Sometimes Dr. Phil does give good advice.  Among my favorite Dr. Phil advice lines is: “every kid has his (or her) currency”.  Unfortunately, our second-oldest daughter’s (age 5) currency (referring to something that can “buy” a kid; in other words, cheer up a sour mood) happens to be one of the girlie things her parents despise most: makeup.  She is starting to encounter the all-too-familiar plight of being a younger sibling: big sister leaves home bound for all kinds of fun adventures that little sister is not old enough to do; swimming at the pool, sleepovers, girl scout outings, the list seems endless when you’re ‘not old enough’…  It’s hard to be the little sister and to get left behind – I know because I was there!

So anyway, the other day, our oldest daughter left for the pool, and Sammie was really upset she couldn’t go with – but I knew just the cure: makeup!  I had bought a few makeup kits on clearance just after the Christmas season, and since I don’t wear makeup, what better use for it than to cheer up a sad little girl?  We don’t want the kids wearing makeup out in public or to school, and we especially don’t want it leading to an “addiction” – a teenage girl who won’t leave the house without her makeup on, yuck!  But for a special play-treat once in awhile to cheer up a left-behind little sis or two, makeup is just what the doctor ordered and works like a charm!

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?

I used to really enjoy watching The Ellen DeGeneres Show.  It’s on tv in my area at 4pm, so I used to watch it all the time while I was feeding my youngest daughter.  Since that is no longer a job that requires sitting down for a good 30-60 minutes – quite the opposite nowadays actually! – I haven’t caught Ellen in ages.  But the other day, I was reminded of a viewer of Ellen’s who she made a few phone calls to on the show…  An 88-year-old named Gladys who was as matter-of-fact as can be and just hysterical.  Check out the clip from her first sound byte on the show below.  Gladys first calls Ellen’s show and leaves a message, which is funny enough by itself, but when Ellen calls her back, hilarity ensues!  Check it out:

And here Gladys gives a glowing review of American Idol, specifically Sanjaya’s hair:

I wonder if Ellen still talks to Gladys or how she’s doing?  Wish I had time to catch Ellen’s show, it was really funny and fun to watch.  Well, I will have a newborn to sit and feed in a matter of months, so maybe then I can turn on the tv and enjoy some comedy once again…

Dr. Phil is one of my favorite tv shows, especially during the writers’ strike.  Thank goodness that’s over because my FAVORITE show is The Office, which I also plan to write about once they start airing new episodes – CAN’T WAIT!  I also enjoy Lost and what I call “junk tv”, meaning whatever is on like Moment of Truth, other fly-by-night reality shows, and shows like Cops and Dateline.  Enough of the tangents (wink, wink ;)) – back to Dr. Phil.

First, let me talk about how lucky I am to be a Dr. Phil fan living where I live, in the middle of rural Ohio, halfway between Toledo and Fort Wayne, Indiana.  That means we get two of each of the major networks, one out of Toledo, and one out of Fort Wayne.  Dr. Phil is on in Toledo at 10 am, and it’s on in Fort Wayne at 3 pm AND 7 pm.  The 10 am and 7pm airings are the same episode, so if I miss the morning one, I have another chance to catch it.  And if I miss both of those, the 3 o’clock airing from Fort Wayne is a week behind the others, giving me yet another chance to see a missed episode!

Anyway, today’s episode was disturbing.  Not like people-who-harm-children disturbing, but there was this husband who was a “right-fighter” and a “bully” – if you’re a frequent Dr. Phil watcher you will know that these are two of his favorite terms.  These and “hero”.  Hardly a week will go by when he doesn’t say “this relationship needs a hero”.  So anyway, today’s “right-fighter” was probably the worst husband I’ve ever seen on the show.  I don’t understand the point of their marriage, to be honest…  I can’t believe Dr. Phil didn’t pull out another of his favorite sayings – “Children would rather be from a broken home than living in one.”  This guy verbally and emotionally abuses his wife about her weight, cleaning, everything, then justifies his every action.  I think you probably had to watch the show to even get the severity of what was going on…  If you live near Fort Wayne, catch it next Wednesday at 3!