10 Things I Learned From Melrose Place

I’ve been re-watching Melrose Place lately. This is not a shock to people who know me in real life; I was quite vocal about my passion for this stupid show, which I watched religiously from start to finish.

The nighttime soap, which spun off from Beverly Hills 90210 in 1992, broke every record for bizarre, over-the-top, ridiculous soapy goodness. But it also captured my generation perfectly: I was 24 in 1992, the same age as the characters, and as my life has progressed I’ve had bizarre, over-the-top, ridiculous soapy circumstances happen to me. I am not making this up. It was just a different kind of soapy goodness.

Here’s the thing: man cannot live on horror, science fiction, action and mystery alone. Every once in a while, I have to cleanse the palate. For this, I tend to turn to Melrose, Little House or the Waltons. It helps give me balance. Go ahead and laugh; while you’re laughing, I’m glowing with inner peace.

Here are 10 life lessons I got from Melrose Place:

1. If you divorce someone at the start of an episode, you can still sleep with him or her at the end, even if you married someone else in the same episode.
2. If you are a woman on the show, you will sleep with Jake.
3. If you contract a fatal disease or disability, it will vanish on its own, unless you were faking.
4. If you want to make it in Hollywood, but you have no talent, can’t act, look stupid and actually are stupid, it’s okay, because you’ll make it. All you need is to be Andrew Shue.
5. If you’re a gay man, you’ll file about a dozen discrimination lawsuits before you even see another gay man around.
6. You can get away with anything — attempted murder, blackmail, extortion, kidnapping — if you’re a doctor.
7. Your first death probably won’t take. Your second? It’s 50-50. You’ll have to be killed three times for it to be real.
8. Struggling? Unemployed? Broke? In Los Angeles? You can afford a sweet-ass apartment with a clean pool and no crackhead neighbours.
9. Heather Locklear is really easy.
10. There aren’t any black people in Los Angeles. Well, there were a couple, but they left in Season 1.

So, the question is, how have I applied these lessons to my own life? Well, I haven’t, not really. When I was broke and stupid, I lived in a crappy apartment, and I’ve actually had all the illnesses I’ve had. But I intend to start applying the Melrose method to my life. And things should start looking up. I’ll keep you posted. Now, I have to go — Heather’s on the other line. Cheers.

Today’s Moron: Barack Obama

Yeah, you read right. Mr. Obama Booster himself is calling the president a moron. But he deserves it. And let me tell you why:

“It was like the Special Olympics or something.”

That was Obama telling Jay Leno about his bowling skills, which he’s been practising at the White House, which has a bowling alley in the basement. The president made a rare appearance on The Tonight Show Thursday — the first sitting president to do so, apparently — and wowed the audiences in the studio and at home with a loose, witty exchange with Leno.

But then he blew it with that stupid, callous remark. And he knew he did. Apologizes were issued before the episode even hit the air (these shows tape in the early evening and air several hours later). Sorry, sorry, sorry, Obama’s people said before issuing an invitation to some Special Olympians to come bowl with him at the White House.

Making a joke like this taints all the good Obama’s done in the last two months. It taints the good he’s done since he entered the race. Worse, it gives his rivals something to seize on to help distract from his agenda … something no president, Republican or Democrat, needs in this time of fiscal crisis.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in the leader of the free world. I really can’t. For a man to triumph over so many obstacles the way he did, to land in the White House on a message of hope and equality, for someone like that to crack a joke like this … it’s careless and clumsy. And it may reveal a crack in the armour, a sign that Obama may actually be what his critics have always said he was: a very well-crafted performance wrapped in a pretty package.

Let’s hope that’s not the case, and this was just a slip. But whatever the reason, it was boneheaded, and Obama should come up with a better apology than a bowling invitation.

But who am I to say? I can’t even bowl. Listen to this, from the Associated Press:

“He bowled a 129. I bowl a 300. I could beat that score easily,” Special Olympian Kolan McConiughey of Michigan said yesterday.

McConiughey vs. Obama, 10 frames? I’d watch that on TV.