This is their way of punishing Steve Carrell for refusing to cross the picket lines.
NBC has laid off all the production folks on their hit show The Office — grips, costume folks, make-up artists, drivers, caterers, etc. These are people who make less than the writers and will not receive residuals while reruns air.
This is why Ellen is insisting on crossing the picket lines, people. Because there are lots of other jobs on the line. It’s not just the writers.
Says a key grip on the show: “During the 1988 WGA strike many of my friends lost their homes, cars and even spouses. Many actors are publicly backing the writers, some have even said that they would find a way to help pay bills for the striking writers. When the networks run out of new shows and they air repeats the writers will be paid residuals. The lowest paid writer in television makes roughly twice the salary than the below the line crewmember makes. Everyone should be paid their fair share, but does it have to be at the expense of the other 90% of the crewmembers. Nobody ever recoups from a strike, lost wages are just that, lost.”
Here’s a good video explaining why the writers are striking. [Via PopCandy]
Ten-year-old Payton Spencer walks the “green” carpet at the Broadway premiere of How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical this weekend.
Right now, you know her from What About Brian.
In ten years, you’ll know her from her drunken exploits at New Hyde and her on-and-off affair with a Greek shipping heir. Eh, let’s be honest. Probably Stavros Niarchos.
The producers of The Hills finally seem to realize that Heidi Montag is BORING and ANNOYING, and we’re at last getting storylines revolving around the much cooler Whitney Port.
As a result, she’s becoming a star in her own right.
Here she is hosting at Mansion in Miami Beach.
Rock on, Whitney. Please don’t start sucking, okay?
After spending the day in classes, the convention threw a pajama party for us tonight at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (because, you know, bloggers spend their days sitting on couches in pajamas — I think the goal was to poke fun at this “myth,” but for me, it’s actually pretty true). I wore cowboy boot slippers (thanks Stacie!), and then spent the rest of the night playing 3-card poker with the fabulous Whitney Matheson from PopCandy, the hilarious Rachel Hurley from Rachel and the City and Laremy “I’m Going Back to the ATM” Legel from Film.com. Also, I met the guy who thought up SubservientChicken.com, so I can die happy now.
I’ll post photos of our pajama-and-poker evening when I get back to LA. And once I get approval from everyone when they’re sober.
Rachel and Whitney taught me about the wonders of Twitter — I briefly hijacked Rachel’s phone and took over her Twitter (”Can I grab your twitter box” is now my favorite thing to say to someone), and you can see my updates on her blog — so I set up an Evil Beet account so I can Twitter to you guys when I’m not at my computer.
Anyway, here’s the point of this post: I had fun, I’m exhausted, and I’m not getting up at 6 a.m. to figure out what Paris Hilton did last night. Sorry. There’ll be updates later in the day.
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