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