Hollywood Confessional

The Pizza Angel of the Picket Line

• Ninth Way Media • Season 2 • Episode 15

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For 130 days and counting, fresh, hot pizzas have appeared on the LA studio picket lines every... single... day. How?

Meet this week's guest on the Hollywood Confessional, Jess Morse! Jess is one of many people making Hollywood a happier place in strike times. So far, Jess and a team of volunteers have delivered an astounding $20,000 worth of pizza to keep picketing writers and actors on their feet. Join us as we hear how this massive meal-providing operation kicked off with a tweet, and how it was quickly followed by a cascade of generosity and heartwarming stories.

If you'd like to volunteer to deliver pizzas or donate to the pizza cause, you can get in contact with Jess on Twitter @chessmorse.  And connect with us while you're at it! It's never been clearer that as positive members of the happy Hollywood community, we are all in this together.

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Hollywood Confessional is a Ninth Way Media production, produced by Meagan Daine and J.R. Zamora-Thal.

Sound Effects and Music provided by Zapsplat and Pixabay.

Keywords: filmmaking podcast, film podcast, screenwriting podcast, entertainment podcast, Hollywood, filmmaking, writerslife, actorslife, setlife

J.R.:

In nomine cinema e tv et spiritu streaming. Amen. Hello Hollywood faithful, welcome back to another episode of the Hollywood Confessional. I'm your podcast priest, J. R. Zamora-Thal.

Meagan:

And I'm Meagan Daine, and, as you guys know, this is the podcast where typically we have people anonymously confess their deep, dark Hollywood secrets, and we're doing things a little bit differently during strike times.

J.R.:

We've been having interviews with people who've been making Hollywood a happier place on the picket line.

Meagan:

If you have been on the picket lines in Los Angeles, you know of this person. You have been blessed by this person. You just don't necessarily know who this person is, and so we are so excited to have Jess Morse on the show with us this week. Jess, you ready to step into the confessional booth?

Jess:

I'm ready. Bless me, father, for I have raised over $20,000 for pizza for the picket line and and delivered almost 2000 as of today.

Meagan:

Oh my God, $20,000 worth of pizza, that's unbelievable.

J.R.:

If that's heaven, then I'm gonna be very happy.

Meagan:

Before we even dive into this, I want to say a big personal thank you, because this pizza -- for those who don't know, we've been picketing for at this point about 105 days, and every single day around noon, pizzas show up on the picket line, and it's magic, and it saves you because you are dying by that point after having walked around in circles for like three hours in the hot sun.

J.R.:

It's totally magic and I completely just expect the pizza to arrive.

Meagan:

It's crazy.

J.R.:

At this point I'm like conditioned to expect pizza. I've walked three loops around Disney. That's three miles, and on the last mile I get a little piece of pizza.

Meagan:

That's right. Yeah, I mean, and now we have Jess here and Jess is the one who's making it all happen. So we were super excited to talk to you and to get to know you as the amazing person that you are. Could you tell us a little bit about, like, who you were back before the strike?

J.R.:

Before you became the pizza fairy.

Jess:

Okay, well, before the pizza, in the before time.

J.R.:

Give us the timeline.

Jess:

So it's May 1st, 2023. I'm in the Writers Guild Foundation library. It is a reunion for a class I took to be trained to be a support staffer that the guild puts together. So we're all sitting there. I have never gotten a support staff position or worked in a room at all. I've been day jobbing it up. Some of the people there are in rooms as script coordinators or writers assistants and just like waiting with bated breath of like what's going to happen? 8pm they call it, strike's happening. We're like in the room. Like they're negotiating just a floor above us.

J.R.:

Oh, my God.

Jess:

It's very, very surreal. First day of the strike. I'm like, I've got no job. I've got all the time in the world, and I have a Costco membership. So I'm going to like get all these snacks and supplies for the picketers and I'm going to deliver it in my little, my little Prius. And then this is going to be like so cool and like so nice of me. So I do, I like get out to get a late start, because I've been unemployed for like eight months at this point. So good you know, getting out at like two. So I go, it's too late for pizza, I'll just go get some snacks and waters and everything. Tally it all up, it's like two hundred fifty dollars.

Jess:

Like oh, this is this is a lot for somebody who doesn't have a job. So I was like I'm going to hit all the Valley picket lines. That's Disney, that's Warner Brothers, that's Universal. I only got to Disney on the first day and actually I arrived at the same time as Jay Leno, so I didn't get very much attention.

Jess:

There's a great video someone posted of him arriving at the Disney gate and you can see behind him across the crosswalk. I have my dolly and I'm pulling it along, so like everything falls off as I jump the curve. It's the most amazing thing that's ever happened.

J.R.:

(laughs)

Jess:

Just like Jay Leno foreground me in the background.

J.R.:

Oh, my God.

Jess:

We like cross at the same time so you can like see everything spill and me trying to frantically put it back. Anyway, that's the first day of the strike. Second day I'm like I'm going to do pizza because I'm going to get up early, and I bought the pizza and it was like six pizzas I want to say, which is 60 bucks or 66 bucks at Costco.

J.R.:

God bless Costco.

Jess:

I know, I love that. I'm going to turn into real quick like a Costco love. It's funny because my brand now is pizza to everyone, when really my brand was Costco.

Meagan:

All right, we're setting the record straight here. You heard it on the Hollywood Confessional.

Jess:

So, long rambling story. I'm like this is too much money, to be honest, to do every day. But I'd love to do it every day. So just kind of jokingly tweet out, how do I start a strike pizza fund for my month- old account with 36 followers without looking suss? Someone from the pre- WGA strike team, which had like just formed the day before, he just said like you should do it, like we'll boost it, you should do it. So I did and I put in all these -- like I'm going to post receipts and I'm going to like show each pizza arriving and I'm going to write everyone's name on the pizza and I'm going to retweet everything. And before I even had a chance to do that, I get like a thousand dollars.

Meagan:

Oh, my God.

Jess:

People just throwing money at me, and I'm like, okay, set up my little spreadsheet. I love spreadsheets. Organizing data and everything. Yeah, I'm such a writer, right? I love organizing it all. And yeah, I just got. I think it was 700 each the first two days. 700 dollars to be clear.

Meagan:

Yeah, 700 pizzas would be a lot for Prius.

Jess:

Yeah. And I'm like, oh great, now I have all this money trying to figure things out. And eventually I got like some volunteers together to help me deliver, which is really good, because about two weeks into the strike I did go back to work. And we just never stopped. We've never missed a day. Started in the valley. We do every valley location, every single day, every single picketing day, unless they tell us, hey, we've got ton of food trucks, don't come, bring the pizza somewhere else. And we eventually started expanding outside of the valley. I got some great volunteers I've never met before, oh, but I just like text. You know, they text me like, hey, I can deliver pizza to Netflix and Paramount on Tuesday. I'm like great. So I put in the order. We do Domino's over there because it's a Costco desert, unfortunately.

J.R.:

Are you doing Domino's at Paramount as well?

Jess:

We're not all the pizzas, we're a lot of the pizzas. When I see other people deliver pizzas I'm like, what do you think you're doing?

Meagan:

(laughs) It's okay, you get all the cred.

Jess:

I guess so. Um, but yeah, and I look, I linked up at a certain point with the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, Hollywood labor branch. They've been raising money for snacks and stuff and they've got a whole network of volunteers. So, like I just connected up with them and some of their volunteers will pick up my pizza for me and bring it out.

Meagan:

That's amazing. How many volunteers do you have?

Jess:

At least two dozen. They're not all available all the time. I've got like one guy who's done every day since like halfway through May and he'll be like, oh, I'm so sorry I can't make today. I'm like you've done 60 days in a row.

Meagan:

Well, what's his name? Can we give him a shout out?

Jess:

Mendel. My boy Mendel. He never lets me down.

Meagan:

Oh, that's awesome. Thank you, Mendel. That is just such an amazing thing. We had an opportunity to speak to another strike angel, Joelle Garfinkel. She's so awesome. I love how, like in both cases, like you guys are just kind of like wouldn't it be nice if this happened? I'm going to do one nice thing and then all of a sudden it just exploded and you're like oh my God, now I have to figure out how to do lots and lots of nice things and continuously do nice things.

Jess:

It was a lot easier when I wasn't working. I'll tell you that.

Meagan:

Oh, no doubt. I can imagine.

Jess:

It hasn't been too bad, but it'll be like once they shifted to in the valley, because they ended noon in the valley now because of the heat, but now it's like okay, so I have to pick up the pizza at 10 am as the earliest Costco will let me pick it up and they know me. I call in the order and they go,

Jess:

I love them so much. They're my strike MPPs.

J.R.:

Now that you have a job, are you actively looking for more volunteers or do you think you have the team built out?

Jess:

I mean, I'm always looking for more volunteers just because people's availability changes. I kind of wrote myself into the corner of like I have to do every valley pick and line every single day and if, at this point you know, if I don't do one, no one will care, except for me.

J.R.:

They'll be like oh please like take a break.

Jess:

I'm like I cannot take a break.

Meagan:

No lies. You don't understand, we'll starve! People will die!

Jess:

(laughs) Yes, it's high stakes. My therapist is like is there anything that would happen where you would skip a day? I'm like I don't know, if I'm like unconscious, I guess. Because I would make it happen. I'm going on vacation this weekend, so Monday and Tuesday assuming it doesn't get rained out, I'm getting Domino's delivered.

Meagan:

Oh my God.

Jess:

This is amazing, I get a vacation, my volunteers get a vacation, you guys still get pizza. So that's incredible.

J.R.:

So if somebody wants to volunteer, how do they? How do they connect with you?

Jess:

They can hit me up on Twitter. That's kind of where the whole thing is, and if this isn't, if I wasn't doing this, I certainly wouldn't be on Twitter.

Meagan:

Right.

Jess:

But I'm just like, this is where I am, this is where I'm staying, planting my feet. Yes, and my handle is @chessmorse, chess like the game, morse like the code. So, yeah, you can just DM me my DMs are open and be like hey, I want to volunteer and I'll be like great, if you're in the valley, then you meet me at Costco. If you're outside the valley, then you go to the Domino's. I have a list of the closest Domino's location to every single picket line. Wow, and we just, you know, my credit card was getting declined for a little bit because it was. It was like tagged as fraud, it's like no one's eating this much.

Jess:

I had to call them twice and be like no, I am getting this much.

Meagan:

I hope you're getting points.

Jess:

Oh, I'm getting points. I'm like I haven't looked at what the max is. I'm maxing out.

Meagan:

Nice. How about donations? How do people donate?

Jess:

Venmo PayPal Cash App. Zelle. Got them all. Venmo is on my Twitter. It's like the pin tweet is the little QR code and the link is in there. But it's just Jess- Morse, my name, and then, yeah, you can, the PayPal link is up there or you can just like DM me again for other options.

Meagan:

That's perfect, I hope the money comes in.

J.R.:

My question is what happens at the end of the strike?

Jess:

What happens with, like the money, or what happens with me in my life?

J.R.:

What happens with you in your life?

Jess:

Oh well, we hope that I get a job.

J.R.:

What kind of job are you looking for?

Jess:

So I mean well, I'd love to jump straight to EP, but I mean.

Meagan:

(laughs) Clearly you have the organizational skills.

Jess:

Well, I think I've definitely proven myself that I can get lunch for writers. So um I'd love to be in a support staff position. Like I said, I did the um writers access support staff training program, the WASP, through the Writers Guild Foundation, so I am trained to be a writers assistant and or script coordinator. I'm a comedy writer, so in a comedy room or an animation room would be fantastic. What happens to the money is I give the money back to other people if I haven't spent it all yet.

J.R.:

Have you made a lot of good connections with writers delivering pizzas to the line?

Jess:

I think so. You can ask them how much they like me. There are like certain, like strike captains um, who I just like, adore. You know I see them every day. Shout out to the Universal team on Lankershim. Also the Universal team on Barham, because they are. That's just run by the Writers Guild Foundation.

Jess:

I love them and they love me, I think. But yeah, no, I just it's been really great because I've met so many people and then also, just like on Twitter I might not run into them on the line, but I'm meeting show runners and upper level writers. But yeah, it's, uh, it's been cool and it's it's definitely like don't want to be like, oh, the strike is so good because obviously a bunch of people are out of work and it's really tearing, tearing some some lives apart. But I'm like, hey, I've got a job outside of this. I'm meeting a bunch of writers. I feel like energized and excited.

Meagan:

You know, it's so interesting that you say that. This is also kind of um like resonant with the conversation we were having with Joelle about sort of the silver linings of the strike and it makes me think that -- this is going to sound like so lame. But the thought that comes to my mind is, you get out of it what you put into it.

Meagan:

Y ou guys are putting in a ton of positive energy and just giving, and so that's what you are getting back, I think, which is really wonderful. And then it kind of like leads me a little bit to my other question, which is backing way up, because I would love to know more about you and like where you come from, and like how you became a writer and decided to take this path.

Jess:

I'm from Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. I studied screenwriting at Emerson College in Boston.

J.R.:

Part of the Emerson Mafia?

Jess:

Yes, I am. Just me and Jay Leno, we're always swapping DMs. I always wanted to be a writer since I was, like you know, little baby making TV shows with my sister on our big, our mom's like camcorder with the full VHS in it. Right, we were those kids. We had a variety show, but we didn't know what a variety show was called, so we were like, oh, it's like Sesame Street style as opposed to like Arthur style.

Meagan:

Wow, I didn't know that Sesame Street was a variety show, but now I do.

Jess:

It is technically.

Meagan:

It is. I never thought of that before.

Jess:

At a certain point, you know, I watched 30 Rock and I was like that's what I want, that's what my life is going to be. It's going to be so great, like Liz Lemon's life is the entire show. But yes, I went to Emerson. I did comedy there, sketch comedy. So I did a lot of writing, a lot of hanging out with funny people and I was like, yes, this is the life I'm going to fall in love with one of you and I did, and we've been together for nine years.

Jess:

Shout out to Will.

Meagan:

Oh my gosh, yay! Shout out to Will. You're a good one.

Jess:

Yeah, he is. Moved to LA after like three and a half after college or during college, and yeah, I've just been like plugging away. So, yeah, doing the pizza, it's been kind of like a -- It was like a time filler. It was like it's like a new direction. I was like, well, working on my writing isn't obviously that always helps your career, but I'm like that's not going to help. Sitting alone is not going to help me. I'm the most important person. I'm the main character. It's not going to help me become a writer anymore, like at least not right now. What's going to help me is to go out and be genuine and be helpful. And yeah, like you said, get that karma growing right, get that good will up, entirely selfless, of course, and then, yeah, and then that's going to get you know. I figured that's going to get me closer to my dream that I've wanted, you know since I was like five, than anything else.

J.R.:

Well, I think that's very inspiring, especially because I know at the beginning of the strike a lot of support staffers were sort of trying to figure out what their place was in the strike or how they could help, and I know there's a lot of misinformation going around that support staffers shouldn't be at the picket lines and stuff like that.

Meagan:

That was crazy, yeah, especially in the beginning. Yeah, a lot of people were very uncomfortable, like I'm not allowed or I'm not part of the WGA, so I can't do this.

J.R.:

And it's just so inspiring that you jumped in with two feet. You said here's something that I can do, here's something that is helpful. And it's just amazing. You're taking care of people every day.

Jess:

Yeah, that's the other great thing about showing up with food is that people are going to talk to you and people are, you know. So that's when I showed up to Universal for the first time with all those pizza and all the captains were like, oh my God, like who are these from? These are from you, like what's your name? I was like I'm meeting people. So, as someone with you know, I have anxiety and I'm autistic, so like meeting new people doing new things that I don't understand is like the most terrifying thing in the world. But when you have pizza, everything is easier.

J.R.:

Because everyone loves pizza.

Jess:

Just, you know, they want to be, they want to talk to the person with the pizza. So if anyone out there, is like I'm scared to go to the picket line. What if no one wants to talk to me? Sign up with me, I'll get you some pizza to bring and that's your icebreaker, and from there it just gets a lot easier.

Meagan:

That is really great advice.

J.R.:

So true, I think that's honestly how my career is advanced. I started as a writer's PA and you're right, everyone loves the one with the food.

Meagan:

Yeah that's right. That's why that is like the thing that made you shine as a writer's PA. It's not just that you bring food. It's like that you bring food with a smile and like positive energy and you enjoy doing it and like that makes a huge difference.

J.R.:

Yeah, that's a great. That's a great point. I feel like I've had a breakthrough about my own life during this episode.

Meagan:

Any shout outs you want to give?

Jess:

I mean I shout out all my wonderful volunteers. I mean I mentioned Mendel already by name. It's been great. I've connected, reconnected with people from my past through this. So shout out to Gabby. Gabby Ruiz, she's been helping me down in, like at Amazon and Sony. She's like a regular over there. Kayla, Kayla Kover is my Netflix and Paramount person. She always does both and she's amazing at it. Shout out to the Costco food court staff, Anna Doa, it's been so great.

Jess:

My donors, my, I mean I've got people. I've got someone in the UK who's like boosting me every day and like is always adding the PayPal link because they don't have Venmo really outside of the US in most places and she's just been awesome and I was like I would like I'd kill for you. Okay, I don't know you, I'd ever met you. I'm probably never going to meet you because you live very far away. Like, you're awesome, like why are you helping me out so much, which is great? I think it's very funny when people thank me because I'm like it's not my money and it's not like my pizza and my strike and you know anything, so I'll be like thank you for the donation.

Jess:

They're like no, thank you. Like no, thank you. You bought the pizza.

J.R.:

Yeah, but you're putting in the work. You can't forget that.

Jess:

Yeah, okay.

Meagan:

You're doing the thing that is our mission with this podcast, which is making Hollywood a happier place. That is a very rare thing and it's really special and we want to thank you for that.

J.R.:

So every episode we end by saying go create in peace. Okay, so if you could give us one of those and I'll cut it in- Go create in peace. Thank you, amen, amen. The Hollywood Confessional is produced by Meagan Daine and JR Zamora- Thal, special effects provided by Zap Splat and Pixabay. Hollywood Confessional is a Ninth Way Media production. Follow us on socials @fessuphollywood.