After a bit of a sabbatical, back to blogging.

For the record, before it begins, here is my initial handicap of this season’s Celebrity Apprentice.

First off, general thoughts.  The first season of Celebrity Apprentice was awesome because you had some really colorful personalities.  There was a touch of nasty with the Piers – Omarosa feud, but then you also had some great entertainment with diverse and fun personalities.  Gene Simmons was my favorite celebrity ever in a Celebrity something-or-other show.

Last season was exhausting.  What appeared to be another mix of terrific personalities quickly degenerated into a week in and week out cat fight.  Turns out the women were strong but not pleasantly so, and the men were soft … other than Dennis Rodman for whom CA became a trailer for his appearance on Celebrity Rehab with Dr Drew.

Once again in looking over the list it seems like this could be a great season featuring a diverse and entertaining group.  But as we’ve seen, you never really know how it’s going to evolve until you mix them all together in a batch of boardroom stew.

So, for the individuals and my general prognosis …

Summer Sanders:  (olympic swimmer)  Athletes have tended to be rather passive and soft-spoken on CA.  Perhaps it’s because this isn’t their type of competition.  Early out.

Sinbad:  (comedian, actor)  I don’t know.  It’s hard to take the guy seriously.  But I can see him being one of those generally pleasant people who manage to stay under the radar for a while.  Middle of the pack.

Michael Johnson:  (olympic track star)  See Summer Sanders comments.  Early out.

Daryl Strawberry:  (former pro baseball player)  Straw is more than just an athlete.  He is a larger than life personality.  Since then he has also confronted his personal demons and written a lively tell all book about his days with the Mets.  Hard to tell how this one will go.  Can he still trade on his star power, or will he have the cautious demeanor of a recovering addict.  Middle of the pack.

Selita Ebanks:  (Victoria’s Secret model)  Hmm … eye candy on Trump’s show?  No way.  Obviously each case is different, however this type of candidate tends to get by on their “charm” which disguises their lack of initiative and creativity.  Unless there is a driven Annie Duke type who wants to use her for a pawn, Ebanks is probably an early out.

Maria Kanellis:  (former WWE Diva)  Another one that’s hard to peg.  Is she an athlete?  Is she eye candy?  Coming from WWE, she’s got to understand the marketing thing.  Upper middle of the pack.

Holly Robinson Peete:  (actress, philanthropist, on air personality)  OK, I have a tough time with this one.  I know her from 21 Jump Street which was waaay back.  Generally long ago celebs don’t fare will in things like this.  It’s like they’ve adjusted to being out of the limelight.  However I do see that Peete has experience in non-profit fund-raising which is one of the primary skills demanded on CA.  Upper middle of the pack.

Cyndi Lauper:  (singer)  Lauper strikes me as the strong artistic type.  An artist is generally not a candidate to win the whole thing, but can be a valuable creative force that teammates will want to keep around.  Contender.

Bret Michaels:  (rock star, Poison)  Without any buxom, blonde, brain-dead teeny-boppers Michaels could be out of this league.  However, Rock of Love revived his career so he’s got some star power in the bank.  Middle of the pack.

Carol Leifer:  (comedienne)  I could see Carol rocking this show.  She is hilarious and strikes me as the kind of person who is probably just as sharp and appealing when she isn’t on stage.  Serious Contender.

Curtis Stone:  (celebrity chef)  I really don’t know the guy.  A chef has to know something about business and marketing and should be able to bring some creativity to the table so I’ll give him some benefit of the doubt.  Middle of the pack.

Goldberg:  (actor, pro wrestler)  Again, those sport entertainment folks have to know the marketing and star power game well.  Middle of the pack?

Rod Blagojevich:  (former governor of Illinois) … and major sleazeball.  On the one hand he’s probably got a skill set that could serve him well on CA.  On the other I can just seem him taking some unethical shortcut that will piss the Donald off prompt one of his patented immediate firings.  He (the Donald) found out about Khloe Kardashian’s past DUI and had no mercy.  I guess a history of abuse of power and corruption is ok?  Middle of the pack.

Sharon Osbourne:  (TV star, music manager and Ozzy’s wife)  This my pick.  You can just see her taking this whole season over much like Piers did two years ago.  And the bonus is, she can be strong and entertaining at the same time.  Seeing her name on the list gave me real hope for this season.

So, I guess just looking at it person by person I came up with Sharon Osbourne and Carol Leifer as my top two.  I could also see Blagojevich in the finals.  Especially if the Donald is angling for a man vs. woman finale, which we haven’t had yet on CA.  Blagojevich definitely has the strongest potential of the guys.

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.

TruTV’s Operation Repo has become one of my favorite guilty pleasures. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed as hard as I did during this scene:

For a version without subtitles, see “Unhand Thine Prius” here.

I’m not sure which is the ultimate line; “… shall not take my steed,” or “Is that any way to treat a princess?”

Classic, classic stuff.

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.

I had pretty much given NBC / Trump’s The Apprentice up for dead.  Now it seems as if a fate worse than death might be in store for the show.

Donald Trump says he wants the train-wreck triumvirate of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears for the next edition of his show The Apprentice.

There was a time, after the show’s first or second season, when this would have seemed completely inconceivable.  Where on earth would you find a place for the queens of skank on Trump’s show?  But, after recent efforts, including last season when one of the teams had to live outdoors and sleep in tents, I am depressed to find little surprise in this.  Why not take that one last step toward becoming a total reality circus?

This weekend I’ve got a lot of accounting work to do and have a season 1 Apprentice-fest going in the background.  At the very beginning of the very first ever episode, Trump said, “This is not a game, it’s a 16-week job interview.”  That’s what made The Apprentice great. (more…)

Well, I was surprised.  After Project Runway, Top (Interior) Designer, and Top Hair Stylist or whatever it was called I figured that next up on Bravo’s parade of trades heavily populated by gay men would be some sort of competition for ChiChi’s waiters.  Instead we are treated to another installment of Top Chef.  Time will tell if we are looking at a cast of refreshing real people who are actually about the cooking as in season one, or a batch of whiny pissants, one of whom unfortunately, must win, as in season two.

Since it’s too early to start in on a blow by blow, let me talk instead about the short shelf life of reality show concepts.

As long as the concept isn’t lame, the first one or two seasons of a reality show are usually pretty good.  The players arrive not knowing any better, so they embrace the actual premise of the show.

Then the dark side of reality sets in.  Suddenly the cast members have agents on retainer before filming begins.  They show up ready to fit into a reality role; the bad guy, the good guy, the eccentric, etc.

In TC3, Hung proclaimed himself the bad guy in his opening vignette.

See, that doesn’t work.  The real bad guy doesn’t come through the door introducing themselves as the bad guy.  In fact, as with Bada-Bing Betty and her ubiquitious cleavage from TC2, the bad guy may even think, or try to convince others that they are the good guy.

The problem with the role playing is that suddenly you’ve got half the cast more intent on making a big splash in hopes that their name will live beyond the show, than on actually winning.

It’s all downhill after that.  Just ask Donald Trump … if you can get him to admit it.

TIme to catch up on the most surprising, hard to believe season of NBC’s Apprentice yet, as in … hard to believe this season could be even worse than season 5.  I’m surprised!  But, it’s the only Apprentice I’ve got, so here goes.

Small Pond.  Continuing a trend, one main root of this season’s weakness has been an uninspiring pool of candidates.  This was most obvious in Tim and Nicole’s romantic relationship.  It seemed that at each key moment the two could be found in a corner playing footsie.  Nicole was able to maintain her demeanor, but the distraction proved too much for Tim, who from now on, will be called Mary.

Format Flop.  NBC changed some things up for this version of the show.  I would argue that, for the most part, the format wasn’t broke and didn’t need fixing.  The loss of Carolyn was huge.  To make matters worse, the chair to Trump’s left became a revolving door for the Donald’s offspring and previous Apprentice winners.  The lack of a strong, consistent, independent voice in the boardroom was sorely missed. (more…)