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the real housewives of be

THE CONSPIRACY THEORY

THE CONSPIRACY THEORY

Oh, Kim Richards.  She’s kind of a living and breathing version of that creaky wooden rocking chair that sits on the porch of that nice madwoman who lives down the street, the one who maybe keeps a family of four chained in her basement. Like that chair, Kim’s sort of falling apart. Someone once tried to mend her with a little bit of spit and some scotch tape, but she will undoubtedly cause pain to whomever foolishly chooses to straddle her.  Still–splinters aside–I’d rather spend fucking eternity sprawled across that chair than ever be stuck in the same time zone as one of the vilest Housewives of them all.

Now sure, I understand that Kim Richards is an addict. I also understand that the only reason she appears on this show at all anymore is for a paycheck.  I suppose I used to feel kind of badly for her that her options were so limited that she was forced to pimp out her own questionable sobriety for profit, but the reality is that she’s such a lying and deflecting asshole that I have lost any and all empathy I ever pretended to have. I officially can no longer stand the sight of the woman.  I hate her oddly shaped eyes and how they squint and glare wildly at anyone who has figured out her very obvious truths.  I hate her bony fingers, the ones she likes to point in the faces of women who have decided not to believe a single thing this shell of a former human being says anymore.  I hate the rickety voice she uses to spew out lies before begging for mercy from people who had no idea what they were getting into when they casually agreed to climb into the back of a limo with her.  I hate that she still has the audacity to pretend that she and her family have been terribly wounded by people saying aloud that she started drinking again and that she never even considers blaming herself for all of it since – obviously – her actions spurred the stories and the pain.  But most of all, I hate that the appearance of Kim Richards means that she was never really just a terrible figment of my imagination like I’d convinced myself she was and I really hate how her presence makes me feel something that resembles sympathy for her long-suffering sister, Kyle, a preening specimen constructed primarily out of hair and ego.

THE EMAIL

THE EMAIL

It occurred to me recently that there are entire stores dedicated to helping human beings try to outsmart dogs.  Seriously, walk into Petco or whatever establishment wants to charge you money for rawhide and just wander around for a while.  There are aisles and aisles filled with products and, regardless of their lovely packaging, the subtext for most of them is TAKE BACK CONTROL FROM THE ANIMAL YOU ALLOW TO LIVE IN YOUR HOUSE AND SLEEP IN YOUR BED, THE ONE YOU INSIST UPON DRESSING IN SWEATERS OR IN A NICE FLEECE WHEN IT GETS CHILLY. I was at one of those stores last month for the third time in one week and I stood looking for a moment at the array of items in my cart that I'd soon pay for and then lug home:

There was a plastic square designed to hold a wee wee pad in place.  I needed this item so my dog might stop ripping her pad to shreds before swan-diving into the pile of crumpled wee wee pad she created in what I think was an attempt to fashion a plusher fluff pad than the one I'd so lovingly provided.

There were sprays of all kinds. One was to stop her from peeing everywhere. One was to cover up the smell of pee when Plan A went to hell. And one was flavored bitter apple and it was designed to stop her from nibbling on my moldings, which my former dog used to wander by without ever showing the slightest interest.

I had two plush toys with tags attached that claimed the toys were demolition-proof. My puppy demolished all of the moose and half of the chicken in two days flat.

She kept knocking over the dishes in her crate, so I found hooks that promised to hang the bowls permanently. Those worked. I also found her a pretty sweater that she happily romped around in for a while before removing it herself because apparently she spends the time I'm at work practicing to be a stripper.

"How's it going with Tallulah?" a friend of mine asked today.

"She's the sweetest dog in the world," I responded with a smile, "but she's having a hard time with some of the commands I'm trying to teach her."

"Which ones?" he asked.

"You know – just sit, stay, and come."

I bought and read three training manuals. I spent twenty minutes trying to decide which training treats to buy. I debated the merits of chicken vs. bacon. I purchased a leash the "experts" recommended for teaching commands.

My dog sits when she feels like it.

What I've realized is that training anything is really fucking hard, especially when you're doing it during the same months you've decided to cut bread out of your life. The benefits my sweet puppy brings to my life far outweigh the difficult moments, but it's not easy and it's made exponentially worse when you realize you've one again been bested by an animal that weighs 4.4 pounds and that means her brain is only, what, half a pound? I think I just always assumed my larger brain would prevail when it came to which one of us would outsmart one another and prove ultimately victorious. I was sadly mistaken.  

The thing is, I know I have to train Tallulah now. I've listened to all the random adages I've heard over the years! I know it's the journey that's important and that success is 90% perspiration. I also know that it's almost impossible to teach old dogs new tricks and that lesson has led me to start thinking about our dear Housewives. What kind of tricks would I attempt to teach them if they were my pets – and more importantly, what kind of dog would each of them be?

Lisa Rinna looks very much like a cute Yorkie I once knew, so I've decided that's her spirit pup. As for what I'd teach her, it might be nice if she learned how to stop over-apologizing for things she really shouldn’t feel so badly for doing.  Of course, should she piss in the corner of my bedroom in dog form, I'd like her to apologize for a day and a half straight. 

Eileen is clearly an Afghan. I'd brush her daily. And while I have no idea about the mathematical capability of hounds, I'd instruct her to take over the financials of her household because all of these references to Vince's gambling this season have started to worry me.

 

THE SCARY BARBECUE

THE SCARY BARBECUE

You know how there are certain words people just hate? The ones that always make me want to tear my ears off and then fling them across a crowded room so I'll never see them again are "moist" and "panties." Combine the two and I'll never eat solid food again. I don't know why it is that those words make me cringe, but the reaction is real and it's probably somehow related to the way they grossly they roll off the tongue and the visuals that I connect them to in my head. At any rate, there are scores of other words that make me smile. "Poodle" is my favorite word of all time and I have no answers for how that came to be. What I do know is that none of us should ever use the words "cunt" and "scary" in front of Kathryn, our newest Housewife, a woman who likes to engage in battles over linguistics in an effort to make her guests feel as uncomfortable in her home as is humanly possible.

We begin this week still in San Diego. Erika Jayne and her liberating gyrations on Pervert Night are just a thing of memory now. Over at Kathryn's San Diego house, a chef is preparing lunch for a group of people who – at best – tolerate one another for payment and – at worst – do not trust one another in the slightest. Think about the conflicts that are a ‘brewing along with the coffee the chef is currently slaving over:

Kyle doesn't like that Kathryn thinks Faye is a cunt – even though Kathryn would never ever use that word and Faye is totally a cunt. 

Kyle doesn't appreciate that Lisa Vanderpump did not decree that Kathryn should be shot after uttering negative words about Faye at their joint birthday party where everybody had to show up in costume just so they would all have something to talk about.

Lisa Vanderpump doesn't appreciate that Yolanda tossed her kids' medical records into her lap at a restaurant like she's some basic bullshit OC Housewife since we all know those ladies are a nickel a fucking dozen and Ms. Vanderpump should be anointed like she's fucking royalty.

 

 

THE CUNTY TEMPTRESS DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH

THE CUNTY TEMPTRESS DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH

The other night I saw God and it turns out he looks exactly like Bruce Springsteen.

I haven't completely figured out if there's a poetic meaning behind it all, but my 30th Springsteen concert was part of The River Tour, meaning he would be playing the entire iconic double album straight through before launching into another full set. I'd missed the original River Tour. I was too young to go to a show, a fact that didn't comfort me in the least when my parents and my sister left the house and promised to bring me back a tee shirt. No joke: I remember almost nothing from the earliest part of my life – and when it comes to the night I had to miss the Bruce show, I can vividly recall the name of my babysitter and that the feety pajamas I was wearing were yellow.

I still have the shirt they brought me. It fits now. I've been to many shows since and I feel nothing but blessed for all of those perfect nights, but still – the River Tour was always the one that got away. 

Then December came. Springsteen released The Ties That Bind, a collection of outtakes from The River. Soon after, he announced that he and the band were heading back on the road for a mini tour and they'd be making two stops at The Garden. Pretending for a moment that I'd actually internalized anything from that time I secretly read The Secret, I entered the date of the show in the calendar of my phone before tickets even went on sale. (I think the pretend-gurus call this action "visualization.") The thing is, I knew I'd end up with tickets somehow. If 29 concerts had taught me anything, it's that I would happily trudge through gigantic cold parking lots looking for scalpers or suck it up and just pay far too much on Stubhub to gain entrance to a cathedral where holy music was played on a black electric guitar.

It was my first stop on the Let's-See-How-Much-I'll-Pay-This-Time ride, but I didn't really expect to come away from Ticketmaster victoriously. So many times I've frozen when it's time to type in that weird computerized security code and then a terrible message pops up to coldly inform me that all the tickets are gone. I think there's also a pop-up that appears that tells me my hair looks shitty at the moment, but my devastation might just be causing momentary hallucinations. This time – for this tour – I got tickets immediately. They weren't the best seats in the place, but it was a sure thing: all these years later, I was going to hear one of my favorite albums of all time played from side to side (to side to side). It could only be better and more memory-inducing if The Garden's floor was covered in a rust shag carpet for the evening.

I can hardly remember the first song he played, so dumbstruck I was rendered the minute he walked onstage and I realized that I was in the same room as someone whose words have defined my entire life. So yeah, the first verse of Meet Me in the City is a little fuzzy, but I recovered quickly and the night was magical. It was almost a little bit bizarre – but in a beautiful, hazy way – to hear all those songs that once played on a loop in my den as I built forts with my sister. Images came rushing back like a wave and the water was warm and still. As we all went along on Bruce's River journey, I found myself going on my own memory tour and I began to understand my past just a little bit more clearly.

There's a real gratitude I feel when words someone assembled and then crafted into a sentence moves everything inside of me. I think that one of my biggest goals is to write that one line that resonates so powerfully within somebody else. It's the dream of sharing that kind of lyrical collective consciousness that I guess I find so damn interesting and during the show, I thought that dream just might come true.

I mention all this because I'm imagining the act of seeing Erika Jayne perform live brings upon the same kind of emotional peace. Sure, the guy's been famous since before I was born, but I'm pretty sure nobody's ever called Springsteen "an enigma wrapped in cash."  No, Erika Jayne is the real legend and I'm guessing that watching her hump that stage will finally convince all of us that real art does exist and I know that she will dazzle me to such a degree that I'll have the immediate desire to leave her show – while she's still singing – go home, and bedazzle everything I own.

 

FISHNETS & FUCKING FAYE RESNICK

FISHNETS & FUCKING FAYE RESNICK

Is there a place a nonreligious girl like myself can go to ask for forgiveness for taking last week off and not recapping the episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills when Faye Resnick came face to face with the woman she talked total bullshit about twenty years ago in a book that was written in two weeks alongside one of the editors of the National Enquirer so she could most effectively capitalize off the murder of someone she claimed was her best friend in the whole entire world?  Would it suffice for everyone to know that, even more than I hate the slug-like Resnick, I hate myself for spending last Tuesday night leisurely resting up for the Springsteen concert I went to the following evening instead of watching the Housewives devolve into simmering pits of resentment while the sea monster in their midst sat calmly on a patio she probably decorated?  Can I ever possibly come to terms with the fact that it took me a full day to actually watch that slithering Resnick asshole smile her collagen-pumped grin while telling Kathryn, the new Housewife whose life she tried to destroy a score of years ago for profit, that she looks beautiful? 

Let’s just call a fucking asshole a fucking asshole, shall we? Why split hair extensions and beat around what I’m guessing is a carefully lasered bush?  Faye Resnick is a fucking asshole.  Here are the facts of my case: 

1. She achieved infamy because of her proximity and involvement in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.  This infamy was not a surprising result that befell a shy woman who desperately wanted to keep her privacy.  No, this infamy was garnered strategically by writing a book and posing for Playboy.

2. Rather than mourn the woman she maintained was her closest friend, she wrote a book about that woman’s secrets.

3. She’s really good friends with Kris Jenner and makes sure to appear every now and again on her reality show so she won’t disappear into the void of nothingness that can plague a woman who desperately needs attention. 

4. Kyle Richards considers her to be like a sister.  Score.

5. She once tried to shame Lisa Vanderpump at the woman’s own house where she showed up to a vow renewal ceremony uninvited and honey, you can do a lot of things before I contemplate cold-clocking you across your shaved jawline, but you’d best not fuck with Ms. Vanderpump.

Now, I’ve known for some time that Faye Resnick sucks the humongous sweaty balls of a farm animal during an August heat wave, but I got to be reminded of just how ridiculous a creature she is during the Kathryn Confrontation that never really got off the ground.  First, Faye did not need to be invited to that dinner.  I don’t give a shit if Kyle claims that she invites Faye everywhere and that the world would stop spinning on its axis and angels would stop getting their wings and Mauricio would stop getting covert blowjobs from interns if Faye was left off a guest list. I mean, we have watched Kyle gallivant on this show for years now and Faye most certainly does not go everywhere her raven-haired mistress goes.  No, Faye was there for a showdown she then refused to participate in and she instead chose to sit and quietly nod in a nonsensical fashion as Kathryn (not so eloquently) attempted to call her out for her past misdeeds.  

Faye refused to engage.  She refused to say a single word.  She refused to get up and just leave.  She wouldn't even say that she was sorry or that she had been going through a tough time back then and she made some questionable choices she now has to live with and she would like to apologize for the fact that she is one of the greatest examples of why some entire cultures hate women.  She refused to say pretty much anything even as she had the fucking audacity to stare blankly at the woman sitting before her and then cluck about how pretty Kathryn is, a compliment apropos of exactly nothing.

FAYE RESNICK SLAUGHTERED MY SOUL

FAYE RESNICK SLAUGHTERED MY SOUL

I’m not quite sure how it can be this way, but there remains a rather quixotic side to my personality and it's really starting to piss me off.  It just doesn't make any sense! Really, you’d think a constant and steady exposure to questionable people starring on mindless reality shows would have eliminated my patently unrealistic levels of idealism, but that's just not the case – and I can’t seem to help it. I somehow still harbor the insane belief that most people are good, that they actively want to better humanity at large.  Trust me: I've tried to quiet the blatantly out-of-vogue ideals I still blame my parents for instilling in me back when they were hippies who tried to pass carob off as chocolate. It's totally their fault that I cannot seem to cease having faith in the fact that the vast majority of us must have actual reasons for the times we find ourselves behaving in a manner that could best be described as heinously inappropriate.

The thing is, I no longer have any sort of pride about feeling this way. Holding tight to an optimistic mindset has turned into nothing but a fool’s game, one that ends in a shootout as balls (and not the fun scrotumy kind) fly at my head.  Gone are the days when everything made actual sense, when someone's questionable motivations could be entirely justified with just a little bit of logic. We simply don’t live in that world anymore.  Instead, we now exist in a time where an educated CEO – a mother no less – can go on an interview blitz where she steadfastly refuses to apologize for calling the virtual stranger she invited into her home a prostitute before telling her that her music videos have a shitty production value.  We live in a world where this rude creature gives snappy sound bytes accompanied by a toothy smile about how she’s been chosen to guest star on a show precisely because she’s an asshole and she would therefore never temper her assholery just to be a decent person.  After all, being decent is not what made her a zillionaire.  

Welcome to the dystopia, everybody.  It’s a land drenched in Skinnygirl crimson and it smells like a knockoff version of Chanel perfume and it’s run in absentia by Mayor Kim Richards –otherwise known as She Who Shall Not Be Mentioned. Leave your integrity at the door of Kyle By Alene Too and instead shrug on an overpriced ugly caftan. You'll fit right in.

 

 

 

 

MEET ERIKA JAYNE

MEET ERIKA JAYNE

I have a confession to make:  the image of Yolanda’s bloody implant is slowly destroying me from the inside out.  I’ve had dreams about that thing.  The very worst one involved placing my head dreamily upon a pillow I thought was made out of baby pink cotton candy only to find that the sugary fluff had disappeared and what enveloped me instead was a gelatinous mess of silicone and guts.  Really though, that gooey implant terrified me as much as catching a glimpse of a Pegasus in a movie usually does and a big part of me believes that the implant did not actually come from deep inside Yolanda’s chest cavity as the world-renowned surgeon wearing the colorful baker’s hat would have us believe.  I think there’s a good chance the implant really originates from the dankest and darkest depths of the bottom of the ocean where its kin continues to frolic with mythical beasts that are made entirely of gills and whatever it is that first birthed Faye Resnick.  

I’m hoping (and praying…and chanting…and lighting candles) that now that Yolanda’s implants are out of her body for good, the nightmares will finally cease.  I realize, of course, that the visual revelation of Erika Jayne that has been promised to us tonight could cause a new phobia to burst forth, but I made sure to exercise for an extra hour earlier today so chronic exhaustion would crush fear.  Besides, there’s probably not all that much to be nervous about.  It’s not like I haven’t seen porn before.

 

 

 

 

THE TOOTHLESS, BOOBLESS, BRAINLESS WONDER

THE TOOTHLESS, BOOBLESS, BRAINLESS WONDER

Um, I believe it was implied that the Skinny Girl would show up at some point tonight.  After all, our Beverly Hills ladies are heading to the Hamptons and who is more representative of the Hamptons than Bethenny Frankel?  In fact, I heard through the grapevine that Bethenny is even considering running for Mayor of Southampton because she found out that she couldn’t throw her hat into the race to be the next Queen.  Her platform?  That every road sign in the community should be painted the exact shade of red that’s in her brand’s logo.  I don’t see how the woman can lose. 

We all saw Bethenny in the previews for this season and I guess I expected that she’d be onscreen from the get go.  While I don’t care that much about catching a glimpse of her on her own show, I was looking forward to seeing her in this bowl of non-fat, non-dairy, non-gluten Housewives soup.  See, I just love crossover episodes of television shows, don’t you?  There’s this extra special thrill that comes with watching the Love Boat as it flows intentionally towards Fantasy Island or seeing Mork and his rainbow suspenders saunter into Arnold’s to visit with the Happy Days gang.  It’s a joining together of some of our favorite characters – a double dose of in-jokes – and it almost doesn’t even matter that the episode itself never actually lives up to all the hype that preceded it because there’s just something kind of delightful about watching the Griffins dine with the Simpsons or witnessing a Carrington toss a Colby off a balcony and onto the hard marble floor below. 

It was with this barely contained surge of excitement barreling through me that I settled down to watch what I figured would undoubtedly be the Entertainment Moment of the Year.  And sure, it’s only January 5th, but what other recent televised moment should get that glorious distinction?  Twins showing up to compete as one person on the new season of The Bachelor? A convicted murderer potentially getting closer to an appeal because of additional information that might have been uncovered through a Netflix series?  Yeah, okay – that last one might trump the west coast Housewives colliding with some of our east coast Housewives, but just barely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HER BRAIN IS THE BEST PART!

HER BRAIN IS THE BEST PART!

As we inch closer to the last day of this year – or towards the first day of a brand new year, depending upon your levels of optimism – it's hard not to contemplate everything that's come before. After all, something new often walks hand in hand with some type of ending, doesn't it? There have definitely been some years where I felt a true thudding inside at the awareness that so much is over while other years it's just a bittersweet kind of twinge that takes over whenever I catch a glimpse of a calendar that tells me it's December 29th. But this year? Well, I feel completely at peace. What's gone is in the past and the present feels breezy and bright and I think that the very best is yet to come and the greatest part of all of it is that I haven't even tried to convince myself of such a thing. I simply feel this way and it's like wrapping my tired feet in slippers made out of cotton and clouds.

 

But when it comes to the Housewives, I'm not sure that peace and tranquility sells. My guess is that nobody wants to watch a program about happy rich people gallivanting around the globe, but then there's that part of me that wonders why Bravo thinks we want to watch a woman in the throes of a debilitating illness that's either physical or psychological or a devastating mix of both. And allow me to just say this: I believe Yolanda is truly sick, but I also believe that participating in this show when she claims everything about herself has been compromised is an odd choice. I know she's insisting that she is out to spread awareness, but since all we've been exposed to thus far about her illness is that she has a curious health advocate at her beck and call and a massive closet crammed with medication that clearly wasn't all prescribed to her by a doctor and her friends tossing out words like Munchausen Syndrome, I'm not positive she's doing the good work she's pretending is being done. After all, this is a show that's always been fueled by a cocktail of conflict and suspicion that's served with a slice of cynicism. This is a franchise that celebrates a convicted felon returning home from jail only to find a brand new Lexus sitting in her driveway that's wrapped in a gigantic red bow. This is a series that invited Brandi Glanville back to make guest appearances – and paid her for it. This is not a televised forum for anything particularly wonderful and we all know it.

 

THE M WORD

THE M WORD

Here’s the thing:  so far on this season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, a lot of things have almost happened. Kyle was almost unceremoniously disinvited from her niece’s wedding – but she ended up attending, even as more than half of her family remained on the Do Not Admit list. Lisa Vanderpump almost bought her husband a dwarfy horse, but she ended up not bringing it home with her on her friend’s private plane because one of the animal’s front legs was a little wonky. Yolanda almost made it through an entire meal with the rest of the Housewives before having to leave before the main course was served due to complications from her illness. Luckily, the rest of them were happy to talk about her in her absence so it was like she was there. The new Housewife, Erika, almost made a full impression on me, but the truth is that I'm still remarkably confused by her.  However, like I said last time, I have high hopes for the very natural looking blonde because, if she does well on this show, maybe Kim Richards will never return to star in anything but my sweatiest fever dreams. Eileen almost behaved in a manner that was interesting, but she didn’t quite pull it off because I have a hard time caring about the struggles inherent in carpooling. Still, I do find her stability rather pleasant and I think it's always nice to have another normal Housewife around. Lisa Rinna almost threw down with Taylor at Ken’s birthday party while both of them were wearing ridiculous hats, but Lisa wisely decided against it. I think that somewhere in the back of her mind she remembers that she once had to apologize to that piece of shit Kim Richards during last season's reunion show for sending her a nasty text message that contained only the truth and I'm pretty sure that she might have grabbed her own thigh so tightly as she was all but forced to make such a bullshit apology to a monster and that there's a good chance she punctured her skin with a fingernail in the process and got herself a pesky little infection. Realizing that Taylor is desperate to be back on this show and only wants a reaction anyway is what I think enabled Lisa to keep her lips clamped tightly together.  As a result, a confrontation almost happened – but didn’t.  And what do all of these they-almost-happened moments mean?  It means that nothing has actually transpired so far on this season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and so I entered into tonight's episode not expecting much.

 

Turns out, I wasn’t wrong to have low expectations.  Lord (and Satan) help me, but I almost miss Brandi.  (Calm down – I said almost.  I respect a theme!)