Earl's Greg Garcia, elbow deep in the grease

Greg Garcia, creator of My Name is Earl, may have pulled double shifts during the strike. On top of his picketing duties, he spent some time in the grease traps.

He took a job at a fast-food restaurant, never letting on to his fellow employees -- or anyone else -- that he was an Emmy-winning writer/producer. As a cashier and occasional janitor, Greg spent the month of January rubbing elbows with the real world. You might wonder, why would he do it?

His answer is simple: "I've wanted to do a book about taking different jobs and what it was like to do them," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "This was the first. It may be a while before I do the second. But it's just about the fact that we live behind gates and work behind gates, and as a writer you start to lose touch with the audience. You start running out of life experience."

Free Earl!

I'm quite late coming to the Earl bandwagon. I blame it on bad luck. The first episode I watched was "Joy's Wedding" and that was unpleasant on multiple levels. While I think Jaime Pressly is a cutie-pie (and shots of her in that stars and stripes bikini above are almost enough to get me to see the long-shelved DOA) I find Joy to be the most abrasive personality on tv. I'm including Faux News blowhards, Bush press secretaries, and Bob the Enzyte ad guy. Bad first exposure to an awesome show.

I've recently started watching so I could provide script coverage to some friends and realized how good this show really is. My bad. At least I figured it out eventually.

Anyway, here's a great video Earl's friends put together to help the world know his plight. Free Earl!