When Reality Goes Bad

Well, hello to all! Seems Betland is ready for its re-opening, well, or so I thought, until I realized I'm having a few comments problems (apparently you can send them but I can't access them at this point), and so a Monday acro is out. However, the rides are all springier, and shinier, mostly owing to the massive rain we seem to be having, and the characters are ready to be roaming the park as soon as the weather clears. Mr Snake has been particularly fetching lately, but if I were you I'd still avoid Nervous William.

While in the resting phase, I've been watching a fair amount of TV, yes, I know this comes as a shock to you all, and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by it. See, my shows seem to be turning on me.

I'm a sucker for the Real World/Road Rules Challenge, and so have of course been watching its latest installment. I guess I just love knowing that these unloveable losers have some sort of job security. Where there's a bug to be eaten, Mike, Coral, and Veronica will be there to chomp it. (Actually, I've often wondered if the reason I watch is not for the job security, but the removal thereof; ie, wouldn't it be spectacular if one of them fell off a wall to their deaths?) Anyway, there are certain constants of this show, that Mike and Abram are always going to be The Leaders, Coral and Veronica are always going to be The Bitches, and that they'll fill out both casts with a bunch of jesters and fools to entertain us.

Only we have a problem this year. On the Real World team, there's a new bitch in town. Toothy Mormon Julie showed up, again as forever wanting to be the hip-shootin' rock and roll wildass she portrays herself to be (And where she came up with that I'll never know - I mean, does she think she's a wildass because she got kicked out of Brigham Young University? Hell, any of us could get kicked out of BYU before you could say "Donny Osmond."), and Julie ran into an especially unpleasant brick wall in the name of one Coral. (And btw, why do Mormons have such big white teeth?)

And so, anyway, there's been much wailing and gnashing of teeth between these two. Actually, that's not quite the case; there's been much caterwauling and waving of fingers in people's faces. If one would say the sun rises in the morning, the other would have some sort of bitchy retort to start an argument about it, then the nose to nose yelling and eventual walking away and whining to the assembled throng would follow. It's very tiring.

The funny part about all this is that neither Coral nor Julie are for shit where competitions are concerned. They both, well, for want of a better word and not to put too fine a point on it, suck weenies. Then each goes into a major uproar when they're nominated for the dreaded Gauntlet, where the most expendable players go head to head to see who gets a paid one-way ticket back to obscurity.

So. The entire last episode consisted of 30 minutes (minus commercials, make that 12 minutes) of Coral and Julie fighting. Over Julie's reluctance to go to the gauntlet. And so Julie got on this kick that she wanted to wrestle Coral once and for all.

And the challenges began, and the arguments, and Coral unpolitely refused the wrestle-off because, of course, she'd punch Julie in the face and knock out her Mormon teeth and then have to be sent home. And finally, Julie admitted she was well aware that might happen, and if it did, all the better. Oh, dear.

Personally, I want them to wrestle on that upstairs balcony and fall over the railing onto the first floor patio.

Then there's American Idol. It's come to a virtual crawl lately. Its biggest problem is that it's hosted by Ryan Seacrest, but I guess there's not much we can do about that. This past week the challenge was to sing Elton John songs. And a more nauseating bunch of renditions of Elton John songs I've never heard. Sure, Fantasia and LaToya were fine, as usual, but the rest were some sorry sacks o' shit. Conan O'Brien lookalike and Frank Sinatra wannabe John sang a version of "Crocodile Rock" that made me pray a crocodile would actually appear and savage him right there onstage, and John Peter Lewis, who, God, what is it with him? His popularity is totally alien to me - sang "Rocket Man," and it made the baby Jesus cry. I have no concrete proof of this, of course, but it sure as hell made me cry. Morphine, please!

But worst of all was our dear cute Camille, who wears an expression something between The Verge of Tears and Menacing Juvenile Delinquent, and who's been floating on fumes since the whole thing started. She sang "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." Camille has this agonizingly irritating growling vibrato that makes her sound like she's not only singing about the Yellow Brick Road, but traveling over each separate brick on a pair of roller skates.

On the just-about unbearable "Guess Who Gets Kicked Off Show" on Wednesday, they found a new way to prolong the torture of having to find out The Inevitable. They started dividing the kids up into groups, and, well, it was a mess, but Camille finally did get the ax, thank God, and sang one more rumbly verse of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." A new verse, that either she made up or someone made up for her, that mentioned Maui and all that shit. God, do I love to hate this show.

What American Idol needs is one week called "Moving Week." An hour-long show where they each get a couple of songs to sing, then on Wednesday, not one, but say, four people are voted off. Just send a big bowling ball through all those wannabes. Cut a wide swath right through them.

Now, as for "Survivor...." I don't know what can be done about it. I mean, these guys are playing their own game, there's just not much I like about what they're doing to each other. Boston Rob must be stopped, and if it comes down to him and Amber in the end, all I can say is she is truly one woman who can say she has a million-dollar, well, I shan't continue on with that thought, but then again, I don't think I need to.

Damn, even Airline's all drunk boarders and people who got bumped off their planes. Would it be bad taste to suggest a plane wreck? Yep, it would. Sorry.

Safe traveling!