The Book of Mormon in Real Life, People Who Drink Wine, and the Best and Worst of TV

I am so amazingly in vacation mode that my brain is on vacation as well. I'm functioning with what little IQ it takes for a person's autonomous body functions to be  more or less in order plus still maintain the physical ability to manipulate the TV/DVR remote. A friend from med school is here with me. If the truth is to be told, she's functioning not much if at all higher mentally than I am tonight, and we really haven't even had much to drink. OK, I  haven't had much to drink. She's had plenty. 

We're watching some of the greatest and worst TV we can find on any source, including HULU, Netflix, old borrowed or stolen DVDs, and YouTube. In a few moments I'll announce our personal awards for the very best and worst TV has ever had to offer.

But first . . . my mother very graciously offered to accompany a couple of Mormon missionaries this Sunday while they sing some lame-ass song about the Mormon religious bullet point du jour, which is The Atonement. I'm not making light of The Atonement, really. It was a very gracious thing for Jesus to have done. I just think the Mormons are a bit confused about it. I think they even believe it happened in the Garden of Gethsemane (Is that in the Middle East, or is it in Missouri like the Garden of Eden is?) as opposed to on the cross. Regardless of how literally or figuratively a person takes any of this, what would have been the point of Jesus dying such a horrific death on the cross if he had already atoned for the sins of the world in the Garden of Gethsemane? I don't get it.

Anyway, back to my mother and the eighteen-year-old mishies. . . when they were supposed to practice with her this evening, they totally no-showed. I don't know if they realize that my mom was offering them for free what she normally charges something like two-hundred dollars per hour. (I'm talking about her piano accompaniment, by the way. My mother is not a whore,  and you need to get your mind out of the gutter if that was the direction in which your mind was headed.)  So my mother sat at the piano and practiced for about thirty minutes  -- not their lame-ass song, incidentally. She, or I, or probably even my brother's cat Ashley Madison could have played that stupid song in its full arrangement with just one hand (or paw) while blind-folded and wearing earphones blasting Black Sabbath, but instead something by Bach, which, if I recall correctly,  was The Goldberg Variations. After thirty minutes, my mom got tired of waiting for the Mormon missionaries, so she opened a bottle of wine and poured a glass for herself. (My visiting friend also helped herself to a glass of the wine.) By the time the mishies got around to calling a couple of hours later to say they "forgot," my mom and my friend had polished off the bottle and were midway through a second.  Suffice it to say that my mother was not at her most circumspect when she took their phone call. C'est la vie.

I shall return to the main topic of this post, which is my friend Wendy's and my television awards. The worst TV series in history, we're pretty certain, is 7th Heaven.  The casting is horrible, the acting is worse, and the writing is worse still. 

The worst reality series, while most are bad, is probably anything with the Duggars in it. It was heinous before we knew there were perverts and victims right before our eyes pretending to be wholesome and mentally healthy. Once the real scoop was dropped like a bomb, even watching commercials for it became unbearable.

The worst food show is anything with Bobby Flay in it. I'm pretty sure it is physically possible for a person to contract an STD just from watching Bobby Flay on TV.  That's the story my cousin used to explain his STD, anyway, and he's sticking with it.

The best rerun to watch when you're drunk or stoned is something from the Law & Order genre. There's so much crossover between actors who played perps in one show, victims in another, then cops or ADAs in another that you think you are drunk or stoned when watching it even if you're not. You have to be drunk or stoned to be able to delude yourself into thinking Angie Harmon is anything but an aging model or perhaps a crash-test dummy, besides. Has the woman ever had an acting lesson in her life? Where did they find her?

The best TV courtroom show is Judge Alex. No explanation is necessary. Just watch it when it becomes available in reruns soon.

The stupidest yet most compelling medical drama or whatever it is ever to be televised has to be House, M.D. The entire premise on which the show is based is so utterly asinine that it's pointless to try to justify the show's existence except that the acting is incredible and the writing is even better. It is also the source of my nickname (Cutthroat Bitch), which sticks to this day.

The greatest sitcom episode in history is the Greg Pikitis episode of Parks and Rec. If anyone ever erases it from my DVD either at home or at the condo, I may be forced to commit premeditated execution-style murder.

My mom left her cell phone in my room. The Mormon missionaries are still texting her. I thought they were supposed to go to bed at 11:00 or something like that.  Maybe they're texting her from their beds. They probably have serious hots for my mother in a sick, sordid, "Mrs. Robinson" sort of way. I don't know if I should leave well enough alone or text the missionaries back pretending to be my mother.

a still shot from the famous Greg Pikitis episode of Parks and Rec