Models and Mongols

Are you watching The Amazing Race? Because you definitely should be. As reality TV goes, it is one of the best. It always has the most interesting characters on reality TV, and lovely little life metaphors besides. Like a few seasons ago when Charla, the midget, had to carry a 50 lb. slab of beef 3 miles while her useless cousin, Mjarla, whined and complained. This season isn't any less delightful. There is the one legged girl and her boyfriend who makes prosthetics for a living and treats her like his toy robot when she is clearly over the moon about him. And there is the requisite couple who isn't sure if they should get married or break up so they decide that they would find out by traveling competitively and have the whole thing filmed with $1 million on the line. As soon as they introduced them in the first episode Amy and I knew they would be saying degrading things to each other by the 15-minute mark.

But our favorite team is the recovering addicts who got off drugs and became male models. They have suffered through so much, you guys, and now they just want to experience the world and be hot while doing it. Not that I would ever make fun of someone's addiction or the incredible journey it would be to recover, but come on. To be formerly drug addicted models? Its so cliché. It's like being a parody of yourself.

My friends and I have come up with a term for that kind of behavior. When someone does something that is so predictably "them," we say it is "so Raven." The term came from a TV show starring Raven Simone (she used to be the little cute one on the later years of The Cosby Show) on the Disney channel called That's So Raven. If you ever want to see a study in the finer subtleties of acting, by the way, check this gem out. Never will you see more double takes, spit takes, zany faces and prat falls in 30 minutes than on this show.

I don’t know why we decided to use that term to describe someone who was a caricature of themselves, but we did, and it stuck. Which is why my picture on profile is of none other than Raven Simone. Because if anyone is so Raven, it's me. Every time I get my first diet coke at 8am, eat my third dessert of the evening after my second dinner and a bowl of cereal, every time I get giddily excited about a new TV show, it's just so Raven. So maybe I shouldn't judge the addicts turned models for being parodies of themselves when clearly I am one as well. (A parody. Not a model…or an addict….unless caffeine counts.) But if we can't stand in judgment over reality TV contestants, then what is society coming to?

And as I side note, for those of you who want to keep up to date on your homework here are some shows I am sure to mention in future blogs because I just can't get enough of them:
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - smart and dark and engaging and brilliant. I can see it becoming a favorite
Heroes - hold me. This show fills the nerdy Buffy shaped hole in my soul. A TV show about superheroes? HOORAY! But how Greg Grundberg got a job on a non-JJ produced show we will never know
Gilmore Girls - debuted tonight and I have to say…so far we do not feel the loss of Amy Sherman-Palladino. As witty and lovely as ever. I loved when they tried to talk smack about racquetball. So classic.

A Whiter Shade of Pale

My blog has been a bit of a mess lately and I know it. I know that none of you, fair readers, care one lick about the Satellite Sisters, but you should, but I digress. You may have noticed a new look to my blog, as well, and at last, a new posting.

The change was inspired by Design Mom, a fantastic blog about the world of motherhood and the world of design and how they intersect. It is written by Gabby Blair, a designer and mother in NYC. I found the whole thing so clever and so inspiring. And the reason was that it had such a clear point of view. So I decided that is what my blog needed. A clearer point of view.

If there is one person I know who is always talking about a clear point of view, it is Tim Gunn on Project Runway. He is always telling the designers that they need a point of view. Sure Vincent can make a black vee-neck sweater and a pair of wool pants and talk for hours about how it "gets him off" and "turns him on" (which, consequently causes me to throw up.) but is it fashion? Not really. It's clothing. But there is no point of view. What is he saying? Well, nothing, except a whole bunch more vulgar nonsense.

So what's my point of view? What do I know and love and understand more than anything that colors my interactions with the world like design colors Gabby's? To anyone who has known me more than three days the answer is pretty obvious. I love TV. My favorite day of the year is when the Entertainment Weekly Fall TV preview issue arrives and I can sit down with a highlighter and map out my schedule. This year I used a blue highlighter for upstairs and a green one for down. I firmly believe that TV is home to some of the smartest and best writing happening in the world right now. I used to love going to the movies, and I still do, but I'd rather have some great TV to watch.

This weeks TV lessons were taught to us by a chubby Latino, a bunch of anorexics, and the woman who loves herself more than any other. And the lesson was this: quit taking yourself so seriously. The chubby Latino was Billy, the most recently ousted member of Survivor: Cook Islands. Billy told Jeff that he didn't care that he had been voted out because he had already won because he had found True Love…with Candace, a member of another tribe. He told the gob smacked Jeff that they had found love at first sight and each mouthed "I love you" to each other during the challenge. Mi scusi? We had to rewind to see said exchange and this is how it went:
Candice: Sorry you guys lost the challenge.
Billy: I know. I'm the next to go.
Candice: Well, we love you.
Billy: I love you, too.
*sigh* Sad, Billy,. Sad.

The anorexics were the gals for Cycle 7 of America's Next Top Model, which takes itself so seriously that it has cycles and not seasons. There were more tears shed in that episode than there are at my Mom's house during and episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Boo hoo! I'm from the ghetto and everyone's always told me I was ugly and I'm going to prove that I am beautiful! Poor me! My sisters were always the pretty ones! I'll show them! Waa - Waa! I was in a plane crash when I was nine and my mother laid her dying body across mine to save me from hypothermia! Boo…Ok, so that last one merit's a little crying.

Y'all're models! You get your picture taken because you are pretty. You aren't surgeons, or firemen or Diet Coke factory workers. You don't contribute to the good of humanity. So stop crying. But we know when you learned that immense self-serious-taking from. From the queen of them all, Ms. Tyra Banks. Has anyone in humanity ever loved herself more than Tyra? Can she ever walk just walk into a room. This week, her grand entrance was preceded by two fat spinning gay twins. I'm not kidding. Maybe I would love my self more if every time I was going to enter a room two guys in long robes went spinning in first yelling "a-swirl!" I'm gonna give it a try.

This week the models did "The Most Controversial Shoot Ever!" No, not the nude one at the beginning of the show. That’s old hat. The one where they posed acting out model stereotypes. Like bulimia, and the casting couch, and the dumb blonde, and the diva. But they were just stereotypes. Models are really just home girls like Tyra….Um, Pot. This is the Kettle. BLACK!

Anyway, I'll be back next week with a big bowl of Murddle Mountain Ice Cream to watch and revel. I mock TV. But I mock because I love.

I need my Cozy Couch.

Evidentally, this blog is now my forum to discuss the Satellite Sisters. I guess because I know no one really cares, but on a blog you can pretend that everyone is hanging on your every word. I can't tell you how upset I was to tune in to hear the Sisters today, only to discover that AM 820 has replaced most of their programming with what they like to call "Soft Sunday Sounds" music. Oops. I just punctured my own eardrum. Does anyone else find it interesting that AM 820, the self-proclamed "Utah's First Voice for Women" lasted about 3 months and then was replaced by Mormon pop music? And the only surviving shows that were moved to the KSL station were "People of Faith" and "Nanny Radio?" Is there a message here?

And is it more disturbing that I am this upset by it, or that I wrote an angry email to KSL radio and when I had to fill in the "Name" box I put Judy Bingham. I guess I thought they would take me more seriously as a woman...named Judy B. 

The thing is, I'm so over listening to the radio on the way to work. Chunga, you're annoying, BTW and consequently, you don't know everything. I have recently decided to start listening to books on tape but have discovered two major problems. 1) Books is long it takes me 3 - 4 days to get through one disc and the book I am reading right now is 19 discs long. Oy. And 2) Do you have to have a different voice for every character? I guess you do, so it is clear who is talking but it makes otherwise good literature seem trite. The book I'm reading right now has in it:
1. A normal sounding woman
2. A california surfer boy
3. A German Grandma
4. A Scottish guy
5. A Brittish guy
6. A guy with a Texas twang
7. A southern belle
8. A stereotypical Gay-voiced guy
9. A whiney little boy

And I'm in chapter 3. And the thing is, I don't think the author necessarily intended all of these people to have accents. But they sure do. 
Anyway, I just want Liz, Sheila, Julie and Monica (and the one, forgettable sister) back so I can enjoy the ride home again.

Sister, womyn, sister...

So I have a new addiction. Yes, move over Diet Coke (though not too far,) Tivo and Popsicles. I am not addicted to Utah's AM 820: Talk Radio for Women.

I guess I should say I am addicted to the WHOLE station. I can't think of anyone who I would less want to hear in the morning on my way to work than Kurt Bestor (yes, he hosts the AM talk show.) Why do people who have successful careers in LDS music think that we want to at all experience them outside of that forum? (I'm looking your way McLean. Quit acting!) Sure, sing "Prayer of the Children" with your overly synthesized voice. But please don't try and make me guess which famous person's birthday it is by using some clues you made up on the spot. Remember when you wanted me to guess Chris Noth and you said that he was on CSI. It's actually Law and Order.

There is also a program on in the PM where some special guy has callers call in and tell him about their dreams and then he interprets them. What is more boring than listening to someone describe a dream they had? NOTHING!! Do us all a favor, keep them to yourself.

Who I really love are 5 lovely sisters called the Satellite Sisters. (www.satellitesisters.com) Basically they are five sisters living in different cities (well three are in LA) who just talk about whatever. It sure sounds boring when I talk about it in a blog, but seriously, they is funny! The other day one of them was telling how she was making her son's lunch for school and realized she was out of bread. So what did she pack instead of a sandwich? A bag of shredded cheese. I almost wrecked my car I was laughing so hard.

I can't really do them justice in describing it. I think Amy is pretty sick of me coming home and telling her what funny thing I heard on the sisters that day. But trust me. Tune in any weekday from 3 to 6 and give a listen.

Ok. So this blog isn't funny. Do I have to be funny all of the time!? I just wanted to tell the shredded cheese story.