday gestures. Society is the sum total of our actions, not merely the highlight-reel moments featured on the nightly news and in the history books.
I love the way you were able to affect the culture at your local gym! Thank you for sharing that instructive anecdote. What you said is key: “None of this was ENFORCED. It was just modeled. And people liked how it felt to live that way. So they made similar choices.” (The TV series Ted Lasso is about a Midwestern coach who changes the culture of an English football club simply by modeling a better, kinder, friendlier mode of social interaction that inspires others to want to live like that and therefore make likeminded choices.)
For reasons I made clear in the essay, Trump has certainly modeled a behavioral mode that’s given broad license to live by a spirit of (often meanspirited, sometimes merely thoughtless) amoral egocentrism. If Trump has proven anything, it’s that both representative democracy and civilized society basically operate on an honor system. Sure, there are laws, and checks and balances, but they’re not worth terribly much if people don’t make a good-faith effort to abide by the social compact — to “play by the rules,” if you like, and stop acting as though we’re the exclusive heroic exemption to the code.
To that end, it’s worth noting here, because I didn’t in the text above, the role the pandemic played in the lamentable degradation of the social contract. It is certainly true that if you live in a major metropolitan area, that’s when you noticed an uptick in litter, in brazen traffic violations, in irresponsible pet ownership. It’s like a new low bar for social behavior was set at that time — the wish-fulfillment fantasy of “running amok in a world without rules” supplied by all our favorite postapocalyptic fiction — and that became the new baseline even after life returned to “normal.”
If not for post-pandemia apathy, Biden’s courageous legislative attempts to restore the safety net may very well have been received in the magnanimous spirit in which they were proposed and thusly ushered in a new era of social equity. That’s what I meant when I said we weren’t ready for it. He took a big swing, but the country wasn’t “there.” Such is why states and municipalities must instead become laboratories for progressive governance: Show people on the local level that this shit works, and they’ll demand it from Congress and the White House. Biden (optimistically) thought Americans would appreciate it once they had it. Turns out, you have to foster an appetite for such a thing before it’s served. We still had — have — the taste for blood, the appetite for destruction, that Trump encouraged.
That’s why it’s a “Big. Fucking. Deal.” we’ve got a democratic socialist seated at the head of the table in the capital of global capitalism. Mamdani has such a historic opportunity to demonstrate both why and how progressive policies can work. God, I hope he succeeds. To paraphrase a song about New York I once heard: If democratic socialism can make it here, it’ll make it anywhere…
My friend: I hope you are healthy and prosperous. I appreciate your sharing some of your insights and wisdom here. Decency needs an army fighting for it; you are its brigadier general, as far as I am concerned.
Cheers to you on St. Patrick’s Day…
Sean
You: “It’s clear to me now I really should have just called and asked you to write this piece! Your response is more powerful and eloquent than anything I expressed.”
Me: Pish-posh.
No one should nor can try to express what you express the way you express it. Had you not written exactly what you wrote how you wrote it, my own thoughts would not have formed as they did. I know no other writer like you, no other person who expresses ideas the way you do. So no “should-haves.”
Well, that’s why I’m always grateful for your contributions, Erik: You engage so thoughtfully on the subject at hand. I appreciate that. You make these pieces a discussion, which is what I hope they inspire when I write them. They are intended as an opening salvo, not the closing word.
I haven’t tended to this blog in a while — I consciously deprioritized it to invest my time and creative energy in other things — and you lose readers when you’re not posting regularly. So, that you and Dell came back to weigh in means the world.
On the subject of creative energies, I certainly hope you’ve been exercising your own in productive and gratifying ways! Eager to get an update soon…
I just read your rant, absolutely beautiful!! The way you tied together dog shit and politics (basically inseparable these days) was hilarious and entertainingly insightful, and the whole bit about the community fridge got me too. Haven’t seen those in my part of LA yet. I was hooked the whole way through… and it’s slightly tragic that at 48 I just learned it’s spelled Froot Loops and not “fruit.”
I can’t stop picturing those dumb sonovbitches standing there watching their dog’s steaming pile of shit sink into the snow like they were Clark Kent launching that green Kryptonian crystal, just waiting for their own Fortress of Solitude to rise up. I’m happy to report I’m apparently more than an everyday hero because I pick up my dog’s shit… and other dogs’ shit… mostly based on me and my 10 year old son stepping in what other people leave behind and what a complete nightmare that is. That stuff is almost impossible to see on night walks.
Super looking forward to the Pump Up the Volume analysis.
Mike! Thanks for taking the time to read and comment! I appreciate you.
I’ve seen those community fridges pop up around NYC here and there. There’s a six-minute video on the organization’s website that offers a nice overview of the initiative. Maybe it’s something you can suggest to your neighborhood council in L.A….?
As for the spelling of Froot Loops, I can only assume that was done to avoid a misleading-marketing violation of FTC regulations. Or… it just looked more fun? Who knows!
And thanks for forever ruining this majestic movie scene for me! Hahaha! Superman: The Movie is one of my favorites; I featured it in a post about my formative influences.
Yes, I’m looking forward to studying Pump up the Volume; I have quite a bit to say about it. That piece will be more consistent with the types of essays I typically publish here; “The City That Never Scoops,” a pure political rant, is a bit out of character. I just hadn’t posted in a while and wanted to get this off my chest. Expect the Pump piece in (I hope) May or June…
Congestion pricing was something I called for in “Highway to Hell,” but the last paragraph of this excerpt from a New York Times editorial published this morning applies more generally to my point here about progressive governance:
Kudos to you, Sean, for having the ability to see the big picture. It seems a tool sadly lacking from the majority of the human race. Having just returned from a 2 1/2 week cross-country RV journey that took us through 9 states to attend a family wedding in Missouri, I can confidently say that taking the toll roads was always a benefit.
Another experience that comes to mind that parallels the short-sightedness of the objectors in the article you share here is the very long history of the small theater “Waiver Wars” that have happened twice now in Los Angeles. (I’ll give you the short summary here.)
When it was brought to the attention of the business reps at Actors Equity that union actors were being told by small theater operators that they had to work unlimited hours each week and commit to a run of a show for many weeks without being paid, the union did a deep dive into the situation and then decided to put an end to this practice by insisting that theater producers agree to small stipends, limited time commitments and basic backstage safety conditions. Bottom line: Without this agreement, do what you want, but you cannot use union actors in your shows. One would think the actors might appreciate the protection and support of the union but many argued that the theaters couldn’t afford to pay (despite the fact that they were hiring designers, directors, publicists, etc. and charging the audience fairly standard ticket prices. ) and shouted to masses that Actor’s Equity was going to ruin theater in L.A.
As it says in the article, “The scaremongers were wrong.” Theater in L.A. did not die. And now actors know they will at least get paid gas money and have clean water backstage.
As with so much of humanity’s bewildering behavior, the underlying reason for the argument is rarely what they are saying out loud.
Good to see you posting here. Looking forward to your next one!
Hi, Tara! Thanks for reading the piece and leaving such a thoughtful comment!
I try, to the best extent I can, to take a big-picture approach to my theses — to look at things as holistically as possible. While I acknowledge this is a complex issue with a lot of factors at play, it seems to me that when we consider the extent of the anger, tension, and apathy in the streets of America — and it’s certainly the worst it’s been in my almost-fifty years of existence (I’ve got a double-digit birthday next week) — it’s undeniable to me it stems from the breakdown of the social compact, starting with neoliberalism and culminating during COVID. Far wiser writers than yours truly have pointed out that we are in the era of enshittification; what happened on the streets of NYC this past winter was merely a literal acknowledgment of that.
As we were driving through the traffic-choked throughfares of Brooklyn the other week, a buddy of mine — a former lieutenant in the NYPD — was telling me that whenever he travels to Europe, he’s in awe of how content (generally speaking) Europeans are. It’s not that those countries don’t have their problems — of course they do — but no other Western nation offers its citizens less security (social, economic, medical) than the United States. My friend said, “And the crazy part is, all we ever hear is how America is The Best. It’s like we’ve been conditioned to accept less and less and less” — a.k.a. enshittification — “because we’ve been trained to believe we’ve got it better than anyone else, so what’s to complain about?” He’s right: Our quality of life, happiness index, average lifespan, and expense-to-outcome healthcare ratio rank us far below most other Western countries.
The American spirit of cowboy individualism (which was always predicated on racism, though that’s a subject for another day) has metastasized into figure it out for yourself, jerkoff. No one put it better than our mad king last week when he said, “The United States can’t take care of day care.” Change can’t to won’t, and that’s the first truthful thing he’s uttered in recent memory.
And I believe (though I am hardly alone in this position) that half a century of neoliberalism — socialism for the corporations and austerity for everyone else — has reached its boiling point. The whole enshittified system is on the verge of collapse. And in response, we’re looking to two types of politicians: those who stoke our anger and resentment, exploit our grievances, and model nihilism, and those, like Mamdani, who offer a kinder, more inclusive, more hopeful way forward. A progressive, not regressive, worldview. Whether or not Mamdani succeeds as mayor is secondary to the more salient lesson of his election: that political courage, moral imagination, and esprit de corps are the ethea worth embracing and championing. Making things better instead of making them shittier.
But, as you point out, every time a politician who espouses those values proposes a new idea or policy, the scaremongering starts. And the GOP is good at it: It’s how they get their constituents to vote so regularly — and passionately — against their own interests. Remember all the “Green New Scam” bullshit? And if they were wrong about congestion pricing, maybe they were wrong about the Green New Deal, too? But you’ll notice that none of the naysayers cited in that article — Lawler, Murphy, Trump — have come out and said, “You know what? I was wrong. Good for New York for taking a risk and pulling off something that’s improved quality of life in the city for all. Maybe it’s a reminder that municipalities are laboratories for policy, and no harm comes from trying.” Some motherfuckers are just wholeheartedly committed to being on the wrong side of history, I guess.
And thank you for the note of encouragement about posting in general! I was extremely productive in 2025 — I finished a collection of magical-realism novellas that I’m currently polishing — but that necessitated a step back from blogging. I don’t know how frequently I’ll be posting in ’26, but my goal is to get that Pump up the Volume analysis up this spring, and hopefully I’ll post the third and final installment of “Under the Influence” later this year. And, as always, if something springs to mind before that, you never know when I might be inspired to write about it!
I see you’ve been busy, too! For those unaware, Tara’s debut work of fiction, a collection of short stories called Coming to Light, is now available from Buttons & Whimsy. For a behind-the-scenes look at the project’s development, see Tara’s recent blog post.
Biggest congratulations to you, my dear friend! Enjoy this moment. I can’t wait to order my copy…
Sean
Some day, you’ll realize that focusing on this instead of your actual writing craft will be a bad idea, but that’s not going to happen, so…here’s an article that’s a more interesting read: https://nofilmschool.com/most-screenwriters-fail
Hi, Canais,
Yes, you expressed similar feedback in a private e-mail, to which I responded with a gracious reply, thanking you for the comment and offering my encouragement for your own creative endeavors.
Given that you’ve taken the time to issue your critique both privately and now publicly, I can only draw one of two reasonable conclusions: that you didn’t receive my response to your e-mail… or that you’re deliberately trolling me.
Seeing how I’ve been having issues with my e-mail account this week, I’m going to confidently assume the former: that my reply was, for whatever reason, undelivered. Therefore, I beg pardon for the technical difficulties.
To reiterate what I said in my unreceived note, craft matters to me very much — I’ve devoted my life to its study and mastery — but it’s not the only thing I care about. Furthermore, I believe craft must be in service to morally imaginative and socially responsible fiction — stories that aspire to challenge societal norms and the status quo, not merely affirm them. A disproportionate amount of the commercial cinema and fiction of the last half century has propagandized the myths of neoliberalism and Randian individualism, and I think we can and should challenge ourselves to tell better stories than that. To quote author and activist Naomi Klein:
A good deal of my blog is now dedicated to precisely that: interrogating popular narratives, archetypal “heroes,” and pernicious tropes. Because what’s the point in telling a good story if the story itself simply cheerleads for the outmoded mores of a previous era?
Now, as for the matter of craft itself, you can find links to a number of strictly academic articles on this blog that cover storytelling principles and programs on my Start Here page. In a nutshell, I recommend studying Chris Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey for mythic structure (reviewed here), Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! for genre conventions (but only the three books written by Snyder himself), and David Freeman’s Beyond Structure workshop for characterization (though it seems Dave no longer offers that in-person course, something I find deeply unfortunate seeing how it is hands-down the most significant, instructive, and influential program I’ve ever studied). Studying, practicing, and mastering Vogler, Snyder, and Freeman is in itself a lifetime curriculum — the only one an aspiring writer needs, IMHO.
Beyond that, I don’t have much left to say about the matter of craft. There are a zillion bloggers and YouTubers who analyze and teach narrative craft out there, many of them worthwhile: Mythcreants. Wordplayer. ScriptShadow. Brandon McNulty. Helping Writers Become Authors. Story Empire. Kristen Lamb. John Truby. Patrick Willems. It goes on and on. Personally, I don’t see any point in being yet another writing-tip depot in an overcrowded blogosphere of them — especially when I’ve already prescribed a syllabus that I believe will teach a writer everything he/she needs to know.
(And my endorsements, I should note, earn me no compensation; I’m simply sharing recommended resources and best practices with other writers — that’s all. This is my author blog, not a revenue source unto itself; there’s no paywall, I don’t sell goods or services here, and I don’t support advertisements — I in fact pay an out-of-pocket surcharge specifically to keep this space ad-free — or make affiliate commissions. As I quote from Dracula on my About Me page: “Enter freely of your own will — and leave some of the happiness you bring!”)
Now, with that said, allow me to explain why that recent No Film School article is fifteen years out of date: Because Hollywood screenwriting is a moribund craft — for several reasons.
One: We can’t overlook or underestimate the collapse of conventional narrativity — that is, the Campbellian three-act structure that underpins 99% of the feature films ever produced. I first wrote about this subject over a decade ago, and in the interim, movies have only become less culturally relevant as younger generations cultivate a preference for short-form postnarrative videos over feature-length narrative films.
Two: For reasons covered (in part) in this recent Rolling Stone article, the entertainment industry is cratering. From my days in Hollywood, I am friends with many experienced, talented, Emmy-nominated screenwriters… and not a one of ’em can find work anymore. L.A. is well on its way to becoming the next Detroit: a one-industry town that collapses when the industry leaves. The industry itself is decentralizing — Hollywood will never again be its epicenter — and studios simply won’t be needed as they historically have been to finance and distribute “motion pictures” or “television shows” (or what have you) when that stuff can now be done on the cheap with consumer-grade software and a YouTube channel.
So, given that pro screenwriters with enviable credits in what should be their prime professional years are (painfully) coming to grips with the fact that their careers are over, I would not recommend to any recent college grads that they decamp for Southern California to pursue their filmmaking dreams. There’s no future in old-school screenwriting, a fact I take zero pleasure in stating.
Three: The dirty little secret in Hollywood right now is that the lucky screenwriters who are still gainfully employed are more and more (and in steadily increasing numbers) relying on AI to outline, write, and/or revise their scripts. None of them will admit it but believe me it’s happening. And studio execs unquestionably use AI to evaluate those scripts, which means AI is now writing and critiquing much of what gets written in Hollywood. At this rate, it won’t be long before the studios — which, as indicated above, are irreversibly terminal — realize they can just go straight to ChatGPT and cut out the screenwriting middleman. This will be especially true as the studios continue to consolidate and rely more and more on formulaic IP like Harry Potter and Super Mario Bros. to serve their investors.
There will, of course, always be an entertainment industry, but the one we’ve known for the last century — what we call “Hollywood” — is finished. Therefore, playing by the old “rulebooks” — and that includes Save the Cat! and all the rest of those cinema-tailored programs — is a fool’s errand, because none of those rules apply to the new modes of creativity that are gradually usurping the 20th-century narrative models. We’re in a period of transition, experimentation, and innovation. Neoliberalism, Hollywood, all the vestiges of the previous century — they’re collapsing.
As such, my advice to aspiring storytellers — of any medium — would be this: Equally important to studying and practicing your craft is to be aware of the seismic sociotechnological shifting of the ground beneath our feet and, accordingly, aspire to tell stories that speak to the challenges, anxieties, and opportunities of this moment. (That is certainly how Mamdani is governing.) And as for how to study and practice your craft, I’ll share this quote from the director of Sin City and Spy Kids. He’s talking about film school, but his advice applies just as readily to writing-precept blogs:
Hear, hear.
Now, Canais, with all that said, I will concede this particular post does represent something of a departure (albeit not altogether unprecedented) from the blog’s established program. Ordinarily, if I have a political point to make, I tend to do it within the context of a forensic examination of a particular movie or genre. But I did pay my readers the courtesy of a heads-up in the article’s lede. If you are a fan of the 1990 Christian Slater drama Pump up the Volume, I invite you to come back for that (apolitical) post this coming spring; I’m going to discuss the movie’s storytelling choices, how it presaged a shift in teen culture from the John Hughesian ’80s to the ’90s grunge movement, why it resonated so powerfully with me when I first saw it at 14 years old, and what I think of it today after watching it recently for the first time in over 30 years.
As I said previously, I thank you for the feedback and wish you only success and joy in your own creative pursuits.
Sean