SAG president Alan Rosenberg's final opportunity to preserve his strike-hungry executive director and negotiating committee fizzled this morning in Superior Court.

No wonder Alan Rosenberg's rejected restraining-order appeal yesterday included a few errors: Any lawyer moving to SAG squabbles from a career in right-wing crisis management would encounter a severe learning curve at some point.

Blues singer to sue for SAG exec's reinstatement. [The Wrap]

This whole SAG presidency thing may not be working out so well for Alan Rosenberg, but so what? His blues-career Plan B is taking off before our eyes — have a listen after the jump!

Rosenberg: Fired Doug Allen "too good" for SAG. [The Wrap]

Union Breakers: As alluded to here by commenters on the town's latest labor strife, SAG president Alan Rosenberg and CSI star Marg Helgenberger have announced their split after 19 years of marriage. "They love and respect each other and remain committed to their family," their spokesman said in statement released over the weekend; the couple have an 18-year-old son named Hugh and are expecting their first strike together some time this winter. [People]

In a savage coup of upstart infidels, the Unite for Strength ticket outlasted incumbent Alan Rosenberg's MembershipFirst slate in Thursday's SAG board election, thus opening a new era of moderation, peace and progress in Hollywood's rancorous labor wars. Or... not. Maybe? It's too soon to tell, frankly, with new leadership including Amy Brenneman, Scott Bakula, Adam Arkin, '05 loser Morgan Fairchild and Assaf "Brother of Sacha Baron" Cohen making up only a theoretical majority at best; studio-friendly Variety says the SAG/AMPTP squabble's days are numbered, union flunky Nikki Finke says that's "simpleton" piffle, and here in the middle, we can't help but notice that SAG's contract-negotiating team isn't changing at all. Still, we look to the future with cautious optimism perhaps best evoked by Rosenberg's concession on Thursday:

The nuclear labor plume at left is presented a little closer to actual size this morning, the start of the first full day without the specter of strike hell exhaling waves of rancid breath over Hollywood. Not that AFTRA's ratification of its prime-time contract Monday evening vanquishes the SAG threat altogether; the 62.4% tally in favor of AFTRA's deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers suggests that while a strike vote might fail, SAG leadership convinced probably upwards of 10,000 AFTRA members to stand down in the pitched battle between unions.

More apocalyptic Hollywood strike talk is surfacing this morning, with Variety noting that little progress has been made in the ongoing contract negotiations between SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Shocking! But with one week remaining on their clock before the compliant gang at AFTRA gets their turn to bend over the conference room table for a little rough, residual-based intimacy, time is of the essence for an aggressive union leadership that wants to at least pretend it maintains the upper hand:

In another noisy shot across the studios' collective bow, SAG leadership hinted further at a strike

As noted here Monday, SAG president and all-around industry red-ass Alan Rosenberg never encountered a paper cut he couldn't pick and peel into a festering scab. A lot of it is the institution's historic dysfunction; less than 90 days from the expiration of its contract with studios, SAG has more factions, infighting and revenue disparities than the Jackson family. Nevertheless, on the second day of negotiations between SAG and producers, Brooks Barnes offers a revealing portrait of the Man Who Would Bring Hollywood to Its Knees If It Will Get Him in the New York Times:

While most of the civilized world enjoyed an early-spring weekend about town, SAG president and press warlord Alan Rosenberg practiced his saber-rattling in anticipation of upcoming labor negotiations with the studios. Despite reaching out to AFTRA to rejoin them in talks starting tomorrow, such token detente couldn't mitigate Rosenberg's resistance pledged against everyone from mutinous actors like Kevin Bacon and Charlie Sheen to penny-pinching producers. And at least one high-powered, face-saving source is urging the union to stand down or face certain doom.