I learned about the end of the WGA strike while aboard a 141 year old schooner in Maine.
I will tell you more about that boat down below...
But first may I remind: JUDGE JOHN HODGMAN is going on tour in the USA starting Monday, Oct 9, in Lexington, Kentucky.
LEXINGTON! The Athens of the West! I have never been to Lexington or even Kentucky at all, so I would enjoy seeing you and/or your Bluegrass State friends there at the Opera House if you are free.
Tickets are HERE. And the rest of the tour schedule is HERE.
So I was aboard the schooner GRACE BAILEY last weekend, making almost 9 knots in a feisty wind off the coast of Maine, when I received important news.
I had been in an other-worldly place both geographically and emotionally during this trip, but the news brought me immediately back to earth, and I could not wait to share it with my friend, the actor, Marc Evan Jackson.
This was easy, as he was only steps away at the wheel of the Grace Bailey, because since youth this poor man has had schooner-fever, and last year he became a part owner of this lovely ship, which is about as lovely and unwise as you can IMAGINE.
“Ahoy, Mr Jackson!” I cried. “The WGA has reached a tentative deal with the studios! The strike is over! Jib fast the fo’c’sle and slender the fore lines! We’re making for Atlanta, Entertainment Capital of the World!”
I didn’t actually say that to Marc Evan Jackson, because all those nautical terms are wrong. And because Marc is not only an owner of this proud and beautiful wooden bathtub toy, but also a member of SAG-AFTRA, which remains on strike for now.
(Though there are promising murmurs of a deal forming there as well).
But too, I was a little melancholy. Mostly because of the ocean. 148 days means nothing to the sea, which is much longer lived than we. And even so, the jealous ocean still wants to drown us as soon as possible.
And: I will miss the strike a little. It was really hard. Devastating, in a lot of cases. Not merely to writers and actors whose salaries, but to all the crew members whose jobs got erased but did not cross our lines and stood in union solidarity with us anyway.
But it was also important and meaningful and even fun to be connected to this incredible fight for wage justice that is long overdue and obviously continues among auto workers, hotel workers, flight attendants, and more.
I was talking to Negin Farsad and Akilah Hughes recently (on a PODCAST, obviously) and we were lamenting the fact that one of the reasons the MAGA is so energized and persistent is that those people are having fun.
Whereas on this side we are just, like, organizing voters, debating policies, tethering ourselves to some dumb shared sense of reality, and/or sitting around using words like “lamenting.”
MAGA doesn’t care about policy or anything other than reframing assholism as virtue. That’s what makes it such an addictive entertainment product.
It’s hurtful and hateful. But ask any bully why they bully, and they will shove you. Because it’s a stupid question: being an asshole and not getting punished is intoxicatingly fun.
Take it from me, a guy who routinely goes online to accuse this nice man of being a cocaine addict for fun.
But then we stopped and realize, wait: we do have some fun. STRIKING IS FUN. It’s exciting. It’s energizing. Even when the chants are dumb, it feels good to sing along while also shutting down the bullshit.
And what’s amazing? It works.
Let’s be clear: Josh Gondelman does not do cocaine. In addition to being an extremely funny, smart, and kind person, he was one of my true strike heroes.
One of the many official and unofficial oh-captain-my-captain Strike Captains like the indomitable Starlee Kine, JD Amato, Sean Crespo, Ariel Dumas who picketed while very pregnant, and Barry Julien who brought out the first tambourine…
And Danielle Sanchez-Witzel and Hallie Haglund and Michael Gaston and all our champions on the negotiating committees...
Plus the on-the-ground SAG and WGA staff who checked us in and offered coffee and especially Laura who gave me Josh a ride home that morning after we shut down Daredevil in Bay Ridge…
These people did a lot more than I did. But we’re all in it together, and that means you too. SAG-AFTRA has chapters everywhere, and I doubt the UAW will mind if you show up to cheer on their pickets, so PICK A LINE.
It’s fun.
OK, now let’s go DOWN BELOW…
On our last night on the schooner Grace Bailey, I asked to see a UFO…