"Drummergate"
Posted by Carol Starr Schneider on Dec 17th, 2007
The Writers Strike has raised many important questions that have hit me on a personal level and taken up valuable real estate in my brain. Here's a sampling of upscale property located in the neighborhood of my frontal lobe:
Could there be anything more exhilarating than being the focus of a heated dispute? Why stand around acting like a celery stalk, when you can attract all kinds of unwanted attention?
For an inherently shy gal like me, the answers don't come easily. For others, it's a slam dunk of "Bring it on!"
Now if you happen to be the type who seeks the limelight — if causing an incident or two turns you on — then please, by all means, come join me on the picket line next time you're in Studio City and do a little instigating.
Just look for the short gal in the red T-shirt; the one hiding her pricey head of hair beneath a WGA baseball cap for the sole reason that every day on the picket line qualifies as a full-fledged hair disaster.
Drop by and I'll introduce you to a few folks who like to stir up trouble. You can even take my place in line. Turns out, troublemaking isn't my thing. It's been that way pretty much since birth, when a team of doctors ran out and delivered me in the parking lot of County General (long story), only to discover the word SORRY spelled out in chicken pox on my forehead.
Seconds old, I was already apologizing for the fuss. A newbie on the planet, I felt badly about the inconvenience and all the traffic laws my father had to break to get my poor mother to the hospital in time. Despite his best efforts, she still wound up redefining the concept of Natural Childbirth in the back seat of his Oldsmobile.
It's no surprise that when I found myself in the middle of an exciting altercation, rather than rejoice in the hullabaloo, I cringed, bit my lip and stared at the pavement in dismay.
The whole brouhaha unfolded in a Fellini-esque manner worthy of a low-budget independent film, or at the very least, a YouTube entry. There I was, banging on a child-size conga drum, adding some rhythmic oomph to our chanting, when a big guy exited a small building, stomped across the street and came right up to me. He seemed overly irked.
"I work at the sound studio over there. I need you to STOP DRUMMING. My microphone is picking it up."
My first instinct was to say, "Sure, no problem." He only wanted me to stop for an hour and a half so he could get his job done. It seemed obvious (at least to me) that he wasn't some union-busting ogre in violation of strike regulations.
Oh, but my fellow chanters saw it differently. As I shifted from side to side, uncomfortably, they went all vigilante on this dude.
"She has every right to play the drum! This is a legal picket. You can't tell her to stop."
This might have been a fun time for me to chime in, "Yeah, that's right, buddy! Attica! Attica!" Instead, I looked harder at the ground. The confrontation continued.
"What if she plays the drum five minutes on, five minutes off, so you can finish your work? How would that be?"
"Uh, that would suck," said the sound mixer guy. "Can't she just stop for a while?"
Since I had clearly lost my ability to speak, someone hollered on my behalf, "No, she can't!"
Then Mr. Sound threatened to call the WGA or the police or the National Guard. I forget which.
"Go ahead!" everyone else chanted.
Ultimately, the Gate Captain advised via cell phone that I stop drumming (good idea!) and the problem went away. We chanted, drumlessly, until a new picketer arrived, grabbed the conga and reignited the fight with gusto.
"Wait, you can't play the drum," I told him. "We just agreed not to play till noon."
"What the - - - -?! That's not cool, man! Who the - - - - said that?"
Before we could stop him, the mysterious rebel none of us had seen before stormed over to the sound studio like a lunatic and elevated the situation into the legend now known as Drummergate. Even though I never opened my mouth in self-defense, I'm at the center of this conga-versy. And the scary part is — I kind of like it.
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