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It’s been over 3 weeks since my union went on strike. I have been walking the picket lines each day outside the very studios that in the past have paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars for my services. It’s going to be a long strike I can tell as the suits have enough scripts and re-runs to keep them busy for a while. If there’s one thing I don’t like about the strike, it’s the fact that our picket lines stop at 6:00pm sharp. Imagine you’re walking in front of Sony studios chanting “Here we are at your gate, Spiderman 4 will have to wait!” and then suddenly everyone packs up their signs and splits? “Hell no we won’t go! – wait, six-o’clock? Dinner time! – see ya!” Is that really going to be effective? I don’t think so – that’s why I and a few other screenwriters have taken things into “our own hands”…
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Hollywood is a tricky town – everyday thousands of idiots from all over America make their way to Los Angeles chasing some crazy dream that they think somehow will land them in the spotlight on the road to fame and fortune. Most of these clowns think they’ll make their “big break” as writers – trust me, it’s a rough road and those screenwriters who have the skills to make it in Hollywood – like me – are one in a million. However, with the current writer’s strike, the studios are lowering their “standards” for what they deem an “acceptable” screenplay. In short, they are now actively pursuing and buying scripts from poorly-skilled, first-time, non-union writers. Not only is this bad for the industry as a hole, it gives the studio new material that will help prolong the strike. At the end of the day these scab writers are taking food off my table. That shit isn’t gonna happen on my watch…
Starting last week, I and 4 other prominent young writers have been making our way from Santa Monica to Silver Lake, visiting ever coffee shop and hipster hangout trying to locate anyone that is working on a screenplay on their laptop. Since there is a strict “pencil’s down” clause during this strike, no one – and I mean NO ONE, should be working on a screenplay. If myself or any of my team locates someone who is working on a screenplay we give then a few options. A) They can delete the files on the spot in front of us and removes any and all screenwriting software from their machines, or; B) They can hand over their laptop to one of us to “hold” until the end of the strike – we take down their names, address, social security numbers and other relevant contact information and add that to our database. So far we have confiscated 87 laptops and witnessed about 250 people who have “voluntarily” deleted their screenplay files in our presence. However, it does always go so smoothly…
On Friday I observed a young man sitting alone typing away on his laptop inside the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on the Sunset Strip. I slowly inched my way behind him until I could see his monitor screen. I saw the formatting of a standard screenplay on his monitor and sat down next to him. “What are you working on,” I asked. He looked annoyed and then offered, “I’m writing a screenplay.” I acted all impressed – “A screenplay, what’s it about?” He then let his guard down and started to pitch me his screenplay. He went on for like 10 minutes telling the story – a giant UFO has been frozen in an iceberg at the North Pole for hundreds of years and now that global warming was happening the iceberg is slowly melting making access to the UFO possible. There are two teams racing to reach the UFO first: one is a team of Military experts who want to utilize the ship’s design and defense mechanisms to help them build fighting aircraft for future wars – the second team is a group of elite scientist who want to use the ship’s power source and cold-fusion fuel sources to help save the planet from extinction. And then there’s a “third team” – a young boy who is a computer whiz and his dog who are just there playing around on the glacier after cutting school the day he learned his parents were getting divorced. It wasn’t that bad of a pitch. He even had casting suggestions and drawings of the ship, etc. That’s when I asked him a simple question…
“Are you aware that there is a Writer’s strike going on right now,” I informed him. He just laughed and said, “Yeah, I heard about that, but I don’t care – I’m from Canada.” I wasn’t sure how being from Canada had anything to do with the strike, but my blood was beginning to boil. “I’m going to have to ask you to either delete your screenplay files right now or hand me your laptop so that I can hold onto it until the strike is over,” I told him. He looked me straight in the eye and said “Fuck you buddy. You don’t scare me, eh.” I stood up and reached for his laptop. But he was fast and strong. He slapped my hand away and stood up and quickly punched my in center of my chest – not only knocking the wind out of me, but also sending me backwards over the railing. I landed on wooden table that shattered on impact. As I lay there in pain on the floor of the coffee shop, I watched the Canadian screenwriter gather up his stuff and make his way towards the register. He wasn’t going to leave with that laptop was my only thought. I dragged my way to behind the counter to where there make the drinks and pulled myself up with one hand while I gathered my thoughts. The Canadian guy was asking for directions to the Viper Room when I made my move. I saw a pot of boiling water and grabbed it before spinning my body over the counter. As the Canadian guy walked away, I shouted: “Hey, Geddy Lee, you forgot something!” When he turned to look I smashed the glass pot of boiling water into his forehead. He dropped his laptop and started screaming like a girl as his face burned in a shower of broken glass. I quickly grabbed his laptop, took two steps back and they charged at him – side-kicking him thru the plate glass window out onto the sidewalk on Sunset. Laptop in hand, I took off down the street and sped away in my car, my heart racing the whole way up to Mulholland Drive…
I called my other screenwriting friend and told him what had happened. He passed by the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf a half hour later. It turns out that the Canadian guy was in the country illegally and had all sorts of warrants for his arrest. He tried to flee the scene before cops and paramedics cornered him in the parking lot of Mel’s and arrested him. My source at LAPD tells me the guy is being deported this week after release from the county medical center. It seems that the guy was creepy and had been hanging around the coffee shop for weeks – they were glad to see him go and made no effort to press charges against me. In short, I removed another “scab writer” from Hollywood and at the same time took another potential script out of circulation. Oh did I mention I got me a new laptop! LOL!
Brett
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