See Also: Paul Williams  Colleen Carlton  Mac Browning  Teens

Sudden Best Buds

November 1, 2006
by Michael Kelly

Even scarier than the fact that Carmen Mesta's killer is roaming the city streets is J.T. Hellstrom's determination to launch a "pro-bono" investigation of his own into who's responsible for Mesta pushing up daisies.

Pro-bono, my ass. Where inept investigator and Twinkie boy Hellstrom's is concerned, pro-homo is more like it. Think about it. Why is Hellstrom suddenly so chummy with deaf boy Devon Hamilton? Do hearing impaired guys turn him on? Black dudes? Mole men? All of the above?

Was it his secret attraction to Hamilton that inspired Hellstrom to learn sign language in record time? Granted, Hellstrom only signed a few words and he did so rather crudely, but for a guy who doesn't know Hamilton from Adam, his ability to sign at all defied logic.

Also, what the cluck were Hellstrom, Hamilton and Daniel Romalotti doing having a pumpkin carving contest? Yes, I know it's Halloween, but aren't all three of these guys childless? Without kids to impress, was it necessary to carve three of those things just to adorn the Sugar Shack? The Shack doesn't even have a porch on which to display the not-so-Great Pumpkins.

The whole male bonding threesome seemed mighty fishy. It's no secret the limp-wristed, formerly obsessed with Noah Newman and multiple bracelet wearing Romalotti is in the closet. Let's also remember that Hellstrom once shared the Shack with known fairies Raul Guittierez and Billy Abbott.

Now, what about Devon? Hamilton's ears may be defective but he'd have to be a retard not to be suspicious of Romalotti and especially virtual stranger Hellstrom wanting to hang out with him away from their beards, um, significant others.

Nazi Hornet's Nest Revisited

August 22, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

Oh my freaking god! George Kaplan wants make-believe private dick J.T. Hellstrom to investigate Oscar Volkmann? Didn't Brad, um, George learn anything? Doesn't he know what happens when people go poking around in the lives of others especially those who don't want their lives poked into? Didn't George say his family could still be in danger? Wouldn't messing with the beehive get him and his family and maybe Sharon Newman stung? Can George afford to fly Colleen and Abby Carlton to Hawaii whenever those clouds of doom and gloom float over Genoa City? Will his mother go with them or will Rebecca Kaplan be happy holed up at the Kaplan home listening to the bedsprings creaking at night while her son plants sperm seeds in his wife's belly? What woman, such that Victoria Carlton is, would want her mother-in-law living with her and her new husband of four months? Isn't it bad enough that Abby lives with them and Colleen uses the place as a flop house when she's not letting J.T. put the pork to her?

Did George forget that if not for J.T. hacking into his computer the Nazis might never have found out who Brad Carlton really was? Is it not insane that George could consider trusting J.T. to take out his garbage must less hire him to investigate anything when most likely J.T. will get himself kidnapped again? Should George, or Colleen, be concerned that J.T. did not seek medical care after being injected repeatedly with Nazi drugs? Shouldn't Victoria have become alarmed that George's knife wounds might have become infected? How is it that all these people can sustain serious injuries and never go to a doctor? Are they freaks?

It's a rhetorical question. Remember, for all the "realism", for all the bickering between the Abbott family over death because bickering is what real people do, the realism that real people would seek medical care and would not want to ever see another Nazi doesn't apply to freaks. The freaks of Genoa City thrive on such things. They can't wait for the next tragedy to beset them. They can't go much longer than six months without having, or at least thinking about, having sex with their in-laws. They live for the day they can marry their daughter's Aunt. They long to tell others to live lives of integrity while they themselves are trapping young girls in freezers and torching roadkill cafes or tampering with cosmetics which result in the death of others.

As for who Oscar is, it really doesn't matter. What's funny is that a hunkmonkey would be charged with investigating a man with a last name so similar to Volkswagen; a car Hitler promised every German would have, but like a chicken in every pot, never materialized exactly as Hitler said it would.

Even before J.T. agrees to take the case, probably for free as his boss is so willing to pick up the tab for many trips to and from Ohio and the expense tracking devices and looking into credit card usage must cost, yet Paul 'Clueless' Williams can't afford an office much bigger than a broom closet, who can't hear J.T. questioning his role in the case or his screams that he's too close to those he's investigating and he's not sure he's worthy only to be told by Clueless to stick with it?

It's almost as bad as listening to Sharon whimper and bawl that she's seeing things and having nightmares and on and on. It's as bad as Billy Abbott kicking himself for not spending more time with his family, his daddy in particular, and then announcing he's leaving Genoa City less than a week after returning for John Abbott's death. It's like Scotty Grainger who dropped out of sight after the semi-orgasmic reunion with his mother. It's like Lauren Fenmore Baldwin who was so happy to have Scotty back but seems not to miss him too much and has devoted herself to helping Michael Baldwin find his long lost daddy.

Who's to say that after Baldwin finds dear daddy he won't dump the old guy like Jill Abbott dumped Arthur Hendricks? Who's to say that if Baldwin can't find daddy he won't give up like Nina Webster did? Why is there this huge importance placed on finding and getting to know lost family members if doing so doesn't mean much? Oh, that's right. In Baldwin's case finding his daddy isn't so important for him as it is for his unborn baby who must know who his/her grandpa is like Victor Newman Jr., doesn't much care it would seem that he doesn't have a father teaching him how to wash eggs and slop pigs on a Kansas farm.

And if Victor Jr., isn't a good example, how about Ricki Carl Williams? He's only two, but with Ricki one day go in search of his daddy? Will Ricki find out what scum his clueless daddy is? How Paul brayed about having a son he could go fishing with and then dumped the kid in Los Angeles with his ex-wife's parents?

These examples have been dusted off before, but at a time when so much is being made of the loving Abbott family and George's faux concern for his, it's simply insane that George would stir up the hornet's nest much less engage a hunkmonkey to do the stirring.

Hunkmonkey Officially Missing

July 27, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

The image of make-believe private eye J.T. Hellstrom bound and gagged and being held hostage won't leave my mind. It haunts me like a Noah and Cassie Newman nightmare. It makes my skin crawl that Colleen Carlton, aware that her boyfriend has gone missing, having received a phone call from the boogeyman holding Hellstrom, would leave Ohio and reportedly show up later in New York. When Carlton arrived at the hotel where Hellstrom had been staying and was told by Hellstrom's mentor that her presence wasn't appreciated, but that since she was there she might as well stay in the hotel room in the event Hellstrom came home on his own like some stool pigeon, it reminded me of the last time Paul 'Clueless' Williams and his hunkmonkey sidekick worked the Tom Fisher case.

Digging through the GCN archives - it was difficult to pick just one example of what a complete fool Clueless and Hellstrom and those associated with their investigations are - I found this one from December 19 last year slugged 'On The Job Training'. The article asked whether there shouldn't be a government agency or some city ordinance in Genoa City prohibiting private detectives from enacting ride-a-long programs like those police departments have whereby average citizens go along in police cars to observe how the police do their work. If such an agency or ordinance was to exist there would be long lines of people standing in line to file complaints against Williams for not only allowing private residents to tag along with him on cases, but known criminals as well.

Never charged with a crime at the time, Ashley Carlton had been known to have killed her baby and had stolen a man's sperm but it was all legal because she was under stress or was vulnerable to outside influence. Likewise, Kevin Fisher had been charged with a few crimes but was let off when the authorities ruled there was no real evidence to convict him which was apparently the reason Clueless allowed Carlton and Fisher to go along with him to a motel room where Tom Fisher was thought to be hold up.

Not only did Clueless take the two boobs with him, he showed them how to break into the motel room. It was said then to be the most atrocious thing Clueless had ever done and thought odd given that it hadn't been so long ago when Clueless couldn't stand Kevin and had tried everything thing in his power to have Kevin locked up. Clueless called Kevin names and considered him lower than stuff found at the bottom of shower drains, but like so many have done since Kevin found God and became a changed person, Clueless changed his position on Kevin and now Kevin was just the sweetest boy he had ever known his own stashed in Los Angeles son notwithstanding.

Like a cheese grater rubbing against the teeth of common sense, Clueless invited Ashley and Kevin to go with him to the Motor Arms Inn where he showed them the fine art of picking locks and wearing rubber gloves. Without a warrant, without police assistance and without checking with the front desk, Clueless made his way into Tom's room where he was heard to say that it was okay because he had reasonable cause.

That cause came from Tom's bastard stepson, Michael Baldwin who had told Clueless he suspected Tom was behind the explosion onboard a love boat thousands of miles away in the Caribbean. Just to be sure, Clueless asked Kevin if he was sure Michael was sure and satisfied that sure as shooting Tom blew up the boat, Clueless told Kevin and Ashley to "check things out" as he handed them plastic gloves.

The smell of latex brought found memories to Ashley's nose and gave Kevin a high. They searched Tom's room while Clueless went next door to break into the room for a second time of Tom's alleged partner in crime, Jennifer Mitchell. What first tipped the trainees off that Tom might be coming back to the room was that all his stuff was there including an airline confirmation which proved Tom had gone to Miami the night before. Since the date and place coincided with the day Michael and his new bride left from Florida on their honeymoon, Ashley and Kevin immediately concluded that Tom had something to do with the explosion. Still, while he'd sworn moments earlier that he was sure, Kevin wasn't so sure. Why would a man on a terror mission leave his junk behind? Wouldn't Tom, like Jennifer, have made a clean break? Wouldn't he at least put his stuff in a storage locker?

No, really, Kevin wondered this.

As it just so happened, as Kevin was wondering, it had been days since his butt-buddy, Scotty Grainger had returned to Toronto, yet Kevin was able to phone Scotty just as Scotty was about to board the plane. Scotty didn't ask why he should not go to Canada as Kevin said he'd explain in the five minutes it would take to get to the airport to tell Scotty in person. While he had Scotty on the phone, Kevin did not tell him that there had been an accident and that Scotty's mother, for all they knew, was dead.

Subsequent to his call to Scotty, Kevin called Michael to say there was no doubt Tom was headed for Miami. This tipped Michael that Tom could "still be in this area" and that Michael would, "Get on it right away."
 
Get on it? What? A bus? A boat? Alas, there was no time to explain. Kevin still had to figure out what reason he would give to Scotty for asking him to delay his departure. Gosh, could it be his mother was thought to be missing or in some danger? Always thinking on her back, Ashley had the solution. Tell Scotty that for now, Lauren is missing. 

Meanwhile, aware that Kevin was going somewhere, Clueless told him, "Call me when you get there." If he meant when Kevin got to the airport didn't make sense so it was presumed that Kevin and Scotty would be going to the Caribbean directly from the airport. Why, when local authorities had the situation under control, wasn't clear unless, like all of Williams' investigations, too many cooks were needed to spoil the broth.

And while this was going on Ashley was fretting. Whatever would she tell her faux father and his newly renewed like a library book wife?

"I wouldn't know what to tell them," she said of Yawn and Gloria Abbott as she became aware that Clueless was going around the room collecting fingerprints. 

"You never know when you'll need them," Clueless proudly stated, like any forensic team on the planet would touch the prints with a 10-foot pole after Clueless and the gang had contaminated the scene. So proud of her PI, Ashley thanked Clueless for looking out for her and the family.

"Ah, shucks. I'm a PI. It's what I do, and for you I do it free, except if you count sex as payment," Clueless did not say, but should have for all the self-control it took not to burst out in disgusted laughter and then crack his little head open to see if there's really one of Satan's helpers inside whispering in his ear, "You are a private detective. Say it again. Say it often enough and people will believe."

It was time then to wake Clueless up. It was time to report him to the authorities so they might take away his license and charge him with at least one of the many crimes he's committed not just during this case, but all the others. The invasion of privacy, the breaking and entering and the gun running (another story for another time) to name a few. December 2005 wasn't 1940. Clueless wasn't then and he isn't now Mike Hammer or Sam Spade and sure as hell he shouldn't have been giving on the job training to a couple wannabe PIs so scared of their own shadows, so stupid they helped him break into a seedy motel room.

Since that time nothing has changed. Paul Williams of the Clueless Detective & Alarm Company is an undercooked ham who persistently fails to represent anything remotely related to intellectual integrity and he's at it again. He's filed a missing person report with the Cleveland Police department and while Colleen hasn't gone to New York, while she is still at the hotel room with Clueless, she doesn't tell him about getting a phone call from the boogeyman and returns to Genoa City for the sake of telling her Pa she knows he's George Kaplan.

Maybe it's just me, but if my hunkmonkey was thought to have gone missing, if I'd answered the phone and heard strange sounds on the other end, telling my Pa via anything other than perhaps a phone call or an email could wait.

Grave Developments in Ohio

July 24, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

If I was paying attention, Genoa City's most clueless private eye was in Cleveland last week working with his protégé J.T. Hellstrom [ who I'm convinced never applied for or received a license to investigate anything except maybe his belly button in the State of Wisconsin much less Ohio] on the Brad Carlton case when he received a phone call, told Hellstrom he was on his own, and returned to Genoa City.

The first question to enter my mind was this: who called Paul 'Clueless' Williams? A "client"? What client? Clueless doesn't have any clients. Why does he persist in trying to convince me, and maybe you, that he runs some massive detective agency and alarm company out of a broom closet located inside the law office of one Michael Baldwin and the rarely seen Christine 'Bug' Blair?

Speaking of Baldwin, how can he afford to go traipsing off to New Orleans in search of his father? Doesn't he have clients? Pending law cases? Court appearances? Why, if Baldwin has so much money he can close up shop whenever he wants, does he work at all? Why, with the combined money he and department store magnate Lauren Fenmore-Baldwin must earn, with a baby on the way, do they live in a condom? Why not buy a sprawling ranch like the Newman Ponderosa?

Then the more I thought about it the more I got to wondering: who is paying these goofy PIs? It can't be Victor Newman. Newman called off the investigation long ago. It was Hellstrom who, as I understand it, took up the cause pro bono so that his girlfriend, Colleen Carlton, can sleep and eat again.

Before Colleen told her father what he already knew, or at least suspected, she worried day and night that her last name might not be Carlton and if it wasn't she didn't know what would become of her. Thanks to a magnifying glass, Hellstrom discovered last week a clue so large a strange woman who had originally said she didn't want to be identified, met with him at a hotel where she confirmed what Hellstrom already knew. The photo he'd been looking at for days proves that Brad Carlton and George Kaplan are one in the same.

Meanwhile, back in Genoa City, Brad's friendly banker was delivering to his office a briefcase filled with money. Oh, yes! Bankers do this all the time. They walk out of their respective banks with what I'm guessing had to be at least $10,000 and did not have to report such a withdrawal to the IRS as required by law especially in these paranoid times when such a sum of cash could be earmarked for terrorists. Crafty, Brad undoubtedly withdrew $9,999.99 to avoid such IRS reporting.

It wasn't immediately known what Brad needs the money for but when Hellstrom was later seen bound and gagged hope in me sprung eternal. If Brad paid someone to kill Hellstrom how happy would I be? Unfortunately, it appears Brad hired some flunky who bungled the job as Hellstrom looked very much alive. I suspect he might have been given a good whack over the head, but we all know how freaks like Hellstrom and Victoria Newman and Ryan McNeil and Billy Abbott can take a licking, keep on ticking and always, always refuse medical treatment whenever they're found and when asked how they are say just fine.

So, since I can't rejoice in knowing Hellstrom is dead, I am left wondering who Clueless came back to meet because the only person I know of his meeting was Colleen who puked her guts of having told Brad what Clueless and Hellstrom are up to. And even though Clueless should know that Brad knows, Clueless was nevertheless pissed.

And how convenient that Colleen had a premonition somebody might try to get to her boyfriend? How interesting that when Clueless called Hellstrom's phone it wasn't turned on. Another dead cellphone battery? That Clueless sped back to Cleveland and sure enough found Hellstrom's hotel room trashed, made me think, wow, for someone who isn't being paid to investigate this case he sure has lots of money to burn. How does Clueless plan to recover his expenses? What about all the money Hellstrom must have spent? Plane fares and hotel rooms and food and God only knows what else they are wasting money on, like porn to keep them warm at night considering Clueless and Hellstrom have not had sex [with anyone but themselves] which is probably a good thing what with all the fatherless and grandfather-less babies about to enter the world of Genoa City.

My questioning of all these loose ends would have ended there had it not been for Clueless, knowing he can't trust Colleen, calling and giving her the combination to his safe!

Safe? What safe? The one he keeps in Baldwin's closet? The one with all those important files? And what in God's name made Clueless think that the trashing of the hotel room meant that Hellstrom had "moved on"?

Moved on? Why? Where? To a graveyard? I can only hope.

The Final Truth

July 20, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

So now we know.

I mean, we knew before what kind of guy J.T. Hellstrom is. Essentially the inarticulate college dropout, babe magnet, failed-rock star, wannbe private eye and head of Newman Security who famously appeals to the least educated and least attuned among us because he is one of them.

We thought we had him pegged: Just a casual washrag hair-combing embarrassment to Genoa City who was rumored to be a nice guy who wanted Colleen Carlton's father to accept him but nevertheless caused the entire city to cringe when he slipped a knife deep into Brad Carlton's back in preparation for all sorts of hilarious I-Think-I-Can solve a mystery on my own even if there is no mystery to solve.

As a GCN reader reminds us, the Brad Carlton we've known for some twenty years has never shown any signs of violence. Yes, he is a snake in the grass that bites the hands that feed him, but cold-blooded murder? Brad doesn't have the stomach. So what if he changed his name? Doesn't everyone know this? Doesn't Nikki Newman and Paul Williams know this? Why is there this sudden concern that Brad doesn't have a family? When has it mattered? People in this city are forever marrying people whose backgrounds they know nothing of.

Witness, won't you, the latest in a huge pile of embarrassing J.T. and Clueless moments.

Here they are, the best PIs the world has ever known in Cleveland investigating Brad when one could do the job. When either Clueless or J.T. should have stayed in Genoa City to keep an, um, private eye on Brad, they are both tripping over each other's feet. J.T. has learned that like all families unearthed, Brad's dead father was an alcoholic and there wasn't much of a funeral because, well, Mr. Carlton didn't have a family and nobody at all knew him.

And now, the icing on the giant cake o' drama, J.T. says that while he has a list of names that could be "useful" to his investigation, he is nevertheless disappointed with the lack of information concerning the Carlton family. As J.T.'s mentor, as always, Clueless must nurse J.T. He must tell J.T. to be "determined" and by golly they will solve this case. Clueless says they must emerge the heroes before Brad finds out for if he does it will be curtains. That Clueless already knows Brad knows may explain why this week Clueless left the case entirely in J.T. hands which of course it already was.

It was J.T. with his classic blank "Who, me?" stare like someone caught eating a live grasshopper looking over newspaper articles concerning the murdered Ohio family and whipping out a magnifying glass pours over crime scene photos as though he was Sherlock Holmes. It is the determining factor J.T. needs to determine that the photo is the same photo as one he's already seen depicting the real and the fake Brad Carlton.

It is amazing that a case Cleveland cops could not solve will apparently be solved by a failed rock star. A hunkmonkey who learned what little he knows from the most clueless of PIs on the planet. Yes! J.T. is onto something! He's on the phone with lover-girl Colleen who says she told her daddy everything and still, when he's been told point blank the jig is up, J.T. goes into denial. "Good thing Brad doesn't know why I'm in Cleveland," J.T. mumbles, or something to that effect.

Big break! For someone who not five minutes ago was frustrated, J.T. got a clue. A woman pops up to say she'll meet a man she's never seen before at a hotel. She will claim to be the neighbor who just happened to find the bodies of the slaughtered family and cannot understand why a case the cops could not solve was reopened. The woman says she always thought it strange. She knew the family so well and one day they were all gone. Vanished for days they did before she stumbled upon the crime scene. And that guy in the photo? George Kaplan? He always had a bad temper, the woman says. George was always getting into fights and she just knew he had something to do with the murder. Too bad, though, George is dead. She doesn't say how she knows George is dead, he's just dead and dead is dead. Oh, my! That man in the photo! The man who looks like Brad Carlton? That's George!

It all happens in about four seconds. It is merely, on the surface, a "what-the-hell?" moment you want to forget immediately but is unfortunately burned into your brain because we were led to believe that J.T. had already made the connection. So why was J.T. looking so shocked and blank faced?

See, now we get it. This is the bottom line, the final truth, J.T. Hellstrom in a thimble. J.T. thinks he's the man. The one everybody loves to have around, the one who sincerely thinks his goofy charm is so appealing and so licky-puppy smart and won't his girl be happy that he's exposed her father for being someone he isn't or was but wasn't or something and now Colleen will be able to eat and sleep again knowing what her real last name really is despite the fact that Colleen has flip-flopped back to her daddy's side?

And you know what? J.T. is really the man. Only not in the way he wants to think. He is like the best man at the party, the one standing out, casually and cluelessly telling bad jokes that offend everyone but which he thinks are hilarious but does not, of course, realize no one else is laughing. Nor does he realize that Brad doesn't care about his moronic investigation because in the end, we suspect, it will come out that Brad was but a witness to the murder and in fear or retribution changed his name. Simple as that and nothing more.

The Three Geeks

June 23, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

You knew, didn't you? You knew I couldn't let a make-believe private detective and security chief for a major conglomerate get away with launching another attack on my intelligence - and yours. I can't say though that it was entirely J.T. Hellstrom who assaulted me, however.

It was Brad Carlton and Nick Newman too! The three geeks!

It was Brad who, after discovering his office computer had been hacked, summoned Nick Newman of all people to snivel on. Poor Brad, somebody snooped at his computer files. How did he know? Because like everyone, whenever they turn their computers on, check the time/date stamps. Brad does too. Yeah, there it is. See? The video Brad secretly took of himself doing Sharon Newman in a New York hotel room was last viewed on 062206 at 21.14:02. The last time Brad actually watched it was on 061806 at 09.43:59.

"Somebody's been eating my porridge!" Brad did not say, but you know.

Nick wasn't so sure Brad was sure. But Brad was certain. Files he hadn't looked at in weeks had been opened "a couple of days ago." What about his password? Did he give it to someone - like his wife? Nope. Brad said he didn't give it to anyone. But he did call computer support only to be told that because there have been no other complaints, because the files tampered with are on Brad's computer alone, no tech support was available even though Brad's computer is connected to the mainframe.

This posed a new problem. Who they gonna call?

Without saying who, Nick made a call and damn but what J.T. didn't show up moments later to report that due to a virus in an email message Brad opened, his files were somehow manipulated. You could only imagine Brad stroking his beard. Hmm. Virus. Email. Files tampered. Gosh, I don't remember opening no email like that. Don't everyone in the freaking world have a spam checker installed on their computers that can detect a virus these days? Guess not.

So, what's a dumb cluck, can't turn his computer on without help but knows all about time and date stamps to do? No problem! J.T. said he'd install a firewall on Brad's computer. Again, Brad stroked his beard. Firewall. Install. Software. I can't trust J.T. as far as I can throw him. What should I do? Okay, do whatever you need to do, J.T. Don't worry. I won't watch while you install software on my computer. I won't be shocked when the firewall blocks my access to this or that and I need to change the firewall settings. I'll just call you, J.T. Whatever would a big company like this do without you?

The Great Protector

June 15, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

Don't tell me, I know! I know this is Genoa City where time and space have no meaning. Time speeds up for those in a hurry to move on with their meaningless lives and times slows down for those who have missed the boat and need a chance to catch-up or grow-up as the case may be. As Father's Day approaches in this wacky town I should know too that all the rich people will be shopping at Lauren Fenmore-Baldwin's Little Shop of Horrors because it's the one place in town selling trinkets and mostly female garb like wedding dresses and graduation gowns and garter belts for those hot nights in the sack.

Yes, the Little Shop of Horrors was packed today with the likes of Sharon Newman who brought her young son into such a dive to search out a gift for his daddy. Noah had wanted to make one of those PrintShop greeting cards on the home computer but had been banned from using the computer as punishment for listening to, and downloading, rap music filled with broken English and the most foul of 4-letter words. His whorish mother didn't mind so much, it was prudish daddy who objected and as a compromise both parents agreed to punish the kid.

What on Earth Noah could have found for his father at a Horror Shop I can't imagine. Silk underwear? Sex toys? Not that it matters, I just found it strange that on this day of all days employee Lily Romalotti was on the job for only the second time that anyone can recall. Lily may have picked this day to work not so much because of the commercial holiday rush, but because it was pay day! At least, I think it was.

I think this because Colleen Carlton, also having worked as a waitress for an hour or so at the local Athletic Club/Restaurant/Gym complete now with a basketball court, reported it was payday at the AC and that her check was so damn big she wanted to spent it all by taking boyfriend/roommate J.T. Hellstrom out to celebrate, I guess, her first paycheck. Still, I gotta wonder how big the check was.

Alas, Colleen's parade, her jubilation was rained out when J.T. informed her that he'd found out what she'd done to his computer and that he didn't appreciate people "breaking into" his files. Oh sure, it's okay that J.T. hacked into Brad Carlton's computer and stole not just a few files, but the entire hard drive!

What's that you might be saying? The entire hard drive? He got all that onto one, what looked like a floppy disc but could have been a CD? He did all this in a matter of minutes? Yup, believe it or don't.

Believe too that the other day your humble reporter got it into his head to copy his hard drive to DVD. When I saw that it would take something like 10 DVD discs, which hold something like ten times the amount of 10 CD discs and would take upwards of 4 hours, I took a pass. So when I heard today that J.T. has a copy of Brad's entire HD I nearly fell out of my chair. Then I got to thinking. Well, this is Genoa City. Knowing Brad he probably has one of those Franklin computers. Remember those? Remember when having a 1-gig hard drive was all the rage? If Brad has a Franklin it would be easy for J.T. to make a copy of the entire drive in about a minute.

And so why am I bitching about another implausibility? Because:

A - J.T. said, "I'm not an idiot."
B - J.T. said he checks the time stamps of his files and could see that Colleen had tricked him into giving her his password.

Maybe it's just me, but I rarely look at time stamps.

C - J.T. had to ask Colleen if she used spyware to steal his password.

If, as he claims to be, J.T. isn't an idiot, he'd know what software is, or has been, on his computer by merely looking at - you guessed it - the log Windows XP provides that shows such information. Of course, that's assuming J.T. isn't still using Windows 93 which he is probably is.

So why did Colleen steal the password? You know why, but ask J.T. and he'll say it's because Colleen is so "insecure"! I kid you not. What the hell does insecurity have to do with it? If anything is insecure it's that J.T. is afraid someone will find out what a stinking thief he is. But it gets worse.

Colleen says she did what she did because J.T. has been acting "so weird" and this gave her the right to violate his privacy. As to why J.T. has a copy of her father's hard drive, J.T. said he swiped it to protect her!

I'm sorry, but I gotta ask again. Is this not the dumbest, the most contrived bullshit, excuse my French, you ever did hear? No? You mean when Brad just happened to drop by the Sugar Shack without calling ahead to make sure someone was home and told Colleen that her half-sister, Victor Newman's daughter, Abby Carlton would love seeing her at a family Father's Day gathering when Colleen hasn't spent more than five minutes with Abby since she's been back in Genoa City, that this was the dumbest? No? Well then, it must have been when Colleen said "I miss her [Abby]". Right? Wrong again?

That leaves only one thing. It leaves J.T. agreeing to delete all that stolen information from his computer and Colleen actually thinking it was and then going to tell Lily, at Lily's work place I presume, how much she wishes she could trust J.T. as J.T. was sifting through the rubbish he supposedly removed from the computer but didn't really because he is, don't we know, the Great Protector.

God's Gift to the CIA

June 13, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

I could be wrong, I do make mistakes, my memory isn't what it used to be and I'm too lazy to look it up in the archives, but I thought whoever was running Newman Enterprises a few weeks ago caught on that J.T. Hellstrom is no security expect and told him his services as Newman's security chief were no longer needed? I know Victor Newman pulled the make-believe PI off the Brad Carlton mysterious identity caper and could swear that once Victoria Newman found out that her new husband-to-be had found out she screwed J.T. just days before their wedding, that Victoria told J.T. to take a hike?

Apparently not as there J.T. was today strolling into NE like he's God's gift to the CIA. Brad thought it was so odd when he saw J.T. getting off the elevator he asked J.T., "What are you doing here?" J.T. muttered something about having to go over security issues with Newman slave Neil Winters and easily distracted Brad by getting him to talk about his daughter, J.T.'s new roommate, Colleen, who Brad said he wished would move back home so that Colleen might better hear the beds springs creaking at night, or during the afternoon, or 24/7 since Victoria is, with all her corporate responsibilities, a woman of leisure.

J.T. knew though what really concerns Brad. He's worried J.T. is putting the pork to Colleen like he did Victoria and a host of other girls including the mother of the woman he played pretend daddy to. Not to worry, J.T. assured Brad that he and Colleen are "just friends" and that he'd never hurt Colleen except for all the times he's broken the poor girl's heart and nobody to this day understands why J.T. can't bring himself, hunkmonkey that he is, to screw Colleen along with everyone else.

Under normal conditions one observing this conversation might have felt empathy for Brad had he not thrown J.T.'s rap sheet in his face. It was, after all, the old do as I say, not as I do, routine.

For someone so naturally adept at corporate security systems he was able to learn what he knows overnight and without any training, not so much as an iota of on-the-job training by his mentor Paul Williams, who claims to operate a major alarm company in addition to a private detective agency out of a broom closet but who has but one employee, that J.T. was called in by Neil Winters to devise a plan whereby they will catch Brad Carlton was perfectly logical. Not only was Neil pleased with the plan, Nick Newman was too albeit with some reservation.

"It's going to take a nuclear bomb to get that cockroach Carlton out of here," Nick said, perhaps in the back of his mind wishing he had access to two 500-pound bombs like those dropped recently on a most wanted terrorist. Taking Nick's comment as a compliment, J.T. said, "I'm cool" which led to Nick's assurance that J.T's knowing who the target is fine with him and Neil too since Brad knows how much they hate him.

If he wasn't such a dork, J.T. would have just shut up at that point happy with the feeling two big-time bozos like Nick and Neil see him as something he isn't. But no, J.T. had to remind Nick that he's on Brad's crap list too because he did Nick's sister just before Victoria's wedding. Then, as if this wasn't idiotic enough, as if Nick should have said, "That's right! You bastard! You did my sister. Get your ugly face out of here!", J.T. asked why Nick hates Brad so much. Nick said he doesn't hate Brad. He doesn't trust him is all. He doesn't like that Brad has his cheating-ass wife thinking Brad walks on water.

I mean, Jesus, how more contrived can these conversations get and I haven't even reached the best part? So before J.T. gets a call from NE that there's a problem with the security system that only J.T. can resolve, let's cut to the chase. Keep in mind, J.T. is, allegedly, a PI, a security expert.

With spyware downloaded from the Internet burned onto a CD, Colleen was informing her partner in identity theft, Lily Romalotti, that she was ready to put part two of her plot - to find out what's so secret on J.T.'s home computer - in motion. Lily, being the one to have found the software for Colleen in the first place, was whimpering, "You're braver than I am" as she asked if Colleen wasn't afraid of getting caught. Moreover, Lily was suddenly concerned that breaking into someone's computer is illegal.

Not to worry, Colleen said it's not like J.T. has classified government secrets he's keeping password protected which reminded Lily that since she sent Neil an email he wasn't supposed to see, "Things haven't been the same since" although, for the most part they are the same. Neil keeps showering Lily with gifts and things she can do no wrong regardless of the fact she's done more wrong in 18 years than most people will do in a lifetime.

Ah, but Colleen's situation is "different." Once she gets J.T. to unwittingly give-up his password she'll be in Hog Heaven. A click here, a clack there and - presto! Colleen was ready to roll and damn look at the timing. Within seconds of installing the spyware who should walk in but Mr. Security Man himself to say, boy howdy, those girls do look guilty.

Double ah, Colleen said J.T's been a PI so long he sees guilt everywhere. "Hey, wanna see a joke Lily sent me by email?" Colleen asked J.T. in so many words. Do bears crap in the woods? Does J.T. wank? Of course he did! J.T. did not ask, "Why would Lily send you a joke when she could have shown it to you in person? Haven't you two been joined at the hip all week?"

Oops - the joke's on J.T. Colleen can't get it to display. Damn, she just had it. What happened?

"Let the master show you how," J.T. again did not say, but I have to add these lines as it helps defray how really stupid these people are, or think we are.

Logging into his email J.T. got the joke. Oh my, that is funny.

But it wasn't half as funny as when Colleen asked J.T. if his job as a PI, as a security something or other, isn't, "dangerous"!

Duh, J.T. guesses it could be, but that's what keeps the job interesting. It's not like he's slinging hash all day or pretending to be a waitress and say, Colleen, why have you only worked one hour so far at the Athletic Supporter? Your share on the $2,000 rent is coming due you know. Maybe you don't. Maybe you are like Devon Hamilton who gets all these jobs, works an hour and never goes back. No? You mean someone has actually asked you to fill in for someone else and you're going to take a bubble bath before going in to work? Wow. Too bad J.T. can't join Colleen in that bath. What a coincidence that he just happened to get a call about that security problem at NE. What is it about Colleen that a hunkmonkey keeps avoiding sex with her? You know how it is. All work and no play for hunkmonkeys. If it's not repairing alarm systems, if it's not spying on people, it's J.T. assisting people to spy on him.

Spy Vs Spy

June 12, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

With all the fuss being made over the theft of millions of identities from an inept government that so cares less about our privacy it fully expects corporate America to turnover what data they have on us and thus makes We the People more vulnerable to having our lives totally and completely ruined, that Colleen Carlton turned to Lily Romalotti this week to get the password to J.T. Hellstrom's computer made my stomach churn.

I understand that teenagers Lily and Colleen probably know all there is to know about iPods and that said pods now do video and porn and podcasts and pictures and it plays old Danny Romalotti hits from the 70s at deep, ear-massaging levels, and that both girls have laptops for which they use to surf the Internet looking for miracle cures and sexual predators and J.T. has so much money now that Colleen is picking up half the $2,000 monthly Sugar Shack rent he can afford to plunk down $1300 for a new, probably Dell which directs all calls for tech support to India, laptop for Lily for the sole purpose of keeping her away from his computer containing sensitive data he swiped from the computer belonging to Colleen's father.

What I can't understand is why. Why would J.T., a make-believe private detective hell-bent on exposing Brad Carlton's real identity even after his boss, Paul Williams told him not to get involved because it's not ethical, still be involved? Turns out Paul didn't mean what he said. He changed his mind today as evidenced by his statement that if J.T.'s poking around in Brad's past makes him uncomfortable it is up to J.T. to decide whether to go forward.

And J.T. will go on. He will find out why Brad changed his name but damn it all, why do things have to be so "complicated"? Paul said it's because J.T. is investigating his girlfriend's dad and this confused J.T. Wasn't it Paul who kept him on the case after Victor Newman called the original investigation off? Didn't he and Paul go to Cleveland and have handed to them information which led them to discover there are two Brad Carlton's? Why now was Paul abandoning him?

Turns out Paul is doing nothing of the sort. He was merely stalling for time is all; keeping J.T. on his toes; testing his memory. If they rehash what they already know enough times maybe they can convince themselves they are PIs. "We will crack this," Paul hacked, giving no additional thought to the fact that J.T. has super-confidential information on his home computer of which Paul is aware Colleen has tried to access.

That Paul would tell J.T. to put that information on the office computer can't be expected because Paul doesn't have an office. After moving into a broom closet at Baldwin & Blair Law years ago, Paul still maintains his headquarters there. He conducts business at the local coffee shop and athletic club because his office is barely big enough for him to sit in much less have room for a computer.

But wait! J.T. keeps his computer password protected so what's the problem?

The problem is Colleen wants to know what J.T. is hiding. She wants to see his porn collection and photos of all the women he's had. Unfortunately, Colleen isn't the geek Lily is. Lily will understand that because J.T. has been acting "weird" she'll happily help Lily get the password. Lily suspects there are national security interests at stake and reasons that's why J.T. keeps his computer under lock and key. Lily knows too that J.T. is a private eye so why wouldn't he have sensitive data on his home computer? Unless, gasp, no!

Colleen is afraid of what might happen to J.T. He might be a covert CIA agent with the KGB after him - or something. Well, why didn't Colleen say so? That changes everything. That explains why, using Lily's computer, Colleen found some software on the Internet. When downloaded and installed, Spy on U will record J.T.'s every keystroke. It will reveal those stories of incest he's written. It will give-up his password and credit card numbers when J.T. logs in to check his email and bank online. The problem, now that she's download the spyware, is how to get it on J.T.'s computer. Once she finds a way she'll get J.T. to check his mail and - presto! Colleen is so sure J.T. is so stupid he uses the same, probably the four letters 'HUNK', password for everything. That is, while Colleen couldn't know, the biggest mistake computer users make. They use the last 4-digits of their social security numbers, birth dates, names of their pets and children or successive computer keys like QWERTY.

And lo, while Colleen was downloading she didn't wait to put the spyware on disc and take it with her. She called later from the site of Lily's 18th birthday party to have Lily burn the program on CD and deliver it to her "the next time I see you" as if Lily wouldn't be going to her own party. Lily, acutely aware of the secrecy, just had to ask: Could she tell her husband what she's doing?

Colleen wouldn't have it. Maybe next time. And by the way, if Lily had any intention of betraying her, Colleen reminded Lily that they are "best friends" and friends don't tell other friends or their husbands or whatever.

A prudent person observing this nonsense might have remarked, "Is this not the dumbest thing you ever did see?", except that such persons have accepted that there is always something dumber lurking right around the corner. Sure enough, moments later, Daniel Romalotti entered the scene to say he had been looking for his wallet and found it in the last place he looked. Under the seat of his car!

Who needs to ask how dumb is this? Who deserves to have their identity stolen? Who in the 21st century leaves their wallet under the front seat of anything? Who but dumb as nails Daniel would ask anyone sitting at a computer as Lily was, "checking your email?"

"No silly, I'm downloading spyware for Colleen who wants to put it on J.T.'s computer," Lily did not say, but may as well have as she left the program icon on the screen for Daniel to see. Later, when Lily was telling Daniel she couldn't believe he'd take her to the Kevin Fisher Jitter Joint on her birthday, as if to say the JJ is a sewer beneath her standards, but which is only one of the two places she and Daniel ever patronize mostly because they can get free lattes given their dire financial situation which is but a joke if Lily really expected to be taken to Tiffany's.

Lily did, however, change her tune when she saw her father, who isn't her father, and brother, who isn't her brother, breaking out the birthday cake. Oh, what a happy day it was with all of Lily's one friend bothering to show up. It wasn't immediately known what was inside the brightly clad packages Lily received, but it's a good guess a gift certificate from Safeway, or some food stamps, or a book on how to be a CIA agent wasn't among them as Lily, in plain sight of J.T., slipped the spyware to Colleen leaving only a brief vision of J.T. slipping the meat to Colleen to make this story complete.

A Few Good Laughs

June 6, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

Watching J.T. Hellstrom playing super-sleuth private eye when he's at best a hunkmonkey is always good for a few laughs. Toss in a sex-starved girl with stars in her eyes, who knows J.T. fathered a dead baby, played daddy to another woman's baby whose mother it just so happens J.T. had sex with too along with who knows how many other girls he claims to have put his little porker to, and you've got a regular barrel of monkeys.

It wasn't enough on Tuesday that J.T. had to tell his boss again what clueless PI Paul Williams already knows. Brad Carlton, whoremaster at-large, isn't who everyone thinks he is. According to J.T., Brad has a "past" that needs cracking but despite that he and Paul see themselves as ace detectives on a par with the CIA, together the only thing they've proved so far is that two heads aren't better than one.

If the one-sided telephone conversation these two nitwits had is any indication, Paul apparently said something to the effect that they can search until Hell freezes over, never learn who Brad really is and might as well toss in the towel for all the progress they've made. Only J.T. wasn't having any of Paul's negativity. He won't accept that Brad has covered his tracks because only a CIA agent can do something like that unless, say, they get outed for political reason. Additionally, J.T. said he's been watching 'The Unit' on TV to see how the pros solve cases and by golly he's not going to give up until he finds out who Brad is.

That said, J.T. ended the conversation just as his girlfriend came into the swank Sugar Shack he rents for $2,000 a month carrying a bag of groceries. When Colleen Carlton tossed a pear his way J.T. caught it, took a bite and then asked what type of pear it was. There are, after all, 3,000 varieties and it mattered to J.T.

Alas, Colleen is not too bright and for more than the reasons listed above. She did know the pear was green, however, and as J.T. moaned how good green pears taste said she's sure glad she doesn't have J.T.'s job. Being a PI is so, um, slimy. All those missing persons, people lying and using each other, it's downright disgusting. And while Colleen has not officially joined J.T.'s quest to expose her own father, when she starts lying and using people it'll be perfectly okay because when she does it, as she has in the past, it's different.

Hilarious as Colleen's hypocrisy was, the best had yet to come. While it was so late in other parts of the city people were getting ready for bed and/or working at the office late, Colleen figured it was the best of times to move her junk out of her father's house where she's been living rent free and into the Sugar Shack where she said she'll be paying half the rent! Quite a feat for someone working as a waitress.

Now, because he's a wannbe CIA agent, J.T. just had to ask: Does Colleen moving her stuff into his pad mean she'll be moving in too? If yes, which it was, this changed the dynamics. If Colleen moves her 17 pairs of sandals he would prefer she do it when Brad is at work. This got Colleen to thinking maybe J.T. was right. Her dad is "so scary". Why, Brad might even "hassle" J.T. if he caught him helping Colleen move and then where would they be? Back in time to when J.T. so feared Brad would find out he was seeing Colleen. Back to a time when Brad eventually came around and said he considered J.T. like a son and to a time just recently when J.T. put his pork to Brad's new wife and a time Colleen thought nothing of. No wonder she now considers Brad scary. These are some very scary, albeit stupid, people.

If one didn't know better one might think nothing of the fact that regardless of the hour, Colleen figured that since she was out and about she'd run some errands. There was especially the dry cleaning to pick up because a good waitress can never have enough clean uniforms. This too gave J.T. the opportunity to stick around the Carlton home - alone. With Brad was out of town, with Victoria working late, there wouldn't be the slightest possibility of Brad returning home early - would there? Should Victoria come home and find J.T. stealing data off Brad's computer she wouldn't think it slightly strange - would she?

And should Brad not have Windows XP installed on his computer as one who let's say is a PI might expect, or at least have his private stash of porn password protected, Brad would make it possible for just anyone to get into his computer - wouldn't he?

Of course he would!

J.T. was able to copy all that porn and email and the file named MYSECRETPAST.WPS right onto a floppy disc just as Victoria arrived to ask, "What are you doing here?"

No, Victoria. Not what is J.T. doing there. What are we doing here? Why are we subjecting ourselves to such utterly contrived madness?

Because it's good for a few laughs.

Just Doing His Job

April 20, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

I'm fully aware of your sentiment that Paul Williams and his butt boy J.T. Hellstrom are pitiful excuses for the private eyes they portray themselves to be and there's no more to say. Case closed.

As a rule, I'd agree. I would say that if I had a dime for every article I've written about J.T. I'd be a millionaire. I have pointed out over and over how J.T. might be believable as a PI if only he'd ever bothered to get a license. I think the reason he doesn't have a license is because in order to get a license one must have a college degree. Mind you, I don't know this for a fact. I'm just assuming that if you must have a degree these days to work at the Home Depot, you've got to have more than a high school education before you can go snooping around like Sherlock Holmes or Mike Hammer.

Although Paul does it, I don't think you can just say you're a PI. I don't think you can make a phone call and have someone break the law for you by looking up credit card information on your target of the month. You can't call some guy named 'Mitch' and have him get private information from the District Attorney's office. If, on the other hand, you are the so-called PI and actually go to the DA's office and somehow get yourself behind his desk and paw through files to locate what you want, then people might say, yeah, that's a real PI for you; a regular Chinatown Jack Nicholson.

But what we have in Genoa City are the two most creepiest critters since Christine 'Bug' Blair ruled Legal Aid. J.T., looking all shifty-eyed and making weird sounds with his mouth and caressing a green file folder like a card-carrying NRA member strokes his gun, has been employed by Victor Newman to dig up dirt on Brad Carlton's past. We already know this dirt must be in Victor's hand before his daughter's any day now marriage to Brad so it makes sense that the great man would hire a rookie - no?

So what is J.T. doing? Has he questioned Brad's former wife? Does J.T. even know Traci Abbott Connelly was once married to Brad and might know a little something about his past. Did J.T. catch on when Jill Abbott told him she watched Brad go from a hedge-clipping pool boy to a division head at Newman Enterprises? Did J.T. press Jill for more information? Did J.T. say "C'mon you dumb bitches, do me right"? Isn't that what a real PI would have done? Wouldn't a real PI go to Jack Abbott and ask what he knows about Brad since the two once plotted to overthrow Victor? Shouldn't J.T. be in touch with Ashley Abbott and ask what she knows of Brad's past given that she was married to him for a number of years and he still plays daddy to her stolen-sperm spawned baby? And when Ashley says she knows little about Brad, wouldn't J.T. say something like, "You were married to him all that time and never asked about his past? What kind of bitch are you? Oh, that's right. A sperm-stealing, baby-killing bitch."

As we've seen, there is no logic to the madness. There is no explanation as to why Paul lives in the past, as evidenced by his aluminum briefcase, or runs his PI and alarm company out of a broom closet located deep within the bowels of a lawyer's office, but spends most of his time sitting on his ass at the local athletic club. There is no reasoning when it comes to J.T., his face contorted and his beady eyes dilated, tells Paul, as he did today, that whatever they know about Brad, the women in his life deserve to know too and therefore it is J.T.'s duty to inform Brad's ferret-faced daughter Colleen Carlton, and bride-to-be Victoria Newman.

Yes, Mr. America. Mr. Morals who literally screwed his girlfriend's mother, who quickly forgot the dead fetus his sperm created, who wanted the local firebug/sex pervert locked up without any proof, who put the pork to the Colleens' soon-to-be new step-mommy and virtually crapped on Brad's face after all Brad did for him, and is generally pockmarked by scandal, now wants the truth about Brad's past to come out.

But this time, J.T. will try to make it serious. He will, after all is said and done and people have been hurt and more rage and revenge is fired up, say that he was just doing his job.

Not Responsible for Dead Babies

April 7, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

There is still no proof that J.T. Hellstrom is anything more than a hunkmonkey and college dropout. There is no evidence he ever obtained a private detective's license, there is no indication Hellstrom is skilled enough to do much more than gofer chores for his mentor and one-time employer Paul Williams and no significance as to why he, while also employed by Newman Enterprises as a "security expert", submitted a report this week to NE CEO Victoria Newman concerning an unnamed subject Hellstrom had run a background check on.

Blathering on about a "square hole" and a "square peg", Hellstrom reported Thursday that whoever he's been snooping on has not so much as received a speeding ticket. The subject of his investigation has been given three promotions, likes golf and while engaged in the game with his former employers, three of them had suffered heart attacks.

"I'm thinking he's got be the smartest killer on earth," Hellstrom hacked, and yet, based on the words uttered from his foul mouth, Hellstrom had no proof that anyone had ever died as a direct result of anything his subject has done.

Adding that since he'd concluded his subject is a killer, Hellstrom said that subsequent "digging" show that all the subject's so-called victims survived their attacks. In one case the subject performed CPR on the alleged victim and thus, in Hellstrom's pea brain, the subject is not "a serial killer."

"He's clean, but I wouldn't go golfing with him," Hellstrom scoffed.

Impressed, and just a little curious as to what the hell Hellstrom was talking about, Newman asked whether it's true: "Don't PIs stick to the facts?"

In a typical upscale, white-bread, has no idea what he's doing, blissland effort to sound important, Hellstrom informed Newman that given the opportunity, he'd like to give her some advice.

"If someone had a bad toupee, wouldn't you want to know?"

Newman didn't say. She didn't ask, "What is wrong with you? Shouldn't you be grieving for that dead baby you sired? Can't you keep your pecker in your pants? How would knowing whose wearing a toupee benefit me in any way?" She did, however, suggest that Hellstrom not offer suggestions around the office as doing so often get employees into deep crap.

The notion of snow white, bare-chested, combs his hair with a mop, Hellstrom checking security systems, conducting undercover investigations and submitting reports is just so funny.

Freakish, and most likely gay, not that there's anything wrong with being gay, Hellstrom's persona as the all-important security expert might be justified were he not such a troll. If he's not searching the Internet late at night looking for 14-year-old children to have sex with like some sort of Homeland Security official, we'd be surprised.

Hellstrom is, quite frankly, rapidly pushing Christine 'Bug' Blair out of the spotlight as the creepiest critter to ever slither around Genoa City. Some have said Gloria Abbott is "wacko" but clearly, they haven't been paying attention to the hunkmonkey. They haven't watched him walk up to alarm system control panels, listen to the bleep beep beep blipping, and verily pronounce all zones secure. They haven't seen how his miserable middle-management job numbs his soul and induces adultery and will cause bitter painful divorce in roughly 2.1 years should any woman be fool enough to marry this creep.

If Hellstrom is so good, if his services are in such need, why isn't he running commercials on TV? Imagine what one might look like?

The scene: Penguin-suited husband kisses wife goodbye in perfect upscale neighborhood doorway and walks to his gas-guzzling SUV as smiling Botoxed wife goes back inside, closes door and arms fancy home security system. Hubby drives off and catches eye of jogger who just that moment happens to be passing by couple's home. Jogger gives friendly nod to husband then, as his eyes turn red, pulls a black hood over his head and racing up to the front door, kicks it in.

But Botoxed wife remembered to set fancy new security system installed by the Paul Williams Investigations & Alarm Company. Alarm blares! Intruder/rapist/jogger is frozen in time momentarily before running off without getting his paws on Botoxed wife or steal her fancy Lupa watch.

Cops arrive in a flash. Manly hubby beams home to sooth his bawling wife. All is good. Thank God cheap security system saved the day!

Announcer voiceover:

Don't let this happen to you! Don't wait another day to have a Paul Williams alarm system installed in your home or office by the friendly but deadly serious professional, J.T. Hellstrom. J.T. not only sells, he services! Place your order within the next thirty minutes and J.T. will service you too!

Announcer voice under read like a crack whore on speed:

Williams alarm company not bonded or insured by the State of Wisconsin. All systems sold as it. One week warranty valid only in Pakistan. Not responsible for dead babies.

The Darkest Corners of Hell

March 17, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

Before the main GCN computer crashed and burned I'd written an article about how I had again, in general, reached the saturation point. Like the GCN reader who had submitted a short story on Dru Winters outlining why Miss Dru is nothing but a shrill and that she, the reader, had reached her pinnacle of saturation as it pertains to the incredibility Genoa City is filled with, my article went up in the flames.

Maybe it was a sign. That these files were lost might have been a message that my time could be better spent doing more important things. I don't know for sure. I do know that whenever I don't cover at least one of the top two stories of the day I get mail. Lots of mail from GCN readers who get their news of Genoa City here exclusively.

Hard as it may be for me to watch another gruesome slap to my intelligence, and yours, as much as I wanted to forget that I saw the hunkmonkey engaged again in another unbelievable scene, I couldn't stop thinking about J.T. Hellstrom.

That this is true is evidenced by the fact that four days later, when I've got the perfect excuse not to write about it, here I am writing about it. It's a one-note song I've heard so many times it has lost its power to move me.

When did J.T. become a security expert?

What was he doing at Newman Enterprises on Wednesday when the mother of his dead baby is still sulking? Why did he have sex with Victoria Newman within hours of Mac Browning telling him she lost the kid? Not that Mac was in mourning. She did say that losing a child is "no big deal", but was this reason enough for a, um, man, and I use the term loosely, to have sex with another woman considering that J.T. threw a hissy fit because Kevin Fisher heard first about the death?

Sure, J.T. and Victoria said it was just sex; that it's a "drug" they are addicted to and like an addict drawn to his drug of choice, J.T. was at NE that day sucking around Victoria for more. That was his real reason. The reason he gave was a joke, however.

Claiming to have been in the neighborhood at the time, J.T. said he'd decided to drop in and give the security system a check. When it passed he went straight to the executive suites of this corporate giant to report his findings. And because she is culpable in this insult to our intelligence, Victoria patted J.T. on the head and told him what a good boy he his.

She did not ask, "Why are you telling me?" She did not ask if J.T. had reported his findings to building security or had even checked in with security before performing his duty. She did not wonder why it was that a college dropout, working for private detective Paul 'Clueless' Williams as a PI in-training, was fiddling with the security system when he can barely comb his hair.

Not that we'd expect her to, Victoria didn't ask how it is that a PI like Clueless, his office consisting of a closet at the law office of Michael Baldwin, also operates a massive alarm company yet J.T. is his only employee. Nobody has caught on yet that Clueless also sells and services the alarm system at Newman's fiercest competitor, Jabot Cosmetics and is presently "dating" Jabot's president.

If this doesn't scream "conflict of interest" nothing does.

Not that conflict is of any concern in this city, it isn't. With a shortage of doctors and lawyers and private detectives and District Attorneys and cops and never a dentist around except for the one that was murdered by one of Williams' former wives, family members can defend and represent other members of the family even when they are parties to the crime. So to think that J.T. Hellstrom is in any way a security expert is just so laughable.

Maybe I'm weak. Maybe I've lost my perspective, or take this all too seriously. It's possible. But I don't think so. I think you can actually reach a point in thirty years of writing a soap opera where you decide to strive for things that make sense. There must be more than sex and sex and more sex and school boys pretending to be something they aren't.

Without rehashing too much, l still enjoy the goings on in Genoa City almost as much as the next person when the bad guy gets his/her comeuppance, when Super Stud takes down the villain, but after awhile watching the same old people doing the some old things gets tired. Watching Lily Winters on the run again, watching Ashley Carlton and Clueless sucking on each other at a time when her faux father is behind bars for something she did, listening to Baldwin say what a fine woman Lauren Fenmore is when she's another Clueless reject, gets monotonous after awhile.

It's just numbing and laborious and totally artificial, and you begin to realize it all fits into the same hole, the lowest form of life in the darkest corners of hell.

Baby? What a big Surprise!

March 3, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

I've never understood what the little girls in Genoa City see in the town hunkmonkey. What is it about J.T. Hellstrom that so turns them on they're willing to literally rollover, spread their legs and allow him to pork them without a condom? Does Hellstrom have a large penis? He doesn't look like the type who would, but maybe that's it. Maybe that's why Billy Abbott and Raul Guittierez couldn't keep their eyes off him. Maybe that's why so many other boys in Genoa City wish that they too could share Hellstrom's sugar shack. Just a glimpse of that monster would keep them going for weeks.

Okay, so it's extreme. But there's got to be a reason why Mac Browning would let herself get pregnant and not to tell Hellstrom until he squeezed the truth out of her long after the baby was dead. Her cavalier attitude about the loss of a human life, that it's "no big deal" and that Hellstrom is "off the hook", speaks volumes.

Hellstrom's ranting Friday that she should have told him from the outset was just more of his typical bullshit. His sudden need to have gone through what she did with her because it was "our baby" is so like the men in this town. They screw without rubbers and later seem surprised. They get all fatherly when the reality is that had they been given a choice would prefer the woman "get rid of" the baby and blame them for getting pregnant especially when the woman is but their whore.

Swearing that she was trying to find a way to tell him, but that, um, nature gave her a message before she could, Hellstrom asked when, exactly she planned to tell him. "After the kid's first birthday?"

See? This is the trademark of hunkmonkey. This is the clue that fairy boys pretending to be men just want to get their rocks off. Wham, bam. Don't be having no kids, bitch.

Kids. Not babies. Not children. Sheep. That's all off-spring mean to guys like Hellstrom, except of course, in those cases where they can't induce death and are forced to raise children they later become beholden to and must do extraordinary things to keep happy like Sharon Newman did this day when she drove all the way from the Newman Ponderosa to the city to pick up a piece of peach cobbler for her sickly, stunted, still learning how to spell cat and dog and see Jane and Dick go up the hill, son Noah.

For the Newmans there was no telling Noah that driving two hours for a piece of sugar-ridden desert - at a time when the President is warning Americans to cut their addiction to oil - was out of the question and probably not good for the environment or his heath. Nope. Noah wants fresh fish heads? Sharon and Nick will fly to Japan if that's what it takes to please him.

As for not telling J.T. about her baby, Mac said, "I needed to wrap my mind around it." What's to wrap? She's pregnant for Christ's sake? Why is dealing with reality so hard for these people? What did she expect that night J.T. was pumping his sperm into her? That he's shooting blanks? That just one time wouldn't hurt?

Always the stud, J.T. asked whatever was Mac thinking? That he'd leave her?

"I'm not that big a jerk, J.T. actually said and then did just that. Walked out on Mac. Slammed the door too and went straight into the love tunnel of the city's third biggest whore, Victoria Newman, where again he pumped another woman full of sperm within minutes of having seen the consequence of his last spewing.

J.T. got it only party right. He's not that big a jerk. He's a prick. Before another woman pays the price of having sex with this hunkmonkey with the life of her baby, somebody should put a condom on him.

Pee-you Pee-eye Cracks Case
 

February 23, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

I've been wondering what's on this make J.T. Hellstrom love me agenda that the charmingly winsome Colleen Carlton has, with the help of that lying little delinquent Lily Winters, been yelping about. I've never seen the agenda, but I figured there must be a piece of paper somewhere with the massively sordid details. After all, the uptight and sexually terrified Carlton has gone all screechy about it again since pretending Daniel Romalotti is her man so as to make Hellstrom jealous and to keep Lily's parents from finding out the truth that Romalotti is really Lily's man.

And of course the subplot is to convince Hellstrom that he'd be better off with a former pot smoker/high school surfer girl from New York than someone like Mac Browning who is thought to be carrying Hellstrom's baby and so "Little House on the Prairie."

To that end Carlton has employed Hellstrom to find out who is stalking her and just coincidentally there is some guy - at the Jitter Joint where Carlton hangs out despite that she's scared to death of the coffee shop's male owner - not so covertly snapping pictures from the safety of the jukebox.

As a private eye in training - and one who wanted to get into Carlton's pants when she was is a minor child - Hellstrom won't take Carlton's money mostly because he has no idea what a PI charges given that his mentor, Paul Williams, never submits bills for services rendered. There is too, among Hellstrom's loyalty to Carlton, the fact she's not employed and were he to slap a price on time wasted would most likely pay using her father's credit card.

With Hellstrom ready to track down the bad guys for free Carlton suddenly realized there could be a problem. What if Browning finds out? Will she give him a good tongue lashing for helping Carlton? Is Hellstrom so henpecked he must squat on the toilet when taking a pee?

Assured that Hellstrom is nobody's butt buddy Carlton began answering his blistering questions. Has there been any threats? No? What about enemies not counting Kevin Fisher? No? Any boyfriends in New York upset that she took off for Genoa City on a whim to allegedly give comfort and support to her murdering grandfather but never said more than ten words to the old man? No?

So what proof does Carlton have that she's being stalked?

Well, there is a lot going on with her family.

That's it!

"A stalker turns out to be someone the person knows," says Hellstrom, completely oblivious that he'd stumbled on a clue.

So, let's see, could that photographer have been hired by John Abbott? Is someone in the family upset that Carlton isn't going around town defending gramps' right to murder because he was only trying to protect his family? Who could it be? Hellstrom had a plan to find out.

The plan was nothing short of brilliant.

After what Hellstrom himself described as an hour of wandering around he didn't see anyone following his client. Surely, a stalker would have followed his victim while she was under the watchful eye of a PI, dofus as the PI may be. Returning to the Jitter Joint Hellstrom didn't think it strange when Carlton said the stalker was right there having coffee. And again, assuming any stalker worth his salt would immediately stick out like a sore thumb, Hellstrom concluded the man didn't seem interested in much of anything.

"I know that's him. I've seen him a bunch of times!" Carlton insisted and again Carlton didn't get it. He didn't ask, "So, if you've seen this guy a bunch of times and can identify him, why did we just waste an hour wandering around?"

Blithely ignoring the obvious, Hellstrom went into Superman mode. Exchanging his jacket for a garb that would make him appear to be a JJ employee, he grabbed a coffee pot and went to serve the stranger who knew right away Hellstrom was out of place.

"I know the owners. I help out at times," Hellstrom said and at the same time tried touching the man's camera. When whatever plan Hellstrom had didn't pan out he returned to tell Carlton, "That guy is cool" but that he had another plan to find out what the man was after.

The plan, as equally complex as the other, required traveling to the Athletic Supporter Club. With Carlton plopped in front of the fireplace Hellstrom watched from afar as the man with the camera entered the by membership only club and sure enough began snapping photos of his prey. Jumping out from his hiding place, Hellstrom grabbed the camera and then told the man to stay away from Carlton who later called Hellstrom her "hero."

All puffed up, his adrenaline surging, Hellstrom couldn't think straight. He didn't notice when Carlton scurried off to pay the man for a job well done with money that came from who knows where.

Here again we have seen a classic example of what passes as private detecting and a desperate need to have sex. More detached from her body than George Bush from a dictionary, Barbie doll reject concocts scheme to lure hunkmonkey into her trance hires same to protect her. Hunkmonkey accepts challenge and solves case in just over an hour. Both remain shockingly alive and for some ungodly reason flourish like angry ferrets so utterly lost to time and space they should be in some sort of institution. No matter how much of it you see you still can't quite grasp the magnitude and the mind-numbing tragedy, the bizarre freakish notion that this could happen anywhere much less on a soap opera.

February 14, 2006

Shop Owner Shot with Sperm to have Hunkmonkey's Baby!
What do you get when you mate a toad with a hunkmonkey? A toady! As in Mac Browning and as J.T. Hellstrom has always wanted to be a daddy here's his big chance. No more pretending to have sired Brittany Marsino's kid, Hellstrom has apparently been strumming more than his guitar. He's knocked Browning up and baring any unforeseen falls down a flight or stairs or tripping on the carpet, she's gonna have his love child and good Lord, won't the gossipers have a field day with that?

Not that having an illegitimate baby is a bad thing, it will at least put an end to Colleen Carlton's fantasy that she'll again be the sparkle in Hellstrom's eye. It should also put an end to Hellstrom's sitting around on his lazy ass in that he may have to get a real job.

But the real question, what inquiring minds want to know, is this: what was Browning thinking while she was having unprotected sex?

Hunkmonkey Denies Fisher Devotee Charge as Victim's Spine Weakens

February 2, 2006

Genoa City coffee shop owner Mac Browning's crusade to convince former pitchfork-wielding teen Colleen Carlton that Kevin Fisher has "changed" his evil ways took two steps backwards and one step forward this week when hunkmonkey J.T. Hellstrom said published reports that he's forgiven Fisher are not true.

"I tolerate [Fisher] because I want to keep Mac happy," the college dropout said Wednesday during a coffee break at a local gym where Fisher lambasted him for patronizing the competition when he could be getting free coffee at the Jitter Joint Fisher co-owns.

Thought to be Fisher's newest pal, Hellstrom muttered in retrospect how odd that Fisher would give coffee away when he's having a hard time keeping it on tap at the JJ before setting the record straight that he will never forget what Fisher did to Carlton.

His repugnant tale of change on endless loop Fisher plugged away at what once was his #1 enemy until Hellstrom relented he's not banging the hate Fisher drum because "the jury is still out."

The jury in this case seems to be the court of public opinion Carlton is holding open. While she swore on Tuesday she'll never buckle, Carlton said today she will "try" to give Fisher another chance.

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