Le maudit Mo D.

i take thee, soap character

During college, I watched a lot of soaps. This activity, of which I have not a trace of shame about, was brought about by Mara, the undisputably most controversial, scandalous, and influential person to enter my life, ever. At present, Mara is a soap journalist and talks to famous soap figures about as often as she visits the can. Back in college, Mara was a nascent soap opera flower ready to burst from its seed. Having spent the entirety of her adolescence obsessively viewing and reading about every show in the entire genre, Mara was eager to spred her love for melodramatic daytime TV like the gospel. And if you know Mara, you'll understand that her Clintonesque charm and personal magnetism easily charmed the feminist throng into agreeing with her on anything, soaps included.

During the spring of 1997, I was deeply entranced with the Patrick/Marty storyline on One Life To Live. Marty, after being raped, kidnapped, beaten, diagnosed with lupus, and dumped in the proverbial dumpster, was engaged to Dylan, your standard-issue soap opera hottie with not much of a storyline. I was not a Dylan fan, and I'm sure at the time I had one heck of a witty line about how bland he was as a character, about how his long auburn hair and sharply chiseled features made him look like a gussied-up white-trash exotic dancer picked up by some Park Avenue septuagenarian with a lot of money and extremely high self-esteem, but it wasn't that.

Patrick, on the other hand, (played by Mara's close personal friend Thorsten Kaye) was a burly Irish poet, a character so over-the-top he may as well have been dreamed up by a midwestern high school sophomore who didn't realize that James Joyce was a skinny motherfucker with a pencil mustache. Patrick (like St. Patrick!) was IRISH! He had connections to the IRA! He was almost KILLED! And of course, when he met Marty on that fateful night in Ireland, Patrick's theme song, a wistful flute-heavy number performed by the Chieftains, he was SHOT and nearly DIED IN HER ARMS, but not before falling HOPELESSLY IN LOVE with young, beautiful, doomed Marty.

Back home in Llanview, Dylan, bland, chiseled Dylan, awaited his bride's return (I don't remember why Marty was in Ireland, other than it had something to do with alluring villain/rapist TODD), but no one was rooting for them as a couple anymore. Everytime Marty entered a room that Patrick was in, the flutey Chieftains song would play, and the camera's focus would soften Marty's face and Patrick would get that shamed, tragic look that quoted Morrissey, "I want the one I can't have," only we all knew that this was a soap opera, and that this Irish dude, with his burly physique, and ORIGINAL POETRY WRITTEN BY THE ACTOR would net him his woman.

I mention this story not only because it was a very important part of my Seven Sisters education, but also because it speaks to my latest irrational fear, namely, that I will say some other name besides "Bob" during the ceremony. As I recall, during Marty's lackluster and awkward nuptials with cuckold Dylan, she uttered the name "Patrick" instead of "Dylan," foretelling their inevitable demise. Network TV fans will also remember that Ross said "Rachel" instead of "that forgettable temporary woman he married for two miserable episodes back in '99." I am worried that these dramatic television hooks, designed to bash viewers over the head with the information of future infidelities and re-pairings, have seeped into my psyche and I'll accidentally call Bob "Terrance" or "Jack" or "Dad" and I will be horrified beyond recognition and will be forced to avail myself of the services of the grill of a truck traveling at 50 mph.

I love Bob.

Still, as the date approaches, and I get squirrelier, and less Mo-like, and more stressed and given to requesting prescription downers from my doctor, I cannot help but be worried about minor embarrassments, revelations that my mental real estate's got a squatter right now, but that like all those arty-farty French writers whose papers I've spent the last 2.5 years processing, all this shit has made me feel like the mad brilliant writer I've always knew I could be.

IN OTHER NEWS:
I purchased my first iPod today, with only two days left on my UT staff discount at the pooter store. I'm late to this piece of technology, but now I've got the latest, tricked-out version, so bully for moi.

Posted by Zerd at August 2, 2006 06:49 PM