Public Mourning

Gallons of ink have been spilled over the past few weeks since Michael Jackson's death. The most interesting aspect for me has been to watch how the media has handled the death of an unquestionably talented, deeply troubled and possibly criminal music icon.

From my seat on the sofa, most of the media coverage has taken a huge bet on the musical genius of our times and yeah, by the way, he was awfully weird. A few have tried to have their cake and eat it to by decrying the media's obsessive, claustrophobic coverage of Jackson while he was alive. I've heard precious little about the truly dark accusations - often just a footnote to bizarre last 20 years of Jackson's decline.

It's hard to know just how to feel about his death. It was an inevitable end to a long, deeply sad journey - but that doesn't make me feel like running out to buy a new copy of Thriller, either.

Emmy Nominations

The Emmy Awards amuse me. The media and industry tend to treat them like the red-headed stepchild of awards shows - perhaps because few kids grow up dreaming about making an Emmy Acceptance speech. Nope, it's always Oscar, right? So the Emmy's get even less credibility than the Golden Globes - even though actual movie stars (Holly, Glenn, Kyra) have cropped up on TV in growing numbers in recent years.

This year, the folks at the Emmy's have made some interesting moves, like inviting Neil Patrick Harris to host (huzzah) and expanding the number of nominees in the big categories. The latter move has yielded some mixed results:

• Jim Parsons gets a nomination for The Big Bang Theory, as does Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Chonchords. Still doesn't stop Charlie Sheen for getting yet another nomination for phoning it in on Two and a Half Men.
• How I Met your Mother is up for Best Comedy (huzzah, again). So is Entourage (um, what?).
• Somehow, only Michael Emerson makes the cut for Lost, while the brilliant Elizabeth Mitchell gets squeezed out by multiple nominees from In Treatment and Grey's Anatomy. On the plus side, no Katherine Heigl.

Interesting to note that I'd heard nothing about the expanded categories, while the Oscar's (lame) decision to increase the number of nominees for best picture to 10 (so Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen can squeek in?) was all over the news. Yet more proof that the Emmys are still the Rodney Dangerfield of awards shows.