I always wanted to write a romantic suspense novel, a la Phyllis A. Whitney’s, set in Galveston where some of the mystery dates back to the Great Hurricane of 1900. It seemed like the perfect setting for one of her novels–she was very much a master of place and wanted her readers to get a very strong sense of where the books were set–and who knows? Maybe someday I will. Maybe someday I’ll take a week and spent it on the island doing research and getting a sense of the place.
Stranger things have happened, after all.
Good morning on this fine Labor Day, and I am up early because Sparky was incredibly hungry and hadn’t been fed in forever (per him) but I don’t mind being up early. I have things to do today and I’ve been fatigued all weekend and unable to do much of anything. I’m not entirely sure how this weekend slipped so completely through my fingers the way it did, but that’s fine. I must have needed the rest. Yesterday started out fine but by the time the afternoon rolled around I was fatigued and around two I finally gave up on getting much done and plopped down in my chair to watch the South Carolina/Virginia Tech and Miami/Notre Dame games (both teams I wanted to win, did. Huzzah!). We did take some time off from the Miami game to finish watching Hostage, which was quite excellent, before switching back to the game. I feel asleep and went to bed before it was over, so naturally I checked the score first thing this morning over my coffee. It was an interesting weekend of college football to get the season started. This week’s rankings will be interesting, but I am also of the mindset that rankings this early in the season–before we know how good anyone is–are pointless and predicated on reputation and how well they did last year…but that’s also a fallacy nowadays. Florida State was 2-10 last year; who would have ever thought they would beat ALABAMA this year?
It may not be a good season for Alabama fans, who are the most impatient in the world.
I also spent some time yesterday reading The Hunting Wives, which is very different thus far than the television show–but in a good way, which is like enjoying the same story twice. If you like the story, you should enjoy it, right? The television show reminded me of glossy melodramatic soaps from the 1980s, Knots Landing and Dallas and Lace and others of a similar tone, and was incredibly fun with lots of twists and turns. The book is different. It’s glossy the way the show is, but there’s also a raw kernel of honesty/unreliability in the POV character that is very different from the show. I did some writing work–mostly thinking some things through and taking notes–but not much and I’ll need to do more today.
I need to make a to-do list for today only and see how it all works out. I should also update the weekly one I currently am working on. At least I am up early, right? I am not sure how busy we’ll be in the office this week, but I only have two days in the office this week anyway. Paul has his trainer this afternoon, and so will be out of the house most of the day after sleeping in, so I’ll have some focus time for writing today.
I love my new phone, by the way, but need to stop playing with it all the time.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Labor Day, Constant Reader, and I will be back in the morning again.
I was really into soaps in the late 1970s and up until the mid 1990s or so. My fandom, how it came to be, and how much of an influence soaps were to me as a writer is a topic for another time, perhaps after Pride Month is over because it’s really not Pride related, except for how they related to me as a gay man. But by the late 70s, I was strictly an ABC guy: All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital and Edge of Night, with me having a special attachment to Edge, which will also be a subject for another time. But soaps were strictly a daytime medium for a very long time–at least until Dallas premiered. Originally, each episode was a stand-alone but the show very quickly moved to the serial format, and the ratings went through the roof–and of course, “Who Shot J.R.?” was a global phenomenon (I figured it out early on–when I saw that Mary Crosby was only contracted for four episodes in the following season and the reveal that the shooter’s identity would be revealed in episode 4…it wasn’t too big of a leap from there to “it must have been Kristin”. I was right.), and Dallas ruled the ratings from there on out..
The success of Dallas, of course, lead to copycats from other networks trying to cash in on the new craze; television is nothing if not a place where imitating success is seen as a no-brainer; the irony was that so many of the other soaps that launched at night in the wake of the huge success of Dallas…failed for the most part. The only post-Dallas night time soaps that enjoyed long runs were Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, and Dynasty.
I first learned of Dynasty in a People magazine profile on Linda Evans, who at the time was best known as the woman John Derek left for Bo (who was a huge star at the time), and it mentioned she’d done a two hour pilot for a night time soap called Oil. By the time the fall previews started dropping, the show’s name had been changed to Dynasty, and there was going to be a gay character on the show. Once I read that, I knew I was going to watch. And then the premiere of the show was delayed months because of a strike. The show also had some other cast members I knew of and was interested to see–Wayne Northrop, who’d played Roman on Days of Our Lives; Pamela Sue Martin, of Nancy Drew and The Poseidon Adventure fame; and of course long-time television star John Forsythe as Blake Carrington, the patriarch of the family.
The first season was interesting enough, but the show didn’t really catch fire until the second season, when Joan Collins joined the cast as Blake’s first wife and mother of his children, Alexis. By the end of the season Dynasty had climbed from middling ratings to the Top Five, and it had become must-watch television.
But my primary interest was the character of Steven.
Al Corley as Steven Carrington
Originally played by Al Corley, Steven’s storylines were made clear in the pilot; Steven is coming to terms with his sexuality, coming back to Denver for his father’s wedding despite the fact that Blake is homophobic and he’s been living with a man (Ted Dinard) in New York for the past few years. Steven still isn’t entirely sure of his sexuality (it never occurred to anyone in production that he could be bisexual; he only had a binary choice during the entire run of the show), and decided to go to work on an oil rig to “become a man.” His co-workers pranked and hazed him for being gay at first, and then tried to “straighten” him out by buying him a hooker, which doesn’t go well. He then embarks on an affair with his boss’ wife Claudia (played by Pamela Bellwood, who was probably one of the best actresses in the cast), who was also mentally ill and her sanity wavered throughout the run of the show. Ted comes to Denver to get Steven to come home, but Steven’s decided to stay in Denver and try to get on with his life and ends things with Ted. Unfortunately, Ted comes to the Carrington estate (which was ‘played’ by Filoli, gorgeous place that was also the ‘setting’ for Laurie R. King’s superb Back to the Garden) to say goodbye, Blake comes home already angry, becomes angrier to learn Ted is in the house, rushes upstairs to see them hugging goodbye, and in a homophobic rage pulls Ted off Steven, punches him and knocks him down–only he is killed when he hits his head on a fireplace guardrail–and now Blake has to go on trial for murdering his son’s gay lover; and now the entire world nows.
Alexis returned for the trial, entering the courtroom wearing a veil, and Fallon gasps, “oh my god that’s my mother” setting the stage for season two, and night time television’s greatest villains, Alexis.
Season 2 was disappointing in terms of Steven as he spent season two trying to be straight, getting involved with and marrying Sammie Jo (Heather Locklear in the role that made her famous), but eventually telling his entire family that he’s gay, he’s tired of trying to be someone he’s not, and leaves Denver. He is reported killed in a oil rig explosion in the south China Sea in season three, which was their way of recasting–“plastic surgery so he doesn’t look the same”–and he was replaced by Jack Coleman (at the time best known for playing a serial killer on Days of Our Lives).
Jack Coleman, the second Steven
Coleman was fine, but he was different, and the character changed to match the actor. His entire storyline for the rest of the series involved him getting married, ruining that by getting involved with another man–before deciding what to do with him again for the sake of storyline; showing how hard it was to actually integrate someone with a same sex attraction into the cast of a soap. Every man he was involved with was a new character, and soaps–whose mainstay bottom line is thwarted romances, marriage and divorce–really didn’t know what to do with a non-straight character, other than throwing him into relationships with women (???) to have them end badly and so on.
When the reunion film was done in the 1990s, Al Corley returned as Steven (no explanation of why he looked the way he did before the surgery) and he’d made peace with his sexuality, again living in New York happily with another man and raising his son (oh yes, the gay character also impregnated one of his ‘women’)…while never once raising the possibility of bisexuality; I guess getting the 1980’s home audience vested in a gay character was risky enough without bringing in bisexuality–which tells you where we were as a country in the 1980’s…and we shouldn’t also overlook the fact that it was Dynasty that brought HIV/AIDS to the forefront of conversations in this country. Rock Hudson’s AIDS diagnosis became public shortly after he appeared on the show, and there was a lot of panic because he’d kissed the Linda Evans character–had he infected her? (We didn’t know as much then as we do now; now that fear is laughable but it was palpable back then because there was so much ignorance about it then, thanks to the Reagan Administration and the deeply embedded homophobia in post-war American culture.)
I started rewatching the original show once it was available for streaming, and that first season really is a slog; Blake was the primary villain in the first season (Alexis took his place, turning him into a more traditional soap hero–flawed but a good person at heart) and he just didn’t have the gravitas to relish being evil the way Joan Collins jumped in with both hands and feet), so while I was enjoying seeing the more honest and realistic to life way Steven and his dilemma was displayed in that first season–even the affair with Claudia made sense the way it was written–they really didn’t know what to do with him after the recast, and he descended from the fully developed realistic character Corley played to the two-dimensional soap hero he devolved into after the recast.
But…it was still pretty daring for the 1980s, and I did appreciate the attempt at representation. I know the reboot, which I didn’t watch, made Steven straight up gay; even gender swapping Sammie Jo by turning her into Sammy Joe. Progress is progress, and we cannot ever dismiss out of hand the brave attempts at using homosexuality and familial homophobia as a source for story; they were fighting the network censors, the right wing, and most of the country was homophobic, too.
They did the best they could and it was important at the time…even if it doesn’t hold up well under modern understanding.
And so it is now Wednesday, and we’re already about halfway finished with this week. Isn’t that lovely? Of course, I always hear my mother’s voice in the back of my head whenever I say things like that–you know you’re just wishing your life away when you do that–ah, my mother. Someday I’ll stop hearing her voice in my head.
Although I still do and am staring down fifty-nine this year, so chances are that voice is never going to get out of my head.
We finished watching Little Fires Everywhere, and I have to say, Reese Witherspoon makes a terrific villainess. It’s extremely well done–the writing and acting are top notch–and it really is amazing what you can do with a soap-opera style plot with strong writing and an excellent cast and good directing. As I watched, I couldn’t help thinking what a great Abby Reese Witherspoon would make in a reboot of Knots Landing. But I do encourage everyone to watch. It’s a terrific show, Kerry Washington is also fantastic, as are all the young actors playing the teenagers, and while it reminded me some of Big Little Lies, it’s a completely different plot and a completely different story–although the character Witherspoon plays is remarkably similar in both (although in Big Little Lies she never went completely to the dark side the way she did in this). It also handles class and race and gender issues over the course of the story, showing that it can be done–and done well–with the right creative team in place, particularly if they are committed to properly handling the issues.
Now I think tonight we’ll go back to Gold Digger–I think the next two episodes dropped Monday–and see if it continues to hold our interest as well.
I slept deeply and well last night. I woke up at seven this morning, and was actually awake, but chose to lightly nap in bed for another hour because the bed felt so relaxing and comfortable–plus, I wasn’t really feeling the day, you know? The longer I stayed in bed relaxing the longer I could put off dealing with anything this morning. Not that there is anything I don’t want to deal with– as I am particularly fortunate in that nothing I have to deal with is terrible; I just get lazy periodically–which is why being described as hard working or prolific amuses me endlessly. Granted, I hold myself to a much higher standard than perhaps I should; on the other hand, sometimes I think I wouldn’t get nearly as much done if I were easier, and kinder, on myself.
I also started rereading House of Many Shadows by Barbara Michaels this week, and I am now getting to the meat of the story; all the characters are in place, in the enormous house in the Pennsylvania countryside; it’s established that Meg, the heroine, has been in a car accident that caused some sort of brain damage which causes her to have either visual or audial hallucinations; the caretaker of the place is the owner’s stepson, whom she knew when they were children and didn’t like each other; and the previous tenants were evicted and not happy about it. It’s interesting–I’ve been very careful with Bury Me in Shadows to not mimic Barbara Michaels, and yet…in rereading this one I realize how incredibly similar the set-up of my work-in-progress is to this particular Michaels novel. Not that I’m plagiarizing her by any means, and there are only so many story situations and set-ups one can come up with; but similar enough for me to be a teeny bit concerned.
I managed to finish that enormous volunteer project, with lots of thanks due to the others who worked on it with me; it’s so lovely to not have to worry about being organized because you are working with the “ur organizer” of all time, frankly.
Whew. I do know some pretty amazing people, you know?
I need to get started revising the Kansas book, but have just been so worn out and tired lately…it’s a big deal to finish a draft, a short story, and an enormous volunteer project all at the same time, you know? I now have to write an essay, a short story, and get to revising this manuscript but at the same time…it’s kind of lovely knowing I got all that other shit done.
I also managed to do something to my back yesterday at work–sitting in my chair wrong–and it’s been aching ever since. I used the heating pad last night (using it again this morning) and it’s horrible, of course–I can’t imagine what I did to make it hurt, but then…this is just another one of those lovely surprises about getting older: new aches and pains every day and you don’t know where they came from or why or what caused it.
But my book comes out in less than a week, so I should probably talk about it some more, right?
As I mentioned yesterday, I pretty much only regularly watch The Real Housewives of New York and Beverly Hills. I do keep up with Atlanta, and will check in on Orange County every now and then. I tried both Dallas and Potomac (I never watched DC or Miami), but didn’t get through the first seasons–but I’ve heard they’ve become more entertaining, so might check them out. I’ve not watched New Jersey in a long time; I really gave up on it after Caroline left the show; I know she was problematic to a lot of viewers and she did get on my nerves from time to time–but when she left and the show centered Teresa, I was down with it. While watching these shows, and having my loyalties and allegiances shift over the seasons, as the producers manipulate story-lines and decide what the audience will and won’t see, has been interesting. I’ve also been interested in watching the cultural phenomena around the Real Housewives, and while I rarely (if ever) agree with Camille Paglia, she is also a Housewives fan, and in an interview, when the shows came up, she compared them to soaps, and in particular, the popular prime time soaps of the 1980’s: Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing, etc. It was an interesting comparison, and not one I agreed with immediately, but the more I think about–and the way people talk about the shows–the more I think she was right. The prime time soaps were addictive, considered guilty pleasures no serious viewer would ever watch, and while several of them were driven by strong male leads, the women were centered and usually more interesting. There were never any male characters as interesting as the women on Knots Landing, and Blake might have been the main character on Dynasty, but the real driving force behind the show were the two women main characters, Krystle and Alexis. The housewives appeal to, like the prime time soaps, primarily women and gay male viewers. When I wrote my thesis on daytime soaps in college, one of the cultural impacts I wrote about the shows having was the decline of what was called “women’s pictures”–movies centering women characters and female stars. Whereas Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and many other women were big stars of the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s, it was the 1950’s and the rise of television that not only killed the studio system, but also killed off the popular genre of women’s pictures…and I do think that was not only due to television, but because all of daytime television centered, and was focused on, women. Women no longer had to pay money to go lose themselves in a fantasy world focused on strong women facing difficult situations heroically; they could spend all day watching heroic women facing difficult situations–and situations they could relate to more–Monday through Friday. The decline of soaps–both prime time and daytime–created another vacuum, and Bravo and these shows stepped up to fill that void.
There have been already some terrific books centering reality television; Jessica Knoll’s The Favorite Sister was, like her debut novel Luckiest Girl Alive, absolutely fantastic. But as I said, I thought it would be interesting to write my own version of a murder mystery centered on a reality show filmed in New Orleans. I’m fascinated by these people, who are willing to have their lives and interactions be filmed for the entertainment of the masses, be judged for it on social media and in recap columns, and ripped to shreds on message boards and Facebook groups. Some of them use their reality show to promote not only themselves but their businesses–the most famous of these is Bethenny Frankel, who became rich through her various Skinnygirl enterprises, all of which were boosted by her popularity on reality television, and Lisa Vanderpump, who used her reality fame to promote her restaurants in Los Angeles, even getting a spin-off show centered around the staff at one of her restaurants, Vanderpump Rules, which is even more popular than the housewives (I abandoned that show somewhere after season two). I think the Frankel/Vanderpump model is the golden ticket these women are looking for when they agree to be cast; but not everyone is as smart about controlling their image as those two are–nor have the kind of influence on production as they enjoy.
My fascination with these women, and their shows, and who they are and why they would do such a show, gave birth to the idea that eventually became Royal Street Reveillon. I liked the idea of Scotty being a fan, and interacting with the women on the New Orleans show while trying to get to the bottom of a murder…or two, or three. It was also kind of fun to write, frankly, and the older i get and the more I do this, the more important it is to me to enjoy myself while I am doing it.
And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader.
I continue to watch Chernobyl, which is mesmerizing as it is horrible. I am now up to episode four, and can’t look away. It’s horrifying and amazing and terrifying and so bleak, and perhaps the thing I can’t get out of my head is you were alive when this happened and was being reported in the news and I don’t ever recall knowing it was this bad–it was bad, but I never knew it was THIS bad.
And that is terrifying, so terrifying that it upsets my stomach and makes my blood run cold.
It is also a very cold, analytical look at what happens during a major disaster in a country where the news is under government control, and when a government is not only authoritarian, but where everyone is afraid to tell the next person higher up in the chain the truth when it’s bad news. It’s heartbreaking, and done in an almost documentary style. There was a point last night when watching that I thought, why are they all outside around the facility without any kind of shielding from the radiation?
And then realized at that time, it no longer mattered; they were already so badly exposed their lives were essentially over. “Within five years,” is what they were told, and what they tell each other.
Absolutely horrific.
I didn’t get much writing done yesterday because I am at the point in the book where social issues come into play, and I am struggling because I don’t know how to make the points I want to make without sounding preachy or too “ABC After School Special”; I suppose the thing to do is not worry about any of that stuff because I can tighten and clean it up later, but when I am in the midst of writing I never think that way until the following morning, as I gaze bleary-eyed outside my windows into the grayness of the early dawn–you know, after I squandered my writing time the day before struggling.
Heavy sigh.
But in other good news, I have now slept well for two successive nights, which is lovely, and I woke up this morning without a problem when the alarm went off. Hopefully, that means not only will I make it through this long, long day, but won’t be bone-tired and exhausted when I get home. Of course, it’s Tuesday which means it’s a Real Housewives night, but frankly I find the Beverly Hills franchise to be rather boring this season. Perhaps some day I’ll write an entry about these shows and why I watch them, and what entertainment I get from them–but as Camille Paglia (whom I utterly detest, she is completely vile) once said, these shows replaced soaps, and the viewers are the same people who watched soaps; there is something camp and over-the-top about these shows, and the line between entertainment and reality has become so blurred with them that it is, actually, very soap-like; soap characters were like real people to their viewers, who talked about them like they were the people down the street. I don’t think Paglia’s analysis–it was part of a longer interview about culture in general–was particularly deep; it was kind of off-the-cuff and she hadn’t put much thought into the analysis, but she did strike a vein of truth with this, one that bears deeper thought and analysis and comparison (although I really disliked her comparing Tamra from Orange County to Donna Mills’ Abby from Knots Landing), and maybe someday I will do that.
When I have time. Because I have so much free time these days.
I also fell down into a rabbit hole yesterday–which, while a lot of fun, was also an enormous time-waster. This morning, the curiosity I had about the rabbit hole which was so intense and couldn’t be ignored, somehow doesn’t seem quite as intense as it did yesterday in the heat of the moment. Don’t get me wrong, I am still quite curious…but I don’t need to be refreshing social media to see new theories or discoveries.
And on that note, tis off to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader.
Queer and Loathing in America 