What were they thinking Part Deux

So I'm watching Shakira's new video this morning on the VH-1, and I found myself shaking my head. At one point in the video, she smears what looks like motor oil on herself as she belly-dances in a tanktop and a little skirt. The song is in Spanish, so I'm not sure if there is a part in the song where she sings about pouring oil on herself, but it just looked a little strange. There are other scenes where she's writhing and belly dancing on the kitchen table for this guy. I'm gathering that the video is about fantasies, because at the end of the video it turns out that the guy lives across the courtyard from her, so I don't know if it's her fantasy or his fantasy or both their fantasies. If anyone out there speaks Spanish and has seen this video, could you explain it to me? Is pouring motor oil on yourself something that guys find sexy? I don't get it.

Last night, I was flipping through the channels when I stumbled across a Law&Order, SVU marathon on the USA network. I swear to god, these Law & Order shows are like crack, you can't stop watching them once you start. I couldn't tear my eyes away, except to watch Kept on Vh-1. What I love about this show, is that right or good, doesn't always triumph, which is like real life. Sometimes the bad guys get off. I also love the morally ambiguous ones, the ones that make you think.

I watched one episode which started off as an episode about an orthodox jewish butcher who kills his drug-addicted ex-marine girlfriend when he catches her turning tricks for money to buy drugs, then it morphs into a story about a guy selling body parts from jane and john does in the city morgue, to a story about black market organs. Apparently there aren't enough kidney donors to go around for all the people who need kidney transplants, despite the fact that you can survive with only one kidney. I guess people think it's necessary to be dead first. Anyway, this father buys a black market kidney for his son, and Christopher Meloni has to arrest him for breaking the law, even though he sympathizes with him. It makes you think about what you would do if you had a sick child you needed a transplant desperately. Would you turn to the black market if you could afford it?

Okay, Kept. The premise is that 12 hot and sexy men are chosen to vy for the privilege of being kept by Jerry Hall, the supermodel, for a year. Well, actually VH-1 is going to be keeping them, I don't think Jerry is going to be very involved once the winner is chosen. So these guys show up in England, and their first task is to strip down and put on tiny speedos with the Union Jack on them, cover themselves with goose grease, and swim the Thames River to a boat. Now the Thames is like the Hudson or the East River, here in New York, no one in their right mind would want to go swimming in the river. Jerry tells the camera that she's heard that there are rats in the Thames, but the guys gamely go ahead and dive in. One guy almost drowns, and the two winners get to spend the evening with Jerry and her girlfriends.

Back at the lodge where they are living (in back of Jerry's palatial mansion in Richmond) there aren't enough bedrooms, so the guys have to sleep on the floor and two guys have to hsare a bed. Many years ago, I had a six-month permit to work in the UK. I went to see a flat in Battersea which turned out to be a council flat (think the projects), where several Americans were living. I walked into one of the bedrooms and there was only one bed. Apparently 3 people were sleeping in this bed, and one on the floor. The big thing was when someone moved out and you got to move up to the bed! I'm not kidding. My friend, who was with me, said that she would rather see me sleep on a park bench than sleep in that flat.

Okay back to the men. I have to admit that Vh-1 did a good job picking the guys, some of them are really cute, and you can't beat a free trip to London, but have to wonder what the application process was like. I wish we had seen that. The two guys, Seth and Austen, are partying with Jerry and her friends, including Richard E. Grant, teh actor at a pub, where Seth calls the women broads, and old ladies. clearly Seth is stuck somewhere before the 21st century, when it comes to what to call women. Jerry is quite appalled as any good southern woman would be (she's from Texas, ya'll).

Then the guys are given 20 pounds to buy her a present at Harrods, the biggest department store in the world, although you have to pay a pound to pee there. Most of the guys get her massage oil, and perfume, but Seth gives her the 20 pounds because he declares that there was nothing there that was worthy of her. Brian, also known as the stalker, gives her a gift of a picture of her and Mick with a huge X through Mick's picture. Way to go Brian, of course he gets booted off.

So why would a woman like Jerry Hall, still gorgeous at 49, Mick Jagger's ex-wife, need a show like Kept? Well it's certainly the ultimate revenge on Mick! Plus the whole show revolves around her, so Surreal Life or Celebrity Big Brother for her. And she gets to sleep in her own bed every night. How much fun it must be to play Pygmalion to these guys when once upon a time, Jerry Hall was just a little girl from a small Texas town. She has the greatest accent, it's all haughty and pseudo English like Madonna until she throws in a ya'll and you know that she's still that Southern girl at heart.

So why am I watching? Well it takes place in London, and frankly I'll pretty much watch anything including Prime Minister Question Time if it's set in my favorite city.