The DVR Files

I don’t consider myself Encyclopedia Elizabethannica–HOWEVER, I am a little surprised when over Christmas I talked to my brother Andrew about Halle Berry’s early career.

“Oh, I knew she was going to be a big star when I saw her in Boomerang,”  Andrew remarked. “And her boobs looked good in Swordfish!”

“That was years after her career started  . . . oh, never mind!”

My point is people remember Halle for being crazy with men and for having a hot sex scene in Monster’s Ball, which no one I know has ever actually seen, but whatevs. It upsets me to no end that no one remembers her VERY FIRST role, as Emily Franklin on the hot sitcom of 1989, Living Dolls. I watched it religiously, but apparently no one else did because it lasted only 12 episodes. Sigh.

Leah Remini costarred in this much beloved laugh fest about a modeling agency. Despite being a spin off of monster hit Who’s the Boss?, it is so obscure that it is even hard to find clips of it on youtube. All I could find was a video dedicated to another costar Deborah Tucker. Go to 1:55 to see a 23-year-old Halle in all her glory. Bitch looks WAY better now!

Okay, I KNOW it’s old news, but remember Doritos girl Ali Landry? She was married to Mario Lopez/AC Slater for a hot minute back in 2004. She learned he cheated on her during her wedding (eek!) and annulled the marriage two weeks later. Ouch!

THIS man's a cheater?

Well, Ali took the high road for YEARS and then today on The Wendy Williams Show she threw some (mild) shade on Lopez. We also learn that she didn’t sleep with her current husband, director Alejandro Monteverde, till their wedding night. And they met at a theology class. There is hope for us Catholic girls after all.

Love this beautiful bitch! Happy she got away from AC Slater. I never liked the way he treated Jessie Spano anyway.

No, she's not crying because her mother Jackie went off on a coke binge AGAIN . . . .

Oh poor poor Jennie Garth. The ingenue who brought Kelly Taylor to life in not one but THREE amazing tv shows (Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, and 90210 . . . and heck we should add Models Inc. to the list because without Kelly there would have been no Jake Hanson who begat Amanda Woodward whose mother was Hillary Michaels, the owner of the upscale agency Models Inc.) is now facing life alone. Nope, Dylan did not abandon her again. Rather, she and her real life husband, foxy vampire dad Peter Facinelli, have split up after more than ten years of marriage.

And I was just getting over the fact that David Silver and Donna Martin had divorced. Life is so unfair!

Davy Jones died last week.

You know, the short British dude who was in that fake tv band the Monkees. But they were a BAD ASS fake tv band, as far as fake tv bands go (I’m talking to YOU Jem and the Holograms).

Thank you, Nickelodeon, for introducing my generation to the baddest daydream believer that ever lived.

The other day I was talking to a friend. Let’s call her Louisa, because she lives in Brooklyn, and that sounds like the name of someone who lives in Brooklyn.

“So what did you do this weekend?” I asked.

“Oh, I read some David Foster Wallace, listened to NPR, rode my bike around Prospect Park, did my shift at the Coop. You know, the usual. You?”

“I watched about 15 hours of tv. That DVR won’t watch itself!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” Louisa remarked as she chewed on a piece of kale. “I don’t even own a tv. Occasionally I watch episodes of Downton Abbey on my computer.”

Ugh, I want to groan. You are one of those people. The kind that are all, “Kardashian? Is that a dialect of the Elvish language in Lord of the Rings? Not that I’ve seen those movies or anything. I just read the books.”

You see, I’m a tv watcher. A fanatic really. I DVR 25 shows a week, and that’s not even counting the Golden Girls reruns I record as a palate cleanser when I watch something scary at night or the HBO shows I catch On Demand because they take up too much space. I am Facebook friends with the following tv, er, personalities: two Real Housewives’ HUSBANDS (Simon and Simon–van Kempen and Barney, the latter now an EX-ho’wife hubby!), Matt and Cory from Hoarders,  Joe Millionaire, and in a measure of how low budget I can be–a brother of one of the interventionees from an episode of Intervention.

I love tv and am not afraid to admit it. And the advent of the DVR has made my viewing habits even more of an addiction. In the olden days, when you missed a show, you called up your friend and asked, “I heard at the salon that Bobby kissed Sue Ellen on Dallas last night??? What did J.R. do?” Now–you’d shoot that person at the salon for spoiling it for you because you haven’t watched it yet!

So please join me in this journey when we talk about what’s on and what’s recorded.

Till next time-

Liz