Tag: Emmy Award

The 65th Emmy’s and you

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I might be a bit late on the reporting side here but hey, at least I’m still in the same week as the 65th Annual Emmy Awards that aired this past Sunday on CBS.  Funny how a station that rarely has Emmy award winning shows is the one to air the prestigious ceremony.  Regardless, I watched it in its entirety in order to correctly comment on the various moments of the show.  I’m glad I sat through the slew of memorandums and acceptance speeches because this was genuinely the best I’ve seen in terms of winners.  However, that being said, it’s hard to really pick a terrible show now a days especially with HBO, Showtime, and even AMC exploding with season after season of remarkable storylines and characters. Move over USA, characters are welcomed everywhere now.

Though there has been some critique at the fact that many of the Emmy’s went to cable shows, the fact of the matter is original series and miniseries are really becoming in vogue now since the decline of the theater (film, that is). Movies lately have not had the same impact and resonance as shows like Game of Thrones, Girls or Veep have with society today, which really depicts the complete turnaround that television has taken.

I appreciate this fact because that means that the writers of today’s television world have stacked the odds and have solidified in terms of talent against the screenwriters of days old.  Prior to this “Golden Age”, as many at the Emmy’s put it,  Lorne Michaels, Larry David, Rod Serling were a rarity just simply because television was consider the low portion of the totem pole. You start in Theater, move to Film, then have a breakdown. Eventually, after rehab, you wind up in television writing for a rom-com on NBC. But NOW! Geez, you could start in TV and suddenly you’re writing a full length Brad Pitt film.

Yeah, what does this ridiculous, self-congratulatory ceremony actually have to do with me? Well, for me, as a writer, this means that although some people would prefer not to pick up a book, newspaper or anything that has printed words, this development in television means that there are new avenues, new ideas, new creativity being developed and cultivated in a whole other industry that we ignored for more than 50 years.  Popular culture will suddenly become more popular (less educated/prosperous people can join in) and much more intelligent (have you actually taken a moment to consider the script writing in Veep, goodness).

What this means is that we may need writers more than all of you who scoffed at my English degree may actually think.

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Addictions – Ode to Cory Monteith

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A few years ago, I spent some time at a lovely “behavioral center” across the street from Sea World. Of the various group sessions I attended, I’ve found myself continually recollecting one particular session about addictions. I remember sitting there trying to decide what I was going to share as my addiction in the group. I listened to the others, crying over stories of crack addicts, alcoholics, dope fiends, and meth heads.

I finally just said that I was addicted to hurting myself.

For weeks afterward, I shook my head as I remembered the smiling faces of the addicts. They probably wondered what a girl like me would even know about pain.

Last week, Cory Monteith was found dead from a combination of heroin and alcohol. For years, he said he had struggled from drug addiction and even stopped by a few rehabs along the way to his rise to fame in Glee. But even with the help of on screen and off screen love, Lea Michele, the act of injecting and imbibing drugs to feel better about himself became too much for him to ignore.

Cory Monteith, gone too soon.

Or maybe not as soon as he wanted. I have found in my experience that those who do drugs do so to heal a pain there is no cure for: Self-Loathing. Those smiling faces in the group weren’t mocking me, they were supporting me by saying “dude, we like to hurt ourselves too”. People willing to destroy themselves physically are most likely feeling destroyed mentally already. The fact that he was on Glee and probably had enough money to life the rest of his life doesn’t mean much if you consider that he probably didn’t feel all so hot about himself in recent months. All speculation but could you really imagine a happy drug addict?

Alas, Glee will return in September, without Finn Hudson. And not only will writers have the difficult task of writing the beloved and well developed character out of the show, but the cast will have to perform in the same room where they had once stood with their fallen co-star.

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