See Also: Kevin Fisher

Dead Ends

December 11, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

Because today was perhaps the slowest damn news day in Genoa City I can recall, and that if I see J.T. Hellstrom and Colleen Carlton having another lover's spat when it's clear Colleen is going to spread her legs for her teacher so as to get even with J.T. for all the times he's cheated on her, with her own step-mommy no less, and that a college professor would be so stupid as to have sex with a student, I'm gonna scream, I got to thinking: Aren't there more important things?

Of course there are.

For one, how did Carmen Mesta die? Will we ever know? Will we care? Why is it that in Genoa City, whenever something somewhat interesting takes place, there's an avalanche of information and then, like trees in the Fall, once the leaves have fallen there is nothing left but branches leading to dead ends.

Another apparent dead end is the concern Michael Baldwin had for his long-lost father. It was August 25, 2006, in fact when Baldwin and his wife couldn't stop talking about the urgent need to find Florence and Lowell Baldwin. Do you remember?

Baldwin returned from New Orleans to say that the city is rebuilding and that it's amazing how people pull together in desperate times of need and that the Baldwin's made a donation to the relief effort. Baldwin found his granny's home, but it was a wreck and the old hood was nearly deserted except for the people down the street who had never heard of the Baldwins'. Other than a few photos, Baldwin said he didn't find any dead bodies in Granny's home as if there would still be dead bodies floating around - or at least their ghosts roaming the halls.

One of the photos, frame intact, was of a "handsome" man with Baldwin's features and yet Baldwin wasn't sure who it was. The one person who might know for sure was Gloria Fisher who generally told Baldwin to forget the past and concentrate on his pregnant wife.

And too there was that mysterious diary. Baldwin said he wasn't sure whether he should read it because those searching for their past might learn more about those they're searching for. Add to that Baldwin's snippy comment that his family never once tried making contact with him and it might explain why he subsequently gave up the search.

The GCN reported last year how typical this is. Victor Newman, after tracking down his Pa, flicked the old man off. Hopeless Adams, claiming to have been raised in an orphanage as Newman was, said she had a mother who taught her how to brew coffee, but hasn't seen, or wanted to see, her mother since. Hopeless hasn't cared that her son is growing up without a father and without knowing who his grandparents are.

Then there's Paul Williams who has never bothered to contact his father living in Virginia, or his daughter in the East, or his son in the West. The creepy Christine 'Bug' Blair once said she so related to Newman as the father she never had and yet where was the Bug on Thanksgiving? At the Newman Ponderosa with her surrogate daddy?

The thing, as usual, is that for all the importance placed on family, these people, these rich and self-centered, don't care about family at all.

Remember when Lauren Baldwin saw that photo of a woman who looked to be in her eighties and was thought to be Michael's granny? Remember when Lauren said there was an urgent need to find out who the sickly woman is because the woman might need their help?

"What if she needs us?" Lauren actually said at the time.

What about when Michael read that someone from his family, a woman, blamed him for her problems? Whatever happened to follow-up? Why did Lauren say she was sure that woman, presumably Michael's granny, is alive because Michael didn't find a death certificate at the house and surely certificates are found in abandoned homes? What about when Baldwin said too that these unknown, unseen, people surely need his help?

God help them if they did. Whoever these people are, they're probably as dead as this plot line.

Here Kitty Kitty, You Make the Call

November 27, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

Considering there hasn't been a GCN Carmen Mesta murder case update for a few days isn't it about time? Aren't you overdue for a few laughs? Let us stroll around the Halls of Genoa City Justice.

Look! It's the city's top persecutor. Will Bardwell is, at long last, handing over the evidence he's gathered so far to defense attorney Michael Baldwin. Baldwin looks very happy. He may have been considering getting a court order to force Bardwell to do what he should have done weeks ago. There should have been an evidence hearing long ago too, but let's overlook that small detail. Baldwin has.

Baldwin took the evidence straight to private detective Paul 'Clueless' Williams. Hmm, did Baldwin know that prime suspect, under arrest but free on bail, Devon Hamilton's DNA was found under Mesta's fingernails?

Check.

Baldwin says that's the one thing Bardwell didn't hold back.

What about the surveillance video showing Hamilton outside Mesta's motel room banging on the door?

Check.

What about that person in the shadows?

What the hell? Shadows? In a friggin' hallway? Can't see? Here, let Clueless magnify the image. It's Brad Carlton!

What the hell was Carlton doing there? Why didn't Bardwell tell Baldwin about this? Only one thing to do: call Bardwell!

"Hey, Bardwell! Why didn't you tell me Carlton was outside Mesta's door? Oh, that's my job? You mean I'm supposed to examine the evidence and, you know, defend my client? All by my self? Well, could you give me a clue? Carlton was there on business? There's no evidence linking Carlton to the murder and you, Will Bardwell, made the call? Who said you get to make calls like this? Oh, that's right. You're the persecutor. Forgive me all to hell. Still, you could at least send me what you have on Carlton. Hey! Why didn't you do that anyway? Do I need a court order?" Baldwin did not say.

Baldwin did order Clueless to find out what Carlton is hiding, however. Clueless, aiding and abetting Carlton in keeping a certain two Ohio murders under wraps, got right on it while Baldwin summoned Hamilton. Okay kid, how'd your DNA get under Mesta's skin, I mean fingernails? You bumped into her? You mean figuratively? Figuratively, son. It means the opposite of literally. Literally, son. It means, oh never mind. So you bumped into Mesta, knocked something she was holding out of her hands, you both bent down to pick it up and she scratched you? Are you freaking kidding me? She must have had some nails, like a cat. What about the trash bags? Do you always pack your junk in trash bags? You heard Jack Abbott packed his step-mother's junk in trash bags when he threw her out and thought it was cool? Okay, I buy that. But how did the bags come to be connected to the Indigo? By the way, is that club still open? Who's running it? Never mind. Did you say you stashed the bags at the club after moving into the Abbott college kid flop house? Doesn't make sense to me unless they were designer trash bags with the name Indigo stamped on them. That Neil Winters, he thinks of everything. Does the Indigo have a gift shop? Never mind that either. What's that? What are the odds you'll go to prison? I can say it ain't looking good. But don't you worry about a thing. I am the best damn ambulance chaser in all of Genoa City. I'll think of something. Say, how does reasonable doubt sound to you? Reasonable. It means... oh, hell.

Meanwhile, Clueless was grilling Carlton. What was he doing at Mesta's motel? Business? Ha! Monkey business is more like it. C'mon, come clean. I know what you did in Ohio. I conspired with you, remember? I could lose my PI license if the truth ever... wait! Where is my license? Whew, thought I lost it. Tell me Carlton. Tell me everything. At a boy. Spill your guts. Do not remain silent. Do not tell me to speak with your lawyer. Think of that poor boy. Yeah, Hamilton. There, there. You are not the only one. Wouldn't it be a shame if he were to be convicted of something he didn't do? Thought you'd agree. I think when this is all behind us someone should create a shrine for that boy.

That Hamilton is a good boy, and everybody should feel sorry for him, was further puked to death when earlier Hamilton was seen performing the part-time job he'd suddenly remembered he hadn't worked at for months. Stopped in the hallowed halls of Newman Enterprises, Jack Abbott and Carlton asked Hamilton how things were shaking. Considering he's a murder suspect, Hamilton said fine. As for why his new ears have not been attached, Hamilton said the swelling - caused by the surgery to insert hooks on which to hang the ears - had to go down first.

Not that it mattered. With everyone, including doctors, having learned in two days how to sign, he might have been better off remaining deaf. He could have saved all that money too. Not that he cared. Hamilton's adopted parents will pick up that tab like they picked up his bail.

As Hamilton shuffled on down the hall delivering mail, Abbott and Carlton nodded out in agreement. Hamilton is one great kid.

Son Of a Bitch

November 8, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

I wasn't going to comment on any of the specifics pertaining to the antics in Genoa City today and then I heard what Michael Baldwin did. No surprise really, but nevertheless it floored me. Understandably, Baldwin was stressed out. Here he'd come home after a day of chasing ambulances and what - he didn't know? - his mother had prepared a meal for not only him and the twisted mother of his baby, but Gloria Abbott had invited newlyweds Nick and Phyllis Newman too! Gosh, Baldwin didn't think, why hadn't Lauren mentioned this while she was at the courthouse "supporting" him? Why hadn't she mentioned too that Kevin Fisher and Jana Hawkes would be there?

And don't any of them know Gloria can't cook? Did they forget that instead of learning how to prepare a meal Gloria would stash Kevin in a closet while she went out to eat lobster with crazy Tom Fisher? Baldwin knew. He told Lauren that Gloria can't boil water and yet they all went along with the ruse. They puked after eating pure garlic and overcooked rice and rubber chicken and in the end ordered takeout after Nick, crude as always, told the hostess that the meal was terrible.

Stranger still, while Nick and Baldwin were out getting the food, they spoke of their parenting skills. Baldwin confessed that he and Lauren stand over their baby's crib and watch the boy named Fen-Fen breathe! They watch him sleep! They watch him burp! My, what fun it is. Nick shared his time with Noah Newman and how he and the town whore, not the one he's married to now, took gobs and gobs of photographs.

It was about this time that Baldwin noticed the DA, or whatever Will Bardwell represents, in the joint too having a sit down dinner with Jill Abbott. Enraged, Baldwin stormed over, called Bardwell a "son of a bitch" and Bardwell did not say, "Well, look who's talking." Baldwin ranted on and on about Bardwell loving the fact that the poor Winters family, crimes suspects all, are going through Hell. Baldwin made such a scene Nick had to pull him away.

You know, I don't care how stressed you are. Especially when you've been pretending to be a lawyer for as long as Baldwin has, you don't make a scene. You don't say you've grown so attached to the Winters that you can't help yourself, and for sure you don't say you've got this attachment because the Winters' adopted son has a hearing problem.

Michael, sweetie, I hate to tell you this. Lots of people have hearing problems. If you'd bother checking, the doctors say Hamilton's hearing loss is temporary. Don't get yourself all worked up. It doesn't become you. What's that? You say that's not the only thing stressing you? Your wife and child are touch and go and that's an added weight to your droopy shoulders? Then please, Michael, tell me why, knowing what an unstable mess Lauren has been since before you met her, did you knock her up? You knew what you were getting into when you married a woman who has slept with almost every man in this city and why she was once known as Lauren Slutmore, so don't be whining now. Don't be calling Bardwell a son of bitch because if ever there was one, you Michael, are the son of a bitch.

Granny Baldwin Diabetic!

August 25, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

Now that Michael Baldwin is back from New Orleans to say that the city is rebuilding and that it's amazing how people pull together in desperate times of need and that the Baldwin's made a donation to the relief effort but made no mention as to how FEMA let the people of Louisiana down and billions of dollars were ripped off and New Orleans was generally abandoned by a president who so cares for the American people, blah, blah, I thought well, that's nice, but what about Michael's daddy? Didn't Baldwin go off in search of himself and his past and have a few spiritual awakenings and maybe discover that Nazis are after him too? God, I hope not. One Nazi connection was bad enough. If J.T. Hellstrom finds more Nazis, that'll be two too many.

Baldwin said he did find his granny's home but it's a wreck and the old hood nearly deserted except for the people down the street who had never heard of Florence or Lowell Baldwin. Other than a few photos, Baldwin said he didn't find any dead bodies in Granny's home as if there would still be dead bodies floating around - or at least their ghosts roaming the halls.

One of the photos, frame intact, was of a "handsome" man with Baldwin's features yet Baldwin wasn't sure who it was. The one person who might know for sure is his mother whom Baldwin thought to purchase a voodoo doll for in the event someone might want to stick pins in if it will stop Gloria Fisher-Abbott from killing and drugging people. And too, there was the always mysterious diary which Baldwin said he wasn't sure whether he should read because, well, just because people searching for their past don't usually find diaries and when they do don't want to read them because, well, they might learn more about those they are searching for. Besides, why should he? His family never once tried making contact with him.

And isn't that always the case? Pick a name, any name. Victor Newman will do. See how his daddy never tried contacting him? See how Victor was raised in an orphanage and then when he finally found daddy more or less flicked the old guy off? See how Hopeless Adams claims to have been raised in an orphanage too yet she had a mother who taught her how to brew coffee? See how Paul Williams has never bothered contacting his father in Virginia and Christine 'Bug' Blair so related to Victor as the father she never had and Daniel Romalotti could give a rip about knowing where, or what happened, to his real father and yet family is supposed to be so important?

Oh, my, hang onto your barf-bags. Now that Baldwin's wife has seen the picture of a woman who looks to be in her eighties there must be a need there to find out who the sickly woman is.

"What if she needs us?" Lauren Baldwin actually asked, and as a big chunk of bile got caught in my throat damn but what Baldwin didn't read that someone from his family, a "Miss Dot" perhaps, blamed Baldwin for her problems and you wonder just how a boy Baldwin must have been at the time could have being the reason for anyone's problem unless his father never wanted him.

Whoever the woman is, whatever is going on, Lauren is sure the woman is alive as a death certificate wasn't found and these things are usually found in an abandoned home.

And now Baldwin's got the fever too. Whatever it is, he's got to know and help these unknown, unseen people, for surely they must need him.

But while I wrote the above on Aug 3, what have the Baldwin's done to accomplish this goal? Not much. All they've discovered is that Baldwin's grandmother was diabetic and really, what does that matter? Millions of people are diabetic and lead perfectly normal lives. It could mean Michael may come down with diabetes, but I don't see the significance unless he's planning to pick up where Raul Guittierez left off.

Remember Raul? Remember that day in March 2002?

The Knowledge of Learning

April 19, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

Of the many things there is to love about Genoa City, one of the most intriguing is the efficiency with which certain things get done. Let's say, for example, you've dumped cleaning solvent into one of the creams sold by the company your imprisoned husband founded and a woman dies as a result. What do you do?

What can be done when the heat is on and your son has "abandoned" you because he's found out what you did? Why, of course. You deny, deny. You say it was all a big mistake. You say you want to hire a private investigator to find out what really happened, because, like congressional inquiries, the illusion of looking into crimes and misdemeanors is but a ruse to convince the sheep you really do care.

So, okay. Let's say for the point of argument there are a few who don't know what you've done and think you're just the sweetest little old lady about to become a granny and that you'd never do anything to put your husband's company, 51% of which is now owned by some conglomerate, in jeopardy. Let's also say that hiring a PI is the smart thing to do because, after all, isn't that what all companies near financial ruin and had executives charged with murder, do? Does it not further make sense because the police department is so inept the District Attorney must personally investigate most cases?

But what if there is only one PI in Genoa City? What if that PI is already working behind the scenes on the Jabot case? What if that PI is Paul Williams and he's so behind the times he still carries with him a briefcase made of aluminum? What do you do if you're Michael Baldwin and you've said that Williams is out of town and you're not sure when he's coming back? Why, you think hard. You think so hard your phone rings and damn but what Williams isn't at the other end saying he's back in town and just happens to be hanging at the ever popular place where sophisticated people congregate, the Athletic Supporter.

Yes, you drop what you were planning to do which just so happens to be a "guest room project" your pregnant wife was expecting you to work on with her this weekend although it's only Wednesday. You lie to your wife by telling her you're meeting a "client" who just happens to be her former husband and zoom to the club.

In your absence, your wife informs your mother that she's pregnant and your mother replies, "You're really having a baby?" You wish you could have been there to tell Ma, "No you fool. She's having a cow," but alas, you've got more important matters at hand. You tell Williams you need insider information on what evidence the DA has on your mother and, if at all possible, the names of other potential suspects. In the time it takes to make a phone call, Williams reports back that his contact has some very compelling news. The maintenance man who let your mother into a Jabot office reported what he saw to the DA.

But then, didn't you know that? Aren't you a lawyer? Aren't you Jabot's special corporation lawyer although your expertise is in divorce law? Shouldn't you, by law, be privy to what information the DA has on your client? Were it not for the fact that you've been sitting on your ass and listening to your wife's belly and serving her breakfast in bed and bellyaching that you aren't sure you'll be a good father, you might have found time to actually confer with the DA so you'd know what the hell is going on?

Is this the part where you summon your mother to the club and give her the bad news? Is this where Gloria Abbott acts all surprised and thought you wanted to celebrate her impending grannyship? Is this where you tell her she may become the first grandmother ever to be behind bars when the child is born? Or is this just part of the efficiency? The knowledge of learning things you should have already known?

The Art of Child Abandonment

April 13, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

As if the idea of an old woman like Lauren Fenmore-Baldwin having a baby so late in life was not already repulsing me, her husband's reaction to the news he's about to become a father caused my colon to clench. Yes, Michael Baldwin, attorney at law, criminal conspirator at large, said this week he's going to rush right out and buy a book!

Not John Gresham's latest legal thriller, not a book containing possible names for baby, a book on how to be the best damn father Genoa City has ever seen!

Are such books available? Are there step-by-step instructions? Is pre-natal care at the top of any such listing of things to do as a dad? Will Lauren ever once mention she's going to a baby doctor before the child is born? Will Lauren become another Brittany Hodges Marsino or a Mac Browning? Will Michael become another Paul Williams or Jack Abbott or Victor Newman, so-called men who so wanted children they immediately stashed them in places like Kansas and Florida and California?

Is Michael considered good breedstock? While he and crazy Kevin Fisher share the same mother, what is known of Baldwin's genes? What of is father who apparently abandoned him early in life? Wouldn't such ignorance of parental responsibility be inherent? Shouldn't Lauren's fetus be screaming right about now, "He's going to get a freaking book to teach him how to raise me? What's the title? The art of Child Abandonment?"

Like bitch dogs naturally know to care for their pups, doesn't being a dad come natural? The book hasn't been written that can teach men how to be fathers.

Alas, this is Genoa City. This is what its elite citizens do. Modern twists on family values and raising spoiled brats who want for nothing are much more accepted and expected in this lawless bubble of progress and experimentation. Few people raise an eyebrow when they hear of unusual breeding practices and marriages that flaunt traditional Christian 50%-divorce-rate values. Nary a word is mentioned of the kids brought into this city who were ditched by their parents when the marriage went south.

"Oh, Paul hasn't seen his daughter Heather in something like 15 years? He hasn't spoken more than ten words of the son he stashed in Los Angeles? That's nice," people who know Williams might say.

What? Mary Williams stopped pointing to her Bible and whining about the need to have a grandchild? Did she move to California? Is that where Mary has been all this time since the mother of her grandson, Izzy Williams, was carted off to jail without a trial for allegedly attempting to kill Christine 'Bug' Blair?

For awhile, Victor Newman was troubled by the fact that he was supposed to be close with his son, Nick Jr., and help take care of him and celebrate their love, and yet has been instructed not to tell anyone he's the father because, well, Hope Adams Newman had issues. She didn't want the boy to know what a despicable man Victor is although she did allow Nick Jr. to visit Victor on his jet once provided the great man not say he was the daddy as exposing such significant details would only screw the child up and induce resentment and possibly turn him Republican, so they invented a bed-time story telling Nick Jr. of his charmed birth and his loving community and how they all lived happily ever after - in Kansas.

It can get convoluted. Lauren, with a grown son she hadn't seen in years, was elated when Scotty Grainger came out of hiding in Canada, then said nothing when Scotty disappeared again. Michael, who was so proud to have Scotty as the "son" he never had, hasn't said a word either. And now he won't have to. Michael's gonna have a son of his own he can forget and he won't have to read in some book how to do it. In Genoa City, the art of child abandonment comes naturally.