Editor Julie Pfitzinger did a stunning job with the layout.
People say too many words. The talking heads on the news shows I'm addicted to, turning each event into "breaking bombshells!" Everybody on social media. Me.
That's the worst. The spasms to myself about what I did wrong, whatever is my frustration du jour, my judgments about what everybody else is doing — like talking too much. Too much talking is why I write. To get it succinct.
I've always preferred walking to taking transportation, so when I moved to NYC to be an actor in 1972, I walked to all my temp jobs. One day, I had to go to my temp agency first, and they were appalled by my black & white high-top sneakers. "You're NOT going to wear those, are you?" gasped my supervisor. No, I assured him. I just walk to jobs in them, and I showed him my office shoes.
About a year later, when there was a mass transit strike, everybody started wearing sneakers to walk to work. And they never stopped.
My point is: shut-downs birth new things. During the pandemic, we discovered Zoom for theatrical presentations. Dance companies invented new ways of presenting fabulous performances. As did musicians.
My big take-away from the SAG-AFTRA/WGA strike is that we must hold strong and SHUT IT DOWN—TV, movies—until artists get a fair deal. In the meantime, invent, invent. There are fantastic podcasts (Smartless), there still is theater, standup, and humans will create things we haven't thought about yet.
And if we don't hold strong, big companies will appropriate them and own them, and, once again, the artists who birth them will be relegated to being underpaid employees.
I have never felt more strongly that creators must own their own work. Let's find a way.
