Paul Williams News Archives - 2004
See also: Christine Blair  Kevin Fisher  Lauren Fenmore

The Tinker Toy Salesman

December 10, 2004

I've said it, you've said it, pretty much anyone with a brain larger than a grape has said it maybe a thousand times over.

Private Detective Paul 'Clueless' Williams is a moron. And that's as nice as a description for this bumbling fool as it gets.

There were a few who wondered just what Williams could possibly do to help his co-worker Christine 'Bug' Blair solve the Summers/Porter case when he said this week that whatever he was going to do would more than likely require his going out of town.

Tempting, isn't it? To think Williams might move away to a sunnier, clothing-optional utopia and wait for it all to be over, for the dark days to pass and the Phyllis Summers of the Genoa City era to sink into the tar pits of hell until the fog finally lifts? At the present rate Williams would be gone forever.

Furthermore, why would either the Bug or attorney Michael Baldwin need his services? Having split the case the legal dream team is now facing the dragon in part so as to permit the Bug to absolve herself from the shrieking statement made earlier that she does not abandon clients during their most urgent times of need. By allowing Baldwin to represent Summers, and she Damon Porter, the Bug comes out smelling like a rose so long as Williams doesn't mess things up more than they are or the Bug doesn't do something equally as vile.

And now, this. Williams has officially, stupefyingly botched things with a single phone call to the Georgia State Pen. Identifying himself as "a licensed PI" he asked the warden if the prison might be in the market for "some state of the art equipment that I'd like to put in your visiting rooms that will give you a computer printout of everything that is said as well as a video tape of activity."

Which is to say, I'm a certified constitutional rights stomper. If you're short on personnel to inflict abuse on prisoners I might be able to help there too.

Unfortunately for Williams, and isn't this one sorry-ass unfortunate excuse for a PI, the prison installed similar and probably FBI-approved surveillance tools last year.

But here's the catch. A real PI, say Thomas Magnum, would never try hocking tinker toys to a warden. Especially not one in Georgia. There is the very good chance that the warden would become suspicious that the PI was up to no good given that PIs are not, as a rule, in the business of selling surveillance equipment or home and business alarm systems as Williams claims he does. Then again, Williams is the exception to the rule much the way cops in Genoa City don't frisk persons who have been arrested. Hell, what cop would want to? No, a real PI would know that purchasing decisions are not those of the warden but rather the State Purchasing Manager.

Here's the tough part to accept. Here's what everyone who's right now recording the adventures of these bumpkins so that one day they'll be able to show their kids what a real, honest to goodness crime bumbling classic looks like must deal with.

Police Detective Hank 'KGB' Weber said the prison doesn't record prisoner activity. Certainly, if the warden said he's got surveillance equipment installed there must be a tape - gasp! Do you see? It all comes back to Diane Jenkins at the hardware store. Clueless needs the tape. He needs to get himself into the warden's office where, coincidentally on that day, the warden will have left said tape out in plain view for Clueless to make off with after he pretends to be violently sick - or something.

If you agree that's the direction Clueless is headed in you'd be wrong.

Just when you thought this case couldn't become more mind numbing, more unbelievable, more convoluted, it did.

Despite all the charges against her, Summers was released on bail while the lesser of the two evils, the one person who has been cool and collective through it all, Porter was denied bail because he's considered "a flight risk."

This is what happens when it's all a house of cards. This is what happens when you build your entire detecting and alarm company on an intricate network of aww-shucks slickness, cronyism, corrupt judges, illegal credit card checks and sham enemies and endless blank-eyed smirks that tell the world, every single day, sure enough, Paul Williams is but a tinker toy salesman.

His sneering caped crusader, defender of the downtrodden, a mere hand puppet Clueless mumbles into was told on Friday to be utterly shocked and appalled that Weber lied to her about the surveillance tape and that indeed, one does exist of the Summers conversations with inmate Hughes.

The Bug got on the telephone with the warden and demanded, ordered that he turn over every document, every tape, anything pertaining to Summers and Hughes or some heads were gonna roll.

Better yet, the Bug threatened the warden. Said he better do as he's told or she'd go straight to the newspapers. Start a smear campaign. Maybe even accuse the warden of skipping out on his National Guard duty all those years ago. Or that the warden knows of the torture and humiliation techniques, the secret beatings, the electrodes and the snarling dogs and the pistol whippings that go on inside the prison.

After all, smear tactics and sliming is so much more fun than asking the warden nicely to turn over the evidence or, considering she's a lawyer and all, subpoena the prison, or seek the material wanted under the freedom of information act.

Oh no! Can't do anything legal or responsible or commonly decent when threats work so much better and take half the time.

When you're a lawyer who lusts after justice the way the Bug does, you gotta be grisly and hateful lest you seem completely out of touch wherein you scrunch your face all tight and furrow your brow and wag your claw and say things like, "I know the law."

And like a good little warden facing the Bug's wrath, Oscar Paulson, caved in. Without being told what the Bug's fax number was he nevertheless faxed the damning information immediately which will, of course, prove that Summers and Porter are innocent in that this mindless case must be wrapped up by the middle of next week.

It is the eternal Bug and Clueless conundrum. How to appear sort of blank faced and ignorant of the true atrocities they commit and yet still pretend to be savvy, aware, crusaders who get things done and take no bull and launch unprovoked attacks on anything that stands in the way.

Local PI Deluged With Cases

October 12, 2004

Watching private investigator Paul 'Clueless' Williams lugging around his aluminum briefcase and conversing with his college-student "assistant" is like watching a blurry, unrecognizable movie. That anyone in Genoa City would for a moment consider hiring this boob for any reason, like most events that happen here, defies logic.

Even if Williams were to offer his services for free who in their right mind would take such a deal when Williams' fact-checking abilities are so appalling and clumsy? And, absolutely, Williams' personality and history of investigating are unconventional and more than a little weird.

And who, knowing that Williams now spends most of his waking hours working out of a restaurant, would hire this idiot? Why, just about everyone! Local strip club investor Nikki Newman has. Whipped, Newman Enterprises CEO Neil Winters has and now fearing for her life, one foot in the grave Katherine Sterling has!

For a PI with more cases than he can count it's amazing Williams couldn't pay the rent on his former office, had to dump his secretary and move into the broom closet at his former wife's place of employment with her former lover. Maybe it's the appearance of impropriety that causes Williams to stay away from the law firm of Baldwin & Blair so much. Maybe it's the humiliation that the best assistant he can hire is a part-time college student. Not just any student, not someone who's going to law school, but the notorious hunkmonkey J.T. Hellstrom.

The fact that Hellstrom lives with Sterling's granddaughter, doesn't know much about anything and will probably be assigned to handle the really dirty parts of her case did not dissuade the old woman from asking Williams to investigate former Seattle Judge Arthur Hendricks. The judge has, after all, threatened to kill her. Hasn't he? Oh wait! He hasn't. Somebody claiming to be Hendricks step-son told Sterling that Hendricks is an evil man so therefore, he must be. Come to think about it Hendricks does look Muslim.

In these trying times when certain people are swearing up and down that wrong is right, who can you trust? Better to be safe than sorry. It's not like Hendricks hasn't stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sterling; never once asked her for anything prior to threatening to dump her sorry ass when she refused to stop drinking. The fact that he since asked that she pay an old medical bill and that some stranger has cast aspirations are enough.

With his one-man army of investigators Williams will undoubtedly take Sterling's case. He can, like he did this week, assign Hellstrom the difficult task of looking up information on the Internet about the judge. Sure, it's something Sterling could do herself but hey, if the old bitty has money to throw away why not in his direction?

"Lookie here, J.T. We've got some new leads in the Casein case too. Mrs. Newman thinks someone you know is Charles Casein. Did you know that his family moved from to Cleveland when he was three after something tragic happened in their family? Can you guess who that might be?" Williams asked Hellstrom on Tuesday in so many words.

"Gosh, Mr. Williams. I've racked my empty brain and can't think who that might be. No! You're kidding me? Brad Carlton? Wow! Stranger things have happened. Wouldn't it be something if Carlton is our guy? Right here under our big noses all this time? When can we start spreading this around town," a wetting his pants with excitement Hellstrom practically replied.

"Listen kid, take a word of wisdom from me. Before a smart PI makes confidential information public he must first tell his former wife or other confident what he knows of any given case. Once that's done he must ask the client if there are any objections to his having told outsiders and then have those he's told promise not to tell anyone else. It's right here on page 5 of the PI Handbook. You see, it's like this. Mr. Carlton is Mrs. Newman's pal. They were almost married once and never told each other about their shady pasts. You see, don't you, in Genoa City people are always getting married to people they hardly know. Hell, I did it myself just over a year ago. Didn't know Izzy Brana from Eve. Before you know it I was humping her. Got her pregnant too all while I was still married to that woman over at Clueless Investigations Headquarters. Ain't we some piece of work?" Williams should have said, but you know, didn't because he's got to appear as something he can never be.

The bottom line for Hellstrom was this: before he can tell anyone that Carlton may be Casein, Mrs. Newman must first tell Carlton that she shot his brother dead in the head. In the meantime Williams has a list of things for Hellstrom to do. Get on the Internet, look up the name Brad Carlton and be careful not to let anyone know what he's doing not that he knows what he's doing. When next they meet they'll compare notes.

The allegations against Williams are entirely true. It is common knowledge. Williams is an embarrassment to private investigators everywhere. A none-too-bright bumpkin. A mediocre PI whose alarm company he supposedly owns can't be accounted for.

Williams got his job due to Daddy's connections and was spoon-fed and coddled, and he binge drank his way through most of early adult life, and no matter how much the elite in this city fluffs up his threadbare success record, Williams looks like a spoiled little brat who could no more solve a mystery than a drag queen can wear a khaki pantsuit from Fenmore's.

411 Flooded When PI Moves Without Forwarding Calls!
September 8, 2004

411 operators at the Genoa City Telephone & Telegraph Company were swamped with calls Wednesday when hundreds of city residents in need of a private investigator complained that calls to the Clueless Detective & Alarm Company were not being answered.

"My cat ran away last night and the first person I thought of who could find it was Paul Williams. But when I called the phone just rang and rang," GTT supervisor Molly Bell read from a long list of complaints by seemingly hundreds of residents in need of a PI.

"Our records show that a Mr. Williams put in a request to have phone service disconnected and it was," a flabbergasted Bell told the GCN.

"Customers do this all the time when they're moving and as a rule ask that service be transferred. It shows here on the form that Williams didn't do that," Bell said, adding, "That's not the worst of our problems. Nearly every residence and business with a Williams alarm system has been calling asking why their alarms aren't ringing into the central station and why nobody answers the phone. I tell you, this is giving us a major headache. Did that Williams clown finally go out of business? I've never understood how you run an alarm company with only two or three employees."

Reached at the law firm of Baldwin & Blair, Williams told the GCN it was all a mistake.

"Look, I just moved here. All I know is that I cancelled my phone service since Mr. Baldwin has been nice enough to let me share office space so that I can idolize my former wife who works here too and, come to think of it, Baldwin idolizes her too. Hell, my name isn't even on the lobby directory and I have important clients who need to find me," a blank-eyed Williams actually said.

Told that is exactly the problem, Williams muttered, "Crap, I knew there was something I forgot to do."

Told weeks ago that the lease on his office was up for renewal, but at a much higher rate, Williams says he knew then he'd be moving out.

"Yeah, I knew I wouldn't be able to stay at the old place, but it seems like it was just the other day I took Baldwin's offer to move here. I got rid of my secretary - after she packed and moved my junk - called the phone company, had a few change of address labels made and here I am! What's the problem?" Williams asked, and then quickly said, "Oh, that's right. Important clients need to find me."

Told that customers have been flooding the phone company with calls trying to reach him, Williams balked. "What the hell did I just say? My name isn't on the directory! They can't find me if my name isn't on the directory. Is that too hard to understand?"

Asked if he had thought to send out customary notices by mail containing a new address and phone number or at least his cell phone number, Williams was speechless for a moment before saying, "Jeez, Louise. Why didn't I think of that?"

As to how a major alarm company can just up and move without notifying its client base and where the central station of his alarm company is located Williams wouldn't comment. Asked if he thought being hard to reach will affect his PI business, Williams would say only, "No! I'm working on a major case right now and once word gets out what great things I've done for Nikki Newman clients will be lined up outside the door. That is, if Baldwin ever gets my damn name on the directory so they can find me. Hey Baldwin! You gonna fix that? You're ruining my business," Williams sputtered before drifting off as if he hadn't been speaking with anyone.

Clueless Investigator Redeems PI
June 8, 2004

He's an aging and fragile and suffering from Dead Beat Dad Syndrome, hasn't solved a case by himself in years and made himself look quite the undereducated, largely unsympathetic, defensive fool recently when he said that children who have been battered by their parents routinely grow up to become firebugs.

Yes, this is Paul 'Clueless' Williams. The private investigator was back in the spotlight this week when he stumbled into a restaurant and found Eddie Prather. A real PI apparently aware that Clueless can't find his way out of a wet paper bag, Prather wondered how Clueless had found him.

Williams stated it was no accident. He had actually called Prather's office, found out where he would be and wanted to discuss the Kevin Fisher case. Shifting into studly kill-the-bad-guys posture Williams said he wasn't really working for anyone; he merely had an interest and noting how Prather seemed to jump out of his skin guessed that the mob - or someone - had made Prather zip his lips.

Prather practically got down on his knees. Thank God, Clueless had come along to save his soul. The fear of the great ugly coming from somewhere out there to steal his children and eat all his apple pie and take away his manly gun was keeping him awake nights.

"I've got a family," Prather shivered, as Clueless lectured him on the fine art of lying and law and order. Whoever fried former stripper Brittany Hodges must be put away.

Always, always put the bad guys away even if it means the wrong guy takes the fall; this is the Williams' legacy. It runs in the family.

Who can forget when Williams burst into the home of attorney Michael Baldwin, chastised him for daring to defend Fisher and said, "I should have known you'd defend the scum."

Or when Williams burst into Fisher's apartment, stomped on his civil rights and ordered him to confess to crimes he thought Fisher had committed but for which he had no proof?

These are but two examples that provide the strongest jolts of toe-curling perspective and soul-curdling karmic vinegar Clueless sprays around like toxic DDT.

Don't like how somebody looks or what they say? Lock 'em up! Can't find the evidence needed to lock 'em up? Make some. Don't like that a suspect is released on bond? Don't wait for the trial. Keep harassing the suspect.

Maybe this is why Prather saw Clueless as his savings grace. Maybe this is why Prather seemed as if a giant burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Thank God again, for sending Clueless to cleanse his guilty conscience.

"I feel better already," Prather sighed, adding that he couldn't have lived with himself much longer and was prepared - without so much as a promise of protection from Clueless - to rat out the mob.

With Clueless on the case it won't be long now until Genoa City is safer! Freedom restored! That this stance, this viewpoint, is sad and shortsighted and misguided is only half the problem. There's still the question of whether Clueless can get to the mobsters before they get to Prather or mob-backed cabaret owner Bobby Marsino and mob kingpin Bertolli Lewis kill each other taking the secret of who really fried Hodges to the grave.

The one redeeming factor, or two, in all of this is that Fisher will eventually go free and the vision of Williams as this faux-virtuous, good-guy, white-hatted, monosyllabic brute, the well-armed hero enforcer of all that is righteous and pure will be maintained.

Let Me Be Your Hero
May 19, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

Funny, after wasting all that time yacking with the creepy Christine 'Bug' Blair to find out what she doesn't know about mob activity in Genoa City and how she's certain there hasn't been any in months when it's been years, private investigator Paul 'Clueless' put on his new, white hat and actually went out to do some investigating.

Imagine that?

What Williams found was that the former strip club known as the Gentlemen's Club, but which has since changed its name to Marilyn's and its image from that of a sleazy human meat factory to a cabaret, is connected to a dirtbag named Bertolli Lewis.

Williams may not be entirely correct as the name has been hacked a few times since it first surfaced that Lewis, or Bertolli, is godfather of the local syndicate and not Sal Staley. However the name comes out in the wash Williams says the gangster is an associate of club owner Bobby Marsino.

"He's a shady character. He's got his fingers in a lot of criminal activities," says Williams, of the godfather who, according to the PI has had his name in all the papers.

But of particular concern was Williams' assertion, "The authorities haven't been able to put him [Lewis] out of business." And isn't it interesting that the authorities were able to force Victor Newman into confessing to the non-crime of commercial bribery, but can't nail a single mobster? If Nick Newman ever needs a job maybe he can work for the cops.

As for the theory that someone working for the mob electrocuted stripper Brittany Hodges as a way of warning Marsino, Williams said, "I think it's possible."

Of course, anything is possible. For example, it's possible Williams might solve a case. But don't bet on it. It's also possible that mobsters already controlling a cheesy strip joint would see Hodges as a threat. Reportedly, she was the main attraction. On occasions when Hodges couldn't perform Marsino voiced much concern that club revenue for the night would suffer. Makes sense, doesn't it? That the mob would go to all the trouble of rigging wires to fry their meal ticket when they could have broken her knees one night in the alley.

So now Mr. Lewis/Bertolli needs to go down. His capture will be a swell thing for Genoa City. Attorney Michael Baldwin desperately needs to free his innocent brother and since insufficient evidence is no longer reason for freeing the innocent it must be proven that the mob wanted Hodges out of the way - not Fisher.

That's why when Williams reported his findings Baldwin said he'd rush right over to Marilyn's and have a talk with Marsino. One can only imagine how that conversation might have gone had Williams not told him to leave the detective work to a professional.

"Say, Mr. Marsino. I hear you're connected to the mob? Paul Williams tells me Mr. Lewis may know something about who set my brother up. Care to elaborate?"

As usual, Marsino would have flicked Baldwin off like a piece of belly button lint and then tipped Lewis off. No wonder the guy hasn't been busted. Boobs like Baldwin are out there. Speaking of out there, why hasn't Fisher figured out that he has a fool for a lawyer? Why hasn't he been appointed or demanded a public defender? Why doesn't Fisher know that Baldwin is not a criminal defense lawyer? Why hasn't a judge told Baldwin that he doesn't want the verdict overturned on appeal due to incompetence?

These are questions they don't want asked. Be quiet. This is a desperately needed ratings boost. See? This is the reinvented Paul Williams. Our hero. You will forget that he hasn't divorced his wife. You will forget that he abandoned the child he once promised to raise and take fishing. You will forget that he once harassed and walked all over Fisher's civil rights and once set Fisher up; a plan that failed miserably.

The utterly pulverized lie that Fisher fried Hodges has gone on long enough. As a captive audience we have been slammed for almost a year with the relentless hammer of fear and inflated threats until we've just about given in and we say, fine.

Fine, just get it over with. Let Neil Winters be the hero this time since how he came to learn of Fisher's innocence is consistent and credible.

Williams, as the good guy catching the impotent bad guy, will prove to be just another embarrassment. The capture of Mr. Lewis does not justify the savagery, nor the humiliation, nor is it needed for anything other than to further drag out a drawn out story. Does this even matter anymore, the string of falsehoods and fabrications? Apparently not. This is Genoa City's biggest wonder, and its ugliest flaw: a nasty short-term memory.

For all the senseless swaggering, the one person who should most be concerned - but has only briefly expressed an interest in who tried to kill her - is Brittany Hodges.

PI Planning New Mob Sweep?
May 18, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

Can you feel a nip in the air? The chilling cold cutting right through your bones? The icy notion that private investigator Paul 'Clueless' Williams may again go undercover to weed out the mob? That it will happen became apparent this week when Clueless told his new District Attorney's Office connection - often referred to as an assistant Attorney General although nobody knows why since the two offices are completely different - that he thinks the local strip tease club is really run by the mob.

Like it's not disturbing enough that with all his credit card company connections, operatives in the field and police contacts he can't find this out by himself, Christine 'Bug' Blair warned Clueless not to ask her boss about Gentlemen's Club owner Bobby Marsino. That she, the almighty albino, might be so kind as to ask around. She'd have to think about it, of course, and get back to Clueless when she had made a decision. And, depending on how she feels at the time she ever comes across any information, and given that it's not that certain time of the month, she might drop a hint or two Clueless' way.

Maybe it was the embarrassment or that his skin was crawling that caused Clueless not say, look, your slimy bitch, I'm trying to free an innocent man here. I don't have time to dilly-dally around while you think. There, at the Bug's love bunker where Clueless was standing, was long-time nemeses Danny Romalotti wearing for the second time what appeared to be Clueless' blue bathrobe.

Clueless had to have been able to tell from the smell that the two had just finished having sex, but other than remarking "nice robe" didn't say anything.

For those who can't or don't want to recall, it was March 10 when washed-up rock star Romalotti was caught wearing Clueless' robe the first time. The Bug said then that if Romalotti was going to spend so much time at the love nest she'd buy him a robe of his own so that he wouldn't have to wear those belonging to her former husband. The Bug must be too busy having sex and yet to be seen at the office or doing much legal work to find time to go shopping or even to call Lauren Fenmore to have a rack of robes sent over for Romalotti to choose from.

As for Clueless' mob theory, the Bug said with much authoritativeness, "There hasn't been any mob activity in months."

Months? How about years? Unless, was what Victor Newman did when he committed commercial bribery considered mob activity?

It's a given that the Bug wouldn't know much about crime in Genoa City because of the aforementioned fact she's never been seen at the DA's office. Not once.

In the event you were heavily medicated during past Clueless misadventures and don't know that he's never solved a case by himself, there is, for the first time this writer can recall, hope. The hope that Clueless will find the information needed to free Kevin Fisher without tripping over his own shoelaces.

Charged with electrocuting local stripper Brittany Hodges, Fisher remains in poor condition at the God Have Mercy Medical Center following what was written off as a mostly harmless "blanket party" at the Genoa City jail.

For once it would be nice if the ferociously religious and wildly troubled, apparently sexless, ball of walking disgust with no discernable pulse actually solves a case, but that's just an opinion.

See also: Clueless joins the mob

PI Joins Crusade to Free Fisher
April 30, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

Who would have thought that for all his bellyaching and whimpering private investigator Paul 'Clueless' Williams would have agreed Friday to help attorney Michael Baldwin set Kevin Fisher free?

What unadulterated embarrassment the PI must now feel, what heaping mountains of crow must he eat? Has Williams turned from the darkness and into the light? Has he seen what happens when innocent persons are charged with crimes they did not commit? Would the creepy Christine 'Bug' Blair approve of his doing something nice and decent for a change?

"You could have knocked me over with a feather," those in search of true Genoa City justice said this week when word began spreading that Williams actually believes in justice and will help Baldwin build a defense case.

Of course, had Williams really wanted to be useful he would have suggested that Baldwin hire a real criminal defense lawyer.

The new crusaders' first stop on their quest was the seedy Gentlemen's Club. Thump thump thumping on their manly chests of great liberation the duo pressed owner Bobby Marsino up against the wall. Listen bub. Kevin Fisher did not fry Brittany Hodges. You got that? Somebody here at the skin sty did it.

When Marsino showed no emotion, Baldwin surmised they weren't telling Marsino anything he didn't already know. Williams concurred. But the PI didn't harass the smut purveyor or demand that Marsino be immediately hanged and castrated and laughed at and called many violently homophobic names and run over with a big bitchin' Ford Expedition!

This is the new Williams - remember?

In fact, but who cares about annoying in the way facts, Marsino had already said that the mobster who really runs his joint grilled Hodges and that they hadn't seen Fisher the night of the flesh fry.

Given that Williams and Baldwin are projecting an air of superiority and on-top-of-it-ness why are they sitting around? Why haven't they gone straight to police detective Hank 'KGB' Weber and told him that there's the slightest bit of reasonable doubt and that quite likely Weber has the wrong man?

"Hey Hank! You don't want to tarnish your mistake-free record do you? You don't want to become the laughing stock of Genoa City do you? Haven't you heard? Marsino says he knows who hurt his songbird. Shouldn't you check it out?" they might ask.

Now the question is: will Williams go after Salvatore Staley? Burst into his home and demand he confess? Will the PI stop to think there might be a box of video tapes laying around the strip joint or the porn shop across the street? Will he order his secretary to go through them one by one looking for Staley in a dress wearing a wig purchasing turpentine or batteries for the Hitachi and then rush into the courtroom at precisely the right moment thus saving the day and taking all the credit?

Why stop there? Why don't the crusaders just keep right on going and nail half the Jabot staff for stealing orchids from Japan, find out where Nate Hastings went, whatever happened to Keith Dennison and why the Dennison girl, Mrs. Tony Viscardi, never visits her sister in prison. Damn, if only dizzy Izzy Williams ever meant anything to either Williams or Baldwin they might check on her status too.

True enough, the actual fight to free Fisher has only just begun. But it's not too early to tell those scumsucking Fisher detractors, take that! Give 'em 'til the end of May and you'll see. Williams & Baldwin rule!

If only in the end they topple a statue of Lily and Dru Winters it'll be so totally worth it! Genoa City will be safer! Freedom restored!

Hate, Hypocrisy, Noise Pollution & the High Cost Cost of Lattes
April 12, 2004

By Michael Kelly

What's the world coming to when elitist, "slacka" teenagers can't enjoy their $5 designer coffees in peace while hanging out at the Newman Java Hut without having to witness two supposedly grown men like barrister Michael Baldwin and inept investigator Paul "Clueless" Williams playing whose salami is bigger by puffing out their chests and braying and snorting like barnyard beasts on crack over the fate of alleged statutory rapist and arsonist Kevin Fisher?

Before unexpectedly meeting up with Williams at the Newman Jitter Joint on Monday, Baldwin and Little Shop of Horrors owner Lauren Fenmore were having a difference of opinion about whether Baldwin's half-brother Kevin Fisher had been truthful when he confessed his guilt to Fenmore.

Fenmore said Fisher reeked of pride when he told of having surfed the Internet looking for young girls he'd like to have sex with or burn to a crisp in toxic restaurant fires. But Baldwin said his brother's boasting was typical of the tortured mind looking for fifteen minutes of fame. By confessing, Fisher was trying to prove he's a real "junkyard dog" thereby impressing Fenmore with whom he had fallen in love.

Their differences aside Baldwin suggested his brother's guilt or innocence should be decided by his peers. A trial by jury is, after all, the American way. And if that pus-head PI had paying clients to service he wouldn't have had the time to hound Fisher 24/7 and cause him to go on the run.

An indignant Fenmore was appalled. Why blame Williams for Fisher's predicament?

His ears burning, Williams slinked over to ask why they were back-stabbing him. Wasn't the reason Baldwin spent time in prison due to his inability to behave in front of ladies? Wasn't Baldwin a scum? A convicted felon cut from the same cloth as that no-account Fisher?

"I've paid my debt to society. Where's your certificate of perfection. How do you justify your existence on the planet?" Baldwin bellowed, who should have but didn't remind the horrendously hypocritical, self-righteous prig and pig-man Williams, "Listen up, chump. You've no right to look down on anyone else. You abandoned both your children like a bad habit, cheated on wife 4 with wife 3 and even decked wife 4 in a moment of misplaced machismo. Hey, does Lauren know you raped the blessed Bug on the night of your son's christening?"

Baldwin also should have pointed out to the defective detective that by allowing Fenmore to date Fisher while doing nothing to protect her and by foolishly confronting Fisher about his confession to Fenmore, the incompetent clod twice put his former wife and current mattress partner's physical safety at risk only to have Williams bellow back that he has been doing his civic duty by doing everything imaginable to put Fisher behind bars "where he belongs".

With coffee shop patrons beginning to rubberneck, Fenmore joined the fray. Like a rabid turtle, she snapped that the only important item on the agenda was whether or not Williams would squeal to the cops that Fisher had jumped bail. From what she knew he hadn't, but that he could at any time thereby ruining the best laid plans of mice and morons to find Fisher, bring him back to Genoa City in time for a not yet scheduled preliminary hearing and maybe in the process actually go to a bails bondsman to ask if they received the $100,000 check she mailed in.

Trying to be heard above the others, Williams howled madly. Telling the cops would put his lover in jeopardy, reduce the time she'd have to give him sex in the window of her trinket shop and above all else might expose him for the clueless boob he is. As for helping find Fisher, Williams said no. It would take a magician to think long and hard that the first place Fisher might go is to his mother's home in Detroit. "I'm a PI not a magician," Williams said, as if to convince himself.

Just as Jitter Joint patrons were about to line up to complain and ask if just once they couldn't enjoy their expensive coffee in peace without some idiot making a scene, Baldwin and Fenmore left.

A JJ management spokesman told the GCN that even if complaints about the noise had been lodged it wouldn't have mattered. Said manager "Trevor" who declined to give his full name, "This shop has no policy regarding patron outbursts. I've been trying to get the owners to make one, but they never come around anymore."

Trevor also blamed the price increase of lattes from $4 to $5 on the higher cost of milk.

Hiding the Statues of Justice
April 5, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

Sometimes it's stories as tiny and seemingly insignificant as Private Investigator Paul 'Clueless' Williams, a wildly troubled, mostly sexless, desperately conservative ball of walking disgust with no discernable pulse, bursting into the home of attorney Michael Baldwin and ordering Baldwin's brother, Kevin Fisher, to confess to crimes Clueless "thinks" Fisher committed that provide the strongest jolts of toe-curling perspective and soul-curdling karmic vinegar.

Why exactly is Williams on this case? Who is paying him to spend hours following Fisher around, stomping on his civil rights? Does Williams do it for the cheap thrills? Does it make him feel manly? Is he simply trying to score brownie points with Genoa City's pitchfork-wielding teens one of whom once whined that Fisher is the latest schoolyard bully they want eliminated?

What private investigator works pro bono? What PI get so deeply involved in their cases they somehow morph into Nazi-like thugs?

Maybe the reason Williams keeps breaking the law with his Gestapo tactics has something to do with those he looks up to, like his buddy the pretending to be a real detective on Genoa City's police force, Hank 'KGB' Weber.

Weber and Williams come from the same mold as those that go around covering partially naked statues that adorn the Great Halls of Justice just because the female statues usually have a single, very lawless breast exposed and dwarf the dear militant powermongers when they're trying to look all serious and tough.

Maybe it's because Clueless just can't concentrate on the more pressing matters like how to legally solve cases that makes him bust down doors, lurk in shadows, ask questions of landlords, wiretap phones and openly hate all those thought to have broken the law because a few angry teenagers and a couple of dinkwad adults say so.

Clueless' Stalinist acts speak some sort of larger truth about the current justice system, its value system, the direction of Genoa City as a whole, the overall dangerously unprogressive, hypocritical attitude toward law and order. Don't like how somebody looks or what they say? Lock 'em up! Can't find the evidence needed to lock 'em up? Make some. Don't like that your lover put up bail for your latest victim? Don't wait for the trial. Keep harassing the suspect. Force your way into apartments and make yourself right at home.

The shockingly insulting PI, with his appalling arsenal of civil liberties-bashing and outright displays of unconstitutional, jingoistic paranoia and reduced rights of the accused, ever so proudly thumped his chest and acting like he had ever once found out something about Fisher on his own without help, said this week that he had been told that Fisher said "something interesting" to Little Shop of Horrors owner Lauren Fenmore and by all that is satanic and illegal Fisher was expected to give him the details of that private conversation.

When Fisher surmised that Fenmore had ratted him out and that he wasn't at all surprised given that women in general can't be trusted, Williams must have had visions of Tomahawk missiles raining down on all the people he's ever suspected of anything for he told Fisher "I know you confessed" and that he knew what Fisher did to Lily Winters and that he torched the RoadKill Cafe.

As if he needed to prove again that he is deeply flawed, massively arrogant, bratty and insolent and abusive and sloppy and violent, Clueless belched, "I know everything."

Numbskull that he is and forgetting that just moments earlier his lawyer had told him to keep his mouth shut, Fisher blabbed that he hasn't confessed to anyone. Even when Williams told him that by "opening your big mouth you're helping me do my job" Fisher kept right on talking. He told Williams that Fenmore hadn't told him anything after which Williams hacked, "She didn't have to. I figured this out by myself."

Besides the fact that Fisher did not say, "So if you know and see everything why are you here badgering me and acting like a little Hitler and should I not have my brother slap a lawsuit on your ass?" there is no doubt that from the day he was hatched Williams has never figured anything out by himself. It's a wonder this boob can tie his own shoes without help.

It's easy to condemn Williams because he's so creepy and soul-sucked and drained of all intellectual balance and probably not fully alive. Interrogating Fisher like one stuffs Enron documents down the shredder while breathlessly dialing Weber's bunker with his nose as his assistant DA pal Christine Blair laments how hard it was to prosecute a friend, but gosh, the Victor Newman case sort of fell through the good old boy cracks, Williams wants those awful bad people like Fisher off the streets.

But life is in the details and while the larger atrocities can sometimes be explained away as blatantly vicious power-grabs or necessary evils or as openly hypocritical political maneuverings, Clueless' gesture is merely a painful reminder, really, a very clear signal that absolutely no open-minded or otherwise constructive law enforcement is taking place in Genoa City and that the statues symbolizing Justice and Law should be hidden in his presence.

Still Clueless After All These Years
March 9, 2004

by Brent Kellogg

What's more convenient and faster than going to a person's place of business to inquire as to the status of the city's most hated man? Go directly, and without calling ahead, to the person's home!

That's exactly what Neil and Dru Winters did this week.

Hoping to learn that Kevin Fisher has been locked away in a jail cell for years without a trial or legal representation, the intellectually and soulfully debilitating competing cosmetics warriors dropped into the bat cave of Genoa City's most useless and clueless private investigator, Paul William.

"We're hoping you have some good news for us for a change," Mrs. Winters barked, her tiny little voice fading, drowned out by the fact she brings nothing of value to any conversation.

As if she were paying him one red cent and somehow it was his duty to take down anyone who might give her creepy daughter the stink eye, Williams presumed the wicked bitch was asking about Fisher.

At a time when he should be going to AA meetings or actually earning his money as Victor Newman's right-hand man, Neil Winters puked up a chunk of bile and hurled it at the equally inept Police Department. That damn flatfoot Hank Weber was no where near arresting Fisher. Couldn't the PI at least give them some hope that justice will be done?

And while he had mere moments ago been told by an attorney that this is America and that you can't just go around locking up people because you think they did something, Williams had to remind the Winters that there is no evidence connecting Fisher to any of the crimes they think he committed.

"What about the stuff he's done to our Lily?" Mrs. Winters belched, and again, while told minutes ago by Michael Baldwin that there is no evidence to prove Fisher gave her daughter an STD, had to be told by Williams, "We can't prove anything."

As the universe gazed down upon these sad little people with a sort of bemused expression, looking at them like they are cute little blips of gas and nothingness and was about to say what a clueless boil on the ass of society Williams is in particular, he quickly reassured the Winters that there was something in the air telling him that Fisher is about to crack.

"Fisher is about to have a meltdown," he said, adding that when it happens, "I swear I'll be there to hear his confession."

Duly noting that the "War on Kevin Fisher" has become just that much more of a cute punch line than an actual force to be taken at all seriously, and that another of his many cases will reach a conclusion without his having done anything of any significance and that they are mostly helpless bumps on a log, the Winters blurt out that their daughter has become obsessed with making Fisher pay and has been stalking him.

Knowing that most people do the opposite of what he tells them Williams shrugged his shoulders before tossing out the over-used Fisher cliché, "He's a dangerous man" and then, for what little good it will do, told the Winters in his whimpering way to keep their creepy daughter away from Fisher.

Williams' warning should have been stern. Something along the line of, you know, if your daughter takes the law into her own hands I might have to take her down. And then what will you do? Who will you whine to then and act all righteous and strolling in here like you own me? If you profess to be so concerned about law and order get a grip on your daughter. Don't, as you did when you knew she was headed for trouble, sit around on your butts mewing that you've got to talk with your daughter, but never actually doing so until it's too late. And now you're letting that kid run around the city filled with rage and hate? What the hell are you doing at my home when you should be keeping an eye on your daughter? I suggest you lock her up until she chills out. Now get out! And next time call first before you come stomping over here with your accusations.

But no! To expect Williams would be assertive in any volatile situation is asking too much. This is like the saturation level of Paul Williams. Something's gotta give, he says. Surely some sort of ugly critical mass has been reached wherein Fisher and his evil ways simply cannot go any further without some sort of meltdown, some sort of massive pathetic recoil whereby Williams, not Fisher, is seen for what he is, quite possibly the most self-serving, egomaniacal cluster of uselessness in modern history.

In the meantime, Williams will keep a low profile hoping that the proof needed to put Fisher away falls into his lap.

PI Won't Quit, Fisher Must Go Down!
March 2, 2004

Following another of his sick late-night visits to attorney Michael Baldwin to ask if Baldwin has seen his deranged brother lately and if Kevin Fisher said anything on the night he talked about killing himself that he could use to take Fisher down, just about everyone it seems has risen up to ask what can be done to punch a hole in the bubble the dumbed-down Paul Williams walks around in while at the same time avoid being drooled on by the ignorance dripping from his mouth.

Had Williams been doing his job the night he and his beloved crime-fighter, Lauren Fenmore, planned to take Fisher down Williams might not be asking such foolish questions today.

Even Baldwin was stunned. Williams and Fenmore had driven a man to the brink of suicide and here Williams was late at night asking for help?

"You know your brother is dangerous," Williams oozed, demanding that Baldwin help him solve a case that he had taken on for free as a favor to some school-boy who at best had only circumstantial evidence that Fisher had anything to do with the attempt on the life of a local stripper.

That Williams is unable to solve the easiest of cases has never been more evident. The Police have given up trying to pin anything on Fisher, yet Williams continues spewing hate and rage and misinformation and can only mewl and whimper when people the least likely to get involved decline to help him.

Essentially clueless as to what to do about it, Williams has to be told over and over that this is still America. That there are laws protecting people from creeps like him.

"I should have known you'd defend the scum," Williams sneered at Baldwin, as if to say how dare anyone, particularly the brother of the targeted Fisher, not cooperate?

For his less than ethical behavior of late, Baldwin was right on the mark when he told Williams that he's as pathetic as everyone else in this town wanting to take Fisher down merely for what he is perceived as having done.

To avoid making asses of themselves, Williams, those pitchfork-wielding teens and anyone else with an axe to grind should leave the job of catching terrorists to the police. But it's too late. Williams would have Fisher stoned to death or burned at the stake if he thought society had sunk as low as he has.

As if the incredible colon-clenching humiliating wrongness shot forth from the mouth of Williams was not already a truly jaw-dropping example of his smug little smirky emptiness, Williams hacked up another when he warned Baldwin, "I'll be talking to the Winters family next."

Like Baldwin was supposed to drop right down to his kneepads and beg, "Oh please Mr. Williams. Don't do that! Just thinking about what those idiots might say about my brother is going to keep me awake at night."

Then, to add insult to his already reeking madness, Williams barfed, "I can't promise your name won't come up."

And again it seemed as if Baldwin was supposed to beg for mercy. "Please! Please Mr. Williams! Don't do it. Don't mention my name. Just tell me what you want me to do. I'll do anything if only you won't tell the Winters that I'm Kevin's half-brother."

Paul Williams is the biggest joke ever to be inflicted on Genoa City. This needs to be repeated, over and over again, because apparently it is still not clear and Williams loves to trot out his stupidity and hurl his mind-numbing accusations as some sort of justification, some sort of hollow and childish reasoning for his existence.

This much is painfully, crushingly sad. Until Williams takes responsibility for the child he stashed away to be forgotten in Los Angeles he will never be anything more than like so much clogged gunk at the bottom of a drain. He has no creditability whatsoever and should just turn in his stained and bloody super-sleuth badge and resign himself to a life of eating sauerkraut in front of the TV.

Paul Williams Is A Big Fat Idiot
February 19, 2004
by Brent Kellogg

There are times living in Genoa City when you wake up and ask yourself, "What in the freaking hell am I doing here?" You kick yourself in the head, look at the calendar and realize, "Damn, four days have passed and it's still Valentine's Day!"

Long after you went to bed because it was nearly midnight you wander out onto the streets only to find that the people who were moving and shaking and acting all twitchy when you fell asleep never went home and are still running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Case in point: The most clueless, ignorant private investigator this town has ever known.

Still at the God Have Mercy Medical Center trying to piece together what makes "Mr. Twisted" Kevin Fisher tick, Paul Williams had come to the conclusion that because a roll of duct tape was found in Fisher's apartment and since the freaky guy had once been an electricians assistant and because he was angry for having been fired, Fisher must have fried one of the local strippers as a way to get even.

There was no solid evidence linking Fisher to the crime but given a few more months Williams was sure he'd find something to "put him away for good."

"I have a feeling we're close," Williams oozed, pleading with those watching over Fisher's alleged victim not to solve the case without him.

Without checking his Dick Tracy wristwatch Clueless hoofed it back home to check the crimescope. Waiting for him was PI in-training J.T. Hellstrom. The time nearing midnight did not matter. When there are bad guys to put away sleep is no object. Putting their tiny heads together Clueless and Hellstrom surmised that the duct tape would be sufficient to "hang" Fisher. It was only then Clueless thought it might be a good time to check on Lauren Fenmore.

The city's oldest living slut had been out most of the night with Fisher yet Clueless, the one person who repeatedly told Fenmore that Fisher is "a dangerous man", had not bothered to check on her until now. Learning that Fenmore had left the VD dance party Clueless and Hellstrom scurried off instinctively knowing that Fisher had taken Fenmore to his apartment.

Also up late this night, Michael Baldwin was confused. Gosh, his half brother might be right this minute doing something terrible to Fenmore. What could a concerned half-brother do to save the dame? Baldwin thought and he thought so hard. But all he could come up with were brain farts. Then it came to him. Make the one-hour drive (each way) to the Newman ranch!

The only thing missing when Baldwin arrived was Damon Porter locked in some meditation love fest with Newman. The hilarity was overwhelming. A troubled Baldwin spilling his guts to "family man" Victor Newman. Here he was, a smart, intelligent attorney whimpering that Fisher is his half-brother and oh my, what do family members do during times of trouble? It's a wonder Ghandi didn't beam in. But the all-knowing great and compassionate man he's about to become, Victor knew just what to do.

"We love someone for who they are. Not what they've become," he stated with full authority as if God had personally dropped down to put the words in his mouth.

It was as if Moses had come down from the mountain to hand Baldwin a slab of stone. My son, if you're going to help your brother, you better get a move on.

After profusely thanking the Master, Baldwin sped back to the city arriving at his brother's apartment just as crazy Kevin was waving a gun around threatening to kill himself.

As you watch this comedy of errors you can only shake and shudder and plead with Fisher to pull the damn trigger so that these do-gooders can't gloat afterwards about how smart they were and had been right about him all along. If Fisher doesn't off himself they will "put him away" while mumbling about immorality and quote some vague Scripture about sickos that makes them all tingly, and thank God there's one less creep on the street who would harm a hair on the heads of those pitchfork-wielding teenage girls and old sluts who inject themselves into dangerous situations for the cheap thrill.

And maybe too, you'll ask why Lily Winters didn't find the gun when she was turning Fisher's apartment upside down.

The end of Fisher won't be the last time we'll witness Paul Williams running in circles trying to find his ass while some fragile woman is in the hands of the bad guy. The evil is far from over. There will be more brutal battles, with much hate yet to be spewed, much law mangling accompanying what will undoubtedly be slow, painful nights for a very uptight, easily terrified society.

Proud papa Williams; dumping son was right thing to do!

January 14, 2004

Sending the wrong message to the hopefully rare few who take anything he says and does seriously, Genoa City's most clueless private investigator Paul 'Clueless' Williams said this week that his two-year-old son will continue living with his wife's parents in Los Angeles where the boy was stashed.

The confirmation followed a brief howdy-do Williams had with washed up rock star Danny Romalotti during which the two men [sic] compared notes on their absentee sons.

Pleased that the boy he stashed in a Swiss boarding school, allows no contact with its biological mother, took out of the country illegally and rarely sees is coping, Romalotti expressed concern that any man would dump a toddler like so much toxic garage at such a crucial stage in life.

Before either of her two ex-husbands could discuss the serious implications of keeping a child from knowing its real parents, creepy Christine Blair squealed, "It's the right thing" effectively cutting off any chance Williams may have recalled that - prior to dissolving his marriage to dizzy Izzy Brana almost one year ago - he had vowed to watch his son grow up and take the boy fishing.

There will be no fishing trips, no sporting events at which daddy roots from the sidelines, none of the things fathers and sons do together for Ricky Carl Williams. His father is a deadbeat and when little Ricky grows up he can check with his half-sister if he doesn't believe it.

Williams dumped Heather Lynch years ago, saw her briefly in the 90s, didn't have the guts to tell Heather that he's her father and let her walk out of his life again. It'll be a cold day in Hell before Williams sees his son again.

Mamas don't let you babies grow up to be like Kevin Fisher
January 9, 2003

The implications of what Genoa City's most clueless private investigator will soon tell strip club operator Bobby Marsino is of such magnitude it must be reported now.

When Paul Williams starts digging up dirt on arson suspect Kevin Fisher next week he's expected to make the broad statement that children who have been battered by their parents or relatives or guardians routinely grow up to become firebugs. Additionally, because Fisher is not apparently attracted to female strippers he - and presumably all members of the male species - develop a "thing for young girls" and go on to become pedophiles.

Given Williams' ignorance it's a wonder he didn't say that men who find strippers akin to cheap whores are homosexuals for this is the general sentiment of hypocritical nitwits. Should Williams discover during his probe that Fisher is a card-carrying member of the NRA then surely he'll take back every negative word he's oozed about the little faggot. Freaks like Williams consider guns very manly.

There is no scientific evidence to support Williams' bone chilling statement. Far too many children in America grow up as punching bags for their depraved parents yet turn out to be productive and respected members of society. Nor do they become adulterous womanizers who dump their babies on unsuspecting grandparents.