ROCK OF LOVE, EPISODE 1: 25 GIRLS MAKE THEIR PARENTS PROUD
Well, I don’t know what I was expecting. Twenty-five of the most vacuous sub-porn star women in the world began the competition for Bret Michaels’ affections on the debut episode of Rock of Love this past Sunday (as though anyone ever needed to “win” a chance to fuck a member of Poison), and instantly proved Chris Rock’s assertion that his one job as a father is “to keep my baby off the pole” wrong: a father’s one job in life is to keep his baby from humiliating herself on national television like these women have. I can’t decide if it’s funny or sad, but I know I’m gonna keep watching.
The show got off to quite a start, with Bret’s head of security and “friend” Big John dismissing five contestants before the festivities even began (How do you think this conversation went? Producers: “We don’t have enough beds. Get rid of five uggos ASAP.” Big John: “Done and done.”). It was a brazenly mysoginistic move on the part of the show’s creators, which is to be expected – but more than that, Big John’s choices seemed kinda, well, arbitray, since very few of these women are legitimately attractive or even slutty-sexy in an pre-KFed-Britney Spears kinda way (like I said, these women are sub-porn star, which is actually the problem with the show; it has no chance of serving as male wish fulfillment the way, say, HBO’s Entourage does, because it’s hard to imagine anyone actually wanting to sleep with most of these broads).
In any case, this first week was all about getting to know the girls – the ones that actually made into the house, at least – starting with Bret snapping all their photos (Bret confessed, “I love shooting photos, I love photography, it’s one of my favorite hobbies.” Hmm. I’ll bet, Bret.) and continuing with a semi-drunken soirée. For anyone who missed the show, here’s a run down of some of the key contestants who actually made it to episode 2, and what we think the odds are that they’ll “win” (if you can call it that).
TIFFANY: The most clearly unstable of any of the women, she’s one of the five Big John booted right at the start. But she banged on the door until Big John finally came out to see her, and then promised she’d do “anything” to get back into the house. If she actually gave up the goods to Big John in exchange for her re-entry, it took place off-camera, but Big John did acquiesce. It turned out to be a huge mistake: she got so drunk the producers actually had to add subtitles so viewers could understand what she’s saying, and, naturally, she almost got in a cat fight with pretty much all of the girls before breaking into a crying fit. When she wasn’t sliding, spread eagle, down the house stripper pole (the house has a stripper pole, natch), she contributed such gems as “Ain’t bitch no bad enough to step in front in my face,” “[The other girls] drink Hatorade, and I don’t drink that shit,” and “Bret won’t kick me route.” Yes, she actually said “route” instead of “out.” This is the kind of MENSA candidate we’re dealing with here. She didn’t get a coveted “backstage pass” – this show’s equivalent of The Bachelor‘s rose – but Bret did take pity on her, allowing her one last shot – probably because someone behind the scenes told him the show could use the drama. Bret says: “Part of her said ‘just make love to me right now,’ and part of her said ‘I’m on a lot of chemicals right now.’ Strange, but it just kinda turned me on.” But later, when she tries to dry hump him by the pool: “She beat my penis to a pulp.” Ah, Bret. Now we know why you’re Poison’s lyricist. Odds of winning: 1,000,000 – 1. Every reality show has one contestant who, to the bafflement of viewers everywhere, is allowed to remain well past his or her welcome because his or her very presence adds the kind of in-fighting these programs thrive on (we’re talking about you, Omerosa). So while we suspect Tiffany will get stick around for awhile, her chances of winning are about the same of Bret ever scoring a platinum record again.
TAMARA: Possibly the only legitimately hot girl on the whole show. “I wanna fuck that!” she screams upon first laying eyes on Bret. But even by Poison standards, she turns out to be a total dolt. Bret quotes Chris Tucker – “Are you understanding the words coming out of my mouth?” – but he manages to find a way to, uh, look past that. Bret says: “I got worried… but then I looked at her body and I wasn’t worried anymore… I was willing to excuse the fact that we couldn’t have a conversation because I felt eventually we would find a way to communicate.” Odds of winning: 100 – 1. She’s damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t: if she shtups Bret right away, he’ll grow bored of her and boot her; if she doesn’t, he’ll get annoyed that she can barely put together a coherent sentence and boot her anyway.
MAGDALENA: I can’t quite place her accent, but I guess she’s cute enough. One of the only women not dressed like a hooker. Odds of winning: 10 – 1. We don’t know nearly enough about her yet to make an educated guess, but so far she seems kind of sort of okay.
RODEO: This menopausal momma is fifty if she’s a day and more muscular than any member of Manowar has ever been (as Magdalena puts it: “Rodeo is too manly and I’m scared I’m gonna get beat up.”). She confesses that she didn’t Google Bret, because she really wanted to get to know who he is on the inside. But she sets the tone for the show’s sleaze factor by sticking her tongue about as far down Bret’s throat as it will go after he takes her photo, and then seems to bond with him over the fact that they’re both single parents who have dealt with serious disabilities (she used to be paralyzed, he’s diabetic… if that makes any sense). Odds of winning: 15 – 1. Previews for upcoming episodes already show her making out with Bret and getting pretty emotional about it (“I hope he keeps me around!” she weeps), but at the end of the day, it’s hard to imagine Bret sticking it out with a woman who is both older and more butch than he is.
DALLAS: Blowjob lips and no other distinguishing characteristics. Still, she’s kinda funny: when Tiffany is given a reprieve, she comments “I’m pretty sure she sucked Big John’s dick, but that’s okay, because that’s what she does for a living.” Odds of winning: 100 – 1. Not only is she not hot, but she clearly has a pretty short temper. It’s only a matter of time ’til she smacks a ho, and then Big John will have to shove his big foot up her big ass.
HEATHER: A stripper who claims to be 32 year old (puh-leeze). One-ups Rodeo’s kiss by taking out her tits for her photo shoot, declaring “[These girls] don’t know shit about sexy. I’ll show ’em sexy.” Who said less is more? Odds of winning: 150 – 1. She’s no less annoying than Tamara but half as hot and twice as slutty. She’s inevitably gonna give up the poon-tang wwwwaaayyy too early and find herself out on the street, where she probably feels more comfortable anyway.
ERIN: Comments that, unlike “Heather the Whore,” she won’t “lower myself” by showing her tits on national television – which is hilarious, because the dress she’s wearing doesn’t really leave anything to the imagination anyway, and if her sweater meat is real then Chinese Democracy is actually coming out this year. Odds of winning: 25 – 1. Big plastic ta-tas aside, she actually acquits herself, in this first episode, rather admirably… by the standards of this show, at least.
FAITH: “What’s your goal in all of this?” this less-hot Liv Tyler-looking girl asks Bret. Bret can’t just say “to fuck an entire tour’s worth of groupies in one week,” so he attempts to give some song and dance about he can’t meet anyone on the road he can fall in love with (on a reality show, though…). But his final response ends up being so lewd that it’s completely bleedped out by the network censors, and Liv Tyler-chick looks very, very put off. There’s a lot of awkward silence, and for a moment, you actually feel, simultaneously, a little respect for the one non-slut who seems to have wandered onto the show, and a little bad for Bret, who seems to have missed the part of your life where you actually learn to have a meaningful conversation with a member of the opposite sex. Bret says: “I haven’t been on a lot of dates… This much communication was a lot of work for me.” Odds of winning: 50 – 1. Even if she turns out to be the only intelligent girl on the entire series, it’s tough to imagine, based on their initial interaction, that “intelligent” is what Bret is looking for. Plus, her voice is super-annoying.
LACEY: The rocker chick of the group, she immediately enters the house and begins to play his drum kit, striving for a connection. She promises Bret that, as a touring musician, “I know exactly what goes on” on the road and it’s okay for him to “party.” Unfortunately, she looks like my dead grandfather. Bret says: “She gets me.” Odds of winning: 200 – 1. Once Bret comes to the realization that he’s just going to continue to fuck aging groupies on the road irregardless of having the permission of his “soul mate,” he’s gonna want someone much, much hotter.
MIA: I don’t remember anything about this girl other than the fact that she’s not good looking and at one point she and Lacey try to drag Bret to his bedroom – with no success. Odds of winning: 20 – 1. She could be the dark horse (or dark whore, as it were) if she turns out to have anything resembling a personality. She’s just pretty enough that every female reader of this site groaned when I called her “not good looking,” which gives her some street cred – in other words, choosing her would make Bret look good.
TAWNY: I don’t remember anything about this girl, and I think she was only allowed to stay because of her name. Odds of winning: 100 – 1. Yawn.
JES: This Avril Lavigne-esque pseudo punk might be legitimately cute – she looks kinda like Natalie Portman – if she didn’t seem to be going out of her way to look like a skunk (what’s with the hair?). “I’m confident in who I am,” she proclaims, although her presence on the show tells us otherwise. Odds of winning: 15 – 1. I have a sinking feeling she won’t put out (Bret says he felt like she was keeping him at arm’s length, which translates to “She didn’t try to blow me in the first fifteen seconds”), and that’s just not gonna fly with Bret. Also, don’t be surprised if she turns out to have some very deep-seated issues: cute girls like this don’t just go and ruin their own good looks for no reason.
BRANDI M.: Also a stripper, and considerably more attractive than Heather; she is clearly current front-runner. Bret dubs her “Wild Thing” after she announces that, as a Scorpio, she’s ruled by her genitals (Is that really something people believe about Scorpios? And, if so, can someone please remind me which birthdays fall under that particular astrological sign?). Odds of winning: 4 – 1. Hands down, she’s taken the early lead. If there are really two girls in the house whose breasts are real, she’s one of ’em, and even though she seems like kind of bitch, she’s our kind of bitch.
BRANDI C.: Yes, we are now operating a world where there are multiple women named “Brandi.” And boy oh boy, fellas: this is the one you bring home to meet your mother. She guesses that only two girls in the house have real breasts (I think that’s actually a generous estimate, but okay) and admits that her parents paid for her fun bags for her birthday (“They were the best birthday present I got from my parents last year.”). She gets real catty and whiny when she feels that Bret is spending too much time with the other girls (“I don’t feel like he loves me… It sucks really bad, because I wanna know him really bad.”), but finally gets Bret’s attention by appearing in a pink bikini and sitting on his lap. Other choice nuggets of wisdom include the observation that she and Bret “probably look like brother and sister a little bit, but that’s hot,” and “Being a slut was way last season.” Bret says: “Her heaving, well implanted breasts caught my eye immediately, and I knew were gonna have a strong, spiritual relationship.” She suggests to Bret that he can have her and several other girls just so long as she’s the “lead girlfriend,” which he calls “One of the most sentimental things I’ve ever heard.” Still, he later admits that her whining “annoyed the shit out of me.” Don’t worry, Brandi C. I’m sure daddy can buy you a date with C.C. DeVille when this doesn’t work out. Odds of winning: 75 – 1. She’s such a forceful presence and so many of the other girls already hate her so much, she’s clearly going to be allowed to sick around for a long time just so she can stir shit up. But she’s clearly too aggressive for her own good – Bret even seemed resistant to kiss her.
KRISTIA: She quickly teams up with Brandi C. to become one Voltron-style super-slut (“If we put our boobs together, we can think better!” she declares, before Brandi C. reassures her “We’re not going away… we’re too pretty.”) Of her breasts, she comments, “What guy doesn’t like two handfuls?” Indeed, if Tamara is the only real beauty here, Kristia is the only one who looks like she might actually be able to operate in the world of Jenna Jameson and the like. Odds of winning: 8 – 1. She’s a total moron, but I imagine she looks exactly like the girl Bret pictures in his head when he occasionally has no choice but to jack off. She may end up suffering from Tamara syndrome, even if Tamara is hotter.
SAMANTHA, a.k.a. SAM: OKAY. Now we’re cooking. This tattooed blonde is cuter than pretty much any other chick in the house besides Tamara (I kinda dig the gap tooth; sue me), and she lists Tom Waits, Pantera (!), and Slayer (!!!) as her favorite bands and True Romance as her favorite movie. Jesus H. Christ, Sam, what the fuck are you doing at Bret Michaels’ house? Don’t you know how good I’d be to you? Odds of winning: 6 – 1. I’ll actually be rooting for her to lose, if for no other reason then because I have an extra Slayer ticket in August, wink wink.
What does next week hold in store for Bret and these winning young (and not so young) ladies? Check back here to find out…
-AR
