rock of love reunion

Well, Bret Michaels chose Jes last week on the season finale of Rock of Love. Now that those old wounds have hopefully healed (thanks to time and a whole lot of penicillin), the ladies gather one last time. Will cooler heads prevail and allow for a calm hour of responsible and thoughtful discussion? If you said yes, then you clearly haven't watched a single episode of Rock of Love. Let the catfights begin and bleeping begin!

Riki Rachtman is hosting. All the girls are in the house, and after recapping every episode, I still don't recognize half of them. Bret comes in, and Riki says Bret is now a bigger star than he ever was. Yes, reality dater trumps rock star. Bret has to agree.

First up is a recap of Barbie twins Kristia and Brandi C. It's a montage of blonde stupidity, and the highlight is when they put their fake boobs together to think better. Wonder Twin powers unite! The pair are now roommates. They designed really crappy dresses, and talk about sleeping in the same bed. I love Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion as much as the next guy, but it's a comedy, not a self help guide on how to live your life.

Rodeo is up next, and we relive her bonding with Bret over their children and his love of her constant sex noises. She pathetically says if it doesn't work out with Jes, she wants a second chance. Rodeo then plugs her organic barbecue sauce. Samantha shows up and blasts Bret because she was looking for a mental connection, not a physical one. Then she goes off on how he slept with Lacey and had three-ways with other girls, and that there's no way she could trust him not to cheat on her. Bret doesn't even bother to try to deny it.

Time for Lacey! First she says at least she didn't do porn (oh snap, Brandi C.), but she admits to doing Bret. The Lacey-Dallas animal rights debate is revisited, and by "debate," I mean "ho showdown." Lacey tries to make amends (what step is that?), and it's a t-shirt that says' Dallas Loves Michael Vick" with her quote about slitting an animal's throat on the back. Dallas ain't having none of that, saying she doesn't date black men. Next, Brandi M. gets to confront Lacey. Lacey thinks Bret was on the show mostly to stay famous, and somehow this devolves into a catfight about who's the bigger slut. Sex with Bret vs. sex on tape. For some idiotic reason, Lacey is given a chance to perform a song with her band. The band is pretty good, but the lead singer is awful.

Mia tells a story about throwing her strawberry daiquiri into Lacey's poorly-maintained vagina. Heather is next, and we get to relive the epic fight about sex in front of Lacey's dad. They bond and hug after Heather says "I don't think you're a whore." Only on Rock of Love could that be the most genuinely nice thing said so far this season.

Then it's time to discuss Heather's tattoo of Bret's name on the back of her neck. Heather unveils her new tattoo, which is the word "Sucks" beneath Bret's name. She quickly says it's a fake, so at least she has a sense of humor about defacing her body. She's very mature about how it didn't work out. Bret goes on about how he still wants to sleep with her, and they're laughing and having a good time.

Rock of Love winner Jes is the final girl to come out. She starts with just a peck on the cheek, which is not a good sign. She's bashing Bret for mistreating Heather. Jes calls the whole show a "mindf***." She's going off on how he made the wrong choice and that Heather was the one for him. Ha!

What better way to end Rock of Love. Jes maintains her total awesomeness by essentially giving up her title as winner, and giving it to the stripper. I love Jes even more now, and wish her the best. That girl has a good head on her beautiful shoulders.
MTV's older and less-cool cousin has somehow managed to survive via extremely creative programming: pop culture homages, nostalgia shows and some of the sleaziest reality TV out there.

The network's latest offering, "Bret Michael's Rock of Love," is sort of like "The Bachelor." Well, if you substituted college degrees, designer fashions and basic human decency with stripper poles, rampant alcohol abuse and really bad weaves.

The premise: The over-the-hill frontman of the '80s hair-metal band Poison is searching for true love. Rather than do the usual, boring thing � i.e. ask friends if they know any single women, join a macramé club for singles, etc. � he decides to look for his soulmate via reality TV programming. He'll open his home to a herd of eligible hotties, then weed them out one-by-one via "rock-appropriate" challenges such as posing for album covers and being grilled by Bret's groupies.

The contestants are typically exotic dancers, party girls and opportunists. Every once in a while, a clueless businesswoman "stumbles" into the contestant pool, where she's baffled by the Jerry Springer-esque sideshow around her. (Hello? It's a reality show on VH1, dear. You're not going to meet Dame Judi Dench.)

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Although this all sounds a bit unsavory, it's also entertaining. Case in point: The "Rock of Love" finale, which aired Sept. 30, was rated the No. 1 show on cable that night.

The reunion show airs tonight. (If "Rock of Love" takes its cue from "Flavor of Love" reunions, the show will likely feature industrial-strength name calling, shoe throwing and the revelation that the "Rock of Love" winner, Jes, has left Bret to pursue an acting/singing career, though they remain "good friends.")

Yes, "Rock of Love" won't win any Emmy awards, although it did have plenty of trophy-worthy moments. Among those:

Best headgear: Unlike some of his hair-band peers, Bret Michaels has aged fairly gracefully. He hasn't required a Vince Neil-variety facelift (as chronicled by VH1) or a Jani Lane-variety bodylift (also chronicled by VH1). However, his omnipresent do-rag raised more speculation than Britney's shaved head. Has he purchased his headgear at the same Hair Club for Rock Stars store where Axl Rose shops?

Least fortunate skin art: Heather, one of the two finalists, was no shrinking violet. A stripper by trade, she was not afraid to "Talk Dirty to Me" � or to sling dirt at anyone else � to gain the upper hand. So confident was she of her chances with the Poison singer that she brazenly had his name tattooed on the back of her neck. Unfortunately, Bret sent her home. Ouch.

The Dina and Michael Lohan Parenting Award: This would almost certainly go to demon-seed contestant Lacey's father and trophy stepmother. In one hilarious scene, Lacey's dad shamelessly informs Bret that if the rocker marries his daughter, he'll insist on a pre-nuptial agreement. Considering that Bret Michaels probably gets royalty dollars every time "Something to Believe In" plays in an elevator in Japan, I don't think Lacey's dad's Ponderosa franchise � or whatever it is � is in danger. The romance, so to speak, is dead.

After winning VH1's reality series "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels," Naperville native Jes Rickleff said Sunday that she is not dating the Poison lead singer.

Due to show rules, the two were forbidden to speak between the taping of the finale about six months ago and the filming of the reunion show, which aired Sunday night.

Still, Rickleff said the monthslong silence speaks volumes.

"If it was for real, and you really wanted to see somebody, you make it work," she said. "Our cell phones aren't tapped.

"There was quite a bit of editing during Sunday's show, and I was a lot (meaner). And that was my whole point of the reunion show: that it wasn't real," she said.

Currently, Rickleff is living in the Chicago area, dating a local man and working in Naperville.

"I have a boyfriend, and I wouldn't give him up for the world, not even a rock star," she said. "And I'm still working like a normal person."

Not all of her life is normal anymore, though. She is currently working with an agent and booking public appearances, promoting a clothing line and designing her own jewelry. Her next area appearance will be Oct. 16 at Level nightclub in Chicago.

Skip the turkey, get a little ham � it all evens out.

Actually, make that a lot of ham: Any of the 20,000 or so concertgoers who might have skipped Thanksgiving dinner to catch David Lee Roth's reunion with long-estranged bandmates Eddie and Alex Van Halen at the Air Canada Centre last night were instead fed incontrovertible truth: that the one place the unrepentantly showboating Roth truly belongs is onstage with Van Halen. Not on the radio, not circling the casino circuit on his iffy solo catalogue, not tending to sucking chest wounds as a paramedic, but onstage fronting the band whose status as one of American hard rock's defining standard bearers has noticeably dwindled in the 22 years since his departure.

This appears obvious to all involved in the reunion endeavour, since there was no evidence of the legendary bad blood between Eddie and Roth displayed in the wide grins and re-emerging onstage camaraderie that lent last night's sold-out ACC gig � another follows on Thursday night � an infectiously joyous spirit that extended beyond the well-oiled long-weekend throng jamming the stands.

All four band members were genuinely beaming throughout the two-hour-plus show, and none more than proud papa Eddie, whose 16-year-old son Wolfgang justified the doting-dad treatment he was repeatedly accorded during the show for his precocious ability to fill ousted original bassist Michael Anthony's shoes. The way Eddie kept looking at his kid � fawning sometimes, encouraging others and often simply awed � was actually kinda touching, and melted much of the cynicism one often can't help but feel towards these big-ticket rock revivals.

What put this one over was the feeling that the band, only a half-dozen dates into the tour, is still getting a grip on not just how much Van Halen fans have been waiting to hear the classic material from its superior first six records with Roth � from 1978's "Runnin' With the Devil," "Jamie's Cryin'" and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" to 1984's indelible "Hot For Teacher," "Panama" and "Jump," there wasn't a lapse of momentum in the set list � but also on how much it's missed playing them to noisy arenas seething with jubilant devotees.

Roth, shorn of his blond mane and decked out like a top-hatted mariachi musician, isn't quite the athletic livewire he was 20 years ago, but his voice and his wit are perfectly intact. Eddie, likewise, still manages to surprise with the kinetic fervour and evolving sonic strangeness of his virtuoso guitar playing. It's a pity, really, that these two parts had to piss away two dodgy decades before finally realizing the value of the sum they'd lost.