This is Mish Way and Jess Bloom’s Shore, Seriously. We’ve been hanging on for dear life, but in Season 5 the thread is thinning fast.
Here’s what happened at The Shore house this week. Snooki peed her pants, Mike walked around with his dick hanging out and the gang played “Warm Beer”. I’m sick of Mike’s constant inner battle between loyal and betrayal. I’m sick of “getting wasted” being the only activity these people do. Has anyone else noticed that no one is having sex this season? It’s boring. What happened to the days of hook-ups between the cast members, stalkers and bar-sexual three-some make-outs? When is Ronnie going to “motor boat” a waitress again? I miss the sex. I miss the fighting. Take me back to the monster truck rally, guidos!
I’ve decided that the only way to make this show enjoyable is to focus very closely on the cast’s daily conversations with one another. When you break it down, it’s enough to question if the binge drinking has actually affected their brains. This week, Sam and Deena tried to deconstruct the science of electricity after Deena is shocked by a wall outlet.
Deena: Sam! I just got electrocuted. My hand hurts. When you get electrocuted does it mean you get fucked up?
Sam: Like, what do you mean?
Deena: Like, do you think my brain is all crazy?
Sam: Like, your brain is crazy? I don’t think so. I think you will be okay. Police zap criminals with their electric guns all the time and they’re alright.
Deena: Oh, that’s true. Maybe it just shocks you a little bit. Is it the same electrical though?
Sam: It has to be. There is different electrocutions?
Deena: I think so. I think, like, wall electrocution is, like, electronics.
Sam: Yeah, but I think, like, when the police do it they zap the people and they go down because it’s so bad, like, you just got a little zap in your arm. You should be alright.
Everyone hates Lana Del Rey because she sings like a dying battery and she had her lips pumped up to high volume. A few years ago, she was merely a little blonde girl named Lizzy Grant with a big dream of singing her heart out. Now, she has re-emerged (on her daddy’s dime, apparently) as Lana Del Rey to bring us a new brand of pop: Nancy Sinatra sex appeal meets gangsta rap. Arguments about the “authenticity” of mainstream stars are pointless, so why do we scorn her so deeply? Her album Born To Die has received an endless amount of negative reviews and her SNL performance will go down in history as the rotten tomato of 2011. It seems like the whole world hates Lana Del Rey. Do you?
Don’t even try it, dudes. You can’t beat this. You just can’t. This shit is historical.
B-LINES (Vancouver, B.C.)
Ryan Dyck is a polite, record store clerk by day and a raging, string bean lunatic by night. B-Lines play fast, tight punk that makes me want to viciously smash everything in sight while screaming, “I can’t believe how fucking happy I am!” It’s really confusing. They are what all young punk boys should aspire to be.
ST. DAD (Gainesville, Florida)
St. Dad are no longer a band anymore, because Gus (singer) moved to Boston, Matty (bass) went home to Philadelphia, Riley (drums) moved to Cincinnati and Arlington (guitar) started a new band in Florida. Together they did tons of drugs and wrote complicated, interesting punk that made Gus’s sad, straight-forward lyrics funny and frighteningly real. I wish I could write like Gus does, but I haven’t been through the foul shit he has. The best part about St. Dad’s first 7 inch is that they thought they were making a garage record, but the only thing “garage” about it is that they recorded the record in one (kind of). Playing with them in 2010 was one of my favorite show’s of any tour I have ever done.
CRAZY SPIRIT (Manhattan, NYC)
Crazy Spirit are a bunch of hicks from NYC who put on, what I believe, a punk show is supposed to be. This video does not do them justice. However, it does their hair some favors. Right now, they are blowing up as big as their farts.
POLLUTION (Brooklyn, NYC)
Pollution are no longer a band which makes me want to hole up and cry for days. Their first release is still one of my favorite records even after listening to it a million times. When we toured with them in 2010, they turned our guitar player Kenny into a real man just by sitting next to him and breathing near his body.
Jersey Shore has become a rotten ugly place with rotten ugly rules. This week’s episode was boring and until the producers acknowledge the cast’s celebrity within the context of the show, it’s going to stay boring. Next week has the promise of a major brawl and a stripper popping out of a cake. Until then, I’d like to turn your attention to the many sad and repeated events of Deena’s life on the shore. If Deena was a Barbie doll, these would be her different figurines.
On last week’s premiere episode, Vinny burst into uncontrollable tears when his family showed up at The Shore for the cast’s “Welcome Home” party. He sat on a bench and cried like a prom queen. This week, we find out that Vinny actually suffers from anxiety attacks (or as he referred to it, “Clinical Anxiety Attacks”) and being filmed for the fourth year in a row with the same six people on the same hit reality show which relies on the same formula of booze, brawls, bitch outs and bawling, he has gone off the deep end.
While a part of me has empathy for Vinny, another (much larger) part of me wants to tell him to grow up and take care of himself. You would think that if you have suffered from severe anxiety attacks since the age of sixteen your family and doctors would advise against the career path of a “reality star”. You would also think that any sane person would say “no”, but truth is, most of us would rather be famous than happy so, you know, enter Vinny. It’s interesting because Jersey Shore is the only reality show that has had two consecutive years of filming non-stop footage with the same, exact house mates. As Jess pointed out to me, even Real House Wives have down time and switch characters, The Real World is constantly in flux year to year and A.N.T.M. always has a new slew of wanna-be’s, however Jersey Shore does not change. If you can’t take the insanity, get out of the mental hospital. Spoiler Alert: He did.
One person I actually worry about is Snooki and her increasingly problematic alcoholic tendencies. Not only does this show glorify her problem, but it makes watching drunk people a joke. Jess texted me, “Why are we so entertained by seeing drunk people? It’s almost like we’re watching people smoke crack and laughing when they scratch welts into their skin.” Part of the success of Snooki’s onscreen persona is that she is drunk and crazy and she knows that. However, it is also her biggest down fall in her relationships and mental health. It’s also the reason we’ve seen her vagina about a million times.
Speaking of vaginas, Pauly D (despite his facial burn) brought home a girl and had sex with her on a bare mattress. When he told her to leave at 4 am (even though she could not find her shoes), she stuffed his very favorite (and expensive) gold chain down her booty shorts and went home. Serves him right. I think Mike, Vinny, Pauly D and Ronnie should be robbed blind and then aggressively tortured for the way they treat women. Who forces a girl to leave without her shoes at 4 am? A total fucking asshole. I was very excited about her revenge until she showed up the next day looking for her shoes wearing the necklace. She had obviously done a Costanza-stye “leave behind” and it failed her miserably. I wish Judge Judy would spend one day at the house to lecture everyone on their behavior and send them all to court appointed therapy.
And last but not least, we have Deena. Here Deena is getting ready for the club, she’s got her exaggerated clown make-up on, her dress tight and low and she has decided to spritz herself with her perfume 41 TIMES. I counted. 41 times. That is insane. Is she carrying around a dead body in her cleavage? Why would she do this? Earlier in the episode we see Deena without any make-up in a white towel dress and she looks beautiful. I wish someone would tell Deena that she can spritz herself with all the perfume in the world, it will not make a difference. She’s got to love herself before anyone else is going to.
With Vinny gone perhaps we will see the return of Ryder. Who knows? Apparently next week Mike throws a tantrum because the gang pays more attention to Pauly D on their joint birthday party. You know, shit people in their thirties should be deeply concerned about.
Sometimes life is just like a Britney Spears’ song.
Certain things happen to your body and your mind when you go from a 19-year-old woman to a 26-year-old-one. I’m sure that if my mom read this she’d laugh in my face, show me her C-section scars and make me feel an inch tall. My changes are still legit. After twenty-five, the downward spiral begins. Here is how I know it’s happening to me.
YOU HAVE TO TAKE PILLS EVERY DAY
Girls don’t have to take pills every day. They drink milk, eat candy and brush their teeth with bubble gum toothpaste. Teenagers don’t take pills, unless it’s recreational ecstasy or birth control. And, when you are twenty-one you’re body is an invincible, curvy canvas stretched tight over your bones. Damn.
Now, I have to take Women’s One-A-Day Multivitamins, fish oil, cranberry pills, Vitamin C, Digestive Enzymes and birth control. If I don’t, I won’t be able to take a shit for days, I’ll get a U.T.I. and then probably break out with adult acne.
YOU WATCH WHAT YOU CONSUME
Gone are the days when I can stuff my drunken face with McDonalds, wash it down with a Cola and a pack of cigarettes then pass out on the couch with my shoes on. If I do that now I wake up feeling terrible. My mouth is dry from the salty food, my stomach is ballooned and I know I won’t shit all day and my gums sting because I didn’t brush my teeth before bed. Toss in a bunch of greasy pills and two years ago this was my weekend routine. I can not do this anymore. It just doesn’t feel good. I want to eat fruits, leaves, nice steak and nuts. They taste great and they don’t break my bowels. I want to cook my own meals instead of eating shitty sushi because I’m late for work because I stayed out until 5am partying. Being a woman means knowing that consumption is a good thing (I’ll never grow out of being a lush) but only in moderation.
Me, 19-years-old with my first boyfriend and some beers
YOU CAN NOT GO TO WORK HUNG OVER (THAT OFTEN) ANYMORE
Remember when you were 19-years-old and you could drink a six pack of sugary coolers, barf your guts out and still make it to soccer practice the next morning? It’s such a magical thing but it does not last long. I can still party and then suffer through an eight-hour work day, but I feel devastated and the minute I sit down to go pee, I want to throw up all over the floor. I currently work 40 hours a week at my day job and also freelance. My work day doesn’t start and end with a punch in. I guess this is just a prep for when I finally pop out a child because I hear that shit doesn’t cool down for at least 18 to 25 years.
YOU CAN SHARE CLOTHES WITH YOUR MOTHER
My mother looks good for her age. Excellent in fact, but she takes care of herself by running, hiking with her dogs and eating right. When my mom buys a new pair of jeans then freaks out because they are a bit too hip, she passes them onto me. This is a new thing for us. As much as I love it, it reminds that I am no longer (and will never, ever again be) a size 2.
“Cleavage Cupcakes” which you can stuff your sagging bra with
YOUR BRAS LAST LONGER THAN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS
Sadly, my boobs are as big as they are ever going to get (until some unlucky fool knocks me up). This means I have bras that have lasted the length of at least three long-term relationships. When you turn into a woman, you forget to treat yourself to bras because they don’t really matter anymore. What kind of woman fucks with her bra on anyway?
YOUR FRIENDS ARE GETTING MARRIED AND HAVING BABIES AND YOU THINK YOU COULD TOO
One day everyone is sitting in the park talking about bass strings and tank tops then the next it’s baby names and travelers insurance. It’s a pretty nice little fantasy and then you open your fridge and see only pickles and stale bread or use the toilet roll to wipe when you realize there is no toilet paper. When you have kids, when you have a family, there a certain expectations. I think toilet paper is one of them.
04.02.12
I should have been a lawyer. Instead, I write for magazines and sing the punk.
