Norman agonistes

Until recently, I hadn't felt much sympathy for the the Hollywood writers in their ongoing strike. I'm usually running late during the morning rush hour, and they don't help matters by, at every legal opportunity, marching (straggling, really) across the street I turn into to get to work. They don't walk against the light or anything, but the resulting delay is nonetheless annoying. (Full disclosure: I am the tiniest cog or an ineffectual monkey wrench -- I've yet to decide -- in a vast entertainment-industry machine, which itself is, if I may mix metaphors, an ever-smaller segment of a sprawling, many-tentacled corporate leviathan, but even assuming I was up on these labor issues, I doubt I'd have a dog in this particular fight.) Moreover, my modest work cubicle is within earshot of the most lame chants ever coopted (with minor modification) from the struggle for civil rights in this country. Even the "original" mantras (e.g., the comedy-oriented "No Money, No Funny" and the Housewives-specific "Eva Longoria, we write the story-uh"-- yeesh) leave the distinct impression that these writers' services will not be missed.

Everything changed yesterday, however, thanks to the Horror Writers of America. Now, before you incredulously (and obnoxiously) ask, "Horror movies are written?," hear me out. Ostensibly to cast out the mortal sin of avarice, the horror writers had staged, just outside the Warner Bros. lot, a mock exorcism of the studio that had some 34 years ago released that little demonic possession flick some consider the scariest movie of all time. I missed the religious ceremony itself but on my way to lunch noticed a habited nun among the throng carrying signs that screamed, in shades of forceful black and red, "Horror Writers on Strike" and "Out, Demons, Out!" I won't take the opportunity here to defend the once-disreputable horror genre -- most offerings indeed suck, as with any genre, and the recent glut has been particularly uninspired -- but I must credit these horror writers with a demon-stration (tee-hee, I could be a professional writer, too!) of authentic creativity best exemplified by the most deliciously worded placard: We Eat Scabs.

Now that I kinda, uh, care, I think the writers' grievances have something to do with the Internet. Like everything else.

Yours in solidarity & struggle,

Norman