14 Ways To Live Like a Bravo Reality Star, aka a "Bravo-lebrity"

Courtesy of Bravo

Take note: Real Housewives, and other reality stars, cry on cue.

As the song in Cabaret goes, what good is sitting alone in your room? Not when there's a big, wide world out there where you can star in your own imaginary reality show. Shoot, you may already be in one. There are three new reality shows -- CMT's Texas Women, Style channel's Big Rich Texas and Bravo's Most Eligible Dallas (premiering August 15) -- aiming cameras at Dallas and Fort Worth. Look around. The red light is always on somewhere.

If you start acting as if you're on one of these things, or in the cast of any of the Real Housewives franchises (they're my favorites simply for their ironic use of "real" in their titles), your life is bound to get more glamorous. Sooner or later, we're all going to be on reality TV anyway.

What Andy Warhol said about being famous? That was before Flip cams, Facebook and round-the-clock narcissism took hold. To borrow from a Tweet I just read: "In the future, everybody will be unknown for 15 minutes."

Until then, here are some ways to practice being a reality show star:

1. Quit your job.
Reality TV stars don't do real work. Sleep late, go to the gym and shop. For fake career cred "create" a hideous fashion line or put your name on novels you didn't write. But work? Pla-zeeze.

2. If you're a woman over 40, grow your hair extra long.
All Real Housewives have manes as thick and shiny as Trigger's. Stand in front of a mirror for many hours to perfect the haughty reality villainess hair flip. Real Housewife of Beverly Hills Kyle Richards should be your role model. Kyle, by the way, has just announced she's developing a line of hair-care products. Of course she is.

3. Mortgage your house to afford new lips and boobs.
Shoot up your face with pig poison and chemically inflate your lips to the point where you can no longer pronounce words that start with "b," "m" or "p." If you are a man, get an eyelid lift, hair plugs and a yachtsman's hand tan.

4. Live like you're rich, even if you're in bankruptcy.
That's what Real Housewives do coast to coast. Those bill collectors will get their Manolos only out of your cold dead hands.

5. Send your kids to boarding school.
You don't have time for children if you're living in a reality show world. Children merely remind viewers of what your real nose and ugly first husband/wife looked like. Ditch 'em.

6. Cry on cue.
The best cryer in reality TV is former child star Kim Richards, a sad little drunky whose fiancé was murdered by mobsters and whose sister Kyle has a better life and better hair. Just look at Kim and you'll start crying. [See opening image.]

7. Turn off the editor in your head.
Say everything you think, like Ramona Singer on Real Housewives of New York. Narrate your life even when you're alone. (And you're never really alone with a camera crew around, remember.)