MRSA Is the
New Black

Remember HIV and how people used to be scared of it? Those were the days, running around being terrified of something that might possibly kill you some day in the vague near or not-so-near future. But then, weirdly enough, maybe you'd live. Like for a LONG time. Like Larry Kramer. He's the author of the mind-blowing '70s novel Faggots, a book where all the gays in it are never not engaging in anal sex with about 37 people at once. And in the rare moments when they're not doing that, they're scheming disco-y ways to self-destruct. Anyway, that book and that guy are both amazing. And Kramer more or less invented not-dying-of-AIDS. He also invented AIDS activism, which is why people get to not-die-from-AIDS for much lengthier periods of time now. He even continues to not-die-of-AIDS as we speak. But I'm off track. I should be talking about Jack, the HIV-positive contestant who's been that way for 17 years. He's not dying of AIDS right now, but on this week's episode he gets the new thing that people are totally dying of left and right, the superbug staph, a.k.a. MRSA, which stands for...um...multiple resistance staph...uh...amoebas. Or something. Anyway, it's serious shit, and if you get it, you can die pretty quickly, which freaks me out heartily, I must say. The other crazy thing is that it seems to be everywhere and easy to get. You don't even have to be having gay sex to get it. So I've decided never to leave my house again now. Thanks, Project Runway. You feed my extreme hypochondria the big stylish spoonfuls of panic and paranoia that it needs to keep going. And failing a plastic-bubble existence in my own home, I'm going off to New Mexico to wherever that place is that Julianne Moore ended up at the end of Safe, living in a ceramic yurt that's hosed down with rubbing alcohol on an hourly basis. I'll adapt.

But before we get to Jack's swelling and departure, I have to examine another snippet of the opening credits. This season's really do seem designed to instill disdain and hatred in the viewer, presenting even the nicest, most talented, coolest contestants in the worst imaginable light. Like the shot where Jillian is curtseying like a doofussy 6-year-old while Ricky and one of his most rotten hats walks up behind her. His walk is either his impersonation of John Travolta in the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever or it's his attempt to come off "street," or how he'd teach the girls on America's Next Top Model to walk if only Miss Jay would just go ahead and ask for his opinion already about the way things ought to be done.

The sun rises on Gotham apartments, where Sweet P is busy fiddling with something in a box and Jillian is grooving on a croissandwich of some sort, squeezing a packet of gloopy whatever onto it. Which reminds me of a recent Chick-Fil-A experience. I ordered one of their breakfast sausage-on-a-biscuit things, and the teenage counter girl asked me if I wanted grape jelly with it. She held out the packet of grape jelly for me as I stared blankly back at her; she was all ready to let it drop into my waiting palm like it was going to be the most natural and obvious thing ever to just say yes to that, even though I'd never thought about putting grape jelly on a sausage biscuit before. I paused for maybe two seconds and then did, in fact, say "yes" back to her, because in those two seconds I thought about delicious bacon swimming in deliciouser syrup on a plate of pancakes and also about how I'm already in the habit of piling the fried chicken on top of waffles when I'm at Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles over on Pico here in Los Angeles. And then I pour the syrup right on top of the fried chicken and eat it all at once like that. So the step to grape jelly on a sausage biscuit was really just a lateral one. I hope that's what Jillian just squeezed on her croissandwich, some grape jelly. Everyone should know how nice that tastes.

Cut to Jack holding a wet compress-y thing up to his face and Kevin sort of half-grinning at his misfortune. On interview cam, Jack talks about what he thought was a pimple on the inside of his nose, only it got worse. And now we see his entire top lip swollen up bigger than when Goldie Hawn got collagen pillow lips as a bit in The First Wives' Club. It's pretty intense. The swelling that is, not TheFirst Wives' Club. Or Goldie Hawn. He explains that he's had skin staph infections before and he hopes that's not what this is. Oh, and now he's also actually joking about getting his collagen. So he and I are on the same page.

The next thing we see, all the designers are seated at the runway. Heidi walks out in her best PTA outfit: black-and-white houndstooth skirt, black top. Like a smart field-trip chaperone mom who backs out at the last moment and sends the nanny in her place. Then come the models, a bunch of middle-aged women wearing outfits that are way too big for them. Also gross. Nearly every single one of them is wearing something bland in a stupid buttercup yellow color or some swirly patterned puke-fest. Oh good, it's another round of "design for the 'everyday' woman," like they did last year when Jeffrey made Angela's mom cry. I especially like watching them make the designers try to make stuff for women who are bigger than models, because you get to see them flailing. In the end you also get to see who talks a good game about "making all women feel beautiful" and who really means it. Of course, I also like it when they just flat-out say, "I don't do plus-size," or something equivalently moronic.

It turns out that all the women on stage have lost, in Heidi's words, "a significant amount of weight" and that the shit-ugly outfits they're wearing were their favorites from before they were skinnier. I think this is a lie. I think their favorite outfits were the ones they had six sizes ago that they can finally fit back into now. These tents were just tenty enough to cover them and minimize the shame. The great thing now is that they've all lost between 40 and 160 pounds -- each one of them delivering their pound-lossage announcement in a very host-of-Bronx Beat way. Even better, all of them have these excited looks on their faces, like, "Get the fuck out of my way! I'm going to go have sex!"

The challenge is to create a new outfit from the old, baggy, shapeless, ugly one. Christian, on interview cam, says, AGAIN, "Ohmuhgodumgonnadie." So that one's gaining on "fierce" as his favorite thing to say. But you know what happened to the boy who cried wolf, Christian? He got wolfed in the end. What if Jack decided to rub his MRSA all over you? Where would you be then? Possibly almost gonnadie for real, wouldn't you? And speaking of Jack, why isn't he already running off to the doctor? I'm having actual worried feelings for him. He's nice, and I don't want his face to fall off. He should be calling in the favor and making Christian carry him in a tote bag off to the ER, stat. That's a medical word, by the way,"stat." I don't know what it means. But it's what they say on Grey's Anatomy when they're not all busy calling each other "faggot."

One of the ladies (actually it was probably the producers) has decided to play a cruel trick on whoever Heidi picks for her from the sorting bag of designer names. The woman is wearing her stupid old wedding dress. It's that silvery, shiny, white polyester satin. Lots of beading and plastic-looking lacy bits. And it is, to borrow from last season's glamour mom Laura, a prime example of "serious ugly." It makes me wonder if they sell them at Wal-Mart now. They must, right? Like regular ones and then also some with special pregnancy-bag attachments that you can zipper onto the front?

But seriously, is it because I'm male that I don't understand the appeal of hideous wedding gowns? Why are so many of them so gross? Wouldn't you rather go out and spend several thousand dollars on some awesome dress that you could wear again some day? You think you're gonna pass it down to your daughter? Guilt her into wearing it? Are straight people all that insane? Really? Anyway, Steven gets her. He says it feels like "death on a stick." I say it feels like Steven is doomed. We'll be saying goodbye to him soon.

It's straight off to the workroom then, since they all have their fabric already. Tim Gunn walks in and reads aloud a note left behind by Chris, last week's evacuee. True to form for Chris, the entire note quotes The Wizard of Oz, the whole thing at the end where Dorothy is talking about her dream and how "you were there and you and you." It's a gay cliche, but still a pretty good one, really. They're not all lame. Just most. It all moves Elisa to come hug Tim. He allows this but then pushes her away, saying, "It gets harder. It gets harder," meaning, "Don't everyone get all touchy and huggy with me as this goes on. And please don't spit-mark me, either."

Then Tim brings in the weight-loss ladies to meet with their designers. They have 30 minutes to discuss and measure and whatever. Kevin and Elisa are excited, already talking up their desire to make clothes for "real people." Oh, so now tall skinny model chicks aren't? What does my model pal Elyse have to say about that? I asked her and found out that models have real-world problems too, such as selecting the right nude G-string. Here is her advice. Write it down.

"Calvin Klein nude G-strings are the only nude G-strings. Size large, so they don't dent your flank fat."

Also:

"To make your eyeliner 'wings' symmetrical, paint them from the outside in, not the inside out."

This is EXCLUSIVE, y'all. You're not going to get to hear this sort of insider shit just anywhere, especially not from a person who's already triumphed on reality television herself. Normally you'd have to go to a reality-show fan convention and pay for an autograph to get this kind of thing. I hope you appreciate it.

Christian's woman only likes black. No skin showing, no skirts. Just long-sleeved black tops over jeans. He's upset. But really, he's got the easiest gig. She's the skinniest of the women, she only wants one basic thing. He can tailor the fuck out of it for her, make it severe, and then win the challenge. Did he want the wedding dress instead?

Cut to Steven: "Ummmmm..... All right.... Good deal." This is what a death rattle sounds like. But if he were truly imaginative and truly loved to design clothes for the everyday woman, he'd understand that polyester and acetate is fetish-wear for some people. Yes, burlap is fetish-wear for someone, I know. But he should just get busy making a piece of sexy, crispy lingerie out of it all.

Tim comes back into the workroom to tell them that they have 15 minutes at Mood and 10 bucks to spend while they're there. So everyone gets to buy one button and two inches of Velcro and whatever lint they find on the floor. Not very interesting shopping commences.

Back at the workroom, they have 12 hours to work. But Jack's freaking out. He's all swollen and gets on the horn to his doctor, someone named Bowman or Boman or Boner or Spaceman. It's hard to hear exactly. He says, "I'm 95% sure I have a MRSA [he pronounces it mursa] in my face again." And when he says "again," his voice breaks a little and it sort of gives me a pain in my heart for him. The doctor wants him in immediately. And that means goodbye. He talks to Tim. Then he explains to everyone what's up. They all hug him, and he goes. There's also a lot of crying. In fact, only Ricky and Kevin are not shown wiping away tears. Fucking Ricky. So, OK, people in charge of Project Runway: You let that guy Daniel Franco from season 1 come back to season 2 for no better reason than that he was eliminated first. And that is a way more dumb reason than a near-fatal infection. I say give Jack a season 5 ticket back to being executive-produced by Heidi Klum. It's the least you can do for foisting Work Out on the world.

Oh good, now we're being treated to Ricky moments. He's wearing his woman's jeans inside out for whatever design-y reason there is for that. And he's lifting up his shirt so we can all witness his belly ring.

Of course he has a belly ring.

Why didn't I already ESP that one in my mind? He's exactly the kind of gay to have a belly ring. Just like Daughtry was exactly the kind of American Idol "rocker" to wear a fucking wallet chain. How can we ever get to a place where we feel nostalgia for the 1990s if people refuse to let it go for a while first? The answer: Bob Jackson and Rod Paris are going to have to do the whole thing themselves. Anyway, Ricky is standing in the mirror, modeling the jeans, lifting up the shirt, wearing gold high heels. His own, I hope. He says, on interview cam, that he wants to give her a new outlook on who she is because that's what clothing does to people. So is he saying that his shitty hats and lame body piercings are the prism through which we can view into his soul? Is there a way for the work space to be transferred to Jack's hospital room? And then no one tell Ricky where everyone went off to? Just let him guess?

Shock of the Episode: Chris is back. Tim says it's to keep the competition "high." But if they wanted that, they'd just let Bradley from last season come back. Instead what it means is that they have a contractual obligation for 15 or however many episodes, and if they double-eliminate then it'll fuck everything up. Chris says, "Did you miss me?" and cracks up laughing, which means that he was probably gone for about 12 hours tops, ensconced in some hotel room on Bravo's dime with Marion and Carmen and whatsherface. I wish they had a cam going in that place so we could see those other three being crazily pissed off at Jack for not getting MRSA'd sooner.

They send the weight-loss ladies back in for more fittings. Chris loves this challenge and talks about all the weight he's gained and lost over the years, how it all adds up to about 1,500 pounds. I got nothing but speechlessness on that one.

Sewing sewing sewing blah blah blah work work work etc.

Tim Gunn consultation time: He asks Christian how "fierce" his garment is. Christian says it's pretty fierce. Elisa is making a big mess. Steve is behaving like he's been called on in class without having done the reading. Then he gets sassy and says, "If Nina starts giving me trouble, I swear..."

Oh, big words. You swear what, dude? You gonna sass Nina back? You got it like that? I doubt that you do. Because, truly, so far you've proven yourself to be a maker of nothing interesting in four episodes. And finally you have something wacky to work with and you've already thrown it out the window in favor of a black shift with some white trim, like the housekeeping staff at a fancy hotel. Good luck.

Suddenly we're given a window with which to peer into the private life of one Mr. Tim Gunn. In advising Chris to make his decisions early, before he works all night (they're giving him extra time), Tim announces that he's made more bad decisions at 3 a.m. than he can list. Everyone in the workroom cracks up, and Tim blushes. He swears he didn't mean anything sexy by that. But now I'm having all kinds of middle-of-the-night fantasies about him. And it feels good.

The day is over. Chris stays all night. The designers walk in on elimination day to find him zonked out in Apnea Land. He wakes up, wonders if he even made anything before passing out, realizes that he did, and galumphs off down the hall with the rest of them. I hope, just for his sake, that he doesn't get booted off again. Dude has to represent for all us fats out here. We have reps, and he better not let down "the community."

Then we are treated to what may be the very best thing I've seen this season since the Jack-Christian tote-bag incident: Kit and Christian going "Mmm-hmm" back and forth to each other. Neither looks at the other one; both are just working side by side making increasingly absurd "mmm-hmm" sounds like a tennis match of weirditude. And since they refuse to give us any more of Heidi going "Ha HA!" I'll take it as a reasonable aural substitute. Ringtone time.

Ricky Cries, Part the 17th: His client is happy with her garment, and that makes Ricky weep. I may weep over her burnt-hay hair. Get that lady to TRESsemme, stat! Meanwhile, in a shocking turn of events, Christian believes his own outfit to be one of the best. Then he insults everyone else's pieces. I swear you can never predict what will come out of that boy's mouth. Meanwhile-meanwhile, Steven's in trouble. Kevin helps him, Victorya helps him, they've farmed out a section of the garment to Jack's hospital room, everyone's in a fever to help Steven. But guess what, helpers? You can squeeze a grape jelly packet on a turd, but that don't make it delicious.

Runway show time:

Some guy from the Gap (yawn) is the guest judge. Kors and Nina are here too, of course. And I've decided something about Nina's amazing hair. I believe she wakes every morning, washes it, dries it, puts expensive Bumble & Bumble stuff on it, and then rubs her head with a big orange Hermes balloon. She seriously has the French-est hair of any woman on American TV. It's that Charlotte Gainsbourg hair, the kind that looks like you've just rolled out of bed at 4 p.m. after spending an extra-long lunch cheating on your husband. I announce this to my husband/partner/whatever, and he agrees with me but has to crack on my Charlotte Gainsbourg fixation.

"You'd pay 10 bucks to go see a movie of her having a B.M.," he says.

"When does it open?" I ask him.

"She's no Catherine Deneuve, you know."

"I know. Catherine Deneuve wasn't cool enough to be born to Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg."

"We need to see other people."

But seriously, Charlotte Gainsbourg is the best person in France after Jordi, the rapping baby, and that soccer player who head-butts people. OK, the clothes:

Not Amazing But Not Awful: Sweet P's brown halter dress

Really Good: Jillian's red plunging-neckline dress; Kevin's strapless thing that sexes up his woman in a Real Housewives of Orange County way, and you know that's got to be one of his sex fantasies; Rami's reinterpretation of his episode 1 outfit

Gross: Ricky's cleavage-y peasant blouse and cropped jeans that look like every slutty chick shopping at the Beverly Center on a Saturday afternoon; Chris's seaport hooker Halloween costume; Victorya's dumpy deep-green velvet cocktail dress; Elisa's color-block layers of whatever; Kit's boring pink dress. What's up, Kit? Usually you are so awesome.

Best: Christian's black detailed top

Worst of the Season Maybe: Steven's dour black dress. It looks like he painted a cardboard box black and slapped it on his model. He could have at least added the black funeral mantilla from the Bluefly.com accessories wall.

Safe: Everyone except Steven

Winner: Christian

Out: Steven. No shock. He says, "Just because the judges don't like it doesn't make it awful." Which is true. Being awful is what makes it awful.