Because we do NOT shy away from controversy

 Please welcome one of my favorite people to the blog, my friend Edie, aka Mommy E (her street name).  You may remember her from the blogs I Could Kill Her and Miss In Your Business--RIP to them both, as they have passed on to internet heaven.  Edie and I share many interests, including frozen Milky Ways, Marky Mark, and now the Real Housewives of New Jersey.  This is her position statement on Caroline Manzo.  Read it, consider it, and then LET'S GET IT ON in the comments.

Caroline Manzo is a bad mother – there…I said it!

I have this theory about women who constantly find subtle and not so subtle ways to let people know that they are amazing mothers: these women are always TERRIBLE MOTHERS!!

Example: Pamela Anderson – in almost every interview, Pam redundantly describes what a “normal mother” she is and how she’s so busy bringing orange slices to her kids’ soccer games, she hardly has any time to notice the various magazine articles describing her as a skank, ho, etc. Pam makes a huge point of telling everyone who will listen that she’s this amazing mom. That mommyhood is all that matters. That her boys come first. That her kitchen is stocked with organic, gluten-free, soy popsicles. That she’s turning down Oscar-potential gig after gig in order to be there for parent-teacher conferences, “volunteer work” at the school, and carpool.

And I totally start buying into it.

And then I see this

And then I snap the hell out of it.

I feel the same way about Caroline Manzo. She’s a blowhard mom. Caroline spends all her on-air time trying to convince us viewers that she’s such an amazing mother. That it’s all about “the children.”

Yeah, not so much says this Jew.

Caroline perfectly exemplifies my theory. A few examples:

The “cozy Sunday family cooking episode”: Was I the only watching who thought to myself “this woman HATES black people!” The obvious animosity/superiority/judgment she displayed while discussing their “experiment” with very unusual food such as fried chicken.

Can you imagine the show that would go down if her (not very) precious Lauren brought a black man home? It would be like Jungle Fever II! And selfishly, that is some shit I’d like to see on the television. Come on Lauren, do us all a favor and bring home some flavor.

And speaking of Lauren: let’s just hope that the girl doesn’t end up on the pole in five years because clearly her momma loves her brothers a hell of a lot more than she loves her.

The borderline inappropriate love of son Albie? Um, I’m sure Albie is a great guy and everything but come on…creepy. And the fact that they’re not disclosing why he got kicked out of law school…it makes me feel like how I feel when I read a young person’s obituary: I firmly believe that if you want an obituary of a young person printed in the newspaper, you should be required to disclose the cause of death. How dare you leave me wondering!

Obviously Caroline got a chance to see what an angry, violent, bully we all saw her to be last season so this season she’s trying to be all “I’m not getting involved…this is not my battle…take it out of my house ladies” (yeah, not your house…your husband’s catering building)

Oh Puleassse…. We know you Caroline. Stop frontin’ and trying to appear like some educated, well-respected, fancy lady.

You’re ghetto and you know it. But not the good kind of ghetto.

Sincerely,

Mommy E

Hypothetically speaking

When you're cleaning your bathroom, do you ever think of Joe Gorga?

Do you ever think, as you scrub your toilet, that he's kind of attractive?  Like, in a primal, hairy, dangerous caveman way?  Take, for example, his eyes.  They're not ugly.  No.  Not at all.  Some people might say they reflect a double-digit IQ, but then privately, to themselves, might admit that they are brooding and a tiny bit sexy.  I bet these same people, while wiping down the mirror, might even let their minds wander and imagine Melissa getting into an accident.  A tragic, sad accident in which she trips over a pot of risotto or a tangle of spandex leopard print dresses, and cracks her head on the piano.  She wouldn't die--Antony would be there to call 911--but there would be brain damage.  A cranial hemorrhage that would leave her with massive weight gain, a moustache and the personality of an angry camel who has to carry entitled Americans around the desert.  Of course this transformation would happen anyway in about 20 years, but this terrible accident cruelly accelerates the process.  

She also has the worst B.O. (think rancid meatballs) from all of her medications.  The mere thought of having sex with his wife makes Joe gag and sometimes dry heave.  And Joe needs sex.  Oh, HE NEEDS IT.  One night he decides he can't take it any more.  He leaves the kids with his mom and Melissa with her sisters and just starts driving.  No doubt in some gross car, probably a custom orange Hummer with all sorts of shit dangling from the rearview mirror.  He has no destination in mind.  He just needs to get away and clear his head.  Sort things out.

He drives and he drives, not even really sleeping but taking catnaps at rest stops.  He is full of restless energy, doing push-ups and guzzling Four Loko when he stops for gas.  He beats the crap out of a guy outside of Des Moines for staring at him, but the deep satisfaction he usually feels after kicking someone's ass is absent.

The Hummer starts acting strange as he's passing through suburban Denver, and he just manages to get it in the parking lot of Vitamin Cottage before it dies.  He gets out and kicks it furiously.  Goddamn car! Letting him down just like everyone else.  His wife, his sister, his mother.  His father.  He begins to weep with frustration and exhaustion.   He senses someone is watching him but he doesn't care.  He feels so empty.  Lost.  He wants to be loved. No conditions, no expectations, no moustaches.  Just love. 

He turns around, big brown eyes still wet, to see a woman looking at him with the kindest eyes he has ever seen.  A little wrinkly, but not as bad as Tamra Barney.  He watches her glance at her car, where her kids are bucking their seatbelts.  She hesitates for a moment and then walks over to him.  "Are you..." she begins, and then trails off.  As she moves closer to him, he knows he has to have her, that God put her here, at this moment, for him.  Wordlessly, he leads her to the back of the Hummer and they make urgent (and a little bit angry) love on a pile of muscle shirts and knit caps, his big hairy paws all over her.  With Melissa, he was injecting his poison.  With this woman, he is releasing his pain.  Holding her in his arms, he feels a peacefulness that he has never known before.  The emptiness, the loneliness has vanished. 

Suddenly, there is a sharp rap on the back window.  "Mom," calls a child's voice.  "Are you finished?  We're going to be late to soccer practice."

The woman sits up and smiles at him.  Her two pregnancies and obvious fried chicken habit are visible in the muffin top that she is trying to tuck into her jeans, but he has never seen anyone more beautiful.  As she scootches to the door, he grabs her hand.  "What's your name?" he asks. "Who are you?"  She shakes her head.  His eyes fill with tears as he realizes he will never see her again.  "Say hi to Albie for me, will you?" she says with a sad smile.  He watches her limp gingerly toward her car. 

Two days later, as he heads back to Jersey to face his life with his disgusting and crass family, he knows that he will never forget her.  And he doesn't.     

So, do you ever think like this?  Yeah.  Neither do I.

Parlez vous Gorga?

"I looked atter, I looked atter wit my eyez."

In English, this means "I had too much to drink, and my frightening and shameful outburst was imminent."

How about those black dinner hats?  This must be traditional attire for a post-christening fight.   Those Gorgas, so rich in cultural traditions and violence!

Highlights of this week's episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey:

1.  The Gorgas tell their side of the fight story to Kathy and Rich, and the Guidices tell their side to  Jacqueline and Caroline et al.  Everyone thinks they deserve an apology but no one will get one.  I particularly enjoyed the part when Kathy said of Joe Gorga, "he had had it up to HERE" and then put her hand at nose level.  Oh, how we chuckled at that at my house!  Joe Gorga is lucky if he comes up to her armpits.

2.  More award winning camera-work by Bravo: on Halloween night, Joe and Melissa are changing into their costumes while baby Joey has been abandoned right inside the front door, incapacited by his baby batman costume with wings spread. 

 At least he has some candy for sustenance.

2.  Caroline Manzo gets in everyone's business, scowling and lecturing. 

"I heard you don't wash your face before bed.  FIX IT, okay?"

Isn't it interesting that someone who claims to hate drama is on a show that is 100% pure drama?  Yes.

3.  Kim G slithered on the scene to talk about Teresa's fat cwooked ass (no that is not a typo) and became aligned with Melissa Gorga.  Kim G is so fucking creeeeeeepy.

4.  Joe Gorga dressed up as Snooki for Halloween. 

"Damn, you look ug--I mean, you look like your sister."

When he was getting so into it and wiggling his tush on the dance floor, I actually had a glimmer of how he might be likable in real life.  Meanwhile, Kim G is interrogating Melissa about what she's going to do when she sees Teresa at the Posche fasion show.  With her eyes.  Melissa is not so thug after all--she's nervous.

5.  Before the fashion show, Jaq and Teresa are drinking champagne and nibbling on handfuls of prosciutto.  You know what?  I really like Jacqueline.  She doesn't punch or scream or get bossy or look like she smells of pee and toilet paper (KIM G).  She even seems like the kind of person that, if she follows you on twitter, she won't immediately unfollow you.  In other words, she's normal and not a self-centered asshole.

ANYHOW, in the language of Gorga--which Jacqueline seems to understand--Teresa insists that she's not afraid to see Melissa and that they should do some shots before they walk down the runway.   Great idea!  Alcohol and Gorgas are equivalent to a match and a stick of dynamite.

6.  Backstage at the Posche fashion show at the Brownstone!  So top secret with the red plastic covering the French doors. 

These women REALLY love their curling irons, don't they?  Just curl for a 30 count, spray the crap out of it and do not, under circumstances, brush it out.  Instant RHONJ style.

7.  RHONYC is starting so let's cut to the chase:  Melissa and Teresa are fine.  Everyone is fakey-time but "hurting in their hearts" and "smiles not going up to their eyes."  Whatevs.  Kathy decides to "have a word" with Teresa and ends up insinuating she's a bad mom.  This causes Teresa to storm off and contemplate whether trying to smother Kathy with red plastic would get her another season or just jail time.  And it's over.

Hope we get to see some of this tonight!

Looks like saggy Pinot belly time is the new turtle time!

Entering the kingdom of Jesus

...through violence and unchecked rage!  Is there any other way? Nothing says LET ME INTO HEAVEN NOW like trying to drunkenly beat your brother-in-law to death at your baby's baptism.

Oh boy.

I wasn't going to watch this season of Real Housewives of New Jersey.  Didn't dvr it.  Didn't even remember it.  I don't like this group.  Not even Caroline Manzo.  You heard me.  Not interested.  Then I came back from the grocery store (with three kinds of ice cream--HOLLA) to find my Housewives-averse husband watching it.  I know.  I can't explain it.  Sometimes that's just how the universe works.  Anyhow, the Lizzie Grubman scene was on, and I have this thing for Lizzie Grubman.

Gaunt and leathery with a few strands of bleached hair pasted to her skull, Lizzie Grubman looks like a homeless Kelly Ripa with a 5 year meth addiction under her belt.  And she loves to ram her SUV into crowds of people yet is allowed to roam around free.  It's fascinating to me.  She is a Swiffer mop and I am a tiny dirt lady.

It therefore makes perfect sense to me that Jacqueline's nasty little Ashley is interning for Lizzie.  "You are me," Lizzie hisses after Ashley breaks down into big puffy tears because her mom won't pay for a place in the city.  Well, I wouldn't go that far.  Ashley is young and plump in a good (albiet spoiled) way, while Lizzie looks like a female Gollum.  But both do have criminal records.  Cheers to that!

I would have been satisfied with this storyline, but no--there's something much bigger brewing.  The main story, the Andy Cohen $$$ Story, revolves around the building tension between Teresa and her sister-in-law/new Housewife Melissa. 

"Mirror mirror on the wall, who has the highest hairline of them all?"

Melissa thinks she is hot shit times 100, but I am so anti-Giudice that I immediately decide that I will like Melissa.  No matter what comes out of her mouth, I am going to like her for the sole reason that she hates Teresa.  Oh, this will be a tough promise to keep.

Why does Melissa hate Teresa?  Well, Teresa's grunting pig husband Joe Giudice--not to be confused with Melissa's grunting pig husband Joe Gorga (also Teresa's brother)--has been badmouthing Joe Gorga to Daddy Gorga.  It's all very serious and complicated.  By the way, do you want to  know how to tell the Joes apart?  I'll tell you.  Joe Giudice is the one who looks like a lobotomized pregnant gorilla and Joe Gorga is the one who looks like he's smeared Rogaine all over his face and then been crushed with an anvil.

So Melissa's baby (yet another Joe) is being christened, and Pregnant Gorilla and Teresa just straight up do not want to go.  They don't say so, but they are both dicking around, waiting for the hairdresser (who just happens to be held up at Melissa's) and not getting dressed.  As I watch Teresa rifle through dozens, maybe hundreds of expensive little girl purses and trudge around her palatial home bitching about her late hairdresser, my contempt for her is given fresh life.   Those greasy, fur-covered, bankrupt Giudices!  Still spending, still flaunting as if they don't have a care in the world.  And then, just when I think they can't get any more disgusting, Joe announces that he has diarrhea, and Teresa tells the camera that she might too.  Fantastic.

This is Joe's excuse for not going to the church. He has decided that he is going to have diarrhea until it's time to go to the party and drink for free.  Teresa can't do a damn thing about it and she knows it.  "Howz ya stomach, Joe?" she yells sarcastically at Joe as he saunters around the garage while she pulls out of the driveway with two of their be-ruffled kids.  I'm pretty sure he told her to fuck off.

Meanwhile, the Gorgas head to church, excited for their son "to enter the kingdom of Jesus." 

Because religion is very important to this family.  Nevermind that Melissa is at church in a flimsy, off-the-shoulder coral mini-dress dripping with polished aquarium stones.  It's what's inside that counts, and Melissa is good on the inside while Teresa and her husband are not.  The Giudices treat the world like their very own diaper, crapping on everyone and everything and poisoning the minds of other family members.  

Even though it's early and the baptism hasn't started, Melissa knows Teresa and Joe aren't there yet and she rolls her eyes as she chalks up another point for her perfect self.  Those damn not-early Giudices!  Typical.  The baby is finally baptized and afterwards, Teresa comes rushing up, all smiles and congratulations.  She's at least trying to put on the appearance of giving a shit, whereas Melissa isn't.  Nope.  Not at all.

Let's skip to the good part:  the christening party!  Love and happiness!  Celebration!  Well, no.  Melissa and her sisters are raising their eyebrows and talking trash about Teresa and Joe, and Teresa is telling the camera that she had at least two hunnert at her christening party while it looks like Melissa doesn't even have a hunnert n fifty.  Then Joe Giudice appears and gives a stiff smile and congratulations to Joe Gorga.  Joe Gorga offers him a shot and while Joe Giudice refuses politely enough, Bravo's music and Joe Gorga's intense scowl let us know the gauntlet has now been thrown DOWN.  Apparently it is very bad manners to turn down a shot at a christening party, even if you do have pretend diarrhea.

"Melissa honey, where'd you put the 'My Baptism' shot glass I bought for the baby?"

Unaware of all of this, Teresa is still trying to pretend everything is fine.  She approaches her brother and Melissa at their table with more smiles and more congratulations, and Joe Gorga, who is now pretty bombed gives her the most menacing murder look you have ever seen.  He tells her to "walk away like you always do" and "you're garbage."  You know, the normal things you say to your adult sister in public.  Teresa seems genuinely shocked and says something like "if you feel that way, then why did you invite me?"   THEN, Melissa's sister, with whom Teresa had been friendly at one time, says "it was a formality" (or something super-bitchy to that effect) and it is now officially ON. 

The fight that ensues is a free for all and the most violent thing I have seen since Teresa Giudice's last brawl.  Every man in that room is out for BLOOD, rivers of blood.  Joe Guidice and Joe Gorga are lunging, trying to beat the guts out of each other, but they are somehow restrained, which is unfortunate because this mutant bloodline needs to be cut off immediately. 

One of the Bravo camera people--whom I hope is getting some sort of combat pay--is knocked flat, and for a while, all we see is a Blair Witch style of cinematography with jerking shots of the ceiling and blurred people running for their lives.  Meanwhile, Joe Gorga (or is it Joe Giudice?  Just joking, it's definitely assface Joe Gorga) is threatening mass murder and sweating like he just emerged from the trunk of car in the middle of July.

During this melee, one of the remaining Bravo cameras focuses on one of the many crosses decorating the room.  For a good 5 seconds, I'd say, while we can hear people screaming and children crying and chairs breaking and faces being pounded. 

I think this shot should be nominated for an Emmy.

Before I go any further, I would like to say that before this scene, my husband asked how Melissa and brother Joe got on the show and a lightbulb clicked on for me.  Who else but Teresa could bring them onto the show?  Fake a little family rancor on camera, throw some punches, and everyone cashes in.  No biggie.  I was totally behind this theory until I see 9 year old Gia crying and begging her mom to stop and Teresa's elderly, sickly dad is being pushed around while obviously very distressed.  This fight was not staged for a reality show and good ratings, this is how these people really behave.  AT A RELIGIOUS PARTY.  FOR A BABY.  They are wild animals, the women screeching like monkeys (well, monkeys dressed like Bratz dolls) and the men foaming at the mouth, relishing the thought of ripping a beating heart out of a chest with their teeth.

It was craziness like I have never before seen on tv.  Or real life, for that matter.  The really weird thing about it to me is that in this video, Melissa (who is every bit as detestable as Teresa, if not more so) says of the fight "if you don't shed a tear, then you are made of stone." 

WHAT?  Why would anyone cry for these bird-brained assholes?  WHY?  I may have lost control of my bladder, but I certainly did not cry.  These are awful, awful people.  Entertaining, but awful.  Did you watch?  Speak up!

"Scores is a comfort zone for me."

 

And so is the bottom of the barrel.  Please discuss THIS and the accompanying video.

(thanks Larisa)