Scab

Dear American Media Conglomerates:

I generally sympathize with the working man, the Americans like myself who perform the tedious, backbreaking labor necessary to keep our great nation supplied with the coal, the industrial machinery, or the non-English speaking domestic help it needs to thrive. I'm disturbed when greedy corporations stepping on these good Christian folk, and thankful for the unions supporting our working-class as they struggle to put food on their dinner tables. But with your screenwriters on strike, and broadcasters threatening to fill the airwaves with absurd new reality show mash-ups like Are You Smarter than a Singing Midget Who Loves New York? I feel like now is a good time to compromise a few principles, step across the Writers' Guild picket line, and offer up my writing talent — just to keep television running smoothly, of course.

And also because I'd fucking kill for the job these thankless little sell-out shits aren't doing. I would write for TV shows or movies gratis... I would write for the vast wasteland detritus — Zoey 101 or The Jimmy Kimmel Show or that super-sterile original programming on the ABC Family Channel — just to see my name in the credits and hear something resembling my words out of the actors' mouths. I would pay Viacom, Disney, Warner Brothers or NBC Universal to write for them. FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, ARE YOU LISTENING, STUDIOS!!!???

Not that I'm looking to screw anybody, but it's like watching professional beer tasters or racecar drivers complain about their jobs, but even more oblivious to the irony. I'd just love to watch some NBC exec march up to Tina Fey and throw her 30 Rock words back in her face, "You got into this business because you're funny, and you're weird, and you're socially retarded. And you also got into it because it pays well," and yes, I'd miss 30 Rock but the idea of Tina Fey working some shitty normal job like the rest of us suckers, like Tina Fey as a claims adjuster or Jon Stewart painting dotted lines down the freeway, is just so comically absurd — somebody ought to write it into a Saturday Night Live sketch, if the writers were actually working.

So I'll be stopping by Rockefeller Center and Viacom's headquarters in Times Square tomorrow, pushing aside the picket lines and that giant inflatable rat (I'll stick a few nails in the damn thing if that makes my proposal any more appealing), and pitching my ideas about a new comedy where a fireman and a pyromaniac share an apartment and date women who are way out of their league. Oh, oh, and I've got this one about obscenely rich, spoiled teenagers in Montana who wear skimpy clothes and have sex with each other. And one about four professional women who run their own shipbuilding yard....

Looking forward to scabbing for you!

Thanks,

Jay Harris