Let me first set the record straight, and say right out, I am not a cutter. I do not find pain (mine or anyone else’s*) enjoyable. However, I tend to be just a wee clumsy, and especially when I’m depressed.

Many years ago this tendency was spotted by a boyfriend, who commented that I didn’t just hurt myself, I hurt myself in complicated and very torturous ways, like some kind of exotic, oriental pain. That immediately became my club name: Oriental Payne.

So. Last week, after a brilliant morning (I found the very first spot in the parking garage open, and I met a new person on the train—an Apple-carrying, clog-wearing film person) and an ok work day, I trotted out of the building, aware, as always since last year’s Valentine’s Day tumble down the stairs, of where my feet were as I went down those steps. The light on Biscayne Boulevard turned red as I reached the curb, and so I took off across the street without breaking stride.

I saw the red car in the first lane. I saw the blonde boy with light eyes and no helmet on a yellow sport motorcycle in the second lane. I don’t know who or what was in the next lane, because I stepped out of my very high, very fabulous brown mule and went ass over tea kettle and did a magnificent face-plant in the middle of the third lane.

Thankfully, nobody ran the red light.

My glasses went flying. My book bag went flying. My titanium Mac in its chic little Vera Bradley bag went flying. My shoes, ditto.

I have a road rash on my left leg that extends from mid-calf to knee. The knee is completely skinned - flayed, even. The bruises are impressive and keep traveling around (yesterday a new one appeared below my ankle and wrapping around under my instep).

The right knee turned purple immediately and swelled to the size of a pie pumpkin. It is now green, with interesting purple undertones, and the right leg is also host to travelling bruises.

The only person to even acknowlege me sprawled across two lanes of traffic was a man on the far curb, who called out as I was gathering up my possessions and my wits “You OK there?” He did not, nor did anyone else, offer to help me.

*OK, I admit, there are a couple of people in whose pain I would take pleasure. My ex, for one. My ex-bosses, for two, three and four. And, you know, a few Neo-cons and a POTUS or two. But really and for the most part, no.

Years ago I read a fairly lame and unmemorable first novel with the promising title of film had a total A-list cast, though it was made in 1997, when none of the actors were known. Jack Black, Luke Wilson, Andy Dick, Jeremy Sisto, Jamie Kennedy, Alicia Witt, Brittany Murphy. So I clicked and added it to the old queue, and last night the RLA and I watched it.

Except for the title, it bore such faint resemblance to the book, that I had to look it up on imdb to confirm that it was, in fact, allegedly based on the novel. Then I went to Amazon and read up on the novel, just to be sure it was the SAME novel.

I may be the only person to have read Bongwater, so let me assure you that the only thing the two have in common is a funny title and content that falls flat. The action takes place in the same cities, but most of the characters have been renamed and recreated to the point that they bear little or no resemblance to those in the book. And while, since the book was so vapid and unremarkable, this could have been a plus yet, it was not.

The only reason I bring this up today is a scene about three quarters of the way through the film, when Alicia Witt comes back to Portland to see Luke Wilson, and his friend, Andy Dick tries to keep her away. Andy is playing a gay man, and he hurls this insult at her: “blahblahblah, something, something, FIRECROTCH!”

Huh. Not only was Brandon Davis an ass, he was a plagarizing ass. To use a lame quote from a lamer movie, delivered by the lamest of the actors within, and never give credit that the epithet that made him a tmz/YouTube star was originally spoken by Andy Dick in a third-rate flick about stoners. I mean, if Andy Dick didn’t even want to grab his five minutes of continued “fame”, you know it has to be bad.

How low can you go? I’m a little surprised that nobody has come forward with this revelation prior to now. I think I’ll go over to tmz and drop this dime.

The best parts of the movie, if you want to waste 90 minutes with it, are Jack Black (but of course) as the pot farmer in the forest, and the audio track over the closing credits. The track is the phone message tape from the Luke Wilson pot-dealer character, and it is a non-stop series of coded messages like “I think I left my green shoes at your house? or “Has the printer gotten back to you yet? Is the ink on the brochures dry? Can I come pick them up?”

And that’s how bad the movie is, in a nut shell. The closing credits are the funniest parts.

Last night the most amazing thing happened: the RLA watched the show with me. It took a while for him to figure out the players, because he said they all looked the same. That said, he was quick to pick up the following: Renee is a beeyotch. Jael is peculiar. Saying “Just cuz” to Mr. Jay is going to get you sent packing.

Another day dawns with mist on the swimming pool at the House O Hamsters in the LA hills. And that, dear readers, is why the swimming pool in Spain was icy: they were saving budget dollars for this year’s pool heating to get that mist to rise.

We open with Renee getting all up in Whitney’s face, asking her with “sweet” sincerity if she (Whitney) really truly believes that a fat girl will ever grace the cover of Vogue. ‘Cause, you know, rilly she just wants Whitney to face reality and not get all bummed out and all. She’s just asking. Whitney shows that she’s the real deal classy babe by not punching Renee’s skank ass out. Diana wanders in and gets pissed off for both of the fat girls.

A sidebar, if you will: please remember that by “fat girls” we are talking about women who are NORMAL by all other standards; they wear size 10s, not XXXXLs. OK?

After seeing the girls in some of their own clothes at judging, the PTB have decided that this is the week to give them lessons on style. Thankfully, we no longer has arbitrary assignments of personal style that they will have to learn it live it love it. Just, you know, a little bit less skank.

In what is my favorite scene to date, the girls are dressed up and asked to evaluate their looks to the head of Elite Models and one of her real working girls.

No crickets chirp, but they all gamely announce that they luv-luv-luv what ever the hell has been thrown on them. HAH! Fooled you! These are all TERRIBLE Fashion Mistakes. Natasha explains to Miss Elite Models that they all said they liked the clothes because as working models, you have to believe in what ever is tossed on your back. (Like her. By her mail-order groom. And please, if there is a God, do not show any more footage of her talking on the phone with him and playing sex games involving meowing. It just skeeved me out. But then, all the hamsters, once they wrapped their collective mind around it are a little skeeved by that marriage. Of course, some of the hamsters are less skeeved than just bitchy gossips, WHITNEY! But I digress)

There is a little round of clothing swappage, and the girls now look less awful. Except for Diana, who really, really, really needs to put on a little lipstick and wash her hair now and then.

After they learn about Bauhaus art theory as it relates to the fashion industry (Less is Still More, hos.) they are sent off to their challenge. In a warehouse somewhere, they find lots and lots of high fashion clothing from Sears, three platforms and two male mannequins. Renee thinks that they are terribly life-like, and they may very well be. Since they are actually two male models. They said they were identical twins, but either one of them was wearing lifts, or they weren’t all that identical, because boyfriend on the left was a couple inches taller.

The challenge consisted of getting separated into teams, and nobody was at all happy with their team or their team members. Each team had a few minutes to put together three looks (that had to work separately and together as a group), some props, and pose on the platforms. Dionne the Dentist used to work in retail, so she pulled the looks together for her teammates Renee and Sara. Natasha, Jael and Whitney called their look Afrodity’s something or others and when the twins pointed out that the hamsters has spelled Aphrodite wrong, Natasha stepped up to the plate and explained that when you make up a name you can spell it any way you want so there. Phhhhhtt.

The final team was composed of Diana, Jaslene and whoever I can’t remember and needs to go home. Right! Brittney! Brittney and her ratty weave that looks worse each week.

The prize this week will go first to the group who does the best, and then to the individual girl. The prize is getting to take all your challenge photos, then review them with Mr. Jay, and then re-shoot. I have to say, that’s a fucking GREAT prize. PS: If you aren’t in place when the boys say time, you will be disqualified. You know it. Someone isn’t on point. Want to guess who?

The winning team is determined to be Jael, Natasha and Whitney, except for the fact that they weren’t on their posing platform when the boys said time. Natasha, who really, really stepped up her game this week, was all but yanking Whitney up to the platform by her arm. Maybe if girlfriend was one of those anorexic hos, she could have pulled her into place. But she isn’t and she couldn’t and so Whitney, who would have been the Number One girl two weeks in a row became just another also ran.

That meant the second runners up were the winners. Sara, Dionne and Renee were the winners. Sara was chosen as the best of the three and won the prize. And, OH. MY. GOD. the stink face that Dionne put out was astonishing. Renee, of course, opined that she was the best, yadayadayada, and should have won something or another, because after all, she was the one who picked the accessories for Sara. Dionne, though, she picked out the outfits, and so Sara shouldn’t have won dick. Boy-howdee, were those two girls miffed. Big time. Dionne wore a puss for the rest of the show.

The other three? Chopped liver.

The photo shoot this week was the season’s gender bender, where the girls (and Jaslene) had to dress as boys. The twist, and it was funny… OK, I know I keep saying that this show has jumped the shark, but I gotta admit, this is the best season yet. The shoots are good, Mr. Jay is adorable, and Miss Jay is out of the picture most of the time (except during judging when he’s wearing that ever-growing clown ruffle). But I digress. The twist. The twist is that they are going to pose as men, with women. The women in question are drag queens. That’s right, throw those little cluesless hamsters to the she-wolves, and see who can keep the camera focused on them.

Jael was cast as a boho, and really had a great time and threw around a lot of poses. Dionne had to be a powersuit. Whitney was a f(r)at boy. Britney was a redneck (best quote: Hi. I kill things). Sara was a glam rocker and totally channeled David Bowie. Jaslene was one half of a pair of chaty-yachtys and Diana was a red-carpet star (HAH!-not. She looked stiffer than the giant paper mache Oscars) Renee was a rocker… but she was no Brian Setzer. The star of the shoot was, no kidding, Natasha. She had to be a hip-hop guy, and she even made her own grill out of chewing gum foil. Insert Soviet Union joke here. It was awesome. She was chillin like a villain. She was down wit it, dawgs. She was stylin’.

Jay said something inane like, no wonder the Russians take home all the gold at the Olympics. She’s competing. She brought her A-game. While he was trying to get something, anything out of Diana, Mr. Jay asked her why she was there. Her depthful reply: “Just cuz.” That’s when the RLA said: she’s history, and in the next scene, at judging, she was.

When it finally came down to Whitney and Diana, and Diana got sent home, Jael ran over and jumped on her, throwing her legs around Diana’s waist. It was awesome. I love me some Jael.

Next week, Jael finally bitch slaps Renee. Is life great?

I blame this on Starbucks and the fashion industry which have skewed our understanding of size standards. What was once a small is now a tall. What was once normal is now plus sized.

So it’s week four or five already, huh? How time flies whether you’re having fun or not. I know that I missed reviewing the make-over episode, but that was because it was so boring and lame that I just didn’t care. Well, except about Jael, who got the bad make-over, complete with do-over (Tyra changed her mind. Sorry about the pain of getting a weave and the eight hours in the chair. We’re just going to cut everything off and dye your hair brown.) And then she found out one of her friends O.D.d. And then they made her get naked and frolic with ice cream.

This week, however, there is much more going on in the house. What things, you may ask? Well, to start with Renee has decided not to be a bitch any more. (Or any less, either, but it’s the thought that counts.) To that end, she draws a really nasty picture of Jael in a straight jacket, but see? The sleeves aren’t fastened, so that makes it a positive drawing. I know, right?

Jael, sweet but gently bewildered thing that she is (but is she a sistah solja, beautiful bi-racial butterfly?) takes the drawing and pretends to loves it so much that she sticks it up on a shelf with some Asian dog or pig or cat or something.

There is some house action which I cannot remember, mainly because these hamsters are so unforgettable. But then they all pile into the big, vulgar, gas-guzzling Hummer and go for a ride to a park. The limo is stopped by a police person who is directing traffic like s/he’s a Bahamian tourist-trap photo-op…on crack. S/he then executes a couple of John Cleese funny walks and admits that s/he’s not really a traffic cop. Yeah. What was our first clue? (Of course the hamsters all thought it was a real traffic stop. Or at least Renee did.) Turns out s/he’s Benny Ninja of the House of Ninja, and http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/content/a12923/">POTES’; dream comes true as one of the founders of vogueing and one of the stars (I think) of Paris Is Burning comes to ANTM and attempts to show the girls (and Jaslene) how to pose. And let me say right now that Ninja beats the pants off the contortionist from last season. He immediately pairs the girls (and Jaslene) up and has them do a muthafuggin’ face-off. Renee is unfortunately not awful. In fact, most of them are not awful. It’s sort of disappointing.

They next have to put their lessons to the test by vogueing their way through one of those LAY-zer mazes/theft deterrent devices so popular in movies like Mission Improbable. And then, the most wonderful thing happens.

Renee confessionalizes that she rilly, rilly needs the prize (a $40 THOUSAND dollar diamond bracelet) because she and her husband (and, one supposes, the son about whom she Would.Not.Shut.Up. in epi one, and whom we have not heard the first word about since) are dead broke and all but eating out of dumpsters and living in their car and she rilly, rilly wants to win to help out her family.

Now, in the world that I live in, helping your family financially means things like, oh, I don’t know, taking a stab here, GETTING A FUCKING JOB! Or, you know, WORKING! Or even sucking it up and going to one of those federal job training programs where you end up with a skill and A JOB!!! But I suppose going on a television reality show is better than using the lottery as your retirement plan. I guess. Maybe. Possibly.

So. Off they go, one at a time, with ole’ Benny Ninja sitting behind a table with a video screen and a big ass buzzer and every time the girl (or Jaslene) breaks a laser beam, he hits that buzzer and makes them go back to the beginning. One by one, with various skill levels (who knew that Dionne-the-Dentist could drop a split like that? Sure made Benny Ninja’s jaw drop. Jael has fun. Sara does good. Natasha makes a few errors but still gets to the end before running out of time. Every single girl goes through and gets a key to a jewel box…even the plus sized girls make it through the limbo sticks. The last girl up is Renee. Our Lady of the Perpetual Whine proceeds to blow it. Totally. Doesn’t finish. Doesn’t get a key. Doesn’t get 40K of bling to pay off her family’s debts and buy her son food. And there goes her resolution to be nice. Bwahahahahahaha. Sorry. Whitney (one of the plus girls, and I’m beginning to think all the speculation about this being a plus sized girl’s season to win may be true) takes home the ice. She notes that although she has taken a semester off from Dartmouth (take that, you skanks) to do this (and she’s not on financial aid) she thinks that she’ll keep the bracelet rather than using it to pay back her pops the 9K she’s costing him by being on TV. To which I say, you go girl. Props to you. And also? My daddy was from West Palm Beach, so way to represent.

The girls and Jaslene go back to the house and Renee gets on the phone and proceeds to have a break down, calling her husband and crying that she doesn’t want to be there any more, and he should come and get her, and all the other girls (and Jaslene) are just awful beeyotchs who can’t hold her crusty undies (Hey! Where’s Moooonique, now? She could teach you something about crusty undies.) and so on and on and on and on and on and on…. until a couple of the other girls (who, I’d like to note are smoking like chimneys this season, much more so than previously) notice that 1)Renee’s not around, and 2) she’s actually hogging up all the phone time. The usual confrontation occurs, and Renee breaks her resolve to be nice (I’m SHOCKED!).

The next scene is the week’s photo shoot. Sur-prize, sur-prize sur-prize, in what must certainly be nothing more than a co-inkydink, this week’s theme is “Death By…” (Sort of like season whatever when Kahlen’s friend gacked and they had to go be the seven deadly sins in the bottom of a grave. The only saving grace here is that they don’t actually make Jael portray an O.D. So.

Renee is up first as death by poisoning, and does unfortunately well. Jay raves. The photographer raves. I rage that they didn’t actually poison the bitch. Renee smugly tells Jay not to tell the other girls how well she did, because they all hate her. Too late. Why, he asks, all innocence and shit. Renee leans into his little apricot-like ear and whispers coyly, “Because I’m a bitch.” Well, alright then.

We get stabbing and shooting (really creepy) and throwing off a building and tossing down the stairs (again… just like I didn’t understand why there was both a bad girl and a ho in high school, I don’t understand why getting thrown from a roof is dynamically different from getting tossed down the stairs, but that’s why I’m not art directing these shoots.) Natasha (who, by the way, did get the Boris and Natasha make over, schnort) is drowned. There is death by electrocution and death by vivisection, death by strangulation and death by (I just looked on the WC site and it seems that three girls got tossed to their deaths…)getting thrown off another building.

The hamsters are all a little skeeved by the realistic make up. Jay is disappointed by Jael’s sadness and poor performance and claims that he didn’t know about her dead friend. I’m a little skeeved by the whole death is fashion thing. I thought that sort of misogeny went out of vogue (HA! Get it?)with Helmut Newton back in the 80s. (Oh, shit. Those terrible 80s again. Will that decade never die?)

At judging, the choice comes down to Dionne who is beautiful but doesn’t know what to do with it and Felicia (aka Baby Tyra) who is just coasting on being pretty and looking (Tyra finally admits) like Tyra. Big surprise, Baby Tyra goes home.

Next week? I’ve already forgotten the teaser. I’m sure it’ll be fabulous, though. Especially if we could fire Miss Jay and hire Benny Ninja.

I’d like to apologize for the random and infrequent posts of late. All I can say is that there is a LOT of stuff about to pour forth from my head, and this is just the first of many, many posts about many, many subjects.

Let’s just get back in the swing here. This is a pop quiz, an essay test, if you will. Please leave your answer in the comments, and it may be as long and detailed as you like.

Question: Who, when and where was the first rock and roll show you went to live?

Answer: Mine was the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Pirate’s World in Davie, Florida. Pirate’s World is a now-defunct amusement park. It was 1971 and I went with Scotty Neaill, Jill Clark and Lee Harris. I wore white denim hot pants and navy blue & red granny boots. I don’t remember the top. It was a couple hours drive to Davie and I was thrilled that my folks let me go. I’d had the chance to see 3 Dog Night at the Miami Beach Convention Center a couple of weeks earlier and didn’t care enough for them to go. But Ike and Tina? That was a different story.

And that was my baptism in the church of rock and roll. Never looked back, either. So? You guys? Who was the first?