Happy Holidays and Happy New Year

Mind Management 101

“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up” --Jesse Jackson

A lot can happen in a month. Between Last month’s inspiration and this one, two of America’s longest running television serials, ONE LIFE TO LIVE and ALL MY CHILDREN were cancelled. Between the two, that is nearly a century of television, and an American Institution. These two iconic shows are beloved by millions of Americans who loved watching their stories so they can be transported to what’s supposed to be a fantasy world, away from whatever problems or hurts they are going through in life.

Soap Operas tackle many social issues and can do this because of the ongoing and daily nature of the productions. Add to that, people have a special relationship with their soaps, and the actors have a special relationship with their audience. To think that this relationship is going to end for these millions of fans is very sad indeed, to say nothing of the hundreds and hundreds of people who will be unemployed as a result.

Of course, the viewers are not going quietly into that good night, God Bless them. Like anyone, they want to be heard, seen, and answered to, and protests and campaigns all across the country are in place. For the most part, things are as peaceful as one can hope for knowing how hurt and angry everyone feels.

There is a right way to get a point across, and for certain, a wrong one. Being angry is okay, how we choose to channel our anger and pain is where the strength lies. Turning our pain onto power is the goal in life, whether we are fighting for our shows, or fighting for our lives. Managing our emotions, so that they do not manage us is the goal. Being upset motivates us to change something, staying in anger and upset can make us sick.

I like to give my feelings their due time. Like a job, I decide how many of the hours of the day I will dedicate to feelings that upset me. I have learned to say, “Oh, it’s 5 O clock, time to get in my pajamas, make a great dinner, pick out a movie, read a book, snuggle with my honey, or whatever makes me feel good.” Then I turn it off, and go about the business of enjoying my life. There are some things we can’t control, and in order to maintain a balance in life, we need to learn when to give something it’s due, and when to put it down in the name of peace, regardless of the injustices.

When you learn to master your emotions, it’s much like turning a light switch on and off, and talk about efficiency! Anger and sadness will wear you right out, learning to turn it off will conserve energy, much like turning out the lights to save money on your power bill. You are a precious commodity, and conserving your energy and creating balance in an emotional environment is important, and I hardly know anyone who isn’t feeling emotional about something. Emotional Peace is the goal in life isn’t it? Everything goes better when we are in that place. What has been achieved is incredible, even if sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.

I pray the soaps (and peoples jobs) are saved, the viewers are heard, and the executive in charge ousted to a place that is perfect for him. Most of all, I pray for peace and unity amongst everyone. Your well-being is the most important thing in the world. You are precious cargo in this journey of life, treat each other as such, and miracles will happen.

Love For sure,

Cat

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

Nora vs Lindsay - OLTL

God Bless the fan who put this together out of pure love of our characters on OLTL, for I know well the work that goes into an edit! For Nora and Lindsay fans.. enjoy this incredible retrospective of two of daytime televisions most loved rivalries (we made 10 magazine covers in one year, a record!)



The fans made us, and we thank you! Enjoy!

Cat

Say Goodnight Philly...

"You come in here and think you own this place."

These were the first words I heard out of Phil Carey's mouth.

"You mean I don't?" I shot back.

It was the start of something beautiful.

No doubt about it. I have dad issues. I spent many years trying to get my dad to tell me that he loved me. I didn't know what I didn't know. It's not that he didn't want to say the words. He couldn't say the words. As an adult, I have come to understand how transparent and fragile human beings are when it comes to emotions.

When Philly gave me instant disapproval, I was an old hand at it. I knew just how to handle him, and it threw him but good. From that moment on, we were as tight as a father and daughter. Thick as thieves. He loved it when I would walk in a room and shout "lock up your sons!"

I teased him all the time. It only failed me a few times, mostly towards the end of his run as the magnificent Asa Buchanan and he wasn't feeling well.

He was a cantankerous man. But underneath it all was a softie. All you had to do was bring up his wife Colleen, or his kids, and his whole face would change. Mush.

Bob Woods tortured Phil every week with some kind of practical joke. He once got up in the grid which has to be a good 50 feet high and off limits to actors, just to hang a rubber bat on a fishing wire and lower it into Philly's scene right in the middle of it. Phil thought he was hallucinating. There he was in the middle of being Asa Buchanan, in all his glory, and this rubber bat was tickling his head, wings a-flap.

Woods would take a picture of Phil's face, and super-impose it in some embarrassing situation, and then tack it all over the studio and dressing room area. He taped it to every single camera in the studio. It was Philly's nightmare and he couldn't make it go away. Woods did that to him everyday for a solid year.

When he and Clint Ritchie and Woods would get together, it was pure magic. Talk about twinkle! The whole room would light up. The three of them would turn into teenaged boys when they were together. Once, they were horsing around pretty good, and one of the ladies on the show turned and hissed, "how do you people get dates??!" Clint said, "we pay for them!" Philly, Clint and Woods just roared. They were a fearsome three-some.

As gruff as Phil pretended to be, it was all a ruse. He hid his cigarettes from his wife. She was the boss lady and we all knew it. She loved that man. She is the best wife a man could ever hope for, and he knew it. He adored her. I used to call her a Saint. I still think that.

Poor Woods had to make two sad calls to me this week.

I was so sad to learn of his passing. But how perfect that he and Clint went on ahead at the same time.

Philly was a good catholic. He loved the Lord, and I know that he and Bucky went home to be with the Father. That gives me much peace.

In show business, whenever we finish an acting job in the theatre, we say, "I had a good run." That means we did a good job, had fun, made the most of the task at hand, and excelled.

He had a good run.

Who am I kidding? He owned the joint.

Philly, you will ALWAYS be the Big Daddy...

Carry On Clint Ritchie....

FRIENDSHIP IS THE ONLY CEMENT THAT WILL EVER HOLD THIS WORLD TOGETHER --Woodrow Wilson

I just heard about Clint Ritchie going on ahead, and I thought this would be an appropriate place to pay my respect.

I adored Clint. When I came to ONE LIFE TO LIVE 11 years ago, he was one of the actors whom I worked with the most. He became Lindsay Rappaport's first on-screen husband.

Working with Clint was always interesting. He was a complicated man, and his playful wickedness always made for a fun day. He was someone I loved playing practical jokes on, and I was relentless on the poor man. For this very reason, over the course of the next few years, his nickname for me became "The Little Dickins."

My favorite day with Clint was when I ordered Chinese food for lunch. I am known there as the breakfast/lunch/dinner orderer - NO ONE loves to eat more than I do. Even though we have dressing rooms, the hair and make-up room is where all of the actors eat together (and for that reason, fish is strictly off-limits) This day would be no different. Oh yes, I wanted an audience for THIS one!

I waited for the delivery in the lobby so he wouldn't suspect what I was up to. I then went quietly to my dressing room to begin the evils of the best practical joke I would ever play on him. I fished his fortune cookie out. Armed with a pair of tweezers, and the skill of a surgeon, I extracted the fortune out of the cookie. I then cut a little piece of paper EXACTLY the same size as the fortune. With incredible detail, I typed a new fortune on the small piece of paper. I can't tell you what I wrote (I was a lot more naughty then than I am now) let's just suffice it to say that I knew it would make him absolutely double over with laughter.

I then carefully stuffed the fortune back into the fortune cookie (without so much as nicking it!) and put the cookie back in it's little plastic bag. Crawling, laughing and skulking all the way down the hall to the hair and make-up room, I placed the brown bag of Chinese food on the table, and called him to the make-up and hair room over the PA system to "COME AND GIT IT!"

Well, Clint sauntered in with that true-life cowboy walk, and sat down to have what he thought would be a nice little Chinese lunch before taping. The meal seemed like it lasted forever. I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. I couldn't WAIT for him to finish so he would open that fortune cookie! At last, the moment came. He sat back, patting his belly, and thanked me for lunch. I opened his cookie wrapper (I didn't want him to see that it has already been opened) and practically sang, "here's your fortune cookie!" I cracked mine open enthusiastically, which prompted him to subconsciously crack his cookie open and read it at the same time. As if on cue, he pulled the fortune out, and, as he did, I read mine out loud (of course I made it up) "You will have the love and good will of friends today." I said.

He smiled, suspecting nothing.

I then asked "what's your fortune say?" He put his reading glasses on, and looked at it. It was naughty and personal. He stared at it. I asked again...."what does it say?" He sat staring at it, as if he could barely believe what he was seeing. When his mind finally put it all together, he roared, and mean ROARED with that beautiful Clint Ritchie laugh, and began showing it proudly to anyone who would look. I had tears running down my face, and so did he. Laughter is the best everything. "YOU LITTLE DICKENS!" He bellowed. And that man could bellow, let me tell you.

Between me and Bob Woods, I don"t know who drove him more crazy with the practical jokes. But I do know we both loved him like a brother. Some would say he was difficult. I would just say he was authentic. Did he have issues? Oh yeah, but hey, come on, who doesn't? He could be talked to and reasoned with, and, after all, he was a true cowboy. I think it's safe to say that we would all learn a lot from being friends with each other.

We would have many of those funny days, many great talks. We would also have some difficult days, but, that's what makes us grow up.

Being a forensics fan and true gore-meister, I loved hearing about his tractor accident many years before when he had been literally run over by his own tractor, and he loved telling me about every gory detail.

Many people, including the producer at the time told me that I brought out the best in Clint. The truth is, he brought out the best in me. He made my fun side come out to play when we worked together. He challenged me in my patience and taught me tolerance. He made me laugh. He made me learn how to be "one of the guys" and I loved it. I was an honorary cowgirl-dude, and he loved it.

I will miss knowing you are on this Earth, Bucky. You may have given up your human suit, but we will all see you again someday... and, I WILL have another fortune cookie waiting.

God bless Your Journey HOME....

The Little Dickins