American Road Trip

What I’m about to say may be considered blasphemy, especially coming from a former teacher: I love watching television with my 10-year-old son, Andrew.  After the rush out the door every morning, followed by the activities buffet of the afternoon and the dinner-and-homework sessions of the early evening, he and I have a standing date each night, a time for the two of us to re-group and reconnect.  We head into the sunroom, grab some blankets, and sink into the comfy couch.  Sometimes we make popcorn. Occasionally, we grab a handful of Hershey’s chocolate kisses.   And then we always grab the remote.

            

Andrew and I are really into reality television.  I know some other television-bonding families that connect via American Idol, The Voice, or Dancing with the Stars.  Andrew and I dabbled in The Sing-Off for a few seasons, mostly because I used to sing a capella in high school and am an original Gleek.  And, before that, I used to make him watch Divine Design with Candace Olsen until he finally protested, and rightly so.  That was cruel and unusual punishment.

            

We now have two very manly reality favorites.  The first is American Pickers on the History Channel.  The second is Diners, Drive-ins and Dives with host Guy Fieri.

            

My father-in-law, Steve, is a bit of a history buff (and a bit of a hoarder who thinks his stuff is worth something) and he’s the one who got us hooked on American Pickers.  This show follows the conquests of Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, owners of Antique Archeology, a store that features finds from their “picking” forays across America.  What is “picking”?  Well, Andrew knows all about it.  I’m not sure that this year’s New York State English Language Arts test is going to ask about picking, but if by chance Andrew needs to write an essay about collecting memorabilia by looking through other people’s junk, then he’ll pass with flying colors.

            

Pickers Mike and Frank like to say that they are “uncovering the history of America, one piece at a time,” as they dig through people’s overgrown yards and barns filled with collections of miscellanea.  They are looking for “rusty gold,” anything they can make some money from.  These guys are knowledgeable about all kinds of Americana, but specifically they are passionate about bicycles, motorcycles, cars and anything else that fits into what they call “petroliana,” items relating to gas, motors, and gas stations, like big signs or cans with logos.  Mike is a fun character, who say things like, “If you’ve gotta crawl through dead chickens, raccoon poop and goat urine to get something cool….do it! What a honey hole!” And Frank is the master “bundler,” working deals by bundling items together and saying, “So, how about $120 for all three of these?”

            

Andrew and I enjoy watching the guys make a great discovery and we like learning the history about specific items, like a Model A car or an engine for an early Harley-Davidson Knucklehead.  We also like meeting the characters that own all this stuff, people with names like Hippie Tom and Dollar Dick.

But our favorite part of the show is when the guys buy something, but aren’t exactly sure of the value.  Will it be appraised at a high enough price for them to turn a profit?  As we speed through the commercials to find out, the tension is nailbiting.

“Andrew, time for bed,” Brett will call down from upstairs.

“Just a minute!” We’ll call back.

           

Before you get all politically correct on me, telling me that television warps one’s brain waves and that, further, reality television really warps the brain (think The Jersey Shore), give me a moment to explain.  Because Guy Fieri has really enhanced my relationship with my son.

           

Watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives (or Triple D, as us insiders affectionately call it) has made Andrew want to do two things of note: try new foods and travel.  Night after night, he and I sit on our couch with our feet intertwined on the ottoman, and “roll out” with Guy, traveling across America in a vintage red Camaro convertible.  From the Deep South to the Midwest all in one half-hour episode, Guy has sampled the best of “real deal barbeque” taking us from Texas to Chicago and Kansas City.  In general, Guy’s a really big fan of pigs, taking us viewers to smokehouses, shacks and holes in the wall, showing us “how it’s done.” 

Guy will hold up a giant sandwich that’s got layers of beef and pork and cheese and sauces between two slices of homemade ciabatta bread and then he’ll get ready to eat it by doing “the hunch.”  The hunch involves rolling up one’s sleeves (Guy always wears short sleeves, so that’s not a problem) and leaning over so as not to drip any grease on oneself.  Then you take a big-ass bite.  “Now that’s how it’s done,” he’ll say, fist bumping the chef, a huge grin on his face.  “It’s porktastic.”

“I’m so hungry!”  Andrew will say.  “I want to go there!”

“That’s just disgusting,” my husband, Brett will say, leaving the room.  “Who eats like that?”

“We do!” We say, even though, in real reality, we don’t.  However, Andrew does have a favorite sandwich at a local diner in town that he swears requires the hunch.  Other favorites, like a burger from The Shake Shack, also require the hunch.  (The hunch adds fun and danger to a meal.  You should try it.)

What’s really fun about Triple D is the road trips it has inspired.  When Guy featured a diner in Providence, Rhode Island called Louie’s, Andrew and I turned to each other and yelled out, “Providence, Rhode Island!”  Brett’s whole family lives outside Providence.  “Can we go?”  Andrew asked.

“Are you kidding me?  Of course!” I said. An enthusiastic high-five followed, and our first Triple D road trip was planned. (Andrew had the bacon, egg and cheese and did the hunch.  I had the homemade granola pancakes and did not need to hunch.  Brett’s dad had the famed homemade corned beef hash. I can’t recall if he hunched or not.) Once we got there, we discovered that all the places Guy has visited have a special stamp or seal hidden somewhere in the restaurant.  We also found a framed picture of him over the grill.  The items featured on the show are highlighted on the menu for easy reference.

Since then, we have hit another Rhode Island diner on Guy’s list, as well as one place on the Jersey Shore and two in Manhattan.  Gazala’s Place, right behind the Museum of Natural History, proved to be a nice respite from dinosaurs and serves authentic, child-friendly Middle Eastern fare.  The Redhead, in the East Village, has the most delicious fried chicken, mac n’ cheese, and homemade, New York street-style soft pretzels.  Plus, it’s up the street from The Strand bookstore and Momofuku Milk Bar, so we added those destinations to our tour.

Any time we visit a city in the future, we will be sure to look up one of the Triple D hot spots and incorporate it into our travels.  America never tasted so good.  With our bellies full, we might even come across some rusty gold, now that we know what to look for.

           

I have this friend who bans television for her children during the week.  I think I’m supposed to admire her, but instead, I just pity her.  Oh, well.  She doesn’t know what she’s missing.

Loved the Hunger Games? Other Great YA Books that Adults Should Be Reading

Confession: I read children’s books. For fun. Like, all the time. Did you get hooked on Harry Potter? Torn apart by Twilight? Did you Hunger for more of The Hunger Games? Did you think, well, I’ll only do it this one time, because they’re making the series into movies and everybody’s reading them? Well, that’s nothing.

When I‘m on a YA bender – and, hello world, I’m on one now! -- I read at least one teen title a week.

For me, reading YA is like having a candy bar in the middle of my lifelong diet. Filled with nougaty goodness, it’s easy to digest and damned satisfying. And, when I’m done, I don’t have to discuss it with my book club.

Reading YA is like temporarily leaving your grown-up, responsible day job to cut class and hang out in the food court at the mall with your new BFF.

It’s, like, totally ahmayzing.

So, without further ado, here are some of my top picks for grown-ups who sometimes wish they could recapture their teen years or who just like reading about adolescence. Maybe you have an adolescent in your house and you can share titles. Maybe you don’t. It doesn’t matter to me either way. I’m a book pusher and this is just good stuff.

Read the rest on the Huffington Post...

Fake Academy Awards 2012

Last year, my husband and I created a matrix in order to determine how to win an Oscar in 14 easy steps. You can view it here on the Huffington Post.

So, without further ado, from our imaginations to your computer screen, here are the top Oscars that no one in Hollywood will be receiving this year.

Best picture set in France in which all the actors speak with British accents:
Hugo

Best picture set in Sweden in which all the actors speak with slightly different, untraceable, can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on-where-they’re-from accents:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best period mustache. And the nominees are:
Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Sacha Baron Cohen for Hugo
Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs

Best dramatic actor on 4 legs. And the nominees are:
Joey the horse from War Horse
Rosie the elephant from Water for Elephants
Maximilian (Blackie the Doberman) from Hugo

Best comedic actor on 4 legs. And the nominees are:
Dolce (Palmer the Pomeranian) from Young Adult
The dog (Uggie the Jack Russell) in The Artist

(I’d like to make a prediction here. Uggie is the clear frontrunner, having won this year’s Palm Dog award at Cannes and having already played a dog in Water for Elephants. Palmer the Pomeranian has no prior experience in films and was hard to work with, according to co-star Charlize Theron.)

Best Acceptance Speech:
The Artist

Best Brad Pitt film. And the nominees are:
Oh, you know what they are, right? In case you don’t stalk him like I do, it’s Moneyball and The Tree of Life. The odds are, that when you take Brad Pitt and put him in a baseball film based on a book about sabermetrics, there is a 37.5% chance of a win, based on prior statistics in which he was nominated for 5 Golden Globes but only won 1, most recently losing to George Clooney for best actor. Now, if you also account for the 4 Oscar nods Pitt’s received over his career, plus the 4 BAFTA nominations, and if you multiply that by the number of children he has, both biological and adopted, you will discover absolutely nothing about The Tree of Life.

Best dramatic, sad-as-heck movie that was marketed as a comedy:
The Descendants

Best movie that I can’t make fun of in any way, shape or form because of the 9/11 subject matter:
Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close

Best Julia-Child-as-Margaret-Thatcher Award:
Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady

Actress you hope wins so that she doesn’t act out afterwards in anger and retribution:
Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best movie in which the director realizes he’s aged out of playing the fumbling, bumbling romantic lead:
Midnight in Paris

Best movie based on a novel that took forever to get published, thus giving hope to frustrated novelists, like myself, and the hopeful mothers of these novelists, like my mother, who brag about their offspring at dinner parties despite the fact that their creative, brilliant children haven’t sold a manuscript. Otherwise known as The But Look What Happened to Katherine Stockett Award:
The Help

Think of others? Feel free to add them below. Let’s watch the fake awards pile up, at least until the real ones do this Sunday, February 26th on ABC.

Lessons from Downton Abbey: A Jewish American Princess studies the Dowager Countess

I admire the British for so many reasons. They have a rich history of beheading enemies of the monarchy without ever compromising afternoon tea. They colonized half the globe and yet managed to ensure that no other colony’s accent would sound exactly like theirs. In particular, I idolize the Brits for their fictional characters. If shipwrecked on a deserted island and in need of reading materials to last a lifetime, I’d much rather have aristocratic and feisty Emma Woodhouse and her charming Mr. Knightly with me than Puritanical Hester Prynne and her pastor, Arthur (yawn) Dimmsdale. Give me Heathcliff and Catherine! Bring me my Bridget Jones! Oh, heck, just give me any book that was later turned into a movie starring Hugh Grant and/or Colin Firth! And, now, thanks to Downton Abbey, make sure that I always have the BBC on my telly. (Yes, even on that deserted island.)

Turns out, there’s a lot a Jewish girl from New York can learn from the fictional, Victorian-Era Crawleys and their estate in North Yorkshire. In honor of the upcoming finale of Downton Abbey’s second season, I’d like to share some of these delicious bits of knowledge.

1. Marry your cousin.
Clock ticking? Desperate for a mate? Tired of being set up by your mom’s gay hairdresser? Sick of having half of your grandmother’s mahjong group insist they have the perfect guy for a “mature” woman like yourself? Dear Jewess, don’t fret. The next time your dad worries about who will take over his condo in Boca once he passes on, ensure him that you’ve got his back. Promptly fall in love with your cousin and gain an immediate heir to the estate. Now, don’t go screwing things up by, let’s say, screwing a Turk who then dies in your bed or by pretending you don’t love your cousin when you really, really do. Don’t let the cousin go off to war on Wall Street without telling him how you feel. Worry later about the genetic complications this might prompt, including blood-clotting disorders; for now, stay focused on Boca.

2. Just shut up already.
When people ask me how I am doing, I actually tell them. Sometimes, I go on for several minutes, blabbing and spewing and confiding, analyzing and hypothesizing and then circling back to the original point with some sort of diarrhea of the mouth. What can I say? This is nearly unavoidable when the double helix of your DNA looks like Fran Drescher and Woody Allen snake dancing. An English Lady would never behave like that. She would hold her tongue and smile in mixed company, only divulging her true feelings to her maid. Even if she were bleeding internally during cocktails, I like to think she’d keep concerns about her spleen to herself. Perhaps if I wore a corset, I’d feel less like talking, and therefore, become all the more charming. I’d certainly look better. It’s worth a shot.

3. Use your father’s influence for your own gain.
Oh, wait. We Jewish American Princesses have already got this one down. Check it off the list!

Interestingly, gossip about season 3 of Downton Abbey has some suspecting that Cora Crawley, wife of the Earl of Grantham and daughter of American dry goods multimillionaire Isidore Levinson is actually…gasp…Jewish. With a name like Levinson, it’s certainly possible. And it would help to explain the overlapping behaviors between Jewesses and Countesses, at least in this instance.

(Read the full piece on Tablet here.)

4. When and if that doesn’t work, sneak around behind Papa’s back.
This is really fun. There is no telling what can be done once dear old Papa is out of the loop. This is how most of my shopping at Bergdorf Goodman was done when I was in high school. Afterwards, I would hide the packages so my dad couldn’t document the trouble my mom and I got into with his Amex. But now I see that this was nothing. When done with the English flair of a Crawley, you can achieve true greatness behind your father’s back. You can fall for your politically-minded chauffer and still have time to dress wounds back at the makeshift convalescent hospital set up in your family’s dining room. You can, with help from your mother and her maid, remove the dead Turk from your bedroom and place him back in his own bedchamber. You can then work a romantic deal with a well-known publisher, exchanging your heart for the safety of your public reputation. Shhh. As long as Papa doesn’t know, then you are not a whore, or a slut, or in fear of being disinherited, disowned, or dishonored. There shall be no dissing whatsoever without Daddy’s knowledge. (Easier by far just to go on a shopping spree, if you ask me.)

5. In a tiered society, it’s best to be at the tippy top or the briny bottom.Honestly, the servants and the Dowager Countess seem to have the most fun in and around Downton. There is much to scheme about when you spend all day mending fancy people’s socks and cleaning their underclothes, which explains why O’Brien and Thomas are so delightfully awful. Same with Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess, the most influential of the upstairs bunch. Once she properly positions an off-kilter, feathered and flowered hat atop her curls, she’s got nothing to do all day but gossip and connive and dream up the next sharp barb. And that’s the way life should be as the top 1%. It’s not as much fun being stuck somewhere in the middle, like me, and like dear Bates. He’s got some money, but he’s also got a limp and had a wife who was a bitch. No one wants to be him. And then there’s Isobel Crawley, who has so little power next to Lady Grantham that she had to retreat to France for a while. She’s no fun at all.

When all is said and done, in my next life, I’d like to come back as a British Dutchess or Countess or Heiress. Any ess will do. I’d like to have someone dress me for dinner and I’d want to learn how to ride a horse in the countryside without having to worry about my hay fever.

Oh, and one last thing. I’d like to be able to celebrate Christmas, even if it is fictional and during wartime. Lucky for me, that’s exactly what the Crawleys will be doing this Sunday, February 19th. Now, raise your heirloom quality, cut-glass crystal goblet and follow my lead. Cheers, everyone.

Sexy Grammar for Dummies: “The Bachelor”

The lights are low. I have a glass of white wine in my left hand and a pen in my right. My high definition TV is flickering in front of me like a fire in a faux log cabin on a one-on-one date in Park City, Utah. It’s Monday night, my kids are asleep, my husband is at the gym, and I’m alone at last. Alone with the grammatically incorrect Bachelor, Ben Flajnik, and his sixteen beautiful, grammatically incorrect sister-wives.

Tonight, I plan on getting serious with them. Tonight, I am writing down all of their infractions and giving a metaphorical rose to the worst offender.

It’s hard to rock a bikini and lounge all evening in a hot tub while simultaneously keeping hair and make-up in place. Everyone knows that. So imagine how nearly impossible it must be to do so while also confusing subject and object pronouns.

This is certainly not the first time that The Bachelor (or ette) has featured hotties that lack critical pronoun usage skills. Just to set the record straight: “I” is not automatically proper, no matter what your grandmother told you or how white your teeth are. In recent years, Bachelors Jake Pavelka and Brad Womack unrelentingly and unapologetically pummeled the English language week after week in their search for true love.

So, when Ben declared in the second episode of this season that it was “Time for Emily and I to explore our relationship,” I knew he was ready to find his perfect match, too.

Many fans of the show already recognize and accept the grammatical limitations of the participants, but we suffer through the rape of Strunk and White anyway, just for another glimpse of Fiji from a helicopter. But, what fans fail to realize is that they key to who (whom?) is chosen lies within sentence structures, not between the sheets.

Consider this. After just a few weeks in, I can predict who the finalists from season 16 should be. By cross-referencing the women’s speech patters with Ben’s, I have narrowed the search down considerably. My bachelor matchmaking skills aren’t 100%, but I can probably garner healthier results than the participants, who are wrong 15 1/2 out of every 16 times. I don’t usually brag, but it’s like my very own JDate for Dummies.

The front-runners include:

Courtney
We viewers don’t really like her, but Ben does. And ABC loves her for being the bitch that brings in the ratings. In sizing up the competition, Courtney said, “I think her and I are complete opposites.”

Rachel
She doesn’t say much, that one. But she did say, “I have to stay focused on Ben and I.”

Jennifer
“Clay Walker is a superstar. And he’s having a concert for Ben and I.”

Emily
Alas, even the pretty Ph. D. candidate makes mistakes. “I’m worried that, because Ben has such a strong connection with her, any animosity between Courtney and I could result in Ben thinking negatively towards me.” Oh, Emily, your speech is so wrong, but what you say is so right. Stay out of it, and keep your eyes on the prize.

Here’s what I’d like to see in an upcoming episode. Forget skiing down a hill in San Francisco or repelling illegally into a crater. Take all of the remaining women - wearing cute jean shorts and sundresses, of course - on a group date with Ben to the UCLA campus. There they will bypass the skateboarders and Frisbee throwers and enter the Humanities building, where they will have to strip down to their string bikinis and sharpen their Number 2 pencils. At the start of a bell, they will take the verbal portion of the SATs in a classroom with full-on central air conditioning. The last one to start crying gets a rose from Ben, who, shirtless, hugs her tight while uttering that well-worn Bachelor adage, “If we can make it through this, then there’s nothing we can’t do together.”

Now that’s some sexy television right there.

How to Win an Oscar in 14 Easy Steps

Earlier this week on the Huffington Post, Andrea Savage gave us a look at the role that cunnilingus played in this year’s Academy Award nominees for best actress, noticing quite rightly that three out of the five women nominated were recipients of oral sex in their films.

Used to be that all you needed for an Oscar nod was to play mental retardation or have a convincing physical affliction, right?

Not exactly.

You see, for several years now, my husband and I have been working on a theory. An award-worthy, dazzling in its theatricality theory, as to how to get nominated for an Academy Award.

Forget commentators debating about and forecasting the winners. Here's how it's really done by the pros.

Step 1: Pick a setting. As real estate agents know, there is hardly anything more important than location, location, location. And if you want to be nominated for an Academy Award, you’d be wise to select either Boston or England as the setting for your film.

Now, with Boston, you’d get something like Good Will Hunting, or Mystic River. Also, The Town and The Fighter (Yes, I know it’s set in Lowell, people. No need to get all technical on me.) Heck, New York native Martin Scorsese knows all about this, finally deciding to set a film in Boston just so that he could win himself a much-overdue Oscar for The Departed.

Had it been set in the Bronx, it surely would have lost to Little Miss Sunshine.

Now England sometimes has the edge over Boston, as witnessed last night in The King’s Speech. That’s because the Brits are way classier than us Americans, and everyone knows it. Which brings me to Step #2, the need for an accent.

Step 2: Sound really smart or really dumb. That’s the allure of the Boston accent versus the British one, right there. Apparently, Christian Bale did a better job of sounding dumb than Geoffrey Rush did of sounding smart, and so last night, we had a winnah.

Step 3: Play a real person.

Step 4: Play white trash.

Step 5: Play a boxer or a cop or a bank robber, a cowboy, or a Mafioso.

Step 6: Play gay.

Step 7: get raped.

Step 8: Have an impairment or affliction of some kind.

Step 9: Have a drug or alcohol addiction.

Step 10: Go to war. (Preference given to World War II and Vietnam, as they are cinematically “the bloodiest.”)

Step 11: Play someone making a comeback, or an underdog.

Step 12: Get assassinated.

Step 13: Sing.

Start combining the above, and watch the awards pile up.

Let’s see how it’s done.

Play a real person with a Southern accent = The Blind Side.

Play a real person with a British accent = Shakespeare in Love.

Not bad, right? But, if you combine three or more of the above, you will see how exponentially better the movie becomes. It’s a Mendelian square of Oscar genetics.

Play a real person with a British accent and an affliction = The King’s Speech.

Play a real person with an accent who is assassinated: Gandhi.

Play gay = Philadelphia, The Kids are All Right.

Fine. Those were solid movies. But let’s see what happens if we complicate matters.

Play gay with an accent = A Single Man.

Play a real person who is gay and gets assassinated = Milk.

Play a gay cowboy with an accent = Brokeback Mountain.

Here’s another combination.

Get raped = Monster’s Ball.

Play a real and gay person who gets raped = Boys Don’t Cry.

Get raped playing white trash outside Boston = The Accused.

And another:

Play a white trash underdog fighter = Million Dollar Baby.

Play a real person underdog fighter = Raging Bull.

Play a white trash real person underdog with a lot of “fight” in her = Erin Brockovich.

Play a white trash real person underdog with a Boston accent whose two sons are fighters = The Fighter.

And just for fun:

Play a guy with an accent and an affliction who goes to war, meets real people, and is the penultimate underdog = Forest Gump.
Now, that’s hard to beat. However, if you get lucky, you can sometimes strike a combination at the Six Sigma black-belt level, such as:

Play an underdog singing cowboy with an alcohol addiction and an accent trying to make a comeback = Crazy Heart.
Step 14: When all else fails, get Leo DiCaprio wet. (What? Did you not see Inception? What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? And the mack daddy of all wet Oscar movies, Titanic?)

Surely you now see how easy it is to win an Academy Award. I’m so excited by this matrix that I’m frantically writing up the formula on my windowpane as we speak, just like Jessie Eisenberg did in The Social Network, while playing a real person living in Boston with a social impairment. (In fact, now that I think about it, real people with social impairments writing up formulas on windowpanes at Ivy League schools could constitute an entire level of it’s own. Or maybe I just have A Beautiful Mind.)

I Want My HGTV!

I am not, by nature, an organized person, but I had the first day of 2010 all planned out. The idea was to ditch my children and my beloved husband Brett by creating some excursion that they could do together without me. Like go to Home Depot or see “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” Then, I was going to settle into my sunroom to watch the new line-up of home improvement shows on HGTV, starting with Jamie Durie’s “The Outdoor Room.” He’s this cute Aussie, and a landscape designer to the stars to boot! Next up was going to be “Curb Appeal: the Block,” in which a makeover show would tackle not just one ugly front yard, but a whole street full of them! Can you imagine? Pure ecstasy. This fantasy day culminated with “Holmes on Homes,” which, contrary to the title, is not soft porn. Holmes is just a good guy contractor who helps people who’ve been f*%$ed by their former, bad guy contractors.

The evening highlight was to be the 9 pm unveiling of the HGTV 2010 Dream House, a contemporary Southwestern abode complete with its own casita. Every year, I dream along with the Dream House. As the camera and narrator take me room-by-room, schooling me in the type of indigenous cedar used on the ceiling beams and showing off the local limestone custom-cut for the fireplace surround, I dream. I imagine that my family and I are the winners, and that, even though none of us ski, we become amazing downhill enthusiasts because of our HGTV Dream House in Winter Park, Colorado.

Last year, I pictured us owning a boutique vineyard in Napa Valley. The year before that, we jet skied from our private dock in Islamorada, Florida (which I’m still not sure is a real place, but whatever). Wherever that perfect Dream House is, I dream of being its perfect owner.

So by now, you know where I am going with this, Cablevision customer that you probably are. Because I am NOT A HAPPY CAMPER, people. I woke up on January 1 of this bright New Year only to find that there was no more HGTV, there was no more Jamie Durie, or Curb Appeal, or Holmes.

There. Was. No. Dream. House.

How is a woman in upper middle class suburbia supposed to dream of a better life out west, due south, or far north, I ask you, without the New Year’s Day tour of her fantasy Dream House? And how is she supposed to fall asleep at night without the soft lullaby of Suzanne Whang, host of “House Hunters” and the wildly popular spin-off, “House Hunters International?”

I’m not faring much better without my Food Network, thank you very much. Not that you asked or cared. I suppose you have your own troubles to deal with, what with your Emeril withdrawl (it racks you with “Bam!”) and your lack of Bobby Flay-vor. Perhaps what ails you is Post Traumatic Iron Chef Disorder. Me, I suffer from Ray’s Disease, an attack that has left me on the verge of saying things like “Yum-O!” when meeting friends for lunch at the diner and “Could you pass the EVOO, please?” at dinnertime. I find myself looking for Giada, Paula and Ina at school pick-up, and hoping to run into Mario in his orange clogs at the shoe store.

I don’t miss Alton Brown all that much. This fact does give me some comfort on these cold, lonely nights. I haven’t completely lost it.

So now, instead of just crying into my Le Creuset cookware, I have been called to action in response to my disappointment. I went online and voiced my opinion at the newly created fansites of “ilovefoodnetwork.com” and “ilovehgtv.com.” I then paused to consider that this is more than I have done in support of (or complaint against) the new health care bill initiatives. Which is pretty sad, but best kept for another article entirely.

I have not yet given up on Cablevision’s promise to get my stations back to me. While I keep the weak flame from my metaphorical Bic lighter flickering in support of the Dream House, I must admit that I have had to surf the channels in order to find a replacement station.

Everyone, repeat after me: E!

It turns out that the entire Kardashian clan – found on E! Entertainment Television pretty much all night long – is more than just a little bit addictive. Who are these people anyway, and what have they done to Bruce Jenner’s face? Further, how is it possible to come up with so many girls’ names that start with K? And does Kourtney’s beaux Scott remind anyone else of James Spader’s character Blaine from Pretty in Pink, (with the prepster look, misogynistic tendencies, and lockjaw), or is it just me?

Here’s hoping that contracts get worked out soon between Cablevision and Scripps Networks. But if not, keep up with me and the Kardashians in an all-new season beginning Sunday, January 24th.

iTube

“Zoe, you are so smart,” I told my four-year old daughter the other day as she spelled out the word pony.

She looked up at me and smiled. “I’m not just smart. I’m K-Mart smart!”

I swear! That’s what she said. Then she walked away from me, humming “Be true, be you, Moxie Girlz!” I was horrified, but the tune was kind of catchy.

Okay, so maybe my kids watch just a little bit too much television. But I no longer have a real babysitter, so sometimes I call on my friend Nick to stay with the kids in the sunroom. Nick is cool. He “gets” my kids and teaches them all about SpongeBob and iCarly. And he’s always available, whenever I need him. I just turn on the TV and hit channel 33, and there he is.

My lovely old friend, Nickelodeon.

It’s not the shows that really bother me. It’s all those darned commercials.

Commercials are what started me on my zhu zhu pet hunt a few weeks back. The kids saw a commercial for these motorized hamsters, and asked that I “add it to the list” of toys for Hannukah. “The list” started out in an orderly fashion, as a few items scribbled on my iPhone, but in recent weeks, it has escalated into a black hole of every toy, doll, truck, video, movie, and game ever made. Every item they seen on a television commercial or played with at a friend’s house gets added to the ubiquitous list. “The list” should now just be called “Toys R Us.”

Anyway, zhu zhu pets were a top-of-the-list item. So when I received an email from Toys R Us.com, declaring, “we have the hottest toy of the season – zhu zhu pets!” I started to panic. Those hamsters were the hottest toys of the season? Who would have guessed such a thing? I went immediately online to purchase some, my heartbeat embarrassingly quick, only to find that they were all sold out at Toys R Us, Target, and WalMart. Amazon had them available from third party sellers who were jacking up the prices. A motorized hamster for $10 is cute. At $35.99. it becomes roadkill.

But now I suddenly really, really, really wanted these zhu zhu pets. The chase was on. I told my mom about them so that she could use her high-powered shopping skills in the greater metro New York area, hopeful that together, we could succeed, like Batman with Robin by his side.

Sure enough, a day or two later, my mom called me. “Did you get the email from Learning Express? They’re getting their shipment of zhu zhu pets today!”

“Holy Bat-hamsters, Robin! I’ve got to get down there now!”

The only problem was that Zoe was home sick and I, too, was feeling under the weather. There was no way I could get these toys with Zoe in tow, since they were for her. I made the decision to leave her at home with Maria, our cleaning lady, turn on the television, and then dash down to the village. I was victorious, purchasing both Nums Nums and Pipsqueak, as well as a whole host of equipment for the hamsters to play on.

“It’s easier to get a swine flu shot than a zhu zhu pet,” I joked to Ken, the store’s manager.

Just then, a voice from behind a display to my right said, “We’ve got our sound bite!” Suddenly, a camera crew and a reporter made themselves known to me. “We’re doing a story about zhu zhu pets for Nightline,” the reporter explained.

“Funny! I’m doing a story about zhu zhu pets for the local newspaper!” I replied. Turns out my witty little bit of dialogue got me on television. This is ironic, since the very thing I am having issues with is how much time my family watches television.

At this point, I don’t think a few more minutes of television viewing could hurt. The damage is clearly already done.

For Real?

Are you watching this seasons’ reality TV show “The Bachelorette?” I’m kind of hooked and I need someone to talk to about it.

Can you believe Ed left the show? I loved Ed! He was my front-runner, the one that I was crushing on. (Only because he looks most like my adoring and adorable husband Brett who I love very much and because of Brett’s sheer awesomeness in all things I would never think about anyone else ever, not even through the television. Except for maybe Ed. And Matt Dillon. But that’s for another article entirely.)

Every season, I find at least one reality television show to follow more or less from beginning to end. For the record, however, I don’t go looking for these shows. They just turn up like bad pennies in my living room. Case in point. Last season, Brett was flipping through the channels when I looked up from a magazine just in time to catch a flash of tanned skin, spiky hair and Botox. “Stop right there!” I shouted.

And that’s how “The Real Housewives of Orange County” – and later of New York City and New Jersey – came to me. Those women are so awful. God forgive me, but I love watching them. For like hours upon hours at a time. Even on the verge of exhaustion, I tune in.

Bad reality television is like a car accident: I can’t turn away, so compelled am I by the horribleness. And so, by extending this metaphor, watching these shows is like rubbernecking in their dysfunctional, somewhat broken, lives.

The worst offenders are the actors from the 70’s and 80’s who haven’t been seen since, well, the 70’s and 80’s. They need a boost to their careers and so they agree to come on these reality shows where they have to cohabitate with and/or battle other nonabees in supreme acts of stupidity. The most interesting aspect of this is figuring out who these people used to be.
A few years ago, Brett and I came upon something called “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.” An old man sat slumped over in a wheelchair, slurring his words in a group therapy session. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar. I squinted and turned my head to the side, imagining this guy in a leather jacket with the word “T-Bird” on the back.

“Is that…Kenickie?” I gasped. “The guy from “Taxi?””

“Jeff Conaway, you mean? I’m afraid it is.”

“What the hell happened to him?”

“Drugs.” Brett shrugged. “Lots and lots and lots of ‘em.”

“Dude! That’s ghastly.” Brett picked up the remote. “No – keep it on. And make some popcorn.”

But now let us return to the lighter side of reality television and my semi-addiction to “The Bachelorette.” Jillian Harris, a 29-year-old interior decorator from British Columbia, was a jilted participant in last season’s “The Bachelor”. This makes her the perfect bachelorette for this season, having the sympathy of the country on her side and what some might call brand recognition. Before the show even started, everyone out there in TV-land already knew her and liked her.

In case you don’t already know and like her, I will tell you that Jillian is fit and cute. She’s got a bubbly personality and the most adorable vowels I’ve ever heard. She can drive sports cars and repel from high rise buildings in downtown LA without hitting something or throwing up. Each episode, she moves effortlessly from string bikini to formal evening gown. Jillian is America’s Canadian Sweetheart.

I watch this show because I can clearly remember being a bachelorette.

And it was so like that!

Like Jillian, I used to date 10 men at a time and I always ended my group dates by giving one lucky guy a rose, granting him immunity from being voted out of contention that week.

Also, the guys I dated as a bachelorette were always really hunky. Lots of washboard abs, six-packs, whatever you want to call them. These guys all loved me and wanted to marry me right away. Several fights broke out on my behalf, in fact. One guy even cried when I sent him packing.

Not to brag or anything. That’s just the way it is when you’re a bachelorette. Everyone knows that.
That’s why it’s called reality TV. Because it’s so true, so real.

Here’s a real story for you: how my parents met. Myrna Katz, my grandparents’ next door neighbor in Brooklyn, heard that my mom had just broken up with her boyfriend. Myrna called her friend Fran to say she knew of a nice girl for Fran’s son, Norman. Norman requested a picture of this girl before agreeing to a date. My grandmother’s response went something like: “I’m not selling a cow. If you want to see my daughter Ronnee, you’ll call her.”

And so he called and they got married and then they got divorced and then I went to therapy and now I get to write all about it in the local paper.

Could be the next reality television show!

I met Brett though a fix-up as well. My friend Maggie was upset that we didn’t have men in our book group. “So invite Steve,” I suggested.

“My husband doesn’t read,” she stated matter-of-factly. “But I know a guy who does.”

A week later, Brett showed up at my apartment door with a paperback in one hand and Milano cookies in the other.
What makes two people click? Can you find love through a gigantic, network television set-up? I wonder if the success of such a venture is just as likely (50/50, or around that) as through any other kind of matchmaking process.

I watch “The Bachelorette” because I like to think it is possible for Jillian to find her soul mate in front of an audience of millions. (I know, roll your eyes at me.) At the same time, I find the chances highly unlikely. That dynamic, the push-and-pull between my interest in true-love-fairytale-happily-ever-after endings and my 21st century sensibility of if-it-looks-too-good-to-be-true-it-probably-can’t-be-true is what makes me come back week after week.

That and all those hunky guys.

Good luck, Jillian. I really hope you do find what you are looking for. In the meantime, I’ll be watching.