Paul Giamatti wins as John Adams!

Very sweet and amusing speech -- "I'm a reminder to all kids that anybody...anybody...can grow up to play the President." He's our favorite and congrats to him!


Candice Bergen giving the Outstanding Lead Actor in Comedy Series right now -- to Alec Baldwin for 30 Rock. 1st Emmy win for him, 7 noms over the years. Thanking Tina Fey, calling her the "Elaine May of her generation." Now let's hope people remember who Elaine May is...

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series: Glenn Close, Damages! They are playing her off with music...

The Death Roll right now -- Carlin, Heston, Buckley, Les Crane, Alice Ghostley, Ivan Dixon, Cyd Charisse, Mel Ferrer, Villa Alegro, Barry Morse, Deborah Kerr, Larry Harmon, Estelle Getty, Sydney Pollack, King Brother, Bernie Mac, Pleshette, a few others who went by too fast...Dick Martin, Delbert Mann, Harvey Korman, Jim McKay, Lois Nettleton, Mel Tolkin, Richard Widmark, Stan Winston, Tim Russert...

HBO's John Adams is Riveting: Join or Die

If it is true that an HBO miniseries about America's Revolutionary War does not make people race to their television sets, then that will be a terrible shame. HBO has tackled a topic that many think might mystify or bore today's youth obsessed TV audience. The outcome is extremely relevant and compelling. The first two episodes of this multi-part miniseries were magnificently filmed, and the cast and writing were (as we would expect from HBO films) Emmy Award winning caliber. Kudos also to the shock and awe special effects which do much to refute the "history is boring" stereotype. Paul Giamatti brings John Adams to life, not as an iconic and dusty founding father, but as a real man who loved his wife, found farming and manure fascinating, and worried incessantly over the world changing decisions that he helped forge in 1776.

Unlike most folks in America today, I have a bit of an advantage in believing this era of history was quite real and fraught with hardship. I grew up in rural upstate NY, and our house was built before the Revolutionary war. Every time my sisters and I played in the woods behind our property, we'd climb over stone fences built by the continental soldiers to hold back the British troops. Across the street from our home, was an ancient cemetery in an overgrown green field. Many of the headstones marked the final resting place for soldiers that had died fighting for independence over 200 years ago. It puts an entirely different spin on history when you grow up with the ghosts of the past walking in your midst.

Hopefully the extreme realism that HBO brings to the John Adams miniseries will help bring this era to life for a generation that dearly needs reminding of the sacrifices that were made by the Americans that came before us. If you don't think things have changed for the better, try to watch the Small Pox scene without losing your dinner. But if you think things have changed utterly, watch the Continental Congress debate endlessly, whether to fight for liberty....or offer diplomacy to the British. The enemy has changed, but it is still a familiar debate with US Presidential candidates in 2008.

At the end of part two, the Declaration of Independence is heard by Americans for the very first time. It is still poetic and powerful in its simplicity today. We hold these truths to be self evident. Tune in for John Adams and watch history unfold like you've never seen it before.