Ben and the ladies are in Puerto Rico this week, and they all manage to get sunburnt in about two hours.  Chris Harrison, in a chill island t-shirt, explains the scenario of the week as if none of us has ever watched the show before, or as if the girls are slightly retarded.  I suppose both of these could be true.  All of the girls are to get a date this week—two one-on-ones, and all the rest on a group date.

Nicki gets the first date card, and to everybody’s surprise she is picked up by a helicopter! One day I’d really like the date to be picked up in a yellow taxi or perhaps a pull-cart. Our bachelor got a haircut, and it looks terrible.  Focus groups probably liked the droopy front locks, as those have been kept at full length, but the rest of the hair is cut a bit shorter, resulting in a strange back-to-front downwards slant, like a racy little girl cut.

The two get rained on really hard, which ruins their grand plan for the date.  Nicki doesn’t throw a hissy fit about getting wet, so Ben is absolutely blown away with how flexible and go-with-the-flow she is.  Nicki is so stoked on the date that she says she feels like “God is smiling down on us”.

Ben audibles into a little clothes shopping to get some dry threads.  They try for traditional puerto rican outfits.  Ben buys an all-white linen outfit and a white straw Panama hat.  Nicki thinks he looks “muy muy muy caliente”.  Which is a classic Americanism that doesn’t translate at all to Spanish.  Just saying.

Nicki is decked out in some sarong-type onesie.  They look fantastic (not), and stroll around town before sitting down outside a church to watch a wedding.  This brings up all sorts of interesting conversation about marriage ‘n stuff.  Nicki has been married before, and Ben has proposed before, and they both agree that next time they want it to be perfect.  Ben astutely points out that “Being married is totally different than being engaged”.
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Park City Utah. The girls are given a sweet suite in a big ol’ hotel that threw down a bunch of money to be on the Bachelor.

Rachel gets the first date card, and Kacie B takes it really really hard. She takes solace in the fact that she can catch a glimpse of Ben:

“As much as it sucks to see him come to get somebody else, at least i get to see him for a minute”. Wow now that’s love!

Rachel and Ben ride off in… a helicopter. Nobody saw this one coming. As the girls jealously watch the helicopter fly away, Monica appears to be swigging on a fifth of vodka. It’s likely still morning.

In the helicopter, Rachel has never seen anything as beautiful and stunning as this. It’s so great to be experiencing this with Ben.

They land by a lake and head off with a picnic basket.

After some anemic conversation…

“this is nice”
“this IS nice”.
“peace and quiet”

they kiss.
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I missed the beginning of this episode but apparently Emily and Ben had an extreme Bay Bridge-climbing date, and then a romantic dinner in view of the San Francisco skyline.  She looked pretty fly in a little purple dress, and I think Ben did well to hand her a rose. Naturally, they both can totally see falling in love with one another.

The group date is an utterly absurd fake-snow ski fest down a street in SF.  The girls strip down to bikinis and wiggle down the slope at a healthy 4 mph.  My favorite part is the shots of SF locals—like a long-haired hippie on his front porch checking out the girls, or a little Chinese guy with sunglasses self-consciously peeping at the whole scene.

The next commercial is for the Honda CR-V, which was one of the cars Ben and the girls drove to their date.  Honda certainly paid a pretty penny to have their cars featured in the show, but they may have broken new ground in disgusting subliminal advertising.  In the SF ski segment, Ben uses the term “leap list” at least twice, as in “this has definitely been on my leap list”.  I’ve never before heard the term “leap list”.  I’ve heard of a bucket list, and i’ve heard of leap year.  I thought perhaps Ben was just confused.  But then the Honda commercial comes to a close, and the announcer says “before you take a leap, make your list”.  And it all came together in a really weird way.  Indeed, “leap list” is the tagline of Honda’s newest ad campaign.  Unless somebody can show me where Ben got the term “leap list”—as in proof that it’s an actual term in American jargon—I’m assuming that Honda and ABC told Ben to be sure to use the term “leap list” a few times on that particular day in SF.  GROSS.

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As far as I’m concerned, the more art I sell the better.  It puts some money in my pocket, and it gets my work out there for more eyes to see.  While I’m happy to part with my art, coming up with a price has always been problematic.  Lacking a solid system, I’m often gripped with panic when somebody asks “how much?”.

I sputter for a little while, “Gosh, well, lemme think.  Umm…”  I think about the last painting I sold and how much I sold it for.  I think about how much cash this person has to spare.  I think about how much I like the piece they’re after, how likely they are to buy another piece, and even how happy I am with the idea of this painting being owned by this person.  Not to mention consideration of size, medium, and support.

In my panic I often arrive at a figure that’s much too low, and for the next few hours I think how I should have gotten more, and how much I’m going to miss that darn painting, and how I’ll probably never make a painting that good again.

As of today, thankfully, my pricing problems are a thing of the past.  I proudly present the Gabe Roberts Art Pricing System:

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This week Ben takes the ladies to his hometown of Sonoma. An intimate stroll and dinner in old Sonoma, a play put on by the girls at the community theater, and a tour of Ben’s vineyard all combine for some accelerated connections and some real feelings beginning to develop. Unfortunately, Ben’s weakness for fake breasts takes him down a couple of notches in my eyes. Not that he cares, but I found some of his decisions this week just a little disappointing.

Kacie B. from Tennessee, my early pick for first place, gets the very first date card of the season. The girls fly North to wine country at the start of the episode, and Kacie enjoys a romantic date with Ben in quaint old downtown Sonoma. They stroll through town hand-in-hand like a couple that has been dating for months, have a romantic dinner, some fairly good conversation about Ben’s deceased pa, and then finish up at a movie theater for a private screening of baby videos from both of their childhoods. How this is arranged I’m not sure, and why it’s appropriate on a first date I can’t tell, but they both eat it up. Plenty of footage of Ben’s dad has them both in tears.

Ben and Kasie B. strolling the streets of Sonoma

The connection here is undeniable and incredibly strong for so early in the show. I don’t see how Ben gets away from Kacie—she’s clearly the one for him. The only question is, can Kacie cope with the next dozen weeks of the show as Ben “tries it out” with every other girl? She’s gonna have to be strong. I imagine at one point she’ll come teary-eyed to Ben at a cocktail party and he’s going to say “you’ve got to trust me”. My guess is she holds up OK, and after he convinces her that he never really felt anything for all the other girls, and he didn’t sleep with Courtney on the overnight date, they have plenty more dinners out in Sonoma.

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Ben F.

We begin another season of The Bachelor with Ben F., a charming long-haired wine-maker from California.  Not exactly a dreamboat, but with a little bit of attention from ABC, the hype of being the Bachelor, and plenty of good humor and character, he makes for quite a catch.  And he makes wine for a living in Sonoma and San Francisco.  After watching the first episode, I’ve concluded that Ben is my favorite Bachelor yet.

Host Chris Harrison is back too, and looks exactly the same except for just a little extra spike in the front of his hair.  I’ve no doubt this was a calculated move by ABC.  This guy probably has the most regular hair-cutting schedule of any man alive, and this year they decided to add about a quarter inch to his front tuft.  Oh boy.

Before we meet all 25 of Ben’s female suitors, he and Chris sit down for a little obligatory man-to-man.  Chris of course is very concerned that Ben is really ready for love, that he’s overcome the rejection of Ashley in last season’s Bachelorette, and that he believes this can work.  Ben tells him that he’s already been through the worst.  “We hope” says Chris.  Ben laughs and agrees, saying “let’s hope, yeah.  I can’t imagine it happening again (being rejected)… well, unless somebody else said ‘no’—then I’d be 0 for 2.  And then I probably wouldn’t do this again”

That’s the kind of sarcasm I like.  Comments like this show me that he’s a real guy with real thoughts and we may just be treated to some actual conversation this year.

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