This summer, I took a break from writing to pursue other important matters. Things such as seeing majestic Weedsport, New York from the scenic view of the mud parking lot of an auto garage. Or taking a visit through flooded farmland to see the steps of the Baseball Hall of Fame on the only non-holiday it was closed. Not writing gave me a chance to enjoy my summer holiday and relax too.

But summer is over and I've started a new semester at school. Since the start, I've been gradually trying to work myself into a rigorous schedule so that I can devote enough time to schooled work, my personal life and writing. And by schedule, I mean that time honored college tradition of doing everything I can last minute and half assed because I spent the time I needed to work doing something pointless like playing a game or watching TV. TV especially is a wonderful distraction. I'll settle down on the couch with a book I need to read and devote my attention to the important matters of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns or watching the god awful Andrew Lloyd Webber version of the Phantom of the Opera on HBO for the eightieth time. Aside from the things that I'll watch randomly, there are a few programs that are favorites of mine.

I've written before about the guilty pleasure I get from watching Project Runway, but my sin this year (and last year as well) is something far more despicable. The beast's name is Flavor of Love.

I can try to loosely defend my like of my like of Project Runway by noting that it has been nominated for an Emmy in the past (though if we use that logic, Shakespeare in Love was the best movie of 1998 and Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck both deserve Oscars when Martin Scorsese has none). I can also argue that Project Runway takes skill that is not reserved for dunking one's head into a vat of cow's blood to bob for weighted plastic rings in order to win. I have no such defense for Flavor of Love. The only reason I can muster for why I enjoy it so much is the damage left by Jerry Springer and his boxing troglodytes when I was younger.

For a season and a half I've sat religiously in front of my television. I go online and look at the extra videos offered and watch and read spoilers when I can. I'm completely unsure why I have such a sick devotion for a television show devoted to people I wouldn't even want to stand next to at a bus stop for fear of getting the weave that I don't have ripped out.

The show focuses on Flavor Flav of the rap group Public Enemy, best known for dancing around in his offensively colored clothes (think Benetton on acid) with a large clock around his neck (because I guess he really liked DC comics). In relation to the group, Flavor Flav was referred to as the comic relief and the "hype man". If this doesn't make sense to you, think about it in relation to your own friends. You know how there's always that one friend that despite everyone else's serious tone will still be fooling around. Chuck D was trying to tear down racial stereotypes, Professor Griff was building a bunker to hide himself away from the Jews and Flavor Flav was busy shouting "YEAH BOYYEE!!" all over the place. While the group itself was culturally significant and helped break some racial stereotypes, Flav is a comical footnote.

After falling into a brief period of obscurity, he was picked up to participate in the glamorous world of reality television in the show The Surreal Life, a show for washed up celebrities and former reality show cast members. While stuck in a home for two weeks with Dave Coulier, Jordan Knight, Charo, Ryan Starr and Brigiette Nielsen, he delighted viewers by adding "FLAVOR FLAAAAV!" to his repertoire of screaming and then disgusted everyone by humping the ugly nude body of Brigiette Nielsen. Despite trying to drive an RV without a license and smacking around a puppy, VH1 found him charming enough to give him his own spin-off reality series with Nielsen, Strange Love. Despite her name, it was not a ratings winner.

Strange Love focused on following Flavor Flav and Nielsen around as they courted one another briefly and tried to make the decision if they should be together. When a show is described by North Carolina's Reverend Paul Scott labeled Flav's performance a "coon act" on "a modern day minstrel show", you expect there to be some sort of freakish interest in there, but there wasn't. The show mostly featured them getting into fights, Nielsen crying and then what I could assume would be (ick) sex. Chuck D spoke out against the show and said that it was exploiting Flav, notably after taping a fight between Flav, three of his children and their mother. Between fights with his family, a Swiss Amazon and puppy kicking the next thing you think that this man needs is to find love, right?

Right?

Such is how Flavor of Love was established. Nielsen left Flav to return to her fiancé in Milan and VH1 was left with their own version of "The Bachelor", or as Flav himself has called it "The Blachelor." I guess he's the one who really killed Tim Robbins wife. The series starts out with twenty women who all want to compete to be Flav's girlfriend. Along the way he puts them through challenges, sometimes at the hands of his friends and family and at the end of each episode eliminates one guest until they get down to one lucky lady. One notable difference between this and other dating reality shows is the nicknames. Flavor Flav's drug addled brain doesn't have much space for memory so each contestant gets their own special nickname which is often awkward and almost always misspelled.

Ick.

There is a certain amount of questioning about how much reality there is in the show. Each of the women, in some way or another, is in the entertainment business. They all have headshots and agents and bit parts somewhere down the line. In this case, you have to ask yourself, does it really matter how truthful these women are? Of course not. This is a dating show with Flavor Flav. I had a hard enough time getting past the idea that there are women out there that wanted to have sex with him; finding out that they're just acting that way for some fame softens the blow. It's the same feeling of relief you get as a child when you find out that people in movies or TV are just pretending to be hurt. Now that we're past that, let's move on to the show itself.

For the first season we had the ladies (and to note, these are Flav's spelling of their nicknames) Bubbles, Cherry, Picasso, Shellz, Smokey, Rain, Miss Latin, Apples, Dimplez, Georgia, Peaches, Serious, Sweetie, Red Oyster, Hottie, Smiley, Goldie, Pumkin, New York and Hoopz. Each one was the epitome of virtue, style and grace. Truthfully, it's the girls that make the series. There is back stabbing, lying, screaming matches and, in one case, spitting. It's like high school, but with no teachers, just lawyers. The most notable girls of the series were Hottie, Pumkin and New York.

According to her site, Hottie (aka Schatar Shappira Taylor) is an Ivy League Graduate, a multi-cultural descendant to royalty and beloved by all people. She best demonstrates her smarts, likeability and culture by referencing how large her breasts are in almost every episode in which she appeared. At this time I'd like to remind the readers that the D cups on this writer are a sure sign of my talent and ability to make you be entertained.

Her most famous moment on the show came during the episode when Flav's mother came to speak to the girls. Each one was given a recipe and ingredients and was told to cook fried chicken. Despite their failings, each girl put forth some effort into cooking it close to the recipe. Hottie, after displaying her disappointment that she wouldn't be able to order the food, decorated a whole chicken with raw vegetables, noodles and what could best be described as marshmallows. As if this wasn't enough, the chicken was then placed in the microwave and cooked for 30 seconds and presented as if it was a fully cooked meal. Surprisingly she didn't get sent home for this, but did end up going home a few episodes later.

AND NOW FOR REALITY STAR SUPERFIGHT

Pumkin vs. New York

LOOKS

Pumkin was the quintessential girl who is trying to be something she's not. First of all, she looks like someone's middle aged single aunt who shops at Abercrombie and Fitch for thongs because she forgot that she aged twenty years. Second, throughout the series, since she is in a house with mostly black women, she tries dressing like a "B Girl". It fails, like everything else, because she looks as attractive as our own B would dressed like a woman.

New York, according to the other contestants on the show, spends longer getting ready than anyone else. From the looks of it, she seems to be a fan of The Crying Game. Unlike Pumkin, she never had her hair corn rowed which only gives you an advantage if you're Davey Boy Smith.

WINNER: New York

FIGHTING ABILITY

After spending half of the series screaming at one another, it's pretty evenly split between who has won fights. Each one was standard with screaming and swearing. One girl says the other needs a facelift. The other calls her a tranny. It's just a standard girl shouting match. Nothing went too out of h-

... Never mind.

WINNER: VH1 Ratings

The first season ends with Flav, in ghetto Cinderella style, presenting Hoopz with a set of gold teeth. I may sound like a bitchy woman, but if a man presented me with gold teeth rather than a ring I'd wonder why I dated a man who would even seriously give me gold teeth. After this I would become so paranoid about the condition of my own teeth that I'd hide away and not leave the house or smile for two years. However, I'm not nor would I ever find myself in a situation where I'd be dating Flavor Flav, so the point is moot. I guess gold teeth instead of a gold ring have a meaning like different anniversary presents:

Gold ring = marriage
Gold teeth = four years of dating, three kids, no child support
Golden Nugget = Gambling problem?

Hoopz did accept the teeth, but then afterwards announced at the reunion special (more screaming and fighting, more secrets revealed) that they were friends, but not together. "It's like that but it's not like that," as it was put, which I guess means that Hoopz didn't like RUN DMC so she ended up getting dumped. The next announcement revealed that there was going to be a second season of the show. Oh goody!

It's at this point, after spending hours writing and editing the article, that I'm starting to even question why I watch this. It's a show about a former crack head with no class or manners trying to date women with no class or manners that are there to further their careers. This really is not good at all. So I start to feel malaise and regret watching it until Sunday at 10pm where I turn on my television and go into a bubble for an hour and care about what happened with girls fighting and who called someone a bitch. I guess what I need to focus on are the redeeming aspects of the show.

Season Two, in only five episodes so far, has already topped the previous season as far as goings on. In the first episode alone there was a physical fight in ten minutes, a ridiculously drunk girl, screaming matches and the grand finale of a girl shitting on the floor. No, I'm not kidding.

More so than any series, Flavor of Love demonstrates best why there is such hyperbole when it comes to reality series. Every moment that happens is "THE MOST EXTREME LJGODSIBSDO EVER!" Or "THAT GIRL IS THE BIGGEST BITCH EVER!" Ever is a popular word in this situation. The thing to remember about any reality series is that it's only good when you're watching it in that moment. As soon as the series wraps, everyone stops caring. If you don't believe me, try to think and see if you can remember the full cast from the beginning of a series, especially one where people are eliminated. I bet you can't.

Six months ago, the spit fight was the most extreme thing ever on a VH1 reality series. Right now it's someone shitting on the floor. Six weeks from now someone will have, I don't know, bite the head off of a chicken and proclaim that MTV should bring back the Osbournes. Stuck in its own moment, yeah it is pretty weird and out there, but as time passes and you've seen it already, dealt with it and are ready for someone else to shock you. Of course, since the previous shocking thing is already being discussed on some show featuring pundits and Michael Ian Black's dead eyed attempt at awkward humor, it's forgotten to instant nostalgia, which is what benefits reality shows the most. Everyone ends up being the Comic Book Store Guy from the Simpsons and life goes on.

After one episode Flavor Flav keeps around a girl that turns the living room into an instant toilet, an evil hair twirling girl, a wigger comedian and an alcoholic. This doesn't say much for a man who liked someone who looked like the chick with swastika tattoos on her tits from Dark Knight Returns. He also seems to like"zex und zex und zex und zex und zex." This is where we learn that taste isn't relative. I and many others may not like someone who would get hit in the head with rolled newspaper if they were a dog, but some people do. This show teaches about acceptance of...

Who the fuck am I kidding?

There are going to be people that hate this show because it’s stupid. There will be people who love it for the very same reason. For those who like it, the show caters to lovers of irony and to people who believe it's a genuinely good show. This way I can sit happily and laugh at ridiculous antics and sorority girls on elliptical machines watching at the gym can say things along with the television like it was Sesame Street and be upset when the girl they were rooting for goes home.

I'm happy, sorority girls are happy and the series trudges on until Flavor Flav ends up with his lady love. That's when VH1 gets to air a new series about his life together with the girl he chooses.

"The Color Honeymooners."

Yeah, that's right.