DramatistDreamer

At random, I came across this interesting interview with Jennifer Gatti where she mentions a bit about how she got cast to play Keesha as well as some interesting thoughts on acting on a soap opera. Interview: Jennifer Gatti on Bon Jovi, Star Trek, and Leaving L.A.

I know, I actually accompanied my cousins to their polling site on Election Day years ago! It was so quiet and orderly and everyone was in and out in minutes, LOL! Only once have I had an election experience that comes close! I've voted in the Midwest, I have voted in NYC and in the suburbs about an hour and some minutes away, where I now reside and only if I show up at off-peak hours during midterms when turnout is suppressed, is it relatively quiet and orderly. But the small city nearest mine always, always has problems during election time. It's a mess and I'm not holding out much hope for it to improve by the primaries.

That's the influence of (dark) money in politics. I have a lot of family who live in Canada and the last time I visited with them, Canada just happened to be in an election years ago. It was orderly, straight-forward seamless process. I was struck by how, even in a metropolis like Toronto, people were able to get in and out without a bunch of commotion. In the U.S., that would only happen if you live in a small town but not in a large city. It's generally chaotic! Canada's political system is streamlined, the U.S. is unwieldy and at this point, I think it's like this by design. The party of "inclusion".

That is the one upside, if you can call it that. I can just tune out at this point and show up when I must. Shirley Chisolm was the first and only other black woman to run for president. The pandering to Kamala Harris' would be voters on social media has already begun in earnest and honestly, it's embarrassing to watch it unfold. These candidates ought to just give it a day before making desperate appeals this way. The only one who actually sounds sincere is Castro, who was locked out of the last debate and will likely be locked out of the next one. I have to say one thing though and that is that it is damn impressive that in the midst of being relentlessly trolled by Russian troll farms and disparaged at every turn, Harris was still able to co-sponsor a piece of legislation passed the House Judiciary on a bipartisan vote. Bernie has been in the Senate since Jesus was a boy and I don't think he has gotten that far.

The trolls can move to the next candidate now.

I saw a clip of Lori Loughlin's daughter speaking on her YouTube channel on some morning newsmagazine show over Thanksgiving weekend. Why is this child speaking on a vlog while her parents are still facing jail time? Does she not think that anything she says could be used against them? Don't get me wrong, I could care less but it strikes me as pretty foolish legally-speaking.

People are saying it was too early for her to drop out. Oh well.

Kamala Harris' online "army" could be overbearing but 90% that I saw (I didn't follow any of them) seemed basically harmless. I would be more concerned about the folks backing people like Gabbard (*hint* some of them backed Stein) and the fact that Americans still want to turn a blind eye to how unprepared election/voting apparatus still is. We face the same problems that were apparent in 2016, that hasn't gone away and no one is doing anything to address this.

And don't forget Tom Steyer who stole Harris' voter list.

I'm also depressed about this but sadly, I'm not surprised. Until Americans make sure that Citizens United is overturned and money doesn't have such a strong pull in civic/public affairs, the U.S. will get the leaders it deserves. At this point, Trump is the leader that the U.S. deserves unfortunately. I hope he won't be re-elected, but...

With Trump's 50 million scandals, I doubt this will get much notice.

The ATP/tennis really undersells their greatest assets. Sumit is obviously thirst-inducing and yet the ATP would rather every focus on dudes with lesser looks, lol. No wonder tennis is a niche sport, lol.

It's been something of a Barbara Crampton weekend for me the past few days, watching her on 1993 episodes of Guiding Light and here. Crampton's acting range is underrated. Sure, sometimes the characterization of Leanna Love could be overwrought (I'm not sure whether this was on account of the writing or the direction or acting choices) but seeing how slippery a character Leanna (or whichever name she'd go by), gives me an appreciation for the complexity in the character, a complexity that is sorely missing on today's soaps. Today's characters are so damn basic! It's really twisted how complicated characters like Leanna once were. Leanna was basically a misandrist who had an odd friendship with Jack, who was in essence, a chauvinistic playboy. Leanna, despite her misandry, clearly still wanted to be seen as desirable by men, as evidenced by those scenes after the wedding to Victor in Las Vegas. Those exchanges between Douglas, Victor and Leanna were hilarious. Poor Lynn Harbough's hair. The hair stylists on 1980s soaps were so unkind to women with long curly hair! All Ashley Crow and Lynn Harbough ever needed was a good leave in conditioner and some curl cream! Those stylish brushed the life out of curly hair in the '80s! Another painfully obvious fact is how different the details of business are handled now in contrast to classic Y&R and other soaps. Brad's pitch to Lauren about advertising strategies was specific and actually sounded like something you'd hear in an office. No wandering into coffee shops of athletic club bars making vague "business-y" comments before eliding into idle repetitive chit-chat. What a difference a few decades makes!

I remember hearing about this a lot in Andy Murray's earlier days on the ATP Tour. It became repeated as frequently as the Serbian players' swimming pool narrative. I'm surprised you've never heard, Chit! It's probably the only reason why I'm familiar with Dunblane and where it is.

Did anyone know that Max Mirnyi owned a pizza shop?? Apparently he had to close it and he describe in detail why. (Also, in tennis related news, Mirnyi has joined the Nishikori camp).

IMO Christine "Cricket" Blair's best pairing was...wait for it... Danny Romalotti. He was probably the only character who didn't see the constant need to rescue her. And if she's out of town on a regular basis, at least, going on the road with her rocker/husband makes much more sense than inventing these inane crime-fighting conventions that she has to go to. Honestly, Michael should've been one of Lauren's temporary pairings, a short-term marriage not unlike one of those relatively brief multiple marriages that soap vixens (e.g. Erica Kane) usually have. It's obvious that the writers don't know what to do with this couple. Usually I'm quick to blame the writers for a failure of imagination but in this case, I just think the couple's possibilities are limited but I feel like, unless Michael gets sent off the canvas somehow, Lauren is kind of stuck in that pairing for the foreseeable future. Also, at this point, a liberated, single Lauren could probably be the best chance to resuscitate Paul's character. At least the two actors have chemistry with each other. TEB's Lauren could create chemistry with other characters but for DD's Paul, I'm not so sure. As long as both are there, why not do something meaningful with both characters? The history can easily be revived into something current. And yes, the show should bring back Heather (I'm partial to Vail Bloom, now that she's sober, everyone deserves a second chance) even for a brief storyline arc.

Supercouples, A.K.A 'The Luke & Laura Phenomenon' were the best and worst thing to happen to the soap opera genre, I always say. When it was uber-popular in the 1980s, soaps had an easy and ready concept in which to build their marketing around but when it got old, or actors left the show and had to be replaced, it became a real obstacle to the show's mobility or ability to adapt and change. Lily was too damn young to be a part of any super-couple. She was certainly too young to be locked into a pairing with someone as senior as Cane. People talk about how poorly Nicholas has been written in recent years but Lily was an underwritten character from almost the very beginning. I strain to think of one storyline written for her that wasn't somehow entirely tied up in her role as either girlfriend, wife or mother. From the time she was a teen, her first storyline was about her sexuality, nothing more and it's seemingly been that way throughout her time on the canvas.

Does anybody know what happened to these actors: Melissa Morgan- Brittany Norman Todd Curtis- Skip Evans Jonathan Farwell-George Rawlins Farwell may be retired by now but are the other two still acting?

I think it's both, tbh. A lot of those Lane fans have color issues and CK's version of Lily with DG is an aspiration for many of them, imo. Strangely enough, I think many of those Lane fans are more Cane fans--the pormanteau says it all, mostly him with very little of her represented. When the show has made feeble attempts to pair Lily with someone who was not Cane, those rabid Cane fans became boorish, insulting and in many cases downright abusive to either the man that Lily was being paired with (e.g. Tyler) or abusive and insulting to Lily (e.g. when she was with Joe). Compare that to the whimpering when Lauren was paired with Carmine where many Lauren/Michael fans were upset with Lauren but many also seemed to agree that Carmine was "hot". Also, is the unfortunate aspect that Y&R, in its consistent casting choices in the 1990s and beyond, had primed viewers to see lighter-skinned/mixed actors as being more palatable onscreen. KSJ, ironically was well aware of this fact and spoke on it in that very candid podcast interview that he did a couple years ago. It's all just highly unfortunate that the creative choices ended up tanking a character that should have, could have been very viable, no matter who is playing her but is basically a non-factor at this point. The sad fact is, that the vestiges of one of Y&R's biggest supercouples of the 1990s/2000s are being wiped away, there is hardly anything left.

Thanks for posting these @BoldRestless. It's so easy to fall back into viewing these classic episodes! Somehow I had forgotten that Brad used to work for Lauren at Fenmore's. Of course, I can't forget crazy Lisa! So now, I remember how Leanna Love ended up married to Victor. That candid conversation between Paul and Lauren is the type of dialogue that has been sorely missed from Y&R for about a decade now. I'll have to pick up with the rest of these episodes tomorrow and throughout the weekend but such interesting material to watch that I'm tempted to keep going but I should get some sleep, lol.

Speaking of scams, here's a bit of food for thought on this Thanksgiving.

For some reason, that's what I remember as well. I just wondered if the big, elaborate Thanksgiving celebrations that we all grew up with and loved were an '80s invention or did they have these kinds of episodes in the decades before. Like, was Chris Hughes known for making the types of Thanksgiving toasts that his son Bob made famous?

Does anybody know how many ATWT Thanksgiving episodes are uploaded on YouTube, or anywhere else? I wonder how far back the show started doing Thanksgiving episodes? For example, was this a thing in 1978 or 1979? If so, I'd love to see some Thanksgiving episodes from that era!