Rock of Love Girls: Where Are They Now? (VH1) — At the free clinic, I presume.

Bret Michaels: Life as I Know It (VH1) — Series premiere. Now that Bret Michaels is on the doorstep of death, he’s rededicated his life to raising his daughters, lest they grow up to be contestants on shows where tattooed sluts vie for a famous man’s affection.

Chuck (NBC) — It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned “Chuck.” I know that this show has a lot of fans, but it just doesn’t work for me. I always feel like the action scenes are choreographed by a 12-year-old.

Hawaii Five-0 (CBS) — Masi Oka of “Heroes” guest stars. If you’re an Asian actor and you haven’t landed a role on “Hawaii Five-0″ yet, fire your agent.

American League Championship Series (TBS) — Game 3. This is a tough one to stomach as a Mariners fan. I hate the Rangers far more than any other division rival, but I hate the Yankees more than anything on the planet. I mean anything. War and cancer and genital mutilation are all preferable to the Yankees.

Castle (ABC) — My favorite police procedural. I haven’t watched any episodes this season, but I plan on changing that tonight.

Reality TV star Bret Michaels suffered a major brain hemorrhage late last week and remains in the intensive care unit of an undisclosed hospital. Earlier this month, Michaels’s appendectomy was complicated by his diabetes, and his history of head trauma includes an attack from a descending set piece at last year’s Tony Awards.

According to a note posted on the singer’s Web site and Facebook page on Monday morning (April 26), the 47-year-old rocker “remains in ICU under 24-hour surveillance. Further testing this week will help locate the source of the bleeding.” The singer is reportedly suffering from slurred speech, blurred vision and dizziness as a result of the hemorrhage. Michaels was rushed to the hospital late Thursday evening, where doctors discovered he had suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage, or bleeding at the base of his brain stem…

“After several CAT scans, MRIs and an angiogram, [doctors] decided to keep Michaels in the ICU and are running several tests to determine the cause [of the hemorrhage],” a source told People magazine, in a report that Michaels’ rep said was accurate. “[It] will be touch and go for the next few days while he is under intense observation.” [MTV]

You can read more details about Michaels’s condition here, and there’s a possibility that the bleeding comes from a condition known as AVM, which the character Nate from “Six Feet Under” suffered from (AVM has also appeared on “House” and “HawthoRNe” — thanks, Wikipedia!). I’m not a doctor, but… bleeding in the brain is bad, right? It seems like it would be bad.

After years of creating self-sustaining reality garbage powered by tattoos and venereal disease, VH1 is wiping the slate clean and producing 44 new shows this year — and supposedly, none of them will be about Bret Michaels, Flavor Flav, or the whores who got shows by competing for their love.

While VH1 hasn’t fallen out of love with irreverence, it’s also no longer in the business of getting Bret Michaels laid. Instead, the Viacom net is prepping a slate of unscripted series designed to more faithfully reflect the concerns of its core demographic. “As much as they’ve enjoyed the ‘Love’ franchise, our audience was getting a little fatigued by all those manufactured reality shows,” said Tom Calderone, president, VH1. “They want more authenticity in their reality, which isn’t to say that it can’t be comedic and light.”

I dunno, Tom. I’d say the grisly murder that happened at the hands of one of your reality show contestants was pretty authentic. Not very comedic, though. Read the rest of this entry »

It was just four days ago that we lived and re-lived and re-lived some more the majesty of watching “Rock of Love” star Bret Michaels get dropped by a descending set piece at the Tony Awards.  Since then, someone involved with the Tonys released a statement saying that Michaels “missed his mark,” leading Michaels’s publicist to fire back that Michaels had never been informed that there would be marauding backdrops targeting his face.  Pretty dull stuff, so I didn’t cover it.

Now Michaels has posted these pictures on his MySpace page, and my first reaction to these images was “Wow, I had no idea that someone besides teenagers and pedophiles used MySpace.”  Unless… Bret Michaels is a pedophile???? Nah, those girls are too young to have breast implants.  And tattoos.  And herpes.

Some people claim that the weekend’s biggest season finale was “Friday Night Lights,” to which I say: No F’n Way.  “Rock of Love Bus,” bitch.  Bret Michaels was faced with a harrowing decision: should he choose to nail sexy girl-next-door Mindy or Penthouse Pet Taya?  You can find out by watching the entire final episode here, but I’ll give away one little spoiler: someone’s going to the VD clinic.

The landscape of reality TV will be sadder without the presence of Bret Michaels.  Here’s an actual line he says in the clip above: “If you two are going to have a catfight, I’ve brought a lot of butter, and I’d like you to rub it on your breasts.”  He delivers tongue-and-cheek-but-actually-kinda-serious lines like this every time he appears onscreen, and my life is richer for it.  Like, in one scene he’ll talk about how important it is for him to make a deep emotional connection, then the next scene he explains to the girls that this is a very serious bikini tequila party.