MANSENSE.NET...Man's guide to midlife and beyond

I’m a patient, simple, reasonable man. I’ve reluctantly accepted Twitter, sex tapes as the quickest path to stardom, midgets, hillbillies, Danny Bonaduce, infestation, eating disorders, hoarding, bigfoot, and Heidi Fleiss cleaning up the bird **** of 100 McCaw’s that were flying around the inside of her house in “Heidi Fleiss: Prostitutes to Parrots” but now I’ve reached defcom 6 with the launch of two new shows in the next two weeks.

Pete Rose is vigorously promoting his new reality show “Hits and Mrs.” with former playboy model and current gal pal Kana Km. It debuts on, of all places, the Learning Channel! I’m sure Pete has learned a lesson or two since he was bounced from baseball for life.

Pete is now 71 and his buxom sidekick is 31 but they’re in love. Pete was being interviewed by Greta Van Susteren Wednesday night about no player being elected into the hall of fame. I didn’t think it was possible to suck up to a low life like Rose but Greta fawned all over him. “Pete, the fans love you.

They want you in the Hall of Fame. Will you promise to do your first interview with me when you do get into the Hall of Fame?” Greta, Rose isn’t even on the eligible list. He has as much of a chance of getting into the hall of fame as Obama does of getting a third term. I swallowed hard and took that news in stride until the second bombshell hit an hour later. Rapper Shawty Lo, who has fathered 11 children with 10 women, has been signed by Oxygen Network for his own reality show. The working title is “All My Babies Mama’s” but i think “Role Model Rappers” would be much more appropriate.

In the first episode the 10 mothers spend the hour tracking down Shawty for child support. Petitions are currenly flooding the oxygen brass in an attempt to have this ultimate train wreck of a show cancelled. Then there’s Al gore, who was a few hanging chads away from becoming the most powerful man in the free world, selling his stake in Current TV for almost 100 million dollars to Al Jazeera, yes that Al Jazeera. the first show on the docket for the relaunch of the network is titled “Where In The World is Osama”.

Hosted by former current TV star Keith Olbermann, the first episode investigates rumors that the former terrorist is living in South America, somewhere along the Amazon. Al Jazeera has guaranteed advertisers that either Bin Laden will be found or that Keith Olbermann will remain in the jungle. As Pink Floyd famously said in the song “Nobody’s Home” – “got thirteen channels of **** on the TV to choose from”.

it’s more like 130 or 1300 now as TV armageddon has consumed us all about a month after the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world as we know it. How did we get to this point? Should we blame the two Kate’s - John and Kate plus 8 or Katie Couric’s live colonoscopy? There are other shows in the TV reality pipeline. Fox is touting a new show that sounds a bit like the “Stepford Wives”. They plan to take the audience behind the scenes to witness the cloning of knockout blonde news bunnies.

From the E Network comes another spinoff from the Kardashian empire. The intrepid sisters Kardashian will fan out in Los Angeles searching for the real killer of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman in the name of their father, Robert Kardashian, of OJ Simpson trial fame. All proceeds will go to dad Bruce Jenner for his final facial surgery.

If there’s any money left over, Joan Rivers has agreed to go under the knife one last time. And then there’s a show that’s long overdue, “Surfing with Sharks”. This show takes place off the coast of Australia and includes two support boats that add chum to the waters to attract as many great white sharks as possible. In the tradition of the classic movie “Rollerball”, one surfer dies each week – in slow motion.

Next is a controversial show, if there can be such a thing in the world of reality. Jerry Sandusky will be paroled long enough to shoot his new show with his dog – working title – “Poodles and Pediphiles”. and finally, Fox is mulling a new two part special to be hosted by Geraldo – “in search of Jimmy Hoffa.” Geraldo’s sources have identified Hoffa’s remains in New Jersey.

In part one Giant’s Stadium will be imploded, probably not during a game, although it was considered. Part two will be digging through the rubble with state of the art sonar equipment and specially trained dogs to find the remains of the former teamster boss. Geraldo has promised to retire if he comes up empty like he did with the al Capone vault fiasco.

Other shows on the drawing board include “Tar and Feathered” which features the tar and feathering of a congressman each week in the town square; “Confessions” in which a serial killer confesses to his gruesome murders; and finally for may sweeps, from the producers of American Idol comes “American Execution” hosted by Ryan Seacrest, in which the “Execution” cameras follow a death row inmate until his death on live television. The way I see it, I have three choices.

I can take a sledgehammer and destroy every TV in the house, climb on my roof and do my best Albert Finney impersonation from the movie network and scream, “I’m mad as hell and not going to take this anymore”, or i can sit quietly in a darkened room and stab myself repeatedly in both eyes with knitting needles. I’m willing to go the knitting needles route but under one condition, I get my own reality show.

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