Casey and Rudy at Galacticast send a shout out to striking writers.
Why I care:
I’ve got fifteen more just like it. Different years, of course. But all consecutive. And most of them minus the wallet creases.
To me, it’s a simple equation: if you don’t value your work enough to fairly defend it, whatever that work is, however much money you make, union or not, you and your work will be taken advantage of. And you will have only yourself to blame.
Some WGA members make a lot of money. Good for them. We would all like to make a lot of money. If your work is good enough to convince some Hollywood producer to write you an obscenely large check, fair play to you.
But if you’re thinking you really have no sympathy for some whining Hollywood fat cat writer who’s driving to the picket line in a Porsche after a $200 lunch, ask yourself how much you would have to earn for your work before you felt you could give the rest away.
What’s that figure?
By the way, I drive a 1996 Ford pickup with 192,000+ miles on it and get queasy if I spend over $20 for lunch. I’m not one of those big shot Hollywood writers and never have been. But I want fair pay for my work, regardless of what that work is, where it is or who’s writing the check. I’ll bet you do, too.
Because you can bet your employer has his/her/the company’s best interests in mind. That’s their job.
I love chess. Mind you, I’m a fair player at best, but I love the game. I love to play chess and I love to read about chess and chess personalities.
Even if you’ve never touched a chessboard, you’ve probably heard of Garry Kasparov. Until his retirement from competitive chess in 2005, Kasparov, though not unbeatable, was damn near so. He has enjoyed the highest rating of any competitive player in the world in the recorded history of the game, with a peak FIDE rating of 2851. The current world #1 player, Viswanathand Anand, is currently rated 2801. Kasparov, in retirement, is currently rated 2812.
So he’s a bright guy. And at age 44, he’s currently running for president of Russia. Most folks say he’s got little chance of success, and that’s being kind. It’s not that Kasparov isn’t qualified for the gig, though who knows if he’s got the chops. It’s because it’s Russia, and current President Vladimir Putin’s got a lock on the government, and things are getting scary over there again. Hell, they’re scary over here.
I happened to stumble upon Kasparov’s appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher a couple nights ago. Thought you might enjoy it.
I saw my first episode of Star Trek when I was eight years old old. The original series was still in production then, third and final season. You wanna know how old I am, have Spock do the math for you.
I even remember the episode: “The Mark of Gideon.” It was a thinly-veiled cautionary tale about the dangers of overpopulation. All I remember was all those banging heartbeats and all those sardine-packed people spooked me. It was scary, at least to an eight-year-old, and it wasn’t because of the Spandex.
And yes, I know most all Star Trek episodes were thinly-veiled cautionary tales and/or morality plays and/or paeans to democracy and/or enlightened secularism. Except for “Spock’s Brain,” a not-so-thinly-veiled cautionary tale about the dangers of being so desperate for a script you’ll film anything.
(And no, don’t ask me, “Which one?” This isn’t Wal-Mart. I didn’t pick it shrink-wrapped off a shelf and even if I had, believe me, I’ve re-built and graffiti’d that sumbitch so many times by now that “which one?” wouldn’t apply anyhow. In fact, the very idea of “which one?” makes by teeth grind. It’s like the scene in The Blues Brothers, when the woman in the redneck bar declares they’ve got “both kinds” of music there: “country and western!” I also generally do not like lengthy parenthetic statements but this one seems to be working pretty well.)
All of the places in this story are real but I’ve changed their names and where they are, so if you follow the directions I give to Covenant Spring you’ll wind up someplace else entirely, past the New Covenant Presbyterian Church and Miz Dori’s neat white house, past the dirt road into the woods by the swamp where Mister Silas lives, over and beyond the little cement bridge, where I held Aaron’s hand and faced down Pastor Lamm, with the storm black and howling over our heads and the world a tick from ruin.
Some of the events I have changed for certain reasons that ought to be clear by the end.I’ve also changed the names of everyone involved, for the same reasons.All of them by now know who they are and they’re pretty much fine with it.So if you think you see yourself in here, it’s not intentional but you can’t say it’s all that surprising, the world being what it is.
My name is Daniel Ivy and I live in New Jersey.I’ve lived in Jersey all my life.I was born and raised in a typical Jersey town, which I know won’t mean a thing to you if you haven’t been here.There are worse places to grow up, and any place is fine when you’re a kid and don’t know any better.
My hometown is small.You might find it on a good state map.It’s about an hour west of New York City, identical to the towns that surround it, like interlocking amoebas in a petri dish.Millions of squirming souls captured in a drop of dirty water, squished beneath a microscope slide, fighting for parking spaces.It’s home because it’s where I was born and grew up, and that’s the end of it.It’s difficult to get sentimental about asphalt and strip malls.
Years went by.I worked a handful of jobs.Most aren’t worth talking about.
I moved out of the house as soon as I could afford it.I found a little apartment I could manage on my own.It had putty-colored walls and brown shag carpeting.The air conditioning carried the damp smell of everyone who had ever lived there.
No car salesman I have ever met ever planned on being one.If you have any kind of personality at all and you can do basic math, you’re qualified.It doesn’t mean you’ll be good at it, of course.One of the guys who works at the dealership had done time in a minimum security prison for forging his mother’s signature on her checks.She’s the one who’d turned him in.He had turned his life around since, he said.
I spent a week watching training videos and reading pamphlets before my first day on the floor.The new car manager gave me some advice, which was this: “Buyers are liars.”
We moved one hundred five vehicles the second month Cai was with us.One hundred fucking five.
That was more than double the dealership’s best month, ever.And forty-two of those, Cai sold.Better than a car a day if he’d had the whole month, and he did it nineteen days, Sundays off.You can’t do any better and not go to jail.
I need to tell you the numbers, so you’ll truly understand.
