Candy's Gotta Rant Now

I've been gone awhile. No particular reason.

OK, that's a lie. I had a deep meltdown and turned into a giant pinata to be beaten by the unholy bat of the world. The world of too damned much to do and no time to take a deep breath. The kind of breath that pre-teen girls take when they focus on the frail whispers of brown fuzz gracing the weak chin of Justin Timberlake. Who, by the way, is not "bringing sexy back." But he is effectively representing wussyboys who don't get what sexy is to begin with.

Which brings me to another little nugget I've happened upon in the grim back alleys of cable TV. (The E! Network to be precise.) It has affected me as much as Meerkat Manor did, but not in a good way.

The show is called "Girls Next Door" and is a "reality" TV show about what really goes on inside the holy sanctity of the Playboy Mansion. Hugh Hefner. He is, to be frank, a festering concoction of bubbling pus and all things foul in the dampness of the solar system.

Perhaps I judge him too harshly. I should be more accepting of a self-absorbed 80-year-old man living with 3 girlfriends, all in their 20's. Actually, one of them is 20. All three are bleached blond, the kind of alarming, flaxen, cornea-blasting Barbie doll platinum that says "No, as a matter of fact I can't read."

The three Hefner babes are named Holly, Bridget and Kendra. I hate that I know this. I hate that my memory was instantly seared with this information the very first time I happened onto "Girls Next Door" when I was trying to find Comedy Central.

I also hate that Hugh Hefner smirks with confidence that these three women would still be living with him, putting up with his demand for multiple girlfriends, and willfully mounting the brittle pile of gag-tastic sticks that he is even if he weren't a multi-multi-millionaire and letting them live in a giant mansion with round-the-clock servants. Of course they would. How do I know this? Because when I was 20 it was my dream to someday be fondled each morning by a snaggletoothed old bastard in a chintzy satin smoking jacket, and to end my days listening to the creaking of his hip joints just before he slumped toward a money shot that emitted a sad puff of prehistoric dust-mites into my nether regions. I would then rest my head on his concave chest, that sexy old saucer sled of pruny flesh made even more delectable by the gray hairs curling around the chain of his gold necklace.

This is every 20-year-old girl's dream. Ask them.

I hate that enough people are intrigued by Hugh Hefner that this show is now in its third season. But then, there is the intellectual facet of the show. When Hef took "the girls" to New York City, the trio of them stood staring in amazement at the Statue of Liberty, and one of them asked "Was the Statue of Liberty a real person?" Yes, bitch, she was. This is actually her. She was homely and big-boned and no suitable coffin could be found, so they dipped her in metal and stood her ass up right here.

When Kendra's mother and grandmother came to visit her at the mansion, even her damned grandmother was too young for Hef. But oh how grandma likes him. "He treats us just like family," she says. Of course he treats you well. It is only good form to be kind to a woman in her 60s when you're utilizing her nubile granddaughter's various orifices for your Uncle Badtouch spittle-drenched pleasure.

The rumor now is that Hef might settle down and marry the most devoted of the three: Holly. She wants to have his baby. More than anything in the world. It would be sweet. When little Hef or Heffie, Jr. comes home from kindergarten, they can go visit Daddy's freeze-dried head in the jar on the coffee table. Hef, Sr. will lick his dehydrated, burlap lips and ask if there will be any little school friends coming by to visit.

When I told my 84-year-old mother about this show and about Hefner's girlfriends, she said "I'll bet his old dinger's rotted off by now." A fitting end for an overused old dipstick that should've been retired with mirror balls. Which I hear is his latest prosthestic device.