What is Bravo Trying to Tell Us About Our LifeStyle?

Brandi Glanville joined the cast of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills after 3 seasons and enjoys her time as resident trouble maker, binge-drinker, and wine-thrower. She's the classic Bravo celebrity.

To preface, Jennifer Lawrence is a self-proclaimed reality TV junkie, ergo there's no shame in it. Whatever J-Law does is cool mmmkay? There's no greater cesspool of reality bacteria than that on the Bravo Network. Spearheaded by the indelible Andy Cohen who rescued the network from reruns of 'Inside the Actor's Studio' and the lowest ratings in TV history into the most watched channel across the continental US, Cohen keeps coming out with franchise after franchise, none of which has seen more success than 'The Real Housewives of...'

Now, even a junkie like me has to cherry pick. I have pride. I only religiously tune in to New Jersey, Orange County, and my beloved ladies of Beverly Hills. Out of the ashes of Beverly Hills, when post-menopausal women doing yoga and going to botox parties became less and less interesting, came the irreverent 'Vanderpump Rules'. Let me explain. Lisa Vanderpump is a 'housewife' which is ironic because she's a working woman, and a Beverly Hills transplant from England. Anyway! She has two (now three) restaurants in the greater Los Angeles area. Villa Blanca in Beverly Hills...you know, who cares? the newly opened gay bar Pump (which I heard is abysmal, also being next door to West Hollywood's Abbey Food & Bar, a landmark in the gay community) suffice it to say, it's not getting much business despite the pretentious and overpriced drinks. The third is a bar and lounge that I used to frequent back in my LA days called SUR also in the heart of West Hollywood. It's kind of like Abercrombie & Fitch for drinkers. She only hires young hot actor/model wannabe's filled with righteous indignation, body glitter, and draaaaaama with a capital F. 

This season of 'Vanderpump Rules' saw a goddamn wedding. Backstory: that girl in the ridiculous crop-top wedding dress is Scheana Marie whom we were introduced to in Real Housewives of Bev-Hills because she cheated on the husband of one of the cast members, and now like every girl pushing 35, she decided to settle for some boring nothing. I don't have to tell you anything about him, the picture says it all. 

Juxtaposing these two shows together it's actually quite surprising considering the ladies of 'Vanderpump Rules' seem to have it more together and more of a clear head on their shoulders being in their late 20's early 30's than the parakeets in their 50's of the Real Housewives cast. 

Let's talk marriage. It's very ironic calling the franchise 'Real Housewives of' anything. Most are divorced or going to be, usually for the dumbest reasons, while the ladies of Vanderpump though all aboard the hot mess express on a regular basis at least have their men in check. Example: 'Tequila' Katie from the Vanderpump cast finally sat her slacker boyfriend down and said; 'listen bitch, you have six months to propose to me or I'm moving on'. You go girl. I'm not saying that this is an agist thing. Yes a lot of the housewives look like melted barbies (especially in Orange County) but their god complexes get in the way of actual happiness, this is all considering that optimal happiness for them means more than 5 pairs of Louboutins. 

Kim Richards; the hot mess. Was anyone really surprised that she fell off the wagon and lied about it through an entire season of Real Housewives? Not I. 

Now, on to lifestyle choices. Let's branch out. Bravo seems to be very hypocritical and also a bit exploitive of people's drinking issues. They tend to cast people right on the cusp and push them over the edge. With all of the open bar parties they stage for the cameras, they could be considered one giant enabler. Hell, Andy Cohen will sit down at a reunion show with you or inside his 'clubhouse' and make a margarita in your mouth right after an episode airs which brings up your 'drinking problem'. The last season of the 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' centered around Kim Richards (former child star extraordinaire and general psycho) and the giant question mark regarding her 'sobriety' since she admitted on live television that she had gone to rehab for her alcoholism, and this season it's apparent to everyone with eyes that she's not exactly following through. The last episode was 45 minutes of the six cast members arguing about whether or not the word 'intervention' was actually used in conversation regarding her. Talk about stretching content. And then it comes out that she got wasted at the Beverly Hilton and kicked a cop, were any of us surprised? No. Is Andy Cohen secretly happy because he gets to have a 1 on 1 special with her now? Yes. 

The new show 'Southern Charm' is a bit of a sleeper hit. Small cast, cute city (Charleston), and though the cast like everyone else on Bravo, is loaded, they are very self-aware of that and how obnoxious they can be. Just like on basically every other Bravo show, there is a character whom we can already see going to the dark side. Previews of his intervention are in the works. Now, Andy is not stupid, when someone busts out with their alcoholism, that makes for excellent TV. Though no Emmy in sight for him in the near future. 

The cast of the 2nd season of 'Southern Charm' behind the million dollar smiles and designer dresses, there is drama-a-brewing.

Now that Bravo has decided to (gasp) go scripted with shows like 'Odd Mom Out' and 'Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce' the well of vodka-soaked divorce-ridden drama has clearly run dry. But I'm sure the great and powerful Andy Cohen still has a couple tricks up his sleeve. And alas, against everyone's better judgement the Real Housewives franchise is still going strong. The first one was 10 years ago if you can believe it, and as long as they keep up the formula of pure schadenfreude they'll be ok. There is always going to be an endless stream of cutaways to people taking copious shots, girls crying, and guys fighting. On that alone, Bravo has built one of the most successful TV empires known to man. As far as guilty pleasures go, it's one of the best. As Cameran (cast member on 'Southern Charm' and the definitive 'voice of reason' of the show) ever so cleverly quipped; All aboard the hot mess express. Toot, toot!

Intros to some of these shows below. Because, why not?

Housewives Recap: Everyone’s an Alcoholic and Paul is a Douchebag

Taylor chatting it up with Yolanda Foster's hubby David Foster about absolutely nothing after hitting the wine glass a couple dozen too many times. As Yolanda said 'there's nothing uglier than a drunk woman' well, let's put it this way 'There's nothing uglier than a drunk Taylor'

Finally caught up on my Real Housewives of Beverly Hills because my life had become an empty void, and I gave in, just like Taylor does to a bottle of wine every so often. I was in Real Housewives rehab but I relapsed and bad. And what did I miss? Well here’s the gist. 

We all know Brandi is being sued by Adrienne and her hubby Paul the surgeon, who never stops talking about the fact that he’s a surgeon even though we’ve not once seen him perform surgery this season because he’s too busy playing second banana to his wife’s shoe-line ambitions. Adrianne is worth approximately 100 million dollars according to celebritynetworth.com (as you can see I use my spare time wisely) and Brandi is worth lets say nothing considering she hasn’t had a modeling gig since 1997 and her only income is selling incendiary stories to US Weekly. So basically that’s a shitty move on Adrianne’s part. 

Hypocrisy alert! Kim the former alcoholic, who apparently relapses later in the season, confronts Taylor about HER drinking problem now that she's in a 'better place'....really?

But here’s what’s happening now. For Kim’s new nose, she decided to throw a Kim’s new nose coming out party, it was the most bizarre thing I’d ever seen, but probably par for the course in Beverly Hills. During which, sisters Kim and Kyle which kind of remind me of the two wicked stepsisters from Cinderella get a rather strange phone call from Taylor saying she’s going to Beaver Creek and also implying she has no idea where her young daughter Kennedy (that’s right, that’s what she named her) is. This raises red flags. Then Bravo has the wear-with-all to show us other times that Taylor wasn’t how shall we say ‘aware’ and tipsily yapping about god knows what. Ergo, Taylor’s got a drinky problem, so says Kim the former alcoholic, and by former I mean for 3 months. 

What are you talking about I'm fine...glug glug glug.

So that now makes 2 out of 6, but lets face it, Brandi’s quite the frat girl herself, if you look closely, not that you would because your eyes would burn off from all that shiny, you’ll notice Brandi always has a glass of wine in her hand and tends to be pretty chatty and say things she shouldn’t. Red flag? Um yeah.

And in this day and age where in Beverly Hills it’s easier to get botulism than a driver’s license these girls are still picking alcohol as their main problem? Puleeeease. Get addicted to valium or cocaine like a proper Beverly Hills housewife and stop boring us with your sorority girl moments. 

Adrienne talking emphatically about nothing as usual, and Paul pretending to laugh at his wife's jokes because he loves her....paycheck.

Also, Paul’s being a cunt basically. That’s as much as I have to say about that. If you watch any promo it hints that he and Adrienne are headed for divorce court and all I can say is it’s not going to end well for him. It was mentioned in Season 2 that the two signed a pre-nup so he’ll definitely be taking that depressed divorced man’s condo while she keeps the billion dollar home in the hills, the dogs, and probs the kids so good luck to him, especially with that face of his.

That’s all. Ciao for now!

Housewives Stuff...I Guess

So basically Brandi did the worst thing possible to do or say about someone and alleged that Adrienne had all of her children via surrogate. It was petty mean girl gossip and it was just as incendiary as something like that would be expected to be. It was a cry for attention at best.

Dear readers, I am beyond remorseful that I have not been able to give  you any material for almost an entire month. Unfortunately I have been kept so busy that aside from not having time to write anything, I haven't had time to watch anything to write about. The only thing I allow myself is time to download episodes of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (2010 - ) and keep on in the background on my daily commute to work. It is literally all I have been kept current on aside from the news. And even then, not so current. For example, I have not watched the episode from this past Monday, it's still downloading to my computer! But let me pretend I have...Brandi makes excuses for being a seriously low-class bitch, Adrienne keeps saying 'That's sooooooo rude' in her Californians-from-SNL twang and being 'outraged', Lisa has problems at SUR with something or other, the varnish I don't know...Taylor is annoying, Yolanda is boring, Kim and Kyle are not getting along, and dun dun dun FAYE shows up! 

Remember Faye? When she first appeared on RHOBH she was referred to quite ironically by Camille Grammer as 'the morally reprehensible Faye Resnick'. For those of you not in the know, Faye was a close and dear friend of Nicole Brown Simpson and testified against OJ during his trial. Camille initially alleged that Faye was degenerate because she did a spread for Playboy within a few months of the trial's conclusion, as if Camille didn't do any spreading in Playboy herself, but that's old gravy.

Faye looks like the quintessential Beverly Hills housewife, more so than any of the principal cast themselves. With all of the technology that has progressed breast-augmentation to an art form, it makes wonky 90's implants that much easier to spot because they look like someone stuck a coconut bra on a woman and painted it flesh-colored. 

Faye Resnick's Playboy spread, believe me, the black squares are a fucking favor.

Also, she has one of those unfortunate melted-face looks and the weave is not fooling anyone. All of that being said, she's actually not that bad of a person, you just have to see beyond the enhancements. Anyway, I'm not sure what went down, but I'll find out tonight. Frankly, Faye is not that interesting of an addition to the narrative because she brings too much common sense and not enough high-school-type dramarific buzzfeed to the little group within which we are seeing just a few too many cracks of late. 

Also, not sure if I'm on Brandi's side anymore. Not that I'll ever be on Miss Maloof's side either, so for now I'm putting myself on team Lisa. As always, where it's safe and warm and full of pink roses and diamonds. As I type this, I am finishing watching that last episode and guess what all of my predictions are true, fancy that! I find it beyond hilarious how Yolanda is so out of the loop that just to keep her on the show they show her exercising, and get this: talking about how jealous she is of her young daughter because everything on her body is 'tight'. Someone needs to give this bitch a basket of poison apples and a pointy tiara because she's this close to sucking her blood.

So far, I'm not really a fan. They brought in Brandi to be a bombshell in every respect of the word, but instead of blowing people away, her plan is backfiring all over the place. So, um...I guess let's wait until the next episode and hope for the best.