But What I Really Want To Do Is Executive Produce ...

Whatever happened to wanting to be a writer and creator of an HBO Show? Okay, fine, there is a certain coolness about Executive Producing, like, say, the great Michael Hirschorn does at VH1 on those X Generation nostalgia shows. Even Sandra Bulloch is in on the act with George Lopez. Then, of course, there are Courtney Cox and David Arquette and their design-fashion show. (BTW Was that Courtney Cox on the cover of Town and Country? Has Cafe Society morphed into the Jet Set? Yes, alas, I trace the exact moment when John Travolta occupied the cover story talking about his gaudy planes and not, say, Dina Merrill talking about the roses she grows in Newport, Rhode Island or Harry Bellafonte on the Harlem Rennaissance.) And then there was Graydon Carter's The Kid Stays In The Picture that started off the madness. First the End of Irony and now Executive Production mania! Do we blame Canada for this? Now, it appears, everyone wants to Executive Produce. Steven Soderberg of K Street, etc, etc, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Tom Cruise Executive Produced his ex wife Nicole Kidman in The Others and Rita Wilson exec produced My Big Fat Greek Wedding. You know what they say: a family that Executive Produces together .... But what happened to wanting to Direct? When did that all of a sudden become uncool? BTW: Fellini retrospective at the Guggenheim; anyone who knows me knows that Mwangaguhunga loves to get his Fellini on .