Thursday, August 4, 2011

An End to the Manhattan Madness

Well, now that I’ve popped a xanax and taken a shot of pinot grigio, I think my nerves have calmed enough to where I can write a final blurp on these insufferable harpies.  I’m going to summarize per cast member.
Cindy:  You seem fairly vile, what gives?  You claim to be happy and content in life, but then you throw in zingers like, “What are you a lap dog?” and “Neither does sucking on a golden dick”.  I’m sure Sonja is relieved you are not crediting her with your level of etiquette, my gawd.  This season I found you unlikeable and oddly defensive.  First of all, the hanger situation was out of control.  Get more hangers, and don’t be such a freakin’ toddler about everything.  Also, when I get to a party I generally head to the drink table first.  This is so I can have my pretty drink in plastic hand as I mingle.  If you tell me you’ll have a certain drink (the only drink I consume) and decline my offer to bring some myself, then I expect you to have that drink.  Would I have a hissy fit about it?  Nope, sure wouldn’t, but if I were in your place I would have been more understanding of my guest as YOU too had a hissy fit about the whole ridiculous matter.  I wonder what makes you so snarky and defensive.  It seems to me that you are not as happy as you want people to think.  I commend you on your success though.  I hope you get more accustomed to being around your offspring soon.  I hope your brother broke up with that man-chick who gives out her dead boyfriend’s stuff.  I’d like to say more nice stuff, but I have to take this really important conference call.  Shhhhh…
Kelly:  You are so cray.  Like, you’re certifiable.  Who’s going to make you realize you’re nutso, Santa?  You seem like you could be a nice person when all your meds are lined up properly, but evidently that never happens.  It’s interesting that Cosmo voted you one of the top 5 nicest people in the world.  I wonder who else was on that list.  I picture it goes something like:
1.       Kim Kardashian
2.       Casey Anthony
3.       Mike Tyson
4.       Charlie Sheen
5.       Kelly Killoren Bensimon

I really liked your teal pumps, those were hot.  But mostly you just make my little plastic head want to explode.  Close your eyes.  Open them.  Now close them again.  Now stop breathing.
Alex:  Honey, please calm down.  You have an issue with getting your point across efficiently when you’re flustered, though I understand with all the clucking it’s hard to get a word in edgewise.  It’s really not ok for your husband to yell at your friends.  If Ken yelled at one of my friends in her face I would be on him like Mattel on copyright laws.  I agree with you that LuAnn is condescending.  I agree with you that Jill is not to be trusted.  Other than that, you need to regain your control and sense of humor.  SO WHAT if someone says your Louis Vuitton shoes are “Herman Munster” shoes??  Embrace your questionable fashion sense and consider a spray tan to hide the hives (that’s my secret).
Sidebar:  These women are ALL trying to be snarky and funny and make little jokes here and there because it’s TV and if they didn’t they’d be out of a job (which apparently they all need real bad).  That’s what I couldn’t understand about this reunion.  The things they were getting mad about were the pettiest, knit-pickiest things.  WHO CAYES if someone wanted a drink when they got to your party???  WHO CAYES if someone is saving a seat when someone asked them to??  WHO CAYES if someone doesn’t want to have a goddamn one-on-one meeting with your husband to talk about feelings (again, WTF)???  Television has obviously ruined these women.  They have to have these conflicts to remain relevant.  Their egos have to prove their wealth and status (what’s with Jill saying Alex is at a party with people above her????  WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU JILL ZARIN?  YOUR HUSBAND OWNS A FABRIC STORE!!!!)  But I digress…
LuAnn:  OH LuAnn, you upset me deeply.  I used to adore you.  I actually liked you in the reunion; you were a part of the mess, but not as bad as some.  This season you were bossy, tried to call the shots, you blindly followed Jill as per the usge, you acted haughty and then denied it, and you kept making these horrible music videos.  But you did laugh at yourself, you did admit when one of your clique was in the wrong (Cindy, in what realm of reality would it be appropriate to take that conference call at Sonja’s breakfast table and then “shh” her in her own home???).  Also, Ramona shouldn’t have outed your daughter about changing schools four times.  Avery has never had to go through her parents divorcing, and as you said you would never wish that one anyone.  You have your French man to make you feel all sophisticated and luurvy-duurvy now so that’s great.  You were still a raging bitch in most episodes.  But whatever, you’re not as bad as Jill.  Now please stop saying Yahabeebee before one of us offs ourselves.
Ramona:  Ramona, Ramona, Ramona.  Queen of Pinot Grigio, Duchess of Word Vomit.  Your eyes tell the story of your soul.  So you like to have some fun, so what?  I’m going to let you in on a little factoid:  The second “A” in “AA” stands for “Anonymous”.  Now, that being said, I agree that the Brunettes tried to make it look like your beloved Mario is cheating on you after eighteen (count ‘em folks) years of marriage.  And LuAnn saying she was not trying to insinuate that is a classy load of bullshit.  Hell, Jill came out and said Mario’s cheating on you and she thinks you have a drinking problem!  Them’s fightin’ words, I agree.  I’d like to say that you and Sonja were the only silver lining on what was, let’s face it, a cold and blinding rainstorm of shit of a season.  May your pinot sell and your skin stay taught, and may you insist upon late-in-life pregnancy instead of menopause until your death at age one hundred and ten.
Sonja:  What were you on in the beginning of the season, and how much does it cost per pill?  In all seriousness, you were missing clothes, missing phones that you found in the toilet, and rambling incoherently.  But gawd love ya.  Shirtless Brian?  We all need a little more Shirtless Brian in our lives.  And your positive attitude is contagious.  You don’t have any real beef with anyone on the cast except Cindy, and she doesn’t count because she’s a mean wax-nazi.  So you flashed your vagae at Kelly, somebody had to do it!  So you cook in a toaster oven and shot a book cover for a book that doesn’t exist, you like having pictures taken of yourself.  So you showed us your bare naked nearly fifty year old bootay at least three times this season, you love to laugh!  Don’t worry about that bankruptcy stuff, we’re not judging you.  You keep making your toaster oven dinners for King Charles of Monacco and tell Chris Martin I said heyyyyy gurl.
Jill:  I saved you for last.  Your behavior is repulsive.  You sit there and call people effing bitches, yet have the audacity to be offended that they don’t trust you after you’ve attacked them and their families in the press?  You said that people were at parties with people who were “above them”.  You said that someone’s husband is cheating on them but you couldn’t believe that person called you a liar.  You accuse others of lying and demand proof of their claims even though you don’t hold yourself to the same standard.  You say, “I’m done,” but you never are.  You severed your relationship with Bethenny for the show and then tried to blame other people for your actions (your actions we witnessed ourselves).  You clearly cannot take responsibility for your words or actions though you love to claim that you do.  You’re nice!  You’re sweet!  You’re kind!  You must be on the same nice list as Kelly.  TV has clearly ruined you.  Good thing you’re done.  No really, this time you’re done.
If this blog depressed you all, I apologize.  I was depressed writing it.  This whole season was depressing and pathetic.  I have good news though.  I don’t know if you have read this yet, but the people spoke and Andy Cohen heard.  There are zero contracts out to any of the NY housewives at this point.  Fans are demanding a recast or threatening to boycott.  Next season of NY should have a whole new crop of gals, and I for one am excited to meet them.
In much more fabulous news, the RH of Beverly Hills Trailer is out!  Watch it, it’s amazing.  The season starts on September 5th, ahhh be still my heart.  Until then, I’ll revisit New Jersey to keep you up to speed on the Garden State.  Now let’s all take a deep relaxing inhale and exhale and a sip of our pinot grigio as we bid farewell to the hot mess that was Real Housewives of New York Season 4.
XO,
Barbs


Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Finale, and I’m Not Talking about Menopause

OH my lovelies!  Are you happy?  Sad?  Relieved?  Confused?  It is the end of another monstrosity so let us begin…
Thank GAWD this is the end because if I have to hear the Countess’s rendition of singing one more time I’m going to vom.  Aaron Carter and the lead singer of Rascal Flatts had a love child and he is LuAnn’s producer.  Together they murdered art in the form of music-genocide by creating “Chic c’est La Vie” and “Money Can’t Buy you Class (Or Vocal Chords)”.  It’s basically a rich lady rap which is so, so many different kinds of wrong.  Anywhoo, here we have them synching up on the project blowing smoke back and forth, forth and back.  Until in walks Natalie Cole!  What on Jim-God’s sweet beautiful green Earth is Natalie Cole doing in this joke?  Is she the punch line??  I thought LuAnn was the punch line!  Or the producer who looks like someone Audrina Patridge would date, but Natalie??  Oh Natalie.  Some where there’s a Nat King rolling over in his grave crying beautifully on pitch.
LuAnn is excited about Natalie being there and knowing who she is.  I have the exact opposite reaction; I’m disillusioned and disappointed that Natalie knows who she is.  LuAnn is so excited she asks Natalie if she might attend her one year DATING anniversary party, like tomorrow night, and Natalie actually accepts!  Then she says she’ll SING at it!  Then she says she’ll sing with LuAnn!!!  I smell a script here folks…something is not authentic about this scene.
Ramona and Mario throw a dinner party and invite Alex, Simon, Sonja, and Shirtless Brian.  Alex and Simon arrive first and somehow the two couples get on the subject of having more kids, or at least Ramona having more kids.  That’s right, the fifty-four year old Pinot-loving Ramonacoaster wants another child.  Hmm.  Well it makes sense really because apparently Avery has wanted a little sister or brother since she was like two so it took Ramona only fourteen years to consider it.  But now she really wants one.  Mario…not so much. 
To make an awkward conversation more awkward, Avery joins in and starts talking about how Ramona still gets her period.  In fact, Ramona says that the reason she looks so young and wrinkleless is because she still gets a monthly visit from Aunt Flo.  Thank you for that Avery, if I wake up screaming I’ll know what it was I was reliving.  As will Simon.
Sonja and Brian get there and Brian’s wearing a shirt.  Not cool Brian.  They all sit down for a lovely meal.  Alex’s phone rings and she excuses herself from the table to take the call with a thousand apologies.  You know, the way you should excuse yourself from a meal when your phone rings.  You wouldn’t take the call and blabber on and then shhh the person who had invited you over unless you were Cindy.  It was LuAnn inviting Alex to her anniversary soiree regardless of their recent past.  Alex has never met an invite she didn’t like.
Alrighty, so after all the dinner talk about Ramona having not had another baby and wishing she did and wondering and hoping and thinking she visits Sonja’s house with a bit of a bomb.  She’s late and her boobs are enormous.  Now you ladies out there know that when your boobs grow two cup sizes and you’re checking every bathroom break wondering, “Where are youuuuuu?” it’s a sign.  Whether or not it’s a good sign differs with each case.  Ramona tells Sonja she could be pregnant and Sonja, being the logical matter-of-fact person that she is, decides that this is definitely the case because the dog is sniffing Ramona’s lady parts.  Pretty sure that happens sometimes without merit Sonja, but we appreciate your enthusiasm.
Alex is a model now, remember?  It’s those damn lucky genes, try not to be jeal-y.  She’s doing an editorial for some magazine no one has heard of (by no one I mean me but I’m pretty sure none of you have heard of it either, please correct me if I’m wrong).  As she’s getting hurr did, make-up did, nails did, Simon comes in and isn’t his usual spritely self when around make-up and clothing.  He’s Grouchy Pants McGee actually.  If I were that photographer I would have kicked him off the set just so I could say, “Get off of my set!”  I’ve always wanted to say that.
One more note on this:  US Weekly voted Alex among the top three worst dressers, along with Lady Gaga and Rihanna.  This just in:  Lady Gaga and Rihanna hung themselves by their fugly pantyhose.  The note read simply “Would rather be Dead than D Listed.” 
Oh Sweet Baby Jebus, Sonja and Cindy are giving friendship another go.  What are they, masochists?  Have they not had enough of each other’s antics?  This time around Sonja allows Cindy to join her for her weekly flower shopping trip.  Cindy obviously wants to justify to Sonja why she took that conference call in the middle of breakfast.  Look, it was rude to take the call, rude to bring the assistant, rude to shhh Sonja in her own damn house.  Period.  Bottom line.  No excuses.  If this was normal life, Cindy would have sincerely apologized, Sonja would have accepted, and then they could do like the rest of us and forever on out only be nice to each other’s faces.  But no.  No no no.  This is housewives.  So let’s twalk about it…
Cindy says Sonja could have learned a thing or two from her BUSINESS call because Cindy is a BUSINESS woman who does BUSINESS, you got it?  She waxes hoohaws ok!  It’s a very prestigious line of work right up there with brain surgeons and nunnery!  She’s basically like your vagina’s Mother Teresa really.  Now Sonja, she prides herself on her hostessing skills.  She takes her toaster oven cuisine very seriously.  She takes wearing her pajamas to the table seriously.  She does not take kindly to someone conducting vagina business at her breakfast nook.  So you see, these two very different ladies do not see eye to eye on this.  Cindy thinks she was in the right because she warned Sonja ahead of time of this now infamous fucking conference call and had to WORK (Oh Hey Vicki Gunvalson, what up?) and HAD to bring her assistant because she can’t do limo-work in the limo on the way to Sonja’s without her assistant.  Her babies, well she left those in the car.  Sonja thinks she was in the right because she invited Cindy to her home and made her breakfast with her own two hands (not her servant’s) and got up early at 10am to do all of this.  Barbie’s take?  Cindy, if you’re too busy to enjoy breakfast at a person’s home when they invite you DO NOT ACCEPT THE INVITATION. 
I don’t know what these women feel they need to prove.  Lots of women are “business women.”  Lots of women work and also have a family.  These housewives act as though they are just soooooo unique and special and above because they have a successful career.  Cindy, I get it.  You started your own business.  That’s awesome.  You had twins with a sperm donor to solidify your rogueness, ok that’s cool too.  But let’s get real, you’re not saving lives.  There are thousands of women out there who are single mothers WITHOUT two nannies per child who work harder (yes harder) than you and never mention it to anybody and they’re a lot more commendable and frankly likeable than you.  It wouldn’t kill you to enjoy a breakfast with a batty lady hopped up on Valium and caffeine in her P.J.s at her breakfast nook!!  But then I’m biased.
Anyway, the whole meeting goes haywire and Cindy ends up storming out.  Sonja wouldn’t let her get a word in edgewise so she pulled a LuAnn/Jill/Kelly and hit the road.  Don’t let the door hit you on your perfectly waxed ass on the way out Mother Teresa.
Sonja’s lipstick color at the flower shop was TERRIBLE!  She looked like she had drowned.  She made up for it with her moose hat though.
Ok so….what else.  OH YEAH.  The big anniversary of dating extravaganza.  LuAnn has a lovely boat taking everyone around the Statue of Liberty in style.  All the ladies are there.  Sonja and Ramona wore matching dead animals which was cray.  Sonja- a full length animal print gown?  Pretty sure that’s a “don’t”.  If this was Glamour magazine your eyes would be blacked out right now.
Time out:  Can I pleeeeeeeease have Ramona’s body when I’m 54?  Thanks.
Ok so either LuAnn doesn’t like to kiss on camera or LuAnn is positively the worst kisser on the planet.
Sonja came armed and dangerous with a pee stick.  She and Ramona are going to find out if it’s pregnancy or menopause if it gets them both kicked off of this yacht.  Oh and they’re very discreet about it too.  They run back and forth giggling like two roommates in their twenties at Studio 54.  And in matching leopard print of all things holy. 
Of course Jill has to know what’s going on so she follows them to the bathroom, listens through the doors, makes passive aggressive comments through the bathroom doors, and tells everybody of the other ladies bathroom festivities.  Meanwhile, Ramona’s so nervous she can’t even pee. 
Ramona comes out and tells Mario and he laughs so he doesn’t cry.  There they are, the happy couple, laughing and laughing and then looking at each other to see if it’s genuine laughter or a decoy while they figure out their escape route.  Mario’s trying to decide if he is strong enough to release the lifeboat into the Atlantic and row himself over to Europe where he could change his identity and live the rest of his life out quietly as he’d hoped.  Ramona was doing the math in her head to figure out how many hours are in nine months so she could create a construction paper chain link to help her count down until her next glass of pinot grigio. 
Bravo never told us whether or not Ramona’s boobs ever went down to their normal size but judging by her figure on the reunion videos it’s safe to say she’s not with child.
Ohhh and the big moment everyone’s been waiting for but no one can believe.  LuAnn has her (handsome, eh? Oh shit he’s fourteen?  Jk. Not handsome, who said that anyway?...) son escort Natalie Cole down the stairs and into the arms of her adoring audience.  LuAnn and Natalie then coo a very scaled back version of “L.O.V.E.” for Jacques.  LuAnn actually carries a tune in a bucket until the end when Natalie gets all “singer” on her and starts going off of the two note version LuAnn had practiced.  Natalie does a little harmony and LuAnn starts rich lady rapping the Frank Sinatra hit.  Or I should say Nat King Cole hit in this case I suppose, shouldn’t I?  Either way, Natalie sounds beautiful and LuAnn sounds like an old smoker in a vintage karaoke bar but it was a crowd pleaser nonetheless.
LuAnn and Jacques have awkward yucky kisses and everyone cheers.  Natalie gave every housewife a Tiffany’s necklace with their initials!  I found that out through one of those bitches’ blogs, lucky bitches.  I wanna be friends with you Natalie!  I can harmonize!!
The epilogues were so stupid weren’t they?  Since when are they posed as questions and all riddle-y?  They’re always cheeky but never riddle-y.  As Krazy Kelly would say, “It’s WEIRD.”  Anywhoo, no information of any value but the reunion looks AMAZEballs.  I am so stoked.  It’s no secret I’m Team Blondes, and not just because I am blonde, but more because I can stand not one of the brunettes.  I have nothing against brunettes otherwise, know that.  So yes friends, I may just blog about the reunion so that if nothing else I can unleash my humble opinion on you all and hope that the favor is reciprocated.  I don’t have a water cooler at my office so we must embrace our virtual one, mustn’t we?
Have a great weekend my friends, and I’ll see you back here soon for “Hair color vs. Other Hair Color: Round One.”
XO,
Barbs