In episode two, the girls go back to school. Or go to school. They also get schooled in walking by the dragalicious Miss Jay, are forced to hold a “fashion show” on the school basketball court, and do a photo shoot of high school cliches: bad girl, teacher’s pet, class clown, unpopular loser weird girl, class ho, class brain, class jock…

You know, I hated high school so much that even reliving it like this makes me queasy. Let’s just say that I was the class weirdo, except much better dressed.

In what must surely come as a surprise to you, Renee whines and bitches and cries. Jaslene exhibits amazing powers of self-delusion, Natasha still doesn’t understand English and Jael proves more and more endearing to me.

So. First we have Tyra mail, and in what must be a first after 7 seasons of ANTM, the girls figure out the clue: even babies learn to do this. Instead of the usual crickets chirping, we hear some girl sing out “WALKING LESSONS!” And where better to have that than at a high school band practice where Miss Jay explains that high school marching bands are known for their precise choreography and fine, high stepping. Uh-huh. Where I came from that translated into precision milling-about-smartly. But I digress. The girls get dragged off to the track oval and are given directions for walking in groups of three. I had had two cocktails by the time we got to this point, and I was chatting with RJ and MJ, and I have no discernible sense of rhythm (unless I’m standing in front of the amp banks at a rock show and you’d have to be dead not to feel the rhythm) and I can still tell you what that complex routine consisted of: Three girls start. The middle girl stops at the half way mark. The two girls cross at the end of the catwalk, stop & pose, turn and go back up the cat walk to the middle girl. They stop and the middle girl goes to the end of the catwalk, poses, turns and comes back. When they are three abreast they all walk to the beginning/end point on the runway. Next three girls go out and do it all again.

I’m sure you will all be shocked to discover that this was way, way too complicated for a couple of the girls. For the other girls, this was just a floor show for dissing the rest of the girls: cackling and crowing about how they (which ever one was doing the speaking at the moment) had the Very Best Walk and the rest of these girls are pitiful at best, and borderline epileptics at worst. Miss Jay critiques the girls and this results in Natasha thinking that he said she was a “Martian.” What he said was that he didn’t know if she was walking or marching.

Then they go inside to the gym to repeat their steps in a “real” show featuring (and I’m not kidding, but Oh. My. God. how I wish I were) Prom Dresses through the ages. We see monstrosities from the eighties and would someone please put that decade out of its misery already and stop dragging its rotting zombie corpse back to torture humans with eyeballs? Metallic fabric, bows bigger than ponies, attached to any body part not in need of a pony-sized bow and puffy sleeves to match.

There were dresses that theoretically came from today, but I couldn’t see much difference, and then the third sweep down the walk is defined as “ghetto fabulous” and consists of skin-tight micro-skirts, cowl necklines that plunge to below the girls’ belly buttons, a lot of animal prints and a certain touch o’ ho. Sara works it so well that her boobs pop out of the six-inch wide neckline. Jael opines that Sara’s boobs escaped and that she found it very liberating for Sara and she’s proud for Sara that it happened next to her (Jael). See why I love Jael? She is so…funny. Funny ha-ha. And maybe, yes, a little “funny”. But who among us would be secure throwing that particular first stone?

Samantha gets to wear some itty-bitty thing that she felt should be burned because it wasn’t a dress, it was a blouse and boy-howdie, she wouldn’t have been allowed to go to the prom in Alabama lookin’ all hootchie-mamma like that. Renee claims to have been amazing, and she was… in the way that watching the space shuttle blow up is amazing. Renee does not like hearing that she was unaware of the other girls on the runway with her (and the difference between that and her normal level of awareness of other people is what?) and says that it didn’t matter what the judge thought, the audience ate her up and loved her.

See. The audience were high-school students, and really and come on, who cares what they think? Except the other high-school students who, the last time I checked, weren’t the people in charge of ANTM. But I digress. The winner on the catwalk was Britney, who really is beautiful in a classic sort of way, and doesn’t appear to be a ho-skank like the last Britne

y we had a couple of seasons ago. Britney wins a trophy. It is a least four feet tall, looks like a high school basketball trophy, except instead of a little metal b-ball player on the top, there is a gold stiletto pump. I squee’d a little bit and told RJ that I so want the trophy. There’s plenty of time till my birthday, sweetie.

Sara voices over that the trophy is “redonkulous” and thereby wins love eternal from RJ and me because that proves that Sara reads Cute Overload.

The next day, the girls go back to the school for a photo shoot where they do the whole cliche thing. To get these looks, Mr. Jay has brought in the official hair stylist for Clairol’s Herbal Essence line. She says things like “This will give you perilously straight hair.” She says it with a perilously straight face.

The girls all have to pose as “types”, Sara is the class flirt and Samantha is the class ho. Sara nails it, Samantha almost passes out from Mr. Jay’s art direction (put your hand on the inside of your thigh like you’re masturbating). And I’d just like to say right now that Mr. Jay is less orange and a lot funnier this season. And also, maybe, doing better art direction. Maybe. It’s only week two. Jaslene is magnificent as the weirdo, but lemme tell you, when Nigel says to send the photos and not the girl to casting because the girl can’t get the gig, but the girl in the photos can… I’m just thinking that Jaslene won’t be in at the finish.

Britney is dressed like a fat frump as the valedictorian, because we all know you can’t be smart and have fashion sense, the cheerleader shot looks a lot like the ho (letter sweater, but no shirt and the sweater is wide open.) and I still don’t understand why there is both a bad girl and a ho… they were pretty much the same in my high school, but that was 30 years ago, so maybe everybody specializes these days. The girl who everybody calls BabyTyra does well as the jock. Jael rocks the house as the nerdy bookworm. Natasha has no clue what the words “teacher’s pet” mean, and says that they don’t have that in the Soviet Union. Diane (one of the two plus sized girls) is stunning as the class president. Renee has to be the class clown and she blows chunks. Then she complains that it wasn’t fair that she had to play against type when nobody else did and then she cries. (RJ: “I’m going to send her a wheel of cheese to go with that whine.”) She also whines about having the other girls on the set, and why didn’t they ask her if that was alright? She almost pops a vein when the photographer suggests she get some posing advice from Jael. RJ and I laugh and laugh and laugh.

There is an interlude at the house where we see pixelated nudity (Jael) and horseplay and what not and we see Samantha sniveling about being all alone in the house and how she just isn’t very outgoing. MJ astutely notes that “sure you are, you’re going out of the house.”

Finally, we get to judging. Predictably, Jaslene complains that the other girls are already dissing her, Natasha mistakes the comment that she was the hardest girl to art direct since Ann the Man for a compliment (“I remember Ann, she was one of the most beautiful girls on this show ever.”) and Renee rolls her eyes at everyone else’s compliments. In the end, it comes down to Natasha and Samantha and MJ proves to be right. Samantha is out going the door back to Alabama, where she’ll never have to pretend to be a lesbian or ho again.

Next week is makeover week. Squeeeee!

The bitches and the hos are back with a vengence in season eight of America’s Next Top Model. I keep saying this every season, but I don’t see how they can find any dumber girls. Really, this season’s crop is astonishingly stupid and vapid, and it’s going to be the best train wreck yet.

We start with casting, and are spared any of last year’s embarassing moments, like the pole dancer who insists to Tyra that being a stripper is the same thing as being a model, rilly. On second thought, I sort of missed that. We don’t have any tragedies like being in a plane wreck, kept alive by the diminishing heat of our dead mother’s body, or night blindness, or psoriasis or even being the blackest child in the family. I didn’t miss that. We don’t have anything terribly memorable except the girl with the sewn-in wig (which I think was also repossessed, but it might have been two different girls with weaves) and the other girl who just wouldn’t shut up. Or leave. Or say anything that was worth listening to the on and on and on and on and on and on to hear.

The first thirty odd (really odd) girls are picked and off we go to Model Boot Camp, where I have high hopes that these B&Hs will learn how to walk in high heels before they get to the first judging. Of course, I have high hopes about Mr Jay not being orange and Twiggy developing an attitude, too, so who am I to say.

Right away my hopes are dashed with the “name 5 American designers” question which results in chirping crickets. Personalities begin to display when Sara (the semi-pro) knows who Richard Avedon is, and Renee starts bitching about how Sara only won because she’s a photographer and so of course “knew who that dude was” and the whole thing isn’t fair. This, we will discover, is her mantra, along with the particularly overused “I’m only doing this for my baby.”

You know, I don’t have kids, so maybe it is a normal thing for a mother to do, leave an infant at home to go off and participate on a reality show for the fame whoriness of it. We see a lovely picture of Renee in her white wedding gown, holding her infant son. Really, it was almost touching. But, just to be terribly old-fashioned, since when did a white wedding dress get accessorized by a bouquet of baby? I thought the presumed accessory was an intact hymen, but then again, I am old-fashioned.

The first cut is the deepest, and we get reduced by a number of forgettable, semi-attractive girls, and one Betty Paige by way of the tattoo parlor wannabe who was shocked to think that having a life-size and somewhat realistic tattoo of the bleeding sacred heart of Jesus on her sternum might make for a minus when you want to be a couture model. Then it’s off to our first photo shoot and we have a political statement theme, in which the girls must front for whatever random “controversial” position the PTB have come up with. There is pro-choice, and anti-abortion; gay marriage and straight; pro-fur and anti-fur; anti-gun and NRA shill; vegan and carnivore; death penalty pro and con. Con, get it? Jeez I crack myself up. Unfortunately, these were concepts that went way beyond the limited wattage of our contestants. In particular, Sara couldn’t get with the life behind bars, Renee didn’t like having to not like guns (I’m guessing she’s a military wife, what with being 20, a mother and living in Hawaii.) Katherine could not figure out why anyone wouldn’t like to wear fur, Jael and Natasha needed to swap positions on the whole choice thing, and the girl who was pro-straight marriage looked as stiff and unbelievable as the giant Ken doll they had posing with her. Nigel was the photographer, and he and Mr. Jay looked pretty miserable at the raw materials they had to work with.

Then, it was off to Goodwill to make an outfit of personal expression in three minutes, plus a charity runway show, money raised to go to Goodwill. I will spare you the details, because they are painful. Jael wins, and Renee bitches that it wasn’t a fair challenge because Jael shops in second hand stores, anyway.  Jael wasn’t happy about winning, either, because she thinks that will make the other girls like her less. Here’s a clue for you, honey: none of them like you anyway, and they are all backstabbing bitches, or haven’t you watched this show before?

Speaking of Natasha, which I was a paragraph ago, she is 19, Russian and married to a 40-year old man about whom she can only say he changed her life and brought her to America. Uh-huh. I knew one of those guys. He did the Russian bride thing twice, and the first one left when she learned enough English to figure out he was sort of creepy and the second one left as soon as she could without anyone questioning the validity of her green card marriage. I’m sure that Natasha isn’t one of those, right? I’m also harboring this deep, deep desire to see Tyra give her this makeover. Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease.

Anyway, after the juding, wherein Tyra et al admit that this is the worst bunch of wannabes they’ve ever seen, and Katherine allows as how she didn’t get the whole concept of anti-fur, even though Mr. Jay and Nigel explained it to her…a lot, and how couldn’t you just get fur from already dead animals, because “animals die of natural causes sometimes, don’t they?” that is enough for even Tyra to send her away for being stupid beyond all comprehension.

Whee! I can’t wait for next week, can you?

OK. First of all, I am in considerable pain, and not at all comfortable, and in reality, the only numb parts are the fingertips of my right thumb and forefinger, with a minimal amount of numby-ness in my middle finger.

There is a searing, shooting, radiating pain coming from somewhere between my shoulder blade and my spine, and I can’t turn my head. I appear to have a pinched (very pinched) nerve located between C5-6 and another or a consequential, sympathy something or other at T5.

This is my schedule today: hot shower, bed, ice pack. Rinse. Repeat. I shouldn’t even be here on my computer, and I sure as hell haven’t been able to go to work.

The Percoset did nothing, the two Aleve barely made a hint of a dent in the pain. I have a newly acquired chiropractor, and I’m in love with him.

There are many stories to tell from the SoBe Wine & Food, and photos to upload, but I’m afraid they are going to have to wait until I can sit up without pain, or at least until I can stand up without the weight of my arm causing me to writhe in agony.

Until tonight, when I camp out in front of the TeeVee to watch the return of the Bitches and the Hos on ANTM, I am back to the shower/bed/ice pack regimen.

And so, as a very great journaler once said, to bed.

RJ, MJ, The RLA and I are off to the SoBe Wine & Food Festival. There will be no posts, no comments approved, no e-mail read until sometime Sunday night. I will be too full of yummy food to care. I promise to take pictures and tell tales.

An astute new (and presumably very young) reader accosted me in my comments this morning with the following question, which I quote in its entirety, and exactly as she typed it (in all caps, shouting at me first thing in the morning… sigh)

“WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO JUDGE PEOPLE ...SO WHAT IF THEY WANT TO HANG THEIR BACKPACKS ON THEIR CHEST…ECT ECT.”

First of all, sweetiedarling, the correct abbreviation for which you are searching, is ETC, as in etcetera. Not ecksettra, or however you are pronouncing it in your head.

Secondly, what gives me the right to judge people is this: I am the self-appointed arbiter of taste for the universe and it would be a much more attractive place if people would just take my advice.

Thirdly, what gives me the right to be arbiter of taste for the universe is that I have exquisite taste, and if I ever did make a fashion mistake, there is no film hanging around to prove it.

Finally, regarding your final statement, the one in which you opine about the frequency of my sex life versus the number of pairs of shoes you own… what, exactly, was the point you were attempting to make? I came of age in the 70s, child, and I’ve been married to the Hottie Renowned Local Artist for 15 years, so I hope you have a spare room or two to house all those pairs of shoes you claim to own. And I hope you keep them all polished, stored neatly in boxes, with tissue stuffed in the toes to keep their shape. I also hope that you make sure the heels are always in good repair.

I don’t even know where to begin this essay. Anna Nicole Smith’s body is decaying and the vultures and parasites are fighting over the remains. There are three men (at least) who claim to be the father of her child. One was with her, one used to be her lover, and the third is a fame whore who may or may not have had a relationship with her at the time of the child’s conception.

The estranged mother is blaming drugs and the boyfriend for her daughter’s estrangement from her, the boyfriend for the drug abuse. The ex-lover is blaming the boyfriend and drugs for his loss of his ex-girlfriend. The boyfriend/lawyer is just lamenting his loss and trying to bury her next to her son, and keeping his(?) daughter safe. Which is not to say that I believe him, have sympathy for him or find him to be less of an opportunistic leech than the rest of the parties involved.

And then we have this article, which talks about how so many Playboy Playmates have died tragically young. From murder or drug overdose primarily, it seems. Toss in a few car wrecks and plane crashes and you have quite the list. But the people quoted are all like: Oh, the tragedy of being beautiful.

Oh, the tragedy of being objectified, I say. Would Dorothy Stratton have been murdered by her jealous ex if she weren’t the centerfold? Another questionable source claims that ANS wanted her tiny little baby to be slightly underfed so that she would be “sexy”. At three months old.

Which brings us back to her own mother, she who is blaming the world for the estrangement, drugs, etc. of her daughter’s short and overblown life. Well, sweetiedarlings, we can all ask nature or nurture and we can ask it all we like, but there has to be some sort of responsibility somewhere from the cradle to point at which she left home.

Honestly, I don’t know where to end this essay, either. It all seems to me to be a terrible indictment of American pop culture, American values, the ridiculous scramble after money and the obscene desire for fame above all.* Fame without merit. Paris Hilton kind of fame, not Chuck Yeager kind of fame.

Finally, though, in the middle of all this circus, there is one person with whom I am personally familiar. This morning’s Miami Herald announced that the court-appointed attorney for the infant Danielynn is Richard Millstein. Richard was the lawyer for the Antichrist when we got divorced. He flayed my lawyer. He left me with little, he managed for me (the poor artist) to split my art collection with the rich lawyer I was divorcing, and even give my old car to the same rich lawyer so he could give it to his new girlfriend’s kid. And even though I will never forgive the Antichrist, Richard was just doing his job.

Richard and I sat on the board of the local AIDS organization together a few years later, and I can, in all honesty, say that I have never met a more sincere and caring gentleman. He is, year after year, the top fund raiser for CareResource. He is courteous and mild mannered (outside of the courtroom). In all of this mess, I know in my heart that Richard will see past the bullshit and make sure that the best of all possible outcomes is secured for this little girl.

At least until she goes home to live with one or another of the people who made her mother what she was.

* My dear dead Grandma used to say that fool’s names and fool’s faces oft appear in public places. She also used to refer to persons who were “all dressed up like Astor’s pet horse.”  Which is amusing enough, but Grandma lived in Newport back in the day and so probably actually SAW Mrs. Astor’s pet horse decked out in its finery.