5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Welcome Back... "All My Children" and "One Life To Live!" :)

 

                                                                                    Welcome Back


                                                       All My Children... And One Life To Live!




 "You're being cryptic again. It's like soap opera sex. Lots of boring dialogue and when they finally go to bed, everything's dark and covered by blankets."

~Ragnar Tornquist


It's April 29th... FINALLY!

April has been the longest month of this year, I swear someone added a few extra days! Nah, I know, this April has the exact same number of days it always had, but I have to say, it felt a lot longer longer than usual! Why? you ask. Well, you see, I have been waiting for the relaunch of two of my favorite soap operas, and let me tell you, the waiting hasn't been easy! It's been a long hard fight for we soap fans, a true uphill battle if there ever was one! And it all started in the month of April 2 years ago, when Brian Frons, former head of daytime programming for ABC, made the ridiculous, overreaching decision to axe not just one, but two of the network's long running daytime dramas, All My Children, and One Life To Live. At the time it seemed like a permanent dark cloud had been set not just on my Monday thru Friday, but on the days of millions of other soap fans as well!

We asked nicely that the network reconsider.

They ignored us!

We gathered and signed petitions online, and the old fashioned way.

They ignored us!

The Hoover company supported us by pulling all their advertising from ABC daytime. (Don't forget to buy Mom a Hoover vacuum for Mother's Day by the way!)

The network not only continued to ignore, but indeed openly thumbed their nose at us!

ABC replaced our favorite daytime dramas with... uggg... a "lifestyle show" and a "cooking show."

The first of the soaps to disappear was All My Children, in September of 2011. It was replaced by the ridiculously named cooking show called... gulp... The Chew. Hosted by, and I stick by the following opinion, so-so chefs, Mario Batali and Michael Symon. I actually spoke with Chef Symon one evening over Twitter, when, to my dismay, he decided to laugh at my assessment of him. I backed my opinion by telling him exactly why I felt the way I did. Let's just use one example here. His 5 in 5 segment. 5 ingredient meals, you could, or should, be able to prepare in 5 minutes for under $5 dollars. First of all, in the 3 months I watched The Chew, he never, ever, finished successfully in that amount of time and as for the $5 part... it was iffy at best! Not impressive! If it doesn't work, have the courage to say so, and move on! Right? Then there came the insulting way Batali introduced each show by saying "there are two types of people... Italians, and those who want to be Italians." Chef Batali... I have never wanted to be Italian! And should we talk about the many, many times I saw the chef's touch raw food without washing their hands? I could go on about the other elements about the show that bugged me, but there is no need for it. I don't watch it, but some do. In my opinion ABC won't be cancelling it anytime soon, so why belabor the point... right? It's awful. The End.

Now, as if a ridiculous cooking show wasn't enough... the network decided to replace One Life To Live with the short lived lifestyle show... The Revolution. The reviews were awful, right out of the box. It was so bad it lasted a total of 6 months on the air. It was BAD! It was so bad that it never came close to garnering the kind of ratings One Life To Live did in the same time slot. It was a sad embarrassment for all involved. But the saddest part about the entire situation is that The Chew, and The Revolution replaced shows that had been on ABC for over 40 years! Yep, that's right, both were on ABC for over 40 years! It truly was insulting to the fans to think that one more cooking show, or one more lame lifestyle show could possibly replace a show we had watched, and cared about since, as in my case, a small child. You know how when something big happens, and years later you reflect on where you were when it happened... the day Elvis Presley passed away, my sister and I were in my room, watching One Life To Live on my portable black and white TV. It was August 16th, 1977. She was just a few months away from getting married, and she and her fiance had planned to get tickets to see Elvis perform later that year. It was going to be their wedding gift to each other. It was one of those moments I never forgot, nor did I forget what I was watching when the "Breaking News" chimed in.

Brian Frons, and ABC made a big mistake. We fans made our voices heard loud and clear. And then one day we got some unexpected news, something was about to happen that has never happened before. A couple people got together and said... "What if?" What if we can relaunch those two much loved shows online? Long story short. There was some rough going with that idea, and at one point we fans accepted the possible reality that it probably wasn't going to happen, then just after the first of the year came the news that it was A GO! Now, most of the casts of both shows are back. It's a new day, and as of today, Monday, April 29th, All My Children and One Life To Live are back! They can both be seen Monday through Thursday with new 30 minute episodes, and on Friday with the recaps on Hulu, Hulu Plus and iTunes.

I said at the time Brian Frons made that dumb decision that it would go down in entertainment history as one of the stupidest decisions ever made in daytime! And guess what... I was right! As for Mr. Frons, well, he was let go from ABC in January of 2012! Bye Bye Mr. Frons have a nice time in oblivion!

Sometimes Mondays get a bad rap, but I think this Monday will go down in history as a pretty good day!

Now, here is a clip from One Life To Live, featuring one of my favorite daytime characters, David Vickers, played by Tuc Watkins. In the clip David debuts in his big break into acting by doing a commercial for a certain type of health product. It's funny! Watch it! Get your day off right with a little humor. Life is too short, we need a little escape once in a while... right?



By the way, some really great actors have gotten their start in daytime, among them are, Judith Light. Julianne Moore, Christopher Reeve, Meg Ryan, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones, just to name a few. Soap actors are some of the hardest working people around, and they have made my life much nicer just by sharing their talent with the world. I am honored to be a fan!

Congratulations on your new start All My Children and One Life To Live! I will be there every single day!

~Mood: Happy

~Me :)

Elvis Update

"In the middle of a world had always been a bit mad, the cat walks with confidence."

-Rosanne Amberson

For those of you who are new to my blog, I thought you might like to see why my cat's name is Elvis. LOL. There was never any other decision to make, when it came to a name for our boy, see, he was born with his name. I swear my Elvis is the reincarnation of Elvis Presley, because he shares so much with him. Food is my boy's favorite thing, followed closely by his love for women, he has managed to pick up every woman he has ever met, and he takes really good care of his friends. Not to mention the resemblance, and his sense of humor. LOL. My Elvis is a charmer to be sure. To say that I am proud of him would be a huge understatement. I LOVE him, and I always will. He will still have me laughing and smiling about our years together, when I am a very old lady. He is the one you never get over.

After trying the steroids, it has become clear that they aren't working. It seems that the cancer Elvis has is much more aggressive then we once thought. Fortunately, Elvis has a guardian angel, and we are going to be able to at least give the chemotherapy a try. He gets his first dose today. He has to be at the doctor at 9:00 AM, and we will pick him up at around 5:00 or so. Dr. B wants to see how he does with the drug, just to be sure there is no adverse affects. I am really hoping Elvis does well with the chemo, I love spending time with him, and he isn't in any pain right now, but he is uncomfortable. He has a lot of wheezing coming from his nose, and breathing is becoming much more difficult due to the erosion going on in his nostrils.

A good sign is that the bleeding from his nose has stopped, and he is really playful and loving. He is continuing to groom himself properly, and he asks for his meals on schedule. He played outside yesterday, I caught a glimpse of him walking across the back yard, on his way to the lemon tree, where he sometimes plays in the late afternoon. I have come to think of that tree as Elvis's lemon tree. It is so cute when he lays his head on a lemon and goes off to sleep. Over the winter, when he couldn't go out to play, he would steal an onion or an apple from the pantry, and rest his head on it. He makes me smile. And hopefully, with a little help from the chemo, I will have him as long as a year from now, and he will still be making me smile. So far, he is my little trooper, taking his medicine, and keeping to his schedule without complaint. I wish I were as brave as he is! He is my hero!

If you would like to read about the different types of Feline cancer, I found a great website called, Feline Cancer Resources. Give it a look see.

-OndineMonet
"The King's Baby Picture"
May 25th, 1997

His Life As An American Idol

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away."

-Elvis Presley

Can you believe it's been 30 years since the death of Elvis Presley? I remember the day he died. I guess that day has become one of those days, where pretty much everyone remembers where they were. Like the day Kennedy was shot, or the day Princess Diana was killed in a car accident, and of course, this nation's darkest day... 9/11. I turned 15 years old the summer he died, and I really wasn't a fan. In fact, I really didn't get the whole Elvis following at all. I loved had loved The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, and Kiss, but Elvis? Nope, the whole phenomenon was lost on me. Now my sister, well, she was a fan start to finish. She is ten years older then I am, so she was in high school, when girls were going half crazy over those hip gyrations,bedroom eyes, and smooth vocals he did so well. He, lets face it, seduced an entire generation.

My sister came by that day, to play one of her Elvis albums on my portable record player. It was a fairly new album, that her soon to be husband had bought her as a gift. I gave her the record player, and went back to watching my soap opera "One Life To Live," paying little or no attention to the music she was enjoying so much, however, one song really sounded good to me, so I asked her to play it again. "Burning Love." It moved a different from his other tunes, and had a real rock feel to it, as opposed to most of his songs, which had more of a country sound. I never cared for country music, so it was really nice to be able to really appreciate a different side of him as a change of pace. She and I listened to the record a few times, then put it away in it's sleeve. We ate and giggled our way through lunch that day, because after years and years of trying to get me to admit I liked Elvis Presley, I had finally relented. I finally heard a song by him that I really liked.

"When things go wrong, don't go with them"

-Elvis Presley

A couple hours later, as we were gabbing with each other about her upcoming wedding plans, we heard the Special Report on TV. Elvis had been found dead. There weren't many details initially, just his age,and the fact that he had died at Graceland. It was a few days before most of the details came out, and years before the real truth was known. I remember all the coverage at the time, and how it seemed so disrespectful. The tributes were meant in love, but there were photos of him in his casket, plastered all over the tabloids for years after his death. To me it all seemed a little grotesque. It still seems so sad to me that he died alone, in his bathroom, and in life. Something went so wrong for him, that he wasn't even close to that young, hip, sexy guy who made all the girls fall in love with him by uttering a simple, "Thank you, thank you very much." I can't help but have some compassion for him still, all these years later. No matter how he got on the lost road he was on when he died, it seems like no one could reach him in time to save him, if they even tried at all.

There are some young stars today, who are pretty much headed down the same road that Elvis, Jimi, and Sister Janice traveled, just to name a few. The tabloids make jokes, late night talk show hosts make jokes, heck, I suppose we all make jokes.But is it truly funny? I don't know... I sometimes wonder, who will be next? Who will die young? I can't bring myself to laugh at Paris Hilton, or Nicole Richie anymore. Lindsey Lohan seems to be in the most trouble, but Britney brings her children along for the ride she's on. I wish there was someone who could put out their hand, or wave a magic wand, and heal whatever is hurting these girls so badly. I wish they had stronger support in their lives, support money can't buy. Truth is, as long as they have an audience to play to... who laugh along with the jokes they play out... they will have a reason to continue to drift away. Sometimes I think continuing to be a fan to certain stars, is just another form of "enabling." There is a strange codependency in it somehow. Sigh.

I think I will just look back to that day, in August of 1977. I liked Elvis that day. The above YouTube clip is of my favorite song by The King, "Burning Love." Enjoy!

"Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique, irreplaceable. More than 20 years ago, he burst upon the scene with an impact that was unprecedented and will probably never be equaled. His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense. And he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness and good humor of this country."

- President Jimmy Carter, 1977

-OndineMonet