DramatistDreamer

Despite her insistence that she dropped the clause, some fans seemed to continue to blame her, citing one interview where she seemed evasive when asked about it. Someone recently posted that discussion/interview, so I had a chance to see it. To me, she appeared evasive because she really wanted to focus on where the character of Lisa was, not where she had been and she wanted Lisa to remain vital in the way she had become when that late 1980s Donahue episode happened. So I do believe Fulton when she said the clause was a thing of the past. I also think the way that she played Lisa’s menopause storyline with such conviction and in genuine “Lisa” fashion convinced me that she was accepting of the character being moved to a different stage in life. Tom and Margo have been having miscarriages since the early 1980s and although I realize that some couples do suffer multiple miscarriages, I don’t understand why every writing regime had to write one. I guess given their history, it seemed a logical way to provide an exit storyline for Gregg Marx but another miscarriage, that’s a tough one.

The Gates will be the first daytime soap opera that I am genuinely interested in tuning in to in about 15 years. I have pretty much given up on the current lot.

Meanwhile, in the election campaign on the other side of the Atlantic, current PM Rishi Sunak, who once said he was proud to be the first PM of Asian heritage and even prouder that it’s “no big deal” is getting a rude awakening, courtesy of a man campaigning on behalf of Nigel Farage’s “Reform” Party, as demonstrated by an undercover report from Channel 4 News.

Oh dang, Martin Mull was so funny in every role he portrayed, from the cad boss in Mr. Mom to the shut-in who falls for Dorothy on The Golden Girls. May he R.I.P.

Robin Wright reunites with Tom Hanks for a time bending movie called Here and it seems like some CGI and other interesting visual effects are at work here.

Daytime soaps tend to write storylines about 20 years after when they would be groundbreaking. Yes, many of the themes are still (sadly) relevant and talented actors can still make the drama compelling but by the time soaps get around to writing them, it is no longer controversial, cutting edge or groundbreaking. Unless you live a very sheltered life, the story really doesn’t offer much insight. A story about interracial marriage in the 1990s? Yes, you care about the characters involved but it’s just not all that insightful by then. There were promising stories that got cut short or watered down too because of network pressure and death threats from “fans”.

That’s fair. Since independence, Kenya has had a number of protests, some caused by ethnic strife often stoked by candidates running for office exploiting ethnic divisions. The Kenyan police are known for their brutality (a holdover from training under colonialism) which is why many are objecting to Kenyan police being deployed to Haiti which the U.S. is funding.

As it appears that TFG will show, a reminder that despite CNN being the moderator, you don’t have to endure the mess of watching the debate on CNN. How to watch the 1st Biden-Trump presidential debate

This is sad but I saw this coming for months as Thompson-Herah has been fighting injuries for over a year. It was always going to be difficult for her to complete the triple double. The repeat double was a huge feat in itself and she can be enormously proud of her accomplishment. Big up Banana Ground, Manchester!

It seems like this only got a mention in US media because the sister and niece of former President Barack Obama were said to have been tear gassed by the police but there have been deadly protests against proposed taxes in Kenya. The President of Kenya has reportedly withdrawn his tax plan. Apparently, there are more protests being planned. Kenya braces for fresh protests despite president's tax climbdown

😷 Ugh, I don’t even want to think about that second part. TFG set the U.S. and the surrounding region on a path of contagion, disease and death. He was the worst possible person to be in charge when there is any crisis. And with mainly undocumented people being the ones who are most affected, he would be the one to allow it to cut a swath through that population, if he could. Hopefully neither of these ever happens.

Many people have talked about the Sports Illustrated cover curse for athletes. Do you believe in it? I have never seriously considered it but something like this sure could be cited as an example: https://www.si.com/olympics/athing-mu-is-back-on-track-paris-olympics-cover After which, this happened (trigger warning- there are tears involved).

It is true that the virus is not of the SARS/MERS type and transmission is not facilitated as easily as those. Besides my concern for those who work at the poultry farms, many of whom are undocumented and there being little to no effort to vaccinate them, it is also the shoddy practices of factory farms and the fact that the virus from the waste of chickens can live in fresh water. It was never my intention to cause panic. I do think this should be on the radar. Thankfully people who believe in science are in the executive branch and will likely keep a look out for any developments.

Hopefully it won’t ever come to this, but there may come a time when a Bird flu thread may have to be created as there have been cases (one fatal) of transmission to humans.

Given that heat waves are now happening every other day in the Northeast U.S., I wonder if the USTA will make adjustments for the staging of the US Open this year?

Thanks for pointing me in this direction. I have to hand in something later in the week so I am pushing other things back further and further lol. I hope to take a look at these clips sometime soon. It’s always great when actors decide to take advantage of available platforms and post their work. I only wish more would do this of their soap opera work and post full episodes. Ms. Pat Bruder Debrovner posted full episodes and though I wanted more, I really appreciated that the episodes were uploaded to YouTube.

That episode of The Locher Room was really entertaining. Danny Pintauro steered much of the discussion especially in the earlier moments and it set the tone for the rest of the episode. Even though I knew it was coming, it really put a broad smile on my face when Colleen Zenk popped in. I appreciate that someone found that clip of Danny and Colleen, the amazement and pure joy on their faces, Danny in particular, as they watched the scene…you can’t bottle it, it was so poignant. I really hope that he can get good quality acting jobs going forward. The way he was talking, it seems like he would be interested in a gig on The Bay to start with. It’s also cool that Colleen and Hugo still keep in touch. When ATWT was going off the air and they had all these characters return, I remember I wanted Gunnar to make an appearance, even if in a dream or fantasy or to find out what really happened once that giant air balloon finally landed—just to add even a little conflict to Barbara and Henry’s betrothal. But that’s a totally different tangent.

^^Yikes! That sounds like it was painful. This came across my YouTube homepage. It is listed as being Prime programming but hopefully it will also stream via Freevee. I just saw a livestream of Venus and Serena walking the runway in Paris for VogueWorld. I knew they were in Paris but saw no evidence that they were at Roland Garros lol.

You might find a mild interest in this article. It’s a gift article. Opinion | The Tiresome Mr. Timberlake It’s an Op-Ed, so keep in mind that it’s someone’s personal opinion. Some of his fans took offense at some comments in this piece.

That seems like a stretch on their part, to say the least. He does appear to have issues, though, to put it mildly.

That really is sad when that kind of change occurs, lives are upended, dreams and careers derailed. As a society, we also miss out on the the connections to our communities, the events that larger media outlets will ignore but are notable and significant to the communities in which we live. I miss town/local newspapers as well. There are local-ish news stations on television but it’s not the same in what gets covered. And The Patch newspaper doesn’t do the job either, it’s basically cut and paste coverage. I know The Guardian newspaper has no choice but to make constant pleas for support but it gets tiresome to wade through reminders in order to read a three paragraph article. For international coverage, I find that I usually have to either read individual papers from various nations or skim Reuters website and sometimes watch different broadcasts daily (CVM in the Caribbean) a few times a week (BBC World News) or a few times a month (NHK News), if I remember. Silos of information. That’s the way it works these days, I guess.

Thelma looks like a fun movie. Starring June Squibb (Pearl, Y&R) as the title character and Parker Posey (Tess Shelby, ATWT) in a role that looks like Thelma’s daughter. And in what looks like his final movie role, Richard Roundtree (Dr. Daniel Reubens, Generations).

It seems as if what smaller papers went through about a decade or more ago, is now becoming a prominent issue with newspaper companies with far larger circulation numbers. Maybe the major newspapers will be regarded as “Too Big To Fail” but at what cost to journalistic integrity? Something tells me that had there been greater efforts to save the “small fish” (local newspapers) of the media ecosystem, perhaps we wouldn’t be seeing such things happen nowadays.

Sutherland’s body of work is similar to Stockard Channing’s in the aspects that both have very distinctive features but somehow manage to morph into roles and create characters that are so distinct, you won’t even recognize them from one role to the next.

This definitely peaked my attention when I first glimpsed the announcement. I am going to make the effort to watch this weekend when hopefully there are less things for me to do. Glad you enjoyed it! Bump because I want to remember to watch this too.