Reality television, in my opinion, is a sin akin to child pornography and talking out loud at the theatre. If there’s anything that can depress me faster than a whole bottle of sleeping pills, it’s flipping through the channels and accidentally coming to rest on a reality program for more than the few seconds it takes to register in my brain and keep on flipping. I’m not sure what the attraction is other than to make us feel better about ourselves. “Hey, I may be in debt/ in prison/ in a terrible relationship but at least I’m not enough of a sad sack to want to make a total asshat out of myself on national television by exposing the deepest, ugliest side of my nature and possibly my knob as well.”

The Rock Star and I had some time on our hands in Portugal and since I was suffering through the throes of morning sickness at the time, (the smell of sunblock was nearly unbearable for me) we spent a good deal of time lounging on the couch and watching one of his Uncle Investment’s giant plasma screen tellys. It was during this weekend that we got hooked, against our better judgement, by Rockstar: Supernova. (For any of those in the dark- a vehicle for Tommy Lee, (he of the infamous wedding night video. Oh yeah, and he was in a band once too, I think.) Gilby Clarke (GNR) and Jason Newstead (Metallica) to form what will inevitably be a short lived, publicity driven rock band fronted by the winner of the show, which turned out to be the skunk-headed, grated voiced love child of Megadeath, the Cure and Keane, Lukas Rossi.)

I know that it ended well over two weeks ago in the States, but we finally got to see the final here in the UK last night. I was determined to avoid any resulting US publicity, so I restricted my web surfing to serious news sites, forgoing my normal forays into entertainment and music pages. Unluckily for me, the show was broadcast on NBC and an ill timed visit to MSNBC spoiled the surprise and forced me to keep the information from the Rock Star when all I really wanted to say was, “Didn’t we say? Didn’t we say during the first episode that he would win? Wasn’t it all just too obvious from all of the mystifying and obsequious ass licking that he received from Day 1? Come on! WTF?”

We love us some good music, and this show had it. With the dirth of good, dirty rock and roll around these days, watching the 12 or so contestants put through their paces with a truly awesome house band was highly entertaining. Less so were the four mouthpieces in the background running the whole shebang.

It’s fairly obvious from the conflicting personalities on the show that the band was literally thrown together for the purposes of the vehicle and not out of any sort of creative meeting of minds. From 12 weeks of watching Gilby Clarke interact with Tommy Lee, I find it hard to believe that he would have said, “Sure, I’d love to be in a band with a perpetually dazed guy who often finds completing sentences a chore. Who used to regularly shoot up with the other guitarist in my band. Who has his sexual escapades with his enormously bosomed ex-wife lurking in every corner of the internet. Who used to set the bass player in his band on fire for fun. And who once bit Eddie Van Halen while on tour. By all means, count me in.”* (My guess is that he’s got a rider somewhere saying that he gets a door on the tour bus that he can lock lest he wake up with vegetables or small mammals down his pants) Jason Newstead always gave the impression that he’d ended up there by walking into the wrong studio. I can’t take away from either Clarke or Newstead’s obvious musical talents, but they AND Dave Navarro (who was doing his best impression of Dracula’s much camper younger brother for the entire run of the show and who’s insistence of calling everyone “baby” turned the most hardened of stomachs) should have taken a clearer backseat to what was going on on the stage.

Our own final verdict was that the folks eliminated later in the shows run would probably go on to have much more successful careers than the actual winner, who was, from day one, the obvious, although not entirely deserving choice. (The two women in the final five are both working with Dave Navarro and Gilby Clarke post-run on albums) The Rock Star and I were hugely impressed with the final grouping of five, especially Storm Large, Toby Rand and Dilana, ANY of which we thought would have made a better choice than Lukas who, while LOOKING like a rock star, has a voice that could peel wallpaper out of your living room and scour pans in the sink. Our three favourite performances? Toby’s Layla,(week Dilana’s Mother, Mother (week 9) and Storm’s original, Ladylike.(week 10)

So we’ve had our enjoyable summer of trashy reality tv. But it doesn’t count. It was all about the music.

*I’m not a huge non-fiction person, but I’m reading “The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band” at the moment, documenting the life and times of Motley Crue. One reviewed called it, “A morality tale- what happens when a bunch of stupid men make an awful lot of money.” I was fairly young when their music was at it’s zenith, but I’ve always associated it with county fairs as “Dr. Feelgood” and “Girls, Girls, Girls” seem to always be on perpetual loop inside rides like the Gravatron. So naturally, I tend to equate their music with extreme motion sickness and funnel cakes.

Pregnancy is a natural state. But then again, there are a lot of things that are natural, like tornados and platypus and god knows what kind of monsters that live at the bottom of the ocean. They all have extreme weirdness in common.

It’s kind of like having a roommate move into a very small apartment with you. But not because you advertised for one, of course, but merely because you forgot to lock the door one night.

You might not notice them at first, despite the limited space. There might be an odd sock around the place that you can’t immediately identify, but nothing you can put your finger on. Then suddenly, you might start to notice strange smells emanating from the kitchen that make you violently ill; your new housemate obviously has vastly different tastes in food than you.They didn’t bring anything with them, of course, so before you know it, they’re wearing your stuff, crowding you out of your own living room, sleeping in your bed and squeezing the toothpaste from the middle of the tube instead of from the end.

But despite all the trouble they caused moving IN, this is NOTHING compared to what happens when they move OUT.

I’ve been kind of wigged out by what seems to be occurring in my lower regions recently. Living on the boat, there is little space for a full length mirror, so when I was granted the privilege of showering in my in-laws lovely bathroom this morning, I was so stunned at the sight of my body I nearly squeezed half a bottle of apricot scrub all over the carpet. I’ve never been what you could define as slender, but to suddenly see this massive jutting belly appearing from beneath my pajama top was slightly unnerving. (I got big fast. And no, there aren’t two of them in there, unless one is hiding exactly behind the other at all times in the same position, chuckling to itself and waiting until my due date to surprise the hell out of both of us.)

It will be another 4 weeks before we get to find out the Prawn’s gender. A lot of people choose not to discover the sex of the child, but I’m one of those kids who always went searching for her Christmas presents in November, so you better believe I want to know if I’ve got a colt or a filly in there in order to immediately gender sterotype them with a whole wardrobe of pink or blue clothes. Sue me. Either gender is going to get the obligatory “volume knob set to 11” shirt from babywit.com.

Happenings in my belly and other oddities.

Okay, you know how I bitch about how little space we have on the boat? May I offer visual proof as to the cause?

Yes, all of those guitars belong to the Rock Star*, and with the exception of 2, they ALL LIVE ON OUR BOAT.

*I must admit to ownership of the white Telecaster.

We eat out probably a lot more than we should. It’s more out of laziness than decadence- at the end of the day when we think ahead to food prep and dish duties…sometimes it’s just all too much to bear and we go, “Screw that, lets go to (restaurant of our choice)”

I was browsing MSNBC this morning as I am wont to do from time to time, just to keep in touch with the news and foibles of my motherland, came across this article full of angry waiters and got to thinking about the food service trade from both angles. I had the misfortune to spend most of my high school years behind the counter of the local Macky D’s or the ugly red apron of Pizza Slut, which, coincidentally, I never actually QUIT, so presumably, they might still be thinking that I’m just really, really late.

Gratuity, as defined in the dictionary, is “a gift of money, over and above payment due for service, as to a waiter or bellhop; tip” or “something given without claim or demand”

It blows to be a waiter. It really does. Of course, I never worked at an establishment where people usually spent more than 20 bucks on their overall bill, so it rarely made for good tips, no matter HOW obsequious or conscientious I was. Also, working in what is essentially a fast food chain, people often forget that tipping is necessary at all (I earned 2.50 an hour) even if they bring a party of 16 under 8’s, run up a $150.00 tab and have me running back and forth to the kitchen for napkins, soft drinks and helium balloons until I had the strong urge to lie down on the pizza oven conveyor belt and slowly roast in my own juices. (I got a $1.00 tip from that party)

On the other side of the coin, a lot of waiters blow. Seeing as how it’s so crappy to BE one, it is hard to be enthusiastic about your shitty job and if you think customers don’t notice or don’t care, you’re wrong. Having come out of many service industries, I know how little effort it takes to do your job properly and if someone DOESN’T do it properly, I have a hard time understanding why I should give, “without claim or demand”, extra cash. I’m not one of those assholes that chronically stiffs waiters or anything. In fact, I often leave tips even if the service was abominable, just because…well, that’s what you do, isn’t it? Bad service is so much the norm, I fail to realize why clever wait staff haven’t learned that just a TINY bit of extra effort is so much appreciated that a lot of grateful individuals will be happy to give you the gift of money, “over and above payment due for service.”

Surely a service charge should only be levied if you receive good service? If a 20% gratuity is assured, isn’t that just a license for more bad service? Every job in the universe operates on the same principal; if you excel, you should be rewarded. If the reward is assured, where is the drive to excel?

This rant has been brought to you by the Prawn, I imagine, who, while he/she has only existed for 15 weeks, has already become jaded and cynical and had managed to turn his/her mother into a raving, angry lunatic.

Back when I was in high school I had an interesting and dynamic sociology teacher, who, looking back on things, was so good an educator because he was genuinely interested in the things he was talking about.

We did units on war, horror movies, societal morays and other unusual human phenomena . One of the more interesting lectures I recall was one into events surrounding a full moon. There are a fair amount of documented studies out there conducted by emergency services (police departments, A&E, firefighters) revealing that all sorts of increased and unusual activity tends to coincide with the occurrence of a full moon.

So, it was of little surprise last night when we walked into A&E for The Rock Star’s raging mystery facial/ear pain that we found ourselves under a lunar curse.

Emergency rooms are never empty. I know that the dozen or so times I’ve been in them that they are always about 10% full of people who actually need to be there (i.e. bleeding and oozing) and the rest of the 90% are usually either worried mothers of small children, people who have gotten into fights (i.e. whining and boozing) or some guy who’s mysteriously got a fork sticking out of his head. (i.e. got caught by angry ex-wife while snoozing)

Last night, the Stoke Mandeville A&E was heaving. The Rock Star is the sort of guy who takes pain very stoically, so when he said he actually thought he needed to go to A&E at 12am, I had no doubt that his pain levels were reaching extremes.

Right off the bat, the nurse let us know that there would be a significant wait. 3 hours or more. The Rock Star looked incredibly pained, but rather determined to be seen by a medical professional, so we decided to tough it out in the sub zero waiting area until 2 or so. I went in search of sustenance in the long and deserted corridors of the hospital and finally encountered some snack machines in the newer portion of the place nearly half a mile from the 50’s era A&E. The best place for them, obviously.

We were surrounded by the A&E regulars- the rugby guy on crutches. The surly teenager with a dislocated____________. The crying baby. One surprise was the guy from the comic book store on the Simpsons, who strode in round about 1am with nothing apparently wrong with him. 2 hours later he was able to force open the automatic doors to A&E when they became stuck shut, so not exactly sure what the nature of his affliction was.

While my husband was wincing with pain every few seconds, I’m sad to report that I fell asleep. I didn’t come to until 4am when the nurse came out to tell us all to go home because they were so understaffed, they wouldn’t be able to see anyone, a fact, that I might add, was pretty obvious from the moment that we walked into the place, but for some reason, it took them four hours to get around to getting that information to us.

The Rock Star bravely sucked it up and whisked me out before I could go all Angry Pregnant Woman on someone. (I must admit that my tolerance for stupidity and inconvenience of all kinds has been drastically deduced by my current incubatory state)

There was a beautiful moon last night. It’s a shame we couldn’t properly appreciate it.

After 6 bloody years of trying, I hold, in my hand, my practical driving test certificate.

No one is going to take it away from me until I’m legally blind.