You can't go home again--thank God

For us Saturday nights are the dead zone for watching TV. We usually watch something On Demand because cable has zip. I was doing my usual psychotic channel surfing when I saw that Housewives of Orange County was on. I had to talk Carol into it but we watched.

No fun in it anymore. Though some it is probably producer-contrived, their meanness to each other manages to be savage and dull at the same time. You have one blonde whose obsession with money got old two years ago calling another dumb blonde a slut because she may or may not have slept around while her rich fiance was dying of cancer.

And Slade is back. I used to feel sorry for Slade when he was with his first babe. She was a ruthless silly hussy whom Slade seemed to genuinely love. Ah but Carol figured it out last night. She didn't hurt Slade's feelings. He put up with her just because he wanted to be on TV. Now that, as one of the dumb blondes noted last night put it so eloquently, Slade has "bagged" three of the Housewives is he looking for a fourth? Slade, wimpy as always and still painfully trying to be macho, is the male version of the Housewife.

The only one who seems genuinely happy is the dumb blonde whose fiance just died leaving her a pile of money, said money being discussed by the two bitchiest of the bitches.

The only one who remotely shows any humanity is the former Playboy Playmate who is now heavyset. I didn't used to like her because of her children who were the most spoiled kids I'd ever seen and/or heard of. But they're grown now and gone and something like wisdom has come to this woman. Her comments on how ugly the show has become and how they need to understand and forgive each other were lost on the others. Significantly, she's leaving the show.

We live in an era where many, many people will say or do anything to get on tv. Usually we associate this with so-called white trash or trailer trash. But listen these women are all jingled and jangled up with jewelry and endless wardrobe changes and stretch limos and shopping trips that are like military invasions. And they're every bit as trashy as anybody who's ever been on Jerry Springer.