Honey, you're either going to "get" me and know my heart and my intent or you're not going to "get" me at all.  If you don't, know your limitations and just back away from the keyboard after clicking the little "X" in the box on the upper right corner of your browser window, ne'er to return again.  May you have happiness all of your days.  If you enjoy what I do, then pull up a chaise by the pool and stay a while.  If that's the case, you're the very person I'm writing this column for anyway.  I don't write to please the masses or kiss anyone's ass.  Everything you read here will be from my heart, off my cuff and dead on honest.  If you want a good read designed to offend no one, go to ABC.com because they are great at what they do.  If you want to hear what I really think about soaps, life, etc, then WELCOME!  This is an opinion column filled with gossip and rumors and, well, my opinion.  It may not agree with yours and I'm good with that.  *Please also note that this is NOT a spoiler or "exclusive info" site...it's a GOSSIP page and what we are discussing might be a RUMOR or a SPOILER, but isn't guaranteed to be what hits the screen.  I'm NOT in the business of or interested in breaking the exclusives.*   I suggest that if you want to read on, you make peace with that as well and leave your weapons with my Marshall, Lenore, before you enter town.  You'll get them back when you leave.  Believe me, you'll need them for some sites on the net and I don't want my loveys to go unarmed into war!  Remember to click that smiley globe in the links above to help EOS!

Note:  Due to the large volume of e-mail he receives, Sage regrets that he is unable to personally answer each e-mail.  He wants you to know that he reads each and every one (some 2-3 times) and greatly appreciates your communication.  Please DO NOT ask Sage for further info on what is going to happen on the shows.  Any information he has that he can share will be put into his column or on the message board right away. 

At Her Majesty's Request... I told my mom that people were wanting to wish her Happy Birthday and that she needed to set up an e-mail account so they could.  She started to fret, worried that people would e-mail her and she wouldn't be able to respond and would feel bad.  I told her that we'd set up a guestbook instead so that people could post their messages to her without her needing to respond.  If you want to send a message to my mom, you can click on her picture at the right and get to her guestbook.  You may also read what other have left.  Don't give her a big head or anything, OK?  She's hard enough to live with already.  (ow)

Hello!!  Total off topicness here. 

So I took Mom back to the doctor yesterday (against her wishes, but I was able to bribe her into it by promising to take her out to lunch) and she is doing GREAT!  The doctor was astounded at how well she is and she just beamed and said, “It’s because I’ve got my girls working on it.”  He smiled at her and said, “Yes, those daughters of yours are sure a blessing.”  (He met a few of them when she was in the hospital time before last).  She said, “I don’t mean my DAUGHTERS, I mean my GIRLS” and she spent about 15 minutes telling him about all of you and how you write to her and ask about her and pray for her and tell her to beat on me when I’m bad and such.  I wanted to sink into the floor, not because it’s not true, but because she was just yammering on and on and on about you guys and how “those girls won’t let Sage here (and she whacks me in my belly with the back of her hand!) give me any crap.”  I was like, “Pfft, anyway.”  So he does all kinds of test and such and proclaims her in better health than he is.  He was amazed (and evidently almost dead to have said that).  Mom is back to walking again with her cane and only has to use her walker if she’s going to be walking for further than from the car in to a chair or such.  She can’t go more than a few hundred feet without sitting down, but that is leagues better than she was doing before.  Since it’s cooled off, she’s even been outside to the garden quite a bit to sit in the sun.  

She really loves having her room downstairs and didn’t have as difficult a transition as I expected.  She has been gradually rearranging it and adding things to make it more personal to her and she loves having the sunlight wake her up in the morning, which she never used to get since her bedroom was on the West side of the house before.  I was shocked the other morning when I came downstairs and found her making tea for us in the kitchen!  I had to go back up and come down again to make sure I was in the right house.  

She is still on the oxygen quite a bit and I think that is largely what is helping her.  Lord knows how long she’s been oxygen deprived and didn’t even know it.  She’s still taking her meds without a fuss and I think she really likes how much better she’s feeling, which gives her motivation to stay on them this time.  She is resisting going to the doctor because she doesn’t see the need when she’s feeling so well.  

Mom is going to be having her 80^th birthday coming up (you guessed it, Oct 31, that old Scorpio Witch) and Cammie and Lynn are already planning a big party with everyone here.  Mom doesn’t know about it yet (but she probably suspects we’re doing something), so it’ll be a nice surprise for her.  We’re doing our best to get all of the grandkids and great grandkids here.  

Although the meds and the oxygen have done her wonders, as has the change of environment (she swears the energy flow is better in the new room because she said that the West is a place of endings and the East of new beginnings), I think I know what has her on the rise again. 

Last week, not long after we moved her room downstairs, she had the head of her bed cranked up and was looking out the bay window at the sun coming over the garden.  There’s not much left out there because the veggies and herbs have been mostly harvested, but it’s still a pretty sight and she can see the flowers that are still in the back yard.  We’ve not had our first frost out here yet, so there’s still some color about.  I brought her in a cup of ginger-peppermint tea (if you haven’t tried it, you MUST!) and she said, “There’s a wind blowing, Sage.”  It kind of weirded me out a bit because the trees were stirring, but there was nothing remarkable about it.  I asked her what she meant and she said, “The winds of change are stirring up.”  She started talking about that song that Bert sings in “Mary Poppins” “Winds in the East, mist coming in, like something is brewing, about to begin.”  Sure enough, the wind began to pick up a bit and and kick around some leaves.  Then she asked me to turn on the TV so she could watch Regis and Kelly.  ? 

Not an hour later, there was a knock on the door and there…was…Ginger.  Again, I say, (?!).  We’d heard from her exactly twice since the whole Bender thing (you have to pan back to May to read the whole thing from its beginning) ended in July, once to chew me out and once to cry and gag and beg forgiveness.  After that, Ginger fell into the black hole.  

So without notice, there was Ginger.  Mom was still in the bed then, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to go.  It was like when Newman comes to visit Jerry Seinfeld.  “Hello Ginger…”  “Hello Ssssage.”  Glare.  So she came in and we talked for a while.  I was surprised once again by how just not bright she is.  It has always surprised me and the other sisters that Ginger and Rosie crawled out of the same womb and was raised in the same home as the rest of us.  I can say that not only because I’d say it to their faces without hesitation, but also because neither of them EVER read my column.  Sure, we all have problems like everyone else, but Rosie and Ginger…they’re just really different.  I don’t mean that as passing judgment or anything…just a statement of fact.  Anyway, she was STILL feeling that *I* was responsible for what all Bender did because *I* had provoked him by RESPONDING to his “banter” and that because *I* am the bigger person, *I* should have gotten out of his way.  I gave her some serious Dr Phil time and got down to how responsible she feels for bringing him into our life and how she’s projecting her anger at herself onto me.  Pfft.  I had her broken in no time.  

After a bit, she asked to see Mom, who blessedly had fallen asleep watching Regis and Kelly (and who wouldn’t?).  She went in and Mom stirred awake.  She looked like Christ had walked into her room.  I thought she was going to ignite or something, she got so excited.  Anyway, she asked me to leave them alone (for the third time this post, I say “?!”) for a while, so I got busy working on some site work.  

When the fog cleared and the clouds lifted, I guess they came to some kind of peace because they were all giggly and cuddly when she was ready to go.  She gave me a hug good-bye and whispered, “Thank you” when she did.  She told me she loved me, which I can’t remember her doing as long as I’ve known her.  I still don’t know what went on in that room and I don’t know what’s going on now.  You now know almost as much about it as I do.  Since then, mom has gotten progressively better, whether it is from the oxygen or the meds or from this or from the move from West to East, I don’t know.   I’m just grateful for it because while I never felt like I lost my mom (well, almost lost her!), I now feel like I have her more than I did before.  I’m not going to get my hopes up because she is still in poor health and is still at the end of a really tough year, but it’s really good to see her up and around and to see the sparkle back in her eyes again.  

I know that she and Ginger are up to something, because Ginger has called 2-3 times since she was here and the conversation is the same each time, “Hello, Sage.  Let me talk to Mom.”  I’ll let you know if anything happens. 

So that’s how Mom is doing and thanks for all of you who have asked!  Mom is doing great!

Love,

Be Afraid...Be Very Afraid

GH

OK, I waited until the last second because I was hoping better news would be coming in.  I just got off the phone with one of my sources that I thought was dead in the water because I hadn't been able to get with him in so long.  He verified the unthinkable.  YES, there is a wedding planned for Brenda and Jason and YES Guza is interested in giving them a run.  Basically, according to my source, Guza is throwing lots of things against the wall to see what sticks and what stinks.  He is determined to live up to this quote, "Whatever the Internet says we're going to do, we'll do something else," which is what he said in SOD last month.  Because we were all expecting and had been assured of Liason, because that was the direction in which the show was naturally flowing and because that's what was in the works, he decided to try other things, such as the Courtney babysitting task and now, taking care of Brenda.  Liz, of course, is NOT going to like the marriage of necessity, but she, by this time, will already have voiced her piss off about being left out of the loop on Sonny's "death" and will have told Jason that she can't handle his life.  One would think this would just be foreplay for Liason, but in the interim, Jason and Brenda are caught up in a bizarre turn of events and end up married with the help of Joe Isuzu (David Leisure, also from "Empty Nest") and The Tender Blossum herself, Judy Tenuda.   

Turns out, the writers and the actors involved are digging on the screaming matches Jason and Brenda have been having lately and feel that Liason just doesn't have the fire any more.  The WHISPERED rumors around the set is that Burton is running impotent in the chemistry department with the actresses he's worked with since his marriage and everyone involved feels it's better to get Jason AWAY from Elizabeth because the sizzle is going to fizzle when the rubber meets the teeth...er, the road.  Quietly, it's a way to keep Burton not only away from the love scenes that make him uncomfortable, but to also parade their Prize Poodle right onto front stage with their other Prize Poodle and shove Herbst back into the closet with the rest of the cast who aren't Sonny and Carly.  That's right.  You heard me.  Without Liason, there is little for Elizabeth to do these days but wipe tables at Kelly's and I have a feeling that's just the way they want it.  It's interesting that it should happen right after she supposedly did an ill-fated little push and shove to get hubby Michael Saucedo (ex-Juan) back on the show.  To THIS gossip queen, it sounds to me like they built her up for a giant love fest and now have dropped her cold as soon as Vanessa is on the set, maybe as a little lesson in self-over-estimation.   One only has to look at the Spencers and the Cassadines to see how quickly the writers and other powers that be can move characters and actors from Hot to Not.  

Now, listen, folks, I am NOT saying that Liason will not happen.    It still could.  The door is being left open at this time and other than this marriage of inconvenience, Jason isn't being paired with anyone, except for some longing looks with Elizabeth, and that's just how Burton likes it from what I hear.  He recently said that he was NOT against love scenes if they were integral to the story, so it's just gratuitous love scenes with which he has a problem and I think that as a thirty-something, that means he's in the wrong damned line of work because soaps are BUILT on quickly rendered passionate love and illicit sex and gratuitous fondling.  Personally, I'll give it about a 50/50.  I figure it was a go, then VM came on the scene, then before you know it, Vanessa and Steve are screaming at each other in a limo and then you've got a writer saying, "Hey, I like that, let's run with it" and before you know it, we're smack in the middle of Plan B.  I know I said they were going to run with Liason for November (and they still might), but like you, I was starting to get a little bit nervous when suddenly, the were never together.  I mean, Jeez, she's living in the penthouse, for Godsake, we should have had pool table action lonnnnng before now, not to mention the mad dash from the shower to the bedroom door that !oops! finds the door locked itself when it slammed shut.  Then there would be the making dinner together scene where she shows him how to cook calamari and he shows her how to make mac and cheese.  I was really getting worried because if they were going to use Jason and Liz in a month, they should have been doing more than what we've seen to make it happen.  I made my list, checked it twice and all my sources were still saying the same thing:  Liason is still a go...until tonight.  This is the first breath I've heard that they might seriously go with something else.  The ONE kernel of good news is that the powers that be still like Jax and Brenda together, so if they get a good run, Liason has a better chance.  Bottom line is that everything is up in the air now and no one, I mean NO ONE knows where it's going to land.  If they tell you they do, they are lying.  Since Vanessa Marcil came back on the show, the numbers are up for the first time in a long time and the powers that be are all aflush trying to decide what to do with them and with her.  I've also heard that she is already being aggressively courted to extend her stay and from what I'm also hearing, she's having enough fun that she just may do that.  Of course, that also affects things.  Will Brenda stay?  Will Vanessa stay?  Will there be a recast?  These are all things that are variables in the game. 

Here's what I really want you to know.  Sources are wrong all the time.  I get some of my sources online and sometimes they are people I don't know.  Usually, they are wonderful, reliable people who come across valuable info and are kind enough to pass it on to me and let me pass it on to you.  I *love* my sources and appreciate every one of them, but many of them I do not personally know and therefore, cannot vouch for their reliability.  All I can ever go by is whether or not their info panned out in the past.  Sometimes, I hear from magazines or occasionally, the actors or people who work on the sets.  Information comes in from all over and whatever I get, unless it sounds like total bullshit, I pass on to you guys.  I try to be as honest as I can with you.  What you read above is what I'm hearing now from two good sources (one wouldn't tell me much more than the fact that they are throwing Jason and Brenda together in a weird situation to see if they click and the other is the one I talked to tonight is the one who broke the rest off to me), so I wanted to get it out there.  Like I've said a million times, I'm not a scoopster.  I leave that for the pros.  I'm a gossip columnist and this is the gossip I'm hearing from a source that has always been reliable in the past...and I don't like it.

What this means is that all of the Liason fans have been righteously screwed if Jason and Liz do not play out.  I feel your pain.  Yeah, yeah, I know that we are never really "promised" anything and that until it's on our screen, nothing is guaranteed.   I don't particularly have a proclivity to any one couple or actor.  I judge solely what I see on my screen and what I've seen in the past from Liz and Jason, I liked.  I really felt that the flow was taking them to a Jason and Liz lovefest and when I got hard core scoop from people in the know who backed that up, it sounded like a winner for November, which is when they were projecting it to happen and it still may!  In my opinion, from the moment Elizabeth stormed out of Kelly's after whacking Lucky, ran smack into Jason and said, "Let's go," you'd have to be a frickin moron to not believe it was destined to happen.  What I'm seeing now feels like we're being thrown little crumbs after a really abrupt and senseless redirect.  I do like the interaction between Jason and Brenda and think the pairing would be interesting and would definitely serve Steve's need for no nipple contact for a while at least, but it could be bad, bad news for the Liason people.  I'm also concerned about what will happen to Elizabeth if Liason doesn't take off and I PRAY that Zander isn't ready to pop into the slot like Pez because I HATED the Zander and Liz scenes (although, I just heard the other day that Zander is coming back and will have his memory intact).  I likewise hope that we don't fall back into the permanent lock crap with Lucky again and insist on believing that all systems are still go for a Jacob Young departure this Winter.  

I really, really wish I had better news, but that is what I have on the subject for now.  PLEASE do not flood my inbox with letters demanding that I keep Liz and Jason together.  I do not have that power and I do not work for ABC or General Hospital.  If you want to voice your pain, do so by clicking here and writing to the people listed who are NOT under "Eye on Soaps Webmaster."  I pray this person I talked to is wrong, but what I am seeing on screen seems to back it up.  Additionally, anyone who labels me a Liason Lover or a Liason Hater brands themselves an idiot because right up front and might as well put on their Idiot T-shirt, because I'm telling you that while I really like what I've seen from Liason, I'm not a major proponent for ANY couple or character.  With me, they are only as good as their last act and I call it like I see it on the screen with anyone.  One of the most well screamed retorts on the net is, "The couple doesn't suck!  They've just been given bad material!!"  I'm telling you that in my opinion, "the couple" (as in ANY couple) is an amalgam OF the writing and the chemistry and acting from the actors, so if they are being given crappy material, the couple is going to suffer.  In this case, it looks like Liason is not yet dead in the water, but are definitely being put on hold while the writers play with their new toys.  I'm going to hope that the marriage will be temporary and soon, Brenda will be back with Jax and Jason will be back with Liz.  In the meantime, I'm willing to watch and see what happens as we get the two Prize Poodles on stage together.

This, of course, means that the cast of key characters is being pared down even more so that we are dealing with Sonny, Carly, Jason and Brenda.  With Roy gone, I have a feeling Felicia will fall to the wayside pretty quickly.  AJ and Courtney are not long for this world as MY theory is that AJ is the one who is following her and spying on her.  I think we are going to see Coleman coming into hero mode and winning the fair maiden and AJ, yet again, relegated to Guza's favorite place for him, being the loser/jerk.  Look to see Ned and Alexis in the spotlight as the campaign (soon) comes to a close and they come out of it wedded.  It's supposed to be the old thing of love sneaking up on them.  I think Scott will fall off the face of the earth as soon as the attic stuff plays out when Luke returns.  

Don't worry about the big secret of Alexis' baby's paternity coming out doing much damage.  Carly will tell Sonny the truth (but does so AFTER the sex - smart girl) and he will be severely miffed, but in a quick DNA test rigging (most say by Ned), the results reveal Ned to be the father, convincing both Carly and Sonny.  They will make up in no time and the secret is safe for a while, most likely until the child is stricken with the required bout of aplastic anemia and needs a bone marrow transplant.  

Skye is going to get the real shaft when Jax insists on a divorce.  She ends up being fooled by Alcazar who does some quick talking to convince her that Brenda and Jax are more than they appear.  She joins forces to break them up and ends up getting in over her head, so not only are they working to make Skye look pathetic, they are also playing the stupid angle.  I've always heard that Guza love Robin Christopher, so I'm really hoping they put her into strong, vendetta mode rather than gullible idiot mode.  She is another character that may well be on the way into the closet next to Rebecca Herbst in favor of the FAB FOUR SHOW.  Where's Jax?  Playing stubborn and proud doesn't get you very far these days, so I expect that story will wash out soon.  It's grim, folks...really, really grim and basically, all bets are off.

It would not surprise me in the least to see a major falling off of actors who do NOT play Jason, Brenda, Sonny or Carly.  I've heard the rumor of Tony Geary leaving is not valid, which is good news.  Tony is good enough that he can be interesting with or without Genie, but I regret we won't have any more Luke and Roy scenes with A Martinez gone after the 10th.  

Where does it land?  Like I said, no one really knows right now.  I don't think they are planning more than a couple of weeks ahead at a time and if they are playing games like AMC, they are not handing out scripts until a week or less before taping.  It's...weird land right now.  We are definitely at the mercy of waiting until November to see what shows up.  I just hope it's good, whatever it is.

By the way, the song in the Jax gets shot montage was "Did I Imagine You" by Dot Allison.

AMC

Leo and Vanessa leave on October 17th.

Kim McCullough has been approached (supposedly) by ABC (that's A - B - C not A - M - C) about a return as Robin, but no one is letting on whether or not she said yes or to which show or for how long.  

Rumors are still around of Julia coming back briefly.

OLTL

Sources name Gerald Anthony (Marco Dane), Laura Koffman (Kassie Buchanan), Barbara Garrick (Allison Perkins), Gina Tognoni (Kelly Cramer) and Roscoe Borne (Mitch Laurence) as returning for temp gigs.

Got in new writers, thank God.  Josh Griffith has been named head writer effective November 4, 2002. and is paired with his old partner, Emmy Award-winner and critically acclaimed novelist Michael Malone, who has been named creative consultant for “One Life to Live.” also effective November 4.  The team wrote for OLTL in the past (in 1991) during the story of Marty's rape by Todd and Co.

And, as Forrest would say,  that's all I've got to say about that.

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