I Like to Watch

June 18, 2006 | After you suck down your second triple-shot 32-ounce frappuccino of the day, but before you light up your 15th American Spirit Ultra Light, I want to tell you a soothing little story: There are places, far far away from the manicured mini-mall where you're kicking up your heels and ashing your cigarette, where people can't simply stroll into the nearest Sbarro in search of pepperoni-encrusted nourishment and a respite from the sweltering heat. There are places on this planet -- thousands and thousands of miles away, fortunately -- where, instead of climate-controlled interiors pumping unobtrusive bluesy pop, you'd find little third-world peoples toiling away in the fields, places where the little peoples would gather in loud throngs, elbowing each other in the head and ribs, just to get to the melted dregs of your first triple-shot frappuccino of the day. Indeed, an angry mob might form around you, made up of international peoples jockeying for the position to sort through the butts of your first 14 American Spirit Ultra Lights.

I'm not saying you should do anything about it, mind you. After all, while your fake Gucci sunglasses may give you that air of privilege you're aiming for (Yes, I hear the statement your fashion is making loud and clear: Your coochie truly does remain in the Gucci name), that certainly doesn't mean you have the resources to haul your ass to Namibia or some such impoverished, Godforsaken foreign land where people don't have a second bathroom or adequate storage space and there are these nasty little flies everywhere that really love to land right on your lips and the corners of your eyes. Even armed with a week's supply of anti-bacterial wipes, it would be sketchy to sally forth among such people, let alone hug and embrace them and take some of them home with you, so they might finally know what a Cuisinart 7-Cup Capacity Food Processor looks like.

But once you've polished off your third triple-shot 32-ounce frappuccino of the day and snubbed out your 20th American Spirit Ultra Light, once you've cruised home in your air-conditioned vehicle blasting Kanye West all the way, walked in the door, gazed into the fridge, cranked up the air conditioning in your four-bedroom, climate-controlled, split-level palace, and sat your squishy ass down in your squishy chair and fired up the TiVo, at that moment when you find yourself staring at the sorry list of shows available for viewing and there's a pit in your stomach and you just want to die right there because there's nothing on, because summer TV sucks, pure and simple, that's when I want you to consider that mob of hungry third-world peoples, poking each other's eyes out for a sip of your melted sickly sweet coffee drool. Since your mom can't be there to tell you that you're a lazy, spoiled, worthless excuse for a human being and you take every single thing you have for granted, I'm here to do it for her.

Girls gone mild

But I'm just projecting, punkies, because the doldrums of summer have hit me prematurely. I'm restless yet sluggish, crabby yet uninspired. It reminds me of being a teenager during the summer when there's nothing to do, nothing to eat, and no car available to drive somewhere so I can do nothing elsewhere. Even the news that Britney Spears might be cheating on K. Fed with the so-called manny doesn't light my fire. What the hell is wrong with me?

It's my fault, really, for burning through the first five episodes of "Deadwood" with the reckless abandon of a little third-world person scarfing down an entire bag of Fiery Habanero Doritos. Now, what am I left with? The first idiotic quick fix of the summer that springs to mind is ABC's "How to Get the Guy" (10 p.m. Mondays) -- a show that would more accurately be called "How to Get A Guy, Any Guy" or better yet, "How to Cast a Great, Big, Wide Net Like the Soulless, Whoring Sea Donkey That You Are."

Because, in line with the rest of the shitty dating advice out there, instead of advising women to be true to themselves while making careful choices about the kinds of men who make sense for them, the show urges a handful of women to produce the right cooing sounds and sighs and weak little gestures that will drive all the little warthogs into a blind frenzy of domineering, humpy love.

The most important lesson for the four women on the show? Whatever you do, don't be yourselves, because that obviously isn't working. Forget that you live in the single worst city for single women in the entire nation, San Francisco, a city filled to the brim with smart, pretty women and smug, entitled, unemployed, unwashed dudes who are just barely willing to bed you occasionally, no strings attached. If you haven't snagged a man yet, you're a failure and you need to follow our very explicit instructions to become a completely different sort of woman overnight.

The real tragedy of this show is that, instead of the usual flock of pageant-circuit beauties with Vaseline-coated teeth and all of the spontaneity and charm of bubble wrap, the single women on "How to Get the Guy" are reasonably smart, seem to have senses of humor (gasp!), are intermittently self-deprecating, and have plenty of strong opinions beyond those that revolve around the sanctity of marriage and the importance of a good colorist. So, when the smarmy host, JD, urges Anne, a pretty nice, smart, seemingly sane woman to "drop the hanky," i.e., signal her passive, utterly vulnerable availability to every man within spitting distance, we feel like kicking him in the shins, hard. This is not the sort of woman who stuffs things that look like chicken cutlets into her bra, OK? She's not aiming to attract every third jerk on the street with a hard-on for any flirty-eyed vixen who might just blow him on the second date.

Next page: "Winner Takes All" makes us feel sort of "Lost"