BUFFY THE ALLEGED HOMEWRECKER: HEY, DO THEY HAVE ICE DANCE IN HELL?

A couple friends, who admittedly mean well, have cautioned me against going into attack-dog mode so often, believing that what appears here is borne out of bitterness. I'm trying to set a principle not to be over the top for its own sake.

There are other principles which are followed here. Don't judge someone on their parenting when you haven't gone down that road yourself. (If someone does something exceptionally birdbrained, à la Britney Spears or Stupid Joe, then all bets are off.)

Another principle states: Don't write about a Fox Network reality show or figure skating. Never, ever.

Screw it. There are times when some people just deserve your contempt. Today, two-time Canadian Olympic ice dancing medallist Lloyd Eisler and C-list actress Kristy Swanson are near the top the list.

You just don't do what Eisler did to his estanged wife, Marcia O'Brien, leaving her high and dry with not one but two infant sons and running off with his partner on Fox's Skating With Celebrities, Swanson. You might remember her from such high-falutin' fare as Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Program and 8 Heads In A Duffel Bag.

Now Eisler and Buffy The Alleged Homewrecker are expecting a baby sometime around Valentine's Day. Oh, how cute. Never mind that he has a wife back in Kingston, Ont., one Marcia O'Brien, whom with he brought two boys into the world. One of Eisler's sons with O'Brien is about two years old. The other is about eight. As in eight months old.

Do the math. That means Eisler, who started filming the reality show last August, deserted his pregnant wife. Strained marriage or not -- and accounts differ -- that's so wrong on any number of levels. As Ms. O'Brien herself put it in February: "Anyone who would do this to a pregnant woman, I say 'Good riddance.' "

In Eisler's defence, it's hard to understand someone else's affairs of the heart. Also, he isn't the first nor the last male figure skater who, mindful of certain stereotypes about male figiure skaters which rednecks and hipsters alike subscribe to, apparently tends to overcompensate just a tad when it comes to his lady friends.

Still, it appears you can chant, "Liar, liar, sequined outfit on fire." Back in mid-February, Eisler put out a statement that he and Buffy The Alleged Homewrecker "started dating after Lloyd officially separated from his wife."

Au contraire, says O'Brien, who said at that time they were "working on their relationship in early August when he received an offer from Fox" to go on the reality show, whereupon he met Swanson.

So what kind of Meet Cute did Lloyd and Kristy have? Did he maybe get her to cry on his shoulder by asking her how it it feels to be doing a reality show when three of the bit players -- Dave Chappelle, Matthew Perry and Calista Flockhart -- from a movie she once starred in all went on to bigger and better things?

(Digression: The movie in question is called Getting In, and it's more than a sure bet that the only people who ever heard of it also have the Celebrity Nudity Database bookmarked, since the naked derriere of Swanson, or her body double, is on screen for about 2½ seconds. Or so I'm told.)

It's a he-said she-said, but it remains that Eisler walked away from a woman who was expecting his baby. Which leads to the violation of another sworn principle. Don't say that you're going to see someone in hell. After all, it presumes the existence of an afterlife and a just God.

It's just too good to resist. So let it be said that where Lloyd Eisler seems headed, there isn't going to be any ice skating. Unless the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup one of these years.

(Just for the record, the belief here is that the presence of gays among the ranks of male figure skaters is vastly exaggerated. The ones who like girls probably punch above their weight with the women like no one else this side of Scott Baio. Although one doubts that's what Walter Cronkite was thinking any of the times, he said, "And that's the way it is.")

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.