how many shows do we need about new jersey?

YO! (the cast of jersey shore)

i mean, srsly, ppl. how many? and i am from jersey, so it’s not like i’m a hater but please!

it’d be one thing if the show painted my home state (granted i haven’t lived there in a long time but still) in a fairly positive light. but no. the women chosen for these “reality” shows all come off like loud-mouthed trash-talkin bee-atches (that are always unnaturally tan with unusually large hair) and the guys are roid-raging half the time, wear way too much hair gel–and are also unnaturally tan…with unusually large and startlingly stiff hair.

so, the shows: first we had bravo’s “the real housewives of new jersey,” which, i must admit, i have never actually watched b/c it looks like a total trainwreck and…i just can’t. i’ve seen enough of it in commercials and previews to know i just won’t like it and i’ll get disgusted and also feel embarrassed about my connection to the garden state. (i also get my one and only “housewives” fix via the nyc housewives, which, omg, i don’t know why but i love. holly does, too.)

[funny note: we were participating in a community yard sale/block party yesterday and we sold a coffee table to this one nice lady and her husband. she was new to the city (from md’s eastern shore) and of course i thought she said jersey shore b/c, as per usual, i wasn’t 100% paying attention) and i was like HEY I’M FROM JERSEY and once we cleared up the discrepancy, she said, “you know, i thought you were from new jersey. you look like a jersey girl. you look like that one girl from ‘the real housewives of new jersey.’ i forget her name. she’s cute but she’s mean.” i was like, “oh.” i still have no idea who she’s talking about and i don’t know how to feel about it. anyway, i digress.]

then we had mtv’s “jersey shore.” i’ve already talked a little about “jersey shore” here at lunch at 11:30, namely how huuuuge snookie’s hair is and how she must use bumpits to get it looking so…bulbous. that show’s like crack. you see it once and you have to watch the whole damn marathon (heaven forbid you get sucked into one of those). i’m not going to even get into “jersey shore,” b/c unless you live under a rock, you already know all about it.

and now we have the newest one: “jersey couture,” on oxygen, which is about–and i quote, from the oxygen website–a New Jersey family who runs one of the Garden State’s most sought-after destinations for extravagant women’s formal wear. The Scalis (aka Jersey’s First Family of Fashion) reveal how their tight-knit family manages to live and work together while running their glamorous, over-the-top dress shop, Diane & Co.

as my late grandmother would say: oy.

i’d like to know what you all think of the sudden influx of over-the-top jersey-based reality shows. i’m esp. interested in hearing from my jersey peeps. are they good, bad or just plain ugly??

jersey housewives: "no you DID'INT!"

"no YOU did'int!"

jersey couture: oh my gawd lookit awl those dresses

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those housewives

despite my better judgement, i began watching bravo’s “the real housewives of nyc” last year. anyone who knows me knows that i have no airs when it comes to entertainment (or anything else, come to think of it). if it’s fun and i like it, i will watch it. or listen to it. and freely admit it. [case in point: britney. also: t.a.t.u. (fake russian lesbos), “maid in manhattan,” “how to lose a guy in 10 days” and etc.]

i am very rarely an appointment tv watcher. meaning: i just watch my shows when they happen to be on. so i’m cleaning the kitchen last night, and it’s on. this is good kitchen-cleaning entertainment so i was thrilled.

anyway, this one lady (i forget her name but she has red hair) brings one of the other ladies [the “hot” one; no, not that one (the suspciously square-jawed chef) the other one (the one who likes to jog in traffic; wtf, i know, right?!)] to a private appt. with some sort of…purse maker. french lady? anyway, they’re sitting on the designer’s couch with a bunch of bags in front of them. like, on a coffee table. and they just look like…bags. call me “gay” (woman “gay” not man “gay”; two totally diff things and you know it and it’s ok to think it b/c i think it, too) but they really don’t look all that special. one is purple. another is red. one or two look like a snakeskin material.

so it’s the is the red-hair lady’s “birthday present”  (ok, i figured out who she is) to herself or from her husband or something. she’s like, hmmm, i think i like that one. yes, def. that one.

from my vantage pt, it looks like a knockoff of something i could find in tj maxx. [or, as my beloved late grandma would call it: “jt maxi” (oh grandma, you were so funny)] it’s red. and then the camera does a close-up of the pricetag: $16,000.

SIXTEEN. THOUSAND. DOLLARS. for a BAG!!! a BAG!!!

holly and i were watching together at this pt (yes, i was taking a break from said kitchen-cleaning) and were like, what? it was like a joke. a few more thousand dollars, and that’s the (low-end) starting salary of a recent undergrad. that’s more than some *cars*. that’s insane. and the craziest thing is that she barely thought anything of it. i can’t begin to wrap my mind around that sort of wealth. $16k could help us out a lot. that could alleviate a lot of worries for a lot of ppl. but for her it’s just a bag.

then her husband surprised her with a new, huge, black benz suv, and she whines that it doesn’t connect to her iphone or something so he says, ok, this one will be mine. i’ll get you another. (silence)

then there was a blowout fight about a tennis match. and like, jewelry shopping and some interior designing.

i know the entertainment value in these sorts of shows is the ridiculousness of it all. the great majority of ppl in this country don’t live the way these ladies and their families do. and so we all watch, mouths agape, as they “live the good life” and buy $16,000 bags and fight over tennis and freakout about charity events and shoes and boobs and decorators and whatnot. and mostly, it’s just entertainment for me. anything annoying i can usually forget in about 10 minutes (or less; yes, i have the attn span and sometimes the memory of a hamster, just ask holly and she’ll tell you). but that $16k bag thing last night really got to me. like it’s burrowed its way into my brain.

even in a good economy it’s hard to make ends meet, let alone treat yourself to something nice. (hell, holly and i have been together eight years and we have yet to even take a real vacation together. we didn’t even go on a honeymoon.) i guess i’m just trying to say…just…wow. i mean, look, if you have the money, i guess…you know? who am i to say? but that sh*t just blows my mind. and yet, i will continue to watch. and be disgusted and shocked. and watch again. total trainwreck that is reality tv. if you watch the show, i’d love to know what you think about all this. even if you don’t watch it. you know i love hearin from my peeps (no, not the marshmallow easter peeps! you. it means you 😉 )

in other news: passover cannot pass over soon enough. i made matzah pizza tonight! help!