#26. The Writers Guild of America and You

Pencils down...except for newsletters.

Hi everyone!

Issue #26? Can it be that we just hit the half-a-year mark of That’s Marvelous? Thanks for hanging in (or hopping onboard)! I appreciate that so many of you read these goofy emails every Monday! This week I’ve got kind of a long update about what I’ve been up to, and then I’m going to do a bunch of reader pep talks!

Extremely good picket sign by extremely good writer Caitie Delaney.

As you may have heard from the news, the Writers Guild of America (of which I am a member) is currently on strike. The short version of why is that we negotiate our contract with the big studios every three years, and this year there were a lot of important items we brought to the table that they refused to even address. The move to streaming and the consolidation of media companies is making tv and film writing a less sustainable job, and we’re trying to fix that. But these giant companies would prefer to…not fix? So, when the contract expired on Monday night, the WGA called a strike (authorized by a 97.85% YES vote from membership). I wrote a more thorough explanation in The Nation last week if you’d like to read that! I also chatted with Jordan-Marie Smith for the Washington Post’s podcast, talked to Deadline out on the picket line, and did a bunch of other appearances on news outlets that my upstairs neighbors saw and said I did a good job at (so that’s nice).

If you are looking for things that people who are NOT me have written about the strike, check out Joanna Rothkopf for The New Republic and

Hamilton Nolan

in The Guardian. (Also check out Hamilton’s new Substack, linked above!)

I was out on various picket lines Tuesday through Friday (and I’m going to keep picketing on weekdays when I’m not on the road), and the solidarity has been absolutely tremendous. We’ve been joined by members of SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, the Starbucks Union, the Freelance Musicians Union, the Amazon Union, Laborers, Teamsters, students from CUNY, and many more groups who see that this isn’t just about writers; it’s about workers standing up to corporate greed. Even better, at lots of production locations, Teamsters and crew members have refused to cross our picket lines in solidarity. It’s caused a lot of production delays in New York and LA. There is so much power in standing together!!!

Since a few people have asked me, if you’re looking for ways to support the strike, here are some things you can do!

• Show up and participate in a picket line (mostly in NY or LA)! Here’s the upcoming schedule! Also, look, this isn’t the point, but after walking in circles for 8+ miles every day all week, my legs are feeling Kentucky Derby strong. You too could reap similar benefits!

• Make a public statement of support! Every voice helps! And if you’d like to use any infographics or regulargraphics you’ve been seeing online, there’s a social media toolkit right here!

• Contribute to the Entertainment Community Fund! This fund helps people working all across the industry (not just writers) who are affected by the strike. Remember to specify “Film and Television” from the drop down menu if/when you make your donation.

ALSO, I’ll be contributing my cut from my show tonight at Union Hall (after paying out the other comedians) to the Entertainment Community Fund. And all the profits from poster sales on my current tour will go there as well! Poster redux by the spectacularly talented Emma Bers. (Sorry your date was left off, San Diego! It will be fixed by the time I get to you in July!)

Own this beautiful piece of art…for a good cause!

Speaking of touring! This week I’ll be in SPOKANE (Wednesday) and SEATTLE (Thursday/Friday)! Next week I’ll be in PHILADELPHIA! Come out and see a show! Buy a poster! Say hi!

But enough about me…

PEP TALKS FOR READERS

Okay I’ve mushed these around a little for conciseness and to remove the nice things people said to me about the newsletter that would make me self-conscious to reprint. Otherwise, I basically run them as-is! (As-are?) If you sent in a request and I didn’t get to it this week, it will appear in an upcoming That’s Marvelous! I promise!

Josh! I’m also a Massachusetts native living in New York! I’m opening a brick and mortar pastry shop this week! I’ve been working on this business for 3 years after a decade of being a chef for companies owned by billionaires! Opening a business is the most stressful thing I’ve ever done and I have a 4 year old and a six month old! Please pep me up! And if you are ever in Northern Westchester come through Little Star Pastry for a croissant!
- Paid the Cake Cost to be the Cake Boss

Hell yes! Congratulations!!! This is such a huge accomplishment already! I am so impressed by the way you’ve built up your own thing, and I’m also terrified by what being a chef employed by billionaires must entail. In my imagination, it could be anything from covertly inventing salads made out of rare orchids plucked from protected forests, to nuggetizing ever more genetically huge-ified chickens for McDonald’s. Either way, I’m glad you’re out of there!

Living the dream is often extremely grueling (and doesn’t always pay well) but I hope amidst the stress of this launch, you at least get to experience the satisfaction of Doing The Thing (trademark, as always, Ariana DeBose). I don’t know your situation in terms of business partnerships or childcare, but what I do know is that most of the time, achieving something momentous doesn’t feel that way unless you take a breath and acknowledge the momentousness for yourself. It’s so rare that anyone ever throws you the parade you deserve, and it’s so rare that someone scratches the praise or congratulations itch in the way you want it scratched. But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve all those things!!! Even though it feels hard (especially because it feels hard?) it’s worth celebrating that you’re Really Doing It. You don’t have to wait until you can take a vacation or until you make a certain amount of money. You have gotten out from under the soft, smothering thumb of your kitchen overlords, and that, on its own is tremendous! You did it, and you’re doing it! That’s a feeling worth feeling!

And, finally: Go Sox.

I’m running a conference this weekend, and while I’ve been involved in it for years, it’s my first time being responsible for everything. I’m starting to feel ready? But anxious!
- Con Man

This might not sound like a vote of confidence, but it’s important to hear: Things will go wrong. And that’s FINE. Think about every time you’ve been to an event like this, and how many little hiccups there have been, and how ultimately, almost none of them were catastrophic! Food’s ten minutes late? No one will remember! A PowerPoint slide didn’t play the animation? Whatever! That has literally never ruined anyone’s life or probably even their week! PowerPoint, like a printer or the ice cream machine at McDonald’s, is not something we really expect to work precisely.

You don’t have to do everything perfectly! That can’t be the goal! No one ever achieves it! All you have to do is make sure the disasters are predominately of the mitigated variety, and react to these snags as they happen. You’re not doing this alone! You and your team have got this!!!

I was hospitalized last week with diverticulitis. I'm only 38, which is young for the disease, and I had no idea I had it. It was my first time being hospitalized. I've also been struggling with the stress of leading (as a volunteer) a public transit riders advocacy organization here in Cleveland, OH. (Also, sending solidarity to all striking writers.)
- Underduressed In Ohio

This sounds like a truly brutal stretch you’re going through between physical health and mental health/burnout. And I’m extra sorry to hear that you’re young for one of the things that’s terrible to be young for. There’s no Forbes 40 Under 40 list of People With Diverticulitis. Not to be glib, but as cartoon army men (for some reason?) were always telling us as kids: knowing is half the battle. The other half is fixing the thing that’s wrong, obviously, but it’s so hard to improve a situation before you know what’s making it feel bad in the first place. From what I know about diverticulitis, it’s extremely painful. But “I have diverticulitis and know how to treat it” is such an improvement over “I feel like shit all the time and am possibly dying or maybe I ate a bad clam, but probably I’m dying.”

Recovering from this cavalcade of maladies probably won’t be easy, but wow is it better than trying to hit a moving target of discomfort and treating it with a battery of over the counter medications, naps, and writhing around, administered on a largely ad hoc basis. You’re not at your best yet, but as a famous New Jerseyite was always reminding us as kids (and at karaoke), you’re halfway there.

Got a pep talk request for an upcoming event in my life: moving in! My wife and I are moving into our new place at the end of the month. We’ve got all our stuff in two storage units and will be doing the UHAULing ourselves. Driving them through NYC is never a delight, as is moving in general. We’ve got some friends kind enough to help us out, but a pep talk as well would be much appreciated!
- Haul Newvan

I need a pep talk! I am writing my dissertation and I’m defending in July and a full draft is due in June. I have a job lined up for the fall so it has to get done, but I’m really struggling with the writing process right now.
- Just Disserts

I lumped these two requests together because in my head, both situations fall under the heading of: Things that will be a tremendous pain in the ass and then will be definitively, satisfyingly over. There is only so long you can leave the last few belongings at your old apartment before someone throws them in the trash and whoops they’re gone forever. There’s only so much procrastinating with your dissertation you can do before someone demands to read it and you have to hand in something. In the interim, your head may be uncomfortably full of anxieties about these big upcoming moments the way a sock sometimes gets full of puddle water. But, in exactly the way that stepping into a slush-filled crevasse that you thought was solid ice does not destroy a sock’s long-term integrity, these tasks will not linger unpleasantly forever. You’ll do them, and then they’ll be done. (I know I’ve said this before, but I have to remind myself of it all the time!)

I need a pep talk for making through 1 month of a new job.
- 30 Day Employeé

When I was in college, a bunch of the comedy groups teamed up and put on a 24-hour improv marathon (I know) for charity. The venue, by the event’s midpoint, smelled horrendous. And at certain hours the quality of our performance may have stunk worse than that. (No offense to anyone involved, but there’s only so much consecutive improv the human brain is meant to perform or even witness.) At the end of every hour, no matter how ramshackle the previous sixty minutes had been, everyone onstage would shout: “X hours down! X hours awesome!” Because sometimes just making it through a period of time is an achievement in and of itself. So, with all that said, regardless of any other facts: ONE MONTH DOWN! ONE MONTH AWESOME!

Hey, Josh! I don’t need a pep talk but my friend does. She has lately been suffering some inexplicable health problems along with the very unexpected death of her beloved schnauzer. She doesn’t need to know who requested it, just a little internet bird.
- Emotional Support Pigeon

I’m so sorry to hear about your friend’s health problems as well as her recent loss. Those things can be so painful for such indeterminate periods of time. One thing I think she can take heart in is that she has really good friends like you who are looking out for her and want to do whatever they can to make her life healthier and more comfortable. On top of that she probably has some worse friends she can also lean on to a lesser extent during times like this when she’s in a period of need. And then there’s the layer of acquaintances and colleagues that maybe aren’t as available to be helpful but she can just be kind of a shitshow in front of if she has to. Honestly, there are probably only a few people in her life that she has to put on a some kind of display of normalcy for at all. Basically everyone else will probably understand that she’s not at her best right now and could use a little support and a little grace until this squall passes by.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Fleetwood Mac - “Everywhere”

For thematic unity, I probably should have picked some kind of protest song or other musical statement of union solidarity. But this ain’t that kind of newsletter (one that all ties together)! A couple of weeks ago, I saw a friend sing “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac to her partner at karaoke, and it was so sweet and tender that the song made its way here. I wish I could share that karaoke version, but for obvious reasons, that’s impossible, so you’re stuck with (kidding, kidding) the original. At least the apparently official video for “Everywhere” looks like one of the semi-related-to-the-song clips that sometimes play under a karaoke track. And the song itself is kind of vibe-cousins with “This Must Be The Place” by the Talking Heads, I think. Also very pleasant!

One last thing here: I don’t mean to keep recommending kind of visually similar comedians, but WOW Greg Warren’s new standup special The Salesman is SO good. It’s so tight and playful and hilarious and super clean too. Watch it with anyone in your life, and have a great time.

UPCOMING TOUR DATES

I’m getting started on the second leg of my 1900s Kid Tour, and the first few dates are listed here! The rest of them so far are of course on my website!

5/8 - What’s New at Union Hall in Brooklyn

5/10 - Spokane Comedy Club

5/11-5/12 - Upper-Left Comedy Festival in Seattle

5/19-5/20 - Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia (Three Shows)

5/31 - The Comet in Cincinnati

6/1 - Helium Comedy Club in Indianapolis

6/2-6/3 - Helium Comedy Club in St. Louis

6/4 - The Comedy Club in Kansas City

Okay, well…26 newsletters down, 26 newsletters awesome!!!