I'm Not Gonna Stare At This Blog All Day

Well, I'm not. I had some thoughts this morning on the story that Mark Wahlberg was paid 1.5 million for his extra filming on All The Money In The World, the Ridley Scott film that Kevin Spacey at the misfortune of being in. Or we had the misfortune, something; he was canned and Scott reshot his scenes with Christopher Plummer, you know all this.

And now you know that Michelle Williams, Wahlberg's costar, got only a per diem of $80 per day, just about union scale, and now we have a big story about pay inequality in show business.

Except we know all about pay inequality in all business. This is a story about how one actor demanded a fortune to go above and beyond for a filmmaking venture that paid for his services. You might question his ethics when it comes to this (I don't, particularly. It's business. If you want to get as much as you can, I don't see ethics coming into it. Personal taste, maybe), but it feels like less of a systemic illness than a symptom of something else.

And Michelle Williams agreed to do the reshoots for essentially nothing. So maybe we can admire her dedication to this film and Scott's efforts to avoid being tainted with Spaceyness, and sneer at Wahlberg's greed, but it tells us little about inequality. Which is real, obviously, so I'm not sure what my point is, except this is a complicated story and I prefer those.

But I don't seem to be in quite the mood to prattle.

...

So I'll just journal a little. It's a stormy day here, although that's relative to our mild weather so far. Not much of a storm, a little wind and rain.

My cousin is still in the ICU, his prognosis uncertain and his return home (he was on a trip, about four hours from where he lives, at the time of the accident) up in the air.

My street is still closed to traffic. My holiday sugar habit is slowly dying off. I still sing in the choir, although never in the shower. I start my monthly class at Seattle University back up tonight; I'm assuming I'll find a parking place this time, although I might try to shore up the odds a little and get there early.

And I'm feeling OK, thanks for asking. My wrist still aches, for unclear reasons but that sort of thing happens, I hear. I won't be knocking on wood with it but I should, maybe. Accidents happen and they haven't happened to me lately. I'm not going to write about stuff that doesn't take place, not today anyway, and now I'm not going to write anymore.