Old Hippie.org

Reality TV -- It's Not For Everyone

2012-02-17T04:00:00.003-05:00

I've been rather smug and a little disdainful when people talk about having watched any of the reality shows. Who watches THOSE, I have been known to query, looking snidely down my nose.

Then a few days ago I was in a conversation with my friend Tim, and before I knew it, I was spewing all the trash talk I've been so condescending about. It sneaks up on you. Five minutes, you say, just to see what it's like, and then there you are, staring open-mouthed and enjoying every wonderful awful moment of it.

Ask me anything about:

The Real Wives of Beverly Hills. I wait with baited breath to learn the details of Pandora's wedding, what new outfit Giggy will be wearing, and whether or not Taylor is for real.

Hard Core Pawn. A 40,000 square foot pawn shop in Detroit, Michigan, just a few miles from the old neighborhood. Les Gold and his equally obnoxious spawn, Ashley and Seth, pick fights with customers and each other. It's a train wreck every week and once you watched one episode, it's hard to look away.

Storage Wars. Unlikeable people bidding for abandoned storage units in California. The auctioneer, Dan Dotson, is fun, and his wife Laura is in a constant "grin" which I attribute to probably being perpetually stoned. California, don't you know.

Pawn Stars. The formal version of Hard Core Pawn. Three generations of mental midgets run a pawn shop in Las Vegas. The Old Man, Rick, Corey and their sidekick, Chumlee compete to see who they can screw and for how much.

Cajun Pawn Stars. The nice people. Southern charm, lots of cool things to pawn. I like this better than the Las Vegas version, but I would since it takes place in Louisiana.

American Pickers. Very arrogant, unlikeable guys roam the country looking to see what you have in your basement.

Dance Moms. 400-pound dance instructor brings tears to dancers and their mothers alike. Train wreck alert.

My Fair Wedding. Wedding guru David Tutera takes on low income brides and gives them the wedding of their dreams. Or maybe the wedding of his dreams. This part is iffy. Lots of frill, cake and happy tears. Kind of sweet.

Snake Man of Appalachia. I would watch this every day. If the phone rings, I ignore it. If Mike speaks, I don't hear him. This show is the biggest, baddest dumbest show on TV and I'm terrified that it might not get renewed. A Kentucky man who says snake handling is part of his religion, so he raises snakes illegally in the building behind the house.

So, the new answer to the question of WHO WATCHES THESE, sadly, is I do.

2012-02-16T04:00:00.021-05:00

"You never know what is enough, unless you know what is more than enough."

----- William Blake

I've tried so hard not to comment on the death of Whitney Houston, but I'm about to explode.

It's very hard for me to get bent out of shape over the death of a beautiful and talented woman who seemingly pissed it all away. I'm alone in this, apparently. The Governor of New Jersey has gone so far as to declare Saturday a day of morning and has ordered flags be flown at half-mast throughout the state.

What? I'm sorry but that's just wrong. This is a definite teachable moment for young people, so let's not blow it by raising her in death to heights she never could have achieved in life.

She was a singer. She won a few Grammy's. She had a few great songs. More than a few. She took drugs, she was an alcoholic, and she was a mean drunk. I was not a fan, although it appears she is about to achieve sainthood if what I'm seeing and reading is any measure.

It's also one more way the government is insinuating it into our lives. If I cared enough, which of course I don't, my flag would already have been flown at half-mast. I don't think we need a politician telling us when and how to feel bad, which dead celebrity/addict we have to honor, and how.

The invitation-only funeral will be Saturday in Newark. Last I heard her drug-addled ex Bobby Brown will not be on the family's invitation list. Who can blame them.

Talk is the family will allow one camera and that the funeral will be televised. Spectacle. You've gotta love spectacle.

If there's a silver lining, she wasn't as one-dimensional as I thought her to be. In fact, the greatest loss may be the good Houston tried to do. She formed the Whitney Houston Foundation for Children, which cares for the homeless and children with cancer and AIDS. She was involved in the United Negro College Fund, and her royalties from The Star Spangled Banner were donated to The Red Cross. Her HBO concert in 1997 raised over $300,000 for the Children's Defense Fund.

In all, she was involved with 32 charities around the world. Seems she tried to save everyone except herself. Sad upon sad.

The Diet -- End of Week 6

2012-02-15T04:00:00.004-05:00

19 pounds for Mike, 23 for me. We're thrilled. Hungry, but thrilled. I dream of McDonald's hamburgers and Pizza Hut pizzas. Potato chips. Milk. Chocolate in any form. But clothes are fitting better, knees don't hurt so much, and overall I know we're getting healthier with every lost pound.

Remind me of all that if I knock you to the ground and take your Milky Way.

Happy Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T08:38:00.001-05:00

Where Did He Find The Time?

2012-02-13T04:00:00.002-05:00

So, what's your take on the newest intern to write a book about having had an affair with a president? Of course I'm talking about Mimi Beardsley Alford.   Alford met the president in 1961 while she was on a White House tour. Their affair lasted a little over a year. She was 19 and a virgin, she says.

One of my girlfriends is disgusted by Alford and her new book, and said that by the time we were 19 we knew right from wrong. I think that's true but I'm not sure, even knowing right from wrong, that I could have refused the young, handsome president. Alford was given a staff job and spent a summer filled with pool parties and overseas trips with the president. Pretty heady stuff, seems to me.

Here are a few others reputed to have enjoyed time with President Kennedy over the years.

Judith Campbell Exner -- This chick is lucky she didn't wake up dead, since she was the girlfriend of both mafia don Sam Giancana and President Kennedy. She was introduced to Kennedy in 1960 by Frank Sinatra and supposedly became a go-between between the president and the "mob." Sounds like risky business. She also said she aborted Kennedy's child a year before the assassination.

Gene Tierney -- This beautiful actress met JFK in 1946 when she was separated from her husband, Oleg Cassini.   Kennedy told her when he broke up with her that his political aspirations were too big to get involved with an actress. Tierney reconciled with her husband and in the 1962 election voted for Nixon. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned. Interesting too is that Cassini became Jackie's official dresser during the White House years.

Marilyn Monroe -- 1962. Jack, Bobby, Jack, Bobby.   Jack Kennedy told her she wasn't "first lady" material. The operative word there might have been lady.   "Poor Marilyn." Oh spare me.

Gunilla von Post -- 1953-1958, the first five years of Jack's marriage to Jackie. JFK wrote a collection of letters to von Post and they were auctioned off last year for $115,000. She wrote a book in 1994 but it didn't do well.

Blaze Starr -- This one was new to me. I always associate Starr with her boyfriend, Louisiana Governor Earl Long. She was an actress and a stripper and had an affair with JFK in the early 60s while he was running for president. She said that during the Cuban missile crisis the president remarked, "Boy, if Fidel Castro had something like you he would think more about making love, and less about making war." High praise, right?

Angie Dickinson -- This is no surprise. From what I've read about Angie Dickinson, the list of men she hasn't had affairs with would be the shorter list.

Jill Cowan -- A White House secretary who made frequent visits to the Oval Office. Those in the know said the president was much more lighthearted after she stopped by.

As I read more about the Alford affair I come away with the feeling that the president was a real dog. Apologies to our four-legged beasts.

2012-02-12T04:00:00.002-05:00