Real Housewives of New Jersey One-Shot Recap

I was insanely busy this past week, so wasn't able to get my shit together to do a full recap of this past week's episode. Instead, I just captioned the below pic. I mean, not a whole lot happened last week anyway, right? Danielle got re-titted, Teresa had a dumb party, and the Kims are sad, desperate idiots. There, covered.



You know Kim totally does.

The resemblance is striking...

Did anyone else think John, the first cast off last night from Top Chef: DC looked a little familiar? A little terror-inducing? A little bit like the ghost of an evil priest who wants to steal the soul of Craig T. Nelson's towheaded daughter, albeit if he mellowed out a bit and grew some dreads?

Look.



VS



More than a passing resemblance, right? Well, maybe not in this picture particularly. I couldn't get a good screengrab! You really have to see the guy in video to see his similarity to Kane anyway.

Ok, look, this:


VS this:


RIIIIIIIGHT?!

Real Housewives of New Jersey Recap: In which Kim G loses her dignity.

Well, that certainly was an episode that happened. wasn't it? That’s basically what this show is, a series of things happening now, chugging along at a snail’s pace, clinging to the small semblance of a plot the show has. I mean, not like any of these Housewives shows ever HAD a plot to begin with, but they were at least more than “____is a bitch and I hate her.” Not saying I don’t like that, or I will stop watching. Just saying. Anyway, this episode, in a nutshell, was about Kim G scrambling up a stripper pole and failing spectacularly, falling with a thud to the floor. Sure, other stuff happened, but mainly that’s what this episode was about.

But before we get to that, let’s start at the beginning. We enter in media res as Dina and Danielle still valiantly do battle. Dina stays pretty calm and tries to outline her point about how she is done and is cutting Danielle out of her life. Danielle isn’t having any of this though, and starts rambling about the vast Manzo conspiracy against her. This leads Dina to call her crazy, which sends the Bug Queen off the RAILS! She’s all “DON’T YOU EVER CALL ME CRAZY! EVER! EVER!” and it was scary. So, sensing that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, and not wanting to receive a spiky foreleg through her torso, Dina departs.

Immediately after Dina leaves, Danielle does a disturbingly fast 180 and calls her creeper posse (who as you may recall were creepily waiting in the parking lot) to come to her aid. She’s all “Everyoneee is so meeeeean to meeeee!” The look on creep leader Danny’s face shows that he’s clearly disappointed her didn’t get to shive anyone tonight. No, Danielle just wants to talk about how mean Dina was and how shaken she is. Yes, Danielle, that’s what these ex-convicts want to do. Talk to you about how Dina was mean. Sigh.

Now that that burbling nonsense storm has subsided, it’s time for the Manzo and Giudice clans to embark on some good clean down-home country fun! All the families pack up their younguns and head down to the local farm to play with some animals (or "Danielles" as both Jacqueline and Teresa maturely call them). So, everyone goes to the farm and gawks at the pigs (“Oh my gawd! Look how big theah boawls ah!”). While watching the womenfolk admire the pigballs, the men decide it’s time to initiate Ashley’s boyfriend Derek into the man clan by inviting him to a poker game. Derek agrees, seemingly not sensing the sinister plans they have in store for him.

Back in Hell, Danielle has lunch with her new “friends” to talk about her fight with Dina. I put “friends” in quotation marks because you know Danielle just picked random ladies outside the restaurant and was like “Hey! You’s wanna be on TV? You gotta just say yuh my friend!” Naturally, they all said yes, because they are idiots. So yeah, it was Danielle, the momish ladies in kittycat sweaters, and sad desperate Kim G.

At the lunch, Danielle relays a totally embellished version of the fight, where Dina is a crazy raving lunatic, and the ladies are all “Wow! She said that?” doing their best to pretend like they have any idea who or what Danielle is talking about. Then, Danielle whips out her granny glasses to read an e-mail she received from Dina, acting like she’s being all scandalous and reading a horrible e-mail that was meant to be private. Hilariously, Bravo then cuts to Dina reading the same letter in her confessional, and it’s very benign and just says that Dina is done, and Danielle is unstable. Danielle says she replied, very maturely, with “LOL whatever” which is what any mature 65 year old woman should say in an e-mail.

The next day, Kim G, probably sensing that Danielle is a crazyship sailing at full speed towards the edge of the world, randomly decides to have a sit down with Jacqueline to vent about her terrifying bug overlord. The ladies talk about the sick baby drama and the Ashley text message scandal. Kim G tries to play it off like she didn’t have a part of any of it even though there is video evidence to the contrary. She does know she’s on a TV show, right?

Meanwhile, at an old-timey Italian meat shop, the Menzos (see what I did there? Men+Manzo=Menzos! Ha!) plot the demise of Derek while buying nearly $600 worth of fancy salamis and prosciuttos. What will they have in store for him? A meat bludgeoning? Hanging from the rafters with a string of sausages? The suspense is killing me! Joe suggests they tie him to a tree in the woods and pull his pants down, and the other guys are like “Uhh, what?” Then Joe is like, “You know, to like, let the deer get him!” Yes, Joe…the "deer"…

Anyway, speaking of cured meats, next we head over to one of Danielle’s “friends” houses for some girl chat. The ladies talk for a little bit about things like dogs, and how if Danielle doesn’t find a man soon she is going to buy a Great Dane to have sex with. All the ladies giggle, and you can tell the hostess is all “Look at me! I’m on TV entertaining in my big house! I’m a star!” And then Danielle is all “It’s been hard for me to meet men ever since that video of me having gross bug sex got leaked.” Sorry, random Danielle friend, it’s not about you, and now your house has been sullied by the image of Danielle softly embracing her lover with her forelegs before viciously devouring his head.

So yeah, apparently Danielle had a sex tape with that gross guy she dated last season that he “secretly” filmed, even though if you’ve seen the stills, she is clearly mugging for the camera. How did this happen, you ask? Jacqueline interviews that Danielle said she thought he was just texting during sex, and not taping her. I love that she is totally fine with someone texting while they have sex, as if that’s normal bedroom behavior. Like, “Hey! What’reya up to? You’re not filming this, right?” “Nah! I’m just textin’!” “Oh! Ok. Let me mug for the camera some more then.”

It’s finally poker time over at Jacqueline’s house! The men all arrive and head to the basement while Jacqueline and Teresa serve them huge trays of meat (feminism!). Coincidentally, also present at the poker game is puffy old whatshisface, Danielle’s sex tape accomplice/attacker. Jacqueline gets wind of this, and while she’s no fan of Danielle anymore, she still thinks this guy’s a dick, so she pulls him aside and confronts him for being a slimeball. Although he is indeed a slimeball, he says that he didn’t secretly tape anything. Danielle taped herself masturbating and then sent it to him, which is why she wound up dropping the charges against him. She’s the one who made the tape. I'm not want to believe sleazeballs, but this seems entirely within Danielle’s character. Also, she was taped by TMZ or somebody bragging about how her tape will sell more than Kendra’s, which is suspicious. Also, the timing. So yeah, she can add “amateur pornographer” to her list of accomplishments.

With court adjourned and Derek finally arriving with Ashley in tow, the men start their poker game. This means it’s time for the devious prank! The horror! What will it be! I’m squeamish at the sight of blood so take it eas-...what? Sour wine? That’s it? That’s the big “initiation.” That’s the buildup?! Where's the hazing? The beatings? The tying-naked-to-a-tree? You guys suck. This party is lame.

(Oh, also that night Ashley gets into a fight with Jacqueline, but it’s over nothing and stupid, so I don’t want to talk about it. )

This brings us to the final event of the episode: “How Danielle Got Her Groove Back.” See, ever since Danielle was horribly violated by leaking her own sex tape to the press having her sex tape released without her consent, she’s having trouble feeling sexy. How will she remedy this, you ask? Why, by subjecting the Eastern European prostitutes she purchased her new friends to a series of sexxxy events! First, she takes them to watch her try on panties, and they all sit there and coo “Da! Eet ees very sexy!”

Despite the kind words, Danielle still can’t clear the cobwebs out of her sex hope chest (talkin’ about her ‘gina), so she moves for one last ditch effort: pole dancing. Yes, she gathers up her band of aging prostitutes fun flirty gal pals to go work the pole in the afternoon at a strip club. And this leads to the aforementioned highlight of this entire series: Kim G working the pole.

Clad in booty shorts and hooker boots, she tries her best to sex it up on the pole, scampering wildly, kicking her legs this way and that way. On the first try, she manages a creaky semi-circle around the pole before crashing to the ground, exposing her old lady butt in the process. After a faceless stripper humiliatingly pulls Kim G’s panties up and slaps her on the butt (I literally cannot believe I just wrote that sentence), she makes a second go. Again, she scrambles, legs flying wildly this way and that, a horrifying grimace crossing her face. At this point, another stripper comes in and literally tries to push her up the pole. Perhaps sensing how pathetic this whole display is, Kim G finally gives up, and everyone gives her pity applause. The whole scene is amazing, and just really a metaphor for Kim G’s entire presence on this show, isn’t it? One big scramble up the pole, failing miserably.

Finally, not to be upstaged by Kim G’s sad little display, Danielle takes the stage. She comes out all shy, being like “Oh, I don’t know! It’s been a while! I’m not going to be very good!” and then immediately does a series of topless backflips, removing an article of clothing with each rotation, finally falling into the splits, a barrage of ping pong balls going this way and that. Yeah, it’s been a while…sure. She says something gross about that being “how she got her first husband.” (Feminism!)

Oh! That actually wasn’t the final event of the episode. The FINAL final event is Dina officially announcing that she is leaving the show, since she is normal and sane and recognized that being constantly exposed to a crazy person is not healthy. So, good for her! This wasn’t a surprise at all, but I do have to say I’ll miss her. She’s always been my favorite housewife.

So! That’s that for this season. Looks like theres more Danielle dramz next week, as usual. I hope it’s something REALLY CRAZY. What do you think? (Answer: obviously)

Talking Turkey

So I have a confession: I love world music. I know what you're thinking, but not that kind of world music. Not the I-wear-a-dashiki-and-light-incense-in-my-apartment-designed-to-look-like-a-Mongolian-yurt kind. I'm talking pop music that is (relatively) current, preferably with a beat. I love it in part because you can really gauge a country's pop culture by it's contemporary music. Often it's a mix of traditional music fused with random weird elements of Western/American pop that, when done right, I find highly enjoyable. Plus, when you listen to music in another language you don't have to worry about emabarrasingly dumb lyrics.

Over the past year I've been on a major Turkish pop kick. Something about the mix of electropop, traditional instrumentation/melodies, and cheesy mid-nineties house music comes together for a really pleasurable musical experience. It's also incredibly varied from artist to artist, which makes each new discovery really exciting. So, I thought I'd give a rundown of what I'm listening to, because everyone is missing out! Before I start though, a warning: my music tastes skew heavily female, so while I'm sure there's plenty of good male Turkish artists out there, I'm mainly focusing on the ladies, with a couple exceptions. Also, I make no assertions on the right-now popularity of any of these artists in Turkey, since I found most of them mainly via YouTube, so they could very well be one-hit wonders or has-beens. Anyway!

Hande Yener
Sound: Electropop
Comparable Western artist: Kylie Minogue



Hande Yener is the reason I got into Turkish pop, so it seems fitting to start with her. I came across her name while reading the "gay icons" page on Wikipedia (shut up). The article mentioned her support of the Turkish gay community, and her inherent popularity there due to her dance-oriented beats. She's often called the Madonna or Kylie of Turkey due in part to this, but also due to her penchant for reinvention. She started her career doing more traditional Turkish pop music (Middle-Eastern vocals to a house-heavy beat). Despite the popularity of her music, she changed her style entirely for a more European electropop sound. While her older stuff is decent, I think the new sound suits her better. While her most recent album is a bit of a return to her old sound, her prior albums "Nasil Delirdim?" "Hipnoz" and "Hayrola?" are, in my opinion, her best. Below is the video for my favorite of her songs, "Kibir," off of 2007's "Nasil Delirdim?" (Side note: how great are the topless models beating her with clubs in the video up top? Domestic abuse has never looked so chic!)



Atiye Deniz
Sound: Western-style pop with a heavy dose of traditional Turkish instrumentation.
Western Counterpart: Britney? Or maybe pre-"Rated R" Rihanna?



I came accross Atiye during one of my late-night YouTube binges, where I search for one video, and then go down the rabbit hole clicking on one video after the next until it's 2 AM and I've written down a page of weird Turkish names. Atiye's sound is kind of unique among Turkish pop music in that she uses a more Western vocal style over seamlessly fused pop, hip-hop, and Turkish beats. She also differs from a lot of female singers in that she sings in the upper registers rather than more lower-register sound characteristic of a lot of her contemporaries. "Muamma," above, is one of my favorite songs of hers. Below is the video of the also-good English-language "Don't Think (Sanma)."



Demet Akalin
Sound: Jersey Shore house music by way of Istanbul, with a trip through the cheese factory.
Western Contemporary: I don't even know. Chick is weird.



Demet Akalin is what would happen if a benevolent witch turned a Barbie doll into a living person and then sent her to Turkey's version of the Jersey Shore to learn about sex and house music. Everything about this woman is over the top: the pounding club beats of all her songs, her super-deep voice that belies her frame, her "oversexed little girl in an adult body" image, her ridiculous hair. Because of all this, she's also an artist that really needs to be seen in video to fully appreciate. I would be really embarrassed listening to American music like this, but for some reason, when Demet does it, it works. Up top is "Tecrübe," her most recent single, which is hilarious (wait till the part where she is topless and clutching an armful of Ken dolls). But, since she's gone brunette I've included her video for "Bebek" off of her previous album below to show her in her full blonde, bikinied glory. (The fake braids, the Kanye glasses!)



Kemal Doğulu
Sound: Electropop
Western Counterpart: A fantasy boy version of Kylie? We’ll call him Boylie.



Kemal Doğulu started out as Hande Yener's "creative director" and hair stylist (both of which he still is). He is also the brother of her fiancé, and he's directed a couple of her music videos, including the most recent one for “Sopa/ Yasak Aşk” that I posted earlier. Ms. Yener must be satisfied with his work, because she helped him get a record deal and guests on his debut single, “Bir Yerde” (above). While the whole popstar's hairdresser getting an album thing might not sound like a great idea (can you imagine if Jessica Simpson did the same for Ken Paves? The horror!), in this case it actually turned out really well. While I don't gather he's very popular in Turkey because he's only had a handful of singles in the last few years, I endorse him. He has an electro sound similar to Hande's, and his voice is decent, although heavily autotuned. Plus, I think he's dreamy, and is probably gay. Evidence for the both assertions below, in his video for "Uzayda Aşk Var."



Hadise
Sound: Straight-up pop
Western Counterpart: Pre-meltdown Britney.



Hadise is Turkey’s closest thing to a Britney, Christina, or Katy Perry: Vapid, oversexed, bubbly, and of dubious vocal talent. Like Atiye Deniz, she mixes more Western-style musical stylings with traditional Turkish beats, like in her 2009 single “Evlenmeliyiz,” which I’ve posted above (I like the one-take concept). Hadise was also Turkey’s selction for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, with her song “Düm Tek Tek.” She wound up making it to 9th place, which is nothing to sneeze at for Eurovision. The vid of her performance is below. It’s very cheesy, and very Eurovision, but I challenge you to not think it’s catchy. Give in to the cheese!



Gülşen
Sound: Classic Turkpop
Western Counterpart: ???



Gülşen is my most recent discovery, and I’ll admit my main exposure to her is her most recent album, “Önsöz.” So far though I like what I’ve heard. She has that perfect mix of Arabesque beats with more contemporary pop that, when it comes together, is absolutely great. I love the “şak şak” part in the chorus of “Bi An Gel” (above). I have no idea what it means, but the pouty sexbabyvoice gets me each time. Another reason I love her is that her video for “Sarışınım,” off 2004’s “Of…Of…” was judged "obscene" by the Turkish government, and the stations that showed it received hefty fines. It’s kind of like Turkey’s Janet Superbowl nip slip moment. I posted it below because although I’m not crazy about the song, the video is hilarious. Naked+heels+low budget visuals= Gold.



So there you have it! Some of the things that have been going into my ears as of late. I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes Turkish pop can get a little schmaltzy with the ballads, rely a bit too much on Spanish guitar, and sometimes be vocally unpalateable. But when it’s good, it’s good. There’s a lot of others like Tarkan or Sezen Aksu that for lack of time I haven’t included. But, they’re both superstars in the genre and are easy enough to learn more about on your own. And you should! I also recommend seeing the excellent 2005 documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul about the contemporary Turkish music scene for an introduction. It's narrated by Alexander Hacke from Einsturzende Neubaten, which adds to the weirdness factor. Anyway, happy listening!

Joan vs. Joan

Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, the excellent new documentary about the brittle Jewess/comedienne by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, with a live Q&A with Ms. Rivers immediately following the film. Going into the thing I wasn't really expecting much. I mean, I was expecting to enjoy it, because as a gay man with a love for stand-up and a filthy sense of humor, it's a genetic impossibility for me not to.

However, I was blown away by the intimate portrait the film paints. Filmed over one year, her 75th, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work follows it's subject through her numerous commitments, both professional and personal, while she discusses her career along the way. As someone who has idolized Joan Rivers ever since I saw her putting on makeup with Miss Piggy in Muppets Take Manhattan (one of my formative babygay memories) it was fascinating to see her this up close and personal.

First and foremost, we get a good dose of the brash humor and razor-sharp wit (seriously, the woman is 75 and still has the timing and speedy delivery of comedians a third her age) that have made her famous. I particularly liked the scenes of her refining her act at New York's Cutting Room, writing out "vagina farts" on a cue card while laughing hysterically, or telling a joke about her daughter being an idiot for turning down a $500,000 Playboy offer ("She should have offered to show her pussy for an extra 400!"). The scene of her eviscerating a heckler at a Minnesota Indian casino show who took issue with her telling a Helen Keller joke (really? Helen Keller is off limits now?) was another highlight.

But, the fact that Joan Rivers is hilarious is hardly surprising. What was surprising was the Joan we get to see off stage. Stern and Sundberg show us a workaholic and deeply insecure Rivers who seems to have a constant voice in her head reminding her that all her success could be gone tomorrow. This mantra is what propels her to take any job that comes her way, to "do anything." She says it's for the money, but more so I think it's to stay relevant, to stay working, to stay in the spotlight by any means necessary.

This compulsion leads her to measure her success event by event, seemingly unable to look at her career as a big picture. At the Q&A afterwards (JEALOUS?!), somebody asked her whether she is able to get any satisfaction from her varied and prolific career, and she brushes it off, asking why should she? Even the praise from this documentary will be gone in a week, she said, and then she'll have to start over again.

Joan's insecurity and inability to look at her career for what it is are central to the film. During one scene, Joan is asked to take part in a star-studded tribute to George Carlin. Despite her comedy legend status, backstage she worries about comedians like John Stewart and Dennis Leary, who have teams of writers behind them, being funnier than her. The fact that she has been doing this for 50+ years, and has probably taken part in hundreds of events just like this seems to never cross her mind. To her, it's all about staying relevant against the constant stream of up-and-coming comedians. As Kathy Griffin put it in the film, the mark of a successful comedian is whether they are still working or not, a sentiment that appears central to the Joan Rivers philosophy.

And then there's the part dealing with her recent Comedy Central roast. To me, the episode was hands down the best roast the channel had done, and Rivers seemed to revel in the jabs about her age and heavily-surguried face. However, in A Piece of Work, we see that she in fact hated the whole process, and fretted about the onslaught of jokes about her face and age she was going to be subject to. When you view it in this context, of dozens of comedians delivering a barrage of personal jabs against a deeply insecure woman, rewatching the roast changes from hilarious to heartbreaking.

On a different note, one of the most interesting things we learn about Joan in Piece of Work is that from the get go, her desire was never to be a comedian, but a serious actress. In the film she says that comedy was just something she did to pay the bills while she tried to make it as an actress, and goes on to say that people can say she's ugly, or a bad comedian and that's fine, but if they say she's a bad actress, it's devastating. Plenty of female comedians have gone into comedy because for whatever reason they didn't fit the narrow mold required to be an actress, but the fact that Joan still feels this way, at this point in her career, is surprising.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is an incredible film that gives incredible insight into a woman who has been a pop culture constant for over half a century. It manages to deliver huge gut-busting highs and emotional lows, as well as even delivering a little bit of shmaltz for good measure (the scene with her grandson Cooper is adorable. I got so jealous of that kid. Can you imagine having Joan fucking Rivers as your bubbe? That kid doesn't know how good he has it!). Beyond that, it's also a film about show business, and the life of constant rejection and abuse that performers have to deal with on a daily basis. It's a film about Joan Rivers, but a film about so much more as well. I highly recommend it.

(See! She was really there!!!)

Semi-serious non-bad-TV-related post alert!

I was perusing BBC News this morning, like one does, and came across this article by Tim Franks that I found pretty interesting. Tim is the current BBC News correspondant for the Middle East, finishing up his tenure there. He also happens to be a Jew, and wrote this pretty interesting, tempered article about his struggle to reconcile the two and remain impartial.

Especially in the current climate with rhetoric ratcheting up at breakneck speed from either side of the fence, it's refreshing to read an honest, calm, and well-reasoned editorial on the region for once.

Read it if you get the chance! You can't spend your whole day reading about Teresa's Onyx Manor foreclosure, can you? (Answer: Yes you can.)


(via BBC News)

Who knew the UK Border Agency were such huge Rihanna fans?

Chris brown got denied a visa to enter the UK "on the grounds of being guilty of a serious criminal offence." This is presumably due to the recently passed "Royal Pop Diva Protection Act of 2009."

(via BBC News)