Busiest Week EVER (Or: Why I Love VH1)

Ladies and gentlemen, I have just completed a busy, busy week wherein I worked on all four(-ish) of my jobs. That is:

1. A regular work week. Natch. (This week's work included writing contracts, being trained in techniques of inclusion, watching a student production, buckling down and writing more than two scenes in my latest play, and oh so much more.)
2. Mary Kay party! Good food, good wine, good company, good skin care and makeup!
3. Research on Reconstruction-era social history and popular music to decorate the lobby for a play I'm dramaturgin' (KUUMBA Players' Sing and Never Tire, which opens 3/05).
4. Two plays for Helen Hayes: Folger Theatre's Orestes last Friday, and Keegan Theatre's Gdirl from Gdansk last night.

Needless to say, I'm pretty sleepy, and had resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to see my husband for more than five minutes in the week.

However! When we did hang out, we watched the hell out of some VH1. And this was my saving grace.

Remember when VH1 was fuddy-duddy music for old people? A place to go when you weren't hip enough for MTV, and wanted to groove to some Michael McDonald? No longer! Now, it's full of both the crappiest and the most wonderful reality television on the airwaves. (Digital waves? Whatever.)

Now might be the time to tell you that my mother-in-law and I joke about creating a website called "Smart Women who Like Dumb Media." I look at TV as an escape, and sometimes, the dumber, the better. I do have discriminating tastes when it comes to reality shows, believe it or not. I will quickly change the channel if I see that For the Love of Ray J or Rock of Love Bus are on. I will watch Celebrity Rehab, Tough Love, or Tool Academy if they're on when I'm in bed and winding down before going to sleep. But I don't go out of my way. No, there are only two VH1 shows on our DVR, and they hold a special place in my heart.

RuPaul's Drag Race is the best show you're not watching. It airs in first run on LOGO on Monday evenings, and then re-airs on VH1 on Tuesdays. An America's Next Top Model for drag queens, it takes the best of the competition reality show formulas and turns them on their ears. The Dolls have had to eat unfamiliar foods, create costumes out of household decorations, and strut the runway.

This week's competition was game show themed, with the Dolls guessing the prices of drag queen necessities (The Queen is Right), filling-in-the-blanks to match celebrity answers (The Snatch Game), and opening metal briefcases to see if they were in or out (Heel or No Heel). Ru's trademark is as a supermodel impersonator--I'd argue that she does Tyra better than Tyra--and this week, the Dolls had to show off their best celebrity impressions, too. I was thrilled that my two favorites blew their competition out of the water:

Pandora Boxx as Carol Channing
and hometown girl (Great Falls, VA) Tatianna as Britney Spears.


Fan-flippin'-tastic.

I won't say a whole lot about my other VH1 destination, Celebrity Fit Club, since one of my favorite bloggers (Rich from fourfour) recapped so eloquently in his VH1 blog. I would, however, feel remiss if I didn't address the most wonderful five minutes of my TV-viewing week.

This week's boot camp challenge had the two teams trying to escape from a fake-POW camp, while chained together at the ankle. Once they got through two obstacles, they cut off their shackles, cut through a chain link fence, and then run to scale a platform while MUZZLED GERMAN SHEPHERDS CHASED AFTER THEM. Genius. If one of the team members got attacked, they added two minutes to their time.

The red team got through with hardly any problem, except for Jay McCarroll (of Project Runway) getting faux-mauled by a dog. No one got hurt, no one got upset, they moved on. Pretty much the same thing happened to the blue team, with K-Fed (yes, K-Fed) getting fake-attacked. But then, this happened:


Tanisha from Bad Girls' Club LOST IT. She screamed "I couldn't save Kevin!" while sobbing at the top of her lungs.

And then! Sebastian Bach--whom I have decided I want to have lunch with sometime--had the most astute talking head I have ever seen. He looked right at the camera and said, "It's a TV show."

Touche, sir. Touche.
* Drag Race pictures lovingly appropriated from Project Rungay. Go there. Read their stuff. Celebrity Fit Club pictures taken from VH1.com.