Tag Archives: TV

Confessions of a Writer and Avowed TV Addict on the Verge of

Let’s admit to the passage of time, begrudgingly, albeit truthfully while at times unbeknownst to us—because, let’s face it, as seniors (or those yet on the verge) a handful of you might have actually been at Woodstock or places where the love and smoke might have fogged the memories a bit more than just the dreaded menopause alone, so what more can be said or recollected? Yours truly, was too young to have been there, but I’ve lived long enough on the planet to have heard stories.

I’m inclined to cop to having lived long enough to mourn the absence from my TV screen of the dearly missed—but never forgotten! (despite the memory-erasing effects of estrogen dominance, as I type this)—Patsy and Edina from my TV screen. How am I to face the world of what troubled these ne’er do wells, ne’er grow-up, laughably-hip, coked-out, Stollied-out, Not-Ready-For-Desilu-Production heroines of mine without them? The brilliant originator and writer of Absolutely Fabulous, creator of these two floozies we loved to laugh at, Jennifer Saunders, tackled this dreaded encroachment of time onto our senses that universally unites us chicks as we stumble about on the planet—at the end of the day—in one of Patsy’s and Eddie’s more memorable and hysterical episodes titled, “Menopause.” As you can imagine, our heroines went fiercely kicking and screaming all the way into that night.

I drown my sorrow not in a bottle nor with a toke—because I’m frankly just a social drinker that can get deathly pukey and spew out overly sentimental recollections of Bowie and can further assure you that my two pale attempts at smoking hashish (more the rage in my native environs) made me paranoid and timid–the latter, remaining a character trait that some of my past editors wished had actually stuck.

What possible perks may be found in teetering on the verge of seniority—a fate that is dreaded and refuted most, perhaps, in our Real Housewives of All Delusions And Perdition Shows as evidenced on Bravo TV? Well, unlike some of you, it seems safe to conclude that none of these chicks were actually at Woodstock. Also, most of you might have self-awareness enough to resist succumbing to the needle and scalpel only to come out at the other end of the ether looking like a duck billed platipus with cat eyes and a perpetually fixed Joker grin.

Yes, Kit Kats, even my recollections of something as complexly mysterious and achingly poignant as time and its inevitable passing—the stuff that consumes some of my more laudable heroes like Steven Hawking and Michio Kaku—brings me back to my addiction with TV shows and faded memories of glam concerts washed up on a shore where all things ephemeral inevitably end up—much like bottles with faded, unread letters in them.

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?