Judge Mathis, Judge Joe Brown, Judge Mills Lane, Judge Hatchett, Judge Wapner, Judge Mablean, Judge Alex . . . I watched anything in a robe. I would have even watched Judge Reinhold if he had a show. And that’s saying something.

But eventually, I got tired of it all. The hoaky catch phrases, the forced attempts at being a hard ass, the lapsing into Spanish every ten seconds and talking about notarized tongues and paying for the hot chocolate. It just got old.

Well most of it, anyway. There was one judge who always kept me interested. Judge Judy.

“Interested” is maybe too casual of a word. I love this show like a fat girl loves Twilight. Nothing makes me happier than being out of town for a few days so I can come home to a Tivo full of Judy. I don’t even care that I’ve seen the episodes over and over again; the eBay scammer, the idiot lady who told her 6 year old that her father might be someone else, the woman who sued the cop for giving her a ticket, the woman whose hair fell out after the bad perm, I know them by heart at this point and I could still see them again.

People ask me what it is about her that I like so much, and all I can really say is that I enjoy watching stupid people get punished. There’s just something so satisfying about watching someone with intelligence and authority put the smack down on some idiot who’s really asking for it.

In any case, the unimaginable happened yesterday: I actually got to meet her. Through the tireless efforts of my thoroughly amazing friend Gina, I was able to walk into the studio as thought I had a right to be there. I even got a drive on pass!

I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, to be honest. I thought I might get to watch a case or two and possibly get an autograph, but I actually wound up spending several hours with the judge in her dressing room, talking about politics, mothers, movies, shopping and Gin Rummy. And after seeing my engagement ring and asking if we set a date, she even gave me some advice about pre-nups.

If that wasn’t enough glamor, I was invited to sit in the front row of the audience for two cases, which means you’ll actually be able to see my pale and sweating face when they air that episode in September. Hot damn, it’s like Make A Wish for a middle aged woman in relatively good health.

And to put the icing on the torte*, I even had lunch with her honor. I was invited into the dining room and I had salad, green beans and chicken. They had corn on the cob and ribs too, but I didn’t trust my hand-eye coordination for that one. Plus I thought I’d get food in my teeth and look like an even bigger starstruck hillbilly.

Now, I don’t want to say too much more, because Judge Judy was very candid and relaxed with me. And I thought that was gracious, considering I am nobody and likely to remain that way. So I don’t want to be rude by spilling everything all over my blog.

But I will tell you that she wears a tank top and jeans under her robe, and she’s built like a brick courthouse.

More pictures on Flickr

*Law comedy

But even if you haven’t, and even if you weren’t able to sit through the first five minutes like we did the other night, it doesn’t matter. Because you’ve seen this show a million times already, and it still isn’t any good.

There’s something about this show that just makes me tired and quiet. And it’s not even the nurse-who-breaks-all-the-rules-because-she-cares-so-much bullshit, although that alone makes me want to lie down and just give the fuck up.

No, the thing that really exhausts me is the logo treatment.

HawthoRNe, get it?

Because she’s a Registered Nurse!

See how that works?

Oh, I tell you I had no idea she was a nurse until they spelled it all for me in the logo. The shots of her in a lab coat didn’t tip me at all. I thought she worked at a photo lab.

Well, you know how Hollywood works. An idea this good is bound to be repeated over and over again.

Let’s not fight it. Let’s just jump in and help TNT round out their Fall Season.

More here

The audience was filled with women named “April” for April Fool’s Day. The producers planted me in the crowd to craft with Martha, and to derail the segment as best I could.

I basically just tried to be the worst possible person to pull up on stage to do a segment like this; uncoordinated, no artistic ability and a little too big of a fan. I’m not sure if I fooled her or if she just rolled with it, but the end result was pretty funny, I thought.

Of course, not everybody got the joke. Apparently some of Matha’s fans on Twitter were less than happy with the moron doing the craft segment yesterday:

I knew I’d be bringing shame to myself, and to my family. But shaming people all over the world? Who knew I had that kind of reach! if I was able to persuade just one person to stop making macrame plant hangers, it will have all been worth it.

By the way, the picture I took of Martha with my phone during the segment
is here.

Update: Several people have written to ask if that was indeed my own cookbook. Yes, it most certainly is, and I really do love it.

-Thanks to Merrill Markoe for this jaw dropper

And as long as we’re going after the Japanese, let’s put the last nail in the Christmas coffin with this bonus track from longtime ex-listener Andre:

Ok, a couple of things here.

First of all what the hell is “green gossip”? Is there actually a tabloid aspect to recycling? Do people really care if Charlie Sheen has florescent light bulbs in his trailer? Are paparazzi staked out in front of Greg Kinnear’s house, trying to catch him putting green bottles in the brown glass bin?

But okay, let’s assume that there are, in fact, people who give a fat shit about how eco-friendly the cast of Lipstick Jungle is. Even within the narrow confines of that fetish, how does this particular non-story qualify as “green”?

We are, after all, talking about a woman who threw a party. She didn’t grow the food, for fuck’s sake, she hired caterers. How many trucks do you think showed up with electric heaters and propane grills? How many linen tablecloths and napkins had to be laundered? How many dishes and glasses had to be washed? How many cars did the valet park that night? How much power did it take to put that party on, not to mention run a mansion on a daily basis for one person?

I mean, Jesus, she didn’t teach the women of Abu Dhabi how to make hijabs out of hemp. She had a bunch of rich, self indulgent jack-offs up to her mansion, and put out some hummus. Let’s name a God damned airport after her.

And by the way, it wasn’t even a vegan party. She just “included” vegan appetizers. I’m sure there was plenty of overfished Chilean Sea Bass for Courtney and David.

Was it a nice gesture that she put out some tempeh for the Marlboro-smoking yogatards? Sure. But that doesn’t make her Ed Begley, does it?

You know how Jennifer would really make this planet a better place? Stop plastering her big Jack O’ Lantern head on the cover of every magazine, bitching about Angelina Jolie. Talk about saving trees.

And in other holiday news . . .

Now I’m a glutton or punishment like no other. But I have to believe that the sound of both of those voices in the same room would bring this on by midnight.

I’d like to say it’s because of all the exciting new programming coming up. All those new voices, all those original premises, all that creative energy being harnessed by young and hungry networks, eager to shape a new kind of entertainment.

I’d like to say that.

I’d also like to say that I‘m in my mid thirties with 7% body fat.

But the truth is I threw my back out on Sunday and I can’t do jack shit. I’ve been hobbling around the house like Sally Field looking for the Bonniva, and TV is about the only thing I can do without cursing.

Fortunately, there’s Law & Order; the best salve for extended periods of ennui or disability. Nothing is quite as soothing as dozing off through the back-to-back-to-back anesthesia of Law & Order, in all its various permutations.

There’s the smoldering sexual tension of L & O SVU. There’s L & O CI, featuring the constantly morphing body shape of Vincent D’Onofrio (who, I’m convinced, gets more appealing as he gets fatter and crazier). And there’s just plain L & O, which serves mainly as a showcase for Sam Waterson’s eyebrows. It’s also an opportunity to marvel at how much Angie Harmon sounds like Charlie Sheen.

Well, I think she does, anyway. I guess it would be easier to hear the similarities if she were spewing batshittery about “controlled demolitions” (or at least threatening Denise Richards).

Sadly, all good things come to an end. The calming sameness of Dick Wolf’s long gray afternoons are suddenly being pierced with loud, white, promos for a new fall show called Raising the Bar. And every time these promos come on, I feel my gorge starting to rise.

Everything about this show upsets me, so it’s taken me a while to sit down and organize my thoughts. I realize I can’t communicate clearly if I’m at the mercy of my disgust, so I’ve broken down my revulsion in easy to read bullet points.

Let’s start at the beginning.

1. THE TITLE

I have a lot of trouble with shows that use puns as titles. It signals a lack of judgment that doesn’t bode well. If they thought the shitty title was clever, I can only imagine what the scripts are like.

This title in particular is so witless and awful, that I think Raising the Bar deserves to join Emily’s Reasons Why Not in the pantheon of shows that evaporated after the pilot.

When is this kind of self conscious, labored cleverness ever a good idea?

Ok, maybe if you’re Animal Planet, and your biggest name is Jai Rodriguez, you can get away with Groomer Has It. But when you prop up Bochco for another stab at primetime glory, and you run promos every 12 seconds with the dumbest title since Lucky Number Slevin , you need to take a look at the focus group cards and see where this thing is going.

Which brings me to . . .

2. STEVEN BOCHCO

In a world where media is getting more progressive and our appetites are getting more sophisticated, I find it mind boggling that Steven Bochco has parking space in this town, much less a development deal.

Now, I’m not saying that the guy did not have a tremendous run. He did . . . in the seventies. But he hasn’t won an Emmy in 13 years, and his last show was Commander in Chief, which even he called “horrible”.

True, this is the man who brought us Hill Street Blues . . . in the eighties. But he also brought us Cop Rock, which has pretty much become the gold standard of television failures.

We have gone from 3 networks to hundreds, with more opportunity than ever for new ideas and more innovative, niche programming. There are thousands of hours to be filled, and this would seem to be the time to bring in unconventional thinkers and new voices. But instead, programmers are out in the TV Land graveyard, digging up the juiceless corpses of people like Steven Bochco.

I had a manager many years ago, a lovely man named Ray Katz. Ray had discovered Whoppi Goldberg and worked with some of the comedy greats. By the time I signed with him, Ray was about 450 years old.

I was in his office one day, and we were talking about reunion shows, comeback tours and the habit the Academy has of rolling out one of the last living fossils from the old days to pick up some bullshit award.

Ray leaned over the desk and attempted to focus on me. “Let me tell you something,” he said, mustard dripping from his chin. “Comebacks, reunions, retrospectives, it’s all very nice. But at some point, no matter how good you’ve been or how much you’ve done, all the public really wants is for you to go away.”

A-fucking-men.

3. THE CAST

Where would you find actors young enough to play lawyers fresh from school? Maybe from screening Indies? Maybe rising stars at Julliard? Maybe even scouting legitimate theatre?

Well, you could, but don’t you want to be home in time for dinner? Why not hand pick your talent from Sabrina the Teenage Witch, CSI Miami, Touched by an Angel, V.I.P. and The Bold and the Beautiful? That’s where all the really good actors are.

And speaking of people who don’t work too much, look no further than Malcolm in the Middle’s Jane Kaczmarek for your irascible, yet still inexplicably sexy judge! If only they’d made a deal with George Foreman. They could have called the show Boxers and Briefs.

But Bochco saved the best for last.

Yes, it’s Mark-Paul Gosselaar, the world’s youngest 35 year old starry-eyed fresh scrubbed public defender! He may be using words like “torts” and “Habeaus Corpus”, but he’ll always be Zach to me! And I live for the day that Tiffani Amber Thiessen turns up as the bad girl he’s too late to save. Sweeps can’t come soon enough for me.

And just to make it all feel right, Gosselaar worked on NYPD Blue with Bochco. And we all know that good work comes when no one leaves their comfort zone.

But that doesn’t mean Gosselaar isn’t taking risks. He’s made a choice so controversial and so brave, that people are already buzzing. And the show doesn’t air for another week!

Oh sure, he could have played a gay character, a disabled character, he could be transgendered, a racist, he could have a secret, an addiction, he could be human in so many ways. But he went further. A lot further.

And everyone is talking about it.