Writer’s Guild – go back to work already!!

OK, I get it.  You want even more money than you are making now, the studio’s are screwing you out of money, yeah, yeah, I get it, welcome to the real world.

You are not only affecting yourselves. The American public is pissed off at you because there is absolutely no new material coming out of Hollywood (or New York, or wherever you write).  In the age of media, the public knows what’s going on and they will write you off, no pun intended, when you do decide to return to work.  We know you already make lots of money, you just want more because it’s fair.  Well figure that out on your own time.

Americans are fickle.  If their favorite show isn’t on or is in re-runs, they will find a new show to watch.  Otherwise, reruns wouldn’t exist.  So when you finally do return to work, we don’t care.

And what about all of the other people who lost their jobs because of you.  The production assistants, camera operators, key grip, second grip, craft services, hair dressers, wardrobe, all without jobs, without income because the writer’s guild, who by all counts makes a damn good salary, wants more money.

Well, I want more money too.  I want a job infact.  I’ve been out of work for 9 months.  I can’t call my old employer and go on strike because they are using my ideas, to this day, even though I’m not there anymore, can I…. NO I CAN’T.

Get back to work and stop whining.  Some of us are trying to figure out how to feed our families and put gas in our cars so we can bring our children to doctor’s appointments that we can’t afford.

Let is snow, let is snow, oh crap, it’s snowing again.

Blogging is really about sharing your personal opinion.  Let’s face it, not all blogs are good.  And of those that are good they are not good all the time.  You need to be persistent and original.  So I decided to just write about what I’m thinking about today.

It snowed again.  In Maine this year it has snowed in December about every other day. 

When I was growing up as a kid I loved the snow, mostly because there was no school.  As I got older I grew a bit more romantic about it.  Some of my favorite memories are when I was in a great relationship with a new guy, and for some reason it was usually in the winter.  There is something fantastically romantic about snow and love.  Sitting by a fire, sipping on cognac or champagne, just enjoying each other, saying so little yet sharing so much.

For all of those years I was in Connecticut.  From about the time I started driving I was lucky enough to have a garage.  Even when I moved out of my parents house and started renting, with few exceptions I always had a garage.  So I never cared about how much it snowed.  I didn’t have to clean off my car unless it happened to snow for a bit while I was out and about.

Now, I live in Maine.  I moved here 7 years ago and I think I have chipped the ice off my car and cleared untold inches of snow off of my car about 600 times, by my calculations, and frankly I’m getting sick of it.  I live in an apartment building now, and there is nothing like getting woken up on a Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m. by the plow guy to come and move your car (or rather dig it out of a huge snow pile) so he can finish plowing the driveway.  All you want to do is roll over and catch a few more Z’s.

So in conclusion, until I move to some new great place where I have a garage at my disposal, I officially don’t like the snow.  And if I do move to a place with a garage, I’m going to damn well make sure I have a fireplace, too.  Maybe that will help my love life.

Luckily I have my High Definiton TV with an antenna so I don’t have to pay my cable company. You can find out more at my other blog here: http://mainehdtv.blogspot.com

Jericho on CBS: it’s back and you should be watching it

I wrote a post on my other blog about “Jericho”.  A TV show on CBS that was almost cancelled but due to an outpouring of support has been brought back.  It is slated to begin on February 12, 2008.

Here’s the article:  http://mainehdtv.blogspot.com/2007/12/best-show-you-werent-watching-jericho.html

Do you have a story to tell?

This blog has always been about me and my opinions. I don’t claim to be the best writer but I would like to help those who have a story, a commentary on  life or society, that they want to tell but could use some help in writing it.  This is a fledgling idea and I will probably start a new blog expressly for this purpose, if I get enough inquiries from people who’d like some help writing their story.

Please let me know.  Just submit a comment to this article with your information and I’ll get in touch with you.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

You never know who is reading

Several months ago I told my sister Joyce about my blog.  She seemed interested and asked me for the web address. I gave it to her but didn’t think much about it. 

After experiencing some very dark times in my life, I didn’t feel much like noticing and writing about what was going on in the rest of the world.  And so I didn’t.  And I also did not realize how disconnected I felt by not getting my thoughts out into the world by writing on my blogs (I’ve go a few).

At some point later, my sister casually mentioned that she checks my blog and that I had not been writing much.  I was surprised and delighted that she noticed and that she actually really was reading my blog.

At then even later, I started writing again and she called me tonight about something else entirely (I have Bells Palsy and since I can’t talk very well, I’ve been writing more).  So she mentioned that she noticed I started writing again.

It’s good to get noticed.  I’m glad I am writing again too.

And for her I’ll dedicate this post and I will re-post the site we talked about tonight that will help you decide, maybe, who you should vote for based on the issues.  It is: http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html. 

So make sure you stop by this site and tell your kids about it too.  That’s a message not only for my sister, but for everyone who might stop by my site who needs help picking their candidate.

Christmas Eve 2007

I hope I can look back on this post in a month, or at most a year, and be thankful that as bad as things were, things change and I can persevere.

These are the darkest days of my life.  Since I started working part time at age 16 and then started my career mostly in office settings after that, I have never gone a week without a paycheck, without an income.  As a single man with no children who rents an apartments, I tried to add up all of the money I have paid in taxes, with no write-offs, over the years.  It became overwhelmingly impossible to calculate.  But I know it is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Due to circumstances this year I lost my job, collected unemployment until that ran out and now have no income.  I had to apply for general assistance from the town to help me with rent, I got food stamps, and because I have no health care, I have now applied for help with that as well.  I never expected a hand out in my whole life, but, well, there it is.  You do what you have to do to survive.  What happened to all the money I paid into the system and why isn’t it available to me now that I really need it.

Surviving.  That is all I am doing right now.  I am not living.  Christmas Eve is here and that usually brings me some sense of inner peace on a spiritual level.  I don’t care about presents.  I don’t give or receive them.  I just don’t believe in that.  Christmas, to me, is a celebration of life, and the birth of a Messiah for the Christians.  To me, if you don’t celebrate that, you have no business celebrating Christmas.  The holiday has lost so much meaning.  And today, I am too empty to accept into my heart, the spirit that Christmas usually brings to me.  I am sad and empty and I don’t feel strong enough to be around people, even the ones whom I know love me, and fake being cheerful.  I wear my heart of my sleeve, that’s just me.  So I don’t want to be around people.  They deserve to enjoy their Christmas spirit with their friends and family without someone like me around to bring them down.  My family does do presents, but luckily they don’t put too much emphasis on it anymore.  That brings me some sense of accomplishment because I have had this conversation from time to time with some of them.  And I hope that I have contributed to them re-thinking Christmas; all the presents, all the excessive amount of presents and the excessive dollars spent on them.  I hope they have started to understand that Christmas is about so much more than that.

So my Christmas wish this year is so simple.  I wish to survive it.  I know that by Wednesday, December 26, 2007, none of it will matter anymore.  Most people won’t remember what they got for gifts, or who gave it to them and in many cases the Christmas tree will be down before the day is out.  Then it’s on to New Years Eve and for me the reminder that I am alone, still, and again.

This is a maudlin, melodramatic post but I need to get my feelings out and writing seems to be the only way I can do that.  I know there are those that will understand how I feel and some will not understand what I have to say.  For those who understand, please know that you are not alone in how you feel and maybe in some way that unites us.  For those who disagree, I am truly happy that you are happy and can enjoy your Christmas times with those that you love.  I hope you feel a sense of peace and love around you.  I, too, hope to feel that way again.

They keep saying that slow Christmas sales are due to the weather

I have been watching the news lately.  Where I live, I get the news from the Portland, Maine TV market, and the Boston TV Market.

I’ve heard them say several times that because of several snow days, sales have been slower this year than normal.

Now let’s think about that.  Say you had a list of ten people to buy for and you only bought for five of them.  It’s snowing; will you actually say to yourself “Well, I guess I won’t buy anything for those other five people”.  Come on.

The reason sales are slow is because people don’t have any money.  I am unemployed and have been for eight months.  I look for and apply for jobs almost every day.  I have had one interview in all these months and I am a skilled technology worker with an extensive background.  I am not buying any presents this year at all.  My friends that have jobs and are earning an income are struggling.  They have had to cut back on what they normally would buy.  My family is big.  I have 5 brothers and sisters. All married, all working. They are struggling too.  Gas is expensive.  Food is expensive.  Raising children and preparing for college is expensive.  The doctor and the dentist are expensive.

We are the disappearing middle class.  That’s why people aren’t spending as much money on Christmas presents this year, and probably the year after that.  The economy is terrible and people are just trying to survive every day.  Why isn’t the news reporting this.  Why is everyone afraid to say that Americans are more in debt and getting poorer every day.  The middle class is becoming the working poor and god only knows what will happen to those that are already poor.  I think we need to get our heads out of the sand and admit that China and Russia are buying up America at a record pace.  America is a debtor nation and for the first time in history, the next generation will be poorer than the one before it.  I just think it’s time we tell it like it is.

I am 43 years old and have been working since I graduated high school at 17.  So for 26 years, not a week has gone buy that I did not bring home a pay check, and as a result pay taxes, until now.  For the first time in my life I had to ask for help.  The town I live in just paid my rent for the month of December and gave me a debit card which is equivalent to food stamps.  And even the local convenience stores aren’t hiring.

Let’s not blame lackluster sales for Christmas on the fact that there is snow on the ground.  Let’s un-bury our heads from that snow and really take a look around at what is really going on.  The state of the middle class is terrifying to me; it is what I am afraid of, not Osama bin Laden.

Bush thanks other countries for providing “shooters”

It is December 20 and Bush has a press conference in which he thanks the “Danes, Swedes, Australians” and others for their participation in Iraq.  He thanked them for providing (and I quote) “Shooters”.  So Bush thanked our allies for providing people that will shoot at and kill other people in Iraq.

And then, the ultimate.  He once again invokes September 11 as if Iraqis had anything to do with what happened on that horrible day.  I can not believe that after all this time he is still performing this trick and I only pray to God that people have finally figured out that invoking September 11 as a justification for the mess in Iraq is an absolute LIE.  Think back, if you can; were there any Iraqis terrorists on those planes?  Were the terroists Iraqis?  No they were not.

Even the mainstream press now admits openly that they did not ask enough questions, they did not press enough issues and statements made by the president and his staff leading up to the Iraq War.  They themselves admin that they dropped the ball, and by doing so disappointed themselves and did not serve the American public in the way that were taught in journalism 101.

Bush acts like a child scorned on the playground

Once again, Bush (I can’t even bring myself to call him president), went on TV to call other people names and make outrageous accusations.

Congress finally had the foresight to stop this administration from monitoring any and every phone call that they want to, whether or not the can prove that such a phone call has anything to do with terrorism.

Bush and his cronies have ruled the country with an iron fist, by instilling an unsubstantiated fear in the minds of the American public.

Well, Mr. Bush, we are not going to be fooled into being afraid so that we will follow you around like a puppy dog with a blank look on our face saying out loud and under our breath “War on Terror, War on Terror, War on Terror”.  We are not the republican equivalent of the Stepford Wives or the Fembots.  We have our own minds and can make our own decisions, and have our own opinions. We don’t need you to make decisions for us as to what we should or should not be afraid of.

It is interesting that Bush blames congress for not passing any legislation that he wants; he blames the “majority democrats” for everything that in his eyes, is wrong with the world.  But he and everybody else knows that the Democrats have a very small majority in Congress and it is not enough of a majority to force legislation to pass, through an override of vetoes that the president himself has imposed.   Congress needs a certain percentage to override a presidential veto and Bush knows that the Democrats, even in their small majority, can never get enough votes to override him.   Well, he can’t have it both ways.

So he goes on TV and does the equivalent of calling people names, taking his ball and going home, crying because he gets picked last for the dodge ball team, and all under the guise of a political speech.

Bush is scrambling in the late hours of his presidential life, to come up with something that he can claim is his legacy so that history won’t treat him badly.  When we look back on this time thirty years from know.  He will be nothing but a blip on our radar, hopefully.  The only other option is that his legacy will be one that changed the world permanently in such a way that made the rest of the world had America and turn against us.  It will be his fault.  Because he is basically a child.  He acts like a four year old, has the vocabulary of a four year old.  If I didn’t know any better I would think Peter Griffin from family guy is running the country.  Have you seen the episode about “Petoria”?

I am so glad I don’t have children because I could never explain him to them.

It’s painful to watch Regis and Kelly bomb every day.

I don’t know if Regis and Kelly simply lost their chemistry or what, but it is honestly embarrassing to watch Regis and Kelly try each morning to make their show interesting and somewhat comical, let alone actually funny.  I remember back in the day (not that I watched it all the time but I did catch it when I was home sick or whatever) when it was Regis and Kathy Lee Gifford.  Now THEY were annoying, but there were times when they were funny.  Same thing with Regis and Kelly.  I though their chemistry was great at first and they played off of each other well, generating some comical moments, making the show somewhat entertaining.

But now, even THEY know their show is bombing.  They know it is a bore, a snore, not funny, and the audiences just aren’t responding to Regis’s constant whining and complaining anymore.  It’s just not funny.  You can see Kelly try and try to get some momentum going every day, but the terror on her face as the show bombs during the chit-chat portion of the show everyday, is heart breaking.  As for general audience appeal, Kelly’s the one who’s got it.  She’s smart, and genuinely funny.  She has great comic timing.  But when working with someone who is turning into a has-been who can’t remember his guests names, or the movies or TV shows they have been in or are in, it must get tiring for her.

I think it’s time to close the show, it’s time time go.  Close the curtain.