Mark Evanier's Blog, page 222

Striking Out

As I've mentioned, the current strike by the Writers Guild is my fifth since I became a member in 1976. There have also been a number of times when the old contract had expired, a new one was looking impossible and we went through the angst and prep and worries of a strike…but it was averted at the last minute.

In each strike, I have lost something. I did not ask myself "Was what we gained worth what we lost?" because that's impossible to calculate. It's hard to put a dollar figure on work that might have happened if not for the strike and what ancillary benefits you might have derived from it if it did happen. One time, I was up for a very good job on a very good TV series but the job went away because of the strike. I have no idea how much I would have made off that job or what it would have led to.

Another time, I was writing a movie when the strike interrupted things. After the strike, I finished that script and I did get paid but by then, the folks at the studio who'd been enthused enough about the idea to hire me were no longer at that studio. Their replacements, of course, were totally disinterested in advancing a project championed by those who'd been fired so the movie was never made. I have no idea what that might have done, good or bad, for my career.

You also have to factor in what we all might have lost if taking the rotten offers that precipitated those strikes had led, as it almost certainly would have, to much rottener offers in the future. If I had more time, I'd explain how I believe the terrible deal the WGA accepted to quickly end the 1985 strike (two weeks) made inevitable the 1988 strike (twenty-two weeks) over an even worse offer.

In 2015, I had my right knee replaced. People asked me — they still ask me — if it was painful. Yes, at the time it was but I didn't have any other option. Not having it replaced would have been far more painful and would at some point have left me unable to walk at all. That's not a bad analogy to going on strike.

How do you get through a strike? Well, I got through my first four as I'm getting through this one: By not getting all my income from companies that deal in what the Writers Guild covers. The WGA does not represent writers of comic books, animation writing for certain companies, books, articles, etc. I wish it did but it doesn't. And since it doesn't, I have other sources of income.

During the long '88 strike, I was picketing and even working on the strike in various capacities…but I was also writing and voice-directing the Garfield and Friends cartoon show. My agent at the time referred to me as "Our working client" and "The sole support of the agency." Right now, I have a WGA-covered project that is "on hold" but I have other things to write. Some are paying gigs. Others are things I may — emphasis on the word "may" — sell at some time in the future. That's one of the great things about writing: If no one's paying you to do it, you can still do it. You just may not get money for it or may not get it immediately.

I also have a Comic-Con to prep for. It doesn't pay but it keeps me busy.

I do have friends or colleagues in the profession who are hurting…or who may be hurting if the strike lasts long enough. A couple of them are too new to the business to understand what I learned on or around my second WGA strike: That these things are sometimes, like getting your knee replaced, a necessity. Also — and this is important to remember and accept — when you assume the job description of Writer, it's possible to have prolonged periods of no income when there isn't a strike. That's not only possible but probable and it applies to actors too.

We all feel for those who are hurting and I'm optimistic that it will all end with an acceptable deal. I'm just not predicting when that will happen nor am I putting any stock in any of the hundred different predictions that are circulating. A couple of them must be right but we don't know which ones so we just have to tough it out.

This includes putting up with the most maddening part of it: Hearing some guy who gets paid a zillion dollars a week tell us that the business is hurting and there's simply no money to give to us. When I hear this — and we always hear this — I always think, "Your only responsibility is to make as much money as possible for your company. If it's doing that badly, shouldn't you be fired?"

While we're toughing it out, it would help to think about preparing for the next one. If we take a terrible deal this time, the next one will come sooner and be a whole lot worse.

Not only will there be a next one but there may also be non-strike periods for most of us when our incomes flow to a trickle for a time, perhaps for no visible, foreseeable reason. When you're a writer or an actor, that happens too. And by the way: My orthopedist tells me I'm going to need to have my other knee replaced in the next few years.

A Thought

Two or three months from now, Rudy Guiliani and I have something in common. Neither one of us will be practicing law.

Public Appeal

Hey, do you own a good condition copy of the Marvel Super-Heroes Special #1 from 1966? Wanna loan it to someone for a prestigious event? A friend of mine is assembling an exhibit at Comic-Con next week and needs to borrow a copy. This friend is utterly trustworthy and will treat it with loving care and will also cover things like postage and insurance and whatever else it takes. He needs it by Tuesday morning so if you happen to be in San Diego or will be there by then, that would be ideal.

If you might be willing/able to help him out, drop me a note and I'll put you in touch with him. He can give you more details. I will just vouch for his integrity. And who knows? You may even be able to find someone who'll vouch for mine.

UPDATE: My friend found what he needs. Thanks.

Today's Video Link

SAG-AFTRA is joining my union, the Writers Guild of America, on the picket lines. As you may recall, I expressed some worry about the current president of SAG-AFTRA, Fran Drescher. I said here on Wednesday, "She has not yet shown her members that she understands the responsibilities that come with the title and I sure hope she masters them in a hurry — like by later this evening." I am pleased to say she did…

Thursday Evening

It's a shame my partner Sergio Aragonés decided a few months ago to skip Comic-Con this year. He could have been the biggest star in the building.

To those who've asked: No, none of the thirteen panels I'm hosting or appearing on have been canceled. In fact, I just picked up a fourteenth one.

Today's Video Link

An amazing new entertainment/sports venue will open in Las Vegas this September and its amazing exterior is drawing mucho attention…so much so that many folks in town are worried about something. They're afraid that it will be such a distraction to drivers that it will lead to a serious increase in traffic accidents.

I have no opinion about this but it does look like something that will be hard to ignore. It's called the MSG Sphere, it cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.4 billion bucks to build and — well, just look at what they got for their money…

Note on the Previous Post

I'm hearing conflicting things about whether soap operas are covered by the strike or not so I took out the sentence about that. Once again, if you need to know if a certain kind of acting job is on strike, CALL THE UNION!

Today's Hollywood Labor News

Sometime in the next few hours, it will be announced that SAG-AFTRA is calling a strike, probably immediately. There are a couple of bad reasons why they might say something like "The strike starts in 48 hours" but I don't think anyone expects that to happen. So for the first time since Ronald Reagan was the president of the Screen Actors Guild, both the actors and writers are on strike — and over approximately the same issues.

But not all the actors will be on strike. Animation voiceover is under another contract and that has not expired. Here's what Bob Bergen, one of the workingest voiceover actors in the business posted on Facebook…

TV/Basic Cable Animation is NOT impacted by a TV/Theatrical strike as TV/Basic Cable Animation is a stand alone separate contract!New Media Animation made for TV is NOT impacted by a TV/Theatrical strike!!Nickelodeon Animation is NOT impacted by a TV/Theatrical strike as Nick is a stand alone separate contract!!!Animated Features ARE impacted by a TV/Theatrical strike and you may NOT work on an animated feature!

Here is a very simple piece of advice to anyone in the union who may be unsure as to the status of their employment: CALL THE UNION!  Do not believe posts on social media or word-of-mouth.  CALL THE UNION! There's a spectacular amount of erroneous information out there and as I mentioned in yesterday's post, you need to not believe what you hear from uninformed or unidentified sources.

Why is there a strike?  I have no idea why they happen in the wrought iron industry but in the show biz unions there is only one scenario and it works like this.  Let's take it step-by-step…

A contract between the A.M.P.T.P. ("The Producers") and a union or guild expires as contracts eventually do.At the A.M.P.T.P., they employ a squadron of lawyers and professional negotiators who specialize in this kind of bargaining.  They make an assessment of how little they can give to the labor organization in order to nail down a new contract.  Their job is to arrive at the contract that gives the fewest increases and achieves whatever rollbacks they can get…and that's really all they care about.  They don't care about damaging the industry or harming the quality of the product or alienating the talent or usually even what a prolonged strike will do to the studios.  That's their employers' concern. These negotiator folks are judged solely by the simple numbers in the final deal.So they make this assessment of the union's strength and solidarity and resolve and they work with the Producers to formulate an offer.  The union wants ten dollars.  The negotiator people tell their bosses, "I'll bet I can get them for six.  So we'll offer five and scare the hell out of them to the point where they'll settle for six."And sometimes, they're right.  It works just as they said.  But sometimes they're wrong and the union stands firm at ten or offers to come down no lower than to eight-point-five.  And if both sides refuse to budge, the union has no choice but to go on strike.And for a while, the negotiator folks may say, "Don't worry….after a week or two, they'll be on their knees begging to take six.  I may even get them for five."But the union doesn't fold the way the negotiators predicted and pretty soon, the member producers of the A.M.P.T.P. are fighting among themselves because the shutdown isn't hurting them all equally.  Some want to go back and offer seven or eight but they have this rule of unanimity.  They all need to agree on an offer.  Also, some of them care about certain issues more than others.In the '88 Writers Guild strike which lasted 153 days, the rumor was (and here I am spreading a rumor after urging you all not to believe them) that Paramount and Disney were fighting over certain issues relating to compensation from video cassettes.  You may remember video cassettes.  Disney was more militant about not giving an increase on them than Paramount — or maybe it was the other way around. Eventually, largely through backchannel communications, agreement was negotiated within the A.M.P.T.P. and they made an offer that was acceptable (barely, of course) to the WGA. And the strike ended.Now, you might ask, "Was it worth it to the writers? Did the increase they finally got make up for what they lost during those 153 days?" And an argument could be made that it didn't, at least in the short run. But that isn't the right question to ask. You have to also consider the big picture and the long run. Because if we'd taken the rotten deal first offered by The Producers, we'd have gotten a much rottener offer when that contract expired and the negotiator people told their bosses, "I'll bet I can get them for three this time!"Strikes happen because the "experts" underestimate the will of the labor organization. They get settled and become less likely to happen the next time when the labor organization doesn't allow themselves to be viewed as weak.

It is unfortunate that it has to be done this way but the unions did not design this system…and I'm not saying unions are always in the right.  There are bad unions and badly-run unions out there.  But as with so many things in life, the rules of engagement are dictated by the people who write the paychecks.

It's especially unfortunate for the collateral damage.  When production shuts down in the TV and movie business, camera operators and makeup artists and the stagehands and the caterers and the people who clean the offices (etc.) get laid-off because of a battle from which they do not stand to directly benefit.  For some reason, a lot of them blame the union for not taking a bad deal and don't blame the folks who formulated that bad deal and tried to force it on the union.  We all wish there was a way that these people did not have to suffer but no one's come up with one yet.  And we aren't the ones deciding that since production has shut down, their services aren't needed.

This post has gone on way longer than I expected so I'll just close with this one thought: If you are on strike and you're scared and feeling desperate, posting on social media that you're scared and desperate will just prolong the strike.  The negotiator people and others in management who want to hold firm on their unacceptable offers will find three or four of those tweets or posts and print them out and show them to the folks in management who want to settle.  They'll say, "See?  Everyone in the union is scared and desperate!  We've got them right where we want them!"

You're right to be frightened.  No one knows how long this thing will last.  This is my fifth Writers Guild strike and if I've learned anything, it's that predictions are worthless and a lot of them are just made to try and demoralize the opposition.  But if you are frightened, find others in your union who can hold your hands and comfort you.  It's human to be worried but please, keep it the hell off social media because you won't be helping your union.  You'll be helping the people whose job description is to try and crush your union.

Hollywood Labor News

A strike by SAG-AFTRA, otherwise known as "The Actors," looks pretty close to inevitable at this point. The precise date may be moved by a day or three but all indications are that it's gonna happen and that the main issue will be Artificial Intelligence, otherwise known as "A.I." And it may be a long one. In the past, the A.M.P.T.P., otherwise known as "The Producers," has had some success with their divide/conquer strategy.

They give some faction within a Guild (writers' or actors') what they want and then that faction is ready, perhaps even eager to take the deal and go back to work. Like they give sitcom writers something they crave and the sitcom writers want to end the strike even though the folks who write features or variety shows or daytime dramas or something else still have unaddressed demands. This time though we have A.I. — an issue which seems to matter enormously to writers and actors in all genres, of all ages, of all genders, of all income levels, etc. It matters to Tom Cruise and it also matters to the supporting player who hasn't worked since Love American Style was canceled.

So brace yourself. And here is the best bit of advice I can give to anyone who is affected by the strikes: Don't believe rumors. In fact, that is so important that I will type it again, this time in all caps and boldface: DON'T BELIEVE RUMORS.

This is sometimes tough to do because rumors tend to fill voids of information. Negotiations and the inner works of labor disputes require a lot of closed doors and secrecy and neither side showing all its cards, even to the folks they represent or talking to the press at certain junctures. When you have situations where you don't know anything, it is too easy to fall for something that kinda looks like information even when you have no idea of its source. This leads me to another point that is so important it warrants not only all caps and boldface but even underlining: FALSE INFORMATION IS WORSE THAN NOT KNOWING ANYTHING!

This is so easy to forget. Let's say you are walking around lost and you run into me and you ask me how to get to the place you wish to be. Let us say that I have no idea, which is often the case when questions are put to me. The responsible thing for me to say is, "I'm sorry, I don't know." The irresponsible is if I say, "I think you go south for five blocks to Melrose, turn left and then drive six miles to Sepulveda, hang a right and it should be on your left in a quarter-mile or so!"

That happens. People do that, passing off as facts speculation or hunches or some story that someone heard from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone (etc.). This is dangerous. It's like if your doctor has no idea what's causing your stomach pains but he doesn't want to admit that so he takes out your gall bladder.

Recently, I had a debate — maybe you'd call it an argument — with someone on a comic book forum who was quoting past sales figures that I knew to be bogus…or at least, probably bogus. I e-mailed to tell him the numbers he was citing were almost certainly not real. He wrote back, "Maybe so but they're the only numbers we have."

In other words: False information is better than no information. Except, of course, we know it isn't. In a situation like a labor strike, it's tough enough to know what to do when you have absolutely accurate info. If you factor in false information, you are almost certain to reach false conclusions. Yeah, once in a while it turns out that removing your gall bladder does stop the stomach pains but that's not the way such decisions should be made.

And there are a few other points I should make. One of them I wrote about here before and I'm just gonna cut-'n'-paste from that. Back during the '88 Writers Guild strike — actually, during all the many Writers Guild strikes through which I've lived — I kept finding myself in this conversation with some writer who was sure he had the key to victory…

HIM: We have to be tough.

ME: Okay, fine. We'll be tough. What are you suggesting we do?

HIM: I just told you. Be tough. Let them know we won't give in. They're tough. We have to be tougher.

ME: I get that. How would you suggest we express this toughness? What should we do that we aren't doing yet?

HIM: Win. Get in there and fight and battle and be tough. They'll give in, trust me. All we have to do is be tough.

I could never get any of these tough-minded people to suggest an action on our part…or if they did, it was something we were already doing. I guess it made them feel vital and powerful to think they'd actually come up with a solution. There's a saying that "hope is not a plan." Well, neither is an attitude.

A close relative of that approach is something else I wrote about, in this case here. This is the kind of conversation I often heard during Writers Guild strikes. "HIM" is a complaining member of the Guild. "ME" is not really me but it might be someone on the Guild's Negotiating Committee…

HIM: Our committee should get in there and negotiate!

ME: The producers refuse to negotiate.

HIM: Then we should insist they negotiate.

ME: The producers refuse to negotiate.

HIM: Then we should get in there and be real tough and demand they negotiate.

ME: The only weapon we have against them is to strike.

HIM: Don't strike! Negotiate! Demand they negotiate! If I were on that committee, I could force them to negotiate!

ME: How would you do that?

HIM: By being tougher than they are!

And lastly, I'll give you one more piece of take-this-for-what-it's-worth advice. Every actor or writer has an agent and/or a lawyer and/or someone they rely on to make deals. When there's a strike, almost every one of these counselors will tell their clients something like "The trouble is you have bad people representing you. They don't know what to do. Why, if I were representing your guild in this, I would long since have gotten you every single thing you guys want including having Jeff Bezos personally come to your homes and clean all the leaves out of your rain gutters!"

That's the easiest thing in the world to say and I dunno…maybe not the easiest thing to actually do. He or she might be right that the folks negotiating on your behalf are not good at it…or not as good as the folks negotiating on behalf of The Producers. They're almost certainly not as experienced at the game. Still, I have a lot of trust in the Writers Guild representatives.

I have no opinion of the SAG-AFTRA reps at the bargaining table but they should not be confused with Fran Drescher, who as SAG-AFTRA President, will be the spokesperson and "face" of the union during a war. She has not yet shown her members that she understands the responsibilities that come with the title and I sure hope she masters them in a hurry — like by later this evening.

Julius Kelp Lives!

A few years back, Rupert Holmes (left) wrote the book, Jerry Lewis (center) directed and Marvin Hamlisch (right) made the musical The Nutty Professor, based on the center guy's movie of the same name. The show had one not-in-New-York tryout engagement in Nashville in 2014 and then went nowhere for a while. The deaths of Mr. Lewis and Mr. Hamlisch probably had something to do with that. Last year, it had a one-month revival at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine.

Shows are supposed to live on despite their creators' mortalities, both stagings got encouraging reviews and Mssrs. Holmes and Hamlisch had pretty good track records. It was amusing that Jerry kept announcing firm but totally spurious dates when the show would play other cities and when it would open on Broadway but it's not impossible that it deserved to play those cities, New York especially.

Perhaps it will help keep it alive and get it finally on more stages that there is a studio-recorded album soon to be released. The press releases about it, of which I've received many copies, do not say when it will be out or who will be heard on it but it does seen to be pending. It would not surprise me if this show finally does make it to Broadway. And I'll bet whoever tries to get it there will at least try to get Martin Short to play the lead…if someone hasn't already.