WRITER’S LIFEGUARD

TOM LAZARUS, screenwriter and author of SECRETS OF FILM WRITING, asks, “What’s with the Lifeguard?”

It’s a tribute to my favorite union-organizing song, Miner’s Lifeguard. Here are some of the lyrics:

Miner's life is like a sailor's.

'Board a ship to cross the waves.

Ev'ry day his life's in danger,

Still he ventures being brave.

Watch the rocks, they're falling daily.

Careless miners always fail.

Keep your hand upon the dollar

And your eye upon the scale.

chorus: Union miners stand together,

Heed no operator's tale,

Keep your hand upon the dollar,

And your eye upon the scale.

You've been docked and docked, my boys,

You've been loading two to one;

What have you to show for working

Since this mining has begun?

Overalls and cans for rockers,

In your shanties, sleep on rails.

Keep your hand upon the dollar

And your eye upon the scale.

In conclusion, bear in memory,

Keep the password in your mind:

God provides for every nation

When in union they combine.

Stand like men and linked together,

Victory for you'll prevail,

Keep your hand upon the dollar

And your eye upon the scale.

If you want it reverbing through your brain as it has been through mine since forever, drop 99 cents on iTunes, and you'll be singing it too. And while I still don’t exactly know what “cans for rockers” means, I love the song… and I see parallels between miners’ lives and writers’.

No, we aren't faced with falling rocks, just falling incomes. Like miners in the years before unions, we produce the goods and others profit from them. Who's to blame? Rapacious publishers? Heartless capitalism? Nah. I blame us.

Our poverty is our own fault; with the rare exception of the striking screenwriters, writers rarely have the patience to organize, the solidarity to cooperate or the spine to negotiate. Stagehands are better at getting paid for their labor. So are nurses. So are miners.

Occasionally, writer’s lives and miner’s lives actually do intersect. That photo is of me at the entrance to a lead mine in northern Idaho. Once inside that dark dungeon, I wasn't the least tempted to trade in my iMac for a pick and shovel.

Returning to the world aboveground (in a way) and the subject of ML2, Portnoy’s Complaint, here's a note from Michel Beaudry, of Whistler, British Columbia. Michel’s a ski writer who has spent the past many years trying to build a mountain-dwellers’ community based on shared stories. He writes: “I loved Portnoy. I loved his mid-century angst. But for me, my top three are Camus' The Plague, Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion and Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. (Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky comes a very close fourth.) These four writers truly taught me what it meant to tell a story. And they weren't afraid to take risks.”

Write on, brothers and sisters, write on.

— jules