"If you are a writer, your job is to tell the world the truth," said a slightly agitated old man named Robert McKee. He was pacing, his voice amplified by a clip-on microphone. The main point of his ranting was in exposing the truth of writing for film--but the ancillary points mostly had to do with stuff I generally write about in my own weekly rants. Maybe that's why I was laughing so much.

McKee was immortalized in the film Adaptation<, where a writer goes to one of his seminars to figure out how to adapt a book about flowers for a screenplay. I liked the film until the last twenty minutes or so--when every main character breaks character. A silly action sequence ensues, and I was left wondering what the hell happened. I always blamed McKee for the horrible ending. Of course, Charlie Kaufman wrote it, so the blame really lies with him. But rarely does a movie turn on a dime from really good to just horrible in such a small amount of time.

I was in Las Vegas, listening to McKee at the behest of my employer--who, I suspect, fell in love with McKee because of Adaptation. A year or so ago, McKee mania took hold of the owner, and he did his best to spread it to everyone else in the company. I read part of McKee's book, Story, and while it has some good pointers for screenwriters, it's a little hard to read. In the book, McKee seems to be trying to show himself to be a good writer by sprinkling in tons of big words and repeating his point ad nauseam. In person, he is much more plain spoken--although he is prone to rants about the state of the world (you won't find the rants in the book).

I don't work for a company that produces films. We produce studies and reports about commercials. While some people in the company seem to think commercials are "short films," I think the similarity ends with the media used to produce the things. It is a philosophical difference, to say the least. After much poking and prodding (by many people--although almost always at the request of the owner), I decided the only way to get them off my back was to go. So Vegas bound I was.

I'm not a gambler. I know how to play blackjack and poker, but when you put money in the mix, I'm at a bit at a loss. I tend to play games to play games--not necessarily to win. I've played poker with a few different groups of people, and I'm usually one of the first to run out of money. I'll stay in hands because I like to play, which is not the way to gamble. So heading onto the Strip in Vegas wasn't a dream come true.

Vegas (baby) is fake. This isn't much of a revelation, I know, but it was the first thing that came to my mind as I wandered through the crowds and porn hawkers. There's a fake Paris. A fake New York. A fake pirate ship. A fake Jersey boardwalk. A fake Roman palace. A fake pyramid. A fake volcano.

There are real drunk people stumbling down the street. There are real Mexican immigrants passing out cards for hookers and strip clubs. There are real newspaper boxes with listings of more hookers and strip clubs. There might be real police, but I didn't see much of them. I assume they dress up like fake tourists--that's what I'd do in this sea of hypocrisy.

So I went to a fake amusement park for adults--where the only ride is a mysterious force that sucks the money out of your pockets--to listen to a man talk about truth. It was an interesting juxtaposition.

I don't think everyone who attended the McKee seminar was a writer. I think the majority thought of themselves this way or had hopes leading in the direction of writing. There were also some film buffs. There were students of UNLV. There were advertising copy writers who wanted to write something real for a change. And there were published writers who were definitely writing the seminar off their taxes, although none of them were more famous than the man talking.

I was a bit of tourist at the seminar. I was watching, observing everyone in the class--as well as McKee himself. I'm not writing a screenplay or novel right now--haven't even tried for more than ten years. To quote my band, "I've met the right people, shook all the right hands only to find out they don't give a goddamn."

So I guess I'm a failed writer in this respect. But I see this as a truth. I'm not fooling myself about my writing or the prospects for selling it. You might be reading this, but you didn't pay for it. That's the worth of my words.

Watching and listening to McKee, I realized why the truth is so hard to come by these days. Because the truth is depressing. There is little hope in realizing the myriad problems of this world--because the truth is, no one is really working hard to solve them. The real problems allow people to make up fake solutions that never fix anything. And if they can figure out a good way to sell it, they can keep selling it without ever having to fix anything at all.

Many in the crowd didn't agree with McKee's politics. They harrumphed, coughed, fidgeted and even walked out. I was amused, because it was pure entertainment. Because it was the truth. And the truth is what you make it.

Matt Worley tries to be as truthful as possible, which pisses people off from time to time.