Year: 2008

The AMPTP appears to be displaying increasing desperation as the WGA’s presenting itself as a reasonable bargaining partner is showing dividends. Having brokered the deal with Worldwide Pants that brought Late Night back with writers, WGA has now cut a deal with UA and is reportedly on the brink of a similar achievement with the Weinsteins. The AMPTP’s response on their website:

One-off deals do nothing to bring the WGA closer to a permanent solution for working writers. These interim agreements are sideshows and mean only that some writers will be employed at the same time other writers will be picketing. In the end, until the people in charge at WGA decide to focus on the main event rather than these sideshows, the economic harm being caused by the strike will continue.

Curiously the AMPTP ignores that the deals don’t “mean only that some writers will be employed;” the deals also put hundreds of non-writing employees back to work. Crew people and such who were out of work because the writers had gone on strike. Yet amazingly the AMPTP doesn’t hesitate to invoke the hardship those bystanders face whenever they’re trying to slag the striking writers.

Behind the scenes they must be ballistic about the producers who are voting with their feet and their wallets by bargaining individually because it underscores what the WGA has been saying all along: The demands are not unreasonable. The AMPTP is unreasonable.

PAD

Understand, I’ve never seen his program. The times that I’ve seen him on talk shows or such, there was something about him that just annoyed the crap out of me…and it’s not just because every time I see him I can’t tell if it’s him or actor Jeffrey Tambor.

But now I know why.

The big headline in the “Daily News” is that Phil “Quick Draw” McGraw was summoned by Britney Spears’ parents for help, and that he escorted their tormented daughter from the hospital where she was quite rightly dispatched. Frankly I think the intended three days couldn’t have hurt, but she departed with McGraw after a day. As I read the article, I thought, “Okay, well…maybe I was too hard on the guy. He’s reaching out to a high-profile mentally collapsing patient and perhaps–“

Then I got to the part where he’s planning filming a TV special about her which will doubtless land him huge ratings if he can get her to cooperate.

What a slimeball. What a total scuzz. What an opportunistic creeping bag of pustulence is Doctor Phil McGraw. Craig Ferguson memorably gave a monologue as to why he had no intention of making Britney Spears jokes that was by turns honest, painful and hilarious, and in the end he absolutely nailed it: This is a woman having a public mental breakdown and she needs genuine help. Ferguson, a recovering alcoholic, understood that. McGraw understands ratings and keeping his own name out there.

If McGraw said he was taking a month off from his program to try and spend time setting Spears on the road to recovery, that I could respect. But seeking merely to exploit her in order to score ratings…well, frankly, one has to wonder about the parents who sent the call out to him. If they knew that was his intent, it’s little wonder Spears is as screwed up as she is.

PAD

Dave’s widow, Paty, is selling off his comics. You can read more about it here:

http://thecliffordmethod.blogspot.com/2007/12/own-dave-cockrums-comics.html

They’ve just released studies that say skim milk and low-fat milk increases the likelihood of prostate cancer?!? So I’m supposed to drink whole milk, which is fattening?

It just isn’t fair.

PAd

John Edwards.

I fully admit that my reason for doing so is probably stupid, but it’s mine and I’ll stick to it. The reason I’m pulling for Edwards is because when the WGA had a rally in Washington Square Park a few weeks ago, Edwards was the only presidential candidate who actually showed up to address us (as he had in a similar gathering on the West Coast.)

By contrast, Hillary and Obama merely sent letters of support…letters that, as it happened, had grammatical errors. Never a good idea, sending letters with grammatical errors to a gathering of cranky writers.

And by the way, considering how much of a hullabaloo the media made over his $400 haircuts, I have to say…dámņ, the man has good hair.

In any event, my simplistic view is that if he took the time to support us, then it’s the least I can do in return.

So John Edwards gets my vote come the Democratic primary.

PAD

Dave’s back, along with the writer’ staff, and thus far (I’m writing this 45 minutes in) it’s been great. It’s certainly a terrific venue to bring positive attention to the strike.

What’s going to kinda suck is if Leno’s ratings, sans writers, are higher.

PAD

I posted a fairly neutral comment about how OMD wasn’t the direction I would have gone in, and suddenly that comment is making the rounds as some sort of proof that I “hate” (exact words) One More Day. This despite the fact that I specifically mentioned I hadn’t read it and I tend not to make judgments on stories I haven’t read.

So I shall now clarify: All I said is that it’s not the direction I would have gone in. That’s a far cry from saying that I hated it. Let’s remember I’m the person who did a three part storyline that brought back Uncle Ben and was pilloried by any number of fans for it, in some cases sight unseen. So it’s not as if I can claim to have my finger on the pulse of what makes fans happy where Spider-Man is concerned.

Hëll, lots of fans dogpiled on my run on “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,” crabbing about everything from a high schooler contemporary to a teen Peter Parker who had an on-line blog to the fact that I “wasted” two issues on a story involving Mexican wrestling, to the entire notion of how dare I write a follow-up to “The Other” (not to be confused with the fans who complained bitterly because they believed that there would be NO follow-up to the Other.) They crabbed about Todd’s artwork. Hëll, they even crabbed about the title of the comic, for God’s sake, claiming that it made it sound like a comic for kids…because, y’know, heaven forbid that kids should find anything about Spider-Man appealing.

Yet suddenly I’m embraced? Held up as the poster boy for being on the side of the same fans who didn’t hesitate to slag just about every aspect of my two years on FNSM, and lauded for my brave stance? Yeah, uh…I don’t think so. As Groucho so immortally said, I don’t care to belong to a club that would have me as a member.

There are complaints because years worth of continuity has suddenly been rendered moot? Okay, well…did you enjoy the stories when you read them? Yes? Good: You got your money’s worth. Can you still pull them out and re-read them? Yes? Good: Then OMD didn’t somehow cause the previous comics to magically vanish from existence. I mean, I *wrote* a number of those stories that, in terms of plot and character development are no longer relevant, and I’m not cracking up over it. I wrote them, they were enjoyed for what they were (or disliked for what they were), and that to my mind is the end of it.

Frankly, I’m kind of annoyed that all of a sudden my fairly neutral statement is being held up as an example of Spidey-writers uniting against some great outrage. I mean, jeez, we’re dealing with a medium in which death itself is simply a temporary set-back, and fans are treating an updating of “Doctor Faustus” as if it’s a crime against humanity.

Fandom really needs to get some perspective here. Perhaps it will lead to great stories and everyone will hail it as a great move after the fact. Perhaps it won’t, in which case it can always be reversed. Personally, I’m actually planning to pick up the new stories to see where it goes (yes, I don’t get them for free; shut up) if for no other reason than that they’re being written by some writers whose work I like. And I say that, not as a Marvel employee, but as a guy no different than the rest of you: A long-time Spider-Man fan.

PAD