a writer's perspective

I’m not sure why, but there is such a difference between 5am and 6am. When I show up to picket at 6, it feels like it’s early in the morning. Today, when I pull up at Warner Brothers just before 5, it feels like it’s the middle of the night.

It’s dark. It’s freezing. I drink 5 cups of coffee, not to wake up, but to stay warm. It doesn’t work either way. I am a frozen zombie.

Today, walking back and forth along the same small crosswalk for three hours feels surreal. I feel like a character in some existentialist nightmare, or maybe like the fish in Monty Python’s Meaning Of Life; infinitely circling, nodding and saying “hello” to the same six or seven people every forty-five seconds over and over and over.

People travel in small clusters, perhaps huddling for warmth, but a few stragglers move at a quicker pace. After a while, the entire crowd has somehow synchronized, and we are all standing on the same corner looking across the street and a desolate strike post. I wonder if there’s a scientific explanation for this phnomenon. Sort of like how female roommates all get their periods at the same time.

In the interest of promoting positive negotiations, a media blackout went into effect yesterday. Ironically, I saw more coverage of the strike yesterday than any day since the strike began. During a long piece on ABC, I saw a bunch of my fellow strikers and yelled at the screen. “I know that guy!” “I was standing right there taking a picture while they were interviewing that guy!” “Look! It’s my neighbor!” I’ve been working in television for almost fifteen years, and I still get excited when someone I know is on it.

Despite the blackout, everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who said “unofficially” that negotiations are “going pretty good.” We’re all still “cautiously optimistic”, but feel like things are moving in a good direction.

Someone asks me who I think the winner in all this is going to be, and I answer “Nikki Finke”. Nikki is the LA Weekly journalist who writes the awesome Deadline Hollywood Daily blog. Since the strike began, her posts have been essential reading for all the writers, and a frequent, great source of strike-related news. A fair portion of every strike day is spent talking about her previous days posts, and it’s safe to say that once the strike is over she will retain her new legion of fans. Though, as one fellow Red-Shirter points out, “I’ll probably only visit the site a couple times a day, and not every fifteen minutes.”

Another writer asks if anyone knows what Nikki Finke looks like. I realize that all the writers, guys and girls, have crushes on her. I’m telling you, writers adore this woman. Everyone has a different picture of her in their head that conforms to their personal vision of beauty. One scenario has her in a long black gown, sitting on a rock in the middle of the ocean, waves crashing all around her. In another she consistently scores 400 in Scrabble, and can eat 5 Nathan’s hot dogs in one sitting. Someone pulls out a Blackberry and wants to do a Google image search. I suggest it’s more fun not knowing. We vote. The majority agrees, and the guy puts his Blackberry away.

It’s now a quarter past 8am. I set down my sign and “clock out” for the day. Before I go, we take one more vote and officially decide that Nikki Finke probably looks like a beautiful librarian with sexy glasses and a Betty Page haircut.

photos by Heath Biter for LAist

“I was standing right there taking a picture while they were interviewing that guy!”