Lose 5 or 10 Pounds and We Can Talk/Dude, I Will Cut Your Hair While You Sleep.

Oh boy. What an experience watching the first two episodes of Jersey Shore.

Backstory: Needing some podcasts for my morning commute, I quickly downloaded the latest Bill Simmons and threw on the Ipod. In his most recent podcast he devotes 45 minutes to discussing the first two episodes of Jersey Shore - the new MTV Reality Show about Guido culture in Jersey. He compared the show to an Altman movie. The names of the characters alone made it a must see: The Situation, JWoww, Pinkeye, Snooky, Jolie...

After work, I immediately came home to watch. First off, MTV's online streaming is awful compared to NBC or Hulu. And the show started off pretty lame, basically the format is the Real World with Guido's on the Jersey shore. Listening to Simmons talk about the show, I expected to see some of the nuttiest people on the planet in a culture I totally didn't understand. But honestly, this isn't unlike Hermosa Beach other other buff-guy cultures. So I was surprised how accessible I found the characters.

I got into it, though. This show proves there is something endearing about a character who knows and understand themselves. One of the girls proclaims early on in the show, "If you're not a guido you can get the fuck out of my face."

I haven't watched the Real World in years. I don't remember what the Real World was about. But this show...Jersey Shore...is about men and women. The themes emerging from the show already will be familiar to those waaaaay outside of the guido culture. There are primal instincts at play and boy, is it just me, or are the guys in this show just being lined up to get their hearts broken? Am I the only one who sees this coming a hundred miles away?

My favorite moments thus far - Snooky bringing home the guy who pukes on the deck and she walks him home, Vinny telling everyone he has pinkeye; Jolie proclaiming tshirt selling is beneath her and longing for her true calling as a bartender.

Can someone at MTV please lock these people into contracts to do a Jersey Shore every seven years and make this a side companion to Michael Apted's UP series?