Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

Soon enough, you can cyber-kiss any of the Papal rings, from the early renaissance ruby and diamond rings to the current solid gold ring worn by Pope Benedict XVI.  No longer do you have to wait in huge crowds to merely see His Holiness go by in his pimped-out Mercedes-Benz SUV Popemobile; or travel all the way to Vatican City to be a speck in a crowd in St. Peter’s square; or try to score tickets to any of the masses over which he presides and grants “audiences”.  Expecting to be given a direct blessing by the Pope is like expecting that Ed McMahon was going to show up at your door with a check for millions of dollars (y,know, before he died).  It could happen, but it wasn’t likely.  But now, all of that isn’t necessary.  All of the legwork is being taken out of chasing the Holy Father around the globe.  All you need now is an internet connection and a working knowledge of social media.

Who wouldn't want this guy as a Facebook friend?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Papacy is getting its own Facebook page.  It already has an event page that was designed to promote Benedict XVI’s September trip to the UK.  Apparently, despite the six-month expiration of the event for which it was designed, more than 10,000 people regularly check in.  Those devout Catholics evidently need to get their mass on.  Seeing this, the Vatican’s social communications office found an untapped market: Facebook freaks.  The millions and millions of people across the globe who spend hours every day—hours when they should be focusing on spreadsheets for work or maintaining relationships with family—screwing around on Facebook.  And out of those millions and millions, there are scads of Catholics.  That’s just math.  The launch of the new Vatican website will, initially, be dedicated to upcoming beatification of Pope John Paul II on May 1.  It will link to video highlights of His (late) Holiness’s 27-year papacy.  The designers of the page are focusing entirely on the beatification for now.

But the Holy See is hoping for much more from this re-entry into social media.  The six-month old, never-updated page has become an online community in which Catholics, or any interested person, can interact.  At Easter, the Vatican is launching an information web portal, the contents of which are meant to be posted, tweeted, and even blogged.  It will contain information about the Vatican’s views on, for example, the Tsunami in Japan or the various uprisings in the Middle East.  With a multi-media format, “friends” of the Popedom can send out the Vatican’s innermost feelings about issues with the click of a mouse.  Pope Benedict XVI did the unthinkable when he allowed “the faithful” to ask questions online.  While an exhaustive search of the Vatican website, various websites for “the faithful”, and a Google search provided no “Contact the Pontiff” links, it is possible that they were already taken down.  When His Holiness responds to some of these questions on Good Friday, he will be the first Pope ever to answer to online posts.  His pre-recorded responses will be available on Italian state television, and, 10 seconds later, on YouTube.  No word yet on whether there are plans for a Pontifex Maximus YouTube channel.

The original Vatican website will remain as it is, posting the Pope’s schedule, Papal events, celebrations, and links to get tickets.  That will stay as it has always been.  But now you can “like” and “friend” the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI, all without getting out of your PJs and slippers.  With friends like that…

All of those medical marijuana licenses must have been approved, because federal prosecutors in Northern California have nothing better to do than pick on Barry Bonds again.  This will be the third time they file charges against the former San Francisco Giants slugger: once for allegedly using illegal performance-enhancing drugs, once for allegedly lying to a grand jury about using performance-enhancing drugs, and once for—oops, that’s twice for allegedly lying about the drugs.  Seriously, aren’t there criminals to chase?  Walk through Golden Gate Park at night and you’ll see that there are bigger fish to fry than a guy who hit baseballs for a living.  But here are a bunch of folks who worked their tails off, spending several years going into debt in school and many more earning meager wages as they clawed their paths up the legal ladder, and then there is a guy who spent one short year in the minors before bursting onto the Major League scene and its matching salary.  Prosecutors can’t possibly be mad at someone who may have possibly lied 7 years ago.  They’re mad at someone who may have possibly lied 7 years ago while showing up in court with more money in diamonds hanging from his earlobes than each earns in a year.

"Maybe I used steroids, maybe not. Don't you have anything better to do?"

The law goes only so far, but bitterness is forever.

And so Barry Bonds is being indicted.  Again.  Really.  After we had forgotten, for the most part, about the whole BALCO scandal, about the whole steroid issue, about who was juicing whom.  We had gotten out of heads the horrifying images of Jose Canseco sticking a needle into Mark McGwire’s butt.  But when we think back, we scratch our heads as we try to remember how and why Barry Bonds somehow became the Big Fat Liar who needs to be hunted like a dog.  Out of all of the Major League players who went from reed-thin to freakishly muscular in less than an off-season, it is Bonds whom prosecutors wanted to take down, and, like rabid bulldogs, they continue to hold on.  And whither Mark McGwire, Mike Piazza, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Pudge Rodriguez?  Did showing up in court wearing bifocals make some of them appear frail enough to cause the grand jury to dismiss the idea that they had been using steroids?  Was there a personality portion of the trial?  Bonds made no attempts to charm the media or anyone, ever.  Perhaps being an egomaniacal jerk worked against him.

Correction:  being an openly egomaniacal jerk worked against him (I’m looking at YOU, Rocket Roger).

The charges have been reduced from 11 to 5. There are 4 counts of perjury because of the way he answered the question as to whether he ever took steroids from trainer Greg Anderson.  He responded, “Not that I know of.”  Oh, sure.  Presidents have been getting away with murder—literal murder in the form of pointless military action—by saying, “I don’t remember” or “Not that I recall.”  Ronald Reagan made a career of forgetting things long before he was symptomatic of Alzheimer’s.  But let someone who entertained millions (and put countless rear ends into Major League seats that would have otherwise sat empty) answer with tactical ambiguity and suddenly the wrath of the Northern Cali Feds rains down upon him.  There is also a lingering count of Obstruction of Justice for answering questions in ways that were vague and/or misleading.  Speaking of forgetfulness, that sounds like a repeat of the first charge, but with a different name.

And so the federal prosecutors in Northern California prepare for Barry Bonds’ March trial.  All of this in an era when Congressmen—currently holding office, decision-making married Congressmen—are placing shirtless ads on Craiglist trolling for chicks.

Focus, people.  Let the past be the past and put your efforts into trying to make the present a little less embarrassing for all Americans.  Barry Bonds can quietly retreat into a private life, applying ProActiv to his back in peace, and the Northern California Federal Prosecutors can, oh, I don’t know, fight crime.

If you were thinking about opening the Sarah Palin Bathhouse and Food Co-op, you might be out of luck.  And if you wanted to open the first Bristol Palin Academy of Dance, you could have to find a new dream to dream.  The Palins have decided to trademark their most respected of names.  The initial applications, submitted by the Palin family lawyer, were rejected on the grounds that they were not personally signed by either Sarah or Bristol.  Perhaps Mrs. Palin was too busy shooting wildlife and slamming healthcare reform.  And in Bristol’s defense, it is possible that the ABCs were taught while—go-getter that she is—was becoming a self-taught Birds-and-Bees expert.  And it is just this kind of Palin aptitude that has caused the mother and daughter to seek ownership of their names.  They want to be the only Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin on the motivational speaking circuit.

If they want to own their names, they can have 'em.

What they plan to motivate people to do, well, we can pretty much guess.

Another problem with both applications is that they need to show actual visual proof of how their names are being used for the purposes they describe.  According to the US Patent and Trademark Office, examples include “signs, photographs, brochures, website printouts or advertisements” that show the names in question being used in advertising for the sale of their services.   While Bristol offered no visual proof of this particular use of her moniker (there isn’t any such thing), Sarah Palin sent in perplexing examples that had nothing to do with anything.  While she has been paid to speak and evidence of this exists, she instead offered a screenshot of a headline from Fox News, a copy of her biography, and another screenshot of her Facebook page.

The Palins should probably shop for lawyers outside of Wasilla’s famous “Attorneys and Live Bait” franchises.

Todd Palin, who made an honest woman of Sarah 22 years ago by giving her a wedding ring seven months prior to the birth of their first child, has made no such moves to trademark his own appellation, although he displayed motivational skills while his wife showcased her rock climbing skills in her reality TV show.  Perhaps the family feels that yelling, “Let’s go, Juicy!” to the former VP candidate isn’t as important as Bristol’s future as a pro-abstinence lecturer (provided she can find a babysitter).

No word yet as to whether or not the expected 2012 Presidential contender intends to trademark “Juicy Palin” as well.

Todd had a shot at owning his own nickname.  While his wife was Governor, he refused to be referred to as “first gentleman” as is customary.  His I’m-a-regular-guyness made him come up with the handle “first dude”.  Really.  Shouldn’t Jeff Bridges have something to say about that?  He is—and always will be—the First Dude to the masses.

Regardless of their mistakes thus far in the trademarking process, Sarah and Bristol Palin intend to go ahead with the branding of themselves.  They have been given 6 months to re-file their applications in an intelligent way.

I’m not holding my breath.

Here we have the stories of two rappers with—ahem—colorful backgrounds who have each done things that have landed them in trouble with the police, with women, with gays, with just about everyone.  Remember Tipper Gore and the PMRC going after bands like 2 Live Crew?  The game has changed, and Lil Wayne and Eminem are two of the men leading the profanity parade.  But somehow, for some absolutely inexplicable reason, they are irresistible, and pulled in huge numbers performing together on Saturday Night Live last night.  Of course, they have to tone down their language on network television, but their performances didn’t suffer for it.  How can this be?  And why do we watch?

Lil Wayne: Unapologetically icky, and we love him for it.

This is Lil Wayne, the man who had $150,000 of diamonds for teeth, taking the trademark hip hop “grill” and upgrading.  But he had those removed earlier this year and replaced with delightful white veneers.  Was this because he wanted a more refined grin?  Was he responding in his own way to the worldwide recession?   Not quite.  Before he headed off to serve a possible one-year jail term for having a loaded gun on his tour bus, both he and his people thought it wise to have the gems removed before they were knocked out and traded for a few cartons of Lucky Strikes and a Carmen Electra poster.  When he was released early for good behavior, he got himself a few grills and appears almost embarrassed to show off the pearly whites.  In a video released by Weezy and some friends on LilTwistTVLive, the rapper appears shy and says he doesn’t have his grill on so he isn’t showing much.  When he does reveal his bottom teeth, it is a testament to periodontics and cosmetic dentistry.  The man who once was addicted to “purple drank”, a concoction involving vodka, Hawaiian Punch, and cough syrup with codeine had all but destroyed his homegrowns.  So we should be disgusted by him.  Especially when two different women were due to give birth to children by him within days of each other.  And they did.  But then we see videos by him and interviews with him, and we are charmed by him in spite of ourselves.  If Shakira was willing to work with him on “Give It Up to Me,” that’s good enough for me.

And what about Eminem?  He’s been reviled in the media from the beginning.  He’s had a few run-ins with the law, a weapons charge, some prescription drug problems, and so on, but that’s not why he got under peoples’ skin.  His lyrics were often seen as misogynistic.  Certainly, he said some horrible things, terrible things, the kind of things that women’s groups were not going to let him get away with.  He had two things—no, three—working in his favor: 1, he was only singing about one particular woman, his ex-wife, and not women in general; 2, the First Amendment; and 3, he was hardly the first rap artist to say such things.  He was just the first white one.  Eminem got to play the race card in reverse.  His feud with Mariah Carey and her handbag/husband Nick Cannon made waves for a while, but he’s mostly been flying under the radar lately.  We should either dislike him or have forgotten about him, right?

Eminem recently released his new album “Recovery”, and Lil’ Wayne released the track “6’7”” from his upcoming album “Tha Carter IV”.  On Saturday Night Live, The pair performed Eminem’s “No Love” and “Not Afraid”, and then segued into an acoustic version of “6’7””, and they killed it.  Now fans are hoping they collaborate on an entire album together.

And then we can all put on our dark shades and hoodies as we buy it, and only feel mildly guilty for just loving the heck out of these lunatics.

The video has been played on every news media since Sunday, over and over.  It’s the one in which New York Jets Strength and Conditioning Coach Sal Alosi blatantly trips Miami Dolphins cornerback Nolan Carroll in the middle of a play.  He kept quiet about it while the Jets’ management decided what to do in a season that has brought them so much negative press already.  They obviously had to do something to punish him, and it needed to be swift and mighty, unlike their brushing-under-the-rug scandal policy thus far.  And the hammer did come down.  Alosi was suspended without pay for the remainder of the season, including the playoffs, and will be fined $25,000.  He is also forbidden to interact with players or staff  “as it pertains to his job function”, according to general manager Mike Tannenbaum.  Basically, this means that he can still go out drinking with the boys if he wants to and toast taking down a talented opposing rookie.  The NFL plans no further discipline, and no criminal charges of assault have been filed.  He may or may not be invited back to work next season.

It is this view, Sal Alosi, that you may never see again.

Alosi, of course, is all over the media with his contrition.  At a press conference, he was described in many articles, including the one released by the Associated Press, as “fighting back tears”.  Perhaps they saw a different version, because he mostly looked uncomfortable and anxious.  He was still waiting for the verdict from Jets management, and he was hoping the words “skinned alive” wouldn’t be in the press release.  He did say that he “wasn’t thinking” when he stepped forward and tripped Carroll, who was in a dead run along the sideline.  “That was the problem,” Alosi said. “I wasn’t thinking.”  When reading from his prepared statement, he admitted that, “I let everybody down with my actions…[they] were inexcusable and irresponsible.”

Well, duh.  In an effort to save his skin, he called Carroll to apologize.  He also apologized to Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, Jets coach Rex Ryan, GM Mike Tannenbaum, and owner Woody Johnson.  He may or may not have texted Brett Favre for taking some of the spotlight off of him.  Ryan said, “I was stunned that something like this actually took place.”  He went on to say that, although Alosi’s actions had “no business in this league or anywhere else,” he admired that the suspended coach never denied what he did and “that he stood up and he took responsibility.”

Well, he really didn’t have a choice.  It’s on video.  I was watching it on HuffingtonPost.com as soon as I got out of bed Monday morning.  He can no more deny it than Miley Cyrus can say she wasn’t hittin’ some wacky tabacky last weekend.  Welcome to the YouTube age, Sal.  You want to be Jack the Tripper, you’re gonna have to be way more subtle than that, should you ever be allowed within a mile of a football field ever again.

Last week, it looked like Brett Favre, the NFL’s own Humpty Dumpty, might have his Consecutive Games Started streak as broken as the many bones on his body.  When Bills’ linebacker Arthur Moats caused Favre to face-plant on his first pass of last week’s game, it seemed that his record might come to an end.  Few wept.  Sure, he’s a great quarterback, he can usually find a receiver, and he knows the game, but he’s become nothing but a giant thorn in the collective backsides of NFL staff and fans alike.  And with an injury every time he touches the field, he’s turned into Wendy Whiner.  Are you really hurt, Brett, or do you want to kick back in a recliner in a Snuggie drinking cocoa?  Just tell us.

"How do you feel, Brett?" "I CAN'T DECIDE!"

Well, he didn’t have to, because he got his day, as his prayers were answered in the form of 20 inches of snow dumped onto Minneapolis.  So while the Giants cooled their heels in Kansas City, Brett got to relax and waver back and forth, back and forth on his decision to play, as he has been known to do.  It seems that the Almighty enjoys this little game because the roof of the Metrodome collapsed in an event that can only be described as theatrical.  ‘Catastrophic’ isn’t the right word, as no injuries were reported, unless Favre pulled a muscle doing a Snoopy-esque happy dance.  Now the game that was going to be moved to a college field has been moved to Detroit, which means that the Vikings have an unplanned road trip, but it isn’t too far to go.

Through all of this, Favre has been seen throwing lightly and rubbing his arm.  With a 297-game streak, he was expected to give up on the dramatics shortly before game time to bring his number to 298.  I recall a disagreement I had with my brother in the 1990s regarding Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive games streak.  He argued that there comes a point when a player should bow out and do what is best for the team.  I argued that what was best for the team was to see the dedication of an older player who might only stay in for a few innings but show what commitment really is.  But football is not baseball.  There’s a big difference between third basemen who has lost a few steps and a quarterback who can’t throw.  A streak is a great thing, but Favre already has the NFL record of consecutive games started and a hefty ring covered in diamonds from Superbowl XXXI.  He’s achieved just about every possible award he can win, and he pays the fans and his teams back by doing the “will I, won’t I” game every chance he gets.  He did it so much that the Packers sent him packing, even though he had been a fan favorite and was still a great QB.

The latest news is that Brett sent a text message (you’d think he’d have learned by now) to NFL Network analyst Steve Mariucci on Sunday saying that it is “highly unlikely” that he’ll play.  However, this is Brett Favre, so Vikings interim coach Leslie Frazier was sure to note that the decision would be left until game time.  In the meantime, backup QB Tarvaris Jackson led the Vikings to victory last Sunday and is prepared to play tonight.  Although he is young and just beginning his career, he can’t be enjoying this.  He can get all pumped up and ready to play, and with 30 seconds to game time, Humpty Dumpty can decide that he wants game 298.

If Favre does play tonight and plays badly, at least he won’t have the Minnesota fans in the house ready to rain down their disgust (and thousands of empty beer cups).  This is particularly important because I doubt his linemen would bother to protect him.

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand, the word “WikiLeaks” and the oddly melodic name Julian Assange have been assaulting your brain from every possible source.  Until April, WikiLeaks managed to fly mostly under the radar of our collective consciousness.  And then something happened that affected Americans, and claws came out.  On April 5, the site released classified US military footage from a 2007 attack on Baghdad by a US helicopter that killed 12, including two Reuters news reporters.  The footage, known as “Collateral Murder”, caused “WikiLeaks” to be the most searched term on the internet worldwide.  The US went after a young man named Bradley Manning who was accused of leaking the video.  WikiLeaks has maintained that they do not collect personal information about their sources, but aha!  A new name came into the picture.  Spokesperson Julian Assange told The Guardian that, although he had no specific knowledge of Manning’s involvement in leaking any video, he hired three criminal attorneys to represent the 22 year-old.

Proof positive that pasty-faced nerds have the means and opportunity to take over the world.

But now, we’ve all but forgotten about that kid because now there’s a sex scandal.  Sort of.  Evidently, Julian Assange was in Sweden and met two women, known initially as Woman A and Woman B, both of whom were taken in—on different days—by his flaxen hair and cadaverous complexion (we blame you, O makers of the Twilight Saga).  After spending romantic, rolling-in-the-hay kind of evenings with him, they each went to the Swedish authorities and reported a crime that exists only in Sweden.  It’s something that happens to regular people all the time, and all they generally get out of it is a great deal of anxiety and possibly an unplanned child.  Conspiracy theorists are running amok with ideas that the women were sent by governments that had been exposed by WikiLeaks for various bad things.  Julian Assange has made a lot of enemies along the way.  As of December 9, one of the women chose to leave the horror of the situation she was in for a relaxing trip as part of Christian Outreach program to the West Bank in the Palestinian Territories.  It is not out of the question that someone in a position of power might take steps to discredit Assange, since WikiLeaks has exposed classified documents ranging from Scientology to a nuclear spill in Iran.

Under pressure from the government and unnamed sources, PayPay, Visa, and Mastercard all suspended their services for cardholders to make donations to WikiLeaks.  As a response, angry cardholders and people who know stuff about computer hacking caused the sites to crash.  Not good news when all of those companies rely 100% on businesses being able to slide cards through a machine that dials up through the—can you guess it?—internet to get transactions approved.  Basically, while Interpol was ready to go looking for the WikiLeaks spokesperson, fans of his site made commerce extraordinarily difficult on an international level.  The lesson is that you cannot mess with The People.  WikiLeaks supporters are the high-tech version of the Colombian coke dealers in Scarface.  They used a cyber-chainsaw and the shower was the credit card business, which previously felt itself invulnerable.  Oops.  After proving that hackers can, indeed, achieve more-or-less what Tyler Durden was going for in Fight Club—and on some of the busiest shopping days of the year—they backed off, having proven their point.

Assange now sits in a London jail and has only one request: a computer.  While the charges against him in Sweden seem to be fading away, the US is mulling over espionage charges, which would be unwise.  Why?  Again, we turn to the wisdom of Tyler Durden: “…the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep.”

Julian Assange is not a violent man, and the people who support WikiLeaks are not violent.  They are dedicated to the exposure of the truth at all costs.  Is that always right?  Maybe, maybe not.

But I don’t want to be the one on a bathroom floor with a rubber band determining my fate.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that London pub.  Although the interview will not air until February 2011, Anderson Cooper and Lady Gaga sat down for an interview that was bound to be nothing short of Fab-U-Lous.  Certainly, the singer is charismatic, and Cooper was open about his excitement to meet with her.  “She’s obviously a fascinating person,” he told The Insider.  “What’s great about 60 Minutes is you spend a lot of time with the person you’re profiling.”  Apparently, what began as a normal interview—or as normal as one can be when the subject is Lady Gaga—turned into a night of drinking.  According to Cooper, they somehow ended up at a bar in London and Gaga was buying the shots of Jameson’s.  He claims that, after two, he had to pretty much end the interview “because I really sort of couldn’t ask any more questions.”

The Lady and The Lightweight.

Either our Anderson lost count or the silver-haired cutie-pie is a lightweight.  So a bunch of random folks in London got to witness the most eccentric musician of this era drinking one of the most respected journalists of this era under the table.  Sure, everyone and their second cousins have their camera phones out when the yahoos from Jersey Shore get into another bar fight, but no one in that city thought an interesting photo-op might develop when Anderson Cooper and Lady Gaga walk in to a pub together?  Now I know where to go if I ever plan to make an ass of myself.  Londoners don’t care who you are.

For his profile of the singer, Cooper is joining her in different cities on her Monster Ball tour.  “To be able to spend a couple of weekends with her in various places over the course of several months,” he said, “It’s really cool, and it’s really interesting and I’m learning stuff about her I never saw before.”  Whether or not he’ll go out drinking with her again is up in the air.  Anderson Cooper hardly seems like a lampshade-on-the-head kind of guy, but if anyone can bring that out in him, it would be Lady Gaga.  The 24 year-old outspoken supporter of gay rights would probably love to get a few shots into the man who has mastered the art of keeping mum regarding his private life, just so she can find out for sure what everyone else has been asking for years.  She could regale him with stories about the wild things she’s done, from her humble beginnings to designing a diamond-studded whip with matching underthings for R&B diva Beyonce.  Then she could hope that he would reveal personal things about himself to her.

Or she can just wait for an invitation to Benjamin Maisani’s bar in New York.

After seeing the photo that launched a thousand blog postings—the one of a man getting searched to the point of knowing his religion—the TSA went from a minor security inconvenience to one worthy of starring in its own de-motivational poster.  The TSA is supposed to be here to protect us, and instead it causes us to become angry and restless from waiting in lines and making sure we have only the appropriate amount of fluids in out carry-on luggage.  Now they’ve upped the ante from the full-body screenings that would have made Superman blush (he, after all, could only see to Lois Lane’s modest underthings) and can see whether or not you’ve shaved your legs recently.  No word on whether or not hairy legs are a sign of a threat or not.  Because of the backlash of the scans that were designed to “keep us safe”, which we later found out were, in some cases, printed and brought home by security staff for their, ahem, personal use, TSA decided to rock it old school.  They’ve gone back to the LAPD pat-down.

Currently, this is a joke. Emphasis on "currently".

In general, pat-downs are used on the street because street cops don’t have a lot of handy-dandy technology (unless you’re watching CSI for your information, in which case, you have other issues to discuss with your therapist).  But the TSA, in their efforts to thwart terrorism and avoid another attack like the one in 2001, have had a lot of government money and research at their disposal to make flying safer for all of us.  And I, for one, don’t mind getting my bags searched and taking off my shoes.  The waiting makes me cranky, but that also gives me ample people-watching time.  However, I must add that I have never been put through the indignity of a full-body scan, and I can say unequivocally that I would lose it if some woman wanted to touch me all over because my toothpaste exceeded the 3.4-ounce limit.  While TSA Chief John Pistole waffles over policy changes, Hillary Clinton has already stated that, although she is exempt from such searches, would not submit to such an invasion of privacy.

San Diego traveler John Tyner became a national hero when he told a TSA screener bearing gloves and a giant sense of entitlement, “If you touch my junk, I’m gonna have you arrested.”  And why the search?  Dude is so All-American that apple pie and baseball are shamed in his presence.  Hours later, he was released.  And so, as the Thanksgiving and the busiest traveling time of the year approaches, all of our collective junk still hangs in the balance (so to speak) while the TSA and Congress try to come up with something better.  President Barack Obama has stated that he wants to ensure our security, but to review methods to find ways that are “less intrusive.”  Left to their own devices, the TSA would have colonoscopy and “turn your head and cough” rooms for “suspicious types” like John Tyner.  Of course we need airport security, but there are airports that are doing it right, and those are the places that we need to be looking at modeling ourselves after.  Instead, we have meetings.

I wonder how long it takes to walk 300 miles to see my parents.

It is understandable to some that Canada wants to be more like the US.  America is, after all, a ‘superpower’, we’ve got a cool flag, lots of people still want to immigrate here, and we’ve still got the whole ‘mine is bigger than yours’ thing going for us.  Basically, despite the economy, 70% of Americans still feel totally comfortable saying “We’ve still got it” (I looked it up).  But then we look closer at that mysterious country above us, at our peace-loving, socialized medicine-giving, lumberjacking neighbors to the north.  The place that young people avoiding draft would go if they didn’t have rich daddies in political office.  It doesn’t look so bad.  But one place they appear to be lagging is in television ratings.  Never mind that many of Hollywood’s major movies are filmed there because it is far less costly.  Canada is ready to cash in on some of American TV’s more popular—though less enlightened—ideas.  And so we get Lake Shore, Toronto’s version of Jersey Shore.  The real difference between the shows is that Lake Shore promises to be truly and openly offensive in a way that MTV viewers can only dream.

Mind you, this is from the audition tape.

First, there are the cast members.  We have Joey the Italian, perhaps as a nod to the show’s American inspiration.  He wears a hat that reads “No. 1 WOP”, a term that could well get you killed on the streets of New Jersey, New York, or anywhere with taste.   There is also Salem, the Lebanese and token gay cast member who will strike fear into the hearts of the homophobic males on the show.  Downtown D is the Albanian who is always up for a party whether it’s Friday or Saturday night.  Sibel, the Turk, is the woman who thinks she is more beautiful than all other women, which creates an issue for Anni Mei, the Vietnamese, who wears bras as outerwear and finds herself ‘worn out’ by anyone who doubts that she is, in fact, the most beautiful.  The role of The Situation is played by Tommy Hollywood, the Czech, who favors one-armed push-ups, preferably with ladies involved.  Perhaps the most interesting conflict will be between Karolina, the Pole, who “hates everyone equally, especially the Jews” and fellow castmate Robyn, the Jew.  This brain trust indeed shares a lot with its American counterpart.

Tommy Hollywood is a better-looking version of The Situation, and he comes complete with diamonds on his watch, diamond stud earrings, and Ed Hardy t-shirts.  Instead of Gym-Tan-Laundry, however, he does, Gym-Tan-Six Different Hair Products.  He lists them.  Basically, all of the characters on the show are more like caricatures of Jersey Shore cast members, who are already bad stereotypes of everything that New Jersey and New York would rather hide.  It’s the rest of the US that watches.   Just as the most avid viewers of Lake Shore are likely to be from the most remote reaches of Saskatchewan and beyond.

The creators of Lake Shore claim that they are trying to show the “multi-cultural nature” of Toronto by having cast members of all different ethnic backgrounds.  But we know what makes for good ratings: fights.  And this show is ripe for plenty of them.

Pity I can’t be there to throw the first punch.