Rock of Love Bus: Double Bounce

I’ve been away. Get naked and let me make it up to you with the tale of last week’s Rock of Love Bus…

This show used to be so classy!

Never complain, never explain is all I usually have to say. But this takes the prize for the latest recap ever, and I’m not explaining, but I am sorry.

We pick up right where we left off, with Penthouse Taya and Bret making out and the rest of the hos back on the bus. Juliette Lewis Ashly is totally freaking out. “My BFF isn’t here,” she says, panicking over the loss of her lesbian lover Farrah. But hope lives as suddenly, “I hear stripper shoes!” Juliette Lewis declares. What kind of clue is that? All we know is it isn’t Boring Butch Beverly. Or Farrah. It’s Penty, with messed up lipstick that Gopher Mindy is happy to point out. And then we’re off to St. Augustine.

The hos disembark with Nerdy Ho Janey in the lead…and a sparkly headband. It doesn’t look any less stupid on her than Mischa Barton. And it’s not Bret’s look. He likes a big headful of weave. The hos have determined that today’s the day their exes are coming to visit, and Boring Butch is carrying on and on about how excited she is to see someone from home. They sit around the hotel room talking about how one of the accessory pillows is the same rotten eggplant color as Boring Butch’s hair. “This is the most boring conversation I’ve ever had,” Juliette Lewis announces to the room. How can you not love a ho who walks into a room and tells everyone they’re total bores?

Prettiest eye whites ever.

Finally we catch up with Bret. Indeed he has invited some guests to get to know his hos a little bit better! He tells us in his usual colorful and completely nonsensical way that he’s ripping open the closet door, letting the bones fall out and seeing which ones have a pulse. But Bret’s got a skeleton of his own, and her name is Soccer Mom Ambre. He’s also got the one who got away, Flasher Heather. And they’re both here to get the dirt on the current batch of hos. Flasher looks awesome, even though she’s not wearing one of her spangly stripper dresses.

Save a ho. Recycle.

And then, the exes arrive! Boring Butch, who spent the whole morning being excited to “see someone from home” starts overzealously freaking out. There’s five guys. Two look like thugs, and three look like bores. Not surprisingly, the thugs belong to Juliette Lewis and Pierced Mute Brittanya, and the bores belong to Penty, Gopher and Nerdy Ho. Juliette Lewis is absolutely delighted to see her thug. She gets really mushy about it, and I’m immediately on alert.

Pierced Mute tells us her dude isn’t even an ex, just a “booty call”. Nerdy Ho’s guy is actually pretty funny looking, but she’s just happy they didn’t drag her ex husband into this. Gopher says her ex is “controversial”. And as for Boring Butch…she’s got nothing. Bret tells her, “On a serious note, we asked Alan to come and he declined.” I say this every season and I’ll say it again, your ex not showing up for this episode is the best reference they could give you! I have more respect for Boring Butch than ever. At one time at least, she was married to someone with some sense.

But Boring Butch, who appears to be growing more unstable with each passing moment, is devastated. “I look like an idiot! No one cares enough!,” she says dramatically. Way to stay on your game, Boring Butch. This is so all about your ex. Bret takes the new hos for some alone time, and leaves the old hos to talk with the exes. Flasher drags out her tired old line about how she “can’t wait to get the dirt”.

It’s Penthouse with a mustache.

First up in the big dig is Chris, Gopher’s ex. He tells Soccer Mom that he watched every episode of season one with Gopher and he’s genuinely happy for her. Well, if it’s all good, why’d you break up, Soccer Mom wants to know? Soccer Mom’s so practical. Turns out, Saint Gopher cheated on him. Well, unless it was with another girl and a farm animal, I don’t think that’s so controversial. And neither does Pierced Mute’s former beau, a filthy looking slug of a guy who starts asking Gopher’s ex, “Can you still fuck her?” And he goes on from there, but I couldn’t tell you what he said because every other word was bleeped out. Soccer Mom looks like she needs oxygen.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” she hyperventilates. But then she gets it together to figure out that Pierced Mute’s sewer rat is indeed still having sex with his ex. He willingly confirms. “That’s all it ever was,” this gem who calls himself Royal T boasts. Soccer Mom points out that he does seem very “eager to throw Brittanya under the bus”.

Over in Bret’s private room, he’s pouring vodka for his hos, getting them them nice and sloshed for Flasher. He also gives them a lecture about being truthful. Penty’s wearing a headband. Not a stupid one like Nerdy Ho, but a cute one like mine or Blair Waldorf’s. “If you’re a good person with nothing to hide, then you have no problems,” Penty announces piously. Very headband-y of her.

Back with the exes, Pierced Mute’s slimy thug is telling everyone that she’s a freak, and “if Bret’s lucky enough to fuck her…” Ugh. Just the thought of Pierced Mute and this piece of sewer crud just makes me cringe. Gopher’s ex is simpering to Flasher that Gopher is just a simple soul who likes the simple life. And Penty’s ex is half bragging and half insulting himself by telling Soccer Mom that of all his exes, “and I have an impressive list”, Penty is the only one he couldn’t see himself strangling. Awwww, what a sweet endorsement. Soccer Mom rolls her eyes.

Points for tying in the pink hat with the pink in the shirt.

Flasher decides she doesn’t want to die of boredom over there with Gopher’s ex, so she moves on to Nerdy Ho’s ex, a funny looking guy with a funny looking cowboy hat and a funny name, too! Hamboussi. I kind of love saying it. Hamboussi. And we learn that Nerdy Ho is a groupie. She seems so flat chested to be a groupie. Flasher is concerned about this because, “What if Bret retires?” Is this a real concern? A) Bret’s not retiring before he has to break up with his Love Bus ho in time for season four and B) He’s not picking Nerdy Ho anyway and Flasher knows it.

And then we get to the real drama of the day, and that’s James, Juliette Lewis’ ex. He looks just like Pierced Mute’s piece of trash, and has the same extensive vocabulary consisting of “fuck” and about three other words. “We still fuck,” he informs Soccer Mom, who’s now over her initial shock and disgust and just thanking her lucky stars that whatever sex she had with Bret was before he did it with the hos that did it with these smelly thugs. Oh, you just know they smell. I can practically sniff the stench of gutter through the TV.

James informs Soccer Mom that now that he’s shown up, Juliette Lewis won’t be needing Bret anymore. “No one can pull my *****,” he says repeatedly. I have no idea what he’s saying, or what it means. I don’t speak sewer thug. Back at Bret’s private party, Juliette Lewis is telling Bret that she and her ex have a good relationship, and she hopes he can move past what he’s about to hear. Well, what is it already? James is still going on and on to Soccer Mom about how their names are tattooed on each other, and how Juliette Lewis might have wanted Bret until she saw him again. Juliette Lewis is making carefully worded statements about how James is her son’s father and was the love of her life.

Any more tats and it’s gonna be hard to tell him from the couch.

Having smoothly gotten his hos liquored up enough to be entertaining, Bret leaves the room. But he’s got his trusty hidden camera from the day before at the kiddie pool, and he’s going to keep watching the action. Juliette Lewis is starting to lose it and Penty is trying to calm her down. Then Boring Butch is losing it and now Penty’s got two crazy hos to deal with. “Give me your hands,” she tells Boring Butch in what I’m sure she thinks is a very soothing voice. What the heck is this? Butch is screeching like a mental patient and Penty wants her hands? “I don’t want to put my hands in your hands!” Boring Butch shrieks at her.

“I want someone who cares about me to be there,” Boring Butch explains to us in her interview. “She’s upset. I’m confused,” says Bret. I’m both. Why doesn’t he just run off with Flasher and start a new reality show?

Big John, who’s back to his old dumpy look in a trucker hat, albeit a sequined one, herds the hos to some kind of waiting area. Boring Butch is still moaning. “Everyone is unraveling,” reports Penty. And then it’s Nerdy Ho’s turn to face the tribunal. Eh, may as well get this throwaway out of the way first. It’s the Wassa Goin’ On Court, Bret tells us, presided over by Flasher and Soccer Mom. Nerdy Ho is accused of “being a groupie”. This is hardly a misdeed on the Bret Michaels show. We all know what the real crime is here, and that’s that ridiculous headband.

Flasher and Soccer Mom seemed to have used their threesome time with Bret earlier that day to become besties, and Flasher’s leaning over Soccer Mom whispering furiously. Nerdy Ho feels like she’s on death row. Well, they talk around in circles about how Nerdy Ho followed Hamboussi to New York and followed his band, and then he makes some scumbag comment about how Nerdy Ho “did something for everybody in the band”. And Boring Butch is distraught to be missing out on this? They wrap it up by asking Nerdy Ho if she would date Bret if he wasn’t in a band, and she totally wins points with me for hesitating, and kind of never really answering. Come on, would Flasher and Soccer Mom be here if Bret wasn’t in a band? Would there even be a show about this in the first place if Bret wasn’t in a band? Don’t make me get all existential about this. But of course, Bret’s all fake concerned that Nerdy Ho’s there for the “right reasons and not straight up groupie material.”

She knows how to share. That’s all you need to know.

Outside in the waiting area, Juliette Lewis is getting more and more frantic by the minute. Then she becomes completely unhinged, and starts yelling about how she can’t do this anymore, and she wants to go. Big John rolls his eyes up to his sparkly trucker hat, and tells her to sit down. “Just tell the truth,” says Penty and her headband perkily. “At least you have someone who showed up for you,” whines clueless Butch…only to have Juliette Lewis snap back, “Who I live with, dumbass!” Then she lies on the floor and clings to the carpet.

Gopher says she’s shocked. Pierced Mute sits there looking smug. Butch ties it all up for us with the explanation that Juliette Lewis’ classy boob tattoo of “James” isn’t only her son’s name…but her ex’s name too! And Juliette Lewis moans that she’s going to become a lesbian. She’s starting to smell like defeat. And dirty hotel carpet.

Well, at least it’s a step up from the speed bump.

Next up in the Wassa Goin’ On Court is Penty and her ex, Jaz. Of course this jackass is named Jaz. All Penty’s accused of is having a “babbling ex”. She holds her own with Flasher and Soccer Mom, until it comes time for the career portion of the interview. Penty calls herself a burlesque dancer. Flasher calls stripper. Penty makes a big point of how she works in “top venues, and I don’t go around hanging upside down from the stripper pole.” My mind immediately flashes to Penty flipping upside down on that pole hanging on by, like, her ankles, and thankfully, the editors flash back to it too. Ha!

Bret, who’s still enjoying quality time with his secret camera, mentions that Penty may have forgotten to tell him that she was a “featured dancer”. Featured naked dancer. So somewhere in the middle of the big stripper/burlesque dancer debate, Penty’s ex Jaz starts to go bananas. “I’d like to meet the person who said she was a stripper!” he screams, jumping out of his chair. Whoa, tiger. But Jaz is off. Everyone tries to calm him down, but nothing will. Then, out of nowhere he shouts at Flasher and Soccer Mom something about dishonesty and distrust and “stapled on extensions”. Damn, I wish I had thought of that. It’s such a perfect way to describe the Rock of Love Weave.

“Can I talk? I want to speak for myself!” Penty tries to yell over Flasher, Soccer Mom and Jaz. “Well you shouldn’t have brought this fucker with you then!” Flasher tosses back. I just love Flash. She gives Jaz the finger, as he storms out with Penty shuffling behind him, shaking her head. Now this all made Penty look like a saint, right? Which is exactly the image she’s always foisting upon us, right? Even though she spreads it for Penthouse? I propose a conspiracy. What if Penty hired Jaz to play her annoying ex and make her look good? I’m telling you, something’s rotten on the Rock of Love Bus, and it’s not Pierced Mute’s crotch. Well, it is that too.

Peace.

And speaking of Pierced Mute and her poop covered cockroach of an ex, they’re up next on Flasher and Soccer Mom’s docket. Pierced Mute is accused of “multiple hit and runs”. The magistrates asks these two paradigms of class how they know each other, and I can not report the answer to that, because neither one of them can speak. They mumble. I guess it’s hard to talk with all those piercings and STDs in your mouth.

Soccer Mom doesn’t waste any time reminding sewer rat of his earlier assertion that he and Pierced Mute were still an item. Pierced Mute denies it, and Bret recites some nursery rhyme about lies that make baby Jesus cry. Then the arguing starts. I’m really not sure why, except maybe that’s just what mentally challenged people who live in trailer park dumpsters do when there’s a television camera around? Next thing you know, Pierced Mute is rushing the judges table, headed toward Flasher calling her a hater! “This is going bad,” says Bret warningly, while Big John sits by looking around for a snack like some nice beef jerky to munch on while he’s watching the show. Until Pierced Mute throws a punch at Flasher and Bret yells to BJ, “Go go go go go go go!”

Of course BJ’s too late to stop any of the action, but it doesn’t matter because Flasher does a very cool karate kid move, and totally blocks Pierced Mute’s punch! She’s pretty impressed with herself, and with good reason. “You do not want to mess with me,” Pierced Mute warns. Your right, sweetheart, I don’t. I don’t want to mess anywhere within five hundred miles of you. I just know you’re contagious. And I don’t think Bret wants to mess with her either. “Awwww, she’s a keeper,” he says, chock full of sarcasm and disgust.

Meanwhile, Soccer Mom does the twist.

And the whole time the fight’s going on, that port-a-potty Pierced Mute is calling her ex is dancing around and whooping in his chair. Thrilled, delighted, proud, the emotions are running wild as he watches his “booty call” spit her diseases all over Flasher. Bret shakes his head and tells us he doesn’t think he’ll be taking Pierced Mute home to Grandma.

Then it’s Boring Butch’s turn. She stupidly continues to carry on about how she feels like crap that her ex “didn’t have the balls to show up”. Then she clarifies that she doesn’t “give a shit about him, I just wanted him to be grilled.” Ummmm, you do realize he would have been grilled about you, right ho? She enters the court, accused of “nothing”. She cries, and tells Flasher and Soccer Mom that she was pregnant and married at seventeen. “Ahhh, so that’s where the suppressed anger is coming from,” muses Professor Bret, smoking his pipe thoughtfully.

Flash and Soccer Mom are really nice to Boring Butch. Soccer Mom tries to explain to her that she was out on the road with Bret for ten months, and you have to be really strong to deal with the backstage scene. But instead of taking this unsolicited, yet very logical advice, Boring Butch of course gets pissed. “I don’t know who she thinks she is,” Boring Butch stews. Doesn’t matter. Bret decrees that Boring Butch has serious issues. And he doesn’t want to be what he calls her “hump” over to whatever new land of insanity she’s headed.

What do you think of the Bank rescue?

Then it’s time for Gopher and her ex, Chris. Gopher looks adorable. I think her mouth should be permanently sewed shut so we don’t have to hear her talk, but she gets prettier every day. She’s nervous, he’s seen her at her worst. Soccer Mom immediately asks Gopher about the cheating, and she tells them she’s fine talking about it. Then she tells them that the year she was with Chris was the worst year of her life, she had never been so unhappy and you “can’t give love when you don’t feel it”. Then she says that he was the best boyfriend to her. Poor Chris. Best boyfriend ever, but she was unhappier than ever. That’s harsh. Anyway, Soccer Mom and Flasher lick it up like Bret’s Crisco’d chest. Flasher actually applauds for the “amazing” conversation.

Milk, tampons, toilet paper, milk, Globe, gum, Lean Cuisines.

Moving on, last up for trial is Juliette Lewis and her baby daddy, James. Juliette Lewis is accused of “being James’ *****” And as we all know by now, Juliette Lewis is in a full blown panic. She knows he still loves her, and she knows they still live together. She also mentions that he’s the only person she respects, and it’s at this point that I lose any choice about breaking up with her. Oh, Juliette Lewis. You’re so cute and funny, why the smelly thug? Why?

Flash and Soccer Mom want to know about the sleeping arrangements in the house that Juliette Lewis and her dirtbag share. She says separate rooms, he says, “we fuck all the time”. Juliette Lewis says she still loves James “as the father of my child”, and then James starts repeating over and over and over again that “nobody can pull my *****”. He says it like a hundred times. Keep on genius, when you find a snappy phrase, you stick with it! Back in the hidden camera room, we flash back to Bret closing the sliding wood scrap bedroom door on his tour bus with Juliette Lewis. “Your girl got pulled,” Bret gloats. Yeah, stealing a ho away from this piece of garbage is something to be real proud about.

Flash and Soccer Mom ask James how he’d feel if Juliette Lewis lands Bret. “Disgusted, cause it ain’t me,” he says illiterately. “So you’re here to take her home?” asks Flash. And apparently, that’s the plan. Juliette Lewis says she’s about to pass out. She’ll always have love for James, she explains, but she wants to move on. Then she fake sobs and Bret real sighs.

How could you leave this prize at home?

With court out of session, Bret meets up with Flash and Soccer Mom for a conference. They like Nerdy Ho, but they think she’s a groupie. She’s filler, who cares. Everyone agrees that Boring Butch has problems, and Professor Bret absentmindedly taps the suede elbow patches on his tweed blazer while explaining that she’s in a second childhood, which explains her drinking and emotional instability. Cause, you know, kids drink. They sneak it in their juice boxes. It’s a real problem.

Juliette Lewis is a “difficult one”, because they all, including Bret, think there’s something still going on with James. As for Pierced Mute, Flasher does say that she’s “hot”, but Soccer Mom tells Bret she honestly can not think of one nice thing to say about her. Bret makes it clear that he doesn’t like it when his girlfriends spit on his friends. Well, who does? They think Penty is honest, poised and has her stuff together, but they don’t what was the deal with the ex. She paid him. That was the deal. Cash.

And as for Gopher, she was their favorite by a mile. They think she’s a nice, midwestern girl but they’re not sure if she can handle Bret’s lifestyle. “She’s not high maintenance physically, but she’s high maintenance emotionally,” Bret decides. Overall, he thought the interrogation was a success. But now he’s confused. He’s not sure which ho will be the most realistic one to kick out, cause at this point, I think he might loathe all of them.

I choose Big John.

He goes up to his room to think it over, and gets a visit from Juliette Lewis, strategically attired in an innocent looking fluffy white bathrobe. She feels like she needs to have alone time with Bret, but Farrah had alone time with him last time, and she went home. So she’s scared. She tells Bret she feels stupid for not telling him she still lived with her sewer scum, but that they’re just roommates. Bret believes her that she likes him, but he thinks she’s still romantically involved with her ex. Bret’s hair looks like a wig today, but a very soft and pretty one. He asks her how she thinks the story ends. She looks confounded by the question.

And the it’s time for eliminations. This feels like a really long day. Pierced Mute looks very pretty with her hair in big curls, but it’s too late. She kind of makes me ill. Juliette Lewis is worried for the first time at eliminations. Bret tells the hos that he learned a lot today, and some of it was painful. And then he gives the first pass to Gopher. Soccer Mom liked her so much she let her borrow one of her soccer mom dresses, and then they got so busy bonding over crock pot recipes, Gopher forgot to blend her eyeshadow.

Nerdy Ho gets the second pass, and she’s really excited. I think I’m changing her name to Deluded Ho. Really, there’s just no chance. Bret says that even though she might be a groupie, he’s got bigger fish to fry. Minor offenders should be glad, he says. And then he gives the next pass to Penty, who does her now predictable pageant sobbing routine, and tells him, “Until it’s just you and me,” which is starting to sound a little psycho.

Love you.

Boring Butch is very concerned. And she still doesn’t get it. “Your ex didn’t care enough to show up, so you must not be that great of a person,” she laments about herself. Hello, did she see the exes that did show up? I ask for the millionth time, why wouldn’t you avoid that if at all possible? Boring Butch is really emotionally stunted. Juliette Lewis is shocked that she and Pierced Mute are in the bottom three. “We’re the hottest,” she tells us. Yeah, a hot zone of communicable disease.

The first to learn their fate is Boring Butch. Bret points out to her that she cried harder about her ex not showing up than about anything she and Bret ever talked about. He knows she has issues, and he says he wants to try and get past them, for the sake of keeping the competition alive on his television show, but he tells her he can’t do it if she’s drunk and screaming and upset. “Do you think you can let your baggage go?” he asks her with a sigh. “Of course,” she replies happily. Oh, okay. Ten years of baggage that’s she’s just gonna leave there in St. Augustine and move on to the next city with a fresh attitude and a clean slate.

And then we’re down to two. He thinks Juliette Lewis and Pierced Mute are not only two of the prettiest girls on the bus, but also that he’s ever seen. He’s laying it on thick, cause he doesn’t want Pierced Mute to spit on him. And sure enough, Pierced Mute is his next call. He flat out tells her she threw a punch and spit on his friends and he can’t have her do that. And all of the sudden, Pierced Mute grows a mouth and a heart and a personality. She gives him the sweetest smile and tells him that he’s “fucking great and don’t change” and that she hopes he finds someone. Whaaaaaaaat? Did the Rock of Love Bus take a turn into the twilight zone?

Class wins.

Which leaves us with Juliette Lewis, who has driven past panic and is now lingering over near hysterical sobbing. Bret tells her that the one thing he learned today was that she was confused as to who she wanted to be with. And she nods! Oh my! Juliette Lewis, what are you doing? Is your sewer rat blackmailing you? Bret tells us his sixth sense is kicking in, and he’s no sucker. “Look at me and let me know your heart is here,” he tells her. And she looks away! Are you dying? I’m dying!

“That’s what I thought,” Bret tells her definitively, and then tells her the tour ends here. “Alright, thanks,” says Juliette Lewis and then she walks away. That’s it? That’s the end of Juliette Lewis? What just happened? Now I’m the one confused. This is terrible. “I was having fun until Farrah left and I was stuck with girls who made me want to kill myself. They talked about cereal for three hours yesterday!” she exclaims. Totally agree, but hello, what about Bret? The guy they named the show after?

Probably not the best idea to show off that James tattoo. I’ll miss you!!

Well, he’s taking Juliette Lewis’ pass, and smashing it under his foot. The Ego does not take rejection well, and with the exception of the ho with the big nose who turned down his pass on the first day of season two, I think this is unprecedented. Back on the bus, the hos notice that they’re moving…without any blondes. They’re pretty happy.

Next week it’s time for Gopher to play sabotage, and Boring Butch to have Bret sign some teddy bears for her kids. This is a very strange bus trip, indeed. Kisses from your favorite ho of all…