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December 29, 2004
by Brent Kellogg

There must have been massive corruption at the highest levels of the holy institution, CEOs and COOs and skunk oil sniffers and lab rats hired but who rarely work from Genoa City to Georgia must have been cooking the books for years, millions in hush moneys paid to keep everything quiet, paper shredders working overtime.

There must have been something more than inept management and "silver bullets" shot to hell that caused the fall of Jabot Cosmetics and has creditors lined up seeking payment as the company is going down hard, crashing and burning and pulling an Enron by officially declaring bankruptcy.

Will the public ever know? Will shareholders hang onto what has become a penny stock? Apparently, yes and no.

Despite previous reports, despite that COO Brad Carlton is right this very moment preparing documents he says he'll personally take to a bankruptcy judge, Jabot may not go into Chapter 11 after all!

Let us imagine. Let us digest this. Jabot announcing an Enron-grade collapse and perhaps a K-Mart restructuring and maybe even a Sears-style bargain-basement sell-off and what, the company isn't a colossal worthless commodity like the toxic chemicals it sells to women of color?

What, you might ask, saved the day?

It wasn't so much a what as it was a who.

In a last-ditch attempt to come out of the mess she made smelling like a rose, CEO Ashley Carlton summoned the great business mogul Victor Newman to Jabot this week to tell him once again that Jabot, the company Newman so graciously returned to the Abbott family when he could have kept it all to himself, is in deep financial crap.

And unlike Nick Newman who must be cleared with security before he can pass through the pearly Jabot gates, Newman was allowed to just stroll into the joint like he owns it. Which, as it turns out, may be the case since he presented Carlton with a solution that will once again save Jabot's sorry ass.

Well aware that not a single person at Jabot is capable of doing what it takes to run a company Newman said if given the opportunity he could do it "in no time flat". It's merely a matter of having a wad of bankers in his back pocket. A tug on a banker's string here, a string there and presto. Jabot would have the time it needs to... he didn't exactly say perhaps because he knows that Jabot has squandered every dime ever loaned it on such items as office remodeling junkets to Japan.

As always Carlton stood there hissing and looking a gift horse in the mouth. Nearly as dumb as her previous statement that Jabot would have a hard time keeping its creditors in the dark should it go chapter 11, Carlton oozed, "How do I know this isn't part of your plan to wipe us out completely?

It's got to be the mental illness. All those experimental drugs she took. Something has made Carlton nearly as dumb as Sharon Newman. Here her father's company is gasping for air and she's snarling at the one man who can save her. Carlton is conveniently forgetting that Newman could just walk away laughing. Don't trust me? Eat me, bitch. Oops. Better not say that. She'd give her breasts up to cancer for one minute of sex with the great man.

Maybe it's the regular slew of lies. You know the ones: Victor killed the baby. Victor ruined the company. Victor has caused the Abbott family so much pain. Funny how the BS can wear the Abbotts and the Carltons down. Funny how it can make them hurl balls of hate at Newman and get all black-eyed whenever the sperm thief mentions his name. But when the chips are down who does she run to?

Funnier yet is why Newman gives these creeps the time of day. They've managed to stay viciously on message, trashed him repeatedly yet out of the goodness of his heart he's willing to help them again?

What righteous payback would it be should Jabot not go into Chapter 11 thereby taking the clean and easy way out and not become beholden to Newman for anything only to find they've been duped again big time? And how, pray tell, would Carlton ever get such a decision past the board of directors should she take the man up on his offer?

As yawning as this Jabot is in financial trouble, no it's not, yes it is, saga has become, whatever bad befalls Jabot at this junction couldn't happen to a nicer company run by a pack of incorrigible nitwits.

Cosmetics Firm Nears Bankruptcy

November 25, 2004
by Brent Kellogg

On this Thanksgiving there is something to be thankful for. Those oily Glow Worms are gone!

Remember that day? It was June 3, 2002. In the Jabot Cosmetics boardroom company executives Jill Abbott and Brad Carlton sat around twiddling their thumbs after summoning other board members to discuss the summer ad campaign. As time passed and nobody had shown up Carlton and Abbott seemed baffled that beleaguered employees hadn't bothered to drop by for a complimentary vote on the important matter as to which rock and roll group would perform at the local school prom. As a rule, employees were often asked about such things and had recently suggested who new members of the illustrious Glow by Jabot worms should be.

Scrunching their owlish faces Carlton and Abbott were about to call the meeting off when Sean Bridges, the company web master, walked into the room.

"At least now we have a quorum. We can get on with this meeting," Abbott said, causing the eyes of the fly on the wall to bug out and ask when Bridges had become a board member with voting rights. Sure, Bridges was an important member of Abbott's orgy of self-righteousness but where Jabot was concerned he was nothing more than the despicable hired help.

Quickly trying to cover her mistake Abbott mentioned she had been given proxies but the statement made no sense as other members of the board rarely gave her the time of day.

Any company with an ounce of integrity would have had a committee handling low-level events such as a Glow Worm campaign, but not Jabot. With apologies to the fly, Jabot was then - and still is - a fly by night company when it comes to business decorum. Its haphazard approach explains why junior executive Brad Carlton found himself in charge of a pack of slimy worms.

The Jabot funny business turned hysterical when Bridges announced that he, a lowly web master, was negotiating with the manager of A1, one of the hottest bands in the United Kingdom. The group was being kind enough to hold a date open for an appearance in nowhereville Genoa City. Worse yet, A1 was looking forward to playing at the Walnut Grove Academy prom!

As it did in previous years, Jabot was also in charge of booking the school prom entertainment in exchange for free samples of skunk oil. This self-administered pick-me-up was said to add millions to the revenue.

After a brief disagreement over cost, Carlton's stamp of approval was but a mere flyspeck in the chain of command. After all the fuss about having a quorum Carlton felt it was necessary to run the idea past the Glow Worms!

Where else, except in Genoa City, do multi-million dollar companies leave final business decisions in the hands of six greasy teenagers?

Taken as a whole, Carltons' decision was convincing proof that he didn't know what he was doing then and doesn't know to this day that it only takes one pork chop to put a kosher butcher shop out of business. What else would explain why this week Carlton announced that Jabot is again in desperate need of money to keep it afloat only this time no bank, no lending institution, or billionaire will loan it so much as a dime.

Nov 17
School's Out!
No wonder the kids in Genoa City are so pitchfork-wielding angry and stupid and keep repeating the same grade year after year and the same mistakes over and over. They don't have to go to school if they don't want to!

Take the case of Lily Winters. Asked by her parents over and over why she isn't in class and isn't in just a little suspicious that when she does go to school classes don't start until something like 3pm, the having nightmares and paranoid teen was allowed on Wednesday to skip school again just so she could hangout at the Newman Wreck Center with the Winters' readopted puppy, Devon Hamilton.

Then there was Abby Carlton. Told that her mommy won't be living under the same roof with her and Daddy #1 while mommy "sorts things out" at grandpa Abbott's home, Abby, on her way to school, developed a strange aversion to fancy book learnin'. Asked if she could skip school that day she was told, oh sure. Go play with your dolls, Abby. Maybe Raggie Ann can teach you some reading, righting and rithmetic. In a few years you'll be running Jabot Cosmetics anyway so who needs school?

Nov 11, 2004

ANNUAL HOMELESS CRUSADE
If it's almost Thanksgiving and Christmas it can only mean one thing. The time has rolled around again to patronize the local poor and homeless. Pawing Thursday through her throwaways, filthy rich Nikki Newman announced the Annual Homeless Shelter Drive is on. The well-connected and top one percent income bracket elite are urged to donate any and all trashy clothing they wouldn't be caught wearing at a grave digging. The event is held each year as a reminder that in one of the richest cities in the world there are homeless people living behind dumpsters and begging for food.

It's a Rec Center, a Reading Room, a Daycare Center, It's 3 Centers in One!

October 25, 2004
by Brent Kellogg

So let's see if we've got this right. Victor Newman remodeled an old paint factory into a recreational center for wayward youth; a place for the street kids to escape when the gunfire gets heavy. He did this as a way to pay a debt to society for the crime of "commercial bribery" he committed and to this day remains on probation.

The Wreck Center as its become known is only open during certain hours of the day and has all the comforts of home including a lap-sized swimming pool, tennis and basketball courts, weight room, pool table, drama classes, arts and crafts and a reading room.

Arts and Crafts? A reading room? What the hell?

Newman's own six-year-old daughter goes to the center after school to make animals out of Play Dough. The child is allowed to roam the place at will even though there has been at least one attempted rape and drug deals are made in plain view.

The center is the newest Genoa City caricature, some bad joke perpetrated by the gods of excess and jackhammer subtlety. From all the talk you get the feeling that if you do muster the strength to walk through either of the creepy shushing double-door entryways and look to the left or right you, swear to God, cannot see the side walls of the place. This is how big it sounds.

It's just endless rooms filled with the best crap money can buy to keep the few kids that hang here distracted so they won't holdup the bank or car-jack blue-haired men and women on their way to Chancellor Industries just down the street. And that's not counting the rich pitchfork-wielding teens who - when they aren't passing themselves off as private detectives or looking for the brother their parents didn't give them - try to impress upon the only two unwanted kids who've ever been seen at the center the importance of making something of their lives or rocking the vote.

Mr. Newman promised authorities his center would purge the city of the social diseases it works so hard to conceal. The homeless people who sleep behind dumpsters are paraded out during the holidays for the rich to toss a dollar at then pat themselves on the back for being so kind and concerning. When the center opened the city flocked. There was a grand opening. The city shrugged. And now, every day, the football field that is the Newman Wreck Center is completely full, jammed packed, SUVs and pickups lined up outside, circling, waiting for parking spaces, filled with delinquents in need of Newman's guidance and mentoring.

So they'd have us think.

And these kids, apparently, need to be read to like little children. Newman has even hired a woman for this purpose. Unfortunately, due to illness, the lady was unable to report for duty on Monday. Rather than cancel the reading session Newman asked his wife - who had spent the night sleeping and having sex on the floor - to fill in. Despite a need to make a rare showing at her office and perhaps because George and Laura had prior commitments, Nikki Newman agreed to fill the void.

Why is there so much concern for these imaginary kids? Why aren't arrangements made to get them into school or vocational training so that they can learn to read on their own? Given their ages, why aren't the teens encouraged to join the military? Why are they allowed to waste precious time reading and playing pool? Why doesn't Newman and the other rich business owners in this city provide them with jobs? Surely an outcast teen would jump at the chance to work in a mailroom even if snobbish Sharon Newman won't.

Keeping these kids penned up at a recreational center is nonproductive. What heinous crimes did they commit they must be baby-sat during the day but allowed to roam the streets at night? Why is it that baby-faced J.T. Hellstrom and Kevin Fisher, teenagers Lily Winters, Sierra NoLastName and Colleen Carlton broke laws but never once spent so much as an hour at a recreational center or charged or convicted?

The bigger question is: What exactly is the wreck center? Is it an all-seasonal day camp? Where did kids go before the center opened? Why are they so fearful of probation/parole officer Lorena Davis? If they've become wards of the state why aren't they in reform schools? Is Newman's wreck center some sort of half-way house or a daycare center? Someone should find out. And while they're at it they might want to look into why Victor Newman is having sex at the center in the presence of young boys.

What's In the Food?

October 22, 2004
by Brent Kellogg

Okay, who's putting stupid powder in the food? Is Gina Roma doing to the adults what she does to the little children taken into her gingerbread house kitchen at the Athletic Supporter Club where they're given large amounts of sugar?

The question arises because it would seem that everyone who's eaten at the club lately do and say some of the dumbest things. The more they eat the dumber they get.

Take Dru Winters and Phyllis Summers for example. Away from their jobs as usual the seasonal women ran into each other Friday at the club and Summers immediately began blabbing how she should have had decaffeinated coffee that morning. In her twisted mind Winters thought this meant Summers is pregnant with Damon Porter's baby but Summers said if she was it wouldn't be any of Winters' business. Then, in what had to have been one of greatest insults of all, Winters said she could smell Porter. She could smell his aroma emitting from the very spot he had once sat as if Porter is some unkempt monkey visitors to the zoo can smell from as far away as the ticket booth.

Instead of hauling off and slapping Winters across the face Summers shifted from aggressive to passive mode. She began telling Winters of all the terrible things Porter has been going through and how it is not only affecting her, but her son as well!

Winters fully understood how this can be. How some kid going through his/her teenage years and should be wrapped up in their own little worlds would be worrying about the emotional troubles their parents and keepers are having. It was as if to say that kids are the adults and vice-versa. Hi Mom? Had a hard day at school? Something bothering you? Sit down. Tell Daddy and Mommy all about it.

Tripping the light fantastic Winters told Summers that if it would help she would - without asking her husband presumably - take Daniel Romalotti in her home until the crisis passed which in Genoa City time could take months if not years. Not only that, Romalotti could stand to learn some culture outside the white man's world.

After thanking Winters for her generosity Summers promptly dismissed her saying she'd deal with the problem herself.

That there's something in the food besides toxins, hormones and binding agents and chemical fillers and reconstituted meats and insect parts and miscellaneous organs and slaughterhouse by-products, "natural" flavorings that are actually 100 percent synthetic and manufactured in Pennsylvania was further evidenced when Daniel Romalotti showed up at Porter's opium den.

Told by Porter it wasn't a good time to come calling - what with his staring at a Samurai sword and all - the sixteen-year-old was invited in anyway after mentioning that something's eating his mother.

"Want something to eat?" Porter asked?

Smartly declining, Romalotti went on to say that ever since his mother had returned from an overnight jaunt to somewhere it was as she'd been brainwashed. Part of the time mommy is freaked out and the other part she seems off in space. Whatever happened had to do with Porter.

"It's complicated," Porter puked, noting that if Romalotti was meant to know he'd be told. Snarling and all up in his face, Romalotti asked Porter how long he intends to keep his mother "sucked in for life."

"I can't say," Porter replied.

Then, out of the blue, Romalotti asked if he could stick around with the man he'd just insulted because he needed a quiet place to study!

"Oh sure! Make yourself to home. Pretend to be studying while you're really eavesdropping on my personal life and keeping me away from gawking at the sword because the point hasn't yet been made that I'm going to do something crazy like, commit hari-kari or extract revenge of Dominic Hughes unless your mother can save me from myself. Do you think I don't know? You little freak, get out of here," Porter did not say but you know, should have because you are sitting there witnessing the regular grisly onslaught of Genoa City insults and saying, no, no way, this can't really be happening, can it? What drugs are these people on? What's in the food they eat making them so stupid?

Nonessential Employees Terminated

October 5, 2004
by Brent Kellogg

That Dru Winters and Phyllis Abbott were terminated last week from their useless positions at the Newman Empire would not have been news had it not been for the fact that the two constantly squabbling child-like mini-executives were trapped together in the building elevator after being handed their pink slips.

Catching the two women in the act of throwing another in a long series of tantrums over who controls the small office they shared, acting Newman CEO Neil Winters fired the women only when he realized what might happen to his job should Victor Newman find out that he not only committed an act of nepotism but allowed his wife back on Newman property when Newman specifically decreed Mrs. Winters was never to show her face around the empire again. Additionally, Mr. Winters never approved the hiring of architect Diane Jenkins.

A former employee at the competing Jabot Cosmetics, and one of Newman's many former wives whose reputation of being the first to use a baby sired with stolen sperm to blackmail Newman preceded her, Jenkins was hired by Mrs. Winters to coordinate a beauty pageant.

The shared office later became a prize to be won when Mrs. Abbott decided to compete against Winters to see who could put on the best pageant. The overall silliness and senseless bickering could be best summed up when Jenkins' remarked that Abbott "has never learned to play nice" and Winters snorted back, "let's not let her play in our sandbox."

Beyond Jenkins' bottom-feeding attempt to have Mr. Winters give her both jobs once held by the fired women was what happened in the elevator. After more bickering and concern they'd run out of air the little girls proceeded to get drunk thanks to a bottle of Red Eye Abbott had been carrying in her purse.

The situation went from bad to worse when a clearly three sheets to the wind Abbott began sniveling that all she could think about was losing her son and how she had survived the first of many crisis with Daniel Romalotti. Kowtowing, as she's done around Abbott before, Winters cooed, "You're a good mother."

It was Winters' turn to snivel when Abbott asked how things were going with her delinquent daughter. Apparently not hearing the question through the alcoholic stupor she was in, Winters yapped how she had once as a street kid slept on park benches and then out of nowhere asked Abbott, "Did you know her [Lily's] brother ran away?"

Right away, without hesitation, drunk as a skunk Abbott knew that Winters was speaking of the runaway puppy, Devon Hamilton, and did not say, "Don't you mean foster brother? What would possess you to call a boy you've only known a few weeks your daughter's brother? Are you one of those sick incestuous freaks?"

Winters made it worse when she referred to Hamilton as "my kid" and in the same bad breath said that Hamilton had only begun feeling like a "part of the family" before running off.

Before the girls could share more of their meaningless lives they were rescued, nearly kissed each other on the lips and went their separate ways leaving behind the heavy smell of gin and a resounding warning that booze indeed rots the brain. Could this be very far from the truth? Because, verily, if it ain't the truth, it's hovering over it like a giant mushroom-shaped radiation cloud. All the events leading up to and including the elevator scene should be more proof that Abbott, Winters and Jenkins are perhaps the most absolutely soulless women Genoa City has ever seen; Sharon Newman not withstanding.

Gutter Crawling Swill

September 29, 2004
by Brent Kellogg

Just gotta say it again, right off, because Wednesday in Genoa City was, quite possibly, filled with the most repetitive swill since the Harvest Ball. Since we have to accept it, let's go from there and dissect the massive boredom and sexual innuendo beginning at the Newman Jitter Joint.

Making the claim that her parents "never come here" when in fact Fred and Anita Hodges have been at the coffee house by day - club for all ages by night - frequently, Brittany Hodges was blown out when mommy and daddy walked into the joint late at night for a $5 latte on their way to the downtown sugar shack she shares with hunkmonkey J.T. Hellstrom.

Without noticing their daughter Anita babbled how excited she is about her daughter's forthcoming first ever wedding and asked Fred if he wasn't excited too and didn't he want to help with the planning? It wasn't as if all men let the women do these kinds of things given that Fred likes to wear women's panties now and then when he's home alone or at the local strip club watching other's men's daughters strip while puking at the thought that his own daughter might be a skanky bitch.

Making the point that it was late Fred suddenly recalled that his daughter and Hellstrom might not appreciate their stopping by the shack unannounced as if showing up unannounced is something people in this town never do. Anita was belaying his concern when they noticed Brittany at a nearby table with Hellstrom, Indian children teacher Mac Browning and strip club owner Bobby Marsino.

Slithering over to the table Anita launched into a mini-rant about her wedding plans and then, aware that Bobby and Mac seemed like a fifth wheel, told them to leave! By this time being in the presence of a real man was making Fred woozy. He may have been thinking about putting a sock in his panties when Marsino blurt out that it is he Brittany is really engaged to.

Fred was stunned. Was it some sick late-night joke? Hell, he'd rather Brittany marry someone of her own sex than that creepy female meat market purveyor.

When Brittany said it was true she was instantly accused by Anita of lying who without further ado stormed off with a terribly sad and disheartening Fred.

And then another excuse for why this marriage can't happen emerged. Brittany wants her parents at the wedding and now, sob, that they don't approve of the groom, sob, it can never be.

Meantime out on the patio way past his bedtime old man John 'Yawn' Abbott and the shriveled Gloria Fisher were holding hands and discussing the sex lives of teenagers when she inquired as to the chances of his putting the meat to her sometime.

"You can only talk about sex for so long then there comes a time for action," the seventy if he's a day old man sputtered, finally coming out of his prudish shell and privately must have been asking his prostate and other sexual organs if they'd come out of hibernation long enough for a one night stand, at least.

Confessing he hasn't had sex in something like thirty years, Gloria too admitted that the best she gets these days is thanks to the Hitachi Magic Wand and only when she can afford batteries.

"Guess it's like riding a bike," Yawn quipped, seemingly prepared to make the sacrificial offering so long as the bicycle tires aren't flat.

Since someone had to be the divine wrench hurled into the wheels of Yawn's uptightness Gloria gave away her secret. Take it slow and easy is her motto. Yum - Yawn liked the sound of that. If it's one thing he knows about it's slow. Very slow. Maybe, just maybe, if his memory-failing mind would stay focused until he got her home, Gloria might find out they don't call him Big John for nothing.

Also among the geriatric set thinking about sex this night was old-timer Victor Newman. Looking for his wife, the sixty-something stud swaggered into Marsino's female meat market and had no problem spotting Nikki Newman in the broom closet-sized club as long-time former customers of the Bayou were calling the co-owner by her stripper handle, "Nicole".

Doing what she does best, Nicole grasped the phallic-shaped microphone in her hand and proceeded to announce that a girl all the way from a sold-out engagement in Tallahassee, Florida would take her clothes off next.

As Victor watched his woman work her magic he had flashbacks of when he would go to the Bayou as a young stud to watch Nicole strip. Just thinking about it got him so hot and bothered Victor had to leave without finishing his expensive watered-down drink or Nicole noticing that he had been in the audience of ten equally horny men who can't have sex, haven't touched a woman in decades and must therefore engage in slimy voyeurism to get their jollies.

Back at the ponderosa one can only imagine what Victor did to stay aroused as he waited for Nicole to come home. The moment she walked through the door he began to salivate. Did Nicole, um, Nikki know that he had been at the strip tease earlier? Had he not stuck out like a sore thumb? Nikki said she hadn't noticed. As Victor drooled he told Nikki how hot she made him. Watching her interact with those greasy, unshaven men really turned him on. So much so he traveled back in time.

"To where?" Nikki asked, as if she did not know.
"The Bayou," Victor said, triggering a response deep within Nikki's loins.
"That's where we met," she said, as if the Bayou and Marsino's are two separate entities, which of course, they are but we're not supposed to remember.

"That's when I fell in love with you," Victor oozed until the slime covered his black boots.

And lest anyone forget, those days at the Bayou were where Victor first told Nicole that she was his "diamond in the rough" as well, you know, it's so damn romantic in a creepy sort of way.

Ah yes, it was a "magical time" Victor added as Nikki wished they could turn back the hands of time.

Unfortunately, Father Time beat them to it long ago. These two used up hags need a grip on reality. They are long over the hill and hearing how they once "shared a life long passion" is so much gutter crawling swill. And that's not counting Sharon Newman who as reported on the front page told her nit wit husband that because they've got to be honest with each other she figures she's got to tell him that she's developed a craving to take her clothes off in front of strange men. So what does Nick Newman say about this sick desire?

"You worry me at times."

At times? How about all the time?

Sharon wants to strip at the place her mother-in-law runs because "there is something romantic about that place." The place where Nick's parents first met.

There's something about Marsino's alright, but it's not romance. Sharon's need to take her bra and panties off in front of Nikki Newman and God knows what other family members might be watching is incestuous. And it's nothing new. Sharon wanted to have sex with her father-in-law not so long ago and this innocent "I just wonder what it would be like" is not as simple as someone wondering what it's like to smoke dope. With Sharon's track record she'll be like the cocaine addict who said he only wanted to try it once.

Where the Soap People Live
September 14, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

Anyone who remembers when Victor Newman gave Sharon Collins a temporary job in the Jabot mail room and she failed to show up on her first day of work because of "personal problems" know the frustration. The same old tired people in the same old tired circumstances doing the same old things. Especially frustrating with the Collins incident was that she was allowed to keep the job when she called in sick for the next three days and as the summer of 1995 came to an end Neil Winters would tell Newman that Collins did such a great job they wanted her to stay on part-time.

Scenes like this are the foundation Genoa City is built on. And, indeed, it can seem relentless, the onslaught, the toxic stew, reducing you to bitterness and hopelessness, making you ask impossible questions of Fate and the universe, such as, is Michael Baldwin so hard up for a woman he must turn to Lauren Fenmore for sex?

You know it's true. For weeks Baldwin has been hot for the slut ever since just about the time she swapped a load of spit with girlie-boy Raul Guittierez. If not exactly on her trail when the former queen of sluts was sucking around her teenage employees, Baldwin's crank really began turning when his brother announced he has high hopes of getting the bitch in bed. That part is true too. Fenmore is a bitch.

What woman would get jacked up on Paul 'Clueless' Williams the minute she found out he had been rejected again by the creepy Christine 'Bug' Blair? What woman would have sex with Williams and then, as she did this week, have sex with Baldwin? A slut would.

And what man is so hard up he must take sloppy seconds? If it's not Williams having sex and eventually marrying Baldwin's girl Izzy Brana, it's Baldwin having sex with and obviously hoping Fenmore will marry him. Plus, look at - if you can stand it - the Bug.

Williams had to fight off Danny Romalotti to get the Bug, married the critter twice and in the end raped her when he thought Baldwin was putting the pork to her, which of course, he did and almost married her until the Bug decided she'd much rather find a then married to another woman Williams alone on a beach where she had sex with him only to have sex the next time with Romalotti.

The point, if one can be made, is: why can't these people get over each other? Why do they keep coming back to the same, growing older by the day, tired, sagging, bags under their eyes bitches both male and female?

If Baldwin needs sex so bad why doesn't he find out where the cops took Izzy (without a trial) so that he can have conjugal visits with her? Hell, watching Baldwin have sex with Sharon Newman would be more appealing to the eye than watching him bang Fenmore right there on the sofa in his office.

And who's gonna clean up the mess? Does it give Baldwin some sick thrill knowing that clients are sitting on the sofa where he had sex?

Meanwhile, as countless ultraconservative shock pundits spew hate and rage about same-sex marriages and homophobia and the awful sex on television what do we find going on at the local strip club? Why, it's former stripper Brittany Hodges, um, coming to save the female meat market from near catastrophe when horny crotch-rubbing male customers expecting to see bitchin' babes in their birthday suits find out the place has found God and start walking out.

Yes, it was little "Ms. Marilyn" in the flesh hot to trot and flash her boobs to strange men after months of whining and moaning over a little scar on her face inflicted when the mob grilled her ass as she emulated sex with a metal pole. Talk about not learning one's lesson, now that she's saved the club from financial disaster she'll undoubtedly be taking lessons from the club's partner and former stripper, Nikki Newman.

If the club really wants to rake in the big bucks it might offer Sharon Newman, who was watching Hodges, a job turning tricks in the back room. Newman is expert at having sex with strange men so it's a natural.

Need proof that Genoa City has made it's annual 1-80? That what's old is new again? Take a look at Jill Abbott.

If your stomach can tolerate it, recall how Mrs. Abbott was so concerned just a few days ago that Chancellor Enterprises CEO Elliot Hampton was this bad, Enron, Ken Lay-type. Recall how Abbott and her former step-son, who she's had sex with more than once, were convinced Hampton should be found guilty of something. Now, even though there is documentation to support the contention that Hampton is making out like a Halliburton bandit, Abbott has changed her mind. She no longer worries and in fact said Tuesday, "I don't think Elliot is the crook we thought he was. There is something to be said for working hard and playing well. Maybe a little too well, but you can't take it with you so where's the crime?"

It is enough to make you weep. It is enough to drive you to savage depression and shirt-rending angst and Gina Roma or J.T. Hellstrom on infinite repeat without knowing why. And so you ask, what the hell can I do?

You sift. You filter. You refine your awareness and stay very attuned and educated, yet choose what you want to let in and what you want to reject and flush away as dangerous and scarring to your intelligence. This is the only way. Take it all on and you will crumble and short circuit and implode.

What else? You pray your ass off. But not on your knees. Do not whimper and give yourself over to some angry bitter paternalistic God and get all meek and guilty and powerless. That's what they do in Genoa City. Where the soap people live.

Upstaged Cops Back On The Job
September 9, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

A pilot program to have Genoa City's Department of Corrections investigate crime has apparently failed. That the city's police department had grown weary of working cases only to have outside law enforcement, private investigators or pitchfork-wielding teens solve them climaxed recently when Lorena Davis, a parole officer and sometimes adoption agency employee with the Probation Division announced that an incident at the Victor Newman Memorial Center would be looked into by her department.

Notorious for getting into trouble, teenager Lily Winters was drugged and nearly raped during the center's grand opening on August 24. Eyebrows were raised when police failed to appear at the scene. While no police report was filed Mrs. Dru Winters placed blame for the attack on socialite Mrs. Phyllis Abbott whom Winters claimed had prevented her from attending the event and thereby was culpable for her daughter drinking orange juice laced with a date-rape drug given her by what Abbott would later say was a strange earring-wearing boy "from a different world."

The Winters case was a thinly veiled ruse to convince young Winters, her friends and parents that long-time enemy, and frequent target of police heavy-handedness, Kevin Fisher had changed his evil ways. With the help of delinquent teen Daniel Romalotti, Fisher hatched a plan with the earring in his ear kid named Alex to make it appear that he had rescued Ms. Winters from her attacker. The plan worked as Fisher was praised for his action and his story written up by local media.

However, Romalotti later tried backing out on his agreement to pay Alex off when Winters overdosed on the drug and was rushed to the hospital where she made a miraculous recovery. Not amused, Alex warned Romalotti that he had accomplished the goal for which he was hired and expected to be paid in full. When Romalotti still refused Alex upped the ante in that he now expects Romalotti and Fisher to turn the center into a front for drugs.

Following a heated discussion with Alex at the Newman Ponderosa where Romalotti shares what has been called a tackyroom with his mother, Mrs. Abbott picked up Alex's bad vibes, slapped him across the face when he became foul-mouthed and warned him to stay away from her can't do no wrong son.

On Thursday, Abbott ran into Alex again at the Newman Jitter Joint where she took the opportunity to remind him again to stay away from Romalotti. With a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas, Alex spat, "If I want to show up your house to talk to your son you can't stop me."

Undaunted, Abbott warned Alex that he's not playing with just any chicken hawk mom.

"People have gotten in my way before and they've lived to regret it," she hissed, a direct reference to the very dead Sasha Green who Abbott is thought to have killed, and local crusaders for law and order Christine 'Bug' Blair and Paul 'Clueless' Williams whom Abbott tried to run down with a rented Ford Taurus.

Meanwhile, Fisher's brother, Michael Baldwin has said it's only a matter of time until crazy Kevin is found out. For someone so deathly afraid of small places like Kevin is, why he constantly places himself at risk for confinement behind bars is clearly indicative of a Looney tune.

The chance that Fisher will be caught was only slightly elevated this week when police detective Hank 'KGB' Weber showed up at Baldwin's office looking for Fisher and was thought to signal a return to the police department having gotten back in the business of solving crime. Not that it does a very good job, the Genoa City Police is infamous for its bungling.

Who's Minding the Store?
September 6, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

Where is the great Victor Newman when you need him? Why is his son having sex at the office while the empire burns? Is not a single member of the Newman family aware that - under the control of Neil Winters - Newman Enterprises is at risk of becoming another Jabot Cosmetics? Has overseeing the day to day operation of his newly remodeled paint factory become such a burden Newman can't find time to check who's minding the store? Has baby-sitting his 6-year-old daughter at the dangerous recreation center blinded his perception of the real world?

Shouldn't Newman have heard by now that the woman he once told never to show her face around the Newman Towers is now camped out there in a position of power complete with her own office and that Dru Winters has authority to hire and fire his arch enemies? Shouldn't Newman also be concerned that Mr. Winters is guilty of nepotism in that he, without consulting Newman, hired his wife?

Shouldn't Mrs. Winters have consulted with her husband first before hiring Jabot employee Diane Jenkins and shouldn't Jabot be concerned that Jenkins did not, apparently, give notice and is now working for Newman?

Shouldn't someone connected to the Newman family be knocking on their heads and warning them that questionable loyalty to the empire webmaster Phyllis Abbott is sleeping with Jabot employee, Damon Porter?

Shouldn't Nick Newman be aware that former Jabot employees are right now roaming the hallways and probably stealing company secrets? Wasn't it Nick Newman who made such a fuss when he learned that the evil Michael Baldwin was working for his father and worried so that Baldwin was up to no good? Shouldn't Nick actually be doing something on those rare days when he's at work besides having sex?

Haven't janitorial outfits in this town complained about the sticky desks and sofas and stains on the carpet and threatened to withhold cleaning services if they keep finding such stickiness?

With so many of the enemy underfoot how long will it take until a Newman employee trips over one of them and blow the whistle?

Even if it were to pass that Victor Newman finds out that while the fat cat has been away the mice have been at play will it be swept under the do as I say, not as I do carpet and declared justified so long as the mice don't talk about business away from the office?

It wasn't so long ago that the slightest hint of fraternization made the prospective collaborators feel all naughty and outlandish. The slightest twinge in their groinal regions brought about charges of deviant behavior, something to be feared and loathed and dreaded by much of the leadership while simultaneously deeply, secretly desired by the leaders themselves which eventually caused the end of Mrs. Abbott's marriage.

But now it seems to matter not. What's that? Diane Jenkins, the woman who tried sticking me with a kid that wasn't mine and pissed me off so much I ordered her out of Genoa City is now working for me? What's that? Dru Winters, the woman I told never to show her face around Newman Enterprises is now working for me? Gosh, how horrible. I better do something about that. Right after I read another chapter of Three Bind Mice to Abby.

They Don't Want You To Notice
June 11, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

This is not the time to get complacent and lazy and reactionary and wallow in sad fatalism, the sense that all is hurling down the road to Hell in a hot Little Shop of Horrors hand basket. Tempting as that is.

This is not the time to be all shrugging and dismissive and think gosh, that's it then, nothing we can really do anymore, just sit back and watch the carnage, the switch has been thrown and the snarling stupid machine is churning in high gear and the herd of sheep is subdued and misled and stupefied.

That's what they want, you know? Do not question. Just bend over and take it.

Since we've mentioned the horror shop, let's start there.

Who, exactly, is working at Lauren Fenmore's boutique? Did she sell it? Where are her employees? Why, they're busting their pimply butts now at the Newman construction site or on the outskirts of town hiding from the mob. Once Fenmore's most loyal follower, J.T. Hellstrom now hangs out at the site not really working but trying to kill people. Raul Guittierez, who is forever whining that he doesn't have money to pay for health insurance, just stopped working at the shop and took off with former shop worker Brittany Hodges to protect her from gangster Bobby Marsino and the mob. Even Fenmore doesn't work anymore spending most of her time at the local hospital psyche ward.

And why, after all this time, are Raul's pals still calling him "Rall" as in rhymes with pal?

Then there's Kevin Fisher. Locked up for a crime he didn't commit, Fisher should have been stripped of his shoe strings, belt and anything in his pockets at the time of his arrest, including money. Yet he was able to escape from his captors, hop on a bus and travel to Detroit. Where did he get the money? Now, after being cuddled by his strapped for cash mother, Fisher says he's thinking about leaving the country? Just how does he plan to accomplish this?

Need more?

Why in God's name must anyone in the presence of private investigator Paul 'Clueless' Williams fall on their knees and worship this boob? Why must Clueless blow his own horn when he hasn't solved a case of any significance by himself in years? "You're the best PI I know," he told PI Eddie Prather this week, but was quick to point out, "Next to me."

Can your stomach stand one more punch?

Why is it that Victor Newman has yet to get his hands dirty? Isn't the purpose of the court system to impose the performance of community service to make those convicted of crimes feel humiliated and shamed for what they've done? How is it that Newman can enlist others to do his time? And where are the construction workers? Wouldn't a building under renovation require at least one Bob Vila-type operating a circular saw? A hammer? A tape measure? Shouldn't there be a pile of new lumber? Where is the building permit? Where are the building inspectors? What have we seen Newman doing so far besides chewing the fat with his son and probation officer and now we hear he has an office at the site? We can only hope that somewhere along the line somebody doesn't stand up and say, "Mr. Newman, tear down this wall!"

This is why you cannot be overwhelmed by the images of teenagers walking around with clipboards, talking on cell phones, pushing brooms, threatening violence and working for extra school credit. Do not be swayed by PIs claiming to be best in the biz or penniless escapees able to flee the state or the country or little girls who say they spend time riding their bikes around the neighborhood and past the nice look-a-like homes with the white picket fences.

It's a mirage created just for you. Are you stupefied yet? They certainly hope so. Because if not, you might actually see what's really happening.

Business News
Race to Swipe Super Sludge, Open Mike Night Coming Soon
April 26, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

Because what Genoa City needs now is more uptight little companies like Jabot Cosmetics cranking out toxic chemicals that will help its citizens block out the random messy skin blemishes and zits, all-purpose lackeys Phyllis Abbott and Damon Porter have decided, apparently, to steal a prototype Jabot retains the rights to and develop a hair straightening product for women of color for which the market consists of maybe ten potential customers.

What a great idea. Too bad Abbott's first attempt to snatch the concoction failed. Her next attempt better come soon because Jabot employee Dru Winters is after the sludge too.

Leave it to Abbott and Porter to relieve all twitchy God-fearing Genoans the horrible and brain-draining duty of actually taking responsibility for living with the hair, skin and other body parts as God meant for them to have. Don't like that curly head of hair? Pour some toxic chemical on it and presto. Straight hair! All you have to do is buy Tuvia, or some other cutely named after African monkeys product from Fenmore's (of course), follow the easy directions and, voilà. Your skin/hair is pure and holy.

But you've got to buy in bulk. Jabot, and other cosmetics companies here have a bad habit of marketing products and then pulling them off shelves the moment sales drop. How, exactly, Porter and Abbott plan to mass produce what was once called the "Silver Bullet" remains to be seen.

But that's another story.

What really has the town abuzz is the announcement this week that the Newman Jitter Joint will soon be adding a new feature to its long-standing "coffee shop by day, club for all ages by night" theme.

The brain child of omnipresent coffee shop patron Raul Guittierez, OPEN MIKE NIGHT is coming soon. No, it's not one night each week where Michael Baldwin is strapped to the bar and patrons attempt to open his head to see if there are rocks inside like those rolling around in absentee shop co-owner Sharon Newman's.

Hosted by songbird Brittany Hodges, OPEN MIKE NIGHT will feature nobodies who think they can sing. The preliminary format has Hodges belting out a tune or two followed by, no doubt, the likes of J.T. Hellstrom, Danny Romalotti, Gina Roma and John Abbott. The "singers" will be saturated in hi-res surround-sound, 3-D Technicolor and displayed on infinite loop on a 40-foot screen.

Free nipple jewelry and a copy of "Sex Tips for the Damned" will be awarded to those most able to demonstrate why American Idol should be cancelled.

Guittierez is certain that getting his girl out out of the local strip joint and into the Jitter Joint will increase her chances of being discovered much the way Hellstrom and Romalotti were. Word is spreading like wild fire in Los Angeles. Genoa City is crawling with talent. Acting on a tip by Smokey Robinson, third-rate record prompters have been advised to get there fast before Motown sign the singing-duo of Lily Winters, Colleen Carlton and Sierra NoLastName to a recording contract.

Time is of the essence. OPEN MIKE NIGHT will be launching very soon. Remember their motto: We emphasize the sticky menacing convoluted world, so you don't have to.

The Longest Week
March 26, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

Looking back it's hard to find a week in Genoa City that has been more boring than the one just completed. Day after day of endless babble about meaningless crap that could have been said in one. Victor Newman remembering that his dinkwad son is incapable of running a vacuum cleaner much less an empire. Nick Newman acting all cry-babyish and shuddering to think his father wasn't kidding when he said, what seemed a million times, that a boy with no business acumen should be running a global conglomerate.

It's true that Nick Newman deserves to have his sexual organs cut off and fed to small fish, but didn't Victor learn anything from those trying moments with his own father? Wasn't the message delivered that revenge and hatred are not the answer? Weren't we told that Victor has changed? Why then is he the same?

Then there's Sharon Newman bouncing off the walls, seeing a dead man walking, peering in windows at her and now wanting to see the body to be sure it's really dead. And Nikki Newman, a woman who once wanted nothing more than to see the hate daughter-in-law in a world of hurt, is now protecting the killer. Enter Nick Newman again unable to see that something is terribly wrong with his wife and when she falls through a window and is taking drugs apparently prescribed by a doctor they've never heard of before, thinks little of it.

And again this week there's Brittany Hodges sniveling how she's so ugly she can't have sex when all she has is a small blemish on her face. As ugly as she may be, Brittany has no qualms of showing a total stranger the face she now hides behind a veil and the woman who gets a peek at the hideous spectacle does not break out laughing, preferring instead to share her personal horror story with Ms Hodges.

All week Jack Abbott has been stewing. His company in dire need of money he wants nothing to do with the seventy-five grand Jabot Cosmetics can get from Victor Newman because it's "chump" change. Those around him so much smarter are back-stabbing two-faced weasels for wanting to take the money and run.

Phyllis Abbot spent the week committing adultery and braying to Damon Porter that her life sucks. The son she's done nothing during the past years to communicate with and establish the slightest bond wants nothing to do with her. Better to sink into the murky sperm-stained sheets and whine when Porter isn't porking her.

Jill Abbott, Katherine Sterling and Arthur Hendricks are three more farts in the wind. Should they live together as a family or would it be better for Abbott to keep bitching that she doesn't know who her parents are and now that she does can they live under the same room? What is it about these people that makes them think they can have both ends of the teeter-totter in the air at the same time?

Ether Valentine should get this week's slap award. The former Chancellor Estate maid was run out of the mausoleum by Jill Abbott and where did she go? Apparently to some bar where she met a total stranger and after a few drinks thought he wanted to marry her so she went with him to Vegas where he gambled away her entire life savings! It's doesn't get dumber than this.

The only socially redeeming person in Genoa City this week was Lauren Fenmore. Tired of the Gestapo tactics imposed on Kevin Fisher by the police and the District Attorney, the cockroaches like Lily Winters and her pitchfork-wielding pals, Fenmore came forward to post Fisher's bail.

If, as it appears, there isn't anything of any substance for the major players in Genoa City to do each day, why aren't they tying up the vast loose ends? Why hasn't Paul Williams filed for divorce? Why hasn't he gone to visit his son - or his long forgotten daughter? If the cops have nothing better to do than taunt Fisher why haven't they tracked down Otis Elwood? If Nick Newman wants to save his ass from getting booted out of the empire why doesn't he go looking for Elwood? The information Elwood has could put daddy Newman in prison for a long, long time.

And why was Michael Baldwin forever ranting that he was afraid he'd lose his license to practice law? Just what secret did he and Dizzy Izzy Brana have that was never specifically revealed? Why did Izzy's father come to town and hint that his daughter had done some terrible so many years ago beyond the fact that she used to work for the owner of a brothel? Why was Izzy never given a trial? Why did the police just take the word of a creepy bug that Izzy tried to kill her?

When was the last time Raul Guittierez worked on the books at the Gentlemen's Club? Wasn't he hired at $10 an hour to perform this little chore for which he has no experience? If business at the club was dependent on it's star stripper Brittany Hodges, how is the club doing now that Hodges is crawling the streets feeling sorry for herself? What ever happened to Fred Hodges? Didn't he want the club shut down? Wouldn't the fact that his daughter was electrocuted at the club have made him all the more angry?

Where is Wesley Carter? He leaves town, then he's back to dabble in the saving of Ashley Carlton for a few days and then he's gone again? Why hasn't Lily Winters been calling the head shrink every five minutes to whine to him how Kevin Fisher changed her life forever? Why isn't Dr. Olivia Winters calling Carter? Didn't she want a role model for the son she hasn't seen for years? Shouldn't the witchdoctor be checking on Keith Dennison? The poor man has been in a coma at the hospital where she butchers for years.

With so many unresolved issues there is no excuse to have been subjected this week to the endless rehash which only serves to remind us of the nagging question, "What in hell is wrong with us, and why are we watching this crap?"

Let 'em Eat Junk Food!
March 12, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

There's little doubt that the Newman kids are well on their way to becoming the next junk food junkies in Genoa City to add 25 pounds of flab to their already pudgy frames. Cassie Newman's skin is turning blotchy and pale. She looks weak and tired and Noah Newman is starting to look as if he swallowed a volleyball team.

The reason for this?

Their parents are allowing them to eat food served up at T-ball games.

It's true! Sharon Newman said so herself on Friday. Home early for some good loving, Sharon told her dinkwad husband that they could get all naked right there in the living room if he wanted. There was no reason to worry about the kids disturbing the pagan ritual because their little blurbs quickly turning into Tater-Tots would be eating at the game.

Assuming for a moment that somebody had the forethought, and the money to spend on buckets of chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs and soda pop to be passed out to the kiddies on the sidelines at these games, and not asking the questions - why are two kids, especially a youngster like Noah, attending a game without his father present and who is watching these children of the corn - it can only be imagined what nutritional value kids are getting from ground-up chicken parts mixed with chicken feces and sawed off beaks.

One look at Nick and Sharon Newman and it's easy to see that these are Neanderthal idiot parents who want their children to grow up to be simpletons and fools. Let 'em eat crap. Let 'em get pale and sickly and obese and diabetic and precancerous and impotent and prematurely balding and sort of homely and piggish. We're too busy having sex and killing people.

Noah and Cassie have been raised on ice cream and sugar most of which is fed to them by that greasy fat pig now running the Athletic Supporter Club. Little wonder why they feel so sluggish and drained, sad and angry or why cancer and diabetes and heart disease and a thousand other rare ailments plague them and the snob fools like Dru Winters and Damon Porter who took French fries and grease burgers wrapped in oily paper to their boss to munch on while they begged to keep their useless overpaid jobs.

Fast-food guinea pigs, Cassie and Noah are. Vomiting out the car window and wondering if Mommy will ever stop acting so strange and maybe just once cook a nutritious meal. Meanwhile, their lives become highly toxic, cholesterol levels skyrocket, Daddy's sex drive drops and he suffers brain loss, unable to recall that he once swore never to forget what Mommy did. Now, thanks to all that swill he eats, Nick Newman is back to chanting that Sharon is "my whole world" and he doesn't know what he'd do without her.

On a par with heroin or kiddie porn the Newmans see nothing wrong with letting their kids eat junk food. They care not that Cassie could become the next Oreo-eating Sierra NoLastName. They see themselves as omnipotent parents where a home-cooked meal consists of Macaroni and Cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.

Their kids rapidly growing into flaccid flabby gluttons, the Newmans see nothing wrong with genetic engineering and radiated meats, even as the meat companies quietly recall another 10 million tons of E. coli-laden beef and pick their teeth with the bones of sick children.

Genoa City suffers from a huge array of social woes, and thus eating hot dogs or whatever the Newman kids can get their hands on that the ants haven't already partially eaten from inside the Styrofoam boxes at some ball game is of little consequence except that it may explain why people here are so dysfunctional.

Still, it would be nice if Nick and Sharon Newman could answer the question: How does it feel to have the sexual/spiritual IQ of a small rutabaga, and what sort of therapy-bound and miserably inept children are they raising right now, and why were they ever allowed to breed in the first place?

How did the Newmans and half this town get so stupid? Why are they so backwoods ignorant? While her husband struggles desperately to find his shriveled penis, Sharon giggles, "I didn't make dinner because the kids will eat at the game."

Is it just for our amusement? Isn't Genoa City plenty packed already with idiotic moms who wouldn't know a Hitachi Magic Wand from a hand blender and dads who like the smell of car exhaust and sit behind the tailpipe every night, breathing deep as they sip turpentine and masturbate to audio books of "The History of Cheese" as narrated by Brittany Hodges?

Coffee shop manager quits!
January 30, 2004

The Genoa City News has learned that Newman Jitter Joint manager Cody Dixon has quit his low-paying job and will leave the city for a Midwestern town called Salem where he will become Brian Lockhart.

Dixon first arrived in Genoa City in 1999 and is thought to have become discouraged with the long hours he's been required to put in at the coffeehouse ever since owners Nick and Sharon Newman stopped coming around to cook the books. Adding to Dixon's frustration was a new wage & hour law said to allow employers the ability to avoid paying overtime.

JJ owner Nick Newman is in Chicago on business and could not be reached for comment. Reached at the Newman ranch, co-owner Sharon Newman was too "jumpy" to comment.

Strange day in a strange city
by Lois Hill  
January 5, 2004

New Year's Eve, for most people, is a night spent celebrating with loved ones, having a spot of the bubbly, singing a few bars of Auld Lang Syne, followed up by a midnight kiss, and if you're suitably attached, maybe even a quick roll in the hay. Then it's off to sleepy land where folks spend the next 12 hours trying to sleep off the hangover.

Not so in the city that defies every logic known to the thinking man. Here, after a little partying and the stroke of midnight, the hired help light fireplaces in empty houses, citizens go on to their workplaces, respectable society women visit strip clubs, and college kids engage in discussions about the inherent dangers of associating with reputed mobsters – all as if it were 2 o'clock in the afternoon. But this is Genoa City, and surely, we did not expect anything less.

Take Newman ranch slave Miguel Rodriguez - please. The Mexican immigrant was hired to wait hand and foot on the rich Newman family, watch their arrogant kids, bake cookies and prepare meals. Rarely included in family get-togethers except as a servant to perform the dirty work, Rodriguez has been required to work every major holiday. It's thought Rodriguez doesn't mind since the pay is good and he doesn't really have any place to go because like many residents of this sleepy city, Rodriguez has no family to speak of.

While it wasn't odd to see Rodriguez working late into the wee hours of New Year's Day morning some of the things he was doing were. For example, he availed himself to answer questions such as "where could she be" from owner Nikki Newman with regard to the party-going Sharon Newman.

Quick thinking Rodriguez surmised that Miss Sharon had developed a hankering to help clean up after the special New Year's bash she helped throw at the popular by membership only where everyone is welcome Athletic Club. The club, which would have been booked weeks in advance for private parties had - at the last moment - cancelled all reservations when software giant Cameron Kirsten announced his "movers and shakers" party. Anticipating that party goers dressed to the nines would want to stay after to help clean up club manager Gina Roma must have given most of the staff the night off. Why else would Rodriguez assume Miss Sharon would stay late to clean up?

Could it be because the only sex he's had in the past decade has been with the ranch animals and Madam Palm? Did Rodriguez not think Miss Sharon and her pea-brained husband wouldn't have raced home on New Year's to have sex as their little way to celebrate? Is that why he went to the outhouse at something like three in the morning to start a fireplace blaze to keep the little darlings warm when and if they ever came home? Was the slave planning to sit around waiting for the Newman's to return? Why would anyone in their right mind start a fire in an empty house if they weren't?

But this wasn't the only strange thing happening in Genoa City on this special day.

At Newman Enterprises the midnight oil was burning as Nick Newman slaved away on a business deal. Victor Newman made the hour trip back to the ranch to drop his lovely wife and then drove to the city again to check on his son at the office. It was said that Sharon Newman had left the party in a limousine, but later she was seen driving her own car. Attorney Michael Baldwin was out at the ungodly hour looking for Victoria Newman who, having left town on Christmas Eve, had not bothered to tell Baldwin. Nor had Baldwin thought to ask around when his calls to her went unanswered but rather thought she might be at the office on New Year's.

One of the last to leave the Athletic Club party, young stud seducer Anita Hodges couldn't find her drunk husband. Fred had slipped away to the local strip club earlier where incredibly he had taken keys out of his pocket and left them behind to be found by one of the goons who, instead of giving them to stripper Brittany Hodges to return to her father, took them to the club on the off-chance Mr. Hodges may have gone back there when it was known he had been taken home in a cab.

As luck would have it the goon found Mrs. Hodges and told her to tell her husband to be careful when crossing the street. And because she was so damn scared, Anita threatened to call club security as if some rent-a-cop could do anything about a man dropping off a set of keys.

Finally, and not counting Jill Abbott who spent the evening being transported around in a limo instead of staying home to call her son or grandson to wish them a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, college students Raul Guittierez and J.T. Hellstrom were sitting around at three in the morning wondering if strip club owner Bobby Marsino and his mobster pals were dangerous even after Marsino had previously warned them that they were playing with fire.

Strange things are commonplace in Genoa City, but in its thirty year history it cannot be recalled when so many have happened within one 12-hour period.