Sunday, November 04, 2007

Hollywood Writers On Strike; Hollywood Barely Notices

Now imagine if the special effects guys went on strike... There'd be chaos!

Yes, it seems that a threatened strike by the Writer's Guild of America has materialized, complete with the idiotic posturing and unbelievable give-and-take which is a staple of many of the cheesy screenplays by its members which now won't be getting made. It all boils down to a squabble over DVD royalties, which fat-cat producers and studio executives alike cling to like studio executives and fat-cat producers alike cling to their tiny silver spoons (whose contents, naturally, they pay for with all those clung-to royalties).

Still, for those of us in new media, this could be a boon. In fact, I am rushing my blog sitcom into pre-production from pre-pre-production where it's been languishing for months as I've struggled to keep up with a self-imposed editorial quota designed to ensure me no meaningful life away from this computer. Now that I have a show to write, star in, and film in addition posts to research, write, and publish I should be dead by spring.

The last writer's strike, some of you may remember, was at the turn of the century; it was marked by a rise in the proliferation of reality television like Survivor, for which those responsible should be shot at dawn. Make no mistake - reality television is written, it's just not scripted, and therein is a semantic hairsplitting worthy of Bill Clinton (depending, of course, on what your definition of "is" is).

Rest assured, at the Pop Culture Institute there will be no labour action; as these things go, you couldn't pick a better scab than me!

Today's Sermon: Catholicism by Kathy Griffin



I can scarcely believe it myself, but this is the first time in almost 1700 posts that I have shown Kathy Griffin. You, dear reader, can rest assured that I have taken myself in hand and punished myself for this oversight.

Here then, appropriately enough for a Sunday, is one lapsed Catholic's take on the foibles of her co-religionists.