Last Day of the Miner's Strike

Yes, I am stretching it for titles. Sue me.

But several people have wondered how I feel about the upcoming WGA strike. You will all be surprised to learn that I have an opinion.

Basically, it's this -- Fuck the WGA leadership. Fuck the producers. Fuck all y'all. The saber-rattling, on both sides, has completely raped TeeVee this year. Everybody closed ranks but they didn't tell us peasants. It started to become a little clearer when we finally got to go in and pitch pilots, though. Networks and studios couldn't care less about our ideas. They were focused on three things -- people with whom they had deals, people on shows, feature writers. If you weren't one of those things, you didn't sell to a network. This is not how things have been in the past, and there have been several articles commenting on this ludicrous phenomenon. So if you, the viewing audience, thought that the circle of writers who sell pilots was small before, baby, it's even smaller now. Writers couldn't staff if they didn't have the right credits. If you didn't staff or if you decided to just develop and you didn't already have a deal in place or weren't Zack Helm, you were totally fucked.

TeeVee shut out everybody they didn't consider a star, which means they shut out everybody who didn't have an ounce of luck this year. I was happy to learn that this didn't only happen to us. A lot of writers are in the same boat. And it's not like a memo went out. I don't know how they make these decisions but that's what happened. And it's all because of the fucking strike.

See, the WGA leadership doesn't really give a shit about people like me. Nor do the producers. It's exactly like the government, where that middle class they're trying to eradicate doesn't exist unless the politicians want to get elected. The people doing the negotiating, on both sides, are rich and lucky as hell. They're way higher on Maslow's hierarchy of needs than the rest of us. So anything below their standard of living simply doesn't exist. And then they want us to rally along with them? Right. Like John Wells or Carlton Cuse is gonna be out there on the picket line. They'll be at their third vacation homes. They don't care. The producers don't care, either, about the people in the industry, the support staff, freelancers, people who are just scraping by. You think these people are going to be protected? They'll be shitcanned. The producers don't care about individuals. Not anymore. They answer to a higher god -- the shareholders. And all they care about is the bottom line.

When articles mention the Guild membership, they're not talking about me. These cats are rich and secure. They can move up the Maslow hierarchy without worrying about how to pay their phone bill. And, of course, these asshats have sold pilots and have secured work to help them make it through the strike (i.e., pay for their Italian vacations). They've taken work that I wasn't allowed to get. So the circle remains unbroken -- the haves continue to prosper, and the have-nots continue to suffer. Hey... just like the real world, huh?

On the one hand, we can't let the producers roll back our residuals and fuck with new media and DVD. But on the other hand, maybe if we had a leadership that wasn't part of the elite, we wouldn't be heading towards what seems to be the inevitable. I wish, sometimes, that they'd just admit we don't matter. A little honesty in the face of all this bullshit would be nice.

Today, in LOLCat, I cann haz socialism.

Heh.

So what's a writer to do? What happens when TeeVee is bitch-slapping you? We do the only thing we can do -- we fucking write. We get that "I'm going to show you mofos" mindset. We go on, like it's all business as usual. Because eventually, it has to be. The strike will end. And like always, shit's gonna fail. Writers are gonna piss people off, and some of them will prove they aren't the cat's meow. That means the rest of us need to be waiting in the wings, ready to pounce. And by "waiting," I do not mean sitting on our collective asses, people! We all need to find other outlets. The TeeVee basket is a lot smaller than it was even a few years ago. Yep, even WITH cable. So the strike, while a big pain in the ass, is also an opportunity to try and make a living as a writer in another medium.

I'm gonna see what happens.

BooM had a question about how to go about finding a new agent while already represented. The rule of thumb is that you should leave your current agent first. I think this is utter bullshit, especially if your agent isn't working for you. Why should you give your agent the consideration they wouldn't give you? Everybody knows that's a loose rule, and everybody breaks it. Let yourself be poached. As for what to say to a prospective new agent, tell them you need a change. You need someone with a fresh point of view. Because really, if you're thinking about leaving your agent, that's what you DO need. And when you've decided to move on, don't make it official until you've told your current agent. When you do, break up with them on the phone. Seriously. Trust me on this one.

John from Philly -- you think the Phillies are underwhelming? Dude, I'm a Dodger fan. I got bigger problems. Sorry about the Rockies, though. I feel THAT pain. John wanted to know if I listen to music when I write. HELL yeah! I've got several go-to albums -- Pure Reason Revolution, HAL, Heist, Radiohead, Kula Shaker, Boxer Rebellion, the Veils, Hope of the States, Obi, to name a few. I also like listening to lounge, like Hugo Montenegro and the Ultra-Lounge compilations.

Chris recommends MI-5 -- I second the recommendation. This show ROCKS. I'm two blasted seasons behind, but I swear I'm gonna catch up. I just miss Tom so much!!

And Matt (hi Matt!) has a hilarious comment about the fall shows. I especially like his synopsis of Bionic Woman. WORD. I thought the second episode was interesting because suddenly, Jaime had an attitude. That part of it smacked of Glen Morgan making the attempt to deepen the character. But Glen's name wasn't on the episode. It was written by Jason Smilovic. So he gets to take the hit for the rest of it, which was APPALLING. It felt like the worst X-Files ripoff one could possibly imagine. It came from the planet Generia, where nobody has a name and conspiracies consist of bunches of Canadian extras running around in fatigues. WTF was that??? What was going on? HOW DO YOU WRITE A FUCKING SCRIPT WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS? How do you do that? I have no idea. None of it made any Goddam sense. The Isaiah Washington character is stupid. Jaime now has THREE MENTORS. Four, if you count Bionic Woman 1.0. HOW DID THEY FUCK THIS UP? Are they all just massive hacks? This show is a no-brainer. Seriously. I used to play this game, where I'd say how many episodes it would take to fix a show. But you can't fix this show, because it was broken to begin with. I'm sure it can't get much worse. Really. How could it?

Matt says he's tired of ordinary people being given special abilities with which to change the world. WORD. It's out of effing control. But see, that's what the executives think YOU want to watch! Shows can't be "relatable," you see, unless the main character is how the execs view the audience -- some schlub working at a Buy More/Work Bench/gigantic dark bar, who's unwittingly bound to a computer program/devil/nanobot. Because the stupid audience, they think, won't understand anything else. Besides, that's what the audience wants. They want to turn their drab little lives into something special and meaningful. Yes, they think you're all as unhappy as THEY are. They think the audience watches TeeVee so their lives will be completely changed. And they want to be the ones doing the changing.

But it's not about that, is it? You just want some fucking entertainment. And there are writers who want to give that to you, but they really aren't allowed. So those writers go, "Okay, networks, fuck you," and head to cable. There, you get "Battlestar Galactica." You get "Mad Men." You get "Burn Notice." But still, the networks don't get it. Well, most of the executives don't. The ones who make decisions don't understand. I know several networks are looking to air some of these cable shows, so we'll see how that works. Does anyone who would watch "Mad Men" NOT have cable? I don't know.

See, I did not watch "Simon and Simon" in the hopes that it would change my life. Get it?

I've now seen all three episodes of "Reaper" and Chuck" and see an interesting thing happening. Both shows are struggling with their premises. I didn't think they would, actually, so I was totally wrong on that. Maybe it's a function of the high concept-ness of it all. Maybe a show with a truly high concept can't work. Maybe we should all rethink this idea and stop confusing a high concept with a simple premise. Simple premises work beautifully on TeeVee. I'm gonna give this more thought.

With "Chuck," the obvious problem is how to incorporate Chuck into the stories. He's not a CIA officer (they say agent, but whatever -- learn the fucking terminology). So when they're doing spy stuff, he HAS to fade into the background. The attempts to bring him to the forefront feel forced. It's just not working, no matter how utterly charming Zachary Levi is. And with "Reaper," the problem seems to be one of plot. The devil won't tell Sam how to find the escaped soul. Why? We don't know (unless I missed that justification). The vessel is always screwed up. ALWAYS. All of this delays the finding of the soul, which it has to. Otherwise, the episodes are five minutes long.

As for "Pushing Daisies," I know a lot of people fell for the charm of the production design and the truly winning cast. This show's high concept premise had the biggest problems. Let's see how they struggle in episode two. Actually, I'd like to leap ahead and see how they struggle with episode six!!

Speaking of pilots that MUST be watched, do not miss "Viva Laughlin," which premieres on Sunday. I don't want to say anymore than that, but it's something we'll all want to discuss. Mark my words on that. I'll tell you what my take would have been.

And lastly, I warned y'all that I'd talk about horse racing when TeeVee went bad. The Breeder's Cup is coming up and it's going to be an exciting one. All the races look tough and so far, it's the three-year-olds who have beaten the crap out of the older horses. This hasn't happened in YEARS. Normally, all the three-year-olds are retired by now but the top three finishers in the Derby -- Street Sense, Hard Spun and Curlin, as well as Derby also-ran Any Given Saturday -- are all running in the Classic.

But the big racing news this week is the death of John Henry, the last of the durable geldings. RIP, John Henry. As one headline said, "A Champion Becomes A Legend."

np -- Radiohead, "In Rainbows." It's only the first listen. I'll have an opinion about a hundred listens from now.