It was the bit with the watch.

For those of you not watching this HBO series, for those of you WITHOUT HBO,
Turtle wanted the director of "Queens Boulevard" to listen to a track.  For
his movie.  Being the indie prick he is, the director said no, he didn’t have
time, he had to watch soccer with stoners in his down and out motel room.  But
Turtle pushed.  So, the director relented, he’d give a listen if Drama gave him
his WATCH!

Sounds irrational, I know.  But that’s the entertainment business.  The
irrationality crossed with the intimidation.  It’s like high school on steroids. 
But the people playing, in control, are not the cheerleaders and football
players, but the GEEKS!  The kids who did what their parents told them to, who
studied hard to get into good colleges.  FINALLY, they can be adolescents, party,
act like pricks with their power.  And "Entourage" captures this truth.  For
all the reams of press in trashy papers like "Us" and "The Star", for all the
endless coverage on "E.T.", "Extra" and E!, this truth is never revealed.  The
pricks in charge won’t have it, they’ll restrict access.

But these pricks are glued to "Entourage".  They finally made a show about
THEM!  We’re still waiting for a show about us.  All we got was Cameron Crowe’s
lame fairy tale "Almost Famous", which depicted the Continental Ryatt House as
a pajama party instead of showing English rock stars dripping hot wax on
underage girls.  Then again, there’s not even any truth in the MUSIC anymore. 
Films have been phony FOR YEARS!  Because the people in charge…let’s just say
these geeks can’t write hit songs, but they can influence/bland out a movie.

I HATE Marky Mark.  I’ll say he can act a bit, although he’s been chewing the
scenery lately, but I can’t get over the mayhem he wreaked as a teenager.  He
apologized to that guy, couldn’t he WRITE HIM A CHECK?  No, he’s too busy
raping and pillaging in Hollywood with his entourage.  Which is why I had a chip
on my shoulder about this show.  But it’s dissipated, now it’s gone, because certain things are so right.

Boys talk about pussy.  That’s their main goal.  TO GET IN!

I know, doesn’t sound like a revelation, but it is.  In the feminized culture
we live in today.  Where if you show any boyish tendencies you’ve got to take
Ritalin, where metrosexuality is invading the culture.  We can accept the girls
talking about doing it on "Sex In The City", but that’s only because
Samantha’s a cartoon and Carrie’s got a heart of gold.  Isn’t it cute?  Isn’t it FUNNY? But if it’s boys acting like boys, it’s off-putting, it’s too base, we can’t
handle it.

Well, let me tell you, WOMEN control sex.  For every Vince who can slam
anything he wants there are TENS OF MILLIONS of guys who are begging for it. 
If you’re giving it up to cads, that’s YOUR problem.  Just hold out, manipulate
them.  YOU’VE got all the power, USE IT!  You drive us wild, you’ve got what we
want, but we’ve got to keep our strategy meetings private, for fear of being
lambasted as hollow pricks.

The way Vince has fallen for Mandy.  THAT’S boys.  It’s BOYS who give up
their friends for girls, not vice versa.  And Eric, he’s the nice boy, the
feminized boy, he can’t get laid to save his life.  And Turtle, he’s got NOTHING, so
he’s shined up his personality, he works his charisma, which is charming, you
can see why HE gets laid.

Yet as good as the banter amongst the boys has gotten this year, Ari still
steals the show.

Ain’t that the entertainment business.  You’re rich and powerful, but you’re
still fearful of losing it all, still answering to somebody, still in thrall
to the good-looking pricks who terrorized you in high school.  Yes, that’s rule
number one of the entertainment business…the suits HATE the talent.  They’d
BE the talent if only they could.

Oh, the duplicity.  Changing the numbers on his wife’s Mercedes.  I know a
promotion man who did this.  He was on his way up.  He didn’t want anybody to
know he bought the small engine.

And the lying and manipulation to maintain control.

"Entourage"’s ratings were anemic.  It pulled in around 1.3 million viewers. 
A disaster on network, a disappointment on cable.  But HBO has stuck with it.
 And now that the show has hit its stride, they’ve worked the press (both
"The New York Times" and "Newsweek" had stories last week), ratings have
increased, they’re now doing TWO AND A HALF million viewers.  THIS is the way we used to do it in the record business.  Play to the cult.  Nurture it.  Let it find its way.  And, when you get a spark, THEN hype it.  Now we make it bland, to
appeal to everybody, we hype it to high hell, and if it doesn’t take off, we
abandon it.

So, just when it appeared HBO was done, they’ve found a new series.  "Sex And
The City" did not do well in its infancy.  The shows weren’t great and
ratings were mediocre.  The show took YEARS to become a phenomenon.  By the time "Entourage" hits the tube next year, EVERYBODY will be watching.  Well, not everybody.  Only thirty million households have HBO.  But that’s enough.  To generate a pile of money to create complex fare that RESONATES!