The Boob Tube
I Heart Snooki!
Oh sweet Jesus, please help me because I’ve now turned into a “Jersey Shore” watching, Bumpit wanting, Snooki loving freak. I heard a lot about this show in the media before I had even seen an episode, then last weekend MTV ran a marathon of all the episodes and I got hooked.
For those of you living under a rock and have no clue what this show is about, I’ll give you a high-level overview of things. MTV took a bunch of dirt balls from New Jersey, put them up in a house on the boardwalk that looks like it was decorated in 1975 (and looks like it would smell like fish mixed with sweat), then filmed the ensuing chaos that followed.
Here’s how EVERY episode plays out…the gang goes out to bars, gets totally wasted, gets into a fight or two (the girls included), then they all go back to the sweaty fish house to eat and pass out. Then they wake up the next day, go tanning, workout, and get their hair done. And so on and so on. This formula does not change.
I haven’t bothered to learn any of the characters names because they all look the same to me, that is with the exception of Snooki and a man who calls himself “The Situation.” I must have missed the episode were they explained why they have those nicknames, but I heart Snookers so much, I’m considering naming my first born child after her. I feel the name works equally well for a girl or a boy. Snooki’s hair is taller than she is, her skin is so tan it looks purple, and she took a punch in the face by a guy at a bar, yet still continued to go out and party the next night. That’s my kind of girl! Ain’t nothing gonna bring Snooki down!
“The Situation” looks like he’s a hard 40 and spends his nights “creeping” on girls. I do give him some credit, though, because he loves to cook and frequently makes huge meals for all the roommates. Gotta love a man who can cook, although with all that gel in his hair, I’m always scared he’s going to catch on fire when he’s grilling out.
There are also two roommates who met on the show and starting dating. He’s a breakdown of their relationship…make out, say you can’t live with one another, get drunk, start fighting with each other, get super pissed and break something. Yes, Jersey love is beautiful yet turbulent.
There are two more guys on the show, but they blur together for me because because all I see are tans and tattoos and there’s another girl who looks like a stripper in the making who, shockingly, cheated on her boyfriend with one of the roommates. Those Jersey girls just can’t be trusted!
I must say, I have never in my life had the desire to visit the Jersey Shore and now I REALLY never want to go there. I am too pale and too Midwestern to ever fit in and I think they’d all kick my ass as soon as I crossed the border. I’m staying right here in Illinois where everyone is an upstanding and amazing human being…riiiiiight.
It’s Always Sunny On Christmas…
It\'s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
There are a few movies/TV Sshows that I watch without fail every holiday season…“Christmas Vacation,” “Bad Santa,” “It’s A Wonderful Life,” and “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” just to name a few. This year, I am excited to have a new Christmas classic to add to the mix… “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas.”
Even though this show has been airing on the FX Network for the last five years, I was just turned on to it last year by some friends of mine. Now, I’m hooked. For those that have never seen the show, it revolves around a group of slightly degenerate friends who own a bar in Philadelphia. It’s a little like Seinfeld in that there’s no real story line that carries through the theme of the show, it’s just about the crazy things this group of friends gets into every week.
This November, they released a DVD Christmas special that is really hilarious. I don’t even know how to described it, other than this tidbit…if you’ve ever wanted to see Danny Devito naked (and let’s face it, who hasn’t?), then this is your chance. There is also a claymation penis at one point (don’t ask, just go with it), and, in my favorite scene, one of the characters (Charlie) FREAKS OUT on a mall Santa and total chaos ensues. There are no real morals learned and everyone ends up exactly where they started. The characters never learn from their mistakes or become any wiser and I love them for that.
This will definitely be a show I’ll watch with my kids someday…but only after they turn 18.
80’s Flashback: Tales From The Darkside
One of my all-time favorite scary shows as a kid was “Tales From The Darkside.” I also liked the new “Twilight Zone” and “Amazing Stories,” but there was just something extra freaky about The Darkside. Maybe it was the way each episode began. First, there would be a picture of a serene country side in color and then, BAM, it would turn to black and white and a Vincent Price-like voice would say:
“Man lives, in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality.
But… there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real,
but not as brightly lit…..a DARKSIDE.”
CREEPY. And the music sounded like a deranged women banging away at the harpsichord. And each episode would end with the same voice saying:
“The dark side is always there, waiting for us to enter, waiting to enter us.
Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.”
EXTRA CREEPY. Darkside was produced by George A. Romero who made the “Creepshow” movies so it’s no surprise it was pretty twisted. The series aired from 1983 to 1988, but for some reason, NONE of my friends remember it. I had actually forgotten all about it, too, until a couple of months ago when I stumbled upon the SYFI Channel showing reruns. I was in heaven!
Watching it now, more than twenty years later, the series is more kitschy than scary, but it’s still a good time either way. Watch it…if you think you can handle the darkside [insert deranged music here]
Chelsea Lately
This is a book review/my favorite TV shows/if I was ever a lesbian, this is who I would give lickings to post. I LOVE Chelsea Handler. I must confess that I had NO CLUE who the hell she was until I saw “Chelsea Lately” for the first time. Now, it’s part of my nightly bedroom routine. I clean my ‘keet’s bird cage, take my melatonin (sometimes with wine, sometimes without), then settle in for a dose of pure comic genius from 10:00pm to 10:30pm on E!.
I’m sooo grateful they moved Miss Handler up a full half-hour, as I am old now and can’t seem to stay awake past 11:00pm on any given night. For those of you who don’t know, Chelsea Handler is a stand-up comedian/actress who was previously featured on the Oxygen Network show “Girls Behaving Badly” and had her own show for a very short lived time period before striking gold as a late night talk show host on the E! Network. She is also a New York Times best-selling author of the book “Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea?” I own this book and would recommend it to anyone I thought was cool enough to handle the Handler. She also wrote another book called “My Horizontal Life” about all the men she fucked in her twenties and I can’t wait to read it. In fact, I think I am going to petition the Illinois School Board and make sure her books are included as part of the curriculum. I’m sure all parents would be cool with that, right?
Some more reasons I Heart Chelsea are:
1) Her boyfriend is the head of E programming and she freely admits to sleeping with her boss!
2) Her favorite liquor is Grey Goose vodka and lots of it!
3) Her sidekick is a Mexican dwarf named Chewy. If you read my post about how I “adopted” a Mexican orphan named Alejandro, then you would know why I feel she is a kindred spirit!
4) She’s BFF with Jenny McCarthy (who I heart as well, but mainly because she gets to have sex with my crush, Jim Carrey)!
5) She’s REALLY, REALLY funny. EVERY episode of her show is funny. I MEAN IT! WATCH IT!
Paranormal State
I’m going to preface this next post by saying I LOVE scary movies. And what’s the next best thing to scary movies? SCARY TV SHOWS! I discovered “Paranormal State” on A&E last year and was instantly hooked. Okay, right off the bat I must confess, this group of Penn State college students who investigate paranormal cases are not the prettiest bunch of people to look at. The founder of the bunch, Ryan Buell, has grown on me in sort of a “nerdy kid I‘d like to corrupt” way, but the others are your classic bookworm types. They are all super smart and definitely know their way around an exorcism.
The houses they have investigated would give Freddy Kruger a mild coronary. Pictures are flying off the walls, weird voices are saying “Get Out!” and it’s made all the more tense because they start their work at 3 a.m or “the dead hour” as they call it. I would give anything to tag along on one of their adventures just to see if I could take it. I’m sure I would be digging my fingernails into the arm of whoever was sitting closest to me while simultaneously relieving myself on the carpet.
And if you are going to watch this show, you MUST do it with all the lights off! It really enhances the whole “yep, I just shit my pants” experience. Try it sometime…IF YOU DARE…[insert Vincent Price evil laugh here]
Riding Miss Daisy
I have no idea how the hell this happened, but “Daisy of Love” is one of my new favorite shows. I was flipping through the channels one night, looking for something fun to watch, and the powers that be made my remote stop on VH1. It’s been love at first sight ever since.
For those who aren’t familiar with the show, let me break it down for you. Daisy De La Hoya (Oscar’s niece) is the train wreck from a past season of “Rock of Love.” She famously broke the fuck down when Brett Michaels rejected her and made a complete ass of herself. I do believe snot dripped from her nose as she was losing her shit all over the place when Brett told her she was not his true love. It was pretty awesome to watch.
So the producers over at VH1 thought this little lady should have her own show and I applaud their ingenious idea because Daisy is extremely mesmerizing to watch. She looks like a total cum dumpster yet her voice sounds like a little girl’s and it’s a creepy contrast to take in.
She’s also some sort of a musician (of COARSE she is), but I have yet to actually see her sing or play an instrument. And the men they’ve given her to choose from just scream “STD.” In fact, if/when she does have unprotected sex with any of them, I’m sure they would mutate their own special kind of genital warts. Yuck.
But Miss Daisy is fairly enduring because she does wear her heart on her sleeve and she really does fall for EVERY guy on the show in a junior high school kind of way. She’s positively in love with a guy one minute and making out with another guy in the next scene. Girlfriend just can’t seem to make up her damn mind!
It’s okay, Daisy. I’m sure you will find true love this time around and it will probably even last a few months. And if you don’t, I’ll be looking forward to season two of your show.
Blue Moon
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Brooke Amanda. She was a happy child, cheeky if you will. One crisp autumn night back in 1987, Brooke’s mother turned to her and said, “There’s a new show premiering tonight that I think you’ll really like. It’s about a detective agency. I’ll even let you stay up past your bedtime to watch it.” Brooke was very excited because she NEVER got to stay up past her bedtime. This must be a really special event. What was the name of the show that would change Brooke’s young life? “Moonlighting.”
Brooke did stay up past her bedtime that night and every Thursday night from then on out. She was absolutely mesmerized by Bruce Willis and Cybill Sheperd as detectives David Addison and Maddie Hayes. Those two had a tumultuous and sexually charged relationship that little Brooke couldn’t get enough of back then. She wanted to BE Maddie Hayes. All she’d have to do was grow up to be a gorgeous blonde who wore fabulous designer dresses all the time. How hard could that be?
Brooke plastered her tiny bedroom with pictures of the two actors and she even wrote a fan letter to Ms. Shepherd, who was gracious enough to send little Brooke an autographed postcard back. Never mind the fact that some bitch at her 9th birthday party stole it from her room and to this day she is bitter about the whole thing; it was still a really nice gesture from such a famous star.
Brooke considered becoming a private detective for a while so she could go on zany capers just like Maddie and David. She also wanted to have a love-hate relationship with a wacky male counterpart that was filled with sexual tension. David and Maddie’s relationship would set the standard for how Brooke wanted her romances to be.
To Brooke’s dismay, once David and Maddie finally consummated their relationship, the show went downhill. The chemistry they once shared was gone and the show, like Brooke, just never recovered. Brooke even remembers having a lengthy/inapporpriate/awkward conversation with her mother about how those two should have never slept together. So boys and girls, the moral of the story is, if you find someone in your life that you can verbally spar with, don’t fuck them. The End.
The Exterminators
I think the head honcho at the A&E Network decided that on Wednesday nights, they will only have realty shows featuring people with crazy-ass hair. Exhibit A: My beloved “Dog The Bounty Hunter” which I have previously written about. Exhibit B: “The Exterminators,” a new show which comes on after “The Dog.” This show follows the adventures of an eccentric Southern family in Louisiana who own their own eterminator business called “Vex Con.”
This family is a step above white trash and I love them. The mom and dad run the show, but the real star is the son, Billy. He REALLY loves his job and gleefully hunts down whatever bugs, rodents, snakes, etc, that are bothering his clients. He is careful to never kill any creatures; he traps them and sets them free at a safe location. His hair looks like one of those punk rocker wigs that you can buy at Halloween. I don’t even know how to describe it, so here’s a pic so you can feast your eyes upon it for yourselves:
Amazing, isn’t it? In addition to riddng their clients of various pests, they also have a lot of family drama going on. His brother’s wife just left him and the parents HATE her. Billy is having problems of his own with his better half (who looks a tad on the hard side). And his mom reminds me of a derranged former beauty queen. Oh, and the dad almost had a heart attack a couple weeks ago and had to be rushed to the ER. Drama, yeah, they’ve got it!
I also give props to the family for their gothic style. They have crosses, skulls and all kinds of voodish looking shit all over their huge office. Hey, if you’re going to hunt down disgusting vermin for a living, you may as well look great doing it! Seriously, watch this show just one time and you will be hooked. You will also be amazed at how completely gross some of their clients are. Of course you’re going to have cockroaches when you live in filth! One woman had been having a bug problem FOR YEARS and did nothing about it. How do people live like that?! In another show, Billy pulled not one, but two huge snakes out of a couple’s home. I was impressed Billy could ANYTHING under all the trash and crap that was in the house. Here’s a tip- clean up your shit once in awhile and you won’t have these problems.
Toddlers & Tiaras
Has anyone seen the show “Toddlers & Tiaras” on TLC? I think a more fitting title would be “Cracked Out Stage Moms.” These women are CRAZY! The show follows different families competing in a variety of kiddie beauty pageants all over the country. I thought these kinds of things were only big in the South, but I was wrong. We just had one at my mall two weeks ago. It was very odd to see a three year old wearing a crown that measured the height of her entire body walking by the store.
The kids, for the most part, are actually quite normal when they’re not competing. It’s the damn parents that are off their rockers! Most of the moms are morbidly obese and heinously unattractive. It doesn’t take a therapist to know that they are trying to live vicariously through their daughters and it’s uncomfortable to watch, yet I can’t look away. The “cringe factor” is fairly high. For instance, there was a bizarre episode in which the mothers competed WITH their daughters (or against them, I’m still not sure). It was fascinating to watch. One hot mess of a mom got up there in a spandex body suit (and no, she was not in any shape to be wearing something like that) and twirled a baton. She thought the ceilings were higher than what they actually were and when she tossed the baton up, it came right back down and smacked her in the face. What a fucking train wreck!
Then there’s the FLAMING stage dad who choreographed all his two year old daughter’s dance routines…and he makes her costumes…and he’s married to a pretty hot woman. How this couple met, got married and procreated is way beyond me because this man definatly farts tiny rainbows. To top it off, his favorite color must be pink, because that’s the only color shirt he wore.
There’s also this bitch of a mom who’s daughter is stunning and has won a ton of crowns. The daughter is around ten years old and I feel like the mom is jealous of her. She CONSTANTLY critiques her and puts her down. Is she trying to give her daughter an eating disorder/drug problem/drinking problem? This poor girl is going to need major therapy one day.
I’d also like to know how the parents afford all the costumes, tanning sessions, fake teeth (they call them flippers), hair extensions, dance lessons, manicures, pedicures, make-up, etc… This stuff is NOT cheap and none of the families look remotely well-off. If I have a daughter, I will never put her through something like this. I’ll just enroll her in acting lessons and make her live out my dream of becoming a famous actress. I’m sure she’ll turn out fine, right?
Blue Moon
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Brooke Amanda. She was a happy child, cheeky if you will. One crisp autumn night back in 1987, Brooke’s mother turned to her and said, “There’s a new show premiering tonight that I think you’ll really like. It’s about a detective agency. I’ll even let you stay up past your bedtime to watch it.” Brooke was very excited because she NEVER got to stay up past her bedtime. This must be a really special event. What was the name of the show that would change Brooke’s young life? “Moonlighting.”
Brooke did stay up past her bedtime that night and every Thursday night from then on out. She was absolutely mesmerized by Bruce Willis and Cybill Sheperd as detectives David Addison and Maddie Hayes. Those two had a tumultuous and sexually charged relationship that little Brooke couldn’t get enough of back then. She wanted to BE Maddie Hayes. All she’d have to do was grow up to be a gorgeous blonde who wore fabulous designer dresses all the time. How hard could that be?
Brooke plastered her tiny bedroom with pictures of the two actors and she even wrote a fan letter to Ms. Shepherd, who was gracious enough to send little Brooke an autographed postcard back. Never mind the fact that some bitch at her 9th birthday party stole it from her room and to this day she is bitter about the whole thing; it was still a really nice gesture from such a famous star.
Brooke considered becoming a private detective for a while so she could go on zany capers just like Maddie and David. She also wanted to have a love-hate relationship with a wacky male counterpart that was filled with sexual tension. David and Maddie’s relationship would set the standard for how Brooke wanted her romances to be.
To Brooke’s dismay, once David and Maddie finally consummated their relationship, the show went downhill. The chemistry they once shared was gone and the show, like Brooke, just never recovered. Brooke even remembers having a lengthy/inapporpriate/awkward conversation with her mother about how those two should have never slept together. So boys and girls, the moral of the story is, if you find someone in your life that you can verbally spar with, don’t fuck them. The End.
