See, you can't expect the combined efforts of a highly paid writing staff and a ridiculously highly paid star comedian TV host to be enough to come up with five minutes of jokey monologues every night. So most big time late night shows—from Leno and Letterman to SNL—buy jokes from freelancers, for pennies.

Johnson says he has gotten more than 160 of his jokes on the "Late Show With David Letterman" and, before that, "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

The 39-year-old is part of an underground network of comedy writers who supply the late-night programs with a constant stream of material. If one of their jokes gets on the air, they get a check for $75 or $100. What they don't get is any credit or union pay.

This pisses off the writers guild, but they can't do too much about it, because the shows don't mind it, and the writers are so dazzled to get their material on air they don't complain. But here's the benefit of union membership:

While the guild's contract permits the hiring of freelancers, it requires that they be paid union minimums — $3,215 for a comedy sketch under 10 minutes — if they are employed as professional writers on a guild-covered show.

$3200 for one little sketch. Good money, right? (PAUSE) Yea, or as Bill Gates calls it, "Pocket Lint."
(PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER).
Call me, Jay!
(PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER).
[LAT]

Which brings me to why I feel like Ms. Hilton today—kinda/sorta/maybe just a li'l. All legal and loony, really. See, my partner, whose name is Jon Powell, got all rather Paris Latsis when we were on a deserted Hawaiian beach.

Mind you, J. didn't have a huge-butt rock with him, but, he did do something that's often accompanied with such brilliant specimens: He proposed. And I do mean marriage, not, just the Pam Anderson-style sandy nooky that often accompanies such traditions. And guess what?

I said yes.

So, get ready, Ah-nuld, you homo-bashing big-hair. Since the California legislature approved gay marriage, only to be vetoed by your fruit-served self (I mean, do you all know how many gays have serviced Schwarzenegger's girlie coiffure alone?), I suspect my attention to your sorry and sagging behind will only increase during my engagement.

If the above words do, as we suspect they might, contain a wedding announcement, congratulations are in order for the impending nuptials; however—and, as we've previously admitted, our prose-untangling skills are not what they once were—we can't be sure if those last couple of sentences contain a threat or an unexpected sexual overture. Regardless, the Governor's staff should be immediately notified so that they can take the proper steps to prepare for either scenario.

• Beginning Blab [The Awful Truth via Stony_Curtis]

The union representing 21,000 of Canada's film, television and radio workers went on strike Monday in a dispute that centres on how actors should be paid for performances shown on cellphones and the Internet. [...]

"Our negotiating team has just broke off talks - there's been no resolution as of yet," Austin Schautz, the union vice-president of finance, told Toronto radio station AM640 early Monday. "I haven't heard whether or when they'll be going back to the table."

ACTRA members in Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba had walked off the job at midnight, after instructions from the union not to report for work.

Sci-fi nerds and teenage girls alike can ignore these initial signs of Canadian labor Armageddon, as shows that shoot in British Columbia, like Battlestar Galactica and Smallville, aren't affected because they fall under a different union. Confusing? You bet. But more good news for those nervous about the goings on to the north: Despite all these arcane union rules, ACTRA has no power to recall Canadian-born actors back to the motherland for picketing duty, meaning that Howie Mandel's ability to emcee NBC's screaming-at-briefcases-for-dollars ratings juggernaut, Deal or No Deal, will be totally unaffected by this strife.

• Canadian film, TV workers go on strike [Canada.com]
• [ACTRA.ca]