DramatistDreamer

Ren and Stimpy was always kind of gross, JMO.

Welp, can't say I feel sorry for any of these folks.

Or could it be that The Wendy Williams Show is taped in NYC where a good portion of the audience is likely to be potential constituents for governor of New York? Remember this is a statewide election, not national. So unless she can be sure that a significant portion of Ellen's audience will be New Yorkers, why would Nixon hike it all the way to California? This is not really unusual for Nixon, who gave her first interview to a NYC-based newspaper that is the oldest active Black newspaper in the U.S. Also, Nixon's announcement of intent to run was delivered in Brownsville, a majority, low-income, Black neighborhood in Brooklyn. She is trying to appeal to mainly New Yorkers, especially as she has accused her opponent, Gov. Cuomo of having his attention diverted away from New Yorkers by competing national interests, leaving open the possibility that Cuomo is seeking higher office in the not-too-distant future. Nixon likely wants exposure yet wants to remain as local and close to home as possible and a NY-based show that has a nationwide audience likely checks all the boxes of what she'd want.

It could've been worse, did you see Y&R's sex trafficking story?

Eww at Miami Open this year!

Funnily enough, a few years ago, I think that All My Children 2.0, in particular (the version that streamed on HULU via TOLN) really tried to push the boundaries. I compare their sex trafficking story to the one on The Young and the Restless and it is like the difference between chess and marbles from a toy chest. The stakes in the AMC 2.0 story were so much higher than that in the Y&R story. One reason was because in the AMC 2.0 story, it involved a character that was well-known and pretty much a legacy character-- at least in the sense that she was child of a well-beloved character, which got the audience to care. Meanwhile Y&R decided to outsource their story to a marginal character that was introduced just for the sake of the sex-trafficking storyline (and soon vanished when it was over) and was connected to a newbie character that most people cared little for, to begin with. Speaking of AMC 2.0. There was a highly provocative scene involving oral sex involving two legacy characters, Colby and Pete, that got a lot of the old guard's knickers in a twist. The camera stayed mostly on Pete's face as he grunted and his eyes rolled back in his head while Colby (mostly off-camera, except for her hands sometimes reaching toward Pete's torso) exhorted him to talk about computer code. It's a scene you have to see to believe!

Did anyone honestly believe she was going to mount a serious campaign?

I've never believed there was any discernible distance between the two countries. Certainly, North Korea aggravates China at times but North Korea has natural resources that China values and trade between the two countries has only increased over the past year. At times, China views North Korea as a wayward cousin that needs guidance and an occasional lecture yet when Chinese citizens were posting derisive comments about Kim Jong-un on Weibo, China's microblogging platform, referring to Kim as "Fatty Kim", the Chinese government clamped down and began to censor any reference to "Fatty Kim", scrubbing the site completely of any sign of the nickname. I have friends who are originally from South Korea and culturally, many South Koreans are culturally quite close to China. They grew up watching TV shows, including cartoons from China in the 1980s. Now, it's the reverse with many Chinese watching and dancing to K-Pop as well as following beauty/aesthetic trends coming out of South Korea but 30 years ago, when many of my friends were children, it was the exact opposite. South Korea and China are not in lockstep with everything, especially since politically, S. Korea is a democracy but the two countries certainly have less tensions than say... South Korea and Japan has, due to Japan's onetime occupation of South Korea and the Japanese military once making sex slaves of South Korean women (once known as "Comfort Women"). Stormy or no Stormy, many people have been and remain dubious that there will actually be a summit taking place between the Trump administration and the North Koreans. I guess we'll see but one thing remains consistent and that is the relationship between China and North Korea, which was never in doubt.

Forgot to post this but Florencia Lozano (Téa Delgado, OLTL) was emcee for the 2018 Theater Women Awards. Theatre Women Awards Celebrate and Advocate

Just after the Trump administration undoubtedly pissed off Xi Jinping and China with saber rattling over tariffs, Kim Jong-un makes his first trip to another country as North Korean leader-- and where does he land? Why China, of course! You think they're discussing a certain possible summit with a certain dotard politician from the U.S.?

Even if Aaron and Lucy were destined to be together, it would've been a good idea if writers had kept them apart, built up their characters as separate individuals, perhaps paired each actor with a more dynamic, more experienced actor, then only put Aaron and Lucy in each other's orbit on occasion until each actor had more experience, improved and then try to build something. Unfortunately, neither actor was on long enough to do this and the writers weren't patient or skilled enough to write a slow-simmering relationship to pull this off anyway. The way Aaron and Lucy were written, the writing for them was so week that each couldn't even stand on their own and be interesting enough as individual characters. ATWT of 30 years ago was a lot more bold and frank with topics than the ATWT of the last 15 years of its life on air. Just a few weeks ago we were all discussing the Susan/Dan open marriage storyline from the 70s and digging into the episodes that are on offer on You Tube, I was struck by scenes where Sierra attempted to talk to Tonio about how her fantasizing about Craig during sex with her husband was taking a toll on their sense of intimacy while Tonio squirmed with discomfort and tried to change the subject. An exasperated Lucinda would also mention the same thing to Craig, accusing him of being in bed between Sierra and Tonio. So interesting how much bolder and willing to take risks ATWT was back then. I guess when the ad $$$ started to dwindle, shows became more risk averse and then started writing less interesting, less thought-provoking but "safe" stories.

Congrats to Agim Kaba and his wife on their new addition! Agim looked every bit the part of a soap hunk but the writing just wasn't there for Aaron. Yes, Kaba was inexperienced but so was Jon Hensley at that age but the writing for Hensley, as well as the fact that Hensley's character was positioned in scenes/storylines with some of the strongest and most dynamic actresses on the show (Brown, Widdoes, Hubbard, Ashe, Byrne and later Smith) from the very beginning, Hensley had no choice but to "up" his ability to at the very least, meet his scene partners at an acceptable level, which is why/how I believe Hensley improved markedly as an actor during his time on the show. Agim/Aaron did not have the benefit of great writing for the character and many of his scenes were with other novices like himself (e.g. Peyton List) who got better after they left the show.

Because there was some discussion about Cynthia Nixon's run for governor of NY, I thought this might be of interest. Also, this sort of ties into that mention that I made about reading news from publications other than the same ones that get posted from all the time-- Nixon did her first interview since declaring her candidacy with the Amsterdam News. (*warning-- there's an annoying embedded video newsfeed that runs to the right of the article. Just click pause or mute, if you want to silence it*). Candidate and the city: Cynthia Nixon speaks one-on-one with the AmNews To those who may not know, the Amsterdam News (formerly The New York Amsterdam News), is the oldest active Black newspaper in the United States. When I lived in NYC, I often used to read it and I have a particular fondness for the Amsterdam News since reading it helped me find my first apartment.

Some people may try to giggle and dismiss this but this situation looks to have real consequences.

Good news, I was beginning to wonder what was going on!

There is no new king in Saudia Arabia (yet). They still have the old one. There is a prince-- Mohammed bin Salman (A.K.A. MBS), who has ascended the ranks and is primed to take over for the king, eventually (if there is no coup or upheaval that affects that takeover before it happens). He is the same one who has Jared wrapped around his finger. I haven't seen that tweet at all. I try to stay away from random tweets that come from random unaccredited sources because Twitter has quite a bot problem. Many of the bots are known for spreading news that is not true. I just saw today that the right-wing were imploding over some doctored picture of Emma Gonzalez, one of the Parkland, FL teens. Apparently, this happened over the weekend but I didn't see the doctored vs. real picture until today because I generally don't follow any of those accounts who would send that type of thing out. Twitter can be a great resource but I always look at "news" tweets with a critical eye and generally avoid the unscrupulous accounts.

As for the paper/blog/media debate, my two cents: NYT will always be a better regional/local paper than national one. Being that I grew up and still live in the NYC Metro area, the regional/local stories will always be the one that I read first and the other sections Arts & Entertainment, International, Politics, National, etc. happen to catch my attention while I'm there. Yet, currently, I don't consume the NYT at the rate I once did, which is for the best. Growing up, I was taught to read critically and to pick apart the perspective presented in everything I read, so I never took NYT to be gospel anyway. Politico/WSJ are basically the same to me. They both seem very slanted to a certain worldview. NYT and many other publications disappoint in terms of the dearth of diverse voices in their papers and publications like Politico and WSJ are even less diverse than NYT. No offense but they strike me as having an entitled White guy perspective that does little to engage me on a regular basis. I've always read "foreign" newspapers being that my family came from "foreign" and I find that helps a lot because I am keenly aware that what happens is not just about the U.S. I consume news from at least one non-Western country a day and subscribe to news from a 100+ year old paper from a so-called "Third World Country", which has maintained a high standard of news coverage. I would encourage others to do the same. Read some good quality papers outside of the U.S./England domain. Read a good non-Western paper that maintains a high standard of news coverage. Watch a news stream that isn't American-centric. Not RT though, they're garbage, LOL.

It is well known (or should be) that Jared Kushner has been compromised to do the bidding of Saudia Arabia/Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE. You can see this clearly in the U.S. shift in attitude toward Qatar, a U.S. ally that also has air bases for the U.S. military, which has now become antagonistic.

I looked at that interview from a legal standpoint and the fact that the FEC stated that the campaign finance violation(s) may, in fact, be worse than in the Edwards' case to be pretty significant. I know many people chose to gravitate to the more salacious aspects but Cliffords' lawyer, Mr. Avenatti emphasized that this case was all about the cover up. I also believe that to be as important as the possible FEC violation(s). Speaking of the GOP in shambles, This guy chooses not to run again because he knows he can't win in a newly drawn district--one that no longer heavily favors Republicans. Republican Rep. Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania won't seek re-election

Very effective of Daniels'/Cliffords' lawyer to repeatedly refer to Cohen's/Trump's tactics as being "thuggish". A very apt description of how Trump Inc. has been known to operate. Interesting too that this is being seen as being worse than John Edwards' campaign violations, which were pretty darn bad.

It's not just about acclaim, they literally used her image in every single one of their promotional ads for the show. Even when her co-stars were in promos, she was featured alongside them in addition to ads that featured her alone. I don't agree with the idea that Smith should somehow donate/refund the difference in salary but the production company should pay Foy commensurate to her value to the show, a helluva lot since any show about the British crown in the 20th and 21st century simply could never place without Queen. In fact, critical acclaim mattered a great deal to this company and Netflix because once Claire Foy won her acting awards (she won more than one), Netflix and the production company doubled-down on using her image to promote the show. Pay the lady what she's worth. And since it was the production company who decided to "let the cat out of the bag", not Netflix (or anyone else), the responsibility to fix this should rest with the production company.

Based on the show he wrote for cable (A New Day In Eden), I think Marland would've jumped at another chance to write far more edgy racier fare than what he was allowed to do in daytime.