Wednesday Night Channel Surfing: some Lunatics, some Sports and some Housewives

This woman is going to change my life.

Last night, I was ridiculously excited to watch television. There was so much good stuff on like the 76ers vs. the Heat America's Next Top Lunatic, the World Series Modern Family and like 37 more NBA games because NBA League Pass is offering a free trial for the first two weeks of the season and it's just bonkers wall-to-wall basketball The Real Housewives of Atlanta!

Let me preface by saying that my wife used to enjoy watching basketball with me. When we first started dating, she used to come over to my apartment and we'd stay up late watching NBA doubleheader playoff games. She even wore her Latrell Sprewell New York Knicks jersey over once. I'd often put on my fliest sweatpants and we'd sit on my couch and she'd watch with genuine interest as I explained to her the x's and o's of the game. I remember one time we I actually set up some chairs in my living room and showed her how to properly defend against a pick and roll. Dar absorbed the information like a pro and I was smitten.

Fast forward five years and all of our chairs now stay in the dining room. She calls the Sixers "the most boring team in the league." She told me last night that baseball was her favorite sport. But I'm still smitten, especially because last night she brought me a bowl of Boo Berry cereal as we settled in for a night of compromise.

What follows is a timeline of last night's TV watching bonanza.

8:08 - After watching the first hour of the Sixers-Heat game and listening to the HORRIFIC local TV announcers, Dar says that hearing Joe Buck and Tim McCarver's voices on Fox's World Series broadcast is "sort of enjoyable." Minutes later McCarver tells us that Elvis Andrus is the first "Elvis" to ever play in the World Series. The channel gets changed.

8:17 - While putting my empty bowl of cereal in the sink, Dar calls to me from the other room to tell me that "Miss Jay is on!" I race back in to find that the lunatics will not be having a regular photo shoot today, instead they're going to film a commercial for an energy drink and have to wear roller skates and kiss a guy. One girl starts freaking out because she's a lesbian. The channel gets changed.

This guy scored two more points than you did last night ... two.

8:26 - Cliff Lee doubles to left and gives his teammate "the claw" hand signal. I'm almost certain Miss Jay was giving the same "claw" minutes earlier. After Elvis sacrifices in a run, the side is retired and we're suddenly back on Venice Beach, shooting an ad with roller skating lunatics.

8:28 - Now reaching level 9 freak out status, the lesbian lunatic confesses to MISTER Jay (that's the silver haired guy who wears more makeup than ANY of the Real Housewives of Atlanta) that she was sexually assaulted as a teenager and no longer trusts men. I scoff and roll my eyes and then realize that I'm being super insensitive because she probably was sexually assaulted. My wife gives me "the claw" while Nigel Barker instructs one of the models on how to properly flirt with a man.

"Kiss him," my wife says out loud. "Kiss him!"

Nigel does not, and soon the orthodox Jewish lunatic with the size G (not kidding!) breasts takes her turn to shoot the commercial.

8:33 - Okay, this is just ridiculous. Not only have we been watching America's Next Top Lunatic for the last seven minutes, but now another lunatic is crying. This one is like 9 feet tall and is terrified that she'll "fall in the dirt" while rollerskating. I scoff and roll my eyes again until she really does wipe out HARD and slams her elbows on the pavement. She REALLY took a spill and is now even more shaken than before. She can't remember her lines, her voice cracks with every word and she's rollerskating like a baby lamb. Nigel goes and gets her some elbow and knee pads which help about as much as a bowl of Boo Berry. Thank God for a commercial (not because I don't wanna watch, but because the last seven minutes of television have been absolutely riveting and I need a break). Let's go back to the Sixers.

This honestly looks like the saddest Giraffe ever.

8:36 - Thirty seconds into the 4th quarter and Dar can't help herself, "Uggghhh, this is SOOOO BORRINNNGGG." She tries to calm herself down with deep breaths until Comcast Sportsnet shows their "McDonald's Small Fry of the Game", a cute little black baby in the crowd with a superimposed french fry carton around him. It's absolutely adorable and earns me a few more minutes of game action.

8:42 - LeBron almost catches a ridiculous alley-opp, cramming it off the back rim, causing me to blurt out, "HOE DOG!" ... I have absolutely no idea what this means or why I said it, but Dar wastes no time asking, "Hoe dog?"

I have no answer for her and try to keep my eyes on the game, but keep hearing her mumble to herself, "Hoe dog huh? ... Hoe dog ....... Hoe dog? ... Hoe dog."

She eventually stops but then says that "maybe we'll have hot dogs friday night." I tell her that's a great idea.

8:48 - Back to the lunatics where Tyra, Nigel, Zac Rosen and the big black guy who wears a cape are critiquing their commercial shoots. Tyra always has such great posture. I wonder if she played the viola growing up? A few of the girls gave absolutely terrible performances and at least three of them are crying. The orthodox Jew with the bladdow! titties looks incredibly stiff, but not nearly as bad as Big Bird the 9 footer who upon further review roller-skates more like a drunk baby lamb. She also has the worst posture I've ever seen. I want her eliminated. She HAS TO get eliminated ............. So who do they eliminate? ......... the Jew with the absolute humongous yammers.

Life is not fair.

9:10 - After some flipping between games and arguing over how to properly use a remote control, we put on Modern Family, a show we've seen a bunch of times (and like very much), but have never gotten REALLY into.

The father Phil is one of those actors who can do anything and be funny. I like him. I think the gay couple is a little annoying, but the Colombian lady and her orthodox Jew titties are just bonkers, so I'm always up for watching it. Well, Miss Columbia was showing off her ying-yangs so I had no problem missing some hoops. Plus, the Sixers are the most boring team in the league.

Just stop it! ... just stop!

9:29 - As Modern Family ends, we flip back to the Sixers to catch them walking back to the locker room, heads down with shame. Immediately Darrie flips over to the Real Housewives of Atlanta where I am introduced to a woman named Nene, a soul sister who was recuperating from getting her breasts lifted and her nose done.  

(For the record, I never actually plan on writing about titties so much; they're just ubiquitous in our TV watching. Between lunatics who SHOULD NOT have size G's to a Columbian who probably has size H's, it's not my fault I am surrounded by jang-jangs all the time.)

Anyway, what followed during the next half hour of Real Housewives of Atlanta deserves its own post, its own blog and it's own panel discussion with Miss Jay, Mister Jay, Tim McCarver and Nene Hilario of the Denver Nuggets.  

Let it be known that we did not watch the Real Housewives of Atlanta the past few years, but after meeting this Nene woman, we are HOOKED. In a three minute span, she told the Don't Be Tardy For the Party lady not to "squeeze my titties" and "don't hurt Michael Jackson now." Later, she gave an incredible neck-roll and finger-snap worthy of Blaine Edwards and Antoine Mayweather (You remember them! From In Living Color's Men on Film!).

All in all, it was a tremendous night. Yeah, the Sixers lost and my fantasy basketball team is in last place and the only woman I've ever known with straight-up G tators is out of my life. But I got to meet Nene, who promises a future of undeniable drama and comedy. And I got to do it all on my couch, in my sweatpants with a bowl of Boo Berry cereal ... sitting right next to my wonderful Dar.

Phillies Baseball, America's Next Top Lunatic, Real Housewives and Surviving "The Look of Death"

Chooch ponders life after baseball; photo by Nigel Barker

Along with sweatpants and Raisinettes, the remote control is one of the greatest inventions in history of western civilization. But when used improperly, it can cause more carnage than most Eastern European warfare. And after my wife unleashed her vaunted "look of death" at me last night for my misuse of the clicker, I question whether or not I should be left with such a responsibility.

Now I know what you're thinking; we're a stereotypical Timothy Busfield thirtysomething couple and I hogged the remote and sat and drank my beer and wouldn't let my wife disturb the precious game. Nope, not the case. Not the case at all. Let me explain.

At the start of the Phillies game, my wife asked if we could flip to something else during commercials, to which I obviously agreed, because I like watching other things and am not interested in having my wife divorce me. So in between innings we watched some of America's Next Top Lunatic, and this was fine, because I sort of like that show and would like my wife to stay with me so that I don't end up homeless and alone like I imagine Timothy Busfield must be.

I even let her watch a full, uninterrupted ten minutes of her favorite part of the show when Tyra Banks and the good looking British photographer critique the lunatics' photos. Last night they had a big black dude join them who wore a cape. He was filling in for the other black dude who is actually more of a lady and teaches the lunatics how to walk. I'm not sure where the man-lady was last night, but I miss him dearly and imagine wherever he is, he is probably also wearing a cape. When we got back to the baseball game, I had missed the Giants score two runs, but this was okay because I love my wife and was very interested to hear the cape-donning judge's thoughts regarding the lunatics' photo shoot.

I imagine he/she also has a "look of death."

Later, during the nine o'clock hour, we routinely flipped to see what the Real Housewives of Atlanta were up to. Apparently, the "Don't Be Tardy For The Party" lady is now performing her self-titled song live in concert for thousands of gay men, for which I also allowed my wife ten minutes of uninterrupted viewing pleasure. This time when we returned to the Phils, Shane Victorino was chasing balls in the dirt, precisely the same thing most of the gay concert-goers were doing.

(Oh! ... He breaks out a gay joke!)

Now, here's where the problem arose:  during the late stages of the game, I started flipping to an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about the relationship of two former Yugoslavian basketball players whose lives and friendship were torn apart by their warring homelands (one was Serbian, the other Croatian). It's a gripping movie and features the enormously lovable Vlade Divac who goes back to his hometown in Serbia and looks through old shoeboxes of photos rehashing memories of playing basketball with his old friend, Drazen Petrovic.

Now up until this point, any time that I wanted to flip back to the Phils, my wife allowed me to do so. She understood that I deeply cared about my squad and conceded that what she was watching was absolute garbage. My wife is a rational person. She wears age appropriate clothing. She realized that her programs were for commercials, but tonight's game was the main event. But this time when I tried to change the channel back to the Phillies, my wife got angry.

"No! You can't go back to the game. Not now," she said.

 "What?"

"Not now, put it back."

"What? Why not, Dar? The Phillies are batting."

"You can't put that on and then turn it off, because that's real stuff and I'm into it and you can't do that."

This woman is NOT normally this attractive.

Now in her defense, she had stated each time during the last few commercial breaks that we shouldn't watch the ESPN documentary now, because we would get hooked. She maintained that we should watch it when we had time to actually realllllly watch it and could sit and take it all in. I agreed and understood what she was saying, but there were SO MANY commercial breaks because it was the time of the game when there are like, four pitching changes every inning, so I still flipped to it during every break. And besides, they were showing old footage of Petro draining threes on hairy European dudes and I couldn't deny myself from seeing that!!!

But now they were showing footage of dead bodies and wartime in the former Yugoslavia and meanwhile Carlos Ruiz was batting and the Phils were threatening. My wife wanted to watch a sports documentary and I was keeping her from doing so, probably the first and last time that will ever happen. That's when she unleashed her "look of death;" a look that only Serbian soldiers and female African American school teachers can give, and I changed the channel, threw her the remote and sprinted up the steps like an overtired six-year-old to watch the two-inch tall Ruiz in our upstairs bedroom on our microwave-television.

Over the next four minutes, I sat at the end of our bed, yelling down to her every sixteen seconds to see if the game was on yet (knowing she'd put it back on as soon as the documentary went to a commercial). She ignored me every time. I eventually settled into my new space, watched Mini-Chooch strike out and just as I got comfortable she notified me that the game was back on the big TV in the living room.

Ye Ole Microwave-TV ... you can still find 'em!

When I got back downstairs, everything was all good. We had had a slight disagreement, she unleashed her crazy eyes, and I had to watch miniature men play baseball for about five minutes.

If the remote had never been invented, I probably wouldn't have received the wrath of Kahn, but then again I wouldn't have seen a black guy in a cape either; and that's just straight gangsta.

America's Next Top Model: Predatorial

I've never seen whiter teeth

For those of you who do not / have not seen America's Next Top Lunatic, it's definitely worth watching. Especially because Tyra Banks is OUT OF HER MIND.

Last night, when giving her final thoughts before kicking one of the lunatics off the show, Tyra explained why the lunatic was leaving. The theme of the photo shoot was "predatorial" and Tyra said: 

This looks comfortable for CWebb

We asked for "predatorial" and you gave us "editorial," but it turned out to be "deaditorial."

Brilliant!

And Chris Webber used to date her!

What an idiot!