Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Worst Job in the World

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," swimming in Jello since 2004!
I wonder if it's really possible to swim in Jello. Tell you what. I'm not going to be the test dummy for that experiment.

Just now I read on the Internet that the Los Angeles studios have cancelled their writers' contracts. There's a strike going on, and the studios now have no new t.v. shows to sling at the couch potatoes. Except, of course, the reality t.v. garbage, which any good couch potato ought to love in and of itself.

Readers, the producers of your favorite t.v. dramas are trying to bust a strike. They're saying to themselves, "Heck. We don't need the writers we have, those stinking strikers who want a share of video/online profits. We can just go out on the sidewalk and pluck new writers out of the unemployment lines."

Sadly it's true. The writing field is saturated with creative people who can't get a break in the business. I'm not talking now about all you lucky stiffs who know how to write medical journals and software pamphlets and "how to" manuals for putting together the new gas grill. I'm talking about people who write novels, poetry, television shows, plays, song lyrics, screenplays. That kind of stuff.

Gosh, if Ronald Reagan could crush the air traffic controllers' union, smashing the t.v. and film writers' union ought to be a snapperooni. Our nation's producers of television and film are banking on it. How hard can it be, with potential scabs on every street corner?

It doesn't help when so-called lefties like Bill Maher decry the strike as "the wrong thing at the wrong time" and go right on with their shows.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you creative writing. The WORST JOB IN THE WORLD.


See this dude? He's a honeydipper. Sucking nasty stuff from the sewer. Guess what? His job looks pretty good to me. And safe, too. You're not going to find thousands of people straining at the bit to scab him. Frankly I wish I had his skills and know-how, so I could step in and dip honey.

Still I wouldn't scab him, or shaft him, or cross his picket line.

The moral of this sermon: Support the striking t.v. and film writers! Turn off that tube and take up a nice wholesome hobby. Instead of watching Desperate Housewives, why don't you be a desperate housewife and seduce your best friend's husband? Then you can write your own dialogue and not even be a scab.

As usual, asking no compensation for such sound advice.

5 comments:

yellowdoggranny said...

yeah, i quit watching ellen degeneres show because she is going on with out the writers..letterman made a deal with his writers as he owns his show and the one that follows it..but leno and the rest are fucking scabs...but I don't like leno anyhow...so i will turn off my tv before I will go against the writers..they deserve everything they are asking for..
i live in an retirement apt.complex..there are 6 men that I know of....none of them over the age of 65...and all of them are cripled up old farts..I think I would rather seduce the mail man...or th ups driver..now he's cute..plumber was over today and he's older than me and so skinny he has to carry rocks in his pocket to keep from being blown away..
i could write it as science fiction where at midnight all the old people turn into young vampires....ewww, that's too close to the truth..

Josh said...

I always thought the worst job in the world would be... being toilet paper.

Hecate said...

Hey, next year when you've had your hip surgery you'll have to come to DC and go to the Feast of the Red Dragon w/ me. I never watch tv, anyway, but if I did, I'd quit. My daddy'd forgive anything but crossing a picket line.

Tennessee Jed said...

It is a darn shame people who work and do the real chores that haul a nation never get anything above just getting by.

Rosie said...

Yeah, I'm pretty much there...it's the worst job in the world. Just when I thought I had my confidence barricaded, BAM...I'm second guessing my writing so the lit-rary editors will like it.

I just hope they can get the strike settled soon--the big writers aren't suffering that much, but I imagine there is some serious hash-slinging and general hospitality job searching among the up and comers. They get a raw deal these days--screenwriters don't get the recognition they used to get. I worked on a Pinter film once--but unless you work abroad, screenwriting doesn't attract the big names it used to.