The Bachelorette Is Des

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Oh, sweet Jesus, here we are at another Bachelorette season. How does that happen so soon?

I think it’s really hilarious how they start the beginning of the season with such optimism. Like producers have been filling their heads with how they can go on Dancing with the Stars afterwards and make more money, so they are all bright and shiny at the beginning. So, too, with our lovely Desiree (aka “Des”).

Then, they realize the level of jackassery they have to put up with, and the smiles come off.

No mention is made, either, though it’s one big elephant in the room, of Des’ wild and crazy brother, who nearly punched Sean out last season, because he thought Sean was basically a slut for bedding all these women. Oh! the affront to Sean’s honor!

Little did Des’ brother know that Sean is either a virgin (if you believe the tabloids) or gay (if you believe his jokes during DWTS). Either way, he didn’t sleep with any of the lovely ladies, which, for me, makes for a damn boring season.

And it may repeat itself this season, since published reports indicate that Des is religious (no mention of this in the opening previews).

As for me, I like to come at each new Bachelorette season with optimisim, too. I like to believe there are romantics in this crowd, who really want to find love, not just their 15 minutes of fame.

I realize that, since it’s TV, everyone thinks they need to stand out, but seriously… One guy jumps out of the limo in a suit of armor. And genuinely thought that was a good idea. (He got eliminated the first night.)

Know what else isn’t a good idea? Creating a fake “Fantasy Suite” card, and handing it to someone when you first meet them. I’ve been known to be a pretty racy girl at times, but even I think that’s the height of douchebaggery. The guy continues to not get the hint, and tries to drag Des to a back bedroom, upon which she promptly has him escorted out.

“I’m not that kind of girl,” Des frumps. Who IS that kind of girl? Even the crazy girl in the wedding dress from last season, who got so drunk she was falling down, even she would have the sense to say: “I can’t have sex with you on the first episode!”

No, ladies and gentlemen, there is an order to these things. A protocol. A decorum.

For instance, call me old-fashioned, but when you are attending an event where you are being driven in a limo, and you know the woman you are meeting is going to be wearing a gown, you DO NOT wear tennis shoes. Of any kind. Nor, for that matter, do you wear a casual blazer with the comment: “I dress up all the time at work” (so I won’t here?). Nor do you pull off your tie midway through. “I hate these things.”

If it were me, all of those behaviors would get points off. A lady, you see, does judge one on one’s proper use of decorum and etiquette.

There was one gent who made his own tuxedo, and it was hideous. Letters-pasted-on hideous. Good grief.

Another moron, as bad as the knight, IMHO, had such a lack of class, he decided to show up SHIRTLESS. Some nonsense about showing off his abs. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he decides to strip down to his skivvies and jump in the pool (which, as anyone knows is even verboten at pool parties in LA).

“Hey, where’d everyone go?” the classless buffoon cries, as Des walks off with a gentleman still actually in the running. “Someone hand me a towel.” (I’m not making this up.)

So, if a Bachelor/Bachelorette producer says to you: “Go crazy. Do whatever you want.”—ignore them. Be the classy person you are (if you want to survive a few more episodes). (Astonishingly, Mr. Half-Naked was kept on. Des had to pin the rose on his pants, as he was sans lapel.) *eyeroll*

Interestingly, even though Des was madly in love with blond Sean, there are no blonds (or very many men of color) in his crowd. She did lop off quite a few wingnuts the first night, so we can be grateful for that. Still 19 of these sorry sacks to contend with. Joy!

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Image courtesy of ABC/The Bachelorette/Rick Rowell.

Kissing Does Not Make You a Slut, and Other Bachelor Conundrums

Kissing.

Lips to lips. Maybe some tongue. Maybe even more tongue.

Ah, kissing.

What a wonderful thing (though I only vaguely remember it these days…).

Still, people have been getting just UP IN ARMS about rampant kissing. (Personally, I think you can NEVER Kiss or Hug people enough.)

But on this show called The Bachelor, folks are just crazy about it. The word that they use to describe our Bachelor Ben, who has been doing a LOT of kissing, and it’s only Episode 3 of this season is “Slut.” (They do this nonsense on The Bachelorette, too, though girls don’t usually do the rampant kissing until much later in the season.)

I have a lot of opinions about this, mostly along the lines of “Oh America, you are so prudish, get over your damn selves,” variety. Mostly they are these, though.

First of all, both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are silly shows. Totally silly. They were classy and fun at the beginning, but now they are just silly. Example: on tonight’s show (which I watch, live blog and actually pick up followers on Twitter when I do. Sigh.) they had these girls IN BIKINIS skiiing down a hill in San Francisco. (Don’t ask.)

It used to be a show about discovering each other, and who you like and maybe falling in love, and now it’s all obstacle courses and nonsense. Still, I watch.

So, for the record, I am vehemently and absolutely against all the crap that wouldn’t happen on a normal date. Like skiing in San Francisco. *eyeroll* In BIKINIS. *double eyeroll* Or, the other Bachelor de rigueur item, for whatever reason (can I PLEASE shoot the producer who thought up this pathetic crap?), they take whoever it is over some ridiculously high place, and have them “conquer their fears” together. Tonight (it was a stupidity double-feature on this episode), they had the two prospective lovers climbing up the San Francisco bridge.

NONSENSE. Stuff and nonsense and stupidity.

But I, who am spoiled on Survivor, where you actually have REAL moments and unscripted TV in a reality show, live for the REAL moments. So yeah, it was kinda cool when poor Emily is scared out of her bloody wits, and can’t walk up this stupid bridge one step further, and Ben kisses her. That was kinda cool.

Which brings me again to my point.

Kissing.

Kissing smooths out many a rough spot on the rocky road to a relationship. Furthermore, if I were faced (God help me) with a choice of roughly 30 hot hunks to choose from, hopefully to pick my husband from among them (OK, that would never happen, and if it did, I’d make the producers go back to square one about 80 times when they keep bringing in these model and actor types, instead of real men. So, OK, I could never actually be on this show.)…but let’s just say hypothetically…

I’m on the show. I must pick from these assembled 30 guys. There is only so much surface judgment one can do. Everyone looks good at the beginning, especially the way they are all trussed up like prize pigs in front of you. So how do you decide?

On Disney-owned ABC, during prime time? The only thing YOU CAN do is kiss them. You can tell a lot about a person’s kiss. Both in the doing and giving of it, and the watching. Like Ben’s favorite, Courtney. She’s favored because she’s a model and is “so beautiful.” (Men are so stupid sometimes…) So is he not noticing that when he kisses her, in front of a dramatic San Francisco skyline, she’s making sure that the camera has her best side? (Instead of, you know, KISSING HIM?)

I’m actually of the opinion that you can tell the whole relationship in a kiss. You can certainly tell if this person is going to be sexually compatible with you. Yes, yes you can.

So, I say, Ben, kiss away! Kiss freely and with abandon. Kiss every one of these girls on every show. Kiss until you want to kiss no more.

Kissing, after all, is still in the chaste category, for those who throw the “slut” term around too readily. One could kiss for days and never get pregnant.

They had a wonderful thing on this horrible episode of The Bachelor, too. Just after Ben and Emily kissed, fireworks lit up the sky above them. I’m sure it was planned and stage managed, cause that shot was perfect, but man, it was nice. I wish The Bachelor would do more stuff like that. Back to the ROMANCE of it. That is, after all, why people watch.

And if all these lame writers/producers of The Bachelor can come up with for creating romance is to have someone climb up really high above some city, then they need to get out more. Romance is all about intimacy and being real with someone.

They could, actually, take a few lessons from Survivor. Survivor’s out there battling good and evil in very real ways, just from the people they choose to have on the show. You’re telling me that no one in Hollywood knows what ROMANCE is about anymore?

Come over here, I’ll whisper it in your ear.

It’s about KISSING.

It’s Not Complicated: “Complicated” uncomplex, boring

Of all the movies floating around this Oscar season, “It’s Complicated” is one of the least complex. Here’s the plot: Meryl Streep’s character spends the movie deciding whether or not she’s still in love with her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin). She may or may not end up with him in the end.

That’s pretty much it. Oh, sure there are a few wrinkles. He’s married to a younger woman. She’s seeing an architect. There is the extent of the “complications.”

Her sounding board/Greek chorus comes in threes: a couple of times it’s her three children, a couple of times it’s her three women friends. Neither is a device that works effectively.

This is due, in part, to the fact that the writer of the movie, Nancy Meyers, is also the director. In her defense, we do get lavish shots of the California landscape and chocolate cake.

But, as a movie, it’s really slow going. John Krasinski is practically wasted in a lame bit of comedy.

The real downfall, other than the insipid script that goes nowhere, is the casting of Steve Martin, who is like a wet fish opposite Meryl Streep’s luminosity. Mind you, I’d just about pay to see Meryl Streep read the phone book. She is gorgeous and stunning in nearly every scene (and is in nearly every scene).

But like the pastries that they consume after smoking a joint, it leaves you hungry for more afterwards. Plenty of other great movies around right now. Give this one a pass.