I am totally pissed off at myself for getting into the "reality show" thing and am embarrassed about actually - gods help me - voted a few times and knowing various contestants by name. I still am happy not to have gotten into the most egregiously nasty ones or the "watch gross stuff" ones but I don't have a lot of excuses for what I've been watching. It's all Apollo Ohno's fault, mind you.

But I really thought I'd managed this time for sure to say "okay, whatever the new damn realty show is, I'm done. I don't care and you can't make me, nyah, nyah, nyah. I have better things to do, dammit I'm sure I do.

And then I saw it. The upcoming reality show with the icky title "Secret Talents of the Stars" wherein we can guess that like the Holy Roman Empire, these are neither "secret" "talents" nor "stars". But see, here's the thing. I know a couple of these guys. Sort of. And I admire a couple of them. Okay, I used to admire more of them until I learned at least one of them was really vapid and brainfree. That was hard. But one of the contestants on this new venture is George Takei. George has a very special place in my heart. As a former co-chair of a couple Star Trek conventions in my youth, I can tell you that the classiest person we ever dealt with, the guy who went out of his way not only for the fans but also for the folks like the gofers, the volunteers and the door watchers, the schleppers and the dirty-job kids, that guy was George Takei. In one of his visits to "the gofer hole" where my volunteers could hang out, he and I had a real conversation, lo these many many years ago and i still remember it. Because it was rare and because it was a conversation about real life - we talked politics.

That wouldn't be enough for me, not even watching Sulu try to sing would get me to watch this thing, this oh-dear-god talent show, but then there was this.

"Sheila E juggling with The Flying Karamazov Brothers".

The FKB are my guys. They're my boys. I'm a crazy devoted fan and have been for 30 frackin' YEARS. I have seen them preform all oveer the country, on Broadway, i've saved programs for decades and have tapes and memories and oh, they're just the best. Amazing. Funny. Witty and erudite and goofy and oh if you don't know, I am so so sorry.

I don't care what incarnation this is. These are my BOYS on national fuckin' TELEVISION. The amazing talents, the wit, the nothing like them Frackin Karamazov Brothers (ho!) are going to be seen by more people watching this damn show than probably have seen them, total, Broadway, "Jewel of the Nile" and all. I mean JESUS, Howard (excuse me, Ivan) isn't even listed as an active brother on their website so the only original left is Paul, er Dmitri. But it's the FKB.

I mean, I've got the tee shirt!

Oh hecky-pooh.