Lifestyle
Explore the California spot serving up weed country fun the wine country way
![Explore the California spot serving up weed country fun the wine country way](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/b6fbc5a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6891x3618+0+488/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F0c%2F48%2F8136a19d4f01a73eab82d2df7e37%2Fla-wk-weed-country-lead-art.jpg)
As you drive through some of California’s most storied agricultural land, a few hours north of the Bay Area, you’ll zoom past fields full of plants straining under the weight of their almost-ready-to-harvest bounty. After checking into your boutique hotel, you’ll get to sample some of the local flavor and watch the setting sun. The next day, you might explore some of the region’s historic spots. Or maybe you’ll attend a friend’s wedding on a ranch next to a working farm.
At the end of the weekend, you’ll drive home with some of the local wares and likely a deep emotional connection to the place you just visited. That may sound like a classic wine-country excursion in the Napa or Sonoma valleys, but what if you swapped in pot plants for grape vines and consumption lounges for tasting rooms? What would a weed head’s version of the wine-enthusiast weekend look like?
To find out, I headed to Mendocino County, one of three counties that make up California’s famed Emerald Triangle, the historic cannabis-growing region of the state since the 1960s. (It’s roughly triangle-shaped, with corners of its wide base in Humboldt and Trinity counties.) The Emerald Triangle turns out to be the perfect place to court canna-tourists the wine-country way.
As the southernmost point of that triangle, Mendocino County has a bonus. It’s much closer to major population centers such as San Francisco (about 110 miles) than Humboldt or Trinity counties (270-plus miles). It’s also home to the 15-mile-long Anderson Valley, whose warm days, cool nights and maritime fog close to the coast make for top-notch pinot noirs but also, according to the region’s cannabis farmers, give the sun-grown herb here a distinctive terroir.
As a visitor might quickly discover, smaller cultivators are favored over industrial-size farms here, and the county tourism commission actively courts the budding canna-tourism market. Mendocino County has emerged as one of the best places to explore craft cannabis the way folks have long adventured their way through wine country.
So if you’re looking for an alternative adult getaway any time of year (though the pot plants are bigger closer to harvest in the fall), make sure the places listed below are high on your list of Mendocino County must-visits. Just remember, if you’re going to smoke up along the way, pick a designated driver.
Drive the Cannabis Trail
( Luke McGarry / For The Times)
Created in the spirit of the state’s Wine Road and Cheese Trail that provide self-motivated visitors with a rough DIY points-of-interest itinerary, the Cannabis Trail highlights some of the people, places and seminal moments in the history of the marijuana movement with special plaques.
The entirety of the trail includes more than two dozen monuments, cultural landmarks and points of interest stretching across nine counties, with a handful of stops in Mendocino County. These include Area 101 in Laytonville (the birthplace of the 20-year-old Emerald Cup cannabis competition) and the Plantshop dispensary in Ukiah (where a plaque commemorates the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s).
While the Cannabis Trail isn’t exactly a new effort (it was launched nearly a decade ago by cannabis travel consultant Brian Applegarth), its partnership with tourism boards that highlight stops in Mendocino and Humboldt counties and Oakland is. And that’s a result of increased cannabis-related tourism, says Visit Mendocino County’s executive director, Ramon Jimenez.
A Cannabis Trail cultural landmark plaque outside the Plantshop cannabis dispensary in Ukiah.
(Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times)
“Since leisure-use cannabis legalization, Mendocino County tourism has seen a constant uptick in visitors, about 60% more annually since 2017 [based on Transient Occupancy Tax collections],” Jimenez said. “As travelers become more educated, they want to move past the lounges and dispensaries to an authentic place of source. … This growth has spurred a new co-op between Visit Oakland, Visit Mendocino County and Humboldt County Visitors Bureau [focusing] on the Cannabis Trail.”
Watch hash get made at Heritage Hash Co.
The Heritage Hash Co. dispensary in Ukiah has a window, far right, that allows customers to see hash being made by hand on-site. And just like in the wine-making process, hash-making involves very large stainless steel vats.
(Ashley Jones)
One of the fun things about touring a winery is getting to see some of that behind-the-scenes magic before you hit the tasting room; the immense stainless steel vats, the wooden barrels stacked floor to ceiling and the bottles clattering along an assembly line.
Mendocino’s weed country has its own version of that — kind of — at Heritage Hash Co. (1076 Cunningham St., Ukiah, heritage-mendocino.com). That’s where, inside a corrugated metal and weathered wood building, you’ll find a full-service multi-brand dispensary heavy on local wares. That’s where you’ll also find a square, wood-framed window that allows you to watch solventless hash being made by hand on-site in what looks like a cross between an industrial kitchen and Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Only instead of Oompa Loompas, it’s white-coated hash makers stirring cauldrons with comically large paddles, squeezing rosin in presses and pulling gooey strips of freshly made concentrate like saltwater taffy. (And, yes, just in case you were curious, there are plenty of immense stainless steel vats involved here too.)
And because Heritage, which bills itself as the world’s first public hashery, happens to also be permitted for on-site consumption, you can lean further into the tasting-room vibe by buying some of what the brand makes (extracts that range from $25 to $65 a gram) behind that magical window and trying it before you head out. (But only if someone else is behind the wheel.)
Throw a weed-friendly wedding at Yokayo Ranch
![The view down a driveway past trees and shrubs at a white ranch-style house.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ac5e1fa/2147483647/strip/true/crop/7200x4800+0+0/resize/2000x1333!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc2%2F68%2Fd8a34eca472682e8d2b096121697%2Fgretchen-gause-photography-yokayo-ranch-301.jpg)
Ukiah’s Yokayo Ranch, which has been catering to the cannabis-friendly wedding crowd since 2019, is right next door to Mendocino Grasslands, a working weed farm.
(Gretchen Gause)
If your dream wedding involves saying “I do,” complete with a joint-rolling bar at the reception and a tour of the working weed farm next door, you’d be hard pressed to find a better setup than the one at Yokayo Ranch (800 Hensley Creek Road, Ukiah, yokayoranch.com). That’s where Rachel Powell has been booking nug-filled nuptials along with other weed-friendly events since deciding to embrace the cannabis tourism culture in 2019.
“We get people from all over,” Powell said. “But most of our clients are from San Francisco and L.A. and they’re much more interested in the cannabis [aspect]. We realized that it can really play to our strengths. For example, a lot of our people want to have cannabis bars versus alcohol [bars].”
A field of grapevines viewed from Mendocino Grasslands, a working cannabis farm adjacent to Yokayo Ranch.
(Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times)
The property, which can accommodate about 45 overnight guests, consists of a 1920s-era main house, a cluster of cabins, nine glamping tents (each with a queen bed) and an outdoor ceremony space, all on a hillside high above Mendocino Grasslands. That’s the neighboring weed farm run by Powell’s brother, Ian. “When people come to stay for a wedding, we let them know there’s also a farm and we’d be happy to give them a farm tour,” she said. “And every group wants a farm tour.”
The brother-sister duo are hoping to eventually expand the farm-tour offerings to the general public. Right now, they’re mostly arranged for guests who are renting the Yokayo Ranch venue. “We’d like to offer tours that can be booked directly through Mendocino Grasslands,” Powell said. “And they would end with a farm dinner where people break bread in this really beautiful place where they’re surrounded by food, flowers and cannabis — all of these things that come from the ground.”
She added that the ultimate goal is to source everything for these meals (“Right down to the quinoa”) from within 25 miles of the farm. Wedding event packages, which include two nights of lodging for up to 29 people, start at around $20,000. If you’re not tying the knot but want to rent the whole place, you and your buds can plan on $2,400 to $3,500 per night with a two-night minimum.
Make your way to the Madrones
![The exterior of a boutique hotel with a stucco tile roof and surrounded by lush greenery.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1699856/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3600x2401+0+0/resize/2000x1334!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F58%2Fdc%2F74bc245740b0a94bc153d9c99664%2Fmadrones-ext-credit-nikolas-zvolensky.jpeg)
The Madrones in Philo, Calif., includes a hotel, a restaurant and the only licensed cannabis dispensary for miles around.
(Nikolas Zvolensky)
If you’ve got the bandwidth to visit only a single Mendocino County destination — or simply want to see what a fully realized weed-country-is-the-new-wine-country world can look like — blaze a trail down the Anderson Valley Highway to the Madrones with its on-site dispensary (9000 Highway 128, Philo, themadrones.com and thebohemianchemist.com).
A Mediterranean-meets-rustic-California compound bordered by a vineyard on two sides and dense forest on another, it’s the creation of partners (in business and life), Jim Roberts and Brian Adkinson. The boutique property includes a nine-room hotel (rooms, which accommodate two to four people each, start at $285), an on-site restaurant specializing in wood-fired fare (the Wickson) and two winery tasting rooms (Long Meadow Ranch and Wentworth Vineyards). A bottle cork’s toss down the road is another cluster of cabins and a wedding venue surrounded by redwood trees (the Brambles). Also, keep a look out for the ghost-white cat named Blanche roaming the grounds.
What makes the place of special interest is a tiny shop just to the right of the front door. Called the Bohemian Chemist, it’s a dispensary with the vibe of an Art Deco apothecary. Its glass and wooden cabinets and display cases are stocked with cannabis products and accouterments, both heavy on the local offerings. The shop’s namesake brand is sourced (mostly) from the owners’ Sugar Hill Farm just down the road; uncommon cultivars of sun-grown herb with names like Swazi Gold or Big Sur Holy Weed that even the most seasoned weed head probably hasn’t laid eyes (or lungs) on.
Its focus on rare cultivars has earned it a cultural landmark stop on the Cannabis Trail.
Other local brands on the shelves crammed with bell jars and vintage microscopes include packets of Anderson Valley Reserve flower, hash and live rosin badder from Heritage Hash Co. Locally made paraphernalia options include glass pipes from CoolHandSuuze and an exclusive edition of the Proto Pipe, the Swiss Army knife of pot pipes, made just about 50 miles up the road in Willits.
Customers who avail themselves of the shop’s cannabis can decamp to a small outdoor patio space just off the hotel’s gift shop and consume their locally grown goods while gazing out at the rows of grapes in Goldeneye’s vineyard next door. If your visit happens to fall between late May and late October, this is where you’ll find a seasonal third-Sunday-of-the-month cannabis farmers marketplace offering a showcase local legacy brands. (The full calendar and additional information can be found on the Madrones’ website.)
![An old-timey-looking apothecary space with wood cabinets and glass shelves.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/f8cec05/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3600x2401+0+0/resize/2000x1334!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F48%2F70%2F2697b59a4a779993aced7d518398%2Fbohemian-chemist-credit-nikolas-zvolensky.jpeg)
The Bohemian Chemist cannabis dispensary in Philo, Calif.
(Nikolas Zvolensky)
Roberts and Adkinson, who had been growing cannabis legally on their farm since 2016 (under the state’s pre-Prop. 64 medical marijuana law), opened the hotel property in 2010 and then the dispensary in June 2020 after being directly inspired by the wine-tourism business model.
“The retail part stemmed from the fact that we would have visitors who wanted to purchase cannabis, and we’d have to send them up to Ukiah,” Adkinson said.
“We had this crop growing,” added Roberts. “And we’re thinking, ‘What’s going to be the best way to actually get it to market?’ And we looked around at all these little wineries that are on our property and thought the best model would be to do something like they did. They sell [wine] at the tasting rooms. They have [wine] clubs and they have bottle shops. We knew that those three pillars provide a pretty strong foundation for a small winery, and we figured the same thing could happen with cannabis. So we got a micro-business license that allowed us to do all three of those things.”
The couple says the cannabis side of their business isn’t immune from the challenges facing the rest of the state’s legal weed business such as regulations, high taxes and a thriving illicit market. But approaching their business like the small wineries that surround them has paid off.
A glass case at the Bohemian Chemist apothecary is a showcase for the brand’s cannabis products, which are grown in a nearby part of the Anderson Valley.
(Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times)
“We’re not exactly making a killing,” Roberts said. “But [2023] was a hard hotel year because of all the weather incidents, and the cannabis business actually floated the hotel business. And it had been the other way around as a startup.”
With almost four years under their belt of running the only dispensary in Anderson Valley, the couple has discovered that catering to wine country and weed country visitors has a certain synergy, specifically that their best sales day of the year isn’t on 4/20 or the day before Thanksgiving. It’s during the annual Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Festival the third weekend of May each year.
“It’s typically something like this,” Roberts said. “A woman will come into the Bohemian Chemist and say, ‘My husband loves wine but I don’t really care for it that much. But now we can both be happy because I love cannabis.’”
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Lifestyle
4 crime and suspense novels make for hot summer reading
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Maureen Corrigan picks four crime and suspense novels for the summer.
NPR
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NPR
There’s something about the shadowy moral recesses of crime and suspense fiction that makes those genres especially appealing as temperatures soar.
![An illustration of a person reading a book in the grass.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1526x1527+1589+347/resize/100/quality/15/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3a%2F54%2F6420aa224a2fb1da82c3b717e781%2Fillustration-booklist-24-03-copy-wide-ca5c9fe266f7ac17663e087ce9bf90361ee1cf26.jpg)
![Ash Dark As Night](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1000x1500+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8c%2F92%2F2d4651864223928727473650f5c1%2F81rut0tvppl-sl1500.jpg)
Ash Dark As Night
Penguin Random House
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Penguin Random House
Ash Dark as Night, by Gary Phillips
I’m beginning my recommendations with two distinctive novels that appeared this spring. Gary Phillips introduced the character of LA crime photographer and occasional private eye Harry Ingram in the 2022 novel, One-Shot Harry. The second novel of this evocative historical series is called Ash Dark as Night and it opens in August 1965 during the Watts riots. Harry, who’s one of two African American freelancers covering the riots, has looped his trademark Speed Graphic camera around his neck and headed into the streets.
We’re told that Harry’s situation is, of course, riskier than that of his white counterparts: “[M]aybe one of these fellas might well get a brick upside their head from a participant, but were less likely to be jacked-up by the law. Ingram realized either side might turn on him.” Indeed, when Harry captures the death of an unarmed Black activist at the hands of the LAPD, the photo makes him famous, as well as a target.
This novel is steeped in period details like snap-brim hats and ragtop Chevy Bel Air convertibles, along with walk-ons by real life figures like pioneering African American TV journalist Louis E. Lomax. But it’s Harry’s clear-eyed take on the fallen world around him that makes this series so powerful.
![Blessed Water](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1714x2560+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6d%2Fcb%2Fbf08bf2b48c295447a66170073d4%2F9781638930266-fc-scaled.jpg)
Blessed Water
Zando
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Zando
Blessed Water, by Margot Douaihy
You might think a mystery about an inked-up lesbian Punk musician-turned-nun is a little far-fetched; but New Orleans, the setting of the Sister Holiday series, is the city of far-fetched phenomenon, both sacred and profane. Margot Douaihy’s second book in this queer cozy series is called Blessed Water and it finds the 34-year-old Sister Holiday up to her neck in murky flood waters and priests with secrets. Douaihy’s writing style — pure hard-boiled Patti Smith — contains all the contradictions that torment Sister Holiday in her bumpy journey of faith. Here she is in the Prologue recalling how she survived swallowing a glass rosary bead:
After my prayers for clarity, for forgiveness, for a cigarette, … deep inside the wet cave of my body was an unmistakable tickle. …
The bead fought my stomach acid for hours, leaching its blessing or poison or unmet wish. Anything hidden always finds a way to escape, no matter its careful sealing.
Amen to that, Sister Holiday.
![The Expat](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/988x1500+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffe%2F72%2F04d4d7194951a1c07e22014013d3%2F718ddwip7kl-sl1500.jpg)
The Expat
Pegasus Crime
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Pegasus Crime
The Expat, by Hansen Shi
The main character in Hansen Shi’s excellent debut spy novel is an alienated young man named Michael Wang. He’s a first generation Chinese American a few years out of Princeton who’s hit the bamboo ceiling at General Motors in San Francisco, where he’s been working on technology for self-driving cars. Enter a femme fatale named Vivian who flatters Michael into believing that his brilliance will be recognized by her enigmatic boss in China. Once Michael settles into life in Beijing, however, he realizes he’s been tapped, not as a prodigy, but a patsy. The Expat wraps up too abruptly, but it’s also true that I wanted this moody espionage tale to go on longer.
![The God of the Woods](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/994x1500+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb5%2F6f%2F1e6cc7364e03aee25d41b8931fd6%2F81uce1zxmal-sl1500.jpg)
The God of the Woods
Riverhead Books
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Riverhead Books
The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore
Liz Moore’s extraordinary new literary suspense novel reminds me of Donna Tartt’s 1992 debut, The Secret History. There are superficial similarities: Both are thick intricate novels featuring young people isolated in enclosed worlds — in Tartt’s story, a Vermont college campus; in Moore’s, a summer camp in New York’s Adirondack mountains. But, the vital connection for me was a reading experience where I was so thoroughly submerged in a rich fictional world, that for hours I barely came up for air.
There’s a touch of Gothic excess about The God of the Woods, beginning with the premise that not one, but two children from the wealthy Van Laar family disappear from Camp Emerson in the Adirondacks 14 years apart. Moore’s story jumps around in time, chiefly from the 1950s into the ’70s and features a host of characters from different social classes — campers, counselors, townspeople and local police — and the Van Laars themselves.
![When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion, by Julie Satow](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/426x426+315+851/resize/100/quality/15/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F66%2F8d%2Feb8fdb91469f92b98a6e7e94d6c3%2F81rpdfjh9bl-sl1500.jpg)
The precision of Moore’s writing never flags. Consider this reflection by Tracy, a 12-year-old camper who recalls that: “Her father once told her casually that she was built like a plum on toothpicks, and the phrase was at once so cruel and so poetic that it clicked into place around her like a harness.”
Moore’s previous book, Long Bright River, was a superb social novel about the opioid crisis in Philadelphia; The God of the Woods is something weirder and stranger and unforgettable.
Happy summer reading wherever your tastes take you.
Lifestyle
Barack Obama's Half Sister Auma Tear-gassed Live on Air During Kenya Protests
![Barack Obama's Half Sister Auma Tear-gassed Live on Air During Kenya Protests](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/fb/16by9/2024/06/25/fbcd64f62a76488389de36fd082c2063_xl.jpg)
CNN
Barack Obama‘s half sister was inadvertently tear-gassed during a deadly demonstration in Africa … and it’s all on video.
Auma Obama was being interviewed by CNN in the middle of Tuesday’s protests in Nairobi, Kenya — when all of a sudden, explosions could be heard in the background … and she starts coughing and tearing up.
The ex-Prez’s half sibling — to whom he’s related on his father’s side — says she can’t see anymore because of tear gas in the air … and CNN field reporter Larry Madowo starts coughing too as the street interview is forced to end.
Before police unleashed tear gas on protesters outside parliament, Auma — a Kenyan activist — told CNN she was at the demonstration to show the world what was happening to the young Kenyans demonstrating for their rights with flags and banners.
Widespread protests are breaking out in Kenya, where citizens are pushing back against a controversial new finance bill, which includes proposed tax increases.
Reports out of Nairobi say police opened fire on protesters who tried to storm parliament after tear gas and water cannons failed to disperse crowds … with at least 5 people shot dead and dozens more wounded.
Barack hasn’t addressed what happened to his sister just yet — but we know they’re close.
Lifestyle
This time last year, Hollywood writers were on strike. Now, many can’t find work
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Striking Writers Guild members picket alongside SAG-AFTRA members outside Netflix studios in September 2023.
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This time last year, Hollywood writers were picketing outside the offices of major studios and streaming companies. Throughout their nearly five month-long strike, writers often convened at Bob’s Big Boy, where TV host Drew Carey often picked up the check.
“I remember eating a lot of hash browns, and then if it was dinner, they’ve got a good soup situation,” says Taylor Orci, who recently returned to the Burbank diner to reminisce with writer Bill Wolkoff.
“It saved us,” Wolkoff nods. “It was a vote of confidence that ‘I believe in writers.’ Thank you, Drew Carey, for that.”
Wolkoff writes and produces the series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Last year, when the show took a pause, he was a Writers Guild of America strike captain outside CBS Studios in L.A. Thanks to the union’s new contract, he’s looking forward to getting higher streaming residuals with each hit season.
“That’s going to be a noticeable difference in my life,” Wolkoff says. “And the AI protections too. I mean, we got in our contract language that ensures that AI will not replace writers. That’s huge.”
But, he admits, he’s one of the lucky few Hollywood writers still working these days.
Like many others, Taylor Orci still struggles. One writing job fell through recently, and they’re still living on loans, with max’d out credit cards and a baby on the way.
![Taylor Orci](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2959x2219+21+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F02%2F1e%2F6ddb497145ce99ed40ccce939798%2Ftaylor-orci-copy.jpg)
Writer Taylor Orci outside Bob’s Big Boy, a diner in Burbank.
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“I knew it was gonna be slow, but I thought I’d have a job,” they say. “It’s tough right now to find work, especially if you didn’t have a job before.”
‘We needed a sea change’
Across town in Encino, Lannet Tachel says that the union’s gains are helpful, but, “in the long run, you still have to be one of the lucky few to get in so that help applies to you.”
Her writing partner Corey Grant agrees: there’s not much production these days.
“It was hard before the strike. It’s even harder now,” he says. “I think it’s a backlash because of the strike. I think they’re trying to … shore up their pockets a little bit, but it’s less TV, less episodes getting made, tighter budgets, half the shows got canceled.”
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Lanett Tachel and writing partner Corey Grant.
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NPR reached out to eight major studios and streamers for a response. They didn’t get back to us. But the president of the WGA West, Meredith Stiehm, says those production changes started before the strike, not because of it. She says there had been a boom, with streaming companies ordering a glut of new shows. But in 2022, so-called “peak TV” went bust.
“Netflix announced that they’d lost subscribers. Streaming was not profitable for anybody. It was kind of a failed model. Everybody started retreating. At the same time,” she says, “our contract was untenable and we needed a sea change.”
![Writers union votes to ratify contract, ending one of Hollywood's longest strikes](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2023/10/09/gettyimages-1702830853_sq-611b7811632b25a59e7412ce4a1b8381dc181a75.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
The WGA spent nearly five months on strike last year starting in May. Actors and performers in the union SAG-AFTRA also went on strike last summer. The writers union reached a tentative deal with studios in September, with new residual models in streaming, new minimum lengths of employment for TV gigs, more guaranteed paid work for feature films and other protections. Then, SAG-AFTRA reached their own tentative agreement in November.
“When we all returned to work, the decline continued, meaning not as much content is being ordered,” Stiehm says. “And it seems that the studios are sort of regrouping, and writers are feeling the post-Peak TV pinch.”
![Actors and studios make a deal to end Hollywood strikes](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2023/10/04/fox-sag-strikers_sq-1df9cadc50d739d337f94310dd5d4f1fa30bc07e.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
During a recent earnings call, SONY Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra said his company was hit by more than just the streaming revolution.
“We had to go from a pandemic where production was severely limited, to a strike, where there was no creative work being done for literally seven or eight months,” he said. “It had to restart. And that’s what you’re seeing right now.”
The industry continues to transform, with shrinking ad revenue and layoffs at just about every entertainment and media company. Last month, Netflix announced it would produce more non-scripted material, like reality shows and game shows. Disney said it will offer even more live sports through ESPN over the coming years.
Nick Geisler got his first writing job in Los Angeles in 2018. He was a strike captain outside Amazon Studios last year. After the strike ended, he says, he returned for a few months to the writers room for the Disney show Bunk’d: Learning the Ropes. But he says he hasn’t had much luck with other studios.
![Three things to know about the Hollywood Writers' tentative agreement](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2023/09/25/briannelson_sq-b08062ac869ec18cb7b3db224d5f7c44f6baee9a.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
“There’s just no appetite for risk,” Geisler says. “And there’s a lot of requests for rewrites. A lot of them are free. There’s a lot of, ‘Hey, we’re so, so close. Can you just make these changes and get it over the line?’ ‘Hey, we’re turning it into our higher ups tomorrow. Can you do this in three hours?’ I don’t think that’s really changed much. Because of the climate we’re in, there’s a lot of ‘Well, I’ll just get this done because there’s not a lot going on.’”
Now, he says, “I’m actually working on a short film for a writer that I met on the picket line.”
‘This time feels different’
Things are tough for those who’ve been in the business for decades, too.
“I reach out to my agent and he tells me it’s really bad out there. Hopefully it will turn around,” says Jon Sherman, who hasn’t had a writing assignment for three years.
![Jon Sherman](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2896x2172+104+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F01%2Fdc%2F65c1817b48a0a36f25e89741ea16%2Fjon-sherman-copy.jpg)
Jon Sherman began his career in Hollywood three decades ago.
Mandalit del Barco/NPR
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He began his career 30 years ago, writing for Bill Nye the Science Guy. He also wrote and produced for the original TV series Frasier. Sherman was a WGA strike captain outside Amazon Studios last year.
“It’s been the first time in a long career, for which I’m grateful, that I’ve had a real long layoff. I’ve reached a point where I’m like, ‘Oh, this time feels different.’”
To pay the bills, Sherman says he was in a focus group for dried fruit and in a UCLA research study on exercise. He’s also now a TV game show contestant. But he sure would still love to write for television.
Note: NPR News staffers are also members of SAG-AFTRA, the union of actors and performers that also went on strike last year. Broadcast journalists are under a different contract, however, and were not on strike.
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