The Rise of Andy Cohen and the Real Housewives of All Perdition

At first I was afraid—I was petrified— to even glimpse into the worlds of such unabashed fabulousity that would make me drool and want to ditch my simple life without an alternative place to go. No money, no go. No, woman, no cry! Kind of stuff that would make me pity myself to oblivion and beyond. I was intimidated by the worlds of the Real Housewives of any city. Yet, somehow, I got over myself. I tuned in and worse than a strung-out hippie from the sixties, I cannot tune out. I am deliciously, lasciviously and unapologetically addicted.

I gleefully watch and anticipate the shows, collectively, repeatedly, read sublimely written recap blogs and announce to my unbelieving friends that I find them to be beyond mere guilty pleasure and more so on the line of an anthropological study that I must partake in or else my real life would be lessened, somehow. How else would I ever learn the art of flipping a table, spin-twirl an exit and declare, with much unabashed aplomb, “Who gonna check me, boo?”

I’ve watched Andy Cohen rise from his humble roots, broadcasting Watch What Happens Live from what deceptively appeared to have been his parents’ basement a’ la Wayne’s World and foresaw, somehow, that he was indeed the one to watch. I’ve called his ascent into the Ubersphere of TV-land back from the day when he was seemingly just shooting the breeze about his creations—the brilliant The Real Housewives franchise. I thought he wasn’t kidding. I thought he would become Mr. Bravo TV. I thought one day he’d have superstars like Oprah, Cher, Gaga, clamoring to be in his kitschy Clubhouse, falling over their Le Boutins, phoning in from their compounds in Malibu or yachts on the Amalfi Coast—just as riveted and strung out as myself on my Craigslist sofa. I thought—get this!—that Camille Paglia would one day comment on it. And it’s come to pass.

My one regret, that time and reality itself cannot allow, is that the two Andys—Cohen and Warhol— can never be. How fabulous would it have been to have just seen the monosyllabic Andy Warhol at the Clubhouse? Warhol, who in the sixties, thankfully, coined the prophetic phrase that’s now become the cultural phenomenon of the ultimate surreality: In the future everyone shall be famous for 15 minutes. Mr. Cohen makes sure that those 15 minutes are forever caught on camera by following fame-hungry, well heeled and red soled women teetering on the edge of their mid-life crises in selectively privileged enclaves of American society. Ah, the two Andys—together—at the Clubhouse. Just how fabuliscious would that have been?