AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2008 > December > 16 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USThe Real Housewives of Sandy Springs?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I read this week that “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” reality show is coming back for another season, so I’m developing “The Real Housewives of Sandy Springs” because even I can see the potential gold mine when it’s staring me in the face.
I will cop to the fact I never watched the Atlanta version of the popular Bravo cable network program that followed four Atlanta women and their adventures as they tried to spend a gi-normous amount of money between episodes of shameless social climbing and taking verbal jabs at each other.
I have however, seen the Orange County housewives, and based on promos for their Atlanta sisters it is safe to say that seen one four-pack of trophy wives, seen ‘en all.
Obviously the first order of business for the Sandy Springs version will be to make my show different. I mean how many quartets of rich catty women can we watch before the whole thing starts to appear prurient?
So the first hurdle will be casting. Now I’ve been in Sandy Springs for most of my 52 years, and I know a lot of housewives — young, old, rich, not so rich, married, divorced, straight, gay — you name it and I’ll bet I know someone who fills the bill. So I think that will be the easiest of the to-do’s.
Where I’m stalled out is with the term “reality” series. Because most of the reality shows I see don’t really resemble reality — or at least the life I think most of us live. For example, how do I make the daily traffic jam on Johnson Ferry, that many of our real housewives find themselves sitting in, look visually appealing and provocative? I’m sure I could probably catch one of them flipping another driver off, but that’s pretty tame compared to what happens in Atlanta and Orange County.
Shopping scenes wouldn’t be much better. Atlanta scored all the hot Buckhead shops and the OC version had Rodeo Drive. We have the new Target, three Starbucks and a few antique stores. Not at all shabby, but I think we’re going to lack that aspirational quality. Who’s going to tune in to see BOGO days at the Publix?
And finally there is the tension that exists with the two shows already on the tube. I don’t want to infer that our female Sandy Springsteens are above a good catfight, but I’ve never seen one.
No tension, no drama, no viewers.
Clearly I’m going to need my Christmas break to get this puppy fleshed out before I take it to the Bravo people. But I’m open to ideas.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Jim Osterman
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By Keith Singleton
December 16, 2008 3:46 PM | Link to this
One Ideal would be to capture the reactions of the HouseWives at tennnis matches, Soccer Games and other sports events etc.
By Chuck Williams
December 17, 2008 8:05 AM | Link to this
I think you have hit the nail on the head. What is reality when you have a camera crew that can say cut, do that over, again and again until the reality looks real. Besides, I see many more “Hot” housewives in Sandy Springs that I will put them up against those on Wisteria Lane any day !
By Tom Osterman (yep)
December 18, 2008 11:53 PM | Link to this
You’re overthinking this, Bro! Just find yourself a few cougars, film (Okay, tape!) them around the Galleria, Phipps and/or some McMansion, and you’re good!
And don’t worry about such things as “reality” or “prurience.” As a wise man once said, “Can television go any lower? Let’s find out!”
By Bruce Morrow
December 20, 2008 7:56 AM | Link to this
Jim… Just read your column on “Christmas Tree Lane”. I was just telling my wife and son (who’s 25!) about walking up and down the street looking at all the lights on Colewood Way. We live in Athens now, and I rarely get back to the old neighborhood (Mom died in ‘04 and we sold the house), but I will never forget those chilly nights, the smell of hot chocolate, and the absolute certainty that something magical was going on. I enjoy reading your column every week. I’m glad to hear you are well. Bruce Morrow
By Joann
December 22, 2008 7:30 AM | Link to this
The Atlanta housewives show is a disgrace to the women of Atlanta, who are intelligent,educated and are considered excellent corporate executive material. I watched the show once. It’sad. Zolciak, as it turns out, is no stranger to scandal. As a teenager in Windsor Locks, Conn., she had a high-profile affair with a police sergeant, John MacDougald.
According to the Hartford Courant, Zolciak was “16 or 17” when the romance began and allegedly a witness in a criminal investigation at the time. McDougald, a 25-year veteran of the police department, copped to the affair-but insisted that the relationship started after the case was closed.Not that all the wives live in homes that are even “Cribs”-worthy. Bravo’s claim that Zolciak lives in an “exclusive gated townhouse community” is debatable: Myers Park, the townhouse community in Duluth where she lives, currently has homes on the market in the $300,000 to $500,000 range. (According to property records, Zolciak paid $486,000 for her home in January 2006-though it was assessed at only $371,100 the following year.)
THIS MEANS SHE IS TRASH JUST DECORATED WITH A BOW.
Deshawn Snow, wife of Cleveland Cavaliers captain Eric Snow, lives at the Manor Golf and Country Club, a new subdivision in Alpharetta, Ga. It’s one of those places; it hasn’t gone anywhere They sold a bunch at first, about half. Of the couple hundred [homes] there, 37 are for sale. Many haven’t been lived in; a lot are going into foreclosure. Her husband and her spent 2 million dollars to live in a country club in a swamp! Nothing out there and the banks are taking back the homes left and right and most of the builders have liens on the properties. They can’t even DUMP the foreclosures. Place is a falling knife for wannabees. Place is made up of lots of Neg Am Loans. You can tell when a community has 2006/2007 resales already. Can’t afford it! Figure she is underwater by at least 1 million dollars!
records show a man by the name of Gregory Leakes-troublemaker NeNe Leakes’s hubby is a real-estate entrepreneur known as Gregg-as having been recently evicted from a rental house in Sugarloaf, the upscale Duluth community that Leakes, according to Bravo, calls home.
Public records show the house’s owner to be someone named Shenaz Ali Kajani.
And, speaking of property, two of the wives-Snow and Lisa Wu Hartwell, the wife of NFL linebacker Ed Hartwell and ex-wife of crooner Keith Sweat-have dabbled in real estate, with limited results. According to the Atlanta Multiple Listing Service, Snow’s firm, EDJ Realty, has never sold a home, nor does she have any current listings. Hartwell’s firm, Hartwell and Associates, fares better: they have one sold home (in October), as well as three active listings.(It is possible, Ward cautions, that these firms have represented buyers in deals.)
On one episode, Snow announces the lofty goal of raising $1 million in one evening-something her fellow wives denounce as being unrealistic. Not so, says Lisa Senters, the vice president of sales for Marquis Jet, which offers flight times on the private NetJets fleet, and a fixture in Buckhead’s charity scene.
Snow was publicly humiliated when her party fell far short of her goal-in fact, she raised less money than what it cost her to host the lavish soiree in her home.
THESE “REAL HOUSEWIVES” ARE REALLY FAKE!!!
By Karen
December 22, 2008 7:36 AM | Link to this
The truth about these housewives in Atlanta..is that if you came to Atlanta and asked a group of women in Atlanta [about them], they wouldn’t have any idea who these women are.
Why Snow choose to live out in the middle of nowhere is beyond me. So many nicer country club communities in the are that boast clebs. I guess she wanted to build her dream home, which turned out to be in a nightmare community. I would have gone to a place that boast more of a whose who of Atlanta especially if I wanted to break into society. Her lack of fundraising just shows how outside the bubble she really is.
It will be interesting to see how long and how much she will lose when they try to sell that home. Bad choice made by someone who really has no education just married a jock.