Michael Baldwin - Top News 2004
See also: Baldwin 2003  Bribery Case  Sharon Newman  Kevin Fisher

The Greatest Story Ever Told

December 24, 2004
by Brent Kellogg

Over the years some whopper stories have come out of Genoa City but none so flame-broiled as the one told Friday by Michael Baldwin. His tale of why he hates Christmas will surely go down in the annals as The Greatest Story Ever Told.

As told to his law partner Christine 'Bug' Blair it all happened last year at this time. Having refused bail, a feat Baldwin said took a "minor miracle" to get a judge to grant at the last minute, Victor Newman refused to leave jail. He didn't want to go home to a son who hated his guts. Nick Newman was the reason he'd been arrested and charged with Commercial Bribery and he planned to stay behind bars even if it was Christmas Eve.

Thanks to the prodding of Ashley Carlton, who told Newman that his grandchildren would be so confused if gramps wasn't with them around the tree, Victor decided to leave the jail. When Baldwin learned later that his client had left lockup he took it upon himself to see where the great man would go. After an hour of dashing through the snow he reached the Newman ponderosa, walked up to the main house and peeked in the window. What Baldwin saw shocked his senses.

Most of the Newman family was gathered around the Christmas tree.

"There was this celebration going on," says Baldwin, noting too that at that particular time in history it dawned on him that he was nothing but a wholly disposable henchman for the Newman corporate regime. It became apparent he'd never know what it's like to grow up with certain "traditions" or feel the true meaning of Christmas.

"I knew then and there this was something I'd never be part of. It's not in me, and it's okay," Baldwin lamented.

Calling the realization - that Christmas is different things to different people and not everyone has a large family to gather and share gifts with - a "ship" that has sailed, Baldwin concluded that this is why he hates Christmas.

He just hates that he never had a chance to leave cookies and milk out for Santa. He never had a stocking hung by the chimney. There were no candy canes. No presents under the tree. No tree. No dazzling lights. No relic ornaments inscribed with "Ashley's First Christmas".

The sad story caused the Bug to gasp. "I had no idea," she squeaked, as if she'd just been told that Baldwin is really a subhuman; a sort of Data from Star Trek.

Instead of inviting Baldwin to spend the holiday with her since she'd said she planned to be alone, or maybe calling Danny Romalotti to ask why he wasn't spending this holiday season with the "son" he'd said means so much to him, the Bug slithered off to the Little Shop of Horrors for some last minute shopping where she ran into Victor Newman also shopping at the apparently only store open this year.

It was then the Bug had a brain fart. Would Newman like to play Santa this year to the city's biggest baby? In an exceptional giving mood this year Newman arranged to have Baldwin make another trip in a one horse open sleigh to the ponderosa under the guise of dealing with an urgent business matter.

As Baldwin waited the Newman kids began appearing like tiny elves. He helped a new and improved Noah Newman hang a stocking, chatted with the highly intellectual Cassie Newman who referred to her grandpa as "victor", was greeted by a sparkling Nikki Newman who offered him some of her famous grog and said hello when the adults wearing diapers Nick and Sharon came through the door followed by Katherine Sterling, the Bug and clueless detective, Paul Williams.

If Baldwin hadn't known better he might have thought it was a setup. That's because, of course, it was!

Somewhere along the line the Bug and Williams had scooped up Baldwin's evil brother, Kevin Fisher. The same Kevin Fisher that Williams had once subjected to brutal persecution. They didn't bring the firebug along so much because they wanted to be friendly and peaceful, but because the Bug's cold heart had "gone out" to Kevin and they didn't want him to be alone probably for fear he might torch another restaurant or give some minor child an STD.

Once house guests Bobby and Brittany Marsino had joined the crowd and they were all milling about Victor appeared with a copy of the Reader's Digest condensed version of the Christmas Carol with instructions for Baldwin to read aloud selected passages from the story about Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim.

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Sprits of all Three shall strive within me," Baldwin brayed until he had echoed the words of Tiny Tim asking God to bless everyone and sounds of I'll Be Home for Christmas warbled over the built-in Muzak system.

And so it came to pass that Victor bestowed upon Baldwin the greatest gift of all. The rare and splendid opportunity to spend Christmas with his rowdy family so that truly, Baldwin might experience what Christmas with a woman married more times than Bayer has pills; what Christmas with a man with more children sprung forth form his seed women will risk everything to steal; what sharing the holiday with a boy in a man's body who just days ago couldn't stand being in the same room with him and a shallow girl pretending to be the world's greatest mother willing to spread her legs for total strangers, is like.

It was Baldwin's wondrous opportunity to see how a family mentions not once that darling daughter Victoria Newman was not home, had not called or sent a card for the second consecutive Christmas. That Victor had not once mentioned his son, Victor Jr. or the boys mother, Hopeless Adams now living in Kansas. That Nikki Newman had not mentioned her sister, Casey Reed, living in Nevada. That Katherine Sterling was there without her daughter, Jill. That Williams had never once spoke of the son he stashed in Los Angeles, or the Bug has mentioned that her father is still alive out there, somewhere.

There now, are tears not streaming from your eyes? Are you feeling all warm and fuzzy? Is there any doubt that Baldwin will never again go around Genoa City with his chin dragging on the ground, full of humbug, spouting hate for Christmas? Is this not the greatest story ever told?

Have a Very Hateful Christmas

December 20, 2004

T'is the season to be jolly. The time to go out into the 'hood with fresh baked cookies and cheap gifts - and a small semiautomatic weapon just to be on the safe side.

'Tis also the time when old and young alike hearken back to the early days of this gloriously pagan holiday, a.k.a. the "real" Christmas, when men were men and half naked women danced around a huge fire demanding that man named Jesus be crucified.

'Tis Christmas in Genoa City where some are suffering through the decorative nightmare of red and green wrapping paper, trying their best to get into the holiday spirit by drinking grog while a few, like attorney Michael Baldwin are running around like disemboweled gourds, scowling and shunning Christmas as just another celebration of consumerism.

Ever paranoid and determined to put a hex on the cutesy faux-holy day, why Baldwin sees Christmas as a time of demons and religious bile hurled between family members like stale popcorn balls might be important to dig into. Why does he see it as a time when the spirits of the dead mingle with the living, like Malfunction Winters wandering around the city, only completely different?

Why do Baldwin and his brother babble endlessly about never having known a real Christmas? Why do they act as if they hear "Frosty the Snowman" one more time, they'll rip his frozen face off? Oh sure, little Kevin likes Christmas so long as he gets a new car or a stocking filled with money. Then, Christmas isn't so bad. Then it's okay if mommy dearest decorates brother's pad with tree ornaments stolen from the Abbott home. Then it's okay if the tree stays up until the middle of January and the light rock radio stations play carols 24/7.

But that doesn't answer the question: Why does Baldwin hate Christmas? Could it be the creepy crawlers dressed in holiday garb? The Santa Claus mice holding little candles? "It's a Wonderful Life" on every TV channel starting on Thanksgiving? Did mommy Fisher get all bent on Christmas Day when he was little? Is that what caused mommy to age rapidly and prematurely, looking years older than her chronological age? Does Baldwin fear he might turn into an old bat like in the Grimm fairy tale?

Maybe he saw the Passion of Christ. Maybe he watched the entire thirty minutes where a squad of Romans chained Jesus to a stone and feverishly whipped him to a bloody pulp on one side, then casually flipped him over like a veal cutlet and whipped the other side until he was nothing but a puddle of dripping blood.

Perhaps he read the Da Vinci Code and learned the truth about Mary Magdalene and her divine femininity.

The Baldwin hate Christmas machine is lethal and malicious and it cannot be understated how effective it is given his zero ethics and zero accountability. It has spread beyond Genoa City and onto CNN where gun-toting media whores espouse the notion that wishing others a happy holiday is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Amidst all the religious odium and the sanctimoniousness and the everlasting holy wars centered around whose God is manlier, for Baldwin to rekindle the old traditions and just get over it - whatever it is that makes him hate Christmas - and maybe don a Santa suit complete with cap he could borrow from associate Paul Williams and just once be happy is asking too much.

At a time when the hate mongers are shunning goodwill and holiday cheer, perhaps Baldwin is just being himself. He hates Christmas and doesn't care who knows it.

Fabulous Fight, Fine Thespians
November 12, 2004

by Michael Kelly

Actors Christian J. LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin) and Greg Rikaart (Kevin Fisher), who must be considered the male MVP's in Genoa City this year for their fantastic performances and completely believable rapport as brothers, really outdid themselves during their Raging Bull session in the professional style ring of the Wreck Center's massive gym.

It was a surreal sight indeed watching unbalanced little twerp Fisher pummel his effeminate brother Baldwin (who is looking so downright gaunt these days the humor quotient of Kevin going all Mike Tyson on him was diminished) as a delusional Kevin imagined he was pounding the crap out of his abusive father Terrible Tom (whose fierce face was superimposed on Baldwin's body in Fisher's extremely mixed up eyes).

When Michael finally took a squirming, still punching Kevin in his arms after realizing the schizo thought he was Tom, which was followed by an adolescent Michael opening the closet door Tom had locked with little Kevin inside and comforting his little brother was profoundly moving, and flawlessly produced and performed television.

The tight pacing, the creepy, in your face camera work and direction (courtesy of Dean LaMont who deserves a Director's Guild and Emmy nomination for this sequence as well as the tear-stained Victor and Nikki "good-bye" scenes, the strange is Malcolm Really Lily's Father Vibe I subtly felt coming from Victoria Rowell's uncomfortable Dru during Lily's chat with her uncle and the great slow-motion shot of Kneel spotting Malcolm for the first time since his brother's resurrection) were excellent.

Ringing In the Dead

November 9, 2004
by Brent Kellogg

How could anyone who had seen Malcolm Winters face just once ever forget it? It's not like the man back from the dead changed much. Sure, he's angry now, but isn't everyone in Genoa City? What is it about Winters that has altered so much that Michael Baldwin, a lawyer who worked closely on the Winters divorce, was at a complete loss when he ran into Winters this week at the Newman Wreck Center?

Gosh, it looks like him. It smells like him. It walks and talks like him. Could it be the person Baldwin once knew? To find out for sure Baldwin asked Winters if he used to know him and for his trouble got the classic answer a question with a question routine when Winters said, "I don't know. You tell me."

Baldwin thought about this for a moment before telling - what was for all intents and purposes - a total stranger that he was a "dead ringer" for the famous fashion photographer that once lived and worked in Genoa City. Winters said he'd never heard of the man and wasn't much on fashion as his drab appearance would attest if baggy pants and a head bandana could speak.

Instead of maybe saying, oh well, sorry to have troubled you, Baldwin went on to give the stranger the complete details of how Winters had died. It was in all the papers, too. While on a safari in Africa the young man's life had been cut short by a horrible tragedy. His brother who loved him dearly had looked high and low and now here was a man with an "uncanny resemblance" to the deceased walking among the living. What were the odds that the man looked like and spoke like Winters? It was downright spooky.

The answer to Baldwin's suspicions was simple.

"Everyone looks like somebody," Winters quipped, and for good measure tossed in some slang used primarily by the uneducated and ignorant who have yet to grasp control of the English language.

"Know what I'm saying?" Winters asked.

Baldwin should have said, no. I don't know what you're saying. Would you care to explain to me why you end every sentence with those four words? Can you not articulate any better than that? Sorry I wasted my time, but no surprise given I'm standing in a remodeled paint factory in the very pit of this city.

Winter's sneer "is that okay with you" when Baldwin asked what he was doing at the center should have tipped the scales but before he could say anything more about the ghastliness of it all Victor Newman appeared to confirmed his worst fear. That was the one and only Malcolm Winters. "Alive and kicking" and only God knows how many more people will go through this same tedious you remind me of a dead person routine before we get it. Malcolm Winters is back. Now, can we please move this along?

Attorney Will Sacrifice Law Practice, No Stone Unturned to Save Little Brother
April 29, 2004

As the Genoa City Police Department sets its sights on making the city safe for uptight stripless ultra-pious white girls like Brittany Hodges once and for all, the question arose this week: who knew Kevin Fisher was arrested again and when did they know it?

Why did creepy crawler Christine 'Bug' Blair know, yet Neil Winters, supposedly so in need of keeping tabs on Fisher he hired a private investigator, had to read about it in the newspaper? And why is Lily Winters still blaming Fisher for ruining her life and causing warts to breakout on her face yet when she heard of Fisher's arrest proclaimed the "nightmare" over and rushed off to tell her Oreo-eating friends?

It all started early Thursday morning with attorney Michael Baldwin banging on the Bug's love bunker. This, after he had just scolded Neil Winters for doing much the same at his apartment so as to cause the neighbors to complain.

Yelping like an injured dog, Baldwin told the Bug that his brother had been arrested and bail revoked as if this were a totally unexpected event. As if the police was supposed to just thank Fisher for coming in from the cold, release him on his own recognizance and say see you at the trial.

"I know," the perky Bug said. Fisher jumped bail and when you jump bail you go directly to jail once caught.

Next, Baldwin tried the old police brutality ploy. Them dirty coppers got physical with poor Kevin. And oh, did I mention Kevin pulled a knife?

Her smugness starting to drip the Bug squeaked, "I doubt it."

Granted, the GCPD led by Hank 'KGB' Weber has shown it hates Fisher with a passion and persecuted him for weeks, but dear Lord, no. They would never shove a nightstick up Fisher's butt or smack him around a few times for kicks.

Slightly perturbed that Baldwin was cutting in on her bedroom time with a washed-up rock and roll star, the Bug asked if he had a point. Baldwin said yes. He wanted her bugness to slither down to the court, snap her claws and get Fisher's trial date moved up.

Baldwin's bad idea did not receive the Bug's complicit blessing. For one thing, even if the Bug could move the trial it wouldn't give Baldwin time to prepare. Considering, of course, that he'll ever get around to preparation. Secondly, the Bug was worried about Baldwin's other clients. When would he find time to handle all those cases?

"To hell with my clients," Baldwin bellowed, as if he has other clients. As if, like Paul Williams, he's worked a case in the last two years.

And then came the Baldwin whine. Poor Kevin has phobia issues. He can't be locked up. Woe is me, what will I do?

The Bug was of little or no help. Without promising anything she said she'd look into the matter and then ordered Baldwin out.

Neither of these legal minds thought for a moment how easy it would be to have Fisher examined by a medical doctor. God knows there are plenty in this city who for the first time could have actually served a purpose. One look at Fisher and even Dr. Olivia Winters would have poured oil over her feet to anoint herself the protector of all things dry and crusty and in Brad Carlton's case, sexless and flaccid. With one fell swoop of her pen Winters could get Fisher released on the grounds that confinement is detrimental to his health. At the least she could get him admitted to a medical facility.

If Baldwin really has so many clients knocking his door down he should have an equal amount of friends in high places. And guess what they all value far more than sanctimonious respect for the law and the need to get criminals off the street? Hint: It's green and rhymes with "honey," and judges worship it like sharks crave whale gristle.

But no. Baldwin isn't well connected or smart. That's why he couldn't get Weber to put Fisher in a single cell or placed on suicide watch. Sorry my brother. If you find a way to hurt yourself in jail there will be nobody to see you do it until it's too late.

It was no surprise either that Weber considers bail jumpers "dangerous." This is a cop focused on the true abusers. The kiddie porn dealers and guys who deal heroin to 5-year-olds can wait. Kevin Fisher must go down.

And who amongst us does not wish Lily Winters would catch another STD or Mad Cow Disease and simply die? Same for that atrocious excuse for a woman, Dru Winters. Can these two pus-filled boils get any more repulsive and something you'd like to get under your shoe and laugh at when the dark-brown red stuff squirts in all directions as you put your foot down?

Think about it.

Dru Winters has pulled every dirty trick in the book and then has the audacity to say that "it's about bloody time" Fisher was arrested. So what if he might be innocent of the charges against him? She does not care. All that matters to this witch is that her darling daughter - whom she ignores to this day and for all she knows is still posing as StiffLover666 in AOL's Hot Shaved Bikers chat room - has stopped having nightmares.

Best of all, Winters said that the words "held without bail" were "music to my ears" and "they ought to throw away the key" so that she won't have to worry about anyone finding her copy of "Bend Over Boyfriend" under the mattress.

And lo, but what Fisher is "guilty of disfiguring" that sad stripper Brittany Hodges, too. Never mind he hasn't had a trial. If Winters had her way Fisher, "that freak, that predator" would be strung from the nearest tree.

This is one evil bitch. She makes the Bug look like a saint. Oh wait. Who did not hurl green chunks of bile when Lily Winters sighed, "my nightmare is over" when she was told of the arrest? Who did not want to wring her pencil neck when she said "They'll put him away for good - won't they?" Who wanted to tie Lily to an ant hill and laugh as large fire ants burn out her eyes when she said, "Know what this means? I get my life back" and then ran off to tell her Oreo-eating pal, Sierra NoLastName?

Who can't wait for Fisher to be set free so that the anti-Kevin battle cry will subside and the real creeps in this city can get back to doing what they do best: adulterous sex and jiffy-lubed hypocrisy.

Attorney stays mum on missing body case, conceals crime!
February 11, 2004

Perhaps hoping that software giant Cameron Kirsten will miraculously appear very much alive and tell the story of how he stayed warm all those ice cold days and nights covered with snow in an alley by siphoning his own blood and drinking it, attorney Michael Baldwin this week continued what amounts to conspiracy to conceal a crime.

As an officer of the court, and aware that police are searching for Kirsten, Baldwin has a legal, ethical and moral obligation to report what he knows about the case yet chooses to keep his mouth shut.

While he's walking a thin line between attorney/client privilege, Baldwin never agreed to represent the woman thought responsible for Kirsten's disappearance. Even when Sharon Newman told Baldwin on Wednesday that she returned to the scene of the crime, scrubbed it clean and then returned again to move the body and that said body went missing from the trunk of her vehicle, Baldwin made no effect to contact authorities.

To be convicted of murder, Mrs. Newman must only have committed some act with the intent of killing a person, or have exhibited such extreme recklessness with regard to human life that she clearly intended that a person be killed even if Kirsten is alive and provided Kirsten did not play a part in his own death.

For a lawyer so worried recently about losing his license Baldwin's participation in this crime is mind numbing. The list of criminal acts for which he has never been charged is long. During the Case of the Vanishing Victim, Baldwin went to the scene, removed evidence and wiped a bloody rowboat clean. He also had a conversation with boat owner Otis Elwood and never reported his knowledge of Elwood when police said they had received a call from Elwood but had not be able to locate him. More recently, Baldwin was given a free pass for his part in the Newman bribery case.

Killer on a tightrope
January 20, 2004

How utterly obnoxious it is that hanging-by-a-thread just outside a comfy prison cell shyster Michael Baldwin has not yet instructed admitted killer Sharon Newman to just stay the hell away from him if she's not going to take his advice.

Since she whacked software mogul Cameron Kirsten over the head and left him for dead Newman has pestered Baldwin on numerous occasions. Each time Baldwin has said Newman's best bet is to tell the police what she did and throw herself upon the mercy of the court. Baldwin has even told Newman that if she needs one, he'll get her a lawyer and the last time they met strenuously hinted that she stop dropping by whenever she feels like it.

But because the rocks rolling around in Newman's otherwise empty head make so much noise she hasn't heard one word. All she can so is belch and fart. If her husband finds out she slept with one more man it'll be the end of her marriage and the Newman family fortune to which she clings for dear life.

In a panic now that police have begun poking around into Kirsten's whereabouts, Newman ran to Baldwin again this week to ask what she should do. Before Baldwin could say that her presence makes him feel dirty, Newman oozed that she didn't want to hear again that she should tell the truth.

"I'm not going to do it!" Newman oinked, and right then and there should have been given a quarter and told to call someone who gives a damn. Instead, Baldwin presumed that Kirsten's body hasn't been rotting since New Year's Day and is - thanks to the freezing weather - nicely preserved in the alley beside the Seedy Side Motel where Newman had left it.

Fully aware that the police are looking for Kirsten and that as an officer of the court he has an obligation to report the body's whereabouts, Baldwin has chosen to slap a useless balm on Newman's gaping guilt by vainly attempting to cover up her crime and the big globs of blood on the floor of the motel room where some 20 days later the clerk still hasn't thought it strange that the man who rented a room for the night has not paid for additional days or come out to eat. Nor has the clerk thought to go check to see if the man may have skipped out and if so re-rented the room.

Living up to some flagrant cronyism connection he's made with the daughter-in-law of the man he recently cooked up a crime of his own with, Baldwin went over Newman's claim that she wasn't seen at the motel.

Having said earlier that she had been seen, but couldn't be recognized due to a hooded coat she wore, Newman mulled the night over again in her empty head. This time it hit her like a ton of bricks. The clerk had spoken with her by the elevator.

The stunning reality caused Newman to suddenly become all atwitter over another ridiculously stupid stunt she's pulled. Her fingerprints, clothing fibers and chalky dead skin are all over the crime scene. It's only a matter of time, say, June, that Kirsten's body is found and the clerk remembers the woman who didn't fit in and especially that whiny voice.

Attorney seals lips after hearing murder confession!
January 6, 2004

When Michael Baldwin - an attorney who has been in fear of losing his license to practice law for over a year - made the one hour drive to the Newman ranch on Tuesday he didn't have to ask why the town slut had summoned him.

"Is this about [Cameron] Kirsten?" Baldwin asked, walking into Sharon Newman's home.

"How did you know that?" Mrs. Newman replied, as if maybe Baldwin thought that edgy tone in her voice meant she was dying to have sex since it seems she's had sex with just about every man in Genoa City.

Noticeably jumpy, Newman confessed to killing software giant Cameron Kirsten BEFORE asking Baldwin if he'd represent her and asked if he would promise not to tell. Without agreeing to either proposition Baldwin had no trouble getting Newman to spill the details of how she foolishly went to Kirsten's hotel room early New Year's Day and whacked him over the head with a full bottle of champagne when he allegedly attempted to rape her.

"He was going to beat me again," Newman said, but could not have known Kirsten's intentions other than he had expected her to put out as she had done in the past.

"This was an accident," Newman said, drawing a mental diagram of a woman with premeditated murder on her mind.

"I wrapped his body in sheet, dragged him down the fire escape and into the alley and left him there."

Indicative of a woman who had her wits about her at the time of the crime Newman did not hesitate to refuse Baldwin's suggestion that she go to the police.

"There is nothing that connects me to this," Newman said, apparently forgetting that everything connects her to Kirsten's murder. The Seedy Side Motel clerk saw her and who knows who saw her stash the body in the back alley. More importantly, an officer of the court knows of Newman's dastardly deed.

He doesn't have to give up who murdered Kirsten but he has an obligation to report the crime even if he later agrees to represent Newman.

As of late Tuesday police were as yet unaware that the City's murder rate had increased by one.