Mixing the High and the Low (Oh, Who Am I Kidding, It's All Low)

I like to think of myself as someone who mixes high and low culture in her life. I read Don DeLillo AND US Weekly. I like Old Masters and bad religious art. I can drink good wine or Bud in a can. But these days, it all seems to be low. I can barely finish a book lately, and in the past few days, I watched (to my no longer secret shame) both the Daytime Emmys and the Dynasty Reunion Special, Catfights and Caviar (really, how can you not watch something called Catfights and Caviar?).

Lord Merlin and I actually had a Daytime Emmys party. (Lord Kissington pointed out that it’s not really a party since there are only two of us, to which I replied, “Ummh, hello, Tiara, party of two, your awards show is ready.”)

I made up a drinking game where you have to drink every time someone thanks God, but it happened so much that I started to run out of wine.

A few observations:

Soap stars are better dressed than they used to be. In previous years, you would see a lot of God-awful frocks that looked like something found on the sale rack at Dress Barn, but this year, people were actually wearing some designers I had heard of (yes, I watched all two hours of the red carpet pre-show. I could actually feel my brain turning to mush.). That said, there were still a lot of hideously ugly dresses. (Note to Robin from General Hospital: You’ve grown up to be so cute. What were you thinking wearing that 1993 prom dress reject? Yes, I know your co-star made it, but really, you were appearing on stage with Dr. Hottie. Couldn’t you come up with anything better? It looked even worse when you were standing next to your onscreen mother who was wearing that lovely Marc Jacobs frock.)

I had never really gotten a good look at Rachael Ray before. She has a GINORMOUS head. From now on, when anyone tells me I have a large head (as they often do), I am going to point to a picture of Rachael and say “not so much.”

Rick Springfield performing was not the worst thing ever. I’m sorry my mother missed it, because it probably would have made her day. “Jessie’s Girl” is a really awesome song. I’m still bitter that I can’t have it as a ringtone on my phone (fuck you, Verizon).

The only soap I watch consistently won four of the six acting awards. I had to explain to Lord Merlin why each actor won.

“That’s Dinah. She was carrying her mortal enemy Cassie’s baby, and she was in love with Cassie’s husband Edmund, only then she lost the baby but continued pretending to be pregnant, strapping on a fake belly every day, and no one suspected that anything was wrong, despite the fact that she was drinking beer in public all the time. Then Edmund stole Michelle’s baby and told Cassie it was the baby Dinah gave birth to and then he locked Dinah up in a house/dungeon that was an exact replica of Cassie’s house (saves money on sets, makes no sense whatsoever).”

“That’s Jonathan. He came to town to get revenge on the mother who gave him up and left him to live with an abusive adoptive father. He seduced his cousin, who was horrified at first, but is now totally in love with him, because he’s totally the bad boy that dumb 20-year-old girls think they can save. He tears shit up a lot and he likes to burn things down.” We marvel at how much the actor looks like someone we’ve known for years.

“That’s Reva. She found out she was in menopause and went batshit crazy, dumping her total sweetheart husband and taking up with this hot British dude who turned out to be the creepy abusive adoptive father of her long-lost son. Menopause totally bit her in the ass.”

“That’s Billy. He fell off the wagon when his evil daughter-in-law spiked his drink with vodka. I can’t even remember why.”

(Seriously, that is some quality TV.)

As for the Dynasty special, it was really pretty awful, but I couldn’t seem to turn it off. Joan Collins is a force of nature. She’s has so much plastic surgery that her face is getting smaller and smaller and her eyes are getting bigger and bigger—the effect of stretching everything as far as it will go I guess. They concentrated on the catfights, which is really seminal Dynasty. The whole thing made me a little sad, because I really wanted to walk down the aisle to the Dynasty theme, but it didn’t work out*.

*And by “didn’t work out,” I mean my mother said “what? But I don’t understand. Dynasty? Really? But it’s so tawdry.” She said this over and over again, until I just gave in because I couldn’t take it anymore. I ended up walking down to the Bach’s Air on the G String, which I really love and is far more tasteful, but doesn’t have quite the same oomph as the Dynasty theme.