The ABIB

The ABIB

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The End of January and it's Cold! What a Concept!

So, as Baltimore appears in The ABIB's name, and it's preceded by the word "in", dear readers you must know by now that I live in Baltimore. Baltimore is in Maryland and Maryland is in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. which is in the Temperate Zone of our great planet. Just to be sure that everyone reading this knows what that means:

Temperate Zone
noun Geography
The part of the earth surface lying between the Tropic of Cancer and the Arctic Circle in the Northern Hemisphere or between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle in the Southern Hemisphere and characterized by having a climate that is warm in the summer, cold in the winter, and moderate in the spring and fall.

Without going all Bill Nye on you, let me draw your attention to the last sentence in that short description above. "Warm in the summer, cold in the winter and moderate in the spring and fall". Warm in summer: check! The heat in this bitch gets downright face-melting between May or June and the end of September at the earliest. Moderate in spring and fall: check! Mostly. Finally, cold in winter: check! Just in case you need to repeat that to yourselves the word is COLD. It's the end of January and guess what? It's fucking COLD outside EXACTLY LIKE IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE! If I have to hear one more fucking person, be it some chipper little weather forecaster or any number of moronic coworkers complain about the COLD in JANUARY I'm going to flip my shit. What's the problem, people? Don't you get enough sweaty-ass weather from roughly April through the middle of October? Isn't it enough for you to have those WONDERFULLY BALMY December days when it's a freakish 60 degrees outside? You greedy-ass schmucks better shut the fuck up when, at the bitter end of January, it finally actually FEELS LIKE WINTER OUTSIDE!

The ABIB, as you may have guessed, is a cold weather aficionado. Hell, I straight up love the stuff. All bundled up in my big, fluffy hoodie and slippers, sipping a warm cup of something, my fat ass on the couch watching my favorite show. Because you know what? If you're cold you can ALWAYS put on another layer and surprise: GET WARMER! But when it's 95 in the shade with a humidity level just shy of the Black Hole of Calcutta, you can't get any less dressed than naked and frankly nobody needs to see that shit walking around. Ever. But it's like, around here people forget that winter is SUPPOSED to happen, that it's the natural progress of things, that cold temperatures mean that the Earth is still spinning and we're not getting ready to begin boiling the oceans. At least not just yet, anyway. So I have to assume that those people who act like it's a big surprise when the temperature falls to NORMAL levels deep in winter are very confused. And if they're confused about something as straightforward and repeatable as the seasons, what other scary-ass things are they confused about? Things that have the potential to affect ME? Picture, if you will, these confused scenarios:

Bus Driver: HEY! The air feels cold today! That sucks and I don't like it and it's not supposed to be cold out because, well, because I don't like it. What's this? Am I supposed to sit up in here and drive this thing? Is it supposed to pick people up or...hit them? This is a real head-scratcher. I'll just start driving and see if it comes to me.

Grocery Store Meat Department Worker: HEY! It's cold outside and the weatherman said that since it's the end of January it's going to keep up like this for...A FEW DAYS! I'm confused about that; why is it cold out? I don't like it! Hey, what's this package of chicken doing here next to a bottle of bleach and some laundry soap? Hmmm...maybe I'm supposed to pour the bleach and soap OVER the chicken and wrap it back up. Yeah, that must be it!

Bank Clerk: HEY! This cold weather is really getting on my nerves; what's up with that? Why isn't it 70 outside so I can wear shorts and flip flops like I want to. Hmmm...am I supposed to clear out this account for Ms. ABIB? what's this button do? Wow...all the numbers just went away; is that a good thing or a bad thing? Who knows? I'm confused.

I think you get my drift. The imbecilic preoccupation with whining about why it's actually cold in January is a clear indication that, as usual, I'm surrounded by morons who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. I'm going to try and help them out here. That big, bright object in the sky is called the Sun; it's a giant fiery ball of gas. The place where YOU live is called Earth. The Earth floats around the Sun and it takes a whole year! Sometimes the Earth is closer to the Sun, which - remember, now - is made of FIRE, and when the Earth is closer to the FIRE it feels hotter outside. But later on in the year, when the Earth is farther from the Sun and the FIRE, it's colder outside. Get it? I imagine lots of empty, drooling, confused faces right about now who are looking up wonderingly asking themselves:

Hey! What's that white stuff that's dropping from the sky? Ooooo...is it cotton candy?

Monday, January 21, 2013

Of Stallions and Booties and Name Dropping Southern Belles: The Real Housewives of Atlanta Recap

This week's episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta continued to explore the monumental falling out between the formerly allied Phaedra (Phae-Phae) and Kenya (I Was MISS USA, bitches). New alliances are formed and old ones are left in the dust! Allegations of alcoholism and bipolar disorder are thrown around like little dirty bombs! Hey, we're told, lithium works wonders! We rejoin the action at one of Atlanta's hottest tickets: THE HAIR SHOW COMPETITION! No, seriously, according to Cynthia, this hair show is one of Atlanta's most sought after face-time opportunities, and honestly, if the hair do's we see are any indication, this show would probably also play really well on Mars. The crowd thrilled to watching Atlanta's "celebrity" hairstylists pouf and flat iron and back comb their way to artistic heights of some seriously crazy-ass hair. And the winner walks off with $1,000! Um, $1,000? I'm pretty sure I saw $1,000 in gel nails alone just in the 45 seconds we were at the big blow-out. "Big blow-out" at the hair show...see how I did that? Nevermind.

So, Cynthia was some kind of MC or celebrity special guest and she brought her new bestie (allied in Phaedra/Apollo haterville) Kenya up onto the stage. Kenya still does the slow-turning pageant show wave even though her pageant days are waayyy behind her. Just sayin'. Right off the bat there was mucho pot-stirring going on, fronted by none other than RHOA's very best sex toy pot-stirrer, Kandi. The show's own two celebrity hairstylists, Miss Lawrence and Derek are right in the middle of the trash-talk, with Derek being the one to spill the whole "Kenya is doing her own booty video to undercut Phaedra and Apollo" to Kandi who promptly goes with Kenya on a bedroom decorating shopping tour to the HQ of Kenya's production designer! Taking flashy home decorating to a whole 'nother level, Kandi is ready to engage a fucking production designer to help decorate Riley's new bedroom. And get Kenya to 'fess up to her crafty ways. The middle-aged white dude who is Kenya's production designer (and really, folks, don't we ALL need one of those?) looked totally baffled to actually be on screen with these two women but gamely tagged along as they walked and talked and - HOLY CRAP - came upon a true GIGANTIC BOOTY! OK, Bravo, I gotta ask: what's the deal with the ass fixation on this version of the RH franchise? I'm thinking it's getting a little overdone already.

Anyway, here is where the middle-aged white dude really just totally lost the thread of exactly how on earth he ended up in this sitch and politely excused himself, leaving Kandi and Kenya to continue on with their escalating "discussion" of how Kenya was fucking with Phaedra. Kenya was having none of it and repeatedly told Kandi that she was well within her rights as a producer, not to mention her rights as a bitch that done got cut out of the $$, to go on ahead with her own bootylicious straight to DVD drek. Oy, can we tawk people? Again, who the fuck is the market for these exercise videos that are all about making YOUR ASS BIGGER? Kandi's talking head continued to insist that Kenya was all kinds of wrong, but I'm guessing that the average viewer really couldn't give a shit, 'cause, even though I like Kandi, she's an annoying busybody who loves to make trouble and then quietly back away. Feh.

Meantime and in between time, Cynthia, rockin' a deadly Bruno Mars fedora, is at The Bailey Modeling Agency honchoing a run-through of the children's fashion show coming up to raise money for kids with AIDS. It had some name with Red in it but I can't remember and don't care enough to Google it right now. Cythia's actually OK. Last season she got on my nerves, what with the drama around her husband Uncle Ben and how he was ditching her special events to go drink at some skanky ho bar. Actually, he still does that, as we saw earlier this season when he and Cynthia and Phaedra and Apollo went to a strip club on Fat, Old White Lady Amateur Night. So, yeah, Uncle Ben is still an old ass skeevy dude and I can't figure out why someone as lovely to look at as Cynthia is hooked up with him. Anyway, Cynthia's overseeing the kiddie catwalk rehearsal when in comes Phaedra, Apollo and Ayden. OK, gotta say this: is it just me or does Ayden look EXACTLY like Nene's ex Grigg? At this point in the show it's official for me: Phaedra and Apollo are monumental ass hats. Cynthia tells the camera that, no way is Ayden gonna monopolize her show with his toddler antics. If Ayden can't march the catwalk like everyone else then Ayden can sit in the audience with his pain in the ass parents. Yeah, right, Cynthia. Even though Ayden acts exactly like a spoiled two year old, which is after all what he is, we see him, at the actual show, being hoisted atop his father's shoulders and carried down the catwalk. The whole family is a major annoyance to me, kid included.

Behind the scenes Porsha is reaching out to Phaedra to form an alliance against the "crazy, evil" Kenya. They meet for lattes and chai, each decked out to the nines in RED, baby! "We must have been in a coral mood", coos Phaedra to her new, young apprentice. The ladies sit outside and sip their beverages, all the while trash-talking Kenya and pretty much casting her in the role of evil incarnate. Did I mention yet how much I'm hatin' on Phaedra this season? Porsha is looking more and more like a true Mean Girl, telling Phaedra that when she "looked at Kenya's contacts she saw crazy in there." Girl, please, all of ya'll are fucking crazy, don't even try it. Porsha confesses that she's trying to get pregnant and that she's already had one miscarriage. Fleeting feeling of sympathy evaporates quickly as she directly delivers the line alleging that she saw evil in Kenya's contact lenses. Uh, OK...

After the meet and greet with Porsha we travel with Phaedra and Apollo to the offices of a REAL exercise video production company and this segment is where my distaste for Phaedra got hardened into hater concrete. Phaedra picked a most unfortunate outfit to wear to a meeting where she's pitching herself as the star of an exercise video. The fat roll over the waistline of her pants is second only to her painfully squeezed tiny booby cleavage as icky and inappropriate. The two dudes (Will and Dave? Will and Ed? Will and Grace?) who take the meeting with the booty impresarios are the guys who, allegedly, produced Jane Fonda's exercise videos. Once Jane's name is mentioned we hear Phaedra assert (with accompanying photographic evidence) that it was her GOOD FRIEND Jane Fonda who was the one who got her with Apollo and who has inspired her to become an exercise video maven herself. Pardon me, folks, while I gag all over again. I think this segment was the most ridiculously hilarious/difficult to watch footage I've ever seen on the RH programming. Any of them. Where oh where do I begin? With Phaedra's obnoxious name dropping? With her ridiculous prompting of Apollo to demonstrate the "moves" they're going to use on the video - moves that appear to rely on a thinly veiled porn movie theme? With the bewildered, deer in the headlights look the one producer gives her the entire time she's talking? All the while his partner is nervously laughing, the fake "I'm counting the seconds until this embarrassment ends" smile never leaving his face? OMG it was really, really difficult to watch. Phaedra's smug talking head at the end, wherein she reminds us that she plans to obliterate Kenya with her own crafty know-how, made me want to hurl a large metal object directly at the TV.

After the fashion show all of our ladies, along with Apollo, congregate backstage and the real drama begins to unfold. But not before my favorite part of the entire episode, Nene talking to the camera and telling us all that Phaedra is a sneaky cheater who has a past laden with chicanery (my word not hers). Atta girl, Nene! I LOVE me some Nene! So anyhoo, Phaedra and Apollo attempt to confront Kenya with her underhandedness (pot calling the kettle black you two numbskulls!) accusing her of stealing their Donkey Booty idea and just renaming it Stallion Workout. Phaedra asks Kenya, in her most smarmy voice, if she knows that a stallion is a MALE animal? I had kinda wondered the same thing, truth be told, considering Kenya herself is planning to star in the video. No matter; Kenya conjures some explanation and dismisses Phaedra and her "full of shititis" condition. At one point Apollo uses some kind of street slang for stealing - was it biting - and Kenya slam dunks him by requesting that he speak English, please. Ouch. Point Kenya.

No resolution is reached before Kenya marches off camera, apparently tired of sparring with the selfsame nitwits she accused of being ass clowns last week. So looks like it's going to be the Battle Royal of the Booties! Will Kenya's Stallion Booty trouce Phaedra's Donkey Booty? I did enjoy how many of the ladies opined on camera that they wouldn't want to have a booty like a donkey. Nene even went so far as to ask us: do you know what a donkey looks like? You go, girl! I LOVE me some, Nene! Come back next week for The ABIB's recap of The Real Housewives of Atlanta!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Donkey Booty Videos and Back End Percentages: This Stuff Writes Itself - Welcome Back to the RHOA Recaps!

Just now emerging from the miasmic carb haze that is the holidays, The ABIB here to bring you up to speed on what's happening on The Real Housewives of Atlanta with the first recap of 2013. As they say on the show, Previously, on The Real Housewives of Atlanta:
1. Personnel Changes:
We got two new housewives this season, one named for a country the other a car: ladies and germs, without further ado, may I present Kenya Moore and Porsha Stewart!

Two housewives left the nuthouse, one sadly to The ABIB: Sheree, and one back to the padded cell from which she had been extricated by Bravo as an experiment in the ultra-crazy: Marlo, although as we learn more about Kenya it is becoming increasingly clear that she's even more batshit crazy than Marlo ever was. More on that later.

2. Action You've Missed To Date:

Kenya to her boyfriend Walter in the most insufferable whine imaginable: Walter why don't you love me? Walter are we getting married? Walter are we going to elope? Walter why don't you want to have sex with me? Walter we need to TALK this out, right? Walter what is wrong with you? Walter I want to have a baby, we're getting married, right? Walter I'm in the shower waiting for you why don't you want to have sex with me? Walter? Walter? Walter? Now you're up to speed on Kenya "I get mistaken continuously for Beyonce and I am a former Miss USA" Moore.

Kim Zolciak done QUIT, bitches! Hand to the camera, baller husband cussing a blue streak while advancing on the camera menacingly, I'm SO OUT OF HERE quit. So, yeah, Kim and her wig dynasty are gone, baby.

My girl NeNe has made the big-time and moved to Hollywood to appear in TWO scripted series, namely Glee and The New Normal. You GO, girl! According to Nene, she is now bi-coastal, with homes in both Hollywood and Atlanta. Not a geographer, our Ms. Leakes. Oh, and Grigg and Nene are back together.

Porsha and her retired pro football player husband are trying to get pregnant and she's eating lots of yams with an eye toward facilitating that goal. And she wants to conceive twins. She hails from some historically significant family in Atlanta. And she thinks that there are 265 days in a year.

You are now officially up to date on what's been taking place down in Peachville with our bevvy of Louboutin-wearing whackos. This past Sunday the action focused on the growing business difficulties between Phaedra and her former client and now husband, the felon, Apollo and Kenya who has returned to Atlanta from Los Angeles where she tells us, she was a very successful producer. Of what we have yet to learn as not even a shitty direct-to-video title can be successfully linked to her vast production empire. BUT SHE WAS MISS USA! There's always that. So anyhoo...Phaedra, who has apparently grown weary of the funeral business that she found so gripping last season when she mentored under noted Atlanta funeral impresario Willy Watkins, has instead decided to shake her money maker fo rill and make an exercise video showing (presumably) women, how to achieve a DONKEY BOOTY! Wisely Phaedra understands that her one claim to fame, as she has told us ad nauseum EVERY. SINGLE. SEASON. is her gigantic ass. OK, so what's the best way to earn a living off that big thing she asks us? Well, make a video of course, wherein she and her buff husband (clearly lots of time in the prison exercise yard for our Apollo) show others how to achieve their own DONKEY BOOTY!

In this era of fascination with fitness and a slimmer physique what exactly is the number of folks who want to lay down their hard-earned money to find out how to make their asses BIGGER? Phaedra and Apollo believe that it's in the millions and they aim to cash in on this previously untapped market by, well, tappin' that booty. So with an eye toward the big time (and because Bravo scripted it that way) Phaedra and Apollo enlist the expert services of producer extraordinaire: Kenya! Kenya tells the starry eyed exercise fanatics that she has secured a distribution deal for their video and that she's set a budget, which, she assures them, is amongst the smallest she's every worked with, at $100K. Camera cut to Phaedra, who had been happily demonstrating the apparently ONE booty-building move she and Apollo have invented, namely some kind of crab-walk maneuver. Phaedra's smile evaporates to be replaced by her narrow-eyed "I AM a lawyer" face and we know she does NOT like what she hears. Cut to Phaedra's law office the next day where she is waiting, in her black boob-squeezing cocktail dress (who comes to work dressed like that?) and conferring with her own "business advisor" and they are clearly conspiring to undercut Ms. Kenya Moore and her fancy L.A. producer ways. They basically gonna low ball the bitch right outta the picture.

Kenya shows up with some lackey in tow just in time for Phaedra's "business advisor" to disappear but inexplicably reappear just outside of view, behind the door leading to Phaedra's office, doing what? Spying? Eavesdropping? Um, so Kenya sits her own gigantic booty down and she and Phaedra begin giving each other the stink eye silent treatment. Clearly they've watched the 30 Rock episode where Liz learns all about power negotiations from Jack. NEVER SPEAK FIRST! But seriously, this is a one hour show and we've got to get to all the other drama so bitches, you gotta get going here. Phaedra drops the bomb on Kenya that she is not prepared to meet Kenya's demand of 10% off the back end. Can I get a WITNESS PEOPLE?! Donkey Booty Video drama about BACK END profits! High fives! What? No? OK, nevermind.

Well, of course Kenya is outraged that Phaedra expects her to provide her valuable services for free, which is basically what no BACK END (OK, I'll let it go) profits equates to. Nitter natter and pissiness ensues and Kenya huffs out of the meeting. Her talking head immediately following this scene actually made me laugh as Kenya looks at the camera and wonders aloud: "What kind of ass clowns am I working with?" What kind of ass clowns, indeed, my dear. Kenya also sniffs that Phaedra suffers from the disease, "full-of-shititis". Jury's still out on Ms. Moore; she could turn out to be kind of interesting in a crazy maniac kind of way. As soon as she leaves the sneaky eavesdropping "business advisor" slinks back in and assures Phaedra and Apollo that HE can get them a much better deal for like $15 and Kandi's new boyfriend is somehow a part of this nefarious secret deal. Done and done. Phaedra loves to quote the Bible and her Mother's some kind of ordained something-or-other but clearly she ain't above cuttin' a bitch if the money's right. Oh, and Phaedra has also managed to piss off Cynthia as well, who was poised to use her Bailey Modeling Agency as Central Casting for The Donkey Booty Video, but somehow Phaedra fucked up and it had something to do with a Tweet and frankly the rest of it was just too trifling and boring to sort out. So now Cynthia's joined the Phaedra/Apollo hater wagon. Yeah; love it.

Kandi has a new man in her life and they live together with Kandi's daughter in an Atlanta McMansion and Kandi is throwing him a surprise 40th birthday party. So Kandi and her daughter are making a homemade b-day cake for him which is actually kind of sweet, right? Kandi reveals that she's arranged for her and the boyfriend to take a helicopter ride over Atlanta that will land them right at the party. So not only is he hooked up with a sex toy entrepreneur, she makes him homemade baked goods, throws him surprise parties and takes him on helicopter rides. And wears the tightest dresses on earth. Every one of these ladies has a big ass fixation. As in big asses, not big fixations. BACK END DEAL!? No? OK, this time I'm letting it go, I promise.

Let's check in on Miss Nene and her move to Hollywood. Nene and Grigg are back together and the fam is moving to a cute little rental house in Hollywood with an awesome in-ground pool and fountains. Nene tells us that she's, "Livin' in a neighborhood with all kinds of celebrities. Like Larry Flynt." Say what? Someone needs to tell Ms. Nene that the former publisher of scummy, cummy "Hustler" magazine is not the kind of guy who's gonna raise your profile in a good way. Hmmmm...Nene's gonna have to work on her awareness of what exactly constitutes a "celebrity" now that she'll be rubbing elbows with some serious Hollywood types. I'm pretty sure that broken-down, has-been porn purveyors don't fit the mold. Anyway...Nene's all excited because she has a trailer on set with HER CHARACTER'S NAME ON IT which means that she can decorate it and get it all personalized and stuff. We get to see multiple shots of Nene entering her trailer, in her trailer, leaving her trailer and the name "Rocky" displayed on her trailer door. We also see Nene putting on her own makeup. Uh, girl? They have peeps that do that shit for you. Just slip on your fuzzy scuffs and a kimono and head over to the makeup table, girl. You a star now, baby! I'm loving Nene's new found fame 'cause, as I've said many times in this blog, I LOVE me some Nene!

Well, folks, that's the high points from this week's EP of RHOA. Join me next week when I recap what looks to be a blow-out EP featuring Kenya bringing the sass with her OWN fucking video, thank you very much. Stallion Booty! Woo Hoo!! The Bitch is Back, ya'll!