Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three hundred episodes.
Speaker 1: One of the guys, this is Sparta and this is
Speaker 1: a production of by Heart Radio. That was the first,
Speaker 1: other than when we mentioned it last week, the first
Speaker 1: time it has crossed my mind that this is season
Speaker 1: three hundred, so of course PARTA. Yeah, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: special stuff planned.
Speaker 2: Jack.
Speaker 3: This should be the most four episodes. This should be
Speaker 3: the most significant season because three hundred is like the
Speaker 3: genesis point of everything.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, it's like our favorite movie.
Speaker 1: We saw each other in line for the movie three
Speaker 1: hundred shirtless.
Speaker 2: I remember whiling up.
Speaker 3: You greased my back. I remember that's how I like, hey, bro,
Speaker 3: you might get my back a little bit. And then
Speaker 3: he told me my push up for hum was off,
Speaker 3: and then I went to the bathroom sobbing. But then
Speaker 3: you came back and he said, hey, buddy, I didn't
Speaker 3: mean to say it like that.
Speaker 2: You look great.
Speaker 1: You look great, man.
Speaker 3: We should really try and hit a ninety degree angle
Speaker 3: if you're going all the way down, because I was
Speaker 3: doing a real shallow like.
Speaker 1: But then I told you about NAGT and how you
Speaker 1: know how I know full that was and how you
Speaker 1: could use it to control the world.
Speaker 3: And you looked so cool with that boa like feather
Speaker 3: boa around your neck like with test now, dude. And
Speaker 3: then at the time I remember you introduced me or
Speaker 3: you you introduced yourself to me as cryptic. You're like, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm cryptic, and I was like, whoa what likerypt.
Speaker 2: Is so good?
Speaker 1: Oh shit, it's Tuesday, August fifteenth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, National Relaxation Day, National Leathercraft Day, National Lemon Merane
Speaker 3: High Day, and v J Day and something about.
Speaker 2: The war ending. Cool. There you go.
Speaker 1: Cool. My name is Jack O'Brien AKA get your Ship,
Speaker 1: get your whole ship bit. Hey, hey, get my ship,
Speaker 1: get my whole shit bit. That is courtesy of Christy
Speaker 1: Amagucci Man too too Legit to quit.
Speaker 2: There were like four words.
Speaker 1: In that AK and I forgot them for the first half,
Speaker 1: but that's all right. Thank you for the AKA. Great
Speaker 1: to see again, Christy. I'm thrilled to be joined as
Speaker 1: always by my co host mister Miles.
Speaker 4: Brad, Mister Miles Gray, AK, Crispy One Time Rolls filled
Speaker 4: with avocado, chicken Too may Do and Mona Ray jack
Speaker 4: Apple what Smoke Chris Bacon with housemad Ranchiito.
Speaker 2: I love these egg rolls. I get them each time.
Speaker 3: And obviously that's rich CPK. We're bringing it back obviously
Speaker 3: right to post under the bridge. Talking about Jack evokes CPK,
Speaker 3: and we had to bring up RHCPK again, So thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 1: It hits different once, once you've had a long running
Speaker 1: bit about RHCPK, going to CPK. HiT's a little different,
Speaker 1: does it.
Speaker 2: Yeah? It good feels good to have heartburn in a
Speaker 2: place like this.
Speaker 1: Well, miles, we are thrilled to be joined in our
Speaker 1: third seats by one of the very phases, one more
Speaker 1: hilarious and brilliant producer, TV writer. You know him from
Speaker 1: the Yos This racist podcast.
Speaker 2: It's Andrew Solidary Team.
Speaker 3: Hey, Solidarity welcome.
Speaker 2: I'm having trouble with some of the Union songs, man,
Speaker 2: it's it's a little the Union song canon got a
Speaker 2: little white. And then briefly I was like playing like
Speaker 2: Communist Party Chinese music on my hype up to the
Speaker 2: picket line. A little weird, A lot of a lot
Speaker 2: of killing motherfuckers in those songs.
Speaker 3: You didn't you sing like Bella Chow, you know, there's
Speaker 3: like that one, good old, good old yarn from the
Speaker 3: Italians anthem.
Speaker 2: You know what, Yeah, there's there's a probably there's a
Speaker 2: bunch of that. You know. Then there's probably a bunch
Speaker 2: of stuff in Spanish that is that's my fault that
Speaker 2: I went to Chinese communist.
Speaker 1: Let you know first, you know, everybody out there singing
Speaker 1: Richmond north of Richmond.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's not it's the that was more of
Speaker 2: a beginning of the strike thing. I think that was
Speaker 2: when we're all like try to like try to be serious, try.
Speaker 2: I think what it was was we're trying to impress
Speaker 2: the teamsters like we're cool, we're down, and now it's
Speaker 2: now it's just kind of at.
Speaker 1: Your backs, just not picking up the signs.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's really it's really it's been uh,
Speaker 2: it's been a good strike. I haven't seen you guys
Speaker 2: in a minute, but you know, strike it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's why we wanted to have you
Speaker 3: on because just there's it's constantly changing. And I think
Speaker 3: also our understanding of the industry. I think especially for
Speaker 3: like people outside of California, for ship outside of LA
Speaker 3: have like a very like a perspective on what's happening,
Speaker 3: and it's not fully formed, and I think you know,
Speaker 3: to the purpose of today is to really like roll
Speaker 3: our sleeves up, give some perspective and talk about like
Speaker 3: what's at stake here truly, because we definitely got a
Speaker 3: good intro when Adam Connover came on, and now that
Speaker 3: like things are.
Speaker 2: Slowly developing, we know a little bit more.
Speaker 3: We kind of wanted to come back because this affects
Speaker 3: like eighty percent of our listener's favorite guests. Like most
Speaker 3: of y'all realize all the comedians that we have on,
Speaker 3: a lot of them spend time in writers' rooms because
Speaker 3: that's the they ain't. Like Marcella said, she's like, it
Speaker 3: ain't happen. You're not getting it from stand up. So
Speaker 3: I get while the homies end up going to write
Speaker 3: because that's a way to carve out a life for yourself.
Speaker 2: So anyway, yeah, looking forward to talking. I get it.
Speaker 1: You guys have eaten it California Pizza Kitchen. You think
Speaker 1: you understand what the strike is all about? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you've had in and out one's right,
Speaker 3: you get it.
Speaker 2: You got you now you've got a mc peek, right,
Speaker 2: you could bash those yeah.
Speaker 1: Shuah amcp K yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: We'll work on it, resounding that out just to make sure.
Speaker 1: Comes in.
Speaker 2: But oh oh hey yeah yeah that's tough. That's tougher,
Speaker 2: tough one. Uh a mrcpk. Yeah, it doesn't work. Doesn't
Speaker 2: need a bigger room. We need a bigger room to Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, if we had, if we had enough enough
Speaker 2: minds to do this, yeah, we could come up with
Speaker 2: we give you the proper products. Sorry about that, that's right, exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, Andrew, Before we get to all the strike stuff,
Speaker 1: we do like to get to know our guests a
Speaker 1: little bit better and ask you, what is something from
Speaker 1: your search history?
Speaker 2: All right? This is this is uh gonna be I
Speaker 2: think this one was okay, and it didn't really give
Speaker 2: me the results I was looking for exactly, but I
Speaker 2: searched earlier this week? Is Splinter a weeb in the
Speaker 2: new TMNT movie? Because there are there are two ways
Speaker 2: you can go with classical depictions of Splinter. One is
Speaker 2: essentially like an actual Japanese rat or sometimes a Japanese
Speaker 2: person and who's been ratified Ratituo weed. And then I
Speaker 2: believe the Newish depictions are he's just like a web
Speaker 2: essentially just a New Yorker who loves Japanese culture so
Speaker 2: much he decided he's not Hamato Yoshi anymore. I don't
Speaker 2: think he was named in the new in the current one,
Speaker 2: but no, here they are not like he's yeah, what's
Speaker 2: his accent? Like what's his voice?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so this is where it gets even weirder.
Speaker 2: So I did not realize what this was until I
Speaker 2: didn't really get a satisfactory answer, and I just went
Speaker 2: down that rabbit hole of sometimes he's a web but
Speaker 2: even weirder. And I guess I probably could have known
Speaker 2: this if I've paid more attention to the advertising. He's
Speaker 2: voiced by Jackie Chan and what like pretty clearly, so
Speaker 2: they split the difference. He's an Asian rat, but he's
Speaker 2: still a web. How you do that? They basically are
Speaker 2: just like he just liked Ninja shit, like the way
Speaker 2: American you know, well meaning kind of racist drives like yeah,
Speaker 2: like Ninja shit. He's just like he's like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: we needed a way to learn how to fight, and
Speaker 2: Ninja's are cool.
Speaker 3: So it's like kind of like Wu Tang adjacent like Theriza. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: we're just watching Kong Fu movies like that's how it
Speaker 3: basically is exactly that. It's the same way Wu Tang
Speaker 3: got their whole ship. Yeah, like I don't know it,
Speaker 3: but it's like.
Speaker 2: He's he is Asian. It's definitely not Japanese. Isn't no
Speaker 2: point played for Japanese. It's very like, I don't I'm
Speaker 2: choosing not to think it through too hard because.
Speaker 1: I really like the movie right right, I haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: but I will be taking my.
Speaker 3: Oh my dude, so many of my my friends are like, yo,
Speaker 3: you should go see it's it's not bad. Actually, because
Speaker 3: a few my friends are doing the millennial thing or
Speaker 3: like millennial parent were like, hey, I think my kids
Speaker 3: to see some shit I fucking know about, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I regret it, or that was the main threast.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like it wasn't bad. I don't regret it.
Speaker 2: I'll throw this out there and maybe this is I'm
Speaker 2: childless but old, so I'm both a teenager and basically
Speaker 2: a dad. It is maybe my favorite movie. Sends everything
Speaker 2: everywhere all it once. Oh wow, so so good to
Speaker 2: me specifically, Wow, Okay, that's yo. That's a heavy fucking
Speaker 2: stamp of approval out here. I genuinely I walked out.
Speaker 2: I was like, my I watched it with a group
Speaker 2: of fellow TV writers on strike because we were like, fuck it,
Speaker 2: we'll go after the picket lied in the middle of
Speaker 2: the day. My friend tourd to me like four minutes in.
Speaker 2: I was like, I think this is the most beautiful
Speaker 2: movie I've ever seen. Just one tear coming down.
Speaker 1: It's like it's animation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, animation. Yeah, the animation looks amazing. It's like
Speaker 2: perfectly like Dudes our Age New York kind of like
Speaker 2: like that kind of like slightly backpacker ReVibe plus real
Speaker 2: teenage ship plus real like dad ship. It's incredible. Wow,
Speaker 2: it's I'm not saying it is the best movie. I'm
Speaker 2: just saying to me it is like it's like like
Speaker 2: designed for me. But I suspect you fellas might find
Speaker 2: many of the same traits very appealing. Hey, you know,
Speaker 2: be on this zoom call if you have daddy issues. Okay, right, great,
Speaker 2: great great.
Speaker 1: You like the fact that Splinter admits that his entry
Speaker 1: point to ninja culture was these six samurai swords that
Speaker 1: he has framed next to his books.
Speaker 2: But I I think on the balance, that's better than
Speaker 2: the other version, right, Like, yeah, the version I was
Speaker 2: sold as a child, I was.
Speaker 5: Like, this is this yeah, just this just the ship
Speaker 5: where whatever version of him being a quote unquote actual
Speaker 5: ninja is fucking wild, right.
Speaker 2: So I yeah, I think of the lesser of two
Speaker 2: evils choices or I I do think this kind of
Speaker 2: splits the difference because they're like, it's better if he's Asian,
Speaker 2: but it's better if he's not Japanese, right right right?
Speaker 2: I don't Again, I'm like choosing not to unpack any
Speaker 2: of this because I.
Speaker 1: Did because you liked it so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but you know that's me being a coward. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah he is. He is both Asian and a weeb.
Speaker 2: The rare is splinter, rare spreader Rokusaki Still does they
Speaker 2: have they have that backstory with him. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: gonna know spoilers there and say don't worry about it.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you. I like that, Yeah, don't worry about
Speaker 3: that part. I remember always as a kid, I was like,
Speaker 3: that's not a real Japanese name.
Speaker 2: That bugged me as a kid.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, Amato Yoshi, Like okay, that's that works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just one of those like it's really you know,
Speaker 2: it's based on a thing that is like sort of
Speaker 2: like well meaning, and it was a parody anyway, but
Speaker 2: it definitely you know, it's it's this like American take
Speaker 2: on Japanese. Noess that yeah, yeah, yeah, that is bad
Speaker 2: at its heart, Like no matter how like how much
Speaker 2: they they liked the idea of these turtles or Ninja's
Speaker 2: in general. So yeah, there's no it's very hard to
Speaker 2: imagine a good version where they're Japanese, I guess. Yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: is that true? I don't know. Yeah, that's my That's
Speaker 2: where I'm sitting, right, they're not yet because you want
Speaker 2: it to be like because they're like an analog for
Speaker 2: people who got like Asian culture through the media or
Speaker 2: something and.
Speaker 3: Turtles bro, sorry these turtles ninjutsu okay, okay, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 3: that would be me being annoying to my kid as
Speaker 3: you watch. Yeah, say, real, just lead does not exist,
Speaker 3: no matter how much you wanted to.
Speaker 2: Here's a little list, no it it. Yeah, look, the
Speaker 2: movies are back for now, and I was shocked. I
Speaker 2: had a great cinema week. Actually, we're just I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna sorry, since we're off in a tangent. I watched
Speaker 2: uh no, okay, I'll make this my my underrated anyway. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's just like the fucking like, yeah, the big movies
Speaker 2: are are whatever they're you know, they're good. People like them.
Speaker 2: This has been I watched Talk to Me, the horror movie,
Speaker 2: the Australian horror movie that should have been called Talk
Speaker 2: to the Hand, but that's not my problem. It's about
Speaker 2: a hand where they yeah, yeah, they fight a curse
Speaker 2: at hand and it's like, my guys. And I also
Speaker 2: watched a movie that I think you guys would like
Speaker 2: a lot called The First Slam Dunk, which was like
Speaker 2: the feature of an anime called slam Dunk. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, and it's it's a high school like basketball
Speaker 2: championship in Japan and it is I'm not like a
Speaker 2: basketball head the way you guys are. So maybe this
Speaker 2: is like more prevalent in the media. And I had
Speaker 2: never watched the anime TV show right however, it had
Speaker 2: like and also this should be should have been obvious.
Speaker 2: But they basically because it's animated, they really take advantage
Speaker 2: of the fact that they don't have to use this
Speaker 2: standard camera angles that you experienced basketball from, like you know,
Speaker 2: the the game shit right right right, So there's and
Speaker 2: I might be mistaken by this about the specifics of this,
Speaker 2: but I'm trying to remember extly. There's like one shot
Speaker 2: near the I guess it must be there's a jump
Speaker 2: ball in the second half and the camera basically is
Speaker 2: in the perspective of.
Speaker 3: The ball, and it's like fucking like it's going up. Yeah,
Speaker 3: try and go up.
Speaker 2: For Yeah, it's so gorgeous. And but there's a lot
Speaker 2: of like first person stuff that like you know, you
Speaker 2: kind of can experience, but like there's a lot of it,
Speaker 2: and like the basketball, at least to my eye, is
Speaker 2: played like very real, Like it looks like it's almost
Speaker 2: like rotoscope from basketball players maybe or like I don't
Speaker 2: I don't even know how you make this fucking animation
Speaker 2: right right right.
Speaker 1: That's so cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I highly recommend.
Speaker 3: I actually like up y'all, alley, I have no I
Speaker 3: have a Sakuragi Shohoku jersey like that because back in
Speaker 3: the because like slam Dunk was also like the like
Speaker 3: sort of injection point for sneaker culture in Japan too,
Speaker 3: because that like the guy who is who, Like, in
Speaker 3: a way, the guy who started it was a huge
Speaker 3: sneaker head, and like if when those early like mangas
Speaker 3: that he made of it, You're like, oh shit, this
Speaker 3: is We're in Jordan threes were in Jordan six is
Speaker 3: like you the amount of detail that went into their
Speaker 3: sneakers was like fucking next level. So I was I
Speaker 3: was drawn in from that too as a kid too.
Speaker 2: Don't quote me on this because I don't. I think
Speaker 2: it's like one of those things where like most of
Speaker 2: the brands are like like kind of that anime style,
Speaker 2: like kind of fake like analogs. There's like Green mart
Speaker 2: or whatever, except for the Jordan's look to my eye
Speaker 2: like perfect, yeah, we're not fucking around, I mean a
Speaker 2: little fake.
Speaker 3: Like there is a like there's a Jordan's six like
Speaker 3: an official slam Dunk Jordan collab because of the.
Speaker 2: You know, just the how deep that relationship was. It's
Speaker 2: very good. The movie is very good. It's for it
Speaker 2: is also like a lot of like teenagers to parents things.
Speaker 2: So maybe that's like a little bit of a theme. Actually,
Speaker 2: so always talked to me that's maybe I should have
Speaker 2: had kids.
Speaker 1: But you saw those three films. Instead, it seems like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really it really, Uh, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: very good movie. I it is not. It does not
Speaker 2: have a wide theatrical run. But if here in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: I believe it's playing at the Edwardson Alhambra, which I'm
Speaker 2: unclear why that is awesome. Oh yeah, yeah, I know
Speaker 2: that one. Yeah, okay, it's right by. Even though it's
Speaker 2: in it's in a heart of some of the best
Speaker 2: Chinese food in southern California. It's also next to the
Speaker 2: Burger place. I like a lot called Grilla Mall.
Speaker 1: So yeah, grilla start off amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker 3: They had one that's like the like the bread was
Speaker 3: grilled cheeses, right, yes, yes, that's that's the That's the
Speaker 3: what brought me out there the first time.
Speaker 2: Listen, it's it's a rough time out there, and probably
Speaker 2: this is not the weather for that kind of food,
Speaker 2: but you do what you got to do.
Speaker 1: What is uh, what's something you think is overrated? That?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a segue to my overrated, which is the
Speaker 2: thing that this strike has taught me is being comfortable
Speaker 2: mad overrated. I don't give a fuck anymore. I'm just
Speaker 2: like like slightly warm, a little sweaty. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: because of so called climate change, at least comd now,
Speaker 2: which genuinely that was on my list of when I
Speaker 2: moved here. It's like, at least it's not humid now
Speaker 2: we're humid Mosquito's like crazy mosquitos. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 2: I just my brain, the part of my brain that
Speaker 2: gives the fuck about being comfortable, really got shut off
Speaker 2: somewhere around like day twenty of the strike. So I've
Speaker 2: been very like fuck it, Yeah, I don't care anymore.
Speaker 2: I I went from one of the most comfortable shoes
Speaker 2: to who cares.
Speaker 1: Wow, out there barefoot, we're in the pump.
Speaker 2: I I wore I went for a pair of Tivas. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've been go Tiva's occasionally, though, I'll just go, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're not they're not like walk that far on concrete comfy.
Speaker 1: Oh they're not.
Speaker 3: Okay, they're walking arounding me comfortable, Yeah, they're they're they're
Speaker 3: more like you know, a light, a.
Speaker 2: Light walk in the woods or I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just I just don't. I just don't care anymore, which
Speaker 2: is because I used to be a person that was
Speaker 2: so like couldn't handle any discomfort. Now I'm just I think.
Speaker 3: You know what, and I'm sure I'm not that good.
Speaker 3: But for me, I'm right. Well, I'm sure part of
Speaker 3: that too is like you're now motiva. Your motivations are different,
Speaker 3: whereas before where it's like fine, if I got to
Speaker 3: go out there and be out there, yeah comfortably, versus like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: so you're trying to fucking wear me down.
Speaker 2: Fuck you. Yeah, I am. I am become death. I'm
Speaker 2: the Yeah, I'm I am the I am just like
Speaker 2: I've been ground down to the little like no, I'm
Speaker 2: like the seed in the middle of the plumb, and
Speaker 2: you know, what the fuck are you gonna do to me?
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 1: There you go. That's why I take an ice bath
Speaker 1: every morning, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: I do feel like I need something like I need
Speaker 1: to do something uncomfortable early in my day or else,
Speaker 1: not not an ice bath, but like or else I
Speaker 1: will just like retreat into like I don't know, because
Speaker 1: I'm a very like interior person and so like I
Speaker 1: need to like get out of my body and wait, wait.
Speaker 3: Go on this now this kind of resonates with me.
Speaker 3: What do you mean, like, because I feel the same way.
Speaker 3: So you you try and push yourself to do something
Speaker 3: like what do you mean, Like is that when you
Speaker 3: just like like exercise or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'll jump in the pool when it's cold enough,
Speaker 1: like just get going do something that's uncomfortable, and like
Speaker 1: that is movement because otherwise I just yeah, like otherwise
Speaker 1: I just will be comfortable inside my body in a
Speaker 1: way that like then I don't know, it fucks me up.
Speaker 1: It just leaves me sort of in a little cocoon.
Speaker 1: So I've actually been trying to focus on just being
Speaker 1: more comfortable with discomfort like as a general Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I know you guys have actual human
Speaker 2: beings here responsible for in a more important way. But
Speaker 2: that's a little bit what having a dog, like an
Speaker 2: old dog too. It's just like I gotta get the
Speaker 2: fuck up because like she got a walk, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter like however uncomfortable it is, cleaning up
Speaker 2: whatever mess shoe makes. If adult get her walk in
Speaker 2: time is much worse.
Speaker 1: So right, things about to go off?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's just like it creates like it's incentive
Speaker 2: of like fuck fuck fuck good, great, let's go. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my baby can't even walk yet.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, I think I think it's probably easier
Speaker 3: than having a dog, actually, because for now, yeah, I
Speaker 3: guess so for now in my very narrow perspective, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go ahead and say.
Speaker 2: A lot easier. You guys are gonna have real annoying
Speaker 2: la Like I guess you were already a real annoying
Speaker 2: la kid.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the cool the cool ones come from the valley,
Speaker 6: you know, like Molly Lambert, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: we have like that cynicism of growing up here that
Speaker 6: we're not like West Side kids who are like.
Speaker 3: On some fucking's ship, like everything's okay and have so
Speaker 3: much money kind of thing. We're like, yeah, nah, a
Speaker 3: little bit different, right, because from when you grow up there,
Speaker 3: it's like, you know, everyone is a clown, so you're
Speaker 3: not scared of them, but you're also not like yeah,
Speaker 3: you still got that edge to you. Yeah, and also yeah,
Speaker 3: you're not impressed by that. Don't impress me much, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean? Yeah, yes, yeah, yes, thank you
Speaker 3: saying that all the time.
Speaker 1: That don't impress me much. Yeah, I feel like the
Speaker 1: when you think about like why there are so many,
Speaker 1: so many Canadian comedians. Early on, like one of the
Speaker 1: best explanations I read was that, like they are have
Speaker 1: a lot of the same ship as our culture. They
Speaker 1: get like a lot of what the same culture that
Speaker 1: we view like incoming, but they're like add enough of
Speaker 1: a distance that like they view it through a reflect
Speaker 1: refracted lens. I feel like you got that with the
Speaker 1: Valley too, That's what that's where we get MoMA Lambert
Speaker 1: and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Speaker 2: That's what we call it. We call it the Canada
Speaker 2: of La County.
Speaker 1: That's right. And they appreciate it and they love it.
Speaker 2: And I was fit.
Speaker 3: I wasn't like I feel a connection to the people
Speaker 3: of New Jersey that yes, we're like, yeah, we're like
Speaker 3: the people like where again the West side Hollywood, La
Speaker 3: people thumb their noses that the people from the valley, like,
Speaker 3: we got our own ship over here. That's why people
Speaker 3: are like, yeah, the bridge and tunnel. I'm like, I
Speaker 3: see you, I see you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll
Speaker 1: come back and we'll talk about the strike. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back and we're back. Before we get into the
Speaker 1: strike real quick on the subject of what we're talking about. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I just I just did the Wire podcast with
Speaker 1: Matt Leeb and it was the episode after Stringer Bells
Speaker 1: untimely demise and they go into his apartment and he
Speaker 1: has samurai swords and France on the wall, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I definitely at the time when it came out,
Speaker 1: and then like mcnolty like takes Adam Smith's like, you know,
Speaker 1: first book, whatever the fuck the like book that it
Speaker 1: invented modern day economics, like off his thing, and it's like,
Speaker 1: who the hell was I chasing? And I at the
Speaker 1: time was like, damn, Stringer Bell is so tight, bro.
Speaker 1: There's like a water feature in his apartment and ship.
Speaker 1: But it made me wonder like did the writers of
Speaker 1: The Wire where they like this is tight, people are
Speaker 1: going to recognize how tight this dude is or were
Speaker 1: they like this is kind of funny, like he he
Speaker 1: is basically like a finance bro.
Speaker 7: Like a hustle culture yeah yeah, or that like he
Speaker 7: just knew what he liked, you know, like that he
Speaker 7: was so secures, like yeah, I'm a samurai sword type.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just wish there was a scene with him. It's
Speaker 3: just it sucks as a reveal though, because I would
Speaker 3: have loved to see Stringerbell maneuvering so fucking Katana or
Speaker 3: some ship seeing what the fuck you could just like a.
Speaker 1: Dark room, like in a in a robe, just like
Speaker 1: doing some like by himself. But he's like not that
Speaker 1: good at it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or he's he's got he's got Blade on the
Speaker 3: big screen and he's like the movie.
Speaker 1: His wall has like cuts in it and ships.
Speaker 2: It's just all copies of Ghost Dog on your DVD. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the only movie that matters. Man?
Speaker 1: Who who about? All right, let's get into the strike right.
Speaker 1: You had a recent tweet about how this like the
Speaker 1: thing that's different this time, Like the studios their whole
Speaker 1: stance is very predictable, just oh, there's gonna be assholes
Speaker 1: in this very predictable way, but that there seems like
Speaker 1: there's like the thing that's been surprising is the level
Speaker 1: of solidarity on the strike side. Like what have you
Speaker 1: seen there?
Speaker 2: Like what would what? So?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was not in the Union in two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, but I actually was. Weirdly, that was when
Speaker 2: some of my friends had started getting their first TV jobs,
Speaker 2: and I was actually working at Comedy Central, so I
Speaker 2: was like occasionally having a cross a picket line in
Speaker 2: New York, which was like fucking horrible. But so from
Speaker 2: what I remember of those days, slash just like what
Speaker 2: people have been saying, I guess like to back up too,
Speaker 2: like like my The reason I tweeted that was basically
Speaker 2: the AMPTP, who are the motion picture television producers the studios,
Speaker 2: not really the actual actual producers, are not happy that
Speaker 2: producers in that title, because right actual producer are closer
Speaker 2: to the concerns of the workers. But this was off
Speaker 2: of them at literally like one hundred days and change,
Speaker 2: asking seriously to come back to the negotiating table, which
Speaker 2: is exactly what happened essentially like last strike when just
Speaker 2: over one hundred days. The reason that sort of like
Speaker 2: the like conventional wisdom is because that's when they can
Speaker 2: start canceling some overall deals. I mean they have canceled
Speaker 2: some or paused some, but basically they the conventional wisdom goes,
Speaker 2: that's when they can get stuff off their books, like
Speaker 2: deals they want to get out of and the peers
Speaker 2: that they have. Basically, and the reason that's conventional wisdom
Speaker 2: is because that's the first time the studios like get
Speaker 2: something out of going forcing us to go on strike.
Speaker 2: They get to recoup a little bit of money. And
Speaker 2: thus after this it's all sort of diminishing returns for them.
Speaker 2: There's no reason unless they want to just pack it
Speaker 2: up on the entertainment industry, there's no reason for them
Speaker 2: to keep the strike going any longer. So that was
Speaker 2: like utterly predictable. The other thing that was utterly predictable
Speaker 2: was that DGA would take a you know, I know
Speaker 2: there are directors who are happy with the deal they got,
Speaker 2: but I think most people understand that they got a
Speaker 2: not that great deal and they did it in a
Speaker 2: way to lessen solidarity from the other guilds, you know,
Speaker 2: by agreeing to a a thing that one one I
Speaker 2: feel like I'm just talking so you know, jump in whatever.
Speaker 2: But like they took a deal where they didn't get
Speaker 2: streaming residuals. I believe, Oh, it has been one of
Speaker 2: our main points. Essentially, they they kind of we knew
Speaker 2: they would like stab everyone else in the back and
Speaker 2: they get you know, the other thing they could have done,
Speaker 2: which is what our leadership appears to be asking for
Speaker 2: is the right for us to stand in solidarity with
Speaker 2: SAG the actors even after our contract is ratified. So
Speaker 2: that basically is what the teamsters have and I believe
Speaker 2: I have some version of this too. IATSI or the
Speaker 2: crew people on there. There are many things, but as
Speaker 2: far as Hollywood goes there they are the crew people.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so you know, I guess what I'm saying
Speaker 2: is like, at every stage, if it could have gone
Speaker 2: one way or the other, it has been more in
Speaker 2: the case of on the side of solidarity, we the
Speaker 2: writers have been more in solidarity with each other, save
Speaker 2: for a few like high profile mostly white guys talking
Speaker 2: about how they don't give a shoot about their union
Speaker 2: show runner types. But you know, compared to last time,
Speaker 2: when apparently there were just like deep divisions evident immediately.
Speaker 2: And this is also like sort of I don't know
Speaker 2: if it was. It was certainly pre wide adoption of Twitter.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to look up when Twitter started. It
Speaker 2: was a two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: so there's probably some kind of.
Speaker 3: It really hit the scene two thousand and nine, I
Speaker 3: feel like is when effected, when we really started being like.
Speaker 2: Hey, that's how you can follow food trucks. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It was when Michael Jackson passed away.
Speaker 3: That was like June two thousand and nine, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: like like so a culture where we can all communicate better,
Speaker 3: so for those things.
Speaker 2: And then, unexpectedly at the beginning or unexpected at least
Speaker 2: two me a rank and file member of the guild,
Speaker 2: the teamsters announced they would stand in solidarity with us,
Speaker 2: which allowed us to shut down productions much earlier, because
Speaker 2: you know, teamsters have negotiated into their contract a right
Speaker 2: not to cross a picket line, which is a legal
Speaker 2: right that has to be fought for. So yeah, they would.
Speaker 2: I mean, I remember in the first and second week
Speaker 2: of the strike, I was out at fucking four am
Speaker 2: at Paramount and it was kind of like this magical
Speaker 2: thing where it's like two people can constitute a picket line,
Speaker 2: and so it was just two people at each gate
Speaker 2: and trucks were turning around, they were not making their deliveries,
Speaker 2: and teamsters were very like, you know, I was gonna
Speaker 2: say kindly, but it's not really kindness, but they were,
Speaker 2: you know, losing work to stand in solidarity with us, right,
Speaker 2: and that was you know, amazing and then individual Iazzi
Speaker 2: members had a little more latitude. And course, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't begrudge anyone their need to make their day's money,
Speaker 2: but there were Ayazi members who also didn't cross the line,
Speaker 2: and that's how we got production shut down, as far
Speaker 2: as I understand, much earlier than last strike, right, because
Speaker 2: people were more on our side than we thought. And
Speaker 2: then when SAG came up for their contract negotiation, you know,
Speaker 2: conventional wisdom was sort of just like, they're probably going
Speaker 2: to take a not great deal after DGA, it did
Speaker 2: even seem like that's how things were going. I'm only
Speaker 2: I speak with no insider information, but just like from
Speaker 2: the outside of SAG, you know, it seemed like they
Speaker 2: were making all the moves to just settle for whatever,
Speaker 2: and they you know, they were given a They released
Speaker 2: their deal points the same way the WJ board did
Speaker 2: and it was preposterous. It was disgusting. They were There
Speaker 2: were things like the studios were proposing scanning background actors
Speaker 2: and simply owning their likeness forever in a digital form.
Speaker 2: And so for that reason, coupled with I believe, like
Speaker 2: you know, there was that there was like an open
Speaker 2: letter signed by a bunch of a listers to SAG
Speaker 2: leadership that was like, do not take a fucking bad deal.
Speaker 2: And it did appear to work because the tenor of
Speaker 2: the conversation from ZAG communication changed drastically after that. You know,
Speaker 2: it was there's a lot of rumors about what they
Speaker 2: were really trying to do, But the fucking week after
Speaker 2: fucking frint dressers out there being like, you know, fuck you,
Speaker 2: right after kicking it with Kim Kardashian. Right, Yeah, It's
Speaker 2: one of those things where you're like, you know, there,
Speaker 2: it's sort of unclear how they arrived at that position,
Speaker 2: but they're indisputably there. They're they're you know, doing some
Speaker 2: things that I personally maybe equibble with strategically, but the
Speaker 2: fact is there are fucking, you know, one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty some thousand actors like out there, they're on the
Speaker 2: picket line. There have been a little bit of growing pains,
Speaker 2: which just like swelling the strike by eleven times, but
Speaker 2: you know, just basically logistics. But it is like it's been.
Speaker 2: It literally is some like real cavalry shit, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the actors are here, and you know that's all actors.
Speaker 2: You know, I imagine what they're the heroes, so good for.
Speaker 1: They look great, but good lord, But I mean, yeah, really,
Speaker 1: so you're not surprised by anything you're seeing from them.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone who's been paying attention to corporations,
Speaker 1: and these corporations in particular, are surprised. They definitely seem
Speaker 1: surprised by like the front that they're getting, like the
Speaker 1: United Front, the like lack of public support seems to
Speaker 1: really have them being like, I think I'm the bad guy,
Speaker 1: like and Iiger seem to be having a I bet
Speaker 1: they're on the phone every night just talking to each other,
Speaker 1: like what what is happening?
Speaker 2: They genuinely thought I think it worked well in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight. They they genuinely thought they could like
Speaker 2: bully bluster and like so discord among the union members.
Speaker 2: I think again, social media spent a big help and
Speaker 2: like eliminating some of that. But also here's my pet theory,
Speaker 2: which is like they, uh, you kind of forget the
Speaker 2: peer group these fuckers run in, but you can't. You
Speaker 2: have to kind of remember that. To them, Ted Sarandos
Speaker 2: is like their cool hacker nephew.
Speaker 8: So like Ted Sarandos, I'm sure in those Netflix Yeah yeah,
Speaker 8: sorry headed Netflix, Yeah, you know, and a tech guy.
Speaker 8: I'm sure he's telling you know, but it's still like
Speaker 8: a dozen decrepit mostly met white men, like like billionaires,
Speaker 8: like completely out of touch. So to them, like Ted
Speaker 8: Sarandos is the equivalent of your like zoomer showing you no,
Speaker 8: this is better than TikTok.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, yeah, yeah, you know how you watch pa
Speaker 2: per view fight on Twitter? Grandpa? Yeah, so he's like
Speaker 2: so he's like there, you know, and fucking read Hastings
Speaker 2: or whatever. All the Netflix tech guys i'm sure are
Speaker 2: like to these old old the old media billionaires are
Speaker 2: like they said, these guys, you know, does one thing
Speaker 2: These guys know it's digital, they know the Internet, and
Speaker 2: they say we're gonna win. They say that people are
Speaker 2: going to be on our side, and I think they
Speaker 2: just believe them. I don't think they have anyone in
Speaker 2: their circle who's like, no, you guys are villainous clowns.
Speaker 2: Like maybe there's like a communications like officer, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're if you're the.
Speaker 3: They haven't they haven't arrived at the are we the
Speaker 3: baddies moment yet?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're on their way.
Speaker 1: They do have that one billionaire who owns the jewelry
Speaker 1: company who Cardier is Cardier, the Cardier billionaire owner who's
Speaker 1: losing sleep, and they're like, what the fuck's going on
Speaker 1: with him? Like he needs to.
Speaker 2: What's crazy is they actually need a cousin, Greg, Like
Speaker 2: they just need someone to be like, hey, I don't
Speaker 2: think this is working, Like fuck off, Greg. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: I were to posit this theory to the council, as
Speaker 2: it were, are not on our side.
Speaker 3: But I think it's also important, right, and especially talking
Speaker 3: about the solidarity right because the last time there was
Speaker 3: a dual strike was in nineteen sixty and this last
Speaker 3: time the WJ and the writers went on strike, and
Speaker 3: it's really instructive to like really to learn.
Speaker 2: About just what the history of.
Speaker 3: Labor negotiations in Hollywood have been like, because it's been
Speaker 3: a fucking exploitative cash grab from the beginning, and in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty many people you hear a lot like Actually,
Speaker 3: Ronald Reagan has played a huge part because he was
Speaker 3: SAG president. He actually had two stints as SAG president,
Speaker 3: one in the flate forties and early fifties, and then
Speaker 3: again he came back for this strike in nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: and a lot of articles have like heavily sanitized his
Speaker 3: actions as like SAG president saying that like he had
Speaker 3: the overwhelming of SAG members when he agreed to this
Speaker 3: new deal and with that, and which is true because
Speaker 3: peop want to get back to work. But the other
Speaker 3: thing was and that like without him, there wouldn't be
Speaker 3: a pension fund for actors, so we have to thank
Speaker 3: him for that. But if you look closely, you see
Speaker 3: a story of a fucking guy that was just self
Speaker 3: dealing and could give a fuck less about his fellow workers.
Speaker 3: So after World War two, right, people just stopped going
Speaker 3: to the movies like they used to, and the decline
Speaker 3: was noticeable. So the studios decided to go in big
Speaker 3: on this new technology called broadcast television and decided.
Speaker 1: That was because TV became a thing. They were like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Okay, fine, well, what are we gonna do to make money? Well,
Speaker 3: they decided to license their films for broadcasts and sell
Speaker 3: them to all these TV stations, and that how they're
Speaker 3: that's how they're making money. But this move brought, you know,
Speaker 3: seminal films into American homes and people were engaging with
Speaker 3: motion pictures again. But what about that money? A lot
Speaker 3: of people were like, hold on, man, I'm in this movie,
Speaker 3: where the fuck is my check?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 3: Well, you see, uh, all of these films were only
Speaker 3: making money for the studios and none a single cent
Speaker 3: was going to the people that wrote or starred in
Speaker 3: them at all. It was only benefiting the studios. So
Speaker 3: they wanted to strike get their money that was owed
Speaker 3: to them. And Reagan returned as SAG president for this,
Speaker 3: and he sorted out a deal in five weeks. Really easy,
Speaker 3: really easy. Here's another thing we don't realize is the
Speaker 3: writers they actually started they were on strike before the actors,
Speaker 3: and they were on strike for twenty one weeks in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty because they were unwilling to take these like
Speaker 3: bullshit deals that were They're like, no, we want a percentage.
Speaker 3: We need you to articulate five percent. Like there's there's
Speaker 3: like real math involved with what the writers were fighting for.
Speaker 3: So they got, you know, we come back. Reagan's like, yeah, well,
Speaker 3: I've got this deal.
Speaker 2: Want to take it down?
Speaker 3: And basically the actors would receive residuals only for films
Speaker 3: beginning production after the basically starting from nineteen sixty onward
Speaker 3: when they started striking, like, all right, y'all gets for
Speaker 3: the shit y'all make now, And everyone's like, well, what
Speaker 3: about the other shit? What about from nineteen sixty to
Speaker 3: shit at least nineteen forty eight. Well, basically, since they
Speaker 3: weren't paying residuals on that, they said, okay, we'll cut
Speaker 3: y'all a check for two point sixty five million dollars
Speaker 3: for a pension fund.
Speaker 2: Yea. And people were like, oh great, but if again,
Speaker 2: if you look at the time, everyone was saying they
Speaker 2: wanted at least four million dollars for this fund. That's
Speaker 2: what they're like, all right, if you want to do that, like,
Speaker 2: you need to meet us at this four million mark.
Speaker 3: They got away with that shit too. So essentially, no
Speaker 3: money right now except in the form of a pension
Speaker 3: fund is what the actors got then, all because of
Speaker 3: Ronald Reagan. And you're probably thinking about the other part
Speaker 3: is what about movies before nineteen forty eight, like shit
Speaker 3: like Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane.
Speaker 3: What about those deals? Well, here's where Reagan comes back
Speaker 3: into the story. He was SAG president between nineteen forty
Speaker 3: seven and nineteen fifty two, and he forfeitted royalties on
Speaker 3: films made before nineteen forty eight in exchange for the
Speaker 3: promise of talking about negotiating over royalties for films made
Speaker 3: after nineteen fifty one. Yeah, so I was like, all right,
Speaker 3: fuck that, we don't need to see anything before nineteen
Speaker 3: forty eight.
Speaker 1: Well, what affects me too? But like his movies that
Speaker 1: he's like that are affected by it, are like sleepover
Speaker 1: parties with orang of Tangs and shit, yeah, bedtime for Bonzo,
Speaker 1: I think what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So he basically left all that money on the table
Speaker 3: and were just saying, all right, well, let's negotiate for
Speaker 3: stuff from fifty one onward that and and it was
Speaker 3: because of that move that precipitated the fucking dual strike
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty because Ronald Reagan again was like, hey,
Speaker 3: whatever y'all want, Okay, whatever, It's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Apart from like a few exceptions, right, So again, a
Speaker 3: lot of many of these actors felt so betrayed by
Speaker 3: Ronald Reagan. We're like, we created the industry for these
Speaker 3: people to be in, and you've left us fucking out
Speaker 3: to dry and so again all these the only thing
Speaker 3: that a lot of these people got after nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: was pension fund. And this is where you kind of
Speaker 3: you get you get to see the Reagan noess of
Speaker 3: it all, Like you're like, why would Ronald.
Speaker 2: Reagan do this?
Speaker 3: It's like, well, he knew he wasn't gonna make money
Speaker 3: off royalties. He was looking at bigger shit. So an
Speaker 3: interesting dimension is his agent was a man named Lou Wasserman,
Speaker 3: who was the president of MCA, which is like a
Speaker 3: you know multi they do music, film, television, whatever at
Speaker 3: the time after the strike, when when Reagan got them
Speaker 3: to agree to that shitty deal, he left his positions
Speaker 3: at SAG and got took a lucrative production deal with MCA,
Speaker 3: like two months after. Like if we had Twitter, people
Speaker 3: have been like, Oh, that's what the fuck.
Speaker 2: Is going on?
Speaker 1: And it's crazy. It's like when the plot twist in
Speaker 1: episode nine of Star Wars is like the bad guy's
Speaker 1: Emperor Palpatine again. It's like, Oh, it's always the same motherfucker.
Speaker 1: That's all you just got. Reagan killed unions at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the eighties. He killed He's like fucking everybody
Speaker 1: over like that in the fifties and sixties, it's like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Hey, maybe Reagan just was that awful dude the whole time.
Speaker 2: It's so weird, how like that, Yeah, that he needs
Speaker 2: to be lionized from time to time, like even by
Speaker 2: people who really should fucking know better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, tear down every single myth about Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 3: I think there's a book called tear down this myth?
Speaker 3: My was it tear off my balls? Tear off my balls?
Speaker 3: So anyway, the other things that are wild too, because
Speaker 3: this guy was so power hungry. He was doing he
Speaker 3: was willing to do anything right, including being a fucking
Speaker 3: informant to the FBI. And he gave testimony in nineteen
Speaker 3: forty seven when he was first like entering the SAG
Speaker 3: leadership about striking Hollywood workers being the bye product.
Speaker 2: Of subversive elements aka communists.
Speaker 3: And he regularly fed the FBI information on people he
Speaker 3: even personally just suspected of being a communist with very
Speaker 3: little evidence, if anything.
Speaker 1: That the people's so much of the twentieth century just
Speaker 1: the bad guys.
Speaker 3: Won, Yeah, and exactly and so and so if you
Speaker 3: think about it, it's like this was all it can
Speaker 3: all boil back to like these very early conversations where
Speaker 3: the norm was always going to be yeah, take this
Speaker 3: like shit, deal with the vague promises of something better
Speaker 3: down the road, and we'll just kick the can down
Speaker 3: the road because at the end of the day, we
Speaker 3: want to hoover up as much of this money as possible.
Speaker 3: And that just one last thing about it, which is
Speaker 3: wild is if you think about like all of this
Speaker 3: stuff pre nineteen forty eight and shit like that, So
Speaker 3: like people like you know, Ted Turner bought the film
Speaker 3: libraries of like RKO, which is like pre like old
Speaker 3: school Warner Brothers and MGM and Turner Classic Movies was
Speaker 3: basically a free money printing machine because he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is all IDAs that you don't have to pay.
Speaker 2: It's free.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all fucking free. And so we so a
Speaker 3: lot of the things that I think consumers were like,
Speaker 3: oh wow, that's on TV. A lot people are getting
Speaker 3: money from that. It's further from the case. And like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, Andrew, like, how would you how would
Speaker 3: you describe to somebody? Because I've heard from people who
Speaker 3: like talk about the strike who are like a film adjacent,
Speaker 3: people who like maybe do a lot of catering for
Speaker 3: stuff or like you know, work in other departments. There
Speaker 3: was like, well the writers like they're just they get
Speaker 3: everything they want. These people are all rich and I
Speaker 3: and I want to really reiterate that this is a
Speaker 3: job where people are barely They can't even put their
Speaker 3: kids through school, you know, when they're trying to. So
Speaker 3: how would you how would you describe what the lifestyle
Speaker 3: is of someone who is trying to just be a
Speaker 3: writer in the industry? And if is it just all
Speaker 3: champagne parties all day and you have no bills to
Speaker 3: pay exactly?
Speaker 2: It's I mean, look, and this is also a today
Speaker 2: of it. Like I think at there there was a
Speaker 2: time when at least the wh when a network and
Speaker 2: cable was like equitable. It was like you worked a
Speaker 2: job and you had about a middle class existence. It
Speaker 2: was just about where I would be or maybe even
Speaker 2: a little nicer depending on how well your show did
Speaker 2: AKA how well you did your gibe. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: just since I'm here, it was one of those things
Speaker 2: where I'll just do the long version of this, which
Speaker 2: is like at the beginning of the strike, I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm I'm like doing Okay, you know, I
Speaker 2: work and in the last like you know, one hundred days,
Speaker 2: one hundred and four days, like I've really been seeing
Speaker 2: like oh shit, I specifically was like screwed for doing
Speaker 2: kind of the same work. And so the example that
Speaker 2: is like very stark is the lash I worked on
Speaker 2: was that nineties show which is on Netflix. It's one
Speaker 2: of those like multi caam streaming reboots. No promo, no
Speaker 2: promo though, no promo though, yeah exactly, no fuck them done,
Speaker 2: any promo. No, I'm like truly gonna tell you why.
Speaker 2: And the prior to that, I worked on a show
Speaker 2: called Mixed which was a spin off of Blackish, which
Speaker 2: was on ABC. So just like the kind of like
Speaker 2: hard facts example, I mean Mixed Dish was never like
Speaker 2: a huge hit. We got like a second season, but
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't killing it ratings wise. I'm very
Speaker 2: you know, I'm very honored to working on the show,
Speaker 2: and it's I thought we did a great job and
Speaker 2: I've met so many amazing people. However, you know, it
Speaker 2: wasn't like, you know, overwhelmingly crushing it, whereas ninety show.
Speaker 2: Apparently because one of the other things the MPTP refused
Speaker 2: to do is divulge their streaming numbers. But you know
Speaker 2: it was a huge hit. According to them, it was
Speaker 2: the number one streaming on Netflix for like several weeks. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just trust this, So by their metrics, a quote unquote
Speaker 2: huge hit. And look, I mean, I guess there's a
Speaker 2: possibility more residuals will come through, but sort of to date,
Speaker 2: I have made per episode somewhere on the order of
Speaker 2: one hundred times more per episode of Mixed Dish that
Speaker 2: I have my name on than my episode of nineties show.
Speaker 2: One hundred times yes, and that is again marginal, like
Speaker 2: solid show versus a you know, by their by their reckoning,
Speaker 2: like I hit a humongous So so basically that's like
Speaker 2: what the royalty structure on streaming versus network is. It's literal.
Speaker 2: Pennies are more than pennies on the dollar. And so
Speaker 2: residuals is a thing that I think people you know,
Speaker 2: feel a certain way about, right you, Most people at
Speaker 2: their job don't get paid for the thing they make
Speaker 2: over time. However, so the reason residuals are to our
Speaker 2: minds a fair thing is these we only get paid
Speaker 2: if the studio continues to resell our creative product continues
Speaker 2: to make money from it. So so the reason for instance,
Speaker 2: like like when when my episode of Mixed Dish replays
Speaker 2: overseas or plays on video and demand, I get a
Speaker 2: tiny percentage of that money that they make, whereas there's
Speaker 2: no real equivalent or sorry, there's an equivalent, but it's
Speaker 2: much lower on streaming. Yeah, you know, one one hundredths
Speaker 2: about as far as I know, Like I don't know,
Speaker 2: I guess all the ins and outs, but it has
Speaker 2: been really stark and like making no money for this hit.
Speaker 2: And you know you hear many stories people just routinely. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Cody Zigler, who's been on the show before, a friend
Speaker 2: of mine, made a three figure check for his hit
Speaker 2: episode of she Hulk, which again was one of the
Speaker 2: highest rated according to them, highest rated things on Disney Plus. So,
Speaker 2: and the reason you need residuals is because that is
Speaker 2: sort of because we are not full time employees. Like
Speaker 2: we're not someone who like is hired by a studio
Speaker 2: or hired by producer just able to work all the time.
Speaker 2: So the compromise is sort of like in exchange for
Speaker 2: when we do stuff that does amazingly well, we are
Speaker 2: compensated and able to like like participate in that well
Speaker 2: performing thing. So the other thing that is like a
Speaker 2: direct way that I was like, oh, this is a
Speaker 2: one to one and how I've been specifically screwed is
Speaker 2: I worked on that ninety show, which is a reboot
Speaker 2: of that seventy show. If anyone's ever watched both shows
Speaker 2: they were created, you know, we have like our showrunner
Speaker 2: was like a that seventy show writer, the creators and
Speaker 2: executive producers or writing and in the room with us,
Speaker 2: like it was exactly it's the same fucking sets. Like
Speaker 2: it's the exact same process of making that ninety show
Speaker 2: as making that seventy show, except we had approximately half
Speaker 2: the writers, which in a show like that makes it
Speaker 2: very difficult because what you're doing is like pitching jokes
Speaker 2: and at a certain point it's just like a volume thing,
Speaker 2: like you know, there's only so many fresh takes and
Speaker 2: there's only so many resources that you can have to
Speaker 2: make the exact same product. So yeah, it was just
Speaker 2: one of those things where I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: you know, that show was like very very difficult to make,
Speaker 2: and I think like unnecessarily so because of because of
Speaker 2: the resources that we had writing wise, which is again
Speaker 2: a tiny fraction, like single digit percentages of the budget,
Speaker 2: and you know, and then also just my development as
Speaker 2: a writer suffered, Like I was often just like either
Speaker 2: in over my head, like having to run the joke
Speaker 2: room for instance, which is like usually, you know, someone
Speaker 2: more senior than me would be doing that because we
Speaker 2: would have twice as many people, so so working with
Speaker 2: like half as many people often without enough, you know.
Speaker 2: And I don't really mean to say this as like
Speaker 2: a ding on the actual people running ninety show, but
Speaker 2: it was just like, you know, I who the fuck knows,
Speaker 2: but I guess it's like we were like slightly just
Speaker 2: like under resource the whole time in a way that
Speaker 2: was like incredibly difficult for doing the exact same job. Again,
Speaker 2: it was exactly the same work as making seventy show,
Speaker 2: and people who wrote episodes of that seventy show, you know,
Speaker 2: conservatively because it was on Fox, like high mid six
Speaker 2: figures probably over the lifetime and residuals maybe like it
Speaker 2: was a ton of money for doing the exact same work.
Speaker 2: So in multiple ways, like analogous to old school like
Speaker 2: TV writers even from like five six years ago. I'm like, really,
Speaker 2: and I kind of didn't realize how screwed I was
Speaker 2: until spending a bunch of time on the picket line
Speaker 2: talking to people, and I was like, oh, right, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: like I thought I was doing okay, and then I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I've really been getting fucked for like
Speaker 2: apples to apples work like literally the exact same thing,
Speaker 2: or in my I would argue more difficult.
Speaker 1: Right, all right, Actually, before we keep going on this,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back. It sounds like there's an incentive for
Speaker 1: not even like acknowledging a hit show. And I know
Speaker 1: that's also like always been a traditional like you know
Speaker 1: the thing that people said about the entertainment industry, right
Speaker 1: like the first Indiana Jones movie, Like it's still like
Speaker 1: according to the studio that made it like not profitable,
Speaker 1: you know, like like that, right, it's like creative bookkeeping
Speaker 1: to keep people from participating. But it does feel like
Speaker 1: there is like we don't even know when a show
Speaker 1: is a hit anymore, and like it's just like they
Speaker 1: dumped so much content you me, like shows on the
Speaker 1: like on their streaming networks without like even trying to
Speaker 1: promote when like one of them was a hit. It
Speaker 1: was just all like invisible. And it's like all these
Speaker 1: things that supposedly millions and millions of people are watching
Speaker 1: and are entering like should be an a like cultural
Speaker 1: like bloodstream and like these are the ideas that are
Speaker 1: like affecting the zeitgeist, and they're just like completely invisible.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think that's connected to the streamers
Speaker 1: just being so kind of guarded about letting their data.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, one is they might simply be I'll say,
Speaker 2: you know, using creative statistics, right of bullshitting right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like that's certainly a possibility. But the other thing is, yeah,
Speaker 2: has been like their model is like so driven by
Speaker 2: people who apparently don't like or watch TV or understand
Speaker 2: how culture works at all, Like down to the binging. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's Wall Street and Silicon Valley's influence. Like you
Speaker 2: can see that happening because it's not like there aren't
Speaker 2: things that can happen, right, even like on the streamers
Speaker 2: like a squid game or like you know, you know
Speaker 2: just what ever, like you know, jury Duty. Yeah, like
Speaker 2: things things can break through and make a cultural impact.
Speaker 2: But I think it is because these people essentially what
Speaker 2: their business model is. And you can tell Sorry, this
Speaker 2: is all my own speculation, I should say, is like
Speaker 2: you watch them trying to feed this like concept of
Speaker 2: quote content like you see it in like HBO Max,
Speaker 2: like David's aslif just thinks of everything as content, like
Speaker 2: he's like House Hunters and Game of Thrones is equally
Speaker 2: equally a creative endeavor. Yeah, Like like that is like
Speaker 2: very important to their worldview. It's just like minutes to
Speaker 2: eyeballs and fill in tape essentially. So so that I
Speaker 2: think is also why like like they they don't like
Speaker 2: they seem to have an interest in devaluing the business model.
Speaker 2: And I will just throw this out there. It it
Speaker 2: if you look at the way Silicon Valley has and
Speaker 2: things to other industries. I think Uber is a great example,
Speaker 2: or like ride shares in general, like they just go
Speaker 2: in operate at a loss in an attempt to destroy
Speaker 2: the industry and create some kind of monopoly, which is
Speaker 2: arguably what Netflix is doing. And then you know, either
Speaker 2: jacking up the prices or just sort of leaving the
Speaker 2: industry to like fucking deal with the greater pieces and society. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, So that it just seems like like
Speaker 2: Netflix essentially. So the the other upshot of all this
Speaker 2: is that like because we like, streamers play much fewer
Speaker 2: residuals off of like because we say so data Netflix
Speaker 2: and in Netflix, you know, or the streamers having like
Speaker 2: pioneered this practice of mini rooms, which is like again
Speaker 2: what I went through with nineties show, like hiring much
Speaker 2: fewer people, asking them to do much more work, and
Speaker 2: doing it for a shorter period of time. We like
Speaker 2: they're essentially just begging to be able to operate at
Speaker 2: a lower cost, which is like, hey, maybe you just
Speaker 2: don't get to if you're not smart enough to make
Speaker 2: money like from television, like America's greatest import or export,
Speaker 2: like the most powerful thing. Like other countries realize this,
Speaker 2: Like fucking China understands that it's important to have, Like
Speaker 2: they obviously want to screw their workers too, but they
Speaker 2: at least understand it's important from a fucking even if
Speaker 2: you're like a complete like you know, if you really
Speaker 2: don't care about this, like just from a geopolitical standpoint,
Speaker 2: like Great Britain gets to continue to be a world power,
Speaker 2: you know, decades edging on century like after their their
Speaker 2: fucking little empire like crumbles because people because the Beatles.
Speaker 2: The Beatles is soft power that resonates. You know this,
Speaker 2: we still have like my my, like dumb family who
Speaker 2: were literally victimized by the British being like sad when
Speaker 2: Queen Elizabeth dies, Like that's power, that's like fucking power.
Speaker 2: And the fact that we appear to be like willing
Speaker 2: to give that away. So what I should say is
Speaker 2: what I say give that away is if the studios
Speaker 2: get what they want, that will within you know, five
Speaker 2: ten something years, be the end of like working as
Speaker 2: a creative in Hollywood being a middle class sustainable existence,
Speaker 2: like it simply will be not possible. There will not
Speaker 2: be any staff writers. Like essentially that will then become
Speaker 2: if you are a low level level television writer, it's
Speaker 2: sort of the equivalent of an internship, like essentially, like
Speaker 2: only rich kids will be able to do it right
Speaker 2: and like that it just is basically then becoming a
Speaker 2: writer in Hollywood, as is what I know most about,
Speaker 2: is a lottery ticket. You know, some of you will
Speaker 2: be able to make it on merit, but also luck
Speaker 2: some of you will be able to just outlast because
Speaker 2: you could run at a deficit for five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 2: nine years. Look and it, by the way, is already
Speaker 2: like this, but it will make it worse. And if
Speaker 2: the proposal the SAG goes through, that's like essentially trying
Speaker 2: to break the union from a pension perspective. If if
Speaker 2: what they put on the table was there, like they
Speaker 2: would end background acting as a profession and that would
Speaker 2: completely decimate Sorry I should say all this is as
Speaker 2: I understand it. Adam Conover probably has the actual Notes
Speaker 2: version of this, but like that just fucking ends acting
Speaker 2: as like a job. It ends acting as a job
Speaker 2: and turns it into a gig, which is just that
Speaker 2: that's how we start to tell fewer interesting stories, fewer
Speaker 2: new people will come through, will start to be doing
Speaker 2: the same thing over and over and over again, and
Speaker 2: we will start losing to creative people, creative countries. Like
Speaker 2: it's just it's very weird, No, but it is like
Speaker 2: sort of pathetic, how like short term that all these
Speaker 2: folks thinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because yeah, I mean like for the longest
Speaker 3: time we were always like, how the fuck is Netflix
Speaker 3: a company? Because all I would be like, they're just
Speaker 3: deficit spending and deficits yeending and deficit spending, and I
Speaker 3: was always asking, like other people I knew who were
Speaker 3: like at the executive of them, like what is there?
Speaker 3: Like I remember ten year or maybe like eight years ago,
Speaker 3: asking like what the fuck is their plan?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And someone was like, they're probably hoping something like
Speaker 3: an Apple or Google will just buy them at first. Yeah,
Speaker 3: kind of like the thought and it won't matter how
Speaker 3: much they've they've spent or burned up, because that would
Speaker 3: be the end goal. But then also once Wall Street
Speaker 3: started rewarding that stock to say, oh, well, it's really
Speaker 3: not about the profits they're showing. It's about look at
Speaker 3: their their market share that they're devouring and look at
Speaker 3: the potential. It's like it's like Tesla, where it's like,
Speaker 3: don't look at like the facts and figures of the
Speaker 3: business because it's dog shit. Think you'll like what this
Speaker 3: can do for the future. That's what you're buying into.
Speaker 3: And then once Flix was like, oh we just had
Speaker 3: a subscriber loss, Wall Street basically said fuck all you
Speaker 3: guys for not being profitable. And then the reaction from
Speaker 3: the studios is all right, well now we gotta cut shit.
Speaker 3: Now we gotta do people gotta do less. We've got
Speaker 3: to do more with less, which is of a theme
Speaker 3: that many people across the country are familiar with, no
Speaker 3: matter what industry you're in, it's like, hey, do more
Speaker 3: for less. And we find ourselves in this position now
Speaker 3: where we're completely like like in a way inadvertently or
Speaker 3: very advertently, you're starting to see all of like the
Speaker 3: the gains that were made in like equitable representation from
Speaker 3: like the kinds of creators that were getting shows and
Speaker 3: the kinds of people we saw being the faces on
Speaker 3: the screen. We're just gonna we're just regressing right back
Speaker 3: to the fucking status quo where it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: we don't have time to tell black stories or trans
Speaker 3: stories as we don't have time, Like what's the new
Speaker 3: fucking ip? We can just dust off and do another
Speaker 3: They're gonna just spin off of Nurse Jackie. Yeah, like
Speaker 3: what the fuck are doing worse than the status quote
Speaker 3: because it's the satus quote. But also they don't pay
Speaker 3: people living wages right, Like is the actual plan? Yeah,
Speaker 3: they like Wiley Coyote themselves off a financial cliff, but
Speaker 3: the problem is they can bring all of us with them.
Speaker 2: And they're trying to do that. Yeah, that is it
Speaker 2: appears to be the plan. And like, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean it's just like this thing where I was like
Speaker 2: again watching watching, how much like the same work is
Speaker 2: not being rewarded or being devalued. Oh sorry, that was
Speaker 2: the other thing with the with the deficit spending things.
Speaker 2: Like they also didn't really do a good job with
Speaker 2: the money they spend. No, Like it's like because they
Speaker 2: just think again, minutes of tape is the only metric
Speaker 2: that matters. And it's so bizarre how it, Like any
Speaker 2: fool could have told you that's not how culture works,
Speaker 2: except for these bozos, like they misunderstand how culture works.
Speaker 2: It's also this thing, So the other sticking point in
Speaker 2: this strike has been AI and like you know, the
Speaker 2: fact that like I understand AI can do you know,
Speaker 2: will start to very quickly approach the old thing, you know,
Speaker 2: perfect replicas of whatever the fuck existed in the past. Right,
Speaker 2: But like I think, like these people like seem to
Speaker 2: misunderstand that culture is novel. Like they they just do
Speaker 2: not get that, like there is a need for something new, right,
Speaker 2: and like their little plagiarism machine, you know it maybe
Speaker 2: can you know through dint of like random remixing. Essentially,
Speaker 2: like come up with something that does appeal to a
Speaker 2: novel center of the culture's brains. But that's also because
Speaker 2: like some creative person picked that instance out of this
Speaker 2: pile of fucking ten thousand or ten million, Like it's
Speaker 2: still required like a a even you know. So that's
Speaker 2: like every time everyone anyone posts like AI art, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's over for creatives. It's like, I don't, you know,
Speaker 2: far be it for me to defend the creativity of
Speaker 2: these AI fucking evangelists. But they're misunderstanding that they picked
Speaker 2: the instance that was like pleasing to some center of
Speaker 2: their brain and shared with everyone that that the AI
Speaker 2: doesn't know that this one's better than the other fucking
Speaker 2: nine million versions it made. It still requires like a
Speaker 2: human sense of novelty and joy and wonder and experience
Speaker 2: to like have this mean something. I don't know, maybe
Speaker 2: I'm fucking I'm sure there's some like AI person that
Speaker 2: disagrees with me on this, But the.
Speaker 3: Second that it puts out the an actual flawless Seinfeld episode,
Speaker 3: then I think we're still.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, But.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like that even that would be an old show,
Speaker 1: like there are plenty of right now. I'd write a
Speaker 1: flawless Seinfeld episode right now, like that's the thing that
Speaker 1: it misses is and I agree that, Like it feels
Speaker 1: like they're already shading in this direction when you look
Speaker 1: at what they did with that spending, with all the
Speaker 1: money they spent, where it was like a lesser diminished
Speaker 1: like amount of production resources per show. And then you
Speaker 1: like look at all these streaming shows that are like
Speaker 1: they have these crazy high numbers like that. This one
Speaker 1: article Will lenk Off to on the footnotes talks about
Speaker 1: the show The Night Agent being this huge like Netflix
Speaker 1: show and they're talking to the showrunner who's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm like not not being compensated like it's a
Speaker 1: hit Netflix show or a hit any show. And but
Speaker 1: like that show like doesn't really exist as far as
Speaker 1: like Pete, like I just it came and went and
Speaker 1: like I wasn't aware I had it confused with The Bodyguard,
Speaker 1: I think, and the guy plays it is like look
Speaker 1: similar to the Bodyguard, and but it like I watched
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen minutes of it and it feels like
Speaker 1: it could have been generated by an AI that it
Speaker 1: ingested every procedural like up to like for the past
Speaker 1: thirty years like that. Yeah, it feels like, yes, AI
Speaker 1: is actually in line with what they think they're trying
Speaker 1: to do. It's just what they think they're trying to
Speaker 1: do is going to not make anything good, like good
Speaker 1: enough to actually like propel the entertainment and like the art.
Speaker 1: Yeah that is that like drives culture forward into the future, and.
Speaker 3: They're just killing something that is innately human about people
Speaker 3: like wanting to create and to be creative. Like yeah,
Speaker 3: because the way these studios and executives look at the
Speaker 3: nature of creativity is like it's the same way a
Speaker 3: senator would look at what they're going to read if
Speaker 3: they're trying to fillibuster.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, man, just say shit, just say worse.
Speaker 2: That's all you gotta do is matter.
Speaker 3: Just read from the phone book and that'll that's enough
Speaker 3: to tick those just as good, right, and think of
Speaker 3: how uninteresting what happens when you shift gear to we'll
Speaker 3: just read from the phone book. The most entertaining thing
Speaker 3: might be when they don't know how to pronounce a
Speaker 3: certain name. And that's like the height of like fucking
Speaker 3: entertainment or whatever. Because more and more it's just looked
Speaker 3: at what we just need to hear words and visuals
Speaker 3: be put out there for people to stare out creativities
Speaker 3: and like a non issue.
Speaker 2: And I think that's really.
Speaker 3: A violent part like about it is that we're taking
Speaker 3: that sort of ability for a human being to pursue
Speaker 3: something like that, to have an imagination and to be
Speaker 3: able to sustain their life with it. Just it's not
Speaker 3: even it's not even possible.
Speaker 2: But like like even in your example, right, like like
Speaker 2: stumbling over a word is something only a fucking human
Speaker 2: could do, right, Like Like also it's it's like this
Speaker 2: like like they're they're the myths that got built around
Speaker 2: like like Netflix, the myths that they're built on. Is
Speaker 2: like we had an algorithm that told us that people
Speaker 2: like Kevin Spacey and political drama, and therefore we green
Speaker 2: lay house of Cards and look like the computer did that.
Speaker 2: No human could do that, which like ignores their like
Speaker 2: the things that don't work that it ignores the things
Speaker 2: that haven't worked that have been algorithm driven. And also
Speaker 2: it's like this such a funny thing. It's like you
Speaker 2: know what put Amazon streaming on the map? Fucking transparent, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, not one computer at any point ever,
Speaker 2: was like, do you know what we need now? Like
Speaker 2: you know this this story transparent, so like like they're
Speaker 2: working from just like this law of tiny numbers. I
Speaker 2: mean that was my other experience. Wow, this is maybe
Speaker 2: maybe talking out of school, but I think this is
Speaker 2: a common enough experience, which is like we had a
Speaker 2: moment in nineties show where they were insistent. Okay, I
Speaker 2: guess I just won't say exactly what the thing that
Speaker 2: we're insisting on, but they had a note for our
Speaker 2: opening credit sequence that was basically like the algorithm says
Speaker 2: you have to do this or else no one will
Speaker 2: watch it. And when I tell you, it was an utterly, utterly,
Speaker 2: utterly inconsequential note. From a creative perspective, it was just
Speaker 2: like technically going to be very difficult to do, and
Speaker 2: they're like, our data shows that this has to be
Speaker 2: this way. And like having worked in the network side
Speaker 2: of entertainment before, and I worked with executives and watched
Speaker 2: our research department routinely lie to them like essentially or
Speaker 2: obfuscate with statistics, and having taken a little bit of
Speaker 2: statistics in my life, I'm like, you don't have enough
Speaker 2: data to know, like you simply like this niggling, tiny
Speaker 2: thing that doesn't really make any difference, Like you're insistent
Speaker 2: on it because your date. You're like, legitimately, statistically and
Speaker 2: significant data tells you one thing, but it doesn't. The
Speaker 2: reality is it doesn't matter, and the fact that you
Speaker 2: are killing multiple executives and a high price showrunner's day
Speaker 2: arguing about this is like flushing money down the toilet, ye,
Speaker 2: because you worship an algorithm, but you also don't have
Speaker 2: the statistic knowledge to like actually say this is inconsequential.
Speaker 2: They had an inconsequential fight all because I'm like, you
Speaker 2: haven't produced that many show opens before, so you don't know.
Speaker 2: You just don't have a data set that tells you,
Speaker 2: like whether this creative choice or this creative choice makes
Speaker 2: the most difference in this And again, cannot stress enough
Speaker 2: it did not make a difference, right.
Speaker 1: I bet that executive was like, see those hits, see
Speaker 1: those numbers. That's yeah, because yeah, yeah, well, Andrew, such
Speaker 1: a pleasure having to come you.
Speaker 2: What it's actually like, thank you for letting me talk
Speaker 2: so long.
Speaker 3: We're like we want to I mean every time I
Speaker 3: see you post from the picket lines or like whatever
Speaker 3: you're observing your tweets almost like we gotta have Andrew
Speaker 3: to talk about also like and also like again, I
Speaker 3: think there's just such a misconception of what it means
Speaker 3: to work as a creative person in the industry because
Speaker 3: most people just think they're just thinking of the exceptions
Speaker 3: and yes, rather than that, there is such an occupation
Speaker 3: where you just are trying to like hone your craft
Speaker 3: of writing and it could render you an income that
Speaker 3: you could live off of. And yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 3: It's not it's not yacht money. It can be yacht money,
Speaker 3: you know, God willing, but for the most part, it's
Speaker 3: it's like anything else do by the same thing. We
Speaker 3: have people who wanted they got to take side gigs.
Speaker 3: Now it's like, but I thought you were writing on
Speaker 3: this show. Well no, no, now I'm doing uber. Now
Speaker 3: I'm doing this because it's actually not that kind of money.
Speaker 2: I I think if it helps, like you know, just
Speaker 2: from the like actors, right, like the criticism of like
Speaker 2: look at these millionaires asking for more money, and it's like,
Speaker 2: it's actually the millionaires foregoing money to help everyone else,
Speaker 2: Like far be it for me to like you know,
Speaker 2: kiss these rich people's asses, but in this instance, right,
Speaker 2: they are no, but truly it's like, yeah, he they
Speaker 2: are like giving, They're they're leaving money on the table
Speaker 2: to help other people. Like from the SAG thing. I
Speaker 2: think I read the minimum per year you have to
Speaker 2: make in SAG to qualify for health insurance is somewhere
Speaker 2: like twenty five thirty K something like that. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: around eighty five percent of their union do not make
Speaker 2: that from acting work. So this is not like rich people.
Speaker 2: This is people like trying to do a thing that
Speaker 2: they love that makes money. Hollywood is immensely profitable, so
Speaker 2: like the things that we do generate money, and we
Speaker 2: would just be able to like to be able to
Speaker 2: like live off of that, and I would like to,
Speaker 2: Like that's the fucking thing. It's like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: like going back to work is going to be hard,
Speaker 2: but like we love TV and movies and whatever. Media is,
Speaker 2: you know part part of this, you know, high high
Speaker 2: budget YouTube shows whatever. I fucking this shit. These people
Speaker 2: that were negotiating against by their actions do not even
Speaker 2: seem to like or understand any of this stuff, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it is like they think that our love for
Speaker 2: this is their leverage to exploit us, and on some
Speaker 2: level it is and will be. But like you know,
Speaker 2: we're at the ledge and like at a certain point,
Speaker 2: the strike is like necessary because it's like there's no
Speaker 2: version where if we accept the deal they put on
Speaker 2: the table, there would even be an industry. So like
Speaker 2: they forced us to be, you know, in survival mode.
Speaker 2: So that's it, Like, good fucking luck here we are surviving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing. Yeah, when when Zaslav was like, I think
Speaker 1: a love of work will bring the strike to an end,
Speaker 1: he was like telling on himself that He's just Yeah,
Speaker 1: these people seem to like have this weird thing they
Speaker 1: want their game back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's like so pathetic.
Speaker 1: Is there where can Bell find you and follow you
Speaker 1: on all that good stuff?
Speaker 2: Oh you gotta hit me up on threads? Yeah, andrew
Speaker 2: t everywhere? Yeah, if you can. We're still doing the
Speaker 2: Yosis Racist podcast. We actually started on the premium show
Speaker 2: doing my co host Tony Newsome and I. If you're
Speaker 2: a fan of Star Trek, she just had a pretty
Speaker 2: amazing episode where she did a live action crossover on
Speaker 2: Strenging Worlds. I'm not she's not promoting it. I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm just saying I really liked it. But we have
Speaker 2: been doing picket line like diaries. Essentially most of them
Speaker 2: start with me going fuck, funk funk, I'm running late.
Speaker 2: But yeah, just like literally, like what the vibe is
Speaker 2: on the ground at every year, we're gonna try to
Speaker 2: hit all the all the picket lines by the time
Speaker 2: this is over. But we started that way late. But
Speaker 2: it's been actually fun. Yeah. So yeah, just Yosi's racist.
Speaker 2: If if you could, if you find any of this
Speaker 2: remotely interesting, that would be cool.
Speaker 1: Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying?
Speaker 2: Yes, besides all the movies I talked about. Let's see
Speaker 2: the tweet I was looking for that I couldn't find,
Speaker 2: so I'll just have to attribute this to apocryphal and
Speaker 2: I don't remember paraphrasing, but it's basically somewhere on Strike News,
Speaker 2: basically some version of Hey, CBS, Sheldon ain't getting no younger.
Speaker 2: It's crazy that CBS in the old network, not like
Speaker 2: an old network, but Legacy TV is like, why are
Speaker 2: you fucking tanking your fall season just to support Netflix
Speaker 2: on it? That's a different issue. But let's see Brian
Speaker 2: Brian Jordan Alvarez, but Brian Jor Alvarez on Twitter wrote, listen,
Speaker 2: we kind of killed this fucking pig. There's a spider
Speaker 2: nearby who keeps writing things in her web and they
Speaker 2: seem to be friends, which made me laugh this morning.
Speaker 2: So that that'll be my media.
Speaker 1: There you go, Miles, Where can people find use their
Speaker 1: workI media you've been enjoying?
Speaker 2: Oh, find me on where you go? Whatever?
Speaker 3: You got them at Symbols at Miles of Gray. Also,
Speaker 3: you know, if you want to hear NBA talk, check
Speaker 3: out Jack and on Miles and jackott Man Boosti's check
Speaker 3: out my new true crime joint, The Good Thief, or
Speaker 3: we talk about the Greek Robinhood and also Force.
Speaker 2: Uh some media I'm liking.
Speaker 3: I thought I saw something over the weekend that I
Speaker 3: was fucking with.
Speaker 2: Nah, forgot it. I forget about it already, don't worry
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, just just learn yourself, learn yourself, folks.
Speaker 1: There you go. You can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Jack Underscore O'Brien and on threads at Jack Underscore. Oh underscore, Brian,
Speaker 1: I've checked it in the past week, I swear to god.
Speaker 1: Working media has been enjoying it at Internet. Hippo tweeted
Speaker 1: every children, every American child has a Boston accent until
Speaker 1: they're about six years old. Science cannot explain this. You
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at daily Zeikeist. We're at
Speaker 1: the Daily Zeicheist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan
Speaker 1: page and a website Daily zeikeist dot com where we
Speaker 1: post our episodes and our footnotes. We're like off the
Speaker 1: information that we talked about in today's episode, as well
Speaker 1: as a song that we think you might enjoy. Mile's
Speaker 1: what song do we think people might enjoy?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: I think you're gonna enjoy this track? This from Surprise Chef.
Speaker 3: Gone out on the track from Surprise Chef before, but
Speaker 3: this is another track called Spikey Boy s p I
Speaker 3: K Y b o I and it's just like good instrumental.
Speaker 3: You know, Just relax and get your week started, lighthead nod.
Speaker 3: I will turn up the volume a little bit towards
Speaker 3: the end of the week and we'll probably go out
Speaker 3: on some wild out drum and.
Speaker 2: Bass or some shit like that. But to start Spikey
Speaker 2: Boy by Surprise Chef.
Speaker 1: All right, well, you can find that in the footnotes
Speaker 1: the Daily ze is the production of by heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio is the heart Radio,
Speaker 1: ap Apple podcast or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: That's gonna do it for us this morning, back this
Speaker 1: afternoon to tell you what is trending and we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you all then.
Speaker 2: Bye bye