Happy Friday and welcome back! Julie convinced me to watch the new season of CHEER with her by telling me it’s about cheerleading the way FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is about football. Now I’m hooked and learning a ton of lingo that I’ll never have any use for other than when I’m talking about CHEER. The filmmakers do a great job of drawing distinct characters, investing you in their personal stories, and giving you character defining moments in every episode. It’s a sports movie at heart and this season is built around a rivalry with another school thirty miles down the road.I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who may tune in but if you follow the show at all you know that one of the breakout stars from season one was arrested for production of child pornography and has since admitted to other crimes against minors. We’re just now getting to the episode where they deal with his arrest and the effect of Covid lockdowns on their season. It's taking a hard turn, reminds me of how the documentary ICARUS started as a story about doping in in sports but turned into something else.Up to this point one of the things I loved most was watching how supportive these athletes are of each other. Even when they’re devastated about being “off mat” (basically sitting the bench) they push past it and cheer on the rest of the team. And not just in competition or the “full out” run-throughs in practice, I’m talking about every stunt in practice there’s a chorus of people yelling, “You got this, Maddy!”Of course there are catty asides and the occasional bad attitude but when it comes down to the wire it seems like these kids really have each other’s backs, literally and figuratively. I didn’t play organized sports after my first musical in the 5th grade. Until then I played football in the fall, basketball in winter, and baseball in the summer, and I was terrible at all of them. I did have fun, sometimes, but when I saw scenes of them running line drills it reminded me how miserable I was during most of those practices. I think I missed out.You get some of that same camaraderie in theater or while you're making a television show but there's not nearly as much "mat talk" where you hype each other up. I can’t imagine sitting in the rehearsal room and yelling, “You got this, Steve! You better sing that G!” just before the actor playing Billy Bigelow in CAROUSEL hits the big high note at the end of “Soliloquy.” But maybe that would be… awesome? At least for one rehearsal? How about in a writers room, when you know someone’s on a great run, connecting beats and scenes together and finally that story you’ve all been banging your heads on the table over comes together, so you start clapping your hands and yelling, “Okay, Shakespeare! Okay, Shonda, I see you! Bring it on home with your beautiful brain!” You know what, I’m just gonna mat talk you people right now. Because I have friends who celebrated big successes this week and I have friends who took big hits in the arena, with projects that got passed on or ground up in the machine. I have friends who had babies or got engaged and other friends who got Covid. It was a mixed fucking bag.So let's bring it in for a minute. Ay, listen up.If you sold that show or you got that phone call that changed your life, if you got that direct deposit that means you don’t have to worry about your student loans anymore, if your episode aired, or that Deadline article dropped, look at you! You did that! Do you know how hard it is to do that? Some of you did it twice in one day, Nkechi Okoro Carroll! If you placed in a contest or set an exciting meeting, if you got or gave constructive feedback on a work in progress, you're a force of nature! Do you remember when this seemed so far away? How intimidating that blank page or blinking cursor was when you started? Look how far you've come!And if you got knocked down this week, if you lost your footing or the pyramid crumbled beneath you and you landed face first on the mat, look at you! You’re still here! You got back up, you dusted yourself off, and you went launching for the rafters AGAIN!Who’s got more heart than you? Nobody! You said, “You can break my ribs and maybe even my nose but you can’t break my spirit!” Can I tell all of you how proud I am of you right now?That the world is a better place because you’re in it.That you make it more beautiful with your art, your stories, your recipes, your children, your pickles, your pet pictures, your songs, your heart. You are amazing! Amazing.Now grab some water, catch your breath and I’ll meet you back on the mat on Monday.We’ve got a big week coming up!