A few threads in the comments sections have really gotten off track. I played a big part in that, and I apologize. Particularly in the post on gay marriage, I would like people to have a chance to talk about gay marriage and my response to it or your response to it. There are some good comments in there mixed in with some goofy little bickering between me and a frequent visitor. That's healthy, up to a point, but maybe not there. Please read on past them, and I promise to try to exert more self control. I have such problems with self-control in that area.

Meanwhile, feel free to use this post to continue the discussion or any other one you like, on or off topic to anything. Thanks, and sorry.

Reality shows tend to come in two flavors: extraordinary and revolting. Sadly, the vast majority fall into the latter category, but then so do most sitcoms, and I really enjoy the handful of great ones. And for every dozen Fear Factors, Big Brothers and High School Reunions, there's a revelation awaiting us on Survivor.

The bachelor-type shows have plyed that rare middle ground, but they were making a steady climb until this Love or Money fiasco. (First I'm going to paste in a few quick thoughts on last week's show which I was too busy to post. Then some bullet-style thoughts on this one. I'm only allowing myself a ten-minute break.)

LAST WEEK:

Lover began with an even more interesting scenario than Joe Millionaire, but hard as would have been to imagine, an even lamer bachellor--and nearly as many twits in the dating pool. So why I was hoping for more with the sequel? I kinda figured the producers were just pigs who thought of those airheads as ideal wives.

They think even less of the men. Salesmen! They're all salesmen! With a few other businessmen and related occupations thrown in. (I real estate agent is still just a salesmen. The entreunpreuer--quite possibly, especially they way these shows toss out the euphemisms. Ten to one he's still trying to get his business going, working the rounds selling his ideas, trying to line up financing. And one self-described cartoon of a bartender named Munch, the comic relief who will go the entire series without saying anything funny.

They're all moneygrubbers, is that the point? To make it a real challenge for Erin to lure the winner away from a half million dollars when his entire goal in life is making it? Nothing remotely like a fireman in this group Trista. No laborers of any kind, no one artistic or creative or physical. All shills.

Quote of the week: "You'll walk out of this house with a soulmate on your arm." What? What is that, a trophy soulmate? I kept hearing that Laurie Anderson song in my head: "I've got a beautiful red dress / And you look really good, standing beside it."

Seems like a houseful of aging fratboys who haven't grown up a lick since then and have reached the age where it's begun to wear thin even on the cheerleading crowd. No wonder they're all single and presumably desperate. They lost me at hello.

But clearly we're beginning to see a pattern here: the bachelorettes have far better taste than the bachelors. If only they gave her a little more to work with. I was amazed to see her toss out the one true hotty in the group, just because he was the biggest asshole in a house full of dolts.

A little amused to see her keep the gayguy, though. (That would be Eric.) And utterly disbelieving that she held onto Munch, though just for a week, as it turned out.

THIS WEEK:

The team captains thing was pathetic. Just how hard will this show go to try to make the jocks feel like it's one of them.

The funny side of that dumbass move, though, was that the producers felt the need to spell out the strategy for the contestants. Here is your opportunity to leave two guys at home. So pick the weak people for your team.

But then considering all the swill dribbling out of their mouths . . . And why do they all keep putting all those I's at the ends of their sentences. Eric alone must have done it three times in his little bit of screen time. "No explanation as to why Munch chose Chad and I to be part of his group." . . .  "You just have to look the other guy square in the face and say, 'It's you or I.'" Aside from the complete banality of that last statement, and it being the eye you have to look him in, the pronoun is ME! Chad and ME. You or ME. What kind of ear doesn't crack when its own mouth makes that horrible "Chad and I" sound?

I did not hear a single insightful statement on the show. An abundance of sportscaster-grade analysis like this:

"A million dollars on the line right now, and your chances are a lot better one in seven from one in ten."

From here on, I'm just watching to heckle.

I've forbidden myself to post again until I get my magazine story done, but I just found myself on a roll in an email to my editor, so I'm going to share it with all of you here:

oddly, i watched an old charlie rose interview w/ zadie smith over the course of three meal breaks today. i love her! i'd always meant to read white teeth, but wasn't completely sure about it and never got around to it. (same with the interview, actually. it's been sitting there on my tivo for a good six months. i think it was the beret that kept scaring me off.)

she is way too wise for 24. i was sure she was going to be a real idiot, because 24 year olds can really be idiots and really be full of themselves when they're prematurely successful (which is redundant), and no surer sign than a beret that they're trying to dredge up the ghost of jack kerouac. just put them out of their misery now. she wasn't. she sounded wise as my 65-year-old mentor. that's not fair.

but she also said just the right things to make me feel better. she said writing could be agony because you're always wracked with guilt (shame?) that you're not working hard enough, even though you know it's impossible to force it out any more quickly, but then the day comes along where three thousand brilliant words spill out and there's just no feeling like that in all the world. God, has she been hanging out in my apartment? i've been trying to force myself into labor for a week and a half now, cursing and berating myself and threatending to file for divorce, and around 9:35 this morning, my water suddenly broke and that must be one hell of a placenta, because the juices have been spilling all over the apartment and the carpets are soaked.

charlie also asked her what her best writing quality was, and without a beat, she said empathy. the beatlessness was slightly less impressive once i remembered she was on book tour and had been asked that 500 times, but i still felt an amazing kinship with her immediately. that's what joan walsh always told me my best quality was, and i never heard any other writer say it before. and she followed empathy quickly with curiosity, which is right up there for me too--although i guess they go hand in hand, don't they? can't wait to finish up this story and run out to Tattered Cover to get her book.

i hope it isn't crap. i'll be so dissappointed. the conversation made it sound like a stephen frears fillum, though, or perhaps i was just drawing that connection because i just heard about his new movie, and heard it was good, and where the hell has that guy been? i've been waiting for another Sammy and Rosy Get Laid for a long damn time, and the grifters even longer--since i had to work backwards into his older stuff--and both the new film and her book remind me of sammy/rosy. (i'm not fusing directors here am i?)

see how i get distracted. but i needed a little break.