Chris Episode 9: I Can Bali Wait to Hin-Do You

Amazing Count 113

Journey Count 24

Hello, Readers.  Welcome back to this week’s installment.  Some Guy is fresh of an exhausting trip to New Orleans.  I got home on Sunday.   My BAC is almost below the legal limit.  Ooof.  It’s Fantasy Week or, as I refer to it, Get Out of Jail Free Week.  

Yes, it’s that time of season.  It’s time for our Bachelor to travel to the “perfect place to fall in love,” grab a catamaran (or its equivalent) ride before anchoring and jumping into the crystal blue ocean with an “amazing woman”, and then mull around the tropical island paradise belittling the local culture all in the name of getting to an outdoor, tiki-lit dinner, pounding some wine, and foregoing the foreplay for a few one night stands in the Fantasy Suite.

I know.  That paragraph is as boring and predictable Monday’s episode.  Well, that is until I tell you that I wrote it on Sunday night.   It’s like I’m psychic or something. 

I think he bangs them all.

Sigh . . .

Chris shows up for his 3-minute standard intro in Bali, which, of course, is part of the Poontang  Archipelago.   He broods.  He reflects.  He pontificates.  He strolls.  He changes pastel colored shirts 8 times.  At first I thought that was just a cleverly edited montage hastily thrown together over the course of a few days in order to adequately capture our conflicted Bachelor’s feelings. 

However, after watching the episode it was clear that Chris needed a shirt change every 10 minutes.  The guy sweats like a whore in church, for crying out loud.  I wondered if he either had diabetes (probably Type II if appearance is any indication) or he was related to Roberto.  By the current geographic rationale, the Chance of Falling in Love is directly proportionate to the Relative Humidity.  

There’s bound to be a perfect place to fall in love where the relative humidity isn’t 100%.  Hey, ABC, how about relocating the big finale somewhere not between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn?  Nabokov wrote of Humbert’s Lolita, “nymphets do not occur in polar regions.”  I suppose that’s as good an answer as any.   

Kaitlyn Date. 

Date one.  We learn that she and Chris are in for some sacred temple touring and some fun with banana hungry monkeys.   Being the lead off batter in Fantasy Suite dates is like being the top 2X6 in the lumber pile meant for the backyard deck:  you’ll definitely be the first to get laid down, screwed, and stepped on. 

I'm falling in love with this board. 

Speaking of banana hungry monkeys, Kaitlyn steps off the lumber pile in her pink shorts and artfully executes the first Jump, Wrap, and Hug greeting of the episode.  You have to love a lady, don’t you?  Honestly, the only time I ever see that in “real” life is when a five-year old girl sees her father headed toward her at the Baggage Claim in the airport after he’s been gone for the week.   

Sure, you can’t kiss in the sacred Balinese temple but, apparently, you can throw yourself crotch-first at the dude you’re sharing with two other women just a stone’s throw from the aforementioned sacred temple.  She rode him like a plastic horse in front of the grocery store.

Ride me like a Bachelor in Bali

The date didn’t hold much mystery.  It was pretty much the same date as the Love Guru Date with Carly.  Well, if you substitute simulated fornication for actual fornication.  They talked a lot about nothing, watched the monkeys imitate Kaitlyn and kissed a safe distance from the temple amongst the smell of rotting bananas and monkey feces before foregoing the foreplay and heading to the Fantasy Suite for a sweaty romp in the malaria-proof bed.  Perfect place, indeed.

I will say this about Kaitlyn.  I thought she looked as pretty as she’s looked all season and she did actually back off the funny girl routine and let her guard down.  Chris’ “I’m falling in love with you too” and “I can see a life with you in Iowa” comments throughout the date didn’t help it when the inevitability of her departure became apparent to her at the Rose Ceremony.   The hurt in her face when he chose Becca over her was genuine and the regret was evident.  For what it’s worth, she has my vote for the next Bachelorette.  

In the meantime, Whitney was in her hotel room with a bottle of Chardonnay getting hammered while Chris was out getting nailed. 

Whitney Date. 

First of all, she’s not attractive.  Second of all, she walks like a man.  Whitney meets Chris with her own version of the Jump, Wrap, and Hug and Chris greets her with yet another version of the same outfit he’s been wearing all episode.  I began to wonder if the shorts were reversible.  He was likely wearing Garanimals for sweaty farmers.  It was at this time I realized that she has no upper lip either.  Perhaps fate does exist. 

Whitney, not one to waste time, harkens back to last week’s open wound by mentioning her bitchy sister’s refusal to bless her potential engagement, iffy move to Iowa, as-yet-to-be-determined wedding date, and her non-existent children.  

Of course, all of this was offset by the new ABC cameraman who apparently also moonlights as the resident voyeur.  I thought I was being forced to watch another ultrasound this show.  If Whitney’s gynecologist would have seen that video, he would have undoubtedly exclaimed, “even I haven’t seen that angle before.”  Good Lord.  ABC should have saved the plane fare and the hotel room and just had Whitney hold the camera between her knees the entire date.  If you looked close enough you could see what she had for breakfast.

Boat ride on a fake pirate ship.  Blah, blah, blah . . . beautiful place to fall in love . . . she’s sure . . . she’s ready . . . she won’t shut up.  I wished he would have battened down her hatches.  Whitney was also orange.  Really orange.  Like the sun orange.  Apparently, they sell bronzer in Bali.  There’s no way that she used less than the 3 ounce tube she’d be allowed to take on the plane.  She looked like a basketball.  When she jumped off the boat the Indian Ocean almost turned into the Red Sea. 

Note to you ladies, spray tans and bronzers are the female versions of the toupee or the comb over.  It’s patently obvious.  Tans are like heels.  At some point they quickly graduate from tasteful to ridiculous.  Subtlety is an art.  Trashiness is an affliction.  Less is more.  No guy wants to look at you across the fake pirate ship and wonder if you’ve developed a liver problem from eating some kind of Balinese blowfish.  A healthy tan is attractive.  Jaundice is a serious medical condition.

Chris and Whitney enjoy a lovely outdoor dinner while the Fantasy Suite staff changes the sheets and flips the mattress.  Whitney listens to Chris’ Arlington, Iowa speech.  "Can you handle it," he wonders aloud.  In exchange, she gives him the “I want kids right away” speech.  

Wow. 

Moving from a town of several million to a town of less than 500 and popping out a couple of kids on the pasture is not a good idea.  There’s no Curves or spray tan place in Arlington, Iowa and there’s no one who is going to watch the kid all day while you put on your Lululemon gear and pretend to go to yoga before heading to Starbucks with a friend to bitch about your husband.  How long do you think before the “I told you” call from her bitchy sister gets made? 

They forgo the foreplay and head to the Fantasy Suite.  I can only imagine how orange those sheets looked the next morning.  They likely looked like a pornographic version of the Shroud of Turin.

    

Becca Date. 

“Yea, we know she’s a virgin,” I said into my Lone Star as Becca’s voiceover failed to make me ignore her silky shirt/Dolphin shorts combo.  What was that?

I'm a virgin. 

Look, she’s a bit dry but I’ve liked her all season. She’s been consistently nice, non-controversial, modest, and she hasn’t complained once.  Did I mention she’s a virgin?  She and Chris don sarongs and get some advice from the resident soothsayer who can evidently predict the future of their relationship but not the presence of Becca’s virginity.  Que sarong sarong, I suppose.        

After toweling off, Chris meets Becca for dinner. She’s very (and understandably) trepidatious about moving to Iowa.  Ironically, Becca had the most realistic take on the move to Iowa and a relationship with Chris.  Sadly, Chris had the least enthusiastic reaction.  

I thought she was articulate and incredibly spot on when she said things like, “I have strong feelings and I love where were going” but I’m not about to move to a town of 500 people until I’m sure.  Sadly, all he wanted to hear was “I’ll throw all caution to the wind for an opportunity to be an Iowa housewife in an isolated corn field.”   

Finally, Becca drops “I’m a virgin.  You know, a real one, not the Ashley I. kind of virgin."  The look on his face was priceless.  You could almost hear his brain screaming, “another one?”  I was waiting for him to respond,  “It’s ok, I’m a little sore from the last two nights.”  

Sadly, he sputtered and spit like an old outboard motor trying to answer her "striking" revelation in a politically correct way.  He actually gained some traction (eventually) and made her feel like a decent person rather than Quasimodo about having other interests beyond her vagina.  

 

Since when is being a virgin before marriage equivalent to leprosy?  She’s like the reverse Hester Prynne.  “A pure hand needs no glove to cover it,” wrote Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter.  I wonder what it says about our culture today that perhaps it does. 

"She’d better keep that virgin thing quiet or she might end up getting kidnapped by the Balinese natives and thrown into a volcano," I said to Mrs. SGIA.  Like Chris, she wasn't listening either.  Becca walks on the beach away from nearby volcanoes. 

Chris is confused.  Chris ponders and cries.  “Where the hell is Harrison!?!?” I exclaimed.  

Harrison, fresh off some parasailing and fruity cocktails with Neil Lane, shows up in the Lair of Seclusion.  He bro hugs it out with Chris over a pair of untouched glasses of tea with some bendy straws.  He stirs the pot. 

Chris:              Help me.

OHCH:           Tough week.  Becca told you she’s a virgin.

Chris:              Yea.  She did.

OHCH:           If you send her home, you mind if I make a run at it? 

Chris:              Well, I . . .

OHCH:           You’ve got a tough day ahead of you.  I’m going to                         the limbo contest.  I’m out. 

Samuan Tiga Temple Rose Ceremony. 

After martial arts practice with Harrison, everyone shows up for the rose ceremony in their martial arts outfits.  Kaitlyn sports newly colored hair compliments of the ABC Pre-Bachelorette Makeover Crew, Whitney sports her Bitchy Resting Face, and Becca Sports the only thing that at this point separates her from the other two after the Fantasy Suite Dates:  her dignity.   

I want to make many young Iowans with you.

That's Vivien Leigh, by the way. 

Chris pulls Becca away for a “why don’t you love me like the others do” talk.  She holds the line but balks enough to tip the balance between her and Kaitlyn.  He walks back in the ceremony with Becca after Kaitlyn and Whitney have written her off.  I was waiting for one of them to exclaim, "Oh no you tai kwon don't!"  No luck.    

Kaitlyn faces the inevitability of her fate.  Both Whitney and Becca made an effort to grab her hand and hug her after the elimination.  I’ll give Kaitlyn a pass for not reciprocating.  She looked pretty humiliated and even said as much as she got into the “let’s drive around the island for three hours and talk about how miserable you are” limo.  Based on her the forced conversation with Chris she had to be wondering if slapping was permitted in the temple.  

Note to Chris:  When you dump a girl after you’ve told her you’re falling in love with her, sworn you could see a life with her, gotten her commitment to move to Bum F*ck, Iowa, and then capped it all off with a big bang in the Fantasy Suite she likely gave up out of a sense of obligation and a sign of her true commitment, please don’t tell her things to make yourself feel better.  

Be a man and just let her go.  Deal with your end of it on your own rather than putting it on her shoulders.  In short, if a rooster crows  three times that’s probably a sign to shut up. 

Whitney vs. Becca in the big finale. 

Gone:  Kaitlyn 

She’d be a good Bachelorette.  Better than Britt.

That elimination had to sting, but she'll be over it by the Women Tell All.  They always are.  Hey, Kaitlyn, your fellow Canadian, Wayne Gretzky, once said “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”  Keep shooting.  You’ll score eventually.  That seemed to work out pretty well for Wayne.  

Look at his wife.  

I love Canadians.

. . . and his daughter. 

I love Some Guy in Austin

No wonder they call him The Great One.  

Women Tell All next week, folks.  Personally, that’s my least favorite show of the season.  In fact, I hate it.  I haven’t decided if I’ll recap it, but I’ll definitely post something Bachelor related.  Perhaps a Man’s Point of View or a Some Guy Tells All.  Let me know your thoughts and I’ll do my best to deliver.  Take care of yourselves.  In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll be sweating and crying in my judo outfit.  DP

 

Chris Episode 8: I’ll See Your Small Town and Raise You a Dirty Movie

Amazing Count 104

Journey Count 21

Yogi Berra once said, “it’s like déjà vu all over again.”  I suppose that’s as good as anything I can come up with on my own to describe this post.  

For those of you who are just tuning in, this is post number two this week.  Episode 7:  Des Moines is Des Pressing was posted yesterday.  If you haven’t already read, click over and double your pleasure.  That’s tantamount to . . . oh, I don’t know . . . finding ten bucks in your jeans pocket or sitting with a girl on a third date and looking at nude pictures of her on her laptop and then finding out she also has a naked movie to show you. 

Let’s get to the home towns, shall we?

Becca gets a severely truncated one-on-one in lovely Des Moines.  Her yellow shirt was very Ali-esque yet seasonally appropriate.  Matched with black skinny jeans and a tasteful heel, Becca’s outfit was a metaphor for her personality.  It was demure with hints of playfulness, yet not risky or controversial.  It hadn’t been deflowered either.  She’s been consistent all season and the date was no exception.  Wine and dinner at “Chris’” loft followed by a rooftop sunset.  Boring. 

Back at lockdown, Jade sports her male lead from Xanadu outfit as the girls discuss Britt’s meltdown.  I checked several times to see if she was nude.    

I posed Nude once

Britt’s “date went sour,” Carly opines, all the while failing to realize that Britt has likely wanted out since she took that road trip to the corner of Nowhere Street and Dead End Lane in Arlington, Iowa.  

Look, we all saw this one coming but it surprised me at first that Britt didn’t roll the dice to see if she’d get to the Fantasy Suite before backing out.  Hell, a free trip to the Bahamas is a free trip to the Bahamas.  I’d even make out with a lipless farmer in exchange for a free week in Barbados.  After some calm reflection, it was apparent to me that she’s not taking any chances on her potential stint as the next Bachelorette. 

Frankly, she didn’t do a lot to secure the “America’s Sweetheart” moniker that will undoubtedly be bestowed upon her by Chris Harrison if she makes it to the chair in the WTA.  The crying session in front of the hotel in addition to the manufactured rift with only Carly might fix that problem, however.   

Jade lets Carly in on the big “secret” that she’s posed naked in the past.  I’ll have a lot more to say about that little fact later, but first we have a rose ceremony to attend.  Carly, in the meantime, gloats a little too much over Britt’s announcement that she’s packing her bags and heading West.  When you get to the end zone, act like you’ve been there before, Carly. 

Chris walks in to the rose ceremony as clueless as any Bachelor before him has ever been.  The term “hayseed” came to mind.   

Britt interrupts his meaningless speech, sealing her fate.  She pokes Chris in the eye until he sees fit to “walk her out.”  She cries hysterically in her expensive shoes and her quirky dress.  Fear not, however, we’ve not seen the last of Britt.  Carly f*cking celebrates. 

But wait. There are five girls left and only four roses.  Carly’s celebration was shorter than Jillian’s shorts.  She’s sent packing with a big fat giant suitcase full of “I’m feeling sorry for myself because no one has ever loved me.”  

She clearly has male abandonment issues she needs to get past, which is too bad because she’s a nice person with a killer sense of humor.  Her edit was kind because she’s a nice person, but she’s got to work out the childhood stuff if she wants to attract a man who’ll respect and love her.  The only date she should say yes to for a while is one with her therapist.  

Roses.

Whitney

Becca

Jade

Kaitlyn

Jade cries for Carly for two reasons.  First, she likes Carly and, say what you want about Jade, she seemed like a genuinely nice person.  She also feels bad because she knows that Chris made the decision to ditch Carly without an important piece of the puzzle.  That piece’s name is, of course, Playboy. 

Becca Hometown.  Shreveport, Louisiana.  Shreveport is in the northeast corner of Louisiana—or, as we affectionately refer to it in Texas, “Lousy-ana.”  There are many beautiful places in Louisiana—Shreveport isn’t one of them.   In fact, if Louisiana was constipated, Shreveport is where they’d put the enema.   95% of the women in Louisiana are beautiful.  The other 5% live in Shreveport.    

Also, once you go East of the Sabine River, everything changes.  Louisiana is very southern and very French. It’s very unlike Texas—even East Texas.  The cuisine, culture, accents, and even the laws make Louisiana its own country.  Interestingly enough, the reason it’s like that is not due to the fact that the Sabine River is a formidable boundary.  It’s not.  When the French were colonizing Louisiana the Spanish were in control of Texas.  Because the Spanish and the French hated each other (with good cause up to that point in history) they refused to trade with each other.  As a result, Louisiana independently flourished while Texas remained sparsely populated, Indian controlled territory for many more years.  

Back to the recap. 

Becca does the jump, wrap, and hug before bringing Chris home to meet the entire buzz kill of a family.  In the first of a pair of ball busting, dream shattering, bitter older sisters, we meet Becca’s sister, Katie. 

I loved her as Blair on Facts of Life and it was nice to see her back on television. 

I'm not happy so you can't be either.  

"Becca is not an affectionate person.  Becca has never cared about a boy.  Becca isn’t intimate.  Becca doesn’t hold hands."  It was endless. 

She might as well have just come out and said, “Becca was prettier than me as a child and I took it upon myself to use my domineering personality to take advantage of her passive nature and ruin all hope she had of a relationship.”  Hey Katie, you’re failure to lose your baby weight isn’t your sister’s fault.  Move on.  

Leaving the family, she and Chris go to State Fair to make out on every ride. Ahh, nothing says romance like a rusty, uninspected, fifty year old ferris wheel operated by a toothless guy with a two pack habit and a motel tan who skipped out on parole a few states back.  Festival food, on the other hand, is fantastic.  Too bad the funnel cake stand and the giant turkey leg trailer were closed. 

I have a Playboy with Jade in it in my van.

Whitney Hometown.  Chicago, Illinois.   Whitney greets Chris in her Mary Poppins outfit in Chicago.  “Let’s go make a baby,” she says as she leads him to a guided tour of the fertility clinic where she works. I was hoping Fleiss was sadistic enough to have Jade’s Playboy issue in the Jerkoff Room. 

By the way, I used to work with a guy who was having trouble getting his wife pregnant.  He went to a urologist to get tested and after he was verbally screened by the nurse he was given a cup and told to go down the hall to the restroom, provide a sample, and leave it on the toilet tank before returning to the exam room and waiting for the doctor.  Sweating, he did the deed and left the cup on the tank. 

Ten minutes.  Fifteen minutes.  Twenty minutes went by when a nurse eventually walked into the room with an embarrassed look on her face.  “Uh, Mr. Smith, we actually needed a urine sample this time.”  He left in embarrassment.  

True story.  He told us that at lunch one day and I’ve never stopped laughing about it.  I suppose it’s very male to not ask for directions, but that was certainly a situation where it would have paid off.  Annnnyyyhoo . . .  

Chris tips his hand on the way to meet Whitney’s family by insisting, in fact begging, for someone he can ask for her hand in marriage.  You know, in light of the fact that her dad was probably the guy running the ferris wheel at the Louisiana State Fair. 

Enter Bitchy Sister Number Two.  Good Lord.  She made Becca’s sister look like Patty Simcox from Grease.

HELL no, I won't give him permission.

She should have just done her sister a solid and tacitly agreed to give her blessing.  If she was that worked up about the premise of the show she should have just refused to be on it.  If Chris does pick Whitney that first Thanksgiving is going to be tough. 

Whitney ends the night with a heartfelt “I love you” and a bottle of wine she saved for the man she’s going to marry. Nice work, Whitney.  Remember my “authentic” rant a couple weeks ago?  Different version here, but the same principal.   Whitney saw her opportunity and made the most of it.  She was brutally honest with Chris.  She “asked for the business” as they say in the sales game. 

I want the Neil Lane Ring and the Iowa Lifestyle!

“We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize?  Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.”  

I suppose we can modify David Mamet’s quote to fit our show. 

“We’re adding a little something to this week’s dating contest.  As you all know, first prize is a Neil Lane engagement ring.  Anybody want to see second prize?  Second prize is a dejected boat ride back to the resort.  Third prize is a cab to the airport.” 

By the way, if you can write like David Mamet, your ugly daughter will get an HBO show with the spoiled daughters of her rich friends’ dads.  So much for hard work and talent. 

Kaitlyn Hometown.   Phoenix, Arizona.  I’m going to gloss over this one.  Like you, I’m ready for the (tasteful) nudity.  Kaitlyn’s family is a flock of Canadian snowbirds.  Her divorced parents and their new spouses come together under the same roof with Kaitlyn and her porkier sister to size up the farmer from Iowa which is, of course, the American version of Canada. 

I found it refreshing that her parents could set aside whatever drove them to get divorced in order to support their daughter.  That was a nice moment for me amidst the aforementioned selfish behavior of the other siblings.  Kaitlyn’s mom looks like Marlo Thomas and Kaitlyn opens up enough to make us like her but not enough to win Chris’ heart.  She’s the “funny girl” she’s always been.  My guess is she’ll get the boot next week.  With a family that supportive she won’t have a long way to fall. 

Hurt my daughter and I'll kill you. 

Jade Hometown.  Gering, Nebraska.  This one was a beauty. 

Chris meets the family after being given a tour of Jade’s hometown. 

Dad—“She’s too much for her boyfriends.”  “She’s a wild mustang.”

Brothers---“She’s a free spirit.” 

I didn’t get the judgy vibe from the family as much as they appeared genuinely concnerned about her happiness (and Chris’s too).  Jade and Dad have great father/daughter conversation that ends in dad with tears in his eyes getting a firm hug from his daughter.  I don’t believe I saw any of that in Whitney or Becca’s houses.  They didn’t have time.  They were too busy getting lectured about how they should lead their lives.  Her family knows her, knows her past, and clearly accepted her.  What more can a person ask for?  Not much. 

Let’s get to the couch.    

A clearly nervous Jade opens up about “kind of this period in” her life.  She gives him the “I posed for Playboy speech.”  Keep in mind that the episode we were watching was filmed prior to any of that being made public on a nationwide scale.  Even then it was apparent that she’d paid the price in the past for those pictures.  I’d hazard a guess that there’s not a “Potential Consequences to Think About” section on the Playboy consent form.   

Note to Chris:  When an attractive, vulnerable woman asks, “Do you want to see nude pictures of me?”  The answer is always yes.  However, if she shows you a couple and its glaringly obvious that she’s uncomfortable with them, close the computer and tell her to stop.  If there’s an entire camera crew in the room, it’s even more important to stop her.  Log on after you get back to your hotel, for God’s sake.    

Unfortunately, those pictures ended up being her swan song.  I don’t care what he says publically.  He invited her to his hometown to meet his parents.  That didn’t happen by accident and it wouldn’t have happened if he was dead set on Whitney at that point in the season.  Personally, I think it’s a bad move.  I’d rather date someone with a nude portfolio than a self-serving actress like Britt or a sociopath with a history of (alleged) husband-icide. 

We all have things in our past we wish we could take back.  Unfortunately for Jade, one of those things happened to be captured on film.  If any of her relationships revolve around that decision, then she’s in the wrong relationship.  She needs to put that in perspective, own it, and put it behind her.  

We are, after all, talking about a woman who put herself through chef school at Cordon Bleu and had the courage to move to L.A. on her own and start her own business.  So she posed nude.  Big deal.  I’d submit to all of you that I’d rather have my own daughter pose nude in Playboy than be the third girl in two hours to get banged by a guy she’s known for three weeks in the Fantasy Suite on national television or, even worse, have a sex tape with Ray J.  

Just a thought.

Hey, Jade, the irony is that those pictures actually saved your dignity rather than diminishing it.  Chin up, Buttercup.  Life will move on whether you want it to or not.  It's easier to see what opportunities lie in front of you if you're not looking behind you.     

Harrison shows up and drops a “how ya feelin’?” before Chris commences the rose ceremony.  I wished he would have gone with, “how about those pictures?”

Rose Ceremony.

Whitney

Kaitlyn

Becca

Fantasy Suite time, Ladies and Gentlemen.  Let’s enjoy the rest of the season.  My guess based on the huge rally is Whitney, Becca, then Kaitlyn.  Becca was a top 3 pick of mine but the other two were off the radar.  We’ll see what happens.  In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll getting yelled at by my sister.  DP