Walking the Line

For those of you who do not live in LA and may not know, there is a strike going on here with the Writer's Guild of America. My walk to and from work entails that I walk past one of the studios, the Sunset Gower studios. Last week, when the picketing of the writers began, I walked by two lines of picketers, one on Sunset and the other on Gower street. After walking home from work for a week, I feel very attached to these writers.

There are two crowds: the first, the Sunset Blvd crowd, is nice but distant, and doesn't really talk very much, unless talking to each other about their scripts or other writing techniques. Since they are carrying "honk for support" signs, lots of people are honking their horns when they pass by in their cars.

Now the Gower street peeps are definetely very fun to walk by. The first day of the strike, they said they would let me pass if I walked the line with them. So I walked around in a circle with them a few times. "Aren't you guys dizzy?" I asked. They informed me that they have been alternating directions for sanity's sake, and then asked me what I do. I told them that I work on an outreach team assisting the homeless, and that I had been in Beverly Hills that day helping the homeless there. I'm not really sure what they thought of that.

The Gower street peeps are increasingly creative; the next day I walked by they were playing a game of trivial pursuit, and on Thursday they had brought out the gloves and mits and were playing a game of catch with one another. Someone had also brought some drums and was drumming away, reminding me of marching band drum cadences.

Now, I hear that the striking could go on until March. And while I hope that for the sake of these poor writers and their families, this does not happen. But they are very fun to pass by on my walk home from work. I'm hoping to make friends with some of them, as they seem very down to eart.