Several Hollywood studios have announced their intention to hire scabs and migrant laborers to break the impending strike by the Writer's Guild.
While WGA spokesperson Lefty Redman was unavailable for comment, other Hollywood writers could be found in various coffeeshops around Los Angeles kicking around ideas for picket signs. "How about 'Whatchu talkin' about Paramount?'" queried one overpaid hack while stirring cinnamon into his decaf mocha. "That's gold," responded another. "Everybody Loves Raymond, But What About Raymond's Writers?" said one writer while several people at the table behind him made silent gagging gestures.
"If someone watches a show I wrote for free it's like they're stealing money from me," said one coke-snorting scribe who seemed to misunderstand the point of my rather ingeniously worded question.
"Not just anyone can write an episode of Grey's Anatomy or Desperate Housewives," explained writer Elizabeth Johnson. "It's not like some Okie off the farm can come up with those situations or the snappy dialogue. We're highly trained professionals and we deserve respect."
Studio executives, though, beg to differ. "By the time we're done giving notes and interfering with the average television show it doesn't even bear the slightest resemblance to what these writers came up with," said one studio executive who refused to give his/her name. "Let's face it. Most of these people churn out crap and then we stir it up and smooth it out so that it couldn't possibly be interesting to anyone with a brain cell. 'McDreamy', 'McSteamy'? How about 'McStinky'? We could pay several dozen writers in India a fraction of what these scribblers get and we'd probably end up with something more snappy and literate, for the most part. And we'll still end up flattening it out into complete tripe anyway."
Potential television viewers are even more sanguine about the prospects. "Hell, I've already written several fan-fic episodes of Heroes [a popular network program] and I'd be more than willing to work as a writer for that show even if they paid me the same as Wal-Mart pays me--maybe even less."
Such sentiments seem to be common and become even more pronounced as more viewers learn about the amount of lucre at stake in this labor dispute.
"They get how much?" asked my Grandmother over the phone. "They should be covered in donkey poo and run out of town and you should offer to take their jobs for half the pay. And you can work from home, too."
Thanks, Grandma. I can't help but agree and I'm sure America agrees too.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Okies Leave California
Rancho Salusa Segundo, CA
In the wake of raging wildfires in Southern California that have left close to half a million people evacuated from their homes, thousands of descendants of the Dust Bowl Exodus were seen loading up their flivvers today and heading back to the Great Plains. As native Californians weep in disbelief while their precious homes are burnt to a crisp, large numbers of Okies are making their way out of the state along the historic Route 66 heading back to ancestral lands in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and the Texas Panhandle.
"I hear tell there ain't no fires back in the old country," said one toothless Okie named Hank. "And no earthquakes or mudslides neither," chimed in another, more toothsome fellow named Red.
"We're gonna live off the fat of the land!" exclaimed one unshod youngster in overalls. "I hear they got acres of wheat and miles of corn, and subdivisions without gates, and they ain't got no such thing as a Homeowner's Association to tell you what you can and can't do."
While some have decried these Okies as fairweather migrants and others have taken to tossing charred bricks at their overloaded Chevys and calling them "hoboes" "vagabonds" and "no account drifters" there is no denying that these grandchildren of the Dustbowl, soon to be children of the Ashbowl represent the kind of stoic resilience of pioneers from days gone by. These people are America, and America is on the move once again.
"We're the people that live," declared one grim faced matriarch riding shotgun in an old Ford F-150. "We're the people that go on. And besides, I hear they finally got that soil erosion problem under control."
In the wake of raging wildfires in Southern California that have left close to half a million people evacuated from their homes, thousands of descendants of the Dust Bowl Exodus were seen loading up their flivvers today and heading back to the Great Plains. As native Californians weep in disbelief while their precious homes are burnt to a crisp, large numbers of Okies are making their way out of the state along the historic Route 66 heading back to ancestral lands in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and the Texas Panhandle.
"I hear tell there ain't no fires back in the old country," said one toothless Okie named Hank. "And no earthquakes or mudslides neither," chimed in another, more toothsome fellow named Red.
"We're gonna live off the fat of the land!" exclaimed one unshod youngster in overalls. "I hear they got acres of wheat and miles of corn, and subdivisions without gates, and they ain't got no such thing as a Homeowner's Association to tell you what you can and can't do."
While some have decried these Okies as fairweather migrants and others have taken to tossing charred bricks at their overloaded Chevys and calling them "hoboes" "vagabonds" and "no account drifters" there is no denying that these grandchildren of the Dustbowl, soon to be children of the Ashbowl represent the kind of stoic resilience of pioneers from days gone by. These people are America, and America is on the move once again.
"We're the people that live," declared one grim faced matriarch riding shotgun in an old Ford F-150. "We're the people that go on. And besides, I hear they finally got that soil erosion problem under control."
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