The Daily Parker

Cassie did not understand why she could not try my Indian food last night:

And somehow, with the rudimentary editing controls on my phone, I accidentally turned her into an Andrew Wyeth painting. Huh.

The Screen Actors Guild/AFTRA voted to strike today, halting most TV and film production worldwide (and even ending the Oppenheimer red carpet). The Times explains:

About 160,000 television and movie actors are going on strike at midnight, joining screenwriters who walked off the job in May and setting off Hollywood’s first industrywide shutdown in 63 years.

The leaders of the union, SAG-AFTRA, approved a strike on Thursday, hours after contract talks with a group of studios broke down. Actors will be on the picket line starting on Friday.

“What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor,” said Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA’s president. “When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors who make the machine run, we have a problem.”

While some actors do get $15 million for a single movie, most just do their jobs and hope they get a fair wage. They also hope that the studios will pay them when their work gets re-run, which still happens on network television but not, it turns out, on streaming services:

In December, 2020, in the depths of pandemic winter, the actress Kimiko Glenn got a foreign-royalty statement in the mail from the screen actors’ union, sag-aftra. Glenn is best known for playing the motormouthed, idealistic inmate Brook Soso on the women’s-prison series “Orange Is the New Black,” which ran from 2013 to 2019, on Netflix. The orchid-pink paper listed episodes of the show that she’d appeared on (“A Whole Other Hole,” “Trust No Bitch”) alongside tiny amounts of income (four cents, two cents) culled from overseas levies—a thin slice of pie from the show that had thrust her to prominence. “I was, like, Oh, my God, it’s just so sad,” Glenn recalled. With many television and movie sets shuttered, she was supporting herself with voice-over jobs, and she’d been messing around with TikTok. She posted a video in which she scans the statement—“I’m about to be so riiich!”—then reaches the grand total of twenty-seven dollars and thirty cents and shrieks, “WHAT?”

When “Orange” premièred, ten years ago this week, it broke ground in multiple ways. ... A decade on, however, some of the cast feel disillusioned about how they were compensated, both during the original run and in the years since. Television actors have traditionally had a base of income from residuals, which come from reruns and other forms of reuse of the shows in which they’ve appeared. At the highest end, residuals can yield a fortune; reportedly, the cast of “Friends” has each made tens of millions of dollars from syndication. But streaming has scrambled that model, endangering the ability of working actors to make a living.

Netflix didn’t share its viewership numbers (and still mostly doesn’t), making it harder for the actors to negotiate higher salaries. But the “Orange” cast could tell that the show was a megahit from their overnight fame.

Despite the Beatlemania-like fame, many cast members had to keep their day jobs for multiple seasons. They were waiting tables, bartending. DeLaria continued doing live gigs to keep up with her rent.

We saw this with video recordings and cable. We'll see it with the next technology that comes along. Because as in all fields, the owners of the businesses want to make money, and if they can get labor (or anything else considered "supply") cheaper, they do.

Pity the Emmys won't have a script this year. Or actors. Or, possibly, a telecast.

The first day of a sprint is the best day to consolidate three interfaces with three others, touching every part of the application that uses data. So right now, I am watching most of my unit tests pass and hoping I will figure out why the ones that failed did so before I leave today.

While the unit tests run, I have some stuff to keep me from getting too bored:

• The XPOTUS keeps confirming every theory about his behavior, this time that he only wants to run in 2024 to postpone the consequences of actions.
• Even those of us who support Ukraine in kicking the Russian invaders out of its sovereign territory think they simply can't join NATO right now.
• Julia Ioffe wonders why the fuck several retired government officials met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, less because she thinks they're old white men who have never set foot in Russia, and more because Lavrov hasn't got the power to negotiate a discount at Macy's. (In fairness, she published her post hours before one of them, Richard Haass, went on NPR this morning to hawk his new book.)
• Media strategist Julia Alexander scratches her head about the CBS-ification of Prime Video.
• Meanwhile, the streamers and studios have decided to let the writers go broke before resuming talks with them in the fall, regardless of what the actors do.
• Pro Publica took a second look at the hypothesis that Covid-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and now they're not so sure it's correct.

Finally, the 2023 Emmy nominations came out this morning. I need to watch The White Lotus and Succession before HBO hides them.

Update: 2 out of 430 tests have failed (so far) because of authentication timeouts with Microsoft Key Vault. That happens on my slow-as-molasses laptop more often than I like.

The United States has had an explosion of craft brewing in the past 15 years, thanks to relaxed regulations and a nearly-universal revulsion among serious beer drinkers for the mass-produced swill from the InBev/MillerCoors duopoly. One could argue, however, that the first true craft beer in the US came from San Francisco in 1896. Sadly, the 127-year-old Anchor Brewing Co. announced this week that it would cease operations and liquidate this summer:

In a press release, Anchor Brewing spokesperson Sam Singer said that economic pressures made business "no longer sustainable," and that employees were given their 60-day notice Wednesday. In June, Anchor Brewing limited distribution to California and axed one of its most popular beers.

“The inflationary impact of product costs in San Francisco is one factor,” Singer told SFGATE at the time. “Couple that with a highly competitive craft beer market and a historically costly steam brewing technique. [They’ve] probably been mulling over this decision for a year. It’s not something they take lightly.”

The Wednesday press release stated that the company plans to "provide transition support and separation packages" to outgoing employees, and that the Anchor Public Taps taproom on De Haro Street will remain open temporarily to sell remaining inventory. Brewing has ceased, but the brewery says it will continue to package and distribute beer on hand through the end of July.

Anchor Brewing also said Wednesday that attempts over the past year to find a buyer were unsuccessful, but one could emerge during the liquidation process.

When I first started drinking beer—believe it or not, I waited until I turned 21—I "trained" on the cheap, easily available Miller Genuine Draft, the thought of which now makes me gag. Fortunately, one of my uncles cured me of that by handing me an Anchor Steam Beer, showing me the difference between mass-produced pig urine and an actual, full-bodied beer. But still, until Goose Island started gaining ground in the late 1990s, Anchor Steam and Sam Adams Lager were the only choices for good, craft beer.

I'm sorry to see Anchor Brewing die. I haven't had an Anchor Steam in a long time, as they stopped distributing to the Midwest years ago, and my palate shifted away from lagers over the years. But if any of my California readers could do me a solid by snagging a six-pack of Anchor Steam anywhere they can find it, I'd owe you.

"Sorry Tracy, but your reasons for dessert are not fun for me:"

I'm in my downtown office today, with its floor-to-ceiling window that one could only open with a sledgehammer. The weather right now makes that approach pretty tempting. However, as that would be a career-limiting move, I'm trying to get as much done as possible to leave downtown on the 4:32 train instead of the 5:32. I can read these tomorrow in my home office, with the window open and the roofers on the farthest part of my complex from it:

• Judges occasionally get facts wrong, but they really hate being corrected, and it affects everyone.
• Wisconsin governor Tony Evers (D) used his line-item veto on a Republican-drafted education bill to supplant the legislature's goals with the general public's.
• North America's car-dependent culture disproportionately requires people least able to afford cars to have them.
• Speaking of car culture, Chicago is experiencing its worst air pollution in 11 years this summer.,
• E-bikes are fun and useful transport, but they also explode sometimes.
• In addition to breaking CNN and HBO, David Zaslav has now corrupted GQ.

Finally, does day drinking cause more harm than drinking at night? (Asking for a friend.)

Corporate IT has decreed that all passwords must conform to the following rules:
https://neal.fun/password-game/

Keep safe out there!

I've got tickets to see Straight No Chaser with some chorus friends at Ravinia Park tonight—on the lawn. Unfortunately, for the last 8 hours or so, our weather radar has looked like this:

I haven't got nearly as much disappointment as the folks sitting in Grant Park right now waiting for a NASCAR race that will never happen in this epic rainfall. (I think Mother Nature is trying to tell NASCAR something. Or at least trying to tell Chicago NASCAR fans something. Hard to tell.)

While I'm waiting to see if it will actually stop raining before my train leaves at 5:49pm, I have this to read:

• New York Magazine tries to understand why Robert F Kennedy, Jr, thinks he should run for president.
• The New Yorker has a long look at the Titan submersible, "an accident waiting to happen."
• National Geographic reminds you not to drink right before you go to bed.
• The Atlantic's Lora Kelly explains why air travel has gotten a lot worse this year.
• The Guardian reminds everyone what happens to people who humiliate Vladimir Putin.

I am happy the roofers finished my side of my housing development already. The people across the courtyard have discovered the temporary waterproofing was a bit more temporary than the roofers intended.

Welcome to stop #83 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Silver Harbor Brewing, 721 Pleasant St., St Joseph, Mich.
Train line: Amtrak, St Joseph
Time from Chicago: 103 minutes
Distance from station: 500 m

Stopping by the best brewery in St Joseph, Mich., does not mean I'm going to expand the Brews and Choos Project to include every brewery, distillery, cidery, and winery accessible by train from Chicago, no matter how far away, but it's a tempting prospect. No, there's still a 2-hour time limit on the trip. But I am spending more time in Southwest Michigan lately, and probably taking the train up there occasionally, so why not try some beer?

My friends from the area told me that Silver Harbor Brewing was the best brewery in the city, so when I visited them yesterday, we stopped in. I had the brisket flatbread (excellent) and a flight of 5x 120 mL pours.

I started with the Tourist Trap American lager (5.1%, 18 IBU), a great example of the style with some maltiness and a crisp finish. The Hops, Sweat, and Tears AIPA (6.8%, 66 IBU) gave me a well-balanced bitterness, with some pine and a hint of citrus. The Pick Me, I'm Hazy IPA (7%, 55 IBU) burst out with fruit and Citra hops and finished perfectly. The Rye-Donkulus Baltic Porter (9%, 29 IBU) finished out the tasting with my meal; my first note is "oh that's tasty" and "long sweet finish, great complexity." I saved the Golden Ticket Imperial Chocolate Stout (9.5%, 62 IBU) for dessert, and got rewarded with cascading complex dark chocolate, molasses, and vanilla. Then we took the 7-year-old to play Connect-Four (she almost won) and walked around for half an hour so I could metabolize the stout.

And of course, every server passing our patio table stopped to pat Cassie.

Important note, though: while you only have to walk 500 meters from the St Joseph Amtrak station to the brewery, through a cute, summer-resort downtown, Amtrak clearly believes people only take day trips from St Joseph to Chicago. The Pere Marquette departs Chicago daily at 6:30 pm Central, then runs non-stop to St Joseph by 9:13 pm Eastern. The return trip leaves St Joseph at 8:09 am Eastern and arrives in Chicago at 9:08 am Central. Great, it's closer to Chicago than Kenosha or Elburn, but Christ on a cracker, Amtrak, could you run a second train favoring Chicago-to-Michigan day trips?

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Outside only
Televisions? Yes, avoidable
Serves food? Full menu
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

Here is the state of things as we go into the second half of 2023:

• The government-owned but independently-edited newspaper Wiener Zeitung published its last daily paper issue today after being in continuous publication since 8 August 1703. Today's headline: "320 years, 12 presidents, 10 emperors, 2 republics, 1 newspaper."
• Paula Froelich blames Harry Windsor's and Megan Markle's declining popularity on a simple truth: "Not just because they were revealed as lazy, entitled dilettantes, but because they inadvertently showed themselves for who they really are: snobs. And Americans really, really don’t like snobs."
• Starting tomorrow, Amtrak can take you from Chicago to St Louis (480 km) in 4:45, at speeds up to (gasp!) 175 km/h. Still not really a high-speed train but at least it's a 30-minute and 50 km/h improvement since 2010. (A source at Amtrak told me the problem is simple: grade crossings. They can't go 225 km/h over a grade crossing because, in a crash, F=ma, and a would be very high.)
• The Federal Trade Commission will start fining websites up to $10,000 for each fake review it publishes. "No-gos include reviews that misrepresent someone’s experience with a product and that claim to be written by someone who doesn’t exist. Reviews also can’t be written by insiders like company employees without clear disclosures."
• A humorous thought problem involving how many pews an 80-year-old church can have explains the idiocy behind parking minimums.
• Chicago bike share Divvy turned 10 on Wednesday. You can now get one in any of Chicago's 50 wards, plus a few suburbs.
• Actor Alan Arkin, one of my personal favorites for his deadpan hilarity, died yesterday at age 89.

And finally, the Chicago Tribune's food critic Nick Kindelsperger tried 21 Chicago hot dogs so you don't have to to find the best in the city.