DramatistDreamer

Saw that Whoopi is trending and got worried for a moment but saw that this is the reason why. Bernie's cultists are likely flooding Whoopi's mentions with bile and vitriol now.

Oh boy, how things change in the midst of a pandemic! I remember at this time last year, even just before the Oscars, so many industry folk were decrying the streaming platforms. Netflix was regarded as Public Enemy #1 with cinema operators and the studio system that relied on them. Now, so many studios are flocking to streaming platforms to save their non-comic book movies. Romantic comedies, in particular, are beating a hasty path to streaming. Indie producers are looking to capitalize on the sudden need that streaming platforms now have for films that are already ready for distribution but hadn't been sold yet. It's very interesting. No word on how soap fans feel on streaming but I suspect there has been less to whine about in that regard, especially when a show can get interrupted at any moment by a breaking news moment or press conference about the latest grim developments.

Wimbledon used to be my favorite GS tournament when the courts actually played like grass courts. That seems like so long ago. The players who will suffer the most are the ones who lack the financial resources to keep on track and pick up where they left off. Those who were already struggling and needed to travel to play Challengers just to remain viable will suffer the most. Roger has a HOF career and has had one for a decade. Nadal and Djokovic also are shoo-ins for the HOF as are, without question, The Williams Sisters. The people who have yet to win a major and need good timing, good health and fortunate circumstances to go their way will be most at risk because so much can change in a year. Not to mention those who are still waiting to get their tennis careers off the ground. Nothing is a given for anyone at this point.

Remember when folks screamed about the robots coming to take 'our' jobs? How do folks feel now? Personally, it would be reassuring to have robots do certain jobs at times like these.

Really poor on the part of the Tories. If this isn't a signpost of conservatism/austerity, I don't know what is.

Parker really was my first Maureen and I loved her and thought she deserved her Emmy award. I saw Dolan kind of retroactively and was amazed at how fluid her Maureen was compared to how brittle her Margo seemed to me. My lasting memory of Dolan's Margo was her shouting at Casey all the time--of course, it didn't help that TIIC had decided to make both her sons relentless screw-ups. Unfortunately, the Emmy awards mostly seemed to reward shouty-ness and maudlin performances over subtlety or nuanced performances, which is why Kathryn Hays was always overlooked despite her excellence over decades. The commonplace tactics of performative histrionics with men grabbing and over-emoting that you speak of, unfortunately was a direct result of shows wanting to arm their actors with 'Emmy bait' performances, imo. It's a shame it afflicted ATWT the way it had already done with most soaps at the time and still exists today.

The way you identify Marx as being connected with Days is the way I think of Dolan being connected to GL, lol. I can't say that I ever got used to her as Margo.

At the time, he and Colin weren't yet married. I think they were both off the show by the time they wed but they did have wonderful onscreen chemistry. And Deas and Hutchinson had great chemistry too, so yes Deas definitely benefited from more than one great onscreen pairing. That probably had a lot to do with his more disciplined performances. Tom was a character that had been played by other actors, who came and went and Deas must have had some sense that he could be replaced if he didn't focus on just doing good work, which likely kept him honest and his performances earnest. Meanwhile Deas originated the role of Buzz and AFAIK, has been the sole actor ever to play the role. On some level, Deas probably came to believe that he was the only one who could play Buzz. Once an actor believes that he/she is the only one capable of portraying that character, it's probably a challenge to get them to be humble and just do their work and give an earnest performance.

They probably didn't have anyone BTS to reign Deas in. By the mid '90s GL seemed to be mostly made up of a few characters who appeared to have gotten all the spotlight and the rest kind of seemed disappear and fade after missing so long that you wondered whether certain characters were even still on the show. It's no coincidence that as Deas started chewing scenery, the lack of balance on the show was more glaringly obvious than ever.

Why would anyone chop up episodes this way? I detest character and couples' edits.

Interesting article on how a number of authoritarian leaders are using the coronavirus crisis to choke civil liberties and rights, many with no indication of an end date or temporary status. For Autocrats, Coronavirus Is a Chance to Grab Even More Power

As much as I've come to dislike DeBlasio and his rigid leftist doctrine (which didn't seem as thoroughly ground in when he first got into office but is now), DeBlasio inherited an intractable homeless crisis that has proven extremely difficult to burrow out of. At the very least DeBlasio put an end to stop and frisk and set about trying to rectify some glaring criminal justice matters that had been festering during the Bloomberg administration. Since we could use all the good news we can get.

One of the things that I most hold against former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg (besides Stop and Frisk) is the fact that he promised to address this need but never did. He was supposed to oversee the construction of more affordable housing for families as well as Single Rooming Options (studio apartments), particularly for homeless men (many of whom were veterans, some with substance abuse and mental health issues that often kept them in a cycle of homelessness and hopelessness. Even as the homeless problem became a full-blown crisis, not seen since the Reagan years, Bloomberg did nothing to alleviate this. In fact, more luxury buildings and apartments were built under his watch than any other NYC municipal government in memory. One of the reasons why I'm glad he got so little support that he eventually dropped out of the presidential race.

While everyone was talking on and on about the "Corona Babies" that would supposedly be conceived, I was thinking about all the marriage that might be headed for divorce (and worse) because people could be trapped in a confined space with one another, including those trapped in abusive relationships. Between this horrible story and the unfortunate prisoner who should've been released from prison already, and the homeless people sleeping in a parking lot while practicing 'social distance', this crisis really has become a 'black light' showing up all the stains of society's various ills.

Blake recounted what Agassi told him at the net after he lost to Andre (was it that match or a different one?). Agassi told him that the one and only difference in outcome was that Blake didn't believe in himself. It seemed as though once James began to get confident in his game, things went wrong-- first with a horrible injury that he sustained in Italy, while preparing for the Italian Open (remember when he crashed into the netpost and injured his neck? He barely escaped permanent paralysis. Soon after, his father was diagnosed with cancer and died (James actually said had it not been for the injury, he might have missed that critical time to spend with his father). Also, possibly as a result of emotional and physical trauma, James had developed Bell's palsy, which he recovered from but it seemed like a cascade of events that he had to endure and recover from might have caused him to miss valuable time building his game, competing and winning matches. For awhile, it seemed like Blake could have picked up from where he left off when he returned to the Tour (he had a very good record vs. Nadal for awhile) but again...confidence. Blake seemed to be the type of player that needed to build confidence, brick by brick. He didn't seem to be the type of player that could quickly turn on the confidence and get in a groove by the second game of a match and then just go from there. I suspected that, had he won a big tournament (Miami, IW) or gotten to the semifinals or finals of a major tournament (Australian or U.S. Open), he might have been able to summon that confidence right away upon his return to the Tour, but as it was, he didn't appear to be that type of player that could just 'turn it on'. As it is, it seemed as if the timing in his career never quite synced. Ironically, when he sustained that neck injury, I felt as though James could have built a solid game on clay (for an American) because he had the patience and the athleticism, unlike many of his compatriots at the time but I suspect that, after that hard slam into the netpost, he became tentative with doing anything on clay, especially sliding (which he was practicing when he sustained the injury). It's a shame, really. One thing I've learned from watching people like Marcelo Rios (who never won a GS title but reached no. 1), Tsonga, and a few others who fell short of winning big tournaments is that sometimes a few points can really turn a match, a tournament and in a few instances, even the trajectory of a career. And Blake had a few complications beside all those.

Had planned to avoid this thread today (sometimes I need a break) but thought others might like this piece of news, that seems like it will be music to many people's ears.

The sheer awfulness of all everyone and all things associated with this wretched administration, perhaps, remains the one constant in our ever changing world.

I've really tried to scale back on reading too much about every minutiae surrounding this pandemic but has anyone read this article? It gives a breathtaking overview of all the mistakes, delays, missteps and flat out intransigence that has characterized the U.S./Trump administration's handling of COVID-19.

You could tell that this was uploaded from a SoapClassics DVD because of the abbreviated opening theme (which the theme was better before they made changes in 1987, which I didn't really like). This was one of the episodes that had streamed on the SoapClassics website. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH5PmjWpAVI

The SoapClassics website also streamed some episodes from the 1980s. I remember a few of the episodes streamed on their platform were some crystal clear episodes surrounding Tom and Margo's wedding. It was quite a treat since I had never seen those episodes before.

When it was announced that ATWT was being canceled, I was on a hiatus from online life and I wasn't watching the show, was there a big petition (a la Change.org) circulated around, or anything? Years later, I heard some folks had gathered in front of the NYC CBS building to protest, or something (even though P&G headquarters in Cincinnati would've been more effective, tbh) but unless it was a crowd of tens of thousands, I doubt P&G would've so much as blinked. When SoapClassics was ending their partnership with P&G (according to SC, was P&G's decision not to extend the license), a Change.org petition probably should've been sent to P&G requesting that they extend the SoapClassics videos or at least allow some streaming of episodes. I don't expect P&G to ever get out of the way because this is how they are- they've never offered a reason why they don't bother, we all assume that it is prohibitively expensive to digitize their episodes but honestly, from 2012 or whenever SoapClassics stopped streaming and selling videos, had even a small group of people continued to digitize episodes, could you have imagined how many episodes would be viewable by now? People are assuming that the process of digitization has remained at the same arduous level, without considering the fact that technology always continues to innovate and move along and facility with technology always improves. Another aspect is that P&G could've damn well just stream rather than sell videos and, in most cases, this would ease some of the issues concerning music rights. Yes, there are some artists that undoubtedly will not give permission to re-air their music but I bet most would if asked. A simple way around that might be to have a chyron in the bottom corner that displays the artist's/band's name and song title. A dedicated ATWT website or even YT page could provide links on where to purchase the song and artist's/band's music. Would it take some work? Undoubtedly but we know how many dedicated people who are skilled at this and yes, many are soap fans, classic television fans, etc. Yes, there are a lot of episodes, even given the fact that we are dealing with 1980-1998/99 (the majority of episodes after were automatically on digital format) but like I said, between 2013-1020 is seven years, a substantial amount of time for even volunteers working in their spare time to work with. If anything this whole crisis has taught me is that, it's not usually lack of money or even time that prevents things from happening...it's often the lack of will. When people, companies, governments truly want to do something, they do it.