Newsflash: Disappointing reality show is disappointing. N and I watched two episodes of TLC’s Sister Wives last night (this is what happens when you decide $14 is too much to pay to watch Showtime’s one hour of not-suck a week, Dexter) and I gotta say: I finally understand what Hannah Arendt meant about the “banality of evil.”* Three cheerful blond wives, 16 cheerful mostly-blond children, and one cheerful blond, goateed patriarch who looks as though in another life he’d be roadie-ing for the Gin Blossoms: BORING. Boring, boring, boring. New brunette sister-wife-to-be with three blond children? Also boring. TLC should have called this show Hoarders: The Wives and Children Edition. It would be better that way.
My critical nature was particularly aggro this weekend, a powder keg set off by the under-representation of women in hip-hop and continuing until the credits rolled on Sister Wives, at which point N summed up my grousing as “Suck suck suck grar what’s next to suck?”**
In less-fighty, good news, I’m happy to pass on word that as of today, Jim Hanas’ e-book Why They Cried is available for the Kindle, Sony Reader, and Apple iOS things.
OK finally, my officemate brought me this delicious Halloween-themed confection above [click to enlarge].
Me: A fruit-flavored tombstone. What flavor, I wonder?
Him: Fruit.
Me: God, it’s sad that some Chinese factory worker was paid 5 cents an hour to write the little inscription on this thing.
Him: It’s also sad that it’s the tombstone for a 3-year-old.
Me: Well, whaddya know.
You know, for kids!
*Setting aside the appalling nature of the FLDS and polygamy in general (heh, yeah, let’s just set that aside for a moment) I have a hard time believing that Kody Brown, the patriarch, makes enough money as an “advertising salesman” to house, clothe, and feed a family of 20. (Well, now he does, given what I assume is a handsome compensation for their participation in the show.) How much bleeding the beast is going on? Maybe the police can investigate that as well, while they’re at it.
**That was a rhetorical question, but this morning at the gym I found my answer: MTV’s World of Jenks. I can only hope that the last episode of the series involves him going to live with grizzly bears.
Stroke me.
