Sunday, August 07, 2005

Spon-what now?

Watched Elimidate last night, which I don’t get to see as much as I used to because it’s on too late. This is a show I watched regularly for a while because, well, I dunno, I felt it had something to teach me. I’m not sure what I thought that might be, but it probably had to do with the lengths people will go to to be on TV for about seventeen minutes, and not even to win cash and prizes. Or maybe it’s just the lengths people will go to period. Or maybe it’s just to watch people get drunker and drunker and be really glad I don’t have to drink and date anymore. Or maybe it’s just to feel better about myself in general, which I’m sure is why I watch most reality shows. Anyway, Saturday nights at ten they have back-to-back episodes and SNL is in reruns now. Elimidate, for the uninitiated, is sort of the Fear Factor of dating shows – there aren’t any challenges, but I defy you not to scream out in horror when the tongues start flying all around like so many tarantula milkshakes. (No, I don’t know what that means either, but let’s pretend it works, ‘kay?) It’s just a half-hour syndicated show, and the premise is simple: one guy or gal meets up with four other guys or gals, and after each commercial break, elimi-dates one of them until one remains. The funnest part of Elimidate is when the gals start cat-fighting, and with few exceptions, it happens every time. Okay, it’s usually not physical, but sometimes it is, and it is always, without exception, not about whether or not someone’s breasts are real, because it’s a given that if they’re bigger than an a-cup that they aren’t (usually they are proud to admit “yeah they’re mine, I paid for them,” the important thing being “they look good, right?”) but about whether the girl herself is “real”, and whether she’s a skanky-ass ho or “classy”. It should go without saying that if you’re on Elimidate at all, even if you’re dressed in a turtleneck and ski pants, classy is a stretch. At least one of the following two are always involved – bars and hot tubs, and if there’s no hot tub, there’s always a dance floor, which allows the guy or gal to see “what they’re like on the dance floor” which allows them to see how much grinding and shirt-removing will take place, which allows them to get an idea if they’re going to get lucky. Anyway, last night were two particularly excellent episodes. Both featured bachelors as the elimidater. In the first episode, the guy was kind of muscley-tattoey with a thick New York accent. He wasn’t quite as overtly piggy and boastful as the guys often are, sort of giggling at the lengths the girls went to to impress him. One girl ran through a field in high heels, bouncing and shimmying her fake boobs. Then came the moment that made the entire episode worthwhile. The girls asked the guy what they were looking for in a woman. He said, “I guess what I really like is spontenuity.”
At which time, instead of anyone making a George Bush joke or even seeming to notice at all, two girls quickly took turns making out with him and grinding on him on the dance floor. “I am so happy I didn’t wear drawers tonight!” he said, giggling. (Note: fake boob girl won the date, of course.)
The second show was in some ways even more Fear-Factory to the extent that the guy was your worst nightmare, the kind of guy any girl in the real world with any kind of sense would – well, I’d say she’d politely back away from, but the truth is, she’d probably and thankfully not be in the universe of this guy – I personally have very limited experience in this kind of singles-bar universe, and upon occasional orbit thereabouts I tended to be unable to deal with guys like this in any way that didn’t involve sarcasm or at least protracted looks of disdain. In any case, this guy was a “party promoter,” self-titled “biggest player in Denver,” (okay, this from a guy who was almost a ringer for Eddie Haskell) with “six hundred” numbers in his cell, “all ladies”. He also tells us that there are lots of hot girls in Denver and that he has no interest in settling down, right now he’s all about “upgrading” and upgrading and upgrading and maybe he’ll stop when he can’t upgrade anymore, but so far that hasn’t happened since there’s always a cuter girl. Insert your own moment of despair here. So on the date, he starts out not by forgetting all their names, but not even making any effort to try to remember their names, calling them, “girl in red,” “girl in blue,” “girl in white.” He says to the camera, “I’ll remember their names if they’re cute enough.” All the girls, sensibly, became irritated when he kept taking calls on his cell phone, and one girl even Elimidated herself. “Bye, girl in blue,” he said.
I went to bed when he had two girls left. Usually I have to see how it turns out, no matter how horrified I am by humanity at the beginning. I guess I would like to have seen his ass get dumped by girl in white and girl in red too, but that only happens on rare occasions. So I’ll never know which girl “cock in brown” picked.

7 comments:

Teodoro Callate said...

I actually flipped by this program exactly when the girl walked out on the dude. And the dude responded by slurring that he had never, ever been dumped, and then he shared a shot with the two confused-looking girls with him as a way to cope. I, too, decided to not watch the conclusion of the program.

Whew. Wow. Television.

And in a nod to a thread from a few months ago, Ultimate Fighting was on another channel.

Saturday night television can be surreal and icky. I rarely find a place to use the word icky, but I can't easily find a better word.

Anonymous said...

No! You didn't! I forgot to mention that he'd said that (yeah right!) and that they were all getting visibly drunker.

Teodoro Callate said...

I did!

And the program did not make me want to go get drunk...

Anonymous said...

If this isn't an argument for sobriety, I don't know what is...

Anonymous said...

You can't be blamed, Debra, it's riveting. Yes, it was bikini girl.

Mistah Kurtz He Dead said...

Reality TV has uncovered a whole new level of stress in my life. Now that I am the father of girls, I often become extremely embarrassed by the way these young women act on shows like Elimidate or Fight for Fame or Doctor 90210, and I look at my daughters, both in bouncy chairs waiting to be fed (they're always waiting to be fed, looking up at me expectantly, wide eyed, drooling, somewhat like the women on these shows, waiting to see if they've been picked for the surgery or the walk on part on some obscure WB show or the one-night-stand with some drunk fuck with a thick Brooklyn accent), and I say, "I better never see you on one of these shows vying for 'cock in brown's' attention by any means necessary... There will be no gyrating, no implants, in your future."

Sure, my boys could end up here, too, but I don't worry too much about them. Aidan executes perfect face-plants time after time while exiting the wading pool, and I am cool with that. If he were to revive Jackass in 20 years, that'd fill me with some sort of secret, sick pride.

But I sit in my family room most nights and worry about the day that I will lose my daughters to the world, and they're only 11 weeks old this Thursday. Shit.

Fucking reality TV!

Anonymous said...

Dan, I am so completely sure you don't need to worry about it. But it's funny, I don't even have kids yet and that's where my mind goes - where - or who - are these people's PARENTS?????