Erik von Markovik, who calls himself "Mystery," is a decent-looking 6'5" beanstalk who has a Canadian accent, dresses like a peacock (a furry top hat and goggles), and calls himself the world's best Pickup Artist (of women, that is).

He's also the star of a new reality show on vh1 called "The Pickup Artist." In it, Erik (I refuse to call him by his nom de guerre) will teach eight hapless guys how to attract beautiful women. On the surface the show looks like slightly more instructive riff on the nerdy guy/beautiful girl pairing used for humor in countless sitcoms and reality shows like "Average Joe," but in the process, it taps into a larger --- some say sleazy --- community of men who follow Erik's methods to, as the title of his book plainly put it, "Get Beautiful Women Into Bed." All of which makes for a complicated and addictive reality show.

More on the community, which I find fascinating, later; first the episode. The eight nerds are an endearing mix of anxiety and excitement, each of them looking forward to the prospect of meeting women but petrified about actually talking to them. VH1 has cast the show well: most of the guys are awkward but in a cute way; most can speak comfortably to the camera, if not to a female; and a few are actually good looking. 

The opening scene when they get off the bus and see the house for the first time is much like it would be on any other show, except that the reactions are less, "OH DIP!" and "THIS IS THE SH*%" and more "OH MY," and "GEE WOW!" A lot of the show's beginning is taken up with everyone sharing their respective stories. Women think Joe, from Minnesota, is gay. Fred is a 45-year-old virgin who bails out of conversations early. Most of the rest have some similar defect, and all are uncomfortable talking to women.

They receive a surprise phone call from their new instructor. He's going to throw them into the lion's den that night; they all hop into a bus (the declared destination is "Manhood") and go to a club. Erik tells them to talk to women randomly; they do and basically fail miserably.

The most illuminating sections of the show were the parts filmed at some secret loft near the club where Erik asked each contestant of his hopes for the show. Spoon (short for Steve Poon), a flustered young man, declares he wants to live "like James Bond," and acted as if Mystery would be able to conjure this life up for him. Most of the guys were also painfully credulous; really, it's their rapt belief that Mystery will change their lives that makes the show so compelling. Some speak to the camera as if they'll give up girls forever if this doesn't work. In a sense, they're playing for much higher stakes than the average reality show contestant; they're not looking for money or fame but for an entirely different persona and basically a new life.

If that is the case, they might want to think twice before adopting whatever Markovik has in store for them. He and his wingmen, "Matador" and "J-dog," can pick up girls: after talking to the trainees, they walk into the club and, assuming the girls are not actors (which the show declares is the case), make them melt with alarming speed. They start talking to a group and after a few minutes girls grab them and beg them not to leave. They get women's phone numbers, and it looks as if they could take many home were they not tied up with the show.

The nerds want to be like them, or James Bond, or someone else, and it's actually not that hard to picture them achieving it, because Erik (and probably J-dog and Matador) went through a similar transformation. Erik has said he was once a hopeless Dungeons & Dragons player who had as little luck with women as the contestants. Now, depending on how you look at it, he is either supremely confident and self-assured or an asshole, and he charges thousands at seminars and gets paid by VH1 to teach men how to act like him.

He gets paid so handsomely because he is the leader, or most prominent figure, in what is known as the "Seduction Community." This is why the premise behind the VH1 show differs from, say, the movie "Hitch."Markovik is not a traditional "ladies man," or date coach who has a way with women and can dispense advice on them. He, and the rest of the Pickup Artists (PUAs) in the community, is a social interaction scientist, he experiments with then teaches tactics, based on empirical evidence, to get women to sleep with him.

The whole community is controversial for a few reasons. First, it is pretty open that the main goal of this seduction is not necessarily to build relationships but to get girls into bed. (As I said, Mystery's book is called "How to Get Beautiful Women into Bed"). Also, when Mystery first came into the public eye --- in 2005 when journalist Neil Strauss released an account of the time he spent in the seduction community --- his methods came under fire. The methods are very specific (usually used with previously unknown girls a person meets at nightclubs or other public places) and use a complicated series of terms and acronyms, and most refer to women as targets. One technique, called The Neg, essentially consists of insulting a woman, not harshly but not as a joke either, in order to demonstrate your value. It's one of the many interesting examples of pseudo-psychology the PUAs employ.

One could call it manipulative, and many people have. When Strauss went on a tour for his book, people accused the PUAs of tricking girls into bed with them. (Strauss was not a detached researcher; he claims to have had many a threesome because of the tactics.) He replied that if PUA's weren't bedding these girls, other guys would be, and that the people using these tactics were generally "nice" guys who hadn't had luck with women in the past. That doesn't change the fact that then, and now, these guys are basically treating women like video games they can cheat at: they want to beat the girls' defenses so they can have sex, and they do so using memorized or improvised scripts that use psychological principles to seduce.

(One more side note: The community doesn't advertise itself as misogynist; it claims girls want sex too, and that referring to them as "targets" is purely to get guys in a mindset. But on the message boards where PUAs share their experiences --- in what are known asField Reports --- they frequently refer to women as "sluts"; they call succeeding with a girl a "fuck close"; they talk about lying to women to get them into bed; and they say that no one girl can matter to a PUA at all.)

The whole thing is creepy and unnatural, and I hope the show, if it gets more men interested in the movement, also lets females know which guys are earnestly looking to get to know them and which PUAs are just looking for a "fuck close."

It is with great shame that I admit this to you: I have become a "Big Brother" addict. For years I've shunned CBS' summer reality staple. I was burned by Season 1 --- so boring, so pointless, so predictable (of course the guy with one leg won!). Since then I've caught bits and pieces, underwhelmed by nearly every "houseguest," all of whom seem to be the least pretty, least talented, least interesting contestants in all of reality TV.

But damn if this season hasn't gotten me. It's not the twists --- the "secret enemies" (three houseguests were shocked to find out that their sworn enemies from real life had joined them in the house) or America's Player, Erik, who gets secret orders from the viewing public. It's a couple of the guests themselves, as well as the sheer stupidity that overwhelms every episode that has me begging for more.

Last night's episode was a prime example. It was eviction night, as two houseguests --- Erik and Oregonian housewife Kail --- were up for the boot. This was all due to the maneuverings of Daniele, the bleach-blonde, over-tanned, rabbit-toothed ingénue of the house who pulled strings to boot Erik after she deduced that he was responsible for the ousting of her "showmance" Nick last week. The episode featured a variety of flashbacks showing various housemates switching sides on their votes in response to various manipulations by other housemates, and ultimately ended with Kail going home after three weeks of being on the block as sacrificial lamb.

Standard reality fare. But here's what's so great about "Big Brother": The entire movement to get Erik thrown out stemmed from two things. The first was an airplane dragging a banner across the sky last week that said that Erik was a liar (the show is happening live, right now) and that he and Amber were responsible for Nick's ouster. The second is Daniele's insane logic that somehow added up that Erik had been starting a secret conspiracy to get Nick booted from Day 1.

The problem with this scenario: Erik was one of two people that voted to keep Nick in the house last week. Everyone else --- including Daniele and Amber, who spent the week screeching that Nick was set up --- VOTED NICK OUT. And yet it is somehow Erik's fault that he went home.

It's this type of inanity that makes "Big Brother" unlike any other reality show on TV; typically editors would cut out stuff this stupid, or at least fashion it into a package that seemed even remotely logical. But since "Big Brother" is live there's no time for that. American stupidity is on grand display, and my goodness is it a sight to see.

As I mentioned, this season also has a couple outstanding houseguests. Daniele is one; at first she was sympathetic since her "enemy" is her father, the raving lunatic known as Evel Dick. (Seriously, that's the name he goes by.) Dick will go down as one of the most repugnant characters in reality history, bossing and harassing all the women (and most of the weaker men) with his irrational snarling. But Daniele's not doing so well herself, as her temporary position of power this week as Head of Household (the person responsible for nominating the two houseguests up for eviction) has shown her to be a dim, manipulative shrew who's much more like her father than I imagine she'd like.

But Dick and Daniele are nothing compared to the glory that is Amber. I desperately hope Amber stays on this show to the bitter end. Not because I want her to win the $500,000 --- that would make me sick --- but because she is fascinating to watch. Amber has created a new reality show stereotype: the righteously indignant crackhead. Recovering crackhead, apparently (she really was a drug addict for years), but given her behavior in the house I'm not so sure about that "recovering" part. Amber spent the first several weeks sobbing. All the time. Sobbing about this, sobbing about that --- it's amazing she didn't dehydrate. And y'all, this was some UGLY crying.

This week, however, she got even uglier, as she became the swing vote in the Erik/Kail expulsion. Prior to this week Amber and Erik were extremely close, part of the same alliance. (Don't forget, they were both fingered by that airplane banner.) But one word from Evel Dick and that bond just *poof!* went away. Evel Dick told Amber that weeks ago Erik had told him that he wasn't concerned about Amber coming after him (Erik) since she had told him a terrible secret from her past that, if it got out to the house, would alienate her from everyone there. Note that he never said what this secret was. But it doesn't matter to Amber that Erik didn't tell her secret. The very fact that he told someone in the house that she had a secret was enough to set her off, and in this episode she went on a hysterical, screaming hissy fit castigating him for using something she told him "in confidence" against her.

Um, hello? Where are you? What are you doing? This is not "The National Tiddlywinks Hour." This is not "America's Next Top Best Friend." This is freaking "Big Brother," and the name of the game is knocking out your housemates until one of you is left to collect a huge sum of money. What did you think he was going to do with this information? Never! Never have I seen such brazen stupidity, or such a stunning lack of self-awareness on TV.

She also goes into a long speech about how much she loved and trusted Erik, and about how she hates him now. She conveniently leaves out the part about how this week the cameras caught her launching into a five-minute diatribe about how she hates Jewish people because they're "sneaky" and "money-grubbing." Seriously. And she wondered aloud if Erik is Jewish, saying the word in a hushed, scandalous tone typically reserved for curse words. But she loved Erik! She never said anything bad about him! And she never once lied to anyone in this house (except when she didn't tell Nick he was up for eviction, OR that she was voting to oust him). Amber is amazing.

But actually, Dustin is more amazing. I love Dustin. Not because he's kind of cute, but because he plays this game the way he should: like it's a game. Amber is his "closest friend" in the house (you can tell that he loathes her) and in a beautiful moment this episode she tells him that they need to get their alliance partner Erik out, but she can't vote for him since she swore on her daughter's life that she wouldn't (HA! I love that reality show convention!). But she's out of her mind insane, and tells Dustin --- who does not want Erik out --- that if he votes her Erik instead of her, she can keep her word. Dustin promises to vote Erik and out and promptly votes for Kail instead, and then lies to the house to cover his double-dealing. HA HA HA!

I love this show. Forgive me, America!

I thought, for a moment, that I saw a glimmer of hope for Bonnie in the Hell's Kitchen season finale on Monday night.  Judging by the way the season had been going though, she really didn't have much of a chance and, as expected, Rock won despite his comparatively poor performance in the final service.

To jump right into overanalyzing the final decision, I'd start by pointing out why Bonnie was doomed: she had basically made her way into the final by squeaking past eliminations, so much so that by the final episode Rock had an excess of momentum. I'd also like to say why that shouldn't necessarily matter: Rock, in a less active sense, also piggybacked on his teammates' poor performances; he made the final not necessarily by being good but by being more consistent than his shifty and incompetent teammates. He just didn't come as close to elimination as Bonnie did. Also, throughout the show and the finale, it wasn't really clear that Rock could, you know, cook any better than Bonnie. 

I think Bonnie should have won, or at that the thing shouldn't have been a foregone conclusion, but it was. Rock's team (they chose team members to assist with the final dinner service from the last six to be eliminated) performed poorly; Josh was a sweaty mess and burned crab cakes, which wasn't Rock's fault. Though Rock showed some leadership skills in the kitchen, he ultimately didn't do all that much for his team.

Bonnie had issues with Julia, who, in an uncharacteristic move, whined and bitched all night. That aside, she had a better menu and put out all her food faster than Rock.

It ended as a fairly unsatisfying close to an unsatisfying season: there wasn't enough to make me care about the characters, and, though I always appreciate Gordon Ramsay's accent, temper, and oddly worded insults, they weren't really enough to keep me more than nominally interested.   

Well THAT was unexpected.

Last night's finale of "So You Think You Can Dance" was predictable in format --- oodles and oodles of filler to fill the two-hour running time --- but unpredictable in results, as the dancers I felt most confident would be in the Final 2 were the first to go and the dancer I thought least likely to win the competition took the crown.

That's right, Sabra won. I'm happy, because a girl has finally won the show. I'm perplexed because...really? Sabra? I've never really gotten the whole Sabra thing. She's obviously a very talented dancer, and the fact that she's only been dancing four years is pretty amazing. But the judges have been effusing over her all season and I just haven't seen it. I've always found Lacey and even Lauren to be more likable. Sabra is sweet as pie and a gorgeous girl, but I'm sorry, I just do not see star power. Never have, never will.

That's not to say that I'm upset over the win. I would have been happy with any of the Final 4 (with the possible exception of Danny), and that's where "Dance" differs from its more popular cousin, "American Idol." There's only been one time in "Idol" history that I would have been OK with either of the Final 2 winning, and that was Season 3's Fantasia/Diana sing-out. But I think "Idol" inspires more negativity because it's so mean-spirited itself. To wit, at the "Idol" finale they bring back the freaks from early in the season and get one final laugh out of their mental definicies, social awkwardness, whatever. With "Dance," the more bizarre but talented dancers from early in the season are brought back and get a chance to perform in front of millions of people, and it's a total feel-good moment. Seeing that crazy clogger kid go to town or watching the amazing robot performer with scoliosis was worth the two hours of my time, I think.

However, I did feel ripped off by the big Cat-and-Nigel dance number. Turns out it was just a sham; a joke where Cat's photo and Nigel's headshot were digitally put over two dorks doing a Mexican hat dance. Nigel then name-checked the website that created, and I immediately began to suspect that he has a financial interest in the company. Boo! I wanted to see Cat dance! The computer-generated Mexican dancers did not deserve any of Mary's tickets to the Hot Tamale Train!

Back to the actual dancers, the Final 4 were eliminated thusly: Lacey, Neil, Danny. I would have thought the reverse order. I don't think Lacey has been in the bottom three all season. Neil is wildly popular with the screaming girl vote. Danny is technically amazing although personally offensive. And I have a theory as to why this reversal of fortune might have happened. I tried voting multiple times for Lacey Wednesday night. Didn't get through once. My friend tried to vote for Neil. Also didn't get through once. With "Idol," at the end the finalists typically get multiple numbers to call to make sure votes can get through. Didn't happen here. I suspect Lacey and Neil's lines got jammed, whereas Sabra --- who obviously is popular, but I still think less popular than Lacey or Neil --- didn't have that problem, and her votes got counted. I have zero proof for this, just a gut feeling and the knowledge that, while popular, Sabra was never the crowd favorite in the way Lacey or Neil were.

Doesn't matter. Everyone handled it all with grace. A girl won. Sabra is pretty and amazingly talented. And we get to see all the dancers when they come to Rochester in September! YAY! I'm so very excited. Maybe Cat will be there and she'll actually dance this time...

Last night's "Big Brother" was rough to watch. Not just because the show is so unrelentingly shlocky, but also because it featured the complete mental breakdown of one of the houseguests, and then what is unquestionably physical assault upon her person by another. Things got ugly.

The episode picked up with Jen and Jameka on the block for eviction, since Awful Daniele used her veto power to remove Amber and backdoor Jen. (If this terminology doesn't make sense, that means you haven't been watching the show. And that also means you're a better person than I am.) Jen initially played it off as no big deal; she'd been previously put up three times in a row and not gotten the boot. But I think she knew this was it. Jen was completely alone in that house, and since she hadn't flown under the radar like the other house loner, Cro-Magnon Zach, she was a huge target. She was pretty much screwed, especially with the Dick/Daniele/Eric/Jess alliance in power.

So Jen - justifiably frustrated over the BS that is this show - basically just snapped. She packed up all her clothes and shoes and tried to hide them, and then proceeded to tack down her tormentor Dick's cartons of cigarettes and destroyed them. Four whole cartons. (She said she wanted to break them and then pour bleach on them, but I didn't see any bleach. Just lots of stomping. Good enough for me.) Dick immediately knew something was up, repeatedly called her offensive names, then found her clothes and locked them away.

Then things got really ugly. First, Jen decided to break her food restriction rules by basically binging on everything that wasn't slop (a mixture of oatmeal and other bland foods), which earned her a rebuke from Big Brother in the form of an automatic vote against her at elimination. Jen literally rolled her eyes; she's apparently the first person in the history of the show to break food restriction, and I say bully for her.

Then, while out on the patio, clearly just looking for a little human interaction (and totally not getting it because the chuds left in this game are complete, total assholes), Dick started to smoke and blew it directly in Jen's face. Jen has repeatedly asked Dick not to smoke in front of her (hence the defacing of the ciggies), and when she asked him again he proceeded to blow smoke directly in her face. Again.

Jen snapped, approached Dick and tried to rip the cigarette out of his mouth. Dick flailed his hands, pushed her back, and at first inadvertently burned her with the cigarette. When she screamed he told her that if she tried it again, he'd burn her on purpose. Jen tried to get the cigarette again, and the son of a bitch actually burned her on purpose.

At this point Jen was crying, and Jameka rushed her into the bathroom to clean up the burn. Dick cackled in delight. Everyone called Jen out on being a crazy bitch or whatever. And America just sat in silent judgment, wondering how a pack of human beings could be so hateful.

In the end Jen was unanimously voted out. She seriously was totally over it, and again, I can't blame her. I'm not saying her behavior was mature, but she's a 23-year-old girl. Dick is at least 108 and thus should know better. On her way out the door she made a comment to Daniele --- a totally justified comment about how she screwed Jen over --- and once again Daniele got all huffy that anyone would dare call her on her awful, awful behavior. The rest of the house made some more off-color comments about Jen and how "rude" her behavior was (whatever) and then Jen, my hero, basically wrote them off.

She said earlier in the episode that she might forfeit her vote in the end and bail on the sequester house she's now headed to. I hope that doesn't happen. She deserves to stick it to these assholes as hard as possible, and walking out of the game isn't going to help her do that. But then again, she's still stuck in the stupid, demoralizing situation. So you can't really blame her either way.