S n a r k A t t a c k

Big Day Coming

As the strike looms, there's not much to do but proceed as though everything's normal.  This isn't like ignoring the elephant in the room; it's like ignoring the herd of elephants that are taking up all the seats in the room, leaving you to stand there awkwardly, trying to figure out exactly where to set your drink.  If there are two elephants perched on the coffee table, will my can of Coke Zero (NB: delicious) be the tipping point, rendering the table a pile of splintered particle board and leaving me to contend with two rather upset pachyderms?   I wonder.

The upside to the strike is that I would get to drive back up to SF with the pups, and spend some quality time with the GF instead of this weekend-only bullshit.  Don't get me wrong - we love us some good weekend fun but between the work and the need-to-run errands, there's precious little time to hang out and just BE.  And perhaps we can 'just be' while taking advantage of one of the perks of being a dues-paying member of the WGA: free movies.

I didn't know this but if you belong to the WGA (and probably also the DGA or SAG), you will find that every day you come home to a handful of envelopes from Miramax, Paramount, Warner Bros., etc. - each of them inviting you to complimentary screenings of their latest flicks.  Insane.  Some of the flyers are just for a couple of movies, but others look like a Tokyo subway schedule - just COVERED in listings for showings in LA, London, NY and, yes, SF.  Actually, quite often the SF showings are at Pixar, which is beyond neat.   I was lucky enough to see 'The Incredibles' there with a friend whose firm was doing some work for Pixar, and there's nothing better than seeing a movie surrounded by people who LOVE movies.  You get it at Sundance, somewhat - the feeling that we're all here in this theatre because we love movies and we're here to see and support THIS movie.  It's something you miss when you see a matinee full of folks on cell phones or talking to each other, but sometimes, when you're lucky, you catch a screening at a regular theatre and everyone's into it.  And, not to get all gushy about it, but it really is magical.

I'll remind myself of that as I enjoy seeing 'Knocked Up,' again.   

Underdog World Strike

Tomorrow I've got, schedule permitting, a welcome reception at the Writers' Guild offices.  It's a reception for new members and as the invite says, you're only a new member once, so I'm definitely going.  Of course, dark thoughts lead me to wonder about this 'only once' business, making me worry about the percentage of WGA members who lose their membership status due to shows which tank, options which fail to get picked up and development deals which fade away, one unreturned phone call at a time.  Turns out, with such anxiety that I'm in good company. 

I can't remember where I heard this - I want to say it was a history professor from college but I don't think I ever took history in college (and failing to remember a history class means you are most definitely doomed to repeat it).  In any event, he was a former tank driver.  Gunner? Pilot?   Whatev - this guy used to sit in a tank when he was in the service - and he was saying there's no more paranoid group of soldiers than the guys in a tank.  From a distance, the tank is awesome.  Up close, however, and all it takes is one nervy soldier with a grenade and the balls to rip open a hatch, and kablooey, the tank is out of commission.  That's why the tank guys drive around talking to other tank guys:  "You see anything?"  "No.  You?"  "No, what about now - you see anything?"  "No.  You?"  And so forth.

That feeling, of being trapped in a giant rolling hunk of metal, and seeing nothing but nonetheless worrying about the unseen thing that might appear and drop a grenade in your lap?  That's Hollywood.  Nobody knows anything about anything but that does not stop us from chewing over every last morsel of information, all day and ad nauseum.   Screw the ratings - no one's talking about that.  We've moved onto the strike.

As you might have heard, the WGA may strike.  Last week the guild authorized its reps to strike, this authorization being simply the writers giving the reps the strike as a weapon in its negotiation and not a vote TO strike.   

Weird to have just started this career and find myself in the middle of the most contentious and important negotiation in twenty years.  Everyone here is keeping track of the latest developments, with the assumption that we'll strike as soon as the contract expires on Oct. 31st.   The sides are just too far apart, but then, now that we've authorized a strike, perhaps we'll get closer still and be able to hammer out an agreement before then.   We'll see.  In the meantime, everyone's half-planning, half-expecting to have November free. 

I Was Meant for the Stage

It's hard not to feel like your life has taken a strange and fantastic turn when at lunch you stand in line next to the computer nerd from 'Alias' and then, while sitting down to enjoy your panini, you see Chuck.  Or the guy playing Chuck, dressed as Chuck, and chatting up what looked like his parents.  (Clues - about the right age, not acting like colleagues or fans and, best of all, beaming.) 

But the guy from Alias... he's got this distinct look to him, not particularly handsome but not ugly either, with the requisite enormous Actor Head.  This prompted a brief lunchtime conversation about how you needn't be the leading man in Hollywood to make a very nice living indeed as 'hey, it's that guy...'  Maybe if the writing thing doesn't work out, I can be 'hey, it's that girl...'   

Or this is what I thought until I remembered that I hate talking in front of a large group of people, I hate getting dressed up and I got bored almost immediately upon setting foot on a set.  So much for glamour.   

Much better to be the writer, putting words in people's mouths.  Dance, monkey, dance!

Sound and the Fury

There is no doing anything while the leaf blowers do their thing.  There is only noise.

Maybe I'm Amazed

Consider this: a t.v. pilot airs and upon its success hangs the collective fate of a roomful of writers, none of whom, for the most part, had anything to do with the creation of said pilot, hired months later after the pilot was picked up.  Think, then, that all over Burbank these same writers write episodes which are set in a future that may never be realized, episodes that may never air should the show find itself in the majority and get cancelled. 

This consideration - this possibility - permeates everything, a fog that must constantly be waved off when not confronted directly.  I find it's the writers who confront it directly.  And often, using what I can only hope is gallows humor to ward off the evils of cancellation.  Talking to writers on other shows, the same conversations occur - let's put this in the episode!  Not like it'll ever air anyway!  Talking to the writers on our staff, who've been on dozens of shows over the course of their careers:  same deal.  You always think you're going to be cancelled.  You never think it'll be a hit.  And before it happens, a soon-to-be runaway hit show feels like a candidate for cancellation, and vice versa.  Maybe that's why Hollywood folk, I've discovered, love to quote William Goldman: "Nobody knows anything."   Maybe, though, by saying such things we're throwing shibboleths up at the gods of Nielsen - "We're not burdened by hubris!  Choose us to live!" 

Then again, that may just be the high fructose corn syrup talking, which is why our writers' room is on a diet.  Not a huge diet - we just made a pact: no more red vines or chocolate covered pretzels.  Sounds easy but have you had just one red vine?  No, of course not.  You had twelve.  You eat one and figure, eh, I've already got to pick this stuff out of my teeth; might as well have a few more.  Thus, we found ourselves eating red vines  with such frequency that, like sex addicts veering into darker fetishes to satisfy their urges, we began to eat the red vines untraditionally, not one at a time, but by the bundle.   One writer in particular would come into the room several times a day holding a fistful of red vines, looking for all the world as though he'd bloodily slain some high fructose corn syrup gorgon. 

But the show is going well, and I still can't believe my good fortune to go there every day and pitch stories.  What fun!  And if I had fallen into a trap of taking this for granted, I was reminded several times on Saturday night how lucky I was.  Nothing like spending the evening with a couple hundred law firm partners (and their partners) to drive that point home - "You work where?  That's so cool!"  It is cool, but then, sometimes I really miss things about being an attorney.  As the Writers Guild threatens to strike, I miss the stability of being a lawyer.  Sometimes, too, I miss the structure.  Every day at work is different - I never know when or even how we're going to be productive.  There's a lot of sitting around and talking about nothing and everything until something occurs to one of us that would go well in a character's story arc, and then you hear that delicious, creative phrase:

"What if...?"

What if we had so-and-so do X and then he does Y?  And then so-and-so does Z...?  What if, what if, what if? 

How great is that? 

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Listening to: John Coltrane - Feelin' Good
via FoxyTunes