Negotiators for the Screen Actors Guild have reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a new contract. They've gone months and months of warfare and mudslinging without one and now they have one...probably.
SAG hardliners are already saying they will urge the membership to reject it and SAG softliners (to coin the opposite noun) are saying they could have gotten this deal months ago. Both sides seem to be saying this before they know what's actually in the deal, which will be unveiled before a SAG Board Meeting on Sunday.
It is rumored though that the contract's expiration date is June 30, 2011. If so, that would be a "win" for SAG, though at what cost we don't know. Recently, leaks from within the deliberation were suggesting that the expiration date was the stumbling block; that SAG wanted this date and the AMPTP didn't want them to have it.
6/30/11 would line up SAG's next negotiations with AFTRA's, which would help if those two unions are to patch up their differences and link arms again. It also would allow some coordination with other above-the-line guilds. The current Writers Guild contract expires on May 1, 2011 and the current Directors Guild contract also expires June 30, 2011. So the WGA gets to go first in the next round and interesting alliances are already possible. If SAG is getting the June 30 date, that makes the possibilities even more intriguing.
Beyond that, it's wait-and-see with the SAG contract. I suspect there will be a lot of yelling at what's not in the deal and a concerted effort to vote it down. But I'd be very surprised if it's so bad that it won't pass by a wide margin. It won't be a great deal. The union lost the chance to get one of those when it splintered with AFTRA. But it won't be so egregiously terrible that the members will turn it down.
Earlier this month, my friends Len Wein and Chris Valada lost a pretty good sized chunk of their house and belongings in a fire. They're moving (today, I think) into a rental home for what might be a year while their regular dwelling is rebuilt. Insurance is paying for most of the reconstruction but there are things that just plain weren't covered. One was Len's book collection, most notably his shelves of comic books he's written over the years.
The loss in that category is not primarily financial. Some of Len's comics — like the ones in which he co-created Swamp Thing or Wolverine or Human Target — go these days for hefty bucks but many do not. They're sitting in the bargain boxes at comic shops or in collectors' piles of duplicates. The big problem here is the time it would take to track down all the issues of everything. Len has enough other things to do, just to rearrange his life these days. So some of his friends decided to take that chore off his shoulders.
I think it would be fine to let Texas secede from the United States. If they want to go, fine. Just as long as they pay their share of the National Debt before they go, let 'em.
It's not that I dislike Texans in any way. Every one I've ever met has been great. I just think it would be kinda fun watching Republicans try to retake the House, Senate or White House without Texas votes. The last Texan to occupy the Oval Office made that difficult. Texas leaving the union would make it darn near impossible.
And while we're at it, could we please do something to piss off Florida?
Another photo from my new stash. This one was taken at the first banquet of the group I co-founded (with Don Rico and Sergio Aragonés), the Comic Art Professional Society. The date on the slide is 1979.
The man on the left is Mike Sekowsky, who drew the early issues of Justice League of America and who handled Wonder Woman during the only period I ever found it readable. Mike did countless other comics of all varieties. He was one of the fastest, most dynamic comic artists of all time and he had a wicked sense of humor. Like many comic artists of his generation, he fell into the niche of drawing the kinds of things that publishers wanted (or thought they wanted), rather than what his muse told him to draw. If he'd listened to her, he might have been a great black humorist in the mold of Charles Addams. Or something.
And on the right, we have Rick Hoberg, another artist I've enjoyed working with and just having as a friend. I worked with Rick when he was just starting out, which was a few years before this picture was taken. It was fun watching him just get better and better.
This dinner was held at the Sportsmen's Lodge, a place in Studio City that recently shut down its formidable banquet facilities. I was in charge of the arrangements and when it came time to decide on an entree, I made the mistake of bringing the menu in to a meeting so everyone could vote on what we'd eat. Believe me...you don't want to ever do this. If you're ever arranging a banquet, just pick something you think most people will like and go with it. You don't want to go through the arguments and debates.
Our wealthier members wanted the most expensive dinner and proclaimed it demeaning to our field to have anything less. Having filet mignon made the statement that we thought cartoonists and comic book artists were worthy of filet mignon. Meanwhile, our poorer members said, in effect, "If you have filet mignon, we won't be able to attend...so you're saying that you don't want us." One member who was allergic to asparagus felt that if we picked that as the side dish, it was our way of saying that all his hard work for the organization was unappreciated. Another member started lecturing everyone on the inhumanity of veal.
On and on it went, way longer than the topic deserved, which should have been in the ten minute range. I don't remember how long it took or what we wound up with but it was a bad compromise. We'd made it to the stage where it was obvious we couldn't please everyone so to keep the peace, we opted for something that pleased no one. It was the first time in my life I was acutely aware that, yes, there is such a thing as Too Much Democracy.
If you don't think music can change the mood of a TV show or movie, take a look at this. It's the opening titles of the series Diff'rent Strokes with a diff'rent score...
April 16, 2009
