Strike report: Day 73 64
Prominent writer goes fi-core
John Ridley's taking flack for his decision. Watch for Ridley's own explanation tomorrow at latimes.com/blowback.
No Globes for you!
TV junkies and foreign-flagged dipsomaniacs, despair! Nikki Finke reports it's curtains for the Golden Globes.
Conversational snippets: Pickets brave cold, talk trash
Nobody was picketing CBS Studios on Beverly Blvd. when I drove by this morning (the WGA's picket schedule indicates I was too early), so I headed over to Paramount Pictures on Melrose to find a score or so striking writers working the block. Overheard while shadowing two different picket-line duos:
Writer A: There's fights, drinking, people passing out...
Writer B: Yeah, you see the overhead shot of everybody parked out there.
Writer A: There there are these people who set up an RV, flatscreen TV. They don't even go to the game. Illinois plates. They're at the game but they're not going to the game.
Second conversation:
Writer C: Between the two extremes, I'd rather err on the side of cold than hot.
Writer D: Huh.
Also the picketers this morning seemed at first glance to have given up on the civil picketing pattern I applauded earlier, in which the sign carriers stop at red lights to allow cars to enter and exit the studio lot. Picketers were making a point of blocking the driveway as drivers were trying to get in. But don't bet on this being some aggressive new strategy for the work stoppage. There was a CNN cameraman taping the whole thing, and I suspect the show of force was for his benefit.
