Fantasy Reality

Rivals Challenge

So a couple friends of Mike and I (Simmons & Jacoby) had this idea a while back to make a reality challenge show where people were paired up with someone and competed in challenges, lived in a house together with other teams and such. But the twist they had was that the teams were made up of 2 people who hated each other for one reason or another. They thought it should be called "Frenimies" (friends and enemies combined). Well fast forward to tonight and we have that show, under the title of "Rivals" abd MTV's latest Real World/Road Rules Challenge.

The concept is pure genius. Imagine having to work with your nemesis every day, does not matter the job. It would totally suck. Now imagine you had to work really hard together in order to get paid. More sucking. Now throw in 13 other pairs of people in the same situation......getting interesting. Add on binge drinking and people probably on some sort of steroids.......getting very exciting. And now add on the fact that these people hate each other and the last time some of them encountered each other, things did not end well. You now have the recipe for possible the most volatile of situations.

And what to do with this situation? Well we are each picking 7 guys and 7 girls from the cast for our 1st ever Reality Fantasy League. That's right, we have nothing better to do than award points for various behaviors and accomplishments on the show and see who picked the better people. We have stolen the scoring system from our friends. Here are the teams, my analysis, and the scoring system. We will update weekly over the summer on how things are progressing.

Team Cole

CT, Johnny Bananas, Adam (real world vegas), Tyree, Nehimiah, Tyler Davis

Paula, Robin, Jenn, JAsmine, Katelyn, Anessa, Mandi

ANALYSIS: CT and Adam are odds on to get kicked off the show, probably for fighting, which earns huge points. Johnny has pissed off a lot of people over the past challenges. Paula is a soap opera, she'll get major crying points. Jenn is a seasoned veteran who always goes far in challenges and is a master manipulator.

Team Dorsett

Wes, Kenny, Evan, Leroy, Adam K, Ty, Brandon

Evelyn, Sarah, Laurel, Theresa, Cara-Maria, Camila, Jonnna

ANALYSIS: Strong female competitors in Evelyn, Sahah & Laurel. One of them can easily win this. Wes and Kenny can be the most entertaining pair ever, lots of bad blood there. Evan was a steal with the 11th pick in the draft. Could be major points across the board if they can last.

Scoring

Emotional/Verbal

• Female Crying: 5 points ....Male Crying: 20 points....Asking if a fellow cast member is there "for the right reasons": 10 points
• Saying, “I didn’t come here to make friends”: 10 points
• Trying to make someone cry and succeeding: 25 points
• Trying to make someone cry and failing: -5 to -25 points (commissioner’s discretion)
• Blaming parents for poor behavior: 10 points
• Calling a friend or relative at home, crying, and saying, “Everyone here hates me”: 20 points
• Threatening to sue fellow cast member: 25 points
• Being subject of an intervention: 30 points
• Plugging an acting, modeling, or singing career: 10 points
• Singing song in front of two or more people: 20 points

Romantic/Sexual

• Open-mouth kissing: 5 points per participant
• Coitus (or pulling over covers in bed): 25 points per participant
• Denying coitus: 10 points
• Fraudulent denial of coitus: 20 points
• Fraudulent claim of coitus: 25 points
• Participating in threesome: 50 points per participant
• STD scare: 30 points per sexual partner
• Pregnancy scare: 50 points per sexual partner
• Intentional nudity: 20 points
• Unintentional nudity: 5 points
• Hitting on the show’s host: 5 to 15 points (commissioner’s discretion)
• Possession of concealed erection: 10 to 25 points (commissioner’s discretion)
• Revealing past career in pornography: 50 points

Violence

• Verbal Fighting: 5 points
• Physical Fighting: 25 points
• Decisively winning physical fight: 25 points
• Throwing drink in someone’s face: 5 points
• Having unexplained black eye, fat lip, or bloody knuckles: 25 points
• Being restrained or lectured on camera by security or production staff: 25 points
• Requesting to be assaulted: 10 points
• Invoking show’s rules as only reason for not committing assault: 10 points
• Attempting to fight show’s host: 100 points

Drugs/Alcohol

• Extreme intoxication: 5 to 25 points
• Vomiting: 10 points
• Having car keys taken away: 5 points
• Being kicked out of bar or club: 20 points

Religious/Volunteerism

• Violating stated religious beliefs: 25 points
• Attending church: -10 points
• Non-court-ordered volunteer work: -25 points

Early Departures

• Being kicked off show: 100 points (must be eliminated outside of game play)
• Causing others to threaten to leave show: 15 points
• Threatening to leave show and not following through: 15 points
• Threatening to leave show and following through: 30 points

Hot Tub/Helicopter Bonus

• Any points earned in hot tub and/or helicopter are scored at double value.

Other

• Cheating on a significant other who is at home: 25 points
• Making T.J. say, “You Killed It”: 25 points
• Winning elimination challenge: 10 points
• Bleeding: -10 points
• Having people mess with you while passed out drunk: -10 points
• Winning final challenge: 50 points

Twice in a week... you all are so lucky

No. I will not write every day from now on. But as I’m feeling inspired here is another 1000 words on the Bachelorette. For those that don’t watch the show numbers 3 and 8 should still be amusing.

1. Can we all stop pretending that the bachelor/bachelorette has any decision in where they travel to or what they do on the dates? I am picturing some PA throwing up in his mouth when he thinks about all the work he did to prep a cast and crew to move to Thailand only to hear Chris Harrison say, “Ashley and I thought we needed a fresh start…” Am I meant to believe that just on a whim, the dopey girl decided "hmm I’ll move a multi-million dollar production cuz I feel blue."

2. I work with writers for a living. I would love work with the writers who script the promo commercials for every reality show. “Coming up on the most dramatic transformation yet..”, or “Coming up on the most dramatic rose ceremony yet…” Those writer’s meetings must be the happiest or most depressing meetings of all time. Scenario 1- smiling writers who can’t believe that they lucked into the easiest job ever. Two guys cut out of work early one for a beer the other to see his kids. Scenario 2- tears streaming down a tortured artists face as another of his ideas is poo-pooed. His evil boss laughs at his effort, goading him on, “Are you gonna try another of your big ideas, or are you ready to give up and just give us the ‘dramatic’ line.”

3. A few years back I spent a couple months bumming around south east asia. Here is my story from Phuket- I went to Phuket to book a liveaboard dive trip to the Burma banks. The first night I got there I went to a bar. Sitting around a bunch of divers got to chatting and drinking and we came up with the idea that rather than join a ship we should charter our own. Next morning we met for breakfast, divided into pairs and scattered across the town hitting up every dive shop. Sure enough, someone was perfectly happy to take the gift of a fully booked charter that walked into his shop. We set off for a week dive trip. I dove four times a day and spent my downtime relaxing on a yacht in tropical waters. That was a very good week. This week I wrote 2000 words about a reality tv show. My life went in the wrong direction somehow.

4. Money making idea for the Bachelorette. Have a pay-per view event where Ashley is filmed watching the early episodes where Bently trashes her. Then for an encore get her drunk and let her watch herself as she moans on and on about some guy who didn’t care about her. That would be awesome TV.

5. Constantine looks like Ben F. the wine guy, only Constantine has a lazy eye. Not a good thing when your doppelganger without the droopy eye is on the same dating show as you. Also, Constantine- what was up with the socks on the beach?

6. “Afraid to get hurt,” “closed off,” and “ready to open up” should replaced “journey” and “right reasons” in your Bachelorette drinking game.

7. From my wife. “Nice ‘sweaterkini’ Ashley.”

8. I have a pet peeve that annoys me so much that I coined a phrase for it- “nostalgia for the present.” I could probably kick out 1500 words on it, and I actually use it as a pseudo-intellectual concept in my pseudo-intellectual job. That said the quickest example of nostalgia for the present is a girls bachelorette party. Allow me to stereotype, but women on a bachelorette party are tasked with two difficult things for them- 1) they need to make friends with girls they don’t know and 2) they need to execute “a legendary night out.” Unfortunately the girls rarely have something to bond over and they spend more time planning all of these stupid games and shenanigans that end up getting in the way of actually having fun. Hence they resort to nostalgia for the present. Ie they create and refer to inside jokes that are 15 minutes old. They will take 1000 photos to document their crazy antics rather than make sure they are actually having authentic crazy antics. There becomes such a focus on memorializing now, that it overwhelms the now. On a side note- guys don’t have this problem. They bond over beer, sports and steaks; they get drunk, gamble, and look at naked women. We have it much easier.

Anyhow back to the Bachelorette. I judge the quality of the dates on this show by the amount of nostalgia for the present. When the following conversation is happening its not good.. “I’m so comfortable right now with you. 10 minutes ago was awesome. Lets talk about how comfortable that was…”
So with that, I have to admit that Ames avoided all of the nostalgia for the present and seemed pretty natural. I was also impressed that he used the word “indeed” in the flow of his conversation and didn’t sound like a douche.

9. Ha. Did you think I was gonna let Ames get off that easily? No chance. That guy weirds me out. I made a list of things/ people he looks like- velociraptor, alien, ET, Sloth (from goonies), Gollum from Lord of the Rings… But my personal favorite:

White Sam Cassell- see link- http://tinyurl.com/64wcjps

10. Did everyone notice the Chris Harrison scared Ashely when she was about to kick off the guy whose wife died? I like to think it was the ghost of the wife putting the willies into Ashley and stopping her from taking her man.

Doling out thoughts on the Bachelorette and street justice.

The initial reason I started this blog was that I have these weird little rants and monologues that I spew out and force my poor wife to listen to. I stopped feeling bad for her years ago because a) she signed up for it and b) I’m pretty funny. That said, there are definitely times when I can see her eyes glaze over as I pause the DVR, refill my wine and essentially perform and unsolicited lecture about some silly topic that deep down very few people care about…

Great little side story, before I hop into my topic of the day. (and yes I know my side notes, must be the extra special icing of annoyance I add to Lisa’s life.) Back when she was pregnant, we had to attend a friend’s rehearsal dinner. Lisa was only a few weeks into her pregnancy and we weren’t telling anyone so we wanted to hide it. We had to devise a plot to cover up the fact that Lisa wasn’t drinking. For those that know her, there is no situation in which wine is flowing that Lisa isn’t leading the charge. Our plan- hatched straight from a bad romantic comedy- was for us to order the same wine, for Lisa to occasionally pick up the glass and gesture with it, and for me to drink from both glasses. Unfortunately we were at a nice restaurant with multiple wine parings and very attentive wine service. At one point I recall glancing at the table and seeing that I was responsible for four relatively full glasses. Needless to say I ended up getting good and drunk. So much so that I have a pretty decent black-out from the end of the night. The only thing I do know is that I bored the crap out of someone. The next day from my hungover stupor I explained to Lisa that I remember being at the bar and just rambling on in my drunken fervor about something so inconsequential that there is no way the person I was speaking to could care at all. I was relatively proud that I had a moment of self-realization where I could see myself boring someone and chose not to hit the breaks. Of course, I had no idea who it was, so I never got to apologize. That said, I’ll try to keep my rant today a bit more pointed and cover a couple of topics so no one feels like that poor guy cornered by a drunken ass at a rehearsal dinner.

Five points on the Bachelorette-

1. Ashley is the single worst person they have ever chosen for the bachelor/bachelorette. No one wants the insecure/ pathetic person leading show. How did this miss this?
2. Super kudos for whomever decided to do a roast of her! Triple special Kudos for all of the guys joking about her small boobs. If there is a small silver lining to having the insecure bachelorette this might have been it.
3. Bentley- you had me intrigued. You delivered the role of the villain to near perfection. I wish you had stayed longer, but the only thing I will ask is for you to come to reunion show and continued to be the same ass you are right to her face.
4. That poor guy with the mask. Other than getting a tattoo of your catch phrase (“guard and protect your heart”) on your arm has anyone ever played it worse?
5. The guy Ames weirds me out. His eyes are too far apart. Its not normal.

My right to deal out street justice.

Two things about me. 1) I’m really impatient and 2) I’m an awful driver. I remember when I was getting my driver permit my buddy Ankit would tell me that our driving instructor told him I was a bad driver. At the time I got pissed that this guy was talking shit about me- now I realize he was just warning the public.
Regardless my poor driving usually puts me in the passenger seat while my wife drives, and my lack of patients coupled with living in the NY metro area has me spewing rage and vile from my seat at the idiots driving around me.

For example, when we used to live in Edgewater we would routinely be trapped behind some slow driving SUV on river road on a Sunday afternoon. I would start my rant casually by commenting that there is no reason to drive that slow. Surely everyone has somewhere they would rather be than sitting in the car and if these people could just push a touch more on the accelerator everyone would be closer to being happier. I would then get further worked up and look at these slow drivers as an affront to the pursuit of happiness. The only plausible excuse I determine is that these slow SUVs had to be driven by divorced dads bringing their kids back to their ex-wives at the end of the weekend visitation. I then sympathized with these men assuming that they were purposely driving slow to annoy their ex-wives and show her that she was no longer the boss of them and it was his kid too dammit and he could bring him home when he saw fit. Of course I took it one step further and would suggest that these slow driving divorced dads pull off at the next strip mall and get the kids some fast food or an ice cream cone. That would really stick it to the ex-wife bringing the kid home late and too full to enjoy a family dinner…

Anyhow this is the type of ramble my wife is forced to live with when she is stuck in traffic and I’m in the car.

This Friday I came had a new riff that she found particularly amusing and prompted me to share. I called it street justice. I think a select few of us should be permitted to dole out street justice to people who are completely oblivious to the rule of auto etiquette or common sense. The idea is partially stolen from a novel I read where the heroes drive on the highway with paintball guns and shoot up the windshields of anyone driving while on their cell-phone. In my own version I posited that I should be permitted to smash rear view windshield off of the cars that double parked on Willow avenue, and I should be able to slash the tires of the person who reversed around the corner down the wrong way of a one-way street.

When we first started this blog, it was titled to reflect little fixes to the world if we were put in charge. It then morphed into a rant about TV shows I like. Today I gave out a little bit of both and what I will consider as fair warning to your windshield should I ever be put in charge of street justice.