Ryan Conklin Comes Out

In episode two of The Real World Brooklyn, Ryan Conklin showed his interest in socializing with some of the other 2% of the population. He was eager to take a walk on the wild side, by making his first visit to a gay bar.

Some of the housemates had agreed to go out one night, and JD Ordonez suggested that they leave Brooklyn and go into the city to a bar in Chelsea. Ryan learned from a friend that the district is known for containing concentrated gayness. He let his roommate Chet Cannon know, but in the process showed his lack of knowledge of the gay social scene and the Chelsea area in particular. Ryan said that the men at the bar would eat Chet up the way Chet was dressed, and that people in the area were all into S/M and wearing assless chaps.

Maybe the patrons at a gay retiree bar might consider eating up Chet the way he looks and dresses, but I have to believe anywhere else they would just spit him out. I did find it adorable that Ryan, after having just stated his belief that there would be assless chaps, said excitedly, "I'm going! I'm down for different things!" That's good to know. Some guys might be wishing he were down with being in a bromance with them - you know, with benefits.

Ryan is straight, so I won't claim that he was making Freudian comments when he said why he was going. "Dude, that's why I'm coming! Because I've never been around that kind of stuff, so I'm trying to expose myself!" Dude, wait on the exposing until you're on the dance platform, and then only if you think the tip will be worth it.

Entering the bar, Ryan said to Chet what most guys in that situation do. "I'm nervous. Pretend you're my boyfriend." Interestingly, it didn't seem to be a stretch for Chet to pretend that.

Like Alice, having then fallen down the rabbit hole, Ryan Conklin needed something to drink to carry on. After lubricating himself with alcohol, he looked around in wonderment. Seeing a drag queen perform and lots of men making out, he regarded it all as curiouser and curiouser.

To have some fun, JD then told Ryan he would give him $100 if Ryan would dance with the drag diva, Peppermint. Ryan was well intoxicated and agreed to the bargain. Under the spotlight, and being the center of attention at the bar, Ryan felt understandably awkward and embarrassed, but tried to be a good sport about it. Peppermint then changed the deal to be Ryan giving her a kiss on the cheek instead. Good-natured Ryan went along with the revision. As Ryan prepped himself to plant the kiss, Peppermint counted to three. Suddenly Peppermint turned and gave Ryan a big ol' surprise kiss on the lips. Apparently, the shocked and soused Ryan took a dislike to the taste of the gloss and/or the thick layers of lipstick and immediately and repeatedly wiped his lips. Whatever it was he came in contact with, Ryan frantically wanted to wash it off with a lot of soap and water.

Leaving the bar, Ryan was so drunk that he could barely walk. Understandably, when he got back to the house he had to throw up. Afterward he walked in on JD, Sarah Rice and Devyn Simone, and wearing a t-shirt and boxers, laid backward on Sarah. JD copped a good feel of Ryan's chest, while asking him the odd question of whether Ryan believed that he would have thrown up after coming home (seeing double) from a straight bar rather than a gay one. Bewildered, Ryan replied no. Devyn then correctly pointed out that he wouldn't have drunk so much in a straight bar because the girls there wouldn't have bought as many drinks for him as his discerning admirers at the gay bar would.

By the way, some smart (and necessarily good-looking) straight boys have already discovered that starting their evening at a gay bar is a good way to score some free drinks and some entertaining conversations. Give it a try.

Anyway, it was a cool bonding moment between JD and Ryan. JD in confessional stated he felt that, contrary to first impression, Ryan seemed more "open-minded" (i.e. a good guy).

There could have been friction between the two, in asserting a dominant role in the male social hierarchy in the house. JD had a natural advantage for the top spot as Chet found out when he discovered that JD had possession of Magnum condoms, which indicated by association that JD had an extra large penis. Chet was rightfully in awe of the physical manifestation of JD's manhood and told JD in front of Ryan, "Make us proud," as JD sashayed across the room. JD was literally the c@ck of the walk, projecting his preeminence.

To keep all of the guys on the same level, Ryan sounded the alarm (as in an alarm clock). He made it seem like it was a phone ringer or door buzzer and had JD running through the house and out of it looking for the cause. Apparently all the blood and nutrients required by that extra large penis didn't leave much for the brain cells. JD was let in on the joke and with the gaiety of the prank was gently brought back down into the peer group.

There wasn't such a nice set of stories regarding Ryan's best friend in the house, Chet.

First, Scott Herman and JD noticed that there was a banana wrapped in a condom in the fish tank. Ryan, a believer in cleanliness and tasteful decor, ruefully said, "Way to make everything look trashy here." JD, due to the size of the condom, immediately wondered if the condom was his.

JD noticed that his backpack and drawers had been opened, and he complained to Devyn that he suspected that Chet had done it. The house meet to discuss Chet rummaging through JD's things and they elected Sarah to discuss it with Chet. Sarah bravely agreed to do it, considering that Chet creates the appearance of someone who is substantially mentally disturbed under his somewhat creepy outward eccentricity. She talked to Chet, who wasn't happy about it. He denied the charge, but probably lied to her and then again to JD, saying he didn't do it.

Later, Chet's family came for a visit. The blond brood appeared to the product of a Mormon eugenics and large scale breeding program. Unfortunately, mixing genes can cause some unintended consequences, like maybe turning on a gene for sociopathic behavior. During the visit it was said that Chet was thrown out of his fraternity for setting someone's hair on fire. Let me mention the definition of antisocial personality disorder from the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and leave it at that: "The essential feature for the diagnosis is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood."

At the end of the episode, JD went out by himself and came back home wasted. He told a tale of going into a store to purchase Chapstick where the clerk could not understand what he was requesting. The way he told the story was rather humorous. I like JD so much better when he has been drinking. The moment was ruined however when Chet came upon the scene and tried to take advantage of JD's state by trying to pick a fight. Chet's soulless and glassy-eyed stare as he confronted JD was pretty scary but the argument was broken up by the roommates and JD was taken off to bed. Fortunately, with the cameramen present the roommates didn't have to sleep behind locked doors or with one of them staying awake as guard while Chet was in the house. Their hair and lives were safe.

The Stars of Real World: Brooklyn

In the 21st incarnation of The Real World, the first episode showed that eight, not seven, roommates would be moving into the "house" in the host borough of Brooklyn. However, even from the very first minutes, it was was clear that the season would actually be about the two leads, Ryan Conklin and Katelynn Cusanelli, and one supporting character, Chet Cannon. Then there are five extras that appear in order to support the understanding of the main characters and to provide various meaningless subplots.

Between the two leads, the top billing would have to go to Ryan. He says, when we are first introduced to him, that "I like to think I can figure anyone out in the first five minutes of knowing them. Guaranteed." Well, what makes him the lead, and the most interesting character (of this season and maybe any other), is that you can't figure him out in five minutes. There's clearly a lot to him and it's going to take a full season to get a grasp on who this engaging person really is.

Ryan is humorous and lighthearted, but also bright and very articulate. He likes to analyze his roommates and from that he is able to make accurate discoveries of who they are before the others do. (Analyzing personalities makes him a man of my own heart so I got to love that.)

Some of the things he figures out is that Katelynn is transgendered and that roommate J.D. Ordonez is gay. Ryan is not aware of any gay or transgendered people in his hometown of Gettysburg, so he is deeply interested in learning more about LGBT people. (Note to the gay people of Gettysburg: your assignment is to go introduce yourself to Ryan. Maybe not all at once but perhaps a dozen or so at a time.)

What the other roommates didn't discover about Ryan until he told them was that he spent over three years in the Army, including a year in Iraq. He didn't divulge it right away because he didn't want the other cast members to prejudge him as a "military goon" or a veteran that "has problems." But after awhile he let them know that he had joined the Army when he was 17, having been inspired by the events of 9/11. So from this the viewer can see that in addition to the other traits mentioned, he is also idealistic and patriotic, although he tempers it with rationality and realism as he didn't always agree with the conduct of the war.

Despite the maturity needed to go off and fight, it's clear that Ryan is still a kid at heart. One wonders, how does a kid handle that kind of experience, that kind of responsibility? You would think it would have to have some kind of lingering effect. Ryan stated he is able to transition from Iraq to being home like turning off a light switch and that his miracle cure is to push the thoughts out of his mind and onto paper in a 300 page manuscript that he has written about his time in Iraq. Hopefully things are as smooth as he says they are, but if not, it will be compelling to find out what more Ryan has to relate about his time in the military.

For his goal on what he what's to accomplish during his time in Brooklyn, Ryan decided he wants to pursue recording songs that he has written. At Chet's prompting, Ryan sang a song about Iraq, which actually was pretty nice, although the vocals were rough enough to warrant a vocal coach. The lyrics were good in that song, but maybe not so good in some other songs he has written. He should probably consider a good lyricist partner.

Ryan's best trait: the expressiveness in his face. You can tell exactly what he's feeling in a given situation without waiting for a later confessional to explain it.

Ryan's roommate in the "Grand Army" bedroom is Chet, who Ryan sang the Iraq song to while sitting together in a decorative boat. Chet appreciates Ryan and his talents and tells Ryan in typical straight boy banter, "I could sail away with you any day." (Ryan, ditto!!)

There was a little confusion about Chet's orientation at first. There were several unusual things about Chet that made people, including Ryan, think that he was gay, but come to find out he was just Mormon.

Chet himself can't tell who actually is gay. He didn't realize JD Ordonez was gay (maybe because compared to Chet's own flamboyancy, everyone else appears straight as an arrow.) Speaking of appearances, seeing J.D. wearing a deep V-neck shirt made me realize that he and I are getting off on the wrong foot. J.D. is one of the gay men in this country that still hasn't gotten the memo on how retarded it looks. Men do not look good with a plunging neckline and unless you have moobs, there is nothing to reveal with it, not that you would want to.

What J.D. should stick with is a wetsuit like he uses as a dolphin and whale trainer. I get a little wet in my suit when I see a muscular little guy in such a tight fitting body outfit.

J.D. takes a special interest in Katelynn because he realizes that she is transgendered and so he sees them both as being different than the other members of the cast. Actually the commonality is how bad they dress, but that wasn't how J.D. saw it.

Ryan was the first to say aloud that he believed Katelynn was transgendered. I don't think I would have known. I only look for the adam's apple and since she had hers fixed, I think I would be thinking she was always female. Maybe once in a certain light and with a certain facial expression I could see a hint of boyishness. Ryan was looking much harder, looking for Katelynn's genitals, but Chet called him out for it. As mentioned before, Ryan's an inquisitive fellow.

J.D. decided that he wanted to take Katelynn to dinner to get her to come out to him. This displeased Ryan as he was very interested in knowing Katelynn and JD better and he really would have liked to have gone to dinner with them. In telling J.D. that he wasn't happy that the two of them were going by themselves, Ryan at least got J.D. to acknowledge that J.D. is gay. In the dailies, Ryan also asks JD if JD is attracted to him. JD says no, although you don't know if he was just saying that because he thought that would be best. I thought about what I would say if I had been asked such a thing by Ryan. I think I would say, "If you mean, do I want to have your love child, yes, but since I obviously can't, we should both just forget about trying."

Ryan counseled J.D. not to talk to Katelynn about the transgender issue until she was ready, but J.D. felt he knew best. I agree with Ryan that people shouldn't pry into other people's business. Here I quote from Queerty.com's article by Japhy Grant ("Gayest. Real World. Ever."), which expressed very well my own view. "You can tell J.D.'s spent a lot of time in therapy, as he has the lingo down pat and, frankly, in the first episode he comes off as kind of a prick. From the get-go he realizes Katelynn is transgendered (because he you know, has eyes) and decides that what he needs to do is take her out to dinner and make her come out to him. We can see why the Coop no longer dates a guy whose first impulse when he meets someone is to get them to divulge their personal secrets, but whatever."

Janice Dickinson And Mating Pairs

In season four, episode six of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, it was all about prospective model couples. It was an examination of which pairs might have a future and which ones are as unlikely a match as would be Gov. Palin and Mensa.

Paul Vandervort and Traci Moslenko: Paul likes Traci a lot, more so after their close contact at the Ed Hardy shoot, and he finally told her so. Traci, on the other hand, sees Paul like a little boy (literally) with a school crush on teacher. She likes him, but she seemed to be a little creeped out about his affection, especially when he kept pecking at her cheek. Paul thinks Traci is hot, saying that when Traci gave him a lap dance it was like he was still at Hooters (because her in his lap was like being served another heaping mound of boneless wings?)

Chandler Maness and Traci Moslenko: In this episode, Chandler referred to Traci as a s!ut and a hooker. Janice saw him do this with her hidden cameras and confronted him on it. She told him he shouldn't speak that way because he could be President. In summary, Chandler and Traci's future together at best would be her giving him a Lewinsky outside the Oval Office.

Crystal Trueheart and J.P. Calderon: J.P counseled Crystal when she felt bad after being criticized by a client. Besides the fact that J.P. is gay, he is not boyfriend material. With his constant comforting and advice. he's too much like Maria von Trapp's mother superior, and who needs someone in their life who is likely to prostitute you out to a retired naval captain with seven kids?

Crystal Trueheart and Chandler Maness: When given an opportunity to pick a man to practice doing some nasty dancing on, Crystal picked Chandler. She doesn't have any special attraction to him, but she wanted to send a clear signal to Sorin Mihalache, who has feelings for Crystal, that she and Sorin are never going to be a couple. You can't blame a girl for not wanting to go back with Sorin to his Hostel village in Romania.

Xian Mikol and Danny Nunez: In the same dance situation as above, Xian chose to shake her booty on Danny. Xian and Danny both have well rounded booty, but it looks good on him, not on her. Xian doesn't have feelings for Danny, but she didn't appreciate her showmance partner Chandler's close attention to Crystal's gyrations, so she decided to get back at him by picking one of his rivals in the model house. Danny clearly did not mind being used in this way.

Danny Nunez and Chandler Maness: Danny believes that Chandler is a "douchebag". Fittingly, their relationship chances are as sour as vinegar.

Chandler Maness and Sorin Mihalache: In this case opposites do not attract. Chandler is the intelligent college man and Sorin is the rube who just fell off the Transylvanian turnip truck. For Chandler, this imbalance could have been okay. Loving to show off and to push people's buttons, Chandler would relish running rational rings around Sorin, but Sorin's limitations with English give Sorin a blissfully ignorant defense against Chandler's verbal volleys. Chandler realizes his talents are wasted on Sorin and that he needs to find someone more resourceful to spar with.

Sorin Mihalache and Crystal Trueheart: Crystal wears haute couture; Sorin wears a cut-off "security" shirt. I can't think of anything else that says it more clearly.

Chandler Maness and Xian Mikol: This is the perfect match. Xian and Chandler appreciate each other's ability to be snide and cold as ice. They are the next Bill and Hillary.

Janice Dickinson and Merlin Castell: Did Fez have a fashion designing cousin? If Fez did, even he would have been to embarrassed to have talked about this one. Between Merlin and Janice, they share the same view on what is the most important need in the world: preserving size zero models. That's a plus, but the deal breaker is that Merlin likes to crack a whip, and there's only room for one dominatrix in a relationship with Janice.

Janice Dickinson And Watching Grass Grow

In season four, episode five of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, it became unquestionably clear how dull the show has become and how different this season is from previous ones in its lack of any enticement for tuning in each week. Gone are the risque images of homoerotic bare man booty. Nearly gone is Janice's shredding of the models' dignity and view of their self-worth. The result is that all goodness and no butt shots makes Janice a very dull girl.

In past seasons, there was the constant bickering between Janice and her ex-business partner Peter Hamm that would inject drama and friction into every episode. Now the show has to bring back Brian Kehoe repeatedly in a series of brief and mildly sad debasements of its former supporting star supplicating to Janice for forgiveness and Janice coldly denying clemency. The second time this occurred in this episode, Kehoe stood outside the model house, staring at the door, just waiting for something to happen. How like the experience of viewers this season.

We used to be able witness Janice ripping into the models and telling them how bad she thinks they are. Now we see her being all sweetness and light, as she was when she counseled Paul Vandervort about his concerns with being too short and not being selected by clients. The old Janice would have told Paul to get taller or get out. Now Mama Janice hugs and says everything is going to be okay. Miss Dickinson has become Mrs. Rodgers.

On the show's storylines, I haven't gone along with others' views that everything on this show is made-up but it's getting harder to resist that conclusion. When Kehoe showed up at the TINte Cosmetics shoot, you could easily imagine hearing a director tell Xian Mikol to experiment speaking her line in different ways. To herself, she said: "Why is he here? WHY is he HERE?" To Crystal Trueheart, "Why is he HERE?" To Kehoe, "Why are YOU here?" Hey Xian, one more time, with feeling.

A second contrived event was Nathan Romano from Ed Hardy showing up out of the blue at the model house with his photographer Steven Barston. No appointment, not believable. It appears to have been done to create a gag of Sorin Mihalache shutting the door in their face and making them wait while Janice runs through the house telling her models to clean up. Too cliche.

As I stated last season, I like Nathan Romano, and it is nice to see that he agreed with my comments on how good Payton Brady wore his company's underwear. Unfortunately, the photoshoot this episode lacked the spark and excitement of the Miami runway show. The wearing of two layers of underwear by the models during the photoshoot aptly reflected the tone of everything: safe and bland and suitable for families. Even having Traci Moslenko topless was mitigated by having Payton Brady immediately call his girlfriend to confess and state how pure the event actually was. More interesting would have been to see Payton visit a chiropractor to have his back looked at every having well-rounded Traci jump into his arms.

Strangely, the history quiz led by Janice's daughter Savannah ended up being the best part of the episode. It wasn't very entertaining, but it did allow viewers who learned something from it not to feel like they had completely wasted an hour of their life.

On the other hand, it looks like the show's producers believe their viewers must be somewhat slow witted. They have Martin Ritchie, as the quiet observer, give a inside summary of who on the show is flirting with whom, just in case the viewers couldn't quite comprehend what they had just seen where the models explicitly stated who they were interested in. With that kind of analysis, is there anything left for me to do?

Janice Dickinson And The B Word

In season four, episode four of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, it was all about the B words, plural, and surprisingly none of them apply to Janice.

At the beginning of the episode J.P. Calderon lectured Brian Kehoe about his bad behavior after Kehoe had been kicked out of the model house by Janice. Referring to the way he spoke to Kehoe, J.P. said "I just lost it," although if the subject hadn't been booze and blow you might compare J.P.'s demeanor to Mr. Rodgers teaching a child about sharing or respecting other people's feelings.

J.P. as teacher, father confessor, and saint-in-residence can be a nice character, as it is good to have positive gay figures, but having both him and puppy dog sweet Martin Ritchie as the models that are gay on the show doesn't leave room for having a bed-hopping man-whore model who ends up getting with every guy in the agency. That would be a nice character to watch on the show also. At least the beatified J.P left the door open a crack by telling Kehoe he wanted to be his "[f'ing] friend".

Question: does anyone else think that Janice's watching her spy tv monitors with her hair stylist Duke is just a little too much like the Witch of the East and her chief flying monkey watching Dorothy and her friends through the crystal ball? ("Poppies will put them to sleep. Sleeep.") Unsettling.

At some point Janice stumbled out of her room dressed like a ballerina, lauded her previous experience with ballet, and then told her assembled and quickly horrified male models to put on tights. The guys were unhappy to put on the see-through garment plus dance belt, except of course for the ever agreeable Danny Nunez, who will do whatever the job requires. He mentioned that he is used to being naked a lot on the show. He knows he can't help being an anatomically correct Cuban Ken doll whose pants everyone wants to unsnap as soon as they take him out of the package.

Comment: The recently introduced blurring of the butt shots is treating the audience as if they were children. JDMA is an adult show for adults that want to see some glimpses of uncovered dude tang. The more gratuitious the better. We should be allowed to see an unexpurgated version somewhere, if not the tv then on the web.

After the boys were suitably attired. Janice showed them to Jonette Swider, a ballet teacher, who would be giving them instruction on the fine points of ballet, which is to say how to show off your manhood while simultaneously losing it. She had them stretching and squatting and leaping with their legs split and pointing their toes in strange positions. The scene was brief but long enough to notice that Payton Brady's backfield in motion is quite a sight and to notice with Paul Vandervort that tights come in child size.

At the end of the exercise Jonette selected J.P. as the best participant and Payton as the worst. Given their particular personalities and views of ballet, both were happy with their ranking.

Janice told Danny, Payton, and J.P. to move into the house immediately to help Danny and Payton to book jobs and for J.P. to act as a role model for the younger associates. They were all happy to get the order, but Danny and Payton quickly found out this silver lining had a dark cloud with it, namely having to be around more with nasty, ugly Gabe (Janice's make-up "artist").

To have a little fun, former football players Danny and Payton tossed a few rolls of toilet paper back and forth in lieu of a real ball. Bitch queen Gabe acted as if this was any of his business and while spread out on a sofa with his wanky teeth and flabby belly exposed started criticizing the waste of the rolls and connected it to an implication that Danny's parents were unfit. Now I don't know Gabe's background, but he has always appeared to me like the worst kind of repulsive, smelly trailer trash, so maybe his family couldn't always afford toilet paper and seeing rolls wasted brought back an unpleasant memory to him. Nevertheless, he should keep his mouth shut around his superiors and not make clear what a loathsome creature he is.

Danny and Payton tried to be polite about it, but Gabe's hate filled invectives were bad enough that Payton had to eventually reply in kind . Janice overhead only Payton's comment and asked him to leave, not realizing that Gabe had been the one responsible for the turmoil. Once Janice found out that Gabe had called Payton a redneck, she gave Gabe a good slapdown, which caused Gabe to storm out of the house. Let's just hope he moves back to skankville and stays there permanently.

Buddies Danny and Payton moved their stuff in and went looking for sleeping quarters. Payton had said he loved the thought of being in a big house in a big bed. (Cue the Southern, laid back version of "Wouldn't it Be Loverly?") Chandler thought there was a pair of bunks in his room where Janice asked who was the top and who was the bottom, even though it is clear that they are both tops (as well as Janice who said "me too.") It was not meant to be though as they found the bunks were spoken for so they turned an alcove in the living room into their private VIP clothing-optional gentlemen's club. I want on that guest list.

Janice Dickinson And Role Playing

In season four, episode three of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, it was all about Janice and the models presenting themselves as they wanted to be seen on camera. Sometimes it was for the better, sometimes it was just bizarre.

The episode began with Janice apparently trying to portray a typical hausfrau, which is as believable as Marie Antoinette pretending to be a shepherdess. She was seen mopping the floor for a few seconds, just long enough to establish her bona fides in front of the camera that she knows how to clean house. She quickly grew tired of it and the mop went back into the hands of her all-purpose Igor, Sorin Mihalache. She then stormed through the house finding things to clean and garbage to throw out, loading Sorin with garbage bags the way the Grinch loaded down his down Max. Janice tried to make a bed but gave up in frustration, claiming her bitch nails wouldn't let her tuck the bedding in. Returning to her true role as queen of the realm, she got the female models to do it while letting them know she considered them pigs. Now that's the real Janice we know and love.

As strange as seeing Janice as a maid was, it was more shocking to see her getting up from bed in the morning and walking around the house in her robe, toothbrush in her mouth, checking on things, without makeup and without hair styling. In summary: visual unpleasantness. I had always assumed Gabe slept at her feet like the lap dog that he is and was ready to do her face as soon as she stirred. Otherwise, what's the point of keeping that obnoxious chihuahua?

Turning to the other wacky star of the show, Brian Kehoe has been pulling out all the stops. In the previous episode, Kehoe spoke privately with Janice and gave a sob story that he had no place to go and that he had slept in his car the previous night. Like in a bad horror movie where you know where such things are going to lead to, Janice let down her guard and allowed the seemingly normal young man to stay at the house.

The start of the unraveling was Kehoe bathing naked in the pool with soap. Okay, strange. It then progressed to loud, irrational confrontations with the other models at all hours of the night. Of course, the pseudo-psychosis was obviously for show. Kehoe did a convincing job of pretending to be a frat boy with paranoid personality disorder on angel dust, but it was clear that it was a put on for the camera. Kehoe is too nice for it to be real and if it doesn't seem real, it is not interesting to watch.

However, for the other models, such a display was still noisy and disruptive so it indeed pissed people off. Even deaf Martin Ritchie said Kehoe was loud. Of course, Martin as always was so sweet and adorable when he said that.

The beginning of the end was at a house party where Kehoe told Crystal Truehart that she should do blow in order to lose weight. Janice heard this and tossed Kehoe out of the house. Though it's beyond unreal, the Kehoe as a nutcase storyline will unfortunately continue like Michael Myers popping up over and over. Maybe it would be best if Janice would bring in a cosmetic skull doctor who could give Kehoe a quick extreme makeover with electroconvulsive therapy and be done with it.

The big client of the episode was Kentucky Denim Jeans, which did a photo shoot with some selected models at the Santa Anita racetrack. The boy models put out for stud were Chandler Maness, Martin Ritchie, Brian Kehoe, Dominic Figlio, and Christian Prelle.

First up was Chandler and Christian on a tractor combine thingy. I think Chandler's best feature so far is his hair. It's versatile. It looked great slicked down for the sophisticated, old world Nicolita look and also great messed up for a rugged farm hand pose. Martin climbed on the apparatus appearing with Dominic. Oh, be still my heart. Martin was totally believable as some sort of red state plow boy. A manly man. I will say at this point that his hair style and especially the color are really working for him. It doesn't look as good in his photos of the past when he didn't have the blonding.

Janice showed up with her super sized Dollar General derby hat. You know, when something looks incredibly cheap I don't think you really want to go large with it. It only needed a hanging price tag to complete the Minnie Pearl goes to the races look.

Janice found out from owner Liat Tala that Martin did a good job. Martin was happy that he was able to show everyone that he could do good as a model. Martin had talked through his interpreter about feeling left out when others are speaking audibly and he can't hear them. He said they forget to write things down in order to include him. I know what he's talking about. I have the same feeling when the janitorial staff at work is speaking in tongues, leaving me wondering what they are saying about me.

Can't forget to mention Paul Vandervort. At dinner one nightm, out of all the models. Janice called Paul over to take away her dishes, although she couldn't remember what his name was. It was then that I realized why Paul looks familiar. At every function I've been to, there is always a cater/waiter that looks a lot like Paul. Put him in a white jacket and he's perfect for the part.

Janice Dickinson And Faux Drama

In season four, episode two of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, it was all about the instigation of faux drama with forced friction between new models and returning models. It's a predictable ploy used on the series and it's probably played out by now. Long-time viewers know that by the end of the season, or at least by the start of the next one, everybody will be model buddies and one big happy PTSD family, so it's not worth investing interest in these little tiffs.

The gimmick of this season is the use of group living for the cast in a "model house", ala Big Brother, Real World, etc. Janice herself plays housemother, which makes the house sort of a cross between the Playboy mansion and a minimum security psych ward. Ostensibly, the purpose of the house was to give Janice Dickinson the opportunity to spend more time with her models, shaping them and keeping them focused. In reality, the concept was used to give the writers inherently more potential story lines to put together. The models, realizing that the house was where the stories and camera time were going to be based, all really wanted to stay within its limited confines. As terrible as it would be to have Janice on their back 24/7, they definitely wanted to be part of Madam Janice's little fame-whore house.

At the end of the first episode, the returning models were incensed to learn that only new models had been picked to live in the house. Only J.P. Calderon, the impossibly benevolent, good-hearted conscience of the agency, said he he was happy for the new models getting to live there. He indicated that he was blissfully ignorant of the anger of the returning models. Question: why are the gay characters on basic cable and network tv usually saints? When can we have gay super s|uts whoring with every drunken straight football player turned model?

It was understandable that the new models would need the most attention, so although I can understand that living in the house could be considered a bonus, it really was intended to be like remedial summer school and as such, anybody not forced to live in the house should have felt good that Janice considered them not needing the extra attention.

Janice pointed out that those not living in the house are still in her agency. She let them how much she still cared for them by saying, "I love each and every one of you. Shut the f*** up and trust me." She's so sweet. Lord love her.

The puke in the group that doesn't deserve any loving is Christian Prelle, who mocked Martin Ritchie's speaking ability. This was a new low for Prelle, lower than the repulsive behavior he showed last season before the PETA rally. Thankfully, Prelle got deservedly slapped by Janice.

To get all the models together, Janice threw a party. Everyone seemed to have a good time despite seeing Sorin Mihalache's mustache and sad little hat. At the party Janice announced that she had picked Maurice Townsell to move into the house. She explained that she hoped his manliness would rub off on the "effeminate" models. She went on to say that she meant it literally, describing some sort of weird, male model marking of territory where "he's going to rub his manly, manly, manly, all over the place." Not in, just over, sadly.

Strangely, Janice then wanted all of the models to cross-dress to show that they could portray different characters. This seem to defeat her purpose for bringing in Maurice as his female persona was unnervingly on target, looking like a $20 street prostitute. Martin, it should be noted, looked terribly sweet as a coquettish, naughty Texas housewife.

Getting down to work, the first casting was for Nicolita Swimwear. The company needed one of the girl models to be the face of Nicolita for the season and the finalists for the part who were selected to do a test shoot were Traci Moslenko, Polina Tretiakova, and CC Fontana. Chandler Maness was also selected, to be the man prop.

The shoot employed a very classy, classic look that I love, like Italy in the fifties. Traci Moslenko's face and hair looked real good, but the featured photo made her look like she had a beer gut. Polina Tretiakova's style just didn't fit the genre. CC clearly had the best photo of the women. Very sexy. Chandler Maness had the best look overall, looking fantastic in a Ivy League look. His one problem was his arm tattoo. It needs to go or have some body makeup on it.

CC had shown up late to the shoot because of her period. When Janice found out about it, she was very angry. Hearing it was because of menstruation, Janice asked CC, "Do you not know every 28 days that you have a blood bath downstairs?" Hearing this word picture of CC and her monthly flash flood disaster was a bit much, but probably better than seeing Janice hurl tampons at CC, shouting, "Plug it up! Plug it up!"

During the shoot, Janice met Anna Babbitt, Traci's manager for acting. Anna explained that she was representing Traci for TV and film. Janice asked, "What kind of film, porn?" Anna replied, "Well, she's going to be in features... soon." (As every other woman in LA is eventually promised.) Regardless, it's an great inspiration for having fun at work. I've started to bring a friend of mine to every business meeting, explaining that he's my agent for TV and feature films. It's a break from my usual intermittent but frantic waving away invisible bugs.

The second casting of the episode was for Kentucky Denim Jeans. Liat Tala, the owner, was looking for some male models (who isn't?) with a few females for background. The men had to try on jeans, which gave us a good number of crotch shots. Sweet! Christian Prelle, Martin Ritchie, Brian Kehoe, Dominic Figlio and Chandler Maness were selected. It will be hot to watch the photo shoot in the next episode.