Reported for WGA picket duty today outside Fox at 47th and Sixth Avenue. I’ve never walked a picket line in my life, so circling a half block radius for four straight hours (minus ten minutes when the sainted Margaret Clark, one of my Pocket Book editors across the street, provided bathroom relief for me) was a new experience to put it mildly.
A ton of celebrities such as Robin Williams and Alec Baldwin showed up to express solidarity…on previous days. No one turned out for us today, so that kinda sucked.
At one point a guy with a microphone, identifying himself as being from Sirius Satellite radio, pulled myself and another writer, a distinguished looking older fellow named Michael St. Germain, aside and asked if he could interview us. We shrugged and said sure. He had a list of questions and the first couple seemed straightforward enough. But St. Germain was looking at him suspiciously and suddenly said, “You’re from Howard Stern, aren’t you.” The guy nodded. That immediately flipped a switch in my mind, so that–moments later–when the questions turned skewed (“If UPS makes a delivery to your home, are you forbidden from signing for it since you’re not allowed to write?”) I was able to roll with it rather than say, “Huh?” So that was lucky.
Met several staffers from the Colbert Report, which was also cool.
Will be back at it next week. I hope this doesn’t drag on, but suspect it will.
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Here’s a question–can the writers write for some of the alternative media forms? I know they can still write comics…how about radio? What about theater?
Imagine a strike lasting long enough that people actually turned to comics/radio/theater for entertainment. Not only would the writers be paid but the tv/movie producers would find themselves facing new competition, something that might continue after the strike ends.
(Admittedly, the possibility of a radio teleplay revival seems unlikely, though anyone who has sampled some of those old classics of yesteryear–Arch Obler is a personal favorite–knows that they could be great.)
“That said, I’m at a loss for anything that I could do that would make any perceivable defference.”
So far as I can tell, the most direct thing you can do is stop watching TV, and let the networks know. Stop buying DVDs. Find out if your friends have Nielson boxes, and get them to stop watching TV, too. The only direct way the general public can voice their support of the WGA is to hit the stuidios and networks in the only place they care about…ratings/sales. And let them know what and why you’re doing so.
Don’t worry David, you’ll do it naturally. When the reruns go on for ever and ever, we’ll all watch TV a little less, thus hurting the studios’ revenues.
Definitely theatre…there’s a NY Times article on that.
Radio is dicier, but also more problematic, since there isn’t any market for radio drama.
Magazines, of course, are no problems at all…
“can the writers write for some of the alternative media forms?”
I think the problem is time. The reports I’ve seen from the full time TV writers is that they are now full time picketers. So they don’t have any more extra hours in the day to work on other projects than they did before. I don’t know if everyone does it that way, but it seems like at least a significant number do.
“(Admittedly, the possibility of a radio teleplay revival seems unlikely, though anyone who has sampled some of those old classics of yesteryear–Arch Obler is a personal favorite–knows that they could be great.)”
Hey, half the reason I wanted my XM was for channel 164, Old Time Radio.
“Radio is dicier, but also more problematic, since there isn’t any market for radio drama.”
XM has an entire channel devoted to them (163, Sonic Theater) and NPR plays them from time to time. Beyond that, there’s always web sales. Big Finish is doing well enough, the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company seems to be doing ok and you can find any number of other audio drama/comedy sales sites by using Google. Someone (besides me) is spending their $$$$ on that stuff.
It may only be my little pipe dream, but I would LOVE to see audio drama and comedy start coming back.
Earlier I wrote: “The reports I’ve seen from the full time TV writers is that they are now full time picketers.”
Scratch that. I just read a new post in the blog I was thinkging of (Jane Espenson’s blog) and I misunderstood. She’s saying they’re picketing in four hour shifts, not full days.
Love what the Daily Show writers have to say about this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzRHlpEmr0w&eurl=http://www.oliverwillis.com/
Wow, for not being the Daily Show, that was an incredible facsimile. I could practically hear Jon Stewart at times. Very funny stuff.
“fumferawing” is that REALLY a word? If so, I must use it. Even if it isn’t I MUST use it.
Something interesting from EWOnline.com: Even with the writers strike keeping late night shows dark, employees of The Late Show with David Letterman and the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson will be paid through the end of the year. The programs’ production company, Worldwide Pants Inc., informed employees on Tuesday (Nov. 13) that they would be paid regardless of whether their show returned. Worldwide Pants, owned by Letterman, is the first known company to guarantee its staff a paycheck during the writers’ strike.
While I don’t know where he stands on the strike itself, it’s dámņëd decent of Letterman to make sure the rest of his staff has a good holiday season.
The web address of the article is here: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20160243,00.html
I started watching Letterman around the time of the 80s writers strike. He went off the air for awhile too, then came back before the strike was over. He adlibbed the jokes and started doing stuff like “Hal Gurnee’s Network Time Wasters” while constantly saying, “Sorry, folks, we have no writers.”
A HUGE thumbs up and “attaboy, Dave!” to David Letterman for that – and thank you to Christine for bringing it to our attention!
On Huffington Post, Trey Ellis writes:
In attempting to prove that the writers are evil blood-sucking leeches for demanding a 700% increase in royalties (that is, from .3% to 2.5%), AMPTP yet again proves the old adages:
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Why couldn’t the strike happen in the summer. Do you realize what winters in South Dakota are like? No tv!!!!
Well I suppose I can catch up on all the reading I’m behind on.
Joe V.