More years ago than I would like to remember, I was a up and coming filmmaker in Los Angeles. And like all other up and coming filmmakers in Los Angeles, I had a script to sell.

Myself and two writing partners created a script that was considered "cutting edge" for the time. This was the very early 1990's.

We did the whole Hollywood thing from taking meetings, doing lunches and meeting people that wanted to be in the "Javaman Business". It was surreally(sic) nauseating.

I learned early on, that I really didn't have the stomach for all the piles of bullshit that was flung our way. I also, knew that none of these people liked us, they just wanted what we had and were trying their best to get it. And when the got it, they would slice and dice it to fit their needs. Honestly, I really didn't have a problem with that part of it. If they bought it, it was their's to do with it as they wish.

But I digress.

Ever since this whole health care "reform" began, I have had this overwhelming sinking feeling in my stomach. It was the feeling of "I've felt this before and nothing about it seems right".

Why? Because as this whole process for "reforming" health care unfolds, I can't help but see the similarities between what I went through in Los Angeles and what the Democrats are doing in Congress with this bill.

The art of selling a script is just that, an art. You have to give a little, take a little and know when to dig your heels in. The last thing you want to get into is buckling under every single request for changes to the script (free changes) that the perspective buyer would like and that they believe "would make the script better". All so you can sell it. If you give in, all your bargaining power, all your integrity, all your creative juices that you put in to the script, are gone.

You now become a tool of prevailing forces.

"You want to turn the main character into a talking walrus? But this is an Elizabethan era murder mystery!"

"Move the setting to upper volta during monsoon season? But it's the biography of Mongolian sheep herders!"

The sad part is, many script writers desperate for a sale will say reluctantly, "I think I can make that work".

I may be wrong but with this latest capitulation by the Dem's regarding this little stupak amendment amounts to that same phrase, "I think I can make that work".

The Dem's in their want are now becoming seemingly desperate (even though they hold the cards)and are evolving into tools of the prevailing winds of stupidity.

Once you take that path, your original idea, the Dem's quest for national health care, the basic essence of what this is all about, gets completely and hopelessly lost in the myriad of stupidity, personal interests and political winds of various peoples private agendas.

Obama's odd need to include republicans, who are basically just fucking with us now (and laughing about it), is slowing turning into that desperate writer in need of that sale.

We all know what is at stake here with this Bill. There are some that want to "start over" or accept the stupak amendment. I say no. At this junction, starting over would amount to failure and accepting the stupak amendment would be giving up any shred of integrity left.

There are heroic tales of script writers that finally have enough and say, "bullshit on you" and go off and shoot the script themselves.

What happens then is two things; either the movie vanishes into the haze of "just another stinking pile of a script" or it becomes an "indie favorite".

I say, fuck it. We have a guaranteed block buster here and everyone knows it. Even the repubs know it and that scares the living shit out of them.

Shed these assholes like a "Bikini Drive-in" producer and go off and pass this bill via reconciliation with 51 votes.

If that doesn't happen, if the Dem's continue to try and appease the right side of the isle, I can guarantee you, what we will have left is a bill with a talking walrus set in the upper reaches of upper volta mugging the camera with lines like, "My teeth hurt".

Sigh.