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The Negotiating Committee during a standing ovation

I wish I had more to tell you about the Strike, but whatever you’ve read or seen, you’re way ahead of me.

According to the negotiating committee members who visited the line this week, the purpose of the meeting last night was to inform the members of the conditions and terms of the deal, and to “take the temperature of the room” (preferably orally) to see whether or not they should recommend to the Guild board to lift the restraining order and let us all get back to work tomorrow.

So we mobilized. Got out the vote.

The Guild set up phone banks to call members who have not been out on the picket line, but how they were able to call that many people in two days I’ll never know.

The Strike Captains were also to get the word out to their guys, as ours did. So we all turned out at the Shrine Auditorium last night, with the expectation that we would be there to moderate any extreme voices, and make sure the temperature of the room was nice and cool, baby.

The event was to begin at 7, but they didn’t let us in until just after that, giving perfect strangers the opportunity to ask me if we’ve been scabbing for Jay. That unpleasantness over, we sat, mostly as a group, to wait for another 40 minutes while the most intense networking in the history of mankind took place. It was like watching the Borg do speed dating: everyone was saying the exact same thing, just out of sync, the come-ons couched in friendly, celebratory terms.

Finally, the negotiating committee took the stage. One of the cameramen who was shooting the event to be projected on the big screen behind the dais must have been drunk, or have worked for NYPD Blue, because it was super-shaky and people kept calling for him to stop touching the camera. It was shaking so violently at one point it was like watching incredibly boring footage cut from “Cloverfield.”

Anyway, after the first of 31 standing ovations, President Pat informed us that, after receiving many calls and emails from “vocal members,” the temperature of the room was now beside the point. We would not be going back to work on Monday, instead participating in a proxy vote by fax and email to see if we want to go back. That vote will take 48 hours, after which every writer is sure we will be back on the job. In fact, they’re even more sure than they were that we would be working tomorrow, so that’s sure, baby.

After the presentation of the deal, during which the speakers laughed at inside jokes and we were on our feet and in our seats 30 more times (having been raised Catholic, I knelt a couple of times, just for good measure), and we all beat it outside when the it became Open Mic Night in Zanytown (to be fair, we stayed for five questions and two of them were good, but every speaker gave the sense they were there to state they were not ready to ratify).

By the way, the minimums discussed were the same for all categories except for Late Night Comedy and Variety, which were less. Hey now!

So the mouth-watering meal of a Monday start was denied us. As a staff (minus a few with the flu), we assembled in the parking lot, and a few of us tried to get the group to motivate to Swingers for one last free meal on Drew Carey. There were only five takers.

About 3am, I woke up, as I’ve been doing a lot lately, to think about things and let my eyeballs dry out watching the clock projected on the ceiling. I came to the following conclusions:

1. I’ll have to hold off on putting jokes in the blog until I figure out if it’s kosher;
2. 2. I’ll have to ask someone before submitting any jokes I’ve written on the blog before the strike was ended. They were not written for Jay, and technically I own them, but I don’t want to get anybody in trouble;
3. It ain’t over.

So here I sit, waiting for my proxy to arrive by email so the 48-hour clock can start. Maybe I’ll take a ride on the bike and try to take my mind off of it.

Ahh, who am I kidding?

Not much to report from the back gate at NBC. Just three of us, me, Beth and Marvin, showed up for the midday shift, and we found the gate empty. The only thing we could guess was that the Disney rally, just two blocks away, was probably pulling in the big numbers, so we flipped some peace signs at our coworkers in cars, and talked about the likelihood of going back to work this month.

Everything in the papers seems to point to our returning to work sooner than later. The New York Times ran a piece crediting the writer of “The Bionic Woman” with brokering a peace between the Guild and Peter Chernin of Fox, all of which sounds like the setup to a joke I can’t think of. The Los Angeles Times even has two pieces on the strike today, both of which have the tone of, “we’re sick of this, get back to work already.”

Sean Ryan, left, speaks to a small group of squinting fellow travelers.

The day before, on Wednesday, a few members of the negotiating committee came out to fill us in on the progress. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that filling, as all details of the proposed deal were still under wraps. But there were a lot of hints, and even though the guy talking to my group (Sean Ryan, creator and showrunner of “The Shield”) said that there were points that favored broadcast shows over cable, he was behind the deal.

Mr. Ryan expressed the negotiating committee’s desire for writers was to make a strong showing of force, and get out on that picket line. So, by 1:30 yesterday afternoon, with Marvin in the bathroom and Beth on her cell phone, I was getting a little worried. Then I remembered the gigantic rally at Disney.

As far as I can tell, there are the remaining hurdles to overcome for the deal to be ratified by the voting membership of the Writer’s Guild:

1. They have to finalize the language. That is supposed to happen by 5pm today.
2. An email has to go out, either with the deal proper or the Cliff Notes version.
3. Tomorrow (Saturday) the WGA East meets at 2pm Eastern in New York, to do their harrumphing and long applause breaks.
4. The WGA West meets at 7pm Pacific time at the Shrine Auditorium, former site of the Oscars, now home to a weekly flea market. I may show up early and buy tube socks.
5. After a great number of incredibly long applause breaks for the people who called the strike, we will review the details of the deal, then they’ll open up the microphones for the writers to give their opinion.
6. This could take hours. If the previous two general membership meetings are any indication, most of the speakers will be assiduously kissing ass (“I just want to thank you for all your hard work…”), or trying to crack jokes in search of their next job (“Can I still get free Bob’s Big Boy” looks like the go-to joke), or expressing their extreme displeasure over specific points in the deal.

Thus, Sean Ryan and other actual negotiating committee members (not that weird kid they sent last time who only spoke in the form of questions) came out to make sure that the voice of moderation — the hardest vote to come by in a discussion like this, made fewer by the fact that it’s on a Saturday Night in a shitty part of town — would be well-represented at the big meeting.

Because IF there seems to be a consensus to ratify the deal, and IF they take that consensus to the board tomorrow and recommend they move for a vote, and IF the board responds with a unanimous “yes”… why then, by Jiminy, we might be able to go back to work as soon as Monday morning.

But if the thousands of writers who want it to be over — some of whom never bothered to show up for the picket lines — don’t bother to show up for the meeting, the hard-liners, who hate the DGA deal and are afraid of a SAG walkout (among other things) could overwhelm the mood. Then we’d be back up the tree for who knows how long.

Looking around that back gate, it didn’t make a lot of sense that they would be delivering that message to the picketers, but then again, the throng at the Disney gate would get the word and then, boy howdy, we have something.

I post this message just hours before the 5pm deadline for step 1. For a large group of self-centered creative people with strong opinions, the plan detailed above seems to rely on a lot more Swiss timing than I’m comfortable with. But I’ll do my part.

Not too sure about those folks at the big Disney rally, however. Here’s a picture I took at around 2pm:

My only thought was that the two dozen or so picketers were merely lingering on after an exhausting, exhilarating and inspiring congregation had broken up just minutes before. They couldn’t bring themselves to leave the very site of the Last Great Rally of the Famous Writers Strike of ’07-‘08.

God willing, we’ll have a good turnout tomorrow night. If not, I’ve got a new bottle of sunblock, and it looks like fine weather all spring.

A representative from the Writers Guild slipped in and briefed a few of the writers at NBC today. I was told third-hand that the negotiating committee is planning on continuing with the lawyers all week, in hopes that the details of the proposed contract can be distributed to members before Saturday night’s general membership meeting at the Shrine Auditorium.

There are no details forthcoming (I wouldn’t put them up here, after all, since it might be perceived as somehow harmful to the strike effort), so it beats me why they couldn’t just send an email.

Anyhow, word on the street is that a lot of showrunners are telling their staffs to get ready to go back to work on Monday. If the hard-liners at Saturday night’s meeting manage to shout down the writers who are ready to live with the contract, the way they shouted down the guy at the last meeting (who asked why we’re not using professional negotiators), that’s not going to happen.

So go ahead and get your hopes up, if you want. But after being told not to talk to the press, not to ask questions of the leadership, not to write the guild with my opinion on how things were going, not to try to borrow money from the Strike Fund until my bank denied me credit, not to work for non-signatory companies, and finally, not to ratify the DGA contract (I’m in that Guild, too), even though the DGA leadership recommended it, I can think of one more thing not to do in this strike. Get my hopes up.

I should note here that I have supported the strike from the day the Guild called it. Even though it’s embarrassing to get screamed at by below-the-line workers, dangerous to stand at that gate (between the cars and the fumes), irritating to watch “strike teams” with real team names and matching hats have a cookout party every morning, damaging to my career to be one of the 15% who bothers to picket at all, and demoralizing to watch my coworkers going in and out of work every day. I still picket, because that’s what you do when you’re in a Union and you’re on strike. At least, that’s what other unions do.

So let me go pack my lunch (I’m down to not being able to afford the tip at Bob’s Big Boy), and go walk in a circle at the one permanent picket location — made so, because the Guild has singled out Jay Leno, of all the shows back on air, to make an example out of him — and listen to another SAG member tell me what a dick I am for not wanting to stay on strike until July, so they can close their deal quickly.

Plus, there’s no goddam Red Vines.

I’ll see you at the Shrine Auditorium on Saturday night. I’m not sure where it is, but I figure I can just drive downtown and follow the torches and pitchforks. Here’s hopin’!

Good times out there on the line. It was “Bring Your Strike Metaphor To The Picket” day, and Dave and Beth sure went above and beyond the strict call of fun. Here they are with their crashed jumbo jet fuselage float, the “S.S. Dashed Hopes.” To complete the picture, we resorted to cannibalism at the back gate, which was only fitting as the Guild has run out of Red Vines.

A step-by-step approach to going to Six Flags Magic Mountain, in the rain, on Superbowl Sunday:

Start by doing 80 up the I-5 in the pouring rain. The park opens in 15 minutes, we have to get there on time or we somehow lose the entire value of a full day’s admission by not squeezing every last ounce of enjoyment out of the park.

Add your 11-year-old son in the back seat, about to turn 12, and his friend, both alternating their concern between the park being completely packed, or being closed due to the rain.

Ask, “Well, which is it?” a couple of times. Receive blank stares in the rearview mirror.

Arrive at the park, learn that 9 rides are closed. Get worried, until you see one closed ride is called “Déjà Vu.” Ask ticket clerk about that ride. She responds, “It like a lot of other rides.” Look around to see of that’s some kind of a setup.

Buy tickets. Learn they are year-long passes. Same price as one day. Now you must drag the boys into the Year Pass building to get their picture taken. They act like you’re asking them to go swimming in sulphuric acid. It takes 3 minutes.

Enter the park. A lot of rides are based on movies, but you feel like the park could be based on “I Am Legend,” due to utter lack of patrons. The image is reinforced when pale group huddles together like mutants from that movie. They turn out to be (actor and “Robot Chicken” genius) Seth Green and friends.

Climb hill. Learn why they call it “Magic Mountian:” even though it’s only a hill, it magically feels like you’ve climbed K2 when you get to the top.

Get on “Tatsu” ride. Stare down at gum, spit and earrings that form in patterns on the sheet metal below you every place you stop. Feel pockets for keys, electronics. Repeat 9 times. Wonder if the ride is gradually centrifuging the blood to the back of your head.

Try to keep up with the boys as they run the length of the park to get on the farthest ride next: “Goliath.” Notice the park is sparsely populated with nerds and Oakland Raider fans. The only gang members in attendance actually work there.

Ride Goliath. Black out. Confirm that the blood is being centrifuged to the back of your head. The pounding in your forehead tells you it’s not coming back.

Have a breakthrough: let the boys ride the rides without you. Learn this only works for one ride. Walk a half-mile to the Batman ride. Contemplate writing “Do Not Resuscitate” on the skin of your chest with a Sharpie.

Ride Collossus ride 3 times. Note with mild alarm you cannot recall all 4 members of the Beatles, the 2nd Grade, or whose idea it was to come to this damned place. Stare at the back of Seth Green’s head while you pull 3 g’s in the drizzle, and realize you would rather be watching this all on TV.

Spend most of your remaining cash on ring-toss, Skee-Ball and T-shirts. Note that the only bargain here is the dollar refills on the souvenir cups. Buy the cups, but feel too sick to refill them. Wonder if the nerve damage to your tongue from the Dippin’ Dots, served at 7 degrees Kelvin, will be permanent. Wish that was the only souvenir you’re taking home.

Ride Goliath for the fourth time. Wonder if Fabio’s neck felt as bad as yours after he was hit in the face with a duck at Six Flags Busch Gardens. Try to look nonchalant doing 90 mph for souvenir photo. Buy the photo. Note how bad you look.

Exit park, 2 minutes before closing. Stagger to car as son, friend ask, “Are you all right?” Note that turkey legs have the same reverb characteristics as a Slim Jim.

Get to car. Look back at park, silhouetted against a beautiful California sunset. Marvel: partly at the beauty, but mostly because, when you squint just right, it looks like the whole damned place is burning to the ground.

Resign yourself that it is not burning, that you have a new annual pass in your pocket, and that suicide is a mortal sin.

Point car towards home. Feel relief nibble at the edges of your frayed nerves: the radio plays something you like, not just Danny Elfman incidental music. In with the good feelings, out with the bad.

Your son, happy, wind-burned and smiling, pipes up from the back seat, completely spooking the timid sense of serenity you were trying to coax into your mind: “Dad, that was great. We have to do this every year on Superbowl Sunday!”

“Of course!” you immediately holler. You look into the rearview mirror at the boys, exhausted, staring into their goody bags. You catch sight of yourself in the mirror: that same grinning idiot from the ride snapshot, but now the face has a little blood back, and is grinning from ear to ear.

“Of course.”

While the rest of Hollywood wonders when the strike will be over, I can’t stop wondering about what it’s going to be like to get back to work.

Maybe that’s because most shows are out of production. But Jay is doing shows, he just happens to be doing them without us. Feels weird now, and it seems like it’s going to get weirder once we get to write again.

I miss it. Why else would I be putting up jokes on this blog? Because I love writing them. Most people don’t go around saying how much they love their job, and for good reason: because they don’t. They’re lucky if they even like going to work. But I know how lucky I am and I can’t wait to get back to it.

Things are going to be different back at the show. I know it’s never going to be the same. While we (the writers) have no control over any of this situation, at least we belong to the union at its center. Our friends inside must feel like they are at the whims of someone else’s fight. That kind of uncertainty can wear on a person, to put it mildly.

Now that The Tonight Show is back in production, it is clear to the writers that the staff is working like mad to deliver a show every night. Everybody’s getting their direction straight from Jay, which must be intimidating and stressful, no matter how great he is. He’s under the gun, and everyone wants to perform for him. It can’t be easy.

I wish we could go back in, turn on our computers and carry on, business as usual, with the strike only looming as a distant, bad dream. I also wish I could spontaneously lose 30 pounds, but that ain’t going to happen either.

It’s going to be rough (going back, not losing the weight). Some folks will probably blame us for the actions of the Guild, because we’re the only writers they know. The rhythm of thinking of an idea on Monday, pitching it on Tuesday, shooting it on Wednesday, editing on Thursday and airing on Friday is going to be hard to get back. The writers have a lot of responsibilities that lay outside the strict act of writing, and our friends inside have all shouldered those tasks for the sake of putting on the show.

Before the strike, there were plenty of stressful days, late nights, and frustrations both petty and epic. I’ll take ‘em all and more just to get back to business as usual.

5000 Calories In Search of a Lipitor

The strike can go no further without my mentioning Drew Carey and the very decent thing he continues to do for striking writers in Hollywood.

From the first week last November, Mr. Carey (of “The Drew Carey Show,” “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and now taking over for Bob Barker on “The Price is Right”) has been picking up the tab for any writer who eats at Bob’s Big Boy in Toluca Lake, and Swingers in Hollywood next to Television City.

Not that the writers couldn’t have gotten by without it. In the first few weeks of the strike, restaurants, other unions and wonderful folks who just wanted to show their support would show up at the lines and give us food. The egg salad lady was notable in both her skill at making sandwiches and her ability to know exactly when to bring them, saving us from another purging visit to the Taco Bell in front of Warner Brothers.

But as this thing wears on, the roast beef sandwiches from French 75 have disappeared. Sure, we still get plenty of calories from the Guild’s own craft services at the sign-in desk, but the general consensus is that the Otis Spunkmeyer muffins were made while “Bewitched” was still in prime time.

So it’s a decent thing, feeding us. But more importantly, it’s a place to go. Something to do besides walking in circles.

You walk into Bob’s around lunchtime, and the place is filled with the red and grey shirts of picketing writers. We have trudged, and now we must reward ourselves by eating like Elvis: banana milkshakes and patty melts, turkey dinners and cokes, iceberg lettuce with a cup of ranch dressing.

Sure, you have to endure the occasional interstate trucker making out with a 50-year-old hooker, but that’s just America, right?

And while the strike takes months of paychecks off our tax returns, the diner food takes years off our lives. But, as my Granddad used to say, those are just the years at the end, which are usually the worst, so that’s a good thing.

I am worried about John Kennedy, the youngest writer on the staff who was just promoted before the strike. Not only has he spent five times the number of weeks striking than he did as a writer, he’s going after the Drew Carey Special for all it’s worth. I think he’s had every lunch and dinner at one or the other restaurant for weeks now, and the arterial plaque buildup is making him surly.

Here he is (counting to one on the right) this afternoon at 12:15:

That finger is for Peter, who actually managed to argue that he’s not an argumentative person today.

But it’s not for you, Drew. When this is over, John has vowed to go to the nearest Hallmark and get you the most bitchin’ thank-you card he can find.

Thanks!

An unidentified swimmer surveys the bleak surroundings at Miraleste Intermediate School

Since we go to swim meets all over Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura County, I thought I might start reviewing the pools for future families who might want a handy guide before spending the entry fees.

My son had a meet today, so we spent the afternoon in lovely Rancho Palos Verdes, an enclave south of town that seems to have been a presidio at some point. A couple of thousand feet in elevation, it overlooks the city to the Northeast, and the largest harbor in the Western Hemisphere to the south, with dense foliage hiding the fact that there’s only a few roads in and out. Hence the enclave.

But, the ethnically diverse swimming families made it up the long, snaking drive to the top of the mountain to the well-funded middle school, just as the weather cleared up. We discovered that on a clear day you could see halfway to Mexico from the parking lot, as a thin finger of high pressure had made its way to the Southland between last week’s storm and the deluge that is hammering my roof, even as I write this.

Unfortunately, you can’t see anything through the dirty, ten-foot fence that surrounds the pool. A few orange jumpsuits and the place would be Guantanamo Bay. One parent said it looked like Joliet State Prison, though how he knew remains a mystery. Maybe they’re taking the Presidio thing to too far.

Anyway, here’s the 10-point review:

1. While a small meet, parking was limited and it was a Sysiphean climb up the parking lot. Drop your kid off with the folding chairs if you want to live.

2. Bring some shade. I know it’s fun to hang out on a Middle School blacktop, but only on graduation night in the dark. It was a roasting pan with wind.

3. All the kids said the pool tasted salty, but it wasn’t a salt water pool. Eww.

4. The backstroke flags are at a weird distance from the wall, so all the kids were either smacking their wrists on the wall or gliding in like old ladies. There was a lot of sidestroke going on among the 10-and-unders.

5. Not much to buy. I know it’s not the focus of the meet, but it’s always good for keeping the kids happy. You know if the guy that sells Crocs and goggles doesn’t show up, you deserve a gold star for making the trek.

6. The boy’s bathroom hadn’t been cleaned since the Nixon administration. That ammonia smell was au naturel. Maybe it drained into the pool, hence the salty taste.

7. The Lane 7 starting block wobbled disconcertingly. I thought the fat kid from Downey was going to rip it out at the roots.

8. The food was pretty good, but they served it in a room that must be where they teach health classes, because there were unappetizing, student-made life-size figures on the wall that illustrated the dangers of drinking. There were a lot of misspellings – a little more grammar and a little less construction paper would be in order – one figure had the unfortunate label “dizyniss, alkolhol, and barfeing.” Maybe the kids were talking from experience and were still hungover when they got out their safety scissors.

9. They made the timers stay for the distant events. Usually, the judges let us go and make the parents of the swimmers do the timing. The distance swimmers were shocked and confused to see people when they finally finished.

10. There was an event and heat sign on constant display, a godsend for any coach, parent or timer who is otherwise under constant questioning by anyone in a Speedo.

Anyway, a lot of the dads found the asphalt comfortable enough to sleep on, so I guess I’d give the Miraleste Intermediate School Pool a 4 ½ out of 10.

Either this strike ends today, or I’m going to have to close my blinds.

After the “commando” post below, I kept my camera handy, and took photos of the people who stopped in front of my house from the hours of 3:30-4:30. Here they are:

In the space of an hour, I had people 1. Smoking; 2. Sleeping; 3. Eating; 4. Making out; and 5. Wrecking.

Who needs TV? I had the entire last act of American Graffitti take place right in front of me in the space of an hour! I’m shutting the blinds right now!