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Live From New York

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It is the union bosses from the working class sector who are truly deluding themselves, though. Danny Glover might get up and, after railing on a bit about the "most evil war in Iraq" and "incarcerated women," suggest that writers will one day return today's favor by picketing with hotel workers tomorrow. It's just not going to happen.

Nevertheless, the true revolutionaries attempted to seize the moment, hawking copies of 1917: Journal of the International Bolshevik Tendency and World Socialist flyers pooh-poohing "multi-millionaire 'populist'" John Edwards and the Democratic Party. "The economic needs of writers, as well as their artistic and creative aspirations -- and the elevation of the cultural level of the population as a whole -- are incompatible with the existing economic and political system, of which the Democratic Party is an essential part," it read in part.

I bought a copy and asked the man if he really thought this was fertile recruiting ground for a revolution of the proletariat.

"Well, it's not an entirely bad crowd," he answered, stroking a bare chin as if an invisible goatee were there. "They're workers in the struggle. Most of us understand, probably better than they do, though, that they're not the most oppressed sector of the work force. But, you know, it's a struggle nonetheless and one the public actually hears about."

As if on cue, actor and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists Local President Holter Graham came to the microphone. He recognized, he said, that producers and media conglomerates put up the big cash necessary to get films and television programs going.

"But the people in WGA bleed to write the scripts," Graham said, as a homeless-looking man a few feet away pounded away at invisible bongos. "The actors in SAG and AFTRA bleed to play their roles. The people who support this city every day bleed to make it the cultural capital that it is."

I looked down, but there was no blood on the pavement of Washington Square Park, not on this day anyway. With no writing going on, though, there must be a lot fewer paper cuts.

topics:
Television, Movies, Iraq, Oil