A scab not even worth picking

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.amherstbulletin.com/story/id/80578/

By Bruce Watson
Published on February 15, 2008

IT'S a good thing the writer's strike ended because I wasn't having much luck as a scab.

Fact: a scab is a miserable lowlife, a guy who sells his own meager labor to take food from the mouths of hungry strikers. No, there's nothing worse, nothing scummier, no bottom feeder more loathsome than a scab.

That said, here was my plan. The writers who give meaning to our dreary lives with exciting TV shows and movies were on strike. Americans were desperate for a new Letterman joke, a new episode of "24," a fresh and insightful look at the world through the eyes of the "Desperate Housewives." The strike dragged on.

But wait! I'm a writer! I could just fly to Hollywood with a few ideas. Or fax them in and I wouldn't even have to cross a picket line.

Luckily, I used to watch the "Dick Van Dyke Show" so I know just how to write for TV. I gathered my kids and said, "Finally!" Finally, instead of scraping a lean existence out of writing the truth in the dried up media of books and newspapers, we were going to tap the money pipeline that is TV.

Aping Dick Van Dyke, I'd be Rob Petrie. Elena would be the sassy Sally Rogers. Nate would play the wisecracking Buddy and my wife would be the perky Mary Tyler Moore before the perkiness faded.

FULL story at link.