KISS OFF

I’ve been thinking, as you all have lately about all the things that I have buried within myself over the years to survive the injustice of what has now come to light.

As many of you know, for years I have been out there in the front lines with my nation wide cosmetics company events, and hypnosis show tour. My book tour alone was 30 cities! That’s a lot of soap watching folks to meet.

I remember coming back to work after one of these appearances, where I met literally hundreds of fans at a single clip, who were all eager to share their thoughts with me. As a soap opera star, when you are out in public, whether you like it or not, you are going to hear what they are liking and not liking about their “stories.” Why wouldn’t they? We are family to them, unlike any other medium, we are in their living rooms five days a week. They feel as if they know us, and they do. I happen to love this part of the dance, it’s so wonderful, I often wished my eyes were a video camera to tape the passion and enthusiasm when they talked about who did what to whom and when is so and so going to get theirs. “Leave Nora alone!” they’d say, to which I would reply with a Lindsay-like grin, “oh, come on, you know she had it coming”

Without an ounce of arrogance, and with all humility I say, I felt as if touring that way gave me the fringe benefit of actually having my finger on the pulse of what the audience was communicating, and it was easy, because most people said the same thing! I’ve always thought using focus groups were a waste of time and money. I felt and still feel that you must go to the heart of your audience and they will tell you the truth. It may not be what you want to hear, but for crying out loud, the audience is who we make the shows for! Middle America is where you go! It is too easy to be out of touch when you are a big city person. Being in the middle of Middle America was eye opening for me in the best of ways. In fact it was downright illuminating. I began a deep love affair with the fans across the country, which I am grateful for to this day. I get them.

When coming back from a long fan filled week-end, I offered to convey the direct messages at work. No one was interested to hear about that. *Sigh*

I have asked time and time again for an explanation of why things were being changed and done in a certain way (I am a curious person and I need to know why things work or do not work), I want to know, what other genre, when it ends, causes the viewers to cry, get depressed and makes them scream at their televisions when characters are acting out? What other genre has cause viewers to organize protests to not only save their shows, but to get an executive ousted? It’s unheard of. It takes a lot of energy to rally their troops to save their shows when believe me, they have jobs to do, children, homes and husbands to take care of, and most important, shopping (read: advertisers) to do Here’s the answer. None.

I have a cosmetics company that is now 10 years old (www.catcosmetics.com) I built it for the people. Companies need customers and there are a lot of other companies for them to choose from. If I want to be successful, I have to think out of the box but still include the peeps. I encourage women to tell me their wants and needs and then I give it to them. I even let them name the products! It’s so simple! I used to joke that Cat Cosmetics was the company that SOAPNET built, because I would do for them, they in turn did for me, and it was a gorgeous relationship. I Loved SOAPNET. It was at one time I believe, the fastest growing cable network in America, before a certain someone took over. It had such potential. And do you know, it was Anne Sweeny who launched it. Her intentions for that channel were incredible. She did a brilliant launch. I remember asking her at a meeting if they had planned to keep the integrity of soaps and she was totally on board for that. I believed her and I believe her still. I liked Anne Sweeny very much. I have no issues with her at all. She is a very busy woman overseeing a lot of things and you-know-who reports to her. She knows what he tells her and spins to her. The fact that she obviously likes him is of concern to me, only because he is so darn transparent (at least to me) and gross and so utterly socially inept. I don’t get it. But it’s not for me to get. He must have a charming side (although I have never seen it) she really has no way of knowing (until now) how utterly despised the man is. That being said, being one of the very few women in my field of work as a clinical as well as comedy stage hypnotist and motivator, I am always proud to have a woman sit high in a man’s world, and I support that. I only hope her eyes are now open.

Now that brings me to a funny story. Six months after you-know-who became our boss, (he was already despised from the get-go) we all thought he was way too arrogant and rude. It was also obvious that he had a significant ageism issue and did not understand us, or our audience at all. The axe was always just thisclose over any actress’ over forty neck. It felt awful. Each time a popular actress over forty or fifty was let go without so much as a good-bye scene, we knew our days were numbered. Statements he made at meetings were leaked to us, and we knew more than they thought we knew. We weren’t used to be being treated that way, and it was deteriorating company morale, certain death for success.

For the most part, Soap actors are humble people, very grateful to work in a profession we love and give our lives to. We had some great leaders of Daytime prior to you-know-who (although I am having a hard time forgiving Angela Shapiro for putting him in place) and in the past were treated respectfully.

Many (and I mean many) of us got together to put the “Molokio” on him. BIG stars of daytime I am talking about here! About Forty of us from all 3 shows put his name on a little piece of paper and put him in the ice cube tray so we could “freeze” him from ousting any more of us because of our age. Every time we’d be at an event, we’d whisper to each other, “is he still in your freezer?” Year after year, we’d wait, hoping, even praying (I had three prayer groups at some of the biggest churches in America praying for him to go anywhere else, but for the love of GOD just get RID of him) But no. He would get promoted. I was sure he must have a goat or lamb he must be sacrificing somewhere….

This is an excerpt from my book I’m finishing up titled “The Night Tad Martin Kissed Me”

NO MORE LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON

Well, he did it. It took many long and arduous years but he did it.

Last week, all of us who have been touched so monumentally by daytime, either being a disrespected fan, or a disrespected participant, are angry, sad, and in disbelief. To think that we will no longer be able to see characters that we have come to consider our own is a very odd feeling. It feels like a death in the family. It is why soaps have had the following they’ve had for nearly half a century! Your characters in your stories have made you feel the gamut of emotions from A to Z. Every day!

Soap actors and audiences dance a dance. We laugh together, cry together, survive together and love together. That’s what makes a family. Whenever I would hear you-know-who make a speech and call us the “ABC family,’ it made my skin literally crawl. You don’t treat your family like they don’t matter.

Someone is counting on the fact that today you are all whipped into a frenzy, and that tomorrow and next week you will have forgotten and forgiven. Say it loud. WE WILL NEVER FORGIVE OR FORGET.

Now you may be saying, ‘but CAT, you are usually so Zen! “And to that I say, “yes, yes I am, but being Zen does not mean not feeling our feelings. I’m pissed off. Being angry is necessary! Can’t move forward without moving through. Can’t get Zen without acknowledging feelings and disturbances first. People who read my tweets can see that I am really fired up (no pun intended) over this whole thing. Dammmmn right! Do I think this know-nothing owes anyone a job? No I do not. Do I think the man owed people who gave ALL for all of those years a little respect? YES. Yes I do. Am I surprised? Not one bit. After all, I found out I had my last day of work by reading it on a magazine cover that was on the stands the day after I shot my last show, which meant that the magazine people knew for a week before I did! For crying out loud.. man up! Tell people WTF is going on. I loathe cowards.

“The ratings kept declining” he will spin. And I say

“Yes, well that was the plan, wasn’t it?” Isn’t that what you have been doing with all of your character assassinating and lame story telling? Isn’t that what you’ve been doing micromanaging your producers, writers, and staff to insanity? Business 101 teaches that you hire super competent people and let them do their job. Control freaks find this nearly impossible, which is why they ultimately fail. Its pure arrogance to think that you know what the audience will accept on shows that they knew far, far better than you. They didn’t accept mediocrity, and for that, the viewers were punished? What’s wrong with this picture?

Actually, How he stays employed is a mystery… however life is funny, and karma is not just a theory. It may not be today and it may not be tomorrow , but he has some karma coming, that’s for sure. SO many people hurt under his tenure.

A lot of destruction for someone unimaginative! As a hypnotist, I am in the business of imagination, so I feel extrememly well qualitfied to make that statement. Plus, my friends who work there have told me that you- know-who often asked his staff to give him their “best 50 ideas” as if it were a challenge. That used to amaze me. Just piss-poor chess playing if you ask me. In my world, YOU come up with the ideas that you intend to take credit for. If someone asked me for my best 50 ideas, unless it was a contest to win something (like credit for my idea) I’d tell them to get their own eff-ing ideas.

It was always hilarious listening to you-know-who’s “people” sound like that Twilight Zone episode, “Children of the Corn” where everyone was so afraid to lose their life to a little tyrant that dared people to disagree, so no matter how horrible he behaved, they were running around saying “that’s a real good thing you done. A real good thing!” while being scared to death of the kid. Sometime life imitates art in the saddest ways.

From the get go it was very clear to those of us who had been through many regimes that you-know-who did not like soaps. It always felt as if he was in contempt of them. We actors said it all the time, it was very hard to understand. That’s a hard pill to swallow when you love the genre. It’s hard to know what will make something work, and then watch it being absolutely decimated by someone you have not one iota of respect for.

Good and important people to the shows were fired, moved to another state, and then salaries were cut. Not necessarily for the best intentions. After all, they had to find those funds to pay big money for the girl of you-know- who’s fantasies De Jour. This in turn created animosity in the casts. It starts at the top, they say. Indeed. Poison trickles down and infects companies like a cancer, damaging morale that is nearly unfixable. In my 27 years of acting, In the five regimes I worked under at that network alone, I have never seen anything like it. In 30 years as an entertainer, I can not recall a more reviled executive.

I spent the majority of my career on ABC Daytime, 17 years to be exact, between LOVING, THE CITY and ONE LIFE TO LIVE, I played as many emotions and wonderful roles an actress would want to play. I am not looking to act on soaps again, it is not about that. It is about respecting the hard work all of us did to try and keep these shows alive in spite of a person who clearly had his own agenda. It is for the fans, my friends who I am eternally connected to and grateful for.

I have kept my feelings inside for a long, long time and it feels like a million dollars to get them out. Now I get to be Zen Cat again.

In closing, I want to say how proud I was to see everyone feeling their feelings on twitter and facebook. I love how social media connects us all and gives a voice to the truth, not the spin. You have a right to be sad and angry. Being disturbed makes us get things done. I can tell you that this network most likely won’t budge on their stance, because that would make the grim reaper wrong and we can’t have that, but you never know what you might accomplish by making noise. You just never know. ABC daytime was once an incredible arm of the company to work for. They can be again, but not like this.

I am so proud of your stamina. I am proud to stand with you. In the meantime, I will keep hypnotizing folks, making the world laugh, shoot my pilot, finish my book, and look forward to looking forward.

In the immortal words of Robert DeNiro..

It’s just a game, Focker.

Love For Sure,

Cat