Monthly Archives: February 2008

Mad Magazine uses Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonists to teach George W. Bush about Global Warming. Take a look.

This is about the Writers Strike, of course. What I'm hearing is that a lot of the obstacles are out of the way and our leaders feel they have made substantial progress. But there is no deal yet and there are still some thorny negotiations ahead to get the terms committed to paper and to get the bugs out.

I hope this doesn't sound arrogrant or nagging but I really think we have to keep the cork in the champagne until there's a firm deal. We've come so far, it would be brain-dead stupid to blow it now. This strike has been about many things but what it's mainly been about is that the AMPTP felt they could force a bad deal on the WGA and then, by extension and precedent, on the Directors Guild, the Screen Actors Guild and other unions, as well. It's been about us saying no to that, resisting that kind of tactic and taking a stand that they did not believe we would take. This is no time to make them think the strike is weakening and that we're so eager to sprint back to work that they can force some bad terms into the endgame.

I may not be able to make it to the picket lines tomorrow but I'll try, and I'll definitely be out on Tuesday. We need to do that and we need to do what we can to not allow the "industry buzz" to be that we're ready to settle for anything our reps have achieved so far. I can't tell you the number of times I've either gotten screwed or almost gotten screwed with something that snuck into a deal at the last minute. One time, I had to write a script over a three-day weekend and we made the deal (verbally) on Friday night and I started writing. Saturday morning, the producer messengered a deal memo over to my agent firming up the terms…and my agent called me and said, "Stop writing."

They'd thrown in some terms that hadn't been discussed. They'd also made some subtle, unpleasant adjustments to the wording of deal points which had been discussed. It was suddenly a much worse deal.

What they were counting on, of course, is that I was too far into it to say no. I'd already spent 12 or 15 hours writing, they knew. I'd already cancelled other plans for the next few days, maybe even turned down other work, they figured. I'd already spent the money I'd be getting, they hoped. And most of all, I was already emotionally committed to the project. This is where we're sometimes quite vulnerable. We love what we do (or most of what we do) and it's tough to put on those brakes, difficult to say no at that stage.

But my agent insisted. In fact, he was livid. "Bait and switch," he called it and just on principle alone, he felt we had to make a stand.

I had to stop writing. He had to make it clear to them that we (he and I) were quite prepared to not do this project if the deal wasn't right. The thing was still due Tuesday morning but instead of writing it the rest of the day that Saturday, I did other things. Had dinner with some friends. Went to see the Groundlings, a local comedy troupe. It was kind of unsettling, I'll admit. Someone asked me what I was working on and I had to say, "Well, I might be writing a pilot script this weekend…"

When I got home, there was a message on my answering machine from my agent: "Okay, they just messengered me a revised deal memo and it's the deal we discussed with no loopholes. Go ahead and write." I had to work twice as fast but at least I got the contract I was supposed to get.

This happens all the time. All the time. It can happen in the new WGA contract if they think we're too eager to get back to work and are already burning the picket signs and planning how to spend those imminent paychecks.

You got a warm, happy feeling when you heard a deal was looming and the strike was almost over. You don't want to rekindle that awful "How long is this damn strike going to last?" feeling again but you may have to. Because we need to make it clear that this has all been about saying no to a bad offer. And if they think we won't, we'll get one. Still.

Once again, I won't be watching.

Jeremy Steiner just wrote to remind me that on December 20, I posted the following on this site…

Folks keep asking me how long I think the strike is going to last. The other night over dinner with some writers, I made what everyone seemed to think was a strong case: All logic-based indicators would, I think, point to the AMPTP trying to make a deal on or around February 1 and not, as some have suggested, keeping the WGA out until next June or so.

If the reports are correct — and I'm still not willing to presume for sure that they are, or that a last second complication won't arise — then history will show that they made a deal on or around February 1.

Brad Ferguson writes in to say…

Thanks for the AM America clip. I just wanted to mention that it wasn't a local show, but Good Morning America's immediate predecessor on the ABC network. In New York (where I'm from), AM America replaced a terrific local show, AM New York, which was co-hosted by Sandy Baron and John Bartholomew Tucker.

I remember that Stephanie Edwards was considered a scandal to the jaybirds because she was living with her boyfriend at the time. ABC thought it made the show more hip, though. BTW, Edwards' co-host was a guy named Bill Beutel, who'd done the network news for ABC back in the early 1960s, but he'd become much better known as the co-anchor (with Roger Grimsby) of New York's Eyewitness News. Beutel played straight man to Grimsby's soused curmudgeon. AM America lasted less than a year.

Correction noted. And I don't know what Stephanie Edwards is doing these days but there was a time when you couldn't turn on local TV in Los Angeles without seeing her on something. If she wasn't hosting the show you were watching, she was doing commercials for the Lucky supermarket chain. She used to co-host (with Bob Eubanks) the annual Rose Parade for KTLA here but for reasons variously reported as friction with Eubanks and/or the station's desire to have someone younger, she stopped getting up so early on New Year's Day. She was usually pretty good at whatever she did and if she's not working somewhere now, it's either by choice or quite a surprise. Anyway, thanks, Brad.

La La Land Records is a company that specializes in esoteric soundtrack CDs…and isn't it interesting that so many companies that have never and will never produce a record call themselves record companies? Anyway, they have a new one out that I'm guessing will interest someone who visits this site…

George Greeley was one of those composers whose work you heard countless times on TV and in movies. You can now order a limited edition collection of his scores for the TV series, My Favorite Martian. If you remember that show, you remember that it had a nice, jazzy underscore that hit all the right notes…and now you can hear it without the voice of Bill Bixby shouting, "Uncle Martin, where are you?" over all the nice music. Go here to order your copy.

The L.A. Times has edited its online (headline) article about the strike settlement and removed that odd line about an agreement that was released last Friday.

The creator of the comic strip Gordo, Gus Arriola, has died at the age of 90 due to Parkinson's disease. His strip, which ran from 1941 through 1985 was one of the first cartoons in this country to embrace Hispanic culture and characters, and it was quite popular, especially in papers throughout the southwestern United States.

Arriola was born in Arizona and grew up in Los Angeles where, fresh out of high school, he began working in the animation studios, starting with a job on the Krazy Kat cartoons being made by Columbia. As mentioned, Gordo began in '41 and many assumed it was the work of a Spanish or Mexican immigrant. In fact, Arriola didn't even set foot in Mexico until 1961.

It was a well-drawn strip full of good nature and good humor, and it was particularly admired by other cartoonists for its endless inventiveness. Arriola himself was much-loved by his peers and the world of cartooning is a little better for having known him, a little sadder for having lost him. Here's a link to the AP obit.

The Los Angeles Times says there's a deal, sort of. But it's an odd news story that quotes no one directly, is vague on just what's been decided and includes this odd sentence…

The writers' agreement, released late Friday, is modeled after a contract reached last month by the directors.

Huh? And double huh? There was no agreement released late Friday. What's this reporter talking about?

Obviously, something has been agreed upon but since there have been no formal talks and the deal hasn't even been presented yet to the Guild's Board of Directors, celebration may be one notch premature.

Over at The New York Times, reporter Michael Cieply is saying that the informal talks in the Writers Strike have eliminated all or most of the major obstacles to a deal. This is a hopeful sign, of course. There's a news blackout in place but it's hard to believe Cieply didn't hear this from someone in a position to know…and probably someone on the AMPTP side. He is not known for believing what writers tell him or disbelieving what studio execs say. At the same time, I'm also hearing sounds of optimism from sources close to WGA leaders.

That said, it's a fine, even prudent idea to not get one's hopes too high. It is a not uncommon negotiating technique to get the other side into the mindset that the deal is done, and then to throw in a last second demand. In past WGA-AMPTP contracts, negotiating has even continued after the deal was made and ratified. Weeks, even months after the '81, '85 and '88 strikes were settled and work resumed, reps from the studio side were still arguing over what had been agreed to, insisting that their notes said we'd agreed to X when we were certain we'd consented to Y. And even when we all agree on what we all agreed upon, we can't always agree on the interpretation of some clauses and codicils.

If the reports are true, we'll probably see an announcement early in the week of formal talks resuming, and then those might last a few days. If all goes well, the WGA Negotiating Committee and its Board of Directors will proclaim that they have a pact they can recommend to the membership…and then I'd be very surprised if it wasn't ratified. This is all assuming there isn't a last minute lowball.