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The original:

The response:

Mr. Gum is a book series for kids that is wildly popular in the U.K. and has just reached our shores here in the USofA. I have the honor of working with the author, a mad genius named Andy Stanton, on an animated series based on these wonderful books. Our project is in the very early stages and may never see the light of day. But why wait for us to succeed before you enjoy the magic of Mr. Gum? If you have a boy or girl age 9 to 12, you will not regret introducing him or her to these books.

Now this is armchair quarterbacking, I know. We writers pretty much won the strike. But I can’t help but think we could have creamed it. We could have walked away with multi-million-dollar paychecks, sweetheart stock options, huge tax breaks, jets and more. Each one of us. How?

I got the idea when I read this article from Politico about a conservative confab in Hollywood, which contained this great quote:

“…When the writers went on strike Nov. 5, they entrusted their futures to a leadership that essentially believes Karl Marx is still relevant,” he said. “This was a revolution against The Man.”

Now, I know the strike was a while ago, but I vaguely remember it being about us getting more money. I’m not sure how that qualifies as communism.

It’s our own fault. The WGA went to great pains to point out how “middle class” we are. But imagine if we had gone the other way. If we had trotted out our richest members. Imagine if we had pointed out that most writers are in fact corporations. Right wingers would have cheered us on.

Come to think of it, instead of a strike, we should have called it “synergy.” We would have made the cover of Business Week.

Yes, many would have complained. I can imagine how the liberal New York Times would have covered it:

“Corporations band together to raise the price of television and movie scripts. Cartel? Some say no.”

This is probably how Forbes would have covered our membership meeting:

“The CEO’s of Bad Robot, Shondaland, and thousands of other corporations gathered today in a members-only confab in Hollywood. The topic? More profits!”

Cheney himself would have come to that meeting to cheer us on.

“My friends, some who call themselves ‘Americans’ would have us believe that the price of tv and movie scripts should be dictated by some bureaucrat in some office. These people would have you submit your work to some producer who gets to say what he’ll pay for it. I say the sale price of a product is best determined by the person who made that product. And they should get that price no matter what. That’s how America works.” Thunderous applause.

Yes, there would have been a huge public outcry. We would have been dragged before a Senate committee. But our new friends, the conservatives, would have made damn sure we skated. Republican senators would have filibustered their asses off for us. Money would have poured into our Legal Defense Fund.

Then, O’Reilly and Limbaugh would have beat the drums for us.

“Hello, Caller, you’re on.”

“Yeah, my name’s Nick, I’m from LA. Uh, you’re saying these corporations should be able to raise their price without any oversight, without any concern for the guys like me who have to air those shows, who have to try to sell ads for those sho–”

“Cut off his mike. Next caller.”

Of course it would all end with the Bush Justice Department arguing that tv and movie scripts are vital to our national security. “If we have to go into pilot season with underfunded scripts, it only emboldens those who want to destroy us.”

And in a last-minute “compromise,” Senate democrats would have agreed to add a ten million dollar “security surcharge” to the sale price of every script, paid by the government from the Medicare Fund.

We could have done better. Next time, maybe we will.

My friend Greg Roy has started a very funny comic strip called Odd Lot. Here’s a sample. Click on it to see more. So far it’s not syndicated, but more traffic for Odd Lot on comicsherpa.com will help speed up the process. If you like it, make sure to subscribe to it. Greg thanks you.

As for me, not many.

17

My latest show has gotten some very good reviews from bloggers, and some very bad ones from mainstream papers.

I always doubted celebrities when they said they don’t pay attention to reviews, but now I’m starting to get it. After reading a number of bad reviews, you’re faced with a choice: either admit you’re a terrible hack and find another line of work, or brush it off and try to focus on what you’re doing well. Now there may well come a point where I’m forced to take option 1. But I’m not there yet.

Check it out folks. Even if you don’t pay for Starz, you can see the pilot episode of Hollywood Residential right here for free:

Starz Network is my new hero. They way they’re supporting Hollywood Residential is top notch. They threw us a great premiere party last night at Sky Bar, and this morning my trusty Google Alert tells me they have started posting their trailers online. We premiere on Wednesday, January 23rd, along with another new show, Head Case which looks very funny. Head Case is at 10 p.m. and Hollywood Residential is at 10:30. Meanwhile, check out this great trailer:

This is the first review of my new show, Hollywood Residential. Or at least it’s the first I’ve seen. And it’s awfully positive. Thank you, Glowy Box, whoever you are. You really understand the show and the potential of the show, and you had the decency to look beyond the rough edges.

As starved as we are for scripted television these days, a new single-camera comedy with a concept as funny as Hollywood Residential’s seems like a godsend.

We premiere on Wednesday, January 23rd at 10:30 p.m. on Starz. Wish us luck.

My latest project is a new comedy on the Starz Network. Hollywood Residential gives you a picture of Hollywood that you will never see on “Entourage.” It’s about a man barely managing to hang onto the fringes of show business.

The man, Tony King, is the host of a low-budget cable show that does home makeovers for celebrities. Tony is a frustrated actor himself. A terrible actor. And only marginally better as a handyman. All he wants is to be an insider. But his celebrity guests treat him like the help. To make matters worse, Tony’s show has recently hired a co-host, a beautiful, charming woman who is instantly more successful than Tony. She’s on her way up. Tony is not.

Part of the fun of Hollywood Residential is that we shot with real celebrities playing themselves. Our eight-episode season includes Paula Abdul, Tom Arnold, Carmen Elektra, Jamie Kennedy, Chris Kattan, Cheryl Hines, John Cho and Beverly D’Angelo. They all had a blast making fun of themselves and Hollywood.

The other part of the fun is that, since we’re on pay-cable, we can have foul language and nudity. And yes, we took advantage of that. I have to say, shooting with naked people turned out to be much less awkward than I expected.

Watch Hollywood Residential on Starz. I’m proud of it.

I have changed my hosting provider to Bluehost from Dreamhost because Dreamhost stopped allowing their customers to use their accounts for offsite backups.

I miss the haimish-ness of Dreamhost, but I’ve come to rely on offsite backups so much that I just had to go.

There might be a little downtime as I migrate my site. If you’re seeing this message, it means Bluehost is working.

A few years ago I took the audio tour at the Getty Museum. There I found what I still consider to be the greatest piece of found comedy ever. It is the audio description of a painting by Italian Renaissance artist Dosso Dossi. Never mind who Dosso Dossi is! It doesn’t matter! I didn’t know and you don’t have to either! Just listen!

When I heard this, I immediately dragged my friend Margaux to the same spot and made her listen to it with me. We obsessed over this thing. A few months later, we returned and ripped the recording by plugging a tape recorder into the audio guide. I play it now for your enjoyment.

You may ask, “Shouldn’t I see the painting before hearing the description?” Absolutely not! No no no. Don’t even google the painting. Your enjoyment of this recording will be far greater if you never see the painting. Just picture yourself standing in front of a painting, any painting, and listen to these academics explain to you why the painting is in a museum in the first place. It is a thing of beauty!

You will ask yourself, as I did that day, “How did it ever come to this?”

I considered transcribing the audio and including it here, but that would ruin it. Just listen. Marvel at the earnestness. The slight academic smugness. The outright futility of it all. And most of all, the timing. It’s perfect in every way.

As a member of the Writers Guild of America, I took to the picket line this week to strike for residuals on internet downloads of programs I’ve written. Here is my strike diary:

9:00 a.m. I arrive at the Sony lot in Culver City to sign in and pick up my free t-shirt. There are no more t-shirts available. I feel stabbed in the back by my own union. I forgive, but I will never forget.

9: 05 a.m. I am assigned to picket Gate 1, the executive entrance. My guild has placed me at the front line, to be the public face of the strike in the eyes of the people who count the most. I consider this my second stab in the back.

9:10 a.m. I can’t remember how many laps of this gate I have made. Four, maybe five. I’ve lost track. There is a burning in my calves like I have never experienced before in my life.

9:15 a.m. The distinct taste of rust climbs up through my throat with every wheezing breath. I desperately check the headlines on my iPhone, hoping against hope that this madness will end. That the people who have signed up for the next shift will not have to endure one minute of the pain I have now been subjected to for over seven agonizing minutes.

9:25 a.m. The brain plays tricks on one who is under this much duress. I think I see my father, who has been dead for 15 years. He smiles and offers me a five-foot cone of cotton candy. But when I try to lick it, I am told I am molesting one of my fellow strikers.

9:32 a.m. An older man stops by to chat, telling us that he worked as a teamster for many years and supports our cause. He reaches out to shake my hand. I have never been so afraid.

10:00 a.m. Every muscle in my body screams for mercy with every step. I begin to marvel at my own naiveté. For years I believed in God. Now I know for a fact that he doesn’t exist. He can’t exist. No God would stand idly by, watching this happen to one of his own children.

10:01 a.m. My momentary panic subsides when I think of the people of Darfur. I feel humble, even grateful, to realize that somewhere in the world there are people who may understand what I’m going through.

10:45 a.m. I find a volleyball, which I decorate with the blood from my own hand. I name it Wilson. I am told I am molesting one of my fellow strikers again.

11:00 a.m. A strike captain arrives with news from the front. The strike is getting great coverage in the press. At the NBC lot in Burbank, Jay Leno has shown his support by dropping off Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the strikers. But where is our Jay Leno. Who will be our Jay Leno? Jay Leno can’t help us here.

11:12 a.m. The minutes blend into one another. I have lost all sense of day or night. A policeman stops by to remind us if we parked on the street, we’ll have to move our cars after two hours. I fall to my knees and confess to the 1996 Atlanta bombing.

11:21 a.m. I receive a supportive text message from my wife. I weep, just like a contestant on Survivor, who wins a reward challenge and is allowed a five-minute AOL video chat with her mother, who, just a week earlier, was told her cancer had recurred, but who, during the video chat, tells her daughter she was right to stay on the show, and that she’ll be proud of her no matter what the result, and then, because the producers are so moved by her story, they give her a Pontiac Sunbird.

12:00 p.m. I beg to have my legs amputated.

12:19 p.m. A rumor spreads like wildfire through the line. Late last night, in a back-channel negotiation, our union leaders were also offered a Pontiac Sunbird. They turned it down. What were they thinking?

12:45 p.m. Some of the replacements are beginning to arrive. I see in their young faces something that I once had, but that I will never regain: optimism.

The president does not want Carl Rove to testify to Congress under oath. It’s widely assumed that this is to avoid risking perjury. But the real reason Carl Rove can’t take an oath is much simpler.

It’s because taking an oath involves touching a bible, and he cannot safely do so without incurring second- or third-degree burns.

Bush, the devout Christian, understands this. And with his well-documented penchant for compassion and empathy, he simply refuses to put another human being in harm’s way to serve his purposes.

The press reports that Bush’s “compromise” would involve Rove speaking off the record to the Congressional committee. But that’s just the broad strokes.

In reality, the president’s compromise spells out in specific language, just how far away from a bible Rove must be at any given time, as well as what kind of protective clothing he is to be given, how often the word “bible” can be used in his presence, and what protocols should be followed if he happens to see a quote from the bible on his way into or out of the building. It’s more or less a Bible Restraining Order.

It’s not that the president doesn’t want the truth to come out, it’s just an extraordinary picture of how far President Bush is willing to go to keep another American safe.

And these kinds of precautions are not new to the Bush Administration. For example, it was widely reported that former Attorney General John Ashcroft held daily prayer meetings at the DOJ. But what’s not well known is that for these prayer meetings, the bible had to literally be teleconferenced in from a safe location. Ashcroft himself couldn’t look at the screen. But an intern from Bob Jones University would look at the screen and then paraphrase the relevant passages. It took a tremendous amount of coordination and expense. But no one disputes it was worth it.

And of course, the biggest hero in all this is Vice President Dick Cheney. Bush has begged him to take precautions against Bible Burns. But this brave man’s man strolls into the White House each and every day, wearing no Haz-Mat suit, no asbestos gloves, no welder’s helmet or anything. The press will tell you about his “heart condition,” but the truth is, Dick Cheney is being slowly burned alive from the inside by the bible across the hall in the Oval Office. An extraordinary sacrifice.

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