AMERICAN IDOL: Is in the batter's box. And for those who read my blog exclusively for the American Idol recaps each week during the long, cheesy seasons, I thank you. It is for this reason I'm now a full-time writer over at spunkybean. My first of 127 articles appears, today! I hope you read it. I hope you forward it to your friends. I hope you check back every week. I hope you add it to your RSS readers. I hope the addition of musical instruments doesn't completely ruin this show.
PIMPING: Vox Acerbus. Before I go any further, let me redirect you to Vox Acerbus. Do you loathe the U-scans as much as I do? You're not alone. When I see someone making great sense, I feel compelled to point it out.
ASKING: How are Stewart, Colbert, Letterman, O'Brien, and Leno helping the writer's cause? I realize each host dedicates an ample amount of time pledging support to the writers and their cause, and I understand there are camera men, directors, and producers whom these men all feel a certain amount of loyalty to and by coming back to work, the "talent" has ensured the staff all get paychecks and can pay for Christmas. I get that. But as entertaining as Conan and Colbert were, I'm not certain this is helping.
Plus, as I understand, many of the big shows are negotiating their own side deals which undermines the efforts of the Union.
Stewart did have the best "a-ha" moment (for me, anyway). He boldly (and sarcastically) showed a screen-cap of his show on iTunes and its $1.99 price tag. Huh? He explained that it was a shipping & handling charge. He pleaded with the public to understand it was the bare minimum required to deliver such convenience to us, the viewer. But of course it was the best point any one of the late-nighters has made ...why the $1.99? I have no problem with networks charging it ...the world is supply & demand. But the writers should have their hand in their two and get a few sheckles.
UPDATING: My new coffee grinder is quite nice. My morning coffee is simply wonderful.
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9 years ago
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2 comments:
So hopeful today!
And I echo your sentiments...I'm not sure how they are helping "the cause" and I hope we get some answers soon. I did love Jon's solidarity unibrow, though.
The problem is, our boys have more than one cause to worry about. The fact is, the cameramen and graphics guys who make much less money than the writers are losing their jobs. I know that's been a concern for a lot of the hosts.
I tend to think, and this is probably blowing the conclusion of my spunkybean piece, the majority of Americans are not thinking about this as much as we are. With the usual slowdown of new episodes around the holidays, the mini-finales built into several shows (Heroes and Chuck come to mind.), and the mid-season shows that were held over, most people are probably only mildly aware of the strike and how it will affect them. And then when you consider that it sounds completely frivolous to some people (Does a guy who pours tar for a living care if writers get 2 1/2% residuals on Internet content? He's probably more worried about paying the electric bill.), I think the prevailing sentiment in America is that the writers should shut the hell up and get back to work. As it stands now, you've got Dave, Conan, Jon, and Stephen on the air every night, talking about the strike. People are getting information that they weren't getting before. And maybe that doesn't help the cause, but I would argue that having the majority of TV viewers believing that the writers are overpaid little snots definitely hurts the cause. And the way it's being portrayed by our guys, the networks and producers come off looking petty and selfish, and are definitely the bad guys here.
Sure, if everybody were like us, the hosts should still be out there on the picket line. Sadly, not everbody is like us, and I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of people who got more information from Letterman this week than from any other source in the previous eight weeks.
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