There are many reasons to watch TV: to be numbed, to be entertained, to simply avoid boredom. Occasionally, television can even make us feel good about ourselves, particularly reality TV. The main benefit of watching addicts in need of an intervention, or bartender/models in need of a good slap, is to be able to lie on the couch thinking, "At least I'm not that person." For those of you in need of a good dose of superiority, I highly recommend A&E's houses of horrors, Hoarders. It's on Mondays; the second season just began this week.
If you even spend even a minute thinking that you really shouldn't be such a slob, or a moment wondering why you can't bring yourself to get rid of those jeans that don't really fit anymore, this is the show for you. At the end of the hour, you'll first maniacally clean your kitchen and bathroom, and will then lie in bed feeling good about the fact that you live in a house where you can at least find the bed. You will know that, no matter how much of a pig you think you are, you can feel good about the fact that your city codes office isn't about to condemn your property.
Monday night's show centered on Augustine, a 68 year-old living in Gretna, LA. When I think of hoarders I think of people accumulating piles of possessions, or scores of cats or dogs, but Augustine had clearly spent decades accumulating tons of trash. Her house was so full of trash the cleaning crew needed to shovel it out. She had electricity but no heat or hot water; her bathroom looked like it hadn't functioned in at least a decade. Augustine collected not only garbage and sewage but also mold, mildew, and general filth, three or four feet of it in every disgusting room of the house. By the end of the episode, 4,000 pounds had been hauled away.
Augustine had lost her dentures in the filth, so she spent the episode gumming fast food, uncooked hot dogs, and I don't know what else. She clearly suffers from at least depression and probably also some sort of antisocial disorder, and sat in a chair eating while her children and a crew cleaned things out. The upper set of her dentures were found amid the debris. Also found were the carcasses of two cats, which had apparently either been flattened by the garbage or which had expired and then been crushed. Either way, two cats died and decomposed in her "living room" and Augustine didn't notice.
Are you disgusted yet? But wait, there's more. The bathroom was a Haz Mat zone, filled with dried excrement, mold, crud. I could smell it through the TV. Since her toilet didn't work, Augustine had one of those portable toilets for the elderly in her, what, dining room? I guess the notion of "rooms" doesn't really apply, but at any rate there the toilet sat, with what appeared to be bags of feces piled up around it and tied to the arms.
Yes, this woman is clearly in need of physical and psychiatric help and yes, this is an incredibly sad story. Yes, it is perhaps wrong to film this family's plight, to televise it, and then to lie on the couch, rapt, watching it. But in the end, I will never again worry about the fact that I could definitely clean my cat's litter box a little more often. In the end, at least I'm not that person.
Showing posts with label crazy-ass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crazy-ass. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Homecoming
I just spent a weekend at my alma mater. This has been happening once a year lately, when a bunch of alums from my, let's say, vintage converge on the campus and behave as badly as possible. I manage to go through most of life as a responsible and mature woman, meeting my obligations, safe to invite to events. Why is it that I drive five and a half hours, go through the campus gates, get out of my car, and am suddenly an 18 year-old again?
This phenomenon is not unique to my campus or age group. I watch this same thing every June in my hometown, when middle-aged graduates of the local college take over my neighborhood for their alumni weekend. They tailgate, take over the neighborhood bars, march hungover down the street in a parade; they leave the campus as much of a mess as we must have left our campus on Sunday. Homecoming weekend here is even more of a boozefest each fall, when the Lafayette/Lehigh football game leads hundreds of people who should know better to get day drunk.
In my real life I spend my weekends participating in activities that don't feature quantities of alcohol. In my real life, I don't go to a dining hall for a "breakfast" that consists of half a pound of bacon, steam table eggs, grits, and, in order to pretend I'm healthy, one piece of fruit. In my real life I don't follow that up with a lunch that consists of grilled cheese, corn pudding, and dessert, then begin happy hour at 3 PM. In my real life, when I go listen to a band, I don't join the people rushing the stage to dance behind the band, only to repeatedly be chased off said stage by campus security.
I did learn an important lesson this weekend, though: no matter how stupid I may act, there's always someone else about whom I can say, "At least I'm not that girl." At least I'm not that girl who tore apart her banquet centerpiece and threw the boxwoods at the band, soaking the guitarist. At least I'm not that girl who put pieces of her centerpiece in her hair, leaving her looking much like Pocahontas. At least I wasn't having sex with my date and calling it dancing. Yes, true, I didn't have a date, but still, I wasn't that girl. I was not the girl wearing a gown more fit for a beauty pageant and spilling out of it. I was not the girl who attempted to run a lap around the indoor track suspended above the dance floor and who was chased down by security, although that girl was from my group.
I was plenty of things. I was a grown-up behaving like a child. I was having fun. The only thing I wasn't, was that girl.
This phenomenon is not unique to my campus or age group. I watch this same thing every June in my hometown, when middle-aged graduates of the local college take over my neighborhood for their alumni weekend. They tailgate, take over the neighborhood bars, march hungover down the street in a parade; they leave the campus as much of a mess as we must have left our campus on Sunday. Homecoming weekend here is even more of a boozefest each fall, when the Lafayette/Lehigh football game leads hundreds of people who should know better to get day drunk.
In my real life I spend my weekends participating in activities that don't feature quantities of alcohol. In my real life, I don't go to a dining hall for a "breakfast" that consists of half a pound of bacon, steam table eggs, grits, and, in order to pretend I'm healthy, one piece of fruit. In my real life I don't follow that up with a lunch that consists of grilled cheese, corn pudding, and dessert, then begin happy hour at 3 PM. In my real life, when I go listen to a band, I don't join the people rushing the stage to dance behind the band, only to repeatedly be chased off said stage by campus security.
I did learn an important lesson this weekend, though: no matter how stupid I may act, there's always someone else about whom I can say, "At least I'm not that girl." At least I'm not that girl who tore apart her banquet centerpiece and threw the boxwoods at the band, soaking the guitarist. At least I'm not that girl who put pieces of her centerpiece in her hair, leaving her looking much like Pocahontas. At least I wasn't having sex with my date and calling it dancing. Yes, true, I didn't have a date, but still, I wasn't that girl. I was not the girl wearing a gown more fit for a beauty pageant and spilling out of it. I was not the girl who attempted to run a lap around the indoor track suspended above the dance floor and who was chased down by security, although that girl was from my group.
I was plenty of things. I was a grown-up behaving like a child. I was having fun. The only thing I wasn't, was that girl.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Last Call for the Delusional
The end of the "regular" TV season means the beginning of the "summer" season, which is in many ways good news. Mad Men returns in August, for example, and True Blood will be back this summer as well. The bitter always comes along with the sweet, though, and this week will be the last time to watch, possibly ever, two of reality television's most ridiculous and despicable participants. Of couse I'm talking about Ben "Coach" Wade on Survivor and Kelly Bensimon on The Real Housewives of New York City. Who else could it be?
If you haven't been watching, let me catch you up. I have no idea what Coach's real biography would include, but he claims to have been a trumpet prodigy, to hold the record for longest solo kayaking trip down the Amazon, to have been captured by pygmies on said trip and to have escaped from them just as they were about to slice apart his ass and eat it, to hold the world's highest honors in a martial art so secret no one knows about it and he can't even say its name, to be a world-class symphony conductor, and to be the most successful women's soccer coach in the world, ever.
In confessionals he calls himself "Dragonslayer" and then claims that the tribe has nicknamed him "dragonslayer." He believes he can control minds with his eyes and that he is in control of the game, even as each of his "allies" has been voted off, one by one. His body is covered with fake tribal tatoos, he wears his hair in a Steven Segal style adorned with feathers, and his delusions seem to know no bounds. Despite his claims to physical strength and mental acumen, he is completely ineffectual in challenges, and has been carried along late into the game precisely because he is nonthreatening and expendable. It's worth watching to see the clash between his self-regard and the disdain of all around him. You can watch the last regular episode of the season Thursday at 8 on CBS; the season finale airs Sunday at 8.
The facts of Ms. Bensimon's biography are better known. She was a model, and she did in fact serve as "editor" of the short-lived Elle Accessories magazine. She was in fact married to a famous fashion photographer. She was also recently arrested for assaulting her boyfriend, although I doubt she includes that on her resume. Also withheld from the bio is the fact that she appears to either be stupid or drug-addled, that she has trouble putting a simple sentence together, and that, like Coach, her self-regard has no limits. She is clearly a person that everyone, everyone, ends up hating. On a show built around cat fights and strangers hating strangers, Kelly has managed the singular feat of making each and every other participant cringe at her presence.
I don't know and will never know Kelly, but I hate her as well, for two simple reasons:
1. She is always seen flitting from place to place in completely inappropriate outfits, like short skirts with flourescent green Wellies, which is bad enough, but what's incomprehensible is the fact that she appears to never have a purse, bag, wallet, or keys. As if she expects her bill will be paid by someone else, as if she expects someone will appear to unlock her door, as if she expects whatever needs arise during an outing will be met by those around her. Hate.
2. In one memorable clip, a Kelly VO intones, "I love running in NYC. You just throw on some shoes and you go." We then pan to a shot of Kelly, sans purse, keys, bag, etc., jogging down the middle of 5th Avenue in midtown, surrounded by traffic. Plenty of people go running in Manhattan; no one runs in the middle of traffic. Of all the unrealistic things about this scene, the most unrealistic thing of all was the fact that a cabbie didn't just run her over.
The title of this series is ironic. It is not about the "reality" of "housewives" in the OC, Atlanta, NY, or, beginning tonight, New Jersey. It is instead about the fake, the pursuit of youth through chemicals and surgery, the replacement of class with lifestyle, the substitution of shopping for intimacy. In a world of fakery, Kelly stands out as fake, and that's really saying something. The season ended last Tuesday, but Bravo runs marathons pretty much endlessly. You don't need to have seen a second of the show to enjoy the reunion show airing at 10 tonight (with part two airing Thursday at 9). Housewives reunion shows are always filled with acrimony, accusations, tears, and cocktails, and this one promises all of the above.
In a fair and sane world, this will be your last chance to see these two in action. In a fair and sane world, Coach will be banished from screens both large and small after Sunday, and Kelly will not be asked back for the next NYC season. Let's hope that the world is in fact fair and sane, and tune in this week to catch them while you can.
If you haven't been watching, let me catch you up. I have no idea what Coach's real biography would include, but he claims to have been a trumpet prodigy, to hold the record for longest solo kayaking trip down the Amazon, to have been captured by pygmies on said trip and to have escaped from them just as they were about to slice apart his ass and eat it, to hold the world's highest honors in a martial art so secret no one knows about it and he can't even say its name, to be a world-class symphony conductor, and to be the most successful women's soccer coach in the world, ever.
In confessionals he calls himself "Dragonslayer" and then claims that the tribe has nicknamed him "dragonslayer." He believes he can control minds with his eyes and that he is in control of the game, even as each of his "allies" has been voted off, one by one. His body is covered with fake tribal tatoos, he wears his hair in a Steven Segal style adorned with feathers, and his delusions seem to know no bounds. Despite his claims to physical strength and mental acumen, he is completely ineffectual in challenges, and has been carried along late into the game precisely because he is nonthreatening and expendable. It's worth watching to see the clash between his self-regard and the disdain of all around him. You can watch the last regular episode of the season Thursday at 8 on CBS; the season finale airs Sunday at 8.
The facts of Ms. Bensimon's biography are better known. She was a model, and she did in fact serve as "editor" of the short-lived Elle Accessories magazine. She was in fact married to a famous fashion photographer. She was also recently arrested for assaulting her boyfriend, although I doubt she includes that on her resume. Also withheld from the bio is the fact that she appears to either be stupid or drug-addled, that she has trouble putting a simple sentence together, and that, like Coach, her self-regard has no limits. She is clearly a person that everyone, everyone, ends up hating. On a show built around cat fights and strangers hating strangers, Kelly has managed the singular feat of making each and every other participant cringe at her presence.
I don't know and will never know Kelly, but I hate her as well, for two simple reasons:
1. She is always seen flitting from place to place in completely inappropriate outfits, like short skirts with flourescent green Wellies, which is bad enough, but what's incomprehensible is the fact that she appears to never have a purse, bag, wallet, or keys. As if she expects her bill will be paid by someone else, as if she expects someone will appear to unlock her door, as if she expects whatever needs arise during an outing will be met by those around her. Hate.
2. In one memorable clip, a Kelly VO intones, "I love running in NYC. You just throw on some shoes and you go." We then pan to a shot of Kelly, sans purse, keys, bag, etc., jogging down the middle of 5th Avenue in midtown, surrounded by traffic. Plenty of people go running in Manhattan; no one runs in the middle of traffic. Of all the unrealistic things about this scene, the most unrealistic thing of all was the fact that a cabbie didn't just run her over.
The title of this series is ironic. It is not about the "reality" of "housewives" in the OC, Atlanta, NY, or, beginning tonight, New Jersey. It is instead about the fake, the pursuit of youth through chemicals and surgery, the replacement of class with lifestyle, the substitution of shopping for intimacy. In a world of fakery, Kelly stands out as fake, and that's really saying something. The season ended last Tuesday, but Bravo runs marathons pretty much endlessly. You don't need to have seen a second of the show to enjoy the reunion show airing at 10 tonight (with part two airing Thursday at 9). Housewives reunion shows are always filled with acrimony, accusations, tears, and cocktails, and this one promises all of the above.
In a fair and sane world, this will be your last chance to see these two in action. In a fair and sane world, Coach will be banished from screens both large and small after Sunday, and Kelly will not be asked back for the next NYC season. Let's hope that the world is in fact fair and sane, and tune in this week to catch them while you can.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Compound Life
What is it about those zany fundamentalist Mormons? They just fascinate me. Big Love got me started; before that show, I'd never given LDS or the FLDS a thought. At heart, all religious stories are fantastic and unreal. To have faith is to suspend disbelief. So, while some people believe in trans-substantiation, others believe Joseph Smith found some golden plates in upstate New York, translated them, and became a prophet. People believe what they believe, no sense going there.
It's when the Little House on the Prairie garb comes out that I become fascinated. Who are these people who believe in sacred underwear? Why do they wear prairie dresses and sweep their hair up into beehive wings? Why do they listen when the Prophet tells them to marry off their barely post-pubescent girls and leave their sons on the side of the road? Why do they obey when music is banned?
Escape and Stolen Innocence, two women's accounts of their life in the FLDS and their escape from it, help to provide some answers. With no contact with the outside world, and having been told from birth that outsiders are evil and the Prophet's way is the only way to the celestial kingdom, it's easy to see how an unquestioning mindset evolves. It's easy to see how and why people live as the FLDS lives, when no other option, no other life, ever presents itself.
To a heathen like me, life on an FLDS compound feels like fiction, so perhaps it makes sense that the most enlightening book on FLDS I've come across is David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife, a novel. Ebershoff entwines two stories: the fictional account of Ann Eliza Young, 19th wife to Brigham Young who leaves the church to prosyletize against polygymy; and the story of Jordan Scott, a contemporary "lost boy" who was banished from a fundementalist compound when he was 14, whose mother, herself a 19th wife, has been accused of murdering his father. The murder mystery and the historical fiction unfold together, and through both well-researched narratives I've learned more about the FLDS mindset than I did from any factual account.
Can I ever really understand why people who live lives so different than mind do what they do, believe what they believe? Probably not, no matter how much I read. However, if I can devour a good murder mystery during my attempt at understanding, so much the better.
It's when the Little House on the Prairie garb comes out that I become fascinated. Who are these people who believe in sacred underwear? Why do they wear prairie dresses and sweep their hair up into beehive wings? Why do they listen when the Prophet tells them to marry off their barely post-pubescent girls and leave their sons on the side of the road? Why do they obey when music is banned?
Escape and Stolen Innocence, two women's accounts of their life in the FLDS and their escape from it, help to provide some answers. With no contact with the outside world, and having been told from birth that outsiders are evil and the Prophet's way is the only way to the celestial kingdom, it's easy to see how an unquestioning mindset evolves. It's easy to see how and why people live as the FLDS lives, when no other option, no other life, ever presents itself.
To a heathen like me, life on an FLDS compound feels like fiction, so perhaps it makes sense that the most enlightening book on FLDS I've come across is David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife, a novel. Ebershoff entwines two stories: the fictional account of Ann Eliza Young, 19th wife to Brigham Young who leaves the church to prosyletize against polygymy; and the story of Jordan Scott, a contemporary "lost boy" who was banished from a fundementalist compound when he was 14, whose mother, herself a 19th wife, has been accused of murdering his father. The murder mystery and the historical fiction unfold together, and through both well-researched narratives I've learned more about the FLDS mindset than I did from any factual account.
Can I ever really understand why people who live lives so different than mind do what they do, believe what they believe? Probably not, no matter how much I read. However, if I can devour a good murder mystery during my attempt at understanding, so much the better.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
On Holiday Parties
Seriously, what's the deal with cookie parties? I managed to go through almost 40 years of life without being subjected to a single cookie party but now, with each passing year, I get invited to more and more of them. It's a phenomena I just don't understand.
First of all, "party" implies two things: evenings and alcohol. "Party" does not imply 10 AM and flour. "Party" does not imply hot ovens and greased cookie sheets. I don't like to bake. I like to cook, but I don't bake. Why would I want to go somewhere first thing in the morning and make a bunch of rum balls? Even though they take place during daylight hours, cookie parties inevitably include wine. This poses a dilemma because I really can't drink during the day, particularly not wine. It makes me sleepy and, well, drunk, and I don't want to be drunk before Oprah. Not that I watch Oprah, but you never know, stranger things have happened. So not only does attending a cookie party entail participating in an activity I don't particularly enjoy, it entails participating in it while sober.
While I'm on the subject, drinking and baking just don't mix. Just as one shouldn't drink and drive, one should not drink and then attempt to take things in and out of ovens heated to 425 degrees. One should not drink and sprinkle. One should not drink and break eggs. One should not drink and attempt to balance warm things on cooling racks. Baking should be done while stone cold sober in the privacy of one's home. It's not a communal drunken activity, folks. Stop trying to make it such.
The second and absolutely most horrific thing about cookie parties is that they are the one place where Christmas sweaters are mandatory. Because at heart all I really want to do is fit in, I set out several years ago in search of a Christmas sweater to wear to cookie parties. It turns out I don't shop at stores that stock sweaters that feature snowmen, snowflakes, glitter, and Santas. Where do these women even get their Christmas sweaters? And were cookie parties invented because people needed a place to wear their sweaters, or were the sweaters invented so that people would have something appropriate to wear to cookie parties? This deep theological mystery distracts me from the cookie-making task at hand as I stand in a corner wearing my black sweater, watching almond crescents emerge from the oven.
Finally, cookie parties are completely redundant. This is the one time of year when everyone bakes or purchases baked goods and candy. This is the one time of year when you can rely on a co-worker or secret Santa giving you a highly caloric gift that cost $10 or less. No one wants or needs the cookies produced at cookie parties. I'm not a Scrooge; I honestly enjoy holiday parties. That take place after dark. That feature copious amounts of alcohol. That allow the wearing of black.
End of rant.
First of all, "party" implies two things: evenings and alcohol. "Party" does not imply 10 AM and flour. "Party" does not imply hot ovens and greased cookie sheets. I don't like to bake. I like to cook, but I don't bake. Why would I want to go somewhere first thing in the morning and make a bunch of rum balls? Even though they take place during daylight hours, cookie parties inevitably include wine. This poses a dilemma because I really can't drink during the day, particularly not wine. It makes me sleepy and, well, drunk, and I don't want to be drunk before Oprah. Not that I watch Oprah, but you never know, stranger things have happened. So not only does attending a cookie party entail participating in an activity I don't particularly enjoy, it entails participating in it while sober.
While I'm on the subject, drinking and baking just don't mix. Just as one shouldn't drink and drive, one should not drink and then attempt to take things in and out of ovens heated to 425 degrees. One should not drink and sprinkle. One should not drink and break eggs. One should not drink and attempt to balance warm things on cooling racks. Baking should be done while stone cold sober in the privacy of one's home. It's not a communal drunken activity, folks. Stop trying to make it such.
The second and absolutely most horrific thing about cookie parties is that they are the one place where Christmas sweaters are mandatory. Because at heart all I really want to do is fit in, I set out several years ago in search of a Christmas sweater to wear to cookie parties. It turns out I don't shop at stores that stock sweaters that feature snowmen, snowflakes, glitter, and Santas. Where do these women even get their Christmas sweaters? And were cookie parties invented because people needed a place to wear their sweaters, or were the sweaters invented so that people would have something appropriate to wear to cookie parties? This deep theological mystery distracts me from the cookie-making task at hand as I stand in a corner wearing my black sweater, watching almond crescents emerge from the oven.
Finally, cookie parties are completely redundant. This is the one time of year when everyone bakes or purchases baked goods and candy. This is the one time of year when you can rely on a co-worker or secret Santa giving you a highly caloric gift that cost $10 or less. No one wants or needs the cookies produced at cookie parties. I'm not a Scrooge; I honestly enjoy holiday parties. That take place after dark. That feature copious amounts of alcohol. That allow the wearing of black.
End of rant.
Monday, August 11, 2008
The Slippery Slope from Mormonism to Cloning
So, there's a company in South Korea that will clone your dog. The normal fee is over $100K, but the company came to an agreement with a woman who said she was a screenwriter from LA: they cloned her pit bull for $53,000, and she agreed to help with publicity for the cloning services. She went to Seoul last week to bring home one of the five pups cloned from the DNA of her deceased, beloved dog, and the story was released to the wires. This is when things got interesting.
You can Google "Mormon kidnapper" to get the complete story, if you haven't yet heard it, but here's a synopsis. Back in the 1970s the dog cloner was a beauty queen, Miss Wyoming, in fact. She converted to Mormonism, left the pageant world, moved to Salt Lake City to study at Brigham Young. There she fell in love with a young Mormon man seven years her junior. He broke it off after a brief affair, sought counsel, and became a missionary in London. She never got over him, flew to England with an accomplice, rented a "honeymoon cottage," and kidnapped the missionary and held him in the cottage, where he was shackled to the bed with mink-lined handcuffs. She and the accomplice forced him to have sex with her until he agreed finally to marry her, at which point she unlocked the handcuffs, he escaped, and he went to the police.
She and the accomplice were arrested. While out on bail they escaped from England by posing as Irish mimes. They flew to Canada, then took a bus to Cleveland, then she disappeared. She reappeared in 1984 again stalking the Mormon missionary, was apprehended, and again escaped and disappeared. It turns out she's been living in North Carolina since then, in and out of court, suing and being sued by her neighbors. Once press reports of the dog cloning appeared, it was discovered that the address in LA she had given didn't exist, and that the dog cloner and Mormon kidnapper were one and the same. British authorities are not seeking extradition, as the case against her has been closed. She left South Korea over the weekend to return to the US with her cloned pit bull.
I've read various accounts of this story, and I'm left with only two questions:
1. Given the fact that only physical qualities can be cloned, isn't it risky to clone a dog in the first place? I love Brody, and would love to have another, identical Brody after he dies. But what if I ended up with a dog that looked just like Brody, but was evil? How could I live with a dog that was identical to Brody, but who didn't act like Brody? I see this as the true danger of cloning.
2. Where did this crazy woman get $53K?
You can Google "Mormon kidnapper" to get the complete story, if you haven't yet heard it, but here's a synopsis. Back in the 1970s the dog cloner was a beauty queen, Miss Wyoming, in fact. She converted to Mormonism, left the pageant world, moved to Salt Lake City to study at Brigham Young. There she fell in love with a young Mormon man seven years her junior. He broke it off after a brief affair, sought counsel, and became a missionary in London. She never got over him, flew to England with an accomplice, rented a "honeymoon cottage," and kidnapped the missionary and held him in the cottage, where he was shackled to the bed with mink-lined handcuffs. She and the accomplice forced him to have sex with her until he agreed finally to marry her, at which point she unlocked the handcuffs, he escaped, and he went to the police.
She and the accomplice were arrested. While out on bail they escaped from England by posing as Irish mimes. They flew to Canada, then took a bus to Cleveland, then she disappeared. She reappeared in 1984 again stalking the Mormon missionary, was apprehended, and again escaped and disappeared. It turns out she's been living in North Carolina since then, in and out of court, suing and being sued by her neighbors. Once press reports of the dog cloning appeared, it was discovered that the address in LA she had given didn't exist, and that the dog cloner and Mormon kidnapper were one and the same. British authorities are not seeking extradition, as the case against her has been closed. She left South Korea over the weekend to return to the US with her cloned pit bull.
I've read various accounts of this story, and I'm left with only two questions:
1. Given the fact that only physical qualities can be cloned, isn't it risky to clone a dog in the first place? I love Brody, and would love to have another, identical Brody after he dies. But what if I ended up with a dog that looked just like Brody, but was evil? How could I live with a dog that was identical to Brody, but who didn't act like Brody? I see this as the true danger of cloning.
2. Where did this crazy woman get $53K?
Thursday, July 17, 2008
You Know You Want to Watch
It's been a while, and it's time for a roundup of crappy TV. Sure, Generation Kill started Sunday night, and Mad Men returns at the end of the month, but summer really isn't the time for edification. It's the time for half-drunkenly watching fluff. It's the time for I Love Money.
I Love Money is on VH1. It's repeated so many times a week I have no idea when new episodes air. Just turn to VH1, and an episode will surely be playing. It appears to be some sort of 'all star' competition, where contestants from other VH1 shows I've never watched have been asked back to compete not for "love" but for $250K. I don't know where they found these people, I really don't. Since even the contestants seem to understand the inherent loss of self-respect that goes along with their participation in this program, they all go by pseudonyms: Toastee, Heat, Real, Destinye, Niblz, and (my favorite) Whiteboy, who is a tatooed Jewish guy who undoubtedly just graduated from Brandeis.
The contestants live in a "mansion," are divided into two teams, and eliminate each other. It's a low, low rent version of Survivor meets Big Brother meets a train wreck. There's no purpose to anything other than being on TV and winning some money, and the show and the contestants are honest about this fact, and it's for this reason that the show is brilliant. Isn't every reality competition finally "about" the love of fame and money? Isn't every reality contestant ultimately playing a character, having been cast for "dramatic" effect? Here, it's all in the open, and in that sense I Love Money is a meta-reality show, a reality competition about reality competitions where generic convention is laid bare. It's so bad it's wonderful. You must watch it.
If you can't bring yourself to spend an evening contemplating the feud between Toastee and Niblz, try The Greatest American Dog instead, on Thursdays at 8 on CBS. Here, we have crazy dog people and their dogs living in a house together, competing for the title and, of course, money. Each week, one dog/human pair is eliminated. It's Survivor meets Big Brother meets America's Next Top Model, with cute dogs thrown into the mix. Brody and I watched last week's premier together and were happy to see that one of the contestants is Star, an orange and white Brittany. "Look," I said to Brody repeatedly, "that's what a good dog looks like. Look! That's a good Brittany performing tricks rather than running in circles chasing bugs while it's human gestures wildly, trying to get its attention." Brody was nonplussed, but he enjoyed the show, and you will too.
I Love Money is on VH1. It's repeated so many times a week I have no idea when new episodes air. Just turn to VH1, and an episode will surely be playing. It appears to be some sort of 'all star' competition, where contestants from other VH1 shows I've never watched have been asked back to compete not for "love" but for $250K. I don't know where they found these people, I really don't. Since even the contestants seem to understand the inherent loss of self-respect that goes along with their participation in this program, they all go by pseudonyms: Toastee, Heat, Real, Destinye, Niblz, and (my favorite) Whiteboy, who is a tatooed Jewish guy who undoubtedly just graduated from Brandeis.
The contestants live in a "mansion," are divided into two teams, and eliminate each other. It's a low, low rent version of Survivor meets Big Brother meets a train wreck. There's no purpose to anything other than being on TV and winning some money, and the show and the contestants are honest about this fact, and it's for this reason that the show is brilliant. Isn't every reality competition finally "about" the love of fame and money? Isn't every reality contestant ultimately playing a character, having been cast for "dramatic" effect? Here, it's all in the open, and in that sense I Love Money is a meta-reality show, a reality competition about reality competitions where generic convention is laid bare. It's so bad it's wonderful. You must watch it.
If you can't bring yourself to spend an evening contemplating the feud between Toastee and Niblz, try The Greatest American Dog instead, on Thursdays at 8 on CBS. Here, we have crazy dog people and their dogs living in a house together, competing for the title and, of course, money. Each week, one dog/human pair is eliminated. It's Survivor meets Big Brother meets America's Next Top Model, with cute dogs thrown into the mix. Brody and I watched last week's premier together and were happy to see that one of the contestants is Star, an orange and white Brittany. "Look," I said to Brody repeatedly, "that's what a good dog looks like. Look! That's a good Brittany performing tricks rather than running in circles chasing bugs while it's human gestures wildly, trying to get its attention." Brody was nonplussed, but he enjoyed the show, and you will too.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Big-Ass Book of the Week
For the past month, I haven't been happy if I haven't been reading a 700-page tome, preferably about Richard Nixon. I think that, without realizing it, I've been privately commemorating the Senate Watergate hearings, held 35 years ago this summer. Or maybe election year politics have just made me interested in elections of the past. For whatever reason, I spent all my free time two weeks ago devouring Nixonland, then last week moved on to The Last Campaign, the story of RFK's 82-day long 1968 bid, and have now just finished Richard Reeves' President Nixon: Alone in the White House.
Nixon's rise and fall, and rise and fall again, and final rise and fall, have always interested me probably because it all feels so much like a Greek tragedy. Sure, he was "tricky", "dirty", paranoid, whatever you want to call him, but he was also a brilliant politician. He invented the politics that the Republican right have used to keep themselves in power for most of the past 40 years, after all. It's sad because he probably would have accomplished his goals - bringing order to the streets and an end to Vietnam - without illegally wiretapping anybody, and without using the IRS and FBI for political purposes. He undoubtedly would have been re-elected without spying on the DNC and then covering it up, as well. But his worse nature got the better of him, as it did throughout his life.
Nixonland led me to believe that I was right to admire him as a politician even if I can't admire him as a human being, but the Reeves book has led me to admire him for something completely different: for becoming President despite being clearly and obviously insane. I mean, he was more than just a little bipolar, and more than just a little paranoid. He was completely looped, and would have benefited from at least one of Eagleton's electric shock treatments. Read the book and you'll marvel at the fact that a person of his mindset could not only become President but also rack up some successes, particularly in terms of foreign policy.
Crazy cleaves to crazy, so it's no wonder CREEP's operatives were a sandwich or two short of lunch. Yes, of course I refer to G. Gordon Liddy. We all know what they did; what's less known is the original plan, called Operation Gemstone. Liddy presented the plan to Mitchell and Dean with one hand bandaged, because he'd held it in a candle's flame to demonstrate the pain he would endure in the name of loyalty. Here's the plan, as quoted by Reeves:
"We need preventive action to break up demonstrations before they reach television cameras. I can arrange for the services of highly trained squads, men who have worked successfully as street-fighting squads for the CIA...Teams that are experienced in surgical relocation activities. In a word, they can kidnap a hostile leader with maximum secrecy and a minimum use of force. If, for instance, a prominent radical comes to our convention, these teams can drug him and take him across the border...I have secured a option to lease a pleasure craft docked on the canal directly in front of the Fountainbleu Hotel. It is more than sixty feet long, and expensively decorated in a Chinese motif. It can also be wired for both sight and sound...We can, without much trouble, compromise these officials through the charms of some ladies I have arranged to have living on the boat. These are the finest call girls in the country. They are not dumb broads, but girls who can be trained and programmed..."
Mitchell rejected this plan, not because of its absurdity, but because it would have been too expensive. Give me something cheaper, he said. Colson says focus on bugging and stealing documents, that we can afford. We all know what happened next.
My father hated Nixon with a passion that would have led Liddy to exile him to the pleasure boat. He hated Nixon so much he made me, at the age of 9, sit with him and watch the Senate hearings, all 37 days of them, televised that summer of 1973. I didn't get much of it, except that I thought John Dean was cute. I get it all now, though, and for the first time in my life I understand my father's hatred. We want this stuff in a situation comedy, we want it in a work of fiction. We don't, however, want it in the White House.
Nixon's rise and fall, and rise and fall again, and final rise and fall, have always interested me probably because it all feels so much like a Greek tragedy. Sure, he was "tricky", "dirty", paranoid, whatever you want to call him, but he was also a brilliant politician. He invented the politics that the Republican right have used to keep themselves in power for most of the past 40 years, after all. It's sad because he probably would have accomplished his goals - bringing order to the streets and an end to Vietnam - without illegally wiretapping anybody, and without using the IRS and FBI for political purposes. He undoubtedly would have been re-elected without spying on the DNC and then covering it up, as well. But his worse nature got the better of him, as it did throughout his life.
Nixonland led me to believe that I was right to admire him as a politician even if I can't admire him as a human being, but the Reeves book has led me to admire him for something completely different: for becoming President despite being clearly and obviously insane. I mean, he was more than just a little bipolar, and more than just a little paranoid. He was completely looped, and would have benefited from at least one of Eagleton's electric shock treatments. Read the book and you'll marvel at the fact that a person of his mindset could not only become President but also rack up some successes, particularly in terms of foreign policy.
Crazy cleaves to crazy, so it's no wonder CREEP's operatives were a sandwich or two short of lunch. Yes, of course I refer to G. Gordon Liddy. We all know what they did; what's less known is the original plan, called Operation Gemstone. Liddy presented the plan to Mitchell and Dean with one hand bandaged, because he'd held it in a candle's flame to demonstrate the pain he would endure in the name of loyalty. Here's the plan, as quoted by Reeves:
"We need preventive action to break up demonstrations before they reach television cameras. I can arrange for the services of highly trained squads, men who have worked successfully as street-fighting squads for the CIA...Teams that are experienced in surgical relocation activities. In a word, they can kidnap a hostile leader with maximum secrecy and a minimum use of force. If, for instance, a prominent radical comes to our convention, these teams can drug him and take him across the border...I have secured a option to lease a pleasure craft docked on the canal directly in front of the Fountainbleu Hotel. It is more than sixty feet long, and expensively decorated in a Chinese motif. It can also be wired for both sight and sound...We can, without much trouble, compromise these officials through the charms of some ladies I have arranged to have living on the boat. These are the finest call girls in the country. They are not dumb broads, but girls who can be trained and programmed..."
Mitchell rejected this plan, not because of its absurdity, but because it would have been too expensive. Give me something cheaper, he said. Colson says focus on bugging and stealing documents, that we can afford. We all know what happened next.
My father hated Nixon with a passion that would have led Liddy to exile him to the pleasure boat. He hated Nixon so much he made me, at the age of 9, sit with him and watch the Senate hearings, all 37 days of them, televised that summer of 1973. I didn't get much of it, except that I thought John Dean was cute. I get it all now, though, and for the first time in my life I understand my father's hatred. We want this stuff in a situation comedy, we want it in a work of fiction. We don't, however, want it in the White House.
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