I Tell Myself I Am Beautiful Every Single Day

So, quite obviously, I am very late on my recappage for the week, and it’s quite a shame, because the latest installment of America’s Next Top Model was one for the ages. This entire season has been great, but when you get not one, but two different cat fights, with two different participants in each one, you know that there is a lot of drama building in the house. And let’s face it, any time you get that many girls living in one place, there is bound to be drama. Put a bunch of women in the same place, and they will start competing. Seriously, they can create a competition while standing in line for Starbucks. They can create rivalries ordering drinks at the bar. They will go to blows over a pair of shoes or a skimpy top. Personally, I can’t get enough, and if you are getting all of this when there is an actual competition going on with actual consequences and a life-altering chance at success on the line, there really isn’t anything better on television.Of all of the things I thought would happen after Diane was let go last week, Nik breaking into tears was not one of them. Apparently, they were very close, and I guess we got a hint of it at the end of the last episode when the two of them were doing their exercises. Maybe the thought of somebody learning fitness from Diane sort of broke my train of thought, but I didn’t know that Nik would be so affected. She said that she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to let anybody in and decides to be the quiet girl.

I was not torn up about Diane at all, and so when this part of the episode was dedicated almost exclusively to Lisa I had no complaints. So many people hate Lisa, and what better way to demonstrate her craziness than with a bubble bath montage? I once tried to throw a party with bubbles, but the party people delivered the wrong machine, and needless to say, I failed with my vision and was not able to put on a sudsy orgy for the masses. I guess all I really needed was Lisa. I had the bubbles, I had the alcohol, I just didn’t have an alcoholic girl willing to frolic and take her top off, and really, that’s what you need to get the critical mass for any sudsy orgy for the masses.

Remember when I joked that Lisa had brought a ton of alcohol but didn’t want to share it with Nicole? Well, I take all of that back, because apparently Lisa really is capable of finishing it all herself. Poor sweet Kyle. How does a girl get that naive? She is the only person in the house who hasn’t been able to figure out that Lisa was crazy all the time because she drinks all the time. I know Kyle is from a small town and everything, but we have to draw a line somewhere. I am sure you could tell her that she could get herpes from a tractor and she wouldn’t think twice.

I can understand why these girls can’t stand Lisa. She is continually passing out advice, even when it isn’t wanted. And let’s be honest, her advice doesn’t always come across as the most constructive. Personally, I believe she has some good advice, but that delivery: it just makes for a huge problem. Still, I can’t help but feel bad for Lisa because the other girls are just pouring it on. Yes, it would make it easier on her if she wasn’t such a bitch, and yes it would be easier to defend her if she were meek and submissive. Also complicating this whole thing is that the person who has the biggest beef with Lisa is Coryn, who is the most popular girl in the house, but is also one of the most quiet.

If anything, Lisa should wait until she makes a name for herself in modeling before telling other people that their shit stinks. A good example of somebody who is worthy of giving out modeling advice is Iman, who I hear is dressing up as a hotter version of Grace Jones for Halloween this year. Iman has a beauty book out, and it’s all about the largest organ of them all. I could insert a joke here about Coryn’s organ being twice the size of her Adam’s apple, but the organ we are talking about is the skin. Iman even has a catchy slogan,”It don’t mean a thin’ if it ain’t got that skin.” OK, it wasn’t that catchy, especially delivered with Iman’s thick accent, but she is gorgeous, so we should listen to her anyway.

Iman’s big thing about the skin is that it is one of the first things people notice about you. It also happens to be one of the more frequent targets for touch-ups, so it pays to take care of it. What makes her book interesting is that she gives you tips on taking care of your skin with things that you already have in your kitchen. There are things that have honey, others that have banana, some with avocado – you get the picture. Let me share with you a little solution that you can do, also in your kitchen. OK, start in your kitchen, run to the street, drive to Target, purchase all of the skin care things you need there, stop at Jamba Juice, have a wheat grass shot (just for the hell of it), drive back home, park, run back to your kitchen. How easy is that? I think it’s much more convenient, and honestly, what are the chances that you have fresh bananas, honey, and avocado? If these formulas involved left over soy sauce packets and ketchup, maybe it would have a broader appeal. I’m sort of like Bre, who spent her time eating the ingredients instead of wearing them. All of that fresh fruit? Why not use some chemicals? Just because it’s not natural, you shouldn’t worry. They test it on animals first!

But this exercise was for more than helping the girls out with their skin. Nobody has impetigo like Michelle from last year, so it’s not like this is a life and death matter. It was really just a way to get the girls thinking about the product. They were going to put their knowledge to use on a mock interview with comedian Chris Spencer, who I have never heard of, but was probably on some episodes of the Steve Harvey show or something, so I guess he is fairly funny. I guess it could have been worse, as I hear Wayne Brady is looking for work these days.

Quite honestly, I am not sure why they trot these chumps out there. Working with Chris Spencer to prepare you for an interview is about as good as me looking at Victoria’s Secret catalogs when I was twelve and declaring I was Hugh Hefner. It ain’t the real thing. After he was introduced, Chris said that there would be one winner, and the rest would be sent to Compton. Oy. I thought this guy would at least be original. After the ghetto joke, I was preparing for jokes about fried chicken or collard greens, but I guess George Lopez came to him in a dream and said that outmoded ethnic jokes don’t work unless they are about Mexico and make people feel uncomfortable like Christian Slater hosting an awards show on MTV.

The girls had ten talking points that they were supposed to try and get across in the interview. Chris’s job was to get the girls off of their game as much as possible. For the most part, he did a good job of sidetracking the girls from what they were supposed to say. Kim actually wrote the answers down on her hand, which sort of makes you wonder what the hell she was doing at Wesleyan. The winner ended up being Kyle, who made the session not so much of an interview, but used each question to transition into another talking point she made.

To tell you the truth, the whole thing was boring, or at least compared to the fireworks that were happening afterwards. Lisa, who of course said that she was going to do better than anybody else, failed miserably on the challenge. She said she memorized everything, but somehow thought the honey facial mask she was trying to promote had tomatoes in it. When it was quite obvious that she was just going to do anything that Chris said, he told her she should dance the rest of the interview, so she got up and started to dance.

Lisa was just having fun, but her little dance prompted Coryn to tell her that she needed to come up with some new moves. Now, I am not sure if Lisa was just waiting for somebody to say something to her so she could get really upset, but Lisa just completely blew up on Coryn. Now, even if you do think that Coryn’s comments at the time might have been a little bitchy, it was kind of retarded for Lisa to accuse Coryn of being a hater, but it only got worse from there. How delusional is Lisa? She asked Coryn why she was the only person who didn’t like her, which prompted Coryn to say that she was just the only one who would tell it to her face. This prompted Lisa to tell Coryn that she should just leave her alone, which is funny, because Coryn had tried to tell that to Lisa with obviously unsuccessful results. They went back and forth for a little while until Coryn said “What are you doing, alcoholic bitch!?” SLAM! OH. NO. YOU. DI’INT!

Calling Lisa out on her drinking seemed to do the trick and she for the most part shut up. She then said that she realized that there aren’t that many people around who care for her. Yes, she was going to have to go through all of this on her own. It seemed that the only person sympathetic to her situation was Nik, but Nik was still hurting from losing Diane and said that she wasn’t going to try and reach out again.

Kyle won, and picked Nicole to share in the winnings, which turned out to be a chance to announce the Top 5 Model countdown of the year on VH1. If anybody has seen this bit that they did, please let me know. When Kyle was doing her mock interview, she seemed pretty animated, but when she learned things were for real, she turned out to be quite the stiff. And we all know that Lisa could do it better, or at least Lisa knew that she could do it better. It’s quite obvious that Lisa wants to win every challenge, and she thinks she is the best each time, but you also see that she takes the losses very hard. She was really upset that Kyle had won and had made so much noise that the producer of the VH1 piece had to tell Lisa to shut up because they were trying to work.

With no friends to turn to, Lisa starts to hit the bottle. She has always liked her share of booze, but she was drinking wine like it was going out of style, was revived by some hipsters as trendy 15 years later, only to fizzle out when everybody jumped on the bandwagon again. Yes, that was Lisa, the Ugg boots of 2005. Like any proper alcoholic, her problems are the fault of everybody except herself. Nobody will cut her slack, she doesn’t know who to trust, she feels betrayed, she was a tomboy, being a tomboy she was abused by a confused Catholic priest. You name the excuse, she had it. Her only friend was a huge plant in the backyard they called Cousin It. Do you ever wonder how many of these monologues on reality shows are coached? I’ve been drunk and depressed before, but I didn’t talk to plants. Even when I was under the influence of plants and other organics that might have caused hallucination, I have never talked to a plant. Isn’t it kind of disturbing that she does it? Did Son of Sam start of by talking to the ficus at the dentist office?

While people worried about Lisa, I was admiring Nik’s “painting talents.”

I guess I really didn’t have to worry about Cousin It telling Lisa to kill people, because in order to hurt somebody, it really helps if you aren’t passed out drunk. The girls don’t mind when Lisa is drunk, because they get to talk about her in the house without her knowing, but when somebody sees she is outside passed out, they act like it’s a matter of life or death to bring her back inside. Once there, Lisa talks to her boyfriend, and she starts to hyperventilate. It’s so hard to keep it together, it’s such a competition and I am so sensitive. Bre hears her hyperventilating and tries to help out.

The next morning, Tyra pays a surprise visit to the girls. She gathers everybody around and says that she wants to talk about vices. Bre talks about sleep and Jayla talks about smoking. This prompts Tyra to note that 98% of models smoke or have smoked. Listen, I knew the number had to be pretty high, but 98%, that’s just kind of depressing. It is, however, entirely believable. Tyra then mentions that there are a lot of other vices, like the one she has with eating and fattening food. Were there any other vices they could talk about? We can’t forget Lisa, of course. I am sure the girls were ready for Tyra to go off on Lisa about her drinking, but she really didn’t get that crazy. Lisa mentioned that she liked wine, and when Tyra asked her if she was a wino, Lisa said that she was. When Tyra asked her if she drinks to get drunk, Lisa said that she didn’t drink to get drunk but just used it as a way to take her mind off things. Lisa is obviously in denial, and it was another reason for some of the other girls to hate on her, because how dare she lie to Tyra.

The girls traveled back to Quixote Studios for their photo shoot, where they learned they would be a doing a three-part campaign for Secret Platinum Clear Gel deodorant consisting of a commercial, a photo shoot, and an interview, this time with some jab from E! Or maybe it was VH1. They wanted to see how well the girls could juggle different responsibilities like remembering lines, looking beautiful for the camera, and not looking stupid or embarrassing yourself or the makers of the product during an interview.

For the commercial, the girls would say a bunch of lines, and then reveal a secret that they have at the end. The secret that they shared with everybody would be their own. That was to be followed by the photo shoot and then immediately afterwards the interview. Lisa was first, and despite everything that was going on around her, she was determined to do as well as she could in the photo shoots. Watching her nail her lines, rock the photo shoot and look very natural during her interview, I was really amazed at how well she is able to focus and I came to the realization that a lot of the reasons why the girls don’t like her is jealousy. Now, there is no question that Lisa causes a lot of problems and her interpersonal skills obviously leave something to desire, but if there was one person in this group that you would pick if you absolutely needed a great shot, you would pick Lisa. She’s not the best looking, but in front of the camera, she has confidence and knows what she needs to do when the time comes.

There was a lot of variation in what the people had to say for their secrets. A lot of the girls decided that they would talk about their fears as their secret, and I think that was what I was expecting for most of them. Lisa, however, said that her secret was that she tells herself she is beautiful every single day. On the one hand, you can say that kind of statement is kind of vain, but I think that it simultaneously shows a vulnerability and a confidence that I believe are refreshing to hear. Lisa may be drunk all the time, but it didn’t stop her from being very savvy in this challenge with what she is going to say.

On the other end of the spectrum, we had people like Coryn. Not only did Coryn have a very unoriginal “I am afraid of heights,” but she looked like she was completely uncomfortable right from the beginning. On television, nobody wants to see somebody endorsing something if they seem like they need a pacemaker to get through the commercial. Yes, Coryn is beautiful, but if she wants to be a model, she is going to have to learn how to smile, even if that isn’t what she is feeling inside. Her badass edge might work on the runway, but if she can’t bring something else to the table, she can’t expect to win. Coryn let the frustration she was feeling in the commercial to follow her in the photo shoot and her interview as well.

By no means was Coryn the only one who had an unoriginal statement or did badly in the interview. I think the worst secret was from Nicole, who said that she ate ice cream in bed. What is that supposed to mean? Is it her secret for a long life? A perfect body? Does she keep it a secret because she is worried that people concerned with crisp sheets that don’t stick together may not want to associate with her? Was she afraid of alienating the lactose intolerant, insomniac cabal of men that run the modeling industry? I wasn’t expecting her to say, “my favorite game is battleshits,” but something a little more interesting would have helped. And then there was Bre, who seemed to be more interested in hitting on her interviewer than actually getting any point across the product. I am not sure if she was serious when she said that she had a crush on the guy or thought that saying anything was better than nothing, but she wasn’t particularly impressive.

Now, the easiest part of this challenge would have to be coming up with a secret, right? It’s not that hard to come up with something even minimally dangerous. As Nicole proved, it didn’t have to be all that thought provoking, as long as you said something. As Nik was practicing her lines, she decided that her secret would be that she is afraid of the dark, and sleeps with a night-light. I can relate to this since I used to be terrified of the dark and could never sleep with my bedroom door closed or without a night-light until I was like 10 or something. What I am trying to get at is that it isn’t necessarily unique to be scared of the dark, and I was actually surprised that none of the girls had repeats until we found out Jayla also was going to say that she was afraid of the dark.

Immediately, Nik was kind of upset that she and Jayla were going to have the same secret. It’s not that Nik was particularly paranoid about being unoriginal, but Jayla was in the room when Nik was practicing her lines, so she began to worried that Jayla had stolen her line. When they told Jay, he was like whatever and the girls went ahead to do their thing. Jayla had her commercial first, and during her shoot, she said that she was afraid of the dark, but inexplicably, she added that she slept with a night-light. Whoa! Now things are getting a little strange. No, it’s not impossible to say that Jayla was also using a night-light, but she never mentioned it when she and Nik told Jay that they had the same fear.

After Jayla used the exact same line that she was planning to use, Nik was so distracted, that she was the one who looked like she didn’t know what the hell she was doing and had to come up with something at the last minute. Her nerves completely took control of her, and it really showed in her photo shoot as well. When you think of it, it really is kind of a strange move for Jayla. The cameras were great and showed that Jayla was in fact in the same room when Nik was practicing. It’s really hard to think that this Jehovah’s Witness that has broken about every rule in the book had trouble with a secret. From her original interview, I imagine that she has plenty of secrets. Nik, who has come to be known as the “nice girl” decided that she wasn’t going to confront Jayla, but that doesn’t mean that she didn’t hope Jayla got what she deserved. She said that karma is a bitch, thankfully leaving out any boomerang or javelin comparisons, and that instead she would simply ignore Jayla.

Hmmm, is there another rivalry brewing? Perhaps, and here are my favorite pictures from this week (yes, I know I pick the same girls almost every week, get used to it):

I didn’t think that much more would come of this situation, and I was just amazed that I caught Jay Manuel with his guard down. When he reached up at one point during the shoot, I could see the beginnings of a pit stain. I don’t usually mention stuff like that, but he is always Mr. Couture and takes so much pride in being well-kempt that it was nice to take him down a notch. But to think that nothing else would happen would be to forget what I was getting so excited about during the beginning of the recap. Nik and Jayla quickly became the talk of the house, and it seemed like people totally forgot what was so bad about Lisa. In fact, Jayla was asking Lisa for help. She didn’t know why Nik had stopped talking with her, and I have to say, Lisa was doing a great job of pretending to have concern for Jayla, but really wanting to stir things up. When Jayla first asked, she said that she promised not to talk about it, but it didn’t take long for Lisa to drop some hints and make Jayla realize that it was the secret situation that was bothering Nik.

Although I like the way that Lisa and Coryn went face to face when they had their big blowup, there is something to say about the way Nik and Jayla decided to handle their beef. Nik basically told a bunch of people what she was pissed about, but since she didn’t say anything to Jayla, she never got a chance to defend herself. Jayla doesn’t confront Nik, because by saying something to her, she risks her plan getting exposed, but since she can’t confront Nik, her arguments for her side simply build up inside of her and threaten to explode. Earlier, Jayla had said “Lisa keeps putting herself in stupid situations” and that it was so much like high school in the house. I LOVE it when people can’t take their own advice.

Thankfully for all of us, when feelings of hatred threaten to consume a reality contestant, they are able to vent to all of us through the diary room. I kind of think their diary or confessional room is kind of dumb, and that underwear on the wall and the camera makes it look like they are shooting the Blair Witch Project inside of a Victoria’s Secret fitting room whenever one of the girls speak. Decor aside, there is still plenty that goes on in there, and Jayla really let it all go. She started talking about how she hated everybody in the house and how she realized that there will be very few people she’ll be friends with when they all leave the house. She says she is sick of Nik and her nice girl attitude and she says that there are some people she tolerates only because she has to. Jayla then said that Nik was cut and used an emphatic throat slash to get her point across, and if that wasn’t enough, she said that if they have to share much more time in the house, she predicts that something big is going to go down. YES! If there was a tag team match or featuring Jayla, Nik, Lisa, and Coryn, that would be awesome. (I would also take hell in a cell or queen of the ring.)

At panel, we finally got to see the finished products from all of the girls. We also learned some of the other secrets that the girls had. For instance, Bre said that she loves men’ underwear (briefs) and Kim said that sometimes she screams like a little girl.

Everybody was really impressed by Nicole’s performance. Nigel thought she had a great face and a great face, and I have to admit, Nicole was really good at using little facial expressions to be fun and flirty while doing her commercial. I thought her picture was good and bore more than a passing resemblance to Eliza Dushku, but it didn’t blow me away. I think she did her best job yet of coming across with a little sex appeal to match her angelic aura that seems to surround her, but I guess I just liked others better.

Kyle did well, but she was overacting in her commercial, and to let her know how she sounded, Tyra did a little overacting giving some of her critiques. Like always, Kyle was safe with her pictures, and I think she is going to have to show some attitude soon if she is going to stick around longer. She still has the best parts to work with though. Bre was good in the commercial, but looked bored in her picture. When they were talking about Kim, I kept on thinking about her posture. She’s thin, but doesn’t hold her skin well and looks flabby in places. The general consensus is that there is a lot wrong with her, but it all seems to work.

When the judges came to discuss Lisa, I thought that Tyra was going to come over and kiss her feet. They wondered why she had chosen her clothes. She said that she wanted to do something that was fun, and she was clearly in a great mood, but what she had on looked more like she was about to go on stage for Roaring Twenties night at the Spearmint Rhino. Still, her performance had Tyra saying that it was bringing tears to her eyes and that she has the best raw natural talent. You could see some looks on the other girls as this Lisa Love Montage was going on, and it surely isn’t going to make any of her more jealous rivals happy. Nigel continued by saying that she brings great personality to the photograph and looked gorgeous. I agree with a lot of what they said. Lisa’s ‘let it all hang loose’ attitude is not right for everything, but it worked for this challenge and she stayed focused. She was asked a question that gave her an opportunity to rip on one of her housemates, but she turned the interview back to the deodorant and how it could make her smelly Italian pits (her words, not mine!) smell good all day.

With all of the praise for Lisa, you knew she wasn’t going home this week. I thought that they had done all of that setup with the drinking and the boyfriend reveal and all of that good stuff so we had plenty of new information to send her home, but that was not the case as her name was the first to be called. The girls also learned that the person who had the best picture would have a magazine ad, but despite all of her praise, Lisa did not win. Perhaps it was because Nigel said that she leaves you wanting more, but that he can’t stand her. The best picture honor went to Nicole, which I guess is not a bad choice, but I liked Nik and Lisa’s pictures more. I surely didn’t agree with them when they were wowed by Kim’s pictures. Sorry Kim fans, she’s looking worse and worse to me each week, no matter what angle her face is at.

Is modeling Nicole’s Tru Calling?

No, the last two girls this week were kind of a surprise, because they are both attractive and have taken good pictures, “they” being Nik and Coryn. Both were called in because there was clearly something missing in what they did that day. For Coryn, the problem has always been the same, and it has to do with her overall sadness. Good looking, but whatever she has to deal with in her life away from modeling weighs so heavy on her that she can’t shake it off to smile or warm up. Her interviews are pretty awful, and in person she is deathly serious, like everybody in the room will instantly explode if she smiles. Maybe she watched Raiders of the Lost Ark too often and fixated on that scene where everybody’s face either melts off or their heads explode.

Nik was there for a similar reason. I think she is very attractive, but one of the judges had an interesting thing to say when he said that she was not beautiful but she was sexy, which is an interesting way to put it, but I still don’t agree. Nik also has a little bit of a personality problem in person with her presence, but it was mainly her performance this week that had her on the verge of getting cut. To make things worse, she said that her weakness was talking in front of a camera. True, she worked on it, but Tyra said that they need somebody who is comfortable in front of the camera, because that is something she might be asked to do quite often. When describing what went wrong the past week, Nik mentioned that there was something that had really bothered her, but stopped short of mentioning Jayla or the particular situation by name.

Coryn was eliminated, and I think Tyra had it right when she said that she was so radiant and sad, and that the judges were thinking of eliminating her to save her from the depressing life of modeling. At the same time, Coryn is a surprise, because she has been able to take great pictures and the judges really seem to feel for her, but they just can’t get past all of the melancholy that surrounds her.

Did the right person go home this week? Was Jayla a bitch for stealing Nik’s line? Who will Lisa fight with now that Coryn is gone? What is a secret you would like to share if you were selling deodorant? Longest recap EVER?