Stories like that always bring a tear to my eye. There’s nothing quite as stifling to art and creativity than arbitrary rules placed on artists by disinterested third parties, and labor unions are a major offender. Thus, it’s heartwarming to see union members rebel against their leaders because of the passion they have for a project–going the extra mile to make it an outstanding product and to make it feasible by charging less than their standard pay.

—–

That documentary’s story also stuck out to me because a recent Pitchfork interview with Anthony Gonzalez, frontman for the French electronica group M83, revealed a similar story, this time involving his newly-released double album “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming”:

Pitchfork: When I spoke with you last year, you said you were worried about having enough money to make a double album.

AG: We had a good budget to make a 10-track album with good sound, so we had to find ways [to stretch that out]. It was difficult. But [producer] Justin [Meldal-Johnsen] did an amazing job putting a lot of artists together who worked for no money, just because they were in love with the project. I always wanted to play with strings and brass, and Joseph Trapanese, who did the arrangements for the album, didn’t get paid. We didn’t put the real names of the string and brass players on the album because they’re part of a union, and it’s illegal to work for shitty money. They’re credited, but with fake names. [emphasis added]

Though Gonzalez is an established artist who does receive funding from a record label for studio time, his story is but another anecdote in the continuing democratization of the music business. Because of the amazing technology available to artists for cheaper than ever before, songwriters and performers are bypassing the arcane rules and unfair nepotism of existing power structures such as labels and unions. They have virtually complete control over their final product and its distribution if they want it, and we are therefore seeing the firstfruits of a truly free music market where anyone can become someone and no idea or product gets buried without a fair chance to attract an audience.

As such, the world of music is being much more personalized, much more experimental, and, to those who explore beyond the world of Top 40, incredibly rewarding. I can’t think of a better example than “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming”’s first single, “Midnight City,” which you can view above. While the song evokes the dark soundscapes of ’80s New Wave, something this ambitious would never have been feasible at that time for an artist with such a small audience. Thus, it’s a fitting welcome to the music world of 2011; this will be the decade of the individual toppling the gatekeeper.

Out of all my educational experiences, those formative four years were the best and the most enduring. Matched up against four years of the Ivy League at Dartmouth College and a year abroad in England on a Fulbright Scholarship, the Catholic experience was the deepest, the longest lasting and, in my opinion, the greatest contributor to a long – 70 years so far – and wonderfully rewarding life.

Here is an undeniably clear revelation of the growing divide between traditional America as seen in this Catholic Preparatory School, and the Obama Nation’s radically Leftist virulence poring out of union bullies and SEIU troublemaking.

Not only will the Progressive values of an Obama Nation leave our children and grandchildren holding a massive debt, those generations of Americans, increasingly influenced by The Obama Nation Value System, will be crippled and live a life of total dependence upon government and unions and eventually the devouring greed for power in a Progressive New World Order.

The Children of Obama will find no other recourse in life but increasing dependence upon the political and governing likes of Barack Hussein Obama, the SEIU and this cabal’s inner circle of CEO’s that are, like George Soros, “too big to fail”.

No one and nothing, from Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler to the Roman Empire, the Third Reich and World Communism have ever proven to be “too big to fail”.

The small but divinely conceived Messmer Catholic School teaches a value system that is too deep and too old to fail for long.

If you try to measure the century old history of the Communist Party against the two millennium-long history of the Catholic Church and the five millennium-old history of Judeo-Christianity?

Both Red China and neo-Soviet Russia are puppy institutions by comparison. They’re the zygotes and feti of Marxist daydreams that can and never will defeat Judeo-Christianity.

My bet is that Marx’s Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto will end up with Hitler’s Mein Kampf: three monstrous guidebooks for apocalyptic suicide.

The future of not only America but the entire human race depends upon the right of parents to send their children to a school of their own free choice. To deny them that privilege in any way is not only un-American, it is virtual suicide for the entire idea of individual freedom.

Where would the children of Messmer Preparatory School be if the SEIU, Obama’s Department of Education and Dr. Evil get their way?

For many in the Big Hollywood audience, I am sharing these thoughts with the “converted”.

How the unconverted, Leftist zealots defend a labor union protest at a profoundly successful teaching institution?

That I can’t wait to see, read, hear and reply to.

At the strike meeting, someone had suggested that because a number of us would be gainfully employed for the duration of the work stoppage, we should have to kick in an additional 3% to the strike fund.  That seemed fair to me, so I raised my hand along with just about everyone else.

Then another writer suggested that because the networks would be using re-runs in order to keep product on the air, the same 3% levy should be placed on residual payments.  That seemed an equally fair notion.  This time, however, when I raised my hand, I found I was one of very few.

That was my initial wake-up call.  The second occurred during a strike meeting in the 80s, when our negotiating committee reported that we had come to terms on DVDs.  We were agreeing to accept 1.2% of producer’s gross.  Oh, and by the way, it would pertain only to movies produced after 1971.

When I saw Julius Epstein trudging up the aisle, it dawned on me that the Guild had just screwed him out of “Casablanca,” not to mention dozens of other Warner Brothers classics of the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, that he’d co-scripted with his late brother, Phil.

Why, I wondered, hadn’t the Guild settled for, say, just 1% of producers gross, but insisted that the deal cover every movie going back to “The Great Train Robbery”?

The answer, of course, was that once again the members of the Guild had decided to cannibalize its own.  After all, most of the members wrote TV, not movies.  And even among those who wrote screenplays, most of them hadn’t even been in the Guild prior to 1971.

The next time the Guild showed its true colors, which mainly consist of various shades of yellow, I was a member of the Board of Directors.  I was in the final few months of my second two-year term when a couple of lawyers showed up at a Board meeting.  They were seeking a donation for legal expenses, along with a request that we lend our moral support by signing an amicus curiae brief.

The case involved an art gallery exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe’s pornographic efforts.  Mapplethorpe, in case his name doesn’t register, was a photographer whose artistic vision required full-frontal nudity of pre-pubescent children.

When the director of Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center displayed the traveling exhibit, Mapplethorpe’s “The Perfect Moment,” the city shut it down.   (Predictably, the exhibit was funded with American tax dollars, courtesy of the National Endowment of the Arts.)  That, in turn, led to the lawyers coming west, hat in hand.

Because the Board of Directors was authorized to spend up to $5,000 of Guild funds without requiring a vote of the membership, we were often approached by lawyers involved in censorship cases.  Needless to say, they usually got it.  Just like the politicians in Washington, we found it not only easy, but morally uplifting, to spend other people’s money.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R, S.C.) had already gone on record to state that he found Mapplethorpe’s work reprehensible, and urging that no additional tax dollars be allocated to the NEA.

Although, over the previous few years, I had gotten along well with most of my fellow Board members, who included David Rintels, Carl Gottlieb, Hal Kantor, George Kirgo, Ollie Crawford and Jean Butler, I was aware that I was definitely in the minority when I rose to voice my objections.

I argued that, one, Mapplethorpe was a pornographer; two that in a country with well over 250 million people, no “artist” should have to be supported with tax dollars.  If people didn’t wish to buy what you were selling, it wasn’t a subsidy you needed, it was vocational guidance.  And, three, that we had a fiduciary responsibility not to squander the money of our fellow WGA members in such a morally questionable manner, and that, furthermore, community standards trumped what a bunch of Hollywood writers 2,000 miles away thought.

I was prepared to be out-voted.  After all, a fair number of my fellow Board members had been blacklisted in the 50s and still believed that this gave them a moral authority denied to mere mortals.  But I guess I wasn’t prepared to be out-voted 18-1.  I also wasn’t prepared for the way they reacted.  Initially, it was shock and dismay that someone in their midst was agreeing with a reactionary Southern senator, but it soon became clear that they refused to even pay attention to what I was saying.  They had that quickly decided that if Sen, Helms was on one side of the issue, they had no option but to be on the other side.  At one point, during my brief remarks, I recall feeling like Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” wondering if I should drop a heavy book on the floor to get their attention, just to make sure they still had faces.

In the intervening years, I have taken very little part in Guild activities.  But that doesn’t mean that the Guild hasn’t continued to annoy me.

For one thing, there are the constant homages offered up to the victims of the Hollywood blacklist.  What’s fascinating about the adoration of the handful of writers who were sent underground for a few years 60 years ago is that if those who were despised as squealers, condemned for naming names, people like Elia Kazan, Larry Parks, Lee J. Cobb, Robert Taylor and Budd Schulberg, had been ratting out fascists instead of communists, Hollywood’s liberals would have hailed them as patriots and erected statues in their honor at the corner of Hollywood and Vine.

What’s ironic and pathetic is that the very same people who utter the names of Dalton Trumbo, Albert Maltz, John Howard Lawson and the rest of the Hollywood 10 with the same reverence that some people extend to Jesus and his disciples, not only choose to ignore the blacklisting of older scriptwriters and directors, but make it a practice, as reported in Ben Shapiro’s “Primetime Propaganda,” to bad-mouth their conservative colleagues every chance they get.

It is no accident, after all, that the WGA’s slick monthly, Written By, has never published an article about the decade-long ageism class action lawsuit that culminated earlier this year in a $70 million settlement by studios, networks and agencies, just as there will never be an article about the widespread practice of blacklisting those on the Right.

The dirty little secret of the Writers Guild is that those who are most responsible for blacklisting over the past six decades are its very own writer-producer members.

Recently, I sent an email to Richard Stayton, editor of Written By, to point out that in a recent issue of the monthly there had been 26 photos of members, and not one of them was over the age of 50.  When taken together with the fact that nothing had ever been written about the ageism suit, I suggested that this displayed an obvious bias against older writers.

Inasmuch as writing scripts, unlike, say, playing centerfield for the Yankees, doesn’t require young eyes or young legs, it suggested that even after the lawsuit, nothing had changed in terms of employment or perception of veteran writers.  I felt that the magazine should devote at least some of its attention to a problem that affects a large number of its current members and will, God willing, eventually plague them all.

It seemed a better use of the magazine than devoting yet another article to some thirty-year-old who insisted, with a straight face, that it was his passion that led him to write “Nightmare on Elm Street: The Blight That Wouldn’t Die, Part XXIV,” and not his mortgage.

Within the hour, Stayton informed me that my letter would not run.

Frankly, I wasn’t too surprised to find that if you’re 71, you can’t even get a letter published by the WGA.

I was in Austin Wednesday for the Texas Unions Day Off as they paraded around demanding state government keep its dirty paws off their pensions because, you know, we should keep cutting Child Support Programs and the Cancer Research & Prevention Institute so they can continue planning their retirement party in Jamaica, but whatever.

These two aren't going anywhere!

After the crowds dispersed to collect on the boxed lunch they were promised, I was approached by a guy who I immediately identified as a liberal, but not a union member (he wasn’t wearing a solid-color t-shirt, but he did reek of hipster).  We exchanged niceties and politely told each other what we did: I’m a conservative blogger and he works for Moveon.org.

Yah.

Niceties continued and he asked me if I’d mind taking a few minutes to speak with him on camera.  I believe both sides can engage in civil discussions and he was being very kind, so I agreed.

“What are some of your childhood Sesame Street memories?”
Um, what? Keeping up with the polite conversation, I answered about Elmo, Big Bird, counting – you know, Sesame Street stuff.

“Do you believe taking away federal funds for Public Broadcasting will rob future children of Sesame Street memories, like what you still clearly recall fondly today?”
Seriously?  We’re really still talking about Sesame Street funding?  14 trillion in debt…

“If Sesame Street were to be privately funded, do you think having a small group of people in charge would change the messaging and educational standards of the program?”
How on earth did you find a way to make letters and numbers partisan?

The questions went on and on, but he was being so nice about it that I continued to politely answer until I asked to be excused to make an appointment (which he kindly respected).  Overall, it was a very pleasant experience, except I just wouldn’t give him the answers that he wanted.

He lives in a trashcan. Would homeless really be that much worse?

If we de-fund Sesame Street, I promise you Oscar the Grouch won’t lose his trashcan.  Big Bird will still have his big ol’ nest and Bert & Ernie will still have that ambiguously awkward roommate situation.  The cultural icon that is Sesame Street will be snatched up by a private company, individual, or coalition of such for millions and millions of dollars.  There is a boatload of money to be made selling Sesame Street toys, clothes, books, DVDs, and live performance tickets.  Trust me, Sesame Street isn’t going anywhere.

As for the programming, well, there’s only so much room for interpretation of the alphabet and numbers, shapes and colors.  Sure, you can teach it in different languages and use flashy graphics, but the fundamentals of toddler education remain the same at home and abroad.  If, however, some Big Shot at 123 Sesame Street Corporate decided he wanted to change it up, I promise you that if he put one well-manicured toe tucked inside a Gucci ostrich loafer out of line, mothers around the world would retaliate.  If there is one group you don’t want to poke with a big stick, it’s new mamas.

That said, it’s evident to me that the market would drive the content of Sesame Street.  Parents will remain vigilant about the content, presentation, and products of the program regardless of who funds it, but perhaps even more so if it’s privately run.  Don’t put it past an infuriated mother to put the kid in the Pack-N-Play, make phone calls, write emails, and tell all of their mommy friends about the disgrace of Sesame Street if such a folly should occur.  The show’d be in the tank before it even knew it messed up.

So, with this great American icon in check, I say: Screw you, Big Bird. You’ve been living on handouts

Brush up your resume, dude - it's time to be a productive member of society.

long enough; it’s time for you to put your big bird pants on and go get a job, work for a living.  No more tax dollars, entitlements, or kickbacks.  You’re big enough to support yourself now, so get off your feathered hiney and go do it.  And take Snuffy with you – heavens knows he could use a haircut.

A note to Cole, the Moveon.org guy: Thank you so much for being so polite on and off camera.  Although I imagine we don’t agree on much of anything, I have great respect for you as an individual.

Michael Moore quoting Thomas Jefferson to justify his Marxism is a true highlight. Let’s just hope he’s right about unions being on the ropes. No doubt the low-to-no turnout at his astro-turfed Michigan rally earlier this month has the mega-millionaire feeling a little gloomy.

Join the discussion below…

—–

Starts around the 3:25 mark: And it’s a great opportunity that this idiot [WI Governor Scott] Walker has given us to remember our strength and to remember that we are the many and they are the few; and even though they have the wealth, we have something which is as important if not more important. And so I came just to say thank you.

“They” have all the wealth?

Brother, that’s priceless.

If you watch the whole interview you’ll hear that Susan Sarandon is “spreading her vast wealth” by donating pizzas to the cause.  Oh, and she likely paid her own airfare to get a little face time by interjecting herself in a big story in front of tens of thousands of people. What a sacrifice for an actor.  

Spread the wealth, Susan? You first, Oscar-winner. When you and yours are in a two bedroom apartment on the North side of Milwaukee in solidarity with the struggle, talk to us then.

—–

You see, this is how it works — at least how it works in my home state of Wisconsin:

1. Public Sector Unions give upwards of 90% of their political donations to help get Democrats elected.

2. With the help of all this public union money, Democrats get elected to local and state offices.

3. Guess who the Public Sector Unions then collective bargain with? That’s right, the very same people who they helped get elected. And guess what the elected Democrats give away in order to keep that union money coming into their campaign coffers? Taxpayer money! You want to retire at 55 with full pension and benefits? No problem. We’ll just raise the money by increasing the tax burden on the working class. Sure, that means private sector workers will have to work till their 70 due to the tax burden necessary to cover public worker pensions, but sometimes the “social justice” omelette requires a few broken eggs. 

4. And yet somehow, with all these “rights” and a salary and benefit package worth around $100k a year for nine months work, Milwaukee Public School teachers still manage to not educate their students.

Yeah, that’s what King gave his life for.

Public Union collective bargaining is about as corrupt a racket as there is, and if I thought AFTRA was capable of shame I’d suggest they be ashamed of themselves. It’s also worth noting that April 4th — the date we’re all supposed to stand together in solidarity for those who enjoy benefits the rest of us paying for them only dream of –  is a Monday, a workday (at least in the real world). Don’t these people ever speak truth to power on the weekends?  Or is that when they rest up after a long, hard week of taking it to the streets to fight on behalf of an aristocracy of public workers kept in place by the enforced government taxation of the working class?

Can’t blame the union-busting, multi-millionaire Moore for being unaware of these incidents. The same MSM that created a two week narrative out of a Tea Party N-word incident that never happened, has gone out of their way to almost completely ignore union thuggery, all of which I managed to compile below in just a half hour.

Don’t miss the last one — a livid Moore declaring, “This is war.” New tone, Michael? Anyway, please watch the below videos and correct your tweets. I don’t blame you for being unaware of your side’s use of violence, racism, lack of respect for law enforcement and over all intimidation tactics. I blame the media. **NSFW language**

Capuano to unions: You have ‘get a little bloody”: MyFoxBOSTON.com

—–

—–

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is what I love about New Media. As Obama’s Palace Guards in media and entertainment have circled the wagons to protect the President from exploding gas prices, as they’ve attempted to spin the Wisconsin union debate into a “rights” issue and Peter King’s hearings into the rise of Islamic radicalism into a “bigotry” issue — New Media has been doing our own thing, creating a parallel narrative going after NPR and dismantling Michael Moore’s hypocrisy and lies piece by glorious piece. 

In the meantime, we won in Wisconsin, Obama finally had to address gas prices in his news conference today, NPR is taking on more water than the Titanic, King had his hearings, and Michael Moore’s now in day two of a fact-based blistering.

Today that blistering comes courtesy of Mary Katharine Ham over at the Daily Caller who destroys Moore’s lies, anti-logic and fuzzy math:

This week, Michael Moore offered a simple and elegant solution to our debt problem.

Calling the assets of wealthy Americans a “national resource,” he suggested our problems would all be solved if we could just have access to all that money.

“What’s happened is that we’ve allowed the vast majority of that cash to be concentrated in the hands of just a few people, and they’re not circulating that cash. They’re sitting on the money,” Moore said. “That’s not theirs, that’s a national resource, that’s ours. We all have this… we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it.”

“America’s not broke,” he told a cheering crowd of pro-union protesters in Wisconsin.

So, we decided to try Moore’s solution. Laying aside the moral objections to the government simply appropriating the wealth of private citizens, could it work?

Facts, figures, logic, compassion… Shame on Mary Katharine for not playing fair.

Well, it looks as though Michael Moore’s had another not so good, very bad day.

After losing his collective (pun intended) mind last night on Rachel Maddow’s show over the all kinds of awesome drubbing Big Public Labor is taking across America, we here at Big Hollywood resurrected a 14 month-old ABC News story reporting on Michael Moore’s willingness to hire cheaper, non-union workers for his most recent film and deny them health care. From there, Governor Palin tweeted our story ’round the world, Michael Moore responded about as defensively as anyone could hope for (tee hee), and then later this evening the Governor and Sean Hannity reminded the world once again of Moore’s hypocrisy again on the Fox News Channel.

Michael Moore, last night you said “This is war!” and today you got your ass kicked because for once we agree on something.

Enjoy the video and then ask youself: What will I do to bring down the Institutional Left tomorrow?