Judge James Chalfant needed one hour to rebuff Rosenberg and his curious counselor Eric George, whose original petition for a temporary restraining order halting renewed contract talks was rejected Tuesday on account of "errors" in the documentation. The only errors today were apparently legal ones the judge blew off before adjourning; George is expected to make an unprecedented, last-ditch, "But my client's life sucks" appeal in the weeks ahead.

• Judge denies Rosenberg's request [Variety]

THR Esq. passes along word that the embattled SAG president recruited attorney Eric George to lead his ugly courtroom battle for union control. And why not? George has counseled no less than George W. Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Utah senator Orrin Hatch through various legal straits, even working on ex-Justice Department lawyer John Yoo's behalf when a former terror suspect sued him for legal opinions allegedly authorizing torture.

Brilliant move, Rosenberg. Justine Bateman is going to feel so betrayed.

• Wait...Alan Rosenberg Hired Who? [THR Esq.]

Still wiped out in the aftermath of Doug Allen's dismissal and amid other general fractures around the union, Rosenberg yesterday invited Sharon Waxman over to his house for an interview and impromptu open-mic night. And when his repertoire of SAG-centric protest ballads ran dry, he turned inward for a candid, harrowing encore:

“My life sucks,” Rosenberg, the president of the Screen Actors Guild, acknowledged. “Here I am – my partner was fired. I’m muzzled. It’s certainly disappointing. I’ve seen all my hard work of the past three and a half years amounting to nothing. The liars and manipulators have won.” [...]

“Yeah, I’m angry,” he said. “Sad. Disappointed. The last two days I feel sort of isolated. I’m shut out from planning meetings. I feel isolated from the operations of the union.”

And that's not even counting his recent split from Marg Helgenberger, which probably has its own concept album nascently kicking around in the dark quarters of his creative mind. Here's hoping an iTunes page or — if we're really ambitious — one of those standing Largo gigs might be in the offing when he's done with this whole industry-wrecking business. We're hooked!

• 'My life sucks,' says SAG president [The Wrap]

• Rosenberg Sings the Blues [YouTube]

In a statement, Rosenberg extended an olive branch of sorts. "I congratulate those members newly elected to our board of directors," he said, "and I look forward to working closely with each of them.

"Now it's time to work in tandem on behalf of SAG members throughout the country, to get a fair contract we can all be proud of. A union divided benefits only the employers, and SAG members deserve nothing less than unified, focused leadership," he said.

Indeed — focus on this, bitches, hinted MemFirst spokeswoman and board member Anne-Marie Johnson: The Rosenberg gang still controls Hollywood, 37-18. The victors are having none of it, though; expect newly designated U4S henchman Assaf Cohen to fire back with his brother's withering official response by the end of the day.

• SAG members vote for change [THR]

• SAG Election Results [SAG]

That's a lot under any circumstances (most contracts pass with at least 90% approval). But while it's not likely enough to get the studios to sweeten its offer to SAG, it is enough for the union leaders to have one last healthy, fun whack at each other, starting with SAG boss Alan Rosenberg:

Clearly many Screen Actors Guild members responded to our education and outreach campaign and voted against the inadequate AFTRA agreement. We knew AFTRA would appeal to its many AFTRA-only members, who are news people, sportscasters and DJs, to pass the tentative agreement covering acting jobs. ...

Screen Actors Guild is the actors union with more than 95% of the work under this contract, jurisdiction over all motion pictures, and over 4 billion dollars in member earnings under the SAG agreement over just the last three years. ...

We will continue to address the issues of importance to actors that AFTRA left on the table and we remain committed to achieving a fair contract for SAG actors.

AFTRA president Roberta Reardon was a little more constructive, calling for more collaboration and advance talks before future negotiations — but not before claiming a "moral victory" and punching Rosenberg squarely in his prop-shop codpiece:

Clearly, this was not a typical ratification process, and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. To those of us for whom labor solidarity is more than just a slogan, the idea that politically-motivated leaders of one union would use their members' dues to attack another union is unconscionable. Working people do not benefit when their union is under attack.

It's OK, Roberta — this crap has only been going on for 60 years now. Keep your mushroom clouds handy: Hollywood Strikewatch 2011, here we come!

• AFTRA accepts deal [Variety]
• AFTRA Members Ratify AMPTP Contract [DHD]

Although the guild hasn't set a strike authorization vote for the 120,000 SAG members yet, the industry continues to fret about a work stoppage. The majors have remained unwilling to commit to starting new feature productions until a SAG deal is in hand — a situation that some in the biz are calling a de facto strike.

After two weeks, the guild's been unwilling to back down from two of its initial demands — that the companies increase DVD residuals and offer a shorter period of free usage for promotional purposes for streamed content than the 17- and 24-day windows in the DGA and WGA deals. The majors have insisted they won't give in to either demand.

So what now? What else? Our money's on the vaunted SAG leadership to bitterly walk away from the table at the end of the week without a deal, prompting yet another labor cliffhanger to which union boss Alan Rosenberg will again invoke his "social justice" creds while the studio production calendar goes into lockdown. And why wouldn't he? He's an actor, for Christ's sake; the next two months of drama will be the best role he's had in years.

• SAG's Week to Decide [Variety]

On Tuesday, as his turn at the bargaining table arrived, Mr. Rosenberg said he remained angry enough over performer compensation levels to bring the entertainment industry to a halt again.

"Aside from my family, I have two great loves in my life: acting and the fight for social justice," he said. "Oh yes, we are very serious." ...

Some in Hollywood say Mr. Rosenberg's move into the role of confrontational guild leader comes less from politics than from personal psychology. His older brother, Mark Rosenberg, was a noted civil rights activist who became president of Warner Brothers before dying of heart failure in 1992 at the age of 44. Leading SAG in its battle to secure a ground-breaking labor contract allows Mr. Rosenberg to continue his brother's work.

"There's no doubt that he cared deeply about content creators, and that I share that with him," Mr. Rosenberg said. While not rich by Hollywood standards, Mr. Rosenberg is not exactly what most people consider middle class, either. He is married to Marg Helgenberger, a millionaire because of her lead role on the CBS drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Wait a second — did Rosenberg just allude to a parallel between SAG's stonewalling on new media and... civil rights? Really? That was tasteful. Anyway, Barnes adds that Rosenberg has a more rational advantage as well: Media congloms' upcoming quarterly earnings reports could reflect the damage from the WGA strike, thus establishing new leverage in contract squabbles. And CBS boss Les Moonves earned $36 million in 2007, surely all from CSI's surging Internet revenue. Yes, indeed — "social justice," here we come!

• Guild Chief for Actors Is No Pacifist [NYT]

How does Rosenberg keep it all straight? The same way we do: One enemy at a time.

Take the rebel sect of SAG members including Bacon, Sheen, Sally Field and nearly 1,500 others, who last week petitioned leadership for "qualified voting" — kind of an Animal Farm-lite approach that would consolidate power among members who work more regularly than others. Variety's Dave McNary notes the proposal would likely have lessened the chance for a strike when the contract runs out June 30, and indeed, Rosenberg and Co. barely acknowledged the petition before passing it to what one dissenter called "the committee where things go die."

The SAG boss sought additional leverage over the weekend with a letter to his general membership, laying down the hard line for the negotiations launching Tuesday. Stop us if you've heard this one before:

"We have to negotiate fair payments for all new media formats to help us expand opportunities for middle class actors to get more work, just as the employers are expanding their opportunities to earn even more revenue," Rosenberg said. "We simply can't wait until this boat has sailed. We need to be on the boat—and it's leaving now."

Hence tomorrow's big march to the Port of Los Angeles, right? Well, not really. Both the DGA and striking WGA agreed in February that this "new media boat" was moored enough to settle for something a little less: Regular voyages through the studios' books as new media revenues take shape. Of course, the AMPTP has already put its own foot down emphasizing that's all SAG will get, and even big-shot attorney and DGA adviser Ken Ziffren came out with his own warning for Rosenberg:

"It's better right now to have access to the information that's needed to try to track the new-media industries and their business patterns. ... If the other guilds can understand that concept, then we can get back to work again in full force and follow the trends that the industry may take in new media. And so that is, to me, the major short-term issue and hopefully that will get resolved before June 30, or long before, if possible."

Translation: Please don't embarrass us in front of our membership by negotiating something juicier.

Anyway, assuming AFTRA doesn't come back to the table with SAG, we'd think Rosenberg would settle before AFTRA sits down with the studios April 28. Sure, he'll lose a whole two months of barking about a strike in the press, but it's either that or, as we mentioned a few weeks back, watch AFTRA usurp a share of SAG influence on the job market. And we doubt anyone at SAG wants to see that boat sail.

• SAG spurns proposal to limit voting [Variety]
• Rosenberg sends letter to SAG members [Variety]