In a statement to The Post, a spokesperson for NBCUniversal claimed the tree work is simply an annual ritual at this time of year. “We understand that the safety tree trimming of the Ficus trees we did on Barham Blvd. has created unintended challenges for demonstrators, that was not our intention. In partnership with licensed arborists, we have pruned these trees annually at this time of year to ensure that the canopies are light ahead of the high wind season,” they wrote. “We support the WGA and SAG’s right to demonstrate and are working to provide some shade coverage. We continue to openly communicate with the labor leaders on-site to work together during this time.”
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If those trees were pollarded annually, the cut areas would NOT look like that. There would be big knobs of old growth at the trimming sites. Not seeing any of that here. The way those trees were topped (not pollarded, which is a very careful process that has to begin when the tree is immature) is excellent way to kill them due to loss of hydration, open sites to infection and parasitism during the best time of year for both, lack of nutrition due to so little greenery and new budding growth being left, sunburn and other exposure damage, and a myriad of other possibilities. Plus, if they were topped annually, they would not have the lovely drooping branches seen in the other picture but would have tons of vertical suckers instead.
This is what an annually pollarded mature tree should look like:
If this was done by the city, the public works arborists should be protesting in front of city hall and screaming their heads off right now. I’m not hearing about that, so… Tree law!
The Studios: *speak*
Botanists and other Tree Experts:
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Update and confirmation of Imminent Tree Law:
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He mentions later in the thread that not only do they not trim the trees annually, they’re trimmed at best once every 18 years. Supposed to be every five, and only in dormancy, which even my layman’s ass knows about tree trimming.
And yes, Universal can probably eat the fine. But it’s gonna be a whopper even if the trees survive (which is as mentioned kinda unlikely), California is a triple damage state for tree law, and it may increase dramatically if there were nesting birds in the trees.
All this to be a Captain Planet filler villain to some writers. And yes, it’s currently just the writers officially picketing there; SAG-AFTRA recommended against it for petty bullshit like this and the suddenly necessary sidewalk construction.
I asked my dad— a retired arborist—about TREE LAW and he just kinda blinked and said (i paraphrase because Dad Tangents, amirite?):
“Worst and best case I ever saw was a guy who was caught in the act of cutting down a C&C tree by two Department of Urban Forestry supervisors while they were randomly driving around on a Saturday. Not only did he have to deal with the cops showing up and months of paperwork and bureaucracy, but he also had to pay the fines AND cover the cost of the tree removal + stumping + buying a new tree + planting the new tree + wages for the regular crew plus the extra workers they needed to get the jobs done. That tree ended up costing him upwards of $35K, and that was over 20 years ago.”
So yeah, respect Tree Law or pay out the bootyhole.
Bruce: The key to these W.E. presentations is starting with an attention grabber Tim: Alright, cool Tim: “So I’m sitting there, barbecue sauce on my tiddies-” Bruce: No-
Tim, who’s been awake playing Pokémon for 44 hours: I’m trying to get this god lizard to level up cos I need her at level 77 for the champion but if I don’t get her to that it’s just like-..what is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more- ya know?
AI isn’t a threat to creative professions because it can actually make passable art that humans enjoy (it can’t). It’s a threat because in a capitalist system, employers would do literally anything to not have to pay humans living wages (or any wages, let’s be real).
We’ve been in a productivity boom for the past 60 years, but the one area where production cannot become more efficient is the arts. It takes the same amount of time to write a novel or compose a symphony now as it did a hundred years ago. That’s just the creative process.
AI represents a shortcut to making art that has had executives salivating since LLMs and AI art generators hit the internet. It means more content faster with the benefit of not having to provide salaries, sick days, parental leave, time off, or healthcare. It means not having to deal with unions and labour laws. It means cutting humans out of the most fundamentally human activity we do – making art.
All those headlines and clickbait articles about AI annihilating the human race are a hyperbolic distraction from the actual problem we may soon be facing where people won’t have the possibility of supporting themselves making art (not that it’s particularly easy to do as it stands).
If making art becomes a luxury only for the affluent, we will stop hearing the voices, stories, and perspectives of marginalized people. And our cultural tapestry will stop being so vibrant, diverse, and vital.
how long are radio stations gonna say “80s, 90s, and today!” We’ve entered the third decade of “today”
I work at an oldies station. Every six months we sit down look around the table and someone goes “Y'know, we could start adding ‘90s to the mix. It’s within our format.” We all nod and no one plays anything produced after 1989 because time stopped here sometime around 2003, and no one wants to be the one responsible for whatever consequences come from breaking that fragile illusion.
not to be boring, but I’m boring
There’s a reason for that, and it’s Napster and iTunes. People could suddenly buy and listen to whatever music they wanted to, whenever they wanted to. Starting around 2003, we were no longer all forced by media conglomerates to listen to the same few songs anymore, endlessly repeated on the radio till we were sick of them.
So our taste scattered, in a way that I find really beautiful. The long tail was born. The rise of the indie musician began. The 1,000 true fans theory (briefly) become a possibility, and record labels lost their chokehold grip on both artists and listeners.
But! Also!
Collective nostalgia also froze at that point. After 2003, we only culturally shared the experience of a song or two a year, and often we did that for a reason external to the song itself – like a dance or a controversy or the rise of a new platform (“Gangnam Style,” “WAP,” “Old Town Road”). The songs that we have in common now, we no longer have in common because we are forced to listen to them four hundred times a month by record labels, radio stations, and MTV, but for other reasons. The advent of truly open personal choice in music was also the end of collective music culture.
All your favorite things that you’ve been watching for years, and you know those actors that you go, “Oh, there’s that guy on that show.” You may not necessarily know their names—you may see me on a show, you may not know my name, but you’ve seen me on a lot of things. Those actors, those actors are working-class actors. We’re literally working paycheck-to-paycheck.
It takes $26,000 to qualify for your health insurance for SAG-AFTRA. A guest star on a show, producers will do top-of-show—this is a verbiage that they created, it’s not in our contracts, it’s what they created—so they’re not gonna budge above whatever their top-of-show is. Top-of-show, generally, could be anywhere from $5,000 to $7 or $8,000 an episode. Maybe that sounds great. So say I cobble together 2 or 3 guest stars during a year. People, our audiences, sees me on 3 or 4 different shows, and they’re like, “Wow, that actress is working, she’s doing all this stuff.” I still, by doing that with top-of-show, I have still not qualified for my health insurance. We literally are going paycheck to paycheck.
Back in the day, we used to have quotes. That once you’ve been working for a certain amount of time, you’re working really hard to get your quote up, to get your salary up. They decided to get rid of that, so they no longer acknowledge or respect that. This industry is one of the few industries that seniority, that being in this industry for a long time, that gathering up an amazing resume, doesn’t mean anything to them.
Yes, there is some very wealthy actors. Absolutely. There’s 160,000 members in our union. 160,000. 1% are the top grossers. 1%. And of that, maybe 2% are the ones that literally support and uplift our union, and keep the insurance going. Everybody else is below the line.
People don’t realize that SAG-AFTRA is not just actors. We’re broadcasters, we’re stunt coordinators, stunt workers. We’re dancers and singers and voiceover artists. There’s a huge umbrella that we encompass, and 98% of those people are below the line? Are struggling to make a living? In an industry that we all know is making billions?
I think about this all the time, we talk about this in our caucuses. Back in the day, we used to talk about millions, everybody wanted to make millions, and oh wouldn’t that be amazing. These people are making billions, and yet they don’t have money to give us just a scooch more? To contribute to our pension and health? To allow us to qualify for our health insurance?
We have actors that you all will recognize. You will know us from that guy on that show that have lost their insurance, no longer qualify, and are hustling just to get a day on a job to just pay their rent. Not even their insurance, their rent.
This is a serious, crucial moment. This sounds hyperbolic or whatever, but it is a life-or-death situation. Because we’re talking about, you know, taking care of our families. Taking care of our loved ones, you know, our parents, if they’re getting older. You always, as a child, you want to be able to contribute. Should I be at this age, still asking my parents for money? No. I should be taking care of my parents. It’s painful.
“tumblr is so cozy and nice compared to reddit” okay everyone, i know we are excited to have new people, but lets not pretend this website is without its rich history of frivolous death threats,
i mean true but they’re pretty clumsy and stupid death threats and people generally just giggle at them.
someone on here once told me i should kill myself and when i told them they should come try to kill me themselves they started cryposting that i was threatening violence
this is the dork ass loser website, it’s fine
i mean to specify yes absolutely you will get death threats if you get popular and are a minority or autistic but they’re going to be deeply fucking pathetic.
like. ‘pee your pants’ pathetic. ‘callout post with 90% broken links’ pathetic. ‘kids half your age wondering why you haven’t been cancelled yet’ pathetic. ‘baby gays declaring your sexual orientation was made up for notes’ pathetic. ‘steven universe adults trying to act like your lukewarm opinion on a child’s cartoon is the only thing delaying the second coming’ pathetic. ‘well-meaning midwest middle schoolers who think trans rights involve reblogging a gc2b advertisement and then screaming at 40 year old transsexuals for using the wrong terminology for their own titties’ pathetic.
there are seriously deranged assholes here and they will try to take you down and it will be the weirdest and saddest case of lateral aggression you’re likely to experience on this bitch of an earth.
good luck.
someone got so mad i hadn’t updated my batman fanfic that they threatened to find a hitman on the dark web to stab my loved ones in the tummy
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