In Which Aromatherapy Is The Only Thing That Keeps Kaitlyn Going

Nick's Bracelets

by DICK CHENEY

Now that the men and women of Game of Thrones have gone back into their caves to debate who is dead and who is not, my Sundays are completely free to catch up on The Bachelorette. Last night Kaitlyn straight up slept with this guy named Nick in Dublin under the principle of, if I have sex with someone overseas, did it really happen?

He takes most of his romantic lines from Grey

It did end up happening. Kaitlyn is primarily known for being humorous, which is odd because she never tells jokes, really. She laughs a lot and dances when music is on, which when I think about it doesn't make her different from any other human being. She has a tattoo of a bird on her arm, a rather unsightly marking. As she explains the ink, it reminds her that wherever she is, she has a way home.

Kaitlyn makes her actual home somewhere in Arizona, not far from the devilish lair of one George R. R. Martin. Not a single person got laid this season on Game of Thrones except for the Queen of Dragons. Kaitlyn is considerably less threatening. This week her men held a fake funeral for her in Dublin. She lay in the casket giggling as they pronounced limericks about her untimely passing.

This was actually a cute idea in theory. In practice one guy started crying as he remembered his mom's funeral.

It was all a bit macabre, especially with host Chris Harrison whining like a baby about how Kaitlyn was "the worst corpse ever." To spice things up, Nick's main competition got really drunk. Shawn Booth is a personal trainer from Windsor Locks who appears to have muscles above his eyebrows. He got sauced on PBR and moved the party immediately to Kaitlyn's hotel room, where she had previously fucked Nick.

getting drunk and confronting the bachelorette is pretty much heaven for any personal trainer.

Here he told her about his feelings. I don't doubt that young men have feelings; I just don't understand whey they can't repress them, expressing their emotions in open critiques of the new True Detective only. "Rachel McAdams' haircut is the shits" and "I think this is exploiting sexual violence as a replacement for dramatic seriousness."

That's a lot of bracelets, but then against Nick is part Navajo.

Disturbingly, Shawn was expressing his innermost emotions on the same couch where Nick stroked Kaitylin's leg and murmured such malapropisms as, "I want to know every part of you," and "I can't get enough of you." Nick, a software sales executive from Wisconsin, wears a set of bracelets everywhere that he goes. Each indicates an aspect of his interior self.

A man should hold a woman's face during kisses and at all other times.

As Nick and Kaitlyn engaged in their various intimacies, GRRM had the idea of crosscutting their sex with a deep conversation between Shawn and Jared about how much they trusted her. While ostensibly a sexist move, the producers of The Bachelorette softened this attack on their heroine by showing soft images of birds and bees mating. A fountain exploded into the Dublin night to represent Nick and Kaitlyn's simultaneous orgasm.

The only other alternative was to film Nick's cock up close.

The amount of woman-shaming going on by the producers of The Bachelorette is, naturally, in poor taste. Of course Kaitlyn fucked Nick — which of us would not do the same? He has bracelets, bracelets, and when he leans over, he puts his hand against his own head to indicate how fucking casual and sexy and fun this all is. Considering the rest of the candidates for Kaitlyn's affections look like they got out of a clown car, this means a hell of a lot.

The irony is that Nick is the same man who, at the end of the last season of The Bachelorette, asked Andi, why did she have sex with him if she did not care for him to choose himself instead of Josh Murray? No one has ingratiated himself so quickly and shallowly among such stiff competition. Nick deserves to know why these women want him if they do not really want him. The answer is that he smells like cinnamon and Brut.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in an undisclosed location.

Everything in one shot. Damn the cinematography on this show is top notch.
 

"Black Heart" - Carly Rae Jepsen (mp3)

In Which The Game Of Thrones Finale Murders Everyone We Despise

Final Thronesings

by DICK CHENEY 

Game of Thrones
creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff

I try, on occasion, to imagine the kind of person for whom the events of Game of Thrones are deeply personal. I found myself crying the other day during a hot rewatch of a Ronald Reagan speech. He looked so handsome, vibrant and alive that it was hard to believe he was dead less than a decade later.

This is like the Breakfast Club without testicles.

Death comes quicker than we can imagine. I find it entertaining mostly, what a great mystery we make out of death. When I was a kid I had an uncle with an inoperable tumor on his spine. He became very ill with the measles at the same time, and one illness offset the malignant properties of the other. He lived five more years after that.

"Somehow, I have lasted this long," Tyrion says of his surprising survival. That was the first part of the Game of Thrones season finale. The rest was rather oblique references to the man named Jesus of Nazareth. As she pranced to the Red Keep, it seemed quite likely that death was going to come to Cersei Lannister. Death is only meaningful on this show when is it unlikely.

laying the biblical imagery on hard. A Mel Gibson cameo would have made my hands clammy.

As excessively silly as Cersei's walk of shame was, I could have watched this endless sequence all night if I didn't have to hear any more whining from Dany. She knows her dragon doesn't understand English, right? Try Valyerian, anything except crying about how ungrateful she is that the poor thing saved her life. I don't understand how the dragons are going to take back Westeros when they couldn't defeat a few unorganized enemies.

"Do you like my dress? Do you want to go to Chili's? Are you even listening?"

No one really cared that Shireen died except her mother. The girl was always bragging to illiterate people about her natural talent for reading. Myrcella is about the same story. She was dumb enough to kiss a Sand Snake; she did not deserve to live. It's more fun to see dead people brought to life, although the coming resurrection of Kit Harington annoys me to my core.

This was the least sly assassination in history. I hope you get gout.

If I was going to bring someone back from the dead, it would make more sense to accomplish the feat on someone in their prime of life, as opposed to Catelyn Stark, who looked like Kathy Griffin's corpse.

Surviving is generally assumed to be easier than dying and coming back to lfie, but it feels like our dwarf did both. "I missed you," Tyrion says to his friend Varys. You just end up missing everybody. I would bring back Barry Goldwater and the guy in Blind Melon.

I'm sensing they just didn't want to pay Varys for the full season.

There is a good reason we cannot speak to the dead, and that is because we might end up trusting them more than the living.

My wife Lynne told me she thought that the Thrones finale was very sad, actually. When Ned Stark died, she cheered because he was such a casual prick. When his wife went down at the Red Wedding, she did not feel a thing. But even I have to admit: it's a very sad thing for the people left behind, like Jaime and Samwell, to be all alone in the world like orphans.

They really need to use more R&B on this show. "Whatta Man" would have been perfect for this moment.

Arya's first straight-up murder was also a bit depressing. It's nice that she has her revenge and everything, but it felt a bit cruel. I mean, all that fellow did was whip a few girls and kill her fencing master. Every fencing master knows he is pretty much taking his life in his hands when he takes up the profession.

It was very sad to see Jon go, even if we know it isn't really for good. It would have been better writing if we had seen the Watch's point of view: unfortunately, it only seemed like Jon had no choice and they were a bunch of racist pricks. I would be lying if I said a part of me wasn't relieved to end Mr. Snow's practice of talking in that stupid, borish accent about how hard it was to be a bastard.

Stand tall, Stannis. You did absolutely nothing at all wrong.

Things felt eventful last night, but nothing really shocked me or Lynne. Stannis seemed doomed from the moment he left for Winterfell; him reclaiming the North was a narrative cul-de-sac. What excites us even more than random deaths of minor supporting characters would be someone showing a little gumption and intelligence. This person would need to come up with a plan for changing the world.

The masterminds didn't really show up last night. Tyrion was begging to go on a search and rescue mission, Samwell was like, "Jon Boy, I want to be a maester!", Littlefinger was nowhere to be found and Melisandre's face looked like that of her horse. Killing off heroes and heroines demands new ones be found to replace them. I really hope it's not Theon Greyjoy.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.

"Shipboard Cook" - Third Eye Blind (mp3)

"All the Souls" - Third Eye Blind (mp3)

In Which We Wonder Where Grey Worm Was

Hangin' with Myrcella

by DICK CHENEY

It was a hard week, and at the end of a hard week, you just want to kick your balls up in the air, eat some pickled eggs and watch Jon Snow teabag his ginger friend until morning. I have heard it all from people on their deathbeds — once a legit member of Al Qaeda asked his for his mom to sing him to sleep. Once she arrived he killed her with his teeth, the reasons were nuncupatory.

Children murder their parents all the time on Game of Thrones, so it seems only right that it should work the other way around. I know that I spent many grafs explaining how annoying I found Shireen, and how unappealing her greyscale, but even I assumed she would go out with a great deal more dignity. I mean, it was only by the grace of the seven that she even survived this long in the first place. Every day after that was a gift.

Go out with a little class there Shireen. Mance Rayder didn't even whine this much.

I would have thought that D.B. Weiss had the cojones to let us watch Shireen's passing without the dubious cliche of watching her mother watch her dying, but these are the people whose idea of a climactic moment was the Dragon Queen making a cameo in what appeared to be a scene from The Neverending Story. The whole battle in the arena was completely stupid, and Iain Glen looked like an awkward klutz making his way through Mereen's finest.

This guy knows how to keep a low profile. Go back to Age of Adaline and take your shit beard with you.

Worst of all was Tyrion's wretched dialogue to the Queen's late fiance Hizdahr about how eloquent men are something something. He can't bring any better conversation to the table? How about ranking the slaves based on factors like obedience and resemblance to Grey Worm? Tyrion's condemnation of violence also rang a bit hollow. I mean the man was a general who fought at the Battle of Blackwater, and he winces when he sees a few slaves cut each other's heads off?

I couldn't have been less impressed with Drogon's fighting. He inspired no fear at all and cried like my golden retriever Ariana when a few arrows went through what should have been his armor. He called for his mother when he was in pain, earning the nickname that will haunt him all of his dragon years: Shireen II. The only thing worse than the scene itself is having to watch the idiot who plays Daario Naharis act.

what I'm hearing is that sex with anyone is absolutely fine. You are a treasure Ellaria.

In Dorne Jaime was written some cute letters and having really freeing conversations with Ellaria Sand about why incest is not so bad, really. I hope this leads to the long awaited team up between Bronn and the Sand Snakes.

I can't get Tyene in particular out of my mind; she almost makes me forget that the reason Doran Martell is confined to a wheelchair is a horrendous case of gout brought on by a pet scorpion named Rosie.

Drogon buddy, you have shrunk in size and your dodging skills are mediocre at best. Go use your litter box and await my return.

Your pets will always turn on you, especially if your CGI budget was cut by HBO and you are no longer permitted to show more than one scene featuring a direwolf in any given season. Some sets on Thrones look fantastic, but this season has featured less and less of that. King's Landing is now more of a hallway and a dungeon, while the Dragon Queen's palace is only one room. Stannis Baratheon's encampment looked like a couple guys bedding down in Yellowstone before they went climbing the next day.

She's disgusted by gout. It doesn't make her a bad person.

Maybe we should just wrap things up here, make the season finale the series finale. The Queen marries Jon Snow, who is revealed as a secret Targaryen. Jaime finds love with Oberyn Martell's ex and they sire eight to ten more Sand Snakes. Their resulting children enter Kevan Lannister and the High Septon's beds, destroying them with poison and inappropriateness.

Sansa falls in love with Dany's cute assistant and Grey Worm, forming a powerful triumvirate that rules the Iron Islands. Samwell Tarly falls down a particular high set of stairs. Gilly preserves his penis in amber. Tyrion screams "Wheeeee!" as he rides one of the Queen's lesser dragons. He picks up Bran in his dragon Uber and they all decide to become maesters at the Citadel. Arya elopes with Mace Tyrell and they form an acapella troupe. Tommen sucks a dick.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.

Shireen II: an improvement on the first edition in every way

"Regeneration" - Luke Haines (mp3)

"Adventures in Dementia" - Luke Haines (mp3)