July 18, 2023 • 59 mins
In episode 1516, Jack and Miles are joined by comedian, writer, executive producer, and TV host, Adam Conover, to discuss… Union/WGA Strike, Why This Could Be a Huge Moment for Labor, How Unions Help Consumers, The AI Question and more!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to season two ninety six,
episode one of Derdly's Guysay production of My Heart Radio.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
into america shared consciousness. And it is Tuesday, July eighteenth,
twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh yeah, very oh yeah, some great. It's it's Nelson
Mandela International Day, the National Sour Candy Day, World Listening Day,
because you're doing that right now, National Tropical Fruit Day,
and actually good topic or at least related to the
top of we're talking about today, or at least tangentially.
It's National caviard Day as well, so just imagine.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, sorry, I just have to act like I didn't
know most celebrating to seem like a man of the people.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I had no dripping down your face.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So much caveat off. Have the seven layered dip that's
just seven different types of caviare, dude.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
But the good stuff in the bottom there, it's all
premit precires.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
To top claimed flesh. Huh. Well, my name is Jack
O'Brien aka Barbenheimer, Girl, Destroyer of your WORDLDS melt like plastic,
it's fantastic, louse your golden hair destruction everywhere. Radiation life
ends by your creation. Barbenheimer, Lake of Fire. Oh oh yeah, Barbenheimer,
(01:25):
Lake of Fire. Oh yeah uh. That is courtesy of
Discorduroy on the Discord. M hmm, thank you, Michael, Barbara,
and I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my
co host, mister Miles.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Gram Miles Gray.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Akay, in the gravy, you can up your podcast ease
in the gravy. You can host mad bousies in the gravy.
You can smoke mad please in the gravy.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Okay, shout out to me, because I still have Village
people on the brain. Yeah. And you know what's wild,
I didn't mention the when we're talking about it, Like
half of their songs are like derivations of the hits.
So like these other songs I'd never heard of had
like almost sad like nearly the same structure and like
key changes or like three choruses were in your mind.
(02:14):
You're like, wait, hold on, this is my show man,
and you're like, oh, no, it's not. They're saying something
completely different. Anyway, shout out them.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, I got to give a shout out to Zeke
Gangage's listener smooth Lou, I believe is the name smooth
Lou who solved the mystery? Did you see this on Twitter?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
What was it?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Grand Puba? It's a Grand Puba track from nineteen ninety five,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And did you go back and you checked it out?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, it's definitely that's the song.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Oh wait, wasn't it It's just a track called two thousand?
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I don't know why it took us so long. I
guess it like didn't didn't really hit that much?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Wow wow, Yeah, check out that song. It's okay, kind
of it's kind of good. I wow, stand to buy
my reference two thousand?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, I still love it. Okay, the energy is still there. Wow,
shout out hiking. Honestly, you guys, fucking between all of y'all,
we don't need Google, and we could have googled it,
but it was hard to just google two thousand song
lyric really.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So Smooth Lou great, great Twitter handle, even better at
saving my ass from making it seem like I was
referencing a Billy Joel's song.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, Smooth Lou, we owe you a hamburger.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yes, smooth Lou came through with that, said I got
you fan, thanks for all you do. And then somebody
else came through and vouch for smooth Lou. Was like,
pretty cool, dude. I miss you, smooth Lous like forever
so much. Love to Smooth Lou. Wow, this one goes
out to you. All right, Miles, it's a special episode.
(03:56):
We're talking labor.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I'm talking. I'm still blown away that smoothly put. I mean,
did you hear it?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I started playing a little a second ago and I'm
like this speaks Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, big poopa head over here.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, damn all right, anyway, sorry, anyway, back to you
Jack and back to you Miles. Yep, no, back to you,
to you fam.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
This episode we are no and I'm still gonna go
back to you, pal. We're talking the writer strike, the
actor strike, ultimately the labor movement in general. And researching
this and reading about unions and hearing people talk about
the history of Hollywood. I guess a thing that I
knew but hadn't really thought that much about is that
(04:43):
Hollywood is like one of the most consistently unionized industries
left in this country.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Like yeah, then with that kind of visibility, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
When I think union's like I think, you know, guys
on Dog like Jimmy Hoffa, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
In the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, exactly. You don't think about Hollywood. You don't think
about the glitz and glamb. But I also spend a
lot of time just thinking about I don't know, you know,
I'm a movie guy. I think the movies are just
all right.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, like it gave us Star Wars, it gave us Jaws,
it gave us some other movies probably, But I.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Just when you look at the the history of the industry,
like across the one hundred years that it has been unionized,
like it's it's a pretty it's hit some pretty high highs,
like an entertainment industry.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
For some reason, I kept thinking about this time I
went over to Ireland, like in the early two thousands.
I know, and I know I always talk about it.
I always talk about the cuisine, brag about the cuisine.
But everybody. First of all, the only thing on TV
was The Simpsons, which, thank you, that was wonderful. I
will take that. And also the Rachel like I'd say
(06:01):
forty percent of the girls were rocking the Rachel from Friends,
Like just the the level of like Hollywood's influence is
you know, can't be overstated, especially like what's that.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
No I said? I mean, it's I mean. And also
you kind of date everyone had the Rachel back then. Yeah,
how old are you then?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I was twenty like I was twenty one, I was
like seven years old.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Oh but I guess so too, Like Europe also had
that delay of like American trends hitting about like four
years later.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
For sure, exactly, but just I don't know, Like we
talked a lot of shit about movies and TV, but
like across just viewing the body of work across like
it has created a great deal of iconic lasting art
that like breaks through to the mainstream. And I think,
I think you can draw like you would never hear
these two things connected. But just in thinking about the history,
(07:00):
like it it really is, we have that history because
of unions, and we're going to talk about that a
little bit. And like just the fact that the creative people,
the artists who drive the actual original creative ideas that
like get turned into movies that like define generations, you know,
(07:21):
like those people are protected by a union and when
they're not, like you see, what we'll talk about what
studios want to do with them what these streaming companies
are trying to do with them. So it's a it's
an interesting conversation that I think kind of stretches the
brain in a lot of different directions. And also you know,
(07:41):
it's it's an important moment.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Oh yeah. And I mean I think, and we talked
about this off mic before of like, you know, when
else have you seen in like union members with the
kind of visibility that the WGA or SAG does, right,
you know, And I think there's a lot of attention
on this obviously because of like the nature of the
work that people do, but I think there's there's something
(08:03):
that I'd imagine a lot of other industries are looking
at to see how this has resolved, whether like they
you know, they go the cynical route like we've heard
in like leaked quotes where they're like, yeah, wait till
they start getting evicted and then they'll start you know,
like we'll use the loss of housing as a negotiating tactic. Yeah,
we'll see how cynical it goes, or if you know,
I think I have a feeling that after these studios
(08:26):
see just how devoid of talent and energy some of
their like marketing things have been without the people that
you know, make the shit come to life. Yea that
they may, they may come around, but hey, we shall see.
And I think that's where we have a great.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I think we're also going to end up talking about
we haven't had the conversation yet, We're about to have it.
But yeah, I think we'll end up talking about AI
because I think it's also revealing about just where their
priorities are on the studio side, that that that the
AI side is so important. Like yeah, I don't know
if they're fooled by the chat GPT or if they
think that the chat GPT is going to be good
(09:00):
enough to fool audiences, but I.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Think they think it's like if they can just get
that domino to fall, then all their problems are solved.
They can reap all the benefits. But it like sounds
like someone who's like trying to get like an English
Lit PhD or something. He's like, we should be allowed
to use spark notes in the exams, and whenever we'd
like I'm being serious and they're like, no, I think
you found a shortcut that's you need.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
All right, Well we are thrilled to be joined by
someone with a seat at the table during the liberations.
Adam Conover. So we'll be right back with Adam. We'll
be right back, and we're back, and we are thrilled
(09:49):
to be joined in our third sea by a very
friend of comedian, writer, executive producer, TV host and labor
organizer who you know from Adam Ruins everything his podcast
factually and being out in these streets picketing, acting as
member of the negotiating committee, serving on the WGA West
Board of Directors. It's Adam Connor and it's love to
(10:10):
be here.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Was that was all my credits? I have a lot
of titles now having those things I'm not doing now
because I'm on strike. I'm not a TV host right now.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean that things nascent.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
When it's all over, I'll be back on your screens,
you know.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
There you go, yes, yes, yes, Well thanks for joining us.
I can't imagine this is a busy time for you
at all.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I was just sounds like I got nothing going on.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I was just out on the street, you know, for
for three four hours ninety degree heat with a sign,
talking to people. It's a blast, man, it's I'm having
so much fun out there. The solidarity feels so good.
It's just it's great.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah, I mean people are making sacrifices, you know, but
there's our political directors, wonderful woman Rachel Torres. She's brilliant.
She told me, uh, you know, if you're smiling while
you're sacrificing, if you're having a good time while you're
making the sacrifice, then they can't beat you. And I
think that that is really true.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah, for sure, big cheerleader smiles out there on the Yeah, people,
it's it's a party.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
A guy brought a sound system to Netflix, and now
he's playing like sort of mid tempo like dance music.
You know. It feels like kind of that kind of
that outdoor day club like pool club kind of people
almost feel like they should be having frozen cocktails walking
around like it's just the vibes are good. And then
he's like remixed like people giving speeches like fran Dresser's speech.
(11:31):
Someone told me he like remixed one of my tiktoks
into a song of like, you know, so you want
to pick a line, line, line, line line, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
You sent him a takedown notice immediately, I'm yeah, better
who signed off? But yeah, I mean we were talking
with this feels like a huge moment for labor. These
are you know, with the w g A some of
the most influential, like union eye as union protected workers
on the planet. But with with actors, with the Screen
(12:05):
Actors Guild, you know, the.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Faces, the beauty, beauty and brains coming together, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
But yeah, I don't know, just kind of thinking about this,
think about the history of labor and unions in Hollywood.
It feels like Hollywood to this point. The fact that
unions have been a presence in Hollywood for as long
as they have. It's a great learning moment for why
capitalism doesn't work without unions.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Basically, yeah, well it's an open question whether capitalism works
at all, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
And I think you're arguing, yeah, like unions are the
thing that keep people from being like, oh, Marx was
definitely right, just right, right.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I mean, look, I sort of don't get into Marxism socialism.
I don't do iss. I just know that the union
and the union structure is the only way to fight back, right,
and so you know, the union is a hammer, and
I grabbed the hammer and I start smashing shit and
it's really fun.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
So, I mean, the only reason people even think of writing, acting,
directing as being lucrative jobs. You know, like if you say, oh,
my cousin's a actor in LA, you might be, oh,
he's if he's working, he's making good money. Right, That's
what an assumption is. That's only because we've had strong
unions in this town for ninety years. The Writers School
(13:32):
was founded ninety years ago, and it's only because those
unions went on strike. The last time the writers and
actors went on strike together was nineteen sixty and in
that negotiation, we won our health and pension plans, and
we won the existence of residual payments, which are the
payments we get every time the product is aired. Right,
And that's why I have a health and pension today
(13:52):
is because they went on strike. Then that's why I've
gotten residuals to help tide me through the slow periods
of my career is because of those and writers going
on strike. And so now it's our turn to do
the same thing. And that's why we're out there.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah. As a thought experiment, I was trying to think of, like,
what do we think the last ninety years of movies
and TV look like if the industries were never unionized.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
YouTube looks on YouTube, Yeah, you know, people barely scraping by.
Or it looks like I mean, look at Korea for instance,
there was or the anime industry. Right, those are two
extremely popular. You know, they make a lot of media
that's consumed by a lot of people, and the people
who make the media aren't able to make a living.
There was a great piece in the La Times a
(14:36):
couple of weeks ago about how the guy who created
Squid Game. You know, they and Netflix trotted this guy's
story out as a hero story. You know, Oh, he
tried to make the show for ten years and he
couldn't make it until Netflix gave him a chance. They
became a worldwide hit. Right, that guy made from the
first season, which was a again worldwide smash like Game
of Thrones level. You know, people watching it, he made
(14:59):
two hundred thousand. Yeah, that's you know, that's a good living. Right.
That's not what you should get if you made the
most popular show ever, right, And that's the guy who
created the show, the people who worked on the shows,
and the people who create you know, your more average
K dramas right that you know, you know, I hear
about one or two k K dramas or K comedies
(15:19):
a year, but you know the ones that are a
little further down the down the pipe, that that the
real the real fans watch. Those people are literally not
making a living making television. They are writing those shows
in between their day jobs, or they're working eighteen hour
days and then when the show ends, they're just like, well,
back to my day job. Right. And this this article.
(15:40):
You can look up LA Times, you know, squid Game Korean.
Google that and you'll find the article goes into really
long detail on that. And the reason is there's no
unions and Netflix is exploiting that. I mean, they talk
about Netflix came into that market and said, oh, we
want to you know, spread Korean content around the world, right,
and they created a lot of work, They created a
(16:00):
lot of shows, but no one's being paid because the
stand the work standards are so abysmal. It's sweatshop media. Unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, yeah, I had no idea that that was the thing.
I mean again, obviously because a lot of Koreat media
is so good that I was like, oh, this is
a natural progression of things, and then I remember, oh,
Netflix is going in like but there was a moment
I was like, oh, they're going in like to the
point where I was like, oh, they might. They're really
trying to put their foot down in Korea. I had
no ideas because they're like, yeah, man, you can get
away with anything over here.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, it's just like it's
a car company, you know, moving to Mexico right, or
to any other or you know Nike in Bangladesh, right,
it's there. They are taking advantage of poor work standards
to get the product a lot cheaper. And you know,
why do the companies love anime? You know, it's awesome
as an American you know, someone who grew up you know,
(16:52):
trading VHS tapes of anime that it's like popular in
the US now it's popular around the world. That's great.
But I mean, you guys know horrible conditions that anime
has made it. I mean people, people die in that.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Industry, symptoms make jokes about it. I remember, and I
was like, is that a joke or is that one
of those Simpsons jokes? So they're like, no, no, no,
that's real.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
It's awful. It's awful. And that's one of the reasons
they're pumping it out, is they is they feel that
they can, you know, get more content for less dollars. Now.
The thing about that, though, is that American American media
is still the most popular valuable media in the world.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
It's still what people want to watch, like from a
big budget thing like Avatar too, right to you know,
even you know, reruns of old sitcoms. Right, people are
still watching Friends in Australia, you know, and Ireland, Yeah,
and new shows as well. Right, that is what people
want to watch more than anything else, both in America
(17:50):
and around the world. And one of the reasons for
that is because the entertainment industry has been the only
place that paid creators fairly for the last hundred years.
You know, if you are a great writer and you
want to make if you want to if you want
to buy a big house of your writing, you know,
where are you gonna go? Are you gonna work in journalism?
(18:10):
Are you gonna work in novels? No, You're gonna go
try to sell a big movie script. Right. That's been
the pattern in Hollywood up until basically the early two thousands,
where you had the best writer. Literally, Faulkner and Fitzgerald
came to Hollywood right to write movies and you know,
think about, well they both drank themselves to death, but
too much money. Yeah, but you know that was that
(18:33):
was the way it worked. And the companies have broken
that compact and as a result, the content is getting worse. Unfortunately.
You know, we're entering this Marvel period where they're trying
to you know, they saying, oh, the actor doesn't matter,
the writing doesn't matter. All that matters is Spider Man.
People will go to see Spider Man no matter what,
you know, no matter who's in the suit, no matter
(18:54):
what he's saying. Right, And it's not actually true because
you know, look at what happened with the Flash, right,
they realize they can't just cram in superheroes and expect
people to show up. But you know, all that that
makes the CEOs think is they need to pump harder.
They need to you know, get more blood out of
that stone. But so these companies are destroying the compact.
And why did the compact work because of the unions.
(19:16):
We had strong unions here that that you know, meant
we had good working nditions that meant people wanted to
move here to Los Angeles or to New York to
make the content, and we're fighting to change that, to
make it the way it should be.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I feel like The Flash is a good example of
you know, the Flash recently came out. Indiana Jones recently
came out and the primary complaint that you heard from
them is creepy CGI, like terrible, weird CGI that take
takes you out of it, and like effects are a
frequent complaint, and you hear people like wonder why, like
(19:51):
how this happens on some of these movies. They spent
three hundred million dollars in effects, and it's at least
partially because the effects houses are not union, that is
not a part of the industry that is protected, and
so you have situations where the effects house that won
the Oscar for Life of Pie is out of business
by the time they get the award.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, you know, if you talk to I've talked to
people who work at effects houses from Marvel, and they're
treated terribly. You know, they're they're asked to do impossible
things on impossible turnarounds that you know, well, we want
we want it like this, No, we want it like this,
you have to change everything, but we're not going to
pay you more, and you have hal so much time
to do it. You know that kind of request. The
people who work at these companies, you know that their
(20:32):
careers last five years and then they burn out because
they can't do it anymore. It's not like video games.
And you know the proof is in the pudding. But
also you know we're on we're in a new era
of the special effects.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Right.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
It used to be that the special effects, the CGI
was there to impress and delight the audience. Right, Oh
my god, look at the terminator and terminator too. Right,
he's melting. He's the melting man. It's look how cool?
Or toy story? Right, look how great it looks. Now
they you it as a cost cutting device. They use
it in order to they're like, oh, if we just
(21:04):
like send it all to a VFX house that's not
union and make them do all the work, it's a
lot cheaper. You know, if you look at the difference
between look the new Mission Impossible, right, I saw it.
Look it's not a good movie, but.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
You don't think it's an accurate depiction of AI.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
It is interesting that the villain is AI. Right, but
the script is I don't want to get into it, right,
but the action scenes, right, it's got these two incredible
action sequences that are totally worth seeing in a theater.
Had people hooting and hollering, great time. And why did
they work so well? Because they fucking happened in real life,
because they put in the effort and the craft and
(21:45):
the time to you know, go to the place and
do the stunt and shoot the thing, or to build
the set, or to buy the car, or to put
the person in the place right. And for movies like
The Flash, they're like, just have the guys stand in
front of a green screen and will make some underpaid
couple bosos. Yeah you know, sorry, they're not bosos. They're
great artists, but they're underpaid. They don't have enough time
(22:07):
bring in terrible conditions. Yeah, so it's cut rate. It's
sweatshop content, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And about another lightning portal in the sky, what if
we did so it was.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Coming out of portals and yeah, yeah there's portals. I'm
as stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, Adam, I got to ask though, right, like these
costs they got to the studios, gotta cut costs because
I've heard it straight from their mouths, times are tough.
Oh yeah for studios. I heard Bobby Jay I'll say
Igre in a very fancy way. Uh, you know, really
be out here being like, you know, their their demands
are unrealistic or other people. I've heard that. I've heard
(22:42):
the thing over and over that times are hard for studios.
And we've talked a lot about this, where you know,
Iger's pay was what approaching twenty seven million for the year,
and like people like what David Zaslov almost be like
a quarter of a billion dollars in twenty twenty one. Yeah,
what how would you define from their perspective, It's that
they're trying to inaccurately describe a problem that they maybe
(23:04):
they have created through their own business decisions. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
I mean, that's a wonderful answer to your own question.
That's a great way to put it. I mean, look,
these guys are raking it in. And let's be really clear.
So writer producer pay has fallen by twenty three percent
at the median over the last ten years. That's the
Writer's Guild's own figures. That's total pay. Over the same time,
(23:26):
show budgets have gone up by fifty percent. Revenue has
gone up, profits have gone up for these companies, just
their entertainment divisions. I'm not even talking about you know,
Disney's got sports, They've got theme parks. We're not talking
about that. We're just talking about literally the entertainment divisions
of the companies. Revenue, profits, budgets all up while our
salaries go down. At the same time, they're paying these companies,
(23:48):
these CEOs massive, massive amounts of money. I mean, Bob
Iger when he made those comments, he had just negotiated
for himself an additional two years and he's making an
extra fifty million by a year. That guy doesn't fucking
need that money. He's already incredibly wealthy if you look
at the aggregate he's made over the last ten years.
How dare he go on television and plead poverty while
(24:11):
the rest of us are not able to make a living,
while his workforce is not able to make health insurance
or you know, make a living anymore.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
It's revolting, but it's line goes up shit right. It's
the their answering to the Wall Street and for Wall Street,
it's never enough, like when you have a good year,
that that that you should keep being better years, Like
that's what we want to consistently see that line also.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
These But but it's not just that, because growth is
growth is possible, right if you do you can do
it the right way. You can pay everybody properly and
make good shit that people actually like and make more money.
That's my belief in life. And there's companies that fucking
do it right. And also it's what the entertainment industry did.
(24:58):
For a long time. A lot of people were paid
shitty in the entertainment industry, you know, like the unions
are the ones that you know that protected us pas.
We have always been paid shittily. There's a lot of
bad shit in Hollywood. But like you know, from the
eighties through the two thousands, everybody liked the product. Right,
We had peak TV, right, everyone had cable, We were
(25:18):
watching ads. We were fine with it. We could watch
on demand or use DVR if we needed to. You
know what I mean. Everything was people were making so
much money. People were going to the movie theater. The
content was good, you know, and the people who made
it were paid. And now what's happening. People don't like
the product anymore. You know. The Netflix revolution was a lie.
(25:38):
That they you know, the idea that you could pay
fifteen dollars a month and never have to pay another
penny and never watch an ad and watch every show
ever made. They were lying to the public that that
was possible. They destroyed a profitable business model in order
to find a new one, but at the same time
they kept enough of the money for themselves that the
people at the top are doing better. Well, everyone else
does worse, But the companies would grow more if they
(26:01):
if they did it the right way. Period.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, the Golden Age of TV is a great example
of the WGA working because you know, like you mentioned,
like the WGA, and like the things that the WGA
has provided, like writers with like the ability to make
a living during dry periods or whatever, like helps writers,
you know, remain writers. And a lot of the best
(26:26):
TV is created by people with the long time experience
in like past successful and unsuccessful TV shows like Breaking
Bad is created by a former X Files writer, like
there's a big break between these Sopranos comes from a
writer on Northern Exposure, like Matthew Weiner cut his teeth
on Becker and in Laws before he got on sopranos.
(26:49):
Sh Yeah, but like the you know on your episode
where like where you were talking about the strike, you
were talking to I think David Goodman, Yeah who and
you know his family guy writer who all told a
story about how he almost quit the industry but like
a residual check for a show he wrote on in
(27:10):
the past that he said like wasn't very good, but
it got him through so that he could keep being
a writer. And there's just all this all this information
that gets passed down, Like iveryget where I heard it,
but somebody was saying that like the family tree of
all of the Golden Age TV shows, it all like
traces back to Colombo and like that show then like
(27:34):
created all like all the writers on that became showrunners
on other shows and it just like branched down. So
we magically have this period of Golden era TV. But
like that doesn't happen if the television industry works the
way like the industry that I think all three of
us have a background in is like creating content for
(27:54):
the Internet.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And yeah, like just the.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Way that we've seen that devolve over the past fifteen.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Years, it doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
It doesn't exist, Like there are no guardrails and there
were no ways to, you know, like ensure good outcomes
for the people that were contributing to that environment.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
Yeah, because they the company has decided to pull them,
sell them for part for parts, you know. I mean,
look at look, I like I play video games, right,
so I like reading video game websites. There's no such
thing as video game websites anymore. I mean there's sites
where people upload it for free, like YouTube right right,
where people put in all the work and all the
risk themselves of putting up work, and then you know,
(28:32):
if you're lucky, you get paid by YouTube if you
happen to hit right right. But in terms of being
somebody who's like a journalist who covers video games goes
to E three interviews, people break stories right there literally
are not outlets left that pay people to do this
because they've been stripping them for parts. One of them
that I read is Kotaku. I've read it for years.
They're trying to replace those writers with AI. They're trying
(28:54):
to like and like, what's what's the fucking point of that?
Do they do? They think I'm gonna go to taku
dot com to read AI generated articles. I also have
chat GPT I can just ask chat GPT if I
want an AI answer, why are you hiring someone to
copy paste from chat GPT? What the fuck is the
(29:16):
point of that? Why destroy your own industry? People go
because they like the people.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Right right, And I guess there's like that that's just
like that disconnect we see like in every industry where again,
there's like a motive to make sure that like you
provide value to shareholders while completely like missing sight of
like the actual products that are being made and like
if consumers are gonna be savvy enough, because look, I
love bullshit reality TV, but I like like actually well
(29:43):
written television also, and I can already see like you
like just that that shift to MAX was like sort
of like a preview of like the worlds we're looking at.
It's like, well, remember HBO, there's that, and then there's
just all this other unscripted nonsense that fucking also is
really cheap to make, and like you know, kind of
maybe where things should be going if writers and actors
(30:03):
don't get off their shit.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Max is such an antithesis of the last you know
of how you build a successful media company, right like HBO.
There's a wonderful book about HBO. I read it this
year called It's not TV, It's it's a history of HBO.
From the beginning, what you realize HBO is like this,
you know, starts out as just a cable company that
you know, you pay extra and you can watch fights
and stuff like that, right, right, and then they find
(30:26):
this niche of oh, we can make content that doesn't
exist on broadcast. Right, we can make something that's edgy.
We can da da da da, Right, and they build
it on exactly dream on right, this show with a
price to watch that because there was boobs in it, right.
But you know, they did the Larry Sanders show, they
did the Sopranos, right, and they sort of create prestige.
(30:46):
TV is created by HBO to the point where you know,
by by up to you know, three or four years ago.
You know, if a show comes out on HBO, you're like,
I'm going to assume this show is good, right, because
you know that their creative culture is HBO is putting
their muscle behind that. It's got to be good. There's exceptions.
There's stinkers, of course, yes, like like you know the
(31:06):
idol or whatever. But that's the it's the cathedral of
television and people know that, right, And so when Netflix
comes along and all these other channels starting their streamers,
what would have been the easiest thing in the world.
Call the streamer HBO. Yes, people are already subscribed to
HBO for fifteen bucks a month. There's a streaming service
called HBO. Have HBO make more shows, keep the brand
(31:28):
that people know, the thing people care about. They actually
like HBO. It's for adults. It means something to people.
It's not TV, it's HBO instead. Now HBO is a
vertical underneath this mystery meat thing Max that no one's
ever hurt. That's not a brand. That was literally what
they called it instead of Plus. They're like, should we
(31:49):
call it HBO Plus? No, too small, We'll call it
HBO Max. Right, it's extreme HBO. And then like, but
then they got rid of the part that people fucking
knew and just called it Max. That's like if Disney
Plus just called itself plus, right, people are there for
the Disney you're not there for the Plus.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I'm so mouse and then the Max ads. We're all
trading on these like icons of film, Like, yeah, the
things that like are completely outside of the model that
they're trying to force things in the direction.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
Or called it fucking Warner Brothers. People know Warner Brothers,
call it Warner Max. People love the people. People have
been watching Warner Brothers in this country for one hundred years.
Like just call it that. But instead, you know, Zoslav
treats this company it's like a stock portfolio to him, right,
He's like, oh, I put this in, I put that in,
I put that and that's my tranch of content. That's
(32:44):
my big batch of content. I don't give a shit
what it's called, right, yeah, because his plan is to
sell it or whatever he wants to do. He's he's
financialized it. But that's not that's not how you build
a media brand. And you know, it's it's a shame.
Like it often feels stupid to say, why don't these
companies like respect these old time values of having like
a good media brand that people actually care about. You know,
(33:06):
that means something to people, But like I feel stupid
saying that because they don't care. They only care about money.
But like they lose money by doing this, you know, like, people,
how have we forgotten the lessons of the last hundred
years of capitalism? Did these people go to fucking marketing school,
Like it's just basic brand shit. Sorry no, but it's true.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I mean it's it's so reactionary, and it's everything about
like whatever is good in the short term with no
long term thinking. Like everybody's getting into streaming. I guess
we're getting into streaming too. Wait what does it take
to do that? And now we see like I mean,
like with HBO Max, we saw half of the shit
that was like interesting to people get absolutely vaporized. Yeah
it's hard.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and we'll
be right back to talk more about this and AI
and we're back and like big, like a movie that
(34:12):
comes through and is like a visionary work that like
that that's not that interesting to wall Street and to
David's aslov because it's not something that you can replicate,
and like scale is the word they use, Like yeah,
and so they like the HBO of it is not
interesting to him. He wants to create something where he
(34:33):
can just churn out shit, which is I think why
AI is so interesting to him.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I mean, I think you can scale creativity because all
you have to do is cultivate a culture of the
most creative people. And have them come in the door
and give them, you know, pay them appropriately, give them
the right guidance they might need. And a great example
of that is HBO. Right, it was a for in
its pinnacle period. It was a hit factory, you know.
Or you could look at something like Comedy cent right,
(35:00):
which in its heyday really dominated comedy in America and
did a good job. Like they would take comics and
they would give them an album and then a uh,
you know, a half hour, and or they'll give them
a spot on TV, then a half hour than an hour,
then maybe they get a TV show, you know what
I mean. It was like a whole pipeline and it
made the comedy better. And they did it by just
(35:21):
you know, saying, well, we're gonna we're gonna go find
people right right. But the reason we stopped having that
is because I think partially these guys wanted more control
because if they were making original ideas, you know, if
you look at all the biggest so so many of
the movies that we're watching now a reboots of the
fertile period where they actually did this right in the
(35:41):
eighties or nineties, where stuff like Indiana Jones back to
the future the Matrix, like you know these things where
these movies would come out of nowhere. They would be
completely original in ways that nobody had ever seen, and
they would make a huge amount of money. And then
they would you know, inspire other creativity. Right look at
look at how the Matrix affected so much else. Right, So, uh,
(36:04):
they but they decide they don't want to do that
because it gives the creators too much power. Right then
you as the executive, you're having to like give all
these other people money and do what they say. Right.
Then then George Lucas, right, can become the big the
big executive, and you're not, right, You're just the guy
who pays George Lucas. And so they don't like that.
What they like is IP. The reason they like IP
(36:27):
is because they can own it. They don't own you know,
Toby Maguire. They don't own who directed the first Spider Man.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
What's what Sam Raimi?
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Thank you? And he did a great job, right, Sam
Raimi was a wonderful director on those movies. They don't
own either of those people, but they own Spider Man,
and so they can make it that it doesn't matter
who's in the suit, right, And Actually, I think that's
part of why they ran with the Flash, or they
didn't boot Ezra Miller out of there, because who gives
a shit. People are just gonna come see the flash, right,
and it's wrong. People don't like it as much. People
(36:59):
don't enjoy this content, but that's what they're going with
because it gives them the control over the business.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
And is that like, and you brought up AI and
I'm curious, you know, just from the WGA's perspective, what
that intersection is, you know, the existential threat of AI?
How much of that is an existential threat because I
think human taste also counts for a lot. Just like
you're in your example of Kotaku and like, I'm not
really looking for AI generated articles, but can you talk
(37:25):
to that sort of what that sort of what what
is sort of seen in the horizon for you know,
what this how the studios really want to integrate artificial
intelligence in terms of like how that could enter the
creative process.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
So I don't give a shit about the technology, you know,
I think the technology is bullshit. I think it's does
some interesting things. You know. And by the way, we're
talking about different types of technology that are being labeled
as AI, which is a marketing term. Right, Like large
language models and the ability to create a deep fake
of somebody right of a dead actor are both being
(37:59):
called AI being called AI. They're not that similar of technologies, right,
but that's what we're calling them. So whatever, I'll say AI,
I just want to like point that out for generating AI. Yeah, yeah, sure,
but people are saying that, like, oh, generative AI is
going to take over and replace everybody, and I don't
buy this, Like, large language models are good at one thing,
(38:20):
and that thing does not apply to nearly as much
stuff as people think that it does, right.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Right, the creating the illusion that the thing you're talking
to or the thing that's generating the text is thinking, yeah,
that's what it's caught into it. But it's just recombining shit,
which is what the studios identified. Like, That's that's why
it makes sense to me that they were so scared
of like taking away AI, because they're like, this thing
works like us, It's just recombined shit until you get
(38:48):
something that kind of looks like the previous thing and
is good enough to kind of trick people into buying
a ticket.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
We often joke that I could replace their jobs more
easily than ours. But you know the reality is that
this is this technology is nothing like artificial intelligence. Like
because every job in television involves talking to other people, right,
reading the paper, learning about the world around you, responding
to recent events, right, having conversations. None of these are
(39:16):
things that so called AI can do. What a large
language model does is you put text in one end,
and it gives you text that would plausibly be a
response to the first text out the other end. And
it does that based on everything else that it's read. Right,
that's not intelligence. That's recombining words in an interesting way
that in some cases could be useful. Right, But you
(39:37):
know it's it's the same as you know you've seen
the now here's the problem. These companies might use this
technology to try to undermine our wages and working conditions,
and that's what we're trying to get them to stop.
So I'll give you an example of this. Writing is
much more than outputting text. You'd have to be stupid
to think it was. Writing means not just coming up
(39:58):
with an idea, not just writing it down. It means
talking to the network guy on the phone and understanding
what his needs are taking the note in a way
that is smarter than what he could even think of,
because that guy's actually kind of dumb, right, But you're like, okay,
the note behind the note is the actually wants it
like this, So that's what I'll do. Right. Then you
go talk to the actor. Oh, the actor doesn't really
like their lines that much because you know they're a
little you know, Tom Cruise, a little bit worried. It
(40:19):
makes them look kind of wimpy. So we have to
adjust that a little bit. We have to like go
have drinks with him and then like change the script.
Right then, it means talking to the director and like
adjusting it to fit his vision. It means understanding how
much a particular scene might cost so that you can say,
you know what, they're never going to be able to
shoot that. Let me, you know, combine these two scenes
and that way it'll be cheaper and the line producer
won't yell at me. Right, and then the line producer
(40:40):
comes and yells at you anyway, you have changed the
scene again, blah blah blah blah. Then you go to
set and you watch the actor and you say, oh,
you know, the actually this line the way you're saying,
it doesn't mean what you think it means, Like, it's
gonna be confusing. So could you, like, let's adjust the
line a little bit, you know, et cetera. Doing that
on set, then it means going to the edit, going
to post production and watching the episode and saying, oh, man,
(41:03):
this episode's five minutes too long. We have to cut something.
What can we cut without losing anything important? Oh, here's
a creative fix. Let's have the actor like say this
little line of adr dialogue and it will bring him
back in and that'll solve the problem. Right. All of
those things are writing. That's what it means to be
a writer in Hollywood. Okay, it's not outputting text. However,
(41:24):
the people who run these companies are stupid and ignorant
enough to think that all out writing is is outputting
text because they never work with us or talk to us. Right.
Ted Sarandos has not spoken with a writer in ten years. Right,
So they are likely to be sold a bill of
goods by some tech company. Some tech company coming to
(41:44):
them and saying, hey, guess what we made a super AI.
You just input all your old scripts and we'll output
new movies for you. And then you won't need writers anymore.
And so what they'll do is they'll say, Okay, here's
the really great script that the AI wrote. We just
need somebody to punch it up, take our notes, go
talk to the actor, go to set, go to post.
Oh but none of that's writing. That's just producing. So
(42:06):
you're not going to get paid as a writer. You're
not a writer, you're a producer. Like no, the human
who does all that is still doing all of the writing.
They're just going to take some piece of shit and
make it work. But they but they may not be
paid as a writer. And that is what we are
fighting to prevent now. That's in writing. Actors have different
issues where they're worried about their likenesses and that's an
(42:27):
immediate threat that could happen with them. The AMPTP literally
proposed that for background actors. These are the people who
are in the background of scenes. And it's not a
highly paid job, but it is a professional job that
people who do it are good at it, and it's
something you should be able to earn a living at
because it takes a full day, you know, and people
do it, you know, every day of the week. It's
(42:48):
something that they need to make to make movies and TV.
So the AMPTP, who are negotiating against literally proposed that
background actors would be paid one day's wages, they would
be scanned in to an AI on their first day,
and then the company would then own that likeness in
perpetuity and could do whatever they wanted to with it. Now,
(43:09):
I want to be really clear, this is not some
fancy new technology. This is something they could have done
two years ago. Right. It's just like digital scanning, Like
any actor who's worked in a movie on vfxkift digitally scanned.
The difference is they want to steal our likenesses right
and own them in perpetuity. It's the business practice that's
the problem, and that like incense, the sag after negotiating committee,
(43:32):
and that's why they're on strike.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah, I mean makes sense. My grandparents were. They they
made a living off of background acting, like in the
nineties after they were retired, because my uncle was like
in the industry and he's like, man, they need to
get out of the house, they need something to do,
and like I talk about it on the show all
the time, they were like playing like the old black
couple and like so many movies in nineties, things like
Jerry Maguire Deep Impact and things like that, and I
(43:54):
saw firsthand for them like that it gave them all
kinds of benefits. And they're not even the people that
are like the stars, you know what I mean that
there's still a way to even have a living from
just being you know, like being available and wanting to
participate in these productions. So yet to hear then that
they just want to reduce human beings to basically like
reusable facial fonts that they can just replicate willy nilly
(44:18):
like is Yeah, it's it's definitely disconcerting. And I think
there's similar things even happening with podcasting too, where you
hear so much too about being like creating like vocal
models to be able to like transpose things into all
kinds of different languages or things like that, and then
you're like, oh, that's you begin to see the stickiness there.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, and you can do that now with like one
minute's worth of talking, and I think we have given
them millions of minutes worth talking, so we're pretty fucked the.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Language that that model better be fucking good based on material.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
The idea, but just the fundamental idea that people would
listen or watch AI generated content is moronic.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
But it will, Like that's the thing with the media,
like the online media world, Like it will like they
don't give a shit the people who are making it.
Like there's this tweet that screencap from Ashley Clark at
Underscore ash Underscore Clark, that's just a screen cap of
this like outbrain article and it says it's a picture
(45:19):
of Vince Vaughan and it says it's no big secret
why Van vaught isn't around anymore sponsored van but it's
it's just the AI misfiring. But it's enough to like,
you know that that used to Like it's just been
a slow degradation as they fucked the people out of
(45:41):
creating that sort of content that had any talent or
you know, interest in making it good. And that I think,
like the union, this strike is what is standing between
us and just a world of fucking mediocrity, like just
the studios getting their way. Like so just from the
consumer's perspective, like even if you don't understand that, like
(46:05):
the you know, labor is incredibly important and increasingly so
going forward, Like just from what you're going to be
seeing like the movies and TV shows you're going to
be streaming, Like this is what is standing between you
and a future of like turning on Netflix and seeing
like some shit like Van.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Vaught like in Love Is Born, the dating reality show. Huh,
like these scripts that make sense, Like that's what the
AI did. They know better than us. Yeah, we're not
really good with the written word.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's and by the way, it's like
it's getting better so fast soon it's gonna be good.
I'll believe it when I fucking see it, right, Like
they're trying to give you Van Vaught right now. Yeah
you know, uh, give me a give me a like
miss me with the with the like oh you you
have to bow down before AI, because I'm pretty sure
it's gonna be great later, like fuck off, Like that's.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Let's preemptively fail like full before it.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Huh really And yeah, to your point, I think we've
seen like the degradation happening as it's gone more like
I do think there's a huge overlap with what these
chat gpt like AI like quote unquote AIS are doing
and what like studio executives do with the combination and
recombination of shit. And it's like for the past, we
have seen things trend toward mediocrity in the world of movies,
(47:27):
and you're just seeing, like, you know, I feel like
eventually they could get to a world where an AI
chat GPT variety could shit out something similar to like
Jurassic World or Star Trek, the Star Trek that was
basically like mapping the plot of Star Wars onto Star
(47:48):
Trek characters, or you know, the The Lion King live action,
And like, these are movies that make money and fool
you enough to buy the ticket, but then like it
just doesn't have a cultural imprint. It's like a copy
of a copy that just sort of tails off.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
And I mean the fact that they even call those
Lion King movies live action. They're not live action, their
computer animated. You think they got a real lion to talk.
It's an animated movie. Yeah, it's animated, just like the
last one. What the fuck.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Are they right?
Speaker 4 (48:27):
And yes, it's chum right. It's like, hey, we can
pay like a bunch of overworked VFX people nothing to
turn this shit out rather than make a real movie.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Yeah, but they'll never come up with Jurassic Park. Or
you know, the original Star Trek or the original Star Wars,
and so this will be what we will have. We'll
just have pastiche will have just you know, a flat,
flattened out version of mediocrity, and like we will have
lost one of the great things that America ever created.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Yeah, and look, that's why I believe the Enderdament industry
is one of the great things in America has ever created.
It's it's popular art. A lot of it is direk
but you know, you watch the reason people love it
is they watch it and they go, that's fucking art.
It's art to speaks to me, you know what, And
it's it's great art. And some of it, you know,
films are Film is one of the great American art
(49:19):
forms that we invented here. It's like right fucking next
to jazz, right in terms of great American art forms
that were invented in America. And the reason we're on
strike is not to save the art form. It's not
to save movies. We're on strike to save our careers.
And it's an economic struggle, but it's it's something we
all give a shit about, and it's it's something that
(49:40):
I hope we can help reverse.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yeah, how do you just like in your long view? Right?
I mean, like we talked about the up top that
you know, there's the more cynical strategy seem to be
some studio executors are like, well, let's just see if
we can wait them out until they lose their housing. Yeah,
you know, what's your long view of how obviously I
see how can did the writers are and now actors
are to making like ensuring that things are better not
(50:05):
just for themselves but for future people that take this path.
But I mean, how are you looking at it? And
obviously I can see how energized you are, so I
know that, like you, there's optimism, But what is it
like from that end to hear the fucking people that
you're trying to negotiate and hear such like cynical bullshit
like that that they're like, well, we have more money
honestly in the end, and we'll just drive them out
of dollars maybe as a negotiating time.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's all we did. This one
is laugh I mean in deadline, the people for the
companies literally said they were gonna starve us out until
we lose our homes like right, And it was the
dumbest thing to say, because it was like an old
playbook where they used to try to like slip stuff
into the trades to scare us. You know, that's that's
was their playbook was. You know, we'll we'll try to
(50:49):
convince the writers to fold because we're gonna last longer
than them. It was tough talk. They didn't realize that
they said it on the Internet and that like the
whole world could see it and it would result in
an out pouring of support because they literally they're they're
saying they're gonna put their make they're gonna make their
writers homeless, like what the fuck? Right, Like it's reprehensible,
It's no one could hear this and be on the
(51:12):
side of the person who said that, Like, what the
fuck are they talking about? And it's it's evil to
say that. It's on the face of it evil and
it's a it's against every American value and so you know,
it's it's ludicrous that they said this. Multiple people from
multiple streamers and studios said this to a reporter multiple times,
(51:33):
like go read the article, he's source a rag. But
they do their reporting, you know, so you know, all
we can really do is laugh. I mean and also
by the way show that they were panicking.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Yeah, yeah, And I think it's kind of everywhere right now.
I mean, like this whole moment, it's not just you,
it's Ups, it's waffle House, it's Starbucks, it's Amazon. We're
really like at this this real inflection point where like
the greed and disconnect of like C suites to like
actual how like people do a job like is now
(52:03):
really bubbling up to the surface. And now like they're
kind of confused like wait, wait, oh, it's that bad.
And I hope that this you know that you know,
all of you are successful like in this battle, because
I think it's it's really important, and I have a
feeling that it'll affect a lot of other things happening
in the country too.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Look, it's the same battle that everyone in America is facing.
Right What's happened to us is over the last twenty years,
the companies have figured out how to take the money
from our pockets that came from our labor and keep
it for themselves. That's it. Yeah, So why is it
that in America right now we have a record low
on employment rate and people can't afford homes, they can't
afford school for the kids, they can't afford medical care.
(52:44):
Why is that. It's because the same thing has happened
to everybody. This is what capitalism has done to us all,
and so we're fighting back against it, and they're you know,
we're going to win, and we're gonna save our industry
and we're going to show everyone that this is how
you can do it. You can do it with a union.
And it's hard to form a union. We're lucky because
we already have strong unions, as we have for ninety years.
(53:05):
But why do we have them because workers started them
and the conditions in which they started, the conditions in
which the Writers Guild was founded ninety years ago were
far more inimical than the conditions are today. You know,
we had people who writers who never talked to each
other it working for these giant companies that you know,
hired and fired them constantly. They had no credit, nobody
(53:25):
thought they mattered at all, and they just talked to
each other and built a community and started a union.
Took them ten years to get the union recognized, took
years past that to get a contract. But because they
put in that time and effort for years when nobody
thought it was possible. All their friends said, you're stupid,
they said, is this going to work? I don't feel right.
I don't know. I'm kind of worried, you know, like
(53:47):
all that shit happened to them, just like what happened
to you if you started a union in your workplace,
because they did it. I have a health intention plan, yeah,
and one of the best in the country that I'm
very proud to have, although I'm going to lose it
in a couple of months because I have worked in
a little while. So hopefully the strike, when the strike
is over, I'll get it. I'll get a job so
I can keep getting that reimbursement for my therapist.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
There you go. Well, Adam, thank you so much for
taking the time during what I'm assuming it's a crazy
busy period. We really appreciate you talking to us and
fighting the good fight. Mans.
Speaker 4 (54:20):
Keep doing it, guys, It's so wonderful to be here,
and thanks for your support. And oh, let me plug
by the way. Two things. First of all, I am
not working for television and film right now. I got
to make a living somehow. I'm on tour as a
stand up comic. So if you live in Buffalo, Providence,
Rhode Island, Saint Louis, or oh god, what's the last one? Baltimore,
please go to Adam Conover dot net. You can find
(54:42):
tickets and tour dates there. I've got a brand new
hour stand up. If you want to support the strike,
you can donate to the Entertainment Community Fund. This is
a fund that gives money to film television workers, you know, writers, actors,
crew members, ununionized people who are PAS, people like that
who are not able to pay their rent or their
medical costs, whether because of the strike or for some
(55:03):
other reason. So if you go to Entertainmentcommunity dot org
and click donate to Film and TV Workers, you can, uh,
you can directly support not just the strike but all
film and TV workers, and and donating money of that
does help us stay on the picket line longer. So
we we really appreciate.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
You amazing, well, thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (55:20):
Man, awesome, thank you guys.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
All right, that was our conversation with Adam khan Over.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Yeah, he was really going hard on David Aslov.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I know, I didn't like that part, and we were
kind of cowards, Loki.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
We were kind of cowards from should have pushed back.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Very nice.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
I had all these questions about, like if he feels
guilty because the billionaire guy who owns Cardier like talked
about how he's losing scared, he's scared man like think
about his sleep.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
But yeah, yeah, it's so again it's we're this is
fucking everywhere. I think that's what's really wild is that, Like,
it's human beings are just reaching that natural limit where
you can only toil for so long and not get
what is o to you to just live, to be
able to put a roof over your head, eat, support
a family, all that. And yeah, I mean I think
(56:16):
right now it's it's a huge lot of eyes on
them because again, these are probably the most visible union
members yeah on the planet.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Yeah, hey man, like I said, it's no big secret
why Van Bought isn't around anymore. Oh my god, that's
what we're facing. That is what we're facing.
Speaker 4 (56:36):
Man.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Wait till people start listening to the Dolly ze get.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
That's like I kept thinking about when we were talking.
I kept thinking about the sixty minutes thing where Scott
Pelly was like and the chet GPT finished Ernest Hemingway's
story the like six words baby shoes for sale, never worn,
and like added like a parent, a mother and a
father character and a third character was like, so it
(57:03):
like ruined the fucking thing that you're talking about, but
it's just like churned out more and be right pressed
by that. Yeah, it added on to it created a
whole baby shoes for Sale universe, shared cinematic universe. Anyways,
good conversation. I feel like I know more about AI.
I feel like I know more about this moment in
(57:26):
the labor struggle.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah, just yeah, one dimension of a very large one. Yeah,
across the fucking world basically, And yeah, make sure you
guys check. We will have in the foot and oaks.
You know, Adam's tour dates and stuff like that, so
be sure to catch him on the road because he's
it's actually it's actually really funny.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Turns out is actually really funny.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
God damn all right, people find you at Miles of
Gray wherever they got at symbols, I'm there. And then also,
thank you to everybody who started listening and subscribing to
The Good Thief the new podcast. Please continue to subscribe.
I've been listening and reviewing all that. Episode two comes
out tomorrow Wednesday, where we go even deeper into the
mystery that is Vasili's Body of Ghostash and also I'll
(58:10):
just check out Mad.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Boosties worth the price of admission. But here, dude, it's
so good.
Speaker 2 (58:15):
I can't I'm actually like, I like, I know, I
recorded it. I was like hosting stuff like that, but
hearing it all come together, I'm so blown away what
they did. The kaleidoscope shout out man, guess, shout out
Oz and everybody over there. Yeah. Yeah, like it moves
like a movie baby, so easy to listen to. It's
like a good gateway pod if you want people to
dip their toe. So anyway, I'm done. Two in my horn.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
Yep that toe. You can find me on Twitter at
Jack Underscore. O'Brien. That's gonna do it for us today. Yeah,
daily's like as a production by Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the Heart Radio Wrap
Apple podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows. All right,
that's gonna do it for us this morning, back this
afternoon to tell you what's trending. We talk to you
all day.
Speaker 2 (58:55):
Bye bye bye
Hello the Internet, and welcome to season two ninety six,
episode one of Derdly's Guysay production of My Heart Radio.
This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
into america shared consciousness. And it is Tuesday, July eighteenth,
twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh yeah, very oh yeah, some great. It's it's Nelson
Mandela International Day, the National Sour Candy Day, World Listening Day,
because you're doing that right now, National Tropical Fruit Day,
and actually good topic or at least related to the
top of we're talking about today, or at least tangentially.
It's National caviard Day as well, so just imagine.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, sorry, I just have to act like I didn't
know most celebrating to seem like a man of the people.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I had no dripping down your face.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So much caveat off. Have the seven layered dip that's
just seven different types of caviare, dude.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
But the good stuff in the bottom there, it's all
premit precires.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
To top claimed flesh. Huh. Well, my name is Jack
O'Brien aka Barbenheimer, Girl, Destroyer of your WORDLDS melt like plastic,
it's fantastic, louse your golden hair destruction everywhere. Radiation life
ends by your creation. Barbenheimer, Lake of Fire. Oh oh yeah, Barbenheimer,
(01:25):
Lake of Fire. Oh yeah uh. That is courtesy of
Discorduroy on the Discord. M hmm, thank you, Michael, Barbara,
and I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my
co host, mister Miles.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Gram Miles Gray.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Akay, in the gravy, you can up your podcast ease
in the gravy. You can host mad bousies in the gravy.
You can smoke mad please in the gravy.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Okay, shout out to me, because I still have Village
people on the brain. Yeah. And you know what's wild,
I didn't mention the when we're talking about it, Like
half of their songs are like derivations of the hits.
So like these other songs I'd never heard of had
like almost sad like nearly the same structure and like
key changes or like three choruses were in your mind.
(02:14):
You're like, wait, hold on, this is my show man,
and you're like, oh, no, it's not. They're saying something
completely different. Anyway, shout out them.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, I got to give a shout out to Zeke
Gangage's listener smooth Lou, I believe is the name smooth
Lou who solved the mystery? Did you see this on Twitter?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
What was it?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Grand Puba? It's a Grand Puba track from nineteen ninety five,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And did you go back and you checked it out?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, it's definitely that's the song.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Oh wait, wasn't it It's just a track called two thousand?
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I don't know why it took us so long. I
guess it like didn't didn't really hit that much?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Wow wow, Yeah, check out that song. It's okay, kind
of it's kind of good. I wow, stand to buy
my reference two thousand?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, I still love it. Okay, the energy is still there. Wow,
shout out hiking. Honestly, you guys, fucking between all of y'all,
we don't need Google, and we could have googled it,
but it was hard to just google two thousand song
lyric really.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So Smooth Lou great, great Twitter handle, even better at
saving my ass from making it seem like I was
referencing a Billy Joel's song.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, Smooth Lou, we owe you a hamburger.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yes, smooth Lou came through with that, said I got
you fan, thanks for all you do. And then somebody
else came through and vouch for smooth Lou. Was like,
pretty cool, dude. I miss you, smooth Lous like forever
so much. Love to Smooth Lou. Wow, this one goes
out to you. All right, Miles, it's a special episode.
(03:56):
We're talking labor.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I'm talking. I'm still blown away that smoothly put. I mean,
did you hear it?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I started playing a little a second ago and I'm
like this speaks Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, big poopa head over here.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, damn all right, anyway, sorry, anyway, back to you
Jack and back to you Miles. Yep, no, back to you,
to you fam.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
This episode we are no and I'm still gonna go
back to you, pal. We're talking the writer strike, the
actor strike, ultimately the labor movement in general. And researching
this and reading about unions and hearing people talk about
the history of Hollywood. I guess a thing that I
knew but hadn't really thought that much about is that
(04:43):
Hollywood is like one of the most consistently unionized industries
left in this country.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Like yeah, then with that kind of visibility, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
When I think union's like I think, you know, guys
on Dog like Jimmy Hoffa, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
In the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, exactly. You don't think about Hollywood. You don't think
about the glitz and glamb. But I also spend a
lot of time just thinking about I don't know, you know,
I'm a movie guy. I think the movies are just
all right.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, like it gave us Star Wars, it gave us Jaws,
it gave us some other movies probably, But I.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Just when you look at the the history of the industry,
like across the one hundred years that it has been unionized,
like it's it's a pretty it's hit some pretty high highs,
like an entertainment industry.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
For some reason, I kept thinking about this time I
went over to Ireland, like in the early two thousands.
I know, and I know I always talk about it.
I always talk about the cuisine, brag about the cuisine.
But everybody. First of all, the only thing on TV
was The Simpsons, which, thank you, that was wonderful. I
will take that. And also the Rachel like I'd say
(06:01):
forty percent of the girls were rocking the Rachel from Friends,
Like just the the level of like Hollywood's influence is
you know, can't be overstated, especially like what's that.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
No I said? I mean, it's I mean. And also
you kind of date everyone had the Rachel back then. Yeah,
how old are you then?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I was twenty like I was twenty one, I was
like seven years old.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Oh but I guess so too, Like Europe also had
that delay of like American trends hitting about like four
years later.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
For sure, exactly, but just I don't know, Like we
talked a lot of shit about movies and TV, but
like across just viewing the body of work across like
it has created a great deal of iconic lasting art
that like breaks through to the mainstream. And I think,
I think you can draw like you would never hear
these two things connected. But just in thinking about the history,
(07:00):
like it it really is, we have that history because
of unions, and we're going to talk about that a
little bit. And like just the fact that the creative people,
the artists who drive the actual original creative ideas that
like get turned into movies that like define generations, you know,
(07:21):
like those people are protected by a union and when
they're not, like you see, what we'll talk about what
studios want to do with them what these streaming companies
are trying to do with them. So it's a it's
an interesting conversation that I think kind of stretches the
brain in a lot of different directions. And also you know,
(07:41):
it's it's an important moment.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Oh yeah. And I mean I think, and we talked
about this off mic before of like, you know, when
else have you seen in like union members with the
kind of visibility that the WGA or SAG does, right,
you know, And I think there's a lot of attention
on this obviously because of like the nature of the
work that people do, but I think there's there's something
(08:03):
that I'd imagine a lot of other industries are looking
at to see how this has resolved, whether like they
you know, they go the cynical route like we've heard
in like leaked quotes where they're like, yeah, wait till
they start getting evicted and then they'll start you know,
like we'll use the loss of housing as a negotiating tactic. Yeah,
we'll see how cynical it goes, or if you know,
I think I have a feeling that after these studios
(08:26):
see just how devoid of talent and energy some of
their like marketing things have been without the people that
you know, make the shit come to life. Yea that
they may, they may come around, but hey, we shall see.
And I think that's where we have a great.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I think we're also going to end up talking about
we haven't had the conversation yet, We're about to have it.
But yeah, I think we'll end up talking about AI
because I think it's also revealing about just where their
priorities are on the studio side, that that that the
AI side is so important. Like yeah, I don't know
if they're fooled by the chat GPT or if they
think that the chat GPT is going to be good
(09:00):
enough to fool audiences, but I.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Think they think it's like if they can just get
that domino to fall, then all their problems are solved.
They can reap all the benefits. But it like sounds
like someone who's like trying to get like an English
Lit PhD or something. He's like, we should be allowed
to use spark notes in the exams, and whenever we'd
like I'm being serious and they're like, no, I think
you found a shortcut that's you need.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
All right, Well we are thrilled to be joined by
someone with a seat at the table during the liberations.
Adam Conover. So we'll be right back with Adam. We'll
be right back, and we're back, and we are thrilled
(09:49):
to be joined in our third sea by a very
friend of comedian, writer, executive producer, TV host and labor
organizer who you know from Adam Ruins everything his podcast
factually and being out in these streets picketing, acting as
member of the negotiating committee, serving on the WGA West
Board of Directors. It's Adam Connor and it's love to
(10:10):
be here.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Was that was all my credits? I have a lot
of titles now having those things I'm not doing now
because I'm on strike. I'm not a TV host right now.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean that things nascent.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
When it's all over, I'll be back on your screens,
you know.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
There you go, yes, yes, yes, Well thanks for joining us.
I can't imagine this is a busy time for you
at all.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I was just sounds like I got nothing going on.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I was just out on the street, you know, for
for three four hours ninety degree heat with a sign,
talking to people. It's a blast, man, it's I'm having
so much fun out there. The solidarity feels so good.
It's just it's great.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah, I mean people are making sacrifices, you know, but
there's our political directors, wonderful woman Rachel Torres. She's brilliant.
She told me, uh, you know, if you're smiling while
you're sacrificing, if you're having a good time while you're
making the sacrifice, then they can't beat you. And I
think that that is really true.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah, for sure, big cheerleader smiles out there on the Yeah, people,
it's it's a party.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
A guy brought a sound system to Netflix, and now
he's playing like sort of mid tempo like dance music.
You know. It feels like kind of that kind of
that outdoor day club like pool club kind of people
almost feel like they should be having frozen cocktails walking
around like it's just the vibes are good. And then
he's like remixed like people giving speeches like fran Dresser's speech.
(11:31):
Someone told me he like remixed one of my tiktoks
into a song of like, you know, so you want
to pick a line, line, line, line line, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
You sent him a takedown notice immediately, I'm yeah, better
who signed off? But yeah, I mean we were talking
with this feels like a huge moment for labor. These
are you know, with the w g A some of
the most influential, like union eye as union protected workers
on the planet. But with with actors, with the Screen
(12:05):
Actors Guild, you know, the.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Faces, the beauty, beauty and brains coming together, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
But yeah, I don't know, just kind of thinking about this,
think about the history of labor and unions in Hollywood.
It feels like Hollywood to this point. The fact that
unions have been a presence in Hollywood for as long
as they have. It's a great learning moment for why
capitalism doesn't work without unions.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Basically, yeah, well it's an open question whether capitalism works
at all, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
And I think you're arguing, yeah, like unions are the
thing that keep people from being like, oh, Marx was
definitely right, just right, right.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
I mean, look, I sort of don't get into Marxism socialism.
I don't do iss. I just know that the union
and the union structure is the only way to fight back, right,
and so you know, the union is a hammer, and
I grabbed the hammer and I start smashing shit and
it's really fun.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
So, I mean, the only reason people even think of writing, acting,
directing as being lucrative jobs. You know, like if you say, oh,
my cousin's a actor in LA, you might be, oh,
he's if he's working, he's making good money. Right, That's
what an assumption is. That's only because we've had strong
unions in this town for ninety years. The Writers School
(13:32):
was founded ninety years ago, and it's only because those
unions went on strike. The last time the writers and
actors went on strike together was nineteen sixty and in
that negotiation, we won our health and pension plans, and
we won the existence of residual payments, which are the
payments we get every time the product is aired. Right,
And that's why I have a health and pension today
(13:52):
is because they went on strike. Then that's why I've
gotten residuals to help tide me through the slow periods
of my career is because of those and writers going
on strike. And so now it's our turn to do
the same thing. And that's why we're out there.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah. As a thought experiment, I was trying to think of, like,
what do we think the last ninety years of movies
and TV look like if the industries were never unionized.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
YouTube looks on YouTube, Yeah, you know, people barely scraping by.
Or it looks like I mean, look at Korea for instance,
there was or the anime industry. Right, those are two
extremely popular. You know, they make a lot of media
that's consumed by a lot of people, and the people
who make the media aren't able to make a living.
There was a great piece in the La Times a
(14:36):
couple of weeks ago about how the guy who created
Squid Game. You know, they and Netflix trotted this guy's
story out as a hero story. You know, Oh, he
tried to make the show for ten years and he
couldn't make it until Netflix gave him a chance. They
became a worldwide hit. Right, that guy made from the
first season, which was a again worldwide smash like Game
of Thrones level. You know, people watching it, he made
(14:59):
two hundred thousand. Yeah, that's you know, that's a good living. Right.
That's not what you should get if you made the
most popular show ever, right, And that's the guy who
created the show, the people who worked on the shows,
and the people who create you know, your more average
K dramas right that you know, you know, I hear
about one or two k K dramas or K comedies
(15:19):
a year, but you know the ones that are a
little further down the down the pipe, that that the
real the real fans watch. Those people are literally not
making a living making television. They are writing those shows
in between their day jobs, or they're working eighteen hour
days and then when the show ends, they're just like, well,
back to my day job. Right. And this this article.
(15:40):
You can look up LA Times, you know, squid Game Korean.
Google that and you'll find the article goes into really
long detail on that. And the reason is there's no
unions and Netflix is exploiting that. I mean, they talk
about Netflix came into that market and said, oh, we
want to you know, spread Korean content around the world, right,
and they created a lot of work, They created a
(16:00):
lot of shows, but no one's being paid because the
stand the work standards are so abysmal. It's sweatshop media. Unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, yeah, I had no idea that that was the thing.
I mean again, obviously because a lot of Koreat media
is so good that I was like, oh, this is
a natural progression of things, and then I remember, oh,
Netflix is going in like but there was a moment
I was like, oh, they're going in like to the
point where I was like, oh, they might. They're really
trying to put their foot down in Korea. I had
no ideas because they're like, yeah, man, you can get
away with anything over here.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, it's just like it's
a car company, you know, moving to Mexico right, or
to any other or you know Nike in Bangladesh, right,
it's there. They are taking advantage of poor work standards
to get the product a lot cheaper. And you know,
why do the companies love anime? You know, it's awesome
as an American you know, someone who grew up you know,
(16:52):
trading VHS tapes of anime that it's like popular in
the US now it's popular around the world. That's great.
But I mean, you guys know horrible conditions that anime
has made it. I mean people, people die in that.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Industry, symptoms make jokes about it. I remember, and I
was like, is that a joke or is that one
of those Simpsons jokes? So they're like, no, no, no,
that's real.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
It's awful. It's awful. And that's one of the reasons
they're pumping it out, is they is they feel that
they can, you know, get more content for less dollars. Now.
The thing about that, though, is that American American media
is still the most popular valuable media in the world.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
It's still what people want to watch, like from a
big budget thing like Avatar too, right to you know,
even you know, reruns of old sitcoms. Right, people are
still watching Friends in Australia, you know, and Ireland, Yeah,
and new shows as well. Right, that is what people
want to watch more than anything else, both in America
(17:50):
and around the world. And one of the reasons for
that is because the entertainment industry has been the only
place that paid creators fairly for the last hundred years.
You know, if you are a great writer and you
want to make if you want to if you want
to buy a big house of your writing, you know,
where are you gonna go? Are you gonna work in journalism?
(18:10):
Are you gonna work in novels? No, You're gonna go
try to sell a big movie script. Right. That's been
the pattern in Hollywood up until basically the early two thousands,
where you had the best writer. Literally, Faulkner and Fitzgerald
came to Hollywood right to write movies and you know,
think about, well they both drank themselves to death, but
too much money. Yeah, but you know that was that
(18:33):
was the way it worked. And the companies have broken
that compact and as a result, the content is getting worse. Unfortunately.
You know, we're entering this Marvel period where they're trying
to you know, they saying, oh, the actor doesn't matter,
the writing doesn't matter. All that matters is Spider Man.
People will go to see Spider Man no matter what,
you know, no matter who's in the suit, no matter
(18:54):
what he's saying. Right, And it's not actually true because
you know, look at what happened with the Flash, right,
they realize they can't just cram in superheroes and expect
people to show up. But you know, all that that
makes the CEOs think is they need to pump harder.
They need to you know, get more blood out of
that stone. But so these companies are destroying the compact.
And why did the compact work because of the unions.
(19:16):
We had strong unions here that that you know, meant
we had good working nditions that meant people wanted to
move here to Los Angeles or to New York to
make the content, and we're fighting to change that, to
make it the way it should be.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I feel like The Flash is a good example of
you know, the Flash recently came out. Indiana Jones recently
came out and the primary complaint that you heard from
them is creepy CGI, like terrible, weird CGI that take
takes you out of it, and like effects are a
frequent complaint, and you hear people like wonder why, like
(19:51):
how this happens on some of these movies. They spent
three hundred million dollars in effects, and it's at least
partially because the effects houses are not union, that is
not a part of the industry that is protected, and
so you have situations where the effects house that won
the Oscar for Life of Pie is out of business
by the time they get the award.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, you know, if you talk to I've talked to
people who work at effects houses from Marvel, and they're
treated terribly. You know, they're they're asked to do impossible
things on impossible turnarounds that you know, well, we want
we want it like this, No, we want it like this,
you have to change everything, but we're not going to
pay you more, and you have hal so much time
to do it. You know that kind of request. The
people who work at these companies, you know that their
(20:32):
careers last five years and then they burn out because
they can't do it anymore. It's not like video games.
And you know the proof is in the pudding. But
also you know we're on we're in a new era
of the special effects.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Right.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
It used to be that the special effects, the CGI
was there to impress and delight the audience. Right, Oh
my god, look at the terminator and terminator too. Right,
he's melting. He's the melting man. It's look how cool?
Or toy story? Right, look how great it looks. Now
they you it as a cost cutting device. They use
it in order to they're like, oh, if we just
(21:04):
like send it all to a VFX house that's not
union and make them do all the work, it's a
lot cheaper. You know, if you look at the difference
between look the new Mission Impossible, right, I saw it.
Look it's not a good movie, but.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
You don't think it's an accurate depiction of AI.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
It is interesting that the villain is AI. Right, but
the script is I don't want to get into it, right,
but the action scenes, right, it's got these two incredible
action sequences that are totally worth seeing in a theater.
Had people hooting and hollering, great time. And why did
they work so well? Because they fucking happened in real life,
because they put in the effort and the craft and
(21:45):
the time to you know, go to the place and
do the stunt and shoot the thing, or to build
the set, or to buy the car, or to put
the person in the place right. And for movies like
The Flash, they're like, just have the guys stand in
front of a green screen and will make some underpaid
couple bosos. Yeah you know, sorry, they're not bosos. They're
great artists, but they're underpaid. They don't have enough time
(22:07):
bring in terrible conditions. Yeah, so it's cut rate. It's
sweatshop content, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And about another lightning portal in the sky, what if
we did so it was.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Coming out of portals and yeah, yeah there's portals. I'm
as stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, Adam, I got to ask though, right, like these
costs they got to the studios, gotta cut costs because
I've heard it straight from their mouths, times are tough.
Oh yeah for studios. I heard Bobby Jay I'll say
Igre in a very fancy way. Uh, you know, really
be out here being like, you know, their their demands
are unrealistic or other people. I've heard that. I've heard
(22:42):
the thing over and over that times are hard for studios.
And we've talked a lot about this, where you know,
Iger's pay was what approaching twenty seven million for the year,
and like people like what David Zaslov almost be like
a quarter of a billion dollars in twenty twenty one. Yeah,
what how would you define from their perspective, It's that
they're trying to inaccurately describe a problem that they maybe
(23:04):
they have created through their own business decisions. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
I mean, that's a wonderful answer to your own question.
That's a great way to put it. I mean, look,
these guys are raking it in. And let's be really clear.
So writer producer pay has fallen by twenty three percent
at the median over the last ten years. That's the
Writer's Guild's own figures. That's total pay. Over the same time,
(23:26):
show budgets have gone up by fifty percent. Revenue has
gone up, profits have gone up for these companies, just
their entertainment divisions. I'm not even talking about you know,
Disney's got sports, They've got theme parks. We're not talking
about that. We're just talking about literally the entertainment divisions
of the companies. Revenue, profits, budgets all up while our
salaries go down. At the same time, they're paying these companies,
(23:48):
these CEOs massive, massive amounts of money. I mean, Bob
Iger when he made those comments, he had just negotiated
for himself an additional two years and he's making an
extra fifty million by a year. That guy doesn't fucking
need that money. He's already incredibly wealthy if you look
at the aggregate he's made over the last ten years.
How dare he go on television and plead poverty while
(24:11):
the rest of us are not able to make a living,
while his workforce is not able to make health insurance
or you know, make a living anymore.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
It's revolting, but it's line goes up shit right. It's
the their answering to the Wall Street and for Wall Street,
it's never enough, like when you have a good year,
that that that you should keep being better years, Like
that's what we want to consistently see that line also.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
These But but it's not just that, because growth is
growth is possible, right if you do you can do
it the right way. You can pay everybody properly and
make good shit that people actually like and make more money.
That's my belief in life. And there's companies that fucking
do it right. And also it's what the entertainment industry did.
(24:58):
For a long time. A lot of people were paid
shitty in the entertainment industry, you know, like the unions
are the ones that you know that protected us pas.
We have always been paid shittily. There's a lot of
bad shit in Hollywood. But like you know, from the
eighties through the two thousands, everybody liked the product. Right,
We had peak TV, right, everyone had cable, We were
(25:18):
watching ads. We were fine with it. We could watch
on demand or use DVR if we needed to. You
know what I mean. Everything was people were making so
much money. People were going to the movie theater. The
content was good, you know, and the people who made
it were paid. And now what's happening. People don't like
the product anymore. You know. The Netflix revolution was a lie.
(25:38):
That they you know, the idea that you could pay
fifteen dollars a month and never have to pay another
penny and never watch an ad and watch every show
ever made. They were lying to the public that that
was possible. They destroyed a profitable business model in order
to find a new one, but at the same time
they kept enough of the money for themselves that the
people at the top are doing better. Well, everyone else
does worse, But the companies would grow more if they
(26:01):
if they did it the right way. Period.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, the Golden Age of TV is a great example
of the WGA working because you know, like you mentioned,
like the WGA, and like the things that the WGA
has provided, like writers with like the ability to make
a living during dry periods or whatever, like helps writers,
you know, remain writers. And a lot of the best
(26:26):
TV is created by people with the long time experience
in like past successful and unsuccessful TV shows like Breaking
Bad is created by a former X Files writer, like
there's a big break between these Sopranos comes from a
writer on Northern Exposure, like Matthew Weiner cut his teeth
on Becker and in Laws before he got on sopranos.
(26:49):
Sh Yeah, but like the you know on your episode
where like where you were talking about the strike, you
were talking to I think David Goodman, Yeah who and
you know his family guy writer who all told a
story about how he almost quit the industry but like
a residual check for a show he wrote on in
(27:10):
the past that he said like wasn't very good, but
it got him through so that he could keep being
a writer. And there's just all this all this information
that gets passed down, Like iveryget where I heard it,
but somebody was saying that like the family tree of
all of the Golden Age TV shows, it all like
traces back to Colombo and like that show then like
(27:34):
created all like all the writers on that became showrunners
on other shows and it just like branched down. So
we magically have this period of Golden era TV. But
like that doesn't happen if the television industry works the
way like the industry that I think all three of
us have a background in is like creating content for
(27:54):
the Internet.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And yeah, like just the.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Way that we've seen that devolve over the past fifteen.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Years, it doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
It doesn't exist, Like there are no guardrails and there
were no ways to, you know, like ensure good outcomes
for the people that were contributing to that environment.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
Yeah, because they the company has decided to pull them,
sell them for part for parts, you know. I mean,
look at look, I like I play video games, right,
so I like reading video game websites. There's no such
thing as video game websites anymore. I mean there's sites
where people upload it for free, like YouTube right right,
where people put in all the work and all the
risk themselves of putting up work, and then you know,
(28:32):
if you're lucky, you get paid by YouTube if you
happen to hit right right. But in terms of being
somebody who's like a journalist who covers video games goes
to E three interviews, people break stories right there literally
are not outlets left that pay people to do this
because they've been stripping them for parts. One of them
that I read is Kotaku. I've read it for years.
They're trying to replace those writers with AI. They're trying
(28:54):
to like and like, what's what's the fucking point of that?
Do they do? They think I'm gonna go to taku
dot com to read AI generated articles. I also have
chat GPT I can just ask chat GPT if I
want an AI answer, why are you hiring someone to
copy paste from chat GPT? What the fuck is the
(29:16):
point of that? Why destroy your own industry? People go
because they like the people.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Right right, And I guess there's like that that's just
like that disconnect we see like in every industry where again,
there's like a motive to make sure that like you
provide value to shareholders while completely like missing sight of
like the actual products that are being made and like
if consumers are gonna be savvy enough, because look, I
love bullshit reality TV, but I like like actually well
(29:43):
written television also, and I can already see like you
like just that that shift to MAX was like sort
of like a preview of like the worlds we're looking at.
It's like, well, remember HBO, there's that, and then there's
just all this other unscripted nonsense that fucking also is
really cheap to make, and like you know, kind of
maybe where things should be going if writers and actors
(30:03):
don't get off their shit.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Max is such an antithesis of the last you know
of how you build a successful media company, right like HBO.
There's a wonderful book about HBO. I read it this
year called It's not TV, It's it's a history of HBO.
From the beginning, what you realize HBO is like this,
you know, starts out as just a cable company that
you know, you pay extra and you can watch fights
and stuff like that, right, right, and then they find
(30:26):
this niche of oh, we can make content that doesn't
exist on broadcast. Right, we can make something that's edgy.
We can da da da da, Right, and they build
it on exactly dream on right, this show with a
price to watch that because there was boobs in it, right.
But you know, they did the Larry Sanders show, they
did the Sopranos, right, and they sort of create prestige.
(30:46):
TV is created by HBO to the point where you know,
by by up to you know, three or four years ago.
You know, if a show comes out on HBO, you're like,
I'm going to assume this show is good, right, because
you know that their creative culture is HBO is putting
their muscle behind that. It's got to be good. There's exceptions.
There's stinkers, of course, yes, like like you know the
(31:06):
idol or whatever. But that's the it's the cathedral of
television and people know that, right, And so when Netflix
comes along and all these other channels starting their streamers,
what would have been the easiest thing in the world.
Call the streamer HBO. Yes, people are already subscribed to
HBO for fifteen bucks a month. There's a streaming service
called HBO. Have HBO make more shows, keep the brand
(31:28):
that people know, the thing people care about. They actually
like HBO. It's for adults. It means something to people.
It's not TV, it's HBO instead. Now HBO is a
vertical underneath this mystery meat thing Max that no one's
ever hurt. That's not a brand. That was literally what
they called it instead of Plus. They're like, should we
(31:49):
call it HBO Plus? No, too small, We'll call it
HBO Max. Right, it's extreme HBO. And then like, but
then they got rid of the part that people fucking
knew and just called it Max. That's like if Disney
Plus just called itself plus, right, people are there for
the Disney you're not there for the Plus.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I'm so mouse and then the Max ads. We're all
trading on these like icons of film, Like, yeah, the
things that like are completely outside of the model that
they're trying to force things in the direction.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
Or called it fucking Warner Brothers. People know Warner Brothers,
call it Warner Max. People love the people. People have
been watching Warner Brothers in this country for one hundred years.
Like just call it that. But instead, you know, Zoslav
treats this company it's like a stock portfolio to him, right,
He's like, oh, I put this in, I put that in,
I put that and that's my tranch of content. That's
(32:44):
my big batch of content. I don't give a shit
what it's called, right, yeah, because his plan is to
sell it or whatever he wants to do. He's he's
financialized it. But that's not that's not how you build
a media brand. And you know, it's it's a shame.
Like it often feels stupid to say, why don't these
companies like respect these old time values of having like
a good media brand that people actually care about. You know,
(33:06):
that means something to people, But like I feel stupid
saying that because they don't care. They only care about money.
But like they lose money by doing this, you know, like, people,
how have we forgotten the lessons of the last hundred
years of capitalism? Did these people go to fucking marketing school,
Like it's just basic brand shit. Sorry no, but it's true.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I mean it's it's so reactionary, and it's everything about
like whatever is good in the short term with no
long term thinking. Like everybody's getting into streaming. I guess
we're getting into streaming too. Wait what does it take
to do that? And now we see like I mean,
like with HBO Max, we saw half of the shit
that was like interesting to people get absolutely vaporized. Yeah
it's hard.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and we'll
be right back to talk more about this and AI
and we're back and like big, like a movie that
(34:12):
comes through and is like a visionary work that like
that that's not that interesting to wall Street and to
David's aslov because it's not something that you can replicate,
and like scale is the word they use, Like yeah,
and so they like the HBO of it is not
interesting to him. He wants to create something where he
(34:33):
can just churn out shit, which is I think why
AI is so interesting to him.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I mean, I think you can scale creativity because all
you have to do is cultivate a culture of the
most creative people. And have them come in the door
and give them, you know, pay them appropriately, give them
the right guidance they might need. And a great example
of that is HBO. Right, it was a for in
its pinnacle period. It was a hit factory, you know.
Or you could look at something like Comedy cent right,
(35:00):
which in its heyday really dominated comedy in America and
did a good job. Like they would take comics and
they would give them an album and then a uh,
you know, a half hour, and or they'll give them
a spot on TV, then a half hour than an hour,
then maybe they get a TV show, you know what
I mean. It was like a whole pipeline and it
made the comedy better. And they did it by just
(35:21):
you know, saying, well, we're gonna we're gonna go find
people right right. But the reason we stopped having that
is because I think partially these guys wanted more control
because if they were making original ideas, you know, if
you look at all the biggest so so many of
the movies that we're watching now a reboots of the
fertile period where they actually did this right in the
(35:41):
eighties or nineties, where stuff like Indiana Jones back to
the future the Matrix, like you know these things where
these movies would come out of nowhere. They would be
completely original in ways that nobody had ever seen, and
they would make a huge amount of money. And then
they would you know, inspire other creativity. Right look at
look at how the Matrix affected so much else. Right, So, uh,
(36:04):
they but they decide they don't want to do that
because it gives the creators too much power. Right then
you as the executive, you're having to like give all
these other people money and do what they say. Right.
Then then George Lucas, right, can become the big the
big executive, and you're not, right, You're just the guy
who pays George Lucas. And so they don't like that.
What they like is IP. The reason they like IP
(36:27):
is because they can own it. They don't own you know,
Toby Maguire. They don't own who directed the first Spider Man.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
What's what Sam Raimi?
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Thank you? And he did a great job, right, Sam
Raimi was a wonderful director on those movies. They don't
own either of those people, but they own Spider Man,
and so they can make it that it doesn't matter
who's in the suit, right, And Actually, I think that's
part of why they ran with the Flash, or they
didn't boot Ezra Miller out of there, because who gives
a shit. People are just gonna come see the flash, right,
and it's wrong. People don't like it as much. People
(36:59):
don't enjoy this content, but that's what they're going with
because it gives them the control over the business.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
And is that like, and you brought up AI and
I'm curious, you know, just from the WGA's perspective, what
that intersection is, you know, the existential threat of AI?
How much of that is an existential threat because I
think human taste also counts for a lot. Just like
you're in your example of Kotaku and like, I'm not
really looking for AI generated articles, but can you talk
(37:25):
to that sort of what that sort of what what
is sort of seen in the horizon for you know,
what this how the studios really want to integrate artificial
intelligence in terms of like how that could enter the
creative process.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
So I don't give a shit about the technology, you know,
I think the technology is bullshit. I think it's does
some interesting things. You know. And by the way, we're
talking about different types of technology that are being labeled
as AI, which is a marketing term. Right, Like large
language models and the ability to create a deep fake
of somebody right of a dead actor are both being
(37:59):
called AI being called AI. They're not that similar of technologies, right,
but that's what we're calling them. So whatever, I'll say AI,
I just want to like point that out for generating AI. Yeah, yeah, sure,
but people are saying that, like, oh, generative AI is
going to take over and replace everybody, and I don't
buy this, Like, large language models are good at one thing,
(38:20):
and that thing does not apply to nearly as much
stuff as people think that it does, right.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Right, the creating the illusion that the thing you're talking
to or the thing that's generating the text is thinking, yeah,
that's what it's caught into it. But it's just recombining shit,
which is what the studios identified. Like, That's that's why
it makes sense to me that they were so scared
of like taking away AI, because they're like, this thing
works like us, It's just recombined shit until you get
(38:48):
something that kind of looks like the previous thing and
is good enough to kind of trick people into buying
a ticket.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
We often joke that I could replace their jobs more
easily than ours. But you know the reality is that
this is this technology is nothing like artificial intelligence. Like
because every job in television involves talking to other people, right,
reading the paper, learning about the world around you, responding
to recent events, right, having conversations. None of these are
(39:16):
things that so called AI can do. What a large
language model does is you put text in one end,
and it gives you text that would plausibly be a
response to the first text out the other end. And
it does that based on everything else that it's read. Right,
that's not intelligence. That's recombining words in an interesting way
that in some cases could be useful. Right, But you
(39:37):
know it's it's the same as you know you've seen
the now here's the problem. These companies might use this
technology to try to undermine our wages and working conditions,
and that's what we're trying to get them to stop.
So I'll give you an example of this. Writing is
much more than outputting text. You'd have to be stupid
to think it was. Writing means not just coming up
(39:58):
with an idea, not just writing it down. It means
talking to the network guy on the phone and understanding
what his needs are taking the note in a way
that is smarter than what he could even think of,
because that guy's actually kind of dumb, right, But you're like, okay,
the note behind the note is the actually wants it
like this, So that's what I'll do. Right. Then you
go talk to the actor. Oh, the actor doesn't really
like their lines that much because you know they're a
little you know, Tom Cruise, a little bit worried. It
(40:19):
makes them look kind of wimpy. So we have to
adjust that a little bit. We have to like go
have drinks with him and then like change the script.
Right then, it means talking to the director and like
adjusting it to fit his vision. It means understanding how
much a particular scene might cost so that you can say,
you know what, they're never going to be able to
shoot that. Let me, you know, combine these two scenes
and that way it'll be cheaper and the line producer
won't yell at me. Right, and then the line producer
(40:40):
comes and yells at you anyway, you have changed the
scene again, blah blah blah blah. Then you go to
set and you watch the actor and you say, oh,
you know, the actually this line the way you're saying,
it doesn't mean what you think it means, Like, it's
gonna be confusing. So could you, like, let's adjust the
line a little bit, you know, et cetera. Doing that
on set, then it means going to the edit, going
to post production and watching the episode and saying, oh, man,
(41:03):
this episode's five minutes too long. We have to cut something.
What can we cut without losing anything important? Oh, here's
a creative fix. Let's have the actor like say this
little line of adr dialogue and it will bring him
back in and that'll solve the problem. Right. All of
those things are writing. That's what it means to be
a writer in Hollywood. Okay, it's not outputting text. However,
(41:24):
the people who run these companies are stupid and ignorant
enough to think that all out writing is is outputting
text because they never work with us or talk to us. Right.
Ted Sarandos has not spoken with a writer in ten years. Right,
So they are likely to be sold a bill of
goods by some tech company. Some tech company coming to
(41:44):
them and saying, hey, guess what we made a super AI.
You just input all your old scripts and we'll output
new movies for you. And then you won't need writers anymore.
And so what they'll do is they'll say, Okay, here's
the really great script that the AI wrote. We just
need somebody to punch it up, take our notes, go
talk to the actor, go to set, go to post.
Oh but none of that's writing. That's just producing. So
(42:06):
you're not going to get paid as a writer. You're
not a writer, you're a producer. Like no, the human
who does all that is still doing all of the writing.
They're just going to take some piece of shit and
make it work. But they but they may not be
paid as a writer. And that is what we are
fighting to prevent now. That's in writing. Actors have different
issues where they're worried about their likenesses and that's an
(42:27):
immediate threat that could happen with them. The AMPTP literally
proposed that for background actors. These are the people who
are in the background of scenes. And it's not a
highly paid job, but it is a professional job that
people who do it are good at it, and it's
something you should be able to earn a living at
because it takes a full day, you know, and people
do it, you know, every day of the week. It's
(42:48):
something that they need to make to make movies and TV.
So the AMPTP, who are negotiating against literally proposed that
background actors would be paid one day's wages, they would
be scanned in to an AI on their first day,
and then the company would then own that likeness in
perpetuity and could do whatever they wanted to with it. Now,
(43:09):
I want to be really clear, this is not some
fancy new technology. This is something they could have done
two years ago. Right. It's just like digital scanning, Like
any actor who's worked in a movie on vfxkift digitally scanned.
The difference is they want to steal our likenesses right
and own them in perpetuity. It's the business practice that's
the problem, and that like incense, the sag after negotiating committee,
(43:32):
and that's why they're on strike.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah, I mean makes sense. My grandparents were. They they
made a living off of background acting, like in the
nineties after they were retired, because my uncle was like
in the industry and he's like, man, they need to
get out of the house, they need something to do,
and like I talk about it on the show all
the time, they were like playing like the old black
couple and like so many movies in nineties, things like
Jerry Maguire Deep Impact and things like that, and I
(43:54):
saw firsthand for them like that it gave them all
kinds of benefits. And they're not even the people that
are like the stars, you know what I mean that
there's still a way to even have a living from
just being you know, like being available and wanting to
participate in these productions. So yet to hear then that
they just want to reduce human beings to basically like
reusable facial fonts that they can just replicate willy nilly
(44:18):
like is Yeah, it's it's definitely disconcerting. And I think
there's similar things even happening with podcasting too, where you
hear so much too about being like creating like vocal
models to be able to like transpose things into all
kinds of different languages or things like that, and then
you're like, oh, that's you begin to see the stickiness there.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, and you can do that now with like one
minute's worth of talking, and I think we have given
them millions of minutes worth talking, so we're pretty fucked the.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Language that that model better be fucking good based on material.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
The idea, but just the fundamental idea that people would
listen or watch AI generated content is moronic.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
But it will, Like that's the thing with the media,
like the online media world, Like it will like they
don't give a shit the people who are making it.
Like there's this tweet that screencap from Ashley Clark at
Underscore ash Underscore Clark, that's just a screen cap of
this like outbrain article and it says it's a picture
(45:19):
of Vince Vaughan and it says it's no big secret
why Van vaught isn't around anymore sponsored van but it's
it's just the AI misfiring. But it's enough to like,
you know that that used to Like it's just been
a slow degradation as they fucked the people out of
(45:41):
creating that sort of content that had any talent or
you know, interest in making it good. And that I think,
like the union, this strike is what is standing between
us and just a world of fucking mediocrity, like just
the studios getting their way. Like so just from the
consumer's perspective, like even if you don't understand that, like
(46:05):
the you know, labor is incredibly important and increasingly so
going forward, Like just from what you're going to be
seeing like the movies and TV shows you're going to
be streaming, Like this is what is standing between you
and a future of like turning on Netflix and seeing
like some shit like Van.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Vaught like in Love Is Born, the dating reality show. Huh,
like these scripts that make sense, Like that's what the
AI did. They know better than us. Yeah, we're not
really good with the written word.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's and by the way, it's like
it's getting better so fast soon it's gonna be good.
I'll believe it when I fucking see it, right, Like
they're trying to give you Van Vaught right now. Yeah
you know, uh, give me a give me a like
miss me with the with the like oh you you
have to bow down before AI, because I'm pretty sure
it's gonna be great later, like fuck off, Like that's.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Let's preemptively fail like full before it.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Huh really And yeah, to your point, I think we've
seen like the degradation happening as it's gone more like
I do think there's a huge overlap with what these
chat gpt like AI like quote unquote AIS are doing
and what like studio executives do with the combination and
recombination of shit. And it's like for the past, we
have seen things trend toward mediocrity in the world of movies,
(47:27):
and you're just seeing, like, you know, I feel like
eventually they could get to a world where an AI
chat GPT variety could shit out something similar to like
Jurassic World or Star Trek, the Star Trek that was
basically like mapping the plot of Star Wars onto Star
(47:48):
Trek characters, or you know, the The Lion King live action,
And like, these are movies that make money and fool
you enough to buy the ticket, but then like it
just doesn't have a cultural imprint. It's like a copy
of a copy that just sort of tails off.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
And I mean the fact that they even call those
Lion King movies live action. They're not live action, their
computer animated. You think they got a real lion to talk.
It's an animated movie. Yeah, it's animated, just like the
last one. What the fuck.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Are they right?
Speaker 4 (48:27):
And yes, it's chum right. It's like, hey, we can
pay like a bunch of overworked VFX people nothing to
turn this shit out rather than make a real movie.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Yeah, but they'll never come up with Jurassic Park. Or
you know, the original Star Trek or the original Star Wars,
and so this will be what we will have. We'll
just have pastiche will have just you know, a flat,
flattened out version of mediocrity, and like we will have
lost one of the great things that America ever created.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Yeah, and look, that's why I believe the Enderdament industry
is one of the great things in America has ever created.
It's it's popular art. A lot of it is direk
but you know, you watch the reason people love it
is they watch it and they go, that's fucking art.
It's art to speaks to me, you know what, And
it's it's great art. And some of it, you know,
films are Film is one of the great American art
(49:19):
forms that we invented here. It's like right fucking next
to jazz, right in terms of great American art forms
that were invented in America. And the reason we're on
strike is not to save the art form. It's not
to save movies. We're on strike to save our careers.
And it's an economic struggle, but it's it's something we
all give a shit about, and it's it's something that
(49:40):
I hope we can help reverse.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yeah, how do you just like in your long view? Right?
I mean, like we talked about the up top that
you know, there's the more cynical strategy seem to be
some studio executors are like, well, let's just see if
we can wait them out until they lose their housing. Yeah,
you know, what's your long view of how obviously I
see how can did the writers are and now actors
are to making like ensuring that things are better not
(50:05):
just for themselves but for future people that take this path.
But I mean, how are you looking at it? And
obviously I can see how energized you are, so I
know that, like you, there's optimism, But what is it
like from that end to hear the fucking people that
you're trying to negotiate and hear such like cynical bullshit
like that that they're like, well, we have more money
honestly in the end, and we'll just drive them out
of dollars maybe as a negotiating time.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's all we did. This one
is laugh I mean in deadline, the people for the
companies literally said they were gonna starve us out until
we lose our homes like right, And it was the
dumbest thing to say, because it was like an old
playbook where they used to try to like slip stuff
into the trades to scare us. You know, that's that's
was their playbook was. You know, we'll we'll try to
(50:49):
convince the writers to fold because we're gonna last longer
than them. It was tough talk. They didn't realize that
they said it on the Internet and that like the
whole world could see it and it would result in
an out pouring of support because they literally they're they're
saying they're gonna put their make they're gonna make their
writers homeless, like what the fuck? Right, Like it's reprehensible,
It's no one could hear this and be on the
(51:12):
side of the person who said that, Like, what the
fuck are they talking about? And it's it's evil to
say that. It's on the face of it evil and
it's a it's against every American value and so you know,
it's it's ludicrous that they said this. Multiple people from
multiple streamers and studios said this to a reporter multiple times,
(51:33):
like go read the article, he's source a rag. But
they do their reporting, you know, so you know, all
we can really do is laugh. I mean and also
by the way show that they were panicking.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Yeah, yeah, And I think it's kind of everywhere right now.
I mean, like this whole moment, it's not just you,
it's Ups, it's waffle House, it's Starbucks, it's Amazon. We're
really like at this this real inflection point where like
the greed and disconnect of like C suites to like
actual how like people do a job like is now
(52:03):
really bubbling up to the surface. And now like they're
kind of confused like wait, wait, oh, it's that bad.
And I hope that this you know that you know,
all of you are successful like in this battle, because
I think it's it's really important, and I have a
feeling that it'll affect a lot of other things happening
in the country too.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Look, it's the same battle that everyone in America is facing.
Right What's happened to us is over the last twenty years,
the companies have figured out how to take the money
from our pockets that came from our labor and keep
it for themselves. That's it. Yeah, So why is it
that in America right now we have a record low
on employment rate and people can't afford homes, they can't
afford school for the kids, they can't afford medical care.
(52:44):
Why is that. It's because the same thing has happened
to everybody. This is what capitalism has done to us all,
and so we're fighting back against it, and they're you know,
we're going to win, and we're gonna save our industry
and we're going to show everyone that this is how
you can do it. You can do it with a union.
And it's hard to form a union. We're lucky because
we already have strong unions, as we have for ninety years.
(53:05):
But why do we have them because workers started them
and the conditions in which they started, the conditions in
which the Writers Guild was founded ninety years ago were
far more inimical than the conditions are today. You know,
we had people who writers who never talked to each
other it working for these giant companies that you know,
hired and fired them constantly. They had no credit, nobody
(53:25):
thought they mattered at all, and they just talked to
each other and built a community and started a union.
Took them ten years to get the union recognized, took
years past that to get a contract. But because they
put in that time and effort for years when nobody
thought it was possible. All their friends said, you're stupid,
they said, is this going to work? I don't feel right.
I don't know. I'm kind of worried, you know, like
(53:47):
all that shit happened to them, just like what happened
to you if you started a union in your workplace,
because they did it. I have a health intention plan, yeah,
and one of the best in the country that I'm
very proud to have, although I'm going to lose it
in a couple of months because I have worked in
a little while. So hopefully the strike, when the strike
is over, I'll get it. I'll get a job so
I can keep getting that reimbursement for my therapist.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
There you go. Well, Adam, thank you so much for
taking the time during what I'm assuming it's a crazy
busy period. We really appreciate you talking to us and
fighting the good fight. Mans.
Speaker 4 (54:20):
Keep doing it, guys, It's so wonderful to be here,
and thanks for your support. And oh, let me plug
by the way. Two things. First of all, I am
not working for television and film right now. I got
to make a living somehow. I'm on tour as a
stand up comic. So if you live in Buffalo, Providence,
Rhode Island, Saint Louis, or oh god, what's the last one? Baltimore,
please go to Adam Conover dot net. You can find
(54:42):
tickets and tour dates there. I've got a brand new
hour stand up. If you want to support the strike,
you can donate to the Entertainment Community Fund. This is
a fund that gives money to film television workers, you know, writers, actors,
crew members, ununionized people who are PAS, people like that
who are not able to pay their rent or their
medical costs, whether because of the strike or for some
(55:03):
other reason. So if you go to Entertainmentcommunity dot org
and click donate to Film and TV Workers, you can, uh,
you can directly support not just the strike but all
film and TV workers, and and donating money of that
does help us stay on the picket line longer. So
we we really appreciate.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
You amazing, well, thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (55:20):
Man, awesome, thank you guys.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
All right, that was our conversation with Adam khan Over.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Yeah, he was really going hard on David Aslov.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I know, I didn't like that part, and we were
kind of cowards, Loki.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
We were kind of cowards from should have pushed back.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Very nice.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
I had all these questions about, like if he feels
guilty because the billionaire guy who owns Cardier like talked
about how he's losing scared, he's scared man like think
about his sleep.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
But yeah, yeah, it's so again it's we're this is
fucking everywhere. I think that's what's really wild is that, Like,
it's human beings are just reaching that natural limit where
you can only toil for so long and not get
what is o to you to just live, to be
able to put a roof over your head, eat, support
a family, all that. And yeah, I mean I think
(56:16):
right now it's it's a huge lot of eyes on
them because again, these are probably the most visible union
members yeah on the planet.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Yeah, hey man, like I said, it's no big secret
why Van Bought isn't around anymore. Oh my god, that's
what we're facing. That is what we're facing.
Speaker 4 (56:36):
Man.
Speaker 2 (56:36):
Wait till people start listening to the Dolly ze get.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
That's like I kept thinking about when we were talking.
I kept thinking about the sixty minutes thing where Scott
Pelly was like and the chet GPT finished Ernest Hemingway's
story the like six words baby shoes for sale, never worn,
and like added like a parent, a mother and a
father character and a third character was like, so it
(57:03):
like ruined the fucking thing that you're talking about, but
it's just like churned out more and be right pressed
by that. Yeah, it added on to it created a
whole baby shoes for Sale universe, shared cinematic universe. Anyways,
good conversation. I feel like I know more about AI.
I feel like I know more about this moment in
(57:26):
the labor struggle.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah, just yeah, one dimension of a very large one. Yeah,
across the fucking world basically, And yeah, make sure you
guys check. We will have in the foot and oaks.
You know, Adam's tour dates and stuff like that, so
be sure to catch him on the road because he's
it's actually it's actually really funny.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Turns out is actually really funny.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
God damn all right, people find you at Miles of
Gray wherever they got at symbols, I'm there. And then also,
thank you to everybody who started listening and subscribing to
The Good Thief the new podcast. Please continue to subscribe.
I've been listening and reviewing all that. Episode two comes
out tomorrow Wednesday, where we go even deeper into the
mystery that is Vasili's Body of Ghostash and also I'll
(58:10):
just check out Mad.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Boosties worth the price of admission. But here, dude, it's
so good.
Speaker 2 (58:15):
I can't I'm actually like, I like, I know, I
recorded it. I was like hosting stuff like that, but
hearing it all come together, I'm so blown away what
they did. The kaleidoscope shout out man, guess, shout out
Oz and everybody over there. Yeah. Yeah, like it moves
like a movie baby, so easy to listen to. It's
like a good gateway pod if you want people to
dip their toe. So anyway, I'm done. Two in my horn.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
Yep that toe. You can find me on Twitter at
Jack Underscore. O'Brien. That's gonna do it for us today. Yeah,
daily's like as a production by Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the Heart Radio Wrap
Apple podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows. All right,
that's gonna do it for us this morning, back this
afternoon to tell you what's trending. We talk to you
all day.
Speaker 2 (58:55):
Bye bye bye
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Miles Gray
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