Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Tonight's Political Comment

The other day on MSNBC, Chris Matthews said...

I think the Hillary appeal has always been somewhat about her mix of toughness and sympathy for her. Let's not forget, and I'll be brutal, the reason she's a US Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front runner, is that her husband messed around. That's how she got to be a Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win it on her merit, she won because everybody felt, "My God, this woman stood up under humiliation, right?" That's what happened! That's how it happened.

Over dinner this evening, my 85-year-old mother said to me...

Did you hear that thing Chris Matthews said about Hillary Clinton? If I'd had him here, I would have slapped him.

I don't think she'd actually do that but I can understand why she feels that way.

• Posted at 9:57 PM · LINK

More Residual Issues

One word you're hearing a lot during the current Hollywood strike is "residuals." We writers usually get paid when our work is reused...sometimes not a lot but something. I co-wrote one Love Boat back in the seventies and about once every other year, I get money because it aired again in Botswana or somewhere. The last payment was under two dollars, which is probably less than it cost them to process the check. Sometimes, the amounts are more formidable and there are writers who will gladly tell you of the time their house was about to be foreclosed or their kid needed emergency medical treatement...and a residual check arrived at the perfect time to prevent personal financial disaster.

I get occasional questions here from folks who work in industries that don't operate that way, asking about why we get residuals; why someone gets paid again when they didn't do additional work. So a while ago here, I wrote this response which has received so many hits that I wish I got residuals for that. Take a look if you missed it.

But it needs a P.S. and this is it. I received the following message the other day from a prominent writer of TV, books, comics and other stuff...

What's the reasonable answer to give to some jackass who tries to diminish the importance of residuals by wanting to know why lighting guys, sound guys, and various other technicians aren't equally entitled?

Well, part of the reasonable answer is that many of them do. They just don't get them directly. There are many Hollywood unions that have negotiated residuals deals. It's just that unlike the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild, the check doesn't go directly to the individual. It goes to the union's health and/or pension plan. A lot of technicians pay low dues and get health insurance because of these residuals.

The Directors Guild is currently mounting a little crusade to remind everyone, including its own members, that all its members benefit from residuals even if they do not receive checks in the mail like my bi-annual Love Boat largesse. The DGA, as you may know, is full of directors but it also has among its membership, assistant directors, stage managers, and production associates in television, and directors, assistant directors, unit production managers, and technical coordinators. Directors receive WGA/SAG style residual checks directly. The others generally do not but they receive them in other ways. Recently, Gil Cates (President of the DGA) was interviewed and he explained...

Over the last ten years, residuals to our below-the-line members and to the Basic Pension Plan amount to more than 1/2 billion dollars. In addition, in 2006, over $44 million in residual benefits were paid directly into the DGA Basic Pension Plan by the companies. This represents 71% of all the funds contributed into our Basic Pension Plan benefiting all members. In other words, even if a member never works on a project that generates residuals in their entire career, when that member retires and become eligible to receive a pension, they will share in the benefits created by the residuals that go into the Basic Pension Plan every year.

I am told — and it certainly is no coincidence — that stats like these have been mentioned a lot recently in the Directors Guild's magazine and in various mailings to members. There could be a big residuals battle looming for the DGA in their new contract and they obviously wanted to prepare their rank 'n' file for that war.

There are, of course, those in Hollywood who do not get residuals in any way, shape or form...just as there are those in Hollywood who are not paid well, period. Some people are in that category, perhaps because they have no union or a weak union. It's difficult — in some cases, impossible — to negotiate residuals all by yourself. If you want to know why some professions aren't "entitled" to residuals, the answer is pretty much the same as the answer as to why some professions are paid so much less than others. They just are...because so few in their job description have had the leverage to demand more and set some precedents. Unfortunately in show business, you don't get something because you deserve it. You get it because you have the clout to get it.

• Posted at 8:34 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

From a 1965 episode of The Dean Martin Show, three great male vocalists — Dino, Vic Damone and Allan Sherman — a sing a mess of song snippets by Mr. Sherman. About half of these were on Sherman's records but quite a few were from his nightclub act and were never recorded anywhere else. Good stuff.

• Posted at 11:53 AM · LINK

This Afternoon!

This afternoon on Shokus Internet Radio — at 4 PM my time, which is 7 PM back East — Stuart Shostak will be interviewing Tom Lester, one of the stars of Green Acres. Tom is a heckuva nice, funny guy and he's had an amazing career which you'll enjoy hearing all about. Give a listen. Shokus Internet Radio is now easier to listen to than ever before. Just go to their site, click on the link that says "Enter Site" and you're there. Try it right now and see how simple it is.

• Posted at 11:30 AM · LINK

Wednesday Morning

I can't find a link to an online report yet but at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, our friends at TiVo have announced the next new feature that will be implemented on their boxes, perhaps as soon as March. It will be the ability to download a video podcast or other streaming video from the Internet on your computer and then transfer it almost effortlessly to your TiVo, thereby enabling you to watch the show on your TV.

This is where the technology is heading for everyone and it goes to the core of the current labor unrest in Hollywood. If NBC rebroadcasts an old episode of The Office (to pick one show at random) on their old-fashioned teevee network, they have to pay the director, writer(s) and actor(s) some nice residual payments directly and there are also residual payments to various unions that go into those unions' health and/or pension plans. These amounts are not crippling. NBC will still make an awful lot of money with that Office rerun.

But they don't even want to pay that share if they can get away with it. They'll be able to collect even more money (they think) by making that episode available for Internet download, either for a fee or for a free, advertising-supported viewing. You can download it that way and watch it on the same TV...and they're hoping to establish from the get-go that residuals in that situation will be either non-existent or, if they have to share, mere token payments to a few guilds.

This strike is about a lot of things but mainly it's about that.

• Posted at 11:18 AM · LINK

Spreading Democracy

Never mind this silly Presidential Primary nonsense. What really matters is: Have you cast your vote yet in our Skidoo poll?

• Posted at 8:54 AM · LINK