Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Desiree Bachelorette Episode 5: World War Douche




Hello, Readers.  I think I speak for us all when I say that Monday night’s episode was about as pleasant as a barium enema.  Top that off with the fact that I cracked a molar in half and can’t get to the dentist until Thursday and you’ll understand why I’m a tad cranky today. 

By the way, how many substances to you think they tried before they got to barium in the enema invention process?   Never mind.  Let’s get to it.  With the Amazing Count at a still red hot 87 and the Journey Count at a stabilizing 25 we’re well on our way to figuring out who will earn the right to possibly propose to Desiree in hopes of tenuously becoming her fiancé for an indeterminate, albeit inevitably finite, period of time while moving toward either a made-for-television free wedding or a messy and humiliating tabloid breakup.

I missed the first 8 minutes of the show this week but I can probably recite to you with Kreskin-like accuracy what happened.  Frankly, that’s what I’d refer to as a “happy mistake.”  I’m sure Harrison showed up.  Rules were read, pastel color hoodies were donned, V-necks abounded, Michael whined, Ben bad guyed, and Desiree brooded knowingly in Munich.  Am I close? 

After realizing he wanted to hit the road while he was in the United States Bryden confirms his suspicions after traveling across the ocean to Germany.  He’s so sure about it, in fact, he rushes to interrupt Des' date with Chris; the one guy who appears actually interested in whatever it is Desiree has to say.   I have to say that Bryden’s abrupt departure struck a chord with me.  How bad is she that he couldn’t just stick around and enjoy the free hors doerves, or whatever the German name for tiny finger food happens to be?  Brutal.  

By the way, for those of you who are interested in what a departure like that means in guy language it means that Bryden has some girl back home who is better than Des and who he misses tremendously.  There’s no other explanation.  He’s basically that Rated R schmuck with the presence of mind to keep his mouth (and his cell phone) shut. 

Prior to Bryden’s unceremonious interruption, Des takes to emasculating Chris in the middle of town by dressing him in lederhosen,  having him approach locals with Zagats’ How to Sprechen ze German book, skipping through town square with a purse around his shoulder (that didn’t even match his shoes for crying out loud), and generally making him gush over her (alleged) wonderfulness. 

BOOORRRING

Bryden busts in, dumps her, and high tails it to back to the States.  Insecurity marches across the square like the German army across the Champs-Elysees circa 1940.  Chris had to deal with the fallout but got a Default Rose after listening to her bitch about Bryden’s timing.   Uh, hey Des, give Fleiss a call, would you?  What a drag. 

"Can you believe Bryden left?"


Des and Chris head to some place called the Munich Residence that looked a lot like the Police Wrapped Around Your Finger video.  Des relaxed in purple as I scoured the background for Sting. 

"Can you believe Bryden left?  He's so not tantric."

Chris scores great points with sincerity but she doesn’t seem like she’s into him.  Either she’s hard to read or none of these dudes puts the saur in her kraut or the weiner in her schnitzel; although I suspect she'll be seeing a lot of that in the Fantasy Suite.  Des regales us with stories of boyfriends past telling us she’s dated more than one guy who was “Unexpressive”.  I doubt there’s a German word for that word because that’s not even an English word.  Details. 

Chris reads yet another bad poem he wrote on the plane after undoubtedly discovering that the Sudoku puzzle in the in-flight magazine had already been completed. . . in pen, no less.  After all, there’s only so many times a person can thumb through a Sky Mall before resorting to the composition of mediocre poetry.  Regardless,  he gets a rose.

Incidentally, I fly quite a bit and I've developed a fascination with the Garden Yeti offered in the Sky Mall.  I wonder how many of those they've sold.  It's not every day a person is solicited to purchase a 36 inch replica of an elusive bi-pedal hominoid at 36,000 feet.  Annyyhoooo . . . 

"Can you believe Bryden left?"

Private concert time.  Des has “one more surprise.”  Surprise indeed.  They both fight the urge to say aloud what I said at home “who the f*ck is that guy?”  Matt White?  Who the f*ck is that guy?  Hell, I had a better chance of catching a glimpse of the Garden Yeti than recognizing this guy.  His lyrics were worse than Chris’ poem.  He actually rhymed “happy” with “sappy.”   He sounded and looked like James Blunt and Mikey T. had a kid.  I missed Chicago and Jeffery Osborn and again scoured the background in search of Sting.   He was probably busy being tantric or whatever.   


Group Date Card.  “Will you climb the highest mountain with me? Desiree.” 

Notwithstanding the fact that there was no climbing involved on this date Juan Pablo, James, Kasey, Zak, Brooks, Drew, and Mikey snowsuit up and try and make the most of it. Michael and Ben prepare for their sword fight . . . errr . . . Two on One Date back at the hotel. 

Great, The Whiner and the A-hole.  Little did we know that those were terms that could be used interchangeably on either guy during the date. Michael uses Gladiator metaphors despite being in Germany.  I suppose there’s some historical precedent for the Romans in Germany, but I’m also pretty sure he’s not aware of it. 

Group Date. Des says that she and the boys are going “up the gondola”.  Sigh.  No, Des.  You’re actually going up the mountain ON the gondola.  While I took in the scenery I couldn’t help but realize how metrosexual this bunch is this time around.  Perhaps Des digs that look or perhaps masculinity takes a back seat to color symbolism and designer scarves.  A couple of them looked like the should be yodeling in another guy’s canyon rather than machoing it out for Des’ temporary affections. 



In what was perhaps the most apropos metaphor for the status of the franchise, the entire cast goes cascading out of control down the side of a mountain.   They all retire to a claustrophobic ice castle for drinks and drama.  That place looked like Superman’s gay brother’s version of the Fortress of Solitude.  After some one on one with Brooks Des gives Mikey some snowman time.  Frankly, he should have sculpted himself an ice limo for his ride to the Munich Airport.  We all realized that the plumbing contractor/Crossfit gym owner’s dreams were about to be flushed down ze toilet.  

Zak pretty much hit the handle on the side of the tank when he yodels AND he brings booze.   Zak tells the “I dumped the priesthood” story and lays it on thick.  I was waiting for him to say that his big soul searching trip to Munich back in the day lead him to realize that instead of wanting to be called “Father” he realized that he’d rather be called “Daddy.”  So much for the monastery.    

In keeping with the Prop 8 theme, 4 of the dudes snuggle under furry blankets in the ice living room.  That was weird. 

James and Mikey cuddle a bit and bemoan Hitler’s unfair treatment of Mussolini as they plot to take over the metrosexual wing of the cast.  The other guys gossip in the bedroom like a bunch of teenage girls at a slumber party.  I was waiting for Rizzo to jump out the window and Sandy to go sing Hopelessly Devoted to herself on the back porch.  Again, very weird. 

"I can believe Bryden left."

Des “expecially” had a great time. "Expecially?"  Man, she's so unexpressive.  She gives the Group Date Rose to Brooks in light of the German tongue twister he slapped on her earlier in the evening.   Nice work, Brooks.  It didn’t hurt that Brooks knows a little German.   That’s him below.

"Michael sucks and I can't believe Bryden left."

 
Awkwardness begins.  Chris, Michael, Ben sweat it out in the suite.  Date Card.  “”Michael and Ben, Let’s heat things up! Desiree.  Harrison “two guys one roses” them and Michael turns into an a-hole.  Des shows up in her Mary Tyler Moore hat and off we go. 

I won’t belabor the point here.  We’ve all seen how uncomfortable this date is but I think Michael broke new ground in the Jerkoff of the Year Contest.  Frankly, she should have sent both of them packing.  I’ll give Ben a lot of credit for holding his tongue.  I wouldn’t have put up with that nonsense.   

When Michael dropped “absentee father” on Ben it was clear that there was more to his patent insecurity than we first imagined.  He reveals that his own dad left thereby tipping his hand.  Now, it makes sense.  Freud was Austrian and that’s close enough to Germany to pin all of this on Michael’s deep seeded abandonment and Daddy issues.  I was disappointed in Des for letting the chastising go on as long as it did; particularly when Michael attacked Ben’s son.  Not cool.   


Des mercifully (for her and us) grabs the rose.  She fills the room with more platitudes than candles and gives it to Michael because she has to.  See ya, Ben.  By the way, you dodged a bullet.  Go be a dad again.

Rose Ceremony

Harrison fills dead air time (what does that say about the quality of the footage from this season?) in the portable Lair of Seclusion with the head shots.  He turns the screws as only Harrison can do calling Des out for her indiscriminant sucking of faces. 

With Ben gone, now James is suddenly the bad guy for wanting something other than Des as a temporary fiancé out of his appearance on the show.  Des shuts down the cocktail party and there’s a lot of banter about “true colors,” “right reasons,” and “moral integrity.” Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes, can’t it? 

Des decides that in light of her prompt decision making the cocktail party is “too much to put them through.”  What?  Drinking and relaxing?  This show is too much to put anyone through WITHOUT a cocktail.  The roses get handed out and, sadly, it’s Mikey T. who loses the battle but will ultimately win the war.  He finished high enough to be recognizable and low enough not to be bothered by the media.  Nice work, Mikey T.  Lose James’ cell phone number and you’ll do just fine in the Crossfit business.    

Roses

  1. Brooks
  2. Chris Who?
  3. Michael
  4. Zak (Fantasy Finalist, mark my words)
  5. Kasey
  6. Juan Pablo (I love this guy, by the way)
  7. Drew Pavelka
  8. James (arrivederci very soon, schmucko)

Gone

Bryden
Ben
Mikey


Well, there it is.  We’re one step closer.  Take care of yourselves.   In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll be listening to Sting while writing poetry on an airplane.   DP  

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Bachelorette Desiree Episode 4: Stupid is as Stupid Does


Hello, Readers.  Welcome back.  Some Guy is on the road this week (as usual) and I’m thrilled to let you know that I did take the time to watch the show last night.  Just to clarify:  by “thrilled” I mean the feeling a person gets when he realizes he’s at the tail (no pun intended) end of a stomach virus.  In fact, there were points in the show last night when I would have traded a stomach virus for having to sit through another minute of it.  Handstand push ups?  Hurricane destruction tours?  Michael’s incessant whining?  Manny and Jan?  Come on. 

I half expected Harrison to announce that Ted McGinley was taking his place as host.  For those of you who don’t get that reference Google “jumping the shark” and it will all make sense.  Top that off with the fact that every person on the show (Des included) looked as over the whole thing as I was and you’ll begin to feel my pain.  Oh, and I’m out of Lone Star too. 


Oh, Fleiss.  You're digging your own grave.


With the Amazing  Count at an unprecedented 77 and the Journey count at an ever-expanding 24, let’s get to it. 

After his lead in Harrison enters in the plaid-est of the plaid shirts I’ve ever seen.  His half rolled cuffs were accented with a non-plaid design.  Let’s face it.  He’s looked better.  He needs to ditch that look and go back to being Chris Freaking Harrison, the overpaid, under worked host of the Bachelor series. 

13 dudes, 3 dates, and we’re all going to “exotic” Atlantic City.  What in the hell happened to the budget on this show?  I suppose they’re saving the money trip for the top 10 guys.  No sense in throwing money out the suite window.  Either that or Harrison’s embroidered cuff demands forced cuts in other areas.  It’s like an ABC version of the Sequestration. 

Ben reminds us that he’s got a son, doesn’t care what people think, and he’s not there to make friends (whatever) before Desiree walks casually along the Atlantic City Boardwalk in seasonally appropriate attire while contemplating her remaining options.  They must have filmed that early in the week.  It was the only time she didn’t look like she was in full regret of her decision to poontang around with 25 dudes for a month while being constantly filmed.     

The men hit the Money Suite and “find” the Date Card.  Kasey and his high-altitude hair read it.   “Brad, let our love shine through.  Desiree.”  Brad looks at picture of his kid and ponders his domestic violence arrest and the inevitable defamation lawsuit being filed in the appropriate jurisdiciton by the mother of that child before getting ready to bore Desiree for a full day. 

BRAD DATE

In light of the agony that I had to endure for your sake, I won’t return the favor by boring you any more than I’m obligated to bore you.  I’ll give her (some) credit for trying but Des was quickly reminded that a person can’t make water boil by staring at it.  Hell, a pot of water on a stove would have been far more interesting than Brad.  

Des did get a bit of passive-aggressive revenge, however.  She made the guy ascend the largest spiral staircase in the history of spiral staircases and then immediately dumped him and made him walk down to an awaiting cab. She turned the bayonet by giving him the “I don’t want to take you away from your son” speech.  Ouch. 

The only thing that outnumbered the stairs that poor bastard had to climb was the number of times Des used the word “if” when talking about Brad.  We all saw it coming like a Mikey T. five o'clock shadow at 4:59 p.m.  I’ve seen smaller staircases in Escher paintings, for crying out loud.  I wasn’t sure if the guy was crying because he was upset at being dumped or out of the excruciating pain caused by the lactic acid build up in his legs.  Chin up, Brad.  Defamation is really hard to prove. 





GROUP DATE  


Bryden reverts back to his Dumb and Dumber haircut and the swim shirts his mom bought him at Target this week.  He reads the Group Date Card.   “I’m looking for my Mr. Right.  Desiree”  Brooks, Bryden, Zak, Kasey, Drew, Juan Pablo, Zack, Mikey T.,  Ben, Michael, and Chris get the nod.  

James gets the 1 on 1 and leaves to don a silky robe and eat chocolate covered strawberries in the bubble bath.  I wondered if he was expecting the next Bachelor to pick him up instead of Desiree.  Hell, he should have given that pageant coach from the group date a call.   I’m sure that guy enjoys strawberries (and bananas no doubt) in the bathtub.  Annnnyyyyhoooo . . .   

The guys perform the Chump Strut toward Des who awaits knowingly in her seasonally appropriate attire at Boardwalk Hall.  Brooks says she’s like a unicorn.  “Horny?” I thought. 





Again, I’ll spare you the stupidity that followed.  Harrison kicks it with Miss America 2013 who looked more like Miss America 2003 before introducing Christopher Dean, “one of America’s most well known pageant coaches.”  Frankly, this surprised me.  I cross-referenced my list of well known American pageant coaches and Christopher Dean was not on it.  I felt silly. 

Not surprisingly, Christopher Dean is a sissy.  A big sissy.  The guy was as queer as a dog sweater, which if I’m honest, is probably the quality I’d search for if I was going to hire a man to coach a pageant queen.  Hire a straight dude and then you’re looking at a pregnant, former pageant queen.    


After a ridiculous “talent” competition that included an oiled and amped up Mikey T. dispelling any notion that he has even a scintilla of the Meathead gene by doing shirtless handstand push ups and walking around like an ape with an erection at the height of mating season.  Meathead indeed.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.  He laughed at himself and seemed to have fun with it.  Like the rap video, he went for broke.  It just didn’t’ work this time. 

Brooks ends up as Second runner up.  Zak W.  pulls in a hard-earned First runner up and Kasey emerges as the Big  Winner of the Mr. Bachelor America Contest.  I’ll bet his dad is so proud.

Again, I’ve picked on a couple of guys but I’ll give them all credit for making the most of the incredibly awkward situation that they were all thrown blindly into.  The only idiot who took it too seriously was Drew Pavelka.   He pisses me off.  I’m curious to see what the other men say about him in the Men Tell All.  Oh wait, no I’m not.    

Rooftop cocktail party.   Des was boring, or was it bored?  Chris shares a poem so bad that the editors chose to muffle it out in post-production.   Nice try, though.  He’s a shade less boring than Brad but she sees something in him.  Perhaps he “looks like a unicorn” if you know what I mean. 

Michael continues to whine about Ben and confuses a pretty good strategy move for “Latent insecurity” as everyone but the ever-calm Juan Pablo allows Ben to get inside his head.

Zak, who continues to rally after week one plays his song again.  He’s no Wes Hayden.  Then again, maybe he is.  Do any of you think her brother is going to buy the “listen to this song I wrote for Des” bit on the hometown?  Doubt it.



Zak gets the rose.  He earned it. Chris laments his loss.  Hey Chris, Musicians get chicks.  Poets get government grants.  Sign up for piano lessons when you head home next week.   

Date Card.  “James, can our love weather the storm?”

Could James have been any cheesier?  Gelled hair and pinky sipping mimosas were his lead off.  He eventually progressed to a sort of head butt, nose-to-forehead kiss move that Des did her best to ignore.  She likely ended up with whiplash after a couple of those things. 

They tour the disaster area created by Hurricane Sandy before hooking up with Manny and Jan and giving them the gift of dinner and a limo ride.  Nice gesture but man was that segment painful to watch. 

For anyone who grew up near the Gulf Coast hurricanes are a fact of life.  I’ve been through 4 and 1 tropical storm myself.  They are scary, very destructive, and serve as a reminder that property is just property but there’s only one Manny for every Jan on the planet.  They seemed like nice folks and I was glad to see them enjoy dinner.  I kept wondering which intern they were related to.     

Des opens up about life, money, love, and her future before James submarines it with his “back story.”  Look, I get it that they’re all asked to bring up some “how I overcame tragedy” story but this one clearly took the cake. 

His big “I learned” was cheating on his girlfriend of 5 years when he was a freshman in college.  In other words, he dated a girl from the age of 13 to 18 and then cheated on her when he went to college.  Is there honestly ANY person who doesn’t have a story similar to that?  Please.  I’ll bet somewhere in an apartment complex near her office Sarah was waving one arm angrily at her television set with a WTF? look on her face. 

One final point on his big reveal.  It’s probably not a wise decision to lead with an I cheated story on your first date with a woman you see as your (potential) wife.  If he’s so convinced it won’t happen again then why bring it up 10 years later?  Surely a man, even with James’ brains, can do better than that.  He’s never had a hernia at cross fit or a grass burn in football practice?  For some reason, Des bought it.  By “some reason” I mean that she was told to buy it because the producers got wind of his desire to be the next Bachelor and needed to set him up for next week’s beatdown. 

Hootie serenades them and they join Manny and Jan for a nightcap.  He got a rose. 

Bryden wants out.  Des shows up in black sequins.  Michael feels he earned a horrible, unwanted kiss after making up adjectives with the first three letters of Des’ name.  Like Brooks, Michael had a bandage on an appendage that could be seen when he forced a kiss on Des.  I assumed that he hadn’t hurt in in the dodgeball game like Brooks; rather, it probably got hurt from being firmly planted in his own rectum for the majority of the last few episodes.    

Des has a fake one on one with Bryden who essentially almost dumps her at her own cocktail party but then decides the free trip is the least ABC can do for him after having to endure Ben . . . and Desiree for that matter.    

Harrison ding dings.   The Roses went down as follows:  

1.              James
2.              Zak W.
3.              Chris
4.              Brooks
5.              Juan Pablo
6.              Drew
7.              Michael
8.              Ben
9.              Kasey
10.           Bryden
11.          Mikey T.

Gone.

Brad
Zack lost with class . . . until he cried.    


Well, there it is, folks.  I have a few surprises in store but I’ll reveal those over the next week or two. Stay tuned.  Thanks, as always, for reading and for being patient.  Follow me on Twitter.  I’ll live Tweet during the show next week and during the in-between whenever some thing strikes my fancy.  And we all know who much I like my Fancy stricken.  In the meantime, if you need me I’ll be getting oiled up while doing handstand push ups.   DP