It's my birthday! Yeah! Presents! Adoration! Tiaras! Whoo-hoo!

I'm officially older than dirt, and have lived more than half of my expected life. I can still drink young punks under the table, and shake my bootie till the wee small hours. I can't actually get up the next morning, but by the middle of the afternoon, I'm fine. It's the small victories, people.
The RLA was the first with the presents this morning. He gave me a beautiful Spanish fan... for the hot flashes. On the one hand, I think this is lovely, and dear and sweet. On the other hand, I'm ready to shove the thing up his ass for reminding me about them. He insisted that I bring it to the office, to have it always at the ready.

I was too polite to remind him that my office keeps its thermostat at the requisite Florida setting of Meat Locker, and that I keep a heater under my desk to keep from getting frostbitten toes. I don't think he reads my blog often enough to read this, either.

My second present was from RJ, who sent me a birthday e-card that had a downloadable tiara. I'm wearing it. I have absolutely no shame. Or pride. One or the other. In an hour we'll have our company holiday lunch, which means... more presents!! And food!! And wine!!

Life is good. Or at least a hell of a lot better than the alternative.



Please note the fabulous red Swingline stapler in the background among all the crap on my desk and surrounding areas.

I was saddened by the notice of Peter Boyle's death. While I have managed to see absolutely no episodes, ever, of Everybody Loves Raymond, and I loathed his character in Joe (but, well, we were supposed to), I have always adored his turn as Frankenstein's monster in Young Frankenstein.
Young Frankenstein is arguably one of the best Mel Brooks movies, ever, anyway, what with its all-star cast, and spot-on satire of the genre, but Peter Boyle stole the show when he and Gene Wilder did their song and dance number.

Last March, The Coolest Person in The World (tm) was in Boca, and we met up at a beach-side bar. We promptly put down a plate of oysters, requiring the drinking of a shot (or two) of vodka to prevent any untoward side effects of said oysters. Then, because a single shot of vodka can get lonely, we had to have several more. I think there may even have been a bottle of champagne as an apperitif prior to heading out for dinner.

Dinner required more alcohol, because we eat our steaks rare, and, you know, e-coli and stuff. In any event, I was fairly well oiled by the time someone at our table pointed out that Peter Boyle was sitting two tables away. I behaved myself, and did not accost him until he passed us on his way out.

Then I stood up (not at all unsteadily, I may say) and very politely told him "Mr. Boyle, excuse me, but I just had to tell you that the scene in Young Frankenstein where you do "Puttin' on the Ritz" is sheer brilliance. It has always been one of my favorite pieces of your work. Thank you."

He just gave me a big-ass grin and told me that his wife always said that was "real" acting. I got the feeling that he was just a tiny bit happy that it was Young Frankenstein and not Raymond that I wanted to talk about.

After he left, and The Coolest Person In the World (tm) thanked me for not falling over or otherwise embarrassing her, we watched him leave and thought, damn... he does not look healthy. I'm really a little surprised he lasted as long as he did.

The RLA, our new friends the PDBs* and I went to Art Basel this weekend. There I learned a couple of things I didn't know about Art. That's art with a capital a, proles. Art that costs more per square foot than I make in a week. This is Important, Gallery Art, and not for folks like me. The dealers were Very Happy to make that clear to me.
Here's what I learned, in a nutshell.

1. The only art worth looking at in this vast space was art created eighty to twenty years ago. Joan Miro, Yves Tanguy, Andy Warhol, Henri Matisse... like that.

2. There are only two acceptable positions when drawing/painting/sculpting a nude. These are, in the case of a female, lying on her back with a point of view directly up the ole cooch, foreshortening the head to irrelevance, or, in either gender, bent over and fingering one's own arsehole.

3. The dealers are self-absorbed, arrogant assholes who have a blatant disdain for artists or their audiences. Consider this interaction.

RLA, picking up a postcard advertising a "commissioned portrait show": Commissioned portraits? By whom?
Dealer: Artist X. If you want to commission a portrait of yourself. That's what this show is about.
RLA: Really? I'm a portrait artist myself. (He reaches into his jacket for a postcard.)
Dealer: NONONONONONO. I don't want to see that.
Me: Really? Not even to be polite? You won't just look at it?
Dealer: NONONONONO. We're really just focused on what we are doing here.
Me, looking around and seeing nobody in this booth except myself, the RLA, the little beige dealer** and his assistant: "And a roaring fucking business that would be."

RLA and I stomp out.

4. Big-headed Japanese anime-style cartoon children or Sailor Moon-dressed pubescent girls are hott.

5. Magnetic tape, when stretched across a frame into a 5-foot square, is worth $70,000 dollars, and there is at least one idiot willing to pay that much for it, because the piece was already sold. Or at least that's what the abusive bitch who yelled at me for several minutes for looking at said piece too closely and (GASP!) BREATHING ON IT!!! told me. To add injury to insult, she didn't even move her cell-phone away from her ear as she was loudly berating me.

6. Glitter is hott. So are rhinestones and shiny plastic "gems".

7. Impasto is back with a vengance. The thicker the build up the better. It is important to use silicon caulking as a base for your paintings.

8. Figural art (if it isn't big-headed anime or self-fingering nudes) is totally not hott. In fact, if you are a figural artist, you need to be an "outsider" artist and do big-headed, big-eyed Keane sort of little girls in densely inexplicable situations that are vaguely distubing. Extra points are awarded for including dead animals in the composition.

9. Sculpture is good if it: sits on the floor, is constructed of iron or steel or blackened metal, represents random body parts unrelated to each other or anything else in the installation, is kinetic. In fact, one of the nicest pieces I saw consisted of two old-fashioned floor fans, painted shiny black, facing each other. In between was a piece of magnetic tape (AHA! a trend?) spliced into a circle, held aloft and shimmering by the wind generated by the two fans.***

10. There seems to be a factory somewhere in Miami that produces women of a certain age with identical nose jobs, inflated lips, too-tight cheek bones, highlighted blonde hair and plastic grapefruit inserted under their skin on the fronts of their chests. They travel in packs, too. They are not shy about opining about the Art they are looking at, either. Their bust size is higher than their IQs. This is a quote from one of them: Look. This is all symbolic. This symbolizes a bridge.

The "this" in question was a photograph, one of a dozen or so in an installation, that depicted some sort of dining table detritus stacked up to look like, well, in her defense, a bridge. Or a dock.The rest of the photos were of what the dining table would look like if you let a pack of ten year olds play with their food for a couple of hours. Sugar cubes arranged in circles. Crumbs piled up into tiny pyramids. Like that. I refrained from asking her what she thought the bridge was symbolic of. I didn't want to get yelled at again.

On a related note, the RLA and I watched "Art School Confidential" a couple of weeks ago. Rent it. If you ever went to art school, film school or knew anyone who did, you will laugh yourself sick. If you didn't? This movie is a documentary, really.

* Persons Dressed in Black

**The dealer was monochromatic. He was sort of tanned, his hair was sort of brownish, he was dressed in a tan/beige suit with matching shirt and tie, and he was wearing perfectly circular, thick-framed, light tortoiseshell glasses.

*** No. Really. That was one of the best pieces, except, you know, for the old masters like Stella or Warhol.

It is the end of the line for the bitches and the hos. The final three are Eugena of the dismal personality and bad skin, Everybody Hates Melrose and CariDeeMented. It just doesn't get any lamer better than that, does it? Well, yes it does. In order to coach the girls on their Covergirl shoot, we have a "real" covergirl come to visit. Is it Heidi Klum? Is it Tyrant? Is it anyone you've ever seen on a cover of anything? No. It is last year's winner, Dani(elle). I loved Danielle or else I'd say that this is not only self-referential, but just pathetic.

We have our Covergirl commercial and our final runway show. They all blow chunks in the commercial, which is somehow cobbled together to make something watchable, if not memorable or good. CariDeeMented's eyes dart left and right throughout her shoot. Melrose has a big-ass smile. Eugena tries (and fails) not to have dead eyes and a deadlier persona.

Then we shoot stills. There is some foreshadowing when the photographer gives high fives to Melrose and CariDeeMented and wishes Eugena good luck.
Unfortunately for Eugena, the good luck wishes aren't enough to keep her going to the final two, despite all the footage we get of her and CariDeeMented snuggling with each other and whispering how much they want it to be just the two of them in the finals.

CariDee and Eugena cry in each others arms when Eugena is sent away. CariDeeMented murmmurs sweetly to Eugena that she'll "bring this home for you, baby." and sweet tap dancing Jesus I wish I was making that up. But I'm not. Didn't CariDee have a boyfriend at the beginning of this show? Before she nailed Dennis Quaid, the random Spanish model guy and anything else that showed up available during shooting.

Anyway, now that Eugena is out of the way, we are treated or subjected (take your pick) to the Battle of the Blondes. Eugena opines that a "natural" blonde should win. I'm not going to venture down that road of how she knows, but I will point out that it wasn't Melrose's choice to go blonde.

The runway show is another freakfest. It takes place after dark in an Antonio Gaudi building. The theme is Bride of Dracula. Each trot down the runway gets darker and freakydeakier until the girls are running and shrieking (but still looking fierce and fabulous) down the passageway lit by candles.

Melrose-the-Loathed absolutely rocks the runway. She is fierce, she is beautiful, she can walk, she never loses sight of the fact that she is modeling clothes. She twirls, she stomps, she gives CariDeeMented a serious up and down stink eye when they are supposed to dis each other in passing. She uses her flamenco lessons to her advantage as she brings up her arms. She is amazing, even in white face. She is amazing even after CariDeeMented (maybe) accidentally rips Melrose's train to shreds. She still whips that fabric around and works it.

All of a sudden Miss Jay gets up out of the front row and disappears. Is he going to tell Melrose to get a grip and ignore the hateful little CariDeeMented's antics? We wish. He is off to join the runway show and drag queen along in a black bride of Blacula wedding dress, showing the girls how to camp it up for the final pass.

Melrose is perfect. CariDeeMented is perfectly deranged. She flails around. She makes really ugly, contorted faces. She bunches up the wedding dress so high and so tight we almost see her lady bits (and wouldn't THAT be special). She shrieks, she camps, she's awful.

Final judging. There is some talk about how all the girls hate Melrose and Tyra says maybe they hate her because she's just that good. Nigel mouths some bullshit about how Melrose is perfect, but only because she's a perfectionist and works too hard at it and maybe isn't a natural talent. He disses her for her know-it-all aspect.

Mr. Jay shows that he's got cojones, after all and points out (quite rightly) that what Nigel is dissing Melrose for is exactly what they are constantly bitching at the rest of the girls for NOT having: a personality, a clue about personal style, a working and pretty comprehensive knowledge of the fashion industry and a ferocious work ethic.

She's toast.

Despite the fact that she is just batshit crazy, despite the fact that she asked Nigel if the giant stick he was holding came out of his ass after a previous judging, despite the fact that all of the judges acknowledged that her runway walk was a disaster of horrorific proportions, CariDeeMented was crowned America's Next Top Model. Proving that she is NOT all that, and did NOT deserve to win, she tries to use Danielle's patented Mommy, I'm a Covergirl line. It doesn't work.

Cut to Melrose crying and saying she was robbed (which she was). Fade to black. Has the show finally jumped the shark?

Between this and Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo winning Project Runway, I think I have finally had my fill of "reality" teevee. In the immortal words of my grandpa: "Feh."

Long-time readers of this blog know the great disdain I hold for the great southwest, a measured response to the dog-years I spent living there. But now another of my friends has decided to move to the tiny little blue dab of jelly in the huge red doughnut of Texas: P-Roo and her husband have packed the dogs and the car and headed out today to Austin.

P-Roo (a new nickname for my girlfriendgirl) and I have been friends for a million years, since the dark days when we were married to earlier, evil husbands. Those two men were as close to being friends as sociopathic lawyers can be, and every time we'd run into each other at some lame-ass law school function, she and I would be delighted to see one another and we'd beg our husbands to make plans for the four of us to go out. They'd agree, and then we wouldn't meet, and my ex, the Antichrist, would conveniently forget to give me their phone number or he wouldn't know it, or something.

We divorced at about the same time, she and I and immediately became the best of friends. Nothing like losing 160 pounds of inconvenient buzz-kill to lighten up a relationship.

P-Roo is an artist, too. She was a jeweler until health reasons forced her to give up metal working (and red meat, and alcohol and wheat and nuts and bananas and strawberries and pretty much everything that makes life liveable. Except coffee. She can still drink coffee. And smoke cigarettes, and what the fuck is it to you if we do?)

Now she is a quilter, and in fact, it is she who does all my machine quilting for me. She designs all of her own quilting patterns and they are pretty amazing. I particularly love the ones she based on a book of Gothic stonework (that I bought for her at a used book store in Sarasota a couple of summers ago). Synergy, people, synergy.

But today she left for Texas, and the only bright spot I can find in this is that the bitch will finally start reading my blog, just to keep up with me.

Any of you out there in Austin, or quilters looking for an amazing long-arm quilter to do your tops for you, drop me an e-mail and I'll tell you where to find her. Austin may be one of the hippest cities in America, but it still can be cold and lonely if you don't know anyone there.

Day three of laying in bed hacking up lung so hard that my ribs hurt and my abs hurt like I've been doing crunches non-stop for all three days. Which, if you saw me hacking, you'd know to be true.

But every cloud has a silver lining, and here's mine: I've just listed two quilts on Etsy. There's a Red Ribbons and Hearts quilt that I made for an AIDS auction that never happened. Instead, I'm going to donate half the sale price to CareResource, the AIDS organization on whose board I once sat.

Tante Leah's Handmades. On line and on sale now.

A portrait of Scotty Neaill, the first boy I had a crush on, the last boy I knew who got drafted for Viet Nam, and the first friend to die of AIDS.

Scotty was a year older than me, and I just adored him. He had this one eyebrow that sort of curled up on one side, very devilish and twinkly eyes with long dark lashes. He wasn't a blonde surfer, and he wasn't an athelete (like that would have driven me wild, even in those days) and he wasn't the most popular boy in school. He was just Scotty and I wanted to go out with him. Instead, I was his friend, the girl he told about all the other girls that had crushes on him that he didn't like. We'd go to the beach together.

Once I went to visit him when I was out horseback riding with another friend. We just trotted up to his house and hung around for a while. When we left, he told his mother, "she's sort of weird, but I like her." She told me that when I made my condolence call after he died.

He took me sailing on his Hobie Cat, and once we were becalmed on the St. Lucie River for several hours until we were able to tack back to the dock at the Sunrise Inn. When I finally made it home, my mother was furious, her mind filled with the horrid possibilities of what a young girl and a young man could do for three hours on the canvas deck of a Hobie in the middle of the river. Nothing much, I assure you, but Mummy was not so easily dissuaded from believing that.

Scotty gave me a strand of love beads, the summer of 1970 or 71. I still have them.

Scotty was drafted into the United States Army, the last of the Nam draftees, but he served his term in Japan, where he fell in love with Japanese landscaping and gardening. When he got out of the service, he tried to enroll in a school in Japan, but there was no room for a US citizen. So Scotty came back to America and moved to San Francisco, where he worked at Horchow, and tried to find local Japanese landscaping classes.

Scotty died in 1988, the first of way too many friends to die of AIDS. He left behind no garden to bear witness to his passion. His younger brother Richard became a landscape architect, perhaps in Scotty's memory, perhaps because he too loved plants and flowers and making them take on the vision you hold in your head. Richard died of AIDS, too, maybe eight years after Scotty.

Remember your friends, and those who are living, tell them you love them. Make a donation today to your local AIDS service organization or national research group, like AMFAR. Light a candle. Say a prayer.

We are down to the last four bitches and hos, we are in Barthelona (no visit yet from Manuel, but I'm still hopeful) and it is the week the B&Hs learn to Flamenco. I'll wait for you all to stop choking with laughter.
All better now? Good. Because when you see these four and their pathetic footwork, you will only start choking again. Amanda starts the episode by interviewing that she is really, really sorry that her twin is gone, but then again, it's just one less bitch to beat out to the finals, so y'know? Blood, water, whatever. CariDee comes around to tell Amanda that she knows it's lonely for her without Michelle, and she, CariDee is there if Amanada needs a cuddle. Wrong twin, CariDee.

The girls get a Tyra mail about partnering and it, of course, leaves them clueless. But I'm beginning to think that with this particular litter, you could just spell it out: Tyra says this week you learn to dance. and they still would all be hanging over each other's shoulders going "wha?"

Flamenco! They pile into a dance studio and meet the maestro and his interpreter and a pack of slim-hipped men in high heels - their flamenco partners. The maestro shows them a couple of simple steps, a forward, back, sweep and step that anyone who never fell over their own Reeboks in a Jazzercise class could master (that would, of course, leave out yours truly, who once said to her own mother "Why did God make Jews smart, I'd have gladly given up a few IQ points for a little natural rhythm." and got slapped for being a wiseass). The maestro's name is Nacho, but he's a different Nacho than the one who didn't want to kiss Jaeda-I-Hate-My-Hair. To which I can only ask: WTF? When did Nacho become a popular Spanish name, or are they fucking with us?

But we are talking about the ANTM hamsters here, so it goes without saying that Amanda is lame, Melrose overthinks it, CariDee hates Melrose and will "puke" if she wins, and Eugena plays the "I GOT natural rhythm, so I have no problems with this one" card. No, she really said it on national TV. Really.

We see them practice with their attractive, slim-hipped and graceful partners. Nothing seems to rub off on the hamsters, but Amanda's shoes rubbed her heels and we are treated to a shot of her picking at her blisters while she voices over something that I couldn't hear because the voice in my head was shrieking too loudly in horror about the visual.

They go home. They practice more. They all interview about how much they hate Melrose. Melrose doesn't care that they hate her (and neither do I, to tell you the truth. I'm pretty much over this bunch. How many more weeks do we have to suffer these fools?).

They go to another (or maybe the same one they shot the Secret commercial in) park and there is a small wooden dance floor, a guitarist and a handful of random people who are never identified sitting at cafe tables where they can watch the dance. The Maestro and his interpreter are there to judge. Again, CariDee hates Melrose a lot. Even when she's dancing, it's still all about how much she hates Melrose. This is the Flamenco of hate. She's not bad.

Eugena is great, if you are grading on a curve, and you have Amanda with her backward feet setting the curve.

Amanda has her feet on backwards today, proving that she really is Gumby, Dammit. But she tries, and she looks sort of pretty.

Melrose loses the beat in the first eight bars, blames it on her partner (as if, bitch -- I mean, who's the pro here?) and then loses it completely when she realizes that she isn't going to win. No, Eugena of the Natural Rhythm wins and gets to pick a friend to share her prize. Proving once more that no matter how many hours of footage they show us of two girls sharing a bed, gossiping about how much they hate Melrose (ahem, CariDee and Eugena) these hamsters are all two or more faced and Eugena picks Amanada to share her prize. CariDee gamely says that she would have shared with Amanda too, because Amanda hasn't won ANYTHING yet.

The prize is clothing from the famous and fabulous Custo Barcelona. As usual, the only one with a clue about who or what Custo is is Melrose. Have we mentioned yet that everybody hates Melrose? Because she's fake. Because she can model. Because she has more than two brain cells still functioning. Because she cooks. Because she keeps winning challenges. Because she tries harder. Because she won't take off the goddam raspberry beret. Although I have to admit, she wears it well.

Since the theme this week is twosies, the photo shoot also involves working in pairs. The girls will be posing in evening gowns, floating in a swimming pool, looking like (and how many times did they say this so we idiot viewers could get the point) aquatic angels. Yeah, whatevs. First up is Melrose and Eugena. Jay and Tyra giggle a little about how "Don't these two hate each other?" Yep. That's a knee-slapper, alright. Jay also rolls his eyes, despairs that Eugena never listens to direction and laments that it was just another typical Eugena shoot. Ugh.

Tyra is on set to coach, and we see in flashback that back in the earlies, say season two or so, she used to go on set and coach more often. I say that she should do this more often. It actually is helpful to the girls, and interesting to see her work it. Because, even though we call her Tyrant and snark about her fading beauty and all, the bitch WAS all that in her day and she does know her shit. Just seeing her in the flashback showing some forgettable prior contestant--one of the early man/girls--pose like Grace Jones was worth watching this whole episode.

The pool is cold. The models bitch. The fan blogs are rampant with suggestions that this was done on purpose to add drama. Allow me to weigh in on that.

I live in Miami. I have a very small, unheated pool. Even though it's 90 degrees during the day in the early spring, there is no way you could swim in my pool. It's just too fucking cold. That was a large pool they were in. Barcelona is many latitudes north of Miami. I don't think there was any producer hanky-panky involved. That said, I used to have swim team practice in an unheated pool in the winter. Colder than a witches tit. After a few dozen laps, we were fine. Until we had to get out of the water and into the cold air. These girls didn't move at all, and they have no body fat. Of course they were cold. However, if it's cold enough for one girl to develop hypothermia, it was probably cold enough for all of them to do so. Did they? Did Amanada the skeleton get hypothermia? No. Did Eugena? No. Of course Melrose didn't and if she did she would have kept her mouth shut and toughed it out. Did CariDee of the perpetual whining and constant neediness have to be pulled out of the pool and coddled? You better believe it. The girl is a hot mess of high maintenence.

And the photos were amazing. I hate when that happens. But they were. This whole season has had some amazing shoots.

Judging. Prizes. Stills from the dance recital. There is a horrifying moment where the camera zooms in on Amanda's backwards foot, the judges all cringe and she shows them, live, in person, how she can twist her foot 180 degrees from front. Eeew. Gumby, dammit. The judges allow as how CariDee is a whiny, needy, high maintenence sort of girl, and let her stay. They allow how everybody hates Melrose, and they aren't too fond of her either, especially that fucking beret, but she does take a fantastic picture every single fucking time, so what can you do except let her stay. Eugena gets to stay because there is no way in hell there could be three white finalists, and she has gotten better, even if her skin hasn't and they haven't paid for a dermatologist this year and she did show natural rhythm and danced OK. And anyway, if they get rid of her, who can CariDee whine to about how much she hates Melrose.

That means that Twin II gets the boot. Don't worry, little twins, you'll have a contract in no time. You two have faces that the camera loves, and more importantly, you have a gimmick. We'll miss you.

Next week, someone wins. The big question is, will anybody care.

By the time I got home, the head cold from hell was manifesting as a real flu. I have been in bed since, drinking hot toddies (Thanks Gigi and RJ), sleeping and groaning in pain. The flu makes your joints hurt, you know. But did you know that you have joints in your skull? Yep. They hurt, too.

I took the strongest OTC decongestant there is: something that you can only take once every 24 hours. Hasn't made a dent in the quanity of liquid oozing from my head.

Warning: TMI coming in the next sentence. That which isn't dripping from the front of my nose is making its way down into my lungs, gearing up for a lovely episode of bronchitis.

On the other hand, I'm so out of it that I was able to play my favorite stupid computer game and reach a new high score. OK, that exhausted me. Time to go horizontal again. I promise an ANTM recap when I wake up.

You know, I had a flu shot just a couple of weeks ago. So why did I wake up with a dripping and sore sinus this morning, which, by the time of this writing (4:30 EST) is now a raging head cold. I'm sneezing, dripping, mouth-breathing and cranky. I'm also out of sick leave and I'm not sure how many packages of Thera-Flu are in the kitchen pantry.

I just want to go home to the fuzzy bathrobe, flopsy puppy and bunny slippers and pass out on the sofa.

Groan, moan, bitch, whine and complain.

The bitches and the hos are in Barthelona (still no sign of Manuel, however) and Jaeda and her tedious hair hysteria are finally gone. Can I get an amen from someone?

It's week seven, and time for Nigel Barker to get to photograph the remaining contestants. The shoot will take place in an actual, still-in-use bullring. Take that, you bleeding heart PETA people. And because the idea of sticking these anorexic and none too graceful bimbos in front of a (possibly) charging bull isn't enough to frighten viewers, the PTB also put the Little Orange Man (aka Mr. Jay) in a full matador suit of lights. I had nightmares.
We see the girls in hair and make up, there is some interviewing about how scary it is to work with the fabulous NigelBarker, and then.....

Have I mentioned that this season's crop of hamsters is particularly clueless? Even more so than thinking all birds are blind clueless? They bitched about their makeovers from no less an eminence than Frederic Fekkai. They bitched about the shoots. They bitched about each other. They complained that Fabio was too old, that they didn't want to kiss people other than their significant others, that they didn't like their makeup, that they didn't like the photoshoots, that they didn't want to have to watch other girls win. Jeez, give it a rest, already.

Well, CariDee steps up her game after last week's gawdawful commercial, alrighty. She steps it right up into NigelBarker's face and suggests that he remove the stick he had up his ass at the last juding.
Yes, she did. And while Nigel managed not to slap her, he did turn around and march off the set, leaving poor Mr. Jay to explain, yet again, why being an asshole to the judges or the guest stars is probably a really bad idea and not likely to help them win the fabulous prizes (contract, cover and spread, money, etc) that they are all clawing each other's eyes out to win.

As you might expect, there is much eye-rolling over the lecture and not a whole lot of grasping of the concepts.

CariDee offers up a half-assed apology to Nigel, and he (way too gently, in my opinion) explains that she really doesn't know him from Adam's housecat, although she might think she does, and that it really isn't proper, polite or professional to speak to him (or anyone) like that.

With that excitement out of the way, the handlers release the bull and the shoot begins. There is jumping, and posing, and an occasional dive behind the safety barrier as the bull has enough of these twits and tries to run them down. (Unfortunately, the bull misses every time. Dammit.)

Eugena doesn't suck for two weeks in a row. In fact, Eugena manages to somehow show something approximating emotion. Or, the judges have just given up and now accept her version of stink eye as emotion.

Amanda blows big chunks, and Michelle tries to pry out of her what she did that was so wrong or so bad so that she can do something different. Amanda sulks and won't say. Michelle goes out and once more rocks the house, even with lace glued over half her face. Don't ask.

CariDee works too hard, and keeps looking a little too Debbie Does Dallas Barcelona for anyone's comfort.

Melrose is perfect, of course and as usual, except that even the judges hate her, so it doesn't count because it wasn't naturally perfect, it was calculatedly perfect. Or something like that.

There is a Tyrant group talk about criticism that amounts to so much filler and she manages to make it about her. Imagine that. I'm only bitching at you 'cause I L-U-V y'all. This comes from the Momma place. Eeeewww. Don't make me think about that, Tyra, 'cause it scares up visions of Mommie Dearest.

At judging, the girls have to opine as to who has the most talent and who has the least. Each of them picks themselves as being the best, except for Michelle, who thinks she isn't the best because she doen't want it the most. Way to buy into the bullshit the judges are feeding you, honey. But aside from themselves, they each name another girl who's maybe as good. Nobody picks Melrose as being the best, because they all hate her, and the same goes for Eugena, too. That leaves Amanda and CariDee as potential contenders and since Amanda is sort of a joke and a cypher, CariDee gets the nod as girl most likely.

Then the judges weigh in on it, and CariDee gets herself reminded about what a tool she was to Nigel, and how in the real world, not a reality world, she would have found herself on the sidewalk without a paycheck or much of a chance to ever work for one again. CariDee cries, and reads a letter she wrote to the judges apologizing for being an idiot and saying how she'll really, really, really, really not be an asshole to people if she gets to be the Covergirl Spokesgirl. It's no Jade "Leftover Lady" but then, what ever could be?

During the judging, Tyra has a brain fart and somehow produces a viable theory about the twins: Michelle only SAYS she doesn't know how much she wants to win, because she knows that this is her sister's dream, and she doesn't want to take it away from Amanda. Huh. Beauty and brains.

So, with that set-up in place, we go to the handing out of the four final photos. And they are: CariDee, getting yet another chance (I think just so they can crush her in the final three), Melrose (because the bitch takes great pix, how can they not?) Eugena (whom Tyrant now sees as a contender) and BIG FINISH: Amanda.

I'm guessing that the part of Tyra's logic that we didn't see went like this: If Michelle could win if her sister wasn't here, keeping her from trying all the way to win, maybe the same holds true for Amanda. Maybe Amanda isn't trying as hard as she can because she sees that Michelle is a natural and she (Amanda) wants to let her sister win.

Whatever. Next week it's Flamenco lessons. God, I just knew they were going to do that to the noble dance. This is going to be ugly.

In the brown bathroom, the one in the hall outside my apricot bedroom, there is a closet. Today is the day that I've decided to clean that closet. In it is the detritus of my parent's failing health. It contains strata of activity and obsessioin. There are two wrist braces, still in their original boxes. One is from the 1960s and shows (in a pen and ink illustration, on a lime green ground) a man, bowling. The other is from the 90s. Its box has a golden yellow band above a generic photo of a generic male wrist wearing the brace. It must have come from a big box store.

There is a black and clear acrylic tissue box holder. It has ended up in this closet after my mother redecorated her black, white and marble master bath. There are many, many, many, many boxes -- some are empty and some are filled -- but they are all Waterpik boxes. There is even a shoebox full of Waterpik replacement heads and brushes. Some, judging by the color of the bands used to differentiate them when more than one person uses the same device, are also relics from the 1960s. Others are pastels from the 1980s.

And then there are two bars of soap, shaped like and painted like ladybugs. Someone gave me them (along with a missing third) the summer I went to Europe. I was 11. It was the summer of 1966. The person who gave them to me was my cousin. She seemed much older than me, and much younger than my mother... could she have been about halfway between us?

But which cousin was it? That is the mystery and memory these two bars of soap have awoken.

I remember that we visited her when we were in New York City, before we sailed. Was it Aunt Ann's daughter? We stayed in Brooklyn with Aunt Ann. But where we went to visit, the house had a real yard. Did she live out on the Island?

She gave me an ice-cream cone, served upside down on a plate, with the ice-cream and cone decorated to look like a clown. Would that have been Aunt Marilyn's daughter?

When we left, she gave me the soap for my trip. Each bar was wrapped in tissue. I loved them too much to ever use them.

Now here I am, 41 years later, emptying them out of my childhood bathroom. One has lost its tissue. The other is still perfect. I wash the cracked paint off the open one and put the soap on the rim of the sink. There is a Waterpik already there.

Aww, man. I hate when I see these headlines. Robert Altman, one of my favorite directors of modern cinema, has died. He was a fucking genius, people. If you don't believe me, watch one of his movies. Any one of his movies, those which the critics loved (Nashville, M*A*S*H, The Player) or those which the critics did not (When You Comin' Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean; Popeye or Pret a Porter).

Tonight at the Casita de Zapatos, we will be having an Altman retrospective, including M*A*S*H, The Player (at least the 5-minute opening pan...what a shot) and Prairie Home Companion.

To continue this emphemeral pop-culture entry, what the fuck happened to Michael Richards? I never found him particularly funny, except intermitantly as Kramer, but still, I never suspected him of racism, either.

I'm not buying his explanation for one minute. I mean, there have been times when I've had blood in my eye, and a burning rage exploding in my brain, and it never once led me to use the "N" word, or to make approving remarks about lynchings. No, I think and hope that the industry analysis of this being a career-ending move are correct.

Many years ago, when the RLA and I lived in Clovis, New Mexico (Don't ask. Scorched earth epicenter of racism, hatred and all that is wrong with America) I was actually dragged down to the dean's office at the little community college where we were teaching, because I shoved a middle-aged student assistant up against a wall, and explained to her very firmly and with very naughty language why the use of the "N" word was not acceptable in my class room. I was told that what she did was protected by free speech, what I did was considered assault. I told the dean that I considered what she did racism, and what I did education. We agreed to disagree. I didn't teach there again.

And then we have O.J. and his now-cancelled book and tv special. Despite the publisher claiming that old chestnut free speech, and that as a victim herself of domestic violence she considered this his confession, and wait. I have to stop myself right there.

Yes, he had the right to write his book. That is free speech. I have the right not to buy it, or not to watch his television interview. That is free will. But somewhere between the two is the right of the publisher not to buy the manuscript and the right of the television network to turn down the proposal. Like so many other things in this life, just because you can doesn't mean that you should.

And it isn't a confession, at all, is it? It was explicitly NOT a confession. It was a nyah, nyah, nyah. It was a big old fuck you at the American system of jurisprudence and OJ's protection under double indemnity. What happens next, anybody can guess: some lunatic vigillante will probably gun OJ down on the streets of Miami. And unfortunately, Florida, unlike New Mexico, does not accept the defense of "he needed killin'".

Have I missed any of the week's highlights? Oh, yeah. TomKat. He's gay. She's brainwashed. The baby was by way of a turkey baster and/or test tube. Who are they kidding... And the quote by Georgio Armani, that the wedding was sealed by an "everlasting kiss"? Even that was a manufactured thing. A quote from one of The Boss's oldest, bestest songs: Born to Run.

Yeah! It's acting lessons this week on America's Next Top Model. Nobody in the house seems to give a rat's ass that Anchal, poor poor Anchal has been sent back to Homestead, Florida. I care. Nobody should have to go to Homestead, unless you are looking for a U-Pick tomato field, and those are all being turned into condominiums and housing developments with ridiculous names evocotive of things --like ocean views or mediterranean villages-- that are nowhere near Homestead. Of course, if you did name those places after things you can see in Homestead, you'd have developments with names like "Mount Trashmore Vistas", "Las Casitas des Trabodores Migrantes" and "Hurricane Andrew Decimated Us Farms" and I don't think people would buy them. But I digress.
Yes, acting lessons. Still in the running for becoming America's Next Top Model are Melrose the megalomaniac, CariDee of the loose screws, Eugena the official Black contestant still in game and with none of the dermatological services given to Yaya but no less deserving of same, Jaeda who Will NOT shut up about the hair already, and the twins: Blah and Bland. Who will have a breakdown on the stage? Who will rock the acting class and get a walk on part in another forgettable WC/WB/UPN show? Do any of us really care?

In what has to be one of the most shocking revelations to date, Jaeda cries and sobs and beats her breast over the agony of having had her hair cut. No. Really. CariDee cries and cries and cries that nobody in the house likes her (stole that one from her old friend Anchal) and that she knows what it's like to be sad. She tried to kill herself once. (Not hard enough, obviously. It must have been the heartbreak of psoriasis that led her to it.) Melrose gives it her all and screeches that nobody in the house has any right to say that their photos are better than hers and who the fuck do they think they are to judge her and so on. I have to say, that of all the hamsters, Melrose is the only one who understands that this is a competition, not just a Real Life reality show.

The challenge is to "act" while Tasha (Tyra's friendgirl and acting coach) shouts meaningless direction at them. This will be filmed and pieced together into a silent movie. They will be judged on their movies, and the winner will get the walk on, etc. etc. The silent movie consists of looking out of windows, opening doors, sobbing, answering a phone, eating a lemon and drinking prune juice. Where's Anchal now? She wouldn't have turned her little nose up a lemon and prune juice. Why lemons and prune juice? Why not. You can't actually make the girls eat poison, can you? And if it were something like a lettuce leaf or dry toast, they might actually like it.

CariDee wins. Whee for CariDee. Then there is the big reveal that they are, in fact, going to go to Barcelona*. That's in Spain. In Europe. Just in case you weren't sure. Tyra manages to come out in full flamenco drag.

In Barcelona, the girls are told they will be working with Spanish models, and are much relieved to discover that these are male models. They go to dinner together, where they are instructed to pair off and rehearse a commercial script (that they will be doing the next day... in Castelan, as opposed to High School Spanish, I suppose). None of the male models speak much English, and in what may be bad editing, bad communications, a terrible misunderstanding, or just some guy being an asshole, Jaeda's male model refuses to make out with her saying that he doesn't like it or want to or something. Jaeda takes this to mean, and tells everyone within earshot over the next day and a half that it means, he told her he doesn't like Black girls. That's not what I heard. It's not what the subtitles said, but this is a "reality" show, so your guess is as good as mine regarding the truth of the matter.**

Melrose stays up late, studying her lines. The other girls do or do not, but we don't see them. We do see them all whining (have I mentioned what a fucking WHINY bunch of hamsters they are this season) about how they can't speak Spanish. They can't roll their "r"s. They can't memorize the lines. Jaeda doesn't want to kiss anyone but her boyfriend and anyway this guy is a pig who doesn't like Black women. They are a pathetic bunch this season, really.

The next day, they go for their shoot, and CariDee sucks beyond all suckiness. She is trying to remember her lines by rolling her eyes far back enough in her head to read the script she tucked up under her skull, apparently. It's scary. The twins are ho-hum and hum-ho. Jaeda has a melt down about the kissing and the racism and the fact that she has short hair and the Castelan and the sun and the moon and the stars and everything in the world. She sucks at melting down, too. Eugena doesn't suck as much as she usually does at everything and Melrose rocks the shoot. Are we surprised?

Judging. Tyra says Eugena is now someone to watch. Why? Is she going to suddenly develop talent and good looks? The twins get to stay, because between them there is enough going on to make one good model. CariDee is once more noted as being a bi-polar freakazoid. Melrose is already boring us with how good she is, albeit older than dirt. And that leaves Jaeda. Where does it leave her? On the fucking plane back to the states where she can grow her hair and kiss her boyfriend all she wants and remember the halcyon days when she was the prettiest girl in school. What ever.

Next week: Bull fights?! Better than flamenco, for sure. Will they have to eat squid and eel tapas, too?

* We do not, unfortunately, get a visit from (or to) Manuel.

** This may also be the first week without the writers, but honestly, I saw no difference between the quality of the story arc in this episode and any of the first half of the season. Maybe with the writers we would have a definitive version of what Nacho (no, really, that was the goober's name) said to Jaeda.

Once in a while, the universe does its thing, justice is dispensed, and you get the satisfaction of hearing about it without having had to lift so much as an eyebrow in bringing it about. To quote one of my favorite lines, ever, from one of my favorite movies, ever:

Conan, what is good? TO CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES, TO DRIVE THEM BEFORE YOU, AND TO HEAR THE LAMENTATIONS OF THEIR WOMEN.
You may ask, so Miz Shoes, who was crushed? And I will answer, the old Pointy Haired Boss.

This guy here. The one sleeping at his desk.

And what was the straw that finally broke the camel's hump? The Pointy Haired Boss, the master of the Jackson Memorial Hospital web site, the manager who took my job, o he of little brain, he called the IT help desk and asked what, exactly is an ISS?

You know, if the fucking moron had just paid attention when I tried to teach him how to write a search string in Google, instead of relying on Ask Jeeves, maybe he'd still be there, fucking up.

Conan, what is good?