You Know What Ruffles My Feathers?: The Oddly Specific Edition

This may come as a surprise but I actually sympathize with The Gay's struggle for equal marriage. Not so much because I want to marry someone of the same gender, but more-so because I too am in a relationship that Johnny Law refuses to recognize. You see I want to marry a television show. And that television show is MTV's "True Life."

If you've never heard of MTV's "True Life", you might as well just kill yourself because your life has been a sick, sick joke up until now. According to imdb.com, "'True Life' follows three unique persons in their everyday situations, and documents the problems and goals they face." According to Meg McBlogger, "'True Life' is an ocular orgasm that is, and continues to be the only reason I wake up in the morning."

I love "True Life" because no matter what topic they're exploring or what year it was filmed in, it's always vaguely 2001-ish, everyone is slightly white trash and from Florida, and there's just so much...denim. And emotions. I mean, that's what I call real reality television right there. You can keep your Speidi's and your perfectly coiffed "City" cast and your what have you's. I'll take brassy highlights, a pack of Newports and an outfit from Fashion Bug any day of the week.

The only other person I've met who truly understands my obsession with "True Life" is Ex Co-Blogger Chris. When we lived together, I'd estimate a good 65% of our Saturday nights started out with turning on a "True Life" marathon as background noise when we got ready, and ended with the two of us grossly overdressed, eating DiGiorno pizzas we got at the gas station across the street and spooning on the futon in our fifth straight hour of "True Life: I Hate My Face". And you know what? Those nights were fun, drunk and inexpensive. You show me a problem with that and I will show you Gideon Yago's home phone number.

I wish I could say that I love every episode of "True Life", but it's just not so. While I love most episodes—TL: I'm a Southern Bell; TL: I I Have Embarrassing Parents (1 and 2); TL: I'm Driving While Black; TL: I'm in a Polyamorous Relationship; TL: I'm an Urban Cheerleader...I mean why even attempt to make a list? That could be a post in and of itself—there remains one episode that I can't fucking stand. One episode that not matter how many times I sit down and force myself to watch it (and Lord knows I have), I can not make it through the entire episode. So, you know what ruffles my feathers? MTV's "True Life: I Work In the Sex Industry".

TL:IWITSI follows three young people: Aaron, a straight guy who happens to be a gay pornstar; Shawntelle, a college student who has a campus radio show about her sex life; and Rebekah, the office manager of a porn production company. I don't know if MTV cast this episode on a Friday before a 3-day weekend, but all of these plot lines seem insultingly half-assed to me. I mean, Aaron's legit, I have no problem with him, but Shawntelle and Rebekah? Really, MTV? You couldn't find anyone willing to talk to you who was slightly more established in the sex industry than those two? I mean, when I think about people who work in the Sex Industry, prostitutes, doms, strippers and fetishists come to mind. Not sophomores at Cal State Long Beach who want more attention. Are you seriously trying to tell me that the same production company who found three people willing to shoot up heroin on camera couldn't find one measly grad student with a whip, a Craigslist account and an open-mind? Shit, you could have called me and I'd have given you Ex Co-Blogger Eddie's number and saved us all some time and stress.

I reiterate that I have no problem with Aaron's plot line (his uncle disowns him—compelling!) but whatever film crew followed Shawntelle around with a camera for a month straight deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor. Because we all went to college with Shawntelle. Maybe it wasn't that Shawntelle, but it was a Shawntelle. I took Gender in Society my sophomore year of college (because AU is the gayest institution of higher learning in America so it was obviously a Gen Ed,) and my Shawntelle was in that class. I forget her name, but she was the campus newspaper's sex columnist and she raised her hand at least 10 times a class to share a story from her vast library of personal sexcapades.

Our professor—who I hated: Briana Weadock—was all about sharing, so class participation was an obnoxious 15% of our final grade. (She obviously loved Shawntelle.) I, on the other hand, ended up getting an A- in the class that should have been an A, but was bumped down because I never shared. My not sharing had nothing to do with my academic competence in that class. I wrote a damn good paper applying the theory of Docile Bodies to Hedwig's on and off-stage body language in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and it was was like a bukkake film of gender studies buzzwords and meticulously spun bullshit. She loved it. But I ended up getting an A- in the class because I didn't want to share. Oh, I'm sorry; it's 8:30 in the morning. Sorry if I don't want to raise my hand and tell you about the time I french kissed my best friend at field hockey camp. Christ.

Rebeckah infuriates me on so many levels that I have to break it down into numerical points to keep my thoughts straight. This is what the True Life: I Work in the Sex Industry synopsis has to say about Rebekah:

Rebekah loves her job for a company that produces amateur-style X-rated videos. Unfortunately, she fears that guys don't think of her as relationship material because of her career. Tired of being alone, Rebekah sets out to find a man who will love her for who she is. She tries Speed Dating, but all the guys there have the typical response of assuming she's only interested in sex and nothing more. Next, Rebekah attends a porn convention for work and hopes she might find a boyfriend in the industry. Unfortunately, the only cute guys are the gay porn stars. She is able to find a cute new girl to star in her company's movies, which leads to getting her own office. But even with all her success, Rebekah wishes she had someone to share her joy with.

1.) You are on office manager. If "working in the sex industry" is wreaking so much havoc on your personal life, maybe you should stop defining your job as "in the sex industry". Perhaps instead tell a gentleman friend that you're an "office assistant" or an "administrator". Because you "are". The "Did you know I work in the Sex Industry??" card might be more of a third date kind of thing.

2.) You don't even technically work in the sex industry! When I worked for Soap Opera Digest and people asked me what I did, I didn't tell them that I was "in soaps" or "in the entertainment industry." Why? Because they would obviously assume that I was an actress and then we'd have to have an uncomfortable conversation about how I wasn't an actress, I was just a low-level layout artist at the nation's foremost soap opera publication. And that's embarrassing. So instead I'd say, "Oh, I'm a graphic designer." "Oh really, where?" "Ack. It's kind of embarrassing, but Soap Opera Digest." "Ha ha, really? That's so kitschy." "I know, right?" "Yes. We should have sex." "Agreed. "

See? See how that went? And when you're taking pick-up advice from Meg McBlogger, you know you're in trouble.

3.) Do you know what reader @cortmccoy tweeted me today? This image:

A lot of IT departments block this blog because of its "Adult Content." If the blog is written by me and about my life, that means that I am the creator and source of the offensive Adult Content in question. I don't work supporting the Adult Content, I am the Adult Content. Thus I conclude that this means I am more qualified to tell people that I work in the sex industry than you are. (And not that I write a blog about fart jokes and emotions.) Just. Say. Office. Administrator.

4.) The speed-dating scene is so infuriating, I want to stab myself in the eye with freshly sharpened pencils every time I try to watch it. This is an actual conversation that transpires between her and one of her dates:

Date: So what do you do?

Rebekah: I work in porn.

Date: Oh! So you're like...a porn star?

Rebekah: No I'm an office assistant. I don't like, fuck on camera for money or anything.

Date: Oh. [And I swear to god he says this] Normally when I meet people for the first time I try to, like, make a good first impression.

Rebekah: Oh.

Sir, I have no desire to live in the greater Los Angeles area, but I will absolutely date you for more than 10 minutes.

5.) When speed-dating fails, Rebekah decides to throw a party in her apartment and asks her friends to bring single guys to set her up with. Unfortunately, her friends (who all look like they've been dipped by the heels into a Hot Topic...) don't know any single guys, so she ends up getting wasted, locking herself in the bathroom with two guys (who judging by their awkward body language are only casual acquaintances,) cries and refers to herself as "totally doable." I mean, this episode would have made way more sense if it was called, True Life: I'm That Girl.

6.) I hate to be cruel, but don't you think part of the reason why guys don't think you're good relationship material isn't because you "work in the sex industry," but because you look like this:

I know I'm single, but it's my understanding that guys don't want to wake up in the morning and roll over to see a candy-coated rave explosion on the pillow next to them. Unless I've been doing it wrong, which is highly possible.

I'm going to tell you a story. When I was in college, I decided that I wanted to have pink streaks in my hair. I went to the salon where my mom goes in Bethesda and asked them to do it, but they judged the shit out of me instead and refused. Dedicated to the cause, I found a sprite gay man in the city who'd do it for me and once a month for the next six months, we'd get high and experiment with my hair color until one day he disappeared and moved to Barcelona. Now, this story not only accounts for why I had pink streaks in my hair for about a month or so in college, it also explains why I look like a raging meth addict in my passport picture with a glassy eyes and cheap platinum blonde hair.

My point is: look at your life. Look at your choices. Ask yourself if any of it sounds slightly out of place.

Now, I'll be filling merchandise orders at 2 o'clock in the morning for my Adult Content-based blog before I go to my minimum wage retail job in the morning, should you need me.

God bless me, it's Recap Friday!

T.G.I. HAGMAN, YOU GUYS!!!!1

T.G.I. fuckin' Hagman. And this is your first T.G.I. Hagman, isn't it?! God, I'm so excited for you. I remember my first T.G.I. Hagman like it was yesterday. Sit back and get ready for the ride of your life...

As of 2:02pm on January 15, 2010, Larry Hagman is...alive. WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111

And speaking of wins, last night's (double) episode of The Jersey Shore was pretty fuckin' sweet. I'm not gonna lie; I went into things a little skeptically. First of all, MTV: you need to stop doing these late-night double feature picture shows. As much as I love the idea of two new episodes of The Jersey Shore, I physically can not stay awake until midnight on a week night anymore. I just don't have the stamina. I have to be up at 7:30 in the morning, it had been a long day at work, I had just had a few cocktails at dinner, I skipped my morning Benefiber that day...I just think it's a lot to ask of me. Then you have the fact that last night's first episode started with a bunch of Ronnie/Sammi relationship crap that I was in no god given way interested in. I would rather watch two people Papier-mâché a piñata in tense silence for 15 minutes. I'm not being sarcastic when I say that that genuinely sounds more interesting. Plus, I've been a little uncomfortable with how popular The Jersey Shore has become recently. Remember the days when everybody was so offended by it and advertisers were pulling their spots left and right and it felt so wrong it had to be right? Sigh...I miss those days. Now it's all super mainstream, the cast is overexposed, I didn't see AN single commercial for Body Heat cologne last night and 'eh...it just makes me nervous. I just wasn't feelin' it going into last night's episode(s). But, I was happily surprised. Last night's episode(s) reminded me why I fell in love with The Jersey Shore in the first place. It's like The Jersey Shore and I are a couple who've been dating for a few years and stopped having sex and everything's become so routine, but all we needed was a romantic weekend alone in the Poconos to reconnect and rekindle our fiery passion. Well I'm back baby, and I'm sorry I ever doubted this relationship. Now get on that bed...I'm gonna recrap the living shit out of you.

Episode 7: What Happens in the AC

UGH. Vom. Episode 7 opens with a Ronnie and Sammi wrapping up their drama from the end of last week's episode. I'm not going to lie, I kind of zoned out and started plucking my eyebrows at this point, so I'm going to go ahead and skip like 15 minutes into the show after they (obviously) made up and everything was back to normal. Deal? Deal. Tweeze? Tweeze.

The gang goes out the next night to see Pauly D guest spin at a local clerb. It was one of those magical nights where everybody hooked up. (God I miss those nights...) Even the two people in the house who never hook up were hookin' up! AND MOZEL TOV, BABY! Snooki hooked up with an Irish cowboy named Keith (no, but like...for realz) and Vinny was hanging out with Tanya (of Boss Danny's date, fame) for the third time. Which means he matched the longest relationship I've ever had in my life, so a tip of the hat to you, sir. The gang rounds up whatever creatures they've caught in their trawl and head back to the house. Tanya and Vinny start snuggling sweetly in the hammock but are slightly distracted by Mike and his date, Paula, who are fucking ass-to-mouth four feet away from them in the hot tub. Snooki and Cowboy O'Hoolihan join them on the roof and Mike decides there's now too much of an audience and it's time to take Paula to his bedroom. (Ahh, the secluded privacy of night vision cameras.) As Mike leads Paula down the stairs, she slips and 100% faceplants. But don't laugh, you guys, BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN THERE! And it is not funny. One time in Junior year of high school, Talia and I went over to this kid Ryan's house who had a treehouse in his back yard that was like...a miniature version of his actual house with fully working electricity and everything. (It's normal, go with it.) I didn't want to go up in the tree house because, obviously, I was going to fall trying to get back down. I mean, I'm me; it's a given. Giving in to peer pressure as most girls in their Junior year of high school do, I went up. About fifteen minutes later as I descended the recently rained on wooden steps leading down from the treehouse, my J-Crew rubber flip-flops of death gave out underneath me and I went tumbling down the stairs and body-planted on the stone patio. Not only was this highly embarrassing on a level that I'm still not ready to emotionally confront, it was extremely painful. Talia, Ryan and Talia's then boyfriend Greg, however, were craaaaaaacking up while I tried laugh it off and fight back tears. The next day I had to take the ACT's (because of course I did) and I couldn't concentrate on the test because every single muscle in my body felt like it had been hit by a truck and the throbbing pain was all I could think about. From that day on, I vehemently refused to go to any parties at Ryan's house because it was the scene of The Incident. So traumatic. I still remember exactly what I was wearing that day. This incident is on par with the Ziplock bag/Goldfish story in how it still makes me feel really anxious to think about. Christ. Why was I talking about this in the first place? Where am I? What am I doing? Oh, yes! Blog. Recapping.

So everyone bangs out and it's all good and fun until the next morning when Paula's friend Lauren comes a-knockin' on the door. It turns out Paula overslept and missed her first day at work. Lauren proceeds to ream Paula out in a way that was so over dramatic it makes me wonder if they planned it and The Situation deals with the entire...situation...by hiding in the shower until they leave. And speaking of The Situation being kind of a douchebag! Everyone in the house hates him and things are starting to get rull tense. The Situation makes fun of Vinny for being so creepily close to him in proximity last night when he was hooking up in the hot tub, which I think is slightly bizarre considering how he routinely fucks girls in a twin bed seperated from Pauly D's twin bed by a gap the size of a Kit-Kat, but who am I to judge? Then this pithy little dialogue exchange goes down:

Vinny to The Situation: I would never wanna be like you when I'm 27, bro.
The Situation to Vinny: Whatever bro, you have no game.
Vinny to The Situation: That's not what your sister said.

And as per my notes: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHIT! OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT!

The Situation LOLs it off, J-Woww tapes a pair of neon yellow spandex biker shorts from 1994 across her nips and calls it a shirt and they all head out to meet up with (speaking of...) Mike's sister at the clerb.

Ok. There's some drama. Let's break it down:

The Situation/Ronnie/Sammmi: I mean, do you really care? In a nutsthell: The Situation tries to start shit between Ronnie and Sammi but true love conquers all. DONE. Do you mind if we just leave it at that? Ok, good. THNX.

Vinny: Vinny is Flirts McGirts with The Situation's little sister Melissa, not only because he likes her but also because it pisses The Situation off. "The fact that she's Mike's sister makes it so much better...it makes it the funniest thing," he giggles. OH VINNY! Vinny's little plan works wonderfully until TANYA, of Boss Danny's date fame, walks into the club and sees Vinny with Melissa. OH SHIT, YOU GUYS!!!1 Tanya pounces on Vinny in an effort to mark her territory and wordlessly tell Melissa to step the fuck off. Melissa obviously gets all bummed out, which pisses of The Situation even more. To quote The Situation, "I'm pissed off because he's not taking care of my sister." This seems like a slightly odd thing to say. I can understand being pissed because Vinny's leading his sister on, but not because he's not tending to her biblical needs. If Geoff broke up with Becca tomorrow, I don't think I'd go over to his place of work with a baseball bat all, "NOW WHO'S GONNA GET HER OFF, ASSHOLE?!?!?!" In the end, Vinny weighs his options and decides to go home with Melissa because "she's a sure thing." But then again Tanya has a dolphin tattoo on her arm...sooooooo...we're not really talkin' Sophie's Choice here.

Pauly D: Meets a nice Jewish Israeli girl named Danielle. He takes her home and invites her upstairs but she declines saying "we've got to wait for marriage, right?" At this point the camera zooms in on Pauly D's flabbergasted face and MTV inserts an ethnically-charged grunting noise. (God, I wish my job was to put ironic sound bytes in episodes of The Jersey Shore. How do I make that happen?) Despite Danielle's chastity belt, he's still interested because he "likes a challenge."

Unfortunately Pauly D doesn't have much time to chase Danielle around the hoopa, because the next day the gang heads to Atlantic City for the weekend to escape the stress and strife of selling t-shirts on the boardwalk once a week and refilling Valtrex prescriptions. The boys obviously pack an emasculating number of outfit changes with them. "I like my clothes like I like my women: options," The Situation jokes. "You like your women like you like your clothes: dirty!" Vinny jabs back. "I like my men like I like my estranged fathers in Lifetime movies: emotionally unavailable!" Meg adds, bringing the jovial mood to an awkward halt.

That night the gang goes out to dinner and things go from bad to worse. As with all fights on The Jersey Shore, things start out with some good natured ribbing and take a sudden turn for Seriousville fast. Vinny and The Situation give each other shit for a while until Snooki dives in on the fun and tells Mike that nobody in the house likes him and he can go fuck himself, please pass the rolls. "Don't worry honey, you got a couple," The Situation says. And eeeeeeshhhh...Snooki used to have an eating disorder. WAMP, WAMP! Snooki leaves the table crying and old J-Woww runs after to console her while the rest of the table lets Mike know exactly how fucked up that was. Oh J-Woww. This is going to sound heinously offensive and I don't mean it to be, but this scene made me miss Talia a lot. I know that sounds horrible, but I see a girl with a flat stomach, blond hair and giant boobs wiping the tears away from the eyes of a hot little black-haired mess and it's like, shit—how many times has that been us? Everyone has a friend like J-Woww. And god bless the J-Woww's of the world.

Feeling guilty, The Situation apologizes to Snooki, who cautiously accepts. To celebrate, J-Woww changes outfits and I swear to god puts the following on: acid wash jeans with giant frayed holes on the thighs, a large bedazzled belt and a plaid shirt completely unbuttoned, tied directly under her giant, professionally augmented breasts. At this point somewhere in Washington, DC, a blogger laying in her bed wearing Jack Daniel's pajama pants and a wife beater starts a slow clap.

Drama Guide:

Snooki: Falls off a couch and it's kind of funny.

Vinny: Hooks up with a token ho, goes to the bathroom and The Situation pulls a "Robbery Move" (meaning he swoops in and grabs her for himself.) Later, Vinny asks Mike: "HOW DOES MY DICK TASTE BRO?!" and I fell out of my bed laughing. So there's that.

Ronnie/Sammi: Fuck if I know and fuck if I care.

J-Woww: YOWZAHS. Homegirl partakes in one too many libations and has to purge in the bathroom. After she's done, she finds Mike and although she's beastly sorry to interrupt his evening, politely asks if he would be so kind as to squire her back to the room, as she has taken ill and a Lady never leaves an establishment such as this alone. Mike ever-so-rudely declines the offer and goes back to finger banging a complete stranger on the couch where so many complete strangers have been finger banged before. Miffed, J-Woww slaps Mike across the face with her riding glove and is escorted out by security, Mike laughing at her misfortune all the way. Once back at the Inn, The Dutchess Woww regails Master Ronnie and Lady Sweetheart with the tale and decrees: "I shall throw a punch and then retire to bed!" And that's exactly what she does. Mike comes home, she punches him in the face, says "goodnight" and goes to bed.

Thus ends this chapter of Crapsterpeice Theater.

Episode 8: One Shot

Ok, I have a comment. Remember in Real World Seattle when Stephen slapped Irene and it was like the most disturbing thing the world had ever seen since Jesus' crucifixion and the producers stepped in and showed the footage to the rest of the house and Lindsey covered her face and cried and the house had an emotional group meeting about whether or not they felt safe living in the same house as Stephen? Yeah. What a bunch of fuckin' pussies. Ok, moving on!

So the drama from AC is temporarily forgotten and Vinny and Pauly D celebrate by hitting the boardwalk to chase some skirt. They meet a bunch of token ho's who are out cruising for henna tattoos and cartilage piercings (that's not me being an asshole, by the way. That's really what they were up to,) and decide they're worth pursuing. While everyone is walking around and flirting, Pauly D's would-be Israeli girlfriend shows up out of nowhere. He promises if she leaves he'll call her later and she does so. Until she comes back with a homemade "I [Star of David with the Italian flag behind it] Jewish Girls" t-shirt for him. And oh. My. Lolz. I absolutely plan on making a t-shirt that says, "I [Star of David with the Italian flag behind it] The Jersey Shore" as soon as humanly possible. Pauly D tells Danielle to go home again and once again she does. Pauly goes on a ride with a token ho and the second he gets off the ride, guess who's back? Yep. Yentl. She runs up to Pauly and starts kissing and hugging him like he's her boyfriend. To quote Wedding Crashers, "We got a stage 5 clinger on our hands. Hello?? Did you hear me? I said stage 5: virgin!" Pauly D and Vinny call the night a wash and head back to the house where Danielle proceeds to call repeatedly. Pauly begs Vinny to answer the phone and pretend to be The Situation, prompting one of the most hilarious scenes in television history. This show deserves an Emmy based on Vinny's spot-on impression of The Situation alone. Not quite getting the hint, Danielle continues to quack the phone off it's beak all night and it's 3-parts hilarious, 1-part incredibly sad.

Bored out of their minds, The Situation and Pauly D decide to prank Snooki and Vinny by putting gross shit under their beds. They put sliced pickles under Snooki's bed and a stink bomb concotion consisting of "grated cheese, milk, Supreme dressing, pickle juice and mayo" called "Hatorade" under Vinny's bed. I mention this only because there's a beautiful moment when Mike and Pauly have just successfully put the pickles under Snooki's bed and are in the living room giggling at their own genius when Mike breaks the fourth wall, looks directly into the camera and whispers "That was a lot of pickles.......that was a lot of pickles," while slowly nodding his head in self-satisfaction. If someone could figure out how I can get The Situation whispering "That was a lot of pickles" to be my ringtone, I would greatly appreciate it.

The next day Pauly finally decides to take Danielle's call. She chews him out for "playing her" and like a housewife on Oxygen's Snapped, Pauly has had enough and let's Danielle know exactly how much of a psycho she is. And let me tell you, this scene is fucking cinematic magic. Better than Gone With The Wind. My absolute favorite part is when Pauly D shouts: "You stalked my entire life at the boardwalk. I WENT ON ONE RIDE, GOD BLESS ME IT'S SUMMER!!!!" Oh my fucking god. I was dying. Dying! It's gotten to the point where I feel completely guilty watching this show alone because nobody should laugh this hard or this loudly watching reality television alone in their apartment. From now on I won't drink or watch Jersey Shore alone anymore. Both are a symptoms of a larger problem.

That night there's some more The Situation/Ronnie/Sammi love-traingle drama but who gives a flying fuck, so let's move on to the night after that. The gang goes out to the clerb and in desperate need of an HBI, Snooki wears a straight-up corset and hot pants. She seriously looks like someone's Halloween costume, but whatevs. It suits her. Old Danielle stalks Pauly down at the club to let him know how much of a stalker she isn't and bless his summer heart, he loves the challenge and invites her home with him anyway. As the gang heads home, a group of token ho's passes by and re: Snooki's outfit shouts, "Go back to New Jersey or New York with your trampy outfits!" Trying to have Snooki's back, Sammi starts yelling shit back at the girls and out of nowhere an all-out brawl explodes. A few random security people break up the fight and the gang continues to walk home until suddenly one of the random guys from the brawl is back and shouts another insult at the cast. In .2 seconds flat, Ronnie RUNS him down, punches the Christ out of his facehole and skuttles away sideways like a crab while repetedly shouting, "THAT WAS ONE SHOT, BRO! THAT WAS ONE SHOT!"

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't slightly badass. But, this is America and you can't just go around beating the Christ out of people's faceholes and skuttling away like a crab, so the fuzz steps in, puts Ronnie in cuffs and hauls his ass away. Which was kind of a comical image because he was wearing a gay little Ed Hardy t-shirt at the time with giant angel wings on the back. It kind of makes you wonder, what kind of asshole cop arrests an angel?

FIN.

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As per always, thank you so much for reading the blog, have a great weekend, shameless begging to follow us on Twitter, join our Facebook page, forward us to your friends, blah blah shameless, blah. See you back here Monday babies!

Home for the Holidays Blog Competition/Drunk Recrapping

Ahhh Drinking Dame Friday Recrap Friday. Where have you been all my life? So not to be all "How about this weather huh?" but can you believe Christmas is next week? I feel like just yesterday it was June and I was learning all about the intricacies of Boss #1's uterine lining on my first business trip and suddenly it's time to trim the Chrismukkah tree!

Crazy. Time flies when you're...being paid minimum wage. To celebrate the holiday season, we're having a competition! Here's the deal: We want to hear your most awkward holiday memories. They can be funny-awkward or depressing-awkward (most of my memories are both) but they should have that certain 2birds1blog je ne sais quoi. (Read: embarrassing, awkward, unfortunate and/or accidentally racist.) The winner will get their story published on the blog AND a JEMUS MODEL JÄGER TAP contributed by our friends at the all-new jagerstore.com!

That's my personal Jäger Tap. Her name is Heidi and she's a thing of beauty. She's also located about three feet away from the foot of my bed. Soooooo...that's called alcoholism. The deadline to email me your stories is Monday night (oh wah, you have all weekend to work on it. It's currently 1 o'clock in the morning, this needs to be finished in a few hours and I'm drunk as a skunk. Trust me, you can do it.) We'll announce the winner Tuesday and post their entry Wednesday! So what are you waiting for?! Gets-a-writing!

WAIT! I take that back. Don't gets-a-writing yet. Read this recap of Jersey Shore first and then gets-a-writing. Because this week was THE PUNCH HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD and you are not going to want to miss this!!!!1

Jersey Shore: Episode 4

Ok, just kidding. This episode was sort of boring and extremely anti-climactic. MTV decided not to show the footage of Snooki getting punched. WAMP, WAMP. However, I'm drunk and t-minues 30 minutes to pass out so this recap is going to be brief. There, now we're all disappointed. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Picking up where last week left off, Sammi drags her stiellots and slashed t-shirt home to "knock up" J-Woww for leaving the clerb to hook up with Ronnie. Except they didn't hook up. Ronnie just spooned the duck phone and wept gently while J-Woww watched Mama's Family and researched how to start a home day care center. Ronnie explains that he only got creepy on the dance floor because he saw Sammi give The Cop her number and Sammi explains that she only gave The Cop her number because she saw Ronnie get creepy on the dance floor and Ronnie sold his watch to buy Sammi a comb for her hair and Sammi sold her hair to buy Ronnie a chain for his watch and—OH HOW SILLY AND CHARMING! In the end they kiss and makeup and J-Woww skulks off to buy more rayon tops at Fashion Bug.

Ok. Not going to lie. I'm writing this from my mini vacation in New York (I'M SO DEDICATED, RIGHT?!) and at this point a friend of a friend came over with an adorable fluffy dog and my attention span went from dwindling to non-existent. There was an uncomfortable number of shots of J-Woww sitting on a beanbag chair with her skirt around her waist and her legs sprawled open like a trucker (because the dog wasn't distracting enough.) I think she was making up with her boyfriend or calling her local representative to complain about "dem dang koons" or something. More importantly The Situation and Pauly D brought home a couple of chicks who had to leave mid-hookup because one of their moms was "going to freak out." I mention this only because I fell further in love with The Situation when he said, and I quote, "Chill out Freckles McGee."

The next day the guys go tanning because they "need a new coat of paint" and go to the gym. Insert a bunch of scenes of The Situation roundhouse kicking a punching bag and throw in some token pussy talk for good measure and we're pretty much done here. Although my new favorite quote comes from this part when Pauly D says, "Mike would bang a gatorade bottle if it had a pulse at this point." That quote manages to combine three of my favorite things into one eloquent sentence: The Situation, gatorade and low standards. Amen.

The next night the gang heads back to the clerb where according to my notes: "There's a black girl and someone named Barb. That's funny." And it is. The Situation and Pauly D settle on a few Mediocre Marias to take home when en route to the house, they see a convertible with two hotter girls. So they do what any gentlemen would do in that situation and run away from the Mediocre Marias, hop in the convertible and zoom off with the hotter girls. And I'm not even mad. I'm just impressed. But not only did they strand the Marias, they stranded ooooold Snookers at the club, who leaves with Russ aka Ron. And I'm not making that up. His guido nickname is Ron. Like, short for Ronald. And I can't even handle how funny that is. Because the entire point of a guido nickname is to hype yourself up and insert a bunch of unnecessary letters to show how cool you. But he picked Ron?! Nickname Generator be damned, I've decided my Jersey Shore nickname is Pat.

Back on the Adventures of The Situation and Pauly D, our boys come to the sad realization that the Mercedes Girls are kind of the lame when guess who shows up?? The Original Mediocre Marias! The Situation and Pauly D then have to find a way to kick out Mercedes Girls and sneak up the Original Girls without them seeing each other and it's like one big episode of Saved By the Bell where Mario Lopez isn't the only tan person and Snooki is the Screech equivalent.

But our boys problems don't stop there. Quote The Situation, "One of these girls was definitely more cuter than the other." Yyyyyeah...about that: Buzz, your girlfriend—WOOF. Ok, to be fair, this girl wasn't that horrible. I'd describe her as a Plain Jane. Pauly D would describe her as "fucking busted." The Situation would describe her as a "Grenade." What's a grenade, you ask? The Situation explains, "You need to go out with your buddies so if a grenade gets thrown at you, your buddy takes it and not you." And then he cracks up at his own joke for a solid 45 minutes and tells the camera person to stop filming because he has a cramp and just soiled himself.

But Pauly D, ever the good buddy, decides to help The Situation out and entertain The Grenade so his boy can take care of business. Except The Grenade is unhappy. Because she's tired. And the hot tub isn't hot. And she wants water. And the dishes are dirty. But she doesn't feel like cleaning them. And she's tired. And her lips are chapped. And her feet hurt. And she's on her period. And she's bloated. And farty. And she wants to go home. It's at this point that Pauly D takes the suicide pill he keeps with him at all times and strands his boy with the girls. But not to worry, The Situation points across the street and says, "Hey, is that a sale on modest halter tops with built-in bras over there?" The Grenade's eyes light up and she shouts "WHERE?!?!?!" as The Situation runs off with her friend to bang her out quickly, yet efficiently. That is until The Grenade physically comes into the bedroom, tells her friend "you don't want to do this," scoops her up in her big softball playing arms and carries her friend back to Dignity Town while the rest of the factory applauds. And thus concludes this week's Adventures of The Situation and Pauly D. Join us next week when an oil rig explodes outside the hot tub killing The Situation's beloved pet duck, Becky.

Remember Russ aka Ron? Well it turns out he's friends with J-Woww's boyfriend and was sent to the club to keep an eye on J-Woww. Because when you got a woman like that, Lord knows you gotta hold on tight. Ron tells J-Woww's boyfriend that J-Woww was grinding on Paul D at the clerb and homeboy is none too thrilled. But here's what he doesn't get—they were grinding to house music. House music, you guys. Because in the Jersey Shore, you're allowed to grind genitals to ass and call it good, clean, Christian fun if it's to house music. "Honestly, it was just house music," Snooki explains to J-Woww's boyfriend. "It wasn't R&B. Nothing happened." And shockingly, J-Woww's boyfriend is like, "OHHHH! House music. My bad! Go right back to dry humping on the dance floor, baby! Loves you!" This seemed ridiculous to me too until I really thought about it. Because honestly, house music isn't baby-making music. It's fist-pumping, Ketamine-downing music. Would you rather get down to this:


Or this?


Kind of makes sense, right?! (And when the Jersey Shore kids start to make sense, we know the Apocalypse is nigh. 2012 bitchez.)

Snooki's mom comes to visit for the day and she looks like she's of an entirely different race. People probably think she's a nice white woman taking out her Latina litter sister from the Big Brother/Little Sister program for the day. How kind of her. Snooks gets uncomfortably sad when her mom drives all three hours back to New York...because she's oddly close to her mom...and it makes me very uncomfortable. So I'm just going to stop writing about it now. K. Bye.

AND THEN—FACE TIME. The gang goes out for drinks and things are going swell until a bunch of frat guys start stealing their shots from the bar. Snooki starts yelling at them and suddenly—FADE TO BLACK. The episode ends with the guy who punched her being led away in handcuffs while he shouts, "I just pushed her face!!!!" Yes, sir. You just pushed her face. With your hand. Which was balled up into a fist. And had a lot of momentum behind it. Which in some circles is considered a "punch." Time to knock a bitch up. And Jesus Crush I can't wait for the next episode.

FIN. Have a great weekend and don't forget to send your stories to meg@2birds1blog.com by Monday night! Kissesssssss!

You're doing a fine job, MTV

This past week was utter hell for me. Not only were Boss #1, Boss #2 and Russell the Homophobic Co-Worker in the office all day every day, we also had a team of five creepy old men from corporate here to oversee "Blitz Week." And apparently a large part of overseeing Blitz Week is critiquing my coffee making abilities and rubbing my shoulders a wee bit too much to be called Christian. I should have known this was going to be a shitty week. Any week named after a Nazi war strategy can't be good. Fingers crossed Anschluss Week goes a little bit better next month. Anyway, as I rode the metro home last night feeling adequately molested and wiped-out, I had the most glorious realization—it's Thursday night; Jersey Shore is on! Life is worth living after all! I think Jersey Shore is my absolute favorite show on television right now. MTV hasn't done this good since Carmen: A Hip-Hopera and god bless them for enriching our lives once more. And people need to realize this! We, as a people and a nation, need to go to the Hallmark store, get a novelty over sized thank you card, sign our names with a nice note and send it to MTV for giving this gift to us. But according to this Gawker article, not everyone agrees with me. Apparently Jersey Shore is getting served a giant pint-glass full of ice, cold haterade and I for one do not like it:

"Even before the show even started Italian-America groups were up in arms about it, and after the premiere, Dominos pizza pulled its advertising as did American Family Insurance."

To which I say, fine! Good riddance! That just means more Body Heat cologne commercials for us! I don't understand why Italian-American groups have their proverbial panties in such a twist. I feel like the average person is well aware that this isn't an accurate representation of all Italian-Americans. It is, however, an accurate representation of all Guidos. And I'm pretty sure Guidos are just fine with that. It's in the nature of the Guido to want attention, so really Jersey Shore is just helping a bro out. I don't think there's a Guidos for Accurate Portrayal in the Media (GAPM) group somewhere on K street lobbying to get Jersey Shore kicked off the air for perpetuating Guido stereotypes. So cool out Italian-Americans. We get that you guys aren't interchangeable.

Too bad MTV's problems don't stop there. According to Gawker:

"Then, a clip of our number one girl Snooki getting punched in the face taken from a promo of upcoming episodes made its way around the internet, pissing off a bunch of people, including our friends at Jezebel...To diffuse the Snooki bomb...the show will air an anti-violence PSA after next week's episode that includes the pun that says, "Violence against women in any form is a crime," and pointing viewers in abusive relationships to the National Teen Dating Abuse Hotline.

Oh, Christ on a canoli. Come on! People aren't laughing at that video because violence against women is funny; people are laughing at that video because Guidos are funny. Fact: Guidos sometimes hit their womens. (I'm sorry, but it's true.) And that, much like the rest of their ass-backwards, batshit crazy culture, deserves to be mocked relentlessly. You see, we're laughing at them, not with them them. There's a difference. You can't blame MTV for the fact that Guidos are a group of juiced-up, old-school meatheads. They were slamming protein shakes and slapping bitches in the face long before MTV came a-knockin' on their door. MTV just put it on network television for us all to laugh at and tear down. And that's a good thing. When I saw that video, I had two options: a.) feel overwhelmingly sad that Snooki got socked in the face because that is indeed disturbing and upsetting or b.) laugh at Gudio meatheads for how absurdly unacceptable they are. I chose B. Why? Because I can't just sit around crying all day about the injustices of the world, I'm sorry, I just can't. There are 24 hours in the day and I already spend too much of those crying for reasons related to my own life, thank you very much.

But wait, there's more! MTV also has to deal with people peeing their pants about whether or not the term Guido is derogatory. Which is a hard issue, as there really is no right or wrong answer. I struggled with this myself when I wrote a post about Guidos last year and it was the overwhelming opinion of the 2birds1blog community that Guido is not a derogatory term. That obviously made it gospel in my book, so I recommend the rest of the world follow suite and get over it. Therefore, there was really no need for MTV's programming President, Tony DiSanto to release this statement:

"I understand that it is considered a derogatory term by certain people. I don't see it that way, since I don't think of "guido" to mean Italian Americans across the board. Not all these kids are fully Italian American; it's more about a specific character type. We actually did pull the word "guidos" from voiceover and descriptions of the show [due to the protests]. However, if they refer to themselves that way, we let that exist as is."

Don't do that, Tony. Don't give in to the overly sensitive bullies of the world. As your subjects themselves would say, they're just mad haters, yo. If a Guido gets punked of on the dancefloor, do you think he skulks off into the bathroom to change his tampon and cry? Fuck no. He vas's up those lips, rips off his Ed Hardy shirt and fist pumps like it's his cousin Tony's confirmation party all over again! So keep doing exactly what you've been doing, Mr. DiSanto. You're doing a fine job.

And now, it is my privilege and honor to PROUDLY present Jersey Shore: Episode 3:

Our episode begins with the cast rolling out of bed after a long, hard night at the clerb. J-Woww pulls the old "oh my gawd...what did I do last night? LOL I don't remember a thing, haha lolzy lolzy LOL!" card. Which is hilarious because we all know that despite having a boyfriend, she publicly jerked off Pauly D in the back of a club because who can make it the two blocks home to your bed when the Patron is flowing and the She-Wolf remix is thumping? Pauly D gently informs J-Woww of this and she denies, denies, denies until her little hair extensions fall out. Pauly D understands why she's doing this though. Quote, "She just doesn't want to feel like a trash bag because she has a boyfriend and she kissed me with her tongue." (No seriously. Thank you, MTV.) There's also some lingering tension between The Situation and Sammi but I'm going to skip that entirely because I'd rather talk about Snooki and pickles. You see kids, Old Snookers likes her pickles. They're her favorite food. She also likes to eat them in a certain way. That way being to put on her "porn star in training" trucker hat, get on her hands and knees like the dirty girl she is and suck the brine right off them in front of every single male roommate in the house. Which is odd because that's exactly how I eat my favorite food, Kashi Go-Lean. So, you know, jinx!

But let's go back to old J-Woww. First and foremost, this episode was hard to recap because it was very J-Woww oriented and I can't understand a god damn thing that girl says. I think it's a combination of the Jersey accent and the being too tan to enunciate and the sounding like she just swallowed a set of janitor's keys and I just have no idea what she's talking about. I did decipher that her boyfriend decides to visit for the weekend and eeesh is she nervous. She can't decide whether or not she should tell her him about that whole pesky Pauly D hand job in the club thing or hope he's busy in a cave somewhere sticking his fingers in his ears screaming "LALALALALALA" at the top of his lungs when this episode airs. She chooses the latter. Wise decision.

And speaking of boyfriends! Angelina's is having some mAj0R dRamZ with her boyfriend, Mike. You see, Angelina and Mike have been having some serious communication issues since Angelina's moving to the Jersey Shore. "I dunno what the hell he's doing and he doesn't know what the hell I'm doing!" she explains. I mean, there's always the duck phone, cell phones, Twitter, Facebook, Loopt, the US Postal Service and carrier pigeons to keep two people in touch, but where's the fun in that? Mike finally agrees to meet Angelina and her friends Lana and Leena (I swear to god) at the club where we learn that Mike is technically married and in the middle of a divorce. Because nothing says "catch!" like a Guido accountant from Long Island going through a messy divorce. As the rest of the housemates giggle and gossip about what Bad News Bears Mike is, the camera pans to our Golden Couple just in time to capture their sudden break up. Apparently Mike wants Angelina to stop fucking calling him and Angelina was done like two weeks ago, dude. Who says absence makes the heart grow fonder?

Unfortunately, things aren't going much better for old J-Weez. In an incredibly tense and awkward night vision scene, J-Weez decides to test the waters and see exactly how miffed her boyfriend would be if she, oh I don't know, jayed-off a stranger on national television for the whole world to see. His answer? I'd dump you. Oh. Well good then! Thank god this was all just hypothetical! NIGHT!

The next morning, Angelina isn't feeling too hot. She's still a bit distraught over that whole breaking-up-with-my-married-boyfriend thing and decides she can't be taxed with the stresses of selling novelty t-shirts that day. She shows up to her shift an hour late, walks up to Samson the manager and is all, "Cough. Cough. I am very sick today. I can not work. A-choo and whatnot. So, talk to you later. Cough or whatever." When Samson calls her on her bullshit, she basically tells him to sit on it and heads home to iron her denim skirts.

Guess who's not happy about this? Yep, Boss Danny. Danny rides up to the house on his jaunty little bicycle with his distressed jeans and flying monkeys and is ready to kick ass and rip titties. I'm not going to lie, I am rull attracted to Danny. His whole take-no-shit attitude and Guido-lite vibe makes me want to quit my job and move to the shore to sell t-shirts and booty shorts 'til death do us part. Angelina, however, refuses to talk to Danny unless he comes into the bathroom where she's locked herself, which Danny obviously refuses to do because he's a big, strong man who's not going to take shit from anyone and I just want to rub him down with olive oil like the Roman God he is and watch him glisten in the Jersey sun...What was I just talking about? Ah, yes. Angelina. Danny tells her that if she's not going to come to work, she can't live in the house anymore and she has to leave. Angelina's reaction: "Blokay. Bye!" So she packs up her trash bags, grabs her curling iron and leaves the show. The end.

...Umm...Is anybody else as completely impressed by Angelina's dedication to not sell t-shirts as I am? I mean, I know I'm supposed to think she's a stupid brat and everything, but I'm honestly just impressed. Anybody else would have gone crawling back to Danny once they cooled down, but Angelina really stuck to her guns. I honestly started a slow clap in my apartment. Alone.

Meanwhile, the rest of the house have a big family dinner to celebrate the fact that ding-dong the witch is dead. "Angelina was like a half-assed firecracker," The Situation explains, "She fizzled real quick and made a lot of noise." HI-OHHHHHHHHH! Man, they really hated her. There's literally a montage of Angelina is an Asshole clips that's played while they all bond over what a fucking cuntbag she was. Glorious. After dinner, J-Weez decides to call her boyfriend and confess that she cheated on him with Pauly D. Homeboy promptly tips his hat, wishes her well and hangs up on her. I think J-Woww was upset by this. I think. She mumbles something in her confessional about nuns and Suzy Homemaker and breaks into Arabic at one point...but I think the moral of the story is she's sad, but if she has to be single, she's going to show her true side show—her "dirty, filthy fucking true side." Soooo...HPV: coming to a shore near you.

OK, I'm not going to lie: at this point I had had my teeth whitening trays in for 15 minutes longer than I should have because ever since everyone pulled their commercials, the breaks during Jersey Shore are like 45 seconds long and I didn't want to miss anything good. But at the same time, I really didn't want to die of fluoride poisoning because I was scared to miss something on Jersey Shore, so it was here that I decided to run to the bathroom and brush my teeth. When I came back, the show had already come back and Snooki was grinding on the dancefloor with a Guido Olsen Twin while shouting, "I GOT A FUCKING HOT TUB! COME BACK TO MY HOUSE WITH ME!" God damn you, Aquafresh whitening trays! Either way, the chick comes back to the house with Snookers and they make out HARDCORE in the tub "cuz guys like that." Then Snooks makes out HARDCORE with The Situation! How does The Situation feeling about Snooki? "If one thing leads to another, I'm not going to tell her to get off." Ahhh...young love. And speaking of young love, Sammi and Ronnie are totes still going strong. They go on mini-golf date and bang in the guest room. *Hugs!* In his confessional, Ronnie says, "I always said don't shit where you sleep, but for her, I'd roll around in it." According to my notes, "that's the most adorable thing I've ever heard!!!" Which makes me think I should re-evaluate adorable things I've heard.

Unfortunately, things don't stay peaceful in Ronnie/Sammi Lovey-Dovey Town for long. The next night the gang heads to Club Karma where Ronnie gets called onto the dancefloor to demonstrate his signature "creepy dance move," which sort of look like a cross between crypt-walking and having a seizure. While Ronnie seizes it up on the dancefloor, Sammi starts talking to her friend "The Cop." (I have no idea if he's actually a cop or if that's just his Guido nickname, sorry.) All of a sudden, Sammi looks over and sees Ronnie dancing with a Token Ho. To be fair, Ronnie was actually dancing with a whole pack of people and a Token Ho just happened to be among them. Sammi freaks out and retaliates by shoving her vulva into The Cop's hands, which upon seeing, J-Weeze tells Ronnie about. Distraught, Ronnie storms out of the club and goes home to cry into his pillow, listen to Dashboard Confessional and cut. Because she's suuuuuuuuchhhh a good friend, J-Weeze also leaves the club and rushes back to the house to comfort Ronnie in his hour of need. Wires get crossed and it gets back to Sammi that J-Weeze and Ronnie left the club together, IN A SEXY KIND OF WAY. Sammi is having none of it and says she's gonna go home and "knock a bitch up." Which I'm not sure is exactly what she meant because Lord knows when I see a girl moving in on my man I'm not like, "GOD DAMNIT! I'M GOING TO ENSEMINATE THAT BROAD GOOD!" But then again, it's the Jersey Shore; aNytHiNg GoEs!!!1

Fin. Have a super weekend guys and we'll see you back here Monday morning! <3