With August right around the corner, the doldrums of summer are finally here, and that can only mean one thing: MTV's Jersey Shore is upon us. Despite claims Jersey Shore portrays Italian-Americans in a negative light, the show has increased in publicity and viewership. One such American upset with the show's success is the Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie (R), who publicly bashed it to the media.
Christie complained the show takes non-natives of New Jersey -- mostly New Yorkers -- "[and] drops them at the Jersey Shore, and tries to make Americans feel like this is New Jersey. I could tell people, they want to know what New Jersey really is? I welcome them to come to New Jersey any time. The Jersey Shore is a beautiful place, and it's a place that everybody should come on vacation this summer." Christie concluded his blast of Jersey Shore with a final plea for tourists to visit his state, saying, "We've got another 6 weeks or so of summer left. Come to New Jersey!"
I can't blame Christie for his plea for outsiders to not base their opinions of New Jersey on the MTV show. Watching young, spoiled brats live in a nice place on the beach while being encouraged to act out as the cameras roll isn't a fair way to judge a place. Should New Jersey really be condemned because a young woman named "Snooki" was punched in the face by a man at a bar? No, sir. Jersey Shore doesn't represent the state of New Jersey because, in reality, New Jersey is far less classy than the television show. MTV had to bring in classless outsiders to improve the class of the Garden State.
As a baby I was flown to New Jersey with my family to visit a relative who had married a man from New Jersey. I wish I could recount the experience but my subconscious has apparently blocked all memories of the tragedy I experienced (and being Catholic, that should say something. I have plenty to repress). What I do know is this: I left New Jersey as an impressionable youth with the notion air quality is overrated and an unexplainable fear of any form of acting that includes Zach Braff.
I had another opportunity to experience New Jersey when my relative brought her New Jersey husband to come stay with us in Michigan when I was around six years old. Initially my experience with this New Jersey man was enjoyable. He was boisterous, he was playful, and he had no fear showcasing the excess hair he had all over his body. As the week wore on the charm wore off, and my youthful self began to figure out that perhaps whatever this New Jersey man was drinking in excess was truly responsible for his constant "playfulness." Jokingly playing with my sister's dolls was one thing, but staring at them longingly with lust in the eyes that would make my sister's Ken doll question his motives is crossing the line.
On more than a few occasions I found myself in our finished basement poking the passed out Garden State native with a stick I found from the yard, my childish voice managing to choke out, "Wake up, buddy. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here, and shave your back if you can't manage to keep your hair on your own body!" Some may say it's unfair of me to judge New Jersey, considering I'm from Michigan, a state whose infrastructure is literally crumbling. I disagree. I've been to Detroit, so I know ugly, and New Jersey is ugly.
Many years later I'd have the opportunity to see New Jersey again, this time at the tender age of twenty as a much more mature individual. I stood alongside the Philadelphia city limit with an ex-girlfriend and her family and rhetorically asked, "What's that horrible, industrialized pollution cloud across the Delaware River?"
"That would be New Jersey," my ex-girlfriend's father responded as we all looked on in horror. And though none of us believed the thought would ever cross our minds, we decided to retreat back inside the beautiful urban sprawl of Philadelphia to try and forget the horrors we had just witnessed within the Garden State.
When New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says Americans should visit New Jersey because it's nothing like the MTV show Jersey Shore, he's correct -- it isn't. But he's tricking Americans into seeing a place far worse than the show could ever portray.
Scott Janssen is a graduate student, blogger, and all-around drain on society. Follow him at his blog as www.pantslessponderings.com.
Follow Scott Janssen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pantslessponder
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http://jdrourke.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/dear-jersey-shore/
I liked your joke about not affording Manhattan. I actually told my girlfriend not so long ago that if I end up getting a job in the New York area, I'm not living in the city. I'd rather move to New Jersey and commute. And considering I bash New Jersey all the time I just know karma is going to bring me there.
Thanks for the comment!
Thanks again!
Thanks for the comment.
I am originally from Jersey but moved to Florida 23 years ago. When people ask me where I'm from, I say Jersey but don't hold that against me. Woody Allen was asked in his '73 film Sleeper if he believed in God. He said, "I think there's a central intelligence operating in the universe with the exception of certain parts of norther New Jersey." I saw that in Jersey and was the only one in the theater who laughed.
My old college buddies still in Jerzy (misspelling intended) get mad when I diss the lovely climate with no Spring, snow in April, cold in May, and 3-4 annual bouts of flu. I have worked long and hard to eliminate the "accent" but every now and then a "whaddyacallit" pops out.
What really represents the classiest aspect of Jerzy is The Sopranos.
Thanks for the comment!
North Jersey and South Jersey. A greater division has not been made since the Koreas split and Sonny and Cher.
The oompa loompah Jersey Shore kids and the always classy housewives who were there gaudy baubles to bankruptcy court are part of North Jersey. You will be happy to note that the smog cloud you viewed from Philly, probably down at Penn's Landing, was South Jersey. And South Jersey is home to some of the greatest in breds and flea markets in the world.
Yes there are the distinctions like where the best place to dump a body is on the Atlantic City expressway in South or the fact the couple that named their child Adolf Hitler is technically in North Jersey, on the PA line but said couple have distinct Southern Jersey tendencies.
Jersey (you can't put the "new" in front of it, we will know you are just a poseur) is a Wonderland, more vivid and interesting than any hole Alice falls into it.......it is a hole unto itself!
Thanks for the comment (and the info on the Korean-like divisions within the state)!
It can not be soon enough that New Yorkers are rid of this disastrous governor.
David Paterson proved long ago that he could not govern. “The Democratic Conference: Organizational and Operational Structure Report” is an eyewitness account of Paterson’s DYSFUNCTIONAL governing nature while Senate Minority Leader.
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM110_demreportfinal.html
Paterson’s office was criticized for PATRONAGE, LACK OF LEADERSHIP, INDECISIVENESS and INFIGHTING, set against a backdrop of general CHAOS – in other words the office, a ZOO. Those interviewed in the report indicated that its chief of staff the disorganized Michael Jones-Bey had no management skills, and would get DRUNK with staff, often coming in the office with a HANGOVER, and should be fired.
Amazingly, for running such a DYSFUNCTIONAL CHAOTIC office, the disorganized Michael Jones-Bey was hand picked by David Paterson to mismanage the Division of Minority & Women Owned Business Development (MWBE) at Empire State Development Corporation.
Now that's the Paterson Way - being rewarded for your incompetence.
Thanks for the comment.
Thanks for the comment.
Hopefully everyone will get sick of this Scott.
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