DAYS: December 2023 Discussion Thread

[AbcNbc247]

Uggggggggghhhhhhhhh

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Tyler Perry fired his ass already?

[ArizonaDaze]

There were no breakdown writers listed in the credits today, only Ron and Ryan.

[te.]

Was it confirmed it was Tyler Perry was where he was going to?

 

Either way, a lot of shows are getting delayed and outright cancelled due to the strike. Could be what happened to him.

[Contessa Donatella]

What was the job  Jamey Giddens got in 2023 that got held up because of the WGA strike?
## Bing
Jamey Giddens is a writer who joined the writing team of Tyler Perry's Sistas for its seventh season in 2023 . However, his job was held up due to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike that lasted from May 2 to September 27, 2023. 

 

 

[AbcNbc247]

Yeah.

Errol confirmed it.

[janea4old]

-- ooh EDIT --

I posted some info in this space but I see that it's not needed.
Deleting because...

I see that all of it was written more clearly by @Errol back in August here:
https://www.soapoperanetwork.com/2023/08/jamey-giddens-joins-season-7-writing-team-tyler-perrys-sistas

Edited December 10, 2023 by janea4old

[j swift]

to add to @janea4old's excellent summary, I cued the interview to the second that Jamey announces returning to DAYS (so, you don't need to watch the whole thing)

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I feel compelled to add that as much as I find his online persona grating. It is remarkable that this fan from Texas, who went to a small community college, and wrote PR releases for the CDC, wound up fulfilling his dream of writing on a soap.  While, I might celebrate it more if he wasn't so busy always congratulating himself, it is notable.

Edited December 9, 2023 by j swift

[carolineg]

I don't like him or his writing, but I would have to agree it's pretty remarkable he went from Daytime Confidential to actually writing soaps.

[janea4old]

These are some of the things Jamey tells Alan Locher about his life:
Jamey said at the beginning of the Locher Room interview
that he grew up in the small town of De Kalb, Texas which is near Texarkana on the Texas/Arkansas border.   He went to  Southern Arkansas University and double-majored in print and broadcast journalism.
(He said Southern Arkansas Univ was a small school).  
Then he was a news reporter.  He covered the regular news and local news for Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana newspapers.  At one point he was a city editor but it paid very little.
Then he got a federal job as an intern for two years at the local army depot doing non-journalism tasks which wasn't great but it was a federal job that paid a livable wage.
Then he worked for Pulitzer Inc (the news company, not the Pulitzer Prize), working as an editorial assistant. 

(Jamey talks about Luke Kerr starting Daytime Confidential.  Kerr finally convinced Jamey to join the podcast, and Kerr taught him about blogging.) 

Jamey was living in Illinois but moved back to Texas and got a new job as the publicist for the army depot in Corpus Christi, where he worked for a few years.

Then Jamey got a new paid federal job - he began working for many years at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) as a publicist -- he wrote for the CDC newsletter the "MMWR" (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morbidity_and_Mortality_Weekly_Report
(I assume working for the CDC was how or why Jamey came to live in Atlanta?). 
What Jamey tells Alan Locher about that CDC job is really interesting.
He said he had already left the CDC to work on "Ambitions" before COVID. He didn't write about COVID, but he did write for the CDC about other diseases and epidemics.

Edited December 9, 2023 by janea4old

[Contessa Donatella]

Thank you, @j swift   for cueing that. I tried to make myself do the whole thing & I just could not do it. 

 

[janea4old]

 

Listening to the whole thing, I was fascinated by him trying to keep the balance of working decent paid jobs to support himself, and doing DaytimeConfidential which probably paid very little but was his true interest -- doing all that for so many years while actually wanting to write for soaps.
Really a tale of perseverance!

He also said that all his training in journalism in school, as a reporter, and as a publicist, taught him how to write the pieces of a story, which helped him to learn storytelling in general and helped him to write soaps.
(I find that interesting regardless of whether I like his soap writing or not).

Edited December 9, 2023 by janea4old

[carolineg]

Oh definitely.  I think there is a big difference between liking his writing and admiring his hustle to make his dream happen.  Good for him!  He is getting lots of work and at the end of the day it doesn't matter if I think he's a hack lol.  I have to say I did like a lot of his work on Daytime Confidential though.

[Contessa Donatella]

I was not a regular of that podcast but I vividly remember the first thing I read that he wrote. It was a write up of AIDS/HIV early on, on all soaps where it had come up. And, he began with AW & went forward & the soap scholarship was excellent. 

[janea4old]

A great deal of the interview was Alan asking Jamey about what soaps he watched as a child and as an adult.  Jamey talked a lot about that.  Between that discussion, Jamey's journalism career, DaytimeConfidential, and a little about Ambitions, that was most of of the Locher Room interview. (except for the part that @j swift graciously cued to about working at DAYS.)

In all of that, there was no mention of Sistas.
CORRECTION, I found it, Jamey does mention Sistas for one minute near the end.
Jamey said he wrote 6 episodes of Season 7 of Sistas, which will air in 2024. I missed this the first time I listened.
He says this from 1:01:35 – 1:02:40 of the LocherRoom interview.   He says Ron Carlivati allowed him to do both.

Edited December 10, 2023 by janea4old

[AbcNbc247]

So, if he has all this experience, why is his writing so awful? Some of the worst things we've seen on Days ever (Sarah as Renee, Leo pretending to be Gwen, the friggin giant Duke bear) have been from him. 

I'm not even trying to be mean, that's a serious question. 

I actually tried watching and I couldn't make it either. Serious props to @j swift and @janea4old

Edited December 9, 2023 by AbcNbc247