Posts by Joe Wylie
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I am lost for words -
Pronounced doo-shay, with the stress on the last syllable.
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Seven tons of almonds eh.
I have a friend who's lived for years in a small street in Bondi Junction, where the street trees are well-established macadamias. They crop heavily, but outsiders keep an eye on them, and at the crucial time they do a dawn sweep with all the family on a big truck, and strip the whole street clean.
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Sorry Joe - didn't mean to offend. But your generalisation seemed to require a response. Just in case you think I also generalised I don't think all union workers are perfect - but most try to practice an 'organising' model that focuses on growing and supporting the collective rather than endlessly and uselessly fronting the boss over individual disputes. And, again, I apologise if you already knew that.
Sorry to have overgeneralised Jan. My experience of these things is now pretty much historical, so I'll butt out. Appreciate your comments, they've always been made in a spirit of goodwill, right back to verbwrangle.
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Bogans!
. . . hairy-arsed Bogans.
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Unions are no longer compulsory, they do not give orders and they are not insurance companies. They are collections of working people, who, of course, have intimate experience of their own industries.
Please Jan, I understand the first part, there's really no need to patronise. I've been a union delegate, and earned the ire of management for my actions. I've had reason to be grateful for the help unions have provided, but I've also been bitterly disappointed at the lack of interest and condescending arrogance of people from whom I'd expected better.
It simple hasn't been my experience that union professionals invariably have an 'intimate' knowledge of the conditions in which their members work. I've had to deal with this more than once, probably because I've worked in an area where there was a degree of competition between rival unions to recruit membership outside of their traditional turf. As a lifelong believer in the importance of imagination in all walks of life, I only wish that such qualities were more widely rewarded in the ranks of union professionals.
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. . . if abandonment or disparagement of collective solutions prevails we are headed to becoming ‘individual contractors’ in an existential as well as employment sense. Our relationship with and fair treatment of others helps define us and make life more fulfilling and bearable.
While I don't have any argument with those sentiments, you seem to imply that any retreat from collectivism is driven only by a form of I'm-all-right-Jack self-interest. IMHE much of the blame lies with an out of touch and overly professionalised union elite, with no workplace experience of the realities faced by those they purport to represent. There's plenty of that kind of condescension towards the lesser mortals of 'the workforce' on display over at The Standard.
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I recall first seeing NZ Equity President Jennifer Ward-Lealand in a Renee play–“Pass it on” many years ago, plot concerned the 1951 waterfront lockout and Jennifer may have absorbed some of the values therein.
Forgive me if I've misread that as coming across as a touch patronising, but I'd have thought that Ward-Lealand's 'values' would be informed by a professional's understanding of the realities of the industry whose members she represents, rather than any message she may have absorbed from a production that she had an active part as an artist in interpreting.
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Yes, but they might value it nonetheless.
When the giggling and farting of the rats in the ceiling starts to get on your nerves you can always bring up your entry in the IMDb.
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Actors, writers - creative workers - have always been seen as easy targets - and have always been fed scary stories about what will happen if they don't accept slave wages. I remember clearly being offered wonderful opportunities to work for a pittance because of all the well-paid work I would be sure to pick up afterwards.
The last Australian show that I worked on was the pilot episodes for Mr. Bean: The Animated Series back in 2002. Only when everyone had knocked themselves out establishing the production method of the show was it revealed that the intention all along had been to eventually produce in Hungary. While direction was done from London it was very hands-on, with Rowan Atkinson taking a very detailed interest in how his character was realised. Most scenes were painstakingly re-animated until the desired look and feel was achieved.*
Once the tooling-up phase was done, mostly at a fixed contractual fee, the pilot episodes were used as a model for the non-English speaking team who produced the bulk of the series. Most of those involved were industry veterans, and ruefully admitted that it wasn't the first time they'd been in that kind of situation. The same studio had produced the initial clip for Gorillaz a while earlier, only to see the subsequent spots go to a European studio that profited from their painstaking development work.
*Craftspeople can be real suckers for that kind of thing. Even if they're not paid for reshoots, they still fancy that their efforts are somehow being appreciated. -
With the right chemical mixture
All things are possible