The writers know better than anyone how devastating this strike can be for them. For some it will mean losing their savings, their homes and very possible their spouses.
Yet in spite of all of the dire consequences, humor -- rumored to be the best medicine -- found it's place in the midst of this S.R.O. by necessity and circumstance crowd.
Reporters watching the writers eye each other picked up on love and humor creeping into the writers strike as a extra added unexpected benefit and reported it accordingly.
"Writers Walk the Date Line," Los Angeles Daily News, 11/9/07
Striking writer Hunter Covington said he was looking for "someone to be broke with" when he came up with the idea for a picket line for singles.
"I'm looking for a low-maintenance female who doesn't enjoy the finer things in life," he joked Thursday outside the Fox studio gate in Century City.
The writer for NBC's "My Name is Earl" was joined by about 50 other people for the impromptu event dubbed "Singles' Strike."
Covington's effort to turn a bomb into baffo event, paid off because
just as spontaneously as he thought up the idea, he was joined by about 50 other people who were drawn in when he said he was looking for "someone to be broke with" as he walked the picket line.
Since all writers draw from their life's experiences, and Covington had plenty of experience as a single, if he found his true love while marching under the bright California sun in the midst of an unhappy experience, he will always be able to draw from the corkscrew twists and turns of marriage and family.
Charles Heit, a writer for the Sci Fi Channel's "Painkiller Jane," said he was dreading picket duty until he met Cara Delizia, a petite actress. Then it didn't seem so bad.
The two planned to go to dinner and a movie after putting down their picket signs.
"It's all about solidarity, right?" Delizia said.
While they're looking for love in a very strange place, they should write "solidarity" in huge golden letters on a gigantic imaginary marquee and solidify their forces and what little money they have left to form a more perfect union of a business marriage when the strike is over.
New friendships can good business partners make, too. If by merging and combining their vast talents, perhaps they can find a way to stick it to their former employers who will use the occasion of the strike as a tool of divorce, rather than a business marriage counselor to patch things up.
According to Doug McIntyre, KABC-Los Angeles morning drive-time radio host and recovering sitcom writer, if the strike isn't settled in six weeks, the studios are free to nullify all pending deals for future shows, thus leaving them free to strike up new deals, while leaving the old writers and deal makers without a network to pin their aspirations on.
If the striking writers could forge one alliance and all their talents into one corporate marriage of more than convenience, maybe they could out-do, and out-successful the studios that are always screwing them over, and trying any means they can to chisel them out of residuals and getting in on new innovations.
For many, the only thing more difficult than making it big in Hollywood is finding true love there.
