You have to give it up for Poison frontman Bret Michaels. The guy is 45 years old, and still rocks the “mandana” and eyeliner with devotion. Forgiving the fact that its airbrushed cover totally makes him look like a chick, the DVD release of the first season of Rock of Love — his VH-1 dating show, in which 25 well-toned ex-strippers, damaged little girls, would-be actresses, current strippers, rocker chicks and functional alcoholics… err, I mean, lovely young ladies do battle for an all-access pass to the rocker’s heart — makes for deliciously trashy and engrossing entertainment.



Rock of Love partially takes its cue from Public Enemy hype-man Flavor Flav’s Flavor of Love, in which trainwreck entertainment is seemingly as much the goal as the star/host’s ultimate happiness. That means a Bel-Air mansion, a burly bodyguard (in this case, Michaels’ pal “Big John”) who doubles as a message deliverer to the girls, some goofy competitions, lots of free alcohol and plenty of attendant drama from said free alcohol. Along the way, as the group is “split between the slutty, outgoing girls and the bitchy, introverted girls,” as one lass shrewdly observes (proudly identifying herself as being part of the former cabal), the expected name-calling, screeching and quasi-physical confrontations ensue, with “clown tits,” “your meth-scratched face” and “waste of sperm and egg” ranking as some of the choicest insults. Hearteningly, though, there is a (platonic?) love connection between two of the show’s dimmer-bulb blondes, who become fast friends (“If we put our boobs together, we can think better!”) and seem to care more (much more) about each other’s feelings than any potential attraction thrown their way by Michaels.

There are a couple other notable differences and upgrades, though, that make Rock of Love surprisingly, almost shamefully compelling when stacked up against other celeb-dating shows. First, compared to Flavor Flav, Michaels is — how to put this? — a more eloquent and forthcoming articulator of his own feelings and desires. He may not be the brightest guy in the world and his air-quote concerns may be myopic or not of the average man, but he still comes across as a pretty straight shooter. That may seem like small potatoes, but having at least a somewhat sincere emotional guide through the otherwise orchestrated maelstrom that is women competing for attention and camera time is important. The show also allows for a few surprising glimpses of vulnerability, since Michaels is an insulin-dependent diabetic. Of course, it’s still telling that during the second of the show’s 13 episodes, Michaels makes the ladies simulate phone sex with him. (Personally knowing one of the lawyers who helped draft the series’ sexual harassment waiver language makes this all the more hilarious.)

Winnowed to three, the final contestants consist of Las Vegas dancer Heather (hopelessly buried in the back in the above photo), absolutely unhinged rocker chick Lacey (the Kool-Aid redhead in the middle, to the left of Michaels) and pink-and-blonde-haired Jes (front, right), who seems to be the most normal and have the least agenda of the trio. (That she’s the only one now without her own eponymous web site may also say something.) Michaels’ inherent instincts for poor choices run up against a seemingly sincere desire for settled-down normalcy, but given that the series just completed its second season run on VH-1, is it any wonder or shock that the five-week-long Rock of Love didn’t result in blessed nuptials? Hosted by Riki Rachtman, the reunion show included here is baffling and incongruous with much of what precedes it, only because it was never made clear that immediately after the show, Michaels and his chosen gal would be separated for six months. Hmmm… strange.

Spread out over three discs in three slimline cases, the first season of Rock of Love is presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with a simple stereo audio track, and comes attractively packaged in a master cardboard slipcover, with Michaels’ huge, mandana-covered grille looming over a pair of woman’s legs. Supplemental extras consist of a five-minute “super-trailer”/promo reel for the series, a four-and-a-half-minute music video for “Get It On” (a song written by Michaels and credited to “Bret & the Booze Bunnies”), and a five-minute-plus sing-along of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” during which Michaels reveals he penned the Poison chart-topper in a Dallas laundromat after calling home and hearing a guy in the background with his then-girlfriend.

There are also three deleted scenes, all of which are sort of perversely fascinating. The first is a four-minute drunken food fight; the second is a three-minute segment in which Lacey antagonizes other girls by dancing around naked and shouting that fur is murder (they retaliate by tossing a slab of raw meat at her when she’s in the shower). What’s interesting here, though, is that the sequence shows Heather egging Lacey on, and being much more of an instigator than previously shown. The third clip is a six-and-a-half-minute reel of unbleeped phone sex chat between Michaels and the girls. As they take turns sharing the line, talking dirty and writhing about on a couch, Michaels’ disembodied head creepily floats in the corner of the screen, while he purrs strange things like, “What kind of animal would you spank me like?” (What?!) Even though that makes the series sound sketchy and lascivious (and don’t get me wrong, it is), Rock of Love manages to make an impression because Michaels is at least always honest and sincere about what’s going on his head, and how difficult it is to manage some of the mutually exclusive impulses he feels. A rock star with a brain? Well… yeah, sort of. Who knew? To purchase the set via Amazon, click here. A- (Series) B+ (Disc)