December 14, 2009
Pop Rocks: The Jersey Shore
MTV has a great deal to answer for -- reducing our attention span to half-second jump cuts and paving the way for American Idol among them -- but the network still erroneously referred to as Music Television might have finally trumped itself in sheer loathsomeness with their latest foray into humanity's dregs, The Jersey Shore.
Essentially The Real World: Seaside Heights, the show chronicles the dizzying highs and perma-tanned lows in the lives of a group of (mostly) Italian-Americans spending the summer "down the Shore". As with most MTV shows of its ilk, the program concerns itself primarily with watching "JWoww," "The Situation," "DJ Pauly D," and the rest get drunk, fuck, get too drunk to fuck, and pose in a manner most flattering to the omnipresent cameras.
Maybe it's the regional/cultural gap between SE Texas and New Jersey, but I admit: I had a hard time believing this shit was real. Like everyone else, I've seen those a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lee-hotti-and-friends">Lee Hotti pics, as well as the so-called anti-Guido demotivational posters, but like most people I'd always assumed they were merely representative of an extremely tiny minority, like or gay Republicans. Apparently I was wrong.
The show has also angered some in the Italian-American community, including Joseph Del Raso, the president of The National Italian-American Foundation, a state of affairs that reminds me of nothing so much as that scene from The Simpsons when the president of the "Italian-American Anti Defamation League" tells a bunch of mob stereotypes they really "burn his cannoli."
I'm not going to say that the fact the cast insists on self-identifying as "guidos" should alleviate these feelings, but...okay, yes it should. The only people who believe the majority of Italians in this country pack suitcases full of hair gel and spend two hours a day shredding their abs are doing time in a CIA prison where the only TV available is this and Real Housewives of New Jersey, or homeless people sleeping on the beach in Point Pleasant.
Besides, we're missing the bigger picture here, which is that MTV continues to commit entertainment-related crimes against humanity. I'm not talking about the fact that it's using footage of Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi getting belted in the mouth by a male New York gym teacher to promote this week's episode -- lack of taste has never stopped MTV before -- but rather that the network has once again loosed a tide of repugnant humanity upon the earth.
Time will tell where they'll rank in terms of overall MTV loathsomeness, and the lifespan of similar celebrity nonentities is thankfully as abbreviated as the shelf life of an Animotion video. That said, my brief exposure to the Jersey crew fills me with confidence that we'll be speaking their names in the same nauseous yet reverent tones usually reserved for Puck, Jesse Camp, Dan Cortese, and *shudder* Kennedy. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go listen to Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City" about 50 times.
December 7, 2009
Pop Rocks: Long live the BCS
By the slimmest of margins, America was spared the unthinkable horror of seeing a (*shudder*) mid-major team contend for a national championship last Saturday. And if you don't think there were some urgent calls made from the executive office of the BCS to the reply booth in Jerry's World (Cowboys Stadium), I have a clock with one second left on it to sell you. The Texas Longhorns eked out a win vs. the vaunted Nebraska Cornhuskers, earning a spot in the National Championship game. Whether or not you think the officials were right in putting time back on the game clock (they were), or Texas will have its hands full against an actual offense (they will), the Big 12 Championship game provided fresh ammo to the growing legions of football fans clamoring for a playoff system.
If you read Dan Patrick's interview with BCS Director Bill Hancock in last week's Sports Illustrated (and exchange that can charitably be described as "delusional"), you know this isn't going to happen anytime soon. And you know what? I'm glad to hear it. A college football playoff is a horrible idea, and here's why:
5. What Else Are You Going to Watch?
All the "good" TV ends in December, meaning you need the St. Peterburg Bowl, unless you're looking forward that much to reruns of The Middle or the return of Dick Cheney's favorite reality program (24). College football has better drama than C.S.I. (Lane Kiffin vs. the rest of the SEC, for example), and better monsters than Lost (Nebraska's Ndamukong Suh).
4. Lots of Bowls Distract Us From the February Sports Hole
The second month of the year is the worst when it comes to sports, especially in the South. Baseball hasn't started yet, neither college or pro basketball gets really interesting until March, and -- let's be honest -- nobody down here cares about the NHL. Cherish those three weeks of so-called "meaningless" bowl games in December and January, 'cause come February it's endless repeats of the 1992 World's Strongest Man contest.
3. Won't Someone Think of the Advertisers?
Maybe you believe padding a 60-minute football game out to three-and-a-half hours with ads for Levitra and shitty beer is excessive. You'd be wrong. We're a business-friendly society, dammit, so I better not hear any of you hippies refer to the Chick-Fil-A Bowl as the "Peach Bowl" in my presence. After all, it isn't like unfettered capitalism ever did us any harm.
2. What Else Would You People Bitch About?
This last weekend alone, message boards across the inter-tubes were choked with rage postings by TCU and Cornhusker fans "registering their discontent across the world." A fairly-structured, inclusive playoff system would render three whole months of whining about missed calls and the subsequent spring/summer bitching about a lost Cincy-Boise State NCG moot. does that sound fun to you?
1. It's Notre Dame's Last Chance for a Bowl
The biggest losers in a playoff system would be the Irish, who'd end up losing in the first round every year to Purdue.