Friday, February 8, 2008

WGA Stuff

At this very moment, lawyers are madly trying to finalize the language of a proposed deal 'twixt the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Writers Guild of America. As we've been telling you here for some time, a key concern in this negotiation has to be the precise wording so that there's no wiggle room...so that the strike doesn't end and then the studios say, "No, we never agreed to that." This weblog post over at United Hollywood tells what's going on, and it matches what I'm hearing from other sources.

Assuming there's a deal to announce tomorrow night, it will be presented to the membership and discussed and debated. If our leadership recommends it, it will almost certainly be accepted. I mean, it's not like our negotiators can tell is it's an acceptable deal and then go back to the other side and say, "It's not an acceptable deal." My hope would be that when we vote, it doesn't pass overwhelmingly. If the number is 80%, the boys over at the AMPTP are going to say, "We could have got them cheaper." If it passes with 51%, they're less likely to lowball us the next time we meet at the table. (The mere fact that we sustained this strike for so long and didn't fold has already probably convinced them but a little more learning wouldn't hurt.)

I'll have more to say about all this after the meeting.

• Posted at 11:18 PM · LINK

Second and Third Opinions

The reviewer for the L.A. Times liked the new production of Li'l Abner as much as I did. So did the reviewer for Variety.

• Posted at 2:27 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

If this or a link to this hasn't appeared in your inbox, it will. This is the long (three and a half minute) version of a piece of amazing CGI animation that's making the rounds of a "fantastic machine." Some of its web appearances are shorter and many suggest that this is not animation; that it's a video of an actual invention cobbled together from parts of an old John Deere tractor (!) or various household items. Do not fall for this.

It was actually done and done brilliantly by a company called Animusic and that's a link to their website where they sell a DVD of such goings-on.

• Posted at 1:36 PM · LINK

WGA Stuff

I'm hearing all sorts of things that may happen at the Writers Guild meeting tomorrow night. Yes, I will be there. No, I won't be live-blogging from it and that's because I want to pay attention and also not violate the sanctity of what obviously will be an important gathering. Rumors abound about what's in the offer that will be discussed and I'm trying to not formulate an opinion until I actually know what I'm formulating an opinion about. I think it's fair to say though that the offer will be good enough for some and not good enough for others.

I will pass along one rumor, though. It's that the current proposal is for a deal that would expire in May of 2011. That sounds odd to me because the Screen Actors Guild traditionally makes contracts that expire at the end of July and if they make a new three year deal without a strike, that one would probably expire in July of '11 and the AMPTP could again be in the position of facing both unions with linked arms. One of the Big Stories of this Writers Strike, and the reason it's been so effective, has been the unbreakable solidarity with SAG. I don't know why the studios would risk having that happen again. Perhaps they think they can move SAG's expiration month to December.

The above, I should underscore, may not be true. None of the rumors may be true, including the one that has all the lawyers on both sides still scurrying to commit to paper some terms that can be discussed tomorrow evening. About the only thing I'll predict for sure about the meeting is that there will be a lot of arguing and that the parking at the Shrine Auditorium is going to suck. If you're getting there, get there early.

• Posted at 1:12 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

That's right. It's another Fred Kaplan article. This one's about the failure of NATO in Afghanistan.

• Posted at 11:16 AM · LINK

The Musical Fruit

As I've mentioned here before — to little apparent interest — I was a big fan of the cuisine at the old Love's Barbecue Restaurants. Alas, there are no more Love's except (according to the company website) for an alleged one in Jakarta, Indonesia. I'm dubious it's there and when I get a moment, I'm going to run over and check. In the meantime, all of the ones in this country have definitely closed. The only place that I believe still serves what is essentially the Love's menu is a former Love's situated in Brea, California. It's called Riley's.

My favorite thing on the Love's menu was their barbecued beans. When it became apparent to me that all the Love's were going away, I began searching for their recipe to see if it was possible for me to replicate these beans in my home kitchen. It doesn't take a lot of Googling to find two different recipes, both of which are presented as The Love's Recipe, sometimes with a little tale about how a friend who worked in one broke the Barbecue Code and divulged the secret. Here's one of these recipes...

5 pounds canned pork and beans
1 pound brown sugar
1 (14 oz.) bottle ketchup
2 bell peppers, chopped
1 teaspoon liquid smoke, to taste
8 slices bacon

Combine all ingredients except bacon in a large casserole or baking pan. Top with bacon strips. Bake at 325 degrees for 2 1/4 hours.

You'll find that recipe on at least a hundred websites and it may even yield a great pot of beans...but there's no way that's the Love's recipe. Love's beans did not contain bell peppers (I hate bell peppers) and were not topped with slices of bacon...and what's this about starting out with some arbitrary brand of canned pork and beans? Wouldn't the output of this recipe vary a lot depending on which brand of canned pork and beans you started with? Also, Love's beans tasted an awful lot like Love's barbecue sauce, and there's nothing in the above about adding in Love's sauce or any of the same spices. So phooey on this recipe.

A little more Googling and you may come up with the following putative recipe for Love's beans. This one is usually represented as having been exposed by an article in the L.A. Times...

3 (1 pound) cans pork n' beans
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons chili powder
1/4 cup dark molasses
1/2 cup bottled chile sauce
2 tablespoons vinegar

Combine all ingredients in bean pot or crockpot with lid, mix well. Cover and bake at 400 degrees F for 1 hour for thin bean mixture, or 1 1/2 to 2 hours for thicker bean mixture. Sprinkle with crumbled bacon bits to serve.

That sounds a little more like it but even without testing, I know that's not it. Again, we're starting with some random brand of canned beans, which means we have some arbtitrary sauce going into our concoction. Again, we have those bacon bits. I don't believe Love's beans had much, if any chile flavoring in them (I hate chile) and again, I don't see the elements in there that would convey or approximate the taste of Love's sauce.

It's still possible, by the way, to purchase Love's sauce via their website. It's a sweet BBQ sauce and usually I don't like sweet sauces...but I like this one and I sometimes use it in cooking. In case you're interested, the label on the bottle says it contains water, tomato paste, brown sugar, corn syrup, vinegar, salt, modified food starch, sucrose, spices, natural flavorings and a couple of chemicals.

One night recently, I actually had the following dream. It is rare that I remember dreams after I awaken and maybe the reason I recalled this one was that it came with a decent punchline.

A restaurant opened nearby that advertised itself as featuring the best dishes from now-defunct restaurant chains. Not a bad idea when you think about it. The proprietors, they said, had tracked down the owners of the extinct eateries and made deals to use their recipes and also their logos, so you could go in and get a simulation of some meal that you used to love at a chain no longer in business.

On the slim chance that they had included Love's in their repertoire, I raced to the restaurant and on the outside saw a display of the logos and names of the long-gone dining establishments whose menus were involved. As happens in dreams, the specifics were fuzzy...but I saw all these famous logos and in the middle of them was the one for Love's.

Ecstatic, I raced inside and took a seat at the counter. A waitress offered me a menu but for some reason, I declined. "Just bring me one of everything from the Love's section," I told her. "We only have one item from Love's," she said. "Whatever it is, bring me five of them," I said. Again, I have no idea why I did this in my dream but, you know, you do things in dreams that don't make a lot of sense. Some of us do things when we're awake that don't make a lot of sense, too.

So I sat there in this dreamed-up restaurant, drooling and anticipating and wondering which of the wonderful Love's entrees would soon be placed before me in quintuple helpings. Their ribs? Their chicken? Their ribs-chicken combo? Whatever it was, it surely came with a side of Love's beans and that's what I was really there for...to eat Love's beans. I waited and waited and waited for what seemed like months...and finally, just when I was beginning to give up hope, the serving lady came over and placed my order on the counter...

It was five vanilla milk shakes.

I'm not making this up. I really dreamed this, punchline and all.

• Posted at 10:24 AM · LINK