Weblog Sin Pies

By Charley Daniels

The writers strike is on, and I’m feeling a little guilty about my pledge for solidarity that ended up being what some might consider a lie. I vowed not to write a word once the strike began. Turns out I won’t get paid if I don’t write (I’m not sure if the Guild members realize this, but it’s sort of an important point). Also, how am I going to the grocery store without a list?

So it was more of a symbolic gesture, or an idle threat against no one in particular (lord knows my bosses don’t read this blog. I hope). I’m not a Writers Guild member, anyway, so no big deal, right? WRONG!

I still felt bad for making promises I never had any intention of keeping, so this morning I awoke with the single-minded determination to make some amends — or at least make myself feel better. I had a plan.

I live about three blocks from the Sony lot in Culver City. Sony is home to many TV series that will be severely effed if the strike lasts any significant amount of time, including the hit daytime series Days of Our Lives. Yeah, shit could get bad. More importantly, the Sony mega-complex is the site of some intense picketing. So I figured I’d drive by the picket line on my way to work and give them a long, loud honk of solidarity. It’s what I came up with, okay?

At 8:45 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, I headed north up Overland Avenue, positioning my hand over my car horn as I crossed Culver Boulevard and cruised by the main entrance to the Sony lot (in the right lane, for maximum effect). But where I should have seen a pissed-off throng of chanting scribes, all I saw was a van with three dudes unloading piles of signs in front of a table and chairs.

But where were the writers? The organized, motivated WGA members? Then I realized. Too early. I should know better than to expect writers to be anywhere before 9 a.m., and maybe 10 a.m. is a more realistic lower boundary. In fact, if everyone’s internal clocks weren’t still an hour ahead from the recent time change, the few go-getters I saw probably wouldn’t have been there yet, either.

I didn’t honk because one of the older-looking organizers was carrying what looked like a relatively heavy load, and I wouldn’t want to do anything to cause injury to a striking writer, because I want my first appearance in Defamer to be because I slept with a drunken starlet. So I didn’t really get to pay the WGA back for my lies, but I tried. I think that counts.