Great things happen when networks get desperate for ratings. Soaps get evil twins. Sitcoms have “very special” episodes, and apparently, reality TV breaks that glass ceiling and goes “Lesbian porno.”

I’m not complaining, mind you. Last night, Survivor: The Amazon decided to show us that the women of Tribe of the Vagina Monologues are very hygenic. Very, very, hygenic. But we’ll get to that.

Previously on Survivor: The Amazon: It’s boys against girls in the jungle. The guys have built a fort to live in. The girls have piled some sticks on the ground. The guys are getting along, except for Dan and Roger. The girls hate each other and then love each other and then hate each other and then… The girls won the first three challenges and Ryan, the log humping model got the boot. But the girls lost the last immunity challenge and sent 87 year old Janet home to gnaw on her smuggled granola.

Day seven opens at SausageFest with Rob carving a notch into a tree. He has apparently now masturbated for seven straight days. Or something. He says, “On the seventh day, the Lord said rest. But we won’t rest. Yesterday a big storm hit us and we lost lots of leafs.” Shouldn’t that be leaves? “We’re going to build something big to look at. Something impressive. We’re men!” He’s kidding. Thankfully.

Old fart Roger asks Daniel if he wants help taking the five gallon water jug thingy down to get some more water. Daniel doesn’t hop to it and say, “Yeah, Roger! That’d be great!” So Roger gets mad and grabs the water jug and storms down the hill.

He says to the camera, “I was almost to the point where I was going to hit him.” He would later tell Matthew, “I was going to give him a kung fu chop.” Uh, Roger, we have the NAACP on line two!

Daniel says to the camera, “Roger smells like vinegar.” Good to know.

Daniel and Matthew speak to each other in Mandarin. I have a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon flashback and expect to see these guys float up to the tree tops.

Meanwhile, over at Tribe of the Vagina Monologues Jeanne is upset and says, “The hygiene in this camp is lacking.” How can it be, they boil 14 gallons of water every day, just to wash their undies?

We then see their stock of flour, which is all moldy. Yikes.

Jeanne says they need to have a tribe meeting. She wants them to “initiate” a leader. She “initiates” Deena. Does Jeanne know the difference between the words “nominate” and “initiate?”

Deena, the manly woman that she is, doesn’t want to be the leader.

Sweet, dear, hot little Shawna has just awakened and behind her freaky Bono sunglasses, says, “We don’t need a leader, we need a delegator.” Huh? What’s the difference?

Deena agrees to be a delegator and she starts sending the women out on missions. They’re going to finish that stupid shelter, get some water, clean the dump up and whew, won’t that be great?

Heidi says, “This group is so good. When it comes time to pick up your butt and say ‘Hey what?’ we do it.” I have no idea what any of that meant.

The reward challenge is basically a game of Go Fish played with toiletries instead of cards. Each castaway has a chest with five things in it. One castaway asks another castaway on the other team if they have–for example–toenail clippers. If they do, they get the clippers and a point. If they do, it’s the other team’s turn.

Daniel starts it off by asking Shawna, “Really cute girl with the curly hair, do you have any soap?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used that line myself. She does and they flirt. I make a mental note to get a time machine and travel back three months to the Amazon and kill Daniel.

Stay away from Shawna, you top heavy dope.

It goes like this for a little while and then Joanna asks for a pumice stone and doesn’t get one. Matthew then asks her if she has a pumice stone. Finally! My six year old nephew is better at this game than you morons!

Alex asks Jenna for something and she asks, in horror, “How do you know my name?” Stalker alert! Stalker alert! Alex is the ambiguously gay “Triathlon coach” so Jenna’s probably safe. Maybe.

However, Jenna then says, “Butch do you have…” How does she know Butch’s name? Now who’s the stalker, model girl?

Rob, who has a very obvious love for Heidi asks, “Heidi, do you have any conditioner?” She says no and he says, “Shot down by another woman.” Jeff “Anal” Probst mocks Rob for flirting, but Jenna interrupts and says, “You should hear what we say about Rob at our camp.” Atta boy, Rob!

Rob then demands a merger. Rob is the best contestant since Jeff Varner and maybe the most entertaining ever.

The women win and the men could care less. What are they going to do with a pumice stone? Except maybe throw it at Roger.

Rob breaks down the girls. “Heidi is probably a 9.5 in real life. Out here after seven days she’s a six. That levels the playing field for me.” Except Rob, you’re a six in real life and about a 3.5 out there right now.

Rob says, “I don’t like Joanna. She’s always ‘Jesus this and Jesus that’. She’s always yelling about Jesus. Jesus has more important things to concern himself with than this show. Besides, he’s a guy, if he is interested, he’s pulling for us.”

The guys have finally noticed Jenna, and they like. Especially Dave and Alex. Daniel brags that he made eye contact with Shawna. Butch, the middle school principal must feel right at home with this behavior.

Rob fantasizes about the merger again. “I can’t wait until the girls are taking baths. ‘Heidi can I wash your bottom?’ ‘Sure, Jenna.'”

Meanwhile, at Tribe of the Vagina Monologues, Christy is complaining that she has to bathe with the older women. While the “pretty girls” her own age go off together.

This is when the show gets good.

Heidi says, “The cuter girls, me, Jenna and Shawna bathe together.”

And then, CBS shows us! Thank you, God! Complete with cheesy porn music, we see the girls rubbing soap on each other’s backs, and then Jenna says, “I’m taking my top off.” Somewhere, Karry Ling was muttering, “There is not enough hand lotion in the world.” Shawna’s top comes off, too and thanks to a little careless shielding with her hand, CBS has to digitally cover her areolas from us.

Heidi then says, “If we merge. We have agreed to go topless.” Hello!

Alas, the soft core porn ends and we’re back at SausageFest where Dave and Matthew and fishing. They are discussing whether to vote for Daniel or Roger and eloquently, Dave rips one. Nice.

I can only imagine that SausageFest is much like the Blazing Saddles campfire scene, all the time. I lived with six other guys. I know how it was.

Rob mocks the fish that Dave and Matthew brought back. “They were guppys. I swallowed things bigger than that in my frat days.” So many jokes…

Matthew is apparently a chef and he takes the three tiny little fish and says (seriously), “I’m going to make a fish bouillon” and then mumbles something about not having the proper “service vessel.” I think Pretentia has a new king.

Alex is talking about who to vote off, Roger or Daniel and says, “I can go either way.” Again, so many jokes…

Back at Tribe of the Vagina Monologues Shawna is sitting on her ass whacking at a nut with her machete. She keeps sending it flying all over the camp. She’s going to get her ass kicked.

Joanna and Jeanne are fishing again. This time they are catching the fish and pulling them onto the shore before they freak out and drop the pole. The benefit? They actually get to keep the fish this time. Joanna points to her fish and says, “That’s my Jesus!” This, from the lady who thinks the Immunity Idol (Calvin) is a golden calf.

Moo?

It’s time to leave for the Immunity Challenge and Rob breaks out the Magic 8-ball again.

“Any chance Heidi will notice me?”
The 8-ball says, “Yes.”

Roger grabs it and asks, “Will Jenna give the old man the look?”
The 8-ball says, “Outlook certain.”
But then, Jenna is obviously in love with Butch, so Roger should have been more specific than “old man.”

Dave asks, “Will Dan take the lovely Shawna?”
8-ball says, “It is certain.”

That 8-ball’s a quack!

Anal rips the guys for putting their colors on the Immunity Calvin. One of the ladies says, “Don’t worry, we’ll just take it off.” Ooh, trash talk!

The immunity challenge involves getting out of a box and why do I think Deena will be very comfortable here?

The guys once again squander a big lead and get beaten badly. They’re off to tribal council…again.

Back at SausageFest, Rob is craftily trying to get Roger and Daniel to butt heads.

At Tribal Council, Daniel says he feels like an outcast because he’s the only Oriental guy. Rob tells him he’s full of crap. Roger tells his stupid “Daniel wouldn’t hop to it and get my water” story. Honestly, unless the guys are all mad at Daniel for hitting on Shawna (and they should be) there’s no good reason to keep Roger.

But the votes are in and it’s Daniel six. Roger one. Oops. I’d be upset. But it leaves Shawna for me.

In his “final words” Daniel says, “Roger, somebody stopped payment on your reality check.” Wow. That’s a 10 on the lame meter.

Next week, piranahs attack camp! And Shawna threatens to quit. Nooooo!

———-

Instead of me babbling on about things, I’ve got two great links for you before we even start the regular Dose.

First up is a long Chicago Reader article about longtime Tribune columnist/scumbag Bob Greene. It’s great stuff. One thing of note to all of you, the age of consent is 17 in Illinois, however—it reverts to 18 if the older person in the trist is a person “of trust.” Talk about vague.

And, since you’ll need a shower after reading about Bob, LA Times columnist Bill Plaschke has another fine effort on the inspiration that is Sarah Morris.

I think we can all agree that Sarah Morris does not deserve to have her summer ruined by Fred McGriff and Todd Hundley.

Ed Sherman says the Cubs and White Sox are considering starting their own cable channel. I can’t wait to see the programming they get to fill the non-game times. “Bass Fishing with Kelly Wunsch” maybe? “Monkey Business with Calvin Schiraldi” seems a natural.

Rosey with good stuff, including a quote by Whitey Herzog about selfish morons like Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson.

Did Rick Morrissey really write that Jim Miller might win a Super Bowl someday? As what? Quality control coach?

Mike Downey was at Ron Santo’s house on Wednesday. That must have been a fun time.

Kordell Stewart is going to visit Halas Hall. Oh, goody! Have we set up a visit from Andre Ware, too?

Dusty’s mad at the Giants. You know, we can probably run that line every day for the next 300 days. I watch a lot of Giants games on the dish and I love their commercials. Lighten up, Dusty.

Jay Williams is starting to make shots. That’s nice.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to whine about Dusty’s Giants love. I think we can excuse it before a rained out spring training game, four months after they were all at the World Series together.

John Jackson on HBO’s boxing documentary series.

Jim Miller is whining that the Bears didn’t show him any loyalty. Uh, Jim. Face it. You’re not good. Besides, they showed you too much loyalty last offseason. Looks like it just evened itself out.

Clever headline alert.

The Cubs expect to win games with thier bench. Hey, whatever it takes to get to 70 wins.

The Illini have the whole thing there for the taking.

The Wizard of Roz piles on the Bears for cutting Jim Miller. Why?

EW on last night’s Survivor.

Trista and Ryan might be getting hitched on June 7. I’ll let you know when I get my invitation.

Fred Durst and Britney Spears are in dis”agreeance” about whether or not they scromped.

David Letterman has shingles. Ouch. I’m still mad that I missed Bruce Willis subbing for him on Wednesday night. John McEnroe hosted last night (who’d a thunk?) and wasn’t too bad. Regis will fill in tonight, but it looks like reruns next week.

What happens when film crews from different reality TV shows collide?

Won’t you please? Please won’t you be, my pallbearer? Do you think they’ll stop the funeral halfway through and change him into a sweater and tennis shoes?

This sounds like a bad John Travolta/Nicolas Cage movie.

It’s official, J-Lo has too damn much money.

Fred Thompson’s pissed at Martin Sheen.

Is Salon.com still around? Who knew?

The world’s greatest newspaper with the story of a sexy cop who has everybody in her town in Norway hoping to get frisked by her.