Talent and Awe

In thinking about the concert I saw the other night, it occurred to me how awed I am by talented singer-songwriters.

There's something about watching someone really good, on a stage, performing their music, that really grabs me. It's the closest thing to idol worship I have.

The irony? I don't really feel that way about screenwriters. And that bothers me.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of screenwriters I respect a lot. But I just don't have that sense of wow. Of awe.

Maybe it's because it has lost its mystery for me. I'm a reader and a writer, I've seen behind the curtain. Well-known screenwriters are just people like you and me, who are very good at crafting words.

Meanwhile, I have no musical skill at all. None. So it's all a marvelous mystery to me, being able to sit down, and write a great song, then be able to play it onstage and wow an audience... Much less 10 songs. Or 110.

There's no real similarity in screenwriting. Screenplays aren't really meant to be read; their purpose is to be a movie. So they are awkward, unsexy beasts, part of a long process that by its end just feels more and more divorced from the original creator.

Sure, screenwriters can stand on a stage, and read from their screenplays. But for me it doesn't stand up to a solid tunesmith working their art.

I hate feeling like this. I should be a scribe-worshipper. I shouldn't be feeding into the same mindset that leads teens looking to get laid to form a garage band, and not a screenwriting team.

But, sad as it is to admit, given the choice, I'd rather break bread with Neil Young than William Goldman. Tip a beer with Billy Corgan, rather than Shane Black. Tar Aimee Mann's driveway, rather than Charlie Kaufman's.

Sorry Charlie.

But somedays, I wish I could just write a perfect little song, and sing it on a perfect little stage. And kudos to the people that have the talent to do it.