Arianna Georgi

A friend of mine recently introduced me to a show called American Pickers.  It’s basically the TV love child of Antiques Roadshow and Hoarders.  In it, two guys travel around looking for antiques (this is called picking) which they then buy from hillbillies and sell for what seems to be an average of about 50 dollar profit.  I am not sure how this financial model works for them, but apparently it does.

In every episode that I have seen, (three), this search leads the pickers to an old man’s house.  The old man’s house has about 15 outbuilding structures that are in varying states of decay.  If I came to this house, I would get the heck away from it since it is the sort of place I would assume I would be serial killed or captured and made to live in the basement as a pet for years by mutant mountain people.  And the only man looks like this:

It doesn’t matter which episode it is, because every single one features this old man.  Seriously.  I watched a marathon of this show on a plane, while I was working, and I thought I fell asleep for a while because this guy was in every episode.

The show basically glorifies hoarders by making them seem like super savvy collectors of junk.  The Pickers go nuts running around the barns, or water closets, or basements or whatever looking at pile and piles of creepy hoarder junk.  Then the following exchange inevitably occurs:

Picker: Do you have any interest in selling this (holds up rusty watering can)

Old Man Pictured Above: No, not that.  I’m not ready to part with that yet.

(Cut to picker talking to camera)

Picker: He has sooooooo much amazing stuff.  Hopefully one day he will sell that rusty watering can to me.

All over the country, hoarders are gleefully screaming “I told you so!” from between their 50 foot high piles of Life magazine and old milk cartons.  I actually think this might be part of an evil plot between A&E (Hoarders) and Lifetime (Pickers) to keep both supplied with show material.

The best thing to come out of me watching this show is that I now have a new and highly effective drinking game.  I had only heard the word “picker” a few times before in my life (garbage picker, etc) but that lifetime total tripled while I was watching this.  These two guys can not seem to stop saying it.

“This is a pickers playground!”

“That’s like a pickers dream come true!”

“The first rule of picking is blah blah.”

I think these guys sort of made this word up (History Channel Disagrees)- but either way they are doing an excellent job of branding it.  You should probably not play the game with hard alcohol.

Anyway, given a choice in bad reality TV, I will probably stick with Patty Stager, but I do appreciate why some people (probably old people) might enjoy American Pickers.  At the intersection of hoarding, home invasion, and antiques, everyone comes out a winner.

(American Pickers Airs On Lifetime and I Guess Also History Channel)

Tags: American Pickers, Lifetime TV for Women, TV

A while ago I was at Target and wound up in an aisle full of piñatas.   I was looking for hand soap, but I quickly forgot about that and then got into an intense internal debate about if I should buy one.  I have been trying to be frugal ever since my cat cost me 2500 dollars, but the piñatas seemed like a smart buy.  I was going to Joe’s house later and I felt like a piñata would just really add an extra layer of excitement to the evening.  “Oh I brought a pinata with me!” I would say and everyone would be delighted.  We would spend hours bashing holes in his wall as we attempted to get at the delicious stale candy.  In the end, however, I decided against a piñata.  Pinatas are for special occasions I told myself.  You need to wait.

I have regretted not buying a piñata ever since.

I am going to attempt to rectify this grave mistake at an upcoming fiesta I am hosting.  This means that I have spent a lot of time online reviewing possible piñatas:

This is a ridiculous Pinata

I am very unclear on what is happening with this piñata.  It looks half piñata, half picture my brother drew in 2^nd grade.  Also, the caption features this phrase:  Our Pirate Giant Pinata features the angry captain of the ship in traditional pirate clothing. Uh, okay.  I guess it is better than this:

Terrifying Pinata of Nightmares

In the end, I decided on this piñata, which as my good friend Nathan described as “a gay sombrero”

One of the most baffling things I have to be true about piñatas is that most of them are in the form of smiling, happy animals (burros, perros, etc).  This is very strange to me.  “Hey kids, look at the this smiling dog!  Now bash it open.”  We really should be teaching children NOT to hurt animals and the piñata just sends the wrong message.  My piñata will be not in the form of a sentient creature, because I don’t think I could handle bashing the smiling eyes of a burro in.

For my party, I am considering filling the piñata with something horrible because I think that would be hilarious.  Imagine if you spent a bunch of time trying to break a piñata and it was full of overdue bills?  Or broken glass?  Or spiders?  I probably won’t do this because I do want a bunch of spiders at my house, but if I ever have a backyard I will do this for sure.

Tags: fiestas, pinatas, pirates

Wednesday has Hellcats going for it, but Tuesday has its own brand of magic in the form of a show called Millionaire Matchmaker and Patti Stanger.   The premise of Millionaire Matchmaker is simple.   Guys with a lot of money have a really hard time finding attractive women to date them (FACT), and will shell out big bucks to have a super bossy woman in a sequined shirt yell at them.   What makes Patti so qualified to yell at them (and wear sequins)?   The credits inform us that she is a third generation matchmaker, with a “very high success rate.”  I am not sure what either of these things mean, but the dating successes must occur NOT on TV since no one on this show every seems to like each other (that would not be as exciting for the viewers at home!)

On each episode of Millionaire Matchmaker, Patti starts by having her loyal assistants present her with the videos of the two millionaires.  Most of the time these are guys, but sometimes they are women (to which Patti hisses “I hate millionaireresses”).  Sometimes they are gay (In this case Patti screams “I love the gays!).  Although this is her job, Patti is generally highly annoyed the videos.  She rolls her eyes and makes rude comments.  She picks one character trait for each person and then harps relentlessly on it (he has a Peter Pan Complex!)  Patti then sums up by saying that although Lance seems like he’s only into 20 year old strippers, she’ll try to help him because she believes everyone deserves love.

From there, we get to watch Patti audition dates and matchmake.  In the new season, the show has (wisely), relegated the actual dates to the last ten minutes or so, which gives us more time to watch Patti insult line-ups of potential dates and make comments involving the word “penis.”  (In fact, I have gotten very drunk several times playing a drinking game where I do a shot every time she says this.  I really don’t think there is a single episode where Patti does not mention pensises.  It’s all part of the charm!)

Today, I finally got around to watching the episode of Millionaire Matchmaker from last Tuesday.  It was pretty much exactly like the above description.  Patti instantly picked things about the two millionaires she could mention over and over.  For Jordan, a 31 year old very short man, Patti diagnosed ADD.

(You can also play a drinking game where you drink every time Patti says the phrase associated with her snap judgment.   ADD was probably mentioned about 30 times in this particular episode.)

Leah, the other millionaire, had “masculine energy.”  Masculine energy was summed up as follows:  if a man is opening a jar and can’t handle it, you may ask him if he needs to help.  If he then asks for your help, you can touch the jar.  You are not allowed to grab the jar from him and open it yourself.  This is masculine energy.

(Nothing was mentioned about what my theoretical reaction would be: getting bored watching someone opening a jar and going into the other room to read).

Leah and Jordan were diagnosed by a body language expert, did some speed dating in a weird bar pretending to be a carnival, and were described repeatedly as masculine and ADD.

I need to go finish cooking dinner but I will just sum up by stating that if all of this has not completely convinced you that you should watch Millionaire Matchmaker or maybe go on it as a contestant, then I am not sure what to say.  Like most good TV it’s ridiculous, pointless, and sort of insulting to me as a woman.  It has earned a weekly spot on the DVR.

Tags: ADD, DVR, Masculine Energy, Millionaire Matchmaker, TV