Soap Opera

MICHAEL VICK'S night finally ended at 12:30 this morning, a small groan seeping out as he lifted his body from a chair and stepped gingerly from the podium. This was after a long stint in the training room, that followed another superhuman performance that required what seems to be superhuman resilience. "I'm used to taking hits," he said after the Eagles outgunned the Houston Texans, 34-24, at the Linc last night. "It's not that bad. They may look harder than what they seem. But it's not that bad. If I take one and I stay down, then you know I took a good one. I'm a pretty tough guy. " How tough?

Somewhere along the way, the NFL evolved from CIA secret to HBO original series. Like any long-running melodrama, it takes ever more outlandish plotlines to keep viewers coming back. Brett Favre. Brad Childress. Randy Moss. Wade Phillips and Jerry Jones. The Ryan Brothers' coaching and cussing contest. The weekly roundup of video-game hits, concussions and ever-increasing fines. Who comes up with this stuff? This episode of Monday Night Football is a textbook example.

"Webcamgate," the Lower Merion School District soap opera about two teens and two school-issued laptops that spied on them, was never supposed to be about money. But that's exactly what brought the whole screwy saga to a close yesterday - a boatload of money. The district's Board of School Directors voted unanimously to pay $610,000 to settle lawsuits filed by the families of Harriton High sophomore Blake Robbins and Lower Merion High graduate Jalil Hasan, both of whom were unknowingly photographed scores of times at home by webcams on Apple MacBooks.

Sometime before sundown, at a hulking ballpark nestled between congested freeways and auto-body shops, Brad Lidge will pick up a baseball and try to throw it. And with that simple act, for better or worse, the soap opera that has been the Phillies' season will take yet another plot twist. If all goes well when the closer tests his hyperextended right elbow before tonight's game against the Mets at Citi Field, the bullpen just might be well-girded for the stretch drive and the playoffs that loom like a pot of gold beyond.

El Conquistador! A brilliant, funny, wildly theatrical show about Latin American soap operas ( telenovelas ). Thaddeus Phillips (who created this with Tatiana Mallarino and Victor Mallarino) is the only live actor onstage (if you don't count his beloved potted plant). He plays Polonio, a poor Colombian farmer who goes to the glamorous big city and becomes a doorman for an apartment building called Nuevo Mundo. Considering that the show begins in 1492 and then skips ahead 515 years, the whole idea of "New World" is slyly politicized, and further complicated when one of the building's tenants (we see them through the intercom camera each time they call the doorman)

SOMETIME BEFORE sundown, at a hulking ballpark nestled between congested freeways and auto-body shops, Brad Lidge will pick up a baseball and try to throw it. And with that simple act, for better or worse, the soap opera that has been the Phillies' season will take yet another plot twist. If all goes well when the closer tests his hyperextended right elbow before tonight's game against the Mets at Citi Field, the bullpen just might be well-girded for the stretch drive and the playoffs that loom like a pot of gold beyond.

El Conquistador! A brilliant, funny, wildly theatrical show about Latin American soap operas (telenovelas). Thaddeus Phillips (who created this with Tatiana Mallarino and Victor Mallarino), is the only live actor onstage (if you don't count his beloved potted plant). He plays Polonio, a poor Colombian farmer who goes to the glamorous big city and becomes a doorman for an apartment building called Nuevo Mundo. Considering that the show begins in 1492, and then skips ahead 515 years, the whole idea of "New World" is slyly politicized, and further complicated when one of the building's tenants (we see them through the intercom camera each time they call the doorman)

I'M A LITTLE confused. Minority Leader John Boehner has been asking President Obama, "Where are the jobs?" Meanwhile, Sharron Angle, running for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's seat in Nevada, says the jobs are there, but Americans are lazy and spoiled and don't want to take the low-paying ones. Our GOP candidate for governor, Tom Corbett says basically the same thing - some people are choosing to stay unemployed. So is it Obama's fault the unemployment rate is so high? After all, according to Corbett, there are plenty of jobs in the paper.

BECAUSE WE GENERALLY like to reserve this section of the People Paper for comic relief, here's the latest laugher: T.O. is concerned that the reason he is yet to sign on the dotted line of an NFL contract is due in large part to teams perceiving him as a troublemaker. According to an Associated Press report, the receiver - seeking his fourth team in 6 years - feels that it's not his slumping numbers over that time period that have general managers wary, but the soap opera that has become his life.

LOS ANGELES - About four hours after soap opera and contemporary art fans arrived to watch actor James Franco tape an episode of "General Hospital" at the Pacific Design Center on a recent Thursday night, many were still baffled. "Do you know what's going on?" one asked in a not-so-quiet whisper. "I'm still learning myself," answered another. Over the course of the evening, Franco found that he had a lot of explaining to do. The event was "Soap at MOCA: James Franco on 'General Hospital,' " hosted by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. New MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch collaborated with Franco to produce what they consider a performance art project, which is elaborate and complex in its layers of fantasy and reality.