TimeWaster

Commercials I Do Not Get, part 2

There's a car insurance ad that's all about how quick and easy they are to deal with in case there's an accident. You know the one - it starts off with a woman walking into the insurance place holding her kid. She whispers to the guy working there "I backed into a pole and she didn't wake up".

Now, is it just me or does this sound like the kid has suffered a major concussion? The child is unconscious the entire ad. She never wakes up! This kid is in serious trouble!!!

The Writers Are the Real Heroes

Scared yet, AMPTP?

The Guiltiest of Guilty Pleasures

I can't get enough of the TMZ show. Not a huge fan of the website, but there's something about the superbly cheesy Harvey Levin and his crew of scruffy miscreants that I can't get enough of.

I think it's the whole clubhouse, "let's put on a show" vibe of the crew just hangin' out in the bullpen that structures the show. And that bullpen! It's so high-tech, with the clear dry erase board and Harvey Levin's jet black water bottles. What is he drinking!?!

And I'll never tire of Harvey Levin's exasperated hang-dog look everytime he hears another totally outrageous and in-your-face story from one of his boy-toy reporters. Harvey, celebrities are fucked up - accept it. You're making a whole career on this - why is it so surprising to you that starlets are drinking, smoking, and not wearing underpants?

Another thing I like about the show are the really weak below-the-belt shots they take at celebrities. Like when they show Alanis Morrisette, happily obliging throngs of autograph seekers on the streets of New York and looking better than she's ever looked.

And yet the TMZ narration is "Alanis' look is hot. Too bad her CAREER'S not!" Is there any call for this? I don't know Alanis at all, but that seemed kind of harsh. Like if she's rude to people, they'll kill her for being a jerk. But then she's nice to people, and they kill her because her "career" is not hot. At this particular moment. So unnecessary.

I hate snark and the paparazzi, but I can not get enough.

Strike Three!

Just an observation about the WGA strike.

It's generally noted that writers are "nerdy" or "geeky" or whatever. It's a stigma I can live with. Hell, if you've seen my collection of Japanese Kubrick Star Wars figures they know I don't have much of a leg to stand on when I try to say I'm not a geek.

With that said, I just have one question to ask:

Who in their right mind thought we should all wear RED SHIRTS? For those that don't watch Star Trek or speak geek, a red shirt is synonymous with EXPENDABLE.

Sometimes I think everyone everywhere needs to hire me as a consultant just for little things like this.

Strike Two!

I don't want this to be a "here's everything that's happening in the world of the WGA strike, but I was encouraged by someone to pass along this story.

Today I was picketing at the CBS Radford studios. And as I was marching in a circle holding my "On Strike!" picket sign, who was marching a couple people behind me?

None other than acting great Gabrielle Carteris!

It took every ounce of my moral fiber not to start chanting "DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES!" I mean, on one hand, how many times in my life am I going to get that opportunity? On the other hand, I did not want to look like a total idiot.

Strike One!

Today's the official start of the Writer's Guild strike. And yes, I was out there on the picket lines all morning marching around with my "On Strike" sign and generally feeling like a total moron.

Here's what happened - I showed up at NBC around 9am, signed in, was given a sign, and then told to march around gate 7. I got to my gate where there was a group of about 10 others with signs. Not to sound elitist, but out of the 10, I seriously felt like 9 of them were homeless people payed $20 by the WGA to hold signs and pretend they're on strike, just to make it look like we had greater numbers.

This was going to be a long day with this group. One woman kept recieving "updates" on her cell phone about the strike. And every time she'd check her messages, I'd stop and say something like "What's the word?" or "Any word?" or something along those lines that generally would not elicit the response "You just go back to the picketing. I'll tell you if it's anything." Gee, thanks you miserable old hag.

So I lasted about an hour with them and seriously thought about ditching. I opted for a bathroom break instead, and that's when I found the main gate at NBC. That's right, the MAIN GATE.

They're not assigning crabby old weirdos to the main gate. This is where they're sending the good looking, attractive and funny writers from shows like "Ellen" and "The Tonight Show" to hang out. In fact, when I walked up to the main gate, I was immediately handed cookies, bottles of water, Halloween candy, and hand jobs. Okay, no Halloween candy, but the vibe was definitely much much much different.

Topping it off, standing right out of the main gate was none other than Jay Leno, of "Jay Leno" fame handing out donuts and showing off his Harley.

Jay did give me a donut, and I'm pretty sure that someone from some news organization took my picture as soon as I grabbed it. Great. That's just what I need floating around out there - pictures of me stuffing my face with donuts.

After about 20 minutes there, the crabby phone lady and another person from my first gate wandered by to use the bathroom. They saw me, and yelled "Oh look, he's ditching us for the cool crowd!" Yikes.

Keep in mind, if you EVER yell at someone for "ditching you for the cool crowd", you deserve to be ditched.

A little while later I realized my car was parked in a 2 hour zone and I had to move it. The bad news about parking in a 2 hour zone and having to move your car in the middle of a packed area - there's nowhere else to park. So I ended cruising around and over to Disney.

Now, even though the main gate at NBC was 1000 times better than what I'm referring to "Crack Gate", the people were a little stand-offish. I think that's because they all knew each other and didn't care too much about some dude they never met before who's eating all of their donuts.

But then I got to Disney. I don't think it's possible for anyone to be miserable and nasty if you're marching around in front of the Seven Dwarves all morning. There is a certain Disney magic, and even if you're on strike, it's still gonna rub off on you.

As I made my way over, who was the first person to greet me? Why, none other than Damon Lindelof.

Yep, the man behind "Lost". If you're not a writer, or you hate Lost, then you probably don't care about that too much. But I like the show a lot, and thought that was a pretty good start to my third picket line in under 2 hours.

As Damon walked off to be interviewed by the perpetually hung-over Doug Kriegel from Channel 4 news, I met Tom Schulman. He's on the WGA board of directors, but more importantly he wrote "Dead Poets Society" and "Honey I Shrunk The Kids". Very nice guy and gave me some interesting insider-info on the proceedings.

As Tom (btw, I feel confident I'm on a first name basis with these guys now), left to field calls from the WGA lawyers, I then met pretty much the entire writing staff of a show called "Eli Stone." I'm not sure what was more difficult for me - marching around for 4 hours, or pretending I a) knew what Eli Stone is, and b) was going to watch it when it airs. If it hasn't already started airing.

Once I took my place in line at Disney, I started to feel like maybe I was actually starting to have fun. Of course, that feeling passed in like 2 minutes.

Now I'm home, I'm tired, and I still have a million things to do. But all in all, a good way to start off the strike.

Just don't expect to see me out there again tomorrow.