Sometime ago, I blogged about the famous and infamous celebrities who have gone through the seemingly revolving casting door of the musical Chicago.  Well, you can add one more: sleaze television king Jerry Springer.  This month, the lawyer-turned Cincinnati mayor-turned talk show host-turned Dancing with the Stars (yes?) contestant wrapped his six week stint on the London West End as ethically elastic lawyer Billy Flynn.  I suppose the acting would not be a far stretch from his days as a real lawyer and questionable politician.  He is well known for his flamboyant, quick talking, flim flam personality.  However, singing?  Never had the pleasure of hearing him so I can’t judge (let me see if he has made the you tube rounds).  Here he is performing “All I Care About” at a performance of selected songs at a Leicester Square park.  You just have to forward past the opening “All That Jazz.” Personally, I would rather watch the first number but that is not what this post is about.

Well at least he and David Hasselhoff have something else in common.  Jer-eee was the host of America’s Got Talent and the Hoff is one of the judges.  And as some will recall, the Burger King aficianado played the roles of Jekyll and Hyde on Broadway.  Wonder if ol’ Dave is going to put on the tux.  Springer says that he is going to be joining the Broadway cast until he returns to the Windy City for the talk show.  However, the producers of the New York show have no knowledge of this.

I had a really stressful day yesterday.  The kids went completely crazy at night – was it a full moon?  I didn’t check.  Even if that was the case, other little things kept going wrong also.  Little things – things that really  shouldn’t matter.  Except that when those little things are added up, they equal one bad day.  So I thought I could beat my stress by looking forward to watching some BASEBALL on TV.  Yes, that’s right, I said BASEBALL on TV!  And it’s only early March –  we haven’t even changed the clocks yet!

I just happened to look on tvguide.com yesterday to see if I could look forward to a new episode of Lost, and I noticed that my favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, were set to play their cross-town rivals, the Chicago White Sox and it was going to actually be on tv in our little corner of NW Ohio!  Even though it’s only spring training, that brightened my mood considerably since it’s been MONTHS since I’ve gotten to watch baseball.  With the way my day was going, I was sure something would go wrong – the tvguide had made a mistake and we didn’t get it, Vegas (where the game was played) would disappear into a sinkhole, something like that.  But 10:00 finally rolled around, and the game was on!  AND, the teams were putting in their starters rather than their scrub players, which meant real, actual baseball to watch!  So I felt better; I relaxed and sat down to watch the game, and of course, that’s when my  two middle children (the trouble-makers of the brood these days) decided to start fighting.  So it wasn’t peaceful, but I did get to watch the game.  And it was a good game – the Cubs were down, but then they tied it up, but of course the Sox came back to win.  A disappointing outcome for such an otherwise great game.  But the good news is, it was only spring training so who cares  who won!

After the game I left WGN on the tv, and I was treated to an episode of the old tv show Alf.  Remember Alf?  It was a sitcom from the 80’s about a family who discovers an Alien Life Form (ALF), and takes him in to live with them.  Alf is a furry wise-cracking puppet with an affinity for cats (to eat!), and the family must keep him secret so he doesn’t get taken away.  Alf was a huge fad in  the 80’s; there were toys, lunchboxes, a cartoon spinoff, you name it.  After the Alf episode, on came the Steve Wilkos show (he’s the former bodyguard from the Jerry Springer show who now has his own trashy talk show – I wrote about this in a previous post, probably because of my disbelief that they would actually give this guy air time).  And that was my cue to hit the sack for my lovely 4½ hours sleep.  So far, today has been a little better, although our trouble-making 4-year-old is at school.  Tonight I’m looking forward to a brand spankin’ new Office episode – YIPPEE!  But first I have to get through a few boring meetings.  Sure hope I don’t doze; I am awfully tired!

Though I wouldn’t call it a great discovery, by any means…  Every few months, I go through a period of insomnia that lasts a few days.  I don’t know why this happens, but it starts when I stay up too late a few nights in a row, waiting for my kids to go to bed and then having too much fun to go to bed myself.  Then for some reason, I start waking up early in the morning and am unable to fall back asleep, and the more tired I get, the less easy it is for me to sleep and the cycle continues.  So anyway, a few weeks ago, during one of these bouts of insomnia, I was flipping channels and I came across the Steve Wilkos show.

In case you don’t know (and I hope you don’t) Steve Wilkos is best known for being the main bodyguard on the Jerry Springer show – a talk show that aired in the ’90’s that was a total raunch fest.  The show pushed the limits of television at the time and helped to give talk shows an even worse reputation than they already had.  Nearly every episode of the Jerry Springer show  contained bleeped-out profanity, guests taking their clothes off (censored for tv thank goodness) and brawling.  It was a disgusting example of junk tv and helped give birth to the term “trailer trash”.  And Steve Wilkos had a big part to play.  As the main bodyguard, he would have to break up the fights, often climbing in between scantly-clad (if that) guests as they tried to duke it out on the stage.  As his popularity rose, the audience would often chant Steve’s name as he broke up the fights with his trademark smirk and chrome dome.  And how do I know this?  Well, I was a college student at the time, and I guess I’ll reluctantly admit to being present as some of my friends would get a big kick out of this show and watch it in their dorm room.

So anyway, the other night, it was really late, and I thought I must be hallucinating when I came across Steve the bodyguard from the Jerry Springer show hosting his own talk show here in 2009.  And it didn’t seem to be like the Jerry Springer show…  no fights, no swearing, no nudity…  Just Steve, the ex-Chicago cop complete with his thick Chicago accent, trying to work out life’s problems for his “lucky” guests…  He doesn’t seem very natural in front of the camera, and I don’t know whose idea it was to give this guy his own show…  What is this (tv) world coming to?  Check it out for yourself, if you dare!  And, just for kicks, here is a link to some classic Jerry Springer moments someone put up on youtube; I’m NOT embedding that garbage on my blog – you can just click on the link if you really want to see it.  Where has the former-mayor-of-Cincinnatti-who-wrote- a-check-to-a-prostitute-and-got-caught been these days anyway?

Tonight, I was one of two ushers for WCCTs latest production (more on that in a bit).  The theatre was decorated with many Halloweenish spizzerinctum.  We also advertised the cookbook to which many of our resident theatre regulars contributed recipes.  In addition, samples of two of the desserts were distributed.  Tonight featured a Greek dessert called Galatobouriko (a “Cream of Wheat Custard”) and a lemon/pineapple offering… both of which are featured in the cookbook that can be purchased during the run of the current production. I was told that many years ago punch and cookies were furnished in the reception area free of charge.  Not very feasible in today’s economy.  My co-usher and I were given orange, pointy witch’s hats to wear as we passed out programs.

On to the play itself.  First, there was Lucy and Ethel.  Years later came Laverne & Shirley.  Now… brace yourself for Dolly and Isobel, The Kitchen Witches.  The only difference is… Dolly and Isobel detest each other.  The two cooking godesses are thrown together to star in a cable cooking show.  Food and insults are constantly flung which leads to great amounts of hilarity.  I adored the accent Dolly employed in the opening scene as she was filming the last scenes of her own cooking show.  What follows is a madcap mixture of Martha Stewart (or almost any other cooking show you can imagine) and Jerry Springer.  A cameo performer from the audience was pulled for a pivotal scene (not mentioning any names but the initials are C.D.).  When it was good, it was very good.  A few moments of downtime but a fun show.  There is also an uproarious nod to another classic 70s television series that is not to be missed.

Following the performance, I was invited to try a bowl of the director’s chili.  WOW is all I can say.  It actually was not too spicy until AFTER I had finished.  But it was delicious and spicy.  I had heard about Jose’s chili and am pleased to say that I was not disappointed.  So, if you are a fan of cooking shows and mudslinging television talk shows (is that what Mr. Springer’s show is categorized) hop a ride on your broomstick and catch WCCT’s latest offering.