Memorial Week

Monday, May 29, 2023 is Memorial Day.

There will be no blog topic specific for the week.

May the day be one that is pleasant. 

‘The Definitive Sh*tlib Tier List (v2)’

On Friday, May 12, 2023, Indie News Network (INN) complied its new tier list ranks on particular people who are among the so-called Online Left (or other wording which may be more up-to-date and/or accurate). This is with the much-needed recognition that, when Election Day/Time has arrived, as noted by panelist member, The Snow Himbo, “Every single person on this list is going to be telling us, next year, to vote for [Democratic incumbent U.S. president Joe] Biden.” This list is not just interesting only for who appears, and where, but also for the very commentary by all INN panelists.

Last Week…

Last week, and over the past weekend, Sabrina Salvati’s channel Sabby Sabs had two very interesting topics.

The first was Sabrina’s coverage of a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll which has previous U.S. president Donald Trump leading current U.S. president Joe Biden in a national poll by +6 percentage points. (This was timed closely with Trump’s recent town hall on CNN.)

The second was an interview, at the start of the livestream, with attorney spouses Jared and Elizabeth Beck on the lawsuit against the DNC after their rigged primaries from 2016. (This livestream was on Sunday, May 14, 2023. I anticipate and expect a clip will become published to YouTube. For the sake of meeting this publication date, the entire livestream episode is included here.)

I admit to having submitted some comments in the first video (which is actually a 40-minute clip). I was contributing information to add to some of the points made by Sabrina. It can be considered helpful for understanding some of the context of what that poll suggests.

The attorneys, from the second video, offered some insights worth remembering. There are a number of conclusions which are made, by one or both, with which some Progressives Chat readers may agree.

I will comment, briefly, about that Trump +6 poll: Here in May 2023, I don’t feel like focusing my energy with trying to predict, as if I could feel it is necessary these 18 months out, on what will happen with the United States presidential election of 2024. When thinking about that topic, I realize some people may guess who will be the winning candidate (incumbent or otherwise). I would tend to hone in on which will be the prevailing party. It is much about the circumstances. I would assert that it may be more about the party, and not so much the individual, better poised to win. So, the circumstances matter. They inform.

The videos appear above.

★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★

 

 

I will acknowledge the death last week of actress Jacklyn Zeman (03.06.1953–05.09.2023). 

I used to watch the broadcast networks’s daytime soaps. (I would get around.) As a child, most especially with a stronger memory of my life from the 1980s, they were a thing for me for some years. (I don’t tune in regularly anymore.) In recent years, and with so many of the genre’s series cancellations the last, say, 15 years—due to ABC, CBS, and NBC reducing programming costs—the numbers of productions went from around 15 (in the mid-1980s) to 5 (here in 2023).

Zeman, who was 70 and died May 9 after a brief illness with cancer, played Bobbie Spencer on ABC’s General Hospital. She debuted on the series in 1977 and worked with the genre’s most admired actor, eight-time Emmy winner Anthony Geary. (He played Bobbie’s brother, Luke Spencer, one-half of what is perhaps the genre’s most famous supercouple, with actress Genie Francis as Laura, and retired in the mid-2010s.) For a time, Zeman’s character was romantically paired with singer-songwriter Rick Springfield, playing a doctor named Noah Drake, coinciding with his becoming a pop sensation in the 1980s and winning a Grammy for “Jessie’s Girl.”

Zeman was first wed to Murray Kaufman (1922–1982). He was known as a popular New York City disc jockey named Murray K. He was posthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1997. Zeman was also married and divorced from Glenn Gorden (to my knowledge, he is not in the business) and is also survived by two adult daughters, Cassidy and Lacey. 

Zeman, who also was a Playboy Bunny at the Playboy Club, in 1972, received four of her five Emmy nominations for her work on General Hospital. 

There have been, regrettably, numerous actors from the daytime dramas who have died (nearly all from a form of cancer) over the last, say, 18 months. One of them is fellow General Hospital cast member Sonya Eddy (06.17.1967–12.19.2022), who played nurse Epiphany Johnson, from an infection following non-emergency surgery. Eddy received a posthumous 2023 Emmy nomination (outcome is currently pending).… Among the others are four cast members from the former CBS series As the World Turns: Lisa Brown (08.02.1954–11.24.2021), who played Iva Snyder (and Nola Reardon on CBS’s Guiding Light), an actress who benefited greatly from one of the industry’s most-respected head writers, the late Douglas Marland (1935–1993, who created both roles for Brown as well as Zeman’s).… Kathryn Hays (07.26.1934–03.25.2022), who played longtime lead character Kim Hughes from 1972 until its last episode and final scene in 2010. Hays was married, during the late-1960s, to big-screen idol Glenn Ford. One of her onscreen children was played, during the 1980s, by a pre-Oscar winner Julianne Moore. Hays also had a memorable turn working directly with William Shatner in “The Empath” episode of NBC’s TV classic Star Trek… Marnie Schulenburg (05.21.1984–05.17.2022), who played Alison Stewart, received a single Emmy nomination, and who was only 37 and a recent mother of a young daughter when died from metastatic breast cancer.… Elizabeth Hubbard (12.22.1933–04.08.2023)—one of the most acclaimed actors in the genre’s U.S. history—who was the inaugural Best Actress Daytime Emmy winner in 1974 (for the past NBC series The Doctors). She played corporation owner Lucinda Walsh (a role which garnered her eight more nominations). Hubbard was a graduate of Radcliffe College and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in London, and she was the first American to receive its silver medal and graduated in 1957.… John Aniston (07.24.1933–11.11.2022), who was active as an actor for roughly 60 years, was even better known as the father of Emmy winning actress and star Jennifer Aniston. He played Victor Kiriakis on NBC’s/Peacock’s Days of Our Lives and received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2022.… Jerry ver Dorn (11.23.1949–05.01.2022), who combined nearly 35 years with two memorable runs as Ross Marler on CBS’s Guiding Light (for which he won two Emmys on that series which signed off in 2009) and Clint Buchanan on ABC’s One Life to Live (until its cancellation, by the network, in 2012 and its unsuccessful Internet reboot in 2013).… Add to this two actresses from the former NBC series Another World (which ended in 1999). One was Robyn Griggs (04.30.1973–08.13.2022), who played Maggie Cory, and was fired from the series in 1995 due to her relationship—which Griggs said was not romantic—with the scandalous John Wayne Bobbitt. The second to mention, and the biggest headliner, was Anne Heche (05.25.1969–08.11.2022). She won a 1991 Emmy, for playing twin sisters Vicky and Marley Love, and followed her daytime run with a successful film career (for a time)—including being on the 1997 Oscar radar for Wag the Dog (which won her, along with her performance in Donnie Brasco, the National Board of Review’s prize for Best Supporting Actress)—and Heche received a primetime Emmy nomination and a Tony nomination. She also had a highly-publicized relationship with then-coming-out Ellen DeGeneres.

Time certainly moves along. This reminds me of something my late father used to say. It was his response to some periods in which actors (or anyone else in another area of the performing arts) died in relatively short time from one another. This has more to do with a connection to oneself—like from one’s own childhood, one’s own early adulthood, etc.—for years and years. To paraphrase: We are all getting up there. It was my father’s way of being a little less taken by surprise. (He did genuinely like Doris Day. So, to him, her death in 2019 was a hurt.) But, from time to time, a name would come up which he did not anticipate. This is my reaction to this recent death of Jacklyn Zeman. (I didn’t anticipate it. And I have had this very reaction, from time to time, to some other names as well.) I used to watch her on General Hospital. She had a persona which reminded me of actress Marilu Henner, from one of television’s best-ever series, ABC’s and NBC’s Taxi. Bubbly. Fiery. Relatable. And good acting chops. It’s too bad.

The above videos are a report of the actress’s death and an interview she did in August 2022 with publicist Alan Locher on his YouTube channel The Locher Room.

The 2023 Writers Strike

The new strike by members of the Writers Guild of America has my support.

The above report has an estimated cost. The studios can afford it. 

When watching, over the years, entertainment awards ceremonies, like the Oscars and the Emmys, plenty of times the following (especially when presenting a writing category) has been said: “As we all know…it starts with the writing.”

If the writers were truly respected, this new strike would not have happened.

Here is hoping the writers get some respect with what they need for, as examples, income and benefits.

Link:

Writers Strike Could Last Over 3 Months, Theater Chains Will Suffer Most, and Netflix Will Be Just Fine — Moody‘s

Cliffhangers

Now that May has arrived, here in 2023, I acknowledge this is the month the broadcast networks complete their regular-season schedule of a given series having either a season or a series finale. (They usually get their last episode in by the Wednesday of the week just prior to Memorial Day. Here in 2023, this would be Wednesday, May 24, 2023.)

The cliffhanger, recognized for decades, is of a series leaving you hanging. Then all you have to do is come back with the first episode of the next season, typically scheduled in late-September.

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. It was the latter of the two decades which delighted in the prime-time soaps—ABC’s Dynasty and CBS’s Dallas, Falcon Crest, and Knots Landing—following this formula.

The cliffhangers I am interested in, nowadays, are having to do with parts of the industry experiencing some changes.

Among them:

• What will become of PAC–12?  When the PAC–12 Conference hired Larry Scott, years ago, they clearly did not know what they were doing. He failed to get the schools of the PAC–12 money and profit; to get them a television partner with whom they could be successful and build on that success; and the conference kept renewing Scott’s contract. Their inability to get a contract for their PAC–12 Network (which has seven screens) for carriage on DirecTV—during the first half of the 2010s (before DirecTV agreed to be acquired in 2014 by AT&T)—showed the PAC–12 was limiting itself and the presence of their schools in college sports. At the time, DirecTV had more television subscribers than any other U.S. cable or satellite company. Now, the PAC–12 Conference faces realignment—two California teams have bailed; others want to follow (so this is pending)—and any of the recent efforts by PAC–12 to get a television partner, for linear carriage, are resulting in lowball offers.

• What will become of the Regional Sports Networks (RSNs)? Bally Sports—which acquired in 2020 numerous markets (including mine, Detroit, Michigan) from Fox Sports—has declared bankruptcy. It cannot make payments to some teams. AT&T SportsNet, also with numerous markets, wants out. Since these RSNs show so many of the games of the pro-sports leagues—minus National Football League—this is a problem for the teams. And with the increasing trend of cable-television subscriptions cancellations, and that people want to not pay a provider somewhere between $10 to $15 for an RSN, this is a business model which is either going through a transitional period or is dying out.

• “Comcast & Spectrum Lost Over 2.6 Million TV Customers in 2022 & Its Speeding Up In 2023” (Link) was reported Sunday, April 30, 2023 on the website of Cord Cutter News. (Last week, I updated the sidebar Recommendations to include in “Videos” Cord Cutter News.) According to that blog’s report, “If these numbers continue, these two companies alone could easily lose 3 million TV customers. That would work out to over 8,000 people canceling Comcast and Spectrum every single day in 2023.” 

Yes, this is all intriguing. Especially worth noting—for the cable-television subscriptions—is why people cancel. What is often passed along to this explain this phenomenon has to do with people feeling that the On Demand-type streamers—Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, et al.—provide more in the overall content that people want to watch. That is not saying enough. Why cord-cutting is continuing to trend is not just about content. What doesn’t get addressed often enough has to do with people’s incomes. That is a personal matter. But it is also a national issue. In relation to the costs to daily living, and given alarming inflation, people’s incomes are not in line with being able to splurge and go for all the bells and whistles that a cable or satellite company offers. Between Internet and cable television, more people have Internet. When it comes to television, and their costs (and this includes the above RSN), they end up making a decision. Their decision, while perhaps seeking an alternative, is to say good-bye. Good-bye to the traditional model. Good-bye to the local stations and RSN fees. Good-bye to the miscellaneous costs, connected with a cable-television subscription, which include equipment charge. Good-bye.