1) while driving to roscoe's chicken and waffles with some friends this morning, i passed a cast member of madtv (i won't say who). i honked my horn and rolled down my window, and they came over and gave me a big hug for supporting the strike. i was really touched that they cared, it was pretty reassuring.

10 minutes into lunch i get a call from my (old) boss Scott Sites. here's the entire transcript:

"Hey Asterios, it's Scott."

"Scott! How are you, man?"

"Good, did I catch you at a bad time?"

"No, I'm just at Roscoes Chicken & Waffles."

"(He laughs). Well, I'm just calling to officially tell you that you are no longer welcome back at MadTV."

"That's ok, I expected that."

"Yeah. It's just that you really hurt a lot of people's feelings around here, you really disappointed us with your behavior. One thing I don't think you understand is that the writers have already been paid for their work. The cast hasn't. So if they don't get to perform in these shows, they don't get paid and that's really unfair."

"Well, I have to say I disagree for two reasons. One, I just passed a cast member of MADtv not ten minutes ago and they were incredibly supportive for, in their own words, me having the "balls" to strike."

"I can't see that happening at all."

"Well, I swear to god it just did. And the second thing..."

"Ok, well I need to go."

"The second thing..."

"I'm, I'm going now."

"The second thing..."

"It was ni-"

"No, you're gonna hear me out. You're calling me from your cell phone during lunch on a saturday. Plus, you owe me for that Toby thing. So you're gonna listen to this."

(Pause)

"All right, go ahead."

"The second thing is, it's incredibly selfish of you guys to keep shooting. The longer you shoot, the more time it'll take the networks to feel the effects of the strike. Our cast and crew may be getting paid but the crews on SNL, Leno and Conan aren't, and by prolonging the strike we're keeping them out of work longer."

"All this material we're shooting was written before the strike, we're doing nothing illegal."

"No, it's not illegal, it's just shitty. But hey, this isn't personal, you're gonna keep on trying to shoot and I'm going to keep doing what I'm gonna do."

"After this week we're out of scripts anyway."

"No, that's untrue and you know it. The writers turn out 30 sketches a week at the table read, 7 of which make it into the show. A lot of those remaining 23 sketches are non-topical character scenes, you could keep shooting pretty much forever."

"I don't know if that's true."

"You know it is, c'mon."

"Ok, well thanks, I wish you the best of luck."

"Take care."

And that was it. Then I had my first meal at Roscoe's, and it was pretty good.

2) here's a link to a photo and blurb about me at the FOX super-strike off Yahoo! News. i called my aunt who's the head of human resources for AP East, and she's going to send a copy to my grandma.

3) my grandma, who by the way, is a teamster. i just found that out today.

i always knew she was in a union from her old watchmaking job, but my grandma's a teamster? holy shit. and i was afraid she wasn't gonna understand why i was fired. i talked to her today and she's like, "my grandson's a little agitator, isn't he?" and i'm like, "well, i dunno, i guess..." then i quickly tried to change the subject. i kinda don't want her to worry =)

4) i got a new job (well actually, my old job at Shoot First Inc). my old boss john ennis (who directed the upcoming UCB movie) called me and was like, "can you do some assistant editing? digitizing/logging footage?" i was like, "holy shit, yes, i really need that cash right now."

he also said, "do you wanna work nights so you can continue to picket?"

"yes. oh wow, that'd be awesome."

"no problem. see you tonight."

and that's the end of my unemployment chapter. thank christ for john ennis. btw, i checked with someone who's pretty well connected to the WGA, and since it's an independent self-financed political documentary i'm not breaking any rules. guilt free work? finally.

5) i just saw fred claus this afternoon. i was expecting it to be terrible, but not completely boring. poor show, fred claus.

6) i will be striking monday at hollywood center studios, unless there's another super-strike (which i heard a rumor about). anyway, if you wanna strike with me monday, message or call me and i'll tell you what the scoop is.