ReRunning Entertainment

Reader, my Reader,

So, even though politics season is in full swing, I feel it is important to remember what the politics are all about, so I have decided to dedicate one webisode of the blog per week to why we fight these political battles. And, so you ask, why am I so interested in the politics of the day? Because U.S. politics is about choice. And to me, choice means television. And television has basically been shut off, so I am left grasping at American Gladiators, which is still pretty entertaining, a few special moments on various other television programs, and an overrated 2007 film Ratatouille (which I on-demanded) about a rat that wants to be a chef. If I was a kid, I might have liked this animated film, and if I were a chef, I might’ve enjoyed the passion for the artistry, but overall the journey was not very funny, and the messages were not strongly conveyed, and I did not identify with Patton Oswalt's character. Overall, it was a pretty bland piece of cinematic garbage. It wasn’t bad garbage, but it was disappointing, which brings me back to my original point, which was… I am furious at those dang TV writers.

I don’t really care whether the writers deserve the extra $50 bucks from Internet revenue or the health insurance benefits for their cats, or anything else, but, they should go back to work. If you think about it, a strike itself is pretty much a selfish endeavor. Of course, there are many people who are extremely deserving of more money, improved working conditions, and better amenities, and if they are living a destitute life because the owners or managers are being tremendously unfair, then I can totally understand and respect the right of the workers to strike. Additionally, if someone is dramatically underpaid, such as a group of people who earn minimum wage when they are the driving irreplaceable force behind a successful company or industry. But the writers, like the New York City transit workers, and somewhat like the athletes who strike from time to time are paid sufficiently (handsomely? probably not) for their efforts, and they are upset that they are not being paid the proper value (which they define differently than market price) for their efforts.

The problem with the strike (or a lockout from the manager's perspective) for attaining the desired goals is that it hurts people other than the intended, the owners. Usually, these bystanders can less afford to be hurt then the owners. How am I supposed to have sympathy for writers when they are starving out the set designers?

Writers, in particular, are an unsympathetic group (like in the case of baseball players), because they have a job that nearly hundreds of people dream of. And, it is hard to believe that many people with the same or almost the same amount of talent (unlike baseball players) would not do the job for less money. Of course, there is a calculation that would derive sympathy from even the harsher strike critics, by which if people in a profession are grossly underpaid, woefully undervalued, or in dire poverty, it would thereby be acceptable to harm the other innocents that are depending on the continued regular creation of the product. If the issue is being slightly underpaid or slightly overpaid, then it strikes me as an overreaction and selfish to walk out and leave an entire industry destitute. Mainly, they are not thinking about people like me.

People like me: Non-writers, sure they are hurting the prop guys and the cameramen, and the caterers, and the… I could go on if I knew anything about TV other than the TV Set. I’m not sure if they have the support of those unions, but really who cares if unions support each other, they are helping other unions when they demonstrate the power of unions, they are harming the people in those craft unions. And what if they don’t get the raises or whatever demands they sought, then that union, and all unions lose out, and the individual writers lose out on close to a year’s salary, and the individual non-writer’s lose out on a year’s salary. Try telling that to the camera guy’s kids.

But, most importantly, they are harming me. What about all the people like me out there, for example, me, who have had to suffer at the hands of the tyrannical writer’s union with Tina Fey and her lot of critical essayists ridiculing the entertainment system that we all know and love. What about all of the entertainment I have missed out on? Sure, I take solace in the fact that for every episode of The Office that is being cut from the season, an episode of Two and a Half Men is mercifully being cut as well. But, what about all of that reality TV I am being left with? What am I supposed to do with that? I'm not going to watch it, if that's what you're thinking. So, we need some creative solutions.

How about this? Would anybody even notice if they replayed Friends over with the same dialogue, but changing the the actors and the names of the characters. I wouldn’t. It was a pretty solid show, and good for a laugh with a little emotional attachment to the characters, adequately performed by all the parties involved. But, it was a generic show filled with interchangeable or fungible (a fancy way of saying interchangeable) parts. That having been said, I don’t object to rerecording the whole show. So, someone out there, retool Friends with the high concept of Friends meets Friends, set on the other side of Central Park at a coffeehouse called Central Pork, and hopefully, NBC will replay it. If they outsourced the whole thing to India or Mexico, they can even do it on the cheap and hire "Steven Spielbergo", (the director's Mexican equivalent- a Simpson's reference) to direct. Jack Black and Mos Def are coming out with a similar movie about reshooting all of the major movies of the last several years. Movies are slightly different, because TV shows run out of plot lines, and they are encouraged to use all of the same material that worked the first time.

Well, there you go, so something should be done about the strikes, and to prevent such strikes in general. For example, if unions could work together and strike together, then corporations should be able to strike together because the balance has shifted in another direction. But, rather than resort to multi-lateral negotiations, allowing the corporations to unionize, which would otherwise be referred to as collusion and lead to anti-trust lawsuits, there should be a strike czar. Some professions are not permitted to strike because of safety issues or because of their relative importance to society. For example, police officers or firefighters are not permitted to strike, or air traffic controllers are not permitted to strike because without them, planes would not be able to land (which means that they would not take off, rather than they would fly around forever... or until they ran out of gas and crashed).

So, a strike czar would be in charge of determining whether a certain group of people (or profession) could strike or whether they are not permitted to strike. The job would entail determining whether to assign mandatory arbitration. Then, if arbitration would be assigned, the arbitrators would look to the affordability to the investor/owner/manager/producer and merit of the workers along with all other relevant information. But, the arbitration would not be binding because you cannot force someone to work (See slavery) or a company to maintain its employees (See unemployment); it would mainly be used to decide who should rightly be villified in the court of public opinion. Right now, we are a divided nation, between the red television watchers and the blue television watchers, who respectively believe that the writers should go back to work and stop demanding anything from their employers and the blue TV watchers that believe that the owners are being greedy and hoarding profits. A neutral arbitration would allow us all to hate on one side. It wouldn’t be binding because people can always decide not to work by refusing to work/quitting (which would lead to firings) and/ or refusing to pay/firings (which would lead quitting and lawsuits.)

Moreover, this job, and this level of leadership could not be controlled by the special interest groups because then money would win out and the forces of establishment and the status quo would reign for a seeming eternity (and people would not have a say). It could not be allowed to remain unchecked by the passions of the people because then it would heavily favor the majority of the people, the poorer and more disparaged of the two sides, and it would run the business out of business. So, this kaiser should split the reason and the passion and just operate based on cat-like instincts.

Now, I would like to throw my hat in the ring for a job like this because I have cat-like instincts when it comes to matters of strikes. I knew instantly that the Anthracite Coal Mining Strike of 1902 was a necessary strike and those coal miners deserved some better treatment. Likewise, I can determine when the Boston Police Department needs a raise and are denied the raise, they cannot go on strike because I would rather have unhappy police officers than none (though barely, and I would not want them to be unhappy with me, so my mind can be changed).

Should it be an appointed position? No, because there is too much political posturing and gamesmanship about someone with this much influence. Should it be an elected official? No, because then we have the passions of the people swaying these mostly logical debates. Should it be a write-in or video-contest ala American Idol? No, because who would judge that process. Thus, there are few alternatives other than the logical solution: the position should be seized. And to avoid the temporary persuasion of the people or the long term convincing of the moneyed interests, it should be a lifelong position... preferably passed onto the next generation, so that there are no issue of succession. Lest a person not leave an heir to be strike czar, then succession should be determined by sheer will. The position is titled after a monarchist governmental system anyway, so why not go all the way?

Now, I would like to throw my hat in the ring and then to seize all the other hats to grab hold of this position. But, all of those coal miner strikes could be depressing, so since I am in charge, I leave out those types of strikes from my jurisdictional authority, and in Marbury v. Madison fashion, I decide the extent of my own power, and decree that I only have the authority to decide on strikes in entertaining disputes because that’s all the American people or me care about.

Okay, so, this is all a pipe dream, but can you blame me? My mind is racing from a lack of new television during TV season and it is in my nature to dream and I want to put a stop to it. Instead, because of all of this political excitement, my mind is centered on power, and why don’t the politicians come down hard on the TV issue or the athlete steroids issue. Sure, they are irrelevant to governing, but goshdarnit, someone’s got to talk about these issues. They will not be ignored anymore.

So, I am not the strike czar and TV is still just a fantasy at this point. But, there are certain things we can do to keep occupied during these trying times. We could obviously watch reruns because the difference between that and new shows is generally marginal (discussed at moderate length above) (and watching ReRun dance keeps me entertained for minutes at a time). We could follow different forms of entertainment, like catch up on movies, even though, it’s not really movie season anymore. We could follow art or music, but those don’t combine audiovisual components to my liking. Nor does theater because the set designs are so limited and it lacks the fourth wall that protects me from the dangers posed by actors. Actors have killed before, (See John Wilkes Booth,) and they may kill again (see O.J. Simpson) and they would likely go after the future strike czar.

We could watch sports, football is in the playoffs, and is pretty exciting. Next weekend’s likely Brady-Manning match-up should be a heck of a game. If either of them loses this week, the other really should win the whole darned thing. Jacksonville and San Diego are in my opinion the 3rd and 4th best teams in football, both with explosive offenses and defenses, but not on the same level of the two juggernauts. Dallas and Green Bay are also on that second tier as 5th and 6th best teams. While the Giants and Seattle are much too inconsistent to be considered seriously as title contenders, having to win three games in a row against top tier teams. Basketball is exciting this year with several legitimate contenders against the Spurs, who were last year’s only complete team, and all the legitimate legendary players, both young and old (LeBron, Howard, and Paul, and Duncan, Garnett, and Kidd) and it's always fun to root against the Lakers and watch the Knicks implode.

It's even tough to watch the politics today, as I watch Obama, a hope for the future, getting trounced by Bill Clinton's bitter cynical wife in New Hampshire because she almost cried yesterday. Moreover, despite my big McCain win, I just watched him butcher a really lovely speech. I did find a perfect example of McCain's integrity: one of his son's is in the Marines serving in Iraq right now and I didn't even know about it, nor am I guessing did you. Do any of the other candidates have children fighting for the military? If they did, wouldn't that be discussed very often in the veil of "I don't like to talk about my son fighting in Iraq because that would be exploitative, but I know what the parents of our brave soldiers are going through first-hand. I know what it's like to fear the next phone call..." But, he hasn't done that (though I suspect he might if he is pressed against the wall), and in the interview where he was asked about it, he acknowledged his pride in his son and all his children, and moved on. That McCain guy is all about service, and Obama is an excellent fairy tale (which I can't believe is an insult), and hopefully either one of them or Rudy G. will be the next president of these United States and formally recognize my strike authority.

But, really, people like me are stuck trying to weather the storm of the entertainment drought, with the only limited forms of entertainment to placate us. But, who can be satiated by watching some rats trying to cook something out of nothing? And that, my friends, is why choosing our next leader is so important.

Best regards,
Mark Papa Bear Ellis

Best regards,
Mark Papa Bear Ellis