RHONJ: Glamour! Fashion! Vomit! Tears!

Would this show start to pick up steam already? Moss is growing under my feet and I’m so bored when I watch that I find myself carrying on conversations with the dogs and giving myself a flawless manicure when I should be taking notes. And how many times can you trash one person?

Til Miss Andy or Dina’s potions makes it all go away.

The women need to quit acting like Danielle doesn’t deserve to be on the show. Clearly she is the only reason that a second season even exists. She and her daughters are getting the lion’s share of the camera time, and I shudder to think of how mind numbingly boring it would all be if she weren’t.

And what is up with the incredible amount of toys that Jacqueline’s son CJ has? I’ve seen fewer at my niece’s daycare, and they have twelve kids there! I don’t mind too much, though. Number one- he seems like a super sweet kid, and Number two- look at his baby brother’s t-shirt:

Guaranteed coolest baby photo entry in the senior yearbook.

Jacqueline carefully places wee Gene Simmons on a blanket so that she and CJ can paint a special shirt for him. You or I would pick up a $3 generic tee from Target to get paint scribblings on. Not good enough for baby Nicholas. He gets a brand new white Polo shirt, a Ralph Lauren Polo shirt.

Not that she’s one to flaunt their wealth or anything…

They have a little heart to heart about how CJ gets upset when mommy fights with Ashley which then fades to an exterior shot of their sick mansion. For a second there I thought we had hopped on over to the Loire Valley in France, maybe for a nice trip with the hos to wine country, but no. None of these women get properly drunk! What is wrong with them?

What a waste of a perfectly good party mansion.

Seriously, we’d be on our third or fourth drunken party by now if this were any of the other franchises. Who the fuck did the casting for this show, Anita Bryant? This is New Jersey, not Utah. If you are going to throw a bunch of teetotalers in our faces at least make them interesting teetotalers like Craig Ferguson, not crashing bores like these chicks.

How many ways can you call someone boring? I’m working on it. Me and my thesaurus are working overtime again. We’re also working on the many ways that you can refer to someone as certifiably insane, or pathologically self centered, whatever you prefer. Speaking of which…

Danielle sent herself flowers. Admit it, isn’t that what you were thinking when you saw the bouquet sitting on her doorstep? It’s the cheesiest trick in the book so I wouldn’t put it past her, but they’re really from Jacqueline congratulating Christine on her first magazine cover.

“to the prettiest girl, in and out. Too bad you stink from hangin’ out wid gah-bidge.”

The roses are gorgeous, almost as lovely as the way Danielle uses her youngest as a sounding board. She tries to get her to commisserate over why Jacqueline would send them and if she should call her. What is wrong with this woman? This is why I think that she’s crazy. It said on the card why she sent them. There’s nothing there to read into it. It was a nice gesture and your poor kid doesn’t want to sit there listening to you try to drum up drama out of thin air.

She calls to say thank you, Jaqueline screens it because that’s what you do when crazy people call, and then Danielle decides that she WILL NOT BE IGNORED (sorry, she’s too, too Alex Forrest) and she calls her again after Jillian gratefully tears ass out of the room.

She’s back to calling Jacqueline out for not being her own woman, then tells her that she’s reached out and now it’s her turn to make the next move. Geez, there’s no winning with this woman. She sent you flowers! What a bunch of nonsense. If I sent someone flowers only to have the gesture used as an excuse to insult me, I’d never answer another call from that person again. Never. The only way I would make an exception would be if that person was entertaining on some level, but Danielle isn’t. She’s just frighteningly desperate and terrifyingly in need of a man.

Which begs the question- who here truly isn’t her own woman? It seems to me that Danielle has spent half her life jumping from man to man, in between lying about her past and hopping on poles of course. She still isn’t working, instead she is planning a future that is based on living off her daughter’s modeling earnings. God, she’s twisted.

We get to see a tad more of Dina this time around and I’m starting to get pissed about the way she’s being portrayed. Her only reason for being on the show is to serve as counterpoint and victim to the evil eyed Danielle. First up, she’s chatting with Teresa on her giant never-used leather sofa that has an entire pillow section from Bed, Bath and Beyond on it. I don’t know how they found room for Juicy ‘Mo’s pregnant wife’s big butt, it’s so cluttered.

“Wow, you got a lotta pilluhs, Dinuh. Which reminds me, me and Juicy fuck all the time, in case you di-in’t know.”

They sip tea as Dina brings up Danielle’s luncheon and how she feels that friendship is being forced upon her too quickly after ‘what she did to her.’ Please. *eye roll x infinity* As if Danielle had just waited a couple of months to invite her to lunch and they’d be best buds or something!

This is Teresa’s input- “You can’t change the ho-bag that she is.” Thanks, Dr. Ruth.

Now get back to your cave before Juicy ‘Mo comes looking for you with his club.

Time to recast, Bravo. Time to recast.

I’m actually starting to miss Daisy of Love, can you believe it? This time last year, she was trying to decide between quasi-bully Flex and wimpy London, all while falling on her ass and wearing various classy outfits from the Halloween costume section at Frederick’s of Hollywood. Sigh.

Anyhoo, it sounded like they thought that Danielle would be doing her own thing on camera separate from them and they are surprise to find her still forcing the issue with them. All I can say is that I hope that the beat-down we’re all expecting to see at the end of the season is worth it, but all those jostled camera shots and running around they keep showing in previews just looks like an episode of Cheaters.

You know what else? In the next scene when Caroline comes to visit Jacqueline, what did old GodBother mean when she said that she finally had time to socialise since she’s not raising her own kids anymore like she did for the past 15 years? Shouldn’t it be more like 23? And they all still live at home, in true Italian offspring fashion. You live with your parents until you get married. Them’s the rules. The boys have to save up for a house and family, and the girls need Mama up their asses so they don’t turn into sluts.

Talk turns to Danielle (God, I hope they are paying her double) and Caroline tells Jacqueline not to feel guilty for staying away from the luncheon, after all, she never got a damn thing from Joker Face when Nicholas was born. All that talk in the voice message about Jacqueline not caring about Christine looks like a load of crap when you put it that way.

And Holy Hell, Jacqueline! Cut back on the surgery before you start looking like Danielle.

Caroline puts on her best “I told ya so” face and tells her to just let everything fade away. I’m more in favor of a direct confrontation. For drama, of course, and what the heck. She might as well. Danielle will only stalk her until she does, hiding in her bushes and peeking in her faux chateaux windows.

And she doesn’t even need a mask to scare away the dog.

Back in Christina’s World (google the painting, sad, sad, sad), they are chilling with the computer and going over the photos that Gilles Bensimon took.

Jillian makes fun of Christine’s big hair and all I can say is, be glad this isn’t the 80s! I cannot count how many times my hair got teased for work, followed by me sitting in front of the mirror at home combing out a rat’s nests the size of one of Danielle’s wonky implants. I mean, really. Take a look at this GaGa-esque ‘do from Taxi magazine fall ’88:

Ah yes. I too was in a bad romance back then.

Or this one from I don’t remember-

Wind machine = instantly fabulous tears and tangles. Hey, isn’t there a shampoo for that?

Baby shampoo. I went through cases of it. That, and Aussie’s three minute miracle. And boobie tape. And more boobie tape.

Come to think of it, Danielle isn’t showing those titty sacks as much this year. Had you noticed? She’s mostly running around in jeans and hoodies like her kids. I’d say it was an improvement. Too bad she can’t fix that Fatal Attraction personality of hers.

Was she an only child? Why doesn’t she understand that sisters HATE to be compared to each other, even if the parent thinks that they’re being complimentary? She picks apart their features and then wonders why Christine asks her to stop. GROSS, woman! Just gross! I am beginning to see how body issues get passed down from mother to daughter and it ain’t pretty.

And in this picture, you look just like me when I was blowing guys for Springsteen tickets.

And neither is passing down an excessive consumerist entitlement. You know who I’m talking about. Teresa decides to take her girls shopping at a boutique seemingly aimed at turning your child into fodder for pedophiles.

“Look Gia, prostitution whorette pants!”

She tries on armloads of clothes as Milania goes berzerk messing up the inventory in the brat’s eternal quest for attention, then Gabby throws a fit when mommy tells her that her dress is too big. What a joy. if it wasn’t for the $1,965 she spends in there, the salesgirls would probably throw her out on her ass.

And what the heck? Are they watching The View?

They still shoot her looks when she tells Gia that she needs to work to pay for all these clothes and little Gia says, “I’m too pretty to work,” in response. Isn’t that what Danielle said last year? All that pretty delusion must be in the Franklin Lakes water supply.

I think that Gia goes to school with the owner’s daughter. The one that she lifted up and twirled in the air when she arrived.

Say what you want about the little munchkin but that girl is strong and outgoing as all get-out. Not bad traits to have when you’re that age. Traits you NEED when your father is a huge insulting greezebahl.

We’re off to see Dina again and this time she’s called reinforcements. She has an ‘energist’ named Zen Jen who stops by to dole out positive energy so that Dina doesn’t have to crush up xanax in her kashi every morning. Mmmmm, granola and xanax….where was I?

Oh yeah, hocus pocus.

Dina wants to keep Danielle and all her bad energy far, far away from her. She doesn’t want to be mean (HUH? What happened to “You think I’m a bitch, bring it?”) so the zen lady burns some sage and rubs the ashes into her skin to keep away the boogiewoman. Do people charge for this shit? Like I said last week, I got a lot of herbs.

Dina says that she wants to give Danielle the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech and says that her abusive childhood is no excuse to be evil. She also says that she’s scared to talk to her face to face and I’m not buying it. I’m just not. Nothing about Dina says easily intimidated, not to me. She kinda looks like a sleepy judgemental toad just waiting to snap you up with her six foot long lightening fast tongue.

Mmmmm, mortals.

She’s a wee bit scary herself, and I think she leads a somewhat boring lonely life. I think her days revolve around polishing her religious icons as she waits for Lexie to come home from school. She sits alone at her kitchen table sipping chammomile tea and rubbing Buddha’s belly, sniffing the incense that fills the air and wondering how much longer she can go on without an orgasm.

‘Isn’t three years some kind of record for a Jersey girl,’ she wonders aloud.

The editors have to amuse themselves somehow as they film this fascinating saga of Danielle and the Fussbudget Fishwives, and they come up with this epic moment-

Don’t mind me, I’m just trying to get the Jills off my tuchus.

I’ve decided that I’m going to use Jill as a euphemism for shit & dingleberries whenever possible. I have to amuse myself too, you know.

So, Danielle’s dog uses the rug as toilet paper just in time for the realtor lady to pay a visit. She spoke to the ex and while he was receptive and amenable on the phone, it didn’t work out in the end. Huh? What the fuck does that mean? I guess it boils down to the fact that he isn’t going to pay for any of the renovations that the home needs, so Danielle decides to take it off the market.

Once again- huh? How hard is it to pull some nails out of the wall and realign and repaint some mouldings? Is she just stubborn or is it laziness? And why is she having these adult conversations in front of Jillian? It would be one thing if she approached the subject with maturity but she doesn’t. It’s all about playing the victim to the big bad ex, and there is something insanely sick about wanting your child to feel sorry for you too. What was the number of the New Jersey CPS again? ugh

Hell, they’d be better off at Teresa’s. She’s busy making dinner to celebrate Gia’s first fashion show and Caroline drives over with Albie to join them. Juicy ‘Mo saunters in after 8 and Teresa gives him shit, I mean Jill, for making them wait so long. The kids are restless and hungry and acting like whiny brats at the table. The spread looks amazing and I want to smack those stinkers almost as much as I want to taste Teresa’s food.

Gia spins one of her sisters around which, at this point I assume is the way

Neanderthal children say hello to each other. Moving on.

The next day mama and papa Giudice are driving Gia to the city for her big debut. Jaqueline calls to ask if Gia is nervous and she’s not. She’s playing with her iPhone and, what the Hell? Why does an eight year old have an iPhone while her mother has an old Razor?

Did you notice that? I rewound because I thought that I was seeing things. Bizarre. I understand sacrificing for your children but that’s taking it a little far, doncha think?

Good old lunky ‘Mo decides to tease her by joking that she’s “all excited to be walking down the ugly stage,” pissing the little midget off. They enter the Lincoln Tunnel and Gia doesn’t answer when Teresa calls her name because she’s too busy crying over what her big closeted meanie dad said to her.

I’m not that upset by this scene but before you give me shit, I mean Jill for it, allow me to explain. I come from a long line of teasing and I thank God (and all my male family members) for the way it has helped me to grow a thick skin. I got plenty of compliments from my mother and girlfriends and all the ribbing balanced it out, as long as it wasn’t cruel.

I don’t think that Juicy was trying to be mean, I just think that he sees all the gushing and fawning that Teresa and her friends heap on her and he wants to bring her down to earth a little. He could have timed it a little better, absolutely, but at least he didn’t do it in front of her friends. Oh wait, he kinda did it on national TV.

Why couldn’t I have been born into a normal family with normal hairlines, why God, why?

Never mind. No winners here, I’m afraid. He tells her that he’s going to throw her off the roof and she yells at him to stop looking at her. Who’s the adult in the situation? Hard to tell since they’re both about the same height. He’s a pig, she’s a brat. That was uncomfortable to watch. I think I’ll clear my palate with some Dudesons or a Faces of Death marathon. Less tension, you know?

I lied. I’m too much of a wussy to watch anything with people dying. I watched Sadam get hanged and the Zapruder film, that’s pretty much it. I’m almost the opposite of Danielle. I’m more of an empath and less of a me-path. I don’t think I could ever act the way she does at Christine’s walk practice before the show.

It’s obvious that this is just a final run through so don’t get upset that they are making her learn to walk correctly the day of the show. The instructor Mac is just trying to work out some kinks but it’s hard for Christine to concentrate with her mother putting her two cents in as well. This scene is a prime example of how people in the fashion business don’t like to have mommy around.

And that’s just fine with the daughters too.

It would be one thing if mommy was Cindy Crawford (by the way, how gorgeous is her mini-me daughter?) but instead we have Danielle who I doubt has ever set foot on an actual catwalk. If she had, she would have told us already and made it sound like she ruled it like Pat Cleveland at YSL in the 70s, and trust me. Nobody ruled it like Pat Cleveland in the 70s. She was a goddess. Still is, actually. Not to get off topic or anything (something I NEVER do) but here’s a picture one of my best buddies Billy Beyond took of her at a party for Connie Fleming in February-

Crazy young looking, right? I’ll have what she’s having.

And those sunglasses? I have a couple pairs. They are made out of film. Camera film. So chic. Billy makes them. I’m thinking about giving away a pair but I don’t know what the contest should be. Watching this show with me, maybe? No, that’s too cruel. How about you all send me a picture of you flipping off your favorite housewife? Sounds like a plan.

It’s all a bit much for Christine, though, and if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times- underage girls strutting their stuff in the name of fashion needs to monitored closely by some kind of watchdog group. There should be assurances that they aren’t being used by people in the industry, and that their mothers aren’t some kind of crack whore using them for a paycheck and reflected glory.

The entire situation upsets me. Somebody in a position of power like Anna Wintour or Andre Leon Talley should step up to the plate and do something about it. Or Tyra? Anybody? Karl Lagerfeld? Just kidding, he’d have them all on pea and avocado diets, bleaching their skin with strychnine and constantly munching on mints to cover up cigarette and starving bile breath. The only bowel movement they’d ever know would be solely in the office of their colonic administrator.

Not good, especially since if you want to be thin enough to model, you have to cut back on your food or amp up your excercise to almost daily workouts. I’ve never known a single girl who didn’t do both and I got so obsessed at one point (I’m a tad OCD) that I had a graph on the wall with my measurements and how much time I spent on weights, aerobics, etc on any given day.

If I took a month off to travel, I had to start all over again with booking agents telling me I looked fat and photographers saying that my 26 inch waist looked bloated. If I got pissed for being told that I needed a nose job, imagine how Christine feels with everyone throwing their opinion at her. I was 22, she’s 15. That’s light years on 7th Avenue.

And this won’t be the last time that I throw my own modeling experiences into my recaps. I want to fly to New Jersey and take this girl under my wing and protect her. I want to introduce her to the right people and make sure that she studies and reads, and not just updates on Facebook.

Okay, I’ll shut up for a sentence or two.

It’s almost showtime and I admit to getting excited by the shots of girls walking the runway and the crush of the crowds. I LOVED this shit when I modeled, probably because I am on the short side and didn’t get to walk as much as I wanted.

Well, not THAT short.

Little Gia is in hair and make-up yawning and unfazed. I love that about her. She is cool as a cucumber, in sharp contrast to our other girl, Christine. Gia takes a quickie walk down the runway with her model mommy and makes a couple of wrong turns but this isn’t rocket science, and I’m sure she’ll adapt.

Christine is walking in the Rebecca Minkoff show and I confess that I thought that she only made handbags. This fashion business side of her brand is news to me. She chats with the make-up artist and then bolts to the craft table only to come back with couple of slices of melon on her plate.

Gee, that’s normal.

Danielle asks, “what, no chocolate?” but for once she doesn’t interfere and make her eat something more substantial. Not cool. Now is the time to butt in, NOW- not when she almost passes out later. I think that Christine’s crappy choice of food boils down to being brought up by a woman that none of us have ever seen eat, and already feeling the pressure to be perfect from everyone around her.

It was really nice of the editors to include an interview with Danielle saying that she wasn’t worried about her daughter falling victim to the rampant eating disorders in the industry. She doesn’t say why she’s so unconcerned. I’m gonna guess that it has something to do with the fact that she lives by the credo of saying stuff makes it true.

Meanwhile, Caroline and Jaqueline arrive at Gia’s show for Caravan. They compliment Teresa for wearing a sexy dress and heels during her last weeks of pregnancy and then something totally surprising happens. Teresa finds the Daily magazine with Christine on the cover and instead of making a snarky comment, she shows it to Gia and tells her that she looks pretty. She did the right thing and showed her daughter that someone from their own neck of the woods did good and so can she. Aww. For a second I had some hope that these women might stop bad mouthing the Staub girls. I hope it continues.

It’s time to make Danielle look bad again as they show her interviewing that she doesn’t think that Teresa could be genuinely happy for her. Then Teresa does her own talking head soundbite where she says that she has no reason to be jealous of Danielle’s daughter because of the age difference between her and Gia. And if they were the same age? All bets would be off, surely. Who knows.

I got a big kick out of seeing schlubby papa Juicy ‘Mo in the front row of his daughter’s show. He crosses his arms and complains about the wait. I’m not going to give him any Jill for that because I know how brain dead you can become while waiting for a fashion show to start. Girls will read backstage, some gossip and do lines of coke and others put in their ear buds, cross their arms and nap. I always hung out with the hairdressers, between lines of course. I keed! I keed.

Teresa has to be shooed away by Gia and she doesn’t even make it to her seat before the lights go down. I know that this is a big deal to her but sheesh, let the child breathe. The show stars and a dozen girls come out in pajamas holding toothbrushes. Huh? Is this an oral hygiene PSA? Sheesh, last week it was drinking and driving,

now it’s Tommy the toothbrush?

I hate when stylists pull that hokey crap. Anyway, little Gia finally comes out, looking every inch a STAH, and even Juicy can’t contain his joy. So cute. It almost makes up for all the cheesiness that went into getting her there in the first place. And even Jacqueline starts to tear up a bit, it’s such a big deal to these women.

They say for Italians this is skilled labor.

And I’m part Italian so don’t kill me for that Dangerfield Caddyshack quote.

Afterwards, we see Juciy backstage, proud of his daughter and telling her that she looked beautiful. I know that he’s backtracking and I’m glad he complimented her. She did good. She toned her exaggerated walk down and hit her marks with the perfect balance of spunk and attitude. I honestly think that she could maybe act one day, provided that her mother helps her like Jodie Fosters did, and doesn’t take her cues from Dina Lohan or Joe Jackson.

Over at Rebecca Minkoff, Christine is having issues with poorly fitting super high heels. She just learned how to walk in them and I’m a bit worried for her. A huge part of succeeding in life is practice, practice, practice. You do it over and over again until it looks effortless, or your feet bleed. Not joking.

The entire audience is standing which is kind of weird. It’s very ‘ funky fashion show in nightclub,’ like the Betsey Johnson one I did at the Limelight in the, you guessed it, 80s. Are they in some kind of showroom or loft? I can’t tell but it sure doesn’t look like Bryant Park.

Christine walks out and the only visible tension is in her tight lips and the way her head is thrust slightly forward, shortening the neck. I know, it’s her first show, don’t be so hard on her, ya dumb recapper!

She looks a tiny bit scared as Danielle interviews that we are all witnessing the making of a supermodel. Yeah, good luck with that. They don’t churn them out like they used to, unless your name ends in ‘ovna’ or something Brazilian like, um..’a'?

Pipe dreams are okay WHEN YOU’RE TWELVE. God, she’s annoying. Almost as annoying as the fact that they make the models stand on the runway for a half hour afterwards. I think it would be cooler if they let them mill about a bit, don’t you? Just standing there like a bunch of mannequins is borderline dehumanizing.

And, uh oh! It’s time to pay the piper for not eating more at lunch. Christine was probably running on nervous energy throughout the day, and now that it’s pretty much over, she starts to feel nauseous and dizzy.

Look on the bright side, it wasn’t anything you ate.

Danielle is too busy running her exaggerating mouth to an IMG minion to notice and somebody else has to grab her and help walk her backstage.

“So, I says to the guy, how dare you drop trou in the parking garage! I only suck cock in finer restaurant bathroom stalls, ya know? I’m classy like that.”

Cue up the barely concealed disdainful looks that the remaining models exchange.

Starvation, without it the size zero wouldn’t exist. Allow me to share another story with you. When I first started out I got booked for a job with Andie MacDowell and this beautiful redheaded girl that had also just been signed by my agency. She was barely 18 and some booking asshole told her that she had to lose her remaining 5 ounces of baby fat by the time this very photo shoot took place.

Well, guess what she did? She starved herself almost into the morgue. She passed out on the subway and would have ended up in the train yards, or worse, if it hadn’t been for the nice homeless guy that picked her up and placed her on a bench in Bed-Stuy.

She hopped on a train back to Manhattan and promptly ate something. She eventually decided that it wasn’t worth it, and she quit to attend Oxford back in her native England. Can’t say that I blame her, but she had a wealthy family and options. Christine does not.

Instead, she has a crazy mother patting her face down with paper towels as someone else feeds the poor child some crackers. She say that she didn’t think that she walked well and God, please send her a mentor. Someone who can deal with Danielle without losing their mind. Is that too much to ask?

Next time, it’s babies! The puffy chuckie explodes with another goil! Will Juicy ‘Mo explode too? I’m going to rub some sage all over my coochie in anticipation! snooze…………..

Oh, and send your one fingered salute submissions for the Win Beyond EyeWear Contest to twunty.mcslore@gmail.com. Use your commentor name as the subject and we will pick a winner before I leave for Bonnaroo on June 9th. I will include the winning picture in a future recap. Good luck!

Love and Kisses,
Twunty McSlore