Not taking down the 2008 Oscars remains my biggest regret of the recently-ended WGA strike. I'm sorry, but the raconteur and destruction artist in me wanted to burn the motherfucker to the ground while holding out for a better deal.

We didn't. The Oscars went on. At least Daniel Day-Lewis won, so there is justice.

But check out this clip featuring Ryan Seacrest (first time I've ever typed, spoken or even really thought about that name, I'm proud to say) interviewing Jennifer Garner and Laura Linney... and a highly intent Gary Busey who probably doesn't know who the fuck Jennifer Garner even is, let alone who designed her dress, her shoes, her bag, etc.

Watching the Oscars fills me with more loathing for Hollywood and the movie business than just about anything else... not that I can't appreciate the high caliber of nominated work, regardless of who wins the actual award, or even the flagrant narcisicim (hey, I'm a capitalist adventurer in the screen trade too)...

But my eyes glaze over with a film not unlike dull, milky death when importance is lent to such ridiculous things. The greatest, greatest Academy Awards moment I think I'll ever see was the George Bush/Iraq War ass-excoriation laid down by Michael Moore when he won for "Bowling For Columbine" back in 2003.

In these lean times, at least we have Gary Busey keeping things real...

So nice to upgrade to Mac Office 2008 with a new Treo 755p (not to mention the OSX upgrade to Leopard)... only to find that Microsoft no longer includes a conduit for syncing Entourage to mobile devices.

Over the past couple of years, I've really become a Mac devotee -- everything I used to make fun of in those I'd jokingly considered cultists for whom Steve Jobs crapped only sunshine and rainbows. But this is awful, and a huge step back from the point of serious business consideration.

How can the makers of my beloved Xbox 360 drop the ball with such thunderous and dramatic consequence here?

I feel cut off... maybe it's a good thing?

How much time, money and good will is going to spent before he and the media accept this fact?

Obama just breezed past again and she's been left swirling in the dust he left behind. It's time for my Senator to concede this race with grace, dignity and resolve toward electing Barack Obama and taking back the White House -- and this country -- from the maniacs.

This is over. Someone tell Bill.

I was (and remain) pissed off that the late night hosts went back to work before the WGA strike ended. These guys are Guild members who were clearly not ad-libbing. If Jay, Conan, Jon and Stephen composed their thoughts seconds before tape rolled, I maintain they wrote something...

I also didn't appreciate what was a dirty little secret on the picket lines... late night writers choosing not to picket their own shows. Never mind the overwhelming majority of Los Angeles-based screenwriters who dutifully picketed outside their respective studio gate.

But anyway... that's done, I suppose.

In a return to relative normalcy, Stephen Colbert welcomed his crew back. Holy shit, this was funny:

Barack Obama is unexpectedly bridging the gap between Giants Super Bowl glory and the holy start of Yankees spring training. Winning by huge margins (it'll be 10 state victories in a row after he trounces Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin next week), he's having this incredible stature spurt in the brightest lights.

We're getting back to where things seemed after Iowa, only with a tested sort of credibility now. When Clinton surrogates come on cable news shows these days they seem spooked. When you're a Democrat, you get into politics to make a difference for the greater good. You can see the mix of frustrated awe and their own sense of mortality written all over their faces. Hillary's supporters will happily fall in with the Obama camp after he vanquishes her.

Her concession is going to be a relief, and a moment of coalescence. She's going to surprise some people who want to believe she's some cold, manipulative and satanically-ambitious dragon lady with her grace and resolve to helping get Barack elected President. I'm very curious to see what a Hillary Clinton, suddenly free from the expectations of millions and the measured way of living with one eye on the Presidency for a good part of her life, will do next. She can accomplish incredible things in the Senate if she wants that. We're entering as close to a 'Golden Age' for the Democratic Party as we could ever hope for these days. I think Senator Clinton can be the next Ted Kennedy -- Senate Icon and champion of progressive causes.

I'm sure it corrupts everyone who runs for President to some degree (Hillary Clnton is no more guilty of doing the politically expedient thing with that Iraq War vote than John Kerry was), but I'd like to see the Clntons once again working for the Progressive ideals that got them into politics and government in the first place. Before triangulation and equivocation in exchange for a more solid grip on power dictated what positions they took.

But this is Obama's time. Surely they see that by now.

Well, this strike is just about over. I went into this membership meeting anxious, but also recalcitrant. I only received the summarized points of of the new agreement an hour or so before the meeting. So, fairly pissed off, I bombed down to Times Square and the took my seat in the Crowne Plaza Hotel ballroom to listen to a summarized presentation of what I expected to be an old fashioned Hollywood Ass-Fucking, as the old-time Sammy Glick sort might have postulated, by our erstwhile Negotiating Committee.

Instead, I left fairly impressed, relieved and hopeful.

We didn't get everything we wanted. Didn't get a lot of what we wanted, actually. And we certainly didn't get as much as we damn well deserved. 17 days of what's now called a promotional window to watch programs online without having to pay writers their justly due residuals is odious in my opinion... even if the studios maintain that TiVo and DVR watching has changed the way viewers watch programming for the first/initial time.

But I can and will support my leadership and vote to ratify this deal.

We established jurisdiction over new media and digital delivery. We got a decent number off of the holy distributor's gross for internet rentals, electronic sell through, etc. Most important, we stood together, we stood strong, and we got far more than they ever thought they'd have to give us. I didn't believe this was possible when this strike hit the streets, but I do believe it now.

Bottom line, before this deal, if/when you bought or rented THE TRIPPER on iTunes or Apple TV, I got, as my Italian grandmother would say, "Ungots!"

Now, I get a piece of the distributor's pie, as I and my co-writer rightly deserve.

Terry George, writer/director of IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER and HOTEL RWANDA and tough-as-nails member of the WGAE Negotiating Committee described the alternative to not taking this deal today, at our maximum point of leverage: nuclear winter. In his own words, this man (a former IRA member) negotiated terms with the British Army and he never faced down such a cold, soulless adversary as he did in the AMPTP.

There was a bit of a schism in the room over whether to support the Neg Com in immediately lifting the strike action and ending the pickets so everyone could get back to work on Monday.

But many of us said fuck that -- we want the 48 hours our constitution allows for an expedited vote. In the interest of solidarity, which we achieved and maintained in never-heard-of-before fashion during this work stoppage, this seemed to be the prevailing course of action. It seems the WGAW meeting fell out in similar fashion.

Back to work, likely, on Wednesday (or, in my case, to trying to set up a new project and find a job) after a hastened vote on Monday by the looks of things. Nobody told us what to do. I'm very proud of that. The media was reporting "Back To Work Monday" and we threw them a justified curve. It happened first, on the East Coast, amongst the WGAE like so much has happened by, for and to us before the sun rose on Los Angeles and those wearing t-shirts instead of parkas could hit the picket lines.

I'm pleased we stood together this last time. It puts us in the best position possible going forward, with an eye on our next contract (which would need to be banged out, if not struck over, in May, 2011 btw).

And I am intensely proud to be a member of the strong, victorious WGAE.

Bookslut has a list and THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY is on it.

Hey... somebody should put together a VOLUME 2 of that stuff.

Hmmm... wonder if they will...

:)

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I'm not holding my breath. That DGA deal was a joke. Must have been. But I'm keeping an open mind this time.

I've honestly been holding off posting anything about the supposed 'breakthroughs' we've been hearing about. My Strike Captain has been wonderfully sobering in keeping us rank and file up to date and undaunted. We're on strike. We're not going back for a deal that's less than fair.

That said... let's see what leadership has to tell us. Huge membership meeting this Saturday in both New York and Los Angeles.

I'll report what I learn... and how much angst it activates in my inner revolutionary's gut... after I've had a change to digest things.

Just, please... media... non-WGA people... industry types... etc.... back the fuck off. If the deal doesn't work for me, I'm not voting for it and I know many of us feel the same way.

The strike is over when the WGA membership says so.

I am wiped out, having sat nestled and sustainedly 'altered' to best achieve that out-of-focus sort of attention necessary to ingesting cable news political coverage these days.

Obama and Hilary are, essentially, tied in the pledged delegate count. Momentum almost totally belongs to Barack Obama and Clinton is, basically, playing the trap defense to try and hold off the crashing wave.

If this thing goes to the convention in Denver and these so-called "super delegates" we're hearing about (former government officials, party elders and, most intriguingly, current Democratic Congressmen and Senators given a delegate vote), I think we'll see a power struggle turn to upheaval.

What will not stand, I feel safe in saying, is the Democratic establishment circumventing the will of the people and casting their tipping votes for Hillary Clinton when Barack Obama is carrying all the excitement and promise of a new day.

Making him her VP won't cut it either. He needs to vanquish her over the next few primary days coming up. He's got the money and more of a head of steam headed into the upcoming caucus states. He can make life very uncomfortable for the Clinton campaign.

He needs to. And I think he will.

I'll say it again... if you picked the Patriots (never mind that ridiculous point spread) you are a bigger chump than Tom Brady.

The Giants put that man down and he never knew what hit him. Everything the Patriots looked like they enjoyed all year... the pocket protection... the cocky rainbow passes to Randy "Perennial Loser" Moss were taken from them and they were exposed as the cheap, untested suit the '72 Dolphins squad must have been waiting for the clock to strike midnight on all along.

I thought this Giants team was no better than 4-12 before the season started. With Tiki gone, Strahan holding out through training camp and a coach who seemed to have one foot in the grave and the other on the job security banana peel, I never imagined this. Not after losing to Dallas and Green Bay to start the year. Not after Eli Manning began to once again resemble Rain Man without the math skills.

But holy fuck what a game.

That Giants defense is magic in a bottle and, beyond the great Michael Strahan, they are set to dominate with youth, speed and pain for a long time. They shut down Brady and his vanilla offense for the entire goddamn game, America.

This was no fluke. This was no Cinderella story. The best team on the field won the Super Bowl. The best team this post-season took it home.

After a brief Randy Moss sighting in the fourth quarter (the first I can recall in a long time), Eli Manning led a drive down the field that will rank alongside Joe Montana's heroics against the Cincinnati Bengals so long ago. Ice water coursing through his veins, Kid Manning slipped what looked like a prison rape gang tackle, shook off the lowly Patriots pass rush and arced one incredible long pass over the middle to David Tryee who must still be bending over backwards to catch it with his fingertips.

Get used to hearing terms like "The Drive" and "The Catch" with entirely new meanings now. Greatest completion since Montana to Dwight Clark.

Greatest Super Bowl you'll ever see.