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THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER EIGHT -- HOW OLD ARE YOU NOW?

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER EIGHT -- HOW OLD ARE YOU NOW?

On the night of Stassi's birth, all of the angels in the heavens gathered together every bit of sweetness and light they could find in the universe to form one perfect little girl – but then she left and we got Stassi. And tonight Stassi is multitasking like a champ, proving herself able to simultaneously pack a suitcase while plotting the destruction of whichever person’s name she picked out of a hat this week. Listen, I get why she hates Lala.  They have zero history together, Lala has been nasty to Katie, and – while all of these people are somewhat shady – Lala’s shadiness is so massive that you can’t actually make out colors when you’re in her presence.  (I feel terrible saying such mean things about Lala, but I think we’ll work it out after she offers to finger me.) Still, while I understand Stassi’s raging animosity in that scenario, I can’t quite get behind her burgeoning hatred towards Scheana.  Her immaturity has finally done the impossible:  it’s made me like Scheana – and now I’m concerned about what could happen next.  Allow me just to say this: if something transpires on this episode that causes me to type the sentence, “James is terribly misunderstood and he’s the finest artist of this or any other time,” I will have to stop recapping this show altogether because I will have blown up my television set. 

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER SEVEN -- A COVEN OF ASSHOLES

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER SEVEN -- A COVEN OF ASSHOLES

My friends, it has been one frenetic week in the muck-filled swamp that is Vanderland. Not only did we finally catch a glimpse of what's been hiding within the confines of Sandoval's ponytail. Not only did Kristen do an interview with New York magazine where she arrived with two – yes, two – publicists and a gigantic bloody knot in the center of her forehead that she got courtesy of walking directly into a glass door (it was so Ariana's fault), but Lala also very publicly announced that she’d left this show and all of the unfortunate looking people on it for good. 

It's a fucking Christmas miracle.

While Lala’s tumultuous exit has yet to play out on the show, girlfriend (and the publicists her mother and her boyfriend pay for) have made sure to turn her upcoming farewell into as close a media frenzy as one can possibly be when more than half the population of this great nation has no idea who this person even is.  But let’s give credit when credit is due, yes?  After all, Lala has made sure to capitalize on the very feminist action of quitting a Bravo reality show where she liked to talk about her dome-sucking prowess in between calling other women fat by doing interview after interview with such illustrious outlets as The Inquisitr and TooFab.com.  And in these hard-hitting interviews, she made sure to imply that she was certainly not shutting the door on reality TV forever, but there would need to be some clear stipulations in place before she would deign to act like a monster onscreen again. “If someone were to come to me tomorrow and say we want to give you your own show or we want to put you on a show where people are on your same level as far as talent and looks and everything else goes, then I would do both of those,” Lala explained.  That’s right: according to Lala – a girl who became known not for her singing or for her acting but instead for being a hostess at a restaurant in Los Angeles where the ceiling is lined with klieg lights – the biggest problem she had with Vanderpump Rules was that her costars weren’t talented or hot.

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER SIX -- LEGITIMATE STAKES

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER SIX -- LEGITIMATE STAKES

I was talking with some guy I know a few days ago and since we can’t possibly spend all our time disagreeing over whether or not Donald Trump is a demonic entity created by scientists strung out on PCP in a frigid laboratory in the wilds of Siberia who were tasked with birthing something that would one day bring about the total extermination of civilized society, we eventually moved on to the topic of Vanderpump Rules.  (For the record, I think my Siberian laboratory theory makes quite a bit of sense.  It certainly makes more sense than a president-elect waving away intelligence briefings because he’s decided that he’s already smart.) Anyway, the gist of the conversation I had with this person was about how long Vanderpump Rules could possibly stay on the air with this particular cast and I laughed hard when he asked me this question and then replied that I was relatively certain the only way some of these people would ever leave this show would be in a straightjacket or in a body bag. 

I get what he’s saying, though.  I understand when he wonders aloud about how many more lies about dick-sucking Lala can possibly tell and how many more pairs of sunglasses Jax can potentially steal and how many more ways James can act like a half-witted troglodyte who’s been stricken with scurvy.  Surely, this guy posited to me, viewers will eventually stop tuning in to watch the same idiots doing the same idiotic things – and, he added, wouldn’t this cast want to walk away from this reality television purgatory at some point?  It was that last question I spent some time considering, even before I saw a link to an interview some very brave person did with Kristen in which she revealed how she would love to be on this show for at least five more years.  Stop and think about that for a second.  Kristen has already been on this show for five seasons and she’d like to go ahead and double that time and she seems to have absolutely no hesitation about remaining on a program that has already gleefully captured her doing the following:

·      Admitting she slept with Jax (Sandoval’s best friend) while her boyfriend (that would be Sandoval) slumbered peacefully in the next room, totally unaware that his best friend and his girlfriend were boning on the couch.  Oh, and Jax was Stassi’s boyfriend at the time – and Stassi was one of Kristen’s dearest friends.

·      Upon finally coming clean with Stassi that she indeed nailed her boyfriend – the same awesome guy who screamed “You came three times!” at her while they all stood in a crowded bar – Kristen got backhanded hard across the face in public and on camera.  At least Stassi’s a necklace kind of girl.  Had she been wearing statement rings, Kristen would’ve been sliced in three. 

·      Once Sandoval finally harnessed the good judgment that allowed him to cut the bonkers-crazy woman from his life, he chose to move on with Ariana.  Did Kristen accept his choice with anything resembling dignity? No, my friends, Kristen is allergic to dignity because someone once told her it has gluten in it so she instead all but drew maps showing the exact location of where she would eventually bury Ariana’s body. She begged to go on vacations with people who hate her.  She flew in some random chick from Miami who claimed she hooked up with Sandoval while he was in a relationship with Ariana and then she brought the girl into SUR and sat back to watch the carnage she so jubilantly created.  She probably slept atop a pillowcase that was covered with some of Sandoval’s petrified semen.  She showed up at her old apartment where Sandoval still lives to “pick up her mail” while outfitted in some plunging halter dress that was the color of emerald green desperation.

·      Not having inflicted nearly enough harm upon society with her own bullshit machinations, she then brought James into our lives because the lunatic living near her cerebral cortex once whispered late at night that nothing says “perfect rebound guy” like some scrawny loser who tells himself hourly how special he is because he knows deep down nobody else will ever say it to him for as long as he lives.

·      She fucked James on the hood of a car after he called her a whore and spit a gigantic ball of phlegm on her front door.

·      She finally got herself fired from SUR after recommending that one of her managers go suck a dick.

·      She apparently keeps a fake engagement ring in one of her dresser drawers at all times.

Can you even imagine what the next five years will involve?  (Just so we’re clear, anyone who has their money on a séance that ends with rivulets of blood dribbling out of Ariana’s eyes while a raven wearing a romper crawls out of a cauldron and nestles itself against Kristen’s bony shoulder needs to get in line.  I made the call first, motherfucker.)

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER FIVE -- SUCKING DOME FOR CASH & PRIZES

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER FIVE -- SUCKING DOME FOR CASH & PRIZES

We're already five weeks into this season of Vanderpump Rules and I think we can all agree that watching this show is nothing short of an edifying experience. Sure, it’s possible that you have to view it while being somewhat high in order to suss out all the hidden messages revealed so very subtly by the show’s pretend stars, but as someone who happens to be just a little bit high, I can personally attest to the fact that I have learned a great deal of important life lessons in this last month alone from a group of people who are not just servers, bartenders, and horribly flawed human beings; they are teachers, too, dammit.

In no particular order of importance (because every last one of these lessons is as essential as a fucking proverb), here is what I have internalized in only thirty days’ time:

·      While I have been a bridesmaid several times, I very clearly now realize that not one of those brides ever truly cared about me.  Never once was I asked to be in a wedding party courtesy of some inflatable craft project! And don’t even get me started about the way my “dear” friends didn’t even consider shoving protein up their coochies before serving it to me as part of a meal.  What, I ask, were all of my years of loyalty even for? 

·      When it comes to power rankings, things have shifted seismically.  It used to be that Presidents of Production and CAA agents and venture capitalists once ran things around Los Angeles, but times have changed.  These days, nothing has more clout than being a DJ in a mediocre restaurant.  Also, simply holding earphones against your scalp means you’re a rock star.  (Important caveat to consider here: In order to buy this theory, you must be a fucking moron.)

·      Don’t worry if your controlling and blatantly judgmental behavior once caused your entire gaggle of friends to slice you out of their lives like you were a walking melanoma.  Not only will your banishment not last forever, but once you scuttle and slither your way back in, you will eventually get to dictate who is allowed to remain in the group!  (Important caveat #2:  Such a rule can only be put into effect if your entire group of friends still behaves like the kind of middle school girls MTV would happily create a show around.)

·      When you’re out at a bar and you want to get – and keep – a man’s attention, start quoting lines from Caddyshack.  (I realize this little suggestion has nothing whatsoever to do with Vanderpump Rules, but as it does fall under the umbrella of important life lessons I’ve learned since this season began, I’ve decided it counts.)  Anyway, if the guy in front of you is sort of cute, feel free to mention something about gophers and it’s almost a guarantee that he’ll lean in.  But if the guy is full of scruff and hot as balls and you’ve already swallowed some vodka that was served to you in a science beaker instead of a regular glass, just own it and tell him, “It’s in the hole.”  (You’re welcome in advance for the breakfast you will not have to pay for the following morning.) 

·      Back to what we have learned about life from the Vanderpumpers:  Camouflage is very important when you feel exposed and that’s probably why every single time Lala makes yet another enemy, she reacts by piling on even more makeup.  I mean, you can practically chisel into her skin by now. If she ever fully loses James, my guess is the chick will start wearing prosthetic noses and chins.

·      Kristen can appear relatively sane so long as she’s sitting beside a bride positively riddled with rage issues, potential alcoholism, a completely petrified fiancé, and a very tragic nose ring.  In fact, Kristen should probably only go places with Katie from this point forward because she’s looking almost lucid in comparison. 

·      There’s an excellent chance that if you announce early in the season that you and your newly-sober husband are happier than ever and that you arrived together at a party by riding a unicorn over a rainbow of bliss, you will also probably be announcing your divorce before even half the episodes of the season have aired.  This, you see, is the reality TV equivalent of Chekhov’s theory about waving around a gun around in Act I. Just like that gun’s bound to go off before the final curtain descends, the marriage in question is bound to implode sooner rather than later – and we all knew it would happen, even before Scheana gave TMZ an exclusive quote.

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER FOUR -- HEY JEALOUSY

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER FOUR -- HEY JEALOUSY

I realize there are a bunch of people who are tremendously busy right now counting the millions of votes that were apparently cast by illegal immigrants who are in fact so magical that they don’t even exist outside of the confines of our President-elect’s deranged mind, but when those recounts are finally complete, I have another quick assignment I’d like this detail-oriented group to perform.  I’m not all that savvy when it comes to knowing things about geography, but I’m hoping it won’t be too inconvenient for a couple of them to hop from Wisconsin over to California and find some definitive answers that can be backed up with empirical data to finally explain the reason for James Kennedy’s very existence on this already-suffering planet.  Seriously, I want to see graphs and shaded charts as part of the explanation process because otherwise it will be very hard for me to believe that this idiot wasn’t created in a laboratory by a group of reality television producers who were coming down from a night filled with strippers and blow and accidentally engaged in an experiment that sadly went fucking berserk.

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER THREE -- THE CURIOUS CASE OF SCHEANA SHAY

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER THREE -- THE CURIOUS CASE OF SCHEANA SHAY

An article appeared on US Weekly’s website this weekend entitled, Scheana Shay:  25 Things You Don’t Know About Me.  Someone posted a link to it on Twitter along with the words, “#1: WHO SHE IS” and I laughed and briefly mourned a life that might have been mine had I not allowed myself to be seduced by Bravo, the most beckoning and alluring of all the cable sirens.   I clicked on the article and learned the scintillating information that Scheana has a birthmark on the iris of one of her eyes and that she loves tacos, but what wasn’t explored in that kind of banal list format was anything about who this girl actually is or what it is that she really longs for in life.  Yes, I will go ahead and agree right now with those of you who are screaming, “She wants FAME, dummy!” at your computer screens because nobody would go on one of these shows if he or she didn’t crave attention and I think we can all definitively say that Scheana was one of those people who stared hard at herself in the mirror every night back when she was in high school and wondered if just being pretty would lead to people across the globe knowing her name or if she’d actually have to work really hard and develop some sort of a talent.  Luckily for her, she came of age during an era in which talent hardly even matters anymore.

NO REGRETS

NO REGRETS

During my early twenties, I went through what I now like to call my I-prefer-that-he-appear-homeless phase when it came to men.  It was purely an aesthetic thing.  After all, I wanted whatever guy I invited home to actually be gainfully employed and I definitely wanted him to have a home of his own to head back to once I was finished with him – I’m just a girl who likes herself some solitude.  But when it came to what turned my head in a dark Manhattan bar, it was always the same:  longish hair, sexy scruff, a tissue-thin cotton tee that I figured I’d end up sleeping in one night very soon, at least one tattoo that wasn’t some bullshit tribal vine wrapped around his bicep, and a hint of spicy cologne that smelled like mystery basted in swagger.  Only once did a man wearing a suit and tie cause me to stop and gape like someone who was tragically born without the ability to stop drooling, but that rather undignified moment did not occur at a bar.  No, that guy was a Secret Service Agent who used to show up at Yankee games when George Pataki was Governor.  This stunning male specimen would stand in the aisle behind home plate while Pataki and Giuliani chowed down on hotdogs. (This was back during those days when New Yorkers cheered Giuliani’s presence instead of wondering about which year it must’ve been that the man lost his entire mind and started ranting and raving on Sunday morning talk shows.) I sat right near them – I was blessed with a stepfather who has really good seats for Yankee games – and whenever that Secret Service guy was around, I could not take my eyes off him.  I have literally no idea what happened during the games he attended because I never so much as glanced at the field.  In fact, I easily could have been knocked out cold by a fly ball on any one of those crisp autumn nights because I paid attention to nobody and nothing except for him, though I did once consider that if such an accident were to transpire, perhaps he’d rush over and give me mouth-to-mouth like he was taught in Secret Service School.  (That’s a thing, right?)  I even started praying for out of control foul balls to pummel me right in the temple since it started to seem that being struck unconscious might be my only hope of this man ever sliding his lips on top of mine.   

Then came one particularly memorable evening when I looked over at my pretend boyfriend who was wearing an expensive suit that nicely concealed his loaded weapon and he smiled right at me and sort of raised his eyebrows and nodded in a greeting.  I flashed my dimples back at him, but in the next instant I felt all possibility drain away. Since he could hardly walk away from the public figure he was hired to protect and nobody was allowed to get anywhere near them without the right sort of clearance, I realized that unless I attempted to assassinate his boss, I’d never get to actually meet this guy. As one of the many differences that will always exist between Squeaky Fromme and myself is that I will never be the assassination type – and I don’t have red hair or worship a crazed guru – I realized with a tragic thud that this was a relationship that could never even begin.  When his term was over, Pataki wasn’t the Governor anymore and he didn’t show up at Yankee games and I never saw the gorgeous guy ever again.  Quick question though:  is there maybe a summer camp for former Secret Service Agents where they show off their knot-tying skills and spend afternoons crafting one another friendship bracelets made out of lanyards and wile away the evenings making s’mores beside a roaring campfire as they trade gossip about who was the biggest pain in the ass to protect?  Because, if so, I’d like to be Head Counselor.

I do apologize for that little memory-induced digression, but I haven’t thought about that guy in a long while and now I feel positively fuzzy inside.  My point, however, is that I typically only went for guys back then who looked dirty.  My vetting process stayed consistent for a very long time, until a bunch of years later when an extremely pretty man caused me to do an emotional double-take.  But back in the days when filth ruled, one guy I was briefly smitten with seemed like he might be a real contender.  He had long hair (blonde – not usually my thing) and his face looked like it would be scratchy to kiss.  He always wore jeans and a tee, loved good music, spoke Sarcasm as fluidly as he did English, worked as an editor, smoked like a chimney, enjoyed stroking my hair whenever we were next to one another in a bar or in an alley, and had a tattoo that read “No Regrets” brandished across his chest in huge black letters.  And it was that tattoo that sort of moved me beyond that type of man.  It was that exact tattoo that made me wonder if I could maybe train my brain to begin to feel attracted to something else.  It was that very tattoo that caused me to call my friend Nicole late one night when it was very dark and I could see no hint of the stars and whisper to her, “I just don’t think I am supposed to live a life where ‘No Regrets’ wanders through my kitchen first thing in the morning to get some coffee.”  I knew: it was time to make some different choices.

I bring all of this up because I’ve thought a lot recently about people who proudly proclaim that they have no regrets coloring their lives or taunting them in their dreams.  It’s a hard thing for me to believe is possible. I have several huge regrets and most of them involve hurting someone I love or allowing myself to be hurt by someone I shouldn’t have loved.  While none of these regrets haunt me constantly, in my lowest and dreariest moments, I do wonder about their impact on both my mind and my soul. I am able to realize that it’s hardships that trigger growth and I can say with certainty that making some of those questionable decisions shoved me onto a journey where I learned some gut-wrenching but important lessons about life and men and the resilience of the human spirit, but it wasn’t like any of those lessons were fun to learn.  It wasn’t as though admitting that I had a regret (or twelve) brought me any sort of immediate comfort, but I’d never even consider not admitting that my regrets exist.    

Knowing him the way I did back then, my longhaired former crush probably earned the right to emblazon those words across his skin in indelible black ink. In the time we spent together, he was brutally honest – with himself and with others – and he also gave really good massages, which I know shouldn’t really figure into this in any real manner, but they were just that impressive.  Still, though I was able to believe that his tattooed motto was both reflective of his past and a warning about how we wanted to live his present and his future, we eventually drifted apart, a choice I’m certain has caused neither of us any regret.  He hasn’t passed through my thoughts in a lot of years, but I couldn’t help thinking about him during part two of The Real Housewives of Orange County Reunion because I think Kelly Dodd should leave that set where women who hate her sit on overstuffed couches and drive directly to a tattoo parlor and get “No Regrets” inked straight across her Botoxed forehead. This woman (who causes me to feel spiking levels of hatred whenever her grotesque smirk appears in high-definition on my television screen) spent her inaugural season insulting her coworkers viciously and constantly, yet she still idiotically maintains that she has zero regrets for any of her psychotic behavior.  She wouldn’t redo any of it!  She would happily inform Shannon that she’s ugly one more time!  She would love to call Heather “an interloper” yet again just so she can prove that she can pronounce words with more than three syllables!  She would definitely not walk back on the choice of appointing Vicki Gunvalson her Life Coach because who better to guide one fucking asshole than another fucking asshole? No, Kelly has absolutely no regrets for anything and if anybody so much as attempts to suggest that perhaps she should, she will just smear on some more lip gloss and take yet another shot of tequila and mumble that anyone saying such a thing is doing so out of pure envy because Kelly is a fucking idiot who sold her depleted sanity to Bravo and I have no doubt that she will be back next season because it’s the crazy ones who tend to get the raises. I will say this, though:  I hope that one day in the very near future Andy Cohen feels a pang of regret for thrusting another preening narcissist with no self-awareness upon us during an election season that has already felt like an exercise in abject fucking misery.

The Reunion finally concludes tonight and I feel the need to announce that if Vicki is hired back for next season, my recaps of this show will be concluding as well.  I just can’t expose myself to such a horrible person and her barely lucid sidekick anymore, not when I can better spend my time tracking down my Secret Service Agent who will surely enjoy spending his Monday nights feeding me ripe strawberries while inquiring as to which Real Housewife I’d like for him to destroy first.  As I enjoy being accommodating, I’ll give him a list with the names Vicki, Kelly, Kim, Brandi, and Luann on it and allow him to plot against them at his leisure.  But since it’s not currently strawberry season, let’s instead settle in and discuss how this shitshow finally ends, okay?

 

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER TWO -- THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER TWO -- THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD

When I was a little girl, one of my favorite bedtime stories was It Could Always Be Worse.  Basically a cautionary tale to prevent children from morphing into fatalistic assholes after suffering a minor setback, the story reiterated again and again that no matter how tragic things appear in the moment, one must consider the blessings that still exist and remain aware that the sky could always open up and toxic rain could fall upon us like unceasing tears so we’d better embrace the positives in life as often as possible.  Looking back, I realize that my parents were attempting to teach me the art of looking at misery through a lens of optimism, but now I think perhaps they would have served me better had they just whipped out their divorce papers and read me details about custody arrangements as I drifted off into a REM cycle.  While my sleep might have been less restful than that of the average five year old, perhaps the knowledge that sometimes it can’t get any worse would have better equipped me for my eventual exposure to people like James and Jax and Lala, human beings who manage to surprise me in the very worst ways each and every time they appear on my television screen.

As I’ve been raised to look at the bright side, allow me to say that the first episode of the season contained some minor evidence that these idiots have finally made the tough choice to periodically exercise some restraint when it comes to their capacity for terribleness.  Sure, James and Lala pointed at Katie in public and then announced that she’s fat, but I guess they could have just shot her.  And fine, Jax is the one going around starting rumors that his own girlfriend enjoys chomping box during her drunkest hours, but he could have convinced her to leave her entire life behind in Kentucky and move to Los Angeles and get a job at a restaurant you have to sign a release to enter and become friends with people like Kristen and…yeah, I can’t pull this one off.  Being with Jax has to suck entirely. But at least I attempted to look on the sunny side.  Unfortunately, I was not able to fully see those beams of brightness because I got sidetracked by the sight of James curled up in a fetal position because he’s in his twenties and his parents are getting a divorce. Thank goodness for Lala and the Range Rover her married boyfriend gifted her for no reason other than the fact that she is the most fun bitch on this or any other planet.  Gifts like that with no strings attached to them whatsoever show us there is still some good left in this world.

THE BLAME-DISAVOWING WALKING NIGHT TERRORS OF THE OC NEED TO BE VETOED IMMEDIATELY

THE BLAME-DISAVOWING WALKING NIGHT TERRORS OF THE OC NEED TO BE VETOED IMMEDIATELY

…Old English Sheepdogs, frozen Twix bars, fluffy chenille blankets, coconut-scented lotion, Tom Ford’s face, the stillness after a snowfall… Oh, sorry – I was daydreaming again.  See, since the abject horror of last week’s election (my recap, my opinion!), I have been attempting to soothe my ravaged psyche by reminding myself constantly of everything in this world that makes me feel instantaneously happy. Other things that have popped up on my Bliss List over the last few days include snuggling in the crook of the right person’s arm, the smell of a smoldering fireplace in the winter, that first cup of strong coffee on a Sunday morning, my puppy actually fucking sitting when I ask her to sit, and stumbling across a marathon of Veep.  What has not appeared on the list of things that keep me from hopping off the nearest tall building is anything even slightly related to Donald Trump or reality TV in general because I’ve begun to believe that these “stars” so many of us have giggled at or discounted for so long could very well have a rather large hand in ushering in the total denigration of civilization as we know it.

I have been guilty, too. After all, I write about – and therefore somehow glorify – reality television.  For about two years now, I have recapped some of Bravo’s silliest franchises while marveling at how poorly behaved grown adults are willing to be all in the name of infamy.  I have watched participants of these shows amass great wealth and so fully embrace the recognition they get when they walk into a boutique that they have convinced themselves that it’s a reasonable tradeoff to expose their lives to the world even though they have no say whatsoever in how any of that footage will eventually be edited and then exhibited.  I have been able to convince myself – almost – that there is no real power inherent in being a part of reality TV, but I’m just not so sure I can make that case anymore. I think part of what swayed me is that I recently saw an interview with someone none of us ever should have even heard from again after her brief rage-filled stint on The Apprentice all those years ago.  Remember Omarosa?  She was the lunatic who all but bit her competitors when she appeared on Trump’s show back when all of us watched it.  She was so nuts that producers didn’t even think of cutting her for a very long time because the carts of crazy she hauled around were the kind of thing networks tend to see as ratings gold – and we have all been complicit in completely validating that belief at some point over the last decade.  I hadn’t heard about Omarosa for a while and I just figured that meant she had finally been locked inside of some asylum, but I was very wrong.  Turns out, she was appointed Donald Trump’s Director of African American Outreach during the election, a job that must have involved smiling at herself in the mirror and maybe eventually shaking the hand of the guy who was pointed out to the crowd by the eventual President-Elect himself.  “Look at my African American over here!” Donald Trump actually crowed during a speech in Redding, California.  But Omarosa did way more than get one guy to a rally.  She also did a few interviews on behalf of the man whose show once made her appear completely unstable to the masses and I can’t really say that any latent sanity trapped within her became evident when she made these comments about her new boss:  “Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump. It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.” 

Allow me to be clear here: I would rather kneel before General fucking Zod than Donald Trump.  I’d sooner kneel in front of that guy I had one date with a few years ago who announced over appetizers that he didn’t shower before the date because he enjoyed having “a natural scent.”  (Our relationship didn’t make it beyond one drink; I enjoy things that don’t reek of testicle.)  I’d be more inclined to get on my knees in front of that hot CPA who recommends creepy Irish horror movies to me – though I think I’m getting off on a tangent here because I will totally end up on my knees with that guy and that’s really not the argument I’m attempting to make.  What I am trying to say is that announcing that anyone who publicly disavowed this man will now have to bow before him is the kind of statement that is so truly frightening in its embrace of blind power and, at this point, I’m not sure we should pretend that giving people like Omarosa or Vicki Gunvalson airtime is no longer any sort of big deal.  What I do believe in my heart of hearts is that Vicki Gunvalson is an awful human being and the world is a more repulsive place because she has been on our airwaves for eleven straight years.  But even after all the times I rolled my eyes at the way she pantomimed the crucifixion or announced the deepest darkest secrets ever told to her by a friend drowning in vulnerability, I still don’t think I realized how potentially far-reaching her hideousness can go. I now think someone like Vicki is inherently dangerous to the fabric of decency that’s already fraying in our society. This is a woman who has only shards of a soul left and she would happily sell any remnants to secure herself yet another season on this series where she would like to stay until she dies. (Then she wants to go to heaven so she can finally be reunited with a man who lied about having cancer.)  In the meantime, she might not become a member of Trump’s administration – though maybe we should just give it time – but I am rather terrified she will appear on some ballot in the very near future. And though I’ve never been one to threaten to move to Canada should an election cycle not go my way, I do hear the atmosphere on Mars is lovely and almost livable this time of year and I’m considering checking it out.

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER 1 -- FAT SHAMING THE BRIDE

THE VANDERPUMP RULES SAGA: CHAPTER 1 -- FAT SHAMING THE BRIDE

We really can’t blame the Mayans.  Back in those stark pre-Google/pre-proper hygiene days, they predicted the world would implode in 2012 and then they chiseled that prophecy on cave walls – or at least I figure they chiseled that shit, but I don’t really know for sure since I often cut Social Studies in high school and I think the unit on the Mayans might have been covered on one of the days I chose to go hang out in someone’s basement.  Anyway, my point is that they could not possibly have known back then what would go down during forty-eight hours in November of 2016.  Had they known, perhaps they would have pushed the expiration date of our universe forward four years.  But how could those sweet Mayans even have imagined that there would be two sequential days in late autumn that would singlehandedly illustrate the potential and total collapse of rational society as we know it?  How could they have even fathomed that on the second of those days there would be an election held in which a lifelong politician swathed in the scent of corruption would battle it out against a blustering-sexist-racist-non-taxes-releasing-blame-the-media-unless-that-media-is-covered-by-Alex-Jones-xenophobic monster?  In what universe that makes any sort of sense would the Mayans have predicted that the race would actually be close?  And even if they could have seen all the way into our terribly bleak present, could even the most cynical of all the Mayans ever have guessed that on the evening before this toxic waste dump of an election took place the newest season of Vanderpump Rules would premiere?