Well, this year's regularly scheduled television viewing season is coming to and end... right about now. Unless you've been living in a cave (or saving a tree, fighting evil whalers, eating Tofurky, buying a new pair of Birkenstocks, or letting your hair grow long enough to put into a ponytail) you know the writer's down in Hollyweird went on strike a few weeks back. Something about not getting paid enough for their efforts.
Now they're looking for other work. In a recent Variety article written by Marc Graser, writer's are apparently heading to the Webinet, comic books, and the booming video game markets to supplement their income until such time as the Big Wig Studio Heads (some of whom must be related to the gimps and leaders of our Little Village here in Colorado) come to their senses.
While I sympathize with my fellow scribes of the written word, we're walking up a very slippery slope. A slope that I've only recently come to see, thanks to the many drunken debates with my brother and friend(s). I see where the writer's want their piece of the pie. I'd want it, along with my cake, too. Why should actors get payment each and every time their mug is shown, but the truly creative people who wrote the lines for those actors to speak - don't? I get it.
But here's the thing... at what point do you stop dolling out residuals? Does a home builder get payment every time the house he built gets sold? Does a master brewer get a cut of every pint of beer sold? Does the painter get his due each time her framed masterpiece is auctioned off?
What should be doesn't always happen. I mean, how can greedy, corrupt "professional" politicians make more money than teachers? Life isn't fair and the world isn't meant to be easy. So stop your bitching, put down your picket signs. What you do for a living requires zero physical effort. I know, I too am a writer. Mentally demanding? Sure, to some degree. But your place of work consists of an air conditioned room and a comfy leather chair sucking down $4 cups of 'Bucks like water. You could look and be the size of Jabba the fucking Hutt, and hunt-n-peck on your word processor until your fingers turn blue... no one would be the wiser. What you're NOT doing is digging ditches in the South 40, or serving some snot nosed fuck wearing a Rolex who leaves you a 10 cent tip at the local diner... or any one of the innumerable other Dirty Jobs Mike Rowe shows us every week.
Get over it. Cuz if I miss my Battlestar Galactica... someone is gonna pay alright.
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