The recent writers’ strike - coupled with the even more recent actors’ strike - is very disturbing. We are all very well aware about the disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges that we’re facing, and this is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption with these strikes. Worst of all, these actors and writers are not at all being realistic in their demands for a middle class of writers and actors to exist.
These unions clearly don’t understand how the real world works, so it looks like I’m going to have to explain it to them from something actually called “a billionaire summer camp” that I commute back-and-forth from through a private jet. There simply is no such thing as a “middle class” anymore. There are people like you, who put off going to the doctor because you’re afraid of going broke and deep down understand you have no chance of ever retiring, and people like me, who barely do anything and get to flirt with the idea of running for president every other week simply because we’re bored with playing golf in Ibiza. The unions demanding to be paid a living wage is totally out of step with reality where people either get to live or get paid wages, not both.
This has always kind of been true of the entertainment industry, one of the more notable examples of a “superstar market,” where some receive outsized awards and others struggle to get by, but this is increasingly the way of the future. Why? Well, with the rise of streaming, and the impact of COVID, and the impact of streaming, and the rise of COVID and - oh who cares? It’s really because people like me want it to be this way. Show business is still a business, after all, and nothing is better for business than gobbling up smaller companies and laying people off and destroying the middle class all to boost a share price…better for us, at least.
Remember: though the industry may be changing so that fewer people can survive in it, let alone thrive in it, it could still happen to you. The great thing about our business, and America, and capitalism, is that you can make it happen on your own anytime! All you need is a little luck, a whole lot of effort, and you could defy the odds to rise from rags to riches. Hey, that sounds like a pretty good story! There’s a name for that sort of thing, right? What’s that called again, a “fairy tale,” right? Let’s have someone send that over to a generative neural network to write that up, and another AI to start on the CGI, then let’s plaster it over all the streaming platform and sue any little guy who tries to do anything remotely like it.
Time to wake up and face reality, actors and writers. And you can take it from me, the CEO of something called the most Magical Place on Earth.
Extra in the background: Never pull focus!! Your sign isn’t even placed where it should be. I kept waiting for that sign to bop Ms. Drescher in the back of the head. Way to pull focus away from her speech. /s
I read and liked Fran Drescher’s book years ago. She has been through a lot. She’s turned out to be a very strong and caring Pres.!
What to look for in Disney’s first earnings report since Iger’s return
The success of Bob Iger’s dramatic return to the helm at Disney will be measured this week as the entertainment company posts its earnings for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2022.Read more… https://qz.com/disney-earnings-report-q4-bob-iger-1850083051
“Japanese red maple in the cultivar group atropurpureum is a versatile, ornamental, hardy small tree or multi-stemmed shrub. The deeply lobed 5-7-9 leaves are red or reddish-purple in spring and again in fall. In between, color varies from remaining red all summer to sometimes fading slightly with maturity or summer heat and even turning green.”
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~ Dalai Lama
“The ginkgo tree is from the era of dinosaurs, but while the dinosaur has been extinguished, the modern ginkgo has not changed. After the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, the ginkgo was the first tree that came up. It’s amazing.” ~ Koji Nakanishi
You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you. ~ Brian Tracy
