Crack Ho Leaves Genoa City

January 24, 2006

Good God, is there no limit to the sickness sweeping through this city? Relatives sleeping with relatives, adultery, you name the sleaze, it's all done in the name of family.

And now, after months of feel sorry for poor, drug-addicted Yolanda bull crap, damn but what Yolanda didn't smack her son and the Winters clan with the ace she's had in the hole all along. A cousin in Seattle!

"Cousin Stacey" to be specific.

Stacey won't mind if Yolanda just pops in and stays with her for awhile without so much as a warning. If Yolanda wants to bring son Devon along with her that's okay too because there's plenty of room at Stacey's place. There's a bus leaving tonight. Yolanda's gonna be on it but Devon won't. He's too worried about school. It is, after all, his senior and most important year. Transferring to Seattle would mess everything up. Suddenly, after all the trouble, after all the concern for his mother's well-being, Devon is thinking about himself. His life is Genoa City. His three friends live here. His new family, the Winters, have done so much for him Devon feels obligated to stay. Why can't his mother stay too? Why must she think of herself?

Could it be he just blasted the hell out of her for lying to him? Promising she'd come get him out of a foster home, Devon recalled how many times he'd pack a bag and sit by the window and wait, and wait, as if any kid placed in foster care can just walk away. Damn that woman. And now, having caught his mother with her pants down, Devon slammed Yolanda for not changing her ways, then whined she's leaving him when he made the choice to stay.

Seattle should be on alert, but thankful at the same time. While Yolanda is expected to be working at Newman Enterprises there thanks to a parting gift from her son's adoptive pa, it won't have to put up with the world's biggest whiner.

Between a Rock & a Hard Place

January 23, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

Regardless of how horny you may be the one thing you don't do is expose your naked body to the person operating the gravy train you're a passenger on.

Someone should have told Yolanda Hamilton that. Someone should have said to her, "Listen here you crack-addicted bitch. Neil Winters would probably nail you in a heartbeat if you were an Olive Pit barmaid or his wife's sister, but not while you're a guest in his home and not when you're the biological mother of the brood mare he considers a son."

In a way Winters led Yolanda on. He should have jumped all over Sharon Newman's ass when she took it upon herself to get Yolanda a job in the Newman Enterprises mailroom without consulting him. He should have kicked Yolanda out of his office when after only a few hours on the job she wormed her way into the executive suites. He should have put Yolanda in her place and chewed out whoever her supervisor is for letting her stray, but Winters encouraged Yolanda to engage in matters outside her box. He asked if she'd like to work on some project she couldn't possibly have understood and sent the message she's more than an employee.

Winters didn't put into Yolanda's head the vision of what it might be like with him as the father of her son and she the loving mother. She did that herself knowing it was a fantasy and should have known such fantasies cannot be acted on except for those times alone with the magic Hitachi. She should have known too the impact of ignoring her better judgment given the pitiful odds but that's what happens when sexual desires overwhelm common sense.

The thrill of having sex with a married man or a "straight" person of the same sex is like that. If the object of affection has the same deeply buried inclination and confronted with the opportunity to act on it does, then the risk will have been worthwhile. It's what happens when the object is appalled that anyone might presume to think he or she would deviate from the "norm" that cause problems.

That's Yolanda's problem now. She paraded her naked body in front of Winters hoping to get a rise out of him only to find he wasn't so much as flattered. He was repulsed. Sex? Right there on the sofa? In his bed? In her son's bed? What the hell was Yolanda thinking?

She was thinking Neil wanted her. She'd seen the signs, felt the vibes. To have Neil inside her, to have him dump his hag for her, would have meant her time had come. She would have bridged the gap from addict to socialite and all in less than 30-days.

So now what? Will Neil kick her ass out? Take away her nice job? Tell his wife?

Demanding that Yolanda pack up her stuff, calling payroll to say she no longer works at Newman Enterprises, and please have her final check ready would have been too complicated. It would have required Neil explain how she came onto him like a cheap whore under his own roof and that he had no choice but kick her pagan ass out. Alas, as he so often does, Neil took the easy way out. Yolanda can stay. She can keep her job. But she should know he's going to squeal to his wife.

Regardless of how innocent they may be, real men don't go running to their wives whenever a woman - or a man - hit on them for sex. Real men suck it up, often find themselves flattered that another human would find them sexually attractive, say no thank you and move on. Of course, when the person who did the hitting lives with them, there's a kind of hush imposed whereas looks of guilt are exchanged and unspoken pleas are made to keep the secret quiet.

Telling the little woman what happened is not smart. Women have an inherent distrust. They constantly worry their men are having on-line sex, watching porn, or banging the neighbor's wife. For a man to say, "That nasty woman came onto me but I didn't give in", is an open invitation for the woman to accuse him of doing what she suspected all along. It doesn't help either if the man's adopted son comes home to catch him in a compromising situation. What's he gonna say? It's not what you think? Your mother was only showing me where she injected Meth?

If he's smart, Neil will keep his mouth shut. If she's smart, Yolanda will tell her son to keep his mouth shut. They're all between a rock and a hard place.

Yo Gets the Heave-Ho

January 20, 2006
by Michael Kelly

Of course, this likely means that Yo's skanky disrobing stunt (which will air today) to get into Kneel Winters' pants will fail miserably and result in a humiliated Ms. Hamilton leaving town. Whether her departure will be voluntary or at Kneel's insistence I have no idea. The main thing is the vile, tiresome creature will soon be history. If only she'd take her brooding son with her.

Lawson's dismissal made me think about how many African- American supporting female characters on Y&R have failed to catch on due to uninspired, one-dimensional writing and/or mediocre acting.

Besides Yo, Y&R captivated us with Callie Rogers (although I really liked the first Callie - played by Michelle Thomas - I couldn't abide her replacement), Alex Perez, Serena Slattern and Adrienne Markham. If Vanessa Lehner was also black (I'm not certain of her ethnicity) you can throw her in there as well. Perhaps mentioning race at all is inappropriate but what the hell. I have an edgy, envelope pushing reputation to protect. A little sarcasm there, dear readers.

Getting back to Yo, long before she shed her clothes I wanted to smack her when she insipidly thanked Kneel for making her "feel like a princess" by taking her to dinner at the Athletic Club. Even Yo's awkward uttering of an admittedly stupid line such as, "Are you going to be eating with us?" (which she directed at AC manager Gina Roma) is enough to make me want to barf. She's just that kind of twit.

How Deep is Your Back?

January 5, 2006
by Brent Kellogg

There's something about Yolanda Hamilton's new job at Newman Enterprises I don't understand. I mean, I understand that the once a crack head always a crack head hot mama took a job in the mailroom and totally shocked me as I thought she'd start somewhere higher up the food chain, but aren't jobs in the mailroom reserved for high school kids? Aren't the youngsters in that age group given the mostly meaningless jobs? What's an old woman like Yolanda doing slinging mail?

It's hard to tell, but she's old. She's pushing 40. She's got a teenaged kid – and a drug habit. Don't let that I got detoxed in just thirty days demeanor fool you. Don't let that I kicked Meth and alcohol at the same time and I'm never going back to that lifestyle disposition fool you. Yolanda's past is waiting to haunt her.

I bet if you could look deeply into those black eyes, you'd see she's stoned. If you could look in her purse I bet you'd find at least four Vicodin and three Valium and some Phenobarbital tucked away somewhere. This is a druggie with money. It's not the greatest job, but working in the mailroom will put more money into Yolanda's pockets already full from two-weeks as a part-time clerk at Fenmore's Little Shop of Horrors. There's nothing worse for an addict than money. That's why Yolanda's getting high. You know how you can tell?

She's still living with her son's adoptive parents! She's overhearing that hag, Dru Winters backbite her and hiss that she's getting on her last nerve and oh my, how did they ever get saddled with such an unwanted house guest?

Allowing Yolanda to move into the cramped box they share was a nice gesture. The holidays, the appeasing of Devon Hamilton to keep the adoptive son from running away, the sense of "family", Kool-Aid drinking as it is, were nice excuses at the time but Yolanda should have been given a week, two tops, to get her crap together and then told to get out.

Only she's not out. Yolanda must listen now as Dru runs that foul mouth of hers behind her back. She must watch as her own son is manipulated by that gutless weasel, Neil Winters into the delivery of Dear John letters from his equally gutless daughter who doesn't have the guts to tell Daniel Romalotti in person she wants to break it off. And it's not like Lily Winters don't have an alternative. She and Romalotti have been chatting electronically since Lily's gutless parents locked her up in a New Hampshire reform school.

And so it was that I took an interest into how long a druggie, one with money and a family job, will put up with a slug like Dru before going back to the Meth. I thought long ago Yolanda might be "working" these so into themselves Uncle Toms and that if she played her cards right could have gotten herself a free place to live for life. But now I'm having second thoughts.

What does Yolanda hope to gain by subjecting herself to all the stress? It's fun sticking it to Dru and watching her squirm, but is it so much fun she'd want to subject herself to it all day and all night? And what's up with offering to clean Dru's computer keyboard? Doesn't Yolanda have a supervisor somewhere? Are new mailroom employees really allowed to deliver up on the executive floors?

What is Devon's point of burning the candle at both ends? Does he like hearing Neil whine what a disappointment Devon is? Do man and boy get off on the high-fives, you done good boy, oh, sorry, you're a disgrace boy, if you won't do my dirty work boy I'll do it myself?

Is the fact there's two letters from Lily supposed to be indicative of where Devon's loyalties lie? Is he supposed to be the good little adoptee willing to take a whipping to prove how much he loves his adoptive sister? Is this some right of passage Devon must pass and afterwards they'll all sit around drinking hot cocoa and telling themselves what a family they are?

I gotta ask because it keeps coming back to haunt me. It doesn't matter if there are ten letters. Daniel and Lily have a method of communication. Unless, what? Did they forget? Did somebody take the hot spot out of the Jitter Joint computers? Or, as previously mentioned, is this a sick game? Do the Winters enjoy the backstabbing and bickering this much? Are they're backs so deep they don't mind the knives going in over and over? Is this who can stick it to who the deepest any way to run a family?