"It's almost empowering!"

Because it's Greg Pullman Friday, let's watch a film. Here's a film of some nice people who make films talking about making films about talking to nice people!



Remember the groundbreaking show "Spotlight"? Perez thought not, but what you're seeing here is 6434 members' dues in action back in the heady days of spring 2008, when the sweet smell of cigar smoke was in the air, everyone (except long term care workers) was living the dream, and corruption charges were the furthest thing from anyone's mind.

These talented and selfless people were given a lot of dues money from homecare and nursing home workers to make videos about Tyrone Freeman's local. Tyrone told the LA Times that Lotus Seven made ten films in total, and they were paid about $215,000 over two years. Spotlight was the showpiece, starring Pilar herself, and this lengthy retrospective makes up a quarter of Spotlight's four show run! How sad that the dues dried up for Spotlight before they could cover other unspecified topics in the community. Who knows what injustices they might have brought to light?

Pilar Sharai (aka Planells) is (or was?) Tyrone Freeman's wife. She had been a temp at his local, was hired as a staffer, had a baby with Freeman, and left to pursue an "entertainment industry career", including owning her own production company Lotus Seven (Freeman's Local 6434 seems to have specialized in contracting with un-googleable companies, Lotus Seven's main competitor was The Filming Inc!) as well as various other acting and modeling projects.

Paul Pringle at the LA Times told the full story better than Perez ever could, but Perez is certainly enjoying a little heartwarming human interest this Friday night in the context of fighting poverty!

See the other Spotlight films here.