Easy Chair Emmys

I turned on the telly for the first time in almost three months. The DVD television series and Korean films don't really count as television viewing. They don't quite zap you of your ability to think in the same way as, say, watching My Name Is Earl and Boston Legal and Law and Order: SVU with all the commercials and your own personal way of channel flipping, which consists of you having to press and press and press at least ten times on your remote control before the signal registers on your television, which is less than two feet from you. Which you could easily reach to change channels if you just extend your arm a little.

I can be even lazier, and yes it's possible. My Korean movie ended, I pressed the wrong button, and I found myself switched over from video to cable, and Conan O'Brien was just warming up in his opening skit for the Emmy awards.

It's not like it was my favorite show, like, ever, and it's not that I particularly enjoy watching award shows, and really, Conan is dear and I enjoy watching him, but I wasn't even aware it was time for the Emmys.

But maybe I was destined for it. Maybe for the only reason that it brought about a sudden overwhelming desire to own all of Aaron Spelling's oevre, most of all Dallas and Melrose Place, where you could pinpoint the very moment Heather Locklear's face froze into its perfect ice-crystal beauty for all eternity.

But aside from the best reason to watch award shows (seeing actors not able to present or communicate AT ALL or crack the smallest little joke or trade familiar cliches that have been ridden hard by word-whores long before the Hollywood folk dreamed of the day Armani would be slobbering after them to dress them head to twat), I also enjoyed seeing what new shows were striking chords with people. I mean, Two and a Half Men had the highest viewership of their network, or their genre, or whatever it was they were top of? Who knew? Who really even cared? Except for the novelty factor of having Jon Cryer in it? And whatever in the world is the show called Extras? Is it THAT good? Who's heard of it? Where did it come from? And does Entourage really match the hype? Though there really is something kind of appealling about Jeremy Piven?

And why didn't Arrested Development get any fricking awards?

It was also nice to see the symbolic passing of the torch that happened between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, two very, very funny smart men. Stewart's group kept getting all the awards, and he kept nodding at the Colbert folks, in his way saying, It's all yours next year. And Stephen Colbert nodding in his sage, goosey way, and me nodding in my chair with all my knitting scattered around. It was a moment of kinship and competition among good friends that I absolutely recognized. Not like I play in their pickup games or anything. Not like I'm even allowed in the park when they play. Just that I felt I understood.

And speaking of, this year I paid less attention to the women's gowns (one word: boring. The more extended read: really fucking boring) and really focused on who got the writing awards, and whether or not the writers were at all acknowledged when the actors made their acceptance speeches. Not that there is a chance I'd be one of those writers someday, just that. You know. I just pay attention now.