“You tongue will dig your grave, Memnet.”
- Nina Foch to Dame Judith Anderson in DeMille’s The Ten Commandments.

Sunday This week, we rejoined the Head of Household surfing competition, already in progress.

Lane, aka “The Beast,” and Brendon in wet shirts makes for pleasant viewing.

Enzo, aka, The Pussy: “We gotta drop grenades, and take dese people out.” Does he have any grenades in the house? Oh and Pussy, if you’re using grenades, I highly recommend that you throw them, rather than just drop them, or you’ll be blowing yourself up, not that I have a problem with that.

Bitchney saying of the HOH challenge, “I need to win this,” is truly pointless. The competition involved being wet and uncomfortable, and risking being a Have-Not for another week. You just know she will drop out early, and then whine about how unfair it is that she didn’t win. She feels she should win it all just for showing up.

The Beast on Monet’s speed-of-light departure: “Monet jumped out of that seat like a clown running from a bull.” He must attend some very unusual circuses.

Bitchney: “I hope that the people who are responsible for Monet leaving get what’s coming to them.” Like a cash reward? Sainthood? The thanks of a grateful America? But really, Monet being gone is all the reward anyone could ask for.

Said Andrew, aka Captain Kosher, of the stationary surfing competition: “This ain’t a Jew sport.” Andrew darling, I’ve actually known some Jewish surfers. You always can tell them at the beach; they’ve trimmed off the tips of their surfboards.

Kathy tried to make us think that her falling off her board first was her strategy. She’s trying to pass off being a major lame-o as her plan. Yes Kathy, you’re a strategic genius. I wonder if she has a partner with whom she bamboozles perps by playing Good Cop/Incredibly-Stupid Cop.

When Hayden tumbled, he also claimed it was his strategy, only I believe him.

Then Miss “I need to win this to stay safe in the house” Bitchney jumped off to avoid being a have-not. Yes, she needed to win, except it might have meant more mild discomfort. I wish she could be drafted onto Survivor against her will. I’d love to see her suffering on that far-more-grueling show, eating bugs, and not showering at all for a month.

With the addition of The Beast, the four Have spots were now filled. Everyone else left up there would be a Have-Not except for the winner. In other words, these are the serious players, as opposed to the I’ll-win-it-if-there’s-not-too-much-effort-required wimps like Bitchney and Kathy. May I point out that gayboy Ragan is still going strong, while our butch boys, Hayden and The Beast, are out?

Captain Kosher’s already-too-tight short-shorts, now that they were soaking wet, were leaving no doubt as to the authenticity of his Jewishness. The Pussy: “To me doze shorts don’ look kosher.” Doesn’t it depend on how the shorts were killed? “If I wore dose things in Jersey, forget about it bro, I’d have to move.” Then please don’t wear them, because no other state wants you.

“I can not let Matt win this HOH competition,” said Brendon, who was about to let Matt win this HOH competition.

“I let down Jersey,” said The Pussy after he lost his balance and fell. Meow Boy, you let down Jersey the minute you failed to pretend you were from The Bronx. “I’m giving myself de horns right now.” He’s cuckolding himself? How do you do that?

Brendon fell off next. So Brendon, the orthodox “shoe salesman,” the nerdy “genius,” and the gay guy have all just done better than you at an athletic competition. Hang your pretty head in shame.

Captain Kosher fell next, so now it was down to Ragan and Matt, aka Mr. Mensa.

“I actually trust Matt,” said Ragan of the man who has told him that his wife has an imaginary bone disease. Ragan, I have some fantastic waterfront property in Florida I can let you have for a rock-bottom price, and today only, just for you, 50% off this bridge in Brooklyn I have to let go.

After the two-hour mark, when complimented on the amazing job he was doing, Ragan said: “What? You didn’t think I had this in me?” Ragan, perhaps you would be better served not to stir up speculation as to what you’ve had in you.

At two hours and fifteen minutes, Ragan lost his balance, and Boobiac’s worst nightmare (I mean besides silicone boobs being outlawed) came true; Ragan lost his balance, and Mr. Mensa became Head of Household for the week.

The Beast’s elation that one of The Brigade had won expressed the peculiar world he lives in (Texas): “Matt, I want to punch you in the face, but in a good way.” What is a “good way” to punch a person in the face? A jab? A left hook? Popeye’s twister punch? And what does he do to people he’s angry at? Kiss them, but in a bad way?

Boobiac was all weepy over the man whom she loudly and publicly betrayed and humiliated a few days earlier winning HOH. Well, maybe you should have considered that possibility before you pointlessly called him out in front of the whole house, and broke your word to him.

Boobiac took Mr. Mensa into one of the rooms for a private talk. “Like, I never wanted to attack you, or come after you…” she began lamely. Then why did you? No one forced you to. You did that all on your stupid own.

Mr. Mensa’s position was simple and sensible: they had made a deal: he would voluntarily go on the block as a pawn, and all she had to do was keep the fact that he’d gone up of his own accord secret. He kept his word, she didn’t keep hers. That sort of blatant betrayal generally has consequences.

And I told her to shut her stupid mouth when she began down that road to betrayal, right here in this column last week. You all read it. (Well, you didn’t, but the rest of you did.), and she ignored my sage advice.

So further deals between them are unlikely. She dug her own grave with her tongue. Brendon must be spitting out soil after every kiss. I’ve heard of having a “dirty mouth,” but this is ridiculous.

Bitchney finds The Pussy’s New Jersey accent hilarious, like her Arkansas accent isn’t just as awful. She said he sounds like a character from The Sopranos, in his mind the highest compliment he could ever receive, without for one second catching on that she herself sounds like one of The Beverly Hillbillies, light on the “Beverly Hills,” heavy on the “hillbillies.” Bitchney, neither one of you speaks like Julie Andrews.

Bitchney did have one accidentally funny question for him: “What else do you say wrong?” Well, he keeps mispronouncing “Bitchney” as “Britney.”

In showing everyone around his HOH room (Now they all get to pretend to care about stuff they don’t care about, just as he mentioned he does during HOH room tours last week.), Mr. Mensa showed off a picture of his wife taken lying on her side in a bar. Well, she may have bad taste in men, but she has good taste in where to be photographed. What he didn’t tell us was if she was lying down because she’d drunkenly fallen off her bar stool (that’s generally why I’m reclining in a bar, or a church picnic), or if she’d collapsed from her imaginary bone disease. But this much I’m fairly certain of: she was in the bar drinking to try to forget she was married to Mr. Mensa.

“Oh yeah, those are our wedding shot glasses,” Mensie said, in a blatant attempt to impress me personally.

Captain Kosher, who last week had realized Mr. Mensa was lying about his wife’s imaginary disease, misinterpreted her letter to him to be a confirmation of her fantasy ailment. Well, apparently you can fool all of the people some of the time. Meanwhile, in the outside world, the people actually suffering from this hideous bone disease, who don’t find this a particularly amusing tactic, are roiling with offended rage, and are all ready for when Mr. Mensa gets out, to beat him to a pulp with their actually-diseased bones.

The Brigade wants Mr. Mensa to put up Brendon and Boobiac, that always being their sole tactic. Mr. Mensa is fine with nominating Boobiac. He’s married, so he’s given up enjoying boobs. After all, why would you so disfigure your arms with ugly, excessive tattoos, to the point that you look like you’re wearing a sweater with asymmetrical sleeves, if you still had dreams of getting laid at least annually? But Mr. Mensa also wants to go after Kathy for voting to evict him. I understand this, but Bitchney voted against him also. Nominating her could almost make me like him. Almost!

Hayden, who has had the kindness to start going about shirtless (His rather nice pecs draws one’s gaze away from his always-frizzy, hideous hair, and his narrow, piglike eyes.), is trying to keep his showmance with Kristen a secret. This should be easy, as no one remembers she’s even still on the show. (And, are their trysts being photographed in night-vision, or does filming these two lustbirds simply make the camera as green with nausea as it does me?)

“I would do whatever it takes to keep me and you safe,” said Kristen. Why, after this grammatically-challenged sentence, doesn’t Hayden immediately send her off to shag Mr. Mensa? That would keep them safe. After all, Mensie must be awfully horny. He doesn’t dare have sex with his fake-diseased wife, as he might shatter her pretend-diseased skeleton. It would be like having sex with Liza Minnelli; you have to be gentle, or she’ll need yet another new hip.

That there’s something up between Hayden and Kristen hasn’t escaped The Brigade’s notice. The Beast and The Pussy have it all figured out. They’re cousins. Yes, kissing cousins. These two animals have mud-lump-sharp deductive powers. “He doesn’t hookup wit’ her,” said The Pussy, even as Hayden and Kristen were hooking up one floor below him. Oh Pussy, Kagan passed on my Brooklyn Bridge deal. Would you like to buy it? Think of how much easier it would be to get your freshly-hijacked trucks over to Jersey if you had your own private bridge.

The Pussy is relentlessly, proudly, devoid of class: “Hayden’s gotta remember: bros before hoes.” He should hook up with his brother before hooking up with a “ho”? No wonder The Pussy has no problem with Hayden nailing his cousin. Somewhere, The Pussy’s wife must be tremendously proud. I strongly suspect that when he leaves the BB House (Soon, please, soon!), he may find “the wifey” and their kid gone, as, if she has any trace of sense (and having married him, there’s a strong likelihood she hasn’t), she’ll take this opportunity to go into the Witness Protection Program, and maybe his “Ma” too.

Okay, I figured Boobiac gave lap dances. She is, after all, a “VIP Cocktail waitress,” which is to say, bros before her, but I’ve never before seen someone give a lap haircut. She trimmed Brendon’s hair with clippers as she sat in his lap, slid about, and laughed that incredibly irritating laugh she uses to punctuate her every utterance. Meanwhile, Mr. Romance, aka Captain Kosher, arrived with a vacuum cleaner. Hey Cap, can’t you give a fella some privacy when he’s getting a haircut and some “trim”? “Andrew, don’t worry about it. I’ll get it after she’s all done,” said Brendon, though The Captain couldn’t hear him over the noise of the vacuum cleaner, and also the fact that Brendon’s voice was completely muffled by Boobiac’s boobs. It’s a large amount of cleavage, Brendon, but it’s not an echo canyon.

Brendon and Boobiac, who don’t have a private room this week, have given up hiding their Great Love from Captain Kosher, and are just openly shagging in front of him. The Captain doesn’t care much for it. He knows it’s not kosher. “It’s very awkward for me to walk into a room seeing people doing that. I’m like a nine-year-old kid.” Is it common for people to shag in front of nine-year-old kids? What kind of unorthodox Orthodox Day Care Center was he sent to? Well, you don’t go on this show if you don’t have a huge streak of exhibitionism.

Bitchney has adopted The Beast as her substitute gossip girl, now that Monet has left for Hades. They are also joining in the voyeurism reindeer games, watching Brendon and Boobiac out in the yard, and inventing their own dialogue for them. The Beast’s performance as Brendon, and his take on Brendon’s narcissism, is actually pretty funny. It’s the first sign of his having any snap or wit at all. On the other hand, he’s also mocking Brendon for working out, and it’s not like The Beast developed those gigantic shoulders, pecs, and arms of his by sitting about eating doughnuts.

But then The Beast ruined it, by telling us too much: “I’ve role-played a couple times, ah, back in Texas, mainly with horses and cows.” I wonder which role he takes: top or bottom?

This week, the repast selected for the Have-Nots by “America,” to supplement the yummy slop, is baby food and Bok Choy. The Captain was ecstatic. It’s kosher baby food. He loves it. So do my cats.

The Pussy hasn’t the faintest idea what Bok Choy is. Apparently it’s not among the dishes his sainted mother serves. He also has no idea how to pronounce it, since just saying it the way it’s spelled doesn’t occur to him: “It’s baby food and bok chalk, or baccarat. I don’t now what dat is.” Meow Boy, unless announcing “Banco” gets James Bond to pass the shoe to you, it’s Bok Choy.

Mr. Mensa made an offer to the two people who betrayed him the week before, He wouldn’t nominate them at the ceremony if they would promise not to put him up, should one of them become HOH the following week. Frankly, I don’t get why he would strike any deal with them, when they went back on the last one. Mr. Mensa is a slow learner, which is rare in MENSA.

Mr. Mensa proposed to Captain Kosher that he nominate him as a pawn this week, while he aims at backdooring Brendon. The Captain is not the volunteering-to-go-the-block type, and feels the deal isn’t kosher, so he can’t swallow it. “If it doesn’t work, and you go home, I will feel like such a ****,” said Mr. Mensa through the blur over his lips. Ah, that should make The Captain all feel all better about it. Why not use Bitchney for the pawn? She voted against him last week, and if the plan backfires, that would be even better. We could lose Bitchney.

Nominations: So Captain Kosher and Kathy were nominated. The idea is to use the POV on Wednesday to take The Captain off and put up Brendon. The Captain (and I) see this plan as considerably less than 100% foolproof. Should Brendon or Boobiac win POV, it’s down the tubes. All agree that the chances of Kathy winning POV are zero.

“Ah absolu’ly don’t un’erstan’ why Matt put me up,” said Kathy, who knows perfectly well why Matt put her up, and who is too upset to put in the effort to get her tongue up to the roof of her mouth to pronounce her “d”s.

“I hope he’s got a masterpiece ready to unfold,” said The Pussy, who meant “masterplan,” but who is still reeling from trying to say “Bok Choy” without linguistic instructions from Bitchney.

Wednesday: Kathy told Mr. Mensa that she hadn’t been gunning for him back when she gunned for him. Yes, she voted for him, but it’s not like she meant it. Mensie suggested she win POV. Yes, she’s a whiz at challenges. “People like ya,” he told her. Who? Not me.

The Captain told Hayden and Cousin Kristen of his being nominated: “If you guys knew about it, I think it’s a stupid thing.” They didn’t know about it, so does The Captain now think it’s the best thing since sliced bread?

Hayden wants Brendon on the block, so he promised to take The Captain off the block if he wins POV, and for once, I believe him. But then, maybe Hayden just wanted The Captain out of the room, so he could return to making out with Cousin Kristen.

After Boobiac thoughtlessly put peaches into the ice tea, making it off-limits to the Have-Nots, The Captain, already stressed out, began tipping over into act-out land. He said of Brendon, while discussing how much he’s come to loathe Boobiac: “I don’t know how Brendon likes this thing.” So Boobiac has become “This Thing.” I like it, although The Thing From Another World was insulted. As for how Brendon likes “that thing”: actually, what he likes are those things. I guess The Captain is a leg man.

The Captain did come up with a prize term for the power structure in the BB House: “Idiocracy.” Great term. It also describes The Bush Administration.

The Captain is, not to put too fine a point on it, anal retentive. He’s obsessed with vacuuming, doing laundry, washing dishes, nagging. He’s like my grandmother in a “Yom Kippur.” He’s the sort of person who washes the garbage before he throws it out. I’ll bet that in the outside world, he washes his car daily. He’d make some nice Orthodox man an insufferable wife.

Kathy: “Ah abosul’ly have to win this veto, or I think I’m gonna be outta the house.” Then I guess she’s gone, because Kathy couldn’t win a competition even if she played unopposed.

In drawing for the three wild card positions, Mr. Mensa picked Brendon, the one person no one but Brendon and Boobiac wanted to play. He tends to win, and the plan by everyone else is to backdoor him. The Beast was drawn next. Good, especially if it involves nudity. And then The Captain drew the one person he least wanted to draw: Boobiac. He better hope the contest doesn’t involve chemistry. If this is a who-can-mix-an-alkoloid-solution-fastest competition, he’s screwed. “I thought God loved me!” The Captain wailed at the sky. People always think that. Captain, notice how no one else in the house keeps kosher, and yet lightening never strikes them? Get a clue: there is no God, as this show proves on an annual basis.

The Beast can contradict himself without drawing a breath: “It doesn’t bother me one bit that both of them got picked; it just itches at me that they got picked.” Make up whatever it is you use for a mind, Beast. He drowned his sorrows in Pop Rocks.

The Captain has a gift for phrasing things, when not cleaning things: “Your plan is blowing up in my face.”

Up in the HOH room, The Brigade were watching The Captain praying on the big screen TV. Said The Pussy: “Dis is Kosher Cable,” which is pretty funny for him. “It’s the most entertaining thing on the screen,” added Mr. Mensa. Wow, talk about inhuman torture. Watching praying is even more boring, and more pointless, than watching golf.

The Beast is finding his Big Brother experience broadening. Seeing The Captain in his prayer shawl, Beastie said: “I didn’t know Jewish guys wore Ninja outfits when they prayed.” I still don’t know that. I also didn’t know that Ninja outfits had tassels. “That’s the good thing about being in Big Brother, you know. I can learn different cultures, and, ah, how they work.” When he “learns” about them, those cultures become really different. The Beast is becoming stupid about a much wider variety of topics than he was stupid about before. Now he’ll have a new appreciation when he watches his old tapes of Teenage Mutant Orthodox Turtles.

The Beast isn’t from civilization; he’s from Texas. His idea of relaxing is shooting turtles, though never teenage mutant Orthodox turtles. His ideal, fun Saturday night is for him and his surviving friends to go out drinking and driving, while shooting at anything that looks like it has eyes: an owl, a cow, my Aunt Evelyn. The Beast’s idea of fun is “to kill stuff.” Guns, liquor, and cars: Disneyland for the depraved. Remind me again why people are against Texas leaving The Union? Texas doesn’t even qualify as a Third-World Country; it’s a Fourth-World Country. It’s more barbaric than Uganda. No wonder George W. Bush became governor there. He may actually be the smartest man in the state.

The Beast went on about how he wanted to “pimp-out” his machine gun. So those huge shoulders and giant pecs are actually overcompensation? The bigger the gun nut, the smaller his penis, and if he has a pimped-out machine gun, I’m afraid he’s hung like a doughnut.

Power of Veto Competition: The Pussy hosted, dressed like Aladdin’s genie, or as he put it, “like de bearded lady.” Show me a bearded lady that dresses in an open vest with no shirt, and a turban that makes her head appear shaped like the Elephant Man’s skull.

It was instantly obvious that the contest was a mental challenge. Well, we can count The Beast, Kathy, and Boobiac out right now. If only it involved killing things while drunk. The Beast described the competition layout as looking like “a smarter version of a redneck carnival in Texas.” That also describes the catbox on my service porch when it’s in desperate need of changing.

Kathy saw that counting was involved. This panicked her, since, like many an Arkansas peace officer, she can’t do simple arithmetic, and she can’t do complicated anything.

There was a large plaster unicorn in the yard. This perplexed The Beast. “I’ve seen a lot of horses in my life,” he said, “And none of them have had a horn grow out of their forehead.” Last week, he said he went to college. Was it a Barber College? He doesn’t know what a unicorn is. Every eight year-old who has read the first Harry Potter book knows what a unicorn is. How can anyone be so ignorant? How is that possible? Newborn infants know more than he does.

Brendon looked great in his Aladdin outfit. I suppose Boobiac was supposed to be in a Princess Jasmine get-up, but she just looked like Heidi’s stripper sister.

The rules were a bit complicated, but it boiled down to guessing amounts of stuff they’d had a look at, and then either committing to their guess or folding. Farthest-off guess each round was eliminated.

The Beast went out first. If only they’d been counting ammo instead of fortune cookies, and hadn’t used numbers larger than five.

Boobiac is such a brilliant strategist: “So my strategy in the veto comp is not to get knocked out.” This boils down to “My strategy is to win.” Let’s see how that works out for her.

Mr. Mensa went out next. I’m not terribly impressed by his diabolical supergenius just yet.

Estimating the length of a spiral line was next. Kathy thought it looked like a snake. She was attacked by a snake once that was eight feet long, so she guessed the spiral line was eight feet long, forgetting that the question was not about the snake that had attacked her. Boobiac wisely folded, since her guess was more than twice the correct length. But Brendon won that point, striking terror into the hearts of The Brigade. Kathy was – surprise! – out.

Everyone but Captain Kosher folded on the next one, so he automatically got a point, putting him in the lead, but no one was eliminated. Brendon had wisely folded, given that his guess this round was six times too large. Why he hadn’t just guessed “a gazillion,” I don’t know.

The Captain’s guess on the vial full of eyeballs was absurdly low. Brendon won the point and the Power of Veto, and Mr. Mensa’s masterlan to backdoor him went flying off to BB Hell. You want someone on the block when you’re HOH, nominate them, you dork. Somewhere, MENSA must be considering kicking him out, as he’s obviously too dumb for their mutual brain-admiration society. He’s a Diabolical Superfool.

In his elation, Brendon came up with a couple-name for he and Boobiac: “Brachel.” Ew. Though, Boobiac does bray.

Said The Beast of Brendon: “I know he’s a chemist, so I hope he doesn’t clone himself.” Ah Beast, Boobiac is the chemist, and it would be a geneticist who would be able to clone himself.

Mr. Mensa was flummoxed by his stupid plan not working. All he’d ever had to do was nominate – sorry – “Brachel,” and one of his two targets would still be going, but he thought he’d show off a cunning plan, and found out that – again, sorry – “Brachel” had outsmarted him. Maybe his next tattoo should say “Diabolical Superfool,” and be across his forehead. Even The Beast wouldn’t have made this goof-up, and he’s an idiot.

Mr. Mensa offered to campaign to keep The Captain in the house. “Thanks, but no thanks,” was basically Captain Kosher’s reply. He has no confidence left in Mr. Mensa’s Diabolical Superfool powers. This is probably wise. Looks bad for Kathy.

Veto Ceremony: This had all the suspense of a movie you’ve seen so many times, you have it memorized. Guess what? Brendon left the nominations as they were. In fact, I’ve written this paragraph during the commercial break before the ceremony.

Kathy’s plan to save herself is: “Basically, I am praying for a miracle.” Religion is always the last resort of the dopey. Maybe she could ask The Captain to loan her his Ninja Shawl.

Okay, I always question the intelligence of anyone who is religious, but deeply religious Captain Kosher brought new meaning to bizarre insanity in his Veto Ceremony speech. After first making a secret deal with Brendon to be allies, he announced at the ceremony that he was “coming after” Brachel, and then, in his very next sentence, asked Brendon to save him, so he could come after him. Even Boobiac (Who has been in the house now long enough that, along her part, her florescent crimson hair now has long brown roots) was puzzled by this weird speech. As a way to cement the Brachel votes, it seems like one of Mr. Mensa’s Diabolical Superfool plans.

Captain Kosher thinks his speech was a “bold move” which will pay off. Kathy thinks he’s just saved her by digging his grave with his tongue. Boobiac took The Captain’s speech at face value, and believed his vow of vengeance. Brendon thinks the speech fooled everyone. Mr. Mensa thinks everyone knows it was just a ploy by The Captain to make it look like he’s against Brachel when he’s actually with them. Bitchney thinks she’s in The Twilight Zone, and The Beast thinks pizza is tasty.

Thursday: Boobiac has a hair-trigger jealousy response. Once Brendon told her that The Captain had told him in advance of his ploy to appear to be their enemy, she became jealous of Brendon and The Captain’s relationship, as she yelled at us in the Diary Room. Boobster, you’re miked. We can hear you without your screaming at us. (Hayden, this goes for you too. Stop yelling at us in the Diary Room.) But you can’t tell Boobiac a secret, because she can not keep her big mouth shut. She proved last week that she can not be trusted with a secret, or with hair dye.

The Brigade met in the HOH Room. They had all seen through The Captain’s silly performance, though, in keeping with his role as Village Idiot, what convinced The Beast was that “Rachel oversold it,” when Boobiac’s reaction had been genuine. Everyone else jumped on the Boobiac’s-reaction-didn’t-fool-us bandwagon, as though competing to be more gullible than The Beast.

Mr. Mensa tipped The Captain off to how completely he had blown it, thanks to the fact that Boobiac is such a cartoon, that her real reaction was taken to be as fake as – well – her boobs, and her hair color, and her degree. And The Captain managed to catch himself in a slip of the tongue too: “Seriously, she did not know anything – uh, they both did not know anything going on.”

“I don’t think they know what they’re doing,” said Boobiac, who has no idea what she’s doing. To try and calm Boobiac’s idiocy, Brendon said: “I love you” to her. Men say that without meaning it all the time, but it’s usually for a different reason than to convince a hopelessly stupid waitress-chemist not to vote against someone on TV. And when it didn’t work, Brendon finally found himself wondering if shackling himself to The Girl with the Silicone Brains was such a good idea after all.

Kathy, now desperate, took all-unknowingly (the only way she can do anything) a page from Mr. Mensa’s playbook, and told Ragan she’d gotten Leukemia from cancer treatments. Kathy, Leukemia is a form of cancer. Now if she’d told him something more believable, like that she suffers from Terminal Stupidity, then-a you got somethin’. This season could have a spin-off show about a clinic for Big Brother contestants and relatives with fake illnesses: Make-Believe Hospital, or St. Nowhere.

On the other hand, Ragan is a sucker for any fake sob story, and bought it. Ragan, I’m extending my offer for this bridge I own in Brooklyn, because I need the money to get my long-dead mother an operation. Her ashes have cancer.

Next Kathy was telling Cousin Kristen how impoverished she is. What? Is she a volunteer, unpaid deputy sheriff? Does her job have no medical coverage, unlike every other police department and sheriff’s office in America? “I had to walk around the hospital pregnant, and you can imagine what people called you.” The pregnant lady looking for the maternity ward? I know my idea of a good time is stopping by hospitals to call pregnant women names.

Cousin Kristen said to Kathy: “If you end up leaving here, it’s going to be really hard for me, because honestly, you’re like the only person here I can relate too.” They do have a lot in common: almost no screen time, and blank brains. And what does she call shagging Hayden?

The Captain now felt left out. “I’m feeling almost like an outcast or a leper.” Maybe he should go around and tell everyone he’s a leper. Go up to each person, grab their hand in his, cry, say: “I’m a leper, please keep me in the house with you. I’m trying to get enough money to move to Molokai,” and then kiss them. It’s foolproof. Ragan will believe you.

Instead, The Captain went and told Cousin Kristen not to “play me like a fiddle.” This of course, annoyed Cousin Kristen, who would have trouble playing a kazoo. Is The Captain trying to lose votes? He’s a podiatrist. He’s used to treating people’s feet, but clearly has no idea of how to work the opposite end of a human. Cousin Kristen came to The Captain and complained about his attack from left field, while he complained back that she didn’t come to him to talk, when there was nothing stopping him from going and talking to her. This rapidly escalated into a screaming match that was entertaining the whole house. Captain dear, you can’t berate people into liking you. Just ask Otto Preminger.

Cousin Kristen and The Captain eventually accused each other of digging their own graves with their tongues. I hope the soil in the Big Brother cemetery is kosher.

As The Captain was busy tattooing “vote me out” on his own forehead, The Brigade took a sophisticated view of it. Keeping The Captain when he’s a target would provide them with a decoy target that would keep them out of the sites, as opposed to keeping Kathy, whom The Pussy accurately described as “useless,” though he omitted “brainless.”

Asked by The Chenbot what he misses most in the house, The Beast confessed it was driving around drunk, shooting at stuff in the dark, hoping that what they were killing are animals, or at worst, liberals. He called it “spotlightin’.” In civilized coutries, it’s called DUI and Reckless Endangerment. Like so many Texans, he’s amazingly proud of being uncivilized and mildly degenerate.

The best thing about all the drama is it allows CBS to fill their hour with that, rather than their usual boring Thursday Night puff pieces, where they interview houseguests’ relatives, who show us the crafts projects they made in camp back when they were ten years-olds, or give camera time to their pets.

But not quite enough. They had one such puff piece, this time with Mrs. Mensa, she of the imaginary bone disease. She doesn’t speak very well. She at least has the decency to disapprove of being heralded as a fake-disease sufferer. She worried that Mr. Mensa hadn’t thought of all the “repercautions.” (I was also struck by the scenes in the Mensas’ living room. All the walls are blank. Totally blank. Not one single picture of any sort is on the walls. How can you stand living in such a blank environment? It’s like living inside a fogbank.)

Eviction Vote: Kathy’s speech was boring, predictable, and mildly nauseating: “My mom, my grandmom, my family taught me my morals, my church taught me my faith [Oh please. Your church wouldn't have had a shot at indoctrinating their superstitions into you if your family hadn't dragged you in there in the first place, so they should get the blame there.], and my job taught me integrity and loyalty.” So she had neither integrity nor loyalty until she got her job? What were those morals her family taught her prior to handing her to some church for warping?

Captain Kosher’s speech was vastly more pertinent and entertaining. Rifling it out at top speed, and demonstrating even harder his weird idea that alienating people was the surest way to secure their votes, he outed Hayden and Cousin Kristen’s showmance, also repeating their gossip about the other players, telling Bitchney that Cousin Kristen had dissed the way she talks, telling Ragan that Kristen thinks she has him wound around her finger, telling The Beast that Hayden & Cousin Kristen plan to drop him at fourth or fifth, and telling The Pussy that they insult his intelligence. (How? What’s to insult?) Kathy looked pained, even as he was securing her safety.

He did try to backpedal a bit on Hayden, telling him he needed to get himself loose from Cousin Kirsten. Does he really think a male will choose the Jewish guy from Mars who just blabbed his intimate secrets on national TV over the hot babe he’s shagging?

Well Big Brother‘s slogan has always been to “Expect the Unexpected,” and this time it delivered. Even the show staff was caught off-guard by this barrage. (If they’d had any idea he’d do this, they’d have included footage of Hayden and Cousin Kristen dissing The Pussy’s brain, which was news to us.) Cousin Kristen tried denying The Captain’s allegations and defending herself, but The Chenbot shut her down. Suddenly there was real suspense to the live vote. This was goooood.

Cousin Kristen voted to evict Captain Kosher. I’m still reeling from the shock. I even typed this sentence before she voted.

Boobiac, ignoring her orders from Brendon, and the fact that Captain Kosher had just moved the target from her and Brendon over to Hayden and Cousin Kristen, voted to evict The Captain.

Bitchney’s vote went to The Captain. Well, I still think Kathy may be her mother.

The Beast, who had been favoring evicting Kathy, shifted his vote to Captain Kosher, even using that name for the vote. If Sarah Palin runs for president in 2012, I really hope The Captain manages her campaign.

Brendon also made the last-second vote switch. This sealed The Captain’s fate. The rest of the votes were moot. In any event, it was unanimous, with Ragan actually making me laugh by adding that he was voting both to evict and to institutionalize The Captain. The irony running free here was that The Captain had stood a very good chance of surviving the vote until his tongue dug him a grave big enough for a family plot. (Hmm. I’m suddenly struck by a desire to watch Family Plot, a good, funny Hitchcock movie. Let me get this column over with, so I can slip it into the machine.) This was one pawn who checkmated himself.

While everyone left behind in the house was reeling from an utterly unexpected five minutes, The Pussy was focused on what was important: “Whose sayin’ I’m an idiot?” Ah Meow Boy, The Captain was clear that it was Hayden and Cousin Kristen. Oh, and me.

“Wow,” said The Chenbot, “That was the best Last Plea Speech I’ve ever seen.” One must assume she meant “best” in the sense of “most-entertaining,” because as a Last Plea Speech intended to save himself, it was a complete bust.

The Chenbot was suggesting to The Captain stronger strategies in his exit interview. Captain, how lame are you if you’re being out-thought by a robot disguised as a TV hostess?

Boobiac’s farewell speech to The Captain was her third consecutive replay of “Ain’t nobody gonna come between me and my man.” And just to class it up, she added: “Especially not a man. Ew.” On behalf of the Gay Community: go screw yourself, “chemist.” Are you afraid a man could steal Brendon because he likes you, and you look like a really tacky drag queen?

It’s official: Boobiac thinks everyone on earth is trying to steal Brendon away from her. She’s pathologically jealous. She just sent a letter to President Obama, saying: “Mr. President, hands off Brendon. I’m sorry to be switching parties, but nobody comes between me and my man.” One of these days, she will cut off her own humongus silicone sacs for coming between her and her man, which, of course, will lose her Brendon. What an imbecile!

Head of Household Competition: Everyone was still reeling from Captain Kosher’s amazing exit interview, yet they still had to go try to win HOH.

It was a boxing-themed elimination quiz about previous competitions, so it required the houseguests to be able to remember the last four weeks. Normally you’d have a competition like this much later in the season, when it would be more of a challenge, but much of this crowd is lucky to remember their own names, so why not now?

In a small ironic twist, Boobiac eliminated Brendon. Now she’s coming between her and her man. She better hope she loses, or she might be nominating herself for eviction.

Boobiac was later paired against Kathy. All she needed to do was stand there, since Kathy can be counted on to lose any competition, as indeed Kathy immediately buzzed in with a wrong answer and eliminated herself, but nonetheless, Boobiac got so flustered (probably noticing how Kathy is trying to come between her and her man), that she let fly with a burst of silent soundtrack that prompted The Chenbot to admonish her to “Keep it clean.” That’s what comes of voting out The Captain; there’s no one to clean everything for them anymore. What kind of short-sighted people vote out the maid?

The Captain must have even rattled The Chembot despite her “emotions” all being simulations pre-programmed by Disney Imagineers, because she asked Boobiac to choose the next two to face off when only two were left. To my amazement, Boobiac managed to choose the right two.

It came down to a head-to-head face-off between The Beast and Boobiac. Now there’s a battle of wits, but The Beast is slower than Kathy crawling through caramel, and Boobiac won HOH for the second time. I am so impressed with The Brigade. Since Week One, they’ve been gunning for Brendon and Boobiac, who both just voted out their only ally, and yet again they’ve blown it, as we can now be certain that “Brachel” will both be there for at least two more weeks.

The producers of Big Brother, left with egg all over their faces by the spectacular fizzle-out of their Saboteur twist, are trying to resurrect it by asking America to vote for one of the houseguests to be offered the chance to become the new saboteur. Yes, just what the show needs, more grade-school level pranks.

As always, we ended Thursday eavesdropping on the houseguests, which is normally boring, as they congratulate the HOH winner, and chat pointlessly. But this time when The Chenbot shut up and let us listen, we joined, in progress, a full-on confrontation between Boobiac and Cousin Kristen, as Cousin Kristen was denying her showmance, and Boobiac was announcing her intention to nominate Hayden and Cousin Kirsten for eviction this week. Spoilers, Boobiac! You’re supposed to hold that back for Sunday’s show. Boobiac has seen Cousin’s Kristen’s showmance with Hayden for what it is, a blatant attempt by Hayden & Cousin Kirsten to come between her and her man.

“Lord help the mister,

Who comes between me and my sister,

And Lord help the sister,

Who comes between me and my man.”

- Sisters, Irving Berlin.

Cheers darlings.

To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead, the Merrier, or buy her book, My Lush Life.

I’m not one to write extensively about movie trailers. Though seductive, and often artfully created, they are, after all, teases. And all too often, tedious, loud, inane teases. Or worse, false advertising.

But every once in a while, a trailer will come along that gets to me — socks me in my soft underbelly and actually makes me think. Or worry. Or dread. Or experience something that I’m not even sure I can articulate. And why should I? I haven’t  watched the movie yet. Such is the case with David Fincher’s haunting two and a half minutes on Facebook — The Social Network.

Just as Fincher’s superb, salient Fight Club (more so than Chuck Palahniuk’s own novel) was darkly humorous, cynical and heartbreaking enough to reveal, within its own time, that the New World Order created by Tyler Durden/insomniac Jack can lose control of itself, The Social Network, trailer alone, makes me wonder about Fight Club‘s assertion of impotence, desolation and delusion. The impotence of losing one’s soul. Or power. Or uniqueness (“I wish I was special”). Or trying to retrieve/dominate it all. In the case of Fight Club, finding yourself was via fist to face. Sweaty, bloody, I want-to-throw-my-desk-at-my-boss releases of rage, submerged eroticism and quick stop enlightenment. But before Facebook even existed, Fincher revealed fearless leader Tyler Durden was a false creation. An avatar in one man’s mind.

So as ever prescient as Fight Club was, Facebook seems the logical step — and even more meaningful since it’s happening as I type these letters. A new club. A club of “friends” — real or not. A club of affirmation. A club of alienation. A club for your face. A club in your face. I’m a member. When used properly, FB can be an incredibly beneficial place, exciting, even. And I have few negative rages against the internet. It’s where I work and practically live. And one can block out the dumber aspects (even with so much inanity, noxious gossip and oh-the-humanity revealing comments online) by simply turning away. And god bless e-mail correspondence. But in darker moments, I wonder if social networking, if used too frequently, will make us become even more disconnected from ourselves. People text, they twitter, they communicate online — again, a positive thing but often, a confusing, toxic thing. I suppose that’s life, online and off. But I fear that the old phone, where at least we can hear an inflection in a voice, is becoming an irritant to those who wish to drop you five words and five words only. I won’t start with the sensation of talking to a real live face — where we can see the sincerity (or indifference) in a person’s eyes. That’s nearly before my time. And I stay in a lot.

If I’m in a certain kind of mood about the world and my life, this trailer makes me overwhelmingly sad — sitting directly in my era and sad about it.  As if we’re all embracing Big Brother. It makes me want to hide. It makes me realize I do hide. And reveal. And then hide again — unhealthily wishing I could always sit in the house Daniel Plainview built — alone — drinking my milkshake. Or your milkshake, holding out hope that Warren Oates will arrive to whisper sweetly in my ear, “Lighten up, Francis.”

Facebook is a place of communication but also loneliness — loneliness among many. And it’s sometimes just better to be alone. Could I, would I, drop everything and search for Durden’s “dilapidated house in a toxic-waste part of town”? Perhaps. But only if I had a high-speed cable connection. And that is yet another, false creation — Tyler’s house. A place of movies.

One can’t really drop out anymore. But one can hide in plain sight. So I suppose the next best thing is friending Tyler Durden. I hope he accepts my request.

Read more Kim Morgan at Sunset Gun.

Hyṕo`crite
n.
1. One who plays a part; especially, one who, for the purpose of winning approbation of favor, puts on a fair outside seeming; one who feigns to be other and better than (s)he is.

2. Monet, a reality-show contestant and loser.

Sunday: When the show began Sunday, the houseguests had still not been told that they had accidentally evicted the Saboteur the first week. Enzo, aka “The Meow Meow,” aka The Pussy, is still sexistly assuming the saboteur is male: “I guess de saboteur is back to his wack tactics. I don’t know… We gotta find out who dis little rat is, so we can send him home.”

Annie’s last prank was to leave behind a stink bomb. All her sabotage seems to have been dreamed up by 7 year old boys.

Brendon fessed up about his education. Ragan and Andrew, aka “Captain Kosher” (a nickname he has embraced), are still smug about remaining in the closet about their own educations. When did being educated become a shameful secret in America? Oh right. During the Bush Administration.

The Pussy is totally intimidated by Brendon having an education: “He’s like Superman with a PhD this guy, ya know? So I want him out.” It’s a measure of what a jerk The Pussy is that he’s considers a man with a PhD to be Superman, and a threat. One wonders if he graduated from reform school, or just dropped out.

Captain Kosher was so excited by Rachel’s, a.k.a. Boobiac’s, win for some reason, that he hopped about so hard his “Yom Kippur” flew off. Hayden gave us a taste of what a college education for an athlete in Arizona achieves: “Andrew looked like a kid on Christmas — or Hanukkah. Whatever.” Classy all the way, Hayden.

I’ve noticed something about Britney’s personality. She’s a — well — let’s just say it rhymes with “bitch.” “We were so freakin’ close, and we let some idiot, who wasn’t even smart enough to put on pants before the competition, win.” It wasn’t a Pants-Wearing competition, and she put on her butt-blur.

They’re captioning Monet as a “model.” She’s a student. I might add that she also rhymes with “Britney.”

The Pussy hates that Boobiac won HOH, which is one of the good aspects of it. “The brigade just got hit wit’ a grenade right now, and we’re de ones that gives out de grenades, and we got hit with a big grenade today.” Tough. Notice how all of The Pussy’s imagery is crime and violence related? He’s as ugly inside as he is on the outside.

I looked up The Pussy’s bio on CBS.com. Asked for three words that describe him, he said: “Funny, likeable and obnoxious.” Well, one out of three isn’t bad. He’s not remotely funny, and “likeable” and “obnoxious” are mutually-exclusive terms. You can’t be both. (And would someone please tell that to Howie Mandel?)

“Britney and Monet were just so fake,” said Brendon to the girl with giant bags of silicone in her bra and florescent hair.

“I get to call the shots,” said Boobiac, although I think she believes that means “Jello-shots.”

“Brendon, Rachel, and Andrew are in an alliance,” announced The Pussy. As with Annie last week, if someone appears to like someone he doesn’t, then they are in an alliance, and having jumped to this conclusion, he takes it as fact. Fact-checking isn’t something he bothers with.

Matt had a funny, honest line when Boobiac started screeching “Who wants to see my HOH room?” “Oh, HOH time, my favorite! That’s the time I get to act like I care about things that I don’t care about.” He’s just defined “dating” for every straight man on earth.

In her room was a sash that proclaimed her “Ms Planet Beach Nevada.” If I’d known she was a former Ms Planet Beach Nevada, I’d have been more impressed with her. It’s the most-coveted title in all of Planet Beach, Nevada.

Monet is cattier than a pride of lions: “Rachel had this boa in her room that she said was from her showgirl days, a. k., in my words, probably stripper days.” The wrong player is calling themself: “Meow Meow.” Monet was too glottally lazy to actually say “a.k.a.,” and only said “a. k.” Monet is listed as a “model,” a.k.a., in my words, probably “whore.”

Britney is now in a pitched battle with Monet for who could be the bigger rhymes-with-bitch: “Her room was stupid. And then she holds up her bottle of Tequila, like she just won the half million dollar grand prize.” Jealous? Darling, it’s a bottle of Tequila! It’s worth more than the prize! If I know anything (and there is debate on that point), it’s that Tequila will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no Tequila!

On Britney’s web-bio, she said her strategy for winning was “pretending to be nice.” I see she’s already abandoned that plan. Asked what types of people would she not choose to live with in the house, she answered: “Egomaniacs and old people.” Speaking as an elderly egomaniac myself: Britney, F- You! What types of people would I not choose to live with me in the house? Bleached blond bitches.

Britney also said online: “I’m a good mix of Chelsea Handler and Martha Stewart.” Chelsea should sue her.

Lane, a.k.a. “The Beast,” on Boobiac: “All she has are a key and pictures. That’s all she got.” Pay closer attention; she also got Tequila!

Wait! Did a housebreaker manage to get in? Oh no. It’s Kristen, who hasn’t had any screen time since the opening show. But she wandered onscreen long enough for Hayden to notice her birthmark, and for her to say of birthmarks: “It’s a place where you were stabbed in your previous life.” Maybe it’s just as well if she’s not given airtime, if that’s the level of airhead she is. Suddenly Boobiac seems like a genius.

Hayden finds Kristen hot. He’s attracted to women who are dumber than he is, and there’s not many of those in the world. He called her “mysterious.” Apparently she gets no airtime in the house itself either.

Kristen thinks she’s “complicated.” She’s about as complicated as the plot of an episode of Sesame Street.

There’s a second “Brigade” alliance in the house: Monet and Britney are The Bitch Brigade. They decided to rag on Captain Kosher. Said Britney: “I feel like, for somebody who has a lackluster physique, he goes around showing his a lot.”

A. She goes around showing her lackluster physique a lot too.

B. There’s nothing wrong with The Captain’s physique. In fact, it’s rather nice, not as showy as Brendon’s, or as huge as The Beast’s, but a billion times hotter than The Pussy, or Matt. I’m beginning to suspect that Bitchney has a policy of “No shirt, no foreskin, no service.”

Chimed in Monet: “I think I might have better abs than he has.” Monet darling,…

A. Just because you’re hung larger, doesn’t make your abs better, and…

B. No, you don’t.

“I think we make an awesome pair,” said Bitchney of The Bitch Brigade, as she complained about everyone in the house who isn’t her. Five more minutes of Bitchney, and I’ll want Chima back.

Hayden remembered to play the game. He was up in the HOH room, kissing Boobiac’s butt, which must be a nice change for her. Fortunately Boobiac was plotting against the Bitch Brigade, and Hayden was more than ready to throw Bitchney under a bus. Come to think of it, I’d like to throw Bitchney under a bus myself, and I don’t mean that metaphorically.

Boobiac offered to pull Hayden into an alliance with her, Brendon, and Kristen, and he turned her down, unwittingly undoing all his butt-kissing work.

While working Boobiac, and trying to aim her at Captain Kosher, Matt, the self-proclaimed MENSA member, said: “It paranoided me out.” Paranoided? How did he get into MENSA with English like that? Matt’s attempts, like Hayden’s, backfired. Instead of making her antsy about The Captain, it got her all paranoided out about Matt.

Maybe Monet is right about Boobiac having been a stripper, because the way this cocktail waitress serves Tequila to Brendon is with a lap dance.

Food Comeptition: This contest was “hood” themed, a choice in rather questionable taste, given that there are no black or Hispanic people in the house this year, so it appears like these 12 white people are mocking minorities. “Diversity” this year is a Jewish guy, a gay guy, and an aspiring Mafia don. In fact, calling the competition “hood-themed” ran the danger of The Pussy thinking they meant “hoods,” and he was probably hoping to hijack a truck.

Boobiac is so “ghetto.” Observing the fake graffiti all over the contest paraphernalia, she said: “I felt like I was in the middle of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” Yes, Bel-Air is just covered in graffiti, and Will Smith is so “Gangsta.”

Not that Kathy is any hipper, but she’s older, so her inane comment was: “This is like Sanford and Son.” I strongly suspect she was the only person there who knew what the hell she was talking about. Most of these people were born after Redd Foxx died.

The competition was for each of three teams to bind a team member to a wall with duct tape. Then the wall would rise, and the team whose member stayed on the wall longest would win, and in a twist that could make losers of the winners, the winning team would choose who the have-nots for the week would be, thus making more enemies. They would get to spray “paint” (colored slime) at their opponents, to wash them off the wall.

Clearly the green team had an advantage, because The Pussy undoubtedly has experience tying people to stuff. Logic demanded that the lightest person on each team should be the one tied up. The orange team knew to use Kathy since, after her wretched performances in the earlier competitions, this was the surest way to prevent her from screwing this one up too.

Kathy was worried about “the heith and everything.” I have no idea what “heith” is. Sadly, when the green team taped up Bitchney, they didn’t cover her nose and mouth.

Taped to the wall, Ragan said: “This is just a Saturday night to me, guys.” On behalf of the Gay Community, thanks for the image boost, Ragan. He was so poorly taped up that he fell first, without anyone even trying to spray him down. “Good Job, Ragan,” Boobiac shouted at the first to lose. No, that was a lousy job. A good job would be the winner.

Bitchney, of course, bitched about the fact that people were spraying her. “Shooting at my face is personal.” No, it’s them trying to win. Now shooting at her face with a gun would be personal, and a darn good idea. “It pissed me off.” Does anything not piss her off? Anyway, Bitchney had a snit, and started yelling that she couldn’t breathe, although…

A. Then she wouldn’t be able to yell, would she? And…

B. The downside to her not being able to breathe would be…?

So Kathy, perpetual screw-up, won. It may have been The Pussy’s fault. He’s not used to tying people up intending them to survive.

The winning team chose Brendon, The Pussy and the Bitch Brigade to be Have-Nots. Of course, Bitchney had to bitch about it: “Are you serious? I’m a Have-Not? I just hung on a wall, strapped to it, for a freakin’ hour, choking to death [If only!], water sprayed in my face non-stop, and then, when I finally get down, I’m a Have-Not?” Yes dear. If you wanted to win it, you should have stayed up there and won it! Ragan fell off because his team did a lousy job taping him up, but she lost because she demanded to be taken down.

At least she won’t be eating slop. America chose fruitcake and fish sticks for the Have-Not menu for the week. Fruitcake is one of the worst foods in existence. Does anyone on earth like fruitcake? Why do people relentlessly give them as Christmas gifts? They’re an anti-gift. I’ve lost count of how many gift fruitcakes I’ve tossed, unsampled, into the garbage each December over the years. However, I like fish sticks. So does The Pussy. Who hates them, and referred to the menu as “Vomit my face off”? Yes, it was charming, loveable Bitchney.

Annie appeared on the screen to reveal her identity as the Lame-oteur, I mean Saboteur. As she was saying how shocked they must be, the houseguests were all cheering that she was gone. Okay, The Beast looked shocked, but I get the feeling that he gets shocked when the sun sets in the west every single day. (“Why doesn’t it set in the north once in a while?”)

The Pussy can retrofit Reality at an amazing pace: “Me being from Jersey, I sniffed out de trick inside dis girl. I knew it. She couldn’t get past de Meow Meow.” He’s forgotten that, at the top of the show, after Annie had left, he had said: “I guess de saboteur is back to his wack tactics. I don’t know… We gotta find out who dis little rat is, so we can send him home.” He thought The Saboteur was still there, and male. His utterly-unjustified ego and Truth are unacquainted. (And I’ve been to New Jersey, which is to say, I’ve smelt New Jersey, and living 32 years in that stench would leave one unable to sniff out anything.)

As nominations approached, the butt-kissing began in earnest. First up was Bitchney. Said Boobiac to Bitchney: “I think you’re a nice girl,” thus proving that she is no judge of character. Bitchney lied that, had she won HOH, she would never have put up Brendon and Boobiac, then told us she was lying, like we didn’t already know that. She was speaking, after all. Bitchney was trying to aim Boobiac at Captain Kosher.

Then the second member of the Bitch Brigade, Monet, arrived for some high-powered lies and hypocrisy. Monet again tried aiming her at The Captain. Boobiac was starting to buy it, as well as growing in her distrust of Matt.

Brendon participated in the conference with Hayden, trying still to form an alliance, completely oblivious to the existence of The Brigade, which had, and was still, targeting them.

Nominations: Everyone concealed their shock rather well when Brendon was revealed to be safe from nomination. When The Captain was revealed as safe, he thanked Boobiac in Hebrew. Culturally-sensitive Monet rolled her eyes. God, more of his stupid Jew stuff, you could hear her thinking, if “thinking” is the right word for what goes on in Monet’s head. If she has a socially-redeeming characteristic, it hasn’t shown itself yet.

To my utter delight, the Bitch Brigade was nominated. Boobiac may not be as dumb as she sounds after all.

Bitchney, after spewing nasty venom and spoiled entitlement at everyone but Monet for the whole show, now got all weepy. Her tears were like fine wine to me. I so hope she goes, although Monet’s win of $10,000 in the very first competition paints a larger target on her. Bitchney may have to try to fake liking people for a week, and she has no experience at it. “I’m pre-menstrual,” she overshared with us, grabbing always for excuses.

Wednesday: After nominations, the Bitch Brigade went off to have a crying-and-self-pity wallow. They just hate when other people treat them the way they treat other people. Their tears were like jewels to me. Oh boo-hoo, you two.

Monet has a barely-repressed violent streak. She expressed a desire to punch Boobiac in the face (that would take really long arms to get past her boobs), and then to slap her. Sweet Louie B. Mayer, these two women are insufferable. Is there any way both could get voted out this week? No? Rats!

Bitchney: “It was hard because I felt like I was nice to her.” How does sitting around with Monet making snide, snarky insults about her constitute “being nice”? She hasn’t stabbed her (yet); that’s the full extent of her being “nice.” Monet, equally delusional and amnesiacal, said: “I have never said one bad thing about her.” So “Rachel had this boa in her room that she said was from her showgirl days, a. k., in my words, probably stripper days” was a compliment?

“She’s a stupid hooker,” added Monet, laying on the praise. You see, Monet thinks she herself is a smart hooker.

Boobiac must have led a sheltered life. She said, as she listened to Bitchney blubber with self-pity (the only emotion that could ever provoke Bitchney’s tears): “It’s the worst feeling ever, knowing that you made that person cry.” Actually, having your face slowly burned off your head with a blowtorch is the worst feeling ever. And losing an Oscar to Greer Garson is no picnic either.

Denying her being in an alliance (except that she is allied with Monet), Bitchney said: “I literally have not went to a single person.” I might add that she literally has not went to school, either. She added, “I swear that on my engagement.” Well, then it must be true. I wonder who the poor sap she’s going to have went to the alter with is. (In her illiterate honor, I ended that sentence with two prepositions.)

Blonde, probably Aryan, Bitchney, took a page from the Third Reich playbook, and began campaigning to get Boobiac to toss out Captain Kosher. Himmler Rule Number 1: “When goats must be scaped, get the Jew!”

After Bitchney left, to go warm up the ovens, Boobiac now began blubbering to Brendon about how bad it made her feel to make Bitchney cry. Brendon tried cheering her up by lying on top of her and making out with her. Hey Brendon, I’m crying into my beer right now. Come cheer me up! Then Brendon said: “This is hard.” Well given how he was lying on her, Boobiac could probably feel that for herself.

Boobiac can be guilted out pretty darn easily. Man up girl. “This is why I like you,” said Brendon. Well yes, this, and her boobs.

The Bitch Brigade, sans tears, met outside to say “nice” things about Boobiac. Bitchney: “Rachel is like so jealous of you that it’s sickening.” Something there is sickening, but Boobiac is hardly jealous of Monet. Oh, how I wish I were a skinny, mean bitch that the men all avoid has not been her refrain.

But Monet has reasoned it out: “She’s jealous of me because I don’t look like a skanky-ass, bimbo stripper.” I’m glad that Monet never says any “bad things about her.” Monet is proud of her straight-forwardness. “I’m the type of person, I don’t like you, I will tell you straight to your face, ‘I don’t like you’,” said Monet behind Boobiac’s back, keeping her voice down so she couldn’t be overheard. So Monet, get up off your skinny, bimbo skanky-butt and go tell Boobiac to her face that you don’t like her. Put your money where your mouth is. We’re waiting… Anytime now… Still waiting…. Gidot has been here and gone again, and we’re still waiting for Monet to actually behave the way she says she does.

“I don’t usually just hang out with whores, like, for fun,” added Bitchney, laying on the charm with a trowel. So why do you hang out with whores, Bitchney? Medical research? No one else will associate with you? “Every time she wears a skirt, I feel like STDs have gone airborne.” Well then, Bitchney, they wouldn’t be STDs, would they? The “ST” stands for “sexually-transmitted.” If they can go airborne, they’re not being sexually transmitted, and thus are not STDs. Apparently she never has went to biology class, as well as English.

Monet re-insisted that Boobiac is a stripper (and hopes she loses her job. Such charm.), while Bitchney told her Boobiac’s a chemist. Actually, she’s a waitress. These two will make terrible mothers when the day finally comes that they both have their first litters of puppies.

Matt took a page from Johnny Fairplay’s playbook, he who told everyone on Survivor that his grandmother had just died, when Granny was home, alive and well, and cutting him out of the will. Matt’s strategy was to tell people that his wife has a rare bone disease. Would anyone wonder why you would spend three months sequestered in the Big Brother House when your wife is seriously ill? Would Captain Kosher notice Matt was grinning smugly as he described his wife’s hideous imaginary ailment, which is not generally how men with wives who are gravely ill behave (unless they hate them, that is.)? Short of telling everyone you have a dying child, this is about as vile a tactic as you can pull. Once again, Mr. Mensa is out to make America hate him.

Anyway, Matt assured us his wife has no diseases at all. Maybe not, but she has terminally bad taste in men.

As he described how his wife’s options basically consist of die or amputate her legs, he was still grinning, and repressing giggles. Does it occur to Mr. Mensa that if he were telling the truth, this would upset him, and he’d show some sad emotions, not smugness? It didn’t occur to Bitchney, but then Bitchney would never understand someone caring about someone other than themself at all. Ragan bought the lie, lock stock, and amputation. What a fool.

“Andrew’s a shoe salesman; he’s not a doctor, so I think I can probably outsmart a shoe salesman,” said Mr. Mensa of Captain Kosher the doctor. It hasn’t occurred to Mr. Mensa that he’s not the only one in the house who is lying. Captain Kosher sniffed out the lie, which means the “shoe salesman” just outsmarted Mr. Mensa.

Power of Veto Competition: Playing with Boobiac, Bitchney, and Monet, were Brendon, The Beast, and The Pussy. The competition was Wall Street-themed, appropriate given how Congress has just passed some Wall Street reforms that the Republicans would have us all believe were written by Chairman Mao. It was built around stocks, both stocks as in bonds, and stocks as in pillories. They were to lock themselves in pillories painted like big dollar bills.

The contest was about timing. They could release themselves at any time, but the one who stayed in closest to a whole hour, without going over an hour, would win. I’m not sure any of these contestants, except perhaps Brendon, can even tell time. Good competition idea, however irrelevant the theming was.

Monet displayed her amazing ability to do math in her head: “Okay, 60 times 60. 1200.” Ah, 60 x 60 = 3600. While Bitchney wasn’t wenting to English and biology classes, Monet wasn’t wenting to math.

And there was a sublime extra twist. A small device was turned on that constantly slapped their faces with fake dollar bills; not enough to hurt them – unfortunately — but enough to annoy them, play hell with their concentration, and slowly affect them like Chinese water torture. Plus, it meant that I got to watch the Bitch Brigade spend an hour being bitch-slapped. That’s entertainment. I want to personally thank whichever staffer came up with that twist. He or she should get an Emmy.

“I would never wipe my face with a real dollar bill,” said Bitchney, as though it was a common practice among other people, you know, them, “most of those, let’s face it, come out of stripper’s G-strings.” While this would actually be an incentive to a lot of men to rub them all over their faces, still, so debased is Bitchney’s perverted world-view, she actually thinks that the entire supply of United States currency passes through the undies of strippers, when really, only money paid to Republican members of Congress does. And the tips are usually more than a single dollar — so I’m told, that is.

And then the slapping stopped. No, no. Keep it going. In fact, keep it going until the show ends in September.

It was a blazing hot day, and The Pussy was getting a nasty sunburn under his sparse hair plugs. The man needs to mix sunblock in with his haircream.

We got quite a glimpse into The Beast’s life when he told us: “There has been times, it’s been fuzzy, back in college, where I have woken up with one hand tied, but, I don’t know how long I was tied for.” So it might have been a week? A month? Since he was 4 years old? I can top that. I once woke up and found I myself tied, in matrimony, to Boris Karloff! But I was shocked by The Beast’s confession. He went to college? I’d have bet the house that he didn’t even have a GED.

Bitchney dropped out first, because it was “a billion degrees out.” Wow! It’s only about 10,000 degrees on the surface of the Sun. So, in Studio City, just five miles from my home, a few days ago, it was 100,000 times hotter than the sun! That would have vaporized the earth. No wonder Bitchney gave up.

The Pussy lived up to his name, and went next. Then The Beast went out. Brendon dropped out at what he calculated was 55 minutes, hoping it would keep Monet in until after the hour passed.

“Rachel’s a bitch” said Monet the bitch, “I really wanted to throw my briefcase at her face.” Monet has more violent impulses than The Pussy, and he idolizes the Mafia. She was annoyed that Boobiac was playing to win. When Monet dropped out, Boobiac went out one second later.

The laugh was on Monet. She dropped out 15 minutes overtime. She’d spent a pointless quarter of an hour in the stocks, in billion degree heat. Love it.

Brendon also went overtime, but only by 6 minutes.

The Beast went over, but only by a minute and a half. Somewhere under his clothes, that gorgeous man must have a huge clock. I said clock, with an “L”.

But disaster fell. Ruination. The Pussy had dropped out 14 seconds overtime! If he’d only pussied out 15 seconds earlier, he’d have won. Instead, Bitchney won power of veto, and there is no way that evil little poison pill is going home this week. Drat! I hate when Evil triumphs.

I did like The Pussy’s manner of measuring time. “14 seconds man, I came so close. Dat’s like one quickie with de wifie.” I was deeply moved by this expression of his romantic passion for the mother of his child. And I was impressed. I wouldn’t have thought he could sustain sex to the five second mark. He probably thinks about baseball players to last for a superhuman 14 seconds.

Bitchney smiling, grinning, overwhelmingly smug. No, no! I vastly prefer to see her sobbing in misery, the way I now am.

“The Brigade truck just blew another tire. We’re out of gas right now,” said The Beast, showing by his ill-chosen metaphor that he still doesn’t know what “brigade” means. But wow, blew a tire and they’re out of gas? Bitchney winning must be too terrible for just one automotive inconvenience. And I’ll bet he hasn’t got his AAA card with him either.

Bitchney lied to Monet, telling her she “felt like crap” (smells like it also) for winning and saving herself. Not even Monet was stupid enough to think Bitchney was anything but jubilant.

To save Monet, Bitchney returned to her default Final Solution: Get the Jew. She was going to try to get Boobiac to nominate Captain Kosher, in her sure and certain belief that the whole house would automatically get the Jew. After all, back home in Arkansas, where Bitchney hails from, they’d scared off or lynched all them fancy Jews years ago. Heavens, what is the KKK for, if not to ensure that the Confederacy remains racially pure, and 100% Christian?

Monet went scurrying up to the HOH room, like a rat up a rhododendron. Was this to finally make good on her boast that she tells people to their faces that she doesn’t like them? No. We’re still waiting for that. It was to express to Boobiac her bewilderment at why this woman she considers a “skanky-ass bimbo stripper” wants her out, and to try to convince her to get the Jew instead. Never mind that Captain Kosher is pleasant, friendly, smart, and attractive, while Monet is a nasty, vicious piece of work, who never ceases calling Boobiac names behind her back.

There is, in fact, for Boobiac, no motivation for nominating The Captain strategically, and Boobiac lacks The Bitch Brigade’s knee-jerk, default anti-Semitism. Sadly for the bitches, Boobiac isn’t a bigot.

Monet told Boobiac that if she nominated The Captain, she and Bitchney would not come after her. “And I can say that with confidence.” That would be confidence as in “Confidence Grifter,” because it’s a conscious lie.

Monet: “I feel like, if you put Andrew up, no one would be pissed off.”

Boobiac: “Except Andrew.”

Monet, giggling in her ugly, nasty manner: “But he doesn’t matter. He he he.”

Springtime for Hitler in Studio City.

Boobiac to us: “If I put up Andrew, it’s a win-win. If Andrew stays the house, then Britney can’t be mad at me because I did what she asked. If Andrew leaves, then I have Britney and Monet’s trust, so they’re not going to come straight after me.” Is Boobiac truly stupid enough to believe this? Yes.

So Boobiac tried floating to Mr. Mensa and Ragan, the idea of putting up The Captain, but getting them to pledge to vote out Monet. Boobiac thinks that promises from other players are worth something. Mr. Mensa and Ragan are both lying to everyone, Mr. M about his wife’s imaginary illness, and Ragan pretending he’s a student instead of a professor. Their promises are valueless.

Did MENSA vet Mr. Mensa’s application carefully? He volunteered to go on the block! He told us it was a win-win situation (Lot of them floating about, although they all sound like lose-lose situations to me), because he’d get the loyalty of Boobiac and Brendon, and would be, he thinks, the “Hero of The Brigade.” Okay.

So Mr. Mensa wants to go up. The Brigade thinks it’s a good idea. Brendon is all for it. Any opposed? Yes. Boobiac still wants to put up Captain Kosher. Why? Because she’s convinced, wholly inaccurately, that she’d get the loyalty of the Bitch Brigade, who hate her, and consider her a skanky-ass bimbo, stripper-whore.

Brendon finally grew exasperated with trying to penetrate Boobiac’s thick skull (along with certain other anatomical features) with the facts that Captain Kosher is an ally, and that the Bitch Brigade are not, and never will be, allies, and that they should take Mr. Mensa up on his insane offer. Is she impervious to reason? Or will she nominate Mr. Mensa rather than risk losing Brendon, who went off to sulk? She sobbed under her lonely blanket.

Veto Meeting: “I genuinely like everyone in this room,” said Boobiac, causing Monet to roll her eyes. Charming, classy woman, that Monet, if you like bitchy, hypocritical skanks.

The power of Brendon’s penis triumphed. Boobiac nominated Mr. Mensa, rather than risk losing her man. Make no mistake, it wasn’t that the truth of what lying, vicious harpies the Bitch Brigade are that convinced her; it was Brendon walking out on her. Sex saves the day once again. I almost expected Bitchney to leap to her feet, sputtering, “But you’re letting the Jew get away! He killed Jesus!”

Mr. Mensa told us that his volunteering to go on the block is because: “I’m a diabolical supergenius.” Well, it either is a brilliant move, or stupidity on a grand scale, but as I calculate the votes, he should be safe.

Bitchney told us that she was “Absolutely coming after Rachel” for not nominating The Captain. But you see Bitchney, you told us you were absolutely coming after her anyway!

Monet was back to her default reaction: violence fantasies: “Right now I — I just want to kick someone’s ass, and that’s exactly what I plan on doing. I’m not giving up until I get the votes to stay in this house, and it’s going to be sweet revenge when I see the look on Rachel’s face.”

Well let’s see: as I calculate it, Monet will get eviction votes from Hayden, The Beast, The Pussy, Brendon, Captain Kosher, and Ragan. That’s six votes, more than enough. Monet has Bitchney’s vote tied up. Although we never set eyes on them, Kristen and Kathy are actually still in the house, and will be voting, but even if they go all sisterhood, and vote to save Monet, their three votes won’t do it. No sweet revenge for Monet. What allies has she made besides Bitchney? None. But then, if she believes that 60 x 60 = 1200, she should have no problem believing that 3 > 6.

Thursday: “Like, if she thinks she can run the house, she is sadly mistaken,” said Monet of the woman running her out of the house.

Mr. Mensa is smug about “sitting pretty.” Uh-oh. We’ve seen it over and over on Big Brother and Survivor, when players get overconfident, players get blindsided, and while I have no love for Mr. Mensa, I want Monet out almost as much as Boobiac does.

“Rachel and I have been butting heads recently,” said Brendon. Yes, the point of contact being the lips. More Bitch Brigade crying scenes, now over sarcastic cello music, which means the production team is enjoying their self-pity wallows as much as I am. How terrible for Bitchney, that she might not have anyone to lie around with while saying horrible things about everyone. Monet is still her repressed-violent self: “She’s lucky she didn’t get my fist upside her head.”

Monet: “She needs to go back to her stripper job in Vegas.”

Bitchney: “She’s a scientist, Monet.”

Monet: “Yeah. She’s making science trashy.” Well, actually she’s a waitress, but “The Trashy Scientists of Vegas” sounds like a hell of a new cable-reality series to me. Monet, register that idea now.

Mr. Mensa joined in the self-pity party, pretending to be upset when he’s actually delighted and smug. He was only doing it to mock them for his own amusement. Hey, Mr. Mensa, that’s my gig.

Hayden and Kristen (Kristen is a girl on the show. She doesn’t do much.) are having a showmance on the downlow that, in Hayden’s words: “resembles a third or fourth grade crush.” Does he mean they run up to each other on the playground, scream “I hate you! Girls have cooties!”, hit each other in the shoulder, and then run off? Actually, prior to puberty, boys usually hate girls. Come to think of it, they still hate them after puberty as well, it’s just that now they desire them also. Eventually, this inner conflict turns boys into Mel Gibson. In any event, elementary school-level crushes don’t usually involve sneaking into bed together after Lights Out. This relationship is beyond boring, but it must be noted, as it may well end up figuring into events in the weeks to come.

Neither of these geniuses would make very good spies. They were carrying on their top secret dry (or, at best, damp) humps in the same room with Captain Kosher, apparently thinking he’s unaware of them. As The Captain pithily put it: “It’s like trying to fall asleep, listening to a dirty movie.”

I might add that Captain Kosher was wearing a white “Yom Kippur” with a white shirt, instead of his usual black one. I did not know that orthodox Jews were allowed to color co-ordinate their yarmulkes with their outfits. I like it. Look soon for America’s Top Hasidic Fashion Model.

Campaigning to get Monet evicted (not knowing that the Brigade’s votes are already locked down against her), Boobiac said: “I really want to see where Kristen’s head is at.” It has been missing for most of the week. Anyway, it’s on her neck, when it isn’t down Hayden’s pants. Boobiac lied to Hayden and Kristen, saying that Bitchney had said that the Bitch Brigade had Hayden’s and Kristen’s votes locked in. Good strategy, but unnecessary. Hayden has to vote to keep his alliance member, and Kristen is most likely to vote how he tells her to.

But Kristen went right to the Bitch Brigade and asked them if they’d said that. Next thing you know, Boobiac and Brendon are out re-justifying their nominations to all and sundry, with Boobiac assuring them it wasn’t personal, this to Monet, who takes everything personally, even the weather.

“I don’t call girls bitches,” said Boobiac, “because I don’t use that derogatory term.” I do.

“Rachel’s going to get my fist in her face if she says anything else to me,” said Monet, since it had been seven minutes since she had last fantasized out loud about committing an act of violence.

“With a pawn on the block, anything’s possible,” the Chenbot told us, in a desperate-but-vain attempt to create some suspense about the upcoming vote.

Bitchney went and sobbed some bull to Boobiac, just in case Brendon wins HOH: “I haven’t lied to you,” she lied.

Boobiac is not good at keeping secrets. Let’s hope she never knows about any secret chemical weapons, because she’d blab it to the Taliban in a heartbeat, if they turned on the waterworks. She told Bitchney that Mr. Mensa had volunteered to go on the block. Shut up, Boobiac.

Bitchney, who knows an opportunity when it screams in her face, told Boobiac that Mr. Mensa was pretending to be pissed at her for putting him up. This shocked Boobiac, though of course he is. How else can he maintain the fiction that he didn’t volunteer?

Boobiac was now blubbering. “I was like, Brendon, he’s going to act like he’s our friend,” said Boobiac to the evil bitch pretending to be her friend. So Boobiac called a house meeting, which excluded Captain Kosher, who was off praying. There Boobiac outed Mr. Mensa’s volunteering to be a pawn. The Brigade already knew this. Is this the way to treat a man whose wife has an imaginary bone disease?

Mr. Mensa backpedaled, and tried to claim that Brendon and Boobiac had “strong-armed” him into being the pawn. “You went on a power trip this week,” he said to Boobiac, who had won the power for this week. Every HOH goes on a power trip.

“He’ll lie to all of you,” said the lair Monet, who still hasn’t told Boobiac she hates her, despite her claim that she tells people to their faces when she hates them. (We’re still waiting, Monet.) Meanwhile, the liars filling the house considered whether or not to vote against the man exposed for doing what they are all doing.

Mr. Mensa had called himself a “Diabolical Supergenius,” and now he’s made the same basic error the Diabolical Supergeniuses always make in the James Bond films: running his mouth too much.

Asked by The Chenbot which she would pick, Brendon or the half million dollars, Boobiac replied: “I think Brendon’s a once-in-a-lifetime.” Boobsie darling, for you, a half million dollars is once in a lifetime, if that. Brendons are like busses; they come along every twenty minutes, are hot but crowded, and smell bad from behind. Go for the money. (Like she has a prayer of still being there at the end.)

Eviction: The deciding vote was Ragan’s. He said: “I vote to evict the beautiful and kind Monet.” Wait a moment. Wasn’t he supposed to vote for the Monet who is in the house? Anyway, Hallelujah, Monet was evicted. Good riddance to dreadful rubbish. So much for her “sweet revenge.”

Showing all the warmth we’ve come to love her for, Monet was out the door without hugging anyone, not even Bitchney. “You’re a great person, Monet,” the Pussy lied to her as she went out the door.

Bitchney’s goodbye message to Monet was hilarious. She was in full blubbering mode, awash in more tears than Mo’Nique at the Golden Globes. She sounded like Judy Garland weeping out: “I’m going to miss you most of all, Scarecrow,” as she sobbed out: “I am so going to miss sitting in the back yard and talking with you about how high-waisted Kristen’s pants are, and how skanky Rachel’s dressing every day, and how annoying her laugh is, and all of the things we could do with her hair extentions.” What put the icing on the cake here was that Bitchney was speaking without a trace of comic irony. These are the pleasures of her small, evil little life.

Boobiac, on the other hand, said the same thing she said to Annie last week, that Monet had “tried to break up me and my man.” Hello? Neither woman showed any interest whatever in luring Brendon away from Boobiac. Does she just assume all women are out to steal Brendon from her? Will she go accuse The Chenbot next?

Head of Household Competition: A surfing-themed endurance competition, but with a Have-Not twist tossed in. The first five to fall off the surfboards they were standing on would be the Haves for the week. So, to really play to be HOH, you had to risk being a Have-Not. Nice, but I hate HOH competitions that aren’t decided when the broadcast ends. Of course they were pouring water on them, and jiggling their surfboards to make it harder and more unpleasant, although seeing The Beast in a soaking-wet T-shirt works for me.

So we won’t know until Sunday who won, unless you want to go online and find out, as I will, but not now. And please, don’t post who wins below. No spoilers for the readers who want some suspense until the Sunday show. Until next week, Cheers darlings.

To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead, the Merrier, or buy her book, My Lush Life.

Mercede Johnston, Levi Johnston’s little sister, is happy for him and her soon-to-be sister-in-law Bristol Palin, who announced their engagement early last week.

Mostly happy.

She’s not quite sure why they’re racing down the aisle … and you aren’t alone there, Mercede Johnston. The timing and nature of the announcement was odd.

Recent reports that Levi and Bristol are already in the process of shopping a show about their second engagement and futre nuptials came as no surprise to us.

Noting that she, like Sarah Palin (supposedly), learned the news from Us Weekly, Mercede hints at this ulterior motive for their engagement on her blog:

Levi and Mercede in simpler, pre-celebrity gossip times.

“I have to say with all the odd things going on lately I expected something. However I think there may be more to this picture than we are able to see now.

I would like to take a moment to congratulate my soon to be sister-in-law and my big brother. I sure hope this is a sincere decision that you have thought through carefully Levi, and that it will bring you happiness.

I do wish you guys would take a little more time with this, and do not understand why you are rushing things. Unless of course there is some reason for the hurry.

I am also very happy to see Tripp in Levi’s arms again, and I do know that it will be good for him to have both of his parents back in his life full time from now on. And you know he really does deserve the best that you can provide.

I can’t wait to watch the two of you wed, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Levi and Bristol: Will it last?

“I don’t think so much learning becomes a young woman; for instance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning. … She should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts, and as she grew up, I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries. But above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that she might not misspell and mispronounce words so shamefully as girls usually do; and likewise that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I would have a woman know; and I don’t think there is a superstitious article in it.”
– Mrs. Malaprop, The Rivals, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1775.

Mrs. Malaprop was born in Sheridan’s immortal classic comedy. It turns out that she, and her unique approach to learning and language, lives on now, 235 years later, in the Big Brother House, in Rachel, aka “Boobiac” (“Braniac” + “Boobs” = “Boobiac.” It’s an equation. See, my little not-pretty, I can do “science” too!), the most highly-educated cocktail waitress/showgirl/”Chemist” in all of Las Vegas, whose hair is a color not found in nature. But we have a lot of ground to cover, not unlike Rachel’s ginormous boobs, so let’s get busy.

Sunday: Picking up where Thursday’s show ended, with the saboteur locking away all the food and booze except for slop during a blackout, Boobiac, nobody’s fool – excuse me, I meant everybody’s fool, said: “Someone has to be in here, that did it.” That tortured syntax comes from a woman who claims to have a college degree.

On the monitor, The Saboteur said: “Thanks for making this sabotage so easy.” As Boobiac so succinctly put it, “Someone has to be in here, that did it.” Therefore, the message about making it so easy had to have been pre-recorded, in which case, how did the Saoboteur or Sabotrix know before hand that it would be “so easy”? Time travel?

Kathy, the claims-to-be-40-years-old cop from Mayberry, or someplace like that, demonstrated her masterful grasp of deductive logic that has kept master criminals away from Mayberry for decades (well that, and the fact that there’s nothing worth stealing), by saying: “Somebody put that lock on, in this house. End of story.” Astounding Holmes! How do you do it? Can you see her investigating a murder?

Kathy: “One of you killed Mr. Boddy, in the library, with the lead pipe. End of story.”

Suspects: “Aren’t you going to tell us who did it?”

Kathy: “What part of ‘end of story’ don’t you understand?”

We learned more of her meticulous investigative methods when, while speculating on whom might be The Saboteur, Hayden, the boy from the desert whose hair always looks like he just got out of the pool and just let it hang and dry in the sun (He has the worst frizzies I’ve ever seen, Justin Beiber without any “product.” Doesn’t he own a hairbrush?), said: “My first instinct was Andrew.”

Kathy: “Yeah. You have to go on your gut.” Yes, none of this investigating, and making deductions based on evidence for this cop. Her “gut” is all the evidence she needs. My gut tells me she’s an imbecile. Although I cheated. I also used evidence, specifically, her own statements.

Out on the hammock, Brandon, the swim coach who brushes his teeth in the dark, Annie, the bisexual bartendress, and Boobiac, had a discussion, in which Brendon modestly proclaimed: “I honestly think that you, the three of us, are the most-intelligent players in this game.” Has he noticed he’s speaking with Boobiac?

He told them he has a master’s degree in applied physics, like so many high school swimming coaches. And he’s starting on his doctorate in Bio-Medical Physics at UCLA. Won’t he be missing a lot of classes while locked in the Big Brother House? Well, not if he’s evicted soon.

Oh, but still better, his master’s thesis was on “Physical Chemistry.” (Is there such a thing as “Ethereal Chemistry”?) Well, this got “Chemist” Boobiac’s juices gushing in much the same way as “I’m single, 120 years-old, and a billionaire,” used to excite the late Anna Nichole Smith.

Boobiac told us: “I have, you know, obviously, my chemistry degree from Western Carolina University.” Obviously? Actually, she hides her education so well, I’d doubt her if she told me she had a mail-order GED. Is “Western Carolina University” accredited? Does it have an actual campus? Come to think of it, I know of North Carolina and South Carolina (home of some of America’s most-embarrassing politicians), but I’m not familiar with “Western Carolina.”

Boobiac, whose ambition in Life is to be the “Miss March” centerfold in Scientific American, told us: “When Brendon told me he was a physicist, I literally wanted to just like jump his bones.” Literally? That would mean she wanted to remove his skeleton from his body and jump on it. I suspect she just wanted to screw him. I wouldn’t mind doing that myself. However Boobiac, he’s not a physicist; he’s a high school swimming coach. Besides, Boobiac, how can you cheat on Stephen Hawking like that?

This was working for Brendon as well: “To talk to a hot girl, you know, about something intelligent, is a huge turn-on for me.” What “hot girl”? He’s talking to Boobiac. Are her massive mammary glands so distracting that he never even looks at her face at all, not to mention at her hilarious hair? (Talk about chemistry: what toxic chemicals turn Boobiac’s hair that color?) You know, as “scientists,” they should both know about gravity, and the fact that, in 40 years, Boobiac’s colossal breasts will be getting little bruises on their undersides, from her unintentionally kicking them as she walks. But I doubt Brendon plans to hang around her for 40 years.

Annie was bored out of her mind by Brendon and Boobiac discussing science, instead of, I don’t now, The Twilight Saga? Never mind chemical compounds; are you Team Edward or Team Jacob? She had a tasteful way of expressing it: “I felt very awkward, like I was watching my parents have sex. I mean, it’s something I don’t want to be a part of.” Do her parents often expect her to “be a part of” their having sex? And without science, not unlike without her parents having sex, she wouldn’t exist. But it’s refreshing to see someone announce on prime-time network TV that intelligent conversations bore her.

A conference was held in the HOH room on “The Saboteur.” Kathy, the Sherlock Holmes of Mayberry, announced “I seriously think it’s a girl, and it’s going to be a very likeable girl.” Well, that exonerates everyone in the House, as I’ve yet to detect a “likeable” girl in this mob. Her evidence for these deductions has been returned to the place deep up Kathy’s butt, from whence she pulled it out in the first place.

Annie told us, but not the houseguests, in the opening show that she’s “bi-sexual.” She’s in the closet. How 1950 of her. Since Ragan had announced he was gay (well, to be fair, everything about Ragan announced he was gay), Annie took him aside to confide her secret, that she’s bisexual, and has had a steady girlfriend now for a year and a half. (A year and a half is what you call a “Lesbian First Date.”) Oh, so she’s a Lesbian, but calling herself “bisexual.” How 1975 of her. She said of her secret: “I felt like it was eating me inside.” Yup. That’s Lesbian sex in a nutshell.

Annie: “I shared it with Ragan because he’s so strong and open and amazing.” Well, he’s open about being gay. He’s lying to everyone there about his job though, telling them all he’s a student when he’s actually a professor. When I was in college, I had many professors who were open about being professors, but in the closet about being gay. (Theater Major. All of my professors were gay.) Ragan is just the reverse. Just as well. If Annie knew he had a doctorate, and could speak intelligently, well, there would go her parents having sex in front of her again! (Is it because her parents have straight sex that she feels so repulsed by their sex lives?)

The Big Brother chapter of MENSA, sans Matt, who actually is a member of MENSA, met in their club house, aka, the hot tub, where Boobiac could loll in a bikini (She will never drown! She’s a living flotation device.), and Brendon could soak in his Speedo, while discussing how smart they are. Hayden, a born jock who distrusts people who can use multi-syllabic words in compound sentences, not that Boobiac can, was disturbed by this. He knows a showmance when he sees one.

Enzo is already my least-favorite houseguest. The man seems to aspire to live The Sopranos, which is an unfortunate choice of role models. But then, Enzo’s last name is “Palumbo,” so maybe that Mafia blather is more than just an annoying, charmless pose. He told Hayden: “You’re just like me.” What do they have in common? Both are male. Both are not-too-bright. That’s pretty much it.

Said Enzo of Hayden: “He’s definitely legit. I know that.” Enzo must have studied rules of evidence under Kathy. And what does he mean by “legit”? That Hayden’s parents were married, and never made Annie watch them have sex? That he’s not really an entirely different person with a different name, only pretending to be “Hayden.” That he’s in a non-criminal business? What does he mean?

Enzo and Hayden were forming an alliance, but I guess Hayden figures it’s okay when he does it. Enzo was summing up his candidates for their alliance: “Matty is legit.” Again with that “legit” crap. What does that mean? “Lane loves me; I love Lane.” A Showmance! I love Lane too, whose pecs are every bit as big as Boobiac’s.

So Enzo decided they were now an alliance: himself, Hayden, Matt, and Lane. All-male. Hmmm. Gay, or are the women just supposed to cook the pasta while the men plot in dark rooms? “So the next thing ya gotta do, is have some brains in this operation.” Well, they have a MENSA member in it, but I’m afraid Enzo means himself.

Matt hopped on board: “I’m going to venture to say we’re in the strongest alliance in Big Brother history.” This 5 seconds after an idiot mook drafts him into joining with two other meatheads, and before they’ve proved their worth in any way whatever. He’s going to break a leg jumping to conclusions like that. But he had a “gut feeling” about them, and as Kathy has taught us, that’s irrefutable evidence that – ah – that your guts have feelings. (Which they don’t.)

Enzo has his priorities in line: “I wanna nickname the team. I want nicknames for everybody.” Yes, never mind strategies; get some nicknames. Enzo, take the day off, coming up with nicknames for youse guys is my job.

Enzo: “Every Mafia needs some type of a muscle.” He’s making a “Mafia”? Oh joy. What will the nickname for their alliance be: Murder Incorporated? Enzo and I have different heroes. Of Lane: “He’s like the size of a tree, this guy.” How big a tree? A sapling? A Sequoia? Trees aren’t “One Size Fits All.”

“Pretty much I’m the mastermind,” said Enzo, unaware that Matt is vastly more intelligent than he is. But he’d applied his mastermind to their most-pressing business: nicknames. He decided Lane was “The Beast,” without considering for a second that Lane might find that insulting, as his stricken face suggested. Hayden was “The Animal.” Hayden also looked a bit unhappy with his name, which is, let’s face it, not much different from Lane’s. Matt got “The Brains,” which was generous coming from The Mastermind. Ah but his own butch nickname is “Meow Meow.” Why not just go directly for “The Pussy”? Matt’s the only human in this Mafia, which is now “The Brigade.” “We’re like The A-Team,” The Pussy added, in case he hadn’t insulted his team mates enough already. Next up: name tags!

Lane: “I have no clue what a brigade is.” Gorgeous, no brain, but his shoulders are as big as Boobiac’s boobs, “It came out of Enzo’s brain, and, you know, he’s from Philly or Jersey. I don’t know where he’s from.” So he’s not a regular viewer of Jersey Shore. That’s another thing in his favor.

Hayden, ignoring nicknames and who is “The Brains,” had his own agenda: he needed to figure out whom to nominate, and he went right for Brendon and Boobiac. This is actually fairly good strategy, and certainly a better use of time than coming up with inane nicknames, I half-expected The Pussy to interrupt with “What nicknames do we give them?”

Food Competition: They were divided into 3 teams. The losing team would be on slop for a week, and sleeping in the Have-Not bedroom, which is full of jars of smelly bugs. Last week, I asked in jest if they would have Kosher Slop for Andrew. Turns out, they don’t, which is rather discriminatory. Doesn’t it depend on how the slop is killed? What about vegan slop? Diet slop? Heart-Smart, low-Sodium Slop? There are lots of people with different dietary requirements. They should have slop of all varieties for them. I would need 90-proof slop. I have been a sloppy drunk for decades.

A large trough of caramel and a huge tub of popcorn greeted the houseguests in the yard. The Pussy described it as looking like Orville Redenbacker’s backyard. Has he ever been to Orville’s home? Well, maybe when Orville wasn’t home.

The players had to crawl through the caramel to dig through the popcorn to find “teeth,” until they had eight, which meant everyone had to go twice. Crawling through caramel is like crawling through glue, as I recall. (It’s been a long time since last I crawled through caramel.)

Brendon’s shorts were pulled off by the caramel. Thank you, caramel. “And how cute is his butt?” asked Boobiac. I don’t know. They blurred it out. What a gyp!

When Kathy went through, she crawled through the muck, gluing herself into the trough. Even once in the popcorn, Kathy showed a singular lack of urgency. I imagine her chasing “perps”: “Stop or I’ll pout!”

The blue team, Kathy, Ragan, Boobiac, and Matt, were doomed, because Kathy just lay down in the caramel, and was utterly unable to move. “I’m literally dying here,” said Kathy, though if that were true, she’d be too dead to tell us about it. It took five people to pull the idiot woman out of the muck after the contest ended.

When she saw (and smelt) the jars of maggots in the Have-Not bedroom, Kathy shrieked, and again carried on like an annoying 12 year-old. How desperate for police is Mayberry since Don Knotts died anyway? Does she behave like this at crime scenes?

Kathy then lectured Britney on her poor challenge performance. Britney smoked Kathy in the challenge, who lay down in the muck and just gave up. This is the Black Hole at the Center of the Universe calling an orange black.

The Saboteur put duct tape over the pictures of Kathy and Britney during the night. Oooh. What terrible sabotage. What’s next? Short-sheeting someone’s bed?

Nominations: Hayden went ahead and nominated Brendon and Boobiac, although Britney tried to get Kathy nominated. When it was shown that Kristen was safe, I was momentarily disoriented. It was pretty much the first shot of her in the whole episode, and we didn’t see her again until the eliminations on Thrusday’s show, and even then, she never said nor did anything. Did she spend the first few days in the bathroom, or is she just so boring, they could get no usable footage with her at all?

Hayden said he’d nominated Boobiac because: “I feel like you haven’t tried to connect with me at all.” This made it sound like he was punishing her for not trying to get into his pants, when it was really punishment for trying to get into Brendon’s pants. One feels that Haydon didn’t like the fact that “The Ladies” preferred Brendon to him. It was a shock to Arizona Boy to learn that hotter men were grown in California.

Wednesday: “The Brigade is runnin’ things right now,” said The Pussy, full of misplaced confidence. “By puttin’ up Brendon, we probably put up The Saboteur too, so…” he added, without a shred of evidence, or an end to his sentence.

Hayden felt that Brendon is “mentally unbelievable. The guy’s really smart.” Well, compared to Hayden, yes he is.

Brendon referred to himself and Boobiac as “a couple-like deal.” Commitment-phobic men all across America were writing that one down.

When Brendon, Boobiac, Annie the Semi-Lesbian, and The Beast were commiserating, in came The Pussy to snoop. His excuse? He wanted to get a sweater. I live about three miles from the BB House. It’s been hot as blazes all week, even hot at night. The last thing anyone would want or need was a sweater.

Said college athlete Hayden: “That could not have worked out any perfecter.” Perfecter. I take it that, as an athlete, he’s not required to attend any actual classes. The Pussy, after saying that Brendon was “so salty,” (Did he taste him?) Stated as a fact that Brendon, Boobiac, and Annie the Part-Time Lesbian were in an alliance they are not actually in to the members of his actual, formal alliance. They were shocked, shocked to hear that someone had the nerve to do what they themselves had done. And since The Pussy had said it aloud, it had to be true, even though it isn’t.

When Annie came out, I mean out of the house, as she hasn’t “come out,” The Pussy shushed his allies with “Fuggedabodit!”, which the CBS captions writer misspelt as “forget about it.”

“It’s hard for me to deal with ignorant people,” said Brendon, “It’s throwing me off.” Had he ever watched Big Brother before going on the show? The house is always packed with ignoramuses. And how does that work for him when coaching high school athletics, where he’d be coaching a bunch of Haydons-in-utero, younger and dumber?

And then Brendon teared up! Maybe I’ve nicknamed the wrong player The Pussy.

So then, since the targets on them weren’t big enough already, Brendon and Boobiac got under a blanket in the hammock and began, well let’s say making out, since we couldn’t see just how far they were going, in full view of the rest of the house. At least Boobiac can’t speak with her mouth full.

Annie actually spit up all over the kitchen table when she saw what they were doing in the hammock. Yeah, she’s bisexual, not simply a Lesbian, even though straight sex makes her puke publically. She probably felt like she was watching her parents make out in a hammock.

Could the reason Hayden was so angry about Brendon and Boobiac be that he wasn’t the one with his mouth full of giant boobs in the hammock? Brendon went to talk to him in the HOH room, and Haydon told him it wasn’t personal, which is the biggest lie anyone’s told on this show so far this season. Brendon told Hayden that if Hayden pulled him off the block with POV, he’d become his ally, but if he didn’t, and Brendon survived the week, he’d be coming after Hayden.

Hayden: “Brendon’s on the block. He comes up and threatens me? Is this guy nuts?” No, just honest, offering you a straight-forward deal. Make me your friend or make me your enemy, your choice.

Brendon also spoke of Annie as “legit.” Hello? What does that mean? Of course, Hayden took this as proof of the non-existent Annie-Brendon-Boobiac Alliance. (And, as it turned out, he was wrong. Annie was so not “legit.”)

Power of Veto Comeptition: Playing along with Brendon, Boobiac, and Hayden, were The Pussy, Andrew, and Monet.

(If only we could get, just once, this exchange:

Anyone: “Mo-net?”

Monet [sighs]: “It’s Mo-nay!“)

The yard for this competition was festooned with pinatas and Mexican party decorations. Boobiac, you know, the waitress-showgirl-chemist with a “college degree” who had earlier informed us that Andrew wore a “Yom Kippur” on his head at all times, now told us: “We walked outside and I saw this crazy, like, Pinata Siesta.” I guess all the pinatas were napping. Apparently neither English nor Spanish are requirements for that chemistry degree. The thing is, my father was a professional chemist, for real. Not a waiter, not a showboy, a chemist, and he never in his life called a Yarmulka a “Yom Kippur,” nor a fiesta a “siesta.” But then, my father didn’t have immense boobs either, at least until quite late in life.

The pinatas were full of mayonnaise and plastic cards with letters on them. The idea was to smash open the pinatas, splattering mayonnaise all over, and retrieving letters, which they would then use to spell out any word. The longest correctly-spelt word would win. Oh dear. I hate when there’s spelling involved, but fortunately for Boobiac, she only had to spell the word. She didn’t have to know its meaning.

Andrew informed us his eating mayonnaise was fine. Mayonnaise is Kosher. News to me. My closest Jewish friend refuses to eat mayonnaise on anything, calling it “Goy Food.” But he’s not doing it for religious reasons, he just hates how it tastes. But in any event, mayonnaise that has been sitting outside in pinatas, in southern California July heat all day, would be very, very rancid. Eating it would do something that just eating non-Kosher food won’t: kill you.

However, since it involved pounding stuff with baseball bats, The Pussy was in his element: violence. It was like Leg-Breaking For Dollars. But he took to telling us this, and other stuff, in shirtless confessionals. Enzo, wear a shirt! Brendon, The Beast, or even Hayden, you are not! Even Andrew looks better shirtless than The Pussy.

The Beast amused me. He was sitting there watching, wearing goggles. He told us: “I do not appreciate getting hit in the face with dairy.” So is he saying he wouldn’t want Boobiac to slap his face about with her titanic flesh pillows? Because all the other guys there except Ragan would gladly pay her to do so. He added: “On a farm, I have never seen mayo come out of a pony. It just ain’t right.” To quote Addison DeWitt in All About Eve: “You have a point, an idiotic one, but a point.”

Boobiac: “I am not good with any bats.” So she must be Team Jacob. She certainly must be experienced with handling wolves.

The Pussy: “You gotta go ‘street’ on the pinata.” You know, I find him more revolting, on every possible level, every time he opens his mouth.

Brendon showed us that his understanding of game strategy extended beyond athletics and being “street.” He used – gasp! – his brain. He knew to spell a word which could have suffixes added to it, to extend. I bet he doesn’t just swim, or, in The Pussy’s case, kneecap. Brendon sounds like a Scrabble player.

Said Boobiac: “Oh my God, I could spell ‘chemistry,’ and that’s my go-to word, and I know how to spell it.” The relief in her voice told us that the number of words college-graduate Boobiac knows how to spell is pretty much limited to “chemistry” and her name – maybe her name.

Results, in order of word-length:

The Pussy: “Factory.” (“It fell off a truck, honest.”)

Hayden: “Possible.” (As in, it’s possible he’ll lose.)

Monet: “Cheaters.” (Bitter recent break-up, Monet?)

Boobiac: “Chemistry.”

Andrew: “Pastuerized” (Misspelled, by a doctor no less. Afterwards, he claimed to us that he misspelled it intentionally. Sure you did, Captain.)

Brendon: “Understanding.” (As in: his understanding of how to win this challenge.)

Hayden: “Thirteen letters? Are you kidding me? My last hope is down to Captain Kosher.” Hayden didn’t know there were any 13 letter words in the Amurrican language. He may not have known there are that many letters in the alphabet. I doubt he spends much time reading. But I liked “Captain Kosher,” and will start using it, particularly since Andrew seems to have embraced the name, and was using it on himself as well.

So Brendon won, and suddenly Haydon found himself with an enemy. Oops. Maybe you should have tried writing a longer word than “possible.” “Impossibilities” would have won.

“I say we backdoor Annie,” said The Pussy, referring to whom should replace Brendon on the block, I hope.

The Pussy was angry: “They just slapped us in the face. Brendon took us down, made us look like shit out there, bro.” Actually, they made themselves look bad out there, by spelling out short, lame words. How dare Berndon not get with the program to oust himself? The nerve!

Are they over-air-conditionng the BB House? They’re walking around wrapped in blankets. We’re having “Excessive Heat Warnings” on the news out here. It’s 4:15 AM when I’m writing this, and I’m naked, because it’s still hot.

The Beast told Haydon that if Kathy left the house, it wouldn’t be “dramatizing,” so it’s not just Boobiac dropping malapropisms now.

The Saboteur appeared to announce that two of the houseguests, pretending to be strangers, are really lifelong friends. I understand this is to foment more paranoia, but it’s not too exciting. What was interesting was that the houseguests all took it as true. Someone said it, so it must be true. It didn’t occur to anyone but Brendon and Matt that it might just be a lie, told to promote more distrust. There’s no rule that The Saboteur can only speak Truth. And some of these folks probably vote.

Captain Kosher decided that Ragan and Matt were secretly gay lovers. Well, we saw Matt’s wife in the first episode, so I’m pretty sure The Captain is right, although Matt could do better than Ragan, and Matt’s no prize. His own evidence that he himself was not one of the “friends” was that no one there was his friend, because “nobody knows anything about Judaism, except maybe him,” with “him” referring to Ragan. Well, I’ll grant that Boobiac knows nothing about Judaism, beyond that they all wear “Yom Kippurs” on their heads, and I doubt that Hayden, living in racist “show us your papers!” Arizona, has ever met a Jew before, but beyond that, he’s nuts. Brendon and Matt have educations and brains, however odd Brendon’s dental hygiene habits are. Judaism isn’t some bizarre, obscure cult. It’s just The Captain’s way of being morally superior to everyone.

Hayden announced “Kathy could be Britney’s mom.” You know, he’s right. She could be. Both are from nowheresvilles in Arkansas (where they are also unlikely to meet many Jews), both are blonde. Neither is too smart. The age difference is right. They both have the same nose, though that could just be that they used the same surgeon. (How many cosmetic surgeons can there be in Arkansas?) And the way Kathy dressed down Britney for screwing up in the caramel challenge when it was Kathy who had been the train wreck, was exactly like a real mother-daughter relationship. Also, Britney, while not terribly smart, is still noticeably smarter, and certainly more emotionally mature, than Kathy, as I was smarter and more mature than my mother. Hmmm.

Power of Veto Ceremony: Said Annie of Britney: “I wouldn’t trust that girl with a ten-foot pole.” What does she think Britney would do with a ten-foot pole? Poke her with it? Steal it? Use it for a toothpick? Use it for a dildo? It’s bad enough these people pepper their speech with cliches, but she’s just tossing them in at random, regardless of whether they even make sense.

Brendon took himself off the block, and Hayden put up Annie. Annie was upset.

Thursday: Said Hayden of replacement nominee Annie: “Annie, grab your gun, and you’re out of here.” Okay, Hayden is definitely not gay. A gay man would know it’s Annie Get Your Gun. Or, given my hatred of the show Annie (I hate shrill singing kids.), it could be: “Annie? — Get my gun.”

Annie: “I lashed out at Brendon because Brendon was the closest person in the house to me…” So much for her bonding with Ragan. “…and I felt he was protecting Rachel and not me, and it really hurt my feelings, because I felt betrayed.” Gee, Brendon, who is in no position to “protect” either of them, is more into saving the girl he’s making out with than the closet Lesbian, excuse me, bisexual, who isn’t going to be getting him off anytime soon. How like a man. How utterly insane of Annie.

Anyway, as a tactic to fight to stay in, lashing out at people who liked you up until then is a poor strategy, not to mention that it leaves the episode with little suspense.

Annie has no real understanding of how to apologize either:

Brendon: “I was just kinda hurt by what you said in the kitchen.”

Annie: “That was sarcastic.” This is her idea of apologizing? We knew it was sarcastic. That makes it more hurtful, not less.

Boobiac got Brendon alone on a bed, climbed on top of him, pulled the blanket over them, and started doing that thing they do, and Brendon started talking about how sad Annie was. Boobiac found this behavior utterly bizarre. Frankly, so did I. I suppose she should consider herself lucky he didn’t start brushing his teeth. It’s dark under that blanket.

Boobiac: “Why are you getting upset about some girl?” Good question.

1. When making out with a woman, you don’t begin talking about some other woman.

2. You don’t go on about how bad someone feels about being on the block to someone who is also on the block! Boobiac is not too bright, but I was with her on this.

So then he whines about how Boobiac is too concerned about how she feels rather than how he feels.

1. He’s off the block now; she’s not. Poor him. And…

2. She’s a woman, and one he’s only known for 13 days. Of course she’s more concerned with her own feelings than his.

Online, “America” voted on whom they felt was the Saboteur, and they voted for Kathy, I assume because they thought no 40 year-old deputy sheriff could really be that stupid and immature. Clearly “America” hasn’t met many rural southern cops.

And they were wrong. It’s Annie, and as she’s about to be voted out the very first week, she made one lousy job of it. She would get $50,000 if she just lasted halfway through the game. Whoops. The season’s big twist ruined after a single week. Kathy had said it would be a likeable female. She was half-right.

One of Annie’s fiendish acts of sabotage was to leave beeping or cricket noise thingees in the bedrooms, to annoy people. Wow! What a terrorist she is. She interrupted Captain Kosher at prayer, and spoiled a few naps. What a huge impact on the game that had! Well, at least we got to hear The Pussy say: “The Meow Meow has to sleep for at least nine hours.” I don’t know what’s more pathetic: a grown man who considers himself a tough guy calling himself “The Meow Meow,” or his need for nine hours of sleep every night. Most people manage on 8, millions on even less. I’m writing this on six.

“Man, I’m good!” gloated Annie, who has failed in her saboteur role as completely as she possibly could. Man, she’s lame.

“I escaped the block this week” the Saboteur lied to the houseguests. A rather hollow taunt that, all things considered. And again, they all believed it. “We all know for sure that whoever stays isn’t the saboteur.” said Ragan. Someone said it out loud, so it must be true. This moron has a doctorate.

Annie went about speading rumors about Brendon, and everyone just believed every word she said. This is the most-gullible group of dolts I’ve seen since the last time I was dragged into a church. She’s desperate to stay in the house, and would say anything to further that goal. Doesn’t that cross anyone’s mind?

Nope.

The Chenbot asked Brendon of Boobiac: “What is it about her that attracts you?” Well Julie, there are two rather obvious answers to that question, but he lied instead.

Pleading her case, Annie the Lesbian Saboteur said of Boobiac: “I’m not going to say anything negative about her, except…” Here I had to rewind, because my laughter at that “except” drowned out the rest of her sentence, which was: “… for the fact that she has one ingredient that I don’t have…” Math is not Annie’s strong suit. Boobiac has two ingredients that Annie doesn’t have. Well, Annie does have a pair of her own, but both of Annie’s added together are still less by cubic volume, than just one of Boobiac’s.

Annie was unanimously evicted. Good riddance.

Hearing the live audience applaud and cheer Annie was strange. Could she have done a worse job? I don’t see how.

Asked why she was voted out unanimously, Annie said: “They’re not smart,” although I think the vote shows the opposite. They were smart enough to recognize a viper when she showed her true colors at the last.

The goodbye messages were rich: Hayden pointed out that her nasty temper got her bounced. Unusually perceptive for Hayden. Britney cattily criticized her shoes and her hair “as a friend.” Ragan the Fool called her “Annie-Banannie,” for which he should be slapped. (And only our Casey from last year is a “banannie”) “You get along with people,” said Ragan of the woman who was just tossed out for her nasty temper, but at least he realized she could really be the Sabaeur, so he gets a 50%. Brendon was gracious and nice to her, genuinely sorry to see her leave. Of course, he recorded this before she tried to throw him to the wolves. And Boobiac accused her of “trying to come in between me and my man.” Did she and Brendon get married sometime in the last 13 days?

So Annie called Brendon “my sloppy seconds.” Hello? By her own admission, she turned him down. (assuming her claim that he came onto her first is even remotely true.) That would make him her reject, not a sloppy second. To be a sloppy second, he’d have had to have had sex with her. Those are the rules. Even a “bi-sexual” knows that. Annie clearly felt she was mopping up the floor with her snark, but actually, she was just reinforcing her image as a nasty piece of work with a vicious temper. If she and her girlfriend are living together, I pity their neighbors, or as they will one day be called at the trial: “The Collateral Damage.”

“I’m not gone yet,” said Annie, now fully delusional. Annie, once you stepped through that door, you were gone, regardless of whatever last prank you’ve left behind.

Head of Household Competition: This was an opinion quiz where the point was to vote with the majority, without knowing what the majority was voting. Asked whether hers or The Pussy’s life story would make more money as a movie, Kathy answered herself, getting herself eliminated for the stupid hubris of thinking someone, somewhere, would find her life interesting at all, let alone over the life of someone trying his damndest to be one of the Sopranos.

One question was about which houseguest would you trust to pack your parachute for you. Every skydiver still alive knows you always and only pack your own.

How quickly fortunes can change on this show. At the top of the hour, Boobiac was in danger of going home. At the end, she was Head of Household, and without even one question on chemistry. Brendon won’t be going home next week, and I get at least two more weeks of boob jokes. It’s the Breasts of Both Worlds.

Cheers darlings.

To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead, the Merrier, or buy her book, My Lush Life.

Most of the time, when a couple vows to stay abstinent until marriage, the dude hasn’t already knocked up the girl, broken up with her, trashed her mom in the media, posed nude in Playgirl, then rekindled the romance during custody negotiations.

But hey, whatever works for Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin!

America’s favorite unwed teen mom and her once-estranged baby daddy surprised us by getting back together last month, then flat-out floored us with news that they are now engaged, and planning on tying the knot soon.

Like real soon. By the end of August!

Levi and Bristol say they hope to get married within the next six weeks, and due to her abstinence pledge, won’t be having sex again until after they say “I do.”

No word if there will be protection involved at that time, or if they simply don’t believe in that. Tripp is really cute, he’d probably be an awesome big brother.

The best part, aside from the abstinence thing, is that they say they didn’t tell her mom, Republican political heavyweight Sarah Palin, about the engagement.

Instead, they told Us Weekly, who broke the story earlier this morning, hoping that it was one of the “variety of sources” the former Alaska Governor reads.

As for the wedding, they’ll be getting married in Alaska, natch. According to sources, she wants Levi to wear a camouflage vest, too. That may not be a joke.

Regarding those nude Playgirl photos that sparked so much controversy … Bristol Palin claims she hasn’t seen them and chalks it up to “Levi’s old life.”

It ran in February. Just saying.

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Studio City to be born?”
– What Yeats would have written, if he’d waited 90 more years to write The Second Coming.

It’s summertime in Studio City, and CBS has rounded up another group of houseguests to spend a summer trying to outwitless each other, on what is known to some as “Survivor For Shut-Ins,” aka, Big Brother: Season 12: The Saboteur. Let’s meet them, while I make snap judgements on their worth as human beings:

Andrew is a “Successful podiatrist,” which is fortunate, given our ever-growing number of failed podiatrists that you see living by the highway, in cardboard shoeboxes. He’s also successfully Jewish, and he stated: “I’m not going to compromise my Judaism.” What does he think Big Brother will try to get him to do? Celebrate Christmas? Not keep kosher? Buy retail?

Last year’s winner was the hopelessly stupid and monumentally ignorant Jordumb. Hopefully losing this year is Jordumb’s clone, Britney, a “blonde” from Arkansas with a drawl so thick, just hearing it can cause IQ loss. Although from a town smaller than my house, she claims to have “Big-City Game.” Turns out she was referring to her Monopoly set, “Back Woods Shanty Town Edition.”

Tall, muscular, narcissist Hayden is from Arizona, and given his Aryan Youth looks and magnificent body, my guess is that the Arizona Gestapo aren’t stopping him to ask for his papers too terribly often. He lives on the convenient side of Racial Profiling. Hayden says he is: “the most competitive person you will ever meet,” but then, he has no idea whom I will ever meet, nor is he likely to find out behind the racist barriers of Arizona. He added: “The ladies love me. That’s what’s going to take me far in this game.” I believe some ladies love him, also some men, but no one loves him as much as he does.

Oh, fake-red-head Rachel of Las Vegas is a piece of work, in fact, two pieces. She announced: “Most people think I’m just a hot girl with big boobs…” Nonsense, Rachel. No one thinks you’re hot. We have Hi-Def now. But Rachel’s big secret is: she thinks she’s smart: “…when actually, I’m a chemist.” (This, of course, could mean she runs a meth lab out on her grandpa’s ranch, but let’s pretend it doesn’t.) “…I’m going to surprise everybody with how smart I am,” she added, enunciating almost two-thirds of the consonants in her words, “… and the big boobs don’t hurt either.” Actually, I would think getting smacked hard by a couple of ginormous bags of rocks the size of her udder would put you in serious danger of a collapsed lung.

Kathy is a butch older woman. She’s a deputy sheriff from Texarkana, Arkansas. Oh what joy. I wonder how many tickets she’s written for Britney? “I’m gonna bust everyone in the house,” she blathered. Won’t she be a ray of sunshine? None of my special, “medical” brownies for Kathy.

Monet, pronounced the affected French way, is not the divine artist of that name, but a full-of-herself young woman of no announced profession (like what we used to call a “woman with no visible means of support.” We also called them “whores.”), who loftily proclaimed, “I really hope the other houseguests are up to my standards,” while wearing an outfit of surpassing ugliness, “because I don’t want to be around anyone who is gross, or just plain old nasty.” Ah Monet, have you ever seen this show before? The producers spend months seeking out the grossest, nastiest, most disgusting losers they can cull from across rural America, and they found — you!

Up pops Matt of Elgin, Illinois. Matt looks personable. He’s apparently a musician, not just someone who shops (Monet), lounges poolside, displaying her huge boobs (Rachel), or trots about the football field shirtless, displaying his huge boobs (Hayden). Could he be the token likable houseguest I seek? Open your mouth, Matt, what are you like? “I am a genius!” Oops. Destroyed it with just four words. Another egotist telling us that he’s going to outsmart all the other ignorant doofuses in the house, only this one is tattooed. (Why do these people always think it takes a genius to outwit idiots?) But Matt buried any possible personal likeableness still further, by proudly informing us he’s a member of MENSA. Don’t people realize that everyone hates anyone who announces they are a member of MENSA? The whole organization exists solely for smarties with inferiority complexes to be able to sit around and exhibit their brains to each other. Smart, secure people, don’t need membership cards to prove their worth. “They’ll never see me coming,” Matt added, showing this genius must, nonetheless, rely on cliches. A “Genius” would have said something original. Or does he think that that “Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak” he bought at that Harry Potter Theme Park in Florida really works?

Florida resident Annie, a skinny young woman in a bikini she lacks the body for (her entire body weight is less than that of Rachel’s left boob), made sure we knew she’s “bi-sexual.” Okay, she’s no beauty, but I don’t believe she has to buy sex. Please note, no announced “bisexual” in the history of Big Brother has ever done anything with it, let alone actually conducted parallel summer showmances on TV, so don’t get your hopes up.

Lane, a drop-dead gorgeous ranchhand from rural Texas (This year, they seem to be operating on a system of: “No drawl? Bye-bye, y’all.”), seems to find his own chronically unsanitary state to be a selling point in his favor: “I’m used to getting my hands dirty on the ranch, so I’m definitely ready to get my hands dirty in the house.” He looks to me like he’s definitely ready for a long, hot shower. In fact, I’m already lathering up. When we first spotted Lane, he said: “Are you jacking with me?” No, I’m not, but I’m open to the experience. (“Lane” is the name of one of the butler characters in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. What would you like to bet that Lane doesn’t know that?)

Just to show that not all the houseguests are from the rural Confederacy, the curse of Jersy Shore struck. A New Jersey mook named Enzo, too homely to get on a show with The Situation, has been stirred into the pot, to work out his rage issues on national TV. Is he a charmer? “I love Jersey, and I love meatballs, and my Mama. If you weren’t my mother, I’d marry you. My strategy is? None of your friggin’ business.” Okay, a not-very-repressed Oedipal case, with a boorish attitude, who isn’t even decorative. Hey, I love meatballs too. Enzo told us: “Five hundred thousand dead presidents, got my name on it.” Where to start? How about with how “it” can not refer to a plural subject like “five hundred thousand dead presidents”? Also, was he referring to the $500,000 first prize, which would be five hundred thousand copies of the same dead president, not a half million different ones? Or was he saying he was going to kill 500,000 presidents? Or does he mean he has 500,000 dead presidents (Heads of state, CEOs, glee club presidents, etc.) in his basement, and he’s renamed all of them “Enzo”?

Breathtakingly beautiful Brendon of Riverside, California, is a high school swim coach, so there’s a high likelihood he doesn’t even own a shirt, which is fine by me. Brendon told us: “I’m definitely used to dealing with all the high school drama, so it’s prepared me perfectly for the Big Brother house.” Brendon’s a realist, and instantly, my favorite. Wait. Did he say he was used to dealing with all the high school drama, or all the high school drama club? Because if the high school drama club where he coaches is anything like the high school drama club Little Dougie was Vice President of about a century ago, it may have perfectly prepared Brendon to play “Big Brother” to Little Dougie, sort of a Wally Cleaver to Dougie’s Beaver. Now if only Lane and Brendon will get a bromance going, this could be a fun summer after all, just as long as Enzo isn’t also collecting dead vice presidents in his cellar.

Philadelphia’s Kristen felt it necessary to tell us: “I’m fun. I’m outgoing. I’m smart.” Again, if you have to tell us, you’re probably not. We were shown Kristen getting sloshed in a bar along with some other young lady alcoholics, but we were never told if she was a waitress or a drunk. I get on well with either.

Last, and certainly least, was Ragan, and no, I don’t know how it’s pronounced either. I suspect that his name was once Reagan, but possessing an education, he was naturally so mortified by the appalling president we once had by that name, that he dropped his e. On the other hand, he’s gay and lives in West Hollywood, so maybe Ragan is just “Raging” misspelled. No wait, he has a PhD. It must be the former. But then, his doctorate is in “Communication Studies,” rather than in something real, like physics, or spinal surgery, or podiatry (Take him down, Andrew!), so maybe it’s the latter. Oh, and don’t let his being gay and living in West Hollywood fool you into thinking he’s some sort of hot, hip, witty, sassy, entertaining, future gay porn star. (like BBs’ former contestant Steven Daigle, now elevated to gay porn star status by BB fan, and reader of this column, the one and only Chi Chi LaRue.) Ragan is the rarest of all gay stereotypes: the Gay Nerd. He not only buttons his collars; he wears bow ties! He exhibits withdrawal symptoms anytime he’s further than ten feet away from a chalkboard. His idea of “barebacking” is not using a pocket protector.

Watching them pack, or “Viewer Torture,” as I believe the segment is called, showed Rachel the Smart Chemist packing her “showgirl” outfits. Ah, she’s one of those chemist-showgirl dual-career gals. I wonder if she has a secret identity, so no one who knows her as a showgirl suspects the secret shame of her clandestine career in chemistry.

Monet wants to pack 90 swimsuits, so she’d never have to wear the same nothing twice. She said she wants houseguests who are up to her standards. Her standards of what? Superficiality? Swimsuit consumption? Idiocy?

Brendon, whom we see possesses a cello, though he doesn’t bring it to the house, alas alack, tells us he’s willing to wear Speedos, and show off The Package to stay in the house. That would certainly get me to let him stay in my house!

Andrew the big lovely lox told us: “I would flirt with a gay guy if it meant me staying in the house another week.” I like the way he – well thinks doesn’t seem like the right word – but I like this idea. So does Ragan. Cut to:

Ragan: “I have a thing for big, dumb guys.” I think I know what that thing is. Cut to:

Lane: “I would like to buddy-up with someone that’s smart, you know, just so I don’t have to do all the thinkin’. And plus I’m not good at it anyways.” How refreshingly honest. Cut to:

Ragan: “They got the brawn, but I got the brain, and I can make them do what I want.” Please tell me these three will share a bedroom.

We see Enzo leaving his wife and child. He’s married? So when he told his mother that he would marry her if only she weren’t his mother, did he mean he’d divorce his wife for his mother? Or did he mean he’d marry his mother bigamously if only she weren’t his mama? Or did he mean that if she wasn’t his mother, his wife would meet with an “accident,” and end up in the crawl space with all those rotting presidents named Enzo? And why is his wife around his age, instead of his mother’s age, since that’s the type he’s drawn to? I’m frightened.

We saw Ragan saying goodbye to his dog, who looked tremendously relieved. Ragan promised his doggie a “big bone.” How West Hollywood can you get?

Rachel, the Smart Chemist Who Keeps Meaning to Join MENSA, went postal on entering the house. She screamed like an overweight 13 year old girl finding Taylor Launtner sitting naked in her bedroom. “I think the house is so much more fun and nicer than Vegas,” she chirruped, the way smart chemists always do. This is the pair of giant boobs who is going to surprise everybody with how smart she is. Right now, I’m surprised she can walk upright.

Brendon the Swim Coach, wearing his hat backwards I hope intentionally, showed us how his mind works: “When I saw Rachel and Britney, the first thing that popped into my head was Damn! I bet you both these girls look way better than I do in a bathing suit.”

1. I see that Brendon coaches swimming from the shallow end of the pool. And …

2. He’s wrong.

Andrew screamed “Mozel Tov” as he entered the BB House. This was apparently a big deal for him. That’s nice. I’m happy for him. It’s not easy handling people’s sick feet all day. For the record, Enzo did not yell: “Son of a …!” as he entered, though when I saw the red flocked wallpaper with some sort of leaf pattern in one bedroom, I did.

Enzo had this hilarious summation of the screamingly ugly, garish BB House: “It’s definitely a lot nicer than my mom’s house back home in Jersey, but I’m pretty sure that the cooking’s not going to be the same.” Enzo, do you, your wife, and your child all live in your mother’s house? Does mom know about the dead presidents in the basement?

The houseguests introduced themselves, and we learned more about them. Kristen is the manager of a shoestore, which you’d think would perk up podiatrist Andrew’s interest. “I also model,” she lied. Hayden’s long-range game plan immediately switched from:

Plan A: Never get voted out. Win $500,000, to

Plan B: Nail “model.”

Matt, we learned, is newly married, and does “website design,” a major nerd profession. His musicianship is strictly amateur. “What I didn’t tell them,” Matt bragged to us, “is that I’m a certified genius.” This must be part of Matt’s cunning plan to alienate the CBS viewership, so he gets screwed anytime there’s an America Votes gimmick, which there is going to be on a regular basis.

For the “Big Twist” this year is [Trumpet Fanfare] “The Saboteur.” Somebody on the show staff watched a great old Alfred Hitchcock movie, and decided to make one contestant a Saboteur, there to create chaos, obey America’s votes, and not get caught out or voted out. Who is the saboteur?

You may have noticed me taking an early dislike to Monet, but she earned brownie points with me when she described Rachel, the Awesomely Intelligent Chemist-Showgirl, as “Boob City. It’s just like two watermelons on her chest. I felt like Rachel was kind of just ditzy.” Oh no. Not that tired old cliche, the Smart-Ditzy Chemist-Showgirl. How often have we seen that? Enzo, with his gift of concise prose, said of Rachel: “Da bada-bing. She’s got weapons.”

Monet also has a gift for concision. This was how she summed up herself: “I’m a student, and I also have two cats.” We’re like sisters. I’ve often been dented by studs, and I also have two cats.

Ragan wasted no time in telling Brendon that he should apply to “be Superman,” although that requires one to have been born a Kryptonian, so if you aren’t already one, you never will be. Brendon speculated that Superman is paid more than a high school gym teacher. By whom? Superman works for free. Clark Kent works for a newspaper, which these days, doesn’t pay at all.

Brendon may have noticed some slight hint of sexual come-on in Ragan’s suggestion, and in the way Ragan’s eyes were raping him. Ragan went off on a fantasy of forming an “alliance” with Brendon, and then the Big Twist being that Brendon was gay, although that’s not much of a plot twist anymore. But Ragan had already moved on to their falling in love, picking out china patterns, and shopping for matching bow ties. He was so lost, he didn’t even notice Hayden’s intro, although Haydon is every bit as big as Brendon, and probably even dumber.

Andrew made a modest, funny little joke when he introduced himself, showing a glimmer of charm. We were just 13 minutes into the show, which means it’s only been ten minutes since Rachel, The Stephen Hawking of Chemist-Showgirls, said: “I’m going to surprise everybody with how smart I am,” when she said of Andrew: “So what really stuck out to me was Andrew, because he’s Jewish, and so he wears a Yom Kippur. I believe that’s what it’s called.” She also believes she’s smart. She can believe anything. Should we tell her that “Rachel” is a Jewish name? Would that get her to wear a “Yom Kippur”?

Andrew was not going to let Big Brother compromise his Judiasm in any way. He was adamant about that. Apparently that “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness” commandment against lying doesn’t apply to his version of Judaism, because he told everyone he’d been a day trader, then unemployed, and is now selling shoes, omitting that “successful podiatrist” detail, though staying with a general “foot” theme to his imaginary occupation. So, if breaking one of The Ten Commandments isn’t “compromising his Judaism,” what is?

Lane said he’s a salesman for an oil company. Earlier he was a ranch hand. Just which one of the Ewing Family’s businesses is he is in: Jock’s cattle or JR’s oil?

When Kathy told them she was 40, they were all shocked. The smart money was on 53, with lots of “work.” But when she revealed she was a cop, Enzo went into panic mode. Was the house surrounded? Was he in Witness Protection instead of Big Brother? Was she onto him? Was she searching for those dead presidents? Why was she dressed and made up that way? Undercover as a middle-aged hooker? “If she gets outta hand, we’re probably gonna have ta take care of business,” said Enzo, making what I hope was a “joke.”

Enzo said he’s in real estate. My guess is it goes like this: “I get real wit ya, then I get ya estate.” Annie thinks Enzo is sexy. Annie is deranged.

Ragan also lied about his job, saying he was a student, rather than a professor, because, you know, professors of “Communication Studies” are all so rich, they don’t need the prize money. As soon as he spoke, the inner-fruit-fly came out of Britney, and she “knew” they would be best friends, discussing boys and music and clothes. The moment Britney spoke, Ragan failed to notice she existed, as he was busy scribbling “Mrs. Brendon” all over his binder, and having “Brendon’s Bitch” tattooed on his butt cheeks.

Annie is a bisexual bartender, though whether she tends bar at a bisexual bar, she didn’t say. She kept her bisexuality secret, like they always do.

“Dear, I’m bisexual.”

“What? Why didn’t you ever tell me before?”

“It never came up.”

“It never came up? We’ve been married for 20 years!”

Julie Chen, or The Chenfather to Enzo, revealed to the houseguests that there was a saboteur among them. While Rachel, the Albert Einstein of Chemist-Showgirls, tried to ask around what “sabre toother” meant, Enzo grasped it, and translated it into “Jersey” for us at once: “There’s some type of a rat in here. I hate rats! Anything that has to do with the rodent family, I don’t like.” You heard him, America, Enzo hates Mickey Mouse! I wonder if Enzo ever has a response to anything that doesn’t come from a Scorsese movie.

As Julie read out that the Saboteur’s game was to sabotage their games, which you’d think even Rachel, the Doctor Who of Test Tubes and Headdresses, could figure out on her own, Kathy, the 40-year-old cop, held a pillow over her own face, kicked her feet in the air, and moaned out ” Noooo! Nooooo!” She must present a refreshing change of pace at her morning police briefings.

“Let’s be careful out there.”

“Noooo. Nooooo.”

“Officer Kathy, put down my seat cushion.”

“I did not see that coming at all,” said Ragan, who has been in the house a total of 20 minutes at this point.

As Rachel, the Profoundly Wise Mistress of the Periodic Table and Bedazzled Runways, tried to explain her perception of -well, anything – to us, a caption was put up, identifying her as a “VIP Cocktail Waitress.” So by “Chemist,” she meant she mixed drinks? And for VIPs yet? Why didn’t she say that in the first place? That I can respect! I’m a VIP! Make me a vodka tonic: heavy on the vodka; just the merest whisper of tonic.

As paranoia exploded in every direction (The only thing Annie found more suspicious than someone mocking the saboteur, or talking about the saboteur, was someone not mocking or not talking about the saboteur.), Kathy got off a genuinely funny line: “The new Miranda Warning will be: anything you say or do will be misquoted and used against you.” Now there’s an honest cop.

As Kathy contemplated the horror of getting sabotaged into having to eat Slop, I found myself wondering if BB had prepared a special Kosher Slop for Andrew.

Head of Household Competition: Someone had to sit out the first HOH competition. Andrew volunteered. It’s what my people do. Enzo and Hayden, neither one an astrophysicist, nor even a showgirl, were instantly suspicious. Yeah. That’s just what the saboteur would do. Single himself out for attention at the very first opportunity, by taking a position that prevents him from sabotaging the first competition. “Why would anybody want to sit out an HOH competition?” asked Hayden, apparently unaware that several contestants over the years have adopted a strict “Don’t-Win-Competitions” strategy to survive in the game that has been quite successful.

Last year Casey Turner got suckered into wearing a banana outfit for a week on the show. (Hi Casey!) He’s still marketing his Bananaman stuff online. This time, Andrew found that as “Mascot,” sitting out also involved being dressed as a giant hot dog, or in his case, a Hebrew National Kosher Weener. “Here comes the weenie,” Andrew tastefully announced (If only all men were so thoughtful about giving warnings), as he ran into the hall, sending Kathy into a huge laughing jag. He was wearing the head-hood part of the weener costume bunched around his neck, making himself look like one majorly uncircumcised weener.

The contest was weenie-roast themed. There were big weeners suspended over giant fake coals. “I definitely want to jump on those big weeners,” said Rachel, the Sir Noel Coward of cocktail-disbursement, inert reactions, and stylish, subtle wit.

All right, this was a bit complicated, but it had an interesting spin. The houseguests were divided into two teams. They team members had to jump on and cling to a giant frankfurter (Kagan knew he had an advantage there), while team members cranked them across the coals until they could jump onto the far platform.

Ah, but here’s the fiendish bit: the first player to reach the far platform gets $10,000. That is more money than I’ve been paid to cling to a dangling weenie while it gets cranked out in over 45 years! The second person gets less. Third a lot less, and so forth on to diminishing returns, so okay, everyone will want to be first, except – Ha! the last one across wins HOH! And only their team also wins the cash rewards. Brilliant idea! Whoever came up with this challenge: bravo!

Kristen, who’s not as smart as she looks, which means she’s in deep trouble in Life, had an immediate strategy, which was “Get $10,000!” It was more money for grabbing onto a big weenie than she would normally make that way in two years. But she hadn’t counted on the weenie having been thoroughly lubed up first. Yes, we were going to get to watch people slide off of giant weenies! Who says there’s nothing good on TV anymore?

Annie the bi-bartendress won the big money for the yellow team. Best tip she’s had in her whole life, and an impressive shaft too.

Monet showed that her name is really “Mo-ney” She didn’t even stop to think. She was born to shop. She sailed on to the red team’s $10,000 in a blur of greed. Only when the money was Monet’s grasp did it cross her mind that she had fostered jealousy among the others, while screwing herself out of a shot at HOH, and safety from the jealous glares of her team mates. Oops.

Ragan showed tremendous self-control getting across second, for the $1000, while being sprayed with condiments as he sailed by. (No kidding. They were getting squirted with mustard, and pickle relish, and what I hope was mayonnaise.)

Britney, who is probably inexperienced, fell off of her weener. Britney darling, as my own mother said to me, when that happens, you have to get right back on the horse-like part, and ride. Kathy, who has kids older than some of the houseguests, you’d think would be a better weener-wrangler, but she slid right off also. However, hot Lane grabbed on, clenched with all his considerable might, and sailed across. Mmmm.

As the weeners got more slippery, Brendon and Rachel, the Brightest Boobs in Chemistry, stripped off their shirts for better traction. Enzo piped in that Rachel removing her bra also would be “a great strategic move.” Quite apart from the fact that a six-ton crane is required to remove that bra without casualties, how would that be strategic? And she still won’t be able to get her hands all the way to the weener with those huge boobs in the way. I don’t know how she applauds.

Well, the fun turned ugly. Britney, who was a total waste of flesh at this challenge, fell off over and over and over. I didn’t think it would be possible for me to grow tired of watching her slide off a huge weenie, but it was. She finally injured herself, thank God. So she’s lying there moaning, clutching her knee. Andrew, remember, is a doctor, but he’s lied about that. He will not allow Big Brother to compromise his Judaism, but his Hippocratic oath is another matter altogether. As Britney rolled about, moaning and crying in pain, clutching her wounded knee, unable to stand, Andrew stood there in his hot dog get-up, and said and did nothing. His Judaism is uncompromised, but his Medical Ethics, which some might prize more highly, are in tatters.

As the medic looked at her knee, Monet wondered in a humanitarian way if Britney was the saboteur, and was faking her injury. This would accomplish what? Depriving herself of wining HOH? Slowing down the competition?

But then, they took her out of the HOH competition, and, to even things out, brought back one of her teammates who had already crossed, which sabotaged that player, but also gave their team time to strategize a winning deal. Maybe Britney is the Saboteur. What? Now I’m doing it! Britney’s too dumb to be The Saboteur. The woman just said: “I lost my dignity on a slippery weener.” Haven’t we all, sister, haven’t we all?

Britney’s team benefitted from her fall. Hayden from her team won Head of Household, the first HOH since Jordumb who probably can’t spell HOH. And Monet, who suspected Britney of sabotaging them, got her $10,000 because of that fall.

By going to CBS.com, you can participate in coming up with fiendish stuff for the saboteur to do. As a journalist, I shall refrain from making suggestions myself, except for my repeated suggestion that the Saboteur destroy all of Brendon’s and Lane’s pants. Maybe if we all suggest the Saboteur destroy all of Brendon’s and Lane’s pants, he or she will, particularly if the saboteur is Ragan, who might do it anyway.

To allow for some sabotage, they turned out the house lights, plunging the houseguests into darkness and us into nightvision. Britney exhibited her originality by telling us: “It was so dark, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.” Darling, it was so dark, that wasn’t your hand!

Enzo wasn’t fooled by darkness. He’s spent his whole life being dim. “I tink I seen somethin’. Definitely a little fishy when the lights went out. I knew it was definitely an act of sabotage.” (Astounding Holmes! I can see nothing!) “The saboteur was definitely strikin’ at that point. You gotta get up a little bit early in the mornin’, ya know, to get one past the Jersey Kid.” What constitutes “a little bit early”? He figured out that if the lights went out, someone turned them out. He’s smart enough to be a chemist-showgirl.

Brendon, who has a teaching credential remember, assumed that the lights just going out in a windowless house, plunging them all into total darkness, was merely Big Brother‘s way of telling them it was time for beddy-bye. So he stumbled off in the darkness, to brush his teeth and go to bed like Helen Keller during a power failure. Is this how his mother used to send him to bed? Just plunge the whole house into darkness without warning, so they knew to stumble off to bed in the blackness? It’s not how we did things in my home. I’m agin it.

While Brendon was being a total idiot, Andrew was off making prank noises, apparently solely to raise suspicions against himself, since I can think of no other reason to do so, except, that that is a tremendously stupid thing to do at all. Meanwhile, whoever the actual saboteur is, they’ve locked the storeroom with all the food in it, so there is nothing to eat but slop. What a pest. And he’s locked up all the vodka. The fiend!

Rachel, the Mastermind of Chemistry, the Empress of Showgirls, The Brainiac of Boobs (Boobiac!) is facing starvation: “I have not eaten anything but a banana.” I believe her, although it was very, very dark. Maybe it was only shaped like a banana. Did the peel have a zipper?

Boobiac continued on The Saboteur: “As soon as we find out who it is, they’re out!” Good plan! It totally trumps the earlier, poorly-thought-out plan: find out who it is, thank them, make them permanent HOH, and have sex with them. Now then, Boobiac, how do you take that first step? How do you find out who it is?

Hayden said of Brendon’s sudden attack of dark dental hygiene: “You can’t see two feet in front of your face, he’s going to brush his teeth in the middle of the night. Suspicious. Who does that?” For a dimwit, that’s actually a pretty intelligent question. Who does that? I sometimes find myself unexpectedly flossing in the dead of night, but I don’t get out of bed to do it, and never when alone with a saboteur.

And thus we left them. The lights are off, but everybody’s home. I’ll be here every Friday, to rehash and mock each week’s broadcasts. Next week the identity of The Saboteur will be revealed to we, the viewers.

Cheers darlings.

To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead, the Merrier, or buy her book, My Lush Life.

Does Miley Cyrus have any business duetting with Bret Michaels?

SKIP: Bret Michaels, “Custom Built”

Bret Michaels has not had a good year. The dude has endured brain hemorrhages, mini-strokes, and Donald Trump. Who doesn’t want him to catch a break with a new hit album? Bret Michaels is a survivor, but it’s hard to believe that “Custom Built” will last despite pulling out all the big mainstream rock stops. He slides up to Miley Cyrus (it’s hard to know who’s using whom) for a big, mid-tempo power ballad. Then he digs up a countrified Poison do-over of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” and sings all sorts songs about late ’80s heroes caught in dead-end towns. “Custom Built” is tailor-made for nostalgia, but you can’t go home again. And why would you, really?

WATCH Bret Michaels and Miley Cyrus perform “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” live.

PLAY: Big Boi, “Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty”

Technically, Big Boi’s first solo album was his half of OutKast’s 2003′s “Speakerboxxx” to Andre 3000′s “The Love Below” flip side. Don’t let the length of the title scare you: Big Boi’s beats are tight and his rhymes are fantastically fluid — if somewhat impenetrable. It makes you remember those glory days of the early 2000s when OutKast ruled the world. And it’s enough to make you believe they can do it again. No one makes music this fresh and original. Expect maybe Andre 3000.

WATCH the music video for Big Boi’s single “Shutterbug.”

PLAY: Kylie Minogue, “Aphrodite”

It’s been three years since Kylie Minogue has made an album, and for her recorded homecoming she’s enlisted an army of producers to revisit her early dance club roots. Whereas Bret Michaels’ attempt to mine his former Poison glory comes off as formulaic, “Aphrodite” is like a family reunion held in a rave party. It’s full of ’80s synth escapism and Eurotrash goodness. If you like that kind of thing, this one’s a “play.”

LISTEN to Kylie Minogue’s single “All the Lovers.”

SKIP: Enrique Iglesias, “Euphoria”

Don’t be fooled by the lack of a tuxedo: Enrique Iglesias is smooth. Like his father, Julio, Enrique is made for the ladies. Dudes need not apply. After ping-ponging between Spanish and English language albums, the son of a crooner made his first bilingual record. Presumably, this means he can seduce more women at once. On “Euphoria,” Iglesias relies less on bedroom eyes and ballads, instead enlisting Lady Gaga producer RedOne to turn up the tempos, beats, and AutoTune. Usher and Akon show up for U.S. ladies, and Dominican superstar Juan Luis Guerra has a Spanish duet for Latin cred. The album is 50-50, just like the language mix. It’s hard to find the singer under some of the production. Still, it shouldn’t stop the ladies from flocking. Jealous?

WATCH the music video for Enrique Iglesias’ single “Quando Me Enamoro.”

PLAY: “Jimmie Vaughan Plays Blues, Ballads & Favorites”

Stevie Ray’s big brother and the Fabulous Thunderbirds frontman does what he does best. Actually, he does the only thing he knows how to do: play the blues. Were you expecting a concept record? Groundbreaking it’s not. Masterful playing it is. Once again.

WATCH Jimmie Vaughan play “Comin’ & Goin’” live.

Playwright William Inge wrote the original screenplay about a Navy serviceman who returns to his small town, Maple Grove, after three years overseas. He comes home to find that his high school girlfriend has married a rich older man (which was not the case in the original play). The lead was played by Michael Parks, whom Universal Studios had hoped would become the new James Dean. His ex-girlfriend was seductively portrayed by Ann-Margret, who had just starred in two of her biggest sex kitten roles with The Pleasure Seekers and Kitten With A Whip (the wholesome Bye Bye Birdie was released two years earlier, in 1963). She had also been Elvis Presley’s love interest in Viva Las Vegas just prior to this role.

Inge was incensed when the movie switched from Riley’s story, as in his screenplay, to one that focused heavily on the Ann-Margret character of a rich, bored, sexy housewife who wanted to resume her relationship with the handsome, brooding Parks character. He refused to allow his name to be on the picture, and the writing credit reads William Gage.

All that aside, this movie remains one of my personal all time favorites. It’s possible to strip aside (or delight in) the mid-Sixties affectations like inappropriately weird upbeat music in certain scenes – like the opening scene, which can be viewed here through the magic of YouTube (and, in fact, it’s possible to watch the entire film in sections).

As the film opens, Michael Parks’ character arrives back in Small Town USA, still dressed in his Navy whites, and takes a cab home. His mother (played by Jocelyn Brando, older sister of Marlon) opens the door, overjoyed to see him. He bunks down on the couch as his room is currently being let to a boarder – an uptight schoolmarm named Carlotta. At breakfast (while Bus sleeps) Carlotta (Brett Somers, in her first film) complains that she might need to move out because there’s only one bathroom “and I know how men can mess up a bathroom.” Adoring little sister Gussie (played by Kim Darby in her first movie role) wakes Bus up as he sprawls sleeping on the couch, then scampers off to breakfast, barely able to contain her excitement that big brother is home.

Janet Margolin plays Gussie’s best friend, Judy, who’s always nurtured a secret crush on Bus. Meanwhile when Laurel (Ann-Margret) finds out Bus is back, she cruises town in her expensive sports car looking for him. She eventually entices him back into an unhealthy, depraved sexual relationship that he comes to feel completely trapped in. The dialogue waxes brilliant. (You can see the scene below here)

Laurel: I didn’t get to see you in your little sailor suit. (pouting)
Bus: I never saw you in your bridal gown. You did wear white, didn’t you?
Laurel: I coulda lived without that remark.

Bus knows he’s falling right back into his old, bad patterns with Laurel but can’t seem to stop himself. They had a torrid affair in high school and one of the reasons – or the reason – he left town to join the service was a huge scandal that ensued from that (hey – I have to leave some of the plot points a secret!). Bus finds a soul-less job selling vacuum cleaners door to door to lonely women who find him irresistible. There are no whole, happy people here: Judy cares for her alcoholic mother, Bus’ own mother is a widow. Laurel is frozen in a horrible, loveless marriage looking for anything to divert her. Gussie is probably the only one who’s innocent and truly happy.

It’s a dark, intense picture that unfortunately never achieved the success it deserved and is even yet not available on DVD, though apparently can be purchased on VHS.

That the usual low ratings of the Tonys had resulted in a lower budget was apparent up front, when, instead of an orchestra playing an overture, they just had little Sean Hayes playing the piano. He plays it well. I guess learning the piano gave him something to do since Will & Grace went off the air. I don’t want to say that Sean’s career has gone to hell since that popular show ended, but the poor man has been reduced to appearing in live theater, and still worse, playing a heterosexual. Some people will do anything for money, even act straight. And then, just when it seemed he couldn’t sink any lower, he hosts The Tonys. Let’s face it, more people will see you when you’re out of work and just guzzling vodka in your pajamas all day than will see you host the Tonys. And then there’s the “What? Where’s Hugh Jackman?” tune-out factor. I mean, when you turn on a show expecting to see Hugh Jackman, and you get Sean Hayes instead, well, things can turn ugly fast.

Which is just what happened. Sean’s current Broadway co-star, the shrill, piercing-voiced Christian actress Kristin Chenoweth, joined Sean onstage, and immediately began singing about praying. Between no Hugh Jackman, and then a shrill Christian singing about praying, I was almost ready to try watching basketball instead myself. Almost! So that’s why they cast a famous openly-gay man to star in Promises, Promises. No straight man could convincingly pretend to be in love with Chenoweth. It takes talent, something mostly found in gay men.

Once the Chenoweth creature had been hauled offstage, probably by force, some wonderful dancers began showing their stuff, while Frank Sinatra sang I’m Gonna Live ‘Til I Die. Apparently Frank isn’t aware that he did die quite some time back, so he really should have sung it in the past tense. “I lived ’till I died!” (Most people do.) So much for “Live Theater.” There’s nothing “live” about Frank, but it was a relief to hear his mellifluous voice after our ears had been assaulted by Chenoweth, and the dancing was delightful.

It had been easily 30 seconds since the show’s last dose of religion had ended with the removal of Chenoweth, so they then trotted out three women from a show called, I believe, Everyday Rapture, though with my eyes, it may have been Everyday Rupture, which sounds most unpleasant, and they began singing about coming up to a roof to be closer to Heaven. Tony Awards, if I wanted to go to church, I would.

But then, just as I was wondering if I should forget about writing this column and just drink myself to sleep, out came a short number from a musical called Fela that was magic. Great rhythms, marvelous melody, terrific dancing by gorgeous men, and also some women I think, and I was reminded of why I watch The Tonys every year. No matter how annoying an entry on the show is, something wonderful may be just seconds away. Admittedly, this song’s lyrics were just “La la la la,” and it ended with a nails-on-a-chalkboard shriek that sounded like a cat being strangled with an air pump, but up until that unfortunate last note, it was delightful.

Then a tidbit from the latest revival of La Cage Aux Folles. Okay, the show gets overdone. The revival with Gary Beach only closed about 20 minutes before this revival opened, but once you’ve got a stage full of drag queens singing Jerry Herman’s gay anthems, you know you’re on Broadway!

And then a rock band called Green Day came out and shrieked at us. I missed most of their song, as I had to hit “mute” when they began screaming at me. Tony producers, putting loud, obnoxious rock music on after the drag queens exit still won’t get anyone under 40 to watch. And worse, they did two songs! Sinatra, Fela, and the queens singing the loveable melodies of Jerry Herman only got to do one song each. But then, Green Day’s second number had no detectable melody, just people screaming on the same pitch, so perhaps it didn’t count as a “song.”

Finally, the almost ten-minute opening medley was over. It had been about two great minutes, surrounded by eight annoying ones. The ratio didn’t bode well for the rest of the evening.

And then we had Sean Hayes playing tonsil hockey with that hideous Chenoweth creature, and I was almost wishing Green Day would come back and shriek at me some more. Fortunately, I hadn’t eaten before the broadcast. At least when she’s kissing, Chenoweth can’t assault us with that irritating voice of hers, and it showed us what turned Sean gay. Kissing her could turn Warren Beatty gay.

Sean began his monologue discussing something called “The World Cup.” No one there, or in my home either, for that matter, had any idea what he was talking about.

Wait! Nathan Lane is there? Why isn’t he hosting? I know from attending a few Will & Grace tapings that Sean can be very funny off-the-cuff, but his monologue was not very strong, apart from a good Carol Channing joke.

Daniel Radcliffe is going to play J. Pierpont Finch in (yet) a(nother) revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying?

1. The character is American, very American!

2. He’s too young.

3. Much as I love the show and its great score, some of it is beyond dated. How do you perform a hymn to being an unliberated woman like “I’d Be So Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm” in 2010?

4. Besides, it’s cheating when you can advance in the company using witchcraft.

They shackled poor, darling Daniel with Mrs. Tom Cruise as a co-presenter. She towered over him. Good grief! How can Daniel be shorter than Tom Cruise? Cruise himself makes hobbits look like NBA players. Yet, if Daniel had stood directly in front of Mrs. Cruise, her entire head would have still been fully visible, more’s the pity.

Mrs. Cruise said of theater versus movies: “You can hear the actors breathing.” Setting aside for a moment the question of why that would be something you’d want to do, I’m sure that when she was onstage, that sound she heard wasn’t the actor’s breathing; it was the audience snoring.

When Scarlett Johansson won Best Featured Movie Star in a Play, the announcatrix said she won “for her marvelous performance”. Well I didn’t suppose they’d given her the award for a lousy performance. (Unlike Mrs. Cruise, Scarlett Johansson is a wonderful actress. However, Scarlett’s hairstyle looked better when Bela Lugosi wore it in Dracula.)

Ricky Martin, looking great, introduced a musical number. Finally a straight man at the Tonys. What, Dougie? You’re joking! Never mind.

Martin said Million Dollar Quartet was a new musical. Then why were the songs they performed from it all well over 50 years old? (Including a spiritual! I had enough religion in the opening medley.) Levi Kreis, the guy playing Jerry Lee Lewis, is vastly better-looking than Lewis was on the best day of his life. Of course, if Levi really wanted to commit to being Jerry Lee Lewis, he’d have gotten married a minimum of twice just during the song he performed, either to a cousin, or a 13 year old, or both. I believe the quite-elderly real Mr. Lewis went through a few wives just during the broadcast, though nowadays when he sings “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On,” it has a whole different meaning. Perhaps Lewis should consider converting to Mormonism. Think of the time he could save, if he was able to marry teenage relatives two or three at a time.

In his opening monologue, Sean had described the character Scarlett Johansson shortly won her Tony for as “a young woman shocked to discover her uncle lusts after her,” yet somehow, she wasn’t in that same play about Jerry Lee Lewis. Apparently incest is hot on Broadway this season. I guess how attractive or repellant one finds incest to be would depend on whom you’re related to. I’d be lying if I said the idea would hold no attraction for me if Hugh Jackman were my nephew, or brother, or son, or father, or fraternal twin. Fortunately, all my relatives are revolting.

The announcerette called Eddie Redmayne’s Tony-winning performance in Red a “masterful portrayal.” She was determined to make sure we didn’t think they were handing out Tonys for lousy performances.

Kelsey Grammar, wearing a rug large enough to carpet my living room, came out and explained the plot of La Cage Aux Folles to the six people there who have never seen any of the three Broadway productions, the thousands of regional productions, the enormously-popular original French movie, the original stage farce the movie was based on, or the Robin Williams-Nathan Lane movie The Birdcage. I expected Lane, in the audience, to stand up and shout “Oh, that’s what it was all about!” Perhaps next Kelsey could explain the plot of Charlie’s Aunt for us.

And I’m sorry, but I find the whole idea of Kelsey Grammar, a notorious Republican, who gives money in large buckets to the Republican party to help keep The Party of No in power and firmly doing all they can to repress gay rights, starring in a famous pro-gay rights/pro-gay marriage play inappropriate at best, highly offensive at worst. Yes I know Kelsey himself is not homophobic, and has many gay friends, but he finances the very people who fight tirelessly to keep gay rights at bay. With friends like Kelsey Grammar, the Gay Community doesn’t need enemies. Bear in mind: when you buy a ticket to see La Cage Aux Folles, part of your ticket money goes into Kelsey’s pocket, and part of that money ends up going to help elect more anti-gay Republican politicos. At least when Elton John performed at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding, it meant some of Rush’s personal money (a big, huge chunk of it. Easily a million, if not two) ended up going to Elton’s AIDS charities, in a delicious irony. But with Kelsey Grammar in La Cage, the money is flowing the wrong way! The number looked like great fun, but I will never pay a cent to see Grammar again in anything.

And is Kelsey getting all the money the show is bringing in? Because we saw his wonderful co-star Douglas Hodge apparently working for tips from the audience.

Michael Grandage, accepting his Tony for Best Direction of a Play They Forgot to Write Songs For, stared down at his award for his entire speech, as though terrified to look out at the audience, or make eye contact with the cameras. If he’s a good enough director to deserve his award, he ought to know better. The man needed a director to yell: “We’re out here!” at him.

Nominee for Best Play They Forgot to Write Songs For In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play turns out to be about the inventing of the vibrator. At last relevant theater about a subject of extreme importance, which can stir up deep feelings at the touch of a button. What a refreshing change from trivial fluff like Death of a Salesman or King Lear. But how can this not be a musical? Mine all make me sing! (But please, pick a title.)

When selecting a winner for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, how do you choose between the divine Barbara Cook, who can do no wrong, and Angela Lansbury, a brilliant legend who made her stage debut in the original production of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895? Well they couldn’t, so they gave the award to someone else. I’m sure “Katie Finneran” is probably very good in Promises, Promises (The announcerina said she was “wonderful”), but how could she be better than Barbara Cook? No one is better than Barbara Cook. Maybe they gave her the award simply for not being Kristin Chenoweth, much in the same way that if you repeatedly hit yourself with a hammer, it feels so great when you stop.

In some sort of horrible mix-up, they introduced a guy named Mark Sanchez, whose connection to theater is non-existent, saying he was a member of “The Jets.” Well naturally we all assumed this meant he was from the cast of a West Side Story revival, but no. Someone goofed up. It turns out there’s also a sports team of some sort by that name, which was news to me. He was passed off as a “Theater Afficionado”. Well if being a “Theater Afficionado” is sufficient to get you a gig presenting at The Tony Awards, why isn’t Little Dougie presenting? Did the Lakers bring out Harvey Firestein to throw out the first ball, or whatever it is they bring out people to do?

However, I’d rather have kept Sanchez around (He was easy on the eyes.) Than bring back out Kristin Chenoweth, which unfortunately is just what they did next. Will no one rid me of this troublesome Kristin? The audience laughed at her bit. I didn’t.

I was shocked to see that Bobby Steggert was nominated for the Featured Actor in a Musical Tony. Two years ago I saw him play Mordred in Camelot on TV, and he was horrible, playing this classic villain as some sort of gay Goth, with all the menace of Chris Kattan’s old SNL character Mango. How bad are you, when you and Roddy McDowell play the same role, and Roddy is the butch one? How terrible are you when you’re in a show with Fran Drescher, and I hate your work more than hers? He must have gotten a lot better since. He was nominated for Ragtime, a great show. Maybe he was benefitting from the goodwill that lovely play creates in its audiences.

Anyway, they gave it to Levi Kreis for playing Jerry Lee Lewis without violating any laws or community standards of decency. But then he thanked his “Spiritual Center” and some Reverend, “for holding me up and making me more available to my good.” Of course, all priests, ministers, and reverends hold people up. They all are, after all, simply smooth-talking confidence tricksters, but maybe he should see a shrink, to make him more available to his sanity. (I might add, he was wearing a string tie with a tux. Well, he hadn’t thanked his fashion advisors.)

Barbara Cook introduced Catherine Zeta-Jones to sing “Send in the Clowns”. Now I like Little Mrs. Douglas just fine, but this was horribly backwards. She should have been introducing Barbara Cook to sing it. No one sings better than Babs Cook! Just because Catherine’s husband is older than Angela Lansbury doesn’t mean she should sing when you have Barbara Cook standing right there.

I might add that Mrs. Douglas’s performance of the song was odd at best. She was sending out rather peculiar vowels, and running out of air at the ends of phrases, so for instance one line became: “Me here at last on the ground; you in mid a—” Ironic that she hadn’t enough air to finish singing the word “air.” Her voice broke at one point, though I suppose she could claim that was “acting.” It wasn’t singing. She should have felt humiliated to have sung that poorly a few feet away from Barbara Cook.

Christopher Oram, accepting his Tony for Best Scenic Design of a Play, said winning it was “incredibly humbling.” Why do people spout that cliche? “Humbling” is exactly what winning a Tony (or an Emmy, or an Oscar) is not! Winning a Razzie is humbling.

Christine Jones, winning the same award for a musical, thanked one man, whom she called “the love of my life and the father of my children,” and then thanked another man, whom she called “the love of my other life and father of my other children.” Is she a Mormon? Is she Jerry Lee Lewis? Is she schizophrenic?

The taste of Catherine Zeta-Jones-Douglas’s valiant losing battle with “Send in the Clowns” was washed from our ears finally by a beautiful performance by Christiane Noll of “Back to Before” from Ragtime. Were you listening Catherine? Because that is how it’s done!

Trust me, the play Lend Me a Tenor is considerably funnier than the lame banter performed when describing it to us, by Tony Shaloub, Anthony LaPaglia, and whoever the third actor from it was. (He wasn’t introduced.)

For the record, Valerie Harper was not playing me in Looped. In fact, according to the critics and audiences, she was barely playing that other Tallulah either. How did she get a Tony nomination for that performance? It was panned left and right, and audiences stayed away in droves. The show closed about 20 minutes after it opened. Not surprisingly, she lost.

Viola Davis, who did win, announced she didn’t believe in luck or happenstance. Does she believe in sunlight, or healthcare, or math? She found it necessary instead to announce her firm belief in God. Maybe I should go to her church, and announce my belief in drink, since she’s insisting on taking up everyone’s time making sure we all know she’s just a teensy bit insane. Why must they keep dragging their superstitious delusions into a nice theatrical awards show? Viola began sobbing, as she thanked “entities” for her award. I liked her dress, but she’ll never be able to return it all tear-stained, and it’s hardly appropriate for church. You know, I liked her until she started talking, but by the end of her sobfest, I was wishing Valerie had won after all.

Denzel Washington won Best Male Movie Star in a play, he also stuck a bit of religious blather into his speech, but only a little, and he managed not to cry. Well, when you have a couple Oscars, a little thing like a Tony is not quite so impressive.

The big mid-show number from Fela started off worrisomely with some hideous, screechy singing from a woman wearing a hat twice as big as her head, but once she stopped harshly bellowing at us, it turned into something fine, with wonderful dancing by some very hot dancers wearing very little clothing, and one heck of a gorgeous, half-naked, well-muscled conga drummer. But they went to commercial while the number was still going on. Why couldn’t they have done that while Catherine Zeta-Jones-Douglas was struggling through her song, or while “Green Day” were screaming at us?

They brought out Michael Zeta-Jones-Douglas to hand out the Regional Theater Award. Fortunately, he didn’t try to sing.

Sir Alan Ayckbourne and Marian Seldes received Lifetime Achievement Awards, and lovely little David Hyde Pierce (who probably has a different opinion concerning Kelsey Grammar than I do) won an award for his fight against Alzheimer’s, but these awards can’t have been too heartfelt, as they weren’t deemed important enough to award on the show, but were shunted off in a montage, along with other disrespected categories like Best Score of a Musical. Pierce thanked his “partner,” among others. He’s legally gay married. Why not let his pride flag fly all the way, particularly on Gay Pride Day, and call him “my husband”? It’s not going to scare the horses at the Tonys, and he’s certainly made no secret of it.

Paula Abdul presented Best Choreography. (Choreography gets awarded on the show, but not Best Score or Best Book of a Musical? Hello?) Paula seemed sober and lucid, but then every word she spoke was written – by someone else! Imagine if she’d been speaking off the cuff: “These choreographers really did their things – leave me alone! – and were themselves, and who is that? They know who they are, and they really – you have something on your nose. I like grapes. I was fired from the Bratz movie. This is hard!” Seeing Paula again, I was reminded of how much I have not missed her on American Idol.

We saw a dance number from Promises, Promises that consisted of Sean sitting at his office desk, “working,” while people danced all around and over him. All I could think watching it was: how does he ever get any work done in this distracting office? The striking choreography of Fela won, although I was even more impressed by Twyla Tharp’s amazing work in Come Fly With Me.

The Dead People Montage was mostly people named Redgrave. The applause always sounds weird, since it always sounds like they’re applauding the fact that the person is dead. (And when they applauded for the death of one critic, I’m sure that’s what it was.) But if you are going to applaud for some of the cadavers, then I must admit to feeling miffed that no one applauded for Larry Gelbart. Hello? Larry Gelbart! How does a critic get applause and not the great Larry Gelbart?

For Gene Barry, they put two photos side by side: a color shot of Barry in the original La Cage Aux Folles, and a black and white shot of someone else who was labeled as “Gene Barry.” I met Gene just two years ago, and that wasn’t him in that photo. Looking at the pictures side-by-side, and I froze-framed and did just that, anyone not blind could see the guy in the black & white shot had amuch bigger nose, for one thing. Whoever he was, he looked more like Robert Stack than Gene Barry, but it wasn’t Stack either.

I guess they added a new category: Best Color, because the gave a Tony to “Red.” Well, if they can have Best Direction (I like “Down,” because that’s how I like to go.), why not Best Color?

They brought out some gay guy from Glee (I don’t watch it) to sing “All I need is the Girl” from Gypsy, which is a great dance number, and which he performed quite well, but I have seldom believed the lyrics less. Then they brought out someone else from Glee to sing “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from Funny Girl, which was also done fairly well, though not as well as “All I Need is the Girl.” What wasn’t made clear was why they did this. This was two and a half hours into the show. Time to cut stuff and speed it up, not add more utterly gratuitous additional filler.

In lieu of good comedy material, Sean kept coming out in “funny” costumes: Annie, Billy Elliot, Spider-man. The latter two costumes were at pains to display large bulges in Sean’s crotch. Sean, find somewhere else to store your old socks, because you’re not fooling anyone.

The always-hideously unpleasant Raquel Welch came marching out, apparently just to show off her fresh face-and-boob jobs. Honestly Raquel, you’re what? 90? Do you think we all believe you look like that naturally? And actually, the work on her chin and cheeks wasn’t of sufficient quality to stand up to Hi-Def viewing, nor was her wig remotely convincing. It may have been the same one Kelsey wore earlier.

Raquel was presenting Best Revival of a Musical, obviously in hopes of reviving her own moribund career. After she said: “A revival is not necessarily a reproduction,” she laughed merrily, as though this simple fact, already known to everyone present, was a joke of some sort. Well, when you possess absolutely no trace of a sense of humor yourself, you sometimes have to just guess if what you’re saying is a joke or not, but the only joke during Raquel’s presentation was Raquel herself.

The Musical Revival award went to La Cage Aux Folles. Owing to its leading man, I’d have preferred any of the other nominees: Finian’s Rainbow, Ragtime, or A Little Night Music, all of them better shows, with stronger scores as well, all though La Cage is a perfectly good, second-tier musical.

Some pratt from Green Day named Billy Joe Armstrong came out and proved he’s unsuited to public speaking, when introducing a number from a show called American Idiot. In his intro he said the show, which began as a “concept album,” (the concept was “Make Money”) kept “the heart intact and the whole thing.” Then began a deafening cacophony of horrible noise presented as “music.” It was so loud, I could still hear it even with the TV turned off. I was enduring young people shrieking at me in a show that only allowed Barbara Cook to speak.

I assume the American Idiot piece was presented as a public service, so no one accidentally subjects themselves to this noisy grotesquerie. Not being an American Idiot myself, I will certainly make a point of avoiding it. In fairness, I should mention that the ghastly “music” was accompanied by some really terrible choreography. If this sort of crap is what’s needed to keep theater alive, maybe it would be better to just let it die.

Two hours and forty-eight minutes into the three-hour show Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane came out and were actually funny. Finally, some laughs. Again: why wasn’t Nathan hosting? He was funnier in two minutes than Sean had been in three hours. The Addams Family got majorly snubbed by the awards, but its stars were the comedy highlight of the eveing, and I’d rather have seen a number from their show than endure American Idiot‘s ear-torture, or listen to Catherine Zeta-Jones-Douglas strangle Sondheim.

Mrs. Douglas won Best Female Movie Star in a Musical. Well, maybe she’s better in the show than she was singing last night. I’m open to the possibility. The award wasn’t for Best Singing, and she sang better in the movie of Chicago, so maybe she was having an off-night. She thanked her co-star Angela Lansbury, probably for being too old to play Catherine’s role.

At the end of her speech, Catherine pointed to her doddering, elderly husband and said: “That man there, who’s a movie star, and I get to sleep with him every night!” Catherine, no one, no one there, no one watching, no one on earth is envying you that gruesome chore. He is the lucky one. You are roughly a billion times hotter than he is, or ever was. (Michael Zeta-Jones-Douglas wasn’t sexy, even 40 years ago. And he’s just plain creepy now.)

Interestingly, and to my delight, the English actor Douglas Hodge beat his co-star Kelsey Grammar for Best Unknown in a Musical. As it happens, I saw Dougie (Hodge, not my Little Dougie) play Shakespeare’s Pericles in London 16 years ago. He was very good, though the production as a whole stank. (In fairness, it’s possibly Shakespeare’s worst play, but the production was a mess, despite Hodge, David Burke, and Toby Jones all enlivening the cast.)

In thanking Kelsey, Hodge said, “If you want to see a Democrat kissing a Republican, come to the Longacre Theater.” I can think of few things I’d like to see less. After 8 years of Bush-Cheney raping the environment (Thank them for relaxing oil regulations and opening the door to British Petroleum’s devastation, and thank Kelsey, who voted for Bush-Cheney, and gave them money.), destroying the economy, and waging war against everyone except the people who attacked us, not to mention exploiting anti-gay hatred to win The Bigot Vote, I’m in no mood to see any kissing of Republicans. Now, if I could see a Democrat kicking a Republican, I’d buy a ticket. (And how is Hodge, an Englishman appearing in America for the first time, a “Democrat”? He can’t even vote here.)

As they trotted out Bernadette Peters, the announcienne mentioned that she was about to replace Catherine Zeta-Jones-Douglas in A Little Night Music. Oops. How screwed did everyone who paid to see Mrs. Douglas in the role feel now?

As they read out the four nominees for Best Musical, I realized I had scant interest in seeing any of them. You couldn’t drag me into American Idiot of course, but I’d rather see The Addams Family, and the nominated revivals (Except for La Cage), than any of them. It went to Memphis, a show about which I know nothing aside from the facts that it has some good singing in it, and it’s not about Memphis, Egypt.

And then they did a number from Memphis. It was after 11 o’clock. No one wanted another song. They wanted a drink. The cartoon character Yogi Bear said: “It’s not over till it’s over, Boo Boo,” but you know, when it is over, it should be over, like this column is now.

See you soon, when Big Brother starts up again. Cheers darlings.

To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead, the Merrier, or buy her book, My Lush Life.