Pick Up Artist 2: Demonstrations of Homo Value

Feels so right when we hug real tight.

EEEeeeeeEEE! That’s me making dolphin noises I’m so excited that it’s that time again. Pick-up Artist time! Since I last spoke with you all I went to my hometown of Atlanta, unsuccessfully stalked the Housewives and lined up a party this weekend with Mystery and cast. It’s been a busy week in reality and it’s good to be back in the field.

Lightening bolts flash across a dark Arizona sky as the boys make ominous predictions over who will go home. Lauren Hutton says it’s Todd going. And alas he’s right. No more pearly white smile. The Ringer, proving his prophecy true, reenters the barracks and the man-hugging begins again!

MXC Brian is especially bummed and pouts alone that Todd is gone since they had a special ass hair connection, but them’s the breaks. Sports metaphors are once again passed around like a joint and the boys brace themselves for a new day.

And today brings a road trip to sunny Scottsdale! They roll on down to a posh Scottsdale resort and Mystery thanks them for coming as always. That’s kind of you, Mys. Like they have a choice. It’s nice to act like it’s a free country and all, but we all know Mysteryland is one textbook dictatorship.

Nobody dogpiles until I say it’s time to dogpile.

Now it’s time to get to one of my favorite lines of Pick Up Artist Liturgy, which is “Demonstrations of Higher Value”. Which simply put means, a bitch don’t want no scrub. (Unless he comes with a hat that can do the actual scrubbing. See above.)

Apparently a few of the guys can’t wrap their chumpy heads around this, so we’re gonna have to do a Value-based challenge. Maybe next week we’ll get to the Dignity-based challenge but probably not. SO. The two key components of demonstrating value are verbal and nonverbal. Today will be about the verb kind, since we can only watch them body rock so much. And they’re at this resort to attend a women’s charity auction where they will sell themselves as being individuals of incredibly high value and one of them is going to be the PRIZE.

(28 year old) Virgin is not into being a piece of meat, which I think we’ve picked up on, by his making it almost three decades with nary a soul sullying his nubile flesh.

Mystery don’t care there though if they’re up there as white or dark meat. They’re gonna be meat. And they better get the highest bid if they wanna win Tara! (Beat.) In the field. Oh Mystery. You rascal! They can’t win her for good?

I’m thrilled either way.

They’ll have the advantage of having a girl on their arm as they walk into the club, and this will give them an edge because there’s nothing a girl loves more than someone else’s man. Actually, it’s in line with what my mom taught me growing up which is the principle of generating “buyer excitement” about yourself. Yes, I was raised in a household where I learned to appraise myself like I was a valuable commodity for men to consume. Whatever. It works.

So now these boys are about to put dollar amounts to themselves and they practice their speeches that will get them the highest bid. Lauren Hutton launches into an oratory in the lobby practicing his “DHV spikes”. He hopes it’s an auction for old ladies. He’s can whip up buyer excitement with the AARP set like nobody’s business.

And I was just on that riverboat playing Bingo till 11pm like there was no tomorrow.

He starts thinking that a story about the Dean of his college sending him to a wine-and-cheese program in Tuscany will demonstrate higher calibre. This just demonstrates the calibre of the institution of higher learning that he attended. What accredited university sends kids to study cheese? Unless you went to Le Cordon Bleu, there’s no excuse.

Simeon has a story about loving people in third world countries. Gay.

The Virgin wants to announce that he’s a board member of a theatre troupe. Double Gay.

MXC Brian tells about how he’s won Sinkers and Floaters at least eight times. Actually he talks about…Tijuana. And tacos. Same difference.

The boys are all nervous, but they shouldn’t be. Any of the women could be their moms.

Am I here for that Mark Philippoussis show?

Oh, and don’t mind these lovely ladies who lunch in the back. I’ve always heard that lunching ladies love their hats.

Going head-to-head (literally) with NeNe and her Charity Hat Luncheon this week.

Tara hits the mic welcoming the ladies to their “Bachelor Auction” and man, I hope they know what they’re getting themselves into. That intro sounds like they’re going to be selecting the next Chris Harrison wingman, not listening to stories about theatre troupes and tacos.

“We have some fabulous men for your bidding pleasure.” according to Tara, which is quite the sell. All of the money today goes to benefit a children’s charity which means that the boys won’t be having to demonstrate higher value in a one-on-one with her.

Hi, you might know me as Magda from that charming Ben stiller movie.

The highest bidder also gets a spa package. Okay, now I’m throwing up my paddle.

So MXC Brian is up first and he who was practically peeing himself with nerves, now busts out like he does an open mic night every Friday. He’s all, I’m Brian with an “I” for Intelligent! Way to scrap the donkey lady in Tijuana story and go with wordplay. Bitches love wordplay.

He said he loves to travel and…oh shit here comes the Mexico story after all. He talks about going south of the border to try and find “white people”. The ladies don’t quite know what hit them. People are laughing. At him. He starts talking about dating one of the girls for a year and Tara can see this is going in a bad direction and reaches out, but just before she grabs the mic out of his hand, he says that he learned a dance from this girl and it was called the “Screwdriver”. He busts into the dance and it looks an awful lot like a drunk girl dancing to Ginuwine.

Ride it, my pony. My saddle’s waiting. Come and jump on it.

And let the bidding begin for the Screwdriver! The paddles start flying but the numbers aren’t exactly Christie’s level. I hear a $50 and $75 in there. MXC Brian can’t believe his good fortune. He feels like King George! Yes, the same King George who went down in the annals of history for being auctioned off at many a high tea for spa packages.

He continues to do his southern fried booty shaking throughout the bidding and manages to shake out $575! Impressive. Way to demonstrate the kind of high value you would find on a stripper pole.

And the highest bidder was the Age-of-Love style cougar from the screenshot above. Meow! I knew she was one to keep an eye on. MXC Brian wants to be passed off to the lady’s daughter though, but I don’t think he realizes that this coug just wants her ginger infused seaweed wrap.

Lauren Hutton is up next and he blathers on and on about his wine and cheese study abroad. Cue the quaint European street violin and accordion background music to signal to the viewers at home this is going over as ridiculously as it seems. He even says that he left a lasting legacy for future generations to come because of his ability to pair food with wine. He admits he embellished a bit. At least one sharp cookie doesn’t buy it.

My paddle’s waiting.

Lauren Hutton also gets giddy over the bidding war that’s starting over him and he easily flies by MXC Brian bowing at $850.

Up next is (28 year old) Virgin and oh no. Cue the jokey harpsichord Shakspearean music.

I have a veeeeeery tenuous grip on my heterosexuality. Oops. There. It slipped from my grasp again, you wily cur!

I had no idea that loving theatre demonstrated higher value. I thought his presence on reality TV gave him higher value. That fact alone means I’m gonna ask him to sign my tatas with a Sharpie on Sunday.

And…here comes the board member line.

Last performance we had five people. FIVE!!

He brings up a story about an older Jewish lady (cut to an offended look from Magda) and he continues to talk about himself as a dashing romantic lead and even earns an eye roll from a younger lady in the crowd. You and me, sister.

With the sparse smattering of applause, Virgin realizes that the ladies are not being as responsive as they really should be and he manages to scrounge up a mere $75. Tara tries to help him out by saying that he’ll write you bedtime sonnets, which is arguably the most clever thing we’ve heard from her this season. Other than Osama Bin Sexy. Brian tries to ham it up with a snuggly pose only his Stuffie was witness to before this moment, but the votes are in: NO ONE LIKES ACTORS.

He tries to doing the gyrating thing that MXC Brian did and it saves him a bit (moral of the story: shaking ass will get you where you need to go in life.) He punches out with $450 under his belt.

Simeon steps up to the plate and right off the bat announces that he is a “Great Person”. If Tyra were here she’d shove a piece of humble pie down his throat he’d choke. But haaay, everybody likes Great People! Especially when they announce it! Except Matt. What’s his problem?

You could never leave a wine pairing legacy like I did, hippie.

He brings up his sherpa tale in India where he got stuck in a monsoon and it was hailing and omg, dude, people live in countries everyday with monsoons. Your presence one year on a backpacking trip doesn’t earn you a survival medal. Maybe he can tell his heavy-handed, peace-spreading globetrotter tale is not quite resonating with our gals, so he tries to spice things up at the end by offering himself up for a date on a “fun and spontaneous adventure”. Yeah, did you clear that with Mystery? We all know you’re not allowed to leave that house without his permish. His love of third world countries gets him $525, right under MXC Brian.

Last up is The Ringer and the women shoot out a “Wooo” immediately, excited to see a pretty boy take the stage. Even Lauren Hutton admits a story about a “ham sandwich” could win it for him. As if he didn’t try and win it with a cheese sandwich. Hypocrite.

And man, The Ringer knows him some stand up comedy set up. He leads with a I’m-from-Salt-Lake-City line and assures them he doesn’t have seven wives…he has three. Chuckle, chuckle.

And this may look like the Shocker, but I’m far to much a gentlemen to pull that on the first date. I wait till the third.

But then he talks about how he went on a two year service mission. Ooooh, so he’s an SLC Mormon. I know about those mandatory two year service missions. All Mormons boys do them, so it’s not, like, special this speech he’s giving us. Le sigh. He wants to tug at their heartstrings by playing up his do-gooding. He even says that he left a boy and came back a man! Cheap shot, Christian soldier.

Soooo. The paddles start flying for our man of God and he gets right up to $800. But the winner is Lauren Hutton with his $850 because god loves wine and not Jesus braggers. That’s at least what I’m taking away from this.

It’s a tough break for someone so pious, but at least he has those sparkly peepers.

God has failed me.

So the boys all troop back to their lair to debrief. Lauren Hutton is lording it over the boys apologizing for being so charming and handsome. A million TV sets get covered in vom.

But before it escalates to an out and out brawl, Mystery arrives with the wings to explain their field test. They’re going to use the verbal “skills” they learned today to test them on what they call a “Hired Gun”. A girl who is hired for her beauty. The bartender. The go-go dancer. THE BIKINI MODEL.

(Aside, did anyone else notice that MXC Brian’s new label is “loves pickle juice”? How did Matador’s Hail Mary icebreaker become an actual elixir that he loves? Please explain. Someone needs to give me this job so I can describe them with things like “Sucks face with salami”.)

So back to the bikini model discussion, which has our boys just salivating! They now have to learn routines that will work on these mercs of the nightclub.

Talk about her tits and pretend your holding up some melons. Go-to material, boys.

They have to initiate a chat in a non-threatening way and “upload her DHV spikes” much quicker than you would just any old broad, because the important thing is to not appear as another customer trying to hit on her. And that is where the all-important Neg comes in. So let’s practice! And let’s imagine that Tara is a hired gun! crows Mystery, as if she’s been around for the bookkeeping this whole time.

Lauren Hutton is up first and insults the Hired Guns’ outfit. Crickets chirping. Um, Neg + Hired Gun = Laughter, not Neg + Hired Gun = Stink Face. FAIL.

Next up is The Ringer and he goes in with “I’ve seen uglier”. She laughs a little too loudly in the way that you would when the person is actually irritating you. He follows that up by asking her to a pool party which skips at least eighteen important escalation steps. “Who the hell do you think you are??” demands Matador.

You think you’re gonna be the next vaguely fagtastic wing up here with Mystery next season? Know your place, Frosh.

Simeon throws down a clunker saying she looks like his brother and makes huge, crazy eyes at her with a theatrical delivery on par with Virgin’s. It can only be contended with this face:

Your brother looks like a blonde chick with boobs?

Mystery even steps in to do a reenactment it’s so bad, and I never thought we’d see Mystery go falsetto. But he does.

Well hopefully they’ll all do a 180 and do amazing tonight. This wasn’t promising. And tonight is going to be a special night for the boys. There’s a bikini fashion show for Diane Swimwear and they’re all invited. The objective will be to get as many numbers and options as possible which should be no sweat for these guys, since it was all they were doing last week when they were trying to get a kiss. Maybe this week they’ll just all be making out. Or sucking hard. Could go either way.

The lines don’t get better as they ready themselves for the evening and practice on each other. MXC Brian brings up the “orangest tan ever” line which is never gonna lead to a number close no matter how self-loathing the tanorexic secretly is.

(28 year old) Virgin devolves into a fit of the crybabies right before they go out because none of the material works for him. How can he possibly neg someone when he wears his heart on his sleeve? It’s just so hard out there for a pimp.

It’s just like a scene from the gay porn version of “Hustle and Flow”: Gangsta pimp meets country fried.

The Art of Picking Up is all about having an agenda and pretending you don’t, he moans. Weeeell, looks like you may just be a virgin a little longer, because what’s so crazy and evil about wanting some ass as your agenda? If you’re gonna be this lily-livered about hitting on a girl, you might as well just pack up and go home now. Or later this episode when Mystery eliminates your ass. When he’s onstage he’s fine! Because theatre is fine art! The Real World is totally different. This is no acting he can get behind and therefore he can’t do it. Or he’s just afraid of bikini models. You be the judge.

Lauren Hutton gives him some confusing jargon about how that you know the lines because there are no lines and you can make up the lines so those become the lines and therefore you have the lines! His inflated charity auction ego is clearly crushing his brain. No matter what Osama Bin Sexy and I will be giving you applause, he assures him.

My Stuffie is way easier to understand.

The car ride manages to be more awkward than when girls are around. Simeon tries to rouse a dead audience with a speech about how meetin’ purty ladies is soooo typical in their lives now. Cue the cricket chirp. Then Lauren Hutton tries his neg/come on with Virgin. “There’s something classy about you. Let’s exchange numbers.” Aaaaand. Silence. These are the top five? I’m beginning to think Mystery got a bad batch.

This won’t be an easy challenge, warns Mystery. Hired Guns don’t have a lot of time, so they’re ready to walk away at any moment. Thank god Matt has Tara! And speaking of, who replaced Tara with a low rent hooker?

I’ll spike your DHV, if you know what I mean.

This class act has been a hired gun for yeeears. She informs us she was a “bartender, waitress, she’s done it all”. What, no bikini modeling on that hired gun resume?

It’s not gonna be easy, Mystery reminds for the thousandth time and with that sends them off. Apparently that really hit home for MXC Brian as he practically walks right into the fence in the storage room, causing Mystery and Matador to share a private laugh. When they show that intimate moment it reminds me that Mystery really is Just Like Us! He’s not just a masterful man of mystery and neverending ass. He giggles like the rest of us!

So now it’s time to send these in to eat and they enjoy the fashion show. These are the VERY SAME girls they’re going to meet after the show. And finally some hot girls! A bikini fashion show, that is soooo Mystery Material, muses Mystery from the back, subtly informing the viewers at home that if he were out there he could really do some damage. And by damage I mean game the shit outta every ones of these fake titty hos.

Could double for Mystery’s living room. According to Mystery.

So now it’s time to see what they can do! Just in case you forgot these are real bikini models.

Breasts notwithstanding.

The Ringer is up first and he walks away from one of the girls and begins the hovering. The girls scatter likes flies so he chases after a Heidi Montag clone, who of course is considered the hottest by Mystery. He starts with a good neg, “Are you the one that slipped?” and decides to follow that up with a series of interview questions which understandably bores her till she retreats and Mystery is up in arms about this. Am I failing these young gents?? Well, not technically since you gave him a handbook of scripted material, but mostly because Mystery can and will never fail. At anything.

Next is MXC Brian who is known to be a total charmer. And what a bold individual he is. He walks up to a table full and jumps right on in by asking if they think David Bowie is hot. It’s a strong play, but he’s not negging or engaging anyone of them and while they seem slightly amused, they’re not interested and him staying around only makes his pickle juice cravings less enjoyable.

He’s following them with stories about being at the W in New York and the girls start to grab each other in an effort to pull each other out of the nattering vortex he’s become. Wow, zero for two tonight. Not looking good.

You have to know when it’s done, but tonight he can’t get enough people to ignore him fast enough so he dropped the “orangest tan” line and sure enough the girl looks at him like he kicked her puppy dog and walks away.

He just got three girls to make O-face. That has to count for something.

Mystery realizes this is a bad situation and announces he has to sit down with them and train them because this should not be happening at this stage of the game. Amen. Glad you’re covering your tracks because so far this whole night has been a Donald Trump-level DISASTER.

Let’s see if (28-year old) Virgin does better. He starts by doing donuts in the middle of the room and finally finds some girls to talk to. One girl compliments his vest and the other looks off, so he immediately calls her on it. She explains she’s waiting for her drink and comes correct like a good bitch should. Not bad.

She stays around but she starts picking her bellybutton, so she’s kind of a lost cause, but the vest girl genuinely seems engaged in what appears to be the Stupidest Conversation Ever: chocolate chip cookies v. oatmeal raisin cookies.

Wait. This is a metaphor for something else, right?

He loses steam though and Mystery points out that at this point he should engage the friend, but of course he doesn’t. The girls scatter and he awkwardly walks away. These exits are brutal tonight. Like watching the Scream Queens act like talking heads this week. (I’m obsessed, people. Obsessed.)

I digress. Tara and Matt go to it and suddenly he’s much less of a threat but with Tara around he becomes much shyer and completely falls apart.

If only I were approaching an aged Asiago and opening a nice Chianti.

All of these boys are failing Mystery tonight. She can’t talk him into opening a set and he can’t seem to tap into the confidence that leaving a wine-pairing legacy in Tuscany once did. Tara offers to slap him channeling the sentiments of viewers everywhere, but he politely declines. (Ha. He’d get nowhere with me. If you can’t smack each other around, what’s the point?)

She leaves him to man up and without her he stops sniveling and gets to it. He goes up to the same girl Virgin did and is about to get ejected till Tara comes up and totally validates him. Clearly the golden ticket, suddenly the girl is taking the neg about driving a green-unfriendly SUV and playfully touches his arm. And then Tara aborts the mission leaving him to finish. And then he drops one to many negs.

Now a neg should result in laughter and nothing is funnier to a girl than hearing she has man hands.

These man hands can give you a killer hand job, so STFU.

She’s a man-handed, tree killer. Nice work, Tuscany. Stick to vino and fromage.

He says it was a pleasure meeting her and she sarcastically says that the pleasure was all hers. And throw Lauren Hutton the Wine and Cheese Maestro onto the suck pile for the evening. Mystery and Matador shake their heads about the suckfest that’s occurring and Tara rejoins to chime in before Simeon takes the stage.

And he just won’t get outta that ten gallon hat there. Maybe it’s the southwest air, but he should lose it stat. He opens a set of four guys with one adjacent girl, which is pretty slick. He stupidly says “Arizona”is a fun town which no one seems to notice. The girls pick up on his dark nails and then talk inquire if his toes had the same treatment. When he announces that he has had no pedicure, the girls lose their minds.

As soon as they mention the pedicure, Simeon insists they go and invites the whole group to go along, locking down the digits of the same girl Virgin and Lauren Hutton got mad dissed by. What can they say, girls dig nail polish.

That’s how many guys you’ve been with, too?

I tip my ten gallon hat to that. At least the night wasn’t a total write-off. Matador says that girls like the flamboyant, eccentric rock star type. Yeah, rock star is definitely the word I would use there.

The girl even begs Simeon to promise that he’ll call because she doesn’t like getting stood up. And hot damn, I thought it was one of those things that you forget about the next day, but she ain’t playin’. There was a time in my life when I’d wake up and look in my cell and be like “Who’s Danielle? Who’s Tim?” No doubt these individuals and I all had very serious plans for pedicures the night before.

So Simeon obviously wins and Mystery is left to sort through the pile of shit game these guys left behind and figure out which of them should go home. Lauren Hutton gets my vote for sucking with a hot wing. (That sounds like delicious food.)

So the boys go home and try and assess who did the worst but that’s difficult with so many lackluster performances.

Except for the “Rockstar”.

Now it’s time for the rune ceremony and Mystery lays into ‘em. He admits Hired Guns are tough, but he needs to see more at this point. I would just go with something. Anything. We’re about to be in the final four. So, he will admit that Simeon was able to harness his energy and successfully work the group, so he should keep going in the direction he’s going in. And not the other direction where he’s just flamboyant and eccentric.

And now for the losers: Greg became an uncertain hoverer with no material. Virgin got into the set but couldn’t hold it. To top it off, he never tries to isolate. Does he even want to get laid? Next MXC Brian needs to stop with the clown act. Clowns don’t get laid. Even if they’ve successfully stuck to a wall with velcro on a Japanese game show. And don’t over-neg. No more orange tan talk. And of course Lauren Hutton dropped the hot wing ball hard. Freezing up, etc.

But he still gets the first medallion for showing vast improvement. Or because the others sucked worse. The next student is someone who Mystery sees as having enormous potential: The Ringer. If he can stick to the material, he could be dy-no-mite. And now it’s down to MXC Brian and Virgin.

Pickle juice or theatre rants. Decisions, decisions.

MXC Brian plays the same note every time. Virgin’s promise is waning. MXC Brian talks at the girls, not to them. And continues to talk even when they’re walking away. Virgin can get in there, but doesn’t take the set anywhere.

And it’s game over for MXC Brian. Based on the breakdown above, that’s what I figured. Aw, we will miss him. Even Tara gives a sad face. And this his reaction heartbreaking.

This is that butt you’ve been hearing me talk about.

Pickle juice gives acid reflux.

One last man hug pile before we leave for the week.

Before he leaves MXC Brian informs us that he is ready for a kiss. And not just with a mannequin…OR A GUY. He actually says this. If you have any doubt that I am right about this being a big homo fest, I hope all your doubts are put to rest with this new development. I’ll report back about the gay orgy I wind up at this weekend next week.

And on the show next week, Simeon still inexplicably wears the cowboy hat and we go grocery shopping. Bring it, day game! I remember last season this involved leaving the boys on a bridge in Austin to flounder and creep people out like sex offenders. Yippee, day game!

See you soon.

‘Gasmishly,

Clover