DramatistDreamer

Oh, okay. That makes sense. By the end of the 90s, ATWT had long since ceased the caliber of storytelling it had once been known for. By the early 00s, the show had descended into mostly one-liners, zingers and side gags . I'll never forget that scene where Barbara does her best Groucho Marx impersonation before jumping out of window and thinking "What did I just watch?!"

What year did Larry Brygmann leave ATWT? It's weird that P&G couldn't negotiate favorable terms (maybe more flexibilty for him to do more stage work and indie films?) but soaps are not known for great decision-making. They claim they couldn't afford to keep him but over the next several years proceed to bring in characters that most fans cared little for like the Ciccones. Not sure, though, that I could stomach Lisa and Lucinda going at it for John's affections though. It would have to be something bigger like control of a business but maybe somehow John gets the idea that they are competing for him until it is revealed not to be the case. In order to make use of John's family, ATWT would've needed to have a headwriter who actually cared about the show's history and they clearly didn't. The last two headwriters didn't give a damn about that stuff. As well as Hogan Sheffer started out, he thought he was writing All My Children half the time and he could've cared less about long-time character's personal histories.

I could never stay friends with people who could honestly back a man who once took out a full-page ad in an internationally known newspaper declaring the need for the execution of five young men who turned out not to have committed the crime and a man who once said that he didn't want Blacks on the floor of his casinos and that he hated having Black accounts count his money. Fortunately for me, with my caliber of friends, I never have to worry about the possibility of any of them backing a bigot. Well, there is a connection between the likes of Bush/Cheney and Trump/Pence. After all, Mike Pence did cite Dick Cheney as his role model. Yep, digest that one, folks.

If you watch those scenes with Meg Ryan and Frank Runyeon, it was obvious that they had chemistry. The 80s was the era of the Supercouple (for better or for worse) so every soap had to have it's own Luke and Laura, I guess. When I saw that profile of Meg Ryan on CBS Sunday Morning a few weeks ago, I was reminded that Steve and Betsy's wedding was the 2nd most watched soap wedding in all of daytime (2nd to You Know Who), so it drew pretty big ratings, which probably made Runyeon feel like the goose that laid the golden egg. Once Meg Ryan left and writers decided to mature Betsy with the Lindsey Frost iteration (they had to keep up with the times), I think they could find little for Steve to do and it didn't help that they had written the Steve character into a corner. As much as I adore ATWT, for a significant length of time, the show did have a weakness in terms of writing for ethnic characters, except for Jessica, who at first seemed like a reiteration of Heather's character, and Lien Hughes this weakness continued pretty much throughout the show's history.

Every Presidential election cycle, the PBS series Frontline does an episode called The Choice. It's been on my mind for over a month now and it appears that that the episode's premier is this coming Tuesday. It's usually done quite well in the past but the subjects of this series usually have a serious history of public service and political engagement, which made me wonder from what angle will their profile of Trump be done? I saw a clip and it seems to be in the usual tone of a Frontline episode but then when they got to Omarosa's comments, I thought I was going to lose my lunch. I used to think she was a joke but that moment made me legitimately loathe her. This made me genuinely wonder whether I'll be able to make it through a Frontline episode which I've never before questioned and if you're familiar with the Frontline series, you know they often tackle some difficult subject matter.

Apparently Donald Trump's German relatives want nothing to do with him. Also, the story of how his grandfather Friedrich came to be regarded as persona non grata in Kallstadt is worth a read. Donald Trump, Bavaria’s disfavored son

Anytime @Roman. There were degrees of pain, disruption and resilience back then. In 2001, I remember distinctly because unfortunately there was change and upheaval in my life even before September 11th. I know about the recession in NYC because I personally experienced it- I was in Grad school and working at a newspaper when my entire department was made redundant and everyone was let go except for one person who was transferred to another, consolidated department. You know it's a bad sign when your Boss is the very first one to be fired. I guess it's no secret of my disdain for Giuliani. I will concede that he did dismantle the Mobb and the goodwill that produced carried him all the way to the Mayor's mansion. I will also concede that Giuliani should not get all the blame for 'Disney-fying' Times Square as I recently read that those plans were created at least about a good decade before Giuliani became Mayor. Typical Giuliani though, he took up the mantle (and the credit) with gusto and when his term was over. He. Just. Wouldn't. Leave. Even though I didn't vote for Bloomberg, even I had to admit that Michael Bloomberg handled Giuliani with a lot of class and restraint. If it were me, I'd be like, "I've got the keys to this city, you can go now, Rudy" With those squeegee guys, never understimate the power of the NY suburban voter, is all I can say! Remember when Bloomberg tried to introduce congestion pricing? Man, those suburban voters linked up with commercial industry drivers faster than you could say "Don't Block the Box!" and they absolutely torpedoed that congestion pricing idea, though it has worked successfully in London and other busy European cities for decades.

Giuliani was expressly making statements claiming that Lower Manhattan was safe and that you can come down and shop. That is a fact. I lived in Manhattan during that time, I heard the press conferences in news clips broadcast on NY-1 and evening news. The lie may not have generated from him (by the way, Christine Todd Whitman was pretty useless as head of the EPA, everyone knew she was a joke pick) but he propogated it, doing Press Conferences and Photo Ops of himself walking around without a mask. Many first responders and residents followed his example and spent hours, days in Lower Manhattan, some without using any protective covering. What many people were not noticing was that Giuliani spent a 20 minutes for a Photo-Op then got into his vehicle and was driven away while the First Responders spent 16 hour days digging through rubble in toxic air. Yes, NYC had been going through a recession that started in early '01 made worse after 9/11, so I'm sure the decision to encourage people to come to Lower Manhattan and shop was a cynical one to raise $$$ for the local economy but Giuliani pushed himself to the forefront explicitly telling people in NYC that it was safe to go down to Lower Manhattan and shop. The guy wouldn't even go away when Bloomberg was elected. Squeegee men were a genuine nuisance but they were mainly an annoyance to commercial drivers who had to make deliveries and were stopped and harrassed for money and suburbanites driving into the City and found them intimidating. The average New Yorker who took the subway or the bus would've had little to no contact with squeegee men.

This wasn't Giuliani's theory. It was called the Broken Windows policy (aka Quality of Life policy) and ironically was initially proposed and adopted by then Commissioner William J. Bratton (who recently left after being DeBlasio's Commission). It was a policy that would later be disavowed by Bratton. It was always controversial and the two social scientists who came up with the theory, which is both cited and criticized by other social scientists,who cite implicit bias in this theory. With the deaths of Eleanor Bumpers, Patrick Dorismond, Anthony Baez, Amadou Diallo and the sodomization attack on Abner Louima by members of the NYPD, many people of color in NYC felt unsafe and vulnerable, regardless of whether there were broken windows or not. People underestimate the heinous nature of the Abner Louima incident which ended up costing the city millions when Mr. Louima sued the city and I remember the killing of Amadou Diallo caused protests and marches by people of all ethnicities and colors. People were furious and people who were once supportive of Giuliani became exasperated by his relentless defense of all police actions, in Giuliani's eyes no level of violence by the police was unjustifiable, he thought it was always justifiable. The police state that Giuliani fomented in the city began to be a source of resentment by many white NYers who had always been his biggest supporters. I remember watching an interview in the late 90s/early 2000 with Marisa Tomei on the David Letterman show and she complained that she couldn't take Giuliani anymore because she felt he only cared about the tourists-he didn't care about the actual residents of NYC. It struck me that it was no longer just people of color who were sick of Giuliani. You're right though, Giuliani did hang on in the wake of the 911 tragedy. Call me cynical but to me it seemed as if he used the tragedy as an opportunity to try to rehabilitate his reputation and burnish some type of legacy. Even after Bloomberg was elected mayor, Giuliani was still strutting around representing NYC on his way to being 'America's Mayor' (a term coined by Fox NewsChannel, I believe). I'll never forgive Rudy for how reckless he was in presenting an example to first responders. He also lied about the air quality, announcing that the toxic air was safe just weeks after September 11th. I never believed him and I stayed away from that entire area for at least a year. Too bad many residents and first responders believed him and got sick, many first respondents died as a result (and are still dying). Disco Diva Donna Summer's family cites her moving back Lower Manhattan too soon after as the reason for her lung cancer and subsequent death-they said she was never a smoker.

Just saw this and all I can say is Go Don Cheadle! NO! There was a new poll released this morning putting him at 6% (which I still think is inflated) with AA compare with 89% for HRC.

The so-called Oracle/Rock Star of Wall Street? Ugh. Did people read this Op-Ed from HRC on her plans to help America's Poor? It's about time to address this issue. It's actually overdue. Some of these things, she's already said but it is good to hear more and in more concrete, specific terms. Hillary Clinton: My Plan for Helping America’s Poor

According to The Intercept blog, Trump Jr.'s Skittles analogy took inspiration from a much more nefarious source. Nazi Who Originated Donald Trump Jr.’s Skittles Analogy Was Hanged at Nuremberg

A few months ago, I read that Muslim voters have been registering in droves, so that'll be interesting, won't it? I also read that Democrats had lost some White voters but these were Democrats in name only that have been voting Republican for many years and over the last election cycle decided to make it official and register as Republicans. That same article (or perhaps a different one) mentioned the number of Latino voters and immigrants who had become newly registered. I'm not sure if all the hand-wringing about possible voter apathy among African-American/Black voters is supposition or fact-based but no one I know believes that Trump could ever be good for their finances or their personal safety nor have they bought his fake outreach. Many of us are exasperated by the media coverage and wish to tune in as little as humanly possible (while still remaining informed) until the election. Also, me personally, I think while there is still our current President in the White House, one that I really like, I'm not ready to ignore Obama and make this season all about this election nonstop. I think when the day comes, registered Afro-Am voters will get out there and vote and it won't be for Trump.

Yeah, especially since the 'Montgomerys' (Lila, Craig and Margo, who'd believed she was a Montgomery into her adulthood) were featured so prominently during most of his regime. Then again, Cricket was mentioned maybe one or two times, never re-appeared either. It would've been nice if Maggie, Frank and even Cricket had gotten the Penny and Don treatment, showing up during the odd holiday or special occasion but perhaps Marland didn't see the Montgomery family in the same way he viewed the Hughes family, who were regarded as a tentpole core family. As for Steve, as genius as I think Marland was, for many years he just wasn't very good with ethnic characters. A few years after establishing the Jessica Griffin character, he began to hit some sort of stride but he (and to be fair previous ATWT writing regimes) left quite a few minority/ethnic characters in the show's wake.

Was it possible that the decision had been made prior to his regime and that he was tasked with writing them out? It's entirely possible that he broke one of his cardinal rules but I also know that sometimes a writer of a continuing series is tasked with wrapping up previous storylines.

This episode from January 30, 1985 has recently been uploaded. I think it was only on YT in bits and pieces previously. It's always jarring to hear someone refer to Barbara as Barbara Stenbeck. Seeing Frank Andropoulous makes me wonder why he wasn't kept around. It seems like the was the more level-headed of the Andropoulous clan. Sometimes it unnerved me how Steve could sometimes appear like a stereotypical hot-headed ethnic man. With Frank around, at least there was some balance but with just Steve, it felt like an unflattering representation of Greek men. Lucinda has definitely dressed down since these days. LOL.

Just saw with Corbin Bleu in a commercial for the Irving Berlin musical Holiday Inn, playing at the Roundabout Theater in NYC.

The dumpster explosion that happened in Chelsea happened not far from the Flat Iron building, not one of the best known landmarks but a landmark building nonetheless. There was an explosion that happened in New Jersey earlier yesterday near a race site and authorities are wondering whether there is a link. If there is some link, I wonder whether it is more along the lines of the Unibomber's playbook rather than an attack attached to any religion or 'terrorist' attack. Many may not recall this but there was also an incident that happened in Central Park a few months ago and I don't know whether the NYPD ever found out who was responsible. Very curious times. One wonders why there isn't more discussion about things like this:

I don't know whether anyone read and/or posted this one previously but kind of an interesting interview with Mark Cuban on the reasons why he changed his mind on Trump and endorsed Clinton. It is kind of weird that his initial reason for thinking of Trump was as a buffer against Ted Cruz but I guess that's when he believed that there was a single GOP candidate that was even near Presidential material. Still don't get it, but oh well. Mark Cuban Changes His Mind

Sadly, from my own personal experience, that racism and bigotry has been this bad since I can remember, the only difference is with social media and better and more rapid communications, these instances are laid bare into the often a lot more frequently than they used to be. What was once a local tragedy/situation, where reporting was confined to local areas, now can be reported on a nationwide scale. I do agree that to preserve our own mental health, tuning out of the craziness of this election cycle for periods of time is necessary. I've done it for weeks at a time and perhaps until the debates start, I may go on 'Election Hiatus'.

I also follow politics around the world and have been following the poltics in the Phillipines, especially their recent elections and the machinations of their recently elected president Rodrigo Duterte, whose election promise to kill 100,000 drug dealers without due process, I already found disturbing but this former Hit Man's account is downright chilling! Rodrigo Duterte Ordered Philippine Killings, Professed Hit Man Testifies By the way, this is the man who referred to President Obama as a 'son of a whore' and claimed that he would say it to POTUS' face if they should meet and Obama would challenge him on extra-judicial killings. Duterte then went on to almost offer a quasi-apology before restating this demand that the U.S. not challenge him on the so-called extra-judicial killings taking place in the Phillipines.

I watched two news programs and each had Doctors who looked over the results and said that HRC's doctor submitted her test results that they deemed to be quite thorough. Her blood work is very good, she has taken a blood thinner to ward against blodclots after her fall/concussion and medication for hypothyroidism which is a common condition to a fair amount of women, especially those over 55 but Clinton's blood calcium reading indicates that she has a healthy heart and the lowest risk for any future heart issues (her blood calcium level was 0). The doctor even submitted her Mammogram results as being normal and her brain showed no abnormalities. She is only temporarily taking antibiotics (for the pneumonia that according to scans, indicates a mild case) occasionally takes Claritin for allergies, had one minor procedure to regulate her sinuses and takes B12 as needed. Frankly, I don't know what more could she submit at this point? Donald Trump, on the other hand, chose to turn to TV yet again. There was no full listing of his bloodwork or what specific tests he has taken but according to audience members from the Doctor Oz show, apparently he takes statins for cholesterol and mentioned the desire to lose 15-20 lbs after Doctor Oz mentioned that Trump is technically obese.

A 69 year old woman gets punched by a Trump supporter, yet somehow it's verboten to say the phrase "Basket of Deplorables" ? M'kay.

I saw that on the news. I am apalled by the act as well as the reporting on it, which seemed to suggest that there was reasonable doubt as to whether it was a hate crime. Oh really?? A Muslim woman catches a guy holding a lighter who has just set her on fire?! The sad and infuriating thing about it is that this is one of quite a few criminal acts perpetrated on Muslims in NYC that are being reporter as doubtful of being a hate crime. Two men were killed leaving a mosque after prayers and the NYPD has yet to determine whether it was a hate crime. I'm extremely disappointed in the City that I once loved so dearly.

Now that you mention Djorde (I think that's his name-LOL), I just got the impression that neither of Novak's younger brothers were as good. One dropped tennis pretty early on and the other, I guess got weary of losing on the Challenger circuit. People were also complaining that he was getting constant wildcards because of his connections to Novak. I also remember reading an interview Novak's father did earlier this year or last year, apparently originally in Serbian but someone translated into English, where his Dad pretty much said that Novak got the lionshare of the attention because early on, he showed a lot of talent and they all felt that they needed to sacrifice to help Novak get what he needed in order to bring his talent to fruition. I got the feeling that the Dad felt slightly guilty (although he expressed no regrets) that his other sons did not get the same devotion. Speaking of Novak, there was a rumor a few months ago, that he was having problems with his marriage and it affected his game (around the time of the loss to Jiri Vesely at Monte Carlo). Some Serbian fan who acted like he was 'in the know' put it out there on Social Media but I don't think a lot of people believed it, but some people commented that his wife Jelena was missing from some events for awhile and then Novak took some time off. I teased to someone that he was probably bummed that Ana Ivanovic was getting hitched. Obviously, his game rebounded enough for him to win the French and get to the finals of the U.S. Open. Another Novak related piece of news that is sort of a head-scratcher is that apparently he is doing a reality show that is going to be streamed on Amazon! No risk of a marriage being ruined by a reality show, right? Just ask Jessica and Nick. I heard Stan and Angelique Kerber were doing heaps of PR in NYC today but I saw more written about Serena's fashion show than either one of them. Roger Federer's tweet congratulating Stan also got more attention. Tennis needs to do more to promote this most recent batch of Grand Slam winners or they're going to find themselves in dire straits in a few years. I really like Felix's game and I'm just enjoying watching him compete in the Juniors, not really thinking about him on the ATP tour because he's still just 15 and anything can happen in the transition to adulthood. Maturity in body and mind, staying injury-free, those are all variables that determine whether a great junior player can make it in the Big Leagues but for now, I'm only really just enjoying his game for what it currently is now. I also really enjoy Naomi Osaka and have enjoyed her since before she went pro. Her game does need work but she could have beaten Madison Keys had she had a bit more self-belief. She is also still a teenager (18, I think), so I will give her a few more years and hope that has a better attitude than say, Sloane Stephens. I hope Nicole Gibbs can get her ranking up there, she has a stellar shade game, she has taken down Ryan Harrison, John Isner and CoCo Vandeghwe. Gibbs is witty and sassy and has the personality and intelligence to infuse some life into the younger group of American players, which says a lot since there's not much there in this current group of Americans (the ones I just mentioned and McHale, AKA McFail, Allison Riske, both players who should be better but disappoint too often). For awhile I was rooting for CoCo until I discovered her rudeness and poor attitude and the less said about Steve Johnson the better (is he the #1 American man this week, or is Isner?)