More Random or NaBloPoMo Day Two

Here we are at Day Two.



Just finished watching the Shaun Cassidy segment on the 'Best of Oprah' on the OWN network. It was one of those channelsurfing moment. It wasn't a bad segment, though I wished that Oprah had spent some time on how he managed to not go down in flames as had several of his contemporaries and carve out another career as a producer and writer. They mentioned it in passing, but Biography did a better job of covering this.


Speaking of writing, what I love about Shaun's work is that he does shows that not only tell a great story, that explores things like family, community and the absurd.


I first became aware of his career "behind the camera" with the series 'American Gothic'. I also watched 'Roar,' which is now more remembered as being the place where most Americans first saw the late Heath Ledger. I also remember it because Bill Maher tried to take Shaun to task about the show on 'Politically Incorrect' because a character on 'Roar' was of African descent and Maher felt that they were pandering to audience pressure to be inclusive on a show that takes place in Iron Age. Shaun, who was minding his own business, calmly corrected Maher, by letting him know that research was done and that it was possible for that character to exist and no pandering happened.







My own writing:
Two days - 1000 words so far. The working title for the NaNoWriMo project is 'In a Moment.' I've been working on how AG Rochelle ended up imprisoned and how Julian discovers and rescues her. As these are Gondal characters, the only clues are really from the poems that Emily about this.
I've spent time cleaning up and updating blogs. I finally moved all of my old NaBloPoMo posts from the old NaBloPomo site on Ning to a new home on Wordpress. I'll be getting the Blog365 posts soon. So now my only presence on Ning will be at the Bolt site.

I need to get going on the radio soap, which I think I'd like to do as a parody/satire, having really enjoyed watching 'Guiding Plight,' which like that great show, 'Soap,' pays homage to while wonderfully skewered the genre that feeds it.



So ends the Day Two Post. See you for Day Three.

B & B

Wow.

Just when I completely wrote off the new Bridget and Bold and the Beautiful, someone finally wrote a scene that MADE SENSE and gave Bridget some cajones in the bargain. Bridget called Brooke by her RIGHT NAME and snapped her whole body. I know that it will be short lived and that good writing will go away again. Boy I wish that Jennifer Finnigan could have played that scene. Ashley Jones did all right, but Jennifer would have really knocked it out of the park.You can watch the 3/13/08 episode here:http://www.cbs.com/daytime/bb/video/

The subplot of Stephanie's sister Pam (played by Alley Mills of 'The Wonder Years') is mildly amusing. It's almost as if they said, "play her like Kevin Arnold's mom with a dash of Dolores Umbridge of Harry Potter fame and a bit of Annie Wilkes of 'Misery' fame."

Hulu listening

Well, I hate to say it, but one of the recommendations from the 'Today Show' paid off. Hulu.com , a website that seems to house the tv shows and movies NBC Universal owns, has been my thing of late. CBS Paramount need not worry-I will still go there for my daily soap dose and for the 'Twilight Zone' and for "Five-0."
Today I got to "see" 'Benson,' 'Lou Grant,' 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' (an interesting episode with Lorne Greene), 'S.W.AT.,' and of course "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven." I wish they would show this instead of infomercials in the wee hours or reality shows that have no point to them-especially 'Lou Grant'. I would say that I wish there was a show like 'Lou Grant,' but then I am reminded that on cable a series like that but gritty in a way I am sure 'Lou Grant' wishes that it been just finished its run-'The Wire.'

MONDAY

Poor Monday-it gets such a bad rap as a day. This has to be a recent thing because I can't imagine that people in the past felt the same way.

Soaps:
A lot of "WTF" from me lately. Some people will blame the directions the storylines have taken on the scabs that wrote during the Writer's Strike. I don't let the regular writers off that easy. Many, except for The Young and the Restless, were going south for a long time now-most notably The Bold and the Beautiful.

Whenever I watch Guiding Light (GL), I find myself saying "Genug already!"
-I am happy that they finally wrapped up the Sarah/Jonathan/Lizzie storyline, but I hate how they ended it. I'll allow that Alan Spaulding is powerful, but I still can't see Lizzie and Jonathan not being about to find a legal remedy to keep him out of their lives, like a restraining order or something. The courts recognize very few grandparents' rights and honestly their wacky plan to get married would not have really stopped him.

-I wish they would end the Marina/Harley/Cyrus thing. I wish Marina would just bring both Harley and Cyrus into the same room and go,
"I know you guys are knocking each other and since you both couldn't grow a pair and tell me, I am telling you that I know. I am also taking myself out of this equation. Have fun together and go with god."
If wishes could come true that a soap heroine would just do that and strike a blow for intelligent women everywhere. Granted, never crazy about Marina or Cyrus, but I would love Marina to show that she has some pride rather than these silly "I Know What you Did" games she's been playing with Harley and Cyrus.
On a related note: I know that Rick Bauer needs to leave Harley alone. Rick "I'm in love with my wife until another damsel in distress comes along" has no right to threaten Harley, although he's right to call her by her right name.

-I also wish they would knock off the "Will they? Won't they" thing with Josh and Reva. Definitely a "genug" situation. I say just put Reva and Josh back together and call it a day. The Cassie/Josh thing never really jelled for me and honestly, while we are on the topic of self-respect: you would think that Cassie would invest in a clue in that she has honestly been sleeping with 3-4 people in the same marital bed (the fourth being Tammy or Will depending upon the moment) and that's not a marriage. Cassie too should cut her losses and find a life somewhere else.

-The OMEN/BAD SEED '08
Clearly in addition to returning to some of the visual elements that made up GL's, they are returning to plot elements of the past. The bad seed idea was explored way back in the 50s and 60s with Meta Bauer's stepdaughter Kathy and her daughter Robin (admittedly Kathy was more of a rebel and felt unloved a la Lizzie Spaulding a few years ago vs. Robin whose actions were completely more bad seed). At times it's been amusing and at times ludicrous (Friday's episode where Will pays a guy to give him a ride was ... well, gee I wonder what that says about adults in general.) I honestly now don't understand why this kid has just not been put away. Yeah, Cassie stands in the way of such things but O'Neill as DA could take care of that. Court mandated mediation....I know there was a hearing and I can't fathom that a good judge in the face of the evidence would look the other way. I almost wish Beth would press charges against Will for what he did to James. (Granted all this is soaps so logic does not apply). This one needs to be laid to rest, even if it ends with Cassie riding off into the sunset with him to whatever special school he gets committed to (thus clearing the way for a Josh and Reva reunion). It was interesting at first but now it's becomes a lot of "are you kidding me?" Rafe gets busted for breathing and Will sits back and enjoys his life of making people miserable.

Except for the fact that I hated hearing that down the pike Phyllis and Nick are supposed to have marital problems because of Adam on young and the Restless, I've got nothing else except that while I was not pleased that Patrick is the father of Robin's baby, I am glad that she told him and that she is not looking to take him back. Of course GH will insist on not putting Robin and Jason back together...


Politics:
Another "genug already" situation. Granted last week's SNL take off on the "3am" ad was great, but honestly I feel that Lord Howard Dean should have the election "do-over," which includes placing Obama et. al on the ballot this time. A move that brings risks to either candidate, but I feel that both can stand up to it.

Other Stuff:
Still working on organizing meetups. I will sort this out by the end of the week.

Soap Opera Musings

I suppose I could take time to talk about what I have listened to of late-waking up with the Everett fire and going to bed to the Omaha massacre, listening to ON POINT archives and noting that Tom Ashbrook foreshadowed his current health situation. Immediate on my mind though are soaps.

Anyone who really knows me is familar with the fact that for all that I am quite the intellect and at home at dry knowledge and that I cut my teeth on soaps. My mother watched them when I was young and well, I watched them on and off during school and then never looked back once I hit college.

The first soaps I cut my teeth on were All My Children and Another World (I thought my mother had something of a love for the "A's" until I saw that we also watched Days of Ours Lives, The Edge of Night, Ryan's Hope and Love of Life.)

My "first run memories" (meaning that I watched it when it was on and not as a rerun or as a part of the increasingly lame retrospective/compilation shows that networks have resorted to since 2000 to fill programming needs) are definitely of All My Children. Erica Kane and I go back. I remember when she was married to Tom Cudahy and I did at the age of 2.75 see the infamous episode when he finds out that Erica was taking birth control pills and that's why they weren't having babies and he kicked her out of the house. I remember most from that two things:

A) The dialogue:
(with admitted paraphrasing-c'mon I was almost 3)
Erica: where do I go?
Tom: I don't give damn where you go!

When I first saw "Gone With the Wind" on tv, I couldn't remember why the ending dialogue of Scarlett and Rhett seemed so familiar. When I was a teen, I put it all together.

B) Up to that moment, I had never seen a person be that furious on tv or real life. I think I may have asked if he was going to hit her.

Yeah, back in the days when it was okay to play with wooden toys that had wire parts and to eat peanut butter in everything.

I was with Erica for the most part through marriages 3-present (although she and Jack are divorced for now), through the drug addiction, the loss of mother Mona (not too long before the loss of my own), the jail term, Bianca's coming out, the roller coaster marriages to Adam and Dmitri, the arrival of Kendall (the Sarah Michelle Gellar version), the bear incident, Charlie 1.0 where Ruth Martin in Stephanie Forrester style asks Erica how many generations of the men in her family was she going to go through and her last wedding (so far) with Jack where all of her children were present.

Now I have a hard time watching the show simply because everyone looks a like on the show. I can make out Erica's daughters, Kendall and Bianca and sometimes I pick up Josh Madden (Erica's son by her first ever husband Jeff Martin who was conceived apparently in a manner that led me to call such things the soapdish rewrite.
Info dump: "Soapdish" was a movie in the 90s that starred Sally Field, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Kline, Elisabeth Shue and Robert Downey, Jr. that spoofed the soaps. The scene that was played forever in the movie trailer was of Whoopi as Rose the head writer and Robert as the producer having a difference of opinion about how to reintroduce Kevin Kline's character, since he was killed off in an accident that decapitated him. Robert apparently felt that saying that a groundbreaking surgery where they reattached the head would take care of it while Whoopi, speaking for all of those who have common sense kept saying, "but he doesn't have a head" in frustration to get him to see that this doesn't make sense. She did the rewrite per Robert's suggestion because he was the producer but I imagine that there are discussions that take place like that in the real world considering some of the ways retcons and aging and exits and returns are explained.)

I can't say that I can tell any of the blondes a part. This was once true for me of As The World Turns but I can tell Katie from Carly and now that they killed of Rose (though personally I felt they killed the wrong sister and yes, I know I incurred the wrath of all the 'Lilden' fans out there) and some recasts have alleviated the problem with the men although Carly and Jack's sons Parker and AJ (?) are still a problem with me.

Guiding Light is proof of what happens when you runs a show into a ditch. I don't listen to it so much anymore. I thought that it did a great thing by writing the storyline with Daisy choosing abortion and exploring the aftermath although that started getting a bit heavy handed. I got sick of the Marina-Cyrus-etc. storylines. The Marina/Cyrus relationship is the type that I wish soaps would stop doing. I never think that it's romantic to be kidnapped, shot and to place your family in danger-even if the perpetrator is handsome, has a "heart of gold" and "mends his ways" because of the love of a good woman. This is a fantasy and a stupid one.

More egregious is the "if I wait long enough, he'll mature and we'll be together..." General Hospital did this with the one character I thought was above that-Robin Scorpio. Robin and I go back to the 80s. She has the dubious distinction of being one of the few characters who has not been aged as well as being played by the same actress that originated the role-Kimberley McCullough. I rather liked Robin and her precociousness and her fearlessness and I was all for her and mobster Jason. Their breakup I thought was one of thse stupid soapdish moves and I am continually irritated that they will not put them back together. Robin came back to Port Charles in '05 to work in GH and then the writers decided that it would be fun to pair her with Patrick Drake, Noah Drake's arrogant son. He treated her like crap for months and then they became close-one of the main drivers of this was Patrick's exposure to HIV and the uncertainty. Then of course he would display behaviour that would remind you why this strategy never works-the "love of a good mature woman to make a man be better". They finally broke up over the fact that Robin wanted a baby and could with the means today have one as an HIV positive person. He did not want a child.
Then they have Robin go off the deep end in trying to find a donor for her father in a way that really make her character look pitiful. (Again running characters and stories into a ditch.).

The Young and The Restless is my "drug of choice" these days. I have always says that it is the best plotted-best written of the soaps with some of the best written characters.
Notice I said "some of" for characters because there are some good ones that are languishing on poorly written shows. Robin for the most part, Jason, Sonny and Spinelli on General Hospital for one.

Well, I think I will muse more about soaps later-it's time for The Young and The Restless.

Genug Already--A Plea to Soap Writers

I've been watching ATWT for maybe 2 years now and every time I decide to stop watching something interesting happens. I was on the edge of my seat with the slasher storyline. My main reason for writing is the constant pregnancy drama with one particular family. Let me explain: Jen had a one-night stand with Craig and got pregnant. Paul was getting ready to divorce Emily and she turned up pregnant. Now poor DUMB Will is trying to save his marriage and that home wrecker is pregnant (although I don't believe her). Give me a break that issue has been played out.... Enough already.... This is the new millennium: MEN DO NOT MARRY THEIR KNOCKED UP FLING ANYMORE... Give Jade a life and cut Gwen and Will some slack so they can attempt to have a normal life. Please don't let that pathetic girl be pregnant, especially since Gwen cannot get pregnant herself.