This generation
Rules the nation
With version
Music happen to be the food of love
Sounds to really make you rub and scrub
Chorus:
I say
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance
It was a cool and lovely breezy afternoon
(How does it feel when you’ve got no food ?)
You could feel it ’cause it was the month of June
(How does it feel when you’ve got no food ?)
So I left my gate and went out for a walk
(How does it feel when you’ve got no food ?)
As I pass the dreadlocks’ camp I heard them say
(How does it feel when you’ve got no food ?)
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
As The World Turns
When it rains, it POURS! If you’ve been reading me long enough, you know that I’ve been whining about OLTL’s decision to kill off the fabulous Nash Brennan (played by the even MORE fabulous Forbes March). I’ll whine no more… I’ll just be spending more time watching As The World Turns since TPTB there have had the good graces to cast Forbes in a new role! YAY! He’ll play Luke and Noah’s college professor who happens to also be openly gay. As if it was my birthday, the soapgods of ATWT have also cast Lynn Herring (GH, ex-Lucy Coe) as Henry Coleman’s mother… DOUBLE YAY! If she’s anything like Henry before his transformation, or the rest of his family, someone will need to say a prayer for Vienna! There’s fresh hell headed her way and she’s never experienced anything like it.
Days of Our Lives
Sami/EJ… can’t speak. Sickened.
Hate.This.Storyline. Hate Ejami…
One Life to Live
I just saw the most incredible commercial for ABC soaps… it’s an ad for ‘2 Young Mothers’ AMC’s Amanda – a woman in her mid to late 20s, and OLTL’s Starr Manning (Roughly 16 – 17 years old). Both storylines are about mothers who were supposed to give their children up for adoption. Both mothers have changed their minds. They want to keep their babies.
What happens in the upper suites over at ABC? Does anyone with more authority than deciding who to hire in the mail room get to see the ads for ABC daytime before they air? Given the fact that ABC had an astoundingly bad week, during the last ratings period:
Bad Week for ABC (originally posted at S.O.N.)
Ratings for the week of May 25-29, 2009
Total Viewers
1. Y&R 4,994,000 (+120,000/+48,000)
2. B&B 3,366,000 (-3,000/-341,000)
3. DAYS 2,663,000 (+136,000/-4,000)
4. ATWT 2,480,000 (+86,000/-126,000)
5. GH 2,454,000 (-96,000/-330,000)
6. AMC 2,430,000 (-88,000/-283,000)
7. OLTL 2,402,000 (-158,000/-299,000)
8. GL 2,022,000 (+71,000/-271,000)HH
1. Y&R 3.6/12 (+.1/same)
2. B&B 2.4/8 (-.1/-.3) <——- ties low rating
3. DAYS 2.0/7 (+.1/same)
4. ATWT 1.9/6 (+.1/same)
4. AMC 1.9/6 (same/-.2)
4. GH 1.9/6 (-.1/-.3)
7. OLTL 1.8/6 (-.1/-.3) <—— ties low rating
8. GL 1.5/5 (same/-.1)
what would make ANYONE think that a commercial featuring Amanda and Starr would excite soap fans who aren’t currently watching? Amanda? Eh… I’ll admit, I have SOME interest in what will happen if she keeps her baby and nutty Dr. Dave decides that he should be allowed to raise at least ONE of his children from infancy. I just have ZERO interest in Starr and Cole (who are, as we’re told “STARR AND COLE” – as if that has meaning. When I see ‘Starr and Cole’, I see a ruined Todd Manning who was destroyed to pimp a crap teen summer romance). I don’t care to see Starr raising a baby. I don’t care to see Starr and Cole reunite. I don’t care to see them struggle with the difficulty of being teen parents. For goodness sake’s folks, if you’re going to go forward on this storyline, don’t flippin’ advertise it.
Guiding Light
I understand that Rafe has to adjust to life outside of prison, but YEOW! Rafe is not only having a hard time adjusting, he’s actually beginning to behave almost as if he’d rather return to prison. With so little time left for GL (Sept. 18 is the final ep), it’s hard to believe that the writers are looking at spending that much more time on Rafe’s return in order to create unnecessary drama for Otalia.
I’m torn between: 1 – appreciating the grittiness of the prison release storyline, 2 – being annoyed that Rafe won’t get the typical ‘Spaulding’ treatment after creating a crime; in what world would Alan actually listen to Natalia when she tells him that she doesn’t want him helping Rafe? He doesn’t listen to Phillip or Beth! Why would her give a damn that Natalia wants him out of Rafe’s life!??!; 3 -feeling disturbed by the fact that the Rafe storyline is getting more attention than the Otalia love story. Wouldn’t it be better to have Otalia together, living as a family and working to save Rafe from himself and from Alan? So little time writers… GET A FREAKIN’ MOVE ON!
General Hospital
Shhhhhhh… no one tell the GH writers. SOMEONE slipped up and the writers are starting to inadvertently focus on romance. Can you believe it? That Patrick is so understanding of Robin’s PPD and that he’s supporting her should warm my heart but it doesn’t. OK, it does, but not the way you think. It’s to be expected, right? You have your husband’s baby and he realizes the sacrifice you made for him, for yourself, for your family. I’m just grateful that the writers veered away from Liz and Patrick flirtation and realized that there are many people out there who love and support their spouses in their worst moments without turning to someone else.
I love that Patrick is a good husband.
Do you know what I love MOST about this reunion? It’s that Patrick doesn’t think that it’s his role to ‘forgive’ Robin. I love that he stands back and watches Robin undergo a this period of self-exploration. He watches as Robin finally realizes what everyone else has been telling her all along. She’s been so driven, and so obsessed with perfection that it fed her inability to bond with Emma when Emma needed her so desperately. Robin would rather have not tried, than to have tried with Emma and failed. I love that Patrick and Robin don’t feel the need to ‘shape’ the other into a better person. They’ve learned to love one another as they are.
Patrick has accepted Robin as is and when she was ready to change, he was still there. She allowed him to be who he was, when he was a playboy on the loose. She realized that she couldn’t change him and accepted him as he was. She was still there, ready to be with him, when he decided to change of his own accord. She waited for him to become the man he needed to be.
Then there’s Carly and Jax. They’re the Ken and Barbie version of Patrick and Robin. There’s been a little more arm-twisting and ‘molding/shaping’ with CarJax than there has been with Scrubs, but it’s all worked somehow. I love that Jax accepts about Carly what drives others crazy about her; she has a tendency to obsess on those she loves and cares for. They become the center of her focus. Jax realizes that she’ll fight as hard for their family as she has for anyone else. He finally gets that about her. Jax is such a patient, kind, and loving man that he and Patrick stand out as Princes among the daytime frogs! Robin and Carly are lucky women. Patrick and Jax are even luckier men.
Add Elizabeth’s fighting Luke for Lucky’s sake, and I’m in GH fan heaven! THREE good men, Three good women, THREE great relationships… and this is GH!?!??
Pass the Dutchie, baby!
Where does that phrase come from? Some of you may remember the UK youth group that sang the song. The origin of the title was always in question. Some believed it was a reference to what is the equivalent of a ‘bong party’ (which makes sense of its use for AMC/OLTL/GL… but later it was determined that the origins linked to the notion of a communal experience (passing a dish, eating together as a group/a family)… as in the case of ATWT/GL…
Carly Corinthos Jacks. The moment Sarah Joy Brown stepped foot on stage, I became a Caroline “Carly” Benson-Roberts (…Quartermaine Corinthos Jacks)” fan. Carly is a character who is so good, she practically writes herself – and by “good” I mean good at driving people crazy with her half-baked schemes. 
knights has been painful to watch. I’d given up hope that the man could ever find true love. To have Carly choose him gave me a glimpse of the old Carly. It’s about time some woman realized that Jax was the much better alternative to a life of gunshots and death threats – hard to believe it’s taken so long. 
By the way, I was wrong, I said that I couldn’t get worked up over yet another GH disaster storyline. The commercials have me hooked. Of course, it was disappointing to see Jason MORGAN there, calling shots and taking control yet again. BASTA! Enough already. Let’s hope the doctors are the centerpiece heroes in this storyline about a MEDICAL crisis.
Fine, that’s not a picture of Liz and Lucky, it’s a gratuitious shot of Maxie and Spinelli (Maxelli). GH has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to it’s younger couples. Couples at midlife? Not so lucky. In GH’s younger set there’s Robin and Patrick, Sonny and Claudia (for now), Jax and Carly (for now), Lulu and Johnny (for now), Jason longing for Liz and vice versa (for now), Lucky and Sam (for now), Maxie and Spinelli (sorta’).
–Carly had to betray Jason and sleep with Sonny – something she would NEVER have done, just to give Jason cause to turn to Liz. Carly’s love (or obsession, you choose) for Jason was so great that she risked jail time and death just to be near him. No matter how much she loved Sonny later, it was easy to see that Carly still regretted that the one thing she couldn’t give her son, Michael, was Jason’s DNA. Her great regret was that his brother A.J. was his father. Sex with Sonny? Completely out of character for Carly. It was, however, the beginning of his turning to Liz for help during his dark times. It was also the beginning of the writers stealing back Lucky’s hard earned place as a true GH hero.
I’d like the writers to restore the LnL2 history. I’d like to see Liz try to figure out what her attraction to Jason has been when he’s so unlike anything she’s ever wanted for herself and her children – yes, despite the fact that both of her sons have biological fathers with criminal histories. 
Well…I’m in awe. GH managed to pull off one of the most romantic weddings in at least a decade. With Patrick and Robin’s “scrubs love” wedding:
something else that made Robin and Patrick’s wedding so special to me. Daytime is rife with 2 dimensional hotties who literally look great on paper, but can’t convey a meaningful emotion to save their soap lives. Newbies are hurled at daytime viewing audiences like cheap baubles, Cracker Jack prizes – if you will. We are supposed to be too stunned by their beautiful outsides to notice the emotional stunted performances causing our own insides twisting with disgust and annoyance.
What made the Scrubs wedding extra special is that Robin and Patrick are legacy characters, Robin being a GH regular (more on than off) since the grand 80s. Their families have been around forever, even if hottie Dr. Noah Drake hasn’t been on screen consistently, for more than a decade.
I past all of that. This past week, I remembered what GH use to be during its heyday. I thought about Anna and Robert, Tony and Tania, Tony and Bobby, Frisco and Felicia, and yes, Luke and Laura. I thought about the love/hate relationship between Alan and Monica that was always more about love than hate. I remembered actually wanting to tune in day after day to see what was going on with GH’s lovers. Seeing the Scorpios back together, I thought about other GH families (and poor Maxie, a motherless child, who seemed to have peace for a brief moment in time when she watched her cousin Robin being embraced by her own mother). Anna back as the Scorpio family matriarch? What I wouldn’t give!
If I can’t appeal to writer camp based on their love for the history of GH and the great cast it has at its disposal, how about appealing based on the economics of producing the show? Any drama is about the humanity of the show’s characters. It’s about making the emotional connection to the audience. Developing Scrubs, “Maxelli”, LnL2, and others is a damned bit cheaper than paying technicians and pyrotechnics to blow things up and tear things apart. Think about it.
Coffee At Cafe Russe 