In the Muck with the Muckety-Mucks
sadness, elite & otherwise, in strike times
A finale prediction: Kendall dies.
Content Comrades,
I'll assume you didn't listen to Deadline's most recent Strike Talk Podcast hosted by cusp-boomers Todd Garner (producer: Paul Blart) and Billy Ray (writer: The Comey Rule). The fellas are of course pro-WGA... but in a way that was already feeling to me like bloated liberal self-congratulation...
So you could feel it coming: the inevitable hypocrisy. In a halting cadence, Todd Garner announced he was prepping a movie -- yes, on his podcast about the strike. It's the new Mortal Kombat. He said he felt conflicted, sick over it. He'd be sued if he didn't work. But if the strike lasted till he started production, he'd step off the podcast. I was already excited to tell you about this specimen windbag...
Then Todd started crying. Grown man tears. He cut off his co-host: He didn't know what to do. I believed him.
For me, this was the week when the strike started to feel grim. The first couple weeks, the writers I know were eagerly picketing, and, in some cases, eagerly spec'ing too, often with a verve that felt denialist. We’re pushing through!
There is no more denial. Now there is only the bummer. The not knowing when this will end & what will be on the other side. And while I’m not on strike, I take my cues from writers, because my career is so entirely dependent on them. Anecdotally, the picketing seems to have slowed, along with the hush-hush spec’ing. Fairly established writers are digging back into old side hustles for cash, or, seemingly all of a sudden, going through gnarly shit with loved ones. The wealthy are insulated but adrift. Across the class divide, sleep is disturbed, and sports injuries are reappearing. The body knows.
So we're experiencing another life-flipping rupture, with full awareness of what it can do to us psychologically, having finally processed the pandemic. It's a waking anxiety dream.
I listened to the Deadline podcast because the headline promised talk of a resolution. There wasn’t much. I still haven't seen a proposal anywhere on residuals or AI.
I don’t know if your week felt tough too. If it did, I’m sorry. I do know, for certain, that my future weeks — and yours — won’t all feel like this. We will find temporary stability & small pleasures.
And while we’re in it? I am especially around to correspond.
<33333 & Hollywood Forever Y'all,
Max
P.S. A friend & loyal Hollywood Forever reader like you had this to say of Kendall's speech at the funeral: "It was perfect. He never could've said it. But it was God's words." Amen.