Hollywood Gossip and Political Hoopla

I don’t know what I was expecting for New Years eve when I started actually paying attention to celebrities to pen this here blog on absurdities and bullshit. They’re celebrities. You expect scandals, cat fights, mid-party divorce proceedings, liaisons in a dark corner of a club somewhere with paparazzi cameras trying desperately to catch someone cheating on their mate as Paris Hilton screeches “Tainted Love” in the background while getting frisky with a stripper pole in a largely un-enticing manner. Instead … nothing happened. Pete Wentz looked like a shaggy KD Lang, Pamela Anderson was without Rick Salomon, and Kim Kardashian made out with Reggie Bush. Britney wasn’t even around to do something stupid.

It’s almost as though the blogging community had a wilder night than the celebrities. Gawker Media for instance appears to be completely shut down today save for three or so of their blogs, including Kotaku, but they probably had a less than vigorous night New Years Eve playing World of Warcraft. A host of other blogs are on vacation but we at U Suxxors continue to work. We’re that dedicated, we’re that hard working, and frankly we’ve got nothing better to do.

But anyway, the lack of fallout this morning is completely depressing. As a reminder while I’m here, don’t forget we’re doing live Golden Globes coverage on the 13th for some completely insane reason, and I demand that Hollywood do something exciting for the occasion. If I cover this thing, and it’s boring tribe, I will curse you all. There’s gotta be a store out there that sells George Clooney or Jon Stewart voodoo dolls.

Curb Your Enthusiasm star Jeff Garlin showed up last week at a WGA rally in LA with a gift for striking writers. Personally, I think they’ve been getting too much as it is what with all the food and cake and generally catering they’re receiving. They’re living better now than they were before the strike. Garlin had something else in mind though. He gave them porn DVDs.

It doesn’t say anything about him providing something to you know, watch them on. Wouldn’t magazines make more sense since they can read those in line as they’re eating their chocolate torte?

NY Post - Are Porn Writers Striking?

I always end up defending Ellen DeGeneres in this blog for some reason, despite the fact that I hated her old sitcom and I hate her talk show. She should be low on my pecking order of people I defend, or at least in the middle somewhere because she’s never done anything to make me particularly care about her. I guess I could argue that she pisses me off for making me feel sympathetic towards her and thus whenever I have a chance I need to toss some sort of vile her way in retribution. I’ll start now. Ellen DeGeneres has ugly hair.

Now that that’s out of my system I can move on. I get why the writers involved in the current strike are pitching a fit because she’s still producing episodes. I understand that it breaks the show of solidarity everyone’s trying to show for the writers struggle. With that said, there’s a good number of staffers working on the Ellen DeGeneres show that could lose their jobs if she stops production, and in case no one has noticed Christmas is coming up. If you looked around hard enough last week you probably heard about either the Tonight Show or the Late Show having to cut a good portion of their staff in two weeks if the strike doesn’t end. I can give Ellen a pass for this because regardless of what her real motivation is people who aren’t making millions a year, the lowly peons stuck in the middle of all of this, are going to stay employed.

It’s not like there’s not enough support for the writers as it is. It’s not like people haven’t noticed, and it’s not like ones that haven’t noticed yet won’t in the coming weeks as they find their favorite shows off the air and a shitty American Idol clone or some other d-level reality show stuck in it’s place.

I was just about to take a break but damn, MSNBC is breaking with this shot of a rally being held in California to support the writers strike. It’s almost like one of those crowds in Rome when the Pope pops up on a balcony or something, except it’s not quite as big. Still, it’s flipping huge.

They also said Arnold Schwarzenegger is currently talking to both sides personally in an attempt to get them to work out their differences because naturally this strike is affecting more than just the writers and the studios and it’s kinda screwing up the economy there. I think after the past couple days regular people are starting to realize just how big the scope is of this thing and the effect it’s really going to have on TV shows if it continues on. There’s going to be a lot of happy people if a miracle gets pulled out but all I ever hear is how the studios don’t want to negotiate their terms, despite the ever growing number of people, including actors, that are behind the writers now.

Two days in and it’s already starting to get really depressing for TV viewers. I can’t tell you what went on with the late night shows as I had just got done watching a %#:*ing awesome two hours of Prison Break and frankly nothing else was going to compare after that. I felt like I just needed to end my day immediately because it wasn’t going to be topped at that point.

Ain’t It Cool has some updates about what shows are currently being affected due to writers / actors jumping into the picket lines. Most of the cast of the Office is striking now so production could be considered done for them at this point. Tina Fey (30 Rock), Julia Louise Dreyfuss (New Adventures of Old Christine), Roy Moore (Battlestar Gallactica), Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives), Marg Helgenberger (CSI) all showed up in the line at some point or another during the day. Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, Rules of Engagement, Pushing Daisies, The Unit, The Shield, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Lost & Heroes have all apparently shut down production due to some producer or major part of the writing staff walking off set. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean these shows are going to jump immediately to reruns. As shown in the show guide from yesterday, most of these shows have episodes sitting on the shelf that haven’t been aired yet. The problem is that eventually they’re going to run out and in the case of some of these shows, they’re just missing their season finale like the Shield and I believe Heroes.

The WGA website has details of the last minute negotiations held Sunday night where they mentioned they actually pulled demands for DVD residuals off the table and only wanted to talk about establishing new media residuals. The studios refused to listen to them and took a take it or leave it stance, informing the WGA that they intended to create an independant group to explore the economic model of selling shows online, a process that would take three years to complete. So in other words, the studios want the writers to wait three years while they roll out video on demand and movies for download while they keep 100% of the profits for themselves.

Of course, this makes it much easier to understand the writer’s side of things now because the studios are basically telling them to their face they want to screw them for at least three years. The studios have done with before with DVD technology and before that VHS. The most ridiculous part of the studio’s argument is that all shows if shown through an online source are considered promotional. That means every time a full episode of Lost is shown on ABC.com for instance, the writers don’t get jack for it. The key word is promotion. Despite the fact that you just watched an entire episode online, it’s considered promotional material used to get you to watch it on TV. They really are trying to pull some serious bullshit here.

Aint It Cool: Show Updates