Current Affairs

What is the WGA Thinking?

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This has not been a great couple of years for the Writers Guild of America. First, president Victoria Riskin created an embarrassing scandal when it was revealed she wasn’t actually an active member and, therefore, unqualified to serve.  She resigned and Charles Holland took her place — until it was revealed by the LA Times that claims he made about his college football accomplishments and military service were at best exaggerated and at worst complete fabrications.  He resigned, too. 

After those two scandals, and with the union’s image in tatters, the WGA instigated a very public battle with their own members by charging that the  WGAe hadn’t paid their fair share of dues. While the WGA may have been right, technically and legally,  in their dispute with WGAe, it was a public relations disaster that underscored the  image of a Guild in utter disarray.

And so it goes today. Apparently, the WGA board has learned nothing from the events of the past couple of years.  Variety reports that the WGA is giving Riskin the prestigious Valentine Davies Award for her contributions to writers and the community at large. 

The action — taken several weeks ago with board members pledged to
confidentiality — undoubtedly will reopen what had been an embarrassing chapter
for the WGA West.

No kidding.  What were they thinking? Or, more accurately, were they even thinking at all? I don’t argue that Riskin may deserve the honor…I’m sure that she is. But to give it to her now, so soon after she resigned in disgrace and embarrassed her Guild,  is such a blatantly  wrong-headed decision that I can’t believe the Board seriously considered it…much less approved it.

This decision shows that the board suffers from a disturbing and rather astonishing case of political ineptitude. Can they be this unaware of how their reactions are perceived…or the image of the Guild right now among its members and the industry as a whole? Either they are  dumb or they are clueless. Neither choice speaks very well of our elected leadership.

Keenan on BADGE

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Mystery lover Vince Keenan, columnist for the excellent Mystery File newsletter, had some very nice to things to say about THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE on his blog today.

Harvey Mapes drifted into security work because he thought it
would be like MANNIX or one of his Gold Medal paperbacks. He stays in it because
it gives him time to read more Gold Medal paperbacks. When a resident of the
gated community where he works hires him to tail his wife, Harvey finally gets
his chance to make like Spenser.

The book is about Harvey’s discovery
that real-life crime isn’t like the fictional variety at all. At first, the
differences are played for laughs, but when Harvey’s case takes a tragic turn,
Lee never loses his footing. Harvey actually matures on the page, a
transformation made evident in the character’s distinctive voice. He stops
wising off and starts wising up.

Thanks, Vince. And where’s the next issue of Mystery File? I’m going through withdrawal.

A Kindred Spirit

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When I was nine years old, I started writing my book UNSOLD TV PILOTS. It was what studio and network execs today like to call "a passion project." I wanted to listed every pilot rejected by the networks since the dawn of television. I finally finished the book around 1988 and it was published in 1989. I’ve continued compiling information since then — and although I never wrote the sequel, that research became the fodder for two TV special, one for CBS and one for ABC, that I produced with William Rabkin.  I thought I was alone in my strange fascination with TV failures…but I’m not.

The blog TrivialTV notes that summer used to be the time when networks burned off their busted pilots. Not anymore. Now it’s a reality show backwater. But in honor of all those busted pilots, today TrivialTV lists the titles and airdates of most of the 1/2 hour and hour-long  busted pilots that have been broadcast  since January 1, 1990.

Start Your Day With A Belly Laugh

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GaywyckHere are two very funny posts to start off your day.  Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels gleefully skewer another batch of horrendous book covers. This week, it’s some gay erotica:

Dear God. It’s like a checklist: open shirt? Check! Tucked into pants? Check!
Ruffle? CHECK! But what’s up with Ichabod Crane’s low-hanging saggy scrotum, there? I mean,
is shirt-dude kneeling out of pity? The man is half-dead, and the half that’s
dead is down his pants.

And my brother Tod ridicules perhaps the dumbest person to ever write to that beacon of knowledge, Walter Scott.

M. Beatryce Shaw of Conway, SC asks, amazingly, really:

Are the corpses used in the various CSI shows actual dead people or are they
mannequins?

(Click on the book cover for a larger image…if you dare)

WGA Election

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Today, I attended a gathering at screenwriter John Brancato’s home of "Writers United," a slate of candidates running for the Board of the  Writers Guild of America. Their most eloquent and impassioned speaker was vp candidate David Weiss, who outlined the "platform" that sets them apart from the other slate (I’m sure they have a nifty name, too, but I’ve forgotten it ). Basically, Writers United wants the Guild to focus more of its resources on organizing (bringing new writers into the fold), corporate/industry analysis (research on the companies to give us a better negotiating strategy), and stronger alliances with other industry unions and guilds.

Before the formal presentations began, I talked casually with some of the other attendees, all of whom shared my feeling that the WGA has, basically, been embarrassing itself and its members with its actions the last few years (President Victora Riskin resigning in scandal, her successor Charles Holland resigning in scandal, very public infighting between the WGAw and the WGAe, etc.).

Unlike previous WGA elections, I have no idea who to vote for, so I am going to these events with my eyes and ears wide open.  Next, I’ll attend an event hosted by the opposing slate to see what they have to say and how they differ from the Writers United slate. That said, I tend not to follow slates. I prefer to vote for individuals I believe in with bold ideas and views/priorities/concerns similar to my own.

My Evil Doubles

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I was procrastinating this morning, so I decided to see what folks were saying about me in the blogosphere (via Blogpulse). And I found this:

My friends at WJBQ made mention
of the blog again yesterday…and let the cat out of the bag that I love
Lee Goldberg.

Surely she’s not talking about me. So who is this Lee Goldberg who fills her heart with passionate yearning? Who torments her nights with unquenchable lust? I had to find out. So I searched the web for my evil, sexy double…

0523154918_goldberg2

LeeLee_goldberg  Goldberg1Grne0712_smPierce7

5421158Here are few of the "Lee Goldbergs" out there.   I’m surprised by how many of them are writers or TV Goldbergsdnewscasters. I wonder if they get hate mail from fanficcers, too?

I’m Going to Be Blushing All Weekend

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I made my daily visit to Ed Gorman’s blog and was shocked out of my seat by the kind words he had to say about THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE.

What makes the novel so remarkable–remarkable enough for me to put it
on my Edgar short list along with Terrill Lankford’s Blonde
Lightning–is the way, like the best of the Rockford episodes, Goldberg
is able to parody his standard SoCal moments while telling a
convincing, even moving tale about the real nature of SoCal streets and
the real nature of heroism.

The novel owes more to literary pieces than to genre ones because here
the narrator’s voice is more important than plot, something you find in
novels such as Richard Price’s Ladies Man (modern) and J.D. Salinger’s
Catcher in The Rye (classic). And as in both of those novels, Goldberg
creates an Everyman, a man who just doesn’t fit anywhere, a man who is
driven to find some small justice in a world where justice is just
another commodity to buy and sell. You can almost hear Holden Caulfield
hectoring you, telling you that you’re a sap to believe all that
hi-faultin’ nonsense about the hallowed justice system working for one
and all. He knows better and you should know better, too.

I may be blushing all weekend. To be compared on any level besides "this book is also written on paper" with Richard Price and J.D. Salinger just floors me. Thank you, Ed. Now how the hell am I supposed to get back to writing MONK #2 after that?