When I was at Wayne State, I took a screenwriting class. The 'professor' didn't know jack-poo-poo about screenwritting. I got a 'B.' A few years later, I met a guy through a classmate who had heard I was a good writer and he needed someone to co-write screenplays with. He was OK, paid me a few dollars here and there, I wrote two and gave him the 'hook' for one. Fast-forward 25 years and I'm in a dive bar in Burbank telling a friend in the business that the book he sent me was crap and there was no story there.

My Brilliant Friend is fantastic. I binged-watched the last season, set in the early '70s, last week. The author, who's still alive, is a fantastic storyteller and the folks at HBO are marvelous at finding this stuff. Who in the hell could make criminals, (Oz) freaks (Carnavale) and the mob (Sopranos) relateable? Not to mention Garry Shandling and Larry David. Television might be a dying medium, but with HBO and Showtime, you get what pay for.