The Real Housewrecks

It's true. I watch The Real Housewives of [insert city full of crazy women]. It started with the Orange County babes, after having enjoyed a season or two of The OC ("Califorrrniaaaa...").

At first, it was fun. They were mostly silly, even funny most of the time, with an acceptable amount of bitch thrown in here & there. Good, clean, rot-your-brain fun.

Then before too long, The Real Housewives of New York premiered and I had to tune in. New York City! The Hamptons! Step and Repeat! I didn't even know what that was before tuning in - I learn so much from TV.

Sadly, after a season or two, both shows went downhill fast. The bitch factor went up 400% and the silly, fun ladies were replaced by nasty, backstabbing bitches. The mean factor is astonishing, and maybe that's why I kept watching.

I don't have sisters and am pretty much a loner. I have a few good girlfriends, but they're loner-ish, like me. We don't travel in packs.

Women can be scary, on many levels, especially when in groups. We're deeply twisted and complex. Probably shouldn't be trusted with anything sharper than a spatula.

On top of the intrinsic scary factor of women in groups, it's fascinating and disturbing to watch how celebrity has affected these women. I don't understand it, but like a train wreck, I can't not look at it. Though there are a couple of exceptions...

In NY, who could have guessed that Alex, Ramona & Bethenny would have turned out to be the most normal & grounded? In OC, the smart women left the show early on - Lauri & Jo. And I must say, so glad Tamra left her bitchy, controlling husband - that was wonderful to see.

But the rest of these ladies are insane. Bananas. It seems they must be good for ratings, which is sad. It's not entertaining to watch women tear each other apart - it's just depressing.

And Kelley - Kelley Bensobatshitcrazy - whoa, betty. What. the. fuck. is. happening. there? It's too much. The entertainment factor is gone, baby, gone. All that's left is wreckage and it's sad.

So, I've moved on... my new Lady Hero is Kelly Cutrone, owner/superwoman of People's Revolution. Hardcore business woman who will also do all she can to mentor the young'uns. Truly great to see and rare to find. We need more Kelly Cutrones in the world.

Not So Bad?

Finally started watching Breaking Bad, catching AMC's marathon this past weekend & I love it. While reading Tim Goodman's deconstruction of the 3rd season premier, about how Walt really is the bad guy but he won't admit it to himself, I started thinking, Is he really that bad?

Sure, the plane crash he's indirectly responsible for is pretty bad, no getting around that... but let's take that off the table for a minute...

Aside from the 167 people killed in the plane crash, he's directly or indirectly:

• taken out three nasty drug dealers (one a total psychopath)
• put two hopeless junkies out of their misery
• gotten a kid removed from junkie parents
• sent a guy who loves prison back to jail
• gotten his brother-in-law promoted for shooting the psycho drug dealer
• paid for his cancer treatments, surgery and a new water heater without incurring any debt
• and now his kids' college and mortgage will be covered.

Not too shabby!

Sure, he's cooking meth, but it's really good meth - isn't that better than bad meth? If the tweakers aren't getting it from him, they'll just get it somewhere else, right? So, is he adding to the meth problem, or helping to rid the planet of stupid people that much faster? Maybe he really isn't a bad guy, but performing a valuable public service and helping his local economy.

I'm starting to see Walt as the good guy, but he needs to steer clear of anyone involved in air traffic control.

My favorite part of the show, Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman. Awesome, brilliant casting. More Saul, please!

They All Grunt a Little

Woke up to very dark, overcast skies this morning so I crawled back into bed after feeding the lions.

I tried to sleep in but was already too awake, so I watched a little "Breakfast Television" - a local TV news show on Vancouver's CityTV.

Never tuned in before this morning. I hope someone else was watching.

The hosts are chatty and bubbly and annoying and at one point they were talking about female tennis players that grunt and make a lot of noise when they play.

They cut to the guy who's supposed to be the serious news anchor, supposedly a tennis fan, to help name some noisy players, and he says in all seriousness, "They all grunt a little after smoking the ball."

They cut back to the bubbly hosts - one was holding her head in her hands and her co-host sat staring into the camera wearing a frozen grin, unable to react to what had just been said on live TV.

They cut to a split screen with the hosts and the serious news anchor who desperately tried to distract us all from what he'd just said by babbling on about tennis as the hosts sat silently waiting for him to stop.

Thankfully, it was time to show us the clogged roads. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's show.

Cable TV Crack

Last night I got sucked into the incredible cinematic achievement known as Purple Rain - a movie I saw many times when it came out because I was certain Prince and I would be very happy together, if he just knew where to find me.

The stunning visuals of industrial Minneapolis, dark, smoky clubs and basement apartments support a brilliant screenplay that includes poignant, insightful lines such as, "I'm so tired of this," and "You never let me have any fun."

There's no statute of limitations on asking for your money back from the Purple Artist, is there? I'm out, like, $30 - maybe more. So is my high school best friend and millions of other victims.

Actually, I'd be happy with a partial reimbursement that covers all the scenes including Prince or Appolonia. Everything with Morris and Jerome is still really entertaining. Where is Jerome these days?

After the movie VH1 showed one of my all-time favorites - Pop Up Videos, of Prince. Bubbles popping onto the screen talked about doves and pigeons being the same bird, biologically, and that they don't cry, they "coo," then in a close up frame of Prince singing, they popped up a picture of Joyce Dewitt - wearing the same hairstyle.

Earlier in the week I got sucked into Sid & Nancy for the eleventy hundredth time. There are times when I can't watch it - there's only so much junkie sadness one can take - but I still love it. You are sellin' healthy anarchy, but as long as you're an addict, you be full of shit!

I Love TV

When you need to shut down your brain, there's no better drug. The best thing might be that there's no hangover, unless you've watched way too much Deadwood or Sopranos, which can make you use way more profanity and get angry about minor things like dropping a potato chip on the floor.

Last weekend I watched both Rocky I and Rocky II - just because they were on. Everyone knows Rocky's famous "Yo Adrian," but what I didn't remember is that he says it repeatedly throughout the movie (I think he said it just as much in II as he did I).

He doesn't ever say, "Hey Adrian" or "Adrian." Every time he speaks to her he says "Yo Adrian" or often, "Yo, yo, yo Adrian." It's amazing. After a few minutes "yo" starts to sound like a loud gong, drowning out other sounds.

But, he wrote those movies, yo, and directed most of them, which is more than I've ever written or directed. Cut me, Mick.

Stats Piling Up

No surprise, Jack is off to a quick start. His first GTA (grand theft auto) happened within the first half hour and he killed the first terrorist with an inspired bite to the jugular vein - that was a first for me in a TV show.

We realized it might be impossible to keep an accurate count of Chloe's frowns/eye rolling and decided every time she's in a scene, count three and that's probably safe.

While The Interweb category included specific quotes we thought would be enough, we've now widened that category to include any/all fantastical use of the Interweb, such as a clear, detailed map appearing on a standard cell phone after Jack types longitude/latitude coordinates, perfectly centered, into a clean, white screen.

The other Interweb point was for the clarity enhancement of Jack's photo on a satellite surveillance image, which we know always works. Looked fuzzy from a distance, but when you zoom in 10x, *that's* when it becomes crystal clear.

And we realized, this being the 6th season, we overlooked an important category, the "I'm Too Old For This Shit" category, noting Jack's two mentions of, "I can't do this anymore."

We also noted, as with past seasons, Jack's been up & at 'em for two hours now and has not had a proper breakfast nor has he visited the loo.

Extra points for the writers for creating a sleeper family member, Sandra Palmer.

For more fun stuff about Jack, enjoy Jack Bauer is God, a fun takeoff on the Chuck Norris Facts that were included in last year's "Best Non Required Reading of 2006."

Go Jack!