the port chas local

once upon a time i worked, or didn't enough frankly, as a freelancer and that meant i'd rise at 3 pm every weekday from my desk to watch general hospital. i developed this habit (all together now: "you say habit, we say addiction") as a child even before christopher cross breath-sang, 'hey laura, where are you now, are you fa-ar away from here? i don't think so, i think you're near...' and now laura's off the show, in some loony bin, but luke's still knocking around port charles, rockin that small hoop earring (bad idea, bro), and sonny 'the hunk' corinthos has replaced the cassidines as the local greek mafioso. and that's a peculiarity of soaps that is goddamn fascinating: in movies, the mafia are sicilian, or, in indies now, russian by way of brighton beach. but on daytime tv greeks are the supreme gangsters and in the two-restaurant town of port chas, where girls profess love even before they learn how to use tampons and steely-eyed glaring is art above all others, there are, count 'em, five mafia families. we rarely get to see them, but sonny always seems to be arranging meetings with them, that's how i know it's true and real.

i just don't know why the bad guys are always greek in soapworld. and i wonder and i wonder and i wonder.