Writers strike? What writers strike?
Scribblers in Brownstone Brooklyn are taking the borough’s laid-back reputation to new heights, using their free time to bed-rest, play with their babies, dust off old projects, and eye the future with quiet trepidation.
And you thought they’d be filling the coffee bars!
“I wish, but nope. It’s business as usual,” said Greg Wolf, the owner of the borough’s three writer-friendly Tea Lounges (complete with well-worn couches and free WiFi), who guessed that half of his customers were freelancers.
If Wolf’s business has remained constant, it may be because many of the 200 Brooklyn-based members of Writers Guild America East realize that this now four-week-old strike could drag on for months. After all, the writers’ arch nemesis, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, has yet to accede to their demands for a bigger share of Internet revenue. And the 1988 strike, as nearly every writer will tell you, lasted for 22 weeks!
“I was between jobs anyway,” said Tim Harrod, a one-time writer for Conan O’Brien, a guild member, and a Park Slope resident who’s taking it easy. “The strike has curtailed my ability to submit or pitch to companies that are looking for new projects. But it hasn’t been catastrophic for me. I was prepared to take some time off.”
Fair enough, but even those who weren’t ready for a surprise mid-winter vacation of indeterminate length aren’t exactly crossing the picket line.
“The strike is both really demoralizing, but when you’re out there on the picket line and you’re running into old friends, it tends to be kind of fun, too,” said Elisa Zuritsky, a one-time “Sex and the City” writer, who was working on pilots for Touchstone.
“Normally, I sit in my apartment by myself or with my writing partner,” said Zuritsky, a Brooklyn Heights resident. “In some ways, it’s kind of a nice change of pace.”
Zuritsky’s colleagues in related industries have also had to adjust their lifestyles.
Bohdan Bushell, of the Gowanus-based Jauchem & Meeh Special Effects, said he’s definitely seen a slowdown in business.
“We used to get regular orders from Conan, ‘Saturday Night Live,’ David Letterman,” said Bushell, whose outfit once cooked up gallons of fake trans-fats for an SNL sketch about the city ban. “All of that has dried up.”
Although the writers strike and the recently settled stagehands strike cut Bushell’s business in half compared to last November, he still wouldn’t take a side in the ongoing labor dispute.
“I support everyone’s right to earn a fair wage for the work that he or she does,” said Bushell. “But I can’t come down on one side or the other, because we have relationships with producers and writers alike. The producers call us to work on projects, and the writers write in special effects.”
When they’re putting their fingers to the electronic grindstone, that is.
Now, with all the free time they have after picketing in front of the Time Warner Center, the Disney Store, or Chelsea Piers, writers can nuzzle their children.
“I’m spending a lot of my time with my new baby,” said Dan Goor, a Prospect Heights resident and Conan O’Brien writer. “She’s adorable.
“I definitely want to be writing, and getting paid for creating stuff,” added Goor, temporarily extricating himself from 10-week-old baby bliss. “Eventually, hopefully, I’ll be performing stand-up and writing the Great American Novel, or even the great French novel, which would be hard, because I don’t speak French.”
But there was at least one writer in Brooklyn with her feet firmly planted on the shaky ground.
Julie Rottenberg, a Park Sloper and Zuritsky’s writing partner, is frightened by the prospect of no steady work for the foreseeable future.
“It’s awful and frightening and horrible,” said Rottenberg. “We just bought an apartment, and suddenly I have no income, and did I mention I’m seven months pregnant?”
