December 13, 2007

I am so angry at the AMPTP, Nick Counter, and what this could mean for the future of the media industry if they defeat the writers. They're clearly negotiating in bad faith, and if they win it could mean a huge loss for the country and the world --- I really believe this is far more significant than it may at first appear. It's also just inexplicably bad PR for the corporations that control the media --- it shows a huge schism between the producers and creative people which I think will have negative repercussions for years, if the producers win this. I had no idea they were this soulless and greedy (sure, soulless and greedy --- but so much so that they're willing to kill the golden goose, the creative people?) --- I'd always thought they had some pragmatic commitment to working with creative people to get their product out --- but their tactics in this dispute have been below reprehensible. It's laid bare for everyone to see. This industry produces nearly all of the commercial cultural output of the United States --- and it is crucial that the writers retain power in this. The corporations have to see that they are meant to be tools of the creative process, not the other way around --- if they don't see this, then they should be replaced, pure and simple. This is a fight for the soul of our national culture.

Joss Whedon puts it very well:

IGN TV: What do you think it will take to get things to change and to come to an agreement?

Whedon: We have to break them. These are multi-billionaires who could give a rat's ass about any of the issues they're actually talking about except for one --- If they can break this union, then they can break them all. If they can do that, then they can control everything. They already, thanks to the [repeal of] Fin-syn laws and all of the sort of vertical integration, control almost everything. They're very close. They have basically one last thing to figure out how to own and rule in and we're it. And it's simply not going to happen. The only way we can break them is just by stopping. By being out here instead of in there. And we'll do it. We'll do it for a year. We'll do it forever. We'll do it until somebody else steps up and says "Hey, we'll run a business a different way." We'll work for those people instead. What you're going to find in Hollywood is maybe a lot fewer millionaires, but a lot more working people with steady jobs, because these guys can not crush us. It will not happen.

December 6, 2007

When we're confronted with our real life, it is sometimes frightening, it seems destabilizing. I think we want life to fit into a certain pattern, a certain way it is supposed to be, but the future pulls on us when it is real --- it draws us towards it --- in ways that confound our expectation, quite often. It can feel safe to hide from our lives; but that can't ever really be satisfying. Real life doesn't often make a lot sense when you truly live it --- things happen in reverse order, they can't be planned, they fall outside of any coherent and straightforward narrative. It makes more sense looking backwards than forwards. Time always flows backwards, a little, when things are going well --- but that can be scary, because it is filled with unexpected foreshadowings of an unfamiliar, yet somehow fulfilling, future. So we want to hide. But you can't hide forever, or you will literally lose your life.

I'm buying a new loft and preparing to move... it's fun and exciting to think about entering a new space, with what seems like huge possibilities, at least for now.
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