Usually, I have one favorite television show per season and that is that. My tastes are so bizarre that I am really stuck sometimes in even finding one. Last season, as some of you know, it was “Nashville Star.” The combination of Billy Ray Cyrus, who is the love child of Sarah Palin and Algebra, Stimey’s donkey from “The Little Rascals”; and judge Jewel, who was a combination of Cruella DeVille and a hot truck stop waitress, was almost too much to bear. But it wasn’t. There were also a couple of real ol’ hillbilly judges, Big and Rich, but they were non-factors. Other than being attacked by Jewel for having no talent. Other than that.

But anyway, this season I am torn between two: “Untamed & Uncut” and “Locked Up Abroad”. And I like them both for far different reasons, but really the same. First “Locked Up Abroad”: it’s always variations on the same theme. Some dipshit anglo is lured by some woman that they find attractive, but I think look like the kinda lady that opens beer bottles with her teeth, who convinces him to carry some crazy stuff across some godforsaken border. No one in his right mind would do it.

Fast forward ahead, he gets busted leaving the country and thrown into some crazy overseas lockup. I usually tune in to see the accommodations and I silently think of how lucky I am not to have been locked up abroad, despite all sorts of shady shit I had pulled before I met my wife. (Now, I am cured.) So these dudes get thrown into third-world hellholes and eventually get released. It’s a much better show than my description makes it sound. I’m tired today.

The other show, “Untamed & Uncut” combines two of my favorite things: humans humiliating animals and finding out that payback is a bitch; and people screaming in horror, while still managing to keep filming horrific acts.

It’s usually some dispirited family from the Midwest who go to Cozumel and get goaded to swim with the sharks, only to find out that, at that very moment in history, one of the sharks had had enough poking and prodding. And pokes and prods back. With his teeth. All captured on film, so the douchebag tourists have a video of their adventure.

Most people who know me have heard my spiel about the Animal Kingdom: either eat the animal or leave it the fuck alone. I cannot stand swimming with the dolphins and every time I see someone sit atop an elephant, I pray that they get thrown off violently. (And I don’t have kids. Imagine that.) People see a real disconnect between my love of animals and my consumption of them. I don’t. And I don’t care that they do. More foie gras for me. Holler.

I guess if I had to decide between the two I would choose “U&U” because the horrific endings vary so greatly. And because, while it is enjoyable watching some dude get roughed up by a group of five-foot-two ruffians from Guatemala, there ain’t nothing on God’s green earth that is better than seeing a circus bear rip the whip from the startled trainer’s hand. And shred it with his teeth while the trainer slowly backs up.

Oh man, I am awake now.

My pants fit like I am a 250-pound member of The Strokes. My jaw is aching from chewing. But Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is nigh, and now we can prepare to drink ourselves silly at Christmas parties, right?

Wrong. Not sure about you, but the number of Christmas parties that have actually been scheduled has dwindled like living members of Patton’s Army. Not even BYOB. More like BYOParty. And even then. The economic conditions are abysmal and people, at least here in NYC, are pretty freaked out. Like the guy who works in our neighborhood dry cleaner. Or the UPS lady I say hi to nearly every day.

You know who seems to be okay with the downturn? Homeless Joe, who has lived a couple of blocks away from me. He seems to be smug with the knowledge that the reckoning is upon us. And that many of us, who eat $100 sushi dinners and drink $6 cups of coffee, will be forced to survive like him. Except that he pees his pants. And is often drunk.

I would imagine that we would rather move to Jersey to survive the economy. Or maybe not. My neighbor down the hall, who produces gay porn would probably rather drink Windex or something. Just a hunch.

So hang in there, everybody. It’s always darkest before the dawn. (I just made that up.) And let’s all just pray that this is the darkest.
God forbid, otherwise.