The future of art in America.

I did it. I don’t know why I did it, but I did it nonetheless. Last night I gave up an entire hour of my life watching the grand finale of Bravo TV’s “Work of Art,” a frightening reality show competition that’s based on the age-old premise “shit sells.” The final three contestants appear below.

And now I’d like to post a representation of the finale’s artwork (a term I use loosely here) to demonstrate how lame, pretentious and infantile this program actually is. The lack of talent displayed here makes “Dancing with the Stars” look like the Joffrey Ballet.

Young strung clotheslines across the gallery and pinned up a collection of his late father’s shirts festooned with snapshots of dad while he was dying. On the floor, bottom right, is a little pile of dirt with a bowling trophy in the middle. For sculptural appeal he also built a red and green phone booth.

Sara’s show consisted of a white birdcage with a lot of paper airplanes flying out and underwear made of human hair.

Kymia — who actually won last night — displayed three crap-filled graves and a helmet made of metal feathers. She also showed two watercolors with dirt glued to them. The one on the left is a dead body in the ground and the one on the right is a boat with feet on the sail. The judges were so ecstatic they wet their pants and Kymia went home with $100,000 and a guaranteed private show at the Brooklyn Museum. I had such a headache I took two extra-strength Tylenol.

There you have it ... the future of art in America. Graves, clotheslines, paper airplanes and bowling trophies. God help us.

Covering all the essentials.

I’m so tired right now I can’t see straight. I woke up this morning at 6:30 (way too early) but didn’t go back to bed because our maid service comes at 9 a.m. on Wednesdays and I’m one of those people who has to clean the house before they get here. (I’m not kidding about this.) Unfortunately, I nodded off at the keyboard a little while ago and had to delete several rows of lowercase Fs.

To brighten up my day — and yours — I just ordered a stunning upholstered bench from Amazon.com.

I figure this will provide essential extra seating in our formal living room even though we’ve lived in our house almost five years and have never actually had any company except for my mother-in-law once a year in October and the occasional delivery dude from China City. The aforementioned delivery dude really can’t be considered “company,” however, because he doesn’t get past the front door even if he’s carrying Mongolian chicken. 

FYI, the price of this bench was pretty fabulous (and $18 less than Overstock.com) with free shipping and no tax. And I’m sure all of you know by now how I feel about free shipping and no sales tax.

I’d better get back to my mountain of laundry. But first, please consider watching these excellent movies tonight on TCM starting at 7 p.m. Central time ... The Front (1976) with Woody Allen, Ball of Fire (1941) with Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper and Born Yesterday (1950) with Judy Holliday and William Holden. I’m particularly fond of Born Yesterday. You should also consider tuning in for the grand finale of Bravo’s “Work of Art” to find out which neurotic, untalented street urchin goes home with $100,000. (Am I bitter? Nah.)

Thank you for reading this.

Grab the truffle oil and stop the bleeding.

We’ve got a nice little thunderstorm rolling through here right now with lots of nice heavy rain, and I figured it might be fun to share the news with my friends in Howdygramland because we still don’t get nearly enough rain here.

I love the sound of rain. I also love the sound of CAKE (see previous post).

About an hour ago I decided to watch The Lottery Bride (1930) starring Jeanette MacDonald, Joe E. Brown and Zasu Pitts. This is a deeply irritating operetta set in Norway featuring fake icicles and extremely bad styrofoam snowdrifts attempting to evoke the Arctic Circle. The music, which is even worse than the scenery, was composed by a person named Rudolf Friml. I’m not joking about this. I watched for about 40 minutes until I wanted to kill somebody.

Thank God there’s plenty of alternative programming available tonight, such as Bravo TV’s “Work of Art” and “Top Chef.”

“Work of Art” is thoroughly frightful, but I hate to admit that season nine of “Top Chef,” which was filmed right here in Texas, is sucking, too. I always enjoyed “Top Chef” in previous years but so far not even ONE of the cheftestants has exhibited a shred of talent and there isn’t even any juicy drama except for the klutz-of-the-week slicing off a finger during the QuickFire challenge. At least we get to watch them figure out how to stop the hemhorraging ... sort of like “MacGyver” with truffle oil and potato peelers.

Sam is on his way home so I guess I’ll publish this post and move on with my life. Thanks for stopping by.

Musings from a Sam-less halva addict.

Poor Sam has worked a ginormous number of hours this week. Three nights in a row he got home at almost 4 a.m. and tonight won’t be much different, although he just called to tell me he THINKS he might be able to sneak out around 3. I’ve been spending a lot of time alone.

This means I’m currently unsupervised here with THREE HUGE CONTAINERS OF SUGAR-FREE MARBLE HALVA that arrived today in a carton from Amazon.com. Unfortunately, although it contains zero sugar it’s definitely NOT low-calorie or low-fat … and I just realized that I want to eat every glorious molecule of it TONIGHT. The situation is so serious I might have to call a halva hotline for emotional support. I tried hiding my paring knife, but that didn’t work because I keep remembering where I hid it. Also I have lots of other knives. And if I can’t find a knife I’ll just rip off little chunks with my teeth or bare hands like a cannibal.

Something peculiar happened last night during Bravo TV’s “Work of Art” … I found myself becoming slightly less repulsed by Sucklord. The artists/contestants had to work on a project with a group of children in an art program sponsored by the New York City public schools, and Sucklord ALMOST behaved like a rational person. His finished piece of artwork, however, was so atrocious that judge Jerry Saltz practically threatened to kill him. Okay, maybe that’s not quite accurate. Jerry actually said, “If you don’t stop with all the weird Star Wars crap I’m going to get medieval.” (I wonder if this includes torture.)

Sucklord is a strange, counter-culture geek who has a website with an online store that sells bizarre products under the “Suckadelic” brand name, two of which appear below. I have no idea how any of this can be considered ART or how Sucklord ever displayed enough talent at any level to qualify as a contestant.

Incidentally, the Super Suckmobile with Pimpin’ Jake is TEENY. Jake is about the size of a Playskool Weeble. (You should buy two. They’re only $125 each.)

Thank you for reading this.

Some sadness, some joy, and why the hell is anybody still interested in Rick Perry.

Some sadness. I’m hanging out with a small mountain of laundry and decided to spend a couple of hours crying in my beer — actually, a Marcy-tini — watching YouTube videos of Judy Collins and Joan Baez. There’s seriously no better backdrop for the reality of my 60th birthday than the music that propelled my generation in the 1960s. (I feel limp. I think I need some Cheetos.)

Some joy. Amazon.com just sent an email to let me know MY SUGAR-FREE HALVA HAS SHIPPED ALREADY and — gloriosky — it should be here TOMORROW. This is so exciting I almost can’t stand it. I’ve got my own OVERNIGHT HALVA SERVICE!

Why the hell is anybody still interested in Rick Perry.
No kidding, the First Bozo of Texas gets worse every time he opens his mouth. According to CNN’s James Carville, Perry is the worst debater ever to run for President, can’t give a decent speech, babbles mindlessly when he answers questions and can’t articulate a viewpoint the same way twice. He can’t run his state and he can’t even run his mouth.

And finally, here’s one last Rick Perry gem that pretty much dares you to write your own caption. I gave it my best shot …

Incidentally … “Top Chef Texas” premiers tonight on Bravo and I, for one, can’t wait to watch the latest crop of whiny, competitive cheftestants backstab each other over who’s got dibs on the blender. And this time they’ll be right here in the Lone Star State! Please plan to tune in. It comes on right after “Work of Art.”

L’chaim, and may y’all live and be well. Thank you for reading this.

Mazel tov to Libya.

It’s official. I’ve seen enough video clips of Moammar Gaddafi’s battered body being dragged through the streets of Libya to last a lifetime. I’m nauseated and relieved — but not surprised — since this is what a person can expect during his golden years if he’s a delusional, narcissistic despot who annoints himself “King of Kings.” Lest we forget Italy’s Fascist “clown prince,” Benito Mussolini.

Mussolini and his cohorts were executed by a firing squad on April 27, 1945. Two days later, after being shot and kicked repeatedly by happy, liberated Italians, the bodies were driven to Milan (reportedly without seat belts) and hung upside down from the roof of an Esso gas station, where additional happy Italians pelted them with rocks from the street below. Whatever was left of Mussolini’s body was finally buried in an unmarked grave. Nobody was sitting shiva.

If this is all a little too graphic and disturbing maybe you shouldn’t watch the weird William Shatner video in my previous post.

And now, let’s recap last night’s episode of Bravo TV’s “Work of Art,” where the artists/contestants were divided into two teams and asked to create a gallery show suggesting movement.

One team decided to call itself “Poop” and proceeded to focus on bowels and intestines until the show’s mentor (Simon) told them to start over because this was so stupid he almost couldn’t verbalize his horror. He also commented that the process of excretion was “too slow” to be artistically interesting, so they switched their theme to “Play with Me” and created equally stupid playground art out of plywood. Two of these included Dusty’s life-size photo of himself stapled to the end of a see-saw and Sucklord’s “flip the rat” arcade game where you fling plastic rats into buckets with a catapult.

The other team’s theme was “Loop,” although none of the judges could figure out what this had to do with movement. Lola drizzled hot-glue onto a mountain of shredded medical documents from a dumpster. Tewz wrapped a spray-painted garden hose around a bucket and pasted a tiny yellow hand to a circle on the wall. Kathryn, staying true to her obsession with internal organs, videotaped wads of blood and gore landing on a plastic tarp. Shockingly, she lost last night’s challenge and got sent home, crying hysterically.

The winner, believe it or not, was a dude from the “Play with Me” team named Bayete who — get this — videotaped himself from the neck up spinning around on the roof. No kidding. Judge Jerry Saltz found Bayete’s art “strangely mesmerizing” and judge Bill Powers was “impressed with the simplicity.” Everybody else was just outraged that running in a circle and shouting “whee” qualified as art.

Monet is throwing up in his grave. Thank you for reading this.

Football from a new perspective.

Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for — photos from Sam’s VIP tour of Cowboys Stadium! The best part, apparently, was the fact that the Cowboys were actually PRACTICING yesterday so Sam had a chance to hang out at the 50-yard line along with the coaches and Gatorade boys!

Other points of interest included Jerry Jones’ luxury suite and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ locker room. The latter featured life-size photos of the finest bimbos in Texas wearing practically no clothes whatsoever. Yee-ha, y’all.

And now I’d like to critique the worst reality competition show of all time, Bravo’s “Work of Art.” The new season debuted last night and the 14 artists/contestants are the most bizarre flock of whack jobs I’ve ever seen. I’ll feature two of the worst for your possible enlightenment — Kathryn and Sucklord. (No kidding. That’s his name.)

Kathryn makes three-dimensional art and faux human organs from dough and rags splattered with jelly, red fruit juice and berry stains and then photographs them. Frankly, this is way beyond disgusting and looks more like crap from the floor of an operating room.

Sucklord designs art toys and “evil arts action figures” and describes himself as a geeky nerd. Truth is, Sucklord is also snotty as hell and void of any visible talent. I’d be willing to bet he was a special needs student in high school.

Sucklord was almost eliminated on the first night of competition even though the show’s art expert and mentor, Simon DePury, is a huge Sucklord fan and has even paid money for his gay action figures like Homotrooper, pictured above. Simon frightens me beyond belief. THIS IS NOT ART.

Before I go back to bed I’d like to thank y’all for letting me unload. Have a nice day.