I unashamedly and unabashedly love realty TV. I go to my mom's house every Wednesday for the results show of American Idol. I can't watch the performance show with her because I like to cry a little when they sing amazingly and I get embarrassed if my mom is there so that I do alone at my house. I also like to sit and cry at The Biggest Loser, rejoicing in the fat people's courage and effort and victory as they stand on the cattle scale with glee and watch as massive poundage is dropped every week. I do this while shoveling copious amounts of cake and Rice Dream into my face feeling, "I'm doing pretty well myself," meaning I'm not as fat as I thought I was... being 20 pounds overweight as I am seems somehow manageable next to the 200 pounds they must lose. And watching them huff and puff in the work-outs make me feel like a professional athlete during my little 5 mile runs. Huh. I wonder if anyone else is America feels like me and that's why the show is a hit? hmmmm.
Even without American Idol, Wednesday is an important night. Besides The Biggest Loser we have ANTM and Project Runway. Watching Tyra slowly go insane is truly one of the highlights of my week and I'm not going to lie, the high school boy in me could watch 15 18-year-old models do just about anything short of murdering babies for an hour with sublime appreciation.
It's strange. The girls don't turn me on and I don't jerk off to them later or anything, they actually seem innately asexual to me. I just like watching them. Like watching puppies in the window of a pet store. That warm fluffy feeling in your gut at some point being replaced with a distant ache of dread that they probably have a one in four chance of being euthanized within the week. It's the same with the little bambi-like models.
I don't try and figure out why I like things, I just enjoy. I'm a big suspension of disbelief guy. I don't try and unriddle the plot of a mystery movie, I just watch. Who knows why Melrose does the things she does, she just does, and I appreciate them.
Once, in my elevator, returning from a run in Central Park, I was suddenly face to face with Amanda, the blonde single mother from the South with the beautiful eyes that were going blind from a couple seasons ago. It turned out that selling her as the "single mother" was going to get more people interested in her than the truth of her situation which was the "unwed mother who's boyfriend/father of her kid lives with her" which I found out upon asking her to dinner. I was shattered. You mean all the stuff that happens on the reality show isn't real? You would think that a guy as worldly as I, (lest we forget I've had steel rods shoved down my dick by doms, the modern vernacular synonym for "worldly") would have sussed that out already but I hadn't and I was heartbroken. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to employ more suspension of disbelief, which won't be a problem.
And thank God for DVR. It will allow me tape my beloved lineup of shows tonight as I watch the Mets beat the Cardinals to force a game 7, which of course they will win as well, propelling them past the arrogant Pulhols cunts and into the World Series. LETS GO METS! LETS GO FAT PEOPLE IN THE GYM! LETS GO TRYA! LETS GO PEOPLE DESIGNING CLOTHES!
Last summer, in the dog days summer, with only the Surreal Life and that Danny Bonaduce one to sustain me, Skating With The Stars came on. I said to myself, "Dude. If you watch this, there is no turning back. You... can... not... watch... skating... with... the ... stars!" 30 seconds into Bruce Jenner and Ty Babalonia's awkward first program with "Eye Of The Tiger" behind them, the tears started to flow and I was hooked. Yes, that's right. I WATCHED IT! WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?! I love Skating With The Stars, I love Skating With The Stars. Fuck. I better eat something. LETS GO TODD HAMILTON! Or whatever the little bald gay one who survived cancer's name is. I love you all.
Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 3:42 PM