New Column

I should have a new column coming out next Monday. I go on a rant about summer television programming. In it I name two of my horrible reality show suggestions. I have a knack for coming up with horrible reality shows, you know, since the bar's been lowered to hell-fire levels. Like, I'm afraid of just going into spontaneous combustion for thinking about these. But here they are, my top ten horrible reality show ideas:

10. Drag Queen Idol: RuPaul, Mario Cantone, Margaret Cho and show host Lorenzo Lamas grill tall men in heels trying to belt out standards with the flare of Barbara Wah-wah and Diana Ross. The winner gets to headline his own show on the Las Vegas strip.

9. My Big Fat Funeral: Man fakes his own death in a firy car crash. If he can plan his death well enough, and convince friends and family that he's really bit the big one, he'll win $5 million that he'll get to share with his duped peeps. Imagine the drama and surprise when Jimmy pops out of that coffin on the day of the funeral!

8. Extreme Racial Makeover: White folks become black, black folks become white, hispanics become Chinese, living a day in the life as a different race. Imagine the hilarity when the newly-white Tyronne goes to his first Civil War Reinactment battle as a member of the Confederacy! Hilarity!

7. OZ — The Reality Show: Is prison really like HBO's "OZ?" Well, 15 civilians get to find out when they're sent undercover into an actual, maximum security prison. Filmed in the Lerdo correctional facility, these innconcent folks will get the real prison experience, living as inmates and trying to convince the other crooks that they're the real deal. Each fake prisoner will be given a story as to why they got in jail (i.e. "Killed a man in Reno just to watch him die" or "tax fraud"). Then we watch to see who will survive! Every week a panel votes to see if "our" criminals will be released on parole or sentenced to another week in Lerdo's "OZ."

6. Super-Size Me: Ten slightly overweight people rush to pack on the pounds to win a free gastric bypass surgery. Watch them gorge! See how lazy they can be!

5. Get Me Out of Iraq, I'm a Celebrity: Todd Bridges, Lorenzo Lamas, Michael Bolton, Rosie O'Donnell, Kathy Griffin, LaToya Jackson, Emmanuel Lewis, Kathy Ireland, Pauly Shore and Vanilla Ice try to outwit, outlast and outplay while dodging bullets and car bombs in Fallujah. Through various challenges celebrities win things they need to survive in war torn Iraq: flack jackets, bullets and dry food rations.

4. Buy Me A Bride: Creepy American and European men bid on improvished and exploited women from southeast Asia and countries from the former Soviet Union! What will these men do to win their own Thai or Soviet block bride? Cover themselves in leeches? Learn how to speak Cantonese?

3. Grand Theft Auto: Take the America's Funniest Home Videos and Cops and what do you have? Criminals filming their own criminal activites and mailing it into "GTA — The Reality Show." Gun-totting hoodlums document their mayhem and carjacking for the amusement of our studio audience. Watch for the season finale when rival gangs compete to win "most violent" and "most likely to get caught" awards.

2. The Slave Life: What happens when a bunch of gangster rappers lose their cell phones, sky pagers, fly cars, groupies and bling-bling and are sent down south to work on a hot, cotton plantation? P. Diddy and Nelly star in this hilarious look at that "perculiar institution" called slavery. Will they survive Bobo and Mr. Charlie or will they go home crying for their Bentley's and Hummers?

1. The Slave Life 2: We "flip the script" this time, sending rich white folks to toil and sing old Negro spirituals while a poor black family gets the chance of a life time to live as wealthy plantation owners. What will happen they order their once rich n' famous help to make dinner for their family and get the tabacco crop in on time? Starring the Hilton sisters, Paris and Nikki, Justin Timberlake, Eminem and Trent Lott as the slaves.