I know this is the time of year you really start to concentrate on college basketball.  It won’t be long and you’ll be filling out your brackets.  Right now it’s important to watch any game you can channel surf to and get a good line on team performance.  But your wife or girlfriend could not give a rat’s ass about this stuff.  They have their own final four going on right now and you, my friend, might be missing out on some intense action.  I’m talking about the reality TV program “The Bachelor,” and after stumbling across an episode last week I found myself unable to let go.  I only watched my basketball game during Bachelor commercial breaks.  It was that gripping.

But I know how totally disinterested you are about this kind of stuff and would consider it a complete waste of time to watch anything but a sports channel, so I decided I would do you a favor and get you caught up on what’s been happening in girly world.  Pay attention.  This is a huge opportunity for you to score some points with your lady-friend.  I have things broken down into basics, strengths and weakness of each contender,  and putting things in terms you can understand.  Plus what you have here is concise.  It will give you  a precise synopsis of all the carryings-on so you can get back to ESPN in a timely manner.  Sorry I couldn’t have this ready for Valentines day,

GAME RULES:  Basically what the contest amounts to is a whole bunch of very desperate women preening themselves and fawning over one lucky guy, the official “Bachelor,” each of them emboldened with the hope that he will have the good sense to choose her as his wife.  I think they get married anyway.  From what I am gathering that is the whole point behind all the drama.  And there might be some kind of tricky point of law or religious objection otherwise.   The best part about it is the Bachelor is in complete control.  I think he can even make shit up on the fly.  I don’t know where they find all these women.  I mean from what I understand they show up on the Bachelor’s door step by the dozen. I don’t know how many women they start with.  As I mentioned I just recently tuned in.  But where were they when I was in college?  There are so many women that the Bachelor has to eliminate them by the hand-full.  And again that is totally up to his discretion.  No involvement by any nosey, overly judgmental outsiders.

LIST OF CHARACTERS:

THE BACHELOR (and Grand Prize): Brad- Home Town: Pisga, Iowa.   This is the object of all attention, a stud-muffin of a guy who makes sure he never misses his daily gym work-out.  He can’t afford that.  Not only might his six-pack abs whither on the vine, but he’s got to corner the towel attendant again to help him figure out how to apply his testosterone patch.  This could be you if you work on that belly flab and soak your head every night in a bucket of Rogaine.  And it might not hurt to get some orthodontic work done.  Wearing long-sleeved shirts should provide good enough cover for that skin condition.  OCCUPATION: Auto Sales Executive.  Translation:  Works for his father at a Ford dealership.  With some quick thinking (something that is of a premium with Brad) he talked his dad into giving him a title indicative of some prestige when he found out he was a Batchelor candidate.  His office door plate reads “Sales Vice President of Small and Medium-sized Trucks”.

THE FINAL FOUR:

Krystal- Home Town: Lickskillet, Ohio.   Bleached blond with huge knockers.  Was smart enough to realize early on that Sadam Husain was never hoarding WMD’s but heard through the grapevine, which amounts to the bartender at the strip club she works at,  that he was trying to corner the market on her favorite brand of Russian vodka.  She was very glad we invaded so we could get that rumor all cleared up.  OCCUPATION: Dancing Instructor (translation: Pole dancer)

Bobbi Jo- Home Town: Dallas, Texas.    Knock-out red-head with delicately chiseled face.  Her parents had an orthodontist install a couple of extra teeth in her jaw when she was ten so her smile would stand out during all the beauty pageants they entered her in.  They were supremely confident the expense was justified after Bobbi Jo was crowned  “Miss Correct Posture” queen. OCCUPATION: Chiropractic intern (translation:  Private masseuse)

Chastity- Home Town: Sugar City, Idaho.   Defines the phrase “innocently cute.”  In fact, she professes to be a virgin, and Is convinced Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, as well as evolution, are a hoax.  OCCUPATION: Sandwich artist (translation: Blimpies employee)

Starr- Home Town: Toad Suck, Kansas.   Petite brunette whose small stature and small town upbringing belie her extensive reputation.  What is the complete polar opposite of a virgin?  Nail that image and you’ve nailed Starr, as has any male over the age of 16 in Toad Suck and half of the guys living in any adjacent county.  Moved to LA to open up her availability.  OCCUPATION; Cosmetic developer (translation: Clinique Counter clerk)

FIRST SEMI-FINAL

This was one of those contests that almost went into overtime.  Brad was under some very intense pressure to choose between Starr and Chastity.  WTF is a man to do in this situation?  A virgin on one hand and a gal that knows all the ropes on the other.  That’s every type of rope,  as well as a working knowledge of every kind of knot used in tying up people with those ropes.  Very helpful to Brad with his decision making process was Chastity’s sister Wanda.  In the way of explanation, at this stage of the competition, the Bachelor gets to go visit the home towns of the remaining contestants and pump their family members for any inside information they might be willing to part with.  Turns out Wanda was more than willing to spill her guts.  It was from this sister that Brad found out Chastity was completely intact.  So complete is the intactness that Wanda professed she thought Chastity was a little off the beam with her reclusiveness and ought to get out more, or have someone get in more.  Brad started to get the picture as Wanda was stroking her hand over his thigh.  No one is sure what went on because right at this point there was a commercial break.  Probably just as helpful to Brad was the information he gleaned from Starr’s brother Ted during his visit to Toad Suck.  Being a fellow guy (and knowing this was his one shot at his fifteen minutes of fame) Ted thought he could score some big points with Brad and the national TV audience by letting everyone in America and whoever was watching overseas know  what a  whoring slut his sister was.  When Brad ratted Ted out for telling this tale, Starr immediately took the offensive by opening up her laptop and giving Brad a good gander at the 500 plus nude photos of herself.   This seemed to be just too much for Brad.  I got the feeling that all those pictures reminded him of that date he had a couple years back with a girl from Des Moines.  It was shortly after that encounter that he experienced some very intense pain during urination and the fix was an almost as painful injection of penicillin in his ass.  I am not sure if that stuff entered into his decision or not, but at any rate in the end Chastity got the rose and Starr went home empty-handed.

Oh, I forgot.  At the conclusion of every episode the Bachelor hands out roses to all the winners.  If you don’t get a rose, you don’t advance to the next round.  You’re a loser.  And believe me the gals involved in this production don’t take kindly to rejection and are not the best of sports when dealing with defeat.  Not a lot of congratulatory hand shaking going on here.  There’s weeping.  And unrestrained sobbing.  Lots of that.  Quite a bit of vindictive bad-mouthing and name calling.  But it’s not directly confrontational.  All the tormented expression of inadequacy and verbal bitch-slapping is pretty much reserved for the time spent alone inside of the limo that transports the distressed damsels from the  promising house of romance to the hotel that houses the losers.  From all appearances it is a distressfully humiliating and agonizingly long ride.  I wouldn’t mind hearing what the limo driver has to say.  He’s the guy that has the real story.  He’s privy to the un-edited version of all the carryings-on.  I bet he has to wash his ear-drums out with soap when he gets home.  Plus, I imagine there’s some hanky-panky going on inside that vehicle when Brad is in there philosophizing with one of the girls.  The limo driver might have to sponge down the leather upholstery now and then.  But that’s all part of the job.  As far as these rose hand-offs go, I personally think things should work just the opposite.  The losers should get a rose as a consolation prize for humiliating themselves on national TV.  Give them something to help them recall how ingratiatingly pathetic they looked during all the groveling and back-stabbing.  But that’s just me.

To  really ramp up audience interest, coming up shortly will be the “fantasy suite” episode.  Believe it or not, the network sees no problem essentially paying three women to have sex in a hotel room with Brad.  Sweet deal for Brad.  You and I would have to pay a pretty penny for that accommodation, and risk jail time as well.  Now I don’t know if all four of them get together and have like an orgy or something.  The limo driver could tell us.  I’m sure the producers have threatened to cap him though if he opens his mouth.  This type of reality garbage is driven by suspenseful intrigue, and what better way to draw any male that still has a functioning prostate and at least one testicle into this extremely shallow pool of human dignity than with the lure of a partie a’ quatre.  I’m kind of curious to know if there are any women involved with the executive decision making here.  Seems like a guy thing to me.  Dangle the word “fantasy” in front of us and we are likely to bite on absolutely anything associated with its context.

I have a feeling though the evenings of whoopee in hotel rooms will be just that- plural.  I mean you have to figure a one-night bedroom romp with three women at the same time would be pretty confusing for Brad.  He has a very important decision to make- the selection of one of these skanks to be his bride.  I would have to think the production team realizes it’s only fair to slow the game down for Brad.  Evaluating the gals performance one at a time makes more sense.  Good luck with Chastity.  You have to figure there’ll be lots of whimpering and sobbing  going on before Handle”s “Hallelujah Chorus” chimes in.

Now that I think about it, I just don’t  have the stamina to get  through another episode of this shit.  You guys will simply have to tune in if you want to find out who moves on and is mercifully declared champion.  Grab a bag of chips and a six pack on your way home from work. There’s another semi-final tonight.

If you missed NBC’s Saturday Night Live 40th anniversary show, consider yourself fortunate.  A promising evening of entertainment turned out to be a tortuous three and one-half hour  festival of ingratiating ego-pumping and contemporary performance overkill.  Way too heavy on musical productions and way too short on Belushi, Chase, Aykroyd, Radner, Murphy, Murray, and so many others I had been looking forward to watching.   I thought with a 3.5 hour block of time surely I would be treated to a snippet here and there of many, if not most of the classic sketches.  But there was hardly a one.  I can’t tell you how depressing it was to sit through this thing, desperately and patiently waiting for Buck Henry’s portrayal of Lord Douchebag, only to have my hopes crushed by the vocals of Miley Cyrus, Kanye West and Paul McCartney.  The program started out propitiously- Dan Aykroyd and his current rendition of the infamous “Bass-O-Matic” routine.  But the original was way better.  That was “Bass-O-Matic 76.”  I’m not sure what this model number was.  And the commercials had to set some sort of record for fewest minutes between breaks.  There was one every 5 minutes at times during the last hour.

Call me an old geezer but I didn’t do much catching on to whatever point Kanye West was trying to make while he was laying on the floor sing-talking.   I think I got it that he was trying to project an image of himself in a completely different perspective, like he was singing upside-down or something.  But I gotta tell you I was not impressed.  I thought he looked kind of silly.  I know it’s probably just me, but if I wanted to go out and be all showoffie and sing upside down, well I just think if that’s the look you’re going for then do it up right.  For me it would have made sense if he was actually upside-down, like with his knees locked around a trapeze bar, and maybe swinging back and forth.  Now that would lock down a big score with me.  I’de probably give him a solid 9.  But then there was the song itself.  Not my cup of tea.  Probably have to dish him out a 2 on that.  While I was watching all the bazaar ducking and crawling around on the ground I couldn’t help thinking how off target the producers were for not subbing a clip from the last SNL Mick Jagger episode for this shit.  Adding to all the perplexity were those two people that slithered out on all fours and started in contortionating along with Kanye about half way through the performance.  One of them was a fella I didn’t recognize at all, but you could pretty much make out from the way the other person was creeping around that it was a woman,  and I am likewise pretty sure I know who it was.  She was well hidden underneath that scary, nuclear enriched hairpiece that was last worn by one of the gigantic monsters co-starring in a not well known Godzilla movie.  But I am fairly certain it was Beyonce.  We all know about the uncontrollable obsession Kanye has with her.  I can’t figure out how he talked her into donning that ridiculous head-gear though.  I am sure he didn’t want anyone upstaging him, but man I think this was over-kill.  That thing had some serious compression fracture potential.  I hope she’s all right