Today is my last day of unemployment, and over the past couple of weeks, daytime television has become an important part of my life. To honor its contribution to my sanity, I thought I would do a liveblog of one of my favorite shows, Maury. But I quickly realized that half of the liveblog would read, “[Unusual first name] is the father of [unusual first name],” and the other half would be bleeped out profanity. So I’m looking at another favorite, the trainwreck that is Star Jones. Star, we’ve become close over the past two weeks. Thanks for all you’ve done.
3:01—After a truly awesome intro that involves animated stars and various quick cuts of Star moving her head from side-to-side and smiling, the opening is completely botched. There is some weird gleam on Star’s cleavage that at first I thought was a giant scar, but now almost looks like drying boob sweat or something. Whatever the cause, it’s jarring, because it makes you stare at Star Jones’ cleavage. She’s tripping over her words when talking about the lineup of stories that a panel of Court TV personalities will discuss, and then when introducing the panel, her head leans into the frame when the camera cuts to the panel. The director immediately switches shots. This is going to be a long hour.
3:01—Star asks us not to change the channel, because even though they’re going to be talking about some legal news, it won’t be dry. By the way, this show is on Court TV. Wouldn’t the viewers want to see legal news?
3:02—The Chiron guy is clearly having some fun. When Star introduces the Sen. Larry Craig story, the banner on the bottom reads, “Brokeback Senator.” Gotta love how “Brokeback” is now just a euphemism for gay.
3:04—While the Court TV panel is screaming bloody murder about the dude’s sexual activity, Star Jones is the only one to use the word “allegedly.” The dude pled guilty, but it still isn’t clear what really happened, because sex was never mentioned (just the dreaded upturned palm). Can it be that Star sounds the sanest here? This isn’t what I signed up for!
3:07—Rapping up the senator commentary, one of the big-haired Court TV analysts yells, “He’s a hater! He’s a hater!” It is not clear whom she is talking about, or what he hates.
3:08—Whenever Star speaks for more than five consecutive seconds, her voice sounds like she is desperately gasping for air. Not sure what all that surgery did to her, but she’s pretty hard to listen to. You just want to fan her off so she can catch her breath.
3:09—When talking about a story in Louisiana that involves racism toward black high school students, Star says, “I’m from the South!” and immediately starts using “y’all.” Wikipedia says she graduated from high school in New Jersey, so not sure what the story is there.
3:13—While teasing an upcoming segment before kicking it to commercial, Star says “Princess Diane.” Also, her eyeballs move a lot when she’s reading from the prompter. Everything about her makes me nervous.
3:16—Back from commercial, and when reintroducing the panel, Star screws up their names. Oh, Jack Ford, is this really what you’ve become?
3:18—One of the big-haired panelists yells, “I am done with OJ!” The OJ Simpson trial ended on October 3, 1995.
3:21—Star Jones named her dog Ms. Pinky.
3:27—Back from commercial with a wide shot of Star, and the boob gleam is still there, as troubling as ever. Trying to figure out why a P.A. doesn’t just wipe her down during a break, but then I realized the traumatizing nature of the task.
3:28—It’s the 10th Anniversary of Diana’s death, so some old British hacks are talking about Diana and Charles’ marriage. One’s explanation for why it didn’t work out: “Charles liked Wagner.” Mmmk.
3:30—Star just asked the other hack, “What was her impact, and why is she still impacting on us?” He goes into his schpiel (“She was the princess of hearts”) without missing a beat.
3:32—The first British hack, whose name I think is Dicky, on how Diana gave her sons a taste of the real world. “She took them to the hamburger bar, she took them to see down-and-outs and drug addicts.” Wait, were the down-and-outs hanging out in front of the hamburger bar?
3:38—When introducing a follow-up segment on being a step-mom, Star goes all Ron Burgundy, reading off a teleprompter with no regard for sentence structure. She reads this as one continuous line with no inflection or pauses: “To help keep us all in perspective from San Francisco is Dr. Tara Fields a marriage and family therapist Dr. Tara is also featured on MyNetworkTV’s Decision House Dr. Tara I’ll be with you in a second.” My brain exploded trying to process that.
3:40—Chiron under one of the step-mom experts: “Doyle is a stepmom of one teen; Unable to have biological children.” Not sure why that’s relevant, but thanks for the heads up.
3:42—Star says her step-dad is “the love of my life.” The creepy needle is not off the charts, but it definitely sprung to life.
3:46—After the segment, and right before the camera fades out to commercial, Star thanks the step-mom experts, or at least she tries to. She leave out the actual “thank you,” saying just, “very much, we appreciate it.” She even fucks up the off-camera banter.
3:49—Second-to-last segment, and the boob gleam is gone. Looks like there will be a happy ending after all.
3:50—The segment is some dude named Wild Bill who’s doing a story on Dateline about staying safe in bars. Using hidden cameras in some East Village watering hole, he shows how women just take free drinks from strangers without questioning it, not considering that the drinks could be drugged. Star says, “You just scared the kajeebies out of me!” Ladies, let this be a lesson to you: do not accept drinks from a guy named Wild Bill.
3:56—Time for “Star’s Open Letter.” Today, contrary to the title, she’s reading viewer mail. After reading two emails that support comments she’s made on previous episodes, Star reads one that criticizes her, then counters it by saying that “99% of the feedback agreed with me.” Then she reads one final email that praises her for her comments on women respecting themselves, and saving young girls from turning into whores. Oh, Star, you’re my princess of hearts.
Squirm: If you’re a vegetarian with a high sensitivity to being grossed out, Hill Country may present a problem. The meat is served by weight, on butcher’s paper. As you can see at right, this means you get giant hunks of meat on paper that gets really greasy and nasty. Not as bad as the Disney World turkey leg, but there’s definitely something vaguely caveman about it. Maybe it’s the lack of plates.
At right you see a photo (via 
