Mitchell’s Malarkey

MITCHELL’S MALARKEY By: T. Mitchell Panter

Lewis Thomason, P.C.

LIFE’S ABOUT CHOICES

Well, it finally happened. I sat down to write this month’s installation of A Column No One Reads, and I’m completely and totally uninspired. This is to be expected. My predecessor, Jason Long, warned me it would happen, and I rest easy knowing that I’m in good company.

In his 20 plus years of writing Long Winded, Jason wrote frequently of writer’s block and the fact he had nothing to say. Unlike me, he usually followed those introductions with a history lesson or a satirical version of some KBA meeting. Sweet and brilliant Jason.

As I’ve said many times, I am no Jason Long. There won’t be a comical rendition of last year’s annual KBA meeting or a colorful summary of “this day in history.”1 Instead, I’m channeling my inner Charles Dickens, and to meet my word requirements, I’m writing this month’s column as though it’s a church newsletter or a gossip column. With that in mind, here’s what you should know:

First, Bravo recently announced the cast for Season 4 of the Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip (“RHUGT”), which you can stream on Peacock sometime this spring. With a couple of exceptions, Bravo nailed the casting.

The bad: Vicki Gunvalson from Real Housewives of Orange County will be returning for a second season of RHUGT, and Alex McCord from the early seasons of Real Housewives of New York will also be on the cast. Vicki was an OG on the Orange County franchise until Bravo “put her on pause” in 2021 due to her increasing salary demands. She’s insufferable, overbearing, and boring.

Alex McCord is also grating. During her stint on RHONY, Alex was a graphic designer and wannabe actress who bragged of wealth but lived with her husband and small children in an unfinished warehouse near the Brooklyn Bridge. Her storylines were mostly about her weird marriage with her seemingly much older, Australian husband, Simon van Kempen, whose wardrobe consisted primarily of bedazzled jeans, Ed Hardy shirts, and Speedos. Simon and Alex were far too comfortable displaying their affection on camera, and Simon easily surpasses Real Housewives of Potomac’s Michael Darby as the creepiest house husband in all of the Real Housewives franchises. I would rather watch paint dry than sit through an Alex-centric episode of anything. Bad decision, Bravo.

The good: Bravo recast former Real Housewives of Atlanta star, Phaedra Parks, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hill alum, Brandi Glanville. Ms. Parks, who starred in Season 3 of RHUGT, is a selfprofessed “lawyer to the stars”2 and introduced us to several life-changing products during her long tenure on RHOA, including a line of stun guns called “Phaedra Sparks,” a series of home workout videos, including my personal favorite: Phine Body: Donkey Booty Extreme, and an entire clothing line with her signature expression: “Fix it, Jesus!”

Better known to some as “Frick” from “Frick and Frack,” Phaedra often describes herself as “no stranger to the courtroom,” referencing what she perceives to be a long and illustrious career as a litigator in Atlanta. Based on my own, independent research, I have been unable to verify the length or luster of her legal career. Aside from briefly representing her fellow cast member, Sheree Whitfield, in a child support matter in which she lost to her pro se adversary, former NFL offensive tackle, Bob Whitfield, Phaedra’s legal resume is sparse. Phaedra did, however, briefly represent Whitney Houston’s ex-husband and New Edition front man, Bobby Brown, during a series of dustups he had with law enforcement in the early 2000s. When asked later about Phaedra’s representation, Mr. Brown famously responded: “I usually wound up going to jail.”3

The quality of her legal skills notwithstanding, Phaedra makes for excellent T.V. She’s a series of hilarious one liners and shady expressions. One of her more popular Phaedra-isms: “A wig does not count as a hat, honey.” She brought her A-game on the last season of RHUGT, and I’m sure Season 4 will be no different. Similarly, Brandi Glanville, a train wreck of a human being, is also coming back. Brandi truly epitomizes “reality T.V. star.” She’s erratic, self-centered, unreasonable, loud, and obnoxious. She drinks too much, she swears too much, and her history with plastic surgery makes Dolly Parton look like a novice. Good work, Bravo, in bringing Brandi back for another season. In other, less important news: my struggles with parentamorphosis—i.e., the natural process of becoming your parents—remain ongoing. After a brief remission in which no cargo pants could be found in our home and I no longer watched reruns of the Lawrence Welk show, I fell into (and remain in) a fairly deep regression, which was caused in large part by our need for a new garage door.

Our old garage door was contractor grade. It was installed when the house was built 22 years ago and was long past its useful life. Rather than approach the buying process like a normal person—which I’m clearly not—I’ve wasted precious days of my life researching things like steel backed vs. vinyl backed, R-values, operator ratings, etc. Needless to say, if this lawyering thing doesn’t work out (and it feels as though that’s the trend), I now have a comfortable future in garage door sales. [My personal favorite is a steel backed door because of its added durability, and I wouldn’t settle for an R-value of less than 9. My current operator recommendation is the LiftMaster 8155-w. It comes standard with WiFi and the belt system is whisper quiet, which (in my experience) keeps you from waking everyone in the house up when you leave at 6:00 a.m. for water aerobics.]

In my third and final bit of news, I rescheduled my dental cleaning to March.

Thank you for your attention, and I apologize for the lost brain mass.

1 I had considered going this path, but according to the History Channel’s website, the only significant historical event on January 10 occurred in 1901 at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas, where a drilling derrick hit a “gusher” of crude oil which flowed at approximately 100,000 barrels a day and took nine days to cap. See https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history (last accessed Jan. 10, 2023). Exhilarating, right?

2

3 See Ny MaGee, Bobby Brown on Phaedra Parks as His Attorney (available at https:// eurweb.com/2017/bobby-brown-reveals-bobby-brown-on-phaedra-parks-as-hisattorney-i-usually-wound-up-going-to-jailhis-history-with-phaedra-parks-going-tojail/) (last accessed Jan. 10, 2023).