If I haven’t been blogging this week, it’s because there’s some interesting family stuff going on, even as I finished three chapters of Book 3 and started my revisions on Book 2.
But in all honesty, all my internet time this week has been spent following the WGA strike.
As anyone who watches late night talk shows knows, the Writers Guild of America is on strike. Their demands are so astonishingly reasonable that it’s only through their opponents’ complete ownership of all major media outlets that the average American isn’t out there on the picket line with them:
1) $.08 cents per DVD, which is double the whopping $.04 they make now, which was negociated in bad faith 20 years ago with the promise of an increase over time.
2) 1.5 – 2.5% of "New Media" meaning the internet and downloads. The corporations are claiming that they don’t know the profitability of the internet (even as they impress their stockholders with their internet earnings). But that’s the beauty of a percentage – if the company doesn’t make money, neither do the writers. I think writers are willing to take that risk.
That’s basically it. Those are the issues, and to avert a strike the WGA even removed the first demand from the table on Sunday. The AMPTP (film and TV producers) declined. They allegedly see the strike as a good thing – a way to break the WGA, DGA, and SAG once and for all, and clean house while they’re at it.
There are a lot of great other sites covering this, and if I tried to express all my thoughts I’d be up all night writing this blog, rather than the next book. Allow me to point you to here, here, and here. These are sites I visit regularly, as Jan and I have been working on a TV pilot for the last year – the last six months a little more seriously.
Which brings us to why I’m following the strike so closely. There’s been interest in the pilot. Which we cannot sell until the strike is over, as we will not cross picket-lines – even over the internet.
I actually called the WGA on Monday to ask a few ethical questions. They were very nice and we chatted for a time, despite the insane number of calls they were getting. I was the second novelist to call that morning. I was asking two questions, the first about selling the film rights to THE MASTER OF VERONA (they asked me not to), and the second about signing with an LA film/TV agent (they said go ahead, just don’t shop the pilot to any studios).
Today I talked with an entertainment lawyer who said that the industry is shut down out there. His actual comment was, "It’s a good time to be a novelist." He’ll be walking the picket line on Monday to show solidarity with his clients.
Clearly, since I’m in Chicago, there’s no one here to picket. But for anyone who stopped by this blog to talk about books, or writing, or even to do their homework – take a second and check out the issues at stake.
This will not be over soon. So when your favorite show goes off the air, I suggest you watch BBC news, get involved in local politics, send a soldier a letter, send Hillary’s poor waitress a tip, listen to WFMT, don’t watch "Ellen", and don’t download shows from the internet until this is all over.
Unions are hurting in this country today, mostly because of apathy and a feeling that their usefulness is behind us. Not so. Just because I belong to a particularly toothless union (Actors Equity), it does not diminish my belief in the concept. Teachers, Auto Workers, Nurses, Teamsters, IATSE – I support them all. Union leadership may not always be the wisest or best, but the Unions themselves are vital to holding back a new age of serfdom and indentured servitude in this nation. Unless you want Debtor’s Prisons, breadlines, and riots, support your unions, folks.
Though I have a very mixed bag of beliefs, I vote Democrat by default these days. I am an FDR Democrat, a Truman Democrat – hopefully an Obama Democrat. I think rural electification and the building of dams and roads are good things. I’m in favor of cheap public transportation. I believe pensions are a moral as well as a legal contract, and cannot be erased. I honestly believe that single-payer health care is the only way to make our industries competetive in a global market – Ford and GM can’t afford to pay for their workers’ health costs when their overseas rivals don’t. It’s the same short-sighted idea of money now, debt later that is crushing the middle class.
On the other hand, I believe in states’ rights, a fundamental right to privacy, and that every law (outside of violent crimes) should have a sunset clause and have to be renewed by the legislature. I actually admire the old Republican idea of less Government interference – I just have a different concept of what interference means. Nixon created the EPA, after all. But the only Republican who still believes in the Goldwater principles is Ron Paul – and he scares me. Just a little.
I have always said that I would love to be a Republican. I just can’t afford it.
All of which reveals more of my colours than I intended when I started this blog. But one political rant in 18 months isn’t bad. Still, I prefer debating Shakespeare and Dante and who was the best Shadow radio actor. Tomorrow, back to novels of tyrants and dictators and writers in exile – you know, fiction.
Until then, show writers you love them – wear red and read a book. I can reccommend a dandy…
