Yes Hunny, it IS "The Teresa Show"! (Part One)

June 13, 2012- So I watched part 2 of, "My Big Gay New Jersey/Mid-West Wedding", and the most interesting thing for me about this episode has been Teresa's Bravo blog.
Yes, the Civil Union, or Domestic-Partnership ceremony was touching and sincere. And the wedding-vow scene was about the only part of the episode that seemed REAL to me. Maybe because I've been to a wedding in Illinois in June, and I have to wonder if no air-conditioning is part of the Mid-West tradition when it comes to weddings?
The perspiration on the groom(s?) was/were noticeable. Is surviving the wedding and reception and having a good time in sweltering heat part of a successful marriage-omen for Mid-Westerners?
I also noticed Joe Giudice's product placement scene in this episode.(When the camera zoomed-in so that we viewers could see the brand-name of some kind-of sex-juice that we could buy the next time we're in the grocery store) I wonder if Joe get's a cut of the ad-revenue there?
More Carolyn Manzo giving dirty-looks, and complaining in her talking-heads about Teresa......OK Caroline, we get it! Even Teresa finally get's it! (um-she did know that Teresa would SEE all of this on television-right?)
So what does Teresa do? Well, she is starting to respond/fight-back if you could call it that. Starting with her appearance on The View last week where she insisted on a solo interview-
And here is where I'll comment on Melissa's Bravo blog. Where Melissa goes on and on about how The Real Housewives of New Jersey is "NOT" "The Teresa Show". Sorry Melissa, The Real Housewives of New Jersey IS all about Teresa.
There really isn't much about any of the other cast-members that is compelling or interesting in my opinion, and when I took some time-out from my day last week to tune-in to The View, I caught one glimpse of Melissa and Kathy slinked-down on the couch and I turned-OFF the television and went back to my day.
Separating herself from the pack in such a clear way, only proved to me further that Teresa is the only thing that The Real Housewives of New Jersey has going.
The only time that the other cast-members are relevant at this point, is when they are talking about Teresa, and even that is starting to get old.
The thing about Teresa's Bravo blog that caught my attention, was of-course her going in-depth to explain how FAKE and PHONY her cast-mates were being about the magazine pictures and stories. I had posted a blog last week, explaining how that works, (how magazines will pay for photos but not interviews), but to see Teresa expose some inside industry info. to her viewers, and then to give the viewers a heads-up that there is more "bad-acting" from her cast-members in up-coming episodes, well, I'm starting to get the opinion that Teresa has literally lost-the-plot. Or maybe she was not given a script, or she was given a different script than the one that everybody else has?
This is where the enigma that is a secret, that is a mystery, that is the entertainment that we call reality television gets confusing. Scripted? Reality? Fake. Real??? And don't forget the EDITING!
(uh-oh, I better stop here before I get started on FRANKEN-BYTES! but that's a whole other blog post)
 I am a reluctant convert myself to "The Teresa Show". I was forced to re-examine my conclusions about her when she started gaining momentum. There was MORE to this Jersey Girl than we 1st thought-isn't there? She could have played in the mud with her co-stars, but she didn't. I had to agree with Melissa, who gave her Sister-in-law credit for having the guts to be seen in public after the embarrassment of The Giudice's financial problems and her husband's legal problems became known.
Even-if some of the Tweets, and blog-comments, and book-sales, are shills, or fake to make it appear like a public person has fans, there was no denying that Teresa Giudice had some REAL FANS. I made it my business to find-out WHY would anyone admire Teresa when she apparently lacked common sense in my opinion.
I don't know if I would ever call myself a "fan" of Teresa Giudice, but I started gaining respect for her when she pulled a classic, "ANNIE"-move, and stuck-out her chin, and kept-on going despite her haters and her problems. This blog-post is getting a little long, so I think that I'll break it up.
I have studied Teresa, and her success in depth, and I think that it has a lot to do with why The Real Housewives of New Jersey has become, "The Teresa Show". But I think I'll have to save that for another blog.

Season 4--Deja' View all over again and again

Do they really expect the hard-core viewers and fans of The Real Housewives of New Jersey to be interested in arguments over magazine articles that came-out last year? Now we're re-hashing "How did Teresa's relatives get on the show?", on The View, and then in the blogs..wait-a-minute! I thought we covered all that at the beginning of LAST season, (Season 3), when we were first introduced to the Gorga's and Walkilies?
Haven't most people who follow the series already made our minds up about how we feel about that? So what is the point? And the stories circulating that the Gorga's made a video promising to destroy Teresa? I can't be the only one who remembers hearing this before. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one who recalls seeing this video or still-photos of the supposed audition-video online or somewhere, yet now the existence of this video is being questioned. And no I cannot find it anywhere although I have looked, but from what I remember I distinctly recall seeing at least a still photo of the Gorgas wearing camouflage-gear, dressed like Rambo with ammo and machine guns, illustrating a story about how "desperate"-Melissa and Joe Gorga acted very Jersey-tough and parodied The Sopranos, and asked to be put on The Real Housewives of New Jersey.Maybe it was a Halloween costume? I don't know, but the "audition-video"-story is making its way around again, and if there is a season 5, maybe we will "officially" hear that story again then, or maybe IF there is a season 4 reunion, Andy Cohen will ask Melissa if there was an audition tape?
The only difference that I can see is that Teresa is starting to throw some zingers of her own towards her cast-mates. And although I can't blame her, I think that a great deal of Teresa's appeal and popularity has been because she has not made herself dirty by playing in the mud with her "frienimies" and family.
What Teresa did say on The View, that could be considered new, was confirmation that until she is watching the show, she really did not know about all the dirty-looks, and nasty comments that her co-stars, mainly the Manzo family, were directing towards her. Teresa told us several times on The View that seeing and learning all of this now is "hurtful". (and by several times, I mean using that exact word "hurtful", which I found strange in her delivery. She used the word verbatim, almost like she was afraid to deviate from the exact words that she had been scripted/ or coached to say. How hard would it be to change-up the words so it wouldn't sound so stiff?). Personally, I thought that it would sound much more natural for Teresa to say, "My feelings have been really hurt.", instead-of, "It is hurtful." Here's a paraphrased transcript of Teresa's interview from The View:

Barbara- "Would you do another season?"
Teresa- "Its been hurtful, Barbara."
Barbara -"how does it make you feel seeing what they say behind your back?"
Teresa- "It has been...hurtful."
Barbara-"So, if they offered you a chance to come back next season, would you do it? You're planning on coming back-right, you won't turn-down an offer-would you?"
Teresa-"It has been very, uh, its been hurtful?"

Another thing that feels as recycled as an episode of House, is the winning Bravo formula of "mean girls", and picking-on the underdog. Everybody loves an underdog-right? It worked for Bethenny, why won't the same thing work for Alexis on The Real Housewives of OC, or Teresa in New Jersey? And in another of the higher-rated plots, it didn't work-out so well for Danielle, but the viewers did tune-in to watch, so it worked-out for Bravo.
Well-for one very important reason, reality is not drama. You can't have it both ways-either a show is scripted or it is NOT.  Using the scripted drama House, as an example of a show that had some success using a formula that everyone expected and enjoyed, (patient has strange illness, House almost kills them, investigate the patient's home, House takes some pills and saves the day...),  well, having some predictable familiar gimmicks is fun for a reality show, but in reality, people have a way of not doing what we expect them to do. They go "off-script"-or, improvise. Things happen that we couldn't even imagine. THAT is one of the reasons that people like to watch reality television.
And that's why when I watch an episode of House or Law & Order, I anticipate the expected formula, but I feel cheated when its served-up in my reality favorites. Because "reality" is life, and life does not play-out the way we expect it to-does it? 
Another thing that has been bothering me this season so far is the complaining about magazine "stories" being sold. I did a great deal of investigation into celebrity and gossip magazine stories when I was looking into the strange story about the little girl who's mother supposedly gave her botox©. It turned-out that the mother of the girl claimed that she had simply sold PHOTOS, and in reality those photos were allegedly posed to make it appear that the child was having her face injected. And the pictures were indeed sold for an admitted $15,000, (Good Morning America, a NEWS organization was involved in this alleged hoax. "We do NOT pay for interviews, but we DO pay to use photos"-was GMA's quote as well).link to botox hoax story
I know that has nothing to do with this,but what I learned in that instance was that publications, and even television networks, DO NOT ever like to admit for paying for stories or interviews. They WILL admit to paying for photos. So, all of this talk about Teresa "selling" her story, selling her apology...they ALL know that it doesn't work like that. Its the pictures that are being paid for. Sometimes the photos are brokered through an agent, and sometimes interviews and quotes are given, but basically, Teresa can honestly say that she has NOT been paid to "sell stories". (I'm sure that they ALL have been paid for their photos ;)). And if the people who choose the cover-photos want Teresa instead-of Caroline, THAT is who they are going to pay.
But we, the viewers of The Real Housewives of New Jersey haven't learned a thing about how that all works from watching the show, although I find it very interesting. Instead, we are being jerked back and forth between what happened, on screen and in real life/real-time last year, and Season 3/Season 4, (which we are seeing now. And they are blogging-about now, but which actually happened last year...and then just to make it MORE confusing, who knows WHAT they are Tweeting-about!). OH-and one other interesting current piece of information that was disclosed on The View, is that Teresa has not seen her relatives since the Season 3 Re Union, which was recorded last September.
-So it does at least make some sense, that Bravo had the foresight to get almost all of Season 4 done, before whatever it is that happens at the end-of Season 4 at the fashion show, and the Season 3 reunion, because Bravo must have had an inkling that they would not be able to be friendly after all of it.
I'm watching a repeat of Rosie and Kathy discussing Rosie's homosexuality right now and Kathy says to her sister Rosie, "When you came-out to me.", and it almost sounds unscripted, but not quite. Who uses such politically correct phrases with their own sister? Even-if it is a touchy subject, I'd have to imagine IF someone were to have a conversation like that in real life, that it would sound more like, "remember the first time that we talked about you being gay?", or is homosexuality such a tricky topic that sisters and close family members talk like that? (But friends and acquaintances and co-workers like Joe Giudice are graphic, insulting and crude?) .
Maybe the title of the episode should have been, "How to/How not-to talk to gay friends and relatives"? The entire topic just feels a little forced, and again-scripted. The sexy married-lady in the hot-tub party, just made me wonder if the Wakilie's didn't really know how to behave at a party, but that they've visited a few orgies with their hookah-pipe?

Are we Being Fed a Big Fat Load of Lauren Manzo?

Did You see what I did here? YES! Its Smelly Melly's fatsuit!

This season's storyline for Lauren Manzo has been about her alleged weight-problem. I say alleged for a reason. I had my suspicions, especially since except for a few strategic camera close-ups, which were obviously done to make Lauren look as large as possible, I cannot, or do not see an obese person when I see Lauren on The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Yet Caroline Manzo goes on and on about it like its the great tragedy of the century. (Meanwhile, Caroline's estranged sister Dina, devotes time to children who are ill with cancer. No one needs to tell me why those two don't get along). So I did a little online research on Ms. Lauren Manzo, and it was her OWN message to a fan's question on Twitter, that convinced me that Lauren's "fat"-"problem", is nothing more than a BRANDING/MARKETING opportunity. Apparently, word is out that Lauren has allegedly lost some weight and she has been sighted out and about looking gorgeous and thin. Here's a photo from Wetpaint.com (article on Lauren link here) that they say was posted on Caroline's Facebook page. Notice the high-angle the photo was taken-from? And is Lauren following Jill Zarin's advice to wear THREE GIRDLES??? here? I'd hate to see the red-marks when she peels them off!

 From WetPaint "Weight Loss Alert"-story.

But as I said earlier, it was Lauren's own Tweet, that outed the marketing and branding plan. In the Tweet, Lauren alludes-to a deal being made.Someone had asked Lauren how she managed to lose weight, and Lauren replied that she cannot say yet because of "contracts". So she's waiting to get a deal to sell her , (alleged, supposed...), "weight-loss"/diet story to the highest bidder? Here's a screen-shot of the Tweet:

I know that I titled this post with a question mark, but I'm just going to come out and say that I think that the whole "Lauren is overweight", is a fake, phony LIE! I have to give them credit because usually we criticize the media for using Photo-Shop© and other tricks and smoke & mirrors to deceive us into believing that people are thinner, and/or prettier than they really are. This would be the 1st time that I can think-of, where the media attempts to fool the public by having us believe that someone is heavier. OH wait a minute! I just remembered those AWFUL super-close-up cover photos that The National Enquirer used many years ago, when they were feuding with Liz Taylor. But that is the only example that I can think-of, maybe there are more?
(THIS HAS BEEN A SMOKE-FREE BLOG)

Last two posts invisable now due to False info posted by myself

Attention: I am making the past two posts on this blog invisible. That read-between-the-lines one was really hard to do, but there were serious UNTRUE accusations, posted by myself there so it needs to be redone.
J. Laurita, got-wind of my rude demands made on her publisher, and although she did not have to do it, she posted her current, valid, (as far as I know and I believe it) Cosmetologist License online.(link here)
I will say this in my defense- I was NOT one hundred per cent certain about what I was posting, but I had left a message in the voice-mail of the Nevada Board, and they returned my call the next day when I was away from my desk. In case it is not obvious, I do not know how to spell Jaq's 1st name. But that did not matter because the woman that I spoke with from the state Board told me that no one in the State of Nevada by the last name of "Laurita" was licensed. She also said that if I gave her the license number, that she could look it up that way but the online NJ database is pretty simple and it all goes-by names so I believed her.
I did ask how I could obtain documentation or further proof of that fact, and the woman told me that (incorrectly, which I just found-out earlier), "only employers" were allowed to have that information.
What I found-out earlier while continuing to research this matter, is that Nevada state law states that they MUST furnish that info. to THE PUBLIC if it is asked-for.

But back to my apology. Not only did I post, and rant-about mis-information myself. I mis-judged Jacqueline Laurita. Maintaining a professional license, while also raising a family, and being a Home-Maker, not to mention her career as a television personality...............well. I didn't think that she had it in her to keep-up with the hard and strict requirements of maintaining professional credentials, so I was more than ready to believe the WORST. And I am very sorry about that too.

I am also terribly SORRY for speading un-truth and mis-information to all of you here and on Twitter, and on Self magazine .com. And wasting your time with this.-HousewifeHater

Pre-Season Warm-Up!

I was Wrong About Lisa Lampanelli?

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

Michael Mazzela does NOT want to be a Role Model!+ How to get Financial Aid 4 skool

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.