Counter-Programming
Nick Counter was the lead-negotiator and the main face of evil for the “Producers’” side (the AMPTP) during the 2007-2008 Writers Guild strike. It’s really painful to go back and watch the videos I made and read the stuff I wrote during the strike. It was a heinous 100 days filled with brief moments of togetherness and fun, but mostly colored by an overarching sense of frustration, impotence, and deep anger.
It feels kind of icky to be talking ill of the freshly dead and I have no doubt in my mind that there is much more to the story than I’ve been told (mostly by my union) and that the cat was probably a decent enough fellow and good at his job. But I similarly have little doubt in my mind that the fucker negotiated in bad faith and engaged in a (failed) attempt to severely weaken if not bust the unions in this town. Hollywood is not the auto or steel industries. The main commerce of this town is relationships. It is how anything resembling art occasionally slips through the numbing, dumbing process of development and production. It can’t be stressed enough: This town runs primarily on relationships. And the hardline tactics taken by the AMPTP during the 2007-2008 negotiations genuinely threatened to ruin many of those relationships forever. And thus, the actions taken by one half of those relationships not only, in the end, threatened to undermine the union, but torpedo the whole fucking industry. In other words, they were seemingly willing to destroy the entire town in order to save a few bucks for the light bulb and beverage companies who owned them. (Side note: the main problem with the fact that the money people aren’t movie people anymore can be seen in the gigantic nightmare decision Universal/NBC made to put Jay Leno at 10pm five nights a week. Saving money is missing the point when it comes to entertainment. With conglomerates, What Looks Good On The Books This Quarter becomes the main concern. But, as was obvious to everyone but that dillhole Jeff Zucker, you can’t build franchise hits AND show short-term savings.)
Look, of course, Nick Counter was put up by the AMPTP to be their public grumpy hateful face specifically for that purpose: to attempt to Not-Me their side of things. To preserve those relationships for when the smoke cleared. But allowing oneself to do someone else’s dirty work for cash does not remove culpability. Nick Counter allowed himself to be the AMPTP’s thug. And the fact that his death is eliciting so many more “good riddances” than tears is ultimately on his head. He chose to leave this legacy. Grave-dancing choreographed by Nick Counter.
Or, as I posted in 2007 in a juvenile moment:
I want to punch Nick Counter in his soul. I want to buy Nick Counter a puppy and then just when he bonds with it, take it back. I want to kneel down behind Nick Counter and have someone push him backwards. I want to force Nick Counter to hold a giant Subway Sandwiches sign on the corner of Franklin and Highland. I want to spraypaint Nick Counter’s glasses black, but just one of the lenses so he gets a terrible headache. I want to take Nick Counter out for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, talk on my cell phone the whole time, then stiff him with the check. I want to force Nick Counter to work at the Arclight doing those really awkward introductions to movies. I want to convince Nick Counter to come wakeboard riding, tow him out into the middle of the water, then unhook the board and ride off, flipping him the double bird as extra burnage. I want to tell Nick Counter he won a big screen TV but when he comes to pick it up, arrest him for outstanding warrants. I want to sign Nick Counter up for the Zac Efron fan club under the name Tiffany Amber-Peeson. I want to travel back to 1930 and hire hookers to pretend to fall in love with and seduce the college-aged Nick Counter so he wouldn’t grow up with so much rage in his heart. I want to sign Nick Counter up for 25 subscriptions to Rolling Stone magazine, which would be very annoying because Nick Counter hates reading about Global Warming and Fall Out Boy. I want to force Nick Counter to ride from Los Angeles to Florida on a Greyhound bus, seated right next to the bathroom. I want to stab Nick Counter in the heart with a pencil dipped in sadness. I want to beat Nick Counter at Scrabble using only vowels. I want to throw Nick Counter into a well and then lower down a TV tuned to CNN, so he can witness how no one gives a shit that he’s stuck in a well.
