Someone recommended the Bravo reality TV show “Vanderpump Rules.” Apparently, this show is a spin off of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and focuses on one of the women from that show and her restaurant she allegedly runs, and all the aspiring models, singers and actors. It’s basically “Jersey Shore” on the west coast with people who are at least pretending to have ambition. Now, I really hate reality TV (Bachelor excluded; please come to me with any and all Bachelor theories, opinions, discussions, rankings, meandering musings, et cetera), and when I pointed this out to my dear friend, they again reiterated I need to give it a chance because they are sure I will love it. This is me documenting an episode in good faith.
– The show just, like, starts. There’s no run up, no explainer, no background on who these people are or their histories. Am I supposed to know this? Was there a summer reading assignment for this? It doesn’t matter; I never read a single one anyway. One in time in law school, I was called on cold by a professor to explain pertinent civil procedure for a case assigned to us about a regional airport, except I somehow had read the wrong case for class. When I tried to own up to the critically debilitating admission of being unprepared for a law school class, I was interrupted and asked a very-pointed question I was about to answer because the previous owner of my textbook had highlighted two sentences of this case. Long story short, my professor grilled me for an hour about this case, and I bullshitted based on two pertinent sentences and context clues without getting called out. I don’t know what the original point I was trying to make was, but I like this story.
– This show takes place in California, presumably Los Angeles based on the partying supercuts that are giving me a migraine. That is the oldest sentence I have ever typed. Excuse me while I mix some Metamucil into warm water as I prep for bed once this rerun of the Wheel of Fortune is complete.
Anyway, all these people identify themselves as actors, or models, or whatever people do when they move to LA besides what they actually do (ie, wait tables or bartend). This is no judgment on those professions. They are jobs I could never do. But c’mon, you’ve been working at this restaurant for years without a role involving you use your mouth to say words. You are a waiter, and you are on a reality TV show. EMBRACE IT.
– So this one guy, Jacks (or Jax) has this shrill and overbearing girlfriend who melts the fuck down after one of the female coworkers puts suntan lotion on him at a gay pride parade (again, just head fucking long into this shit). They argue, but they don’t seem very mad? I have had at least six more hostile arguments in the last two weeks, and at least three of those were at the Taco Bell drive thru. They break up. Episode two, and I can already tell we are building a Sam-and-Diane will-they-or-won’t-they vibe, except I don’t actually care.
– The girlfriend, named Stassi apparently (I had interpreted that as ‘Stazi’, and was completely flabbergasted so I had to look it up. The good news is I now know everyone here has the stupidest name I’ve ever heard) has demanded to keep their dog, which Jax explains to fellow bartender as a family dog. This confuses me. His parents just let him take their dog? My mother melted down when I merely suggested our family dog stay with me two hours away while they were out of town instead of me staying at home with him. I don’t know Jax’s parents, but anyone who can just willfully wave goodbye to their pet is not to be trusted. Jax mentions he’s going to live it up because he doesn’t have a girlfriend or an ex-girlfriend now. Jax seems like he could be easily manipulated based on his lack of object-permanence. Just because you broke up doesn’t mean this girl doesn’t exist anymore.
– Some other asshole who describes himself as a MACTOR (a model-actor) explains how he, Jax and another guy used to live together in what was basically a flat, with Jax living in the living room with a hanging sheet for privacy, and still managed to bed girls constantly. I need to find where these girls with gravity-defying low self-esteem hang out.
– The bartender Jax was originally talking to (named Frank, it’s relevant now) decides his time has come, and he’s going to bang it out with Stassi now that Jax has “handed him the playbook on how to win her.” If she was fucking with this guy for as long as they make it seem, she shouldn’t be too difficult to trick into touching your penis. ANYWAY they’re at a club, and my migraine is returning, and they’re making out, and Jax is PISSED, BRO and found out and showed up. Who could have ever foreseen this unpredictable turn of events?!?! The answer is executive producers Alex Baskin and Bill Langworthy.
– Jax tells Stassi he wants to talk. Wasn’t he just talking about trying to wrangle some strange like ten minutes ago? Does he know he’s being recorded? She cries. They leave. Frank is drunk and real pissed. If you’ve ever watched any reality show, blah blah blah you get it.
– FAST FORWARD TO TOMORROW – Stassi is crying hysterically, an emergency all-girls meeting is called, at which point Stassi announces she learned Jax got a girl pregnant two months and pressured her into getting an abortion. The source of this information was Frank, which seems like a dubious source. Even Fox News would hesitate to rely on him for this information. This all-girls meeting has a bunch of dudes there, and one guy threatens to put Jax in the hospital if he shows up, and starts flexing and yells at an open door (????) and runs out it and keeps yelling. I am very confused why he is upset.
– Some shit is going on but I was busy typing and I only live my life going forward so I’m not rewinding. And I was looking up the cast members salaries. The more “important” “stars” earn between $10,000.00 and $20,000.00 AN EPISODE for TWENTY-FOUR EPISODES, yet they each have a net worth below $100,000.00. This is the only shocking development of this TV show. Without this show, half of these people would be sucking dicks in pornos, and I believe the veracity of this statement will be proven with five years of this show concluding. Is is popular? Does it have a loyal following? I am still lost.
– “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, like radiation.” Whatever you say Bruce Banner. Remember – these are bartenders, not nuclear scientists like Christmas Jones from “The World is Not Enough.”
– This one girl (Scheana) is talking about how people confuse her for Britney Spears. She has dark brown hair. She does not look like Britney Spears at all. She is delusional, and already my favorite person. She is in a recording studio with a producer who is looking for “sex sounds, moans and giggles”. She assures him he is capable of this. His eyes tell us he is looking for this same energy later when she is blowing him for more high-profile features.
– Stassi assures the camera Jax is definitely not invited to her birthday party in Las Vegas. I feel like this went without saying. Knowing all these people are going to Las Vegas is further proof I never want to go there.
This show is so stupid. I know the point of it is to be stupid, but it might be too stupid. The Bachelor is stupid too, but everyone on the Bachelor is in on the inanity. The vast majority of the contestants know they’re leaving in the first four weeks without talking to their “boyfriend”, but at least they get Instagram sponsors and a chance to be quasi famous. This show features people who think they are going to be legitimately famous, which will never happen now after this. I can’t tell if this show is admittedly stupid or if everyone involved thinks they’re legitimate. Artificially stupid and vapid is all I can handle, but genuinely hollow and vapid assholes in their element is like watching a NASCAR mom whoop her kids in a Walmart. The point I’m making is Los Angeles seems like the worst place on the planet.
Musings and Malarkey 
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