Live Earth, or "If I Ran The Soaps..."

...So I'm not doing my final Y&R and GL posts like I should be right now, because I'm watching Live Earth all day. Just like with Live 8, I love to watch the more obscure foreign concerts in Tokyo, Brazil, Shanghai, Hamburg, etc. with acts I've never heard of that are so exotic and interesting. Toni Collette and her band were amazing in Sydney. And frankly, it beats Madonna embarrassing herself and the entire venture with her gypsy act at Wembley. Oh my God. Did you see that? It was like Inland Empire.

But the reason I bring this up here is because I needed to rehash my tired old rant that anyone who knows me knows by heart: If I ran a soap, you wouldn't need a lame prefab teen scene story this summer. Why? Because I'd just take it to Live Earth. In the story, have the kids go to Live Earth. Didn't DOOL do this in a retarded way with the Stones a couple years ago? Well, nevermind. I'm just saying. Don't spend all that fucking money on musical numbers and guest acts and choreography and songwriters. Just take a few light and easy to move with cameras to several different venues, take the young actors necessary, split the kids up at different venues, including the more obscure ones, say, one at Hamburg and Tokyo or Brazil along with two at New York and London, structure a very loose series of plot beats around the concerts, and have them communicate by their phones, showing each other - and through them, the audience - what is going on around the world at these different concerts. Run a promotional tie-in on the network website with Live Earth and a phone provider; "follow Starr and Matthew (or whoever) and the gang on their phones as they travel the globe with Live Earth." And then, in the local area, so as not to disrupt the concert, pretape most of the story material with the kids in a block, like they did with the Hawaii remote on OLTL a few years ago. Break the scenes up and string it out throughout the concert footage.

Yeah, Live Earth or any other similar global concert would probably never allow it, and they'd probably be right not to. But honestly I think it would work and be - relatively, of course I probably have no idea what I'm talking about - cheap. A few cameras, a few kids, mostly pretaped footage, and just let the concerts guide it. So you get a fun teen story, but more importantly, you can teach The Kids At Home something by watching this stuff, as well as exposing them to all sorts of music around the world they've never heard. I don't understand why TPTB spend such stuff trying to "stay on the pulse of youth" and don't think of something so simple.

...So anyway, I have been gone. Long week. I am making up for it with an extra-big Y&R post that covers most of this week, as well as an extended GL one. l8rs. Phil Collins is trying to be hardcore in London, I gotta watch that.

AN OPEN LETTER TO CAROLYN HINSEY & DAYTIME TELEVISION

Recently, Phil Carey (Asa Buchanan on OLTL) was let go. OLTL revealed that his exit was due to his refusing to go off-contract and recurring, which Phil has always swore never to do. Also, Erika Slezak (Viki) spoke out publicly in her fan newsletter about the sad state of the show.

In the most recent issue of Soap Opera Digest, "It's Only My Opinion" columnist Carolyn Hinsey wrote thus:

It’s Only My Opinion By Carolyn Hinsey

Okay, kids, it’s time for you all to pull your chairs really close to this page so we can have a come to Jesus meeting about soap stars and their contracts.

Soaps are a business. They make their money on advertising, and advertisers only value viewers aged 18-49. It’s stupid and it’s not fair, but it’s a FACT. So, the networks do focus groups made up of fans like you and me, and those fans answer questions about who and what they like and don’t like on their shows. The shows then take some of that information--faulty though it may be---and use it to decide what to pay their people. That’s how business works. The most valuable people make the most money.

As we get older, our faves are all getting older, too. A few have trouble remembering their lines. Some have health problems, ego problems, even the occasional drinking problem. We, the journalists who cover daytime, don’t report even one-tenth of what we know a.)most fans don’t want to read about it and b.) it crosses a line into tabloid journalism that is not our territory. Do you really want to read about the actor who beat up his wife and was served a restraining order on the set in front of all his co-workers? Or would you rather keep liking his character while the show quietly phased him out and then recast the role(which they did)? I thought so.

Remember when Anna Lee (ex-Lila, GH) was dropped to recurring at 91 and there was this huge hue and cry about unfair it was? She was a lovely talented woman, but she was obviously frail. GH was willing to keep her onscreen as her health permitted on a recurring basis. How many people do you know who still have their jobs at 91? I know someone who had to retire at 55 because his company has a mandatory retirement age!

Sometimes when a beloved vet is let go or dropped to recurring its because they have a problem you don’t know about. Or they demanded to keep their 1980s salary, which went the way of rabbitt ears on the TV. Or maybe they simply aren’t up to the job anymore and the show is being kind by dropping their workload to allow them to exit gracefully.

Whatever it is, trust me. If an older actor is pulling their acting weight, scoring high with the focus groups, and not making unreasonable demands, they are going to stick around. But if they are a giant pain making crazy demand and annoying their co-workers and/or directors, they’re gone. That’s why they call it show business.

So, keep watching and loving your faves, and don’t tune out because one or two actors aren’t on as much as you’d like. If you want to change things…try to get in a network focus group!

What follows is my response. Warning: It is fucking long, son.


Dear Ms. Hinsey,


Hello. I'm Jase, and I blog with my writing partner "Darn" at a silly soap blog we call "The Wreck Center." You do not know me, but I feel like I already know far too much about you. You see, I've been reading your "It's Only My Opinion" column in Soap Opera Digest ever since I first started surreptitiously, shamefully sneaking issues of it off the shelf at the supermarket as a junior high schooler to buy and take home with me. That was about ten years ago. Actually, I really don't know if you were in it all the way back then, I can't recall, but I imagine so. You're something of an institution in the magazine, after all. And that's all well and good. Institutions deserve a degree of respect and attention, even if they're as consistently wrong as I usually find you to be. But even though I regularly, joyfully disagree with you, I have never felt compelled to write to you until now. You wrote recently about having a "Come To Jesus" meeting with your readers and through them, the contemporary daytime audience. You explained to us poor, starry-eyed soap fans in very sweet language about how "soaps are a business," and how sometimes, the beloved or elderly veterans, or both, have to go in the name of commerce, budgetary concerns, and the youth demographic, and that if they do go, it's usually because they're not "pulling their weight" (like, say, Anna Lee, who you cited in your article, who was fired at 91 and dead shortly thereafter after the new executive producer broke "General Hospital"'s longstanding promise to her and her family) or are making "unreasonable demands" and are thus no longer of use, but that we should "keep watching and loving [our] faves." I'm sure your unspoken addition to that sentence was "....while you can," but I'm just giving you the benefit of the doubt, okay? Okay.

Now, I want you to know first thing: I understand everything you said. I even agree with some of it. Soaps are a business. People do have to go. There is a youth demographic which is, understandably, the primary target of daytime television executives. And what you wrote is, after all, "only [your] opinion." Supposedly, but I have my doubts. But here's the thing, Ms. Hinsey, see, something just hit me like a ton of bricks: For all your long history in the world of daytime media, it turns out that I am a daytime institution too. I know, crazy, right? Not only that, but it turns out that - wait for it - I'm actually a lot more important than you and your opinion. And I'm more important than any of the executives or creative staff at ABC Daytime, be it Brian Frons, or Bob Guza, Jr., or Frank Valentini or Dena Higley. I'm even more important than some of the veteran soap stars who you just might have been obliquely referring to as "unreasonable" or "not pulling their weight," such as Phil Carey or Erika Slezak (Mr. Carey, a recent cancer survivor, was just let go from "One Life to Live" after decades of service for insisting upon his contractual renewal in lieu of "recurring," and Mrs. Slezak just spoke out vociferously on the show's quality, or rather lack thereof, in her fan newsletter) . I'm just plain more important than you and all of them. But it's not just me, right, because so is my blogging partner Darn, and so are most of those obnoxious online posters at Soap Opera Network, and so are most of those shrieking young women in the audience on SoapNet who scream for "old" folks like Hillary B. Smith or line up for Erika Slezak at Super Soap Weekend. Here's why, see: I'm not just the audience. We already know the audience ceases to matter to daytime after they hit 50, or 40 or 35 if we're being honest. No, see, I, and Darn, and all of those others, are all in the 18-49 demographic. Not only that, but Darn and I are both at the very low end of 18-49, namely under 30. Cast your mind back to those halcyon years, Ms. Hinsey, I'm sure you can remember. Which means, as you know, we are gold. We are made of frickin' bling. We live on iPods and cellphones and YouTube and MTV and instant gratification. We're gold to daytime advertisers, we're gold to daytime producers, to daytime executives, to daytime programming heads. If we tuned out or tuned in in a certain way starting next week in record numbers for a long enough time, we could have Steve Burton out on the street doing "Death Of A Salesman" in a Florida dinner theater, like Kevin Kline's character in "Soapdish." In that strictly vicious, corporate sense, we are, then, the only voice or opinion that really matters. Not yours, and not even the voices or opinions of the people behind the scenes at ABC Daytime. Ours. Which brings me to my complaint.

I have been a regular viewer of ABC Daytime since around 1993, hiding it from my friends, clumsily taping it or just staying home sick for unhealthy periods of time. I came into it full-time to watch "All My Children" and Kendall Hart, but at the time the show didn't do it for me so much (it did later) . I stayed, however, for "One Life to Live" and "General Hospital." I was fascinated by characters like Viki, Dorian, Nora, Max, Luna, Todd, Marty, Rebecca; families like the Spencers and the Scorpios, stories like those of Luke and Laura, Bobbie and Tony, Robin and Stone. Later on, I became addicted to the endless foibles of Erica Kane and Tad Martin and Liza Colby, and Dixie and her horrible, horrible hair. God, what bad hair. Now, the fly-by-nighter teens like, say, Bobby and Anita or Joey and Kelly didn't really do it for me; I might've liked them, but except for the rare stars like Susan Haskell, Roger Howarth, or Kim McCullough, my attention was almost always fixed elsewhere, on brilliant older actors and actresses like Tony Geary, Genie Francis, Erika Slezak, Robin Strasser, and Hillary B. Smith. I worship the ground Robin Strasser and Hillary B. Smith walk on, you don't even know. I did even then, and I was only in junior high at the time. Here was Nora, a fortysomething woman with grown children, or a villainous middle-aged dowager like Dorian, and yet they were my single favorite characters on "One Life to Live," which had become my show. Now, what do I have in common with Nora and Dorian? Except Nora's faith, absolutely nothing, including gender (Yes, I am that rare breed soap press and soap executives don't like to talk about: The male fan) . Yet I was entranced by their grit and spirit and forcefulness, or Viki's seemingly effortless grace of character, or Clint and Bo Buchanan's soulful resolve, or Asa Buchanan's steely curmudgeonness.

But more than just these great characters played by great actors, I was entranced by the shows themselves. I don't mean just the concepts or the production values or music or surface things like that, I mean the density of it, the scope, the length, the sheer weight and time spent - the history. I knew going in that soap operas had been on for a long time, and that these shows dated back at least twenty years or more at that time. I knew these characters and these families, the Lords, the Buchanans, the Spencers, the Scorpios, the Quartermaines, had been around for years and years, had gone through so much, had been everywhere and done everything, and that I was just the latest to come into their space and be with them. It was like a whole other universe, cozy and real and warm and full of life, not only when I was there watching but also when I hadn't been, before me. For a child watching, this fictional world was theirs, not just mine at my beck and call, and these people and these families and these towns went on and on. If you were ever that child in the audience, then I bet you know what kind of a comfort the continuing story of a daytime serial can be sometimes. A sense of history is what I kept watching soap operas for, a sense of a rich, long tapestry, something that spooled out beyond my memory and further than my eye could glean, a sense of history and a sense of family. It was because these characters remembered it all and loved each other that I remembered and loved them, too. And I was not the only one.

Here is something that I think you and those in the business of making daytime television already know but often don't acknowledge: Kids do not watch soaps for other kids. Okay? They just don't. They see enough of that around them in everyday life. They deal with it everyday at school. They watch for adults. They watch to see older people doing adult things that are so much adult and serious than kids think they could ever possibly be. I watched for Nora, Dorian, Viki, Luke, Laura, Bobbie, and all the rest. My friend Darn here at The Wreck Center watched Y&R for Jill and Katherine. I watched Nora fight to be with Bo, I watched Viki struggle with Sloan and Clint and her past with Dorian and her father, I watched Dorian defiant on Death Row. We watched for the older people, doing things older people do, and we watched for the families, and we watched for the memories and the history, like the Victor Lord story, that wrapped us in it without asking, sucking us in, making us part of the tapestry, and we didn't complain - we loved it. We still do. We watched for these characters and these things, we stayed for them, and yet here, today, in 2007, we are essentially being told, in deed if not word by the powers that be in daytime television, that even though we are the key demographic, we don't really want to watch these things, this isn't really what's interesting to us, these people don't really matter to us, and we should keep watching these shows even as they turn inside out into some of the worst, most unrecognizable crap I have ever forced myself to sit through. And now, Ms. Hinsey, in your condoning the recent daytime business practices, you're essentially telling us that too - of course, I'm sure it was "only [your] opinion" and Soap Opera Digest has a totally independent editorial stance, right? Right.

It's hard being a fan of "All My Children," "One Life to Live," or "General Hospital" these days, Ms. Hinsey. The older, veteran characters we love so much seem to keep dropping like flies. Edmund Grey got murdered and his killer is now a romantic lead. Dixie died by poison pancake but apparently, it's okay because, hey, look, we have Babe and Krystal! Nobody's ever sick of them! Asa is hitting the bricks on "One Life to Live," just like Max and Gabrielle did, just like Cassie, just like Nora almost did when she went into a magical contract negotiations coma for what felt like ten years. But it really almost doesn't matter if Nora woke up, because she, like Viki, like R.J., like Bobbie or Mac or Robert or Jack Montgomery, like virtually any and all major veterans on ABC Daytime, have practically no story or airtime, or when they do, it's for the most idiotic, shallowly written stories, such as the horrible, character-defying "triangle" with Clint, Dorian, and David on "One Life," during which time the show brainlessly wrote out male god made flesh Tuc Watkins and, apparently realizing their mistake while unwilling to admit it, have been dragging him back ever since as some sort of ridiculous stop-gap measure. Meanwhile, in the place of these beloved characters, we have to entertain constant, dubious new "prospects" like John McBain or Evangeline or Spencer Truman or Tate on OLTL, or Maxie's various doomed boyfriends on GH, or, worst of all, Zarf or Josh the abortion baby on AMC. But it must be hard for the soap press most of all, because you guys have to spend all your time breathlessly reprocessing these new names and faces and ad copy in the pages of your magazines, pretending like they matter, pretending like any of us give a damn, and frankly, we don't, and frankly, you know we don't, because you, Ms. Hinsey, know the facts just like we all do: This is a con job. It's a meat grinder. The ratings are plummeting under this policy of daytime management and production. Fans of all ages are dropping in droves. They're not being replaced by new young fans. They're not being replaced by more of ME. These same useless latest "next big things," these new prospects are all starting to look the same, and none of them ever measure up to what they've taken the place of, and they're all failing and they're all going to continue to fail.

But it's not just the actors or the characters' faults, not at all. New characters are a fact of life on soaps. Change is a fact. Balance is the key. Actors like Alexa Havins or Jeff Branson or Renee Elise Goldsberry are not all that bad. Except the thing is, it's not just them, it's the productions themselves, who have abandoned all sense of balance in the ensemble or on the story canvas. It's the completely incompetent head writers who fail to give these new characters who might sometimes work any dimension or roots or layering, who throw out history and characterization and don't bother to take the time to write thoughtfully. It's the 'yes men' executive producers who spend all their time telling me why Dixie's death was an "emotional journey" or how Alan Quartermaine's passing is "storyline dictated." Okay, you guys can't pay for Genie Francis but Maurice Benard gets another raise while his latest love interest half his age once again fails. Okay, Emmy nominee Dan Gauthier has to go but ratings-killer Michael Easton is priceless. Sure. Whatever. It's not just the shows, either, Ms. Hinsey, it's you too. Because you folks in the soap magazines report it, but that's all you do: Report, and perhaps briefly editorialize, but ultimately, say nothing of actual journalistic value. Or, in your case, Ms. Hinsey, make an unctuous hypocrite of yourself.

In your recent column, you talk about how "some" older performers are refusing to go recurring when they are no longer seen as much as they used to and seem to be saying, essentially, that we can't fault the networks for removing these veterans when they no longer are "valuable" or "reasonable" in the eyes of the show, not necessarily the fans, and that we shouldn't complain if "one or two actors" aren't seen as much as we like. You invoke the name of Anna Lee from "General Hospital" as your example, whose case I've already addressed; she was 91 years old and "obviously frail," you reason, explaining away GH's conduct. And in the case of Phil Carey at "One Life to Live," he refused to go recurring and is now being written out, reportedly without an exit scene, despite playing the Buchanan family patriarch since the late '70s, and that seems to be okay with you. Likewise, ABC pulled a similar stunt a few years ago when John Ingle, the long-running second Edward Quartermaine at GH, left after being offered recurring and not a contract renewal. Now, surely you remember writing in your August 2004 column about how, and I am quoting verbatim from your text, "...I'm sure the GH brass knows full well by now what a colossal mistake it was to drop John Ingle (ex-Edward) to recurring in the arrogant belief that he had nowhere to go." And I sure don't remember you being happy about how GH treated Anna Lee at the time she was let go either, but now you seem to totally understand it! So now, I gotta ask you: Et tu, Carolyn? How was Mr. Ingle's refusal to take recurring so different from Mr. Carey's that you yourself might applaud one veteran's choice and - possibly, remember, we're not naming any names - dismiss another's? What's the difference? Did John Ingle just have the good business sense not to develop life-threatening cancer like Mr. Carey, or lose the use of his legs like his former leading lady? And how did ABC change your mind about what was done to Anna Lee? I'm sure we'd all love to hear this one.

Understand: Your opinion, and it is only yours and the network's, does not matter to me. Not only does it not matter to me, it is also increasingly clear that this perspective and this point of view is inherently flawed as a business model for ABC Daytime and all other daytime programming departments. The ratings bear that out. Audience feedback and turnout bear that out. Don't blame the O.J. trial, because I watched through O.J. Don't blame cable TV, it's been here a while. It's the shows, Ms. Hinsey. It's what's being done to the shows and the people on them, like Phil Carey, like Cady McClain, like Anna Lee, like Stuart Damon, like all the veterans still hanging on who are still being starved out, or as you say, "not being seen as much as you like." It's the shows. My inability to continue watching "All My Children," "General Hospital," and "One Life to Live" after over ten years, after growing up watching these worlds, these families, after immersing myself in these tapestries, bears that out. I can't do it anymore, Ms. Hinsey, because maybe you have the heart for it, but I don't. I can't watch them being hollowed out any longer, every last character, every last bit of heart and soul and memory being slowly scooped out and replaced with more new plastic, two dimensional replacements. I can't even laugh at it that much anymore, and that used to be my business here at "The Wreck Center." This practice is not good business, and furthermore, as a member of the prime 18-49 youth demographic, their struggle to find a reasonable, even-handed business model for their daytime programming is not my problem. But it is ABC Daytime's. Because I am the desired consumer, and so, when I am not happy, somebody pays: Them.

I am the youth demographic and I am not happy. I am the youth demographic and I can't watch anymore, because I hate it, and it's horribly written, and there's no balance in old and new, and I miss the veterans who are apparently too old for me to care about and the better stories which I supposedly shouldn't notice are gone. Now, if I was 40 or 50, if I was some poor woman whose opinion who is just as valid and golden as mine but who had the genetic misfortune of having been watching 1970 or 1965, you and Brian Frons might be telling right now, 'too bad, tough luck, time marches on, get over it, not our problem.' But I'm not 40, or 50, I'm not even 30, so it's not my problem. It's theirs. It's daytime's. And there's a lot of us, not just me, or my friend Darn, there's hundreds, there's thousands, and we're all unhappy, and we're all tuning out, more and more every day, every week, every month. We are unhappy because current daytime management now presumes to know us better than we know ourselves, they presume to know what we really want, that we can be, as Mr. Frons says, "trained" as an audience; they presume to know that these shows can last without their families, their histories, their roots, their tapestries. They're wrong. They don't know. We are the youth demographic, and we have had enough. No more breathless press releases. No more sweet little excuses like "storyline dictated" or "soaps are a business." We're the youth demographic, Ms. Hinsey, so we're more important than you, or Mr. Frons. You work for us, and that includes the soap press. We say what and who we want to watch. We've been saying it for several years now, except you folks seem to be deaf. You produce what we tell you. We'll let you know when we're ready for you to stop. Try starting now, instead of ever writing another cute little piece about how sometimes people we love have to be fired to pay for Miles the dog-faced boy on OLTL or another mob boss on GH.

This sad state of affairs appears to have become some sort of ridiculous power struggle between the existing unhappy daytime viewership and the management, which stubbornly refuses to admit its major mistakes and overall errors in judgement, and believes that we will eventually buckle and give way to some magical new youth viewership who will have no memory of the past. You have made it clear whose side of this debate you're on, Ms. Hinsey, and in doing so, I can only conclude that you and your column are disingenuous at best and fraudulent at worst. You are no longer the voice of the "average fan," speaking with candor and honesty on behalf of a silent majority out there watching from home. You don't speak for me, or the thousands of unhappy people of all ages, colors, and creeds tuning out. You no longer have any right to your column, your position, your status or your byline.

So, in conclusion, lady, it's like this: I'm younger and stronger than you. I appeal more to people ages 18-49. I want your job. Clean out your desk. Your departure is storyline dictated. This is a business.

...But then, It's Only My Opinion.


Sincerely,

Jase of The Wreck Center

Jarn: Together Again For The Third Time

*This is pretty lengthy, read at your own risk*

SO...it's been a pretty big soap week. With the cancellation of Passions (yay!boo!), the firing of Cady McClain (BOO!) and more pathetic ratings and horrible writing (same old, same old) Jase and I got into a pretty lengthy discussion (rant, vent, bitchfest) about the state of soap operas. It's at times rambling and uh, off-topic but gets pretty intense towards the end (Jase is a great writer):

Jase: OH WHAT THE FUCK?

I'm sorry, I had to come back. DIXIE?

Darn: What?

Jase: Apparently SOD has scooped that the Satin Killer kills Dixie.

Darn: NO!

WHAT WHY?

Jase: It's not confirmed, but is making the rounds.

Insane.

Darn: WTF?

Cady did just take down her ABC blog.

Jase: I suppose it could be part of someone's wind up to try and convince people of this ludicrous rumor that AMC is going exclusively to SN and cutting most of its vets, but.

Darn: Oh geez.

Then there is no point to AMC, why even continue?

Lord. I don't even know anymore.

Jase: I personally do not believe that AMC will go to SoapNet and cut all its vets to do it. I don't buy that.

Nor am I sure this Dixie thing is true.

SOD news generally comes out on THURSDAYS.

Maybe P&G lured Cady back, this is just stupid.

Darn: Well, that was pointless.

I don't think Cady would go back to ATWT where they've recast Hunt's part.

Jase: Well, who knows.

But Jesus how stupid if it's true.

They spent all this time on it and cast two little girls and for what?

Darn: So basically Dixie came back to do nothing and then die for real. What a waste.

Jase: That's just awful. How will they try to explain THIS in the press? "Uh, Dixie's story was...told?"

Darn: McTavish WILL definitely say that.

Jase: After ALL that fanfare. Ridiculous.

"We, uh, brought back Kate twice just so we could kill Dixie off right then. No, really. Seriously."

Darn: Tad and Dixie still have a respectable fanbase and all they've done is fuck with them for a year.

"It was integral to the journey."

Jase: "And by journey, we mean end of the journey."

What will really make me laugh is if they claim it was planned when she came back. HAHAHAHA!

Darn: Please.

Jase: That was my Stewie Griffin laugh.

Well, if it's any consolation this is how I felt when I heard about Gabrielle.

Darn: I mean, they went out and purposely found two little girls that resemble Cady and are adorable and Tad and Dixie could FINALLY be happy and together and they kill her off? WHAT THE FUCK?

Just…dumbness.

Jase: When was the decision made? And it had to be made either by Cady or to cut costs, and recently.

Otherwise, why cast the girls.

"No, no, don't cut Josh or Amanda or Annie, these are characters we NEED, who is left? WHO?"

brb, keep ranting

Darn: "Di and Aiden have BIG THINGS on the horizon! BIG THINGS!"

Jase: Seriously, how is Di not dead?

I thought that bitch would be next.

But no, apparently we need Di and not Dixie.

Darn: Di is so very important to the fabric of the show.

I feel like all soaps are giving an intentional Fuck You to everything we want.

EVERYTHING.

Jase: And you know she will cry about it. "Who would have thought that...the real Dixie would be killed..."

Darn: “Well, time to curl mah hair and sex up Tad, this is so hard for me but Dixie would have wanted it this way.”

Jase: It's confirmed.

Darn: AW HELL!

Jase: As a SON poster notes, it seems she might have given some hints in a recent FYI Q&A thingy for SOD.

"Sound that most annoys you: "You're fired"
What actor would you choose to play you: "I'm available!"
Worst job I ever had: "Hmmm...."
Biggest regret: "I'm working on it""

If they seriously fired her they are beyond brain damaged.

Darn: Woah, poor Cady.

Jase: What would possibly possess them to do this other than vicious budget cuts? Insane.

And even if you cut the budget, you don't kill off fucking Dixie after all this.

Darn: You know McTavish was all "I HAVE A GREAT IDEA YOU GUYS, A BIG HUGE TWIST!"

Exactly, you FIND A FUCKING WAY!

Jase: And that's how she will be quoted. "It's an amazing twist."

But it KILLS EVERY OTHER STORY FOR TAD AND THAT KID.

Darn: And it'll drive viewers off in droves.

Jase: EVERYTHING Tad and that family has done since Dixie died has been placeholding waiting for her ass to come back.

More than one person has it from SOD, it seems.

Without Dixie, they all just go back to placeholding, only now they have the kid, it's just, there was no point to ANYTHING.

Darn: Then she comes back, lurks for a dumbass reason and spends six months flirting with Ian Thornhart.

Jase: Patrick Thornhart.

Darn: He was Ian on PC and that's where I grew to hate him.

Jase: Yes, well, I hated him there too.

Darn: And also Y&R is just another soap now.

Jase: I found out I have an old tape with the last year of PC on it, with Lainey the werewolf, etc.

Michael Easton actually seems awake there. I hated Caleb but he seems like he's acting.

Darn: Pizzaface. OLTL is so bad.

Jase: SO bad.

Darn: When do things with Bo/Nora/Lindsay start rolling?

Jase: I want to take heart in the fact that Hillary has a new big contract and will have story, apparently in March, but.

Darn: Yeah, BUT.

Jase: I also cannot stomach Todd with Evangeline. CANNOT. And TSJ needs to seriously stop fucking around. I have had enough of this shit.

Did you see Evangeline singing on New Year's? OH MY GOD.

Darn: Nice of Lindsay to say that EJ is nothing but a bastardy dipshit in order for Bo to be all "Hmm, you're kinda sexy, eh?". Whatever.

Jase: Yeah, QUICK CHANGE!

Darn: No and no thanks.

RJ, I meant.

And Paige is like that extra foot you don't need.

Jase: She...okay, so Claudia Reston got drunk and could not sing (and then left the show) and so WHO, WHO does Rex call in to sing instead?

Who just happens to be there?

OMG ITS EVANGELINE!!

And then that ho is all bashful and shit and then she starts singing some DISCO SONG. "Boogie-woogie-woogie..." And she does, like disco moves, and the robot, I AM NOT KIDDING, it was the worst thing I have ever seen. Meanwhile, EVERYONE is doing the white boy chicken dance to this great performance, REX, ADRIANA, DORIAN, EVERYONE.

This actually happened.

Darn: That girl has a GREAT voice, that Claudia person, I just started listening to some Hairspray and she's awesome. But Claudia had no purpose.

LOL

Jase: I wanted to beat the shit out of her every time she took time out to SING.

Darn: Did the whole cast take time to tell Vangie how wonderful she is?

Jase: Oh, Darnell. Um, this is going to send your blood pressure sky high but this is apparently re: Dixie's exit, unconfirmed quote, but..

""[Tad and Dixie] was our original plan, but then we received our focus group feedback and realized that more fans want to see Babe and Crystal storylines, so we had to let someone go. At this time, it seems most plausable to kill of Dixie and open the door for a Crystal, Tad, Kate, and baby storyline. Fabulous things are on the horizion at AMC. We do wish Cady the best."

Darn: No, I don't believe that. That is entirely too close to what we've written.

Jase: Yeah, well.

Darn: I refuse to believe that.

PEOPLE HATE BABE AND KRYSTAL, THEY HAAAAAATE THEM! THEY HAVE FOR YEARS!

Jase: They would have to be insane to publicize a quote like that.

Darn: I DON'T UNDERSTAND!

Jase: Especially at this point. WHY DO YOU THINK YOU HIRED THESE CONSULTANTS?

Darn: And it spells Krystal's name wrong.

I don't even give a fuck anymore, ya know?

Jase: Insane.

I am really, really sorry.

This is about what it would do to me if they had really killed Nora. Gabrielle is somewhat comparable but slightly less.

Darn: If OLTL does something good with Bo/Nora/Lindsay I'll be even more pissed.

Because I could have had it all. Tad and Dixie and my Bo and Nora.

Jase: That is unbelievable.

That will kill AMC. Maybe that's what they want. This is so insane.

It's just staggering to me that they could be THAT stupid.

Darn: The show isn't worth the effort anymore.

Jase: No, it really isn't.

Darn: They're not, this is purposeful, they want it dead.

And GL is killing Tammy.

Not that it even compares.

Jase: Aren't she and Pelphrey BOTH leaving? Why do that?

Darn: That's what I mean.

They want to drive us off.

Jase: If it is purposeful, then I would say if an ABC soap is to be cancelled it might be AMC after all. Not that I necessarily believe that rumor and I always thought it would be OLTL first.

Jase: Write an angry letter. Just to do it.

Darn: Yeah, that'll help.

Jase: It can help. I know from experience. It blows off some steam.

Darn: I'm not even that mad.

Just confused.

I don't feel like particularly watching or writing about Y&R to be honest.

Jase: It's hard to want to write anything about any of em right now, even DOOL, which is good.

Jeff Zucker says DOOL will probably not continue on NBC past '09. Fuck you too, sir.

Darn: Oh joy.

So it's just Fuck The Soaps Week, isn't it?

Jase: Apparently.

Darn: Bindi Urwin scares me.

Jase: Me too.

Darn: Wow, so he said that, huh?

Jase: Apparently.

Darn: I'm surprised.

Jase: Me too. It's just tacky. I could use some less fuck me news about the soaps.

Darn: Why not just cancel them both? I mean, really.

Jase: No. DOOL is doing well, that wouldn't be right.

Darn: I mean, it's gonna be gone in 2 years, he's said as much, why even pretend that they care?

Jase: Because it has a chance.

Either at NBC or on ABC, Frons has always wanted it, but I would not be willing to lose a soap to take it.

Darn: They fired Cady. FIRED HER. Yet we still have Di, Del, Aiden, Amanda, Annie, Josh, Babe and Krystal.

After Julia Barr I should not be surprised.

Jase: It is amazing, I am.

I was numb to GH killing Alan because they've killed a number of people the last few years they shouldn't have, and will probably also kill Scott. By AMC and Dixie threw me.

Darn: Because she was actually onscreen and frontburner.

I'm surprised GH has kept him and Leslie Charleston as long as they have.

Jase: I'm sure she's next. It took Frons a while but he eventually got to throw out everyone he wanted to.

He wanted Adam, Alan, Monica, etc out years ago. I am sure Adam and Palmer are next since Frons was gunning for David Canary right when he got to ABCD.

Darn: I think he was brought on to slowly destroy the soaps, to make then so unrecognizable that the few fans left wouldn't care when they're cancelled.

When Adam leaves AMC falls apart.

Jase: That's what people thought in the first place but I thought it was too crazy, that's not good business. I still have a hard time believing that. But this latest shit...

Darn: Yeah, and it's kinda working on me. I literally can't watch AMC for more than 20 seconds. It's just so full of agendas.

Who supports the transgendered shim accused of murder before anyone else? Babe. Because Babe is love and this backwards hick understands that Zarf is a "she" and should be respected as such. No one else "gets it".

Jase: Shim Sham.

I could really use some good news. I can't talk any more of the happy talk bullshit these stupid, stupid executives spit out in the press.

"Yes, we killed Dixie, but these characters are going on a journey." After so many years and such a long death spiral it ALL sounds the same.

Darn: I swear the heads of all the networks got together and decided they would destroy their own shows. Look at Y&R; I've never seen the viewers so divided.

Jase: Why don't they just admit it? We hate it, they know we hate it, they know the shows suck, they know why the shows suck, they just refuse to acknowledge it.

Darn: They FIRED people who had worked on the show for over 20 years and brought on ALL NEW PEOPLE.

They MUST know they suck, they can't possibly look at their product and think "This is good.".

Jase: It's like to do that would be unprofessional. No, unprofessional would be continuing this.

But they refuse to acknowledge the viewership. They can't honestly still believe there is some new, young tween viewership out there for them to snag. That dream has to be gone. So they think all they left is middle aged housewives sitting on recliners and that they have no brains and will watch anything. They KNOW it's bad and they know everyone can see through the obvious agendas, they get the mail, but somehow it would be "unprofessional" to acknowledge the blaringly obvious.

Jase: I don't even know what to say. I'm just tired. Unless I could bring it to the public and put it in someone at the network's face I just can't.

And I've written all the fucking letters before, over and over.

It's like, either fix them, or cancel them tomorrow and stop WASTING ALL OF OUR FUCKING TIME pretending any of you give a shit.

Julie Carruthers, Turner's favorite fucking executive producer in the world because she did Port Charles, presided over this. She has some brains. Why does she allow it?

Why do they bother giving out these breathless, effusive quotes month after month, week after week in that sham soap press? Don't waste my time.

Darn: I just feel so useless, a genre we love is dying this horrible death. I'd be much happier seeing all the soaps cancelled tomorrow. I mean, last episode tomorrow. Just cut them off.

They're all bleeding to fucking death.

Jase: That's what I'm saying. DON'T WASTE MY TIME.

Stop with the enthusiastic bullshit quotes in the magazines about your latest horseshit story or the latest shitty young actor you managed to give one of those worthless Emmys to or the latest Broadway hire who cannot act and sings too much and don't tell me more about what John McBain will be doing in the summer and just STOP. You know it sucks, you clearly don't care about it or about what people want, so make yourselves happy. STOP and CANCEL IT.

EDIT: I foolishly forgot to mention the passing of Darlene Conley, Sally Spectra was a force of nature and that was all thanks to Darlene Conley's portrayal.