WGA strike hawk

E-Day (end of Strike day) +8

2008-02-21T00:31:00.000-08:00

Keep driving through Gate 5 on Avon at Warner Bros. and looking for picketers but just ending up in my office.

It's getting late and I need to be up early tomorrow but wanted to mention it looks like we may have some good news on one of our pilots.

Will be back to keep you updated -- and give my strike wrap-up -- soon...

PROMISE!

E-Day (end of Strike day) +5

2008-02-18T14:16:00.000-08:00

Hello to anyone still reading out there!

It appears this blog still has some traffic so I feel compelled to file a report from South Beach Miami, Florida, where my family and I spent this past President's Day weekend attending the 50th birthday party of a dear old friend from Brooklyn.

My partner and I are in the midst of working like crazy to finish up one of our two pilots and so far things are going pretty well. We'll turn it into Warner Bros. TV early this week and see what they have to say. Hopefully not much, otherwise I doubt it it will get to the network in time to remain in serious contention.

I have some more pics to load and one or two more thoughts about the upcoming contract vote, so I won't say "Goodbye forever!" quite yet.

The beach in Miami was fantastic, with soft sand and warm water -- and then there's the tale of the "Coral Castle" which we managed to visit yesterday and qualifies as a worthy tourist destination.

After we're back I will follow-thru on these morsels.

Until then, I bid a fond farewell!

-- and Devon -- if you stop by this blog, LEAVE ME AN ACCURATE E-MAIL ADDRESS so I can get in touch with you.

Strike Day 100 - Strike Ends

2008-02-13T02:31:00.000-08:00

Well, I voted my conscience but more rational minds prevailed, so it's back to the office tomorrow for my partner and myself.

It will be a mad dash for those of us still alive in this current bastard pilot season and we shall see if we manage to make it to the the finish line at the CW and/or CBS.

I really wanted to animate Savonarola so that Variety burst into flame in his hand but tonight I had to settle for a still image. Oh, well -- tomorrow is another day!

There were about a hundred writers lined up outside the Guild building when I showed up just before 2:00pm today. The timing on my part was a fluke -- I drove a school trip, taking my son's 5th Grade class to the Los Angeles Science Center, next door to USC and the LA Coliseum. It was like deja vu, since I'd just been there at The Shrine for the big Guild meeting a few nights ago.

People are happy to be going back to work, which is great. The rest of the city is happy to see the industry gearing back up to spend money as usual -- or at least much closer to it -- which is also good.

The Guild leadership has declared victory and I think in fact they are correct. We did indeed achieve victory. It seems as if -- in the aftermath of the "Hundred Days" -- Nick Counter may be in line for a ticket to St. Helena after all. I still don't believe for a moment that he is the reason for the strike, that the real powers that be in charge of the big conglomerates didn't tell him exactly what they wanted him to do every step of the way. But that doesn't really matter. He's the fall guy. It will be interesting to see if the companies use him to speak for them when talks finally begin between them and SAG.

My last word on the strike is... I think we writers should be proud of ourselves.

For the most part we stuck together for much longer than anyone would have expected or predicted. For the most part we kept our dissatisfactions to ourselves in order to present a united front to the opposition.

I have to check a list of the writers making up the so-called "Dirty Thirty" -- who are now said to have pressured our leadership to take the DGA deal or face public rebuke and division within the Guild -- to see if I know any of them personally. The thing I find funny is that it was -- as people were saying out on the picket lines -- some of the most financially successful among us who were the most desperate to get back to their jobs with no regard for whether or not that would be the best thing for the Guild as a whole. I understand having to cover a large nut on a monthly basis but that's still no excuse for being a selfish scumbag -- in my humble opinion.

My big question now is whether or not I'll vote for Patric Verrone and his "Writers United" brethren when they all run again in our next election. Their very name offends me -- "Writers United." I mean, it would be great if it had something to do with writers going up against directors or actors or composers or producers or something like that -- but they were and will be running for office in competition with OTHER WRITERS! So how can they lay claim to a party name such as "Writers United" when one of the key purposes of their party is to overcome/defeat various other writers running for the same offices?

Maybe I'm just a stickler for words. But it does sound super cool, yes indeed.

Anyway, despite my dislike for their trappings and sound-bytes, they did a good job preparing for and organizing the strike and the negotiating committee they put together did a very good job trying to avert it and then trying to get the best deal possible out of it. I still believe that taking a very different approach to the negotiations two years ago might well have led to a similar deal without requiring the 3 month strike -- but that's all water under the bridge now. There is a strong argument to be made that reelecting our present leaders would be the best thing to do, simply because the companies will be forced to sit down across from them once again, with the memory of our recently concluded unpleasantness never far from their minds. If Verrone and company speak softly and carry the big strike stick, we may be in good shape for the next round of negotiations.

Enjoy being back at work and enjoy not having to walk the picket line and -- if you are one -- enjoy being a writer.

...and count your blessings!

I know I will.

Strike Day 99 (24 A.D.) - 1 day after the strike died

2008-02-10T20:53:00.000-08:00

Well, for all intents and purposes, the strike has ended.

But how will I vote on ending it...?

To be honest, a big part of me feels like ending this strike now, for this deal, is the wrong thing to do. When will we find ourselves in a position to get what we want again? If we hold out until July 1st hits and SAG goes out on strike... how much better could our contract become? Personally, I think it would become significantly better.

At the same time, the other part of me -- the part that never wanted to go on strike, the part that did not vote in favor of authorizing the strike -- says this contract is good enough. In fact it says any contract would be good enough.

I walked into the big meeting last night expecting not to get out of there until well after midnight -- but in fact, a large segment of the membership in the audience started to leave after about the first hour-and-and-a-half (maybe around 9:00pm) and the very last question was asked some time around 10:30 -- making for a grand total of about a three-hour long confab.

By the time it ended, it seemed like there were more people on stage belonging to the Executive Board and Negotiating Committee than there were simple guild members in the audience.

And as far as the meeting itself goes, the questions were not what I had been expecting -- which was much more rigorous and intense debate.

Why?

I think there were two reasons.

Reason number one was the general way they kicked things off, with Patric Verrone waiting in the wings to make a somewhat dramatic entrance, which began a tremendous standing ovation. That was followed by more ovations, for our Strike Captains and for our only real ally in this fight, the Screen Actors Guild.

There was a great deal of mutual backslapping and congratulations and good-wishes. As I've seen it described elsewhere, it was indeed pretty much a love-fest.

Then, to top off all the positive energy, our president said that the Board had decided to call for a vote on whether or not to end the strike, using the "48 hours" provision in our bylaws.

This was clarified as meaning the entire membership would indeed be given the opportunity to vote on ending the strike, with voting to be held on Tuesday -- 48 hours after we had all been advised it was coming -- and, assuming the vote was in favor of ending the strike, all of us returning to work on Wednesday. It received a tremendous ovation as well, and to my mind, that cinched it.

That was reason number two.

A lot of people, myself included, were very uncomfortable with the idea of us all returning to work immediately because that was what our leaders had basically promised the other side we would do. It's not that we didn't want to return to work -- it's just that after walking on picket lines for more than ninety days, we felt we deserved the chance to meaningfully participate in in that all-important decision.

Using the 48-hour vote rule makes it possible for work to restart nearly instantly, while enabling the membership to avoid feeling disenfranchised in the process. You have to give our leaders credit for choosing this path to the finish line.

Then John Bowman, our chief negotiator, and David Young, our top union professional, went over the deal point by point.

After that, a lot of people started to leave.

I think the one thing that might have led to a substantial fight on the floor of The Shrine last night was the idea that we were going to be ordered to go back to work.

When that disappeared in the opening remarks of the evening... the chances of any sustained debate or argument disappeared with it.

There was really only one confrontational, argumentative question -- and I unfortunately was not able to really listen, either to it or the answer it received from the stage, because at the time I was being led by "SECURITY" to the back of the auditorium...

I had spotted a writer -- and now producer -- who did amazing work on both seasons of Sleeper Cell, got out of my seat and walked over to say hi and talk to him. While doing so I was intercepted by someone from the Guild staff, who saw that I had an iPhone clutched in my hand and asked if I had used it to take any pictures. I was honest and said "Yes," and then they escorted me to the area at the center-rear of the auditorium, where the people running the production of the evening were situated. By now we had been joined by several of those giant guys with shaved heads and suits and ties. They said something to a woman who I assume was in charge and she looked at me and said something like: "You're breaking the rules. Didn't you hear what Patric said?"

For those of you reading this who weren't there, she was referring to the fact that our President had been informed duirng the meeting that someone in the building was "Live Blogging" the event and had made an announcement asking for whoever was doing it to cease and desist (needless to say, it was not me).

I said something like: "Yeah, I heard what Patric said. I'm not 'blogging' the meeting -- I'm not sending pictures to anyone, I'm taking pictures, the same way I took them at all our other meetings."

I asked her what rules she was talking about -- and said I never saw a sign anywhere at this or any of the other guild meetings that said we couldn't take pictures. She said there were signs outside that said no press allowed.

You can probably guess my reply to that, which was to simply point out that I wasn't a member of the press, I was a member of the guild. At that point she kind of shook her head/shrugged and said something to the gathered security people like: "it's all right, let him go."

But at some point during my discussion with her, one of the security guys had started asking me about my phone. I already had it out in my hand and I had used it as a prop when I told the woman in charge that I hadn't blogged or sent any pictures -- I had held it out towards her and asked her if she wanted to check and make sure. Then when she was done, the security guy in charge -- the one who had first come to get me and the only one who wasn't at least 6'2" with a shaved head and a dark suit, white shirt and tie -- asked me how to turn off my phone...

It's funny but at that moment I didn't pay any attention to the context of the question, for some reason I just latched onto the simple logistics of it, held up the phone, pushed the POWER button and slid the arrow across the screen, turning it off.

After that, the guy in charge said I could go back to my seat.

At that point the context suddenly returned to my mind and I realized what I had just done. Without intending to I had conveyed to these security guys the idea that I was acquiescing in their efforts to keep me from taking any more pictures of the meeting.

That had not been my intent when I switched off my phone. All I was thinking about was answering the guy's isolated question -- showing him to turn off my iPhone.

So, instead of returning to my seat I asked the security boss very matter-of-factly: "What happens if I return to my seat, switch the power back on and take more pictures?"

I swear I was not trying in any way to be a smart-ass and I didn't say it in a particularly smart-assy way.

It was at this point that biggest of all the shaven head and suited security guys -- who was at least 6'2" and 200lbs. and who had seemed quite unhappy with my presence from the moment I had entered his peripheral vision and my voice had entered his hearing range -- said something to the effect of:

"Then I go get you and throw you out of the building."

Hahahahahaha... yes, it was going to be that kind of conversation -- or whatever else it might become.

Now, this remark put me in an interesting position, because what I really wanted to do was turn around and go back to my seat so I could hear what was being said by the questioner and our leaders response(s) -- but I couldn't just walk away.

So I said something like: "Oh, really? Why would you be doing that?"

And he said something like: "To enforce the rules."

And I said something like: "But there is no rule against me taking pictures in here, I'm not the press, I'm just a member of the union."

And one of the security guys, maybe it was him but I don't really think so, said something like: "The guild is taking pictures. You can ask for copies."

And I said something like: "So if you visit Paris and go to see the Eiffel Tower, you won't take any pictures of you and/or whoever you're traveling with -- you'll just buy postcards instead? I'm a member of the guild and I want to take some pictures to help me remember tonight and I'm doing anything with them that I'm not supposed to -- I would never do that."

Then the biggest, most pissed-off Security guy said something to me and I replied by asking something like: "What did I do to annoy you so much?"

And he said something like: ""I'm not annoyed. You have a wonderful evening, sir."

To which I replied: "I've been on strike for three months, do you really think I'm going to have wonderful evening?"

To which he smiled and replied: "I know, and I've been helping you for three months -- helping enforce the rules and protect you guys."

To which I replied by bowing in deference to him and holding out my hand for him to shake and saying: "Thank you so very much for all you've done for us."

Well, he shook my hand and then I left, with my phone in my other hand. By the time I got back to where my partner and that wonderful writer who had worked both seasons of Sleeper Cell were now sitting together, the argumentative questioner at one of the microphones was wrapping up his even more argumentative follow-up, turning and storming off, while our president was saying something to the effect of: "Well, you can take care of that for the next contract, after you've become president" -- which struck me as not being a particularly nice thing to say -- but of course I had been kind of busy for all that had preceded that final zinger, so maybe the argumentative questioner really deserved all of Patric Verone's dismissive contempt, as much or even more than I had deserved the dismissive contempt of the giant security guy.

Anyhow, for a moment or two there, Strike Hawk came mighty close to having his wings clipped -- but in the end no blood was spilled. Believe me, I know most if not all of it would have been my own, so avoiding that was a very good thing indeed.

At one point the entire gathering of shaven and suited giants had tried without success to spot my red wrist-band -- until I realized what they were doing and rolled up my right sleeve. Then it turned out that I was apparently supposed to have my red wrist-band on my left wrist rather than my right one. I told them the woman at the table in the lobby hadn't specified which arm I was supposed to hold out for her, so as a life-long conservative I naturally held out my right arm -- but if she had explained and asked me to replace it with my left, I would have done so at once.

I don't think that really helped my cause with the security guys, but oh well -- we all are who we are, aren't we?

Anyhow, getting back to the matter at hand, there is one more thing I really want to say about last night's meeting.

It happened after almost everyone had left the building and I was sitting alone with that excellent writer-producer (he actually earned his producer credit on the second season of the show and he really lived up to it) who me spotting and getting up out of my original seat to go and see had earlier led to my "encounter" with the security people.

One of the very last questions of the night -- probably asked some time around 10:00pm or so -- really hit me. It actually wasn't a question so much as a comment.

The commenter introduced himself as a writer who had come to town several years ago to work on the producing end of the business but who had found his way to writing and earned his way into the guild. He said he didn't have a lot of money, probably a lot less than most of the other people in the building, but that when the strike was called he went out and did what he was supposed to do.

Earlier in the evening it had been said by our leadership that the point at which we had finally been able to make a deal with the other side was a point located at the edge of a cliff -- a cliff that presented itself simultaneously to both sides. If we went over the cliff, the Oscars, the last vestige of the 2007-08 television season, all of the 2008 TV pilot season and any further feature film production after mid-March would all have been wiped out. That would have hit the companies hard -- but it would of course have hit our membership hard as well at the very same time.

Anyway, the commenter basically said:

"I know some people wanted you to go over that cliff and I just want to say thank you for not doing it. Thank you for not going over that cliff. Because if you had, that would've been the end for me. I would've had to pack up and move back to where I came from and I would have given up the dream I've had since I was sixteen."

The truth is I kind of am one of the people who kind of wanted them to go over the cliff. I feel like we had reached a point where we had more chance of getting more of what we wanted than we have had for more than two decades and I feel like if they weren't prepared to take this strike all the way to July 1st -- when SAG's contract runs out -- and possibly even beyond, then they never should have called for it in the first place.

But... what that guy had to say really got to me.

In the real world there are always moments when you have to decide when enough is enough -- decide how far is too far -- how much is too much.

Whether it's drink, drugs, sex, work, play, prayer, cynicism, optimism, charity, greed, hate, love -- or strike.

I still don't know for sure how I'm going to vote on Tuesday.

Deep down I believe that if the leadership had conducted itself from day one of its tenure in a very different way -- if they hadn't started out by throwing stones every single day at the companies they knew they would have to negotiate a new contract with during their time in office, if they had not waged a profoundly ineffectual campaign -- including arguably the worst-resulting strike in guild history -- to unionize "America's Next Top Model," if they had not refused to sit down and talk with the companies months and months and months ago, if they had not continually broadcast their fervent desire to extend our guild's jurisdiction in the worlds of animation and reality TV and establish the right to stage sympathy strikes...

Well, the truth is, I believe if they hadn't done any of that, they probably would have gotten a deal very similar to the one we have now.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if they had gone in and acted more calm and less fervently, the other side would have tried to screw us just as bad as they did.

But I think we all can agree that in life every action we take has consequences of some kind. Throwing rocks at the companies from day one had consequences.

I take my hat off to our leadership for the way they prepared and organized for the strike -- they did a very, very good job.

My issue is... if you enter the forest loaded for bear and out for blood... how can you call an end to the hunt after bagging a quail?

I know there is a good strong argument from the other side of the issue. I don't dismiss it out of hand. The truth is, the best thing that can happen to my partner and me is that we go back to our office on Wednesday and return to work on our two pilots and one movie.

But the truth is it just doesn't sit well with me.

I'm happy that guy who asked the third-to-last question at the meeting didn't have to head back to Ohio or Michigan or Virginia or wherever he's from and give up his dream. I am happy about that.

But I think I will still vote not to end the strike.

Trust me, it won't matter. The strike will end -- probably with an overwhelming number of votes to do so.

I just don't think I can bring my vote to be one of them.

Strike Day 98 (23 A.D.) - the Day the Strike Died

2008-02-10T01:22:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are, at the end of the strike road.

That is a good thing.

I have a few more things to say but it's about 1:30am and I need to take care of some last-minute preparations for my son's final Pinewood Derby race tomorrow -- nothing to do with his car, which he built nearly all by himself, but to do with calibrating all the digital scales that will be used for the official weigh-in at the big event. His birthday is this coming week and we spent today celebrating -- but then I disappeared to attend the big meeting at The Shrine. He had a couple of his best friends plus his two sisters plus my wife to go out to dinner with, so it is a very good bet he did not miss me at all.

Anyhow, I will return to blog some final thoughts -- but the truth is the proverbial Fat Lady sang tonight, and to be honest... she wasn't as off-key as I was expecting her to be. My guesstimate was that there were at least three-thousand members in attendance -- and towards the end of the meeting, Patric Verrone announced the official count was actually 3,500, which is the record for this strike and which accounts for close to fifty-percent of the entire membership of the West Coast branch of the Guild.

The bottom line our union got its foot in the door of the internet -- and now we, the membership, will get to vote on bringing the strike to an end, the same way we got to vote on authorizing it to begin with.

More on that tomorrow -- right now I have to work on the scales.

Plus I have to bury the third of four fish our kids got a few weeks ago. I'm hoping the sole survivor will maintain and extend his longevity. So far he seems healthy -- actively swimming and staying deep in the tank, rather than loitering close to the surface, which is never a good sign unless food is there.

It's funny -- I remember writing something here about how I had to miss a cub scout leaders meeting in order to attend the big Guild get-together in Santa Monica and how I had planned to explain to my fellow scout leaders that they needed to find a new home for all the Raingutter Regatta stuff that has been sitting under a tarp at the edge of my driveway for close to a year, in expectation of my son and I leaving the Pack.

Now, a couple of months later, I'm blogging about the pinewood derby.

The strike is ending but the race -- and life in general -- goes on...

Strike Hawk Special Bonus: BONFIRE OF THE VARIETIES...

2008-02-09T02:00:00.002-08:00

Hey out there in the strike-osphere, this is a SPECIAL BONUS I just couldn't help but bring you.

Earlier today my friend Charlie Craig posted links to a pair of Variety articles on his "My Strike Strike" blog (see link somewhere to the right!).

Now as we all know, since day one of this strike, Variety has been slamming the Writers Guild with an endless stream of so-called news articles that mostly read as if they were penned by the AMPTP press office. It's one thing when that kind of stuff comes out in an Op-Ed piece but another when it's put forward as objective, factual journalism.

Anyhow, now that our strike appears to be entering its final days -- perhaps even its final hours -- Variety has remained straight on the path it started blazing more than three months ago: a path that cuts right through the veins of every movie and TV writer in Hollywood -- except for John Ridley, John Wells and Dick Wolf.

Apparently unable to acknowledge the simple fact that our strike has forced the entertainment conglomerates to allow for profit-participation in New Media distribution -- something the companies said at the start of our strike would "destroy our industry" -- Variety chose instead to publish a pair of articles which pretty much paint the entire profession of screen and television writing as an apocalyptic wasteland, filled with struggling and soon-to-be-impoverished losers.

It's kind of like if you read a pair of articles about the North Vietnamese Army written just before their final assault on Saigon but the articles only discussed how woefully undermanned the NVA was, compared to their potential enemies in the Peoples Republic of China.

At this moment, having maintained awesome solidarity throughout a strike which has lasted for more than three months (only 1 active screenwriter and 10 daytime soap writers and 2 news writers have actually joined the "Fi-Corps") and now being poised to make historic gains in New Media -- do these surveys of the trials and tribulations facing some members of the Guild qualify as NEWSWORTHY OR IN ANY WAY TIMELY OR SIGNIFICANT?!?!?!?!

I'm no conspiracy theorist but the only reason I can see for publishing them right now would be an effort to weaken the confidence and resolve of the membership of the Writers Guild.

My reaction?

Well, I remember mentioning here when a previous Variety article really pissed me off that I was considering collecting up all the old copies of Variety I had collected throughout the years whenever my partner and I were mentioned on the cover and burning them.

Well, after reading these two articles today, now I am thinking we should do it on a somewhat grander scale, like somewhat fanatical statesman/monk of late 15th Century Florence, Girolamo Savolarona. Only instead of collecting and torching the trappings of vanity and immorality -- mirrors, make-up, lewd artwork, suggestive women's clothing, musical instruments, etc., etc. -- we should collect and set light to our very own BONFIRE OF THE VARIETIES.

It would be even better if we only contributed copies of Variety in which we ourselves appear -- thereby linking our own efforts to those of our Renaissance predecessor, since we ourselves will be torching not only Variety's propaganda masquerading as journalism but also our very own personal Vanity.

If anyone is interested in joining me for this event, let me know. I will provide Carney's hot-dogs free of charge, so that something tangibly positive comes out of the effort, in addition to the moral and ethical achievement.

So I invite you to join me for a BONFIRE OF THE VARIETIES.

And here now, for your edification, I post links to the two articles in question:

Vanity of the Varieties the first

Vanity of the Varieties the second

Strike Day 97 (22 A.D.)

2008-02-08T23:14:00.000-08:00

There's a bunch of stuff I should be doing right now but I feel compelled to do this instead.

Right now it's Friday night, 11:16pm... and the much-heralded "deal e-mail" has yet to arrive -- at least here, at my place.

It seems like today was filled more with discussions and concerns regarding the manner in which we move forward from here to there than the actual "there" which we are now headed towards. Writers seems more obsessed over and concerned with the manner in which we are being asked/pushed/cajoled/railroaded towards this new deal than they are obsessed over or concerned with the deal itself.

But of course, we don't have the deal itself in our hands yet, do we?

No, but it is a good bet that nearly each and every one of you reading this now (not including football players in Queen, actors in Sherman Oaks and/or film & TV editors in North Hollywood) will have heard most of the pertinent "big ticket items" from your respective Strike Captains, near all of whom were present at the big captains meeting this morning-thru-afternoon. I know I have.

And I'll be the first to admit that those details leave a lot to be desired.

If the deal sounded even just a little bit better, I would be chaffing at the bit to get the red-tape out of the way and charge back to the office on Monday. After all, I pretty much live for my work, I didn't want to go on strike, as I've said here before I did not vote to go on strike (though I didn't vote against it either) and this strike hit in the midst of a rather strong run career-wise for my partner and myself.

But the phantom-deal just doesn't sound all that good.

For me personally, the toughest pill to swallow remains the 17 day/24 day "free window" for internet streaming.

As my partner puts it, that's like saying: "We'll pay you a cut of what your movie makes at the Box Office -- but we won't count the receipts for opening weekend, week one and week two."

To be honest, it's probably ten-times more difficult for me to swallow since that member of our Negotiating Committee who was visiting the picket line at Warner Bros. Gate #5 replied to my question about it by looking me in the eye, smiling and saying: "I think you're going to be happy."

WTF is up with that?

Just tell me, "Hey, man, we can't always get what we want" -- or say, "I wish I had better news for you but there are a lot of other good, solid gains in the new contract." Phrase it any way you like -- but don't flat-out fucking bullshit me. What does it gain you? What does it gain me?

I need to shake that moment out of my mind and approach things more rationally and less emotionally -- but that being said, I may waste everyone's time tomorrow night by directing a very specific question to that dude, who I presume will be up on the stage with the rest of the leadership.

It would appear this deal is going to go through.

It is being universally endorsed and its approval universally encouraged by our Executive Board and Negotiating Committee -- the same people we have been following in about as close to lock-step as is possible for ten-thousand autonomous individuals.

We followed them out onto the picket lines -- even though they dropped the universally-beloved demand for doubling the DVD profit-participation formula; we kept following them through the emotional roller-coaster ride of the Nikki Finke engendered highly-raised hopes which were dashed when the companies walked away from the negotiating table the second time, ensuring the strike would last through the Holiday Season; after the holidays we came back and kept following them as the DGA sat down with the AMPTP and came out with a deal (though no real contract, as we all know) in less than one week; then we kept following them through the to-be-expected but still traumatic professional bloodletting of "Force Majeure"; so the idea that the majority of us will not continue to follow them now -- when the opportunity to go back to work is just around the corner -- is a hard one to sell.

But that doesn't mean it's not worth trying.

My problem is... from where I'm sitting... all the reasons for rushing to approve this deal -- be it good, bad or indifferent -- are driven by the other side's agenda alone.

As I've mentioned before, my partner and I have 2 pilots that survived the "Force Majeure" shutdowns -- we also have a movie less than half-written at Universal, as well as another movie at Universal set to go into production next month -- though production may be delayed if the strike is still on.

On the one hand these could all be seen as very good reasons for me to want to end this strike this moment, no matter what the details of the new contract may be. If you roll all that stuff together we are talking millions of dollars here.

But so what?

What should the individual stakes of any individual writer or writing team mean to the WGA at this point?

Nothing.

The loss of pilot season is a threat to the companies.

The loss of all further feature film production come mid-March is a threat to the companies.

The loss of any further production of current 1-hour and half-hour scripted TV is a threat to the companies.

Will the exercise of these threats negatively impact various members of the WGA?

Of course they will -- the same way the strike we have been conducting for over three months has negatively impacted pretty much all of us, as well as a whole bunch of other people.

Why do these particular benchmarks of pilot season, the last vestige of current series episodes, the last vestiges of feature film production and the Oscars mean enough to call for the end of the strike -- even before anyone of us has seen a copy of the new contract?

It just hit Twelve Midnight and I went to check my e-mail... and there's nothing new. No notice from the Guild. Nada. Zippo. So maybe we won't have to worry about any of this tomorrow -- maybe the AMPTP lawyers ended up screwing themselves out of a deal. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe there is no "Midnight deadline" after all. No doubt we'll find out soon enough...

It could be argued that all those "benchmarks" will hit our collective membership in a big way -- but wasn't that to be expected...?

I can't understand preparing for two years to go out on strike and leading your union out on strike -- and not having prepped to see that strike all the way through. In the case of this strike, "all the way through" doesn't mean until the Oscars or pilot season or any of that other crap that we now seem to be in such a rush to save -- it means July 1st, when SAG will come out on strike beside us and the 70,000 actors who reside in Greater Los Angeles come join us on the picket lines.

That's the way I saw things. But it would now appear I was wrong. It would appear that for some reason or other -- perhaps because, having spent so much time up close and personal in intense negotiations with their opposite numbers from the other side -- our leaders have discovered that whatever this new contract we are about to be offered contains is the absolute be all and end all of what we will ever be capable of getting out of them.

I hope that is what's driving our leadership to drive us to accept this deal with such rushed abandon.

True, the new contract -- even in deal-point form -- does contain one profoundly great gain.

This is the gain that was given to the DGA but was in fact earned by our own shockingly effective WGA strike.

I refer of course to the establishment of a formula -- any formula -- for profit-sharing on digital delivery.

That is huge. That is the thing the other side said would "destroy our industry" before we went on strike.

Maybe I just need to concentrate on that and forget all this other stuff and then I'll be able to quietly accept going back to work on Monday, if it comes to that.

But a very big part of me just can't believe we're walking away from the strongest position the WGA has held vis-a-vis the companies in a generation, for what will basically be summed up as a modestly-improved version of the rather innocuous DGA deal.

I just have to keep reminding myself:

Innocuous but for the inclusion of the profound gain of unionized residuals for internet distribution!

Well, it's 12:30am -- and still no e-mail from the Guild.

Guess we'll see what develops tomorrow...

Strike Day 96 (21 A.D.)

2008-02-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Chinese New Year, that is.

And what a Chinese New Year it was -- at least for WGA Strike Hawk on the picket line at Disney today.

For the first time ever, Strike Hawk was RECOGNIZED by someone who had never seen him in the flesh and knew him only from the "blogosphere." (See slideshow to the right!)

It was a bit surreal -- but in a very good way. It put a smile on my face that now returns with the memory of the whacky moment.

For the Guild at large it looked like a very good turnout at Disney today, at least while I was there between Noon and 3:00pm.

As is usual at these city-wide events, there were a lot of familiar faces, among them a great writer I hadn't seen for close to nine years, since he had played a key role on the writing staff of the first TV show my partner and I ever got on the air. Since then we've tried more than once to hire him again but -- as is usually the case with people who really know what they're doing and who do it very well -- unfortunately for us he was always already spoken for. Now he's writing and selling his own pilots, which is great. He very much proves that hard work, dependability and talent can be rewarded here in Hollywood.

Somehow I wound up being interviewed by Socialists once again -- the third time since the strike began. Maybe registered Republicans give off some kind of peculiar "challenge" scent that attracts the Socialist party faithful. The guy who stopped me this time was the best-dressed Socialist I've ever seen. I told him so. Turned out he was a lawyer. His specialty? Police misconduct cases. But of course!

It was another gorgeous day -- and it literally began to swelter around 1:00pm.

There was talk about what the soon-to-arrive deal proposal will include, whether or not it will be good enough to accept, whether or not it will be bad enough not to. There were some folks from the Negotiating Committee there, answering questions near Disney's main gate on Alameda. It seems to me most of us have two thoughts about this coming proposed contract:

Number one is that we can't really have any opinion at all UNTIL WE ACTUALLY GET TO SEE WHAT IT SAYS.

But thought Number Two kind of flies in the face of Number One...

Thought Number Two is that the leadership would not be bringing us this deal and going out of their way to lay the groundwork for us to accept it (by going out to talk about how relatively good it is) unless it actually was at least a decent deal.

Suffice is to say, there is simply nothing intelligent to say about it at this point.

Not yet.

We just have to wait and see.

Something hit me that's kind of interesting. If the strike really ends on Sunday, it will have lasted exactly 99 days. Monday will be day 100. That would provide a good title for the '07-'08 WGA strike: THE HUNDRED DAYS.

Historically speaking, the term "The Hundred Days" refers to the period between Napoleon Bonaparte's return from exile on the island of Elba and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy to the throne of France after his final defeat at Waterloo and final exile to the island of St. Helena.

I still don't want to assume events will absolutely follow this script, because assumptions are bad to make when they can lead to disappointment and -- for some -- even despair.

But if things should proceed this way, then the obvious casting choice to fill the key role of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte will of course be...

Nick Counter, Emperor of the AMPTP.

Wasn't he always set to retire after these "negotiations" were concluded anyway?

Maybe not, since the SAG contract comes up this Summer. Maybe that one is set to be his swan-song.

Either way, if our strike actually ends on Day One Hundred, it might be cool if we of the WGA chipped in to make him a retirement gift of an all-expenses-paid trip to St. Helena, complete with a reservation for "The Black Room at Longwood" -- where the former Emperor slept every night for the last six years of his life.

I for one would be happy to make a contribution.

Strike Day 95 (20 A.D.)

2008-02-06T22:47:00.001-08:00

I have to admit something...

Since the day the strike began, this is the first time I feel like I'm on slightly shaky ground.

As I've said before, I didn't vote to go on strike and did not want to go on strike.

But as I've outlined in great detail over these past few months, the behavior of the other side in this confrontation has really, really pissed me off.

But so what? What do you expect will happen when you are locked in desperate conflict that will determine how billions of dollars will get divvied up -- that people will play nice?

The bottom line remains, sooner or later we will go back to work. That's what I want to do -- and what every single writer I've walked alongside on the picket lines for the past ninety-odd days wants. Who wouldn't?

But will the deal be good enough?

Who knows. It's impossible to know. Not until we get to see it.

Who would make an offer on a house -- or walk away from a chance to buy a house in a neighborhood where you knew you wanted to live -- before visiting it at least once?

My ruminations lead to a question -- and it's this question that leads me to feel like I'm on somewhat shaky ground...

Why are the leaders of our guild in such a rush to get us back to work?

I guess the answer is obvious: that's their job, right? Shouldn't it be?

Yes, of course it should.

It just seems like they're falling all over each other trying to get us back to the office this coming Monday, before we officially vote on the new contract.

Why? Well, let's see... in order to:

-- SAVE THE LAST VESTIGES OF THIS YEAR'S PILOT SEASON --

and

-- SAVE THIS YEAR'S ACADEMY AWARDS.

Well, those are two good reasons. As someone with two pilots still alive at two different networks, it hits close to home. But you know what? I don't have much confidence that either of them will end up getting done this "season," since my partner and I haven't worked on them during the strike. I guess this is a legit reason -- but it's not more important than getting a fair deal.

As far as number two -- saving the Oscars -- goes... well, I really don't think this should matter at all to us. Sure, it will be a bummer if the Oscars have to be cancelled because of the strike, or if they go on and are a crippled version of their usual self, but... so what? What does that matter to us? We've been out on the picket lines waiting for the other side to give us half a version of a fair deal for three fucking months. If they still don't want to give us a fair deal, then fuck the Oscars. I really couldn't care much less. It's not our decision, not our call. It's theirs -- the AMPTP's -- just like it always has been.

Give us something halfway decent and the strike will end. Refuse to do so and the strike will go on. All the way until July 1st, when 100,00 SAG members can join us out on the picket lines.

Well, one of those reasons kind of counts for something -- saving whatever may be left of this year's pilot season may help to possibly preserve pilot seasons in general, which is probably good for writers in general. Still, it's not more important than getting a fair deal.

Of course, all of this comes down to what equals "fair."

You have to assume the leadership really thinks this deal they're about to bring us is, at the very least, fair.

It just seems like there's a reasonable argument for giving us more time to figure that out for ourselves before shutting down the picket lines.

If you ask me, the moment we put our picket signs down and head back to our offices, this whole thing is over.

How many of us are going to be heading back out to the sidewalks to start picketing again, when and if we realize the deal really isn't what it was cracked up to be?

Not enough, that would be my prediction.

But these are the guys who led us out on strike -- in fact they are the ones who spent two years leading us towards the strike.

Why would they suddenly change tacks...?

There has been some word on the picket lines regarding the answer to this question.

It involves a couple of members of the leadership -- one from the Executive Board and one from the Negotiating Committee -- both of whom are incredibly successful, one from the TV world and one from the feature film world, and both of whom told their colleagues that if they didn't accept some version of the DGA deal within the next two weeks, they would publicly break with the leadership and go "Financial Core."

But would the possibility of a public rebuke by and loss of just two -- or four or even ten -- high-powered writers and showrunners really terrorize the leadership to the point that they would run ragged towards ending the strike, no matter what?

I don't think so. But you never know.

What I do know is that I don't think we'll accept a crappy deal.

If it includes legitimate improvements beyond what the DGA got on a number of fronts, then yes, we will express our approval.

If it doesn't... well, then it is going to be one hell of an interesting meeting.

As my partner is fond of saying, this strike was much scarier three months ago -- in theory -- than it is now, as a day-to-day reality. I know a lot of writers are suffering. I know a lot of other people all throughout the industry are suffering too. But the point is... we're in the most powerful position the WGA has had in over twenty years. Today more than thirteen-hundred people showed up on the picket lines all around town. Were a lot of them there because they were excited and energized by the idea of going back to work on Monday...?

Maybe so. But if the deal sucks, then I am going to get up and say so -- and so are a lot of other people.

If it's fair -- awesome! Let's head back to work on Monday.

But if not -- or if we can't really tell either way, which could also be the case -- then now is not the time to bend over backwards in order to lend a hand across troubled waters.

Not unless the other side is holding a fair deal in its hand.

Show up tomorrow at Disney, to let the companies know we're still out there -- and ready to stay out there for as long as it takes -- even if that means coming back to picket on Monday.

***BLOGGER'S NOTE: I've added some new pics, so make sure you scroll down to the bottom of the blog, even if you've already read the posts below.***

And Devon -- if you stop by -- the e-mail address you left with your comment DIDN'T WORK, so please check it for typos and leave a corrected version!

Strike Day 94 (19 A.D.) SUPER TUESDAY

2008-02-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

Has the strike's end-game truly begun?

All signs point towards it.

Word today was that a little more than thirteen-hundred of us showed up at the picket-lines city-wide yesterday.

Not too shabby!

When I showed up at the Avon Gate this morning, the pickings were mighty slim -- there was no one there, just a handful of lonely picket signs leaning against the wall. I picked one up and picketed by my lonesome for a little while -- then spotted my partner walking over with a pair of "New Adventures of Old Christine" brethren.

That made four of us and we were soon joined by one or two more, including one of the regulars from "Smallville."

There was a lot of talk about the coming membership meeting on Saturday and the probable but still unknown details of the forthcoming deal.

Towards the very end of the morning shift we were visited by Larry WIlmore, a member of the Negotiating Committee who came to brief us on the state of negotiations and the forthcoming contract proposal.

He said that if the final draft of the language on paper accurately reflects what was agreed to in person between the CEOs and our side, then the leadership and negotiating committee would unhesitatingly endorse it.

He couldn't share details -- because of the "press blackout" -- but in a careful way he made it clear that the contract would include improvements on what the DGA got in their deal. I pressed him a little on my own most hated detail in the DGA deal -- the "free window" for internet streaming. He said I would be happy with what I would see, which I took to mean that at the very least the window will be shorter than the 17 day period in the DGA contract.

He asked us all to show up for the big meeting Saturday night, so the leadership can accurately gauge the feeling of the membership regarding the proposed contract, for and/or against.

The plan is to send it out via e-mail for us to peruse the moment it's done, probably not before Friday night or some time during the day on Saturday.

As anyone who's been reading this blog probably knows, I didn't want to go out on strike and I didn't vote to go out on strike -- although I didn't vote against it either. So the question of whether or not I will want to accept the new contract is really not too tough to answer.

If it's good enough for the people who took us out on strike to endorse, then it will be good enough for me.

BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING HE HAD TO SAY WAS THAT THE MORE OF US WHO SHOW UP TO KEEP THE PICKETING PRESSURE ON THIS WEEK, THE MORE LIKELY THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE OF THE DRAFTED CONTRACT WILL ACCURATELY REFLECT WHAT WAS ALREADY AGREED TO.

The AMPTP has a history of adjusting wording and inserting clauses which can then be read as severely adjusting the true meaning of deal-points.

If we all sit home for the rest of the week and the Security Guards outside all the studios only need a couple of fingers to count us up, then we are inviting the other side to do their best at trying to screw us one more time.

SO DON'T DO IT -- DON'T STAY HOME!

I know for many of us there will be the siren song calling us to put in some solid 16-hour days behind the keyboard, so we can catch up with our brothers and sisters who have been home for the past three months, working on their pilots -- the ones that managed to survive the "Force Majeure" shutdowns. The faster we can finish those up, the faster we can turn them in after returning to work and get started on casting and the rest of pre-production.

I know -- my partner and I have two pilots still that are both still alive. But we will be out at the picket line, putting in our three-hour shift, tomorrow -- and the day after that -- and the day after that.

Why, especially if the final wording of the contract -- whether having a bunch of us out on the line every day garners us a slightly better deal or not -- doesn't really matter to me personally?

Because it is the right thing to do.

Now, I'm not crazy. I will be trying to get my head back into those pilots and I will be reading and re-reading them and maybe doing more than that -- but only AFTER I get home from the picket line.

And remember: there is still the possibility the language of the contract the AMPTP presents us will contain too many "mischaracterizations" for our own leaders to even send it to us -- in which case it will simply be back to the picket lines come Monday.

Only one thing is truly certain:

My man John McCaine is now the undisputed FRONTRUNNER for the Republican Presidential nomination!

Strike Day 93 (18 A.D.)

2008-02-04T13:57:00.002-08:00

Another beautiful day in Southern California -- and a great way to start the week, with a strong turnout at the Warner Bros. and NBC picket lines (I drove past NBC on my way from an early morning dental appointment to Gate #5 at WB).

I'm thinking things were the same over at FOX and the various other picket lines across town.

The weekend news frenzy threw a challenge at the WGA membership and it appears we rose to the occasion -- at least for one day.

That's terrific -- one day at a time is the best way to approach it.

Out on the line today we had more than the usual showing -- it was "The New Adventures of Old Christine" crowd in the morning, followed by familiar faces from "Smallville" and "Jeopardy," along with the return of a caustically funny stand-up comedian/comedy writer who'd been picketing at other spots for a while.

There was a funny moment when one Warner Bros. employee stopped on his way out of the lot and asked if any of us were registered Republicans. I was the only one -- which came as no surprise. He asked me to vote for Ron Paul in the primary tomorrow. I told him I couldn't do that, since I'm a big McCaine supporter and have been since the 2000 election. He shrugged and headed across the street to get lunch.

I have to say, Ron Paul fans are a dedicated bunch. I have seen more "Ron Paul for President" signs in front yards throughout the San Fernando Valley than I have seen signs for any other candidate -- Democrat or Republican -- despite the fact that he will garner less votes than anyone else on either ballot, except for Mike Gravel, the former Alaskan senator who is still officially running to be the Democratic nominee. It seems the people who like Ron Paul, REALLY like Ron Paul.

The aspiring director who showed up for the first time last week came back out and got to talk with some more writers -- since I wasn't the only one on the picket line this time.

Somehow today he got to hear about "Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance" -- the one-of-a-king feature documentary from the early Eighties, about mankind's dysfunctional relationship with the planet earth, with a memorable score by Philip Glass.

We had a few cars honking as they went into the studio and a few honking on their way out, which is better than average. Most days we're lucky if we get one honk of support headed in and one more headed out.

We had tourists from Nebraska, Australia and Spain all come over to talk to us about the strike and express their support for the writers after taking the Warner Bros. tours -- and to take some pictures with us.

A familiar face drove out and pulled over to say hi and talk with me for awhile -- it was the costume designer from season 2 of "Sleeper Cell." She's incredibly talented and incredibly hard-working and she made a huge contribution to the success of our second season by paying excruciating attention to the details of African, Middle-Eastern, South Asian and Balkan dress, which helped make it possible for our show to appear as if we had actually gone to shoot scenes in places like Sudan, Yemen and Bosnia. She was excited because tonight she's flying to Morocco to work on a movie that's set in Afghanistan. Well, they certainly hired the right person for the job.

All in all a good day for the morning and early afternoon shifts at Warner Bros. Gate #5 in particular and for the WGA in general.

Now all we need to do is the exact same thing again tomorrow!

Strike Day 92 (17 A.D.)

2008-02-04T01:42:00.000-08:00

Helluva Super Bowl, wasn't it?

I don't think one newspaper or TV sportscaster in the country picked the New York Giants to beat the New England Patriots. And yet... it happened.

The Giants didn't believe the hype. They just went out and did what they were supposed to do.

I'm hoping a ton of writers do the same tomorrow. Forget the hype, go out and do what we are supposed to do.

Not much more to say, except: PICKET.

PICK your studio.

PICK your gate.

PICK up your sign... and join the line.

See you at Warner Bros. in the A.M.

Strike Day 89 (14 A.D.)

2008-01-31T16:31:00.000-08:00

It was positively gorgeous out today. Crystal clear blue sky and crisp but not really cold temperatures. You could see all the way to the snow-covered mountaintops in the distance, at the Northeastern edge of Burbank.

On the line things were sparse, as they have been all week. Sparse but not bare. In fact, over at the Warner Bros. Main Gate #2, there was a virtual HORDE of picketers, which kind of shocked me in a happy way -- until I realized today was the weekly writing "Teach-In" -- the second one so far. Last Thursday was "Medical Drama" day and today was "Half-Hour Comedy" day. When and if they get around to scheduling a "Terrorism procedural" day, I will make a point to show up with my best lecture notes in hand.

Meanwhile, at Gate #5, things were not all that bad. First it was me and my strike buddy. But we were joined by several other regulars. After a while he had to head home for child-care reasons and it turned out the three of us who were left picketing were all Executive Producer/Showrunner types -- which was kind of funny.

A tourist in a cab stopped to ask us where she should go in order to take the Warner Bros. Tour.

It was a great set-up for a funny punch-line -- we could've told her anything but all we did was tell her and her cab-driver to make a U-turn and point out the proper spot for him to drop her off at.

Then something kind of odd happened. Close to a hundred people filed out of the Warner Bros. office building across the street from the studio, headed over and walked past us onto the lot. Each and every single one of them was carrying a copy of the same book. It was called something like: "THE POWER PHRASE - How to Mean What You Say and Get What You Want."

They filed past us while we watched quizzically. None of us had ever seen such a large group of people heading into the studio. We asked one of them what kind of event they were attending. The guy answered with one word, delivered in absolute deadpan: "Party."

I think it turned out they were all Warner Bros. employees who I guess were attending some kind of seminar.

They didn't look like Business Affairs executives, being coached on how to drive harder bargains with agents and entertainment lawyers.

It was kind of a perfect visual joke -- a hundred corporate employees entering a studio lot, marching past three screenwriters, each and every single one of those hundred employees clutching a copy of a book about how to use words to get what you want.

Today a lot of people -- regular studio people, not the seminar horde -- stopped to ask us how negotiations were proceeding. We told them all the same thing: no one knows but everyone is hoping for the best.

As the three of us kept picketing the conversation inevitably turned to our experiences running various writing staffs, for better and for worse. We traded some funny horror stories of really bad behavior by writers who had been our employees, as well as surprisingly outstanding behavior.

The truth is writers come in all shapes and sizes -- not just physically but in terms of capability, responsibility and simple decency. Some of us just plain suck. Others are incredibly talented but awful human beings. Still others are absolute social cripples. But even the God-awful worst of us is entitled to a decent share of profit-participation when stuff we write is delivered for a profit to an audience over the internet.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Probably take tomorrow off -- but I said that last week and then wound up picketing at NBC from 2:30 to 5:30pm, so you never can be sure.

If you sat at home most or all of this week, try hard to show up at NBC tomorrow -- those folks are out there five days a week and they could use all the help you can give them.

If you picketed this week, then enjoy your day off -- and enjoy Super Bowl Sunday. I have to help my son build his very last Pinewood Derby car, since he will be graduating to become a Boy Scout in March.

I remember the first thing he said to me about the strike, when it just about to begin, he said something along the lines of: "Why don't you just make your own deal with Warner Brothers so you can keep working?"

He's a very rational boy and, like most kids, he usually cuts to the heart of the matter pretty quick.

I told him that was impossible for many reasons, foremost among them being that it would be wrong to the point of moral and ethical bankruptcy.

Then, after the strike had gone on for a few weeks and after he'd seen and heard about lots of actors coming out to join us on the picket lines, including some he knew who I had worked with in the past, he said to me: "The actors should just go on strike right now, so the studios can't make any movies or TV at all."

I told him they couldn't do that because it would be illegal -- but that it was in fact a great idea which would end the strike faster than anything else could. Then I explained the term "WILDCAT strike" to him. For the next couple of weeks he would occasionally ask me: "When are actors gonna' call a Wildcat?" To which I woulld just chuckle and shake my head and say something like: 'It's not gonna' happen, son."

To be honest, thinking back on them, my 10 year-old son's questions and comments on the strike seem a lot more cogent than most of what I heard this week on the picket line regarding the current negotiations. He was using his mind to formulate what I would deem very appropriate questions or comments. Pretty much all the rumor-mongering and postulating I heard this week was driven by a seemingly desperate need to fill in the blanks.

Then there's the thought process on the journalism side, where they've been explaining how this strike is really about writers searching for more positive father-figures and how our leaders are in danger of lining up with Yasser Arafat, historically speaking (see my post for Strike Day 80).

This past week started out very strong for the WGA with the big SAG-WGA rally over at Fox, then ground to something of a slog, with what I would bet was low attendance on picket lines across town. People seem to be desperate for some good news. Maybe just desperate for ANY REAL NEWS AT ALL.

If you ask me the only news that will matter will be the news that we have a deal good enough for the Negotiating Committee to present it to us. Until that happens -- whether it takes until next week or until the end of February or until the middle of March or until July 1st, when 100,000 SAG members join us on the picket lines all around Los Angeles -- the strike-related news is not going to be all that important.

Of course, the one exception to that would be news that mass numbers of our fellow guild members have suddenly chosen to opt out of full membership in order to go back to work as members of the "Financial Corps."

Who knows, maybe there are in fact legions of such persons out there, balancing their psyches on the razor's edge, ready to take the irreversible leap into the land of scab-traitor-collaborationism.

I think that's pure nonsense but I don't know everyone in the Guild, so I can't promise you it's not true.

All I can promise is that I will be back out on the picket line, with a smile on my face -- mostly for the tourists -- and a sign in my hand, walking back and forth until until our Negotiators say we have a fair deal for the future.

Hope you'll be there too -- and not just in spirit, if you know what I mean.

Strike Day 88 (13 A.D.)

2008-01-30T15:09:00.000-08:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Not original, I grant you -- but very, very true.

If we were the Writers Guild of China today would have been the luckiest of times -- day 88 -- double wealth, double fortune, double prosperity (the Chinese pronunciation of "8" is identical to the word for "money").

Only time will tell.

Started out pretty cold today but warmed up as the sun kept climbing, which was nice.

What wasn't so nice was the inarguably thin showing at all the Warner Bros. gates.

Avon Gate #5 actually wasn't that bad off, compared to the rest. We're probably the smallest gate and we still had 4 or 5 people picketing for most of the morning. The Main Gate (#2) had only 10 to 12 people picketing, which was not too good.

I think one of the reasons our numbers fell off yesterday and today was the big "Unity Rally" at Fox on Monday. Oddly enough, in the immediate aftermath of those big city-wide events, I think lots of people feel like they've earned a day off. Those big rallies, while energizing, can also be draining, and I think that can keep some of us from returning to the regular daily grind of the picket line, at least for a couple of days.

At a certain point it was down to just myself and one other guy -- and this is where the "best of times" aspect of today comes in: he was a 19 year-old aspiring director who drove down from Valencia to show his respect for the Writers Guild by joining the picket line.

The best part was he didn't ask me about how to get an agent or if I could get him a job, he just talked about movies he loved and why he loved them and the feature-length script he wrote last Summer and the book he was trying to adapt into a screenplay and how he wanted to get a chance to pitch an idea for an episode of "CHUCK," his favorite new TV show.

I suggested that his best bet on the "Chuck" front would be to write a spec episode, since virtually no one ever gets to pitch freelance episodes to showrunners.

He stuck around for more than an hour, then went to check out the main gate.

If he hadn't been there I would've been picketing all by my lonesome, which kind of sucks, so I was very happy he showed up.

The next time my partner and I get a show on the air, if that guy wants a PA gig, it's in the bag.

Of course, by that time he might be in the middle of directing his first feature.

Before he showed up there was some talk about the "growing frustration" of guild members, especially with the news blackout making it impossible to really know how things are going with the "informal talks."

I guess I understand this frustration. What I don't understand is using it as an excuse to evade doing what you are supposed to do -- to avoid walking the picket line.

Some people seem to think that since our negotiators are locked in a room with their counterparts from the other side, it will make no difference whether they themselves show up to walk back-and-forth or not. Following this line of thinking, what goes on in the negotiating room is in no way connected to what goes on out in front of the studios. Sure, maybe us picketing in healthy numbers for more than two months was what convinced the conglomerates to actually come back, sit down and reopen talks with us -- but now that we've reached that point, it's all up to the folks in that room.

I don't mean to offend you if this is your way of thinking but that is some of the stupidest shit I have ever heard.

If you don't think the companies are paying close attention to how many of us show up to picket, you are ill-informed or in denial.

If you don't think that knowledge is power, you are simply wrong.

Everything is connected.

The more of us who picket every day, the stronger the position our negotiators have inside that room.

If you are staying home to frantically finish up the assignment you were working on when the strike began... well, I guess I can't convince you to stop working and just picket but maybe I can convince you to spend half of your time out on the line and only the other half back at home, doing whatever else you feel compelled to do.

A woman on her way back into her office from lunch asked us to keep fighting the good fight and mentioned that most of the people she knows who work at the studio support the WGA's position in this strike. I know I say this strike is not a popularity contest and the only people whose opinions really matter are us -- the membership of the WGA. As long as we stick together it doesn't matter who loves us or hates us. Still, I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say hearing that makes me happy. It reminds me that I'm not crazy or suffering from tunnel-vision or drinking tainted koolaid.

All we're asking for is a fair deal. Nothing more. Nothing less.

If you don't think that's the case, then I guess you should stay home rather than come out and do your time on the picket line.

But if you do agree, don't sit home or sit at the coffee-shop or sit wherever else you've been sitting. Don't kid yourself into buying the line that showing up to picket doesn't matter one way or the other. It does matter. Out at Warner Bros. today, the security guards were counting us every hour on the hour, as usual.

The other side cares about how we feel and the only way for them to gauge that is to count how many of us are out on the picket lines. If the companies believe we are losing our heart, losing our commitment, losing our focus, they will adjust their behavior at the negotiating table accordingly.

Wouldn't you...?

Strike Day 87 (12 A.D.)

2008-01-29T23:41:00.001-08:00

Today was a good day for me.

John McCaine won in Florida, setting him up as the undisputed Republican front-runner heading into next week's Super-Tuesday primaries, plus Rudy Giuliani fared pretty awfully and is expected to drop out of the race and endorse McCaine tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my partner and I got some very good news concerning a movie we wrote some time ago -- and which we were rewritten on during the intervening years. I was happy the current strike made way for something good on the work front.

Out on the line today it was low-key in a good way. A mix of new and familiar faces and weather that got better as the day went on.

And then there were the RUMORS -- one after another, most good, some bad, all easily dismissible.

The very kind and beautiful SMOOTHIE WOMAN of Valencia -- probably familiar to most Warner Bros. picket veterans -- stopped by and graced those of us on the picket line with some very delectable fresh and nourishing drinks.

I finished up my shift and headed home -- and then something happened that hasn't happened to me before for the entire length of the strike: I got a phone-call -- actually two phone-calls in a row -- that put me on the receiving end of yet MORE RUMOR.

It was the same story from both sources -- an agent and a lawyer -- very positive, pointing to the strike ending in the next few weeks.

Perhaps this will be born out by future events, maybe not.

The bottom line remains: IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER.

Not yet.

When the end of the strike comes, it will matter a helluva lot.

Until then, for those of us not on the WGA Negotiating Committee or Executive Committee, only one thing should matter:

Showing up to picket as often as we are able.

At Warner Bros. today the security guards walked out every hour on the hour to do their head-count of we picketers and pass the info on, as it is their job to do.

That's their job.

Picketing is ours.

Let's not lie down on the job.

Strike Day 86 (11 A.D.)

2008-01-28T22:25:00.001-08:00

Wow, FOX was pretty crowded, at least from 9:00am until 12:00 Noon, when I was there.

Saw a lot of actors, some of whom I knew personally, others who I know only as a fan.

One of the actors from "Sleeper Cell" made it out, which was great. I also got a chance to picket alongside the only writer-producer from the first season of the show other than my partner and myself. She was actually working at FOX before the strike began, so she's used to marching up and down Pico and Avenue of the Starts on a regular basis.

She had an amazing strike tale. A couple of weeks back she was over at Warner Bros. with the rest of the Guild on the Monday everyone went there to protest the possibility of massive lay-offs by the studio. I ran into her that day. What I didn't know was that when she arrived back home on the West Side she discovered she had lost one of the DIAMOND EARRINGS she'd been wearing that day.

I suppose there is some humor to a story about the loss of luxury jewelry while marching on a picket line -- but as you can imagine she wasn't laughing.

When we picketed together that day she was kind of depressed about the possibility of losing her deal at FOX. She's married with two kids. But what she told me today was that marching around Warner Bros. with all the people who were out that day -- and there were hundreds of us at Warners that day and it was beautiful out -- somehow reinvigorated her spirit and led her to decide, after discovering the loss of her earring, that she was somehow going to get it back.

So the next day she drove back to Warner Bros., looked around where she had picketed, with no luck, then walked over to the table where they keep the sign-in sheets and the picket-signs, pointed to one of her ears and asked: "You haven't by any chance seen an earring that matches this one, have you...?"

And the person at the table narrowed their eyes at her ear, pointed to the table and said: "Yeah, right here. Some guy turned it in fifteen minutes ago."

So listen-up, AMPTP: no matter what else , the members of the Writers Guild of America have got each others backs -- even if it means turing in DIAMOND JEWELRY!

Gotta love that.

There were a lot more familiar faces on the picket line at FOX, including a really cool comedy-writer mom whose son graduated last year from the school all three of my kids attend.

She's a strike captain now.

We're all strike-somethings now.

How much longer shall we continue to fulfill those roles?

Who can say?

I'll tell you who can say: NO ONE.

Not yet.

So try not to obsess about it too much.

Good rumors, bad rumors, they've been flying like bullets at a firing range -- and they are capable of doing a lot of damage to our side in the current unpleasantness.

If you absolutely, positively have to get your hopes up... then I ask you to hope for the best -- and expect the worst.

Tomorrow it's back to the old stomping grounds for each of us, wherever that may be.

I encourage you to make your presence known at your corner of the WGA strike universe just as I shall make my presence known at mine.

I'm gonna get some sleep, get up and head back to the picket line at Warner Bros.

Hope to see you there!

Oh -- I went to a reading of a new play directed by a pretty close friend of mine tonight. Ran out on my my wife's dinner and the rest of my family to make it. The cast was uniformly excellent and the play itself was quite good -- until the ending, which, to be honest, really pissed me off.

One good thing about this strike: the ending is very unlikely to piss me off.

Strike Day 83 (8 A.D.)

2008-01-25T22:57:00.002-08:00

Well, today my luck with the rain ran out.

I went out to lunch with a friend -- a dad whose two kids are friends with my two older kids and who works as an accounting/finance executive at Warner Bros. Home Video.

After lunch I realized I was only a few blocks away from where the lone location for this Friday's picketing was going to be -- out in front of NBC, where people line up to see The Tonight Show.

I had heard via e-mail that things were relatively rough for the folks manning the picket lines at NBC. I think they are always asked to show up on Fridays, since the Ellen show and the Leno show both tape every day of the week -- and they are never supposed to take a break from their routine in order to attend any of the big events at various locations all throughout town, like the Martin Luther King, Jr. event at Paramount this past Tuesday or the Union Solidarity event last Monday at Warner Bros. Plus, having picketed at NBC several times in the early days of the strike, I know there's lots of relatively high-speed traffic zipping past on one very busy intersection over there. When I was there I would sometimes worry that a car doing thirty or forty miles per hour would turn too tightly and jump the curb, taking out a handful of WGA picketers.

I usually take Fridays off but since I was so close and the picketing was going to start in less than half-an-hour, I felt I should head over and put in a little overtime on the picket line.

Of course, it was also raining.

The last two days I had missed the rain and missed the hail but not today.

I got there a little early and hardly anyone else had shown up -- but by the time 2:30 hit there must have been at least thirty or forty of us and as the shift wore on even more showed up. I wouldn't be surprised if more than a hundred men and women were on that picket line today, though not all at the exact same time. Considering most of the three-hour shift was in pretty heavy rain and that Friday is our official "day off," that's not too shabby.

I recognized a few people from various picket lines I'd been on before but I didn't really know anyone there, which was kind of different from the usual dynamic with me. I ended up talking with an actor, a young writer who had gotten into the Guild just before the strike began and another young writer who had written for theater in New York City before coming to LA to try to break into television.

Towards the end of the shift I ran into the reporter from the "Socialist Worker" who was at the Scene of the Crime picket in Encino before the holiday break and whose story on the strike included a quote from me. She asked what I thought of the DGA deal. I said in my opinion the most important thing about the DGA deal for us in the WGA is that before our strike began the AMPTP had told us that agreeing to our demands regarding any profit participation in New Media whatsoever would lead to the "death of our industry" -- but now they had somehow found a way to include some element of New Media profit participation (albeit not as much as we would like) in their deal with the DGA.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why that happened -- and it's not just because the DGA brought their two-year study of New Media with them to the negotiating table.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's because the WGA has been out on strike for more than two months, grinding our industry to a complete and utter halt.

I told her I thought the biggest story of this strike is the incredibly high degree of solidarity that has been shown by the membership -- at least so far. No, that doesn't mean it will continue forever but from where I'm sitting -- and standing and picketing and listening, I don't see it changing any time soon.

Tonight my family went to dinner at a friends' house. They have two girls who are classmates of our two girls. The husband is a producer and the wife used to work at a studio. The husband's company actually wants to sign an "Interim Agreement" with the WGA. After dinner, while the four girls were all playing together and my son was playing at the foosball table, the husband asked me if I had been writing. I told him no, I was too busy picketing. Maybe if I wasn't married with three children, I could manage picketing every day, then come home and work on a spec script. But in my partner and my positions (he's married with two kids) it just hasn't been feasible.

He said some writers he knew were using this time to work on spec scripts they had always wanted to written but never had the time or opportunity to pursue. He said some other writers he knew were still working on assignments they had booked and started writing before the strike began.

None of this was a surprise to me.

Yes, I know there are writers who sit home and never picket.

And I know there are writers who are working on spec scripts for movies and TV pilots (in my own opinion this isn't a terrible thing to do -- so long as you put in your hours on the picket line FIRST).

And I know there are some writers who are even working on assignments they booked before the strike began.

Hey, there are something like eight-thousand members of our union. No one could expect that each and every one of us would put our individual work aside and head out to the picket lines.

But guess what?

Thousands of us have done exactly that for nearly three months.

Thousands.

And amongst that number are counted some of the most successful people in our industry.

Like everyone else, I want this strike to end as soon as possible.

I just don't want it to end before we get a fair deal.

My guess is the vast majority of my fellow WGA members feel pretty much the same way.

So until we hear that a fair deal has been hammered out, lets keep doing what we've been doing.

Sticking together and walking back and forth, over and over and over again -- a simple physical act which makes it IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE OTHER SIDE IN THIS DISPUTE TO FORGET ABOUT US FOR EVEN ONE DAY.

Trust me, our fellow Guild members who haven't come out to the picket lines are not going to start showing up now.

We who started picketing must continue picketing.

For as long as it takes.

Remember, there is a deadline. July 1st is five months away. I know five months is a very, very long time -- but it is a lot closer than the eight months away which it was back on November 5th, when the strike began.

The media moguls didn't think we could hold out for even one month, let alone three.

They bet on us collapsing. Imploding. Consuming ourselves. But we haven't done that. Lets not start now.

Come out to Fox for the big WGA-SAG "Writer/Actor Togetherness" day on Monday.

If nothing else, you'll get to see some actors you love -- or hate -- and maybe even a few bonafide stars.

Help swell our ranks so the other side can see one more marker pointing to the very real possibility that the bet they made is not going to pan out after all.

Strike Day 82 (7 A.D.)

2008-01-24T15:59:00.000-08:00

Call me double lucky.

Yesterday my shift ended just as the rain began.

Today I began picketing just after the rain ended.

It was just my partner and I at the Avon Gate.

Actually, despite being a bit of a bummer in terms of membership presence, it was kind of cool.

For something like the past decade up until the day this strike began, we have spent the lion's share of every working day together. There was one stretch while we were co-executive producing our first TV show when we literally didn't take a day off for about two months.

So it was nice to spend some time together.

Of course it would have been nicer if we were sitting at our desks or pacing the floor or yelling at each other on the other side of the Warner Bros. Studios wall, inside our warm and cozy offices, rather than walking back and forth, slightly delaying traffic on its way in and out.

But a writer has to do what a writer has to do.

A family of Australian tourists came by to ask us about the strike and we gave them the usual rap (all facts, little to no hyperbole), explaining that it's all about one thing -- profit participation in internet distribution.

Whenever I tell a tourist about the companies saying they needed three years to study and determine whether or not the internet would be able to sustain a "working business model" for distribution of scripted entertainment, it always gets the same response.

Care to guess what that is...?

The exact wording can vary somewhat but it all boils down to:

"ARE THEY F#@*%ING KIDDING?"

The WGA just announced that Lionsgate and Marvel Studios have signed interim agreements with the WGA.

That brings the total of AMPTP member companies to have signed such deals to something like an even dozen.

And on the other side of the balance sheet, there lies John Ridley and about a dozen (the last time I heard) daytime soap opera writers who have opted to join the "Fi-Corps."

(I'm not even gonna' start musing about possible mottos for that particular elite writing unit. I remember reading an oral history of WWII that included a story told by an American infantryman about how he watched a German tank get blasted by a bazooka team and start belching flame, then saw a sole surviving crew member manage to climb out, apparently unharmed. The American GI watched the German tanker slide down the side of the crippled tank and run back towards the German lines -- and even though he had the German in his sights the whole time he never pulled the trigger but simply let him go. Some targets are just too easy.)

I think objectively speaking you would have to say that in this area of the strike -- the "dueling drop-outs" or "dueling divide and conquer strategems" we are definitely on the up side, at least so far.

On the strictly personal side, my partner and I learned from our agents today that one of the companies which has made those deals wants us to come in and talk about possible projects with them.

Obviously that doesn't mean we're gonna' walk out with a paying gig, chances of that are slim, but it does mean that SOME UNION WRITER OR WRITING TEAM is going to get a gig over there.

I don't know about you but that puts a smile on my face. Sure, it might not be me but it will be someone. I guess I'll add that I hope whoever it is has been out on the picket line as much as they could manage. If not, I hope when they cash their commencement check they will donate a little piece of it to the strike fund in order to assuage their guilty conscience (unless they were unable to picket due to financial distress which required them to take another job or some other personal crisis).

If we actually end up booking a gig while the strike is still on I will talk to my partner about the both of us kicking in a piece of the money to help our less fortunate fellow guild members. Not that he and I are rich -- not by a long-shot -- but thankfully we're not on the verge of losing our homes or cars or being unable to feed our families. If we booked a gig like that we'd have to split our time between writing and picketing -- but hey, that would be a high-class problem.

I hate to say it but when you stop and think, it's pretty messed up that I have never read a single article in a newspaper or magazine which points out the incredible degree of unity and solidarity that has been shown by our membership from day one of this strike straight through to the present day. I'm not asking for the article to praise the WGA membership for staying so united but just to POINT IT OUT as a rather pertinent FACT.

Actually, I did read one article that pointed it out -- the on-line issue of "Socialist Daily" that my quote appeared in (if you're interested see my January 17 blog titled "Strike Day 75"). But that doesn't count as "mainstream media" does it?

Ah, well. Sometimes folks don't live up to your expectations of them.

On a totally separate topic which I've been meaning to address for weeks if not months: doesn't it suck that "www.AMPTP.com" went the way of all flesh -- or all flesh that is threatened by litigation?!

Man, what a tragedy.

I remember the day I first clicked on a "UnitedHollywood.com" link to that site, read through it and nearly fell on the floor laughing. Man that was one helluva funny website -- at least for its target audience, namely us.

The absolute highlight in my humble opinion:

"AMPT to the motherfuckin' P!"

If you visited that url for weeks afterwards it had been taken over by a page for some kind of film/TV industry military technical advisory firm, was was kind of surreal -- but now it hosts a neutral "Why can't the writers and producers stop being babies and settle this thing?" page, which I suppose was put up by the AMPTP.

A painful loss indeed!

Heard something funny today -- considering John Wells' enthusiastic endorsement of the (mostly still-unseen in fine print detail even by him) DGA deal. Turns out the entire writing staff of "ER" showed up for the "Teaching Medical Drama" picket this morning outside the main gate at Warner Bros. My hat's off to 'em. I've seen their current hands-on showrunner walking the picket line several times. Gotta' give that staff their Guild props, despite their superstar boss's arguably ignominious behavior.

Tomorrow we get the day off from picketing, which will be nice. We'll see if it's still raining Monday. Even if it is, it's a lot better picketing in the rain than picketing in the single digit Fahrenheit temperatures or the snow the way they do on a regular basis back in NYC.

Now, onto something VERY SPECIAL...

Earlier today I got an e-mail from an editor who worked on both seasons of "Sleeper Cell."

Apparently he read my partner and my installment of "Why We Write" and was inspired to write something himself.

The individual in question is extremely talented -- but he is also an IATSE member, as well as a Scotsman.

But luckily for us all, I managed to convince him to let me post his missive without having to pay in advance or accuse my own Guild of being a "Strike-Happy House of hate." So here goes:

Why do I edit?

First up: I edit because at heart, I am a storyteller. I grew up watching old b&w movies on our three channel television set. They were mostly cowboy and war films starring John Wayne or William Holden. I never imagined that one day I would be living in California working in an industry that was so foreign to me.

My interests were varied growing up. I attended art school, studied English literature, and worked as a professional photographer. While at the New York University Film school, I discovered a discipline that satisfied all my interests. Editing's palette included photography, design, music and of course, story.

Editing is like doing a 100,000 puzzle. Sure it is nice to collaborate, but finding a home for the most intricate piece by yourself is most satisfying.

I also edit to avoid owning dress socks, working in sales, and interacting with the general public.

And last but not least, I edit in order to afford a large pornography collection.

After all, I am married.

Just goes to show you, we WGA members do not have a corner on good writing!

Now, to all my fellow WGA members, married and unmarried:

A lot happened this week -- and none of it was bad for us.

Stay calm. Stay patient. Stay together.

Have a great weekend and I'll see you on the picket line Monday -- either at the big "WGA/SAG" solidarity get-together at FOX or over at NBC...

Strike Day 81 (6 A.D.)

2008-01-23T23:59:00.001-08:00

Strike goes on.

I was lucky today -- I finished up my shift on the picket line just as it was starting to rain.

The turn-out wasn't bad but it wasn't great either.

I showed up a little bit early and no one was at my usual gate. It was like a ghost-town. Nothing but the water-cooler and some stacked up picket signs. Then my "Strike Buddy" arrived and at least there were two of us. We started picketing. After about 15 minutes a bunch of regular faces marched over -- turned out they had joined all the other picketers at Warner Bros. to listen to and ask questions of a member of the Negotiating Committee who had stopped by for that purpose.

So it turned out things weren't as bad as I imagined when I first showed up.

Later in the shift I talked with a studio executive on his way back from lunch who's a pretty good friend of mine and a very decent guy. Mostly we discussed the primaries. When the discussion turned to the future timeline of the strike neither of us was optimistic or pessimistic -- we simply agreed there was no way to know but that we hoped it would end as soon as possible. For me that means as soon as we can get a fair deal on internet profit participation -- and guess what? For him it means the exact same thing.

Like virtually every executive I know -- including the ones who work in business affairs as well as on the "creative" side -- he believes the WGA is on the right side of this dispute.

I'm pretty exhausted but there's one other thing I feel I need to write about...

Divisiveness is our greatest enemy.

The AMPTP is our opponent in this dispute but the greatest threat to us succeeding in gaining what we need for our next contract is divisiveness within the Guild itself.

If we keep sticking together, sooner or later, either in order to save the last vestiges of pilot season or in order to save the Academy Awards or in order to prevent a shutdown of all remaining feature film production or in order to end the complete and utter shutdown of the scripted entertainment industry (if the strike drags on all the way to July 1st) -- sooner or later, the AMPTP will have to give us a fair deal on internet profit participation.

I really believe only one thing can prevent that from happening:

Tearing ourselves apart.

Eating ourselves alive the way the WGA -- to greater or lesser degrees depending on whose history you read -- ate itself alive back in 1981, 1985 and 1988.

If you have an opinion on the DGA deal and whether accepting it as is or taking any other course of action would be a good thing or a bad thing, I encourage you to MAKE YOUR INDIVIDUAL OPINION KNOWN TO THE LEADERSHIP AND THE NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE OF OUR GUILD.

Tell Patric Verrone and John Bowman and David Young and all the rest of them what you think and what you want and what you can live with in a contract and what you can't live with. By now you should have all of their e-mail addresses. If I wasn't as exhausted as I am I'd go get them and post them all right here.

I returned to this post Thursday, January 24, in order to add:

Patric Verrone: pverrone[AT]wga.org
John Bowman: johnfbowman[AT]aol.com
David Young: dyoung[AT]wga.org
Robert King: rking36[AT]gmail.com

NOTE: I used a common method to camouflage the addresses so these guys don't each get a dozen junk e-mails selling Viagra courtesy of my blog page being scanned by spammers.

But please, please, please -- do not begin to mount organized group lobbying efforts and/or petition campaigns.

Whether I agree with your opinion on the matter at hand or disagree is not the issue. The issue is that only one thing will unequivocally come from such efforts and/or campaigns: they will divide us.

There's nothing wrong with debate and discussion and there is nothing wrong with making your voice heard, especially when your opinion runs against the grain.

But I think there is something wrong with launching organized efforts at influencing the decision-makers in our Guild unless you make those efforts transparent -- unless you make them known to the entire membership of our Guild.

If you feel uncomfortable having your name associated with a particular position at this time, then chances are you probably shouldn't take it.

Strike Day 80 (5 A.D.)

2008-01-22T22:57:00.001-08:00

What a day, what a day.

Lots of stuff happening.

First off, we had the Martin Luther King commemorative picket at Paramount. It appeared to me to be well attended. Lots of familiar faces, from the past decade or so of my career and from the picket lines over the past two-plus months.

Seemed to me like it went well. Don't know if it made it onto the local news but my guess would be probably not.

Then came the really big development -- word from WGA headquarters that we were formally removing our demands for jurisdiction over Reality TV and animation before our negotiators begin their informal talks with various CEOs from the agenda-setting conglomerates of the AMPTP.

Pretty big, huh?

Hard to call our leadership "radical" when they throw a bone that size to the opposition before even re-entering into active negotiations.

Seems like the road is being paved to a settlement -- at least on our side of said road.

Then came my least favorite development of the day -- and the one that I have been obsessing over since I read it a little less than twelve hours ago: the op-ed column in the LA Times written by Patrick Goldstein, in which Patrick Goldstein compares our president, Patric Verrone, to Yasir Arafat.

I shit you not, my friends.

You gotta' laugh... don't ya?

I'll tell you what makes this even more obsessive for me. Patrick Goldstein and I are dads at the same school. I've said a few dozen words to him in friendly passing over the course of the last three or fours years. So I've been thinking about what to say the next time I see him up at school...

I came up with this:

-- but before I write it I feel like it's necessary for me to do something which I've never done here on this blog, though it was not an omission by design.

Oddly enough, although I reference my credits and my colleagues, I've never once mentioned my own name. I don't know exactly why. I think at the start I felt like the strike was not the place to try and grab a spotlight or become a center of attention. Of course, the truth is my little blog here has no spotlight and is no center of attention, so I shouldn't have worried about it.

Anyway, for the record, my name is Ethan Reiff.

Now, regarding Patrick Goldstein...

What I will tell him is that he blew it. Missed a real good opportunity. He would have been much better off comparing Patric Verrone to Adolph Hitler.

Speaking for myself, I believe you can kind of make the argument that Patric does slightly resemble Hitler, in a strictly physical sense -- he has kind of the same straight and stringy black hair and does favor conservative attire. At least then -- with a Hitler reference -- there would have been SOMETHING IN THE ENTIRE EXPANSE OF THE UNIVERSE for Patrick Goldstein to fall back on in defense of his pathetically sorry excuse for a newspaper column.

No matter what you think of the WGA or the current strike, how can you believe comparing Patric Verrone to Yasir Arafat is an appropriate thing to do?

Yasir Arafat?!?!?!?!

I was pissed at the column before it reached that surreal "Arafat" point. Two or three times Patrick Goldstein -- addressing himself to the leadership of the WGA -- said something along the lines of: "It's time for you to return to the negotiating table."

You know, if Patrick Goldstein believes that us refusing to publicly back off from the six items listed in the ultimatum the AMPTP presented back on December 7th made it impossible for the AMPTP to return to the negotiating table and was foolish and unreasonable on our parts, he's entitled to think that. Hell, for all I know he may even be right. But he is not entitled to lie.

The WGA NEVER LEFT THE NEGOTIATING TABLE.

Why is it so difficult for so many highly-educated, sophisticated and well-informed members of the press to get that through their heads?

Again, if Patrick Goldstein believes we were wrong to refuse to give up on a bunch of stuff that the AMPTP wanted us to give up on in exchange for their return to the negotiating table, why can't he just say so? Why does he have to push it over the edge into what is undisputed untruth?

I gotta tell you though, I don't think it hurts our cause at all.

Not. At. All.

Because now, as before, only one thing matters on the WGA side of this dispute: solidarity. Unity. Sticking together.

No, that doesn't mean we all need to agree about everything. No that doesn't mean we all need to love our leaders. And no, that doesn't even mean we all need to hate Patrick Goldstein.

It just means we need to keep picketing until our very reasonable Negotiating Committee informs us they have come back with an offer for a new contract with the Writers Guild.

As I've said before, I didn't want to go out on strike. As I've said before, I was surprised and disappointed when a deal much like the one the DGA just got for themselves wasn't offered to us just before our own contract ran out.

At that time I would have been the first member in the meeting room to get on my feet and state the case for taking such a deal -- a deal that was not even close to what we were asking for but still a lot better than nothing. A deal that, most importantly of all, would enable us to get at least half of one of our feet through the door of internet profit participation.

That would have been enough for me.

If Patric and all our other leaders from the PLO, Al-Qaeda, HAMAS, North Korea, the Warsaw Pact, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and the good old Third Reich say it's enough, then it will be enough for me now as well.

But if the Overlords of Darkness to whom we have pledged our unholy fealty say that in order for evil to triumph our barbarous brotherhood must keep holding out, that all we extremist partisans must keep on picketing a while longer... then that is what I will do.

Ironically enough, one of the items included in our leadership's e-mail update earlier today was a polite request for the membership to please remain calm, cool and collected when speaking with the press, in light of what an extremely sensitive time it is for negotiations right now.

I thought that was very smart and very appropriate.

If only the AMPTP had sent a similar e-mail to their bitches.

Strike Day 79 (4 A.D.)

2008-01-21T18:04:00.000-08:00

There were some developments today.

Only one will be discussed here -- in a shamelessly self-promotional way.

My friend Charlie Craig (I'm dropping his name so often around here it's as if he's taking over this blog!) and his fellow Executive Producer on "Eureka" Thania St. John have been running a site for writers, both professional and amateur, to discuss what it is that makes them write.

Today's entry was from my partner and me.

SO CHECK IT OUT AT:

Why We Write

Or just slip your cursor over to the right, where that site has been linked for the past few weeks.

It was fun for my partner and I to get a chance to write something without being scabs.

I do this blog alone but it's a very different animal. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy it and value it more than I might have expected but it's very different nonetheless.

My partner and I are hoping to see Charlie tomorrow morning over at Paramount, amongst the hundreds of WGA members who will be gathering for the Martin Luther King event.

Then we're going to have lunch with our favorite Line Producer, who supports the WGA about a hundred-and-ten percent, which -- especially considering how level-headed and intelligent she is -- is always nice to hear. I think it kind of sucks that so many people refer to the other side of this confrontation as "The Producers."

My partner and I are producers. The woman we will have lunch with tomorrow is a masterful producer. The people in charge of the other side in this strike are not producers. That's not a criticism, just an observation. I couldn't do what they do for a living any more than they could do my job as a producer. But it does kind of annoy me when people call them by that name.

Word is that tomorrow the AMPTP is coming back to sit down with out Negotiating Committee, which is a good thing.

It doesn't mean the strike is going to end any time soon but it does mean the process required in order for the strike to come to an end whenever it finally does -- which the other side had put on hold -- has resumed.

I know it sucks for all us WGA members to keep reading about how wonderful the DGA deal is and how the DGA got it because they are mature adults who know how to "negotiate."

But think how much worse it would have sucked if we had accepted what the AMPTP had to offer us a little less than three months ago -- which was profoundly less on the New Media front than the DGA just got for themselves.

It borders on the surreal, how little is being said in the mainstream media about the obvious connection between our strike and the gains made in the DGA's new contract. I know some of us are dismissing those gains as too little and too inapplicable to our own needs -- and to some extent they may well be right -- but that's not the point. GAINS WERE MADE. Taking nothing away from the DGA's own leadership and negotiating team, how any thinking person with their eyes open could fail to connect those gains to our strike is patently absurd.

But guess what?

It doesn't matter.

Sure, it matters to the contemporary record -- it impacts what the average uninvolved reader may think about the current labor dispute in Hollywood -- but it doesn't matter to us or the strike.

Not unless we allow it to.

Not unless we either (A) actually start to believe that lie of omission or (B) let the current wave of anti-WGA leadership spin swallow us up.

Either way -- choice (A) or (B) -- leads to drowning.

SO DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE.

Keep your spirits up.

They don't have to be sky-high, just high enough to get you out on the picket line as often as the rest of your life's routine allows for -- which is hopefully at least 3 hours a day, 4 days a week.

But if not, then you won't get grief from me -- so long as you come out and carry a picket sign as often as you can manage on a regular basis.

Of course, if you do any of the various more sophisticated stuff at WGA headquarters, like loading and unloading the vans or making tons of phone-calls, that counts just the same -- because no matter what, I REFUSE TO BE DIVISIVE ON THIS BLOG!

Hah-hah-hah -- just a touch of strike humor.

A very slight touch. Never said I was a comedy writer.

ON TO PARAMOUNT...

Strike Day 77-78 (Day 2-3 A.D.)

2008-01-20T12:14:00.000-08:00

Well, this Sunday turned out to be quite a day indeed.

First came the football games -- both of which involved 2 teams I really like. It's true -- my four favorite teams made it into the conference championships and faced off against each other, so it was kind of a win-win situation for me. Still, despite despising the Red Sox like a good native New Yorker, I have been a big fan of the New England Patriots since junior high school.

The first game was good but the Giants' overtime win over Green Bay was simply awesome. I'm a Green Bay fan mostly because I'm a bit of a reactionary and traditionalist and the Packers are pretty much it in terms of tough, old time football. I wore a Green Bay jersey when I played with the same bunch of guys for more than ten years in Manhattan and Brooklyn. And if you're a football fan and over thirty you've gotta love Brett Favre, for his longevity if nothing else.

A great day for football.

Then came the big strike-related development.

Now, this is kind of a switch for me, since I'm the guy who's always ranting AGAINST reading tea-leaves, finding hidden messages and/or divining the future.

I'm the one who keeps repeating: it's all very simple. Stick to the program -- which means come out and picket every day or as close to every day as you can manage and leave the negotiating to the Negotiating Committee.

Well, I'm still saying all of that -- but tonight I can't help but say a little something which I have to admit IS like reading tea-leaves, finding a hidden message and/or divining the future.

Maybe I'll turn out to be wrong or maybe not -- but here goes...

Earlier today I read an e-mail that got posted on Mysecondstrike.com, the strike-related blog of a friend of mine, Charlie Craig -- the showrunner of Sci-Fi channel's 1-hr drama "EUREKA." There's a link to reach it at the top right of this page.

A friend of his had sent the e-mail to him and then he checked to make sure it was cool to post it on his blog, got the go-ahead and put it up.

The e-mail was about the informal talks held over the weekend by members of our Negotiating Committee and some of the CEOs of the agenda-setting conglomerates that run the AMPTP.

The message was that those informal talks had gone wonderfully well and a WGA/AMPTP deal was close at hand and --

(this is where the tea-leaves start gathering in the form of a recognizable message at the bottom of the cup)

-- it turns out that those who are really to blame for this whole dang strike thing dragging on for so long are -- TA-DUM-TA-DUM...

NOT the chief executives of FOX, Paramount, Disney, Sony, Warner Bros., CBS, MGM or NBC Universal but rather Nick Counter and Carol Lombardini, numbers one and two over at the AMPTP offices in Encino.

Funny thing is it turns out that all this time, the bosses over at the 8 mega-corporations (well, MGM and even CBS probably don't qualify to be called such but they have no one but themselves to blame for the company they keep) have really, REALLY wanted to settle this thing like reasonable, decent men -- but have been kept from doing so by the evil, malicious, self-serving Nick Counter who cares about nothing other than his own EGO and PERSONAL AGENDA.

(In fact, turns out that Peter Chernin -- the big boss over at Fox -- says all he wants is for the strike to be over because it has been the worst experience of his entire career...)

Hmmmm.

Very interesting.

Now, maybe I'm nuts but this looks to me like the start of the script for our post-strike reality.

Of course, "Reality Shows" aren't scripted, are they?

Hah-hah, please don't get me wrong -- I'm not some "radical" out to unionize "Reality" or anything like that.

No, I'm just a simple fellow who has kind of a hard time believing that Nick Counter and Carol Lombardini could somehow trick or force or seduce (though I admit I've never seen a picture of Ms. Lombardini, so maybe I'm being presumptuous on that one) or cajole or torture or in any other way influence the handful of men who reign supreme over the world of film and television to do ANYTHING THEY THEMSELVES DID NOT WANT TO DO.

Nothing. Not a single, blessed -- or cursed -- solitary thing.

The AMPTP is an agent, a manager, a lawyer. An advocate and representative.

Whose job is to accomplish their client's objective. And whilst doing so, provide cover for their client when what their client wants done may piss off the other party to the deal.

So... maybe this is not just the end of the beginning but the beginning of the end.

Maybe the AMPTP will give us just enough more than they gave the DGA to enable us to make a deal we can live with without falling out amongst ourselves -- and proceed to hang Nick Counter and his sidekick Carol Lombardini out to dry as the twisted individuals who were REALLY AND TRULY responsible for the awful 2007-'08 writers strike.

Straw-man and woman to be burned for sins committed in the name of the media conglomerates they represent -- the conglomerates who, as it turned out, never even wanted things to go the way they did.

If that's how it goes, I'll be happy to gain the opportunity to go back to work ASAP -- so long as I'm not required to actually BELIEVE that's how it went.

Now I will dump the tea-leaves in the trash, put the cup in the dishwasher and go back to picketing like before.

Have a good Martin Luther King Day and I'll see you on the holiday picket line at Paramount on Tuesday...

Strike Day 76 - the A.D. era begins...

2008-01-18T22:27:00.001-08:00

Today was the first day of a new era in the history of our strike.

I have lifted the historical term "Anno Domine" (Latin for "Year of our Lord") and dubbed this new era "A.D." -- for After the Directors deal.

So welcome to the new era.

So far, it seems a lot like the old era -- in that the mainstream press is filled to overflowing with exactly the kind of coverage I would dream of if I was a top executive at a big media conglomerate helping to set the agenda for the AMPTP.

The papers are filled with articles explaining how the incredible deal the DGA got sets we in the WGA up to collapse, to fall apart, to turn against our leadership and against each other -- if our leadership does not instantly sign on the AMPTP's dotted line to accept the DGA deal lock, stock and however many smoking barrels may turn out to be included.

Man, I wish they would just list the name of ONE F*#@ING WRITER WHO TELLS THEM THAT in the actual articles themselves -- don't you? And no, I don't wish that because I want to do anything inappropriate to the people who said these things, I wish that because then I might actually believe what I was reading was true.

Then again, I suppose we're better off if it's not true, so maybe I should just hope they keep leaving all the names out.

The only names of WGA members I have seen talking about how fantastic and wonderful the DGA deal is and what a disaster it will be for the union if we don't sign on to it ASAP are Dick Wolf and John Wells.

Those two guys are worth more than a hundred-million dollars each.

Both those guys have multiple TV juggernaut shows on the air -- and every day one of those shows isn't being produced hurts their bottom line.

Of course, every day my own TV pilots aren't being produced and every day the movie my partner and I are supposed to be writing for Universal isn't being written is hurting our bottom line as well -- and the same holds true for every working writer in the country.

At least John Wells, after pretty much jumping up and down with joy over the detailed terms of the DGA deal, said the only reason the DGA got a deal that good was that the WGA was conducting a successful strike. For that I nod my head to him. Also, what he had to say was in an e-mail that got posted, with his permission, on a writer's web-site -- not at a press conference.

It's kind of funny actually, in a bitter and twisted way. The mega-successful TV writer-producer worth more than 100-million dollars who said something good about the WGA, said it to a limited audience, while the other mega-successful TV writer-producer worth more than 100-million dollars had this to say to the press:

"If the WGA rejects the basic concepts of a DGA deal, there's going to be a great deal of dissatisfaction among the membership," Dick Wolf, creator and executive producer of the Law & Order franchise, told reporters. "The bottom line here is: this town should be back to work in three weeks."

If you are a writer who desperately wants to end the strike and return to work you would probably know that the way to make that happen is by convincing your fellow striking writers and the leadership of our guild that the DGA deal is a good template for a writers deal and we should move as fast as possible to settle with the AMPTP.

Now please tell me: do you further that goal by publicly predicting dissension in the ranks and sowing discord?

We are where we are now. No matter how much you might be against the strike -- philosophically, politically, personally, strategically -- do you really think that weakening your guild's position in the eyes of the OPPOSITION -- in the eyes of the opposing side in the current confrontation in which we are now engaged -- will help settle the strike under the best terms possible for you?

I certainly don't.

But of course, I don't run my own television empire either.

I wish I did. I'm jealous of those guys. But even if I had three shows on the air and was losing the opportunity to earn millions more every week, I can't believe I would say something like that -- something whose only absolutely predictable effect will be to give aid and comfort to the AMPTP while our guild remains out on strike against them.

I know Dick Wolf was against the strike more than a year ago. Just like I was. This has nothing to do with going on strike. This has to do with ending the strike on the best possible terms for us -- the Writers Guild of America.

The New York Times had an article about the impact of the DGA deal on the writers strike. It was shockingly inaccurate, at least from where I'm sitting or standing and picketing and listening to my various fellow guild members. One of the highlights was this paragraph:

Dennis Palumbo, a screenwriter-turned-psychologist whose practice includes a number of Hollywood writers, said guild members — many of whom have come to regard the companies as negative parental figures — appear to see Mr. Verrone and Mr. Young as friendlier alternatives. “Which parent do you go with, the big, bad parent that you know, or someone who’s presenting himself as an Alan Alda parent?” Mr. Palumbo said.

Now I see what the strike has been about all along, us writers finding a better father figure for ourselves. Thank you, New York Times -- paper of record -- for pointing that out to me.

Later in the article the writer says the DGA decided now was not the time to "make a stand" regarding New Media -- but in the following sentence he goes on to say:

In the meantime, however, they will receive for digital distribution roughly double the residuals rate that has been paid for decades when films and television shows are resold on videocassettes or DVDs, and for the first time be paid a reuse fee for advertising-supported programs streamed free on the Web.

Funny but he never spends one syllable trying to figure out WHERE THOSE GAINS IN THE REALM OF DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION CAME FROM!

Like, say... the WGA's ongoing strike?

I suppose it's pointless to get riled over these things. They will write what they will write. At least it's not as bad as what Variety writes.

But please tell me -- what kind of big-time newspaper reporter can't connect the dots between one union's ongoing strike which is having a devastating impact on an industry and a brother union gaining serious concessions from contract negotiations conducted simultaneously with said strike? There wasn't even a passing mention of how one situation MIGHT have effected the other.

And I swear, I am not looking for "pro-writer" articles in the paper! Just an impartial presentation of the facts.

Ah, well...

Let's just wait and listen when the Negotiating Committee finishes crunching the numbers and tells us what they think of the DGA deal and how it applies to us.

After that, if you want us to take the DGA deal as is, great. Tell that to the leadership and try to convince all the rest of us.

If you want us to look for at least one major gain -- like shutting the "free window" for internet distribution -- great. Tell that to the leadership and try to convince all the rest of us.

If you want us to demand everything we ever asked for and hold out until the actors come to join us on July 1st in hopes that we will get it all... well, then the truth is I think you're crazy but for now I'll still say: great. Tell that to the leadership and try to convince all the rest of us.

And the same holds true for any opinion anywhere in between.

Just do me a favor and please don't hold a press conference where you announce that if things don't go exactly the way you want them to, the sky is going to fall.

Strike Day 75 - DGA Deal Day

2008-01-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

Well, many were expecting it from the moment the week began but it actually arrived today.

I was out on the picket line at the Avon Gate around Noon. The WGA's Vice President visited Warner Bros. today but had to take off for Paramount before making his way over to our little gate, so our local WGA professional came by to fill us in on the latest developments.

Foremost amongst these were the very strong indications that the DGA deal would be announced before the end of the day.

A few minutes after our WGA pro left for the main gate I got a call from a friend telling me that Variety had an article up online announcing that the DGA and AMPTP had completed a "tentative deal." This same Variety article went on to say that "moderates" in the WGA were hoping that they could convince the guild's leadership not to dismiss the DGA deal "out of hand."

Man, sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry over this stuff -- or just burn all the copies of Variety I have saved over the years because my partner and I got our pictures in them.

What WGA leader -- or WGA "radical" member -- has ever advocated dismissing a DGA deal "out of hand"?

Wouldn't it be better for even the most "radical" writer to LEARN ABOUT THE DEAL FIRST, before dismissing it or embracing it?

Anyhow, a few minutes after that call I got a call from a friend who's a news producer for ABC Nightly News in New York City, letting me know that the AP had put a story out over the wire that said the same thing as the Variety article. Then the first friend who had called e-mailed me a cheat-sheet from the internet with the high-points of the deal.

News does travel fast these days.

Well, now things will get a little more interesting. Maybe a lot more interesting.

First, the DGA membership has to decide whether or not to accept this new contract. My guess is it will not take long for them to do so.

Then we will see how things proceed with us. I saw an "open letter" from the heads of the big conglomerates to the WGA on the AMPTP website, reaching out to initiate "informal talks" which could lead back to the negotiating table. That's interesting.

Of course, the informal talks we engaged in with those fellas earlier led to us getting screwed in pretty brutal fashion. Does that mean we shouldn't accept the olive branch now? I don't know. I can see the arguments for and against. I will leave that one to the leadership and the Negotiating Committee.

I do know the one thing in the DGA deal that stood out to me as probably being too bitter a pill to swallow at this point is the continued use of an internet "WINDOW" during which material of any kind can be screened without having to pay any residual of any kind. The window in the DGA deal is 16 days.

That means for 16 days the companies will take new material and make it available to stream and/or download 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's what I would do if I was them. After that maybe they'll just pull the material off the net, or leave it there, considering it will already have been streamed and/or downloaded to death by the audience.

Then there are the actual numbers. Right now it looks like a grand total of $1200.00 for a year's worth of use and reuse on the internet. Well, that's a lot more than the $250.00 they offered us but it's also a lot less than the $20,000.00 one-time residual for traditional TV. A lot less. But this strike isn't only about TV reruns, it's also about gaining jurisdiction over material written directly for "New Media" -- and the DGA got that in their deal, which is a good thing.

I guess the bottom line is... where exactly does our own bottom line lie? Where is the WGA's line in the sand?

Well, I suppose it will be wherever our Negotiating Committee determines it should be.

Right now I don't have a problem with that.

From the start of real negotiations in July, I believe our Negotiating Committee did a very reasonable job of attempting to negotiate a fair deal.

So let's all learn as much as we can about the details of the DGA deal and listen to what the Negotiating Committee has to say about it after they've done the same. By then, the DGA membership will most likely have signed off on their new contract and the question will be... how do we move forward towards our own renewed negotiations. Do we go back to the "informal talks" that didn't work out so good last time... or do we require a return to more "official" and "on the record" negotiations...?

There are two different sets of dynamics being put into motion here and now:

The first set involves our own membership, some of whom, for a variety of reasons, may want to instantly sign off on any deal -- no matter how bad it may be in the long run -- in order to get back to work ASAP.

Some others will come at it from the opposite side and refuse to agree to a contract that doesn't gain for us all or close to all of what we have been on strike for during the past two-and-a-half months.

Personally, I think the lion's share of the WGA membership will fall squarely in the middle.

They will not be ready to sign on to a bad deal, nor will they want to remain on strike for months and months to come if a reasonable deal -- albeit one that falls short of our entire list of demands -- is there for the taking. For this group the devil will be in the details.

I would count myself in this middle group.

But please don't refer to me as a "moderate writer" -- since "moderate writers" are the ones Variety keeps saying are doing all sorts of things that make absolutely NO F*#@ING SENSE!

I also think the WGA leadership should be counted in this group -- the reasonable, middle.

Perfect, no. reasonable, yes.

As I have said before, no one on the Negotiating Committee or the Executive Board or any of our attorneys, has ever said that any one thing on our list of demands was "off the table" or "not open to negotiation."

No one. Not Patric Verrone. Not David Young. No one.

The other side keeps trying to make it seem like we have. They receive unstinting aid in doing so from the film & TV trade publications in general and Variety in particular. But the fact remains we have not.

Yes, Patric Verrone told participants as a mass rally that "reality TV jurisdiction" would be in our next contract -- well, that's something he wants. That's something lots of guild members want -- and lots of currently non-union reality writers too.

But that isn't the same as telling the AMPTP it is something we refuse to negotiate over.

Don't buy into our side being "unreasonable" until they actually DO SOMETHING that is unreasonable.

So that's the first new dynamic -- how this development will affect our own members.

The second dynamic involves the Industry at-large. All those people who are not writers but who have been out of work because of the strike.

Once the DGA approves their new contract, the rest of the industry is going to become a Greek Chorus alternately pleading and demanding:

TAKE THEIR DEAL... TAKE THEIR DEAL... TAKE THEIR DEAL...

If the deal is good enough for the directors why isn't it good enough for you writers too? Are you better than the rest of us -- are you so special? If someone cuts you, do you not bleed? What makes you think you're so different from everyone else...?!

Of course, we know what makes us different. The fact that a hefty chunk of our membership relies much more heavily on RESIDUAL PAYMENTS to keep their heads above choppy economic waters. Our membership and the membership of SAG.

Still, the DGA has some -- albeit more limited than our own -- interest in residuals as well. And when you need to get into the arcane nitty-gritty details in order to defend your position to an audience... well, you're pretty much screwed in terms of winning them over to your side. It becomes a very difficult thing to do.

A lot of production people support the WGA and support this strike. One of them walked out of Warner Bros, passed me on the picket line today and said he supported us 100% and wanted us to keep fighting for the future -- even though he was getting laid-off tomorrow.

But some production people don't support us and are sick of the strike and angry at us.

That's just how it is.

My guess is the DGA deal will instantly swell the ranks of those non-writers in town who think this is all our fault.

I hate to tell you but this should not matter to us.

We can't let it matter to us.

Contrary to what some say, I don't think this strike is a popularity contest. Whether the public is for us or against us matters much, much less than whether we are for ourselves and against splitting apart into cannibalistic factions.

So let's stick together the way we have been, read the nitty-gritty details of the DGA deal and listen to what our negotiators and our leaders and our lawyers have to say about it.

Stay calm. Have some more patience.

On the funny side, I found out I am quoted in a recent issue of the online journal "Socialist Worker."

The reporter was at the "Scene of the Crime" event outside AMPTP headquarters in Encino on the last big Strike day before the Holiday break. She was asking people about the strike and I talked to her for a while -- and then she began trying to recruit us for the Socialist Party.

Needless to say she didn't have much success -- at least with me or the couple of other writers who were speaking with her at the time.

But she wrote a pretty good, very straightforward article about the strike. If you want to check it out, here's the link:

Socialist Worker WGA strike article

As for all us WGA members -- Socialist and non-Socialist alike -- I reiterate:

Stay calm. Stay patient. Stay on the picket lines.

And please don't kid yourself or allow yourself to be convinced otherwise: were it not for hundreds and -- on occasion -- thousands of us WGA members walking back and forth on the sidewalks of Los Angeles with picket-signs in our hands for the past two-and-a-half months, the Directors Guild of America would not have the deal they do now. They'd have a deal, yes -- but it wouldn't be anywhere near as good.

Anyone who argues with you over that one is either a liar or a fool.

Strike Day 74

2008-01-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

Another beautiful blue-sky day in Southern California without a cloud in sight -- at least in the sky.

I did the 12:00 to 3:00pm shift on the picket line and to be honest for about an hour -- probably around 1:00 to 2:00 -- our WGA ranks were a little thin. It was just me and my "Strike Buddy." Then we were joined by a writer who was on her way to picket at NBC, noticed us as she was driving by and decided to park and join us, which was great. Then a couple of Writers Assistants showed up and we had suddenly more than doubled our numbers. The five of us kept picketing until the Guild van came by to pack up our signs and shut down the WGA presence at the Avon Gate around Three.

At one point while it was just the two of us, my strike buddy was off to the side getting a drink from the portable water cooler, leaving me picketing all by my lonesome, when a few Warners employees walked by and started giving me grief for being all alone. Basically they started heckling me. I heckled them back, as graciously as possible.

Another studio employee who was headed out crossed through the verbal exchange and added his own somewhat disparaging commentary, to which I replied with something like: "Well I'm just happy we live in a country where you and I can disagree about such things and still be able to live relatively happy lives," to which he replied: "You must be a fiction writer."

To which I then responded: "You mean because I said 'we can both live relatively happy lives'? Well, it's just my opinion but if you compare the average life here in the USA at the dawn of the 21st Century to the average life of anyone in the recorded history of mankind, I would stand by my claim that we count as 'relatively happy.'"

When my strike buddy came back to the line a minute later we both realized it had been a funny interlude but one which provided a serious lesson. The truth is, when you are marching back and forth with a picket sign in your hand ALL ALONE, you are an easy target. An easy target for derogatory humor on the one hand and an easy target to be made profoundly insignificant on the other. There is a big difference between one lone picketer and two picketers together -- and there is almost just as big a difference between two picketers and three. When you are alone, in any context on earth, you are an easy target for anyone who has half a notion to mess with you. When you are shoulder-to-shoulder with two other people, my guesstimate is that two-thirds of those who would have had the notion to mess with you -- even just verbally -- if you were all alone will not have that notion even cross their mind.

It takes much more motivation to mess with 3 people than to mess with one.

Now please don't get me wrong -- I'm not against intense, wide open debate, be it in the halls of the WGA or out on the picket line or pretty much anywhere else. In fact I have engaged in such debate many, many times throughout my life, everywhere from the streets of Brooklyn, New York to the streets of Shanghai, China -- but what I'm talking about wasn't "debate," it was heckling, plain and simple. And judging by my personal experience over the past two-and-a-half months, when there's more than one of us out there walking the line we simply don't get heckled.

So show up and walk the picket line, if for no other reason than to prevent your fellow guild members from being heckled!

Strike Day 73

2008-01-15T21:28:00.002-08:00

Back to normal.

That's how I would describe today on the picket line at Warner Bros.

We had a decent turn-out, including a couple of game-show writers I'd never met before who had some great stories concerning everything from "Jeopardy" to "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" Those guys come from an entire world that I know absolutely nothing about except as a fan, so it was kind of cool asking them questions about how those shows work on the inside.

Talked to some tourists from Kansas who had no idea what the strike was about. I tried to explain it in my most simple terms: television is moving to internet delivery and movies are not far behind. The Writers Guild needs to make sure that when stuff we wrote is delivered to an audience over the internet whoever wrote it gets their little piece of the profit pie. I may be an idiot but to me that is all this is about. They wished us luck and said they were happy to be in Southern California waering t-shirts, instead of back home in Kansas, where it was 15 degrees today.

Last night a mom at my older daughter's kung-fu class said something kind of funny. Her husband works for Staples Center, overseeing video broadcasts for all the big sporting events there. She said: "At least they don't need writers" -- in order for him to be able to broadcast all those programs. She wasn't trying to be mean, just relieved at her husband's relative job-security.

"At least they don't need writers."

She's a very nice woman but I said something about getting her a job application for the AMPTP.

The dreaded "Force Majeure" has begun to take out deals at studios and networks across LA. We heard half-a-dozen people with deals at Warner Bros. TV had their contracts "terminated." Hasn't happened to my partner and I yet but it could happen at any time. The downside is very obvious -- when the strike comes to an end we would not go back to receiving a regular weekly paycheck. But there would be an upside as well. We would be free to peddle our television wares all over town, rather than to just one studio. Don't get me wrong -- in this case I don't want to be free. But if I find myself free, I will revel in my freedom. One way or another we will get another TV show on the air. Hopefully it will be with Warner Bros. Television.

In a way I sympathize with the TV executives who we do business with. At least we know we are on the side of truth, justice and the American way -- if you consider enabling the workers who create successful products to share in the profit those products generate to be the American way. At least we have SOMETHING to do -- even if it's just march up and down the sidewalk carrying a picket sign in our hands. What do those executives have to do -- sit in their offices sifting through stacks of old pilot scripts while they wait to find out on whose head(s) the next cost-cutting initiative is going to fall?

True, they're still getting paid and that does count for something. But personally, I wouldn't want to trade places with them. Even more so because they aren't really participants in the decision-making process that brought us to this point. Even though I didn't vote to authorize the strike, I was given the opportunity to vote. Every member of the union -- including John Ridley -- was invited to every meeting, where they were able to say what they thought and be heard by how ever many of their fellow guild members remained in the auditorium. At least we are part of our side's decision-making process, even if we don't agree with the decision that gets made. At least we get to vote. The executives on the other side -- except for a tiny handful of guys at the top of the agenda-setting conglomerates, none of whom to my knowledge reside full-time in the city of Los Angeles -- pretty much have no say at all in the matter.

Of course we all have to live with the consequences, no matter how much or how little we were able to participate in the processes that brought them on.

McCaine came in second behind Romney in Michigan, which I suppose means the Republican nomination is now just as up-for-grabs as the Democratic one is. And there was no announcement today of a DGA deal. But it is coming. I don't want to say something like "and with it will come the temptation to cut and run" because for all I know it may include what we need to get in order to back to work. I'm not counting on it but I'm not counting against it either.

I am simply going to wait and see. And I think it's fair and reasonable to suggest you do the same.

See you tomorrow on the picket line -- where maybe I'll get lucky and meet someone who can educate me about some other writing genre that's totally alien to me, like Daytime Drama...

Strike Day 72

2008-01-15T00:14:00.001-08:00

What a day, what a day -- I barely know where to begin!

I spent a lot of time out on the picket line today, way more than my standard 3-hour shift.

Why? Because there were SO MANY DANG PICKETERS OUT THERE! Every time I decided to pack it in and head home I would run into someone I knew and end up walking back and forth for another half-hour.

I went according to plan, parked on the far side of the freeway and walked to the studio lot.

On a normal day, at my little gate, we get somewhere from 3 to 10 people on the picket line.

Today we had from 30 to 50.

More than a month ago I sent an e-mail to the WGA letting them know that the security guards at Warner Bros. were counting how many people we had on the picket line every hour on the hour, or thereabouts. I thought it was important, not because there was anything nefarious about it but because I saw it as hard and fast proof that the companies -- or at least the company of Warner Bros. -- was paying attention to how many of us actually showed up to walk the picket lines every day.

Today, when the security guard came out, he had a hard time using his hands to communicate back to his colleague in the guard-house exactly how many of us were out there -- in fact he had to use one hand as a multiplier for the other.

And not one incident -- at least at the Avon Gate -- of tension or confrontation of any sort between Warner Bros. studio employees and the picketing writers.

There were two high points of the day for me...

The first involved a family of tourists from Australia, whom I spoke with a little while they were headed in on the studio tour, as I try to speak with any and all tourists headed in on the studio tour. When they came back out an hour or so later they walked over and asked what the strike was about. I did my best to explain it. The dad talked about how he and his family -- he was traveling with a group of 14 -- were kind of shocked by the extreme income disparity here in the USA, by how little some people, like the guy who had driven their stretch golf-cart and given them their studio tour, earned. I said that the USA has always been a somewhat extreme place, with more people at the bottom and more people at the very top, when compared with places like Australia or Western Europe, which have much stronger "labor" or democratic-socialist traditions. I said something about how the issue of internet residuals is about trying to preserve the "vast middle class" of the WGA, small as it may be.

Then the father asked what I wrote. When I talk to the tourists I don't say anything about my own credits unless they ask me. It isn't because I'm humble or shy. It's because -- despite having done a lot of work I consider to be incredibly good -- nothing my partner and I have created for TV or written for the movies has been a commercial triumph. Successful, yes. Blockbusters, no. At least not yet. Chances are the people I'm talking to won't be familiar with the stuff I've created or written. But when someone asks it's impolite not to answer. So I told the dad from Australia that my partner and I had created a show called "Sleeper Cell."

His face lit up like it was "Australia Day" and he started jumping up and down -- turned out "Sleeper Cell" was his favorite TV show ever. He was so happy and excited it was hard to believe. He gave me his phone number in case I ever visit Australia. Needless to say, it made my day.

Then the actress pictured to the right arrived to show her solidarity with we writers and the Warner Bros. employees who may face lay-offs as the week goes on.

I know this strike has caused a great deal of pain and suffering for a great many people -- including myself. But it would be dishonest for me to claim my mind was burdened by any of that during her visit, which comprised highlight number two.

Tomorrow it will be back to the normal scheme of the picket line.

Tomorrow may also bring news of a DGA deal with the AMPTP.

If so, let's hope that deal contains real profit participation for the internet.

But if it doesn't, let's hope we can stick together and leave it on the table. The same way I left the picket line and came home to my beautiful wife.

Temptation is a powerful thing -- but only as powerful as we let it be.

Strike Day 69 - 71

2008-01-13T22:42:00.000-08:00

Well, tomorrow will be another big day at Warner Bros.

The WGA has called for a solidarity rally in sympathy with the Warner Bros. employees who may be layed off this coming week.

Personally, I'm not really a big fan of the idea of gathering several hundred to a thousand striking WGA members outside the studio where a bunch more people may be about to find out they are about to be let go because of the strike. Many of those people are very sympathetic to our cause and some actually do see it as their own cause as well. But some of them are not so sympathetic to our cause. Some of them are downright angry and pissed off at us in particular.

Now, I think those people are wrong, even from an objective standpoint -- but that doesn't change the fact that they have the right to their opinion.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe showing up in the hundreds bordering on a thousand will just impress on all the people still working at Warner Bros. how much we striking writers sympathize with their difficult circumstances. To be honest, I think some of them will take it that way and others won't. I don't really think tomorrow's action will make us any more friends in the non-WGA Hollywood working man and woman community. But like I said, I may very well be wrong.

On the other hand, tomorrow's action may get us on the local news in a good way, talking about how much we do sympathize with all the other people being impacted by the strike.

I'll be there, doing my daily picketing routine, probably at the same old gate. My guess is parking will be impossible, so I plan to park in a supermarket lot just on the other side of the 134 Freeway and take a 5 minute walk to my post.

Meanwhile the Weinstein Company deal became official on Friday, which is pretty good news. Again, not because the Weinstein Company is big and powerful, since we all know it is not, but because it continues to show the world that the WGA is serious about making deals with companies, so long as they have any interest in making a deal with us -- and I think it really does help morale, if only by providing something POSITIVE for all us writers to talk about while we continue to march back and forth and back... and forth... and back... and forth. And it's good for the feature people -- the movie screenwriters -- since it will directly impact a small handful of them.

I shouldn't really say "them" since my partner and I are one -- or two -- of them, but we also work in TV and have been picketing outside our TV studio, so I guess I think of us as TV writers first in terms of this strike -- despite the fact that the strike has shut down a movie script we were writing for another studio.

The other day one of the new faces at our gate happened to be an animation writer -- which meant he is one of the very, very few WGA members still working, despite the strike. He pickets and he works. Double duty. On the bright side he is still getting paid.

As I see it there remain THREE POSSIBLE SCENARIOS for the strike's "End Game" and they are as follows:

(1) The DGA makes their deal with the AMPTP some time in the next few weeks and it contains numbers regarding internet profit participation which are good enough for we at the WGA to accept, so we do accept them and the strike ends.

(2) The DGA makes their deal with the AMPTP some time in the next few weeks and it does not contain such numbers, so we don't accept them and the strike goes on until July 1st, when SAG joins us on the picket lines, finally forcing the companies to come to an agreement regarding internet profit participation for writers AND actors -- or, in a slightly rosier version, the companies actually get along to doing that some time before the end of March, because once the end of March rolls around all further feature film production will otherwise have to shut down due to the looming threat of SAG walking out when their contract expires at the end of June. Studios won't be going into production on schedules that they are not absolutely confident they can get "in the can" before July 1st.

(3) Somewhere between now and July 1st, the WGA collapses from within. Dozens, then hundreds of us pull a "JR" (for "John Ridley") and go "Fi-Core," leaving the guild a hollow shell of its former self.

To be honest, I really don't think (3) is going to happen and that is pretty much all that matters to me. One way or another this strike will end. At one point or another we will go back to work -- back to writing movies and back to creating and running and writing for TV shows. The landscape -- particularly in the television world -- may well be a bit different from the one we left behind but the work will remain. There is simply too much money to be made by the companies for it not to.

Whether the strike ends thanks to a good DGA deal or thanks to the solidarity of SAG come March or July, it will end.

But until the day that it does end, the membership of the Writers Guild of America needs to stick together -- which is why I will be over at Warner Bros. tomorrow, along with several hundred of my fellow WGA members who will have taken all my potential parking spaces.

Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Or the opinion of one.

Let's hope for a great rally and some good coverage on the local news tomorrow night!

Strike Day 67- 68

2008-01-10T18:08:00.001-08:00

I'M BACK!!!

Again.

I was gone because I've been picketing all week without having really fully recovered from being ill this past weekend.

I passed out yesterday without making a Blog entry.

But if the Blog must suffer in order for another warm body to be out there on the picket line, then so be it my friends -- SO BE IT!!!

These past 2 days have actually been quite eventful out in my little corner of "WGA picket line" world.

Yesterday -- Wednesday -- we were visited by a couple of actors from the last show my partner and I did, who marched in solidarity with us for our entire 3-hour shift and then some.

This was good news for us -- and for the tourists, whose ranks happened to include some big fans of our show.

We were also visited by some unexpected guests -- including a father and son welding team from Oklahoma who were driving around looking for Mann's Chinese Theater.

I gave them directions, which were not that difficult from Warner Bros.

We were also visited by a larger-than-life (physically as well as personality-wise) furniture-liquidator from Northern California who grew up in Burbank and was related to William Wellman, director of 1927's "WINGS," the first movie to win an OSCAR for Best Picture. He was there to take the Warner Bros. VIP Tour but ended up grabbing a picket sign and walking alongside us for about half-an-hour. He called up his girlfriend -- a cop in Louisiana -- and asked her to guess what he was doing. Then he passed his cell-phone to my strike-buddy, who chanted across the country: "ON STRIKE, SHUT 'EM DOWN -- HOLLYWOOD'S A UNION TOWN!" The lady cop proceeded to tell him about a cartoon that recently ran in her local newspaper. It showed a guy getting his new 60" HDTV delivered. The delivery man dropped it off, had him sign for it and told him: "Enjoy the re-runs." She finished up by telling us to: "Give them hell."

Well, I don't know if we're really doing that but we were back on the line today -- Thursday -- and today's best guest was a TV sports cameraman and member of IATSE Local 600, who was driving by Warner Bros. on his way to visit his father's grave at Forest Lawn cemetery and decided to stop by and join us. He picked up a picket sign and asked how things were going with the strike. We did our best to fill him in. He told us that after a decade-ago strike, his union had accepted the companies keeping scab cameramen who had started working as replacements for union members during that strike. The union had even accepted taking those scab cameramen on as new members.

To be honest, that kind of blew me away.

Luckily for us writers there really is no way for scabs to do our jobs in the world of television, where intimate knowledge of characters and their world are prerequisites for being able to do even a remotely decent job. With a handful of incredibly-talented exceptions, people from outside the belly of the beast of a current TV show would have no chance at writing an episode.

However, in the land of movies, things are a little different. There it is easier to hunt down non-union but high-talent writers, either in schools or from the stacks of "new submission" spec scripts or from English-speaking lands overseas (and in Canada!). Of course, most of those English-speaking foreign lands have their own writer's guilds which have relationships with the WGA that are supposed to make it impossible for their guild-members to do things like scab work during a strike.

Anyhow, scabbing is not a major issue for this strike -- at least not yet. And that is a good thing.

For the 4th day in a row I was happily surprised by the turn-out at our Gate -- after the Holiday hiatus we seem to have come back to the picket lines without missing a beat.

Of course I don't know how the numbers are holding up anywhere and everywhere else but I certainly hope we are the rule and not just an exception.

Overall, I would have to rate this as a good week on the WGA side of the strike.

On the plus side we got the UA deal. On the minus side, John Ridley went "Fi-Core."

I suppose you could argue that makes it pretty much a wash -- but I would have to say that the United Artists deal is a bigger gain than John Ridley is a loss. Plus now we seem to be on the verge of a similar deal with the Weinstein Company. I don't like to talk about this stuff before it becomes REAL but both sides are discussing it in public so I imagine it will become real some time during the next week.

There was also the beginning of the end of this year's Award's shows. Ah, well. Maybe the DGA will get a deal before the Oscars and that deal will include reasonable profit-participation for New Media. Otherwise... I wouldn't get my hopes up for this year's Academy Awards working out too well.

A lot of people going in and out of work at Warners stopped to talk to us today and to tell us they support us and to tell us to "keep hanging in there" -- and this on the same week that Warner Bros. announced their Studio Services department, which provides all kinds of maintenance for physical production, will probably be laying-off large numbers of employees starting next week.

One woman on her way out of the studio actually apologized to us. I told her it wasn't her fault.

To be honest, it always makes me feel a little better when the studio folks are supportive. It reminds me that I'm not crazy and that we are not being unreasonable and they we in the WGA really -- REALLY -- didn't want for this strike to happen.

As I keep telling every tourist who stops to ask:

It is all very simple. It is all about ONE THING: profit participation when stuff we wrote is delivered to the audience via the INTERNET.

That's all we want. And that's what the companies -- so far at least -- refuse to even seriously discuss making provisions for.

And so the strike goes on.

Somewhere over the hill, over the mountain of months which lie before us -- months worth of weeks and weeks worth of days -- somewhere over that mountain lies the First of July. And on the First of July, whether the AMPTP likes it or not, we in the WGA will be joined on our picket lines all over Los Angeles by the "Big Battalions" of SAG.

Again I ask the question: how long will the companies hold their line when there are not only no scripts... but no actors -- be they bit-players or above-the-title movie stars -- as well...?

Not too f*@#ing long.

Hopefully it won't take until then for the strike to be resolved.

But if it does... it does.

Until then, just keep putting one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other...

Strike Day 66

2008-01-08T20:51:00.002-08:00

Happy New Hampshire primary day!

I'm in a good mood thanks to John McCaine's not unexpected victory in the Republican primary.

I spent the morning picketing at my old stomping grounds with my writing-producing partner.

I suppose if I am the "Strike Hawk" then he is the "Strike Dove."

Not in a weak, surrender-prone way but in more of an open, understanding, sensitive and perhaps even poetic way -- HAH-HAH-HAH!!!

Gotta' love the Dove!

On the "Brooklyn Bowl" football front, well... I received some correspondence which took issue with some of my descriptions of the game. The way I described the adult competition which my 7 year-old daughter faced as "halfway-decent grown-up football players." I thought I was being charitable but others take exception -- and have threatened to leave me "face-down in the mud" next year.

Hmmm. Very interesting indeed!

It was also pointed out that I had forgotten to mention that one of those halfway-decent grown-up players happened to beat me for 2 touchdowns. Well, that certainly did happen -- during the course of the opposing team's LOSS to the team I was on, together with a trio of girls aged 7, 6 and 5 -- and my 6 year-old teammate just so happens to be the daughter of the guy lobbing these complaints!

Maybe I should bring a football to the picket-line...? We certainly have enough sign poles to use as goal-posts.

On the picket line today things were not too bad, with a good turn-out once again and some nice spirit being shown by those present, including a couple of new faces. We had some nice little conversations with tourists on their way in and out and I ran into a friend of mine -- an accounting/financial executive whose son and daughter are friends with my kids. We're supposed to have lunch some time next week. I guess he can come down from his office and pick me up at the picket line when I finish my shift. Oh, well, that's what sometimes happens in strikes and civil wars -- people who know and like each other wind up on opposite ends of nasty confrontations.

The now infamous John Ridley published a so-called Op-Ed piece in the LA Times today which really made me wonder what the people who run that newspaper are smoking when it comes to editorial decisions regarding WGA strike-related matters.

Don't get me wrong -- everyone with every opinion has a right to be heard regarding the strike, no matter what they think of the WGA. My problem is... in his entire essay, Ridley pretty much says nothing of note other than to toot his own horn, so to speak. The punch-line comes at the very end when he basically wishes a pox on both our houses (that of the WGA and the AMPTP) and declares that he is not for either of us but only for... "SELF-DETERMINATION."

So I guess this means John Ridley is now forming his own nation-state.

My question is... will he call it "Johnsland" or "Ridlesia" or maybe something really good like "The United Kingdom of John Ridley" or "USR" for the "United States of Ridlerica"?

I suppose in the fight between the Union and its foes, we know which side he is on. No one's but his own.

Here's the rub. The problem I have. The reason I have to say just a bittttttttttt more...

And I've had this conversation with a couple of folks on the picket-line over the past weeks -- of course, none of them went "fi-core" -- at least that I know of, but their side of this argument annoyed me nonetheless.

Saying that "both sides are equally to blame" and damning the WGA and the AMPTP with equal damnation and declaring a pox on both our houses... just doesn't cut it in my book. It's like back in the Eighties when most people I knew would say the US and NATO were just as bad as the USSR and the Warsaw Pact -- and then I would always have to get into a fight with them.

Like hell they were.

I grant you, during the course of the Cold War the US did many, many immoral, unethical and very, very bad things to a great many people in countries all over the world. Chile, Greece, Vietnam, Iran. I know something about it -- not everything, mind you, but some things. I could list more highlights of our nefariousness but it's already getting late. I don't argue the point. But it doesn't change the fact that the Soviet Union did a hell of a lot worse to a hell of a lot more people on a hell of a lot more occasions.

Just because one side isn't perfect does not mean it is just as bad as the other.

Ridley says he's in favor of the Guild's objectives but against the Guild's strategy.

Hmmm... so he thinks we were right to go to war but that we are not conducting the war properly.

Then shouldn't he try to impact our war-fighting from within the ranks of OUR SIDE IN THAT WAR -- which said war he claims to believe in...???

Ridley says the WGA leadership has left no room in its "tent" for any disagreement or dissension. I attended the same membership meeting in Santa Monica he talked about and I heard a bunch of speakers take issue with our leadership and our strategy. People didn't applaud those questioners enough for his liking? No one was shouted down or prevented from speaking -- except for one fifty-ish guy who kept making hard-to-follow football analogies and whose overall opinion of the leadership was that they were doing a GOOD job!

He got SHOUTED DOWN because after about 6 minutes of him attempting to remake the same point, it became physically painful to keep listening to him drone on. He was the only one -- and I should know since I stayed until the very last person at the very last microphone was done. There were other people whose comments were met with unhappy remarks or cat-calls but no one else was "prevented" from speaking -- in fact, no one at all was prevented from speaking since that one wacky "football" guy actually ended up talking longer than almost anyone else who asked a question.

In my opinion John Ridley has succeeded in turning the 2007-2008 WGA strike into a personal step-ladder from which he can be seen by a wider audience. I say you go, John Ridley. More power to you. I used to know you as the guy who created and ran the TV version of "Barbershop" which debuted on Showtime around the same time "Sleeper Cell" premiered -- but now you have made yourself into the WGA's own George McClellan, the Union General who commanded all Lincoln's armies early in the Civil War and led them to a rather ignominious record of defeats and draws against significantly weaker opponents.

After being relieved of command and replaced by Lincoln, McClellan left the army and gained a national platform as the anti-war Democratic party's candidate in 1864, an election in which he was defeated by Lincoln almost as badly as he had been defeated by the Confederates.

To be honest, personally, I don't really get John Ridley -- how can you be FOR an ongoing strike and DESERT the ranks of the union engaged in it, no matter what you think of its "strategy" for winning...?

But this puts me in rather good company, since no less a man than Ulysses S. Grant himself -- General of the Union Army and 18th President of these United States -- when asked his own opinion of George McClellan, replied: "McClellan is to me one of the mysteries of the war."

Strike Day 62-65 - Back to the Line...

2008-01-07T22:37:00.000-08:00

Man am I beat. But I do have some strike-related stuff to talk about so I'll have to stay awake a while longer.

I was sick over the weekend, then returned to the picket line at Warner Bros. this morning and afternoon, which accounts for my exhaustion.

Need to catch up on some things left over from my trip back East:

First, the big "Brooklyn Bowl" football game was a huge success. For everyone involved but especially for my family, since my 10 year-old son played QB on the opposing team, throwing to all grown-up receivers, and did a legitimately good job, while my 7 year-old daughter caught THREE TOUCH-DOWN PASSES thrown by me. These were real passes with a real football. Also, my 5 year-old daughter made one very short but clean reception which she then ran for more than half the distance to the end-zone, simply because she was so short no one on the opposing team could get a hand on her! The final score was 28-21, with myself, my best friend from childhood and 3 little girls winning over my son and 2 halfway-decent grown-up football players. Needless to say, I am very proud!

Second, on the flight back from Newark, I sat next to a Set Dresser from a one-hour network drama who's out of work due to the strike. He's probably got a gig coming up on a feature but no way to be sure. We talked for much if not most of the 5-1/2 hour flight and he didn't have anything bad to say about the WGA or the writers from his show. He lived through the '88 Writers strike and seemed to think it was natural for the companies to do whatever they could in order to not have to share profit derived from new technology, whether it was VHS or the internet. Needless to say, I was happy he got the seat next to my son and I (my wife and daughters were in another row). Of course I know not every out-of-work set dresser shares his opinion but it was good to hear.

Now on to newer developments...

By now we all know about the UA deal, making United Artists the first big production company -- it might be too much to call them a studio -- to agree to a new contract with the WGA.

In my humble opinion this is pretty good news, if only for WGA internal morale reasons and because it directly impacts feature film writers in a positive way. I know chances are only about 4 or 5 screenwriters will actually end up leaving the picket lines and going back to work thanks to this deal, but that's 4 or 5 more than were gainfully employed under a Guild contract yesterday.

The weather behaved as I hoped it would in my last entry, written during the big storm on Friday night. Today was one of if not the single clearest day I have ever seen in greater Los Angeles, with mountains and clouds and blue sky visible for as far as the eye could see in Burbank. In fact it was kinda' beautiful, if you kept your eyes up towards the horizon and away from the buildings below.

On my neck of the picket line at Warners there were some very familiar faces and some fresh ones as well. We actually had a bigger turn out than I was expecting, though I don't know if that was the case at the main gate or any of the other smaller gates.

As often happens at our Gate, we were visited by a college class that was taking the Warner Bros. tour, about 20 kids from Virginia. The teacher and students asked us about the strike and we did our best to tell them what is going on and why. Of course, as far as I'm concerned, it's all about one very simple thing: profit participation in New Media. Always has been, always will.

Later there were some girls from a Yeshiva who were all surprised when one of my fellow picketers read one of their Hebrew names from where it was inscribed on her necklace. They said they wanted their TV shows back -- and when we asked them they said they all watched TV on their computers.

Generally speaking it was a pretty good day as strike days go, what with the official news about the UA deal and the clear blue skies -- true, the wind was pretty blustery but compared to the temperature in NYC, picketing in Gale Force winds would not be all that bad.

But the biggest thing to hit me about the strike didn't hit me until I was talking with a very good friend on the phone earlier this evening. He's a pretty successful actor and his sons are Cub Scouts with my son. He asked me how my New Year was and I told him it was... awesome. Despite the strike, which is keeping me from earning a penny and bleeding me white, it was, inarguably awesome. He said his Holidays had been fantastic as well -- and then he explained why: BECAUSE WE'RE NOT WORKING.

That's right.

Because we're not working.

It gave me a moment's pause and then I realized... he's a genius. He cut right to the heart of the matter.

If I wasn't on strike, this past New Year's I would have been obsessed with what the Network executives who were reading the 2 pilot scripts my partner and I would have delivered thought of them -- and I would have also been obsessed with what the Studio executives at the movie studio that had hired us to write a script for them thought about it. I would have enjoyed my time with my family back East but... not with the same absolute abandon that I did over the past couple of weeks. To be honest, I don't know if I've ever enjoyed a family vacation that much in my entire life. This past Summer I had my first chance to go on Summer vacation with my family in 4 years. I had a great time -- but in the midst of it I caught a cab to the airport and flew back to LA so my partner and I could pitch for a job we had been trying to get for the prior 2 months.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining. I'm an adult and it's my life and it has its upsides and its downsides and I don't want to trade it with anyone. It's just kind of strange to suddenly realize that the reason I had such an absolutely enjoyable trip with my family is that I happen to be in the midst of what many would call the biggest crisis of my professional career.

By the way, that actor dad from the Cub Scouts is also the one who built the storage shed which was too small to handle all the Raingutter Regatta stuff, which is why that stuff is still at the edge of my driveway (that's for the benefit of any loyal readers who have been following since the earliest days of this Blog). He's a great guy and he did a great job building that shed -- but I wish it was BIGGER!

Anyhow, the LONG WALK goes on. We walk until someone gives us a fair deal on New Media profit participation. One step at a time, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month --

Don't worry. We will not reach "year after year" before July 1st reaches us.

Gotta' go get some sleep, because it's back to the picket line tomorrow...

Strike Day 60-61 - Back to Hollyrock

2008-01-04T23:23:00.001-08:00

Hello out there in television, movie and -- most importantly -- INTERNET land!

Well, I left home to come back home and so here I am, back in sunny Los Angeles -- only it's not so sunny.

My wife and I just collected all the flashlights, battery-powered lanterns, candles, candlesticks, firewood and Duraflame logs in reaction to the growing rainstorm currently raging outside. We've also got a good supply of batteries on hand.

My guess is this can't last all the way through the weekend and into next week but if it does... I imagine there won't be much picketing on Monday.

Hopefully the clouds will spill their fill over the weekend and we will return beneath the gleaming blue skies that usually follow such storms.

I suppose we are weathering a storm of our own here in the movie/TV industry.

The past couple of days have been filled with a number of developments on the strike front.

Amongst these are:

the emergence -- or pseudo-emergence -- of the "Super-Successful Screenwriters" squad, a group of approximately 30 "A-list" feature writers and/or writer-directors, said to be holding a secret gathering some time this weekend, at which they will strategize on bringing pressure to bear on the WGA leadership to accept the deal that they believe is about to be hammered out by the AMPTP and the DGA;

the announcement that WGA member John Ridley has chosen to "Go Fi-Core" -- or "financial core" -- thereby freeing himself to return to work for struck companies which full-fledged members of the WGA cannot work for;

the continuing controversy over whether or not WGA West president Patric Verone gave Jay Leno the go-ahead to write his own monologues when his show returned to the air without its writing staff (other than Leno himself), who remain out on strike;

and the connected controversy over how the WGA should respond to Jay Leno continuing to perform services for his own show which his WGA membership prevents him from performing.

Well, ha-hah... where does one start?

It's getting late and to be very honest I'm going to approach all this stuff the way I think it truly deserves -- the way it merits -- by simply saying:

WHO GIVES A FLYING F*&%# ABOUT ANY OF THIS S@#$*???

If there is a group of very successful screenwriters who wish to convince the WGA leadership to sign on to whatever deal the DGA ends up getting from the AMPTP, let them strategize in secret about how best to go about it and then let them emerge from their shadowy realm and do their utmost best convincing job. I highly doubt they will succeed -- at least until anyone knows what the DGA deal comprises. If it turns out the DGA got something real on the internet residual front, the WGA will be signing on whether or not the "Super Successful Screenwriters" squad exists. If the DGA deal doesn't have any real profit participation for New Media, then I find it impossible to believe that such a "special interest lobbying campaign" will lead to the WGA accepting a bad deal. After all, doesn't the membership have to vote before we accept the deal they bring back -- just like we had to vote on whether or not to give the leadership the go ahead to call a strike...? Those thirty men and/or women may vote to go back for $250.00 a year worth of internet residuals but I don't think a majority of their fellow guild members will.

I don't know John Ridley personally -- other than through third parties -- so his personal behavior is pretty much meaningless to me. He is one writer. The only way his decision to "Go Fi-Core" will be of any significance whatsoever to the wider world of writers at large is if a huge chunk of the membership of the WGA suddenly chooses to do the same, following in the footsteps of said Mr. Ridley.

Personally, I don't expect that to happen.

As far as the Tonight Show/Jay Leno issues go... well, I'll admit, if it turns out the president of WGA West really did tell Jay Leno he could go ahead and write his own monologues... well, it would piss me off. It would count as a pretty serious dropped ball. But as I have said before: in any game that lasts more than a few minutes THERE WILL BE DROPPED BALLS.

No one is perfect. That includes the current leadership of the WGA.

Right now there is no way for anyone who was not there personally to know what really happened between Leno and Verone or whoever else was on the WGA side of that conversation.

But what we do know is that we are still on strike because the AMPTP still refuses to sit down and negotiate a remotely-fair deal with us regarding profit participation on scripted entertainment delivered over the internet.

I admit, whatever the WGA ends up doing to penalize Leno for breaking the strike rules -- if anything -- will make for compelling reading on websites and dramatic chatter over phones and on picket lines... but guess what?

IT WILL NOT MAKE ONE IOTA OF DIFFERENCE TO THE FINAL OUTCOME OF THIS STRIKE -- UNLESS WE, THE MEMBERS OF THE WGA, ALLOW IT TO.

Unless we allow this petty crap to sap our determination, weaken our resolve and distract our focus.

None of this matters now.

Some day in the future when this strike, like every strike, comes to an end, there may indeed be an opportunity to address some of these issues -- but focusing on them now will lead to one place and one place only: DEFEAT.

This strike is not a war of maneuver. It is a trench-grind, pure and simple. It is about who can last the longest.

I know the AMPTP has lots more money.

I know the AMPTP has an easier job keeping all the members on its side of the dispute on the exact same page all the time, no matter what they may individually think about the situation.

Nonetheless, the timing can work for us.

If we can keep pulling together we can win.

If the DGA deal doesn't include real profit participation for the internet and therefore the WGA does not choose to sign on to it, we will simply have to wait until July -- when SAG will join us on the picket lines and the AMPTP will be left without any scripted film or TV in its future.

How long do you think the companies will continue to hold their line once that happens?

July 1st is the deadline for the AMPTP, with emphasis on the word "dead."

I know July 1st is a long way away.

Half a year in fact.

But that's how it is.

Unless you want to slink back to your studio or network provided office knowing you just wasted 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 months of your productive professional existence for absolutely nothing, you will find a way to stick it out until July hits and the actors join us.

All the theorizing and all the plotting and all the scheming are absolutely MEANINGLESS.

All that matters is one thing: HOLDING THE LINE.

I realize it's difficult for thousands of men and women who tell stories for a living to just accept the simple, somewhat boring, perhaps even soul-deadening reality that we are now in the midst of -- but if we can accept it, we will all be better off.

Personally, I suggest putting all that spare brain-power into something useful -- like writing a play or a memoir or a novel or brushing up on web-design or getting a job at McDonald's. Whatever.

Just so long as it doesn't mean walking away from the impressive unity which the WGA has heretofore been able to present to the AMPTP throughout this strike.

It may be simple, dull and painful but I'll say it once more anyway...

The only thing that matters is that we:

HOLD -- THE -- LINE.

Strike Day 54-59 - East Coast style

2008-01-02T12:44:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I've been off-line for almost a week, due to internet-challenged friends and network-challenged hotels -- but somehow my hotel slipped up and enabled my connection, so I'm back, if only for a moment.

Times Square on New Year's Eve was an amazing event, first time for me with children present, as well as wife, friends and in-laws.

Before that the big football "reunion" game was terrific, with the kids playing up to the adult level. Of course the adults hadn't really done much playing for about a decade but still, it was impressive.

On the Strike front the big news is the separate deal with World Wide Pants, enabling David Letterman's writers to return to work. To make a long story short, my comment on this is: good for them and good for us.

Yes, I understand all the arguments against this deal specifically and any such deal that doesn't allow for every writer to go back at the same time in general. I don't begrudge anyone who holds that opinion the right to their opinion -- but please don't use it as a crutch to whine and complain and belly-ache to the world at large about the WGA and its leadership. As I said some time ago in response to a reader's COMMENT:

In any game that lasts more than a few minutes there will be some dropped balls.

If you are someone who considers this deal a "tactical error" then I sympathize with your plight but I repeat what I said on that earlier occasion: WE SHOULD NOT LET TACTICAL ERRORS DISTRACT US FROM OUR STRATEGIC GOAL.

We elected these guys. They are in charge. The moment we start to seriously second-guess their leadership we will be DONE, FINISHED, OUT-OF-THE-GAME.

We will fall prey to the end-game which finished our predecessors off THREE TIMES DURING THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES: we will EAT OURSELVES ALIVE -- and guess who will be left standing to clean up the slabs of writer-flesh littering the streets of Hollywood, Burbank and Culver City...???

The AMPTP.

That's who.

I've got to go get ready for dinner. If I'm lucky I'll be able to continue "BLOGGING" when we get back later tonight.

Hang tough in '08!

Strike Day 53 - East Coast style

2007-12-27T18:02:00.002-08:00

My partner and I signed on to this letter, which was posted on the web a couple days back:

‘Tis the season. Pilot season. We, the pilot writers, feel the loss of our ongoing creative partnership, and in the spirit of the holidays, we wanted to offer our help in getting the ’08-’09 crop of television shows back on track. We’re willing to write silent night after silent night to make up for lost time if your company will only finalize a fair deal with the WGA. To do that, talks must resume. Our guild is ready and eager. We feel that what our guild is asking is more than reasonable, and we believe that you, as our partner in these new shows, know our value and know that what we are asking is not excessive.

We love our new projects. We want to create great television which would put everyone back to work and ensure prosperity for all. We know we would all like to start the new year getting back to doing what we love. If there is any way you can facilitate this process, we would be eternally grateful.

Sincerely,
Allison Adler
Justin Adler
Jack Amiel & Michael Begler
Jeff Astrof
Katy Ballard
Alex Barnow & Marc Firek
Edward Allen Bernero
Scott Z. Burns
Cindy Caponera
Cindy Chupack
Dan Cohen & F.J. Pratt
Randy Cohen & Chris Kelly
Brad Copeland
Rick Copp
Matt Corman & Chris Ord
Carter Covington
Mark Cullen & Rob Cullen
Ed Decter
Nastaran Dibai & Jeffrey B. Hodes
J.P. Donahue & Kevin Polay
Chris Downey
Larry Doyle
Aaron Ehasz
Amy Engelberg & Wendy Engelberg
Jacob Epstein
Stephen Falk
David Feige
Michael Feldman
Joel Fields
Christopher Fife
Chad Fiveash & James Stoteraux
Dave Flebotte
R. Lee Fleming, Jr.
Dan Fogelman
Victor Fresco
Michael Frost Beckner
Jonathan Goldstein
Rob Greenberg & Suzy Mamann-Greenberg
Lyn Greene & Richard Levine
Hart Hanson
Zach Helm
William Blake Herron
David Holden
Amy Holden Jones
David Hudgins
Doug Jung
Alexa Junge
Mitchel Katlin & Nat Bernstein
Joe Keenan
Tim Kelleher
Jack Kenny
Moira Kirland
Marc Klein
Jennifer Konner & Alexandra Rushfield
Bill Kunstler
Dave Lampson & Andrew Leeds
Sheila R. Lawrence
Jim Leonard
Christine Levinson
Jeffrey Lieber
Matthew Lieberman
Angel Dean Lopez
Rob Lotterstein
Caryn Lucas
Greg Malins
Patrick Massett & John Zinman
Blake Masters
Dan McDermott
Gregg Mettler
J. Israel Miller & M.A. Fortin
Murray Miller & Judah Miller
Norman Morrill
Kevin Murphy
Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein
Michael Oates Palmer
Bob Odenkirk
Jan Oxenberg
Mark Palmer
Charles Pratt, Jr.
Rebecca Rand Kirshner
Ethan Reiff & Cyrus Voris
Jeffrey Richman & Suzanne Martin
Julie Rottenberg & Elisa Zuritsky
Paul Ruehl
Dario Scardapane
Robin Schiff
Dana Schmalenberg
Mike Scully & Julie Thacker-Scully
John Scott Shepherd
Mike Sikowitz
Stephanie K. Smith
Jon Steinberg
Joshua Sternin & Jeffrey Ventimilia
Dana Stevens
Francis Stokes
Rob Thomas
Gary Tieche
David Titcher
Stephen Tolkin
Kriss Turner
Mike Werb
Thomas Wheeler
Nicholas Wootton

Something about this touchy-feely, "united front" move hit me yesterday, when I was writing an e-mail to another dad at my children's school whose name was also on the list.

The thing is... all the people whose names are on that list, shoulder-to-shoulder, speaking with one voice... the truth is all of us are usually fighting each other to the death. Not physically, pilot seasons don't work that way, at least not yet -- and what with the way things are going the entire institution of "pilot season" may be very short for this world, so the chances of it evolving into a violent hand-to-hand version of its current self are pretty slim.

But even though it's not physical, the competition is very real.

I can only speak for myself but the truth is when my partner and I are in the midst of writing or producing a pilot... I just don't think about it. I don't think about the 40-50 other writers or writing teams busy typing away so that they can compete with us for the 4-10 (on average, depending what kind of network you are at) slots which will be available for pilot production. Then I don't think about the other 3-9 scripts which also got the "Green Light" to go into production.

When I stop and think about it now, it strikes me that over the past few years my partner and I have missed lots of opportunities to raise the chances for our shows, by attempting to sabotage the competition. I won't even get into the various means and methods which could be employed in such a dastardly task!

During pilot season we are all in direct competition for a very limited supply of resources -- the number of one-hour drama slots and half-hour comedy slots available on network and/or cable television.

Yet here we are, all uniting together so can may speak with one voice -- and quite a warm and tender voice at that -- to the people who decided to bet on our hunches, to take a chance on our "creative voices," as well as betting on our abilities as Executive Producers -- as physical showrunners.

Most of us who have run shows before have at least one or two good friends on the other side of the "great divide" which separates Executive Producers from Executives. They are the ones who helped us get those few extra dollars we needed for the budget of a particular episode in order to do it right (even if that meant taking a little out of the budget of a future episode that didn't even exist yet) and they are the ones who actually sided with us against their colleagues and sometimes even against their own bosses when we were being pushed to go the wrong way with regard to what we considered an all-important creative decision. They are without question our allies. In some cases they could even be said to be our partners. It's true, sometimes we want to kill them -- but hey, that's the way it works with all kinds of partnerships, right?

So to me, the letter above feels touchingly appropriate in a seasonal "Spirit of Christmas" way.

There remains the question of what all us movie and TV writers can do to honor the spirit of the recently-celebrated Jewish festival of Hanukkah...

Well, considering how the whole point of Hanukkah is to remember a desperate campaign waged by a threadbare guerilla army (the Maccabees) against the mighty forces of a military super-power (the Seleucid empire of the Syrian-Greeks) commanded by an absentee-Emperor (Antiochus IV Epiphanes), I'd say we've been doing nothing BUT honoring Hanukkah's spirit since the day this strike began.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from beautiful and frosty New Jersey!!!

Strike Day 52 - East Coast style

2007-12-26T19:17:00.000-08:00

Happy Boxing Day to any Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Canucks, various other Commonwealth subjects and/or citizens (not quite sure how that works) and Anglophiles out there.

Spent the day playing some football with my son (getting him ready for the grown-up opposition in the big "reunion" game scheduled for Prospect Park, Brooklyn, this coming Saturday morning), playing with the Wii (which I admit is a lot of fun) and EATING.

My sister-in-law marinated a slew of ribeye steaks and they were all delicious. I'm the one who started the tradition of marinated steaks in the family, though I inherited it from my mom. We always use flank steak to make Romanian steak -- which to my mind is one of the finest meals on the planet.

I remember one time, my wife called the office and my writing-producing partner answered the phone and she asked for him to put the call through to me and he did but I learned later he did so with great trepidation, because the sound of my wife's voice led him to believe that something tragic had befallen our family -- like a parent dropping dead or a child disappearing or something like that.

I spoke with my wife and I guess I looked really depressed and my partner asked me what had happened... and I told him my wife had looked in the oven and suddenly realized I had left the Romanian steaks -- which I had grilled outside on the BBQ the night before for dinner but then transferred to the oven so they wouldn't get cold before we served them for dinner -- that I had somehow forgotten to take what was left out of the oven and just left them in there all night. At the time we had a stove-top with natural gas pilot lights that never went out and the heat radiating down from them had turned what remained of my perfectly-seasoned and delectably medium-rare slabs of beef into charcoal.

He couldn't believe we were so broken up over the loss of our future left-overs. But we were. Well, I was -- I think for my wife it was more about her sympathy for my loss.

I forgot to mention the other day that another DGA member dad stopped by my house, to pick up his son who is a very good buddy and former classmate of my son. He couldn't help ribbing me about having "fallen into line" with a bunch of "Radicals." He knows me and he knows my (relatively conservative) politics and I think he was just trying to push buttons, which he succeeded at. I told him there was nothing radical about asking for a fair share of profits generated via New Media. He said something about how the "more rational" Directors Guild would end up making a lot more progress on that front than the "crazy writers."

I responded that if the DGA does indeed make progress on that front it will only be because the entire membership of the WGA has been out on strike and picketing in force for close to two months.

Truth is, if the DGA manages to gain a deal good enough for the WGA and SAG to sign onto on all fronts, well... then I will buy him a drink or a lunch, we will all go back to work and I will chalk it up to the one-two punch of WGA/SAG fervent dedication on the one hand and DGA quiet determination on the other.

Now I'm going to really put myself out on a limb, because it takes at least 2 days of marinating to really work... but in the interests of book-ending structure I must proceed: if that happens, I will invite the handful of DGA-member directors, ADs (assistant directors), line producers and PMs (production managers) who are good friends of mine over and cook Romanian Steak for them all!

Strike Day 51 - East Coast style

2007-12-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am in New Jersey, with my mother-in-law and father-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their two kids. With our three kids thrown in it's a lot of children under one roof, in a good way.

The cousins got a Wii earlier today for Christmas, so they are all staying up, keeping busy and being happy. Even if they hadn't gotten any gifts at all I think the cousins would have been happy just to see my kids and vice-versa. When we drove up in the frozen darkness they came leaping out the front door in their pajamas. If you celebrate Christmas I hope yours was as good as my niece's and nephew's. My kids and their cousins all get along pretty well. Too bad the AMPTP and WGA haven't been getting along that way lately.

I read a post on www.UnitedHollywood.blogspot.com that stuck with me. It sounded like it was put up by a legit production worker of one sort or another and it basically just said that both sides are behaving like little kids and how the poster was sick of hearing how the AMPTP walked away from the table and that everyone just needs to grow up and get this settled.

It stuck with me because -- unlike many other posts which label themselves as having been placed by Below-The-Line folks, I actually believe this one was placed by a BTL person. I admit, I wish that the WGA had not behaved the way it did during most of the 2 year lead-up to the end of our contract -- but once the real negotiations began, our Negotiating Committee behaved like very mature, reasonable people. They held the line on the draconian rollbacks which the companies had put on the table and but also backed off something like 9 of the 24 demands we had brought to the table. Then, at the clock was ticking towards midnight, they dropped the DVD increase -- something that a vast portion of the Guild membership was determined to get -- in the hopes that having done so would earn us a fair deal on internet residuals. I know, I know -- this is exactly the kind of thing that BTL person said they were sick of hearing. They didn't want to be dragged over and over again through a rehash of the past. They saw no point to it. All that mattered to them was the future. Find a way to settle this dispute so we can all get back to work as fast as possible.

There's just one problem with that. Only one institution holds the key that can unlock the door to the future for the motion picture and television industry. We all know who they are. If they wanted to settle this it would be settled by now. Believe me. I kid you not. The membership of the WGA would not be standing steadfast if there was a real offer of internet profit participation anywhere in sight. They talk about how they want to give writers their fair share of "New Media" money but then they order us to give up every single one of our demands (including the one regarding New Media profit participation!) BEFORE going back to the negotiating table.

What kind of talk is that?

It's the kind of talk spoken by people who don't want to see this situation change -- at least not yet. The only change the AMPTP wants to see is the kind that occurs when Autumn rolls in and the leaves start dropping off all the deciduous trees, one by one by one by one. They are waiting for us writers to start dropping off our tree -- the trunk and roots of which are the WGA -- one by one by one by one. And then they will break out their Hefty bags, rakes and shovels and swing into action, cleaning up the lawn and disposing of those bags however they see fit. A lot will be left out at the curb for the garbage men but some will be kept around to use as organic fertilizer for the garden and they'll keep a few more on hand for their kids to make a pile with and play in.

Can you imagine what it would be like to go back to work under those circumstances?

Stick to the plan. What is the plan? To gain writers a beach-head on the island of internet-generated profits earned by their scripted entertainment. An island which we will see expand so fast that within the next 5-to-10 years it will have become a full-size continent.

There is some chance the contract the AMPTP will likely be making soon with the DGA will happen to include a halfway-decent deal for New Media profit participation. If that happens, then the WGA will probably accept a version of it, maybe with an incremental bump, and the strike will end. Of course, taking nothing away from the directors (many of whom I have worked together with and some of whom I count amongst my good friends) the main reason this potential DGA deal may include real improvement on the internet residuals issue is that us writers will have been out on strike, walking the picket lines for at least two-and-a-half-to-three months by the time it gets made.

In the end, I can't help but feel bad for that Below-The-Line worker who was showering anger and frustration equally upon us and the companies.

I feel bad -- but I don't feel guilty.

If they don't want to wade through all the details and focus on the fine print regarding how this thing has gotten to where it is today, then that is their choice and they have every right to it.

But I can't let that approach serve as a guide for my own decision-making.

Strike Days 48, 49 & 50

2007-12-24T20:25:00.002-08:00

Well, we're fast and furiously closing in on the 2 month/8 week mark.

I didn't post on Saturday or Sunday but I felt compelled to put SOMETHING up today.

I'm leaving for the East Coast with my family tomorrow. I don't know how "blogging" will go in NYC -- maybe I'll do a lot of it, maybe not.

If the WGAe (east) is picketing while I'm there I will certainly show up to join ranks as they walk back and forth in the snow or the sleet or just the freezing temperatures. But to be honest I doubt they will be picketing while I'm there between Christmas and New Years.

The big "development" on the strike front today was the latest Nikki Finke column, which included a dire forecast for television as we know it. She said the executives in charge at the AMPTP are prepared to sacrifice not just this TV season but the upcoming season as well, simply to prove to the WGA that they should never have had the temerity to disagree with their employers.

Nikkie Finke seemed to think this meant the WGA was on its way to collapse and defeat. I must admit, I don't really concur with that take on it. If the AMPTP digs its heels in that deep -- and they certainly may -- it doesn't change all that much. At least not for any members of the WGA who went into this with their eyes open. The real "DEADLINE" for this strike, the line which will determine whether or not it "succeeds" -- defining SUCCESS as gaining a relatively fair deal for INTERNET RESIDUALS -- will be July 1st, when, if the companies have yet to make an offer on the internet issue which we can live with, the Screen Actors Guild's deal will run out and every working actor in Hollywood will go out on strike over same issue -- because those residuals matter just as much to them as they do to us.

Now, it is true that there are no guarantees in life and it is possible that the membership of the WGA may not be capable of "holding out" until July 1st. Maybe we will start to drop like flies. I'm not exactly sure how that will work but I know it involves the secrets of "FI-CORE" or "Financial Core" -- which means you kind of opt out of your membership but keep paying dues. After that you can work for whoever you want, even someone we are on strike against.

All I can say is, the present leadership of the WGA made it very, very clear how they were going to proceed BEFORE they were elected. They were then voted into office with the largest majority in Guild history (though I admit it did not include my vote). Then, close to 2 years later, they called for a STRIKE AUTHORIZATION vote, which said vote passed with something over 90% of the ballots.

I know a lot of members of the WGA West are not "working writers" who actually depend on the money they make from writing movies and/or TV to make a living. But I find it close to impossible to believe that a majority of those who do make their living as writers did not have a big part in both of those votes. Speaking for myself, when it came to the strike authorization vote... well, I couldn't bring myself to vote for it but at the same time, knowing how things had proceeded, I couldn't in all good conscience vote to remove from the leadership's arsenal one of the key tools in the toolbox they had been planning to use for two years. In my opinion, doing so would not have helped the situation. It would have left the WGA leadership in the position of a lame duck president, with no real weight to back up anything he asked for.

I admit, 8 months is a long time. But I can't believe that the vast majority of the membership will "drop like flies" and go "financial core" if the AMPTP doesn't come back to negotiate before SAG walks out and joins us on the picket lines.

From before the very first day of this strike I have been saying the last day of the strike will be July 1st. I'm a smart guy but I'm not that smart. I can't be the only one who saw this coming. All the most successful writers -- the TV showrunners and the big-time A-list feature writers -- are also the wealthiest writers. Unless we have no fiscal responsibility, we should have the capacity to survive 8 months without a pay check. Now, the same cannot be said of the junior writers and the first-time feature writers. And that will become an issue. But the Guild has a pretty hefty STRIKE FUND to help us get through this and -- if it does last until July -- we may have to ask those of us with the wherewithall to do a little something to help those without.

Even if the AMPTP members are prepared to let the remainder of the 2007-2008 and the entire 2008-2009 scripted TV seasons and their 2008-2009 feature film slates mostly disappear... are they ready to kiss off scripted television and movies FOREVER? Does Nikki Finke believe that? Does ANYONE believe that?

Once the actors join us, what they can do? Are they going to change over to 100% reality programming -- and produce and distribute nothing but foreign, animated and "reality" feature films as well?

The answer of course is no, they are not prepared to kiss that huge segment of their business goodbye.

But what they are well prepared to do is try everything possible to make each and every member of the WGA believe we are entering THE END OF DAYS -- that armageddon is on our doorstep, that we are about to be swallowed up by a BLACK HOLE -- from which we will never find an exit.

Don't believe the hype.

It's like the line: "No one wins in war."

Uh, try telling that to the British who fought in the American War of Independence (also known as the American Revolution).

Or try telling it to the political leadership of the Confederate States of America -- if you can track them down.

Or try telling it to the people of Vietnam -- who, like it or not, kicked our asses the hell out of their country.

It's true, from time to time in history there are conflicts from which no clear victor emerges -- some would argue the Korean War is an example. But all the South Koreans I know think their side won and point to the economic, political and social achievements of South Korea in the post-Korean War era, compared with the sad state of their cousins across the border in the North, as evidence.

People win wars and people lose wars and you should not get involved in a war unless you are prepared for the consequences.

A lot of Americans were killed, wounded and crippled fighting for independence against the British.

A lot of Union soldiers were killed, wounded and crippled fighting to defeat the Confederacy.

And one hell of a lot of North Vietnamese regulars and Vietcong guerillas were killed, wounded and crippled fighting to defeat us.

The present WGA strike is ruining some lives. When we cross the 8 week mark and all the companies can exercise the dreaded "Force Majeure," more folks will face hard realities. This should not come as a surprise.

There are casualties in every conflict, on every side.

Of course, if you are one of the casualties, even if the side you are on ends up being victorious, the victory may well ring hollow. But the strike didn't start because of any one writer -- it started out of concern for every writer and for all the writers yet to come. It started because we want our fair share of the future.

I have to admit there was one thing that did really surprise me during the course of this strike. Well, actually it wasn't during the course of the strike, it was in the last days of the lead-up to the strike.

When I attended the big pre-strike meeting on the Thursday night after Halloween, I fully expected that the leadership and the Negotiating Committee would come out and talk to us about a deal they had been offered by the AMPTP -- a last minute deal, the details of which would be right on the line between "too little" and "just enough." A residual plan for the internet that would have been far less than traditional TV residuals but far more than what they ended up offering a couple of weeks later, with something in there for features being streamed or downloaded over the net as well. Just enough of a legitimate option for people like myself -- who did not want to go on strike -- to grab onto and wave and cheer and tell the WGA brass and the Negotiating Committee: see, you did it -- you made them come across, with SOMETHING. Not everything we wanted -- but SOMETHING. Something real. A real option. A real possibility.

I have to admit I was surprised when that didn't happen.

If it had happened I don't think the strike would have worked. Because an offer like that would have cut the Guild apart. Maybe not straight down the middle but into pieces -- and before we ever hit the streets and the sidewalks in front of the studios.

If an offer like that had been presented and then the leadership had spoke against it and the negotiating committee had mostly spoke against it... I think a decent chunk of the membership would have stood up and spoken out against going on strike. I know I would have.

But no offer like that came from the AMPTP.

And guess what? It's more than 7 weeks later and no offer like that has yet to arrive.

Will it ever?

Yes.

Know when?

On July 1st, 2008, when 120,000 actors, whose ranks include every "name-above-the-title" movie star and every "put-pilot" deal-making TV star in America go out on strike. Or maybe a lot sooner, if -- under the present circumstances -- the DGA manages to get a halfway-decent offer on new media residuals.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it and to all a Good Night!

Strike Day 47

2007-12-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

Here's what the other side had to say today:

Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers

BREAKING NEWS
December 21, 2007
STATE OF THE STRIKE: DAY 47

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
FROM THE AMPTP

The strike called by the WGA is fast approaching the two-month mark, and already tens of thousands of workers who have no stake in this dispute are either out of work or facing grim prospects in the New Year.

Well, actually, those tens of thousands of workers DO have a stake in this dispute, since all those who belong to IATSE and/or the TEAMSTERS will see the exact same thing happen to their HEALTH PLANS as us writers will see happen to our RESIDUAL INCOME, since the two things -- WGA members residuals and various BTL union employees HEALTH & WELFARE FUNDING -- are TIED TOGETHER AT THE HIP.

If the AMPTP succeeds in forcing us writers to accept a deal that doesn't include real profit participation from use of our material on the internet, then our current income from traditional TV residuals will continue to WITHER AND DIE -- and the exact same thing will happen to the funding for Below The Line employees own health insurance and welfare funds.

The WGA's organizers are indeed making good on their promise that they would wreak “havoc” on our industry. As a result, the traditionally festive holiday season for our business has instead been shrouded by uncertainty and concern for the future.

In the midst of the hourly drumbeat of news about the WGA’s strike, it is important that we all take a step back and review exactly how our industry reached the situation we now face on the eve of the holidays.

First, it is important to remember that the WGA called the strike and asked writers to walk out on November 5th.

Wait a second -- when did you say the WGA called the strike...? Oh, I see -- NOVEMBER 5th -- five days AFTER our contract ran out. Five days BEYOND the "deadline" mark. Doesn't that show we were actually trying -- in fact, trying very, very hard -- to make a deal?

They had the right to do so, but no right to avoid responsibility for the consequences.

Fair enough. We at the WGA are responsible. But, seeing as how you guys -- the AMPTP -- are without question far more powerful than the WGA or any other individual union involved in the film and TV industry could ever be... aren't you -- at the bare minimum -- at least equally to blame? If two sides sit down to settle an argument and the argument doesn't get settled... who do you blame? The side that got up and walked out -- or the side left behind in their seats? Which side is behaving in a more mature, responsible manner? The side that threw up its hands and stormed off, calling the other guys crazy... or the side that stayed there -- even if they are crazy (which we are not)? What about all the crazy stuff the AMPTP brought to the table when the negotiations first got going -- like how the WGA should trash the residual system that has been its bread and butter for more than 40 years and replace it with "producer's adjusted gross"?!?!?!

I find it difficult to believe you can maintain any intellectual integrity when viewing this situation and assess the AMPTP with less than half of the responsibility for making it come to pass.

The simple combination of how very much power they wield and the exact circumstances under which they walked away from the bargaining table, not once but TWICE, make that very clear indeed -- at least to me.

Second, the negotiations between the AMPTP and the WGA are at an impasse because the WGA has continued to press a series of unreasonable demands that have nothing to do with new media and the real concerns of most working writers. These WGA-constructed roadblocks to progress include:

Reality Television
The WGA seeks to obtain blanket jurisdiction over reality programs through its top-down organizing tactics, and thereby deprive these employees of their free choice to elect union coverage under the voting system administered by the National Labor Relations Board. The AMPTP has asked the WGA to withdraw this demand.

Animation
The WGA seeks to obtain, once again by top-down organizing tactics, jurisdiction over animation writers who traditionally fall under IATSE's jurisdiction, and to deprive those writers of their free choice to elect union coverage under the voting system administered by the National Labor Relations Board. The AMPTP has asked the WGA to withdraw this demand.

Sympathy Strikes
The WGA seeks the right to go on strike, at any time, in support of another labor organization's strike, and thereby disrupt production whenever they want. Any agreement reached must assure uninterrupted labor peace during the term of the agreement.

In short, our report to you on the State of the Strike is really very simple: The WGA’s insistence on these jurisdictional and other unrealistic demands is preventing us from reaching a deal that is fair and reasonable to both sides.

Uh, pardon me, AMPTP but isn't what's preventing us from reaching ANY DEAL -- be it fair or unfair, reasonable or unreasonable to either or both sides -- the simple fact that one side, namely the AMPTP, refuses to sit down and discuss all these issues they care so much about keeping out of our next contract?

Anyone notice the little oversight the AMPTP made by not including one of the other things on that LIST of theirs -- maybe they didn't check it twice the first time and upon further reflection have decided to leave it off.

I refer to the PROFIT PARTICIPATION IN NEW MEDIA issue, which was also on that laundry list of theirs -- the list that they say includes all the stuff that is keeping us all from coming to grips WITH the issue of "New Media"! Yeah, that was on the same list. I kid you not. Go to their website and check -- unless maybe they removed it in the interim.

Hmmm. Since the real point of all this "OPEN LETTER" stuff -- in my humble opinion -- is to appeal to people like me, WGA members who didn't particularly want to go out on strike and who wish there had never been a strike and who make up what the AMPTP keeps referring to as "working writers," my guess is they feel that putting that part back in might crimp their style, so to speak.

And nothing in the WGA’s new grab-bag of tactics – a hodgepodge of continued street demonstrations, baseless NLRB complaints, and ephemeral interim agreements with individual companies – is going to change this situation. Until those in charge at the WGA decide to focus on the core financial issues that working writers care most about, instead of the unreasonable jurisdictional demands that only people who run unions care about, we do not see that there is any basis for reaching an agreement.

Actually, the people who really care about those "jurisdictional demands" are the ones who might end up, if all their dreams came true, becoming WGA members. Because, as someone who has written a non-union ANIMATED FEATURE FILM and seen all the hard-won financial and creative rights which my partner and I always took for granted when we wrote movies and TV shows for live actors DISAPPEAR because we were operating in a non-union arena, I can tell you from personal experience: there are no non-union animated feature writers who don't want their work to be covered by the WGA. After all, what exactly are the down-sides? Let me see... based on what you were being paid to write the movie, the company would have to calculate and pay its otherwise-standard contribution to your HEALTH FUND and PENSION FUND. Wow, that would really suck, huh? Let's see, what else would change when the WGA forced themselves in...? Oh, yeah -- your RESIDUALS would be covered and enforced. Hmmm. Very interesting indeed. And I saved the best for last: PROTECTION OF YOUR CREATIVE RIGHTS. You know, like when you write a movie and then the company hires 4 or 5 other guys to rewrite it and then the final credit determination has to be confirmed by a purely objective, otherwise disinterested body of your peers -- your fellow WGA members on an arbitration panel, instead of the company executives who might possibly have other agendas than giving credit(s) based upon an objective judgement of relative creative contributions.

I understand the AMPTP doesn't want the WGA to extend its jurisdiction -- that makes perfect sense, since if the WGA succeeds in extending its jurisdiction it would end up costing the companies that make up the AMPTP more money to do the same business which they do for less money right now.

Fair enough. The AMPTP may very well win on this one the same way they have won on it in most previous contract negotiations -- but hey, AMPTP: please don't tell me you're doing it in order to protect the poor folks who would otherwise be subjected to membership in the Writers Guild. The people I know who work in those positions -- and I know more than a few of them -- would probably give up toes and/or pinkies in order to join the Writers Guild and gain all the benefits membership brings with it.

The one big down-side? They send you the arguably-pretentious magazine, "WRITTEN BY." But it is not true that they send union goons to your home and force you to read it cover to cover -- at least not in my personal experience.

As we all reflect on this situation over the holiday week, we can all hold hope that when the New Year dawns so too will the realization by the WGA that the best interests of working writers are not served by allowing extraneous demands to block progress on fundamental, bread-and-butter issues that are surely at the heart of working writers’ concerns.

I hate to break it to you, AMPTP -- but I VOTED AGAINST THE PRESENT LEADERSHIP OF THE WGA.

I voted against Patrick Verone and his "Writers United" slate.

Nonetheless, I will NEVER BE SWAYED by your ongoing efforts to reach out and touch we, the "working writers."

Know why?

Because the truth is you know very well that this strike has NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING OTHER THAN SHARING THE FUTURE PROFITS OF INTERNET DISTRIBUTION.

Sure, maybe some people in the Guild are hell-bent on organizing Reality TV and the world of Animation. Maybe some of you guys really believed in wiping away our entire TV residual system and replacing it with the bullshit three-card monte game you use to hide the real profits from the movies we write. You know, the ones like "Forest Gump" that have yet to make a dime on the official studio books, due to all those persistent costs of doing business, the ones we will never be able to quite understand. Maybe some of you really did believe in that proposal. Well, when you sent that one our way WE DIDN'T WALK AWAY. We set our jaws, ground our teeth, swallowed our bile and GOT ON WITH ATTEMPTING TO ACHIEVE OUR GOAL: a reasonably fair piece of the internet pie.

Right now, based upon the actions of the AMPTP, I would say that their goal -- the one which all their actions have arguably, reasonably served -- is to prevent us from doing so.

The AMPTP -- masters of industry that they legitimately are -- have determined that keeping all of those internet-generated profits of the future for themselves is worth riding out a slightly rough patch for a while. Fair enough. It is their prerogative.

The problem with their approach, as I see it, is that this rough patch will not end until they give on that issue.

This strike will not end until the companies make an offer that translates the $20,000.00 writers get when an hour they wrote is re-run on TV into a reasonable sum for similar use on the internet and something similar for movies that are streamed or downloaded. So far what they offered was literally not a red cent for movies and $250.00 for a year's worth of reruns on the internet. Twenty-grand into two-hundred and fifty smackers.

Hmmm. Let me think... as a working writer, should I bring pressure to bear on the WGA leadership so that I can go back to work under a new deal which addresses my "CORE FINANCIAL," "BREAD AND BUTTER" issues by promising me a whopping two-hundred-and-fifty smackers for a year's worth of reruns over the internet?

Why, at that rate, it would take me just... 80 years to earn the equivalent of one year's worth of residuals under the system we have in place now.

Sorry, AMPTP. I'm afraid you haven't quite convinced me you have my best interests closer to your heart than all those "crazy radicals" down at WGA headquarters.

Of course, I'm just one man. Maybe some of my fellow "working writers" in the WGA will start bringing pressure to bear on our leadership if you kick it up a notch and offer us five-hundred bucks for a year's worth of internet re-runs.

Hey, anything's possible.

But I wouldn't hold my breath.

Strike Day 46

2007-12-20T22:18:00.001-08:00

Here we go again, another day with no real STRIKE activity included. Yesterday, even though there was no picket line, I did go to the Post Office to ship out those DVDs to the tourist family who turned out to be fans of "Sleeper Cell." But today was my first real day completely off from the strike. I suppose it's Holiday vacation time anyway. Tomorrow is my 3 kids' last day of school until after the Winter break ends. A lot of other people are on vacation, why not me too?

I'll tell you why: BECAUSE I'M NEVER ON VACATION!!!

That's right -- N - E - V - E - R.

Never EVER.

It's just one of the things that comes from starting out as a starving FREELANCER -- you are always working, on something or other. Sometimes two or three things all at once.

Also -- in a good way -- it's one of the things that comes from doing a job that you love, or, with slightly more accuracy, from having found away to take doing what you love and turn it into a way to make a pretty decent living.

I know I am an incredibly lucky guy. I am well aware of that fact.

This strike is not going to help my own bottom line, only hurt it. I knew that going in. But this strike is not really for me or my writing-producing partner or the other WGA members like us. This strike is for the staff writers and story editors -- the entry-level and junior writers -- from our TV show writing staffs and for the up-and-coming feature film screenwriters -- and for the kids still in school who want to write movies, and the kids who are out of school, working a day-job 5 or 6 days a week and then going home and writing all night and writing on their one or two days off.

Because if we give away our tiny fair share of profit-participation when movies and TV shows that we write are delivered via the internet, it is not my future we're giving up, it's theirs.

Strike Day 45.5

2007-12-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

Whoops -- stop the presses!!! Or the digital blog server...

In the interests of following up on previously established BLOG-THREADS, I want to mention that earlier today I packed up and shipped out DVD boxed sets for both seasons of "Sleeper Cell" to the Marine's mom. Hopefully he'll get to see the episode he missed before he ships out in February.

Strike Day 45

2007-12-19T20:24:00.000-08:00

Another day, another loss of many dollars!

In a good cause, needless to say.

I had hoped to make it downtown to LA City Hall very early this morning, in order to be present when the City Council debated the issue of the economic impact the WGA strike is having on the local economy. Unfortunately I didn't make it. My hope was that considering how many members turned up yesterday in the rain for OUTDOOR strike activity, a high number would show up this morning for indoor action, despite how early they needed to be there. Just because I happened to crap out doesn't mean everyone else did! I still haven't heard from anyone who was present so the truth is I don't know how things turned out down there.

Meanwhile there is a plan afoot for what I think will be a somewhat entertaining "StrikeTV" piece that might get done by myself and a fellow dad from my children's school who is also a WGA member. This would utilize our many children, hopefully not in a way which could be derided by the other side as "exploitative" -- but considering how they're communications team has been spinning events, the other dad and myself may well find ourselves being accused of pedophilia by the time the AMPTP finishes its review.

I read their most recent press release -- or "open letter" as I think they called it -- and had to laugh several times. The best part was when they derided the negotiating efforts of the WGA and pointed out that even now, 7 weeks into this strike, working writers find themselves no closer to a fair deal on profits from new media than they were before -- or words to that effect.

My big laugh came from the fact that they basically just ADMITTED THEY HAVE NEVER OFFERED UP ANYTHING EVEN APPROACHING A FAIR DEAL ON THE ALL-IMPORTANT ISSUE OF PROFIT PARTICIPATION FOR SCRIPTED MATERIAL DELIVERED OVER THE INTERNET.

And I must beg to differ with the AMPTP on one fine sticking point in that section of their "open letter," namely: we working writers do indeed find ourselves CLOSER to getting a fair deal on profits from new media -- SEVEN WEEKS CLOSER TO JULY 1st, THE DAY WHEN SAG WILL JOIN US BY GOING OUT ON STRIKE -- unless the AMPTP decides to make an offer that includes something approaching a fair deal on downloaded and streamed residuals before then.

Every long march begins with one step... and then another... and another... and another.

And in the grand scheme of modern history, waiting from November 5th until July 1st -- or some time soon thereafter -- in order to get a fair deal for your contractual future is not the biggest challenge anyone has ever faced. True, it may be the biggest challenge some, even many, of us WGA members have ever faced -- and I'm sure that factors into the AMPTP's decision-making process. Still, I believe we can wait until July if we have to. Don't get me wrong -- I don't want to and I hope to hell we don't have to -- but if we have to wait... then we wait. At least I do. And I can't believe all the hundreds and thousands of my fellow WGA members would leave me here waiting all alone.

It would be nice to leave it at that -- kind of an inspiring "Hollywood" ending for today's entry... but the other shoe is the question of what the Hollywood, especially the TV, landscape will look like when we come out from the other side of this strike. That is the only thing I talked about before the strike began, back before the AMPTP revealed itself to have no interest in coming to a reasonable, negotiated settlement which could avert a strike or settle it before it dragged on for too long -- my belief that a strike would lead to another big shift in the way TV works, similar to the shift that resulted form the 1988 WGA strike, which pretty much opened the floodgates for what we now refer to as "Reality TV," when FOX plucked COPS and AMERICA'S MOST WANTED off local affiliate schedules, put them on their national broadcast schedule and started showing them to the whole country. There is no way for anyone to know what the impact of this strike will be on the television audience -- how many viewers will be lost, how many will stay lost for good, never to return to prime-time dramas and comedies, even after the strike reaches its inevitable end at some point down the line. I don't know if those results will be good or bad for me personally or for the WGA membership as a whole -- but my guess is that they will be bad for traditional television as we know it. Whether that's good or bad for the country is another question altogether.

Still, this is the situation we find ourselves in. So even though the strike may well be contributing in the long run to the demise of scripted network shows, I don't feel one iota of compulsion to head back to work on the two pilots my partner and I had sold this season. It would be like choosing to take a life preserver for yourself instead of helping to bale out a sinking ship filled with hundreds and thousands of your fellow passengers. Not to mention this ship didn't just hit an iceberg or sail into a hurricane -- it was torpedoed by a pack of submarines whose names all read: "AMPTP."

Strike Day 44

2007-12-18T15:23:00.000-08:00

Well, last night at the big Guild get-together I fielded a complaint from a reader of this blog who said the white lettering on the black background made it difficult for his "old eyes" to read. So, in an effort to maintain readership, I have adjusted the look. Hopefully I won't lose any readers with "young eyes" who might find this new look too old fashioned and easy to read.

On to STRIKE NEWS...

Well, it was a big day. Started out at 10:00 am over in Encino at the world HQ of the AMPTP, where the "Criminal Division" of the WGA issued an indictment against the companies for conspiring to commit grand larceny. It was excellent street theater, complete with a few big name actors from various TV crime shows. I saw a bunch of writers I know and one writer-producer from the staff of the first season of SLEEPER CELL, which was very cool. There was a very big turn-out, despite the rain, which the Guild came prepared for, bringing clear plastic trash bags to drape over the picket signs in order to protect them for future use, what with the chances being that the strike won't be ending any day soon.

My "Strike Buddy" and I (this is a new term which was brought to my attention only today but which does seem appropriate) then headed across town to attend the last LOCATION PICKET of the year, in Venice. It was at a Vince Vaugn/Reese Witherspoon movie called "FOUR CHRISTMASES" (sp?) which was shooting behind a car dealership on Abbott Kinney, a major street in the Venice area. The first thing was I couldn't believe there even was a car dealership on Abbott Kinney -- I haven't been down there for a while but it appears the neighborhood has gone through some changes, in the direction of gentrification. My Strike Buddy and I were the first two to arrive, except for the Location Picket Captain, who was waiting at the predetermined intersection. We hung around until about 20 of us had shown up, got a briefing on the proper location picketing protocol, then walked a couple of blocks to the location itself, where we picked up our picketing signs and started CHANTING REALLY, REALLY LOUD, in an effort to COMMUNICATE OUR POSITION to the cast and crew, as well as the community. If, in the course of doing so, we happened to makes it difficult for the production to record sound, well, that was just a side-effect of the communications strategy.

The WGA wanted an especially big turn-out for this picket because word is that REWRITES have been done while the strike has been on. This of course would require someone to be working as a SCAB WRITER. Maybe it's a WGA member or maybe it's an executive or a producer or who knows. Well, I'm sure a bunch of people do know but I'm not one of them so I'm not going to speculate.

We marched in a very tight circle, picketing and chanting and receiving a lot of SYMPATHY HONKS from passing traffic on the narrow street. Venice is known for being a very progressive neighborhood, so the fact that most of the locals were pretty vocal supporters of the union was not a surprise. There was one guy who came out and asked for us to stop making so much noise so that his 3 month old baby could sleep. We quieted down for a minute while the Location Captains spoke with him. Whatever they said seemed to convince him things would be okay and he went back home and we went back to chanting. A friend of mine from our kids' pre-school showed up with his younger son on his shoulders. Again, despite the on and off again rain, there was a heavy turnout, altogether I'd say at least 30 folks, maybe more. My Strike Buddy needed to leave early in order to pick his older child up from pre-school and since we had driven over together I had to leave early as well. But the guys in charge were doing a great job and the membership was out in force, so I didn't feel too bad about having to go.

All in all, a good day's strike-related activity -- I can't bring myself to say "work," since my work is to write movies and write and produce TV shows.

One other thing -- the other day I said something to the effect of "I don't support too many radicals, except maybe for a few 'radical' North Koreans I met in China, a long time ago." To CLARIFY, the point was I met some North Koreans who were living in China and who hated their own government back in North Korea with a passion, therefore making them -- in the view of the North Korean government -- "radicals."

Well, I won't be seeing anyone on the picket lines for a while -- except maybe back in NYC, if they are doing any picketing over the Holidays. So I'll just say, have a wonderful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year -- and chances are I'll see you back on the Picket Lines in 2008... but you never know. Maybe -- just maybe -- the 8 week mark will hit and a semi-reasonable offer re: internet profit sharing will make itself known from the other side. That would certainly be nice. But I wouldn't count on it.

Strike Day 43 - and the big Guild Get-Together...

2007-12-17T23:28:00.000-08:00

Well, stop the presses -- THE THIN RED LINE of WGA solidarity remains INTACT!!!!

Yes, pretty good news from what appeared to be the pretty well-attended Guild Meeting in Santa Monica earlier tonight.

Both myself and one of the friends I sat with were pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of bitching, moaning, complaining, second-guessing, etc., etc. Which is not to say that no one poked or prodded or asked probing questions -- people did, as they should have.

But -- and personally I see this as INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT -- no one seemed to be buying the AMPTP's spun version of the recent negotiations breakdown, which laid all the blame on our "radical" leaders and their obsession with unionizing Reality TV and Animation.

One highlight was Sean Ryan -- of "The Shield" and "The Unit" fame -- saying he was personally offended when the AMPTP emerged from the negotiations collapse and branded Patric Verrone and David Young as being "crazy." Ryan said he took offense at not being included, not being seen as important enough to be called "CRAZY" himself. He elaborated and his point was that the WGA Negotiating Committee includes some of the most successful TV and movie writers on earth, whose "products" (to borrow economic terminology from the other side) have earned the companies which make up the AMPTP billions of dollars. It's a good point. Even if Verrone and Young were crazy and out to fight some extremist, anti-conglomerate, pro-labor crusade... would Carol Mendelsohn from CSI and Neal Baer from Law & Order SVU and Sean Ryan himself and Ron Bass and all the other writers up there... would they all be going along for the ride? Well, I'll admit, maybe Steve Gaghan would -- BUT NOT THE ENTIRE NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE!!!!

All they want is what the membership wants: A FAIR DEAL ON PROFIT PARTICIPATION FOR THE INTERNET-DELIVERED FUTURE OF SCRIPTED ENTERTAINMENT.

Some will say the future is not yet here, so why fight so hard for something the details of which will most likely change profoundly before three years run out and the next deal has to be made. Well, for me the simple answer to that one is: THE FUTURE IS NOW. We know for a fact that viewership is migrating to the computer, so we have to get a fair deal now. If we wait it will be too late. Once the companies -- who have tighter control over the digital distribution systems than they do over traditional TV, even now, with all the vertical-integration -- get rolling they will not be turned back. If there's one thing to take from the home-video profit-sharing debacle of the past, that's it. It means nothing if we can show them factual proof that they are making billions of dollars hand-over-foot without spending anywhere near the 80% manufacturing and distribution costs which we gave them a pass on back in 1985. It means nothing. They will NEVER GIVE US BACK THAT MONEY. If we give up a fair percentage of residuals from the net now, we will not get them back later.

Learn from history in order to avoid repeating it.

The early part of the strike day was on the picket line at Warner Bros. The big highlight for me today was when a family on their way to take the VIP Tour stopped to talk. It turned out they were visiting with their son, who's a Marine at Camp Pendleton -- and who will be shipping out to Iraq in February. It turned out the mom -- who had been in the Air Force -- and the son were both big fans of the TV show "SLEEPER CELL," which I created and ran with my partner. The Marine had only missed one episode. I told him I would send him a copy of the entire show on DVD. He didn't know his PO Box mailing address at Pendleton, so his mom gave me her address back home. I'll try to ship the DVDs out before the end of the week.

After talking with me and another striking writer, the family took the tour. They cheered us from the stretch golf cart on the way into the studio lot.

The mom who was in the Air Force comes from a military family, her dad was Air Force too. She and her son traded some inter-service put-downs, which for me at least was a new twist on the whole "inter-service rivalry" thing. Turned out she had something of a tradition with the USMC as well. Three men from her family had served in the Marines. All three were killed in action. Her son said he is hoping to break that particular family tradition. I hope and pray he succeeds.

Truth is that mom, her son and the rest of their family have much more serious challenges to face than anyone on the WGA picket lines, whether they're about to lose a house, or a car... or even a marriage. Just one man's opinion.

Strike goes on.

Strike Days 41-42

2007-12-16T23:45:00.001-08:00

Well, the weekend kept me very busy with things other than the strike -- which is good for me but bad for this blog. Ah, well, we'll manage!

This entry must serve for Saturday & Sunday.

Played a little football with my two older kids today and had a lot of fun doing it. It was 2 on 2 with one other adult plus the kids and me, mixed teams of one kid and one adult each. I'm trying to get my kids in shape to participate in a "homecoming" football game with a bunch of guys I used to play with regularly back in NYC years ago. We're going back East from Christmas until after New Year's and if the game works out it will be one of the major highlights of the trip for me.

Saturday this blog received its first comment from someone I don't know personally (second comment overall) -- although it appears to have been a personal comment directed at the first person who commented here and who I do know personally. So it would appear that this page is still pretty much "all in the family," as blogs go.

The big thing on the STRIKE FRONT today was a mass e-mail to WGA members from the prez of SAG -- I think his name is Alan Rosenberg. I saw him speak at the big Thursday night meeting the night after Halloween. His e-mail was along the exact same lines as his speech then: full-fledged support of the WGA and a pledge to back us up for as long as it takes to get an internet residual deal for the future which both guilds can live with.

Sounded good to me then and still sounds good now. It's nice to see his support is not waning as the strike goes on.

Of course, there is no way to know how deep that feeling runs in the membership of SAG, but I know more than a few actors and every last one of those I know personally mirrors their leadership's attitude 100%. Lots of them have come out to the picket lines to walk with my partner and I, some on a semi-regular basis. And no, these are not aspiring actors or wannabee actors or even mildly successful actors. They may not all be household names but one or two are and you would probably recognize the faces of the rest.

So SAG is still with the WGA. If it should come to pass that the DGA makes a deal with the AMPTP that doesn't cover internet residuals well enough to satisfy the WGA, well... once July 1st hits it will be very interesting to see what kind of movies and TV shows all the directors will be able to make without any scripts OR actors on hand.

On the personal strike-related front, I got requests for WGA STRIKE SUPPORT signs from some neighbors and from a dad whose son was over at our house -- and who is a DGA MEMBER with a movie he directed coming out in April. So that was kind of cool.

The other real strike news is that there will be a big LOCATION PICKET tomorrow morning. I got an e-mail about it earlier tonight. I have been to a couple of location pickets -- I actually kinda helped set one up, on the fly -- so I may head over there tomorrow, rather than return to my regular stomping grounds at Warner Bros. Then later it will off to Santa Monica for the big PEP-RALLY/GRIEVANCE AIRING, which I expect will be somewhat interesting.

My guess is that this coming week will bring no new developments in the strike at the guild and negotiations level. Just a continued "war of words" with the AMPTP trying hard to make the WGA look like it is being run by "radicals" out of touch with the needs of "working writers." Well, I don't support too many radicals (maybe a few radical North Koreans I met in China many years ago) and I'm a constantly-working writer -- but the AMPTP's continued banging of that drum has only one effect on me:

it really -- REALLY -- pisses me off.

I know it's just a tactic and they very likely don't believe any of it themselves (at least the guys in charge of crafting and distributing the message) but it still pisses me off.

When I stop and think about it that's kind of dumb on my part though. It's like having already marched off to war against -- pick any foreign nation, in order to be as inoffensive as possible, let's pick one that hasn't existed since long before the USA became a country, like CARTHAGE. Anyhow, it's like marching off to war against Carthage and then -- when those damn Carthaginians actually start shooting arrows at you and charging at you with spears leveled -- you get really pissed off. So... when you (and I) marched off to war, what exactly were we expecting the other side to do?

I don't want to push the "war" metaphors too far and -- although they were known to practice ritual sacrifice of their own children -- I actually have some respect and admiration for the land of ancient Carthage, what with its mercantile and naval successes, the multi-cultural nature of its society in general and its military in particular and of course the incredible, against all odds accomplishments of its greatest general, Hannibal.

The point is... we are locked in a pretty heavy struggle with some pretty serious opponents, so it should not come as a surprise that they will be doing anything and everything within their power to defeat us.

Of course, on the personal level, every day brings new strike-related developments for lots of writers and lots of other industry people, and most of those developments are not too good. But such is life. Look on the bright side: at least you don't have a Carthaginian warrior or one of his Celtic or Numidian buddies trying to chop your head off, or trample you with his trained elephant.

See you at the picket line tomorrow (maybe on location) -- and then at the mass conflagration tomorrow night!

I LOST A DAY -- today is STRIKE DAY 40...

2007-12-14T22:06:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone -- or anyone.

So it turns out I was a day off -- yesterday, Thursday, December 13th, was in fact STRIKE DAY 39, which makes today STRIKE DAY 40.

Well, I turned 40 not that long ago. Now the strike has turned 40. Not really something to celebrate.

No big developments today. No time on the picket line -- since there is no Friday picket line. No big Guild-wide event, since the leadership didn't schedule one of those for today. But there was one development... a little while ago I got an e-mail alerting me to the fact that there is going to be a Guild-wide meeting this coming Monday night. I was supposed to attend the monthly leaders meeting for my 10 year-old son's Cub Scout Pack on Monday night, starting around the same time. I e-mailed all the other parents in our Den that one of them needed to volunteer to fill in for me. Kind of like "tag, you're it" -- only you have to volunteer to be tagged. I'm sure at least one of them will rise to the challenge. I still should go myself because I have the entire RAINGUTTER REGATTA gutter-track system stacked up at the edge of my driveway since last April and I need to find someone else to take it off my hands before my son graduates from Cub Scouts and becomes a Boy Scout this coming March. Oh, well -- I will need to send an e-mail about that to the Pack leadership. My wife REALLY wants that stuff to get out of our driveway -- and it has been more than half-a-year now.

As far as the big get-together goes... well, at first I was thinking "nothing good will come of this" -- just a lot of frustrated people packed together, with at least a few who severely disagree with the way our leadership has been doing things. Seemed like an opportunity for a lot of talking and not much conversation, if you know what I mean. But then I realized, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Give people an opportunity to vent. I suppose in a way it's actually better if those of us who disagree with how our side of negotiations have gone get to yell about it while only their fellow Guild members are around to listen. Personally, I don't see anything there to take issue with. I admit, I have issues -- but they don't involve the Negotiating committee or how they have conducted themselves, they deal with the two-year lead-up to the strike, and at this point those issues -- at least to me -- are water under the bridge.

The truth is, when you talk about that kind of stuff with the media, no matter how you qualify any criticism of the Guild leadership and/or balance it with criticism of the AMPTP, you will most likely be painted as a member who is "turning against the leadership of the union" or "demanding a serious change in the direction of the strike" -- even if you're not, exactly. That's just the plot the media seems to be interested in selling, whether to their readers or to their owners. And even I will admit, it's a plot that makes sense, theoretically. I still say that out there on the picket lines all over LA it is not a plot that is real. Not a plot that is gaining any traction. Not even enough of a plot to be rated a "C"-story, let alone a "B"-story. Hell, not even enough of a plot to qualify as subtext. When you have thousands of relatively intelligent, relatively well-educated, at least somewhat successful and relatively well-off people involved in anything at all, it is inevitable that they won't all agree. Hell, even if we were several thousand Medieval serfs it would be inevitable we wouldn't all agree.

So... bring on the ranting rebels, hurling epithets as they castigate Verone, Young, Bowman & Co. for putting "Reality" and "Animation" ahead of the REAL issues that matter to us WORKING WRITERS. What a laugh. All that is still nonsense. No one from our side has put Reality or Animation above or beyond getting a fair cut of future profits from New Media. Everyone on both sides knows this is a ONE ISSUE STRIKE -- and the issue is neither Reality nor Animation. Plain and simple, the issue was, is and remains:

PROFIT PARTICIPATION WHEN STUFF WE WROTE IS DELIVERED VIA THE INTERNET.

I don't like to demonize the opposition, no matter what. Enemies like Hitler (driven to arguably psychotic ends by personal and societal manias) are few and far between. I have to believe that the intelligent and successful men in charge of the handful of media conglomerates that make up the decision-makers and agenda-setters of the AMPTP all know that the strike is all about one thing and that the moment they make a halfway-reasonable offer on that issue the strike will end. Therefore, I must assume, they simply don't want the strike to end. At least not yet.

As far as why they don't want it to end yet... well, there are a few possibilities I can think of. One is that having suffered this far through the debacle, they have decided to at least wait until they cross the "8 week" line, so that each and every company, if it wants to, can exercise the much ballyhooed "Force Majeure" clauses in contracts they have with anyone they no longer think is worth what they had been paying them before.

At the start of the strike every second person you talked to told you about the companies evil plot to force a strike in order to exercise the DARK SIDE of the "FORCE MAJEURE." Personally, I found that talk to be a lot of nonsense, for several reasons. There aren't all that many giant overall deals and most of them involve incredibly successful writer-producers and directors with well-proven track records of extreme success who are not the kind of assets a company that planned to remain in our industry would want to cut loose. Sure, there are a few folks who get paid a lot because of success they had in the past and haven't been turning a profit lately. If I was one of them I would be pretty certain the "Force Majeure" was coming for me. But from the macro view... quite frankly, it just isn't worth it. To destroy one and a half TV seasons and a slew of giant tent-pole movies so you can save... what? 6 million dollars in bad overall deals? 12 Million dollars? The numbers just didn't add up, at least in my mind.

But things are very different now. If I was a studio or network big-shot and I realized after a month or so that the tried and true WGA-strike-busting tactics of the past which worked 3 times during the Eighties, namely: wait until they EAT EACH OTHER ALIVE -- the TV writers vs. the feature writers, the TV staffers vs. the showrunners, etc., etc. -- were not working this time (because of the ALL-EMBRACINGLY TRANSCENDENT ISSUE OF GAINING A FOOTHOLD IN INTERNET GENERATED PROFITS), well... then I think I might say: "Let's at least wait another couple of weeks so we can get rid of the bastards who haven't been making us any money." And then I would just wait until January 5, when the 8 week mark hits, before making anything close to a reasonable offer on the all important issue that will settle this strike. And between now and then I would continue to do everything in my power to try to get the WGA to EAT ITSELF ALIVE. At some studios the "Force Majeure" clause requires only that the "artist" be on strike for one day before allowing the company to get rid of their deal, but at others it is 4 weeks or 6 weeks or -- drum-roll please... EIGHT WEEKS. So, if you're the companies, you have to wait eight weeks or you will be leaving some of your colleagues out in the rain, where they won't be able to chuck out the "dead wood" like their colleague/rivals with shorter strike time force majeure deal-points in their contracts can. That way it will be share and share alike in the "dead wood" savings, all across the -- corporate -- board.

(PERSONAL NOTE: I like to think that my partner and myself are such solidly awesome enough assets to our own studio that we will not become victims of the dreaded "FORCE MAJEURE" -- but if we do... well, we've been without an overall deal before -- and the best thing about it is it means you are free to go out and SELL YOUR STUFF TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE IN TOWN, which, if you believe in your stuff, is not the absolute worst thing in the world, even though it's true it doesn't pay the bills quite as well as those weekly checks from an overall deal do.)

This is my ROSEY SCENARIO -- and has been for about the past 3 weeks (just ask anyone I walk the picket line with, they'll tell you it's true!) -- that some time soon after January 5th (the 8 week mark) a semi-reasonable offer on internet profit sharing will appear from the other side.

But of course, life isn't always a bundle of roses.

My not-so-rosey scenario -- and when the strike started this was pretty much my sole scenario (again, just ask anyone who knows me, especially my writing partner, and they will confirm it!) -- is that the strike goes on until the only significant development which I can see affecting the companies' side of the situation comes to pass: when July 1st arrives and SAG goes out on strike for the exact same INTERNET DELIVERED RESIDUAL issue as we are currently out on strike over.

Right now I don't know how to quantify my bet on which of these 2 scenarios is more likely to come to pass. Since I have no close personal connections to any of the top bosses on the other side, it would be all guess work. What I hear from the upper-middle level bosses I do know doesn't really ring true to my own ears -- not that it's lies or anything, they all seem to be thoroughly convinced it's the truth, I just find it very, very difficult to believe. This is the claim that what is truly blocking a deal getting done is THE PERSONALITIES IN THE NEGOTIATING ROOM.

I mean... come on, man. Give me a f*#@ng break. We're talking about billions of dollars. No one is going to convince me that if the handful of companies that lead the AMPTP wanted to end this strike today or tomorrow or yesterday they would allow "personality conflicts" to make that not happen. I know the devil is in the details and I know personalities play a huge role in
all manner of human interaction, including international diplomacy, war and peace, high finance, etc., etc. But this is a matter of business -- a matter of cold, hard cash. And the bottom line is: not one of the top bosses from any of the companies is directly, PERSONALLY involved in any of the negotiating. So what would lead them to allow some underling's or hired flunky's (pardon me, Nick Counter) personality issues with our side to sidetrack the deal that will lead to the future?

Unless I believe that the big-shots on the other side are a bunch of dopes, I can't buy it. And I'm sorry but I don't think they're a bunch of dopes. I think it's very simple. They are dragging this out because they want to. They want to because if they succeed, they will maintain a stranglehold on profits from new media. If they fail, well, at least they tried. And who in the WGA is going to want to go back to the picket lines for another 2 months or -- perish the thought but be prepared for the reality -- 8 months (if it takes 'til July) next time, when we have to re-negotiate 3 years down the road?

When I started writing this page I expected it to be very brief and only about the coming meeting on Monday night -- but I guess I got sidetracked, or backtracked to the start of the strike. My plan now is to download the CALENDAR from my iPhone, which has brief entries for each day of the strike so far, with highlights from the picket lines. If I'm very lucky I'll manage to do that by the end of the weekend. If not, it will be something for me shoot for during the coming weeks... or months. Take your pick and hope it turns out that way.

Out on the picket line, when people talk about the "big picture" of the strike and how long it is going to last, I am always a VOICE OF STOIC PESSIMISM. Which I believe is the best -- and mental-healthiest -- way to be under these circumstances. Hopes will be dashed -- unless maybe if you HOPE FOR THE BEST, EXPECT THE WORST.*

See you out on the picket lines Monday -- and at the big "Red Hour" riot-fest Monday night!

*With kudos to Mel brooks.

STRIKE DAY 38

2007-12-13T21:06:00.000-08:00

Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and All The Ships At Sea...

Well, I guess I'm dating myself, though I'm not even close to that old.

I'm a WGA member who has been on strike for the past 38 days and just posted a reply on someone else's BLOG regarding the strike and decided I need to start one of my own, for better or worse.

I guess the real reason for doing this is the frustration I feel reading the major news sources' ongoing coverage of the strike since it began, with particular emphasis on this past week, starting with the AMPTP's press release last Friday, in which they referred to the WGA leadership as "radicals" on an ideological mission to change the way Hollywood works. They also explained how the real roadblock to an agreement is the WGA leadership's absolute focus on bringing Reality TV and Animation writers into our Guild, and how they -- the AMPTP -- are more than ready to come to a reasonable agreement regarding that other little thing called a FAIR SYSTEM FOR INTERNET DOWNLOAD AND STREAMING RESIDUALS.

I mean... give me a f*#@ing break, dudes. Nonsense. Pure and utter nonsense.

And yet... for the past week I have found it repeated not as ONE SIDE'S VERSION OF EVENTS but as hard fact, in the Hollywood trade papers (I know, I know, they owe their entire existence to the companies, what should we expect) and even the REAL papers, like the New York Times.

I think it's pretty obvious who the target audience for this drivel is: US.

I don't mean the United States, I mean the membership of the WGA.

They simply want us to eat ourselves alive -- the way the WGA pretty much ate itself alive in 1981, 1985 and 1988. Of course, as all members of the WGA know all too well, the price of all that eighties cannibalism was being screwed out of meaningful profit participation in CABLE TV and HOME VIDEO -- first VHS, then DVDs.

It's a familiar bit of pop-wisdom when people criticize military leaders for "PREPARING TO FIGHT THE LAST WAR" Well, I think the AMPTP prepared and currently is fighting the last strike. They expect that by filling the media with attacks on our leadership and negotiators they will create serious cracks in the relatively impressive solidarity our membership has been showing in support of this strike.

By now most of us know this is the case and I admit it should be pretty damn obvious to anyone with half a brain paying any attention -- but still, it needs to be addressed. I know many of us -- including our leaders -- are working hard to address it, but I guess I feel like making myself into one more finger in the dyke of WGA solidarity, struggling to hold the ocean of potential infighting, recrimination and defeat at bay for as long as humanly possible.

So, I say again -- to any and all of my fellow WGA members and any other interested parties, please, please, PLEASE:

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE.

No one in the WGA leadership or negotiating committee is putting reality TV and animation ahead of internet residuals. No one in the WGA leadership or negotiating committee is trying to "change the way Hollywood does business" or serve an "ideological agenda" -- unless you count gaining a minimally fair share of profit participation on future digitally-streamed and digitally-downloaded profits an "ideology." Personally, I would say the ideology it falls squarely under would be Capitalism.

By the way, I am a proud Capitalist. So proud in fact that on a few occasions while walking the picket lines in the early days of the strike -- when chanting was pretty much non-stop -- I refused to join in chants of: "Hey-hey, ho-ho -- corporate greed has got to go!" I don't think corporate greed has got to go. I firmly support corporate greed -- with special emphasis on the greed of my own personal corporation. My problem is not with corporate greed. My problem is with OUTLANDISH GREED. Greed that knows no bounds whatsoever. Robber Baron greed of the sort which Teddy Roosevelt stepped in to temper with Federal anti-trust laws. Unfortunately this is the type of greed we appear to be dealing with in our current situation.

Politically I am pretty conservative. That's why I chose the name WGA "StrikeHawk" for this blog. I've given the maximum donation to John McCaine's current presidential campaign as well as his run back in 2000. The idea that I would be out walking a picket line in support of "radicals" serving some unspecified leftist "ideological agenda" is not only ridiculous, it's personally insulting. I'd be willing to bet that I've voted for more Republicans than all the Network and Studio executives I've done business with over the past 2 decades put together. The idea that this strike was born out of politics as opposed to economics is simply absurd.

And that's another thing -- the executives. Those guys and girls from the other side -- the ones who actually deal with us (us being we writers, writer-producers and writer-directors) -- the ones I know and talk to, from the moment the strike began, they all thought we were right. But a funny thing happened this week. Those men and women from the other side -- the creative and business affairs executives at the studios and networks -- the ones I still talk to from time to time, sometimes when they stop to chat at the picket line, sometimes on the phone... all started to change their minds, thanks to the spin efforts of the AMPTP and their hired communication guns.

Those executives started to believe that we were the ones responsible for deadlocking negotiations -- even though it was the other side that walked out, not once but twice.

Those executives started to believe that what our negotiators are really after is Reality TV and animation, as opposed to our fair share of new media generated profits.

And the thing is... one of the executives I know who started to believe that IS MARRIED TO A WGA WRITER!

This has me thinking that even some of us may be starting to believe this drivel as well.

If it's you -- PLEASE STOP!!! Wake up and smell the disinformation.

Every negotiation includes two agendas -- two lists of "demands." The two sides trade stuff away back and forth in an ongoing effort to keep hold of what matters most to them.

No WGA leader has said we won't negotiate about ANYTHING. If the AMPTP come back and sit down, chances are they will get most if not near all that they want -- so long as we get to walk away with the one or two things that REALLY MATTER to us. But they won't do that. Why not...?

Because they still believe that by stoking the fires of dissension in our ranks we will eat ourselves alive one more time -- thereby saving them the trouble of having to share equitably in the internet distribution profits of the future.

I'm not asking for blind obedience or lock-step herding -- I'm just asking that you keep focused on real news -- real developments and the real situation, as opposed to the partisan VERSION of events the other side wants us all to be focused on, or -- more accurately -- distracted by.

That's it from me for now.

See you on the picket lines Monday...