As I sat at the county fair's auction today, I remembered a single thought crossed my mind and took hold. It wasn't that a champion goat sold for $1,000 or there were rabbits fetching amounts well above $500. No, it wasn't even that I had witnessed someone purchase what has to be the most expensive Thanksgiving turkey in the history of Thanksgiving at a price of, again, $1,000. It wasn't that both the goat and turkey had better have gold running through their veins or wondering how much a turkey at the first Thanksgiving would have cost...No, it was much deeper than that.

As I tried to plan out my evening of bachelorhood, I settled on centering it around a little program called Jersey Shore. The only thing I can relate this show to is a slow motion train wreck. Something that only gets worse and worse, but at the same time, you can't stand to turn away. Week after week, the plot is the same, but week after week, this train wreck of a show continues to entertain countless viewers. While the cast has been repeatedly criticized for giving the Italian-American community a bad name because these self-proclaimed 'guidos' and 'guidettes' seem to have nothing more to life than spending their time drinking until sunrise, hooking up with randoms, and engaging in fights with others in the house. Critics say that the show is a waste of time and it isn't realistic. That may be so, but I prefer to take a different angle when looking at the cast of this show...

Rather than thinking of the cast as a bunch of idiots, I believe that members of the cast are just taking advantage of what sells on television. These people aren't doing much more than what happens during any college welcome week or college spring break, the only difference is they are having cameras following them around and getting paid for it, and getting paid very well. How many of us haven't gone to a club in our college years and drank until being kicked out, and then gone home and continued to make asses out of ourselves? How many males at any number of universities spend their weekends chasing random ass? How many people have spent their spring break doing nothing more than drinking all day and trying to hook up all night, without a single thought of getting a job? The cast is doing nothing more than using this show to create a train wreck and allow it to be filmed. They may act like morons, but somehow they aren't stupid enough to do the show for peanuts. Before the filming of the third season, the cast held out for raises. They went from getting $5,000 per episode the first year, to $10,000 per episode the second year, to $30,000 per episode for the third season. Can everyone of these self-indulged 'actors' be that stupid? The cast is simply creating a supply to what is obviously a $240,000 per episode demand. Isn't that just good business?

Maybe MTV has gone about the marketing in wrong way by trying to sell the audience on typical Italian stereotypes, but is the marketing really that wrong? They are just marketing entertainment, and obviously this type of train wreck entertainment had sold, is selling, and is going to continue to sell. Maybe rather than criticizing the cast and the show, people should choose not to watch if they don't want to take opportunity to view the show for what it is....entertainment. It's not real life. The cast is paid and they are paid to entertain. So instead of bitching and moaning that the show isn't politically correct and is offensive, viewers need to take it for what it is. It's a show with eight young  20-somethings who have taken financial advantage of a niche that's been at MTV for years, a 'reality' train wreck and the ratings have shown that sex and drunkenness sell...

I decided to come back and take another look at this after I heard from one of my followers that this post wasn't nearly what they were expecting. Maybe it's because I'm tired, maybe it's because I'm ill, but after taking a second look, the comment was correct. This post has been more like an essay and not a rant and that's just garbage. I owe it to each and every one of you to put my best foot forward. You don't have to to read this, and I don't have to post something that reminds me more of a steaming pile of elephant shit than something worth your time. So here we go. I said that people don't have to sit and watch 'The Shore' if they are going to bitch and moan about being offended. People need to quit being so damn sensitive. I've just realized that 'The Shore' isn't the root of the problem, the root of the problem is people. People think they are so damn entitled being able to openly suffer from an affliction that I commonly refer to as 'pussideous'.As it was recently explained to me, sometimes people just need to 'go to the ball store and buy a set'. Sack up and grow some skin. The way I see it, rather than running to mommy and complaining that you don't like something, maybe you should just get over it. I think the public needs to quit being a little bitch and take some responsibility for their actions and what kind of entertainment they view. Not to say there shouldn't be social programs to help people, but at some point, rather than just sitting back and blaming the banks and financial institutions for getting the nation into the shape that it is, shouldn't people have enough sense to have some foresight. Shouldn't people take responsibility for buying a house that they can't afford? Shouldn't people be smart enough to not borrow money just because some bank says they can? People got themselves into this mess just as much as anything else did. Maybe instead of spending money to spend money, people should learn to live within their means....So this brings me back to my original point. Rather than bitching and moaning about some 'reality' television show, maybe people should worry about fixing themselves and their fucked up lives rather than some 20 year old drunk kid who calls himself a guido....Again, the problem all comes back to the fact that people don't want to grow a sack and take responsibility for themselves...there is always something to bitch and complain to mommy about other than something that they can change themselves.....Grow up people