I’m Not a Cat Lady

Generation Woe Is Me

Catching up with yesterday's New York Times Sunday Styles section, I read the article about all those poor college graduates whose dreams of going on a road trip or landing a cushy internship or spending the summer in Rome or moving to New York on Daddy's dime have been crushed by this pesky bad economy. It got me thinking about this generation, born between 1980 and the early 90s or up to 2000, depending on who you ask, which has the most designations of any generation that has gone before. They're called Generation Y, because, well, duh, they come after Generation X (1965 to 1980). They're also called the Echo Generation, because they are, it's said, the offspring of Baby Boomers—which doesn't quite ring true because it's entirely possible that Gen Xers who had kids in their early 20s now have kids who would fall into that category too.

They're also called Millennials, which makes no sense at all because they were born before the actual millennium, so where does that leave all the babies who were actually born in the millennium? And they're called Trophy Kids, because they grew up in a time of ultra-competitive kids' sports when the powers that be declared that there were no losers, only winners, so everybody takes home a prize.

For the last, oh, five to ten years now, this overly scrutinized generation has been the subject of endless articles and documentaries and 20/20 reports analyzing and speculating on everything from these kids' digital prowess to their consuming habits to their aversion to print to their fashion sense to their multitasking abilities to their computer addictions to their Rainbow Parties to their oversharing tendencies and on and on ad infinitum. It wasn't so long ago—last year, to be exact—that we were hearing all about how  Boomer bosses were scrambling to cope with this new generations' haughty attitudes in the workplace, where they sauntered about oozing with entitlement, plugged into their iPods, refusing to make coffee or run errands and expecting to be allowed to update their Facebook pages all day long and still get paid.

Now, these poor young souls don't even have a workplace in which to be misunderstood.  We've robbed them of the be-anything-you-want-to-be future they were born to inherit. Doesn't your heart just bleed?

I think they deserve a fifth designation: Generation Woe Is Me.

Yes indeed, it must be just horrible to be a young person today. After all, no generation ever before has experienced a setback of these proportions. Not that huge generation who came of age during the Great Depression, or the lean, mean 70s, or the dotcom-9/11 double-whammy earlier this very decade, or—gee, golly—the panic of 1819. No, it's this generation whose whole entire life has just been like totally ruined.

Generation Woe Is Me just needs to get a grip. One of the things I've noticed happening more now that ever before in my whole entire life is the tendency of Young People to brag about how young they are, and how they revel in using their youth as an excuse for ignorance. I used to work with a girl like this, at a magazine whose main subject was television. In editorial meetings, references to landmark classic shows surfaced all the time: All in the Family, for instance, or Maude. And she'd kind of poke out her lip and shrug and say, a bit too cheerfully, "I don't know that show, I'm too young!" And then, I swear, she'd preen as she said it, all "cutchie cutchie coo, look at me, I'm just a sweet young thang!"

It used to annoy the crap out of me, mostly because I'd never have dreamed, at her age or any other, to walk into a meeting and brag about what I didn't know. Bizarrely, she scored points for this with the editor-in-chief, who was relatively new to the job, in his fifties, and, to be frank, a big dunderhead who soon made it clear that he was much more interested in what pretty young girls had to say than people who knew what the hell they were talking about. (To be fair, this place was also full of fifty-and-beyond-somethings who loved to reminisce about Howdy Doody; everything about that place was so annoying, I developed an eye twitch.)

I thought of this whole sorry situation when I watched that recent episode of Real Time With Bill Maher when Paul Begala went off on a nervous, babbling, out-of-her-league Meghan McCain for pulling the same trick. There was a discussion about whether Obama places too much blame on the previous administration. McCain—who by the way was as heavily made up as Lindsay Lohan trying to cover up the previous night's coke binge— said she thinks he does; Begala said he thinks he doesn't do it nearly enough. He went on to mention that Ronald Regan had a habit of pointing his hoary finger at Jimmy Carter for every little thing, and she interjected  defensively, "I wasn't born yet so I don't know." And Begala shot back, "I wasn't born during the French Revolution but I know about it."And the audience roared.

I wish I'd said something like that to Miss "I'm Too Young" back at that meeting that day. I guess I'm saying it now, to every single crybaby in that whole generation.

Say Hello to Underachieving, NYT

Stephen Moyer on Anna Paquin: "She likes her meat and two veg, know what I mean?"

I found out yesterday that people.com picked up my interview with Stephen Moyer for DirecTV's Access magazine, which I write for all the time and nobody's ever heard of, in which he talks about how hardcore his girlfriend Anna Pacquin is about boxing. Hence, the failure for people.com to give me a name check. But whatever, I'm not exactly up there with Maureen Orth or, gee, you know, Meghan McCain. Still, it's  a bit exciting to have an outtake from a piece you wrote aggregated all over town.

Moyer was a fantastic interview. He was super-chatty and informal and off-the-cuff and funny—he joked around and laughed a lot.  I had to narrow the piece down to 700 words so a ton of quotes got left behind. Here are some of them.

Moyer's a patron at the Brentwood Theatre in Brentwood, in England's Essex County, where he grew up. His mother is the chairman, and it's where he got his first acting gig. "I was about 10 in a show called The Gypsy Baron. And I can’t remember very much about it apart from a song that went [lapsing into an impressive tenor] Up in the morning with the lark…  And I also had to run onstage and say, 'Queen Sheepra is coming!'"

When he hit big as Bill Compton in True Blood, a lot of fans of the show started contributing to the theatre's renovation—including the BillsBabes, a group of middle-aged women who were rabid fans of the character in the Charlane Harris books and now are just crazy about Moyer. I asked him what he thought about the BillsBabes.

"They’re wonderful, and they’re totally insane. We were at the Paley festival this week, it was honoring True Blood, and these ladies had flown in from all over America to come to see us live. And there was a load of BillsBabes in the second row with their BillsBabes T-shirts on. But I've gotta say, what I really love about it is that all these girls and ladies have never known each other before, and they started... twittering, if you will, in the True Blood wiki website, and now they’ve all become friends, and they’ve started this amazing community of people. It’s quite unbelievable really."

I asked him if he ever dreamed anything like this would happen to him back when he was touring with the  Royal Shakespeare Company.

"That I would be followed by some middle-aged women across America?"

Ooo-er, cheeky! (He's joking, ladies.)

He talks about the sexual potency of Twilight vs True Blood:

"Twilight is about a chaste love affair. And in many respects, it’s the same with True Blood, up to a point. And then when the sex happens, it fucking happens, and it’s real and it’s almost breathtaking. You know, you’ve been waiting for it and it’s: Will they? Won’t they? Yes they fucking will. And it’s gonna be dark sexy sex. And you’re gonna see it. And of course you don’t see that in Twilight. And you don’t get to see it on terrestrial television. Luckily on HBO you do get to see that, and I think the viewer does want to see that."

Which gets him going about the hypocrisies in American culture. "I think we live in a puritanical society where we should be able to say to our children, 'No you can’t watch something after 9 o'clock,' and we should be able to watch it on television without having to pay for it. We’re grown ups. I don’t understand that you’re allowed to shoot 200 people in the first 30 seconds of 24 but you’re not allowed to show a nipple? And how are we gonna bring up our kids with that kind of right-wing puritanical…. Oh it drives me fuckin’ nuts."

I asked him if he thinks Robert Pattinson has stolen his thunder. And he gets totally earnest.

"No! I truly don’t. I was in England, I didn’t even know about Twilight. I was in England living my happy little life and being with my kids and walking the dog. So as much as I think people want me to say I am affected by it, I'm not. I wish him all the best. He’s a cracking lookin’ dude and good luck to ’im. There’s room for all of us, there really is."

Moyer has described himself as a bit of a lad, a geezer. He translates, for those who think geezer means old man:

"A geezer is somebody who is confident, who's a little bit cheeky and cocky and maybe a little bit too cocky for his own good. A bit of a lad means a bit naughty, maybe you do things that you shouldn’t do."

I'd read that Moyer had become a vegetarian because Anna was a vegetarian. I asked him if this was true. He's genuinely taken aback.

"Noooo!  Anna’s not a vegetarian. She was at one point." He pauses. "But, she likes her meat and two veg, know what I mean?"

Ooe-er! Nudge nudge, wink wink.

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Finale: See You Next Year?

As our comely hosts Damien Fahey and Myleene Klass open the show, they announce that it's pouring with rain in Costa Rica—a fitting outcome for the final episode of this soggy version of what should have been a really fun and engaging series. After three-and-a-half long and uneventful weeks, we've finally reached  the bitter end. Three are left—former NBA champ John Salley, ex-WWE sweetheart Torrie Wilson and once-promising Hollywood actor Lou Diamond Phillips—and one of them will be crowned King or Queen of the Jungle. Unfortunately, everybody was watching So You Think You Can Dance or Wipeout instead, so this will be a fairly intimate coronation.

But first, let's recap everything that's gone before. No, I take that back, let's not. There's a rehash of pathological famewhores Heidi and Spencer Pratt and their acting out routine, which sucked up the entire first week and has generated plenty of publicity already, so to hell with that. We go back over Sanjaya's and Patti Blagojevic's expulsions, probably for the sake of all the viewers who dropped off over the weeks and whom NBC figured would tune in at least to watch the finale and totally did not.

Finally, it’s the long-teased reunion of rejectees—I mean, ex-campmates—all scrubbed up and sitting on logs. Heidi is velcroed to Spencer's lap and Myleene observes that they both look "so much better” than when we last saw them, and indeed, she's right: Their faces are preternaturally shiny and all plump and juicy—no doubt the results of some dermabrasion and a few strategic pricks of restalayne. Because all 22-year-olds need that kind of help to look rested. We get the old "I'm too rich and too famous" montage and Spencer whooping like a gibbon. Oh enough with these two.

Janice Dickinson has come dressed for the disco in a tight hot-pink number, hair a cascade of shimmering jet-black curls, with a smile plastered on her face like Bob the Enzyte guy. She's so happy to be here! A little too happy, methinks—she's chewing her face off and, well, she's vibrating. She must be on some very effective happy-pappy pills right now. We get a J-Dick montage showing her scowling and hobbling around, unable to "go poo," and instantly, all her efforts to look fabulous tonight are pretty much shot to hell.

Back to camp and the final three. Oh, there's a food challenge. Why? It's over! The votes are in! Haven't these poor starving smelly creatures been through enough? Apparently not. The producers must think we need another fix of snake-and-bug porn. The game is something to do with a spa and it's all, hee hee, ho ho, Torrie you need a shampoo, and she gets to lie with her head covered in all manner of things that crawl as she fishes around for her two stars. John gets a fruit facial, which means he has to submerge his head in a tub of slop filled with something known as vomit fruit. Belligerent to the end, John demands, "Is this legal in America?" and Damien is right back at him: "That's why we’re in Costa Rica, John, we’re breakin' rules. Now shut yer trap!" Okay he didn't say that last part, but his face did.

LouDi gets a manicure courtesy of some great horny toads and a few spiders in a tank. LouDi had his hand gnawed off by rats and tarantulas crawling over his eyeballs, this is a cake walk for him. Next, a hot tub for Torrie, which is filled with wee crocodiles. Oh big deal—we know these croccies are completely harmless. Torrie picks one up and gives him a kiss. And all the men go boinnnng! I gotta admit, it's pretty hot.

John gets a snake sauna. They’re all pretty little decorative snakes, ain't gonna hurt nobody, no biggie. LouDi gets a jungle spray tan, which translates as meal worms. Oh, ewww. He's got worms in his ear. Everyone's giggly and giddy, Myleene and Damien are more chipper than we've ever seen them, they are unanimously thrilled that they're all finally going to be out of there for good.

The final three return to camp all cleaned up, and sit by the fire to chit-chat with the hosts some more. Now they're in earnest mode: This is like nothing I've ever done before I got more out of this jungle and it's still surreal and I would never have quit and get me back, Clarence, I want to live again! We waste more minutes on the ex-campmates who are asked about their favorite trials and Sanji waffles on again about how he loved being immersed upside down in the tank with snakes on that very first night and .... Damien's all, yeah yeah, uh-huh, great.

Back to the final three. They eat their well-earned meals and talk about how much winning means to them. Torrie announces that she thinks she'll be an inspiration to women by showing them you can be strong, brave and feminine. As opposed to the role model du jour, skinny, trashy and slutty. It's an admirable goal but... good luck with that, Torrie!

Now one of the three musketeers has to go. Damien: “The next celebrity….. to leave the jungle forever is…. …. …. ….. ….. …. John." Good. John gets that rictus grin and leaps up a little too quickly, pretending he's excited to be getting home. Even through they're all going home tonight. There's a soupy montage of Salley's Greatest Hits. He simmers down as he watches, becoming gracious and humble at last.

We get a LouDi recap. He’s the good guy, everybody loved Lou, nobody had a gripe with him, and he’s proud of that. He triumphantly proclaims, "I do what I set out to do, my experience in this jungle has been complete." Bravo, fine ac-tor! Time for Torrie. She surprised herself with how strong and fearless she’s been. Awww. She feels like she can do anything after this.

We're back in camp and Damien reminds us the final three have been roughing it for 24 days, and I realize I really lost count with this thing—that's two days longer than I thought. Oh well, my bad. Myleene: "Lou, Torrie, one of you is about to be crowned King or Queen of the Jungle." Damien. "Lou……… you nervous?" Indeed, Lou looks like he’s about to cry. Back to Myleene: “There can only be one winner." Oh come on, we know that already, you've been telling us for 24 days! "The public has decided and voted and I can only tell you two, it has been incredibly close. The winner. Of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here 2009 is ….. …." Torrie? Please?

"Lou Diamond Phillips."

Well of course. The ex-campmates are ecstatic. J-Dick, I think, self-combusts. LouDi gets a shiny wreath of leaves. Myleene says, "We'll see you next year!"

And there'll be pork in the treetops come morning. 

 

The End.

photos courtesy of nbc.com

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 21: You Will NOT Lose Interest in This Show

Last night's episode, which contained more filler than Janice Dickinson's, Renee Zellweger's and Madonna's faces combined, hit an all-time season low. So I guess it's in with a whimper and out an even sadder whimper for IACGMOOH-US. And it's no big surprise. With low-grade celebrities coming and going like Lindsay Lohan in the bathroom at Bar Marmont, IACGMOOH never found its rhythm, it didn't know which way to turn. It was a show made up of recaps and insta-flashback montages, with a few random challenges squeezed in between.

So here we are, it's the penultimate episode, and we kick off with, yes, a recap of the night before: Stephen Baldwin the quitter, fake showmance, bug cocktails, Holly goes home. And two more go home tonight! Here's Damien and Myleene, our comely hosts, live in the jungle, chirpy and wide-eyed and a little desperate to drum up some enthusiasm. Myleene's wearing a fetching little coral.... Holy cow, what happened to her hair? She is channeling the Bride of Frankenstein tonight. This is not a good look for her.

They promise us we've got a nail-biter coming up. But first... Let's hang out with the campers as they sit around the campfire and reminisce about their favorite moments and how they've been jungle-transformed.

Great, yet another opportunity to watch sepia-toned scenes we've already seen. The only compelling moment here is when John Long Tall Salley recounts how he found his soul in the river as well as his new BFF Patti Blah-go. Cut to Long Tall lotusing atop the waterfall episode, eyes closed, as Patti slithers soundlessly to his side, like a pigtailed river snake. It's quite hilarious—I have to rewind that bit and watch again.

Hey, it's our friends, the ants with fern. Cut to Lou Diamond Phillips and his granny glasses; he announces: "I need everyone on the benches, please!" Who named him camp leader again? We have a bald-faced product placement segment: Heads up, everybody, the good folks at Colgate think we need to freshen up! Here are some new Colgate Wisp dry toothbrushes, which come in lots of yummy fruit flavors. Everyone oohs and aahs on cue, like they just got lollipops from the dentist. "That’s sweet, Colgate!" yells Long Tall. Good celebrities! Contract fulfilled.

The big finale tomorrow night is teased. Yay, all the people we didn't care about enought to vote for will be back—can't wait! Most of them just left a minute ago, so where's the suspense? Back to camp. Scroll! Long Tall is leader again. He announces the next food trial, Catch a Crawling Star. The campers file over the jungle bridge and head to the Jungle Clearing. "Let’s to get 'em buckaroo!" cheers LouDi. "Arrgghh, harrrr harrrrr!" growls Long Tall. "No, that's a pirate," corrects Uncle Lou. Heh!

There's a cable strung a few feet over the river with five hanging flags. I'm sorry but this is a doddle compared to the challenges in the Real World/Road Rules Challenges. Torrie has a sudden fear fit, though, crying sweet, pretty tears. She's all scared because she's tired, or something. They go in pairs, Torrie and Long Tall first. They straddle the cable in the most awkward and unflattering position imaginable. Long Tall hurls himself across, but won't take his last flag until the lagging Torrie catches up. Where did that benevolent team spirit suddenly spring from? Maybe the river really did change him.

LouDi and Sanji go next. Sanji makes like Tinkerbell on that cable, ha ha Lou, you didn't win for once, suck it. And then there's Patti. Whoops, they've run out of pairs already. Why in the world did they bother with that? Patti goes solo, and the editors try to fake us that she’s doing a kick-ass job. So do the campmates, who are all "Look at her go!" "She's a fighter!" They pity poor Patti, who flips upside down and starts dropping her flags. Yeah, she’s toast. Sanji and John win. Torrie shows off a stomach as flat as an ironing board.

Quick-cut montage of the remaining five all saying, I will not lose this, I will not lose this, I will not lose this. Since when did everybody stop using the contraction? This has been going on for a quite a while with Generation Valleyspeak—seemingly overnight, it wasn't "don't speak to me", it was "do NOT speak to me." And, as if to prove my point, on comes that super-annoying Verizon Wireless ad, probably the most annoying of Verizon's entire oeuvre of annoying ads, where that fat guy says to his smug-couple friends showing of their new phone, "One thing I do NOT need is a new phone" and then says in his head, "Do NOT set that down, I WILL take it."Like some copywriter seized on that particular vocal trend 10 years after the fact, hammered it into his script and instructed the director, "He WILL say the line like this." 

After this extra-super-annoying break, which, obviously, I didn't fast-forward over fast enough, we get one of the dumbest filler segments so far this season, and that IS saying something: The campmates give each other awards. Fast-forward!

We're live. Damien is in camp to deliver the first blow of the hour, working his dramatic pauses. "Torrie… yewww ….. .....are safe." Yay! I want her to win.  "Lou……. yewwww ……. ....... Are also safe."  Yeah, yeah, come on. "Okay, guys, the first person leaving the jungle… tonight...... is......." Patti, it's Patti, come on, say Patti... "Sanjaya!" Hey! That actually caught me by surprise. Although I had a hunch last night, when he danced his little wood-nymph dance as the credits rolled, that he might have tried the patience of his fan base. Maybe the showmance pushed them over the edge. Life lesson for Sanjaya: Pick a side and stick to it.

Sanji takes a seat with Myleene and her horror-show hairdo. She is a gorgeous girl but even she can't pull this frightwig off. She milks the showmance angle, clutching at straws, desperate to eeke out a storyline, any storyline, and Sanji plays along. Contract fulfilled! We cut to confessional clips of the campmates testifying to their love for Sanji. Wait. Is this live too? When did they film and edit this part? Did everyone have to record a pre-emptive testimonial for each and every remaining campmate the day before? It doesn't matter at this late stage, I give up trying to figure out this stuff. Sanji dissolves in tears, it looks like entire face is watering.

We're live again, or still live, whatever, and it's between John and Patti. And it's..... Patti. About bloody time! Bye, Patti, don't let the bridge hit you on the way out! I'm sorry, but I don't like her, never did. There is something very odd about her, like she isn't comfortable in her own skin. She's all awkward, nervous energy. And it's not good energy. Plus, she's got that flat midwestern-sounding Soccer Mom voice, you know, that sounds like there's always a saliva bubble in the throat.

Patti fairly sprints across that bridge, not looking back once. She gets her testimonial. She Soccer-Moms  her debrief. And I do NOT care what she has to say.

And now there are three. And it's all gonna happen tomorrow night. Why do I feel so painfully underwhelmed? "You do NOT want to miss it!" insists Damien. No, Damien. We do NOT!

photos courtesy of nbc.com

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 20: You Must Be Outta Your Rabbit-Ass Mind

 
I missed the first half hour of this episode because I have IACGMOOH programmed on my DVR and usually watch on a 30-minute delay so I don’t have to deal with all the commercial pods. (I just learned that term yesterday while doing research for a fall preview piece I'm writing for that rare thing writers get anymore—money.) But I have Comcast, so any series recording setting means jack. So I missed the big development: Stephen Baldwin walked off the show. According to The Live Feed, which also tells us that the show's numbers were down 10 percent from last Monday, he left because of bug bites and back pain. The big wuss. (They have a video of Balwin explaining, if you really care.) This makes him the fourth contestant to quit the show, which I think sets a reality TV record. TJ Lavin would never stand for this.

I tune in right when the bomb is dropped that to fill the Stevie B. void, two evictees are coming in to beg to stay and the remaining campmates have to pick one. I fully expect it to be Heidi and Spencer but, silly me, it's the two players who are still in the neighborhood: Holly Montag and Janice Dickinson. J-Dick tries to squeeze tears through her botox-deadened tear ducts to convince the group she really wasn't a bitch who belched and peed beside the bed and talked about her bowels and her menopause all day. Holly cried sweet little sugar drops and just said "I really love you guys!" Holly wins. Big teddy-bear hugs all round.

We have a long segment on how Holly and Sanjaya are picking up their showmance right where it left off and a big tease about how they might be, oooh, hooking up all jungle-style. Meanwhile I've got a bridge to sell you. 

So that's the first hour down. Hey, that was easy! Onto the second. Welcome back, says Damien as Myleene stands fetchingly by his side her her latest shrunken frock from the Sears Junior Miss Department. We run through the campmates' various charities. Good for you, celebs, I hope you get some $5 texts, I really do!

Food trial. It's called Head of Horror and it has something to do with bugs and snakes and spiders. They mislead us into thinking Holly’s going to kill it. They’re playing for more junk food: a double whopper! In rounds of two, celebs have to pop their heads inside a plastic box full of little crawly critters and remove some stars with their mouths. So, yeah, a nice little oral challenge for a change.

Patti Blah-go doesn’t even try. Holly makes a game attempt—oh fellas, some major tongue action!—so she wins that one. John Long Tall Salley starts whining immediately, tries to put his head in the box and yells over at Damien, "You must be outta your rabbit-ass mind!" Hey now! Could this be the new "hell to the no"? He finally gets his rabbit-ass head up in the rabbit ass-tank. Naturally, Sanji takes their round. Then Long Tall rabbit-asses on in the confessional about not letting his daughters not see him do something. As opposed to see him do something. Like hollering about rabbit asses.

Ad break. I catch the tail end of that Brooke Shields commercial where she tries to persuade the ladies of America to slop some kind of toxic prescription-only chemical onto their eyeballs to make their lashes grow. What a crock. Shame on you, Brooke Shields. As if those ads about mascara showing models wearing five layers of falsh eyelashes aren't heinous enough.

We're back to the Head of Horror. Lou Diamond Phillips is up against Torrie. Guess who wins. Torrie sweetfaces about her frustration. I don't blame her. LouDi is almost scarily competitive, he'll do anything to win. Including let tarantulas crawl into his nostrils, which he does in the final round between him, Holly and Sanji. He announces that he was thinking about his daughters too—unlike Long Tall, he lets them see him do something.

Before LouDi gets his whopper, the camp is given some scales. Which is funny, because I was just thinking about how skinny everyone suddenly looks, like they all lost 10 pounds over the weekend. And, indeed, some have: Patti's lost 10 pounds, Long Tall's rabbit ass lost 21—whoa!, scrawny Sanji lost 8, Holly lost 9 and LouDi lost 15. Torrie gained weight—7 whole pounds. It's solid muscle, of course. Just like me! 

LouDi wraps his face around the burger and stuffs it in. Torrie sweetfaces that she hopes he doesn't get sick from eating the whole thing. Tell you what, I wouldn't want to be on latrine duty that day. Then: a father's day montage. Long Tall and LouDi get to skype home. Because they’re dads. LouDi is a bawling mess. Boo-hoos all round.

Myleene and Damien are back. Oh no! Someone is leaving the jungle forever. Reeaa-eeeaaarrr-eaarrraagghh shrieks the violin. But... a twist. It's the two celebs with the lowest votes. Or "the vowest lote getters," as Patti explicates. Holly is at the bottom, duh. But who's next? Patti, for sure, right? No. It's Long Tall.

Oh, his face. It's that awful sore loser face we've all come to know and love by now. Long Tall is seriously gutted. He doesn't have the support system of America behind him that he thought he had. He's in the loser's circle of two, way down there with Holly. And as we know, Long Tall does not like to lose, no sir. He and Holly have to drink evil creature-ridden cocktails in the Last Chance Saloon. Long Tall has a big tight toothy smile plastered on his face that makes him look like death's grinning skull. He is second to last. He is hating this. Hating.

The first is a bright green cocktail of grasshoppers. Holly chugs it fastest. Long Tall blames his height. His death-grin is so forced, his upper lip is starting to twitch. Next, a Tarantula Teaser. Yep, blended tarantulas. Long Tall literally swallows his fear and takes that one. Dung Beetle Daquiri. This is too gross for words. What a great challenge! Long Tall takes that one too. Holly has dung beetle on her teeth. This can't be nice for them at all.

Next: Scorpio Sunrise. With a whole dead scorpion floating inside. Holly deep-throats it. Long Tall lets out a very impressive big-man belch. Finally, Chili Colada. Oh, it's close! Damien pretends to go to the tape to call it. This series has been full of some lame moments, but this one takes the cake. It's Long Tall's win. He gloats so hard, he drinks the leftovers and flounces back to camp, all Nyah nyah America, I won. There is something very.... not nice about this guy. Holly, in major contrast, is a gracious good sport.

So tomorrow night, three are going home, leaving two two are going home, leaving three to battle it out on Wednesday night's finale. [Thank you, my dear friend Rich Sands of TV Guide!] Each campmate gets a camera-moment to appeal directly to us, America, why we should vote for them tonight.

Sanji is uncomfortably charisma-free as he rattles through his greatest jungle hits and then trills, "I'm the baby here, I should win!" Long Tall bombasts, "My strength is my will, I have been very resourceful, I have not taken from the jungle, I have given back." Say what? Patti says something super forced and awkward, and I'm so distracted by the way she's displaying both rows of her teeth that I have no idea. Torrie sweet-faces about how she’s not going down without a fight. LouDi thinks he's Barack Obama on the stump and speechifies about what a great and fair leader he's been, and then signs off with a terrible Elvis impression. Sanji does some very wood-nymphy jumping jacks as we sign off. Curiously, I don't have the slightest inclination to pick up my phone and vote.

Photos courtesy of nbc.com

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 16: RIP Janice Dickinson

I'm sorry if I spoiled last night's outcome for anyone just now, but come on, why bury the lede? It was frustrating sitting through the whole show as they teased it out, so I'm not anxious to repeating the exercise here. America does not feel the love for J-Dick, and it's not hard to see why I suppose. Oh, and IACGMOOH's numbers were up last night, to the same levels as last week, which aren't great, but right now this show needs all the small mercies it can get.

Last night's episode was mostly filler, but here's what we learned: Nobody wants to go home. John "Long Tall" Salley and Lou Diamond Phillips clap themselves on the back for their immunity status. The teams merge, meaning it's now a game of individuals—which doesn't seem like the correct definition of merge, if you ask me, but that's reality-speak for you. A merge tonight is an empty gesture, though, considering that, in real time, two of the players are already history,  so why bother?

J-Dick is really mean and bossy with little Holly, who throws a pail of water over her that makes her face melt. That's the only explanation I can think of—I mean seriously, she  looks like an overripe slab of brie.  J-Dick's face keeps getting meaner and meaner too: She is walking proof of the old adage that you get the face that you deserve. Despite mega-doses of plastic surgery.

There's a very daft game involving plastic balls and those freakin' stars buried in a mud pit. The players fashion their own costumes, and all the guys channel their inner gay porn star. Stephen Baldwin makes a big show of it and starts playing to the balcony, man-boobs all a-flap. Sanjaya, LouDi and Long Tall win. The prize is more junk food: Pizza.

It's the halfway point and we're live, with Myleene and Damien heading to camp with the results. And it's abrupt: Holly, you're going home. Here's your hat, what's your hurry? Then they tease that the second to go is either J-Dick, Patti Blah-go or Stevie B. Holly leaves to no fanfare whatsoever, just a sad walk of shame over a toy bridge. In the British version there are fireworks and champagne and a loved one jumping up and down to greet the departing celebrity to soften the blow. There's silly banter with cheeky chappies Ant and Dec and a nice The Way We Were montage of the player's memorable moments, and they get to make a speech about What They Learned. And there's drinking! And laughing!  All we get on this version is anti-climax. The whole series is anti-climax. How did Ben Silverman get it so wrong?

Next: We have a silly sequence of all the old-timers dropping names as they bore the non-celebrity young'uns Holly and Torrie to tears. Then at dinner, J-Dick and Long Tall throw down over vegetables. J-Dick wants the lion's share of greens—"doctor's orders"—but Long Tall demands a doctor's note first. They argue. It's ugly. It feels like Long Tall is being more of a hardass than he really needs to be, but I suspect this is the editors' handiwork. We hear him explain to Patti later that he won't be bossed around like that by anyone because he's a "proud black man." All I can say is, the editors aren't doing proud black men any favors right now.

Live again, time for the second evictee. Bye bye J-Dick. She takes it in stride. No fireworks, no champagne, no loved one. But Myleene seems genuinely disappointed: "I've loved having her," she says. "Love 'er or hate 'er, you never forget 'er."

She's right. J-Dick was a demon. She was mean, bitter, uncouth, dishonest and obnoxiously self-obsessed. She also provided the majority of the story-arc once the Heidi and Spencer crap was finally put to rest. She got most of the camera time because she was the only one doing anything worth watching and talking about.  And it ended up working against her. That's the name of the game, I suppose, but mark my words, she'll leave a huge vacuum in that camp. Life might be easier for them, but it will be deathly dull for us.

photo courtesy of nbc.com

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 15: Are John Salley and Patti Blago Hooking Up?

IACGMOOH continues to outdo itself by hitting a new season low every night—but, like the night before, all reality shows are having a case of the summertime blues. Go figure.

Onto the episode. "AMERICA," the screen shouts, "YOU DECIDE" … oh, whatever. Our hosts Myleene, in a fetching pink satin nightie, and Damien, in something unremarkable, greet us LIVE from "the muggy and buggy rainforest," which Myleene pronounces "moogy and boogy" in her delightful Norfolk accent that sometimes sounds a little Australian to me.

A quick recap of previous episode's big climax: Whom do you choose to keep safe, Mr. John Salley? "Myself." We see Janice Dickinson in the background, giving him the horse-eye. In the confessional, she basically accuses him of being a selfish fascist pig. The others sit around going, Wow, how could he do that? Patti's all, "I was kinda hoping, you know?" Hoping for what—that Long Tall would throw the whole game for her? Wise up already. It wasn't Patti's skinny white ass on the bottom two last week: it was John's. What kind of a sucker move would it be if he chose to keep her safe? Nevertheless, Long Tall feels guilty. He hangs his head and mixes his metaphors: "I showed my hand. I made my chess move."

We’re given the voting numbers again and Damien beseeches us a little desperately, Come on y'all, call! It can't be going well.

Next Damien fills us in on what's been happening in camp: "The Big Man is enjoying the Big Job." We see Long Tall sitting atop his plush king's bed, lotusing. He's an early riser, and he wants the  campmates to rise and shine when he does. Seems “the elders” wake up early and old lady Janice and the young’uns enjoy a lie-in. Long Tall wakes up J-Dick in a manner that would thrill me to pieces:  He bends over her and murmurs, “Get your sexy ass up.” J-Dick, of course gets all bent about it. "I was rudely woken up by Salley this morning," she bitches. Stephen Baldwin tries to assure her that he was far from rude, but she's not having it. "She kind of processes things a liiiiiitle differently," Stevie B. understates.

J-Dick then tells Stevie B. how she dreamt that Torrie had shaved off her hair—that would be J-Dick's hair, not Torrie's—and that she ran into the river and was drowning. Stevie B. springs into Good Reverend mode, licking his chops at the prospect of delivering J-Dick's ravaged carcass at the feet of our Almighty Lord God Jesus Christ. Good luck with that!

He analyzes her dream with the insight of a five-year-old: "Maybe there’s an aspect of your life that you feel like you’re drowning?" This strikes a J-Dick nerve and she starts sobbing. "That was deep," she chokes. "I don't want to be who I am." She fiercely applies deodorant as she shares this. As you do when you're discussing matters of life and death.

Stevie B. is touched. "She's growing on me," he tells Long Tall. "Like a fungus," Long Tall quips.

Now it's time to delve into Torrie's psyche. She feels lonely in the crowd. She can't believe she has 8 more days to go in this camp. Neither can I—I thought this thing was only going to last three weeks, what's going on? Torrie shares that she's missing her family and missing being naked. Oooooh-kay. I think she's trying to drive up her voting base.

There's yet another peurile task that involving sketching that isn't worth recounting. But it leads deftly into the Big Tease of the Night: Patti and John. Are they hooking up? Oh. As. If!

It’s food trial time. There’s a shot of Torrie and her massive jugs. Then a cruel cut to Patti looking, well,  haggard. The two teams deliberate. Stevie B. wants to step up for the boys, and they don't have a problem with that. J-Dick volunteers with her usual grace: "Me. Me. Me. I wanna do it. Didn't you hear me? Me." The girls are understandably skeptical. "Do you feel good?" asks Patti. "Doesn’t matter how I feel. I said me," J-Dick barks. There is no discussion, only barking. Torrie can't take it and walks away.

So it's Long Tall and Stevie B. against J-Dick and Patti. The prize is Chinese takeaway. "Holy moly!" yells J-Dick.

The trial involves ropes strung up like a spider's web with each team harnessed together. The goal is to retrieve flags. Not stars? I can't keep up. As the ladies set off, J-Dick belches. "I think that was my breakfast," she informs everyone. Does this woman really have no control over her bodily functions at all? I don't want to know how she'll behave after a Chinese meal. The girls do fine, but of course the boys do better, making like a double-backed Spiderman. They win by 2 minutes.

J-Dick is pissed. It's the show's fault they lost, she whines! It wasn't an even match! She sulks by the river. Everyone bitches about her bad attitude. Then the boys gloat over their triumph and another goddamn teaser about Patti and John. Which you know isn't going to pay off.

Back from the break. Here we go! It's the big teaser reveal. Holly assures us, "Patti and John, they’re definitely inseparable." Some shots of them sitting together, cooking together, la-di-dah. Then Long Tall stares accusingly into the ConfessionCam. "Patti, I can’t be friends with you because you’re not of the male race. That’s not cool."  No it's not, John. Can't we all just get along?

J-Dick bitches very bitchily about how she caught them chatting at 5 in the morning. "What the f--- can anyone talk about at 5 in the morning, huddling and chatting sitting in front of the fire?" You, J-Dick. They're talking about you. And everybody else in camp. Patti provides a seriously judgmental running commentary about all the other campmates while Long Tall concurs—"yyyup, uh-huh, yeah, I know!" So much for Mrs. Innocent—politics is so evil, everyone is so mean, they all talked behind our backs, we didn't do anything, you have no idea. Boy has she blown it. I can't wait to see her ass sent home tonight.

Next: A bit of filler in which Long Tall bullies Sanji about his cooking. Then, a pre-ad promo. Oh my eyes, it’s Spencer and his hideous ginger face pubes, and his prematurely botoxed wife. Why do we still have to see them? They're gone, NBC! END it already!

We're live. Everybody sits around the camp speculating about what’s going to happen Thursday. Excuse me, but we need something to actually happen, not a bunch of airtime devoted to talking about what’s going  to happen. Long Tall bloviates about chess and family, mixing his metaphors again.

A crocodile turns on its own tail. I know how it feels.

The hosts enter camp. "Hi Mom!" chirps Holly. Huh? Damien recaps Long Tall’s decision to protect himself, making it the third time we’ve been over this. "I came here to win," Long Tall says, making it about 10th time we've heard it. Okay, now that we're perfectly clear about that? "We're here to give you a little bit of news about how American has been voting," wide-eyes Myleene.

"Oh myaaannnnn!" rasps J-Dick.

The votes are extremely close. Here, let Damien explain: "Last time the bottom 5 were separated by less than 3 percent of the vote and the bottom 2 separated by less than 1 percent." Translation: We're only getting about 12 votes a week.

Myleene drops a couple of teaser-bombs. "Janice, you're not in the top 2." J-Dick's like, Huh wha—? "Patti, you're not in the bottom 2." Oh crap. You mean she might not be leaving tonight? I don't care if she belches and pees on everything—I'd rater watch J-Dick than Patti Blah-go any day. Damien pleads with us to vote.  Gay Nation, that means you!

Photos courtesy of nbc.com

 

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 14: Sanjaya, Gay?

After a relatively action-packed episode on Monday night, last night's IACGMOOH was a bit "eh!" So were the numbers: According to The Live Feed, it slipped to a new low, down a tenth from the night before. Still won its time slot, though, but apparently it doesn't count: Its only competition was reruns.

Onto the broadcast: There's a quick cross-promotion with Microsoft's new Google, bing. Yes, that's bing,  all lowercase. Please tell me the high-pitched man-voice that goes “biiiiinggg!” noise annoys you as much as it does me. Plus, bing won't work as a verb, like Google. Not in the past tense, anyway. Read it: binged. Makes you think of a heavy drinking session, doesn't it? That can't be good.

Now to the episode: We open with everyone talking about the new  sheriff in town, Long Tall John Salley. His style is Strict Dad versus Lou Diamond Phillips' Nice Uncle. That's right, big boy's a hardass. He immediately doles out responsibilities to each and every campmate and lays down his Commandments of the Camp. Such as: "If you do not wash your hands, you do not get food."

"He’s now forcing his will on his people," complains Stephen Baldwin, showing off his sack-of-oatmeal physique. Get some sun on that torso, dude! "I think he’s taking this leadership thing a little too seriously," Patti asides about her BFF behind his back.

The Great Jungle Storm of the night before has passed, and Damien and Myleene are back in their cushy studio, and good for them. They introduce a segment about the camp's latest cockamamie time-killing game: Let’s make a slasher flick! Hoo boy. Horror props arrive out of nowhere, the fake knife the ketchup, the Scream mask. LouDi’s the director. It's the biggest break he's had in years, you can totally tell. Ever the adorable naif, Holly is excited to be making a movie "with people of such high caliber as Lou Diamond Phillips."

True to form, Janice Dickinson yells, "Who do I have to sleep with to get the lead?" Dream on, honey. Not with the Bombshell Wilson around, and LouDi is terribly diligent about blocking her shower scene. Then  Long Tall deadpans to camera, "I've worked with the great Lou Diamond Phillips. How may people can say that?" Beat. "How many people want to say that?" Oh, snap!

The scroll. Long Tall don't need no reading glasses. It's a food trial, one from each team goes head to head, yada yada. No prizes for guessing who's up for the ladies: Torrie. "She can move mountains because she's a brick shithouse," explains J-Dick, channeling The Commodores from that hit song back in the 70s when she was famous.

So it's the two muscle queens, again, Torrie and LouDi. How redundant. And how many times do I have to say it: These trials are mean to be voter driven. It's supposed to be a democracy. The players going into the trials are meant to be the ones the public wants to see in there.  Although it's entirely possible that that's a moot point by now, as there's not much of a public out there that wants to see them, period. Still, the US remake doesn't hold a candle to the UK version in so many ways, but now I'm getting redundant so I'll shut up about it already.

Onto the trial: There’s a tank with snakes. The food is pasta. Is it just me or do the food presentations all look like those plastic displays you see in the window of cheap tourist restaurants? None of it looks appetizing, but those guys are starving so even plastic food would look great to them at this point. There are 35 snakes in the tank along with those darn toy stars, which are  numbered this time, so they must be retrieved in order. Ah, a twist! It's a race between Torrie and LouDi, who grope around in the tank together. The snakes are striking! They’re not poisonous, of course, just unpleasant. One seems to be sunning itself on top of the tank, its head jutting right in their faces, completely unperturbed. It’s got to be a prop.

LouDi capers all over, falling on his knees, putting his whole body in it, as per. He wins by one second. Torrie wants to cry. I don’t blame her. "It’s getting too repetitive here," she wails—speaking for the viewers as well.

Back at camp, J-Dick takes the bad news lying down, for a change. The girls placate teary Torrie: Pasta's fattening, we don't want that, do we girls? Who said the Sisterhood was dead?

Back to Damien. He tries to assure us that the battle for king and queen is really heating up. He is not  convincing.

Back to camp. J-Dick wants “booby”, aka Sanji, to put guy-liner on and of course he happily complies. The others shake their heads and start to gossip sotto voce. "He looks very gay when he’s doing that," Long Tall tsk-tsks to Patti. "It’s not attractive to women," she tsk-tsks back. Long Tall complains in the confessional that Sanji goes "from being smooth Mac Daddy around Holly"—cut to Sanji telling Holly mid-massage, "You can actually sit on me if you need to," HAH!—"to not being Sanjaya around J-Dick." Not being Sanjaya meaning, you know, behaving like a prancing wood nymph. 

Holly quietly confronts her crush. "I feel like she like wants you to be really gay or something," she says. "A lot of people want me to be their gay best friend," Sanji explains, "but I don’t like guys, so it really confuses people." No kidding. In the confessional, Sanji explains away his girly affectations: He was raised by women.  So was Jack Nicholson, bro. We cut to Sanji, under heavy gaydar scrutiny, making the world's most awkward attempt to macho-up to Torrie. J-Dick delivers her verdict on the gay/not gay thing with one word: "Please."

A rain drop pelts the clueless tree frog on the head. I think that’s code for DENIAL!

Time for the immunity trial:  It’s a hands-up-over-the-head again, something to do with standing on a plank over a muddy pool holding a pole and a box filled with slime. Stevie B. opts out, he wants to leave his fate in God's hands. He said America's hands, but, same thing. Have you ever known a reality competition show that was so sloppy with the rules? No wonder nobody's watching.

The rest step up. J-Dick doesn’t last a nth of a second and gets duly slimed and slopped. "I tried," she lies. She doesn't give a damn about winning any immunity trial—her ass is covered by The Gay Nation. Torrie starts giggling uncontrollably—I think she's flashing back to Sanji's  pass at her earlier—and she's out. Long Tall starts up with the trash talk—"my strategy!"—and instantly gets his comeuppance. Sanji throws it, LouDi wins immunity, the sun rises in the morning and it goes down at night.

It's movie time. And it is godawful. LouDi, however, is rapt—so engrossed, he gets some popcorn stuck in his chin-stubble. He starts pulling the most creepy, insane expressions, looking exactly like Reese Witherspoon when she pulls that devil-face in Cruel Intentions. LouDi is psyched. He'll start shopping that thing around the minute he gest home, no doubt about it.

We're live. Myleene announces that John has "a very, very difficult decision to make." He gets to pick one person to be exempt from the vote, including himself. Myleene says, "You have 20 seconds starting no—“ “Myself,” he interrupts. Best team player indeed. "I came here to win," he declares. And good for him. You don't win shows like this by being benevolent to your fellow players. The ones who are always get screwed.

We're given the numbers to vote. I can’t help it. I vote for Janice.

photos courtesy of NBC; Reese Witherspoon courtesy of The Jay.

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 13: The Rise of Long Tall Salley

Well, the already-low numbers for IACGMOOH are slipping, but audience viewership was down last night across the board. Could it be all those poor wretches who weren’t ready for the big digital conversion on Friday? Whatevs, it’s a week since the departure of the Desperate Duo, Heidi and Spencer, and IACGMOOH’s numbers haven't plunged all that much. Last night's two-hour extravaganza begins with drama: The set is besieged by a major tropical storm! Damien and Myleene's cushy little studio location has been flooded! Everyone's hair is frizzy! In this weather, Damien promises us, literally anything can happen. Literally!

But not till we've recapped what happened waaayyyy back on Thursday night: Daniel Baldwin was voted off. We get a post-mortem of his brutal execution. His little bro Stephen  is so choked up about it, he can't even swallow right now. Just like LouDi back in that nasty food challenge. They need to do a swallowing trial; that's one Janice Dickinson would totally take.

And here she is, with her kabuki eyebrows again, rasping to camera, "I couldn't be happier that Daniel Baldwin is gone because he's a big bully." We cut to everyone in camp wringing their hands over Big Bad Daniel's absence. Everyone but a jubilant J-Dick, of course. Stevie B. says he'd better not catch anyone going through his big brother's things. J-Dick barks, "I already did!" "You went through his stuff?" gasps Stevie B. "Hells to the yes!" she ripostes.

Okay, off topic for a minute: J-Dick has to be the only person in the land who is still using Whitney Houston's cracky catchphrase from Being Bobby Brown way back in 2005. I don't know about you, but I've noticed that catchphrases don't have the same shelf-life as they used to. Everyone was saying "Hell to the no" when BBB came out. When's the last time you heard it? That's four relatively short four years ago. Expressions like "way... no way" and "...not!" from SNL's Wayne's World were all over the mainstream for almost two decades; variations on Jerry Maguire's "you had me at hello" are still being written into scripts. But remember when everyone was saying "high five!" and "sexytime" after Borat just a couple of years ago? Wouldn't you feel like the proverbial douche saying them now? And wouldn't you feel like an even bigger douche uttering any single line from Juno, like the execrable "honest to blog"?

But I digress; back to J-Dick. She's lying on her back and rasping out orders from her sticky glossed lips non-stop. She's aged yet another five years over the weekend; the perma-scowl is not helping, nor is that cooking oil she's got slathered all over her face. It's all about J-Dick and her vile temperament tonight. This is bad. The producers are clearly having a problem eking out a storyline if this is all they can come up with two weeks in.

And then, more wind-baggery. In an effort to lecture sweet innocent Holly on the pitfalls of celebrity, LouDi harkens back to his heady heyday on La Bamba. Which he pronounces "Lammaammmbaaa" in that way people tend to over-emphasize Lad-tiiiiino names or words of any kind. J-Dick chimes in about TMZ going through her trash and robbing her of her privacy, which she pronounces "privvacy"— she probably picked that up from her British ex-husband Simon Fields. Patti rabbits on about her deadbeat husband again… She really wants that sympathy vote.

Out comes the scroll and LouDi's reading glasses. It's a luxury trial, and the reward is a massage. LouDi says he fancies getting a rub. I'll bet. Long Tall Salley wants one two. It's the two old guys versus the alpha chicks, Torrie and Patti. Muscle queens LouDi and Torrie go head to head cranking a lever to pull an ever-shortening plank out from underneath Patti or Long Tall. Long Tall tries the charming courtside trash talk on Torrie but he drops like a sack of bowling balls, yelling "Mutha—!" on the way down. 

Back to camp. J-Dick's lifting dumbbells. Word to the ladies: Want good muscle tone in your 60s? Take J-Dick's lead. Suddenly, she opens up to LouDi about her lousy marriage and her messy past. He's honored. Such a good daddy.

Again with the scroll and the reading glasses. Another trial. My mind wanders for a millisecond and I miss the details, but it's some kind of a scavenger hunt. Everyone has to find a particular item, all of which seem to be in J-Dick's bag: tweezers, hand-mirror, brillo pad. J-Dick sets off to find her item while clutching her crotch for some reason. They win smores.

Suddenly Long Tall is talking about leaving the game. He's too proud to lose and being on the bottom two last week shook him up quite a bit. "I'm not the white girl with the pretty face and the blonde hair," he grouses. Wow, bitter much? And also, by the way, do either LouDi or Sanjaya or J-Dick—none of whom has hit the bottom two—fit that description? I'm sorry but that is lame.

Sanji feels bad that Long Tall is down, though, so he offers to do the cooking and decides to fry some chips. Chips of what, it's not clear. J-Dick chides his one-chip-at-a-time frying style. He loses his temper for the first time and threatens to throw hot chips in her face. Well, she's already got the oil! Holly stands by her little man: "These are sowww good, Sanji. Soooowww goooouuud." Bleh. J-Dick takes a bite and announces, "You are Lord of the Fries." Every now and then, the old girl hits one out.

Coming up: What’s wrong with Janice? We see her doing something unspeakable. Has she got the crabs?

And... back. Long Tall retracts his idle threat and decides to stick it out and "man up". About time. Then old lady Dickinson waddles into the woods. Seems she's all clogged up. "I haven't had a shit in 7 days!" she rasps. Everyone but LouDi exits camp in disgust. She doesn't miss a beat: "I sure know how to clear a room, don’t I Lou?" She shows off her distended belly. She scarfs down the papaya and the prunes. Nothing works. " I’m surprised she doesn’t have some yoga pose that doesn’t make it come flying right out," yuks Stevie B.

Ooh! An iguana on a log. Finally, some new stock creature-footage. Patti's rabbiting on about Blago issue again. Fast forward. We’re an hour in. Let's get on with it!

The public voted Torrie and Sanji into the Tunnel of Terror. Sanji thinks the public want to see his breaking point. That's what you get for being so damn competent, Jungle Boy. Actually it's a joy to watch him kill it every time. So, we have  stars hidden in all kinds of scary places in an underground tunnel. Myeene warns: "You won’t be alone in there." Reeeerrreeeerreerrrrrrr! There's that screechy-violin noise from Top Chef and Kitchen Nightmares and every other reality show again. A few critters await, alright already, we know the drill, please stop that noise! In goes Sanji. And: spiders, iguana, snakes, oh no, a tarantula on his back, crayfish. Wait, crayfish? In the jungle? And then the weeny baby crocodiles. Watch out Sanji! They might bite your pinky toe!

Sanji, of course, kills it again. How anyone could crawl through an underground tunnel full of water and mud, in the dark, is beyond me, critters be damned. It's Torrie's turn. We hear her wimpering and gasping and breathing heavily.  I’m worried the neighbors will think I’m watching porn. She does extremely well but Sanji wins. The camera pans slowly up Torrie's mud-soaked frame, a loving journey from feet to face. Subtle. But I have to say, she looks as gorgeous coming out of that filthy tunnel as she did going in. She is stunning.

Unlike J-Dick. She's not looking so good. The campmates are worried about her and choose their words verrrryyy carefully. Patti: "She looked... really... frail." Torrie: "She looks....horribly sick." Stevie B. gets to the point: "She's sick, dude." Long Tall concedes that "she's not crying wolf today." Eat your words, mean campers.

But J-Dick isn't running for the jungle door. "I've made it this far," she whimpers. Girl's a trouper in her own messed-up, scowly, angry way. But she's sent to the medico. She’s got a virus. They're keeping her there for the night.

It's night at camp, and we've got on our night-vision goggles. Everyone's sleeping. Ooh! A snake slithers into camp. Some men in camouflage stealth-creep in. They're identified: "onsite security."  They’ve got sticks, they’re prodding in the bushes, Patti wakes up. They sneak off wordlessly with the snake. It's a bizarre little pantomime, completely surreal. Patti tippy-toes over to Long Tall's bed. He wakes up just long enough to exchange a word with her. "Did you see those ninjas over there?" she asks. "Snake?" he goes. "Snake," she confirms. He sinks back into his jungle coma, leaving Patti alone and awake in the dark.

Morning. The camp talks about the Great Snake Invasion. It finally hits Stevie B. like a mallet to his low-hanging brow that he's not on a movie location. Holly's hair is in a full-on frizz, she should have used her sister's dry shampoo. J-Dick comes bounding back. She must have had an enema: She is walking on air. The old-lady droop is gone, too. Amazing what a good movement can do.

Time for a new camp leader. LouDi's reached his term limit. We have a eulogy for him that goes on way too long—yeah, yeah, he's Obama, he's been cool, we get the point. We have a quiz stolen straight from Survivor—match the adjective with the player as voted by America. So we learn that America thinks John Salley is the hardest worker, the most famous, the best team player, has the best strategy and is the smartest. What was it you said about pretty white blonde girls again, John?  Plus: I'm not sure what show America's been watching, but it's definitely not this one. I'd have thought LouDi would take the vote for smartest, what with the reading glasses and all. Strangely, the majority of the campmates thought Patti was the smartest. And as if to prove it, Patti's vote for the most vain is "Stephan."

Long Tall voted for himself in just about every category so he wins. Ever humble, he declares, "I was already a leader in so many ways."

The camp plays "who's your best friend?" It's a lovefest between Stevie B. and LouDi. John's BFF is Patti, and she's all "right back atcha." Torrie and Stevie B. have bonded because they're both—take a guess—Christians. Holly and Sanji call each other out all googly-eyed. J-Dick, the gooseberry, declines to call out anyone... and goes off to take a dump. Which, under the circumstances, seems completely appropriate.

Immunity trial. But first, an IACGMOOH promotion. Get jungle gossip on your phone! There’s Heidi and Spencer. They’re still using them for the interstitials? More proof that NBC was bankng on them, hard.

Back to Damien, who shares shares a lot of irrelevant information about things we can't see, and... out.

photos courtesy of NBC

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Day 10: The Great Granola Bar Mystery Continues

I'm a Celeb was up against both So You Think You Can Dance and the NBA playoffs last night. How do you think it did? Yep, pulverized. So, anyway, we pick up where we left off—with the Great Granola Bar Mystery. The wrapper is found, outside the confessional. The Bully Baldwins do what they do best—asking Janice questions about it and muttering over and over again, really fast, “where’s-the-granola-bar? where’s-the-granola-bar?” and cracking up laughing, right in her face. She glowers and grimaces and scowls as hard as she can and avoids eye contact at all costs. It's taking quite a toll of J-Dick’s looks—she’s looking 65 today. Then Daniel shoots her a look that would turn a rabid Grizzly bear’s blood to ice and says, quiet seriously, “You’re dead to me.” Oh. This is not funny anymore; if anyone looked at me that way, I’d age instantly too.

We get a bug-bite montage next, with a night-clip of Long Tall Salley manically swatting some kind of prehistoric winged creature from his face. The camp is given bug patches and tubs of what looks like calomine paste. The guys' backs are covered in a Milky Way's worth of white dots.

Food trial! It’s a shopping challenge. Sanji and Holly step up because, you know, if there’s one skill this hre young generation has mastered, it’s shopping. They’ve got to push a bamboo trolley across a cable and pick off big pieces of fake food. Sanji, who sprints across as if he was born on a tightrope, kills it. There really is nothing this wood nymph can’t do. 

Back at camp, J-Dick is regaling the group with every detail of her career, all 85 years of it. “Is it time for Janice’s meds?” Meanie Daniel Baldwin asides. Apparently the game they’re playing now is “What was your career-defining moment?” Holly shares that it was when her sister Heidi invited her to L.A. after her step-brother was killed in Iraq. Actually, that’s sad. She cries, and everyone wells up with her.

Patti dashes from the group, because it’s making her think about her husband’s career-defining moment, which is probably going to land him in the hoosegow. She hides in the confessional to have a good cry. J-Dick is waiting for her at the door when she comes out, all ready to console her, but Patti cuts her off. “I’ve just composed myself, I don’t want to hear it.”  J-Dick is stunned. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.” It’s a pretty raw and deeply uncomfortable moment. Talk about “let’s get real.”

There’s a silly segment about a potential romance blossoming between Holly and Sanji. The whole camp and even the hosts are rubbing their hands about it. Now wait a minute. Is it just me, or is Sanji unmistakably…. a wood nymph? Next: some of the campmates get to Skype home. Sniffle, sniffle, boring, next?

We’re live, time for the elimination. Holly, who’s been on the show for two seconds, is safe. Ben Silverman must have been working those phones. Torrie’s climbed up from the bottom; she’s safe. Cut back in time to last night’s dinner: Everybody except Janice sits around the campfire telling each other what they love most about them; tears and bonding, family talk, next?

Back to eliminations. Sanji is safe (he was right!), and so are Stevie B. and, shocker, Janice, who screeches, “Are yewewww kidddinngggg meeeee?” Patti, Long Tall and Big Bad Meanie Daniel are in the bottom. I’m convinced it’s going to be Patti. But no! It’s Daniel. He takes his dog-eared black-and-white family photo and says his goodbyes. J-Dick steals his last live-on-air moments by rasping in the background, “Say no to Prop 8! Say no to Prop 8! Perez can you hear me?” No teary goodbyes to Daniel from her. In fact, no goodbye at all. Can't blame her.

Coming up: the contestants compete in the Tunnel of Terror and to demonstrate how scary it will be, a tarantula attacks the camera. We’re told in advance that Janice will be exempt for medical reasons. Again? Are her health concerns mental or physical? Tune in for the next two-hour-long episode on Monday and maybe you’ll find out. But you probably won’t.

UPDATE: It was reported on the Huffington Post today that Stevie B.'s home in Rockland County, N.Y., has been foreclosed and is up for auction. Whoa. I wonder if that will come up around the camp fire.

photos courtesy of NBC