methadonna

A "Bar Mitzvah" that involved KNEELING, y'all. I recall his having mentioned this before (with the more generic key talking points almost verbatim: that they had Logan "Bar Mitzvahed," that that's not a usual practice in Their Faith, but that Kody Had A Jewish Friend, and he thought it--I assume he meant, though don't recall if he explicitly stated, the idea of "an entering manhood ceremony,"--was "a cool thing." But, sans the parts where he described the kneeling and KNIGHTING" and such). At the time, while I didn't expect it was exactly a traditional* Bar Mitzvah, I guess I assumed it still involved Logan's studying, learning, and reciting at least a Haftorah and/or Torah portion, explaining its meaning and connection to his life/becoming a man, and then, along with whatever hybrid of the practices of The Church of the Fundamentalist Wet Bar, a public (insofar as any of their services are "public": so, Kody, however many kids he had by that year, and however many wives he had that year). And, while I guess Kody's description tonight doesn't rule OUT that any of that was done, I sure didn't get the sense that it involved LOGAN's learning and presenting any...anything, let alone religious scripture--whether they be Old Testament or Joseph Smith, or in Hebrew, English, or Klingon so much as KODY's making up some shit and presenting it, wherein HE was the subject of attention, and presenting it ONTO Logan, with Logan as merely the object. And then they probably had a "party," which we already know means spending a ton of money on ugly decorations for your otherwise-regular 42-member immediate family dinner. So, a regular day at the Browns', basically. So, really, what Kody is talking about is "a coming of age ceremony," which has nothing more to do with a Bar Mitzvah (except for picking age 13, and we already know Kody had pushed Logan into the role of The Man of [his birth mother's/ siblings'] family way before that) than any other coming of age ceremony/rite of passage that is one of the many commonalities among many, many religions and cultures, whether it involve reciting from the Haftorah or being sent into the woods for three days alone or eating a rattle snake's ass. SO WHY THE FUCK NOT JUST CALL IT THAT? Coming of Age Ceremony, Rite of Passage into Adulthood, Become a Man/Knight Day, whatever. I don't know why this is even bothering me (fwiw, I'm culturally/ethnically Jewish and religiously (or, not-religiously?) atheist and was already quite certain of my complete lack of belief in religion by the time I became a Bat Mtzvah when I was 12, and I probably would have put my foot down about stopping Hebrew School/not doing the whole Bat Mitzvah thing a good two years before it, but the timing was such that my father left just a few weeks after we first were assigned our dates, and our temple was disgustingly unsympathetic (/offensive) to the whole situation, and I think it became this rather important "thing" to my mom to sort of prove that she could still put together this great event, her first thing as a single woman who'd basically just been left with two kids and little money, so I felt like it was too important to her to get up on my precocious little soapbox over (and, also, as a musician/vocalist, I just viewed it as my first solo concert :-). But, unlike Kody/Logan's fake, um, BM, in the end, it wasn't just about my Mom, either, as I was the one who still had to learn how to sing the tropes (symbols that serve kind of like music notes, but each representing a short musical phrase/string of notes, rather than one note at a time) and then apply them to be able to chant my Haftorah portion, and write a bunch of speeches, and do all of the other songs and shit to lead most of the service ... no one just blessed me and called me a knight (or a damsel or whatever gross sexist shit Kody would say). Sorry, not to get all personal and shit, but rather just to give some background that surely informs my perspective: I'm not offended at his performing a religious ceremony that doesn't necessarily jibe with his beliefs, especially as I essentially did the same thing--nor on a personaI religious belief level; I think I'm more offended by his appropriating the name of something that--although it may have a range of meanings wrt specifics*--has at least a semblance of a recognized meaning and using it to describe something so antithetical to any known meaning, beyond the most basic "coming of age ceremony," for which there are plenty of perfectly good terms--like, uh, "coming of age ceremony"--already. Just as I'd be offended if he decided to call a tuna fish sandwich "tomato soup." Because, hey, they're both terms to refer to a light lunch option. When we use words to mean something so far from their generally understood meaning, language becomes meaningless or even contrary to communication and understanding (think: the use of "collateral damage" instead of "the murder of innocent civilians") and this vegetarian is gonna end up with a sandwich she won't eat instead of a soup she's getting excited just thinking about it. AND, I guess I've just described Kodys existence and certainly another reason for the state of his marriages: his wives aren't great communicators to begin with, but they're trying to communicate with a putz who is so narcissistic as to believe he can just bend language so that the meanings of words are whatever he wants them to be. *and, even among those who are practicing Judaism and not solely cultural appropriation, "traditional" can (imho) cover a pretty significant range, so my original understanding/assumption of what this could have included/excluded/added from their own religious practices was that it could have been pretty cool, or innocuous at worst.

I'm in no way trying to defend anything about Dwight, but I was somewhat taken aback and disappointed to see Iyanla send the allegedly drunk-to-the-point-of-reeking-of-alcohol (and on coke) man "OFF THE SET" . . . behind the wheel of his own car. I might have chocked it up to their not wanting to break the fourth wall and show the producer step in to drive him, but it was already in the middle of a fourth-wall-smashed scene, with production's/TGMF's kiddo stepping in, so I can't imagine that would be an issue, nevermind that I'd think the message of responsibility they'd want to send would override that. I guess Iyanla didn't have an extra car in that Mary Poppins purse of hers... Other shows have certainly added a caption after the fact--like when a mounted camera picks up the degree of impaired driving of a cast member without production present--noting that production was not there at the time and would have stopped the activity of they had been, but they didn't do that, nor would it have been true, given Iyanla basically said, "You are drunk, go drive home." Sooo: did they fuck up big time or was that whole part scripted to show his resisting and then succumbing to the process, and he wasn't actively drunk at all?

Me too, especially after reading the ICCA's Rules of Eligibility. Which is why I'm not sure I believe that it all happened with the timeline we were shown. Or, the basic story. I'd originally gone to the ICCA website (see below) to find out just WHO was eligible to be in these groups, as I would have assumed the groups had to consist of all undergrads and was trying to figure out if the whole Melinda thing was just for the show, or she wasn't really a grad student or what. Turns out grad student members (or anyone else) are a non-issue if the school allows them to be members of student groups, as long as they're REGULAR group members of the group (although the timing of it v. the rules leaves me with the same questions wrt producer interference as the Faux Paz nonsense, just ... less extreme. ( IOW, it's clearly not all reality hijinks, as [presumably?] they really didn't perform with those two women at quarterfinals of 1/6th of the region of the country or whatever that naming nonsense is). BUT, it seems a lot more likely that, for whatever reason, these two women were already members but couldn't compete that day and the group got an exemption (see rules) for that one time (and then added them back in), and they/the show retconned that story with one little rehearsal/audition (where they already knew the songs and we're working on choreo) than that they auditioned half the planet, couldn't find people good enough, threw that shit together in two weeks, and then, poof, suddenly here they found two women good enough, and redid their program AND successfully petitioned to have their new members added in time. Likewise, I'm sure the plan was for Miranda to perform with Bitches Get Monkeys all along and train a new one for a semester or two. Maybe, they figured that, in the oh-so-likely event that a skilled female aca beatboxer just walked through their door, then, cool, she'd be happy to continue on her merry way, but, even as a cappella grows in popularity in pop culture and the number of HS groups increase, it's still not a skill most high schoolers, even those with a lot of vocal/musical training or experience, will have (and, sadly, I'd imagine even far fewer female ones); I think it's more of a "grow your own" for most groups. I don't think it was real likely that someone was gonna magically appear on their doorsteps with experience, and, let's be honest, they seem to be the group of, to put it nicely, last resort on their campus for someone who wants to sing but doesn't get into the other groups. (Spoilered just to be on the safe side; these are just regarding the rules of eligibility and I doubt contain any actual spoilers; elsewhere on the site, however, there ARE competition results, which, of course, are spoilers. AND, I am viewing this on my phone: I have no idea whether this shitfest of a website looks completely different--with, say, brilliant graphics, functional design, and visible spoilery photos on every page--on a computer or in a parallel universe (I *do* feel fairly confident, though, that it looked exactly the same back when someone made it as their first try at "web design" on AOL in 1996). Eligibility: [bold mine] ICCA website

I'm at people and I love don't know enough with a the best thing ever is a good time with right now uto and I love

wants out? (Post spoiler-tagged (and quote edited with same) due to speculation based, in part, on the preview clip; if this is unnecessary, my apologies and Jesus (mods) fix it, please! But, I figured I'd rather err in that direction than the other) (I will gladly eat my words next week if everything I've speculated here turns out to be as off as Robert).

Well thank goodness slash and of course; we all know that the only girls worth showing/saving/shocking the viewers with such a crazy and surprising contradiction to their expectations are those who display such a strange and curious paradox as to be both paradigms of Western notions of [white, if I know my Dr. Phil) beauty (or, sometimes, not even remotely considered such by most people's conventions, but he declares them to be anyway, by sheer virtue of said being-teen-girl-ness) and "yet" "bad." Because, of COURSE we would [only] EXPECT such behavior from those who ... look otherwise. (Of course, at the rate he shows similarly titled episodes, one would think all Out Of Control GIRLS are "beautiful," so the real shocker would be the episode of Big, Ugly, Tough, Butch, Thugish ... and Out Of Control, but then he probably wouldn't be able to figure out how to Blame The Parents/Mother nor would they make pretty advertisements for the Mormon Healing Horse (I forgot the blond one's name, but the animals she talks about, too ;-) ).

While I don't think what we actually SEE anyone saying is scripted, I HAVE been questioning whether some of the captioned conversations--placed over the almost-too-blurry-to-even-tell-if-there-are-inmates-there-nevermind-ones-having-the-conversation-claimed cell footage--are accurate representations, or even representative at all, of ones that occurred; it may be 'cause I've been watching this on my old/non-HD TV, and maybe others are seeing something that looks more distinguishable than I, but, for all I know, they're showing me a fetal ultrasound from 1975 while placing completely fabricated dialogue on the screen. At the least, they clearly not only cast for their "types"--as most "reality-in-a-created-situation" programs do--but they are not real open to letting the cast members out of said types, given the Goofus and Gallant Go to Jail over-contrasts with which they frame the episodes... "In the first two days, Robert failed to present his cover story correctly and some inmates gave his 'friend' a bloody face." [next screen] "In his first two days, Zac shared his cover story perfectly and some inmates gave him a cookie." Like, let's save the <I>Highlights Magazine</I> for the peds dentist office and allow for a LITTLE bit of nuance? Re: the 2:2 v 1:3 in the men's dorms: I'm wondering if the need to move Mr. Robert into seg (i.e., out of basic human interaction) actually occurred BEFORE the last guy (or two?) was admitted (and/or Tami figured out Babs of The Full White Magical Underwear Ensemble before it, and they saw the potential for narrative was actually potentially as great if they figured it out as if they just had different impressions), and they decided that having more than one cast member together served the narrative better than putting another guy "alone" in D (or maybe even just worried to try it again after the mess Mr. Robert left behind?). Uh, sorry, point: I suspect one of the last two guys WOULD have gone to D, if (as much as I hate to give him even that much credit...) Mr. Robert hadn't decided to make this Reality Show Star Do Over his opportunity to finally gain the infamy that the world so clearly owes him.

I find myself saying that every week this season, except it's after I've spent 60 minutes having it play on my TV. It's like, one minute, I'm seeing Alyssa look horribly uncomfortable in whatever schmatta her Lifetime-movie-inspired secretly-seething-with-jealousy-and-rage stylist decided to try to undermine her with this week, and hearing her sound horribly uncomfortable as she tries to speak around the magic marbles that the NY-hating accent coach told her would get rid of her accent if she kept them in her mouth, or whatever it was about getting this job if she kept someone's balls in her mouth*, [not]explaining the challenge, and, the next thing I know, my DVR is asking me if I want to erase the episode (yes. Yes, I do), and I realize I've missed not only who's won but who's been eliminated, never mind the whole (not)blind runway show, top and bottom critique***, and whatever Zanna has said to them in the workroom to make them doubt their work and/or basic life force (but surely not any advice or anything else that makes up the "constructive" part of "constructive criticism," 'cause I KNOW that there was none of that to miss). *Ew, I hate myself for even joking about something so mysogynistic, especially when I actually typically** love Alyssa, but once I'd said the marbles, well, I knew I'd already, um, opened up for that one. **And this show just seems like such an odd fit (heh) for her, that.... Well, and, I'm 12. ***Again: I'm 12.

It was also a LifetimeCBS film with The Actor Then Trying To Make His Name Known As Rick Schroeder in 1990.(Spoiler alert--for the 25+-year-old film, not the show--in case you watch Lifetime-esque movies for their unpredictable twists and turns)... Having now read some detailed plot summaries, I guess it's not QUITE as similar as I thought; I really only remembered that it starred Schroeder, was cheesy enough that I've always recalled it as being on Lifetime, and was about a young man's arriving many years after the woman's son had been kidnapped, claiming to be him. I guess I thought that the "is he or isn't he?" was the more central plot line/mystery, but it seems as though the answer to that becomes fairly clear early on. Still, I thought of it immediately when I first heard about this show (and, now, its resolution to his connection in a few variations of one theory I've seen in some people's speculations as to Whether This Is THE Adam).

(Emphasis mine) (I realize this is really trite after that episode, but I think I'm still trying to process the rest of it, so...) Interesting that that was the description you got, because MY cable told me that she got addicted after "her mother's girlfriend gambled away their house"! So, first, I assumed Mom's being bi or a lesbian wasn't going to be an issue--just that she had a partner who was an ass, as many of these addicts' parents so--but then, after EVERY time there was a focus on, "And then I thought this (male) partner seemed great, but...," I kept waiting for the mom to be all, "and then I finally figured out I prefer chicks (and fell in love with a woman, but she fucked us over, too)." [And then, I started worrying about whether Sierra was going to have been hurt about the loss of another person/parental unit--and, apparently, the house itself--, or if she was gonna have had issues with her Mom's being with women ('cause, as awful as Sierra was in so many ways, I still found myself liking her and rooting for her, so--even though I know it's understandable for a kid to have a tough time with it, just on an adjustment level, I also know I'd still hate her for it). Because, obviously, it's completely rational on my part to like a psychotic, irrational meth addict who spews venomous things to all of these people Who Love Her Like Crazy (and whom I don't know except on my TV for twenty minutes), but hate her if she even potentially holds some socially conditioned homophobia as a young teen about her Mom. Who, it turns out, as far as we know, is straight]. In an episode half-filled with lines like, , I think that, thanks to stupid U-Verse's red herring, figuring out that the BOYfriend (husband?) that lost the tattoo shop really was the "partner" who "gambled away" the house, and there would be no Mom Coming Out drama was what confused me the most! Well, at least they didn't use their favorite (and my now-most-loathed) phrase for episode descriptions: "A look is taken."

I'd like to join you, too, as the celebration of instruments and artifacts of war, killing, and violence offends and repulses me to a level that, I realize, may be OTT. In fact, on my bench--or at least my section; you may not agree with all of it, and that's cool too--we also don't wear camo as "fashion," nor do we set off fireworks in order to "celebrate" how "pretty" bombing and blowing shit up can be. That stuff has disturbed me for a long, long time, but i really never thought I'd have to add, "And no weapons engraved with sweet affirmations as accessories, jewelry, or commemorative sex toys" to my list of things that make my mom say, "Ohmigod, [Methadonna], stop being such a killjoy and lighten up JUST a LITTLE; it's not so serious." Which is exactly my problem with it; when items whose sole purpose are to maim or kill are reimagined as "harmless" or "cute" or "awesome" fashion or tchotchkes, or when displays meant to replicate "the Rockets' red glare"--not in solemn memorial or to serve to remind us of the IRONY of the HORROR that can look so beautiful from the right angle (and the reality of how much it doesn't from the wrong one, or, maybe, the real right one), and, " elsewhere" LEAVE (but, that's far away, so who cares, right? Like maybe even farther than the places where the Sharks send the products to be made in conditions we'd never accept or tolerate here in our bullet-breaching, camo-as-junior-dept.-fashion-wearing, bombs-bursting-in-air-as-theater-watching (happily paid for by those local taxes that, fuck no if you were to even suggest they went to, like, actual local theater or education or--don't even say it, ya damn commies!--theater or other arts IN the schools) good ol' USoA, until our sensory images of war are as removed from reality as our language for it, and shooting and blowing up people is just collateral damage, and now even seeing, heck, holding and touching and engraving with important milestones like "Norman and Dee's 60th Anniversary Celebration: 6/6/14" and "First beer shotgunned: 9/11/2023" what's used to do so, "just isn't that serious, gahd, lighten up." I dunno; it seems a bit lighter to me to hold the ability to obliterate human, and those who risk theirs, in the level of seriousness such power deserves, and to keep my entertainment and fashion and accessories in a separate sphere, where there's no confusing the two. Addendum: dang, it's been more than twenty years since I first read Carol Cohn's work on language and war, a piece that was--ohmigod Methadonna, lighten up!--absolutely life changing for me as an, admittedly, not-so-light 18-year-old sophomore. The very second-wave feminist ideology of it is more than a bit dated now, but I think that her main point wrt the power of metaphor still applies and makes it worth a read today ( and, I realize, greatly influenced my to;dr above, especially if one believes these objects can function as metaphor, too. And, given the damn bullet keychain's NAME, I have to believe that, not only do they, but perhaps her binary-gendered take on much of the military euphemisms isn't as dated as we might wish. Phallic little bottle BREACHER, indeed.

Well, when you put it THAT way, perhaps Grandma is, in fact, not the most but the LEAST naive of the women there! Fabric to lessen (? Or JUST slow ?) the flames, indeed! ... But, I actually thought she was being a bit tongue-in-cheek when she said it; just because she doesn't believe wearing less "modest" dress is appropriate doesn't mean she doesn't know it exists. Or that, if required to sort things into a real-life Venn diagram of "strict-Mormon-approved Night Wear, Bathing Suits, and other Countenance-enhancing garments" in one circle and "skanky streetwear, Russian ice dancing costumes, sexy time lingerie and fantasy sexy nurse and school girl* costumes, and What That-Russian/Harlot-O-r Boy-Converte- But-Is-Still-Trying-To-Tame Liked To Wear Before We Introduced Her To Jesus And The Joy Of Littering Names With Extra Consonants and Extra Vowels (cuz, duh, What WOULD Geazuhhs Do?!) in the other (because, it happens? No? No one has ever had some, say, hoola hoops--extra large knees, natch; the pink ones with the white stripe?-- just show up, and they needed to sort things? Well, damn, Iyanla's been slacking off, then. And you KNOW she's got room for two or seven of them in that bottomless Mary Poppins trick bag of hers. But, I digress. And state the obvious. And the meta) that she wouldn't join most people in placing this night gown in the clothing-fit-for-even-a-non-pedophillac-Duggar Hoop, while recognizing and placing what A. would really WANT in the "As Seen [redacted, because even I have the occasional limits, and, yeah, I was starting to hate myself] on by Farrah A's Shy Asshole HOOP. BOO. YAH. YO. Yeah, Grannie knows. She may not know a Dolphin rechargeable vibe from a remote-controlled butterfly clit-stimulater, but she knows which nighties are approved by the church, and which just lead to shouts out to god. And, how cute and appropriate is Aleks in thanking her, all saying how pretty THE COLOR is. Yeah, that girl is GOOD! ;)

I don't want to be condescending to them -- I don't mean this as , oh they're kids..., but rather-- given that they've been raised to believe you can have a hundred million mommies (and, unlike the rest of the Brown kids, they even probably believe that, as The Brown Brown Robin Goes Sob Sob Sob Sobbin in her Real Sisterwvies of Las Vegas VO Opening Credit, "It Seems Like Destiny (or, Dehztinnee, had this Destiny chick been Kristine's kid, instead)... and BrownBrownRobin counts as much as an equal mommy as the three with 20+ years seniority ....And , we know KODY thinks it's "VULGAR" and all because, well, we don't know but and Kody probably doesn't either but ew cooties, for there to be TWO OR MORE DADDIES included in this shit show. But... here we are, worrying about what the machinations of the Brown BrownRobin will do to these kids, because, of course, we are thinking that when these lunatics ask these kids if they "want" Kody to adopt them, THEREFORE OF COURSE LOGICALLY AND INHERENTLY cutting out [and ::Manly Kody voice:: GOING TO WAR stupidfuckingcaetooncharacyerprick], but, uh, maybe the, um SNL-sketch-esque Overly Enthusiastic About Everything Preteen is doing what, in fact KODY'S errr REAL SISTERWIFE INTRO VO advises and assumes that, well, LOVE SHOULD BE MULTIPLIED AND NOT DIVIDED?! I actually don't mean this to be snarky (in fact, it could be totally heartbreaking), why WOULD they necessarily think Kody's adopting them means "replacing" their dad, rather than giving them a second one? (I mean, except for its obvious VULGARITIES AND ALL.... ;-) ). Maybe she's auditioning? Or Christine wasn't kidding about not "just" wanting the man?

They said she was there as the witness.Which, even if there's not an actual Lawofthislans against having The Woman Whom One of the Legallybivorced-To-Be Will Be Legally Marrying in Two or Seven Days After The Legaldivorce is Finalized (the exact date is such a secret that my lazy ass can't be bothered with the five clicks my SuperSecretTellerGoogle might require I exert to find out) seve as the witness to said Legaldivorce, one would think that, even with the total combined IQ points of that TEAM barely equaling room temperature as measured in Fahrenheit , they'd still be smart enough, or at least--as history with these fuckturds has shown us -- paranoid enough, to realize that, for such shady dealings, especially as allegedly being done as part of painting the LEGALLY defined normative family illusion for the benefit of the pipe dream that is one man's adopting the children of another man who still has all of his parental rights, MAYBE YOU DONT WANNA ADD ANOTHER LAYER OF INTERTWINED INCESTUOSY-SISTERWIVEY WEIRDNESS WHEN THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO DO SO, Except, FEELINGS? Which, there aren't any, I thought, right? Because it's all about your kingdom for when you have, Hey, Better Luck Next [Life]time? (These lawsofthisland only matter when it comes down to laying claim/running around/taking--per Kody's own words--a proverbial piss on property and children ( like, not to be redundant, but...). FUCKING hypocrites. Don't think it is meaningful, or fair? Then don't use it. It's not a part of the governmental system in which you need to partake. I mean, if you disagree with the system of taxes or some idiocy, you still have to be a part of that system and can't just excuse yourself (well , I mean , I guess you COULD, but that's a pretty difficult life; certainly, one can't just maintain one's previous job-shop- engage-with-society life and do so)). But, marriage? Don't like how it fails to align with your beliefs re it? Kewl, don't partake in it as you fight to change it, rather than accepting the privilege you and joining for the bennies it DOES give you, even to the point where you're actually misusing it to get MORE bennies . (A I hate these people. Actually, I vote for them moving far into the woods and off the grid to eschew all tax-related parts of society, too. (To be clear, no, they've never suggested even a sliver of such a belief; I just liked the part that would have the in the woods and cut off from civilization :) . But, at least they wouldn't have to worry about these lawsofthisland, then, either. Also, anyone else got a Guthrie ear worm now? These lawsofthisland, They ain't for my man (Who's also my sistawife's man), (And another, and another wife's man) Except when we can use 'em, To our advantage: Hypocrisy? Applies to Monogs, not me! (We all know that that is one longass, unnecessarily bloated song, much like an episode/season of these doubletalking system-using grifter shitfucks, and, so, much like Meri's talking heads or Robin on the couch whenever* it comes to a topic about which she has the least experience, wisdom, knowledge, business, or reason to make a peep let alone a goddamned soliloquy, I could go on for many more verses, but I think you get 1) the idea and, ::mwah ha ha (that is my evil laugh, duh):: 2) enough to hopefully catch my ear worm and be stuck singing this fucker for the rest of the night, becoming my beloved company in my misery. ::mwah ha ha:: (doesn't sound evil? I'll have to ask Robin for pointers on how to show an evil that just comes from the depths of my soul. You'll know it's an evil laugh next time,then, promise). Oops, sorry, I took too long to reply and forgot to re- check the thread before I posted; I missed that you had already gotten this in the interim! ETA Last quote/paragraph

(And I say this as a fan of musical theater, er, sorry, BROADWAY dance, and Gaby, and Jim, and, BUT...) OMG, that dance. Or, not that dance, because I couldn't pay one second of attention to it once I saw the final anvil^H^H^Hnail in the hospital bed^H^H^Hcoffin of heavy-handed foreshadowing that was the fedora placed so prominantly on the bedpost and thought, "Why, golly gee, pre-dance package VoiceOver Voice: when you said it would be up to the audience ::beat:: AND GABY :: to determine whether it had all been a dream, or...[dun dun dun] REAL, and after all the talk about the fedora-wearing stranger, no less, could you POSSIBLY have been fore-foreshadowing that the dance would end with Gaby "waking up," only to discover [dun...you get it] THE FEDORA IS STILL THERE?!" And, that, my friends, was it. All I could do was groan at the cheese and wait for the end so I could groan even more at how goddamned cheesy and treacly and trite and cliched and whatever words I could find that might be even more cliched and trite and treacly and cheesy as these words and this dance and this telegraphed ending. Because, really? UGGH. Be. More. Smarter. I mean yeah, I know, as the great Alfredora Hitchcock once said, "If a character-developing hat is shown in the first act, it must go^H^H be taken off for the third act." Or something. Maybe if it had killed her?

So:* The two "oh noes, we've been catfished" eps they've chosen to air have both been eps involving lesbian couples (or triads, or singles, or... Whatevah da faq this one is). I have no idea what the ratios of the barista types of deceptions that are submitted to them break down to, or how many het fake ones they bounce and why--and they sure didn't play that first one as anything but "yay love"--so I'm not sure there's any overarching message or hidden bias to be taken from this [yet]; I guess it's just .... "Interesting" to me. I did appreciate how fast--even when they allegedly still thought Hundra was the victim--Kelly, especially, jumped on her re: her various biases. I suspect that THAT was her original motivation: to show the "softer" side of lesbian. Irony intended. But, when she first saw Geralyn's picture and expressed that, no, she's not into "women who dress like men," well, it was still opening up a whole can if worms wrt identity, yes, but a world away from the hateful way she phrased it later. But, moreso, when trying to explain WHY she did it and saying she still needed to come out, I think waft she meant was "people (Haitians) need to see that some lesbians are pretty. Like me. We're not all f-' b- d-s. Like Geralyn." Which, besides being gross and filled with internal homophobia (but also somewhat understandable for someone in her position. NOT ok. Just not surprising....), it makes it all the more awful that she used Geralyn as part of her plot to do so.. *[maybe I'm missing one--it would be a relief to determine I actually haven't seen them all and/or don't have a complete mental Rolodex of Catfish at my disposal--but I don't think I am?]

Has Andrea Canning always approached her interviews from the "Some people will argue that not everything can be presented in the form of argument that is your responsibility to counter; do you think I proved that they're wrong?" position of negative questioning, and I just never noticed before, or did she just save that style NOT for the typical weekly The Husband Did It murderer, nor, say, a... Kidnapper or something, no, but rather for Holy. Fucking Shit, Lady, Like This Man Hasn't Already Been Through Twenty-Plus Years Of Hell And Apparrently Maintained A Level Of Grace And Dignity Throughout That I Rarely Make It Through A Single Trip Through The Checkout At Walgreens Upholding; Is Your Goal To Be The One To Finally Break Him Of It With Your Question Style? I was struck/put off by how she inverted the phrasing early on to ask about, " some people will argue it was wrong to rip a baby away from its mother so early on, as that bond was forming..." (Something to that effect, leaving him to make the counter), but I thought, ok, she's just presenting the points that surely would be made, to ensure his points are made clearly, albeit in a more argumentative and negative way than seems necessary for someone who [surely] is on his side. But, then, she KEPT DOING IT. As the interview went on, she kept presenting her questions as if she were arguing for the other side [as if there WERE another side .... "but surely you weren't really being this patient" as he talked of waiting to meet his daughter, knowing he had to allow the investigation to progress, or to allow his daughter to be the one to determine when she was ready ... "yes, because I'm. It a negative asshole intent on turning people off the first time they meet, the way you are," I waited for him to say. I don't know-- I've never thought about much about her one way or the other; I think I liked her enough for her to have never stood out one way or the other before, so now Im curious as to whether this is common and just never set me on edge before or she just responded to him differently. Hmmm. As for the case itself, it's just heartbreaking alll around. And that, on top of all of the other layers of mindfuckery heaped upon this young woman, the man she was raised to believe was her father DIED ONE WEEK before alll this went down? I have to wonder if that cruel bit of irony hasn't left her less open to getting to know her [other] dad/...even subconsciously. I cannot* get over that that woman only got months in jail. I don't know--due to my own experiences with a parental kidnapping attempt-- that it WOULD have surprised me otherwise, but given the international level of it, and the costs that must have been involved, I d think there would have been a stronger fight from the Feds. There's a sick irony to the fact that her real punishment--being kept on probation in that little town for however many years--will force Harris (?dat his name? Dad?) to live, after all this time searching for her, nearly imprisoned in town with her (while his daughter is literally half a world away still).

I couldn't recall whether it was the usual case of been-there-done-that-seen-it-covered-on-another-show that made me immune to their good try at "but there WERE other suspects" / so certain that Of Course The Husband Did It, or whether it was simply because, HOLY SHIT THAT MAN OUT-CREEPED KEITH, EVEN WHEN MATCHED HEAD-TO-HEAD IN THE ONE-ON-ONE INTERVIEW. They could put in all the non-prison-y backdrops and non-prison-garb-wear fake-outs they could muster to try to build any suspense to the episode; the moment they let that man's soulless eyes be seen and sociopath voice be heard and Stephen Collins doppelgänger face attempt to emote like real, soul-ed human beings' faces do, the jig was up, and the only question I had was how long the jury took , and, after I had that, what they must have done with the remaining three hours and fifty minutes they'd have had left after finding him guilty before they returned to the courtroom. Damn, he creeped me right the hell out. And, given the way Keith spoke to him, I think he, if not creeped, repulsed Keith to the point of not even attempting to conceal his disgust or the outcome, too. Oh, his daughter walked in to find them "cuddling," eh? Because, if he just said it enough times, his nine-year-old daughter would just believe what she heard him saying rather than what she'd seen him doing, right before her mother was murdered. And the jury and, uh, America, would just believe him too. What a vile, vile man. Conversely, what the [male] friend said, re: instances of domestic abuse (knowing about hers/the regret of not having done enough, and trying to help others in general)--[something to the effect of] "it may have only been two times [that he'd attacked her before]. Well, three, and she was dead,"--will stick with me and haunt me for a long time, I think. In your face and almost crude, in an important and powerful and poignant way that [uggh, sometimes the English language is a sick and powerful thing of its own: I cannot come up with a phrase that says what I mean here that doesn't also, whether literally or euphemistically, refer to or evoke violent imagery, and "pun not intended" really isn't the tone I'm going for... like... "that simply cuts to the heart of the matter," or "that doesn't pull any punches," etc. but, I'm sure you get my point.].

Because my DVR is OBVIOUSLY smarter than I am and only recorded enough of each Dance Moms ep last week for me to click on its title and have it immediately ask me if I wanted to save or erase it, as if it hadn't recorded any minutes of it, despite its also claiming to have recorded the full 63 minutes (spooky, right? Like it was trying to tell me!) ... I only just got to watch this one today. And, after reading the "It was supposed to be Kendall's week" thing all, well, week, another possibility/consideration crossed my mind. Could the notion of its being [oneofthegirls]'s week be, like, a thing? Like, might it be something more along the lines of that the production-planned/pre-show storyboarding, which seems to be set to highlight/focus on/champion a different girl each week, has come to be called--whether on an official basis or more informally--"[Whichevergirl]'s Week"? I have zero insider knowledge (nor, I assure you, am I a Jill apologist of any sort; I don't think she's particularly villainous in the scheme of things, but her sheer lack of wit offends me) but there was just something about her tone and mannerisms, particularly the first (or one of the first; who knows, editing-wise) time she said it: it differed SO greatly from what I'd been expecting after reading it here. Yes, maybe I'd just built it up to unattainable, cartoon like levels of entitlement, but I heard none in her voice at that point. Rather, what I could more realistically picture based on what I heard was confusion, like someone REPEATING something they'd been told they could expect and were now realizing was not going to occur. I can believe it goes kinda like this. (Especially for poor, dumb, gullible Jill, who has has gotten Kendall involved in some (crap) thing that Is Totally Going To Help Make Her A Star like eleventysix weeks this season, only to have it crapped on by the very team who obviously set it up for her in the first place). So, whether it's a term used each week for whichever girl is sort of the star of the ep, or maybe it was just something some Shiri [Candy]Appleby production type sent to string her along, like when KendallKKK's Adventure's in Autotune got nary half the fanfare of Nia's so they were all, "Well, the week it drops, THAT will be Kendall's Week (ie, an ep in which she is slated to be storyline-center? To win? Whatever?) anyway, so that will just make it a double whammy" and dumb Jill shuts up again until ... jinkies! Foiled again? Not our Jillsy. She figures it out quickly this time, when, whether, by design or -- I think -- by reality getting in the way of their little "reality" show, plans change, and she says it: " this was supposed to ..." (well, you know the drill, unless you're slower than Jill). Because: it was. And, rather than get her to shush with using the line and potentially giving away the schedule, the brilliant Shiri CandyAppleby figures out that, out of context, to anyone not "in the know," it just makes Jill sound like her usual asseipe, stage mom self, and it's a lot easier to get her to say it more than to make it verboten (which would also be acknowledging the ... reality of what she was saying). [see also: send in the clown/Holly. And, voila: another dozen or restatements of above. And Holly thinks [x] week will be Nia's...].

http://www.ponzitracker.com/main/2014/4/14/company-with-shark-tank-link-added-to-receivership-in-suspec.html (Emphasis mine)Yeah, I don't think it's a case of "getting past" vetting" or why would it make it to air DESPITE this shit; I think it was vetted BECAUSE of this situation, specifically TO make it to air. As Marcus himself said in one of his Talking Eyeliners, even a hint of being attached to a [poorly frankenbited "alleged"] Ponzi scheme can ruin one's reputation: Barbara fucking endorsed one! What better way to make it clear that Ponzies Are Bad, M'kay?, (and, poor, poor, 400,000-dollars-for-doing-nothing-no-wonder-these-Sharks-don't-like-to-PAY-for-businesses-anymore, poor Barbara, she couldn't have known about the Bad Bad Ponzi Man, either!), without risk of slander, without drawing any more explicit connection between Barbara The Business Woman and Barbara the Shark Tank Shark Metonym, etc. (they pretty much gave instructions on how to Google for more info: I don't think they've ever been so explicit with names, states, etc.), than to have Marcus, whom I think many viewers see as The Ethical, Trustworthy One among these Business Reality Tv personalities, put down his gavel on it while presenting his judgment on national broadcast (AND syndication?) for the courtroom of public opinion? The question is, WHY draw more attention something that never made it past the small pubs like this one, and fell out of the collective consciousness of those subcultures for whom it was ever on the radar to begin with: this seems more likely to just BRING more scrutiny, through more awareness, UNLESS, unless, unless something else is about to happen-- Babs called in to testify? Or even just the expectation that, when a larger ruling comes in, the media is likely to run with this shit?-- and this is just a preemptive strike. OR, maybe she IS guilty of something more.... (Nah, don't think that: just showing that's why it's maybe a bad idea!) But a coincidence, a slip-through, just an odd ep, despite the record number of viewers lest with concussions after all of the Anvils of Heavy-handed Foreshadowing got thrown at and dropped on us for an hour? No. No way.

lol. But I thought he said, "Faults...." Or, at least, meant faults, as so many seem to have heard something else! Which, if not exactly profoundly ... profound ... at least makes perfect sense, both contextually and as it's own little Deep Thoughts by Nene's Purseholder.

I had the same thought. Further, I got a good chuckle out of how, when Lori came up to join their Whee! We All Have Money And Vaginas Soiree, her dress color came thisclose to perfectly complementing the carefully chosen Color Story of the We're Young Trio. (OK, Lori's was too [close to the color of one of the girls' dresses; I have since blocked them all out and hope to be able to do the same for that sorority horror show in the near future. But, for real, all I could focus on at the time was how, a few shades lighter or darker or whatever it was, and I'd be hard pressed to believe that this wasn't pre -planned).

Hey, now, let's be fair: [at least] one of them got an iPod instead of a fruit platter. That's why the Pretty Little Lied-Tos got the sads* over how their mean catfish would play them against each other! I'd be sad,* too, if I THOUGHT I'd won the catfish lottery, what with GETTING presents from a continental kittyfish instead of having to send 200,000 bucks to Nigeria, like the usual sucker, only to find out that, while I was celebrating my gifts of honeydew and other sundry, well, big melons, I coulda been rockin out on a 2002 iPod! *I joke, but back in the ancient days of Teh Interwebz, at least in my infancy of "online chat," (coupled w being out at any real level), during my first semester of college, 1993, I spent about a week talking with a woman I'd met on a MOO. I won't waste anyone's time trying to build suspense: after a week, "she" of course told me "she" was a "he," and ... it was a complete mondfuck. There was no imaginary romance, no cyber sex , (that I recall 20+ years later, at least, but all conversations were on computers in university labs, so I don't think there could have been THAT much intimacy for me to retro-sanitize the experience, even if, looking back, it seems illogical) no reason it should have mattered . But, it did. It screwed with my head for quite some time oddly enough--and I was NOT a naive kid in any other realm as these women seemed to be, although I also had only ever met one person IRL who had HEARD of email at that time-- it had never even crossed my mind, at 17, that the person on the other end of the line wasn't who she, or he, said she/he was. I [A few months later (added: just checked: turns out, earlier! This was published June 93; I'm talking about oct or nov. Still, it first gained prominence later on...) out came the "on the internet no one knows you're a dog" cartoon]. But, I imagine there was the perfect storm of naïveté, cultural context, intimate topic (ie being gay; not actually being intimate), and probably a few others, some of which might be part of any old coming of age experience and most of which would be anachronistic to most people's lives and online experiences now. But, while that aspect, perhaps, mitigates, the sympathy I have for the sucker-victims who give away their life savings, or even just their quality of life, in the modern era, I can't ignore what a mindfuck it must be, if this guy, who I believe meant no ill will, whether he was playing with identity, or the potential of "cyber"presentation or even HAD meant to play with ... People, he came clean as soon as he understood the ramifications of presenting as someone fake, to someone real, because, I can only imagine (again, with 20 years of hindsight and the phenomenon of dozens of catfish under my belt; I haven't thought of this much since) it was because he wasn't a sociopath. But, still, I couldn't wrap my head around it. I still have a hard time, though, when I meet people I've "known" online, and they don't "match" what I imagined. And it's rarely about what they look like (or if they're fat or thin!),so much as whether their cadence and tone fits how *i* read their writing! (This is why I hate audiobooks and books-turned-films..) I digress, point is, I can mock--and clearly do--and I can think that someone, in a different time, over a longer time, with anvils beating them upside the head, etc, SHOILD have known better, but that doesn't change that they DIDNT, and, given that, I can only imagine how much that's gotta mess with their heads. And, sorry, I know this is pretty tl;dr, but, after joking about wanting their kinda catfish, I guess I feel like I owe them that acknowledgement, at least. Also, isn't Dr Phil embarrassed about how he and his ego and his diet book need one love seat or three seater (not sure?), while they squeezed the all of The 'Fished onto one couch ( ok, yeah, I get that was the point, but when they made the first two sit right next to each other w the rest still empty, it reminded me of crap we'd have to do for Deviant Behavior class in college), and THEN, just in case they hadn't made it clear enough with 400 semi-identical white chicks, sitting on a couch, (sing it: one fell off 'cause she's a...), and Phil on his own giant matching throne couch, they drag out NOT EVEN the damn single seater from the set when they picked em up at the sale at Rooms to Go, not even a "complementary" colored chair, which might have had its own questionable message but at least, arguably, could be that it belonged and ADDED, but, no, they gave her the chair they dragged in from the Shaker dining table, perched at a beyond awkwardly wrong angle, and in which I know *i* don't want to sit for a meal, and,well, I'm smaller than everyone on that stage, including Phil's Ego's inner child: even stripping all of the layers of intended and (I fucking hope) un intended messages of those seats: that woman could not have been comfortable in that chair. Asshole. (Phil, not her). I do like the shows that have no seat for Robyn, though.

I don't typically find humor in, well, finding humor in anything to do with mocking others' physical appearance, but, as they sure as hell aren't natural, or corrective, or ... rational (and yet didn't disappear when the drugs did, so they're not ACTUALLY a physical representation of her IRrational or altered state, as I'd previously considered them), I am viewing them as a sartorial choice, an ill-advised one, certainly, but one over which she has full power (or, if even if she is powerless, certainly the tools to choose not to use them one day at a time...) and, thus, I feel quite justified in how hard I laughed when I first even thought that I had read on my screen, nevermind how much I howled with delight when I backed my DVR right the fuck up, hit pause, and saw that, indeed, when Amber oh-so-healthily called him to see if she could get a fix of Leah to replace her longing for a drug fix, Gary's phone contact entry informed him, and us, that he had received a phone call from 6" Eye Lash Portwood

Or with not just with how they're supposed to dress, but with what they're supposed to do. Like last season. Guess she'll have to find a new trope; the whole, "Gee, maybe I shouldn't have done this/won't do it/let's call the whole thing off" bluff every other episode will be even LESS credible after she invites it all to come BACK. Maybe they'll actually cast it better. Oh, whom am I kidding? They cast it perfectly for an E! Show, just not for a D! V! F! Show. If anything, DivaF will be lucky to do as well wrt her options this time around; especially now that they've seen that there are "conscession" prize jobs that, for some applicants, may outweigh becoming the DiVaF Grand Nacho Supreme, there'll be all sortsa games being played. And I cannot wait. I never dared to dream there'd be another season; I just filed this one in the bin with Gallery Girls, Long Island Princesses or whatever, Ralph Lauren's Daughter and Her Less-Attaractive-But-More-Capable Friend's Hour of Nepotism and Burritos, etc., that would only ever give me one season of that special kind of joy that, in turn, yields too much shame to admit to anyone IRL that I'm aware of it, let alone count down the minutes until I can watch it each week. Thank you, Teevee Gods. Of all the prayers I've made to you, it's an odd one to pick, but I'll take it: the Teevee lords do work in mysterious ways.