Who doesn't want a little Snooki now and then?

“Nick Wallander, why haven’t you blogged about anything worthwhile in the past month or so?” – one of my adoring fans.

Wow, looks like somebody needed to hear some thought provoking comments from a cynical asshole really badly.  I hope they really wanted this.  As Eminem would say, “be careful what you wish for…”

Okay, so let’s point out that nobody ever requested that I get back to blogging.   I just made that up to hook you all in and make you believe I have a solid fan base.  In reality, only about seven people have ever bothered to read my blog.   And of those seven, most of them just look at the pictures or links I attach.  Nobody really wants to read anymore.  That is why Youtube was invented.  Then people can post videos where they bitch about the world rather than write about it.  Oh, and they can do so while half naked, so it isn’t anything to complain about.

The summer is winding down.  It was a fantastic summer, wasn’t it?  From the sound of it, you all did some real fun and crazy shit.  I did my share of it too.  I also did my share of sitting around and watching the television and movies.  There is little to complain about.  It was relaxing and a good time for all.  In addition to the lazy days I did manage to make a few trips to the southern part of Wisconsin, see Packers training camp, run a 5K, and realign my life’s priorities. 

As I stated earlier, I did my fair share of watching movies and TV.  That is kind of ironic since the summertime is traditionally a wasteland on TV.  However, the USA Network, AMC, and MTV managed to present me with a lot of options for my DVR.  The USA Network had their simply amazing summer line-up.  The way they break up their seasons into two halves spaced out by a few months is nothing short of brilliant.  When network TV fails me, USA manages to bring the goods.  Not only do they have original programming on, but it is quality.  Shows like “White Collar”, “Psych”, “Burn Notice”, and “Royal Pains” are smart and well written shows that might not get a chance on network TV.  There is a good mix of comedy and drama on the USA shows.  The best part is that Tuesday through Wednesday always has something for me to watch for a few months.  I couldn’t ask for more.

It being summertime also meant the return of two vastly different shows.  One is critically acclaimed and possibly the best show on television.  The other is a guilty pleasure.  The first of these shows is “Mad Men”.  I have gushed about it before.  I could go on and on some more, but I will spare you the time.  Do yourself a favor and rent the DVDs or stream the seasons of “Mad Men” online.  It will blow your fucking mind.  If it doesn’t, well then you are just stupid and shouldn’t be allowed on a computer to read this blog anyway.  Yeah, I am serious.  If you are groaning at the mere mention of a show like “Mad Men”, you can go fuck yourself.  Oh, what is that?  You think I am coming off as a bit pretentious.  Well, I hope I am because you probably don’t even know what that word means.

That guilty pleasure show I was talking about?  Yeah, you probably guessed right.  It is in fact “Jersey Shore”.  I can’t help but be amused by a show that gives me one hour a week with the worst people humanity has to offer.  If we ever wanted to give aliens a reason to come down to Earth and blow our shit away, we should send up a DVD of “Jersey Shore”.  The aliens would watch ten minutes and think Earth was full of vapid over-tanned creatures with boob jobs and drinking problems.  And yes, that is a fair and accurate assessment of those people as a whole.  Now I understand that they are fairly attractive and some people actually think the cast of the show is a group of good people.  Well, those who think that are probably as vapid as the eight cast members.  They aren’t good people at all. 

Let’s just take a step back and look at what they do for a living.  They get millions of dollars to get filmed working out, getting tans, doing laundry, drinking, clubbing, fighting, and puking.   This is not over the course of a season either.  This would be the standard outline of every given day for those people.   They literally just do those things.   Apparently they have a job at a gelato shop, but we only see a minute of that every few episodes.  MTV would rather show them getting hammered and slutting it up at clubs.  They know that the trashy girls of the Midwest want to be like the girls and get with the men of Jersey Shore.  This crowd of women is their base demographic.  They get them watching the show and then advertise for that stupid “Twilight” shit and for god knows what else.  Basically, MTV has two types of viewers for “Jersey Shore”.  There are the dumbest of humanity who think that the cast is the greatest thing since sliced bread and want to be just like them.  And then there are the smart people who watch the show to mock the shit out of the idiots on screen.  

Don’t believe me that they are horrible people on “Jersey Shore”?   Well, let me give you an example.   First off, they are all self centered people who are walking contradictions.  They all openly admit that they are on the show to get hammered and hook up with as many people as possible.  The infamous Snooki started the season with a boyfriend back home who she claimed to be happy with.  However, she subtlety mentions that if something were to happen with another man while on location in Miami that it would be more or less no big deal.  She brushed it off before it even happened.  Well, we get a few episodes in and Snooks gets a call from her boyfriend Emilio who tells her he hooked up with another girl and feels bad about it.  Snooki is enraged.  She throws shit around the house and cries up a storm.  My guess is that the dumb viewers were on her side and failed to remember that in the prior week’s episode Snooki got so wasted and crawled into bed with Vinny.  They both were so drunk neither of them knew what happened.  Oh well, she is a TV star so it must have been okay.   The worst part is that MTV did nothing to remind us of such indiscretions.   

Basically, my point is that “Jersey Shore” is great train wreck style TV.  It is horrible, but you have to watch anyway.  If it were on during the fall or winter I wouldn’t even stop to watch.  However, they are on when I am bored, so they get my critical attention.   And hey, maybe I also have a little crush on that Amazonian J-Woww.  Gosh darn I bet she could throw me around a bedroom like a rag doll.  I would take every minute of that punishment like a rag doll.