Strike Days: It Ain't Over Until...

As this week's negotiations between the AMPTP and the Writers Guild continue, to little apparent effect but much maundering from the press and public who have been left in the dark by the news blackout, I visited an outpost of the struggle.

Barker Hanger at Santa Monica Airport (the very facility whose neighbors are up in arms over the ever-increasing amount of corporate jets carrying, among others, some of the company honchos now weathering the strike) is perhaps best known as the site of the annual Barney's sale. (Watch beautiful rich people shucking their clothes on the cement floor to try marked-down to $600 Zegna and Prada stuff right off the racks!). The outsize building also hosts award shows and occasional television and film shoots. (I recall watching the amazing bowling dream sequence from The Big Lebowski being filmed there).

In an orderly if not so populous picket line just east of the building, about twenty stalwarts marched and chanted in a ragged oval. (As many as fifty had been there earlier) I found strike Captain Bill Prady, co-creator of The Big Bang Theory (the CBS sitcom about two math nerds and their hot female neighbor), he's seen his show mentioned in the New York Times in the same ("The nerd is the hero") breath as Chuck--the show he and his cohort happened to be picketing. Chuck's last airing under the strike-affected schedule is this coming Monday, but more shows are being readied for the later broadcast. The small band of pickets were making sufficient noise that a production staffer clad all in black came out for a not-unfriendly discussion with the guild group.

After a brief conversation with the screenwriter (his prison drama Kite, written with Michael Lander, is set up with Leo DiCaprio at Warner Bros. Pictures) Ryan Roy, the man left to no discernible quieting of the chants and bullhorns. The noise level dropped precipitously, however, as two LAPD motorcycle cops turned into the parking lot. They stopped for a moment, grinned in seeming equanimity, and rode on through a gate. ("Were those location cops or real cops?" asked one striker.)

Prady noted that "The huge qualitative difference between this and the `88 strike is the solidarity of the show runners. I've been in that room full of show runners and and you can feel the unanimity over our tactics--to stand our ground. In `88, as I understand it, the show runners were largely excluded from the negotiating process by the guild. Now we've got heavyweights like Marc Cherry and Shawn Ryan in on the negotiations."

Roy, smoking a cigarette hungrily and perhaps stimulated by the previous visitors, expressed the same determination. "We have people getting up at 4, 4:30, to be here by 6 a.m.--people with wives, and kids and dogs. We had people up in Vasquez Valley this week, hiking in a half hour to picket a Star Trek set."

Asked about rumors of various tweaks in the AMPTP's proffer, he gave a dismissive wave. "Rumors are the death of facts. Just that they're back at the table is in and of itself healthy. And so is the news blackout."

With that he returned to his red-shirted group on the picket line, and the strike continued with no obvious progress towards a resolution.

(Bill Prady at Barker Hangar)