The Ballad of Ronnie Ortiz

AAAAAAAND WE'RE BACK.

Oh I'm feeling it today. Sit back and relax, I got this.

Jersey Shore: Season 3. I think I'll call this season the time capsule. Due to constant media exposure of the cast and the time it takes to edit seasons for television, we're finally viewing Jersey Shore as it was meant to be seen. It's like the light of a dying star that's already collapsed on itself, but it's taken some time to reach earth. It's kind of weird to watch the Situation intereact with his housemates when he is so clearly trying to move beyond his JS roots. And I know Snooki made it through the summer unscathed (though likely not without contracting herpes) because I saw her dropped inside a ball on New Year's Eve. A

By the way, is that not the most insulting publicity stunt of all time? "Well Snooki, we think that you're round enough that people will just think it's natural when we insert you into a ball and drop you when the clock strikes midnight?" And another quick thought, props to Pauly D for being the only cast member who is still driving the same car that they had at the beginning of season one.

But I'm not here to talk about that. No my friends, today is all about Ronnie Ortiz-Magro. I write for him and for all men who have ever had that look of misery in their eye when they realize that they've invested a year with a miserable bitch and now there's no easy way to extricate themselves. Ronnie's look could essentially be described as gorilla captured in the wild and brought to live in one of those nice cages at the zoo that seems a lot like the jungle they were taken from, who is now slowly realizing this is not in fact the wild but a very nice looking trap in which they will likely die. I give him about three weeks before he begins to saw off his own arm in order to escape ala James Franco in 127 hours.

Basically, we (and by we I mean those who still give a shit about the Jersey Shore) got to watch an hour of that moment where Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff, then looks down and sees that he's fucked. I first noticed him shitting himself when he goes to pick up Sammi at the beginning of the show and her mom is pointing at him with arms that are bigger than his and mumbling some veiled threat about taking care of her daughter. The real threat however, is that Sammi is going to devolve into that beast over the next 5 years. It already kinda looks like she's been doing bicep curls.

The next telling moment was when Ronnie walks into the house and immediately picks the room with three beds so that he won't have to be alone with Sammi... he's trying to bring the wilderness to him. Poor Situation. Not even he deserves that mess.
And finally, Ronnie explodes on the new girl (who needs to go in my opinion) instead of where he wants to on his bitch of a girlfriend. The best part though, is when Snooki makes up the insane lie that Ronnie's mom talks to her on the phone and says that she hates Sammi, and Ronnie doesn't even question the validity of the statement.... He's just like, "Yup. That's 100% plausible."

So the previews have Ronnie and Sammi separating... we'll see if MTV if just toying with us, like when the put fights in the preview only to preview them once again during the last 2 minutes of the show for the next show. I'm on to you fuckers. I hope for Ronnie's sake that Sammi disappears, and honestly I hope it for my sake too. Worst TV couple of all time. They're ruining what will probably be the last quality season of JS before they all get terrible spin offs and we just stop giving a shit. (Assuming you haven't already... ehhhh...)

I'm excited. Bring on Seaside.

Living in a Grenade Free America

Hello readers... I tried, I really did. But the problem is that when I watch the Housewives or America's Next Top Date Rapist it's always at least 15% ironically. I think you need true love to create true inspiration. And say what you want about those eight orange mooks, but I love them. It's an easy love. It's not romantic love, I don't need them to love me back, but I know that no matter what they do, they'll always have a place in my heart. I refrained from writing about the first episode due to a combination of intense blackout and the feeling that any asshole editor could piece together a great opening episode... the real question is whether the second episode was gold. I learned a lesson. Always put faith in those without sleeves. You will be rewarded. Like Lebron James... let's take our talents to South Beach.

Unfortunately, even a Grenade Free America is not an egalitarian society. There are tiers of guidos. Starting 4: Sitch, DJ Pauly Delvecchio, Snickers, and (marginally) JWOWW. Genius idea by the producers to only have these four road trip down to Miami. This way, they didn't have to give equal screen time to the B squad. It's easy to see how you play your way onto the bench. The easiest is to leave the show... hello again miss Angelina. More on her later. You can bore everyone to death... ladies and gentlemen, Vinny (I still love Vinny... but bro, how do you not do a cycle over the winter. It's like Kobe developing a low post game over the offseason. Bigger, faster, stronger.) Or, you can get into one of the worst TV relationships of all time. At some point Ronnie and Sammie crossed the line from slow moving trainwreck (something everyone wants to watch) to slow moving beheading (something only sick people, such as myself wants to partake in). I think it might of been when he cried those 1 or 2 or 57,345 times, or when she had a nervous breakdown over her toe, or when she choked him out with her hair extensions and he shit himself a little. (The last one will appear in the outtakes DVD, I swear.)

Back to Angelina though... honestly, how the fuck did she think this was gonna go? Take 3 immature girls, give them a common enemy... and this is exactly what you get. My favorite part about the entire dispute is that they were so fucked up in the cab when JWOWW was threatening to take it outside that I was convinced that they were on the way back from the club instead of on the way there. But this did create an interesting dynamic involving Angelina hanging out with two guys that she slept with before... until she told Pauly she loved him and subsequently slapped him in the face two seconds later. I've heard talks that she left the house again... I've purposely left it a surprise for myself but I would put the over/under at episode three. Lunatic.

And to The Situation, I know you're all about the tag lines since GTL took off so nicely, but I think you're stretching. GFA... amazing. It's a place I want to live. I picture people in East Berlin chanting GFA as the wall came down. But land mine? Seriously? Not one of the five people I watched the opener with understood what the fuck that meant. It took a girl who was a former Israeli soldier drawing a diagram of a land mine and then turning it sideways to make it clear that from some angles, it was, in fact, a skinny grenade.

Ronnie and Sammi... what can I say? I appreciated Ronnie burning some calories trying to get in with the boys again. But it wasn't even the end of the second episode and they're "working on things." Fuck. How stupid can you be. You attract so much pussy with your weird little midget dance and once again, you're throwing it away on a girl who went through your phone book WHEN YOU'VE BEEN BROKEN UP SINCE NEW YEAR'S. At this point though Ron Ron, fuck you. You deserve everything you get. Ohhhh... she sat with you for three hours while you got the world's blackest tattoo ever to be placed on a white man? And because of this, you think she's there for you? Again, FUCK YOU you stupid mook. Anyone past the age of eight can sit somewhere for three hours. It's not an acquired skill even for the dumbest fucking guido bitch on the planet. She's not any less batshit crazy, SHE'S JUST SITTING STILL.

Ugh... I'm spent for now. Check in next week and we'll really get into it. And if you're in the NYC area come see me at Caroline's on August 9th at 7:30. I'd put the address there, but if you're not smart enough to use Google Maps, I really don't want you at the show. Next week, we'll pick a topic and really tear into it. This was just pure, overflowing wop dago joy. Peace.

The Tao of Pauly D

Oh Jersey Shore, way to leave me with nothing more than the image of Snooki's interestingly shaped assets burned in my retinas to last me for a long, cold winter. I was happy to see Ronnie take my advice and get the fuck away from Sammi. (I have guido ESP in case you were wondering. That's why there's a delivery boy carrying a pound of mortadella currently being drawn unconsciously to my door.) But the real winner in all of this is clearly Pauly D. He probably got more ass than The Situation and no one in the house wants to backhand him (not that he could penetrate his hair anyway). He may be orange, he may have a car company's name tattooed on his armpit, he may be pushing the wrong side of 30, and he may be getting stalked by someone who was likely trained in krav maga, but there's just no fucking with Pauly D's chi.

When the housemates first descended upon the shore, it was pretty easy to peg Pauly D as the village idiot. In his first interview, he mentioned tanning and gel alongside friends and family as his defining qualities as a guido. And he seemed to respond to every situation (HA. Still hysterical.) with a smile that screamed, "I don't understand why it's not a good idea to fill a gas grill with charcoal and light a match." After JWOWW scared herself away by seeing her reflection in his stainless steel dong jewelery, it appeared as if he would spend his summer jumping on grenades and breaking the noses of defenseless drunks.

BUT, if you were paying attention (read: have no life and rewatched every episode 50 times), you might have noticed some signs of life from the spiky haired Yoda even early on. It was none other Pauly came up with Snickers as a nickname for Snooki. In all seriousness, it's an astounding feat that may never be topped. He managed to name a girl with obvious body image issues after a candy bar and didn't offend anyone. And that's the key to Pauly D. He's not offensive. He smartly stayed out of Ronnie and Situ's pissing contest to see who could fit more needles in an one ass cheek and thus win Sammi's affection. Instead, for an in house hook-up he went with a deceptively low maintenance JWOWW. Her boyfriend may have called him a spiky haired douche bag (strong card, Mr. blue roses) but Pauly's drama stayed out of the house. And about the punch he threw; at the end of the day, it was the least talked about fight in all of the Jersey Shore and produced the quintessential gem of Pauly D wisdom and possibly the best quote of the series, "It only takes 9 pounds of pressure to break a nose." Amen bro, Amen. In my opinion, he should replace his "DJ Pauly Delvecchio" sound effect with that quote and loop it into a fighting themed techno. Tell me you wouldn't pound your fist to that.

Pauly, simply put, is playing chess while the other guidos are trying to figure out why the checker board isn't red and green instead of red and black. He lets Ronnie get the girl and Mike be the lightning rod. He manages expectations and befriends everyone who matters. Sure he has beef with an occasional cuckolded boyfriend, but he never shits where he eats (paying attention Ronnie?), and he still manages to have the drawers dropping nightly.

Pauly D might be the only man with hair that sticks up further than his pierced penis who can be described as a minimalist. Pauly is The Edge to The Situation's Bono. Situ may be more famous, but he's also more hated. Pauly doesn't need to say nearly as much to make an impact. And ironically, it's his over the top peacock feathers that allow him to thrive in a guido ecosystem while offending as few people as possible. He covers his melanoma-destined skin in tattoos, spikes his hair, puts on the headphones he bedazzled himself, and lets the magic come to him. He doesn't need corny pick up lines and he doesn't have to commit robberies or make any enemies.Even his trademark hairstyle speaks to his pragmatism. For 25 minutes of effort a day, he gets hair that may or may not be bulletproof. In contrast, as much as I admire the Sitch's dedication to his abdominals, it's a much harder trademark to maintain. There's also the factor of how much of a douche bag he looks like every time he pulls up his shirt to show off.

My headband is off to you Pauly, you're a man of admirable wisdom. I hope I'm as smart as you when I turn 30.

Smushing Sammi Sweetheart

We've all had them. We might not have known it until the 376th late night phone call or maybe right up to the point when the stiletto heel was rapidly approaching the bridge of our nose, but we've had them. The crazy significant other sneaks up on you like a bowl of haterade marinating under your bed. You know something's wrong, you're just not sure what, so you go on with your life while ignoring the stench until it becomes unbearable.

If someone had asked you after the first episode, which guidette will we get to watch take her man on a slow gondola ride to hell, you would have answered JWOWW. You would have answered faster than you said Snooki when asked who's most likely to get herpes from a juiced up oompa loompa. And you would have been very, very wrong. After taking a peak at the DJ Delvecchio's prince albert, JWOWW has pretty much backed off and stayed faithful to her man (unless of course she's hooking up in the secret room where the situation goes to cry). Sammi, on the other hand, has caused Ronnie to sob like a little girl on multiple occasions, not to mention getting him into not one, but two physical altercations. AND ALL THIS HAS HAPPENED IN THE SPACE OF TWO WEEKS.

We could have seen this coming though. The crazy was written on the wall next to the Italy themed Cadillac insignia. No one has really mentioned this, but her flipping from Situation to Ronnie was never fully explained. Immediately after it seemed that she had forgiven the sitch for his ill-advised hot tub session, she unlatched herself from his face and started sucking on Ronnie's. Why? In her words, "Ronnie's hot" and "I just love a man with that choad look." Okay, I might have made that second one up. Still, going from having spoken under 100 words to someone to flat out dating them is in no way normal. And it's not like they're blissfully in love either. Not an episode passes where we don't get to see Sammi making angry motions while swinging her hair extensions for effect.

The funny thing is, it's ALWAYS her fault. The "Fred Flintstone Toe" incident was just a harbinger of things to come. Really, who gets upset over a toe? Go find the nearest hot girl and begin to mock her. Pick out anything that catches your eye and just go with it. If you do this 12,000 times, you will choose toe literally 0 times. You want to know why? It's because: YOU CAN COVER A TOE. No one has ever been that upset over a fucked up toe because unless you're falling over because you don't have toes, they just don't affect your life. So clearly, getting into a blow out argument over a large toe is a sign that one enjoys getting into blow out arguments.

But this was nothing compared to the boardwalk incident. It was a miracle that juicehead junior was avoiding physical violence with the guy who had been trying to fight him for the whole night, but he was pulling it off. He was staying calm and not instigating a fight. This clearly was unacceptable to Sammi Sweetheart. She felt the need to scream at the obviously hammered couple further, even after Ronnie told her to relax. So what happened? Ronnie shoved her lightly (and rightly I might add) to get her to calm down and she left him to be attacked by both the guy and his girlfriend. Luckily Ronnie can throw down and managed to escape with just one black eye. (Two things. One, if a) you're hammered b) it's wet outside c) you're wearing sandals and the other guy is wearing shoes and d) that guy has the cream and the clear in his sunscreen, maybe you shouldn't start a fight. When that guy first lunged at Ronnie he almost got his ass kicked by the boardwalk. Two, how fucking awesome was the chain tuck. Not fighting, not fighting, not fighting... BOOM. Tuck the chain, fuck this guy's world up. It almost made up for all the crying on camera. Almost.)

And still, in the latest episode where Steroid Smurf ends up getting arrested, Sammi is at it again, screaming and instigating until her man starts fighting. So, Ronnie... RUN. Run fast and run far, out of the reach of her hair extensions. This is the most attention guidos have gotten since Sinatra in his heyday and all you've done since committing the robbery is fight and cry publicly. This can only end with either you in jail or dead via a shiv fashioned from acrylic nails. Get out now, before it's too late.