Real Housewives of New Jersey

It's been quite a few weeks since I blogged at all - in part, I think, because I was so tired of blogging about The Real Housewives of New Jersey. A lot of my readers watch that show, and I thought it was a terrific public service to point out every little moment/flaw/comment. Plus, it seemed kind of fun.

One of the things about watching these shows and getting so into them - and pointing out every little flaw - is that somehow, it made me feel like a smaller person. I don't speak about my friends this way. I don't speak about my colleagues. So why do the hideous women posing and making antic for Bravo qualify for my utter disdain?

And then I realized:

They earn it. If my disdain could be converted to cold, hard currency, these women would be able to pay off all those silly debts they're ringing up. They'd be able to save their possessions from auction, put their kids into nice schools, have their hair done by skilled technicians.

Sadly for all of us, my disdain is just my disdain.Transferable but no cash option.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey jumped the shark for me when the ladies (I use that term loosely) decided to have a cat fight at the country club. This was right around the 4th of July, and we had to wait a week to see how it all turned out - a cliffhanger, just the like time that the Fonz, in his leather jacket and little swim trunks, was riding around a tiny floating shark pen on his water skis. In the Pacific Ocean, right by the shore. A cool California dude dared him to jump the shark, so, logically, in the way that people do when defending their state's ability to produce greasy slackers, the Fonz took the dare. I don't think he had a lot of water-skiing practice from his time as a mechanic and hoodlum in Wisconsin.

Back then, in 1977, the audience waited a week for the Fonz, caught in mid-air from a camera angle which for this show was adventurous, to land. They tuned in the following Tuesday to see Fonzie, his water-ski-clad legs splayed in jump mode in a freeze frame, start moving and land - not a surprise, because the shark pen must have been about six feet across. He ended with one of his signature "ayyyyy" moves. This was not a surprise to anyone, though; the Fonz had already proven his mettle by jumping things on his little motorcycle. This was just a bridge too far.

It was also eerily reminiscent of the time The Brady Bunch went to Hawaii and foreshadowed the moment when The Facts of Life would go to Paris.

In the RHONJ, the buildup before the actual fight has lurched steadily forward all season to the Horror Caught on Camera in the Country Club. Danielle, who is terrible, has been feuding with the equally repugnant Ashley, a 19-year-old with the prospects of a future girlfriend of a somewhat filthy guy who robs convenience stores.

At some point, Danielle pointed out that Ashley's arms are fat. And they are fattish. Fatter than not fat at all. And this incenses, absolutely incenses, Ashley. Does anyone buy her line about being mad because Danielle has been stalking her family? I believe that Danielle has been stalking her family, because we got to see a drunken, muttering Danielle tilting out of the nail salon after a mani-pedi and a few glasses of cheap Chardonnay and then slantingly driving her children through the streets of Franklin Lakes to peep at the Manzo's Law Enforcement Party to which she, Danielle, was not invited.

However, I do not, emphatically DO NOT, believe that Ashley is mad about the stalking. I believe that Ashley is mad that Danielle pointed out that Ashley has fat arms.

It was not a nice thing for Danielle to say, but Ashley could have gotten past it by, say, working out or wearing sleeves. Or just ignoring it! Why on earth would Ashley give a damn about her fluffy white arms since she spends most of her time in ass-widening sweats and pajama bottoms, anyway? Do you really think your arms are the problem?

So, they go to the country club and Ashley has lost a few pounds - enough so that she can squeeze into some larger-sized dresses at Posche, the upscale resale (or is it retail) boutique in the strip mall, conveniently located so that Posche's owner can pay her water bill in the grocery store next door. Ashley models, which puts Danielle over the edge, because she wasn't invited to sit at the owner's table and her daughter, the one who once went to a fashion show and modeled (though she threw up), was not invited to model.

Tensions are high, and Danielle is silly with her mobile phone texting-so-I-don;t-see-you hijinks, but she doesn't start anything. No, Danielle would have apparently gotten through the pass scot-free and been back in the cushy confines of Kim G's Bentley, if not for Theresa.

Theresa starts something, and Danielle runs away, fast, fast, fast down the corridor. She's screaming, and her shoe breaks. Somehow, Ashley, whose mother says she thought went home but whose mother didn't really believe went home, runs up behind Danielle and snatches out a good pound of weave and the strands of real hair the weave was glued into.

So. Ashley gets charged with assault, which is actually exactly what should have happened. If Danielle had, as Ashley's mother Jacqueline and all of Jacqueline's friends suggest, just let it go with an apology, Danielle would still be waiting for the apology. Moreover, Ashley would still be waiting for opportunities to literally and figuratively snatch Danielle's weave. And most of important of all, Danielle would not have the ability to smile knowingly at Ashley with that sick "You lose, bee-yotch!" that they like to do to each other.

Also, look at Ashley. It's so much better that the authorities will have her on their radar screens. She is just vile.

It amazes me that everybody is taking Theresa's party line that she wasn't causing trouble when she waited in full-stalker mode for Danielle to emerge from the fashion show. Theresa likes to say that she's just all sweet. No, she's not. She also looks as if she may be able to keep Ashley company at future court events, because Theresa's in a heck of a lot of hot water over spending $11 million. Her husband has been caught forging mortgage documents. And she may be in on that, too.

Which is why it is so very difficult to watch Theresa spending with reckless and gleeful abandon. By this time, she knew they would probably have to declare bankruptcy. Which makes everything that she spends theft as opposed to wanton irresponsibility.

I am noticing that they are giving their other children more air time. For a while, it was just the oldest one, because they believed she had the biggest potential as a star baby. Now, all the kids are in the mix. That could be because Joe, Theresa's husband who may be facing many criminal charges in addition to all kinds of other scary prospects, needs to be shown on camera as a family man so that the courts will take mercy on him. I am guessing that they've decided that they need to diversify their investments - who knows? One of the other girls may be able to get that movie contract that the oldest one couldn't quite nab.

Theresa and her husband are mugging for the cameras with some Good Old-Fashioned Family Time. This is, like I said, probably to create footage for their lawyers so that when the prosecution shows footage of wild, gleeful expenditures, the defense can counter with footage of the hard work of owning a pizzeria, karate classes and Monopoly. Though it does make me sad to know that every single property those girls win in Monopoly will just be added to their parents' list of assets for auction.

So - down to this week, the leftovers after the Shark Jump. These are the episodes where Mrs. C talks back to Mr. C, Fonzie becomes a teacher and the Joanie-Chiachi romantidebaucle begin. There is nothing good that will ever happen again on this show. Eventually there will be a wedding, which no one will watch because no one will care, but Bravo will foot the bill and it will be tacky rather than ironic, because that's the way it happens.

This week, Danielle decided to throw her daughter, the model-want one, a sweet 16. They make much of the idea that it will be a charity sweet 16, because she's going to give all the money she gets to charity.

First of all, who actually throws themselves a party with the expectation that they will get money? Who is giving this money? Why is it not just another free party on the Bravo Amex? However, Danielle seems to believe that throwing a party for her daughter and naming a nameless charity as beneficiary is somehow classy. And heart-warming. As opposed to just throwing a party for your daughter because she is wonderful and you want to celebrate her, and putting no gifts, please on the invitation. And if someone asks, say that she would love a donation to her favorite charity, or, if she is a truly well brought-up young lady, to the guest's favorite charity.

"I have so much already," she could demur.

But no. We are having this party on the basis of two lies: that Danielle wants to give to charity and that Danielle was really thinking of giving her daughter a sweet 16 party. This is the thin veil of fiction thrown over the truth: Danielle has convinced someone that Bravo should pay to listen to her younger daughter sing. Not only sing, but sing a song she wrote herself.

For this momentous event, Mr. Danielle shows up with his younger, average-looking new wife, who has chosen a green dress for the occasion. Danielle is thinner than the new wife - but Danielle is thinner than everyone. Everyone alive, I mean. Danielle was very worried about Mr. Danielle showing up, and so she wore the engagement ring he gave her back when their love was fresh and dewy, so that she could wave it around under the nose of the new wife. See! I got one, too! Danielle's older daughter is promised the ring at some point in the future; the other kid can have some other ring.

Which ring anyone gets is, of course, dependent on whether either of them makes a success out of the career paths that Danielle has so graciously piled into their laps.

The long and the short of it is that the kid can't sing. She's not terrible; she's 11. She just doesn't have any bright, shiny talent, or a particularly good voice. It made me mad that Danielle pushed that kid into doing this, because it will lead to a wildfire of disappointment, resentment, and embarrassment.

Meanwhile, back at the Manzo residence, Albie is not taking being kicked out of law school lightly. He is going to the police academy. I feel so relieved for Carolyn that she finally got some return on the investment she's made throwing all those lawn parties for the local sheriff. Albie is actually probably a great candidate for a cop, because he likes order and believes himself to be right all the time. I guess that he didn't get any law schools to bite on his letter from Seton Hall that stated that while that school didn't want him back, they weren't averse to anyone else having him. He's going to have to wait the mandatory two-year waiting period law schools supposedly have for people who flunk out. What? Surely there is a law school that would take Albie - unless there's more than he's telling us?

Apparently, Kim G bashed Danielle next week. That may be worth watching, or at last fast-forwarding through.