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At first, I was really bummed. Overall, this whole gig with EOS has been a really good one. I work with the greatest writers and finest people on earth. I get complete freedom to write as I like and I couldn't ask for a better "boss" than Katrina. She stands behind us, beside us and sometimes in front of us and takes the hits unflinchingly. All of my online friends are through or part of EOS. When I returned in May after a six month break while I traveled with my sweetie, I became more aggressive about using my sources and was able to get some good spoiler scoopage for GH. I thought it would be fun and cool to share them in my column so I did. Immediately, the negativity started. People bitched that my spoilers were too detailed. They bitched that I was selectively omitting spoilers based on my "agenda" (and of course, my "agenda" changed according to what moron from whatever fan base decided I was omitting spoilers on *their* stalking victim, I mean favorite star/couple/character. So far, if you listen to the masses - which I never should have - my agenda has been with just about every fan base on the planet. Funny how I get around.). They bitched that my spoilers weren't dead on if something changed during production. Overall, I'd say my record was pretty damned good, comparatively speaking. I shared whatever I got. Period. I loved doing it. But you know, people don't much care that there's a real person doing this. I've heard so many times that I put myself in the line of fire by being in "this business." "This business" is in sharing with you, the reader, the information I get. If people don't like the information I share, then I'm the one who gets beaten to shit. If people don't get enough spoilers on LiRic or Journey (who have a scene every few weeks - what, am I supposed to make shit up like a lot of the other "scoopsters?"), then I got bitched at. You know, I got into "this business" because I thought it would be fun to talk soaps with other people and since I had a few connections, I thought (stupid, I know) that people would enjoy hearing the info I get. What I didn't know coming into this gig is what assholes the average internet readers are. Or at least what assholes the loudest internet readers are. We all know that a good many of the fans of soap operas are insane or getting there to start with. Sure, EOS draws the lion's share of the intelligent, dare we say normal readers and so we are fairly protected from the fray. I think often this leads us, as writers, into a false sense of security and causes us to forget what a bunch of rabid idiots are out there. If soap fans weren't crazy, there wouldn't be so many people hiding their Soap Opera Digests in the bag with the napkins and paper towels or pretending like they're buying it for their Aunt Frannie. Read this for a good rundown of that. A lot of otherwise smart, vibrant people are cowed into humility as soon as someone finds out they are a soap fan. We love the smart ones whether they are in or out of the soap opera closet, but it just goes to show the stigma, and often rightly earned, associated with being a soap fan. Sheltered here, amongst intellectual readers and writers, we forget about the people out there who are really and truly nuckin' futs. They send clothing to a fictional baby who doesn't exist while real kids go cold in the winter. They get into back biting, hands shaking, tears streaming, outright fights with people they don't even know over who a serial criminal should be coupling up with and care far, far more about it than do any of the actors portraying the characters. They rip each other apart like a pack of wild mongrel dogs over something that should be fun and light, then they look up from their gluttonous feast of real people, grin through the blood dripping from their fangs, turn their feral little eyes onto their "partners," high five each other and lope off into their caves to stroke one another into sick, incestuous bliss. Yes, we, the EOS writers, forget about the insane element out there, spoiled as we are by our cool EOS readers. We forget until they come back out of their caves again and attempt to intermingle with real humans. They forget that you should never shit where you eat and especially shouldn't shit on what you eat. You know what else they do? They protect the object of their stalker affections at all costs. No matter what they say or do, their idols are faultless and flawless. Here's something to think about and a touch of a reality check: You don't know these people. You do NOT know these actors. It doesn't matter how many cutesy little "yeah-we-wuz-drinkin-40's-down-on-da-streetcorner-las'-night" nicknames you come up with, unless you have worked with these people in person on an ongoing basis, lived in their home or grown up with them, you do not know them. You may know well the characters they play. Hell, you may know the characters they play better than THEY do and definitely better than the writers do. You may know very well the public persona that their publicist and agent and boss tells them to pretend to be...but you don't know them. You know what they show you and you know who you think they are. That brings us to this week's column, which I posted on Monday. Among other things which were barely mentioned, including the really funny and VERY cool funny pages I did, here's what I wrote: Rumors are flying of an Ingo defection, which would be surprising considering that his previous foray into other projects ended badly (His series, "Titans," was quickly canceled). Given Ingo's nearly hedonistic lifestyle, it wouldn't surprise me to see him following his bliss. Taurus' love their creature comforts and when things get too uncomfortable, they tend to bail. People on the set told me that ALW wasn't particularly happy with Ingo's (albeit in fun) advances and that could be creating tension. Ingo likes to play, kiss during rehearsals and flirt, which isn't really her thing. In fact, I was told (laughingly) that a lot of the Casper scenes where Courtney was fighting off Jax's affections were so realistic because ALW was used to fighting off Ingo's innocent flirtations during the scene blocking .Oh my lord, the Ingo Mafia lost it's mind. "It doesn't matter how you pretty it up with 'laughingly' and 'albeit in fun,' YOU WERE ATTACKING INGO AND THEREFORE YOU SUCK!! You have no right to bash Ingo on a personal level! Sexual harassment charges are NOT taken lightly!!!!" Know what I say to this? Same thing I've said to others who have bashed endlessly like the poo-throwing apes they are over the years. "Pfft." The most interesting point is that in all of the letters I got, not one person said it wasn't true. They said I was "irresponsible" for mentioning it. They said that I was inciting riots on SZ. They said they "expected better" from me - - for telling the truth, I guess. I was bitched at because OTHER PEOPLE were using my words to go after Ingo. You know what? I refuse to be responsible for how someone else bastardizes and uses my words. Period. People are going to twist ANYthing I say and this one just happened to hit a nerve. Yet not one person who wrote to complain said that my information was untrue, just that I was wrong to say it out loud and smear poor Ingo's reputation... as if this information is not common knowledge. Anyone who works for GH and especially those who have been on set during the taping of Casper scenes knows good and well that every word I said was true. ANYone who knows Ingo knows that he is an aggressive and enthusiastic flirt. That's hardly any secret. Some actresses/people are into that and some aren't. Hell, Ingo can be absolutely as enthusiastic of a flirt with me as he wants to be. *I* am an aggressive flirt sometimes, as any of my Ho's will testify (and I'm proud that they would), but I have to tell you, if ANY of them said, "Hmmm. That went further than I'm comfortable with it going" I'd back up in a second and it would NEVER happen again. No harm, no foul, no kidding. Bottom line is this: I told the truth, plain and simple, and a hoard of people rushed out to tell me how horrible it was that I said something and that people used my words to attack each other. I did NOT attack Ingo on a personal level, I reported his professional (or lack thereof) behavior on the GH set in public in front of MANY witnesses. I did not read his mail and post it on the site. I did not report on his love life or bash his religion. I had this information confirmed by THREE individual sources who all gave me the exactly the same story without knowing I'd talked to the other two. None of these sources have ever knowingly steered me wrong. So what this means is that if you are thinking along the lines of ALW's defense and figure that Ingo is being pushier with the affection in rehearsals than she wants him to be, then he's ignoring boundaries despite her requests that he knock it off. If you go from Ingo's defense perspective, then ALW is a prude and is giving Ingo a hard time. That part is subjective and people will invariably process that info through their own filters. All I did was report the truth. Regardless, my feeling is that if Ingo was as eaten up about his own reputation as those people who are writing to chew my ass for reporting that truth, he'd be working a hell of a lot harder to avoid even the HINT of impropriety. No means "NO," dude. ssssssshhhhhh Don't say anything. Don't mention it. Even if everyone knows it's going on. How about if we kill Sage for daring to mentioning it, even in the most basic of tones; for telling the truth. Let's cry and wail and bitch and pull the hair from our chests at Sage and make him the bad guy. So yeah, I was bummy. I was bummy because of all the things I mentioned in the first two paragraphs. To continue that thought, I did spoilers and all people did was bitch. I'd get a nice letter about 1 out of 100. Mostly, people bitched. So I ditched the spoilers because I got tired of hearing the endless complaints. Called or e-mailed my sources, told them I loved them, but that I wasn't doing spoilers any more. No more "just one more spoiler;" I was done. Went to a gossip format again and got bashed because my column was boring (absolutely the most grievous insult that can be hurled my way). Suddenly, the info I was giving was suspect after months and months of a heavy accuracy rate. So I got attacked for two weeks for that. Then yesterday, the Ingo thing and my inbox filled up with more hate. I didn't get into this to be hated. I got into this to talk soaps with fun, intelligent people. Sadly, they are neither the loudest nor the most visible online. Sadly too, I don't hear from them much. Just the assholes for the most part. They're the ones who never appreciate anything you do and if they do, they only appreciate it if you are saying what they like to hear, then turn on you as soon as your column doesn't support their own thoughts. The week before, they were your best friend, but eventually, without fail, you'll say something that hits them wrong and they'll turn on you like Roy's lion (Siegfried, Roy, Lion ate Roy, etc). Disagreeing with these people kills them because they are incapable of supporting independent thought and having it held up to any degree of scrutiny without shaking, crying and ranting. They have to travel in rabid packs and surround themselves with other equally as vicious people chanting their own jaded manifesto to them, reminding them that they are loved and they are BY GOD right. I am neither stupid nor particularly naive. As my column header said for years, I realize that I'm not to everyone's taste. I absolutely do not expect to be. I just get tired of listening to people bitch endlessly, droning on with their mind-numbing agendas and stupid accusations, telling me what I am and what I said as if they have a clue. So when all this happened, I thought fuck it. Enough is enough. This isn't worth it and I'm not getting enough positive return on this investment and I'm getting a LOT of negativity from assholes no matter what direction I move or what I say. It gets old. You get kicked around enough times and you either get up and walk away or you let them kill your spirit entirely. Yesterday, I went into the hurt, but somewhere around the last third of the bottle of Absolut, I got mad. The assholes were having a party that I was gone and they had "won." Nope, sorry. I'm back. In trumps. In fact, I'm more "back" than I've been in a long time. If people don't like what I write, they can NOT read it and can lope on over to the columnists who stroke the fan bases just to get a favorable mention on a message board. As I said in the beginning, fuck all dose guys. They aren't my people anyway and I don't really give a shit about what they have to say. They have their leaders and they can flock to them and be stroked and bow and tell their little war stories. Meanwhile, the more intelligent ones of us will be over here. Thanks for all of the letters of support, the outpouring of love and the reminders of who I'm really writing this stuff for anyway. It's not the loud, poo-throwing apes and if they stumble onto it and need to hurl their shit around, so be it. I'm not reading it any more and I am surely not replying to it. As always, if you like what I do and want to slip into the fuzzy slippers, sip cocktails provided by oiled, suntanned cabana boys and talk soaps, then I'm taking applications here. Everyone else can piss off. In short, I'm here, I'm queer and you're either wit' me or I ain' talkin' to you. I dig on my peeps to much to leave just because a bunch of assholes aren't particularly housebroken. My people know who they are. They are a proud, sharp bunch and I love'em. The consensus? No straight out gossip column. I'm going solely to the Sage Uncensored format and I'm going to be myself and hope that the people out there who know and appreciate me come around to talk with me and hear what I have to say. If not, I'll sit here and talk to the Ho's and the EOS staff and offer a toast to their outstanding company. The mistake I made was in straying off the path and trying to make people happy. Now, I'm just going to write for me, for the people who enjoy what I do and bedamned the rest. Since evidently some of the people who liked me a week ago hate me know, I'm going to scrap the old mailing lists that notified people of updates. I only want people here who want to be here and I don't want to me mailing people update notices who don't want them. Life begins again today. If you want to be notified of updates to my columns, you can sign up below or by clicking here. No further notices will be sent to the old list.
Oh and if anyone wants to see the funny pages from Monday's column, they're here:
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Note:
Sage gets a fat ton
of mail every day and regrets he can't answer everyone personally.
He loves ya, he just might not get a chance to write to ya!
Besides!! He writes to you every week in a column whether you write
to him or not! So there! Needless to say, if you are an
asshole, he just isn't going to write back because you will have proven
you're not the people he writes for anyway and therefore, do not deserve
his attention. If you're inclined to do that, just pretend he wrote
back and said, "That's just like, your opinion, man."