Wednesday! Whoa! Salad for dish to pass tonight done. Trash on the curb. Prince Dauntless at school. Cats fed and angry.There is banking to do, key to pick up and some publication design. The Cidery is well on the way. We are closing in on the labels. Delighted and Delightful!.
I have a crazy secret to share with you. You know I listen to talk radio, and Howard Stern. I listen to political radio, Rachel Maddow, Amy Goodman, NPR, Terri Gross, and Meet the Press. I listen to books on tape from Audible. I love listening to chatter when I work.
Well, I have been listening to trash Tv, yes, the trashiest in the world, The Bachelor. OMG. What an amazingly profitable and formula driven show complete with individuals who are essentially cast in roles that happen season after season. There is the dullard, body building “hunk”(?) Bachelor…with a Zack, Jake, type of name. He is thuggy, not very original, and always is exclaiming about his inner, dull feelings of love, of the girls “opening up to him”, and of the possibility of “my wife is in this room”. He is always driving hot cars and “planning dates” (read the t.v. producers are planning, staging and making them happen and putting the words in Zack/Jake’s mouth). Then you have the girls. You have the beautiful bad girl who is guaranteed to take her top off. The good girl who lost a spouse or boyfriend in some awful accident (generally an airplane). You have the girls that might engage in cat fights. You have the yappy, maudlin one. There is always a super kookie one who is off her meds. And there is always one that reminds me of my favorite, most favorite internet personality>>Miss Teen USA (2007). These gals have given up their jobs (no one is very high management types.. and I am always trying to figure out how they pay the bills) to be on the show. They have suspended their lives to live in a group house with nice public spaces. When they give us little peeks into their bedrooms—it is not the lap of luxury. When they are not out of the fantabulous dates with Zack (either “one on ones” or a group date) they are busy waiting at the dream house eating frozen food. If they get through the immediate eliminations, there is a chance to travel around the world “finding love”. Oy.
The dates are a formula too. There is always the Barbie Dream Date ( the gal gets a shopping spree to buy a party dress, the loaner big hunk of jewelry, the private plane flight to Las Vegas, the private concert by some musical group, the tete a tete dinner in an exotic location where she and Zack can “open up to each other”. There is always a date where the pair either bungie jumps, tight rope walk, jump off a cliff together to get closer. There is the group date where there is “acting” and Zack has lots of kissing scenes with all eight gals. I could go on and on. This is so absolutely mindnumbing, yet fascinating.
And then there is the Fantasy Suite (generally in Tahiti) where they get “permission” to sleep together. The Fantasy Suite is totally Barbie with a pool, hot tub, tall tubs of champagne and satin on the bed. They like it nice and obvious (and Barbie Styled Tacky). I could go on and on about this. America sees these dates and women being eliminated after being considered by Zack over the course of 8 or so episodes with these polygamous style dates…to the point that there is the meeting of family at the “hometowns”. The climax of the show is the elimination of one gal and keeping the last by offering her an engagement ring. Yep, two dream dates, a lot of groping and discussion about “opening up”, with sidebar video of each chick talking about her love for Zack. And surprisingly, it rarely lasts after the trips, the evening dresses and roses, and fantasy.
The next Bachelor or Bachelorette is selected from the prior year’s show—so there is a ton of back story and communal love for the perky or beautiful girl with lots of sass and “reality” or the strong, sensitive Zack-to-be.
And we all are delighted and amused like children as we know what is coming season after season. We know about all the types of dates, the types of dinners, the infighting, the factions style conflict, the rich (not) and a meaningful conversations (not), and all the opening up (there is always a build when the widowed gal has to tell Zack about her child and loss of her love in an accident). Such edgy stuff. Makes the Kardashians seem like Fullbright scholars.
More often than not, the happy couple break up withing seconds of reality hitting (no more fantasy dates, the underwear on the floor, the philandering that Zach may be involved in)—and their “love” cannot survive.
There have been 16 bachelors, 16 Zacks… and they keep coming. I pity the folks that actually think that this is the way things should be. No wonder its hard for college kids to date. This bizarre show of competitive dating has changed things…not good. Not good at all. Now its time to go back to sleep in my Rumplestiltskin mode…and stay away from this crap.
More later.