Category: Guest Post

An Interesting Look into the Current Writers Guild Strike

(via wga.org)

I didn’t write this article, but I wish I had. I find myself agreeing with Zack Arnold (below) as much as I did with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar a few weeks ago. And that was a hell of a lot of agreement.

What do you all think?

Guest Column: If Writers Lose the Standoff With Studios, It Hurts All Filmmakers
by Zack Arnold

No matter the job title or craft, the writers strike is the inflection point for the future of how all filmmakers will make a living (or won’t) in the entertainment industry. As artists, creatives and storytellers, this is our last, best and final opportunity to refuse the way we currently do business as “normal,” because as we learned three years ago when the world shut down, “normal wasn’t working.” If we want things to change, It’s now or never.

Whether it’s the acceptance of 16-hour-plus days (and “Fraturdays,” late Friday shoots that go into early Saturday hours) as normal, rolling lunches with no actual meal breaks, wages not even remotely keeping pace with inflation, the expectation anyone working from home is available 24/7 for notes and revisions, the Uberfication of mini-rooms (a small group of writers assembled before a formal series order) that exploit writers’ time and ideas, hiding residual pay in mysterious streaming data, and the complete erosion of any boundaries between work and life — we are dangerously close to the extinction of filmmaking as a sustainable career path….

Read it all at the Hollywood Reporter

LYMI,

Laughing Eagle

Why I Love Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The Incomparable Kareem (Malcolm Garret photo via pexels.com)

…I know what most people think, but, nope, it’s not Kareem’s astounding basketball career that makes me a true believer (with apologies to certain guy named Stan Lee), it’s that Kareem is as good a writer as anyone in this day and age could ever read.

Especially his non-fiction – most easily found on his substack website – which gets right to the heart of things, demonstrating a rare combination of clear thought and warm heart.

For example:

Life in the Red Zone (May 19, 2023)
by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

 Life in My Seventies, Study: Billionaires Not that Smart, Study: Loneliness as Dangerous as Smoking, NBA Social Justice Champion Finalists, Elon Gets It Wrong (Again), Joan Baez Sings, and More

I recently turned 76, and for the past six years, I’ve been living in the Red Zone. The Red Zone is when famous people keep dying at around the same age as you are. (Last month Tim Bachman, co-founder of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, died at the age of 71. So did Lasse Wellander, the longtime guitarist for ABBA. He was 70.)

The Red Zone is like the section of a car’s gas gauge just past E that, when the needle hovers over it, you’re never sure exactly how many miles you have left before the car conks out. You’re still going strong, but you’re not sure for how long.

Of course, it’s not just famous people dying, but those are the ones I read about with their 70-something ages prominently displayed like flashing warning lights directed at me.

I don’t dwell on death. I don’t fidget over impending doom. I’m not crafting pithy last words. (I might just use Oscar Wilde’s last words: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”) Quite the opposite. Like most people over sixty, I’m actually happier than when I was younger (“Older Americans upbeat about aging, future”)….

Read it all at Life in My Seventies, Study: Billionaires Not that Smart, Study: Loneliness as Dangerous as Smoking, NBA Social Justice Champion Finalists, Elon Gets It Wrong (Again), Joan Baez Sings, and More (substack.com)

LYMI,

LB

As Close as I can come to a Thought for Today

by LB

Reading and then posting last week’s “Live! From Paradise!” about the death of Rosie the Romantic young mare brought back so many strong memories and feelings that I haven’t been able to bring myself to even look at what happened (“happens?”) next in the column. And I admit that at this time I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to go back to the final 20 or so episodes.

In other words, it turns out I have more old pain to deal with than I ever suspected. My apologies to those who’ve been following the story of Gwendolyn L. Brody‘s and my Ozarks education, adventures, and misadventures. I do believe that I can safely tell you that as soon as I know I’m ready to continue the project, so will you all.

For now, I offer everyone this bit of more worldly wisdom from cartoonist John Hambrock via Comics Kingdom:

LYMI,

LB