An NJ Italian's take on "Jersey Shore"

The actual Jersey shore kind of lost its mystique for me a few years ago, but MTV's "Jersey Shore" is nothing short of glorious. I mean, I was appalled from start to finish, but it was kind of like watching a spray-tanned, juiced-up train wreck. I couldn't look away.

If you've heard anything about this show, know this: it's just what it's marketed as. MTV basically rodeoed a bunch of guidos and guidettes, dropped them in Seaside Heights and told 'em to go nuts. The only sort of dues they owe is that they have to work regular hours at a Boardwalk thrift shop. It doesn't seem like they can work worth a damn or have two brain cells to rub together, but everyone loves them and their nights are always epic. My fellow New Jerseyans' Facebook statuses were pretty uniformly outraged at this depiction of the Dirty; a friend of mine who was on my high school wrestling team before I got there wrote something along the lines of "stop destroying Jersey MTV, we're doing that just fine by ourselves."

I'm not necessarily sold on that, though. Frankly, I thought the show was absolutely hilarious, if only because the people on it are absolute idiots. Well, maybe an idiot is a strong word, they're simple, and charmingly so. Like most guidos I know (and I do know a few), give 'em a blowout, a bottle of booze, and a girl with a fake tan and hair extensions and they're good to go. I may be an Italian but I'm pretty much the anti-guido; I don't have enough hair for a blowout. I'm afraid of needles, so I won't get a tattoo. And I've never set foot in Seaside Heights, a place so sketchy it's affectionately known as "Sleazeside" in the greater North Jersey community.

But they love it there, and while packing a suitcase entirely full of hair gel or nicknaming yourself "the Situation" might seem socially unacceptable to some, for these guys it's just the norm. I've never met any of them, but it seems like all they want in life is a steady job and a high school education. There's something refreshing about TV heroes with minimal ambition but a love of life, women and alcohol that knows no bounds. Also, it's worth noting that none of them seem particularlly mean; they're fools to the last man but they're basically what my mother would call "good boys." They understand the value of work, family and friendship, and they generally seem already like they might take a bullet for each other. Morons? Maybe. Demeaning to Italians? Depends who you ask; I'm inclined to think guidos are the least of our worries. But the "Jersey Shore" crew seem about as gentle souls at heart as I've ever met.

That said, I haven't seen the episode where the one girl gets punched in the face yet, so I could be eating my words very soon.