NEWS: Asshole Fuckface Roundup: Strike Edition #2!

POLITICS: Asshole Fuckface Roundup: Strike Edition #2!

Well, the strike is now rolling into its sixth week and the Asshole Fuckfaces are just piling up and staring at me with doughy eyes, hoping for the nod. Most of the honors will go to the studios, because they are truly being Asshole Fuckfaces of the highest caliber. Plus, it was our Lord Jesus Christ who first said, “Man, the studios are such Asshole Fuckfaces.” Eleven dudes nodded. One DID NOT!

A little over a week ago, the studios revealed their stunning new plan for our business. It was exciting and fresh! They dropped it on the table late on a Thursday and immediately sent out press releases, in which they basically blew themselves for being so awesome. The proposal was called the “New Economic Partnership.” It offered writers a whole $250 a year for streaming Internet use of television programs. It was an awesome deal.



Oh, also, if they label the program as “promotional” then they can air it in its entirety and not pay the writer a dime. And that $250 was for an hour program. A half hour program is worth $139 a year! Weeeeee!

When the studios dropped the proposal on the WGA, they said it was only half finished and the other half would come after a long weekend – on Tuesday. It would cover Internet downloads! The studios then picked up their phones and told the press that the WGA had walked away from the table until Tuesday after they made an offer worth $130 million dollars. Wha? But you…second half…long weekend...$250 dollars…I don’t…

Tuesday rolled around and the studios did not present their other half of the deal. Then Wednesday and still no second half, but they promised to stay in the hotel and work through the night to have it done in the morning.

Members of the WGA then went down to the parking lot and staked out the studio negotiators cars. Rather than staying all night, they jumped into their cars and were all gone by 6:45 pm. Huh.

Thursday, no second half of the proposal. On Friday, the WGA decided to go ahead and start negotiating other demands they had been making for years. Literally, years. The studios were so offended that the WGA had brought up proposals they had been talking about for years that they walked away from the table. The studios immediately posted an amazingly well crafted press release on their website. What was really amazing about it was that it appeared to have taken quite a bit of time to write and yet it posted literally three minutes after they were horribly offended.

The poor bastards are running the show, with all the money and holding all the cards. Did someone ask the guys with everything for something? Must have been devastating.

The post then went on to list lie after lie. One gem was this one:

Really? There is a writer named Micah Wright, who a couple of years ago attempted to organize Nickelodeon into a Guild channel. Micah is now blackballed from writing animation ever again, as are many of the other writers who were involved. The shows they were writing on were immediately cancelled. I guess that is considered “choosing” not to join the WGA. I mean, what writer would want pension, health coverage and residuals when they can enjoy life without pension, health coverage and residuals?

The studios end their nonsense post with this gem:

“Come back to the table?” Uh, you just left table in a huff, like a high school teenage girl who had just been told she couldn’t get a tattoo. In truth, the studios gave the WGA an ultimatum. Drop six important demands or they would no longer talk to us. Hey, we dropped nine out of our 25 important demands to get them to the table in the first place. If we drop six more, then we are down to 15 out of 25. Then they say something like, “Drop eight more” and on and on we go. I have another solution: How about the six media moguls gently take my cock into their mouths, one by one for a minute each, rotating until I shoot my load. Sound good? (I promise to shoot it in Peter Chernin’s eye.) Because my deal is about as reasonable.

When we first met the studios at the table, they made this demand:

Wanting to get talks started, the WGA leaders took DVDs off the table. The studios responded by doing NOTHING. And now they have given us an ultimatum to take these six demands off the table:

Oh, so just everything we are striking over. Great. Then we can negotiate about nothing. I‘m very excited!

Another couple of Asshole Fuckfaces in this mess are a couple of guys who apparently call themselves“ The Masters of Disaster." And they do so without thinking they are retarded.

The Masters of Disaster are Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane. They
are PR guys who have worked with Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Michael Moore. They even worked for the Screen Actors Guild, which paid them $10,000 a month to craft a message to help SAG in their fight against… their new employer, the AMPTP.

The studios hired Fabiani & Lehane, at a crisis fee of around $100,000 a month, to battle the WGA members driven PR machine. They did so early in the week, which was another telling sign that they had no intention of making a deal. You don’t need “crisis PR” when you are doing the right thing. You hire “crisis PR” when you are going to walk out of talks and blame the other side for ruining Christmas. So, Lehane and Fabiani, longtime Democratic PR guys, have decided to switch sides and do some union busting. I guess they have come a long way since 2002.

Their first move was apparently coming up with the name, “New Economic Partnership,” which screams, “I work for politicians and am stuck in the recent past.”

Feel free to call or email Hillary Clinton and ask her why she is in business with Asshole Fuckfaces like Lehane and Fabiani. (I would call them union busters in the message.) Or if you are in California, you can email the Democratic group Californians for Fair Election Reform and ask them why they are working with union busters.

Californians for Fair Election Reform

Hillary Clinton (213) 908-0190 or socalhrc@hillaryclinton.com

My favorite Asshole Fuckface of the week is by far the head of the IATSE.

Meet Tommy Short, a grown man who calls himself Tommy without feeling any shame. He is the head of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, a union he took over through mob connections and with his daddy’s help. He consistently fucks over his own members and aids the studios every chance he gets.

Last year he totally fucked over the Camera Operators in his union with a new contract and then took the moment to make new friends.

Hell yeah, we want a union with shitty pension and health and members who do the same job but are paid wildly different amounts. But none of his actions are surprising because the IA used to be run by Al Capone and Tommy is just keeping the tradition going.

Tommy has enjoyed doing business in interesting places, according to one former union board member.

Tommy does not mind using his fists.

He is an awesome family man.

Tommy was gifted the presidency of IATSE in 1994 when the union’s general election board selected him four days after the death of the previous president. Interesting thing about IATSE, once you are on a board or are the president, you never lose an election. Never.

So, what does Tommy have to do with the current situation? Well, he can’t keep his little anger hole shut. On Friday, Short teamed up with his studios buddies and sent out a press release at the EXACT MOMENT the studios walked away from the table. Turns out Tommy also was offended and jotted down a press release in one minute.

In the press release, Tommy called the WGA leaders “a huge clown car that’s only missing the hats and horns.” He went on to call the WGA irresponsible and then ranted about the guild trying to steal his members. He neglects to mention that he destroyed a WGA attempt to unionize America’s Top Model, by making a deal with the studios and swooping in at the last minute. Now those lucky “story editors” don’t have health insurance. He also doesn’t mention that animators hate his union and desperately want the WGA to cover them, because they like health insurance and pension.

Tommy Short attacks other unions because they fight for their members and he wants to distract from his total lack of concern for his members. Tommy Short is a studio bitch. Anytime you hear a word out of the IA, know it is coming from the mouth of an enormous Asshole Fuckface who put a cigar out on his kid’s head, beat his wife, was not elected to his position, is a drunk and was arrested for stealing money from the union.

And finally, I was walking the picket line the other day with a writer for "The Simpsons." I have known a few guys who have written for the show over the years, but I never knew that the show has never turned a profit. Yeah, you read that correctly. According to Fox, "The Simpsons" has never turned a profit. Fox has kept a show on the air that has been losing money for 18 years. Pretty generous of them, isn’t it? The reason the show has never made a profit is because if it did, they would have to pay people, like writers, money.

That is why the studio is so upset about those six demands. Check out number six:

A third party would really fuck up the Asshole Fuckfaces accounting practices. One thing writers can be thankful for, is the AMPTP's continual lack of understanding of the Internet. Turns out when the AMPTP set up their website, they bought the domain AMPTP.org. But they forgot to buy AMPTP.com. So a writer grabbed it and made them look like fucking fools.

Congrats to all of this week’s Asshole Fuckface Roundup’s winners! You will receive nothing. And I want a cut.

All I can say: keep fighting the good fight.

Good article. Keep up the good work.

Win. That is a nice bunch of Asshole Fuckfaces.

And I still can't wrap my head around the producer's stance on not wanting to pay someone for using their work. Isn't this HOW capitalism is supposed to work?

How could the fucking Simpsons not be turning a profit ?!?

That is seemingly such a retarded, bald face lie, I wonder why hasn't anyone sued them or somehow made them justify that statement somehow ? Whats going on with that ?

that was the most selfish, childish, rants i have ever read.

the WGA has put thousands of people out of work, not the AMPTP.

WGA can NOT win against these huge corparations ... sucks but thats how it is.

figure it out already children!!!!

/grip
//out of work
///$0.00 in the bank now
////has more respect for grocery store union than for WGA at this point

I just got a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Try reading up on the issue because you clearly don't know shit.

Agreed. If skot11 realized he's in a union that had to fight the same kind of fight we're fighting, then maybe he'd have a clue. Guess when their contract is up in the future and he walks out of work on strike, then we can bitch and moan about him putting us out of jobs. Oh, and one more thing Mr. skot11. The WGA's helping organize a benefit for out of work crew people like yourself. What's the AMPTP doing for ya?

Yes, how selfish of you FTR to point out how greedy and corrupt producers are. And how selfish is it for you to strike for the benefit of an entire guild.

And with that sort of attitude, they never will.

Trades Unions are there for their members - the people who do the actual work. Media conglomerates are there for their shareholders - the people who financially benefit from it. Which are you ??

And, when commenting on a Writer's Strike, perhaps you should spell-check your comments...

That statement of yours doesn't really show them as lying. You don't address the core of that statement - that one demand is to make membership mandatory. Is that true or not? If it's true, then they didn't tell a lie, no matter what your personal feelings are about who does or does not want to join.

The point being that portraying "thousands of people in reality and animation" as having "chosen" to not join a union when there is a pattern of illegally intimidating, firing and blacklisting those who try and exercise their right to join or form a union is a laughable distortion. AKA, a lie.

The fact that there has be be a strike sucks, but obviously a majority of writers felt it was needed. I wish there was as strong a union for auto mechanics, as most mechanics out there are overworked in poor conditions, for very little compensation compared to the skill level required...but there isn't...
Good luck to the writers with this...

Stay strong.

Sounds like you have a a bitter fight ahead of you before this is over!

The bottom line is this... people should be paid for their work! People who work for any form of mege-corp, should have the security of healthcare benefits and job secirity. And the right to residual monies and royalties from all of the various entertainment mediums. Songwriters and musicians had to fight for this for decades!

Hell, even retaial employees have better union packages thane you describe!!

Lastly... writers are artists, who provide the basis of the entertainment industry. The entertaimnment industry makes billions off writers and the support people who make all of it happen. But the money mostly seems to go to people who do nothing but exploit and bully their talent!



But, to be honest... I didn't realize how this bad, until this article.



Thanks FTR...



You can add to list of Asshole Fuckfaces, anyone who doesn't believe the writers demands are just!

the objectives of the strike were clear.
*Pay parity
*Put the end to unfair practices
*cover derived income from new technologies not covered by old regulations
*Put grips out of work
I can imagine the last clause the writers underlined twice and scribbled three exclamation marks after it.

No writers I feel wanted to see people out of work. Try not to resent something that was not directed at you. You sound like your the only person ever to be made unemployed because of factors that were exclusive to your job. I have been made unemployed twice because of share holders wanting to take the business in a new direction that would not need my skills or services, along with a number of other people. That is life good fellow, it sucks i agree..but once bitten twice shy, you now know in your next job to always have a back up plan.

you know what'd really be selfish and childish? fucking yourself and your coworkers over in the long run just to get a paycheck.

This is pretty common practice in the media industries as far as I have seen. Anytime there is a royalty tied to the profits of a particular asset, studios find it cheaper to hire awesome accountants who can funnel the profits out of the asset and into other parts of the corporation as profit (such as high marketing costs that go into another arm of the company).

Stan Lee actually got burned by Sony on this with the Spiderman movies, and almost anyone who's been in a signed band could tell you similar stories.

The more I read about this, the more contempt I have for the AMPTP. Keep it up, FTR.

It's called Hollywood Accounting.

And it is ridiculous.

ive heard some people talking about the writers being selfish. i immediately beat those people up.

well, ok, i just told them why they were wrong. thanks for the informative and infuriating articles, FTR!

This producer seems like an OK guy.

i really am an advocate of bringing big business to its knees. The WGA strike is just another battle that the working person has been fighting since the 1800's against big business. unfortunately, business is still getting more and more powerful. im rooting for the writers here, for what its worth.