Keeping Up with the Kardashians

I really need to stop watching TV while I eat lunch. While Bret Michaels and the Rock of Love Skanks seems to have disappeared, for now, of late I run into two other equally shallow reality shows during lunch.

One is on Bravo where these extremely shallow, embarrassingly desperate New York City housewives make total asses of themselves by putting their pathetically self-absorbed weird lives on display for the amusement of tv viewers.

An even more shallow and embarrassing reality show is on the E! cable network. It's called "Keeping Up with the Kardashians". Olympic Gold winner, Bruce Jenner's third wife is the ex-wife of OJ lawyer, Robert Kardashian, now deceased. Bruce has had several kids with his various wives. Bruce's current wife had several kids with her ex and a couple kids with Bruce.

As near as I can tell all the kids are on the "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" reality show. Bruce seems addicted to being on reality shows. He's been on "The Weakest Link", "The Apprentice", "Skating with Celebrities" and one I actually watched called "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!"

It was on the "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" reality show that I learned that Bruce has some rather odd personality quirks. I'll just mention one. He repeats himself. Tells the same story over and over again. Like every other day he'd tell his castmates how he got a gold Mustang after he won the gold medal in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

I don't really understand the premise of the "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" reality show. I don't think I'm alone in that regard. The New York Times said this, "The Kardashian show is not about an eccentric family living conventionally; it is purely about some desperate women climbing to the margins of fame, and that feels a lot creepier."

That is so true. It is very creepy. These people don't seem to do anything constructive. One of the Kardashian girls starred in an infamous sex tape. That provided much fodder for the show. As did, I think it was the same girl, posing for Playboy. This vexed Bruce very much. But the mother, Kris, was quite proud of her daughter baring all, reminding Bruce that he was in Playgirl. "But I kept my clothes on." was Bruce's reply.

One episode revolved around the Kardashian girls going to Vegas with Kourtney Kardashian worried she might be pregnant. I don't think she's the one who did the sex tape or posed in Playboy. Kourtney was in another reality show called "Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive". I don't know if she got pregnant on that show too. The entire Kardashian clan seems addicted to being on reality shows. Even Bruce's sons from one of his prior marriages had their own reality show, that being sons Brandon and Brody on "The Princes of Malibu".

Entertainment Weekly is also vexed about this reality show, saying "Why, oh, why would Ryan Seacrest put his self-tanned stamp of approval on a reality show about tabloid mainstay Kim Kardashian, whose sex-tape scandal and partying appear to be her only real achievement in life?"

I think that's what appalls me about this show. These are not quality people. They are not anyone anyone would want to keep up with, either in the keeping up with the Jones' sense or in the keeping up with what they are doing sense.

And then there is the bad plastic surgery that Bruce has had done to his face. Combined, with his way out of style mop of dyed hair, he looks very girly. And his wife is sort of manly. Together they look like a middle-aged lesbian couple.

All the Kardashian girls, including the mother, would fit right in on Bret Michael's Rock of Love reality show. Actually Bruce would make a better looking girl than some of those on the latest Rock of Love. But, it could be that the Kardashian women would be too skanky, even for Bret Michaels.

Bret Michael's Rock of Love and the Skanks

There are some TV shows that I confess I watch because they are just so train wreck awful and somehow indicative of the decline of civilization that I will sit and watch for as long as I can stand it.

The worst of the current worst is on VH1, a cable network that seems to be a repository of the worst of TV. The show I'm confessing to watching is called Rock of Love. It's about this over the hill supposed rock star named Bret Michaels and his search for love and a good groupie who can function backstage if or when this Bret Michaels person gets a singing job.

The show starts off with about 20 women and one by one they are eliminated. Bret Michaels is always saying how beautiful these women are. But from my humble view I think the majority of them are extremely, well, I think the best word to describe them is skanky. Like here in the D/FW zone there are all these strip joints, some are customized to certain wants, like there is a fat girl strip joint to appeal to chubby chasers and there is a skanky girl strip joint to appeal to guys who like skanky girls. Guys like Bret Michaels.

Here's a blurb from VH1's Rock of Love website, "If there was ever any doubt about Bret Michael's status as a Rock God, season one of Rock of Love put all those doubts to rest. The enormous success of the show proved two things: Bret continues to draw in fans by the millions - and his appeal to women has never wanted."

"Wanted"? His appeal has never wanted? Is that a Freudian Slip of some sort?

Now, I know Bret Michaels was in a band named Poison. I've no memory of a Poison song. My knowledge of Bret Michaels previous to his reality show was watching him perform with Pamela Anderson in one of those notorious Pamela Anderson home videos. Bret Michaels is a short pudgy balding homely guy who wears a wig and a hat at all times to cover his need for a toupee. He reminds me of one of my runty ugly cousins. And he wears makeup. If this is a rock god, well, God help us.

This is the second season of Bret Michael's search for love. I don't know what happened to the one who won his heart last year.

Of all the skanky women on this year's Rock of Love by far the skankiest is this awful, horribly ugly German named Angelique. She's a professional stripper who has trouble keeping her clothes on on the show. She's had something done to her lips that makes her face one of the ugliest I've ever seen. Of course Bret Michaels regularly tells her she's a beauty. And he kisses her. He kisses all the skanky women. Over and over again. Except for one, one of the few non-skanky ones, who was unsettled by all that spit swapping and so refuses to do any kissing. I like her. Too much kissing gives me chapped lips. A condition I'm in pain from right now. Oops, I got off subject. So this German girl totally creeps me out. Her English is so bad they use subtitles, which are often quite funny. I don't know what it is about Germans, maybe it's my Dutchness, but something about them makes my skin crawl, and this Angelique one is a super skin crawler.

I have no idea when original episodes of Rock of Love air. I accident upon it channel chasing while eating lunch. I do know the skanky awful ugly German got the boot. If I knew where she was doing her strip thing I'd let you know so that you don't accidentally have to see that thing take her clothes off. Maybe she's been deported. We can only hope.