Two things killed Donald Trump’s Apprentice franchise; getting rid of any judges whose last name wasn’t Trump, and a severe decline in the quality of the candidates.  Now, I believe, the Celebrity Apprentice series is at a similar crossroads.

Once again, contestant quality is the key.  Season 1 of CA was awesome because it featured strong AND enjoyable personalities.  Gene Simmons was the king of all Apprentice candidates.  The only shame there was that the same qualities that made Simmons fun, also saw him leave way too early.  No problem, though.  Piers Morgan quickly picked up the slack.  Even if you didn’t like him before the show, his one-on-one battles with Omarosa (a never-been, ill-matched among a collection of has-been’s and still-are’s) made him an instant hero.  In short that was one great season, besting the later seasons of the original Apprentice series.

Unfortunately, last year’s CA was as bad as the first season was good, and again the cast was the driving force.  The main problem was that the men were soft, or drunk, and the women took the show over.  And before I really get in trouble, it wasn’t just that it was the women leading the way, it was WHICH women took control.  You had Joan Rivers, her daughter Melissa and Annie Duke who turned out to be a white Omarosa, with the only difference being that Duke has real life accomplishments.  The show quickly turned caustic and stayed catty to the end.

So, another season is queuing up, and in looking over the celebs, I’m concerned.  There are possibilities, but no one who jumps right out as sure-fire.  The gang …

Summer Sanders:  An Olympian, kind of like Jenny Finch in season 1.  Finch was pretty and capable enough, but uninteresting and not up to the ruthless element of the game.

Sinbad: Oh man, remember the good ol’ days.  You know, when Sinbad was funny.

Holly Robinson:  I’ll always remember her as the smoking hot, light chocolate detective from 21 Jump Street.  So, if it were 20 years ago this might be compelling.  Hard to picture her adding much entertainment value today.

Cyndi Lauper:  OK, She Bop is one of my guilty pleasure songs from the 80’s.  However, when she’s not squeaking out her bubble gum pop hits, Lauper is a little off.  Not Gene Simmons off.  Crazy old guy who lives in a weed-covered shack and only comes out every 20 years off.

Brett Michaels:  OK, possibilities here.  I could see this guy being a lot of fun.  And young, blonde, well-endowed hoochies flock to him like flies to dung, so there are always possibilities there.  But here’s the question:  Is headwear appropriate in the board room?  The thing with Michaels is that his cowboy hat and bandanas tend to make his hair look longer … A LOT longer if you, ahem, catch my drift.  Some of us have conceded that battle, but then some of us aren’t rock stars.

Darryl Strawberry:  Interesting.  I want to root for this guy.  But I’m just not sure if he’s genuine and has gotten his life on track.  Was his tell-all book therapy, or a cash grab?  If he turns out to be another Rodman, for whom CA 2 was a mere detour en route to Dr Drew’s Celebrity Rehab, I’ll be supremely disappointed.

Rod Blagojevich:  One thing’s for sure – he’s going to be one of the main cogs in the hype machine for this season.  And I guess I’d be more excited about this choice if he didn’t have sleaze oozing from every pore of his body.

Sharon Osbourne:  The surest bet in the group, and my pre-season favorite.  She’ll be strong, fun, and able to mix it up with any three Trumps you care to throw at her.  My only reservation is that if the show starts to go the route of last year’s version, it will almost be beneath her.

So, I’m eager to give the new version another shot.  Please, the Donald, don’t disappoint me.

When the Roethlisberger story broke, his legal team wasted no time in getting to the microphones and proclaiming his innocence.  Of course with a statement like this one, you wonder if they might have been wise to pause for a moment:

"Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone, especially not Andrea McNully."

I guess I’m just wondering how one goes about taking it to a whole other level of … not rape.

There are people Roethlisberger generally didn’t rape but then there is this select list of women that he really outdid himself in not raping.  It’s got to bother a QB somewhat.  After putting all that extra effort into not raping someone and this is the thanks he gets.

Here we go again.  The McNair story has barely faded and now Ben Roethlisberger assumes the mantle of controversy after a hotel employee accused him of raping her last year.

Once again, I’m not going to go with the tired “we just don’t know these guys.”  As I just got done explaining about McNair, we know all that we need to know.  These guys are all human beings, subject to the same fallen desires and fallibility as everyone else.

If this proves to be true, and we may never know for sure, it is disappointing.  This isn’t your run of the mill thug athlete.  Roethlisberger is another one of those guys who really has a straight arrow reputation going.

We don’t have nearly enough to even begin to formulate an opinion about this alleged incident.  And again, we may never get beyond he said / she said.  A couple of things, however, give me pause:  Apparently she’s got a lot of detailed information, and you’d expect someone who was making a false accusation to concoct something that would make it easier to press the case.  This lady’s story inspires doubt right from the start.

Time to get caught up on Celebrity Apprentice. The pace is accelerating. Five celebs have been shown the boardroom door since my last CA post.

First, in what was billed as a shocker, neither team came up with an acceptable viral video for ALL Small and Mighty Laundry Detergent and the Donald decided to dispatch one player from each team. Actually I don’t believe this is a first. If memory serves, way back in season 2, Donny Deutsche gave a big thumbs down to both teams’ commercial for a body wash. And, multiple firings are certainly nothing new. What was interesting was that both firings had nothing to do with the victim’s performance on the video task.

Tionne Watkins: Melissa Rivers was so pleased with her team’s unity on the task that she decided to ask for volunteers to return to the boardroom should the team lose. Unknowingly she was giving teammate Tionne just enough rope. Trump invoked the Bradford rule, remembering a former candidate, as he fired Tionne for unnecessarily putting herself in harm’s way. Personally I was relieved. If not for this, Melissa Rivers would have been fired, and I thought she did a bangup job on the task.

Khloe Kardashian: Khloe had missed the previous task because she had to be in California as a result of her DUI conviction last year. Turns out the Donald was unaware of the DUI, and has a personal sore spot with that particular crime. Khloe was shown to the street. Tough one for a couple reasons.

First there was the subjective Donald. If this was a deal-breaker one wonders how Kardashian wound up on the show in the first place. A quick Google search would have prevented this whole episode. For a fan of the show it isn’t hard to imagine how Trump would have dealt with a PM who made a similar oversight. You SHOULD have known.

Second, Khloe seemed to have a pretty good attitude about the whole matter. Whereas you would need multiple limbs to count how many celeb brats have made a total circus out of such circumstances in recent history, Khloe owned her mistake and seemed to take her penalties seriously. Given that, I wish Trump would have settled for expressing his displeasure but also acknowledged Kardashian’s maturity in dealing with it. Still, you can’t cry, “Unfair.” At the end of the day this was just one more consequence of her mistake.

Unfortunately this allowed Clint Black to dodge a bullet. While Melissa Rivers led her team in coming up with a great video that the judges enjoyed but couldn’t use, Black went one-man-band in coming up with a finished product that was unappealing and off target. He so deserved the axe on that one.

Bryan missed the ALL task for a concert and returned somewhat lacking in starch. The teams were tasked with developing a store display and marketing for LifeLock. KOTU excelled on this one while Bryan’s team began its descent into chronic drama. In the boardroom McKnight didn’t put up a fight as Trump fired him while both teams were still sitting there.

The Melissa and Joan vs. Annie drama moved to center stage during this task. Pretty good feat when you consider that the three ladies aren’t even on the same team! Also it became obvious that despite the drama, Athena is the far more talented of the two teams. The groups had to select and auction off pieces from Ivanka’s jewelry collection. So, it was another get out your friends task. Clint was an absolute trainwreck as an auctioneer. On the other side, Annie’s manner has become pretty abrasive, but she really shined in this task. Also, it was great to have Piers Morgan step in as a guest judge. In the end the Trumps felt that the selection of jewelry was the key difference. Melissa selected large, gaudy, but auction-friendly pieces while Natalie went with classier, but harder to see from the audience items. Adios Natalie.

The teams were tasked with developing a new offering for Schwan’s LiveSmart line of frozen foods. This one seemed close, and both groups reached the finish line with deficiencies. The Schwan guys liked Athena’s gluten-free pasta and meatballs better, but Jessie offered no marketing plan (part of the challenge) whatsoever. KOTU had decent marketing and a tasty, but not as cutting edge entre, and their meal included a desert that wouldn’t work in the frozen format. Athena prevailed which probably saved Jessie who really came up flat in his first stint as PM. Hershel had the misfortune of being the losing PM, and of having overruled Clint on a couple of matters where Clint turned out to be right.

Here we go. We’re down to six, and it appears, at least for the next task, that the team format will be set aside, which should be interesting as the lines of dramatic contention are firmly entrenched. Also, CNBC’s Jim Kramer will be on next week which I’m looking forward to. He was awesome in his appearance last year.

Who looks strong? My money is on Annie and Melissa or Joan for the final two. All three have done well, and recent episodes have been so carefully edited to embellish the battle front between them.

An update before tonight’s Celebrity Apprentice. Last week’s episode turned kind of serious at the end, so I’m not spending a whole lot of time on the entertainment aspects.

The teams were tasked with running a “hotel.” Each team was given 5 rooms within a luxury hotel and pretty much had to take care of everything for those guests, including making up the room in advance.

Now, HI Express is about as upscale as I ever get while traveling, and whenever it works out I actually prefer to stay at the lodge in one of our state parks because they rock! My point is, I don’t know what is typical in terms of what guests in luxury hotels request, and how much of what the guests here did was set up to test the teams. They did send in Stephen Baldwin and Vincent Pastore, vetereans from last year’s CA to provoke the teams, but those two didn’t get a voice in choosing the winner.

The women won handily. But Dennis Rodman was the show’s focus. After all the trouble he’s been causing, the men put him up to be the project manager for this task. At first he was engaged in organizing everything and coming up with little extras for the guests. And then he started drinking leaving the already short-handed men’s team on their own.

As Joan Rivers put it, the board room quickly turned into an intervention. Jesse James who has had his own issues with alcohol abuse, but who has also been clean and sober for a number of years, was probably the most blunt – fair, but direct.

Things turned pretty heavy and pretty dark. It was both fascinating and sad to watch the disease of addiction at work as Rodman kept trying to deflect. At one point he called out James for being a hypocrite and you could tell that the comment stung Jesse. But mainly Rodman kept trying to fall back on his past glory as an athlete. While there is no denying his credentials as a pro baller, it really only served to highlight that he has never adjusted himself to post-NBA life.

It was a sad ending. The “next week” teaser seemed out of place. At that moment I didn’t want to think about Celebrity Apprentice – I wanted to think about life.

Time to get caught up on CA before the NCAA kicks in again.

Die hard Apprentice fans have been aware since the chubby little MD / MBA (I think his name was David) became the first candidate ever to be fired from the show that there are two elevators just outside the boardroom. One to take survivors back up to the suite, and another to lower losers down to the street.

After being fired a week and a half ago, Tom Green got on the wrong elevator. And there you have a microcosm of Green’s stint on CA. I made the classic blunder in mistaking his subdued nature during the premier for wisdom and guile. Really it was just a complete lacking of anything worthwhile to contribute.

I had to feel for Green a little though. Where we last left the show, in the midst of narrowly escaping being fired, Green vowed to take team KOTU on his shoulders and lead them to victory. Unfortunately the next task involved selling wedding dresses. One could hardly fault a man for being a little out of his element here. With Green, it wasn’t just weddings and dresses that had him off balance. As project manager, the demands for leadership and organization really threw Green for a loop. As he was leaving to hit the bars with Dennis Rodman and woman, Green gestured at KOTU’s storefront and said, “Tomorrow morning this is all going to magically transform …” I’ve been in business for a little over a decade now, and before that the Navy. I have yet to see something magically transform unless “magic” is code for “through a lot of hard work, planning and talent.”

Btw … Rodman’s woman was not a model, ok. If Hershel Walker could put 2 and 2 together on that one, I don’t know why everyone else can’t. Big time former NBA star in New York, calls up a bud, and a half hour later he’s got a woman on his arm, just do the math …

The next morning, Green and Rodman were no-shows. It took an inspiring wake-up call from Jesse James to get Green on track. Rodman at some point, somehow got word to the team that he was taking a sick day.

Coincidentally, Green mentioned that he and Rodman had been bonding over the past several days. Both definitely share the same strategy for being called out on their slacking. They’ll come back with something like, “I chose an unconventional approach.” And if “unconventional approach” is code for “walking around with my thumb up my ass,” then one would have to applaud their honesty.

Trump was fired up in the boardroom and dispatched Green without even going through the “choose two people” routine.

And, this past week picked up right where that left off with the Dennis Rodman nose-ring circus. The tallest man on the show got up in the face of the shortest man on the show, Clint Black, and then stormed off, leaving his team a man down, or perhaps with as much of a distraction as Rodman has been, the net effect was to add a man to the roster as no baby-sitter was required.

The guys picked up their first victory, and I’ve got to hand it to them. They took some chances and it paid off. Tasked with creating a pep rally for video phone salesmen, Jesse James came up with the idea of going to West Point to shoot a video. That venture took two men from the already short-handed team for the better part of the preparation day. Had the men lost that decision could really have backfired on James, or PM, Bryan McKnight. But, the video turned out great and was one of the elements in which the men clearly outshone the women.

Ah yes, the women. They took their first loss, which I had been relishing for a while. Nothing against them, but you could just see that the winning was covering over some interpersonal rifts within the team. Take away the success and it all came boiling to the surface.

PM Claudia Jordan made a classic mistake. During the boardroom battle she focused on her personal differences with Melissa Rivers. Unfortunately, the rest of the women were singing Rivers’ praises for salvaging some semblance of order out of the chaos just in time for their part of the event. Jordan failed to give Trump and team any other option. It was the Simmons maneuver, except that last season Gene Simmons voluntarily fell on his sword, and refused to offer up the one candidate Trump’s team would have fired in his place. Jordan just didn’t think ahead and painted herself into a corner.

Stock Up:

Bryan McKnight – a little on the quiet side, but sharp and talented. Easily the most serious threat on KOTU right now. His effective leadership stands in stark contrast to the mess that the men had been experiencing. And he made gutsy calls in letting Jesse James sink a lot of time into the video, and in ignoring Rodman’s midday return, leaving the team short-handed but able to concentrate on the task at hand.

Jesse James – As I’ve previously mentioned, James has a flair for marketing which has helped make him such a success in his real life ventures, and also has made him the source of some killer ideas during the challenges so far. Unfortunately, until McKnight took over as PM, James’ great ideas generally got lost behind incompetent leadership. The only drawback: James is pretty quiet and I’m not sure he’s getting all the credit he deserves.

Annie Duke – As I had hoped, Duke is learning on the fly, like any good poker player, and has toned her game down. In the ladies’ last win, Brande Roderick identified Duke and Melissa Rivers as the team’s two stars. One thing I really get a kick out of: when everyone else calls in their deep-pocketed friends, the friends will show up with Cashier’s Checks or Platinum Cards. When Duke’s poker buddies show up, they all start pulling rolls of hundreds out of their pockets.

And that leads to why I hope Duke and James will be around for a while. They both are sharp and have a lot of game. But they are also very different from the glamour stars that comprise most of the rest of the cast. Nothing against the others – there are a lot of enjoyable people on the show – it’s just a refreshing difference.

Stock Down:

Rodman – actually his stock was never up. Dice suprised me with his lack of engagement, but I fully expected this from Rodman. Only the fact that each week someone even more bumbling and incompetent made himself known on KOTU. Barring a drastic change, or a major blunder by some other guy, Rodman won’t survive the next guys’ loss.

Once again I find myself just about a week behind on my Celebrity Apprentice update. Oh well.

The name of the game in week 2 was branding. The teams were asked to create a super-hero icon for Zappos.com and feature their hero in a 4-page marketing piece.

Once again we saw total dysfunction on the guys’ team. Scott Hamilton took his turn as engineer of the derailed locomotive that is team KOTU. By the way,this is why you don’t want to pick a name like “Kings of the Universe.” Sure, if you do well, then it’s just the guys having fun and showing a bit of swagger. However when you turn out to be a total mess like this team, you just look foolish.

Anyway, chaos abounded. Although he didn’t really mesh with anyone other than his buddy Clint Black, Tom Green became the focus of Hamilton’s ire. We later learned that the team spent over six hours just trying to think of a name for their super-hero. Seems ridiculous, but after Hamilton made an executive decision to go with “EEE,” (seriously, that’s the name), perhaps another six hours would have been in order. The name, by the way, sprang from Hamilton’s slogan idea, “Everything, Everytime, Everywhere. Fine catch phrase, but “EEE” … no.

For the men, that name turned out to be the fatal mistake. The presentations were otherwise quite similar. For a while it appeared that the teams might have similar names. Athena came up with “Mizz Z,” and at one point one the men’s side, Tom Green was suggesting “Senor Z.” Notice how everyone but Hamilton intuitively grasped that “Z” and not “E” needed to figure prominently in the name.

Had the guys come up with a “Z” name, they would have had a serious shot as the presentation would have been the difference maker, and the women left some openings on that front. Claudia Jordan who gave Athena’s presentation several times mis-pronounced the company’s name as “Zappo.” Getting the name wrong, as we’ve learned in past seasons, is a HUGE mistake. And when the Donald asked Natalie Gulbis, who was modeling as “Mizz Z” if she would wear the outfit out to the first tee, she had a rather disparaging remark about her getup. Again, big mistake in front of the customer. To her credit, she seemed to quickly grasp that that was a blunder.

The men lost and the battle lines were clear. Hamilton brought Tom Green back to the final boardroom, along with Hershel Walker who seemed to be taking Hamilton’s side during the preliminary discussion. Shrewd strategy, although I don’t think anyone likes to be put on the firing line, however out of danger they may seem to be. Walker was a positive advocate for Hamilton, but Trump and Team saw through it. They let Walker say his piece and quickly sent him to join the other survivors in the suite before moving on to the blood-lettin.

We were led to believe that this was a nail-biting finish, but I chalk that up to creative editing. The name choice was the fatal mistake and the responsibility for that rested solely on Hamilton. Team Trump didn’t seem to have too much trouble making up their minds on that.

Re-assessing my outlook:

Tom Green, one of my early favorites, surived but was definitely under fire last week. I still think he’s got pretty good game and the difficulty had more to do with personal differences between he and Scott Hamilton. However, in the boardroom he played the “Sammy” card and announced that he could and would lead the men’s team to victory in the third challenge. Not smart. Way too soon for that. This is a difficult team, and a situation where the leader has no leverage. They could implode once again this week and Green has unnecessarily taken on partial culpability in advance.

Clint Black is no longer this season’s Trace Adkins, and he has become one of the prime targets on a team that figures to be spending a lot of time in the boardroom. Adkins spoke rarely, so when he did speak people took notice and his words were worthy of that attention. During episode 2 Black seemed to go out of his way to quarrel with just about everyone but Hamilton. So, same comment that I made about Annie Duke last week. Some conflict is inevitable, but there is no future in making an enemy of every single member of your team.

Before the show even started, Jessie James was one of my picks to win it all. For the time being I’m downgrading him from that. But he has monster potential as I figured he would. He is one of the few candidates who has been a businessman much longer than he has been a celebrity and thus has an abundance of common business sense to offer. Also, what he does with custom choppers requires a marketing flair. There are always a number of tasks for which marketing is a major component. However, James seems to be at a disadvantage when it comes to tasks that are simply a fund-raising free-for-all, which are also plentiful on CA. In the aftermath of week 1 he commented that he doesn’t have any rich friends. If true, this puts him at a disadvantage against those who do have wealthy assets in their bag. Plus, he has to have some deep pockets on his customer list. Those custom choppers aren’t cheap.

Finally, I’m just waiting for, no, relishing the thought of the first Athena loss. So far them women have been able to forge on through their differences. Easy when you are winning. But, there are plenty of fissures. It’s not just Annie Duke against the team anymore (although that one is still strong). The first time these ladies wind up in the boardroom I foresee a whole lot of junk boiling over. That will be one delicious episode my friends.

In all of the excitement yesterday; an awesome football game leading into an awesome episode of The Office, I nearly forgot the best news of the day. Celebrity Apprentice returns in March!

Personally I wish they’d quit teasing us and give the real thing another shot, but CA has a charm of its own. I have to wonder if this won’t duplicate the pattern that evolved with the regular Apprentice series where the first season set the bar so high that subsequent editions simply couldn’t match it. Last season you had Piers Morgan going toe to toe with the dreaded Omarosa and finally taking her down. And speaking of tough acts to follow, I’m not sure anyone can ever equal Gene Simmons’ effort in the orginal CA. Him repeatedy insisting to the Kodak execs that they were wrong was reality gold.

However, if there is anyone who can storm Trump Tower with as much vigor as Simmons, they are probably in the group assembled for this season. Dennis Rodman. Andrew Dice Clay. Joan Rivers. Forget about the rest. That is where the action is going to be. Rodman’s a total wild card. And I don’t see even the Donald stifling the other two from saying whatever is on their mind. I look at those three and then notice that Hershel Walker is another member of the cast. Football stud extraordinaire, Hershel Walker. Next to those three that poor guy doesn’t stand a chance.

Sight unseen, I’ll be rooting for Jesse James and Annie Duke, and those two should have a pretty good shot. James has the advantage of actually having been a successful businessman before he became a celebrity. And he’s a world class bad-ass. And in a lot of ways, Annie Duke is the female version of Jesse James. I have to think her poker skills will come in handy here. She won’t always be the talker, but not even Dennis Rodman will be able to back her down. After all, poker is a game of people played with cards.

Also, I’m happy to see … George Ross – hopefully he’s permanent and the little Trumps will be swapping out; no Omarosa – she’s not good at celebrity, she’s not good at business and if she shows up at all in this show, in any context, I may wretch; no Baldwins – I wasn’t sure if it was possible to stage a celebreality (as opposed to real reality) show with out one of Alec’s brothers on board.

I’m psyched for this one!

Wow!  You just can’t make this stuff up.  Turns out the downside of Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy at age 16 is that it has delayed the release of Mom Spears’ book on parenting.  It’s a shame that this one little thing has to blemish her record as a parent.  Prior to little sister’s brush with fertility, I think we all looked at Britney and thought, “What’s your secret?  Dr. Spock, Dr. Phil, look out!”

I’ve always wanted to write a book.  Turns out I was going about it all wrong.  I mean, there are many things I am bad at, but I need to search for that one thing, my Achilles Heel, the thing at which I triumphantly suck, and share it with the world.

Enough with the “good person” label already.

It seems Paris Hilton is on the one-year path to parenthood.  So what is she looking for in a sperm source?  “I used to care about looks, but I’ve grown out of that stage,” Paris said. “They have to be a good person …”

You just don’t know whether to laugh or puke.  But I guess, all that hard time she did gave her some perspective.  It’s not about looks.  Paris is looking for substance … only “good persons” need apply.

And Paris, how about your rep as a something of a dingbat?  “It makes me mad that I’m such a good person and I’m treated like that by some people — I just don’t get it,” she said.

So what the crap is a good person?  Does that mean you are good at being a person?  Because if that’s the case I encounter good persons every day.  They can’t signal a right turn to save their a**, but they must be good at being a person because they are at it day in and day out.

The problem is, “good person” is just a very broad standard and usually goes hand in hand with examples of excellence such as “doesn’t beat their kids,” “doesn’t deal crack or heroin,” and “didn’t kill anyone.”  Usually it is used to conceal the fact that the user has no concept of anything remotely resembling values, integrity, or a higher calling.  But this can’t be Paris, can it?  I mean, she’s got to go with the luxury wheels that Daddy buys her, but she thinks integrity is a good car too.