Well, things must be going awfully well for the Presidential campaign of Senator John Edwards since he can afford to take time off from campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire to fly out to Hollywood to speak to striking screenwriters.  I wasn't aware of any liberal Hollywood writers caucus coming up, but apparently Sen. Edwards seems to deem the writers strike a campaign worthy issue.  Then again, perhaps the speech which will take place outside NBC Studios Friday is just conveniently on his way to a $200 haircut at Cristoffe in Beverly Hills.  We can only speculate.

Maybe Sen. Edwards considers this part of his much touted semi-socialist program to end poverty in America.  After all, Hollywood writers love to whine about being, in their own estimation, at the bottom of the Hollywood ladder.  They fail to consider the HUNDREDS of crew members such as make-artists to truck drivers who work to put together a TV program or movie.  Forget the fact these people only dream of earning a fifth of a typical Hollywood writers salary.  Forget the fact that all of these workers are now unemployed right before the holidays due the production shutdown forced by the Writers Guild of America.  No, pity the poor writers, who pal around with movie stars and enjoy free Starbucks on the picket line.

And so it is that Senator Jon Edwards has come to the defense of the disenfranchised scribes.  I expect his speech will go something like this, "There are two Americas today...the rich Hollywood moguls and the slightly less rich Hollywood writers...those who drive a Rolls Royce and those poor souls who can only afford a Mercedes...those who have a house in Bel Air and a beach house in Malibu vs. those who only have the house in Bel Air."   The contrasts are startling.  I am just waiting now for Edwards' handlers to announce this visit to the LA as a major policy speech.

We can't be too hard on Sen. Edwards though.  He's not the only Democrat to give lip-service to the writers.  Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have made public expressions of support for the Hollywood writers and demonized the movie studios as modern day robber barons.  Indeed, to hear Democrats speak, the typical Hollywood writers' deal is positively Dickensian.  In their haste to take up the cause of disaffected screenwriters, however, liberal Presidential hopefuls don't seem to have any problem taking large donations from the "greedy" Hollywood studios they bash publicly.  Hillary Clinton accepted substantial donations from Warner Bros. head Alan Horn and Peter Chernin who runs Fox.  Sony's Michael Lynton, Universal Pictures' head Ron Meyer as well as Dreamworks' David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg have all held big ticket fundraisers for Barack Obama.  

i can only imagine how many liberal Hollywood studio heads are now wondering if it's too late to cancel their checks.  This shouldn't surprise them though.  For years, Hollywood studios have funneled millions to liberal Democrats with little to show for their investment.  Every major studio has bundled big contributions for the Clintons over the past two decades, and yet Bill and subsequently Hillary have virtually ignored issues important to the media industry like media piracy and copyright protection.  In fact, President Bush and congressional Republicans have been the most affective proponents of copyright protection and anti-piracy laws oversees.  It was Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch and President Bush who cracked down on the blatantly illegal downloading of music and movies on Napster.com, not the Democrats.

I certainly won't hold my breath waiting on Hollywood moguls to show any gratitude to Republicans for toughening laws that save major media companies billions in lost revenue due to copyright infringement.  Likewise, I don't expect Hollywood studio heads will give Republicans credit for trade policies that have opened up global markets worth billions more to U.S. media companies.  No, Hollywood's top executives will continue to praise liberal Democrats and dutifully write the big checks when asked, and Hillary, Obama and the like will continue to mischaracterize our industry leaders as greedy robber barons breaking the backs of wealthy Hollywood screenwriters.  It's an odd friendship, but then again, friendship has always been a slightly foreign concept in Hollywood AND Washington.

Greetings from the frontlines of the writers strike in loony, liberal Hollywood.  Well things are heating up out here.  The striking screenwriters finally realized that physically blocking the entrance gates to the movie studios "may result in injury" after several writers were run over, the most serious casualty being a broken leg.  Since then the writers have taken to improvised explosives and insurgent warfare.  Most recently sectarian violence exploded on the picket line between cable writers and network TV writers over the fact that writers for HBO can use the F-word an unlimited number of times in a single episode.  It makes it much easier on the writer because he or she can use the F-word repeatedly rather than going to the trouble of actually having to come up with dialogue.  Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Commission is protesting the Writers Guild's use of water-boarding and other controversial interrogation techniques to keep writers from using their imagination or thinking of any ideas while the writers strike is in affect.

OK, I confess that maybe this whole strike has not quite reached the level of a full-fledged civil war, but if you talk to the writers or read their many blogs online, they seem to see this as some kind of epic battle between good and evil as if they stand at the gates of Armageddon ready to defend civilization as we know it with a number 4 pencil and a blackberry.  Leave it to Hollywood writers to over-dramatize their own personal grievances.  

The truth is after little more than a week the big writers walkout resembles FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF more than NORMA RAE.  The picket lines have taken on a carnival-like atmosphere as union protesters are daily treated to Starbucks coffee and donuts by the likes of Eva Longoria and Jennifer Garner.  That is probably as intimate a relationship as a writer will ever have with these overpaid and overprimped starlets, but even Hollywood writers still get star-struck.  I find it amusing to drive into a studio gate and watch the supposedly professional screenwriters hounding actors from the OFFICE or LOST for autographs.  Yes, all the stars make their obligatory PR appearance on the picket lines.  I guess they just consider it good business to feign sympathy for the writers who earn 1% of the actors' paycheck (and the writers are mad at the STUDIOS?).  

Hollywood being the trendy town that it is, certain picket lines are considered "cooler" than others.  For instance the picket line at Fox Studios gets a healthier dose of A-list writers from shows like DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and THE OFFICE as well a daily smattering of film and TV stars due to its close proximity to Beverly Hills and Bel Air.  The Writers Guild sends the more plebeian writers from less popular shows or worse...basic cable shows to the Warner or Disney lots all the way over the hill in Burbank.  In fact the picket line assignments have become something of a status symbol akin to getting a good table during lunch at Spago.  Only in Hollywood.

Of course, there's entertainment on the picket lines of the writers strike.  I see writers playing scrabble, singing songs, and even doing standup comedy.  People bring their pets to the picket line, and last week even saw the first Writers Guild "Bring your kid to the picket line" day.  Does making your child sit on a concrete sidewalk in the sun for 8 hours count as abuse?  Someone should ask Child Protective Services about these kind of things.  At the very least, it sets new standards for child boredom.

In the latest twist, the strike has become the newest Hollywood singles scene.  Writers and people posing as writers show up to the picket lines in search of that perfect soulmate or at least one of the many young would-be model-actresses walking the picket lines for the "connections."  I've even heard of writers posting on Craig's List in an attempt to locate the woman they couldn't get the gumption to ask out while on the picket line (seriously).

Yes, the great Hollywood writers walkout of 2007 is getting it's share of sympathy from the media, but LES MISERABLES it ain't.  For producers like myself and others intent on actually doing their job (shocker!), the strike is at best, a source of entertainment and at worst, a minor inconvenience.  As the work slows down, we find other ways to occupy our time.  If you want to see how I'm spending my newfound free time, visit http://www.youtube.com/undercvrconservative.  Stay tuned for more from the Left Coast.

This week the Writers Guild of America, liberal Hollywood's equivalent of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, went on strike in defense of downtrodden Ferrari-driving, Brioni-wearing, apple martini-drinking screenwriters everywhere (but mostly in Hollywood).

In gratitude for their "enlightening" the American public with their "creative vision," one writer suggested, "What if all the consumers of television who support the writers began boycotting every single item manufactured by the corporations that own the studios?"  I am eager to see how many soccer moms and NASCAR dads in the rest of America will join this important national movement in defense of a group that gets paid an average of $200,000.00 per year for using their imagination.  I suggest that the Hollywood screenwriters not hold their breath waiting for the American public to come to their rescue.

In the interest of full disclosure, I confess that I am a working film and television writer and producer.  I have been in the entertainment business for 15 years, and I have earned a very comfortable life for myself, no thanks to the unions.  I am still technically a member of the Writer's Guild, although I don't know why since most of my work today is as a producer, not a writer.  I imagine I'll just let my membership expire or let the union Nazis kick me out for crossing the picket line (which I understand will have valet service).  For my own amusement, I did decide to take advantage of one benefit of membership in the WGA and attend last week's "emergency meeting" of 3000 writers voting on the strike.

The meeting described by a fellow writer as "somewhere between brothers and sisters in arms, and the coalition of the selfish" took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and I haven't seen so many Porsches and Bentleys since the Pitt-Aniston wedding.  Inside, the WGA politburo assailed the film and television companies for depriving the poor writers of an even larger piece of the studio's DVD and theoretical internet revenue.  When the union brass in an attempt at sympathy mentioned a few minor concessions they made to the studios in negotiation, an overzealous writer shouted, "Take those things back.  Don't give them anything!" to thunderous applause.   

The group touted a strike as "the only option left" and a chance to cripple the entertainment industry in revenge for decades of "abuse."  Having happily been on the receiving end of this "abuse" for many years, I can safely say that the average working stiff in America probably has a better idea of what it means to have a bad boss than we do.  Not having a limo to drive you to the set or a professional grade cappuccino machine in your studio-provided office does not count as a crime against humanity in my book.

Let's have a reality check for a moment.  As I previously stated, the average screenwriter earns $200,000 per year (many earn several million per year).  On top of their initial pay for their services, Hollywood writers receive rewrite fees, a lucrative cut of the box-office receipts on movies, residual payments every time a film or tv program is syndicated in rerun or on cable, a cut of DVD sales, and a host of perks like free office space and staff, expense accounts, and even a new luxury car on occasion.  By contrast, the median household income in the US last year was $48,201.00 (including two-income families).

One amusing moment in this socialist love-fest came when the union elite announced that the other Hollywood unions including the Directors Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, and IATSE support the screenwriter's "fight," but their contracts precluded their joining the writers on the picket line.  What they meant was "We're all for your 'struggle' to get another 4 cents per DVD, but some of us still have a mortgage on our beach house in Santa Barbara to pay."  However, in what I considered to be a generous move, the powerful Teamsters union offered to walk out in a sympathy strike with the writers if the writers in-turn would agree to support the Teamsters in a future strike of their own.  The room erupted with roars of dismissive laughter as if their illegal housekeeper had asked them to give her a ride back to the not-so-nice side of town euphemistically referred to as "Beverly Hills adjacent."

It's just as well though.  For their own personal safety, I don't think a bunch of tofu-eating, Chomsky-reading screenwriters want to spend months on a picket line whining about their "hard luck" to Teamster truck drivers or anyone else who lives in the real world.  On a bright note, the Screen Actors Guild later announced that it would allow its members to picket with the writers in their free time so at least the poor beleaguered writers have the prospect of picketing alongside some attractive Hollywood starlets (or at least would-be starlets).  It beats looking at a burly Teamster for 4 months, and maybe the studios can film it and fill all of that dead air time with another season of BEAUTY AND THE GEEK.  It's a hard life.

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WELCOME TO THE UNDERCOVER CONSERVATIVE...YOU'RE INSIDER GUIDE TO THE LIBERAL HOLLYWOOD MAFIA!

In my 15 years as a production executive in the entertainment industry, I personally oversaw two dozen movies, miniseries, and TV series and worked with most of the biggest stars and directors in the business.   I am now a successful motion picture and television producer based at a major Hollywood studio.   With success has come all of the trappings of the lavish "Hollywood lifestyle"...a big house in the hills, exotic cars, private jets, A-list parties, award shows, and my own table at the latest Hollywood hotspots.  

And yet, through all these years in Tinseltown, something has been missing for me.   At meetings or parties, socializing with my peers, I knew I was somehow different.   Inevitably conversation always bounced between two subjects, movies and politics.   Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but my parents had always taught me that it was impolite to discuss politics and religion.  Therefor I was shocked by the presumptuousness and force with which my contemporaries in the movie business asserted their political views into a conversation.   What disturbed me even more was the conformity of opinion amongst my friends and coworkers in the movie business, and the basic assumption that no one would possibly have an opinion that differed from the accepted liberal doctrine in Hollywood.

It was as if an entire industry, in fact, a whole city, had been reduced to a zombie-like cult that worshipped the Holy trinity of Bill Clinton, Barbara Streisand, and Michael Moore.  These liberal pod people had an addiction to a socialist agenda most of them could not even understand, much less verbally articulate.   I had never been a particularly political person although I had worked on a few Republican campaigns in college, and so I did not make it a habit of pushing my own political beliefs on others.  

However, liberal orthodoxy came up in conversation several times in my typical day in Hollywood, and frankly, I got a little tired of changing the subject, staring at my shoes and waiting for the conversation to turn back to the more relevant business at hand in meetings with celebrities, directors, and studio heads.   The few times I had dared to contradict a liberal or assert an opinion that in any way veers from the far-left liberal doctrine, I was shot down and derided by my peers.  If I was lucky, Hollywood liberals just blew off my opinion, but more often than not, I was attacked as a simple-minded rube who was not "enlightened" and educated on the issues. 

After many attempts, I have given up on my futile efforts to engage Hollywood liberals in productive, intelligent discourse on the issues of the day.  Sen. John Edwards is right, there are "two America's"...there's Hollywood and the rest of the country.  I am here to report to the rest of America, in fact the REAL America, from the seedy underbelly of the entertainment industry, the liberal Hollywood Mafia.  From now on, instead of hopelessly trying to engage Hollywood liberals, I will report to you, the right-thinking American people, on the ramblings, conspiracy theories and nefarious plots of the Hollywood liberal elite.

I am a successful working film and television producer, and I would like for it to stay that way which is why I write under the pseudonym the Undercover Conservative.  I have seen several of my Republican friends in the movie industry marginalized for their conservative views, and I would undoubtedly be "blacklisted" for taking you, the American people, behind the studio doors and inside the A-list parties to reveal what really goes on within the liberal Hollywood establishment.

Every week, I will be reporting on the latest from within the "Hollywood bubble."  When necessary I will change the names to protect myself, my sources, and sometimes the unwitting Hollywood liberal nuts with whom I socialize and do business every day.  Stay tuned.  You're about to get a shocking inside look at what goes on in the most powerful corridors of a 50-billion-dollar industry intent on abusing their control of everything we read, watch and hear to push a liberal agenda on the American people.