Author: Lydia Bugg
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In 2011 Bravo premiered a new TV show that fit perfectly with their station slogan– Bravo: This is Why Women Deserve It! The show was called Pregnant In Heels, and it was about New York City’s most famous pregnancy concierge. What does that mean exactly? In the pilot, Rosie Pope explains it like this: “Women are bitchy anyway, so take a rich bitchy woman and put a baby inside of them, and then you’ve got my client.” That is a real quote!
What you need to understand about Rosie Pope is that she hates this job and she is terrible at it. She opened a store in 2008 that offered “cutting-edge maternity fashion, but also a welcome environment that includes cupcakes, mocktails, and gangsta rap if the mood strikes!” (It never struck). Pregnant in Heels began filming in 2010, so at the time, she had at most two years of experience in her field. Today she’s no longer a pregnancy concierge; she works as a luxury real estate agent, which is great because you can’t make a building cry.
You’re supposed to find the women Rosie works with ridiculous, but it’s surprisingly easy to root for a terrified pregnant woman and unsurprisingly difficult to root for a woman who charges them $500 an hour for her services and then viciously insults them both to their faces and behind their backs. Often, Rosie comes into a situation where a client has asked her to help with a problem. This is usually insane, sure, BUT Rosie could theoretically help with it. Instead, she always finds something else the client is unconcerned about and chooses to “fix” this “real” problem instead. If she was on the Titanic, she would recommend you leave the lifeboat to get a teeth whitening.
The funniest example of this is an episode in season 2 where the client is terrified of childbirth and wants Rosie to help her mentally prepare for the process. Rosie’s response is to tell the client to get rid of her dog. To be fair, the dog does eat a baby doll’s face as if Rosie slathered it in chicken grease before coming into her apartment. It is incredibly hilarious to watch Rosie go, “What if that was your baby!” as if they don’t understand that babies shouldn’t get mauled by dogs.
“If this dog won’t stop eating babies, it needs to go!” Rosie says as if these people are keeping friggin’ Grendel in their house instead of a Yorkie. She brings in a dog trainer, and it turns out the dog is not a monster. It just really likes dog toys which is what a baby doll seems like. It’s also, let’s say, within the realm of possibilities that one of the show’s producers did slather the baby in chicken grease.
There’s also the terrifying case of a woman who just wants Rosie to design a maternity wedding dress for her. It’s a very simple request, but Rosie takes one look at her and asks, “How much weight have you gained during your pregnancy?” The client, Robyn, is dealing with gestational diabetes, so Rosie takes this as an invitation to go into her kitchen and start pulling food from cabinets. This is the scene where I really started to hope she would get crushed by a piano like a Looney Tune.
After finding “gasp” a single cupcake, Rosie returns with a nutritionist and makes Robyn start an exercise routine at nine months pregnant. Surprise, Robyn hates it and feels like shit. Robyn successfully gets married and gives birth to a healthy baby boy, and Rosie manages to take one final parting shot at her in the update at the end of the episode.
At this point, you might be asking yourself why would anyone ever do this show? With something like Bridezillas, you punch a few cakes, and they pay for your wedding. These people have money. They can afford dignity, yet they still let Rosie into their homes. My theory is that for the two years the show was running, Rosie’s services became such a status symbol that her clients were willing to put up with pretty much anything. In a world where the woman with the largest statement necklace is the alpha, Rosie’s clients look like this.
Also, while the expectant mothers occasionally have perfectly reasonable demands for Rosie to completely ignore, they do sometimes ask for crazy stuff. One couple had Rosie exorcize their haunted nursery. Another woman wanted an oil painting of herself nude on horseback while pregnant, but unfortunately, she gave birth early and had to settle for a nude painting of herself and her baby on horseback, the standard nude oil painting scenario:
Sometimes they come to her with a fairly normal request like, “Help us name our baby,” and Rosie finds a way to make it unbearable. The woman rocking the Flavor Flav necklace above calls herself a “branding expert” and sees choosing a name as “choosing her baby’s brand.” Most of the parents I know only want one brand for their baby, and it’s called quiet and never poops, which is a terrible name.
Rosie assembles an expert think tank to brainstorm names with the couple. It includes a linguistic expert, a brand expert, a poet, and a baby blogger, not a baby that blogs, unfortunately– an adult woman who blogs about babies. Also included on the panel is her assistant LT who always wears one-third of a wig sideways on his head.
The brilliant names this genius think tank comes up with include Asher, Brody, Tucker, and Miles. Rosie then arranges for a focus group of hiring managers to see if they like the names. They all give the name Brody a ten-minute standing ovation. Rich people love Brodies. In the end, the baby is named Bowen Asher, which does have a certain brandness to it. I can see it as a brand of low-calorie whisky or inflatable glamping bubbles endorsed by David Hasselhoff. Maybe a hunting lodge where women often go missing.
So, it’s extremely clear that Rosie is winging it through the entire show, but it’s not just her inexperience as a pregnancy concierge that makes her seem like a grifter to me. She has a very unusual voice that combines an English accent with a little bit of a lisp. She sounds like the inspiration for Anna Delvey. All of the things about her past are very cool and also very vague. She says her father was a ballerina, and her mother was a doctor/scientist. Then she randomly drops early in the season that she “used to be a baroness.”
Rosie’s client wants to ask her boss, Lord Wedgewood, to be her baby’s godfather. This seems like a bad idea to me because Lord Wedgewood has full Hulk Hogan hair, and I think it would confuse a child.
Rosie seems to think that because he’s a lord, he’s related to the royal family, which isn’t how that works. All of her advice on how to properly pop the question to Lord Hulk Hogan involves things that are at the top of the Google search results for the phrase “What do British people like?” Rosie says she should ask him over tea and dress like Princess Diana. This is Britain 101. I thought she was going to start explaining that there’s a huge clock named Ben that everyone is wild about over there. “Maybe charter a ship and take him colonizing!”
Apparently, when questioned later about her “used to be a baroness” comment, she said that “the British royal family and all that craziness is almost more difficult than anyone could understand.” Then she gave a rambling answer that ended with her mother denouncing her title for political reasons, which I guess would be a huge deal. Sources who fact-checked this said, “It’s giving George Santos.”
The show was very of its time. I know the pitch was “SuperNanny meets Real Housewives,” and it delivered that energy. It had a mean, maybe British lady yelling at nude rich women about their baby being too young to horseback ride. The fact that it didn’t have 100 seasons on Bravo is a miracle. They were creating a pipeline where they could funnel women through The Millionaire Matchmaker to Pregnant In Heels into Real Housewives and in ten years, they would have created a whole new series of shows for the same women. Divorce Diva, 2Millionaire 2Matchmaker, Casket Bedazzlers. Cradle to grave, the Bravolebrity lifecycle would be complete!
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This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Patrick Herbst, Bravo TV’s Appendectomy Diva, coming this fall!
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Monster Wars: Best Dressed ðŸŒ
By now, you’re familiar with Monster Wars, thanks to the steadfast work of my hotdog colleagues. When I was introduced to Monster Wars, I said I felt like I could write an entire article just on the costume choices these maniacs made for their monster truck personas. Sadly no sane website would pay me American cash dollars to do that. Wait, I don’t work for a sane website! We’ve devoted a full week to Monster Wars! So, without further ado, I give you Monster Wars fashion police: a fashion article from a woman who owns multiple harem pants jumpsuits. Let’s start with the Carolina Crusher.
It’s difficult to build a personality around crushing. The concept they went with was a construction worker designed by someone who wasn’t a hundred percent sure what a construction worker does. Basically, in each appearance he gets a new tool and makes a lot of puns around that tool. At one point, they have him hold a drill, and they’re like, “he’s also a little drill sergeant this episode. Let’s add a special army hat.” Adorable!
He’s also got a chain that he wears as a belt, and sometimes he holds a big novelty wrench. My favorite accessory is when they give him a little 1930s tin lunch box to eat tiny sandwiches out of because he’s “starving for a victory.”
Carolina Crusher is the simplest Monster Wars look to cosplay. While those studded Hot Topic boots are fire, and jeans with a black tank top are a timeless look, I can’t rate this highly fashionable ensemble very well because I don’t think the stylist understood who the Carolina Crusher was as a character. Is he a drill sergeant or a construction worker? Decide before you hard launch the character—two and a half monster trucks.
Now I’d like to turn our attention to two characters with very similar looks. The bad wig and worse shirt depicting a cartoon animal combo of Predator and First Blood.
They’re very similar looks, but one is executed far better than the other, in my opinion. First Blood’s studded cape collar is iconic. The dark eyebrows and blonde hair looks fearless, and can we talk about the fact that they even made his lipstick bat shaped? There’s only one thing that could make this outfit better, and it’s a pair of red studded arm cuffs. Also, it would be great if they ditched the bangs. I don’t see a deranged blood-drinking vampire man having the attention to detail required to maintain bangs.
Oh my gosh, it’s the perfect outfit! That wig got significantly better between episodes. Too bad they didn’t do the same thing for Predator, the monster truck whose extremely problematic premise is what if Nikki Sixx were cast as the new Black Panther.
It’s a ballet unitard, some face paint, and styrofoam claws. The Carolina Crusher is low effort, but he also looks effortless. You can tell they were trying so hard to make Predator happen, but they spent his costume budget on VFX of a panther. Why did they paint on the mask, and why is it red? He’s supposed to be panther themed, but this thing on his shirt is in no way a panther. If you told a panther this was what it looked like, it would maul you, and you would deserve it.
It looks like a Scooby Doo villain that didn’t want to put in much effort. They very clearly didn’t like the first draft and added the fangs on top of an already-drawn mouth to give the potato some menace. In short, Predator is a dollar-store version of First Blood. He gets one monster truck, while First Blood gets four, and one is on fire but in a radical way.
Next up, we have a man who is definitely not Captain America, The Equalizer. When he speaks too emphatically, his motorcycle helmet slips down over his eyes and blinds him. His gloves also appear to be twice the size of his arm, making me think they cast a bigger actor who couldn’t show, so they shoved a cameraman into a bodybuilders costume and hoped no one would notice. This is a child in his dad’s Halloween costume. Luckily, he’s simply an actor portraying the personification of a monster truck in a sketch and not someone who actually needs to move at all in that costume because he wouldn’t make it two steps before eating shit on his own, I’m going to assume, clown-sized shoes.
While The Equalizer’s outfit isn’t practical, his shield is probably the highest-quality accessory in the show. The idea is thought out– it’s Captain America plus absolutely nothing. They made enough changes to keep Marvel from suing them and called it a day. He’s a solid middle-of-the-pack character that I’m giving three monster trucks for good execution of a boring idea.
Invader is such a missed opportunity. He’s a beige strapless gown at the Met Gala, a painting of a single triangle hanging in the Louvre, a drag queen impersonating Anthony Fauci. The costume is actually too good. It would have been so much more fun to paint a muscle man green and wrap him up in tinfoil like a sexy baked potato.
Where’s the drama? Where’s the emotion? Where’s the bad wig? My kingdom for a mullet. I can’t fault the construction, but if they had even just added a little color to this so he doesn’t almost completely fade into the black background in his black costume, that would have been dope. It’s a near miss that I’m throwing three monster trucks for the construction alone. Also, why is there an air hose going into his arm? If this thing’s mouth is on its shoulder, I feel like the Earth has a pretty good fighting chance.
There’s no other way I can put this, Grave Digger fucks. I hate to objectify Skeletor, but my god, those thighs look like he’s smuggling two cartoon hams into a movie theater. That’s one thicc skeleton man.
I can’t say enough good things about Grave Digger. I could also have written an entire individual article about the hot person energy he exudes through a skull mask. I would totally let this monster truck take me to dinner and a movie. Look at how he sits in a chair.
It’s a known fact that hot people don’t sit in chairs; they drape themselves across them casually. Look at him reading the newspaper because he’s an educated king. There were occasionally episodes where they didn’t mic him underneath the mask, and his dialogue all came out muffled. However, I can forgive that because he’s so damn dapper.
His accessories are on point, playful, and perfectly in tune with his character. Whether it’s a jaunty bowtie or a statement vorpal staff, his look is always carefully crafted. While I hated the across-the-board reliance on unitards for a costume base, Grave Digger elevates the unitard. Most people would say a skull mask and a skull belt buckle are too matchy, but I disagree; the face/crotch symmetry of this costume is part of its charm.
Monster Wars knew that Grave Digger was their Justin Timberlake. If a personification of a monster truck had the ability to go solo, he would have, and he would have been crushing cars in America’s hearts forever. Five flaming monster trucks for zaddy Grave Digger. He’s perfect.
Any character forced to follow up the Grave Digger is going to be a disappointment, so I guess that’s the end of the article. There’s a lot of Anti-Skeleton Man propaganda in the world, and I’m so glad that Monster Wars didn’t fall into the same boring tropes. They made their panther man hilariously unsexy and their skeleton guy the hot one. Who would have ever seen that coming? Truly the kind of genius that deserves a full week of dissection. We can cover Monster Wars, but we will never fully comprehend it.
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Monster Wars Week is thanks to a hot Hot Dog tip from Monster Mo, without Mo they’d just be nsters.
Imagine you’re the type of person who wants to take advice from a ghost. In 1963, a science fiction and fantasy writer named Jane Roberts suddenly discovered the lucrative ability to channel an all-seeing being from another dimension who had lived through several reincarnations on Earth. And all that being wanted to do was write self-help books. So, damn, whatever’s going on in his post-life dimension must be pretty dull. I like to think that after I die, I’ll be too busy racing go-karts and eating nothing but Red Lobster Cheddar Bay biscuits to fix people’s sad human lives, but apparently, this ghost has time on his hands.
The loser ghost’s name is Seth. So not only are people taking advice from a ghost, but I’m pretty sure it’s a ghost who got kicked out of Heaven for skateboarding. Seth just doesn’t sound like the name of an all-knowing being to me. If I were channeling a ghost and he said his name was Colton or something, I would swipe away and look for someone more majestic and old-timey sounding like an Agamemnon or a Sky Senator Moff Profoundo. Seth is the name of someone who died playing Pokemon cards.
Despite his lame name, people loved the Seth books. Somewhere around 25 books have been published in total, and a lot of their ideas are considered the backbone of New Age ideology. Specifically, Seth focuses on the theory that thoughts create reality. This is a very convenient approach to life for people born into privilege because it means they created their reality by thinking good, and if homeless people wanted to eat, they should simply be better at thinking good!
Don’t worry; I’m not going to bypass the Robert F. Butts of it all. Did you look at the picture of that book and not notice the “notes by Robert F. Butts.” Shame on you.
Robert Fabian Butts was Jane Roberts’s husband, and after Jane passed away, he kept mysteriously finding more and more Seth material Jane had lying around. You see, Robert couldn’t just start channeling Seth himself because he and Jane had been saying for years that if anyone else claimed to be channeling Seth they were lying because he would only talk to Jane. Essentially they trademarked the ghost.
Luckily a little thing like the only person alive who could talk to him dying didn’t deter Seth from sharing his wisdom with the world. Jane passed away in 1984, and in 1995, Seth was still publishing his best work. You would think he’d run out of pearls of wisdom after 20 seth-quels, but number 22, The Magical Approach: Seth Speaks About The Art Of Creative Living, is a real humdinger.
I’m not going to lie; you can see some of the ghost’s creative struggles in this one. There is a lot of filler. Long, boring notes about what the day they channeled Seth was like written by Mr. F. Butts, dream journal entries, and a whole section on predictions Jane made about the future that are stunningly underwhelming. For example, she once predicted that some paintings her husband sold to a restaurant would still be hanging in that restaurant. Incredible. Fucking absolute wizard shit.
The prophet looked to the sky and pronounced, “Egg carton.” The people were in awe. Jane interpreted these predictions as things that happened to her later in the day. A friend wrote her that they were moving to Alaska, so that’s snowball machine and snow shoes? Another friend got a job at a grocery store which sells…cereal? Condoms? Pringles? Yes, to all, but they also sell egg cartons! Can you believe that? And if you’re about to sleep with a milk man named Mike Stove, Seth has some bad news about how that’s going to go.
I think Jane’s predictions mostly pertain to her life because a central component of Seth’s philosophy is that all time exists at once, and you already have all the information you need to make your life great. If you get cancer, that’s entirely your fault. If your Uncle dies and leaves you eight million dollars, that’s because you thought positively about your Uncle’s death. Good job!
Seth’s revelations are difficult to read because they sound so much like a shopping list for a high school theater production designer. Also they are aggressively useless. Telling someone “Milk man” will never be helpful. Telling someone “Don’t believe Milk man’s lies, his blood is the key” might save their life. There are also notes from Jane interspersed and notes from Robert about Jane’s notes, and several appendices to reference. All of the verbose language, notes, and appendixes are sort of a smoke screen to make you think wow, this sounds really smart instead of, wow, this is really poorly written. This ghost is druuuuunk:
Seth often spells out words or emphasizes things strangely to underscore how much of an interdimensional ghost he is. He refers to Jane as “Ruburt,” which I thought for a long time was him passive-aggressively calling her husband Robert the wrong name. That would have been so cool. I would have more respect for Seth if he were playing dickish power games with his channeler’s husband. “Snow shoes? Egg carton. Cuck F. Butts (underlined).”
Seth takes some time during this book to criticize Jane for not thinking positively enough about the illness that would eventually cause her death. Remember, according to Seth, it’s entirely up to you if you want to contract the rheumatoid arthritis that also killed your Mother at a young age.
It’s kind of wild that a multidimensional being would speak standard English so well. I always thought communicating with ghosts would be difficult because they would be all, “doth thou wishest to feel better? Then simply gaze upon thine inner desire to be less of a little bitch.” Seth uses big words and repeats himself a lot, but other than that, his modern English is amazing. If my grandpa came back from the dead to call me a pussy for suffering from a debilitating illness, this is exactly what it would sound like.
The book also features some of Butt’s original artwork. It’s generally pictures of things from his dreams that he interprets as prophetic or meaningful in some way which sucks because his idea of meaningful is “prominent triangle — maybe gift.” It’s also very clearly just a fun way for Robert to get his artwork out there. He mainly paints men and women who look like department store mannequins from the extra thick neck department.
He created the 1940 “Captain Marvel” character in 1968 and then again in 1980! He’s not sure if they are related, but if they are it’s definitely magical. Yet somehow this work of art inspired people so much that Seth’s teachings are still thriving today. The Seth Center in New York teaches online classes on everything from lucid dreaming to losing weight with Seth! Yep, this ghost hauled his ass back from the afterlife to do what Richard Simmons can do without dying.
Seth teaches that we are all reincarnated interdimensional consciousness. He also teaches no fatties. This work spoke to so many people because it was the first time a cult was available through the mail. Somehow no one had thought of this scam before, and it really resonated with a lot of people who wanted to be told what to do by a ghost.
Jane used Seth’s money to fund her and Robert’s other artistic pursuits. Robert always refers to his occupation as “painter,” but since I have seen his paintings, I’m going to assume he wasn’t making a ton of money off of that. The Seth Center is selling some of his original artwork of Seth for $450, along with comments from Seth about the work. (He called it gauche).
Jane was also a prolific poet and author. Her writing included a fictional series called Oversoul Seven And The Museum Of Time, which she described as a fictional continuation of the ideas from her non-fiction work by Seth. Man, you didn’t even have to try to do cons in the ’60s. She basically said this time, it’s not the ghost writing the book; it’s me making it up! And everyone was fine with that? This truly was the golden age of scamming people into paying for a ghost to be mean to them.
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