a soaking coen
People have been asking me what it’s like on the picket line now that actors are on strike too. My answer: great!
Before last week, writer pickets in NYC felt grim. Not like the star-studded ones in LA. (“Omg Dermot Mulroney is here and he’s shooting people with an empanada cannon!” “Susan Sarandon is here and she’s teaching us Zumba!” “The baby from Ally McBeal is here and it’s handing out gift cards to P.F. Chang’s!”)
My personal picket lowpoint came when I saw a Coen brother getting rained on. The rest of us had an umbrella or rain jacket, but for some reason Joel (or Ethan) was marching around with his shirt pulled over his head. Not marching in a noble way. He seemed very unhappy. He was scowling.
There’s something really depressing about seeing your heroes get kicked around by life. I felt like I was watching Stanley Kubrick kick a vending machine going “come on, man!”
It really put things in perspective. You can co-create Fargo, but you still have to go home and wring out your Hokas like everybody else.
Nobody in Hollywood is my hero. They are just overpaid actors.
There is nothing heroic about reciting lines and attending parties.
Not like any of them fought a war.
Or rescued a cat from a tree,
or even did a ride-along with LE or EMS.