Hey, here's an idea for a movie -- a real American hero. Maybe Winners Only can get busy on a script...

Whoa -- Say hello to my little friend. Now behave!

It's another update from the front lines of Hollywood! Nick sends pictures:

Yes, bring the kids to picket…it’s fun for the whole family!

This was outside my office. Apparently they were trying to spell out W-G-A but when asked why, they couldn’t find a decent answer and just claimed they were tired of walking.Oh wait, Jesse showed up. Well, I guess it’s a real strike now…Praise Jesus! Also, that’s Dennis Haysbert getting his photo op with Jesse, like any good actor would attempt. Good going Dennis…do realize you’re out of work now too?
And Rage Against the Machine played live for everyone. Thank god they showed up! Also, it does look like more than 1,009 people. We’ll call it 1,500. Fight the power!And finally, Garry Marshall and Norman Lear showed up. Norman was told by Garry that if he came down he may get more DVD revenue from “All In The Family.” Norman responded, “I don’t know what the hell a DVD is, but if it’ll get me a few more bucks, let’s do it!”

Winners Only Nick keeps us well informed from the gates of Fox Studios in Hollywood:

"...people who write for Leno and Letterman have nothing to do with the idiots who want more money from DVD sales. And (I’m a writer and I’m saying this), why exactly should they get a higher residual percentage? Writers are not the ones fronting the enormous production dollars. If NBC Productions puts $30+ million into a season of The Office or whatever, why should a hired writer have the right to get a percentage of DVD sales off of that? They’re not the ones risking $30 million! I’m guessing that about 90% of the 12,000 WGA members are not even really working. It’s a number that is grossly overstated when used to talk about 'working' writers. By the way, Friday’s 'massive' protest in front of my office window turned out to be a little more low key than anticipated. I had heard 4,000 protesters, all the way up to possibly 12,000. It turned out to be about 1,000 idiots, 5 actors, 2 directors, a couple bums, walking around for two hours until they got tired. Before you knew it, we all looked outside and were saying, 'Where did they all go?' Hysterical!"

Nick was responding to this article, which includes the strike headline-of-the-day.

And Nick provides before and after photographic evidence of the "massive" strike turnout outside his office window!

They must have all been sitting by their pools eating designer sushi...

UPDATE: Nick informs us the above photos were from Thursday's much smaller rally.

OK then, we're getting closer.

"I was promised a flying car..." And I won't accept "a different kind of software" as a substitute.

Here's something new: A riot in a European soccer stadium! A dreadful tragedy...

Check any of the pictures -- where's security? How do these flares and rockets make it into the stadiums? I can't even get into Fenway with a bottle of water. I couldn't imagine what might happen if I walked down Yawkey Way with a rocket launcher...

Really, you have to read the reports carefully to fully understand the anger, born of malaise, that permeates these stadiums.

Dr. William Moody of White Plains, NY -- the most despicable person you'll meet this weekend...

Old hippies, or as I like to call them, "68ers", as that seems to be the year their worlds crystallized and they just can't get themselves forward from that. Utopian, deluded, egomaniacal. And so very, very stupid.

Treacher, trying to offer some assistance to the striking writers, gets his union chants and his cheerleading cheers mixed up -- ah well.

Writers strike casualties are beginning to pile up. Good. Sometimes a thing is so broken it's best to throw it on the junk heap. Here's hoping this strike lasts longer than anyone's interest in resolving it, and a new, better model emerges.

UPDATE FROM NICK:
"...they’re bringing in double the amount of picketers today. I assume that it will be the Screen Actors Guild A-holes who are backing the writers. Of course they are…they can’t act without any lines to read…so let’s picket with them. Great idea…hopefully when it’s all said and done, we replace the current crop of actors too!"

OK, this is just amazing...

Winners Only Nick has been keeping in touch from Hollywood, where every morning he fights traffic to get to work early so he doesn't have to cross the line of picketing writers outside his door. The picketers are on a strict 9 - 5 schedule, so Nick pretty much gets in by 8:30. So no problem? Guess again. Here's Nick:

"The security guard I talk to when I enter the gate said this morning he’s about to lose his mind watching these idiots march with their signs, begging for people to honk their horns as they drive by. Unfortunately it’s working so far as many are honking their horns. It’s annoying. I feel like going down there and picking a fight with the picketers. They probably wouldn’t fight though…Most likely they’d just throw their designer sushi at me…"

More from Winners Only:

"...Writers who have had luck on their side and have been able to get movies made or are on TV shows, etc., are not the ones picketing. The ones that are picketing are writers who probably scrape by. They’re the suckers who got talked into spending 4 hours a day for the duration of the strike to wave their dumbass signs and ask for drivers to annoyingly blare their horns. The WGA members with bank, are…yes….sitting by their pools eating designer sushi. I can’t wait to see what happens when this strike hits one month…"

Nick also tells how a fellow non-union writer acquaintance got a somewhat threatening phone call warning him not to take any work. Nick's response?:

"What’s funny is, the WGA will do whatever they can to keep you out of the union when you’re an up and coming writer, but when they’re on strike, they tell you not to take any jobs if offered…what the hell is that all about?!?! If they call me I’m going to tell them to stick their designer sushi up their butts!"

(As an aside, the last time I saw Winners Only we went out for sushi, very much of the LA designer sort. Next time we'll probably just go for burritos by the beach.)

Here's Roger Simon's take on the embarrassing mess of a privileged..."The reason is “new media” - we are in the age of YouTube and no one knows where it’s headed. Movie and television execs have seen the near demise of the music industry and it has struck fear in their hearts. It should. Their power has always stemmed from controlling the means of distribution. The Internet is threatening that."

And the final word on the matter goes to Steve Jobs (or is it fake Steve Jobs? I can't tell...) in this must read howler... It's too good to pull just one quote from, but here's a little sample:

"I guess we can't blame these writers. They've all got big stupid houses in Los Angeles and Hawaii, plus Porsches and Land Rovers and way more money than they ever deserved and they got it all for producing what history will view as probably the worst bulk of absolute fecal matter that has ever been passed off onto the world."

Read the whole thing.

Joss Whedon, the brilliant creator of the Firefly television series and the movie Serenity, has a new series coming out soon. Looks a bit weird, but hey, that's the point: it's not the story, it's the ride...

(Assuming of course the writers don't strike.)

The folks at Epicurious have devised an ingenious method for anyone and everyone to publish their own cookbook.

(More info here.)

It's like someone predicted this trend, like an Army of Davids, or something!

And does this mean that my youth soccer club might actually have a cookbook ready for next April's tournament? Why yes, I think it just may...

Megan McArdle would like to know which you find more offensive:

That your child "...might hear, once a week, some sort of religious message which, to judge by the people I know who went to parochial school, has a fairly dim chance of sticking; or that junior won't be able to read and write and will spend the rest of his life moving heavy things from one place to another?"

I'm tempted to read her commentary at one of my town's Board of Ed meetings, verbatim.