Reality Update: Strippers on Project Runway, Fabulous Pamola Faith

Tim Gunn with Thunder Down Under on Project Runway

Yesterday I started jury duty and nothing is as exhausting as sitting around waiting for something to happen. I last did jury duty about eight years ago and a few things have changed. Now they show movies in the waiting room and let you keep your phones and laptops on. The film was The Day After Tomorrow--the one from 2004 with Dennis Quaid rescuing his son Jake Glyenhaal who is trapped in the NY Public Library while the city is first flooded and then buried in snow. Later while waiting again in another part of the building I was surrounded by TV monitors blaring first The Chew and then Katie Couric's show. It was maddening trying to read an old New Yorker article about homeless gay teens while Jessica Alba was blathering about nutrition. Why couldn't they have changed the channel to Judge Judy? That would have made sense at least.

Smash Episode 204: The Song

Ivy and Karen do some dirty Fosse dancin' 

Jimmy beat Derek in the Biggest Asshat contest on this week's Smash. Julia moved a little closer to Peter's bed--and his home in the Berkshires. Eileen lost control of the show. Kyle soulfully expressed his suppressed passion for Jimmy. Jerry twirled his mustache and Ellis returned, but only on the other end of a phone conversation. The show is still Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, but at least things are getting interesting.

The episode begins with rehearsals for Veronica (Jennifer Hudson)'s big one-night concert which evidently only takes a couple of hours. The talent behind Bombshell are apparently the only people on all of Broadway available to put this slapdash thing together. Of course both Ivy and Karen are in the chorus and Derek perversely has them fondle each other in a blatant rip-off of the Air-Erotica number from All That Jazz. The Fosse references are flying fast and furious later on as Veronica is forced to perform the ultimate uptune I Got Love as though it were Steam Heat with a bunch of hip thrusts and flared wrists. Veronica's momager (Sheryl Lee Ralph in a weird bit of casting--the Broadway Deena from Dreamgirls playing the mother of the movie Effie) demands that Derek keep her little girl's pure image in tact and drops a further foreshadowing hint that Tom would make a great director. Ivy said the same thing last week. Will this mean Tom will threaten Derek's position as the stager of Bombshell? Plus the mom has arranged for Bravo to tape the concert and NBC's sister network and its logo are shown and mentioned a million times.

Republicans in Disarray After Iowa

Hooray! Rick Santorum's surge in Iowa has totally fucked up the Republican primary. It's after midnight on the night of the Iowa caucuses, with 96 percent of the vote in, Romney and "Man on Dog Sex" Santorum are within 100 votes of each other. Mittens must be boiling mad. "Goddamnit!," he's probably screaming at his staff, "I thought we had this thing sewn up. Now I gotta go after a guy who lost a Pennsylvania senate race by 18 freakin' points? A nutcase who thinks contraception should be outlawed?"

Rick Perry has effectively dropped out. Bachmann is stubbornly sticking in and Newtie has become like a wounded bear, ready to slash at Mittens. Ron Paul had a strong finish but I don't think he will go for a third party candidacy because it will hand the election to Obama. The Republicans would be furious and then the party establishment would take it out on Paul's son, the senator from Kentucky.

But in the long run, Iowa is all meaningless. Look at who the Iowa Republicans have chosen before: Huckabee, Buchanan, even Pat Robertson (I think). Mittens is going to be the nominee and Santorum's victory (even if he is second it's still a victory) just delays the inevitable. What this says to me is the Repubs STILL don't like Mittens. Gingrich is out for blood and he's going to attack Grandpa Paul and Mittens. He wants revenge for the negative ads (ironically these are the result of super PACs and the right-wing judges on the Supreme Court deciding money is speech and corporations are people.) Santorum might take South Carolina, but Florida should decide everything. It makes Obama look much better by comparison.

While flipping channels from MSNBC's coverage of Iowa, I turned to two reality shows which provided ironic contrast. One was Bravo's It's a Brad, Brad World with the very gay former asst. of Rachel Zoe leading a very gay fashion-forward lifestyle with his boyfriend. The other was ABC's supertrashy Celebrity Wife Swap with fame whore Gary Busey and repressed gay minister Ted Haggard trading spouses. Here was an election with candidates looking for votes by calling for outlawing sodomy and advocating the degration of gay relationships, while on other networks gays are being celebrated (Brad) and participating in their own exploitation (Ted).