Diary of NJ Housewives : April 2012

When I saw some of Lisa Lampanelli's comments in print the other day, I think that I mis-judged her.
Reality Blurred had a post entitled Lisa Lampanelli uses racial slurs against Dayana Mendoza http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/the_celebrity_apprentice_5/2012_Apr_10_lisa-dayana-racial-slur#disqus_thread
I don't want to post Lampanelli's comments here again, because they are ugly and I have come to the conclusion that any mention of Lampanelli's words, outside-of her insult comedy act, would be "out of context"-anyways.
When I first read Andy Dehnart's post the other day, I went on a little Twitter-rampage, then I did a little research on Lampanelli, then I wrote a reply to the item linked above.
I did not notice 'til after I hit "post comment" that there is a policy on Reality Blurred about using real names. Luckily I had saved my post before sending. So here it is:

I was horrified when I first read this article. I haven't missed one episode of this round of Celeb Apprentice, but that is ALL that I knew of Lampanelli. That, and she's supposed to be a comedian. If she has been telling jokes on The Apprentice, they must have been edited-out, because she hasn't made me laugh once there so far. The way she has treated Lou Ferrigno was just nasty.
I went digging for more info. Too bad I looked at her Twitter timeline first because I didn't find the funny there either, just what looked to me like an elitist attitude, and more (unfunny and ignorant for someone who apparently considers herself to be so much more intelligent then just about everybody else),- use-of the "R"-word. Can someone please send her that memo?

That, and the fact that she refuses to apologize for anything that she says.
I continued to dig because I really wanted to see at least one example of where she is actually funny or doing her act, and then I hit paydirt.
On Amazon there is a book about The Friar's Club, where she talks in detail (Friars Club Private Joke File page 232), and she admits that when she uses stereotypes, she is making-fun of the stereotype itself, or making-fun of people who believe such things. I don't want to speak for her but, this is a quote, "...If you've got a good heart and you don't mean any of the ridiculous things that you say...""--good heart, how would I know that? But she admits more than once that she doesn't believe the stuff she says, and I don't want to apologize for her but, in PRINT here what she has said does not come-across sarcastically, or even intentionally humorous. Maybe if I saw it or heard her saying it, it could be taken as "joking". It really isn't a good joke. Certainly not worth using an offensive slur.
-but I will say that I personally think that I misunderstood her intentions. If she doesn't mean what she says and it falls-under the umbrella of her, "insult comedy"- I think that she should at least recognize that a lot of people don't know who she is, so it would help her to introduce herself better if she let people in on her little "joke".

Here's a link to the Friar's Club book mentioned above:Friars Club Private Joke File: More Than 2,000 Very Naughty Jokes from the Grand Masters of Comedy

Some of you here probably know that I am banned and blocked on that blog from Chicago. Occasionally, I lurk there and very rarely, in an "emergency",(like once or twice in the past year) I will post there using some random name. I saw something there the other day that I thought was important enough for me to post.
Unfortunately, the post did not get-through. It must have still been bothering me, because I then went to the trouble of finding one of the bloggers from that site, and contacting them on Twitter.
I asked this person if I could quote his DM, but so-far I have not received an answer on that. Actually, we had a few DMS. And yes, this guy got pretty nasty with me.
I'm almost afraid to post the quote from that site, because he became very annoyed-with being quoted with what he had posted but in the interest of making-sense, here copied directly, is the quote from that blog:

Michael Mazzella says:
April 2, 2012 at 12:52 am

I understand that but who is going to pay for it? I cannot get a scholarship I’ve tried very hard and the only person who would be fitting the bill is me… Education is great but there are other ways to make it and no need for me to its the many that did. I have always been a terrible student, always. I’m on such a good track and have made so much head way… there is not point in stopping….besides it’s not an option $$$ wise

OK-so, my reply that didn't get through was something-like, "I understand that you are doing other things right now, but you should be aware that there is something called, free financial aid, and most students complete the federal financial aid application and receive grants based-on income for education. -Just something like that so that IF there were some other young person, or ANY person who could be reading that, OR if Mr. Mazzela would ever change his mind, that he would know that there are funds available. I don't know exactly what the extent of his "trying very hard" entailed, but I DO understand that there are multiple fraudulent companies out there, besides the general competitive nature of most scholarship opportunities.
The quote above is a reply to a very nice message advising Mr. Mazzela to pursue his education.
So-for some reason, this was bothering me. The fact that this mis-information was online, and that apparently, Mr. Mazzela himself, was unaware of the opportunity for free financial aid for education.
So I Tweeted him. He replied that I should CHECK MY DM. We began a discussion, and it did get nasty, but it would not be right to post what he thought was a private conversation. At some point, I told him that I would be blogging about him, and I requested permission to post one of his DMS, that I thought pretty-much explained his view of the topic. He responded that he would like to have his say, so I invited him to email me, and I said that I would post whatever he liked.
The gist of the (140 characters at a time!), argument, was that I should MYOB. And that Mazzela did not need or want to per-sue any educational activities. Like I said here, and to him, that's his business. And-I respect that. BUT, what he didn't seem to understand, (or really care-about either), is that his ignorance of how paying tuition for higher education works, could affect OTHER people.
I tried to explain it in an excruciatingly 140 character at a time way. I just reviewed the entire conversation, and technically, he did give me permission to post it, but really that would not be fair to him so I'm not, you'll just have to trust me that he was pretty rude. Here is where I tried to explain how the mis/dis-information could lead someone ELSE astray:

Yes, I did get personal with the blogger and believe me I'm sorry if I offended him. He only had to tell me once that he really wasn't interested in school for me to get it. And yes I was concerned for him. I was worried that based-on what he had posted, that he had ruled-out the idea of being able to afford tuition, and I wanted to make sure that he knew that he obviously had not taken the correct steps when he was interested. His replies indicated to me that he should not have to worry that people would make decisions based-on what he had posted.
I guess he is right in that you really cannot trust any information that you see online. I learned that the hard-way that time that I followed the step-by-step instructions for cleaning my keyboard on a joke website that I did not know was a joke! But I look at that kind-of statement almost as a testimonial. I got the idea that he is tired of people telling him that he should be in school, and that's his problem to deal-with. If I were that age, and people were telling me that I should be in school, I guess it could be taken as an insult? I really didn't understand his attitude, but maybe it came-across as-if I were calling him "un-edumacated"? That was not my intention. Mazzela has chosen not to attend school, and personally, I think that he may be too busy for that right now and he's pretty clear that he doesn't want to be in school.Yes, I think that young people in general need to learn and become educated, but if they really do not want to be in school, that's fine too. Ironically, he has chosen to put himself in the public as a talk show host, which implies a certain amount of trust in what he says. I'm sure that he'll learn how that works even without sitting in a classroom ;). If he sticks to talking-about what he knows, he should be OK. As long as he is aware that he may be called-on to set-the-record-straight, when he doesn't know what he's talking-about.
Also -Mis-information, dis-information,and mis-perceptions/deception are some-of the main reasons why I care about The Real Housewives and the ideas that people get from watching. Because the shows are aiming to be "aspirational", I think that its important to validate those aspirations. "Its ALL real"-"Its not real"-- Just recently, yet another Real Housewife, the new one on OC, was quoted as saying, "Its real". Well, in this case for example, someone who watches The Real Housewives, may be aware that Kelly, who's intelligence has been compared-to "rocks", and some other women who don't seem to be very bright, have earned degrees. Well, that may be true, but I'm sure that her education didn't hurt her. Using a little twisted-logic, I could see a person who's been fed a steady-diet of The Real Housewives, convincing themselves that they are already smarter than Kelly, so why bother? Personally, I think that Kelly must have been hit-on-the-head with a surfboard, or flat-out cheated a LOT, but that's my personal opinion on that. And I don't like cheating either, but just because there is some cheating and politics in education, well, that's life in general.
In case anybody is wondering how to apply for free financial aid. This is the official government website where the application is located. http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ If you notice, it is a "Dot gov"-site, and that is extremely important to avoid scammers. It costs nothing to apply, but you do need to have some information like your most current tax-returns. AND they have a deadline, (state and federal). So if you are planning to attend school next year (the 2012-2013 school year), it has to be done now. Even-if you have not applied to a school, you can go-back to the form when you know what school you want to attend. It does take about a half-hour to fill-in the forms, but at the end they can tell you what kind-of grant you can expect. Of course the college Board, or the SAT official site has links to scholarship applications, but I prefer the FAFSA because it is a sure-thing, and many schools require it these days. Also, if the grants that a person will receive, will not cover the expenses, including room and board, transportation, books...the FAFSA site also provides links to official student loan information. That is important because there are still some companies out there that would pass themselves off as "student loan", companies, but they would have someone paying tuition, or necessary finances, at consumer interest rates, which is ridiculous because the government student loan rates are at least 10 per cent less expensive. This financing goes for any type of education that is certified including trade schools and many certification and licensing programs as well.