Excited for MTV Programming: Jersey Shore

Last summer, a friend of mine invited a handful of his closest friends to fly out to Jersey to visit his family, who have a couple houses on the Jersey shore. It was being billed as a guy’s weekend of drunken shenanigans. Of course I was in. Prior to this trip, I was never made aware of the kinds of people who live and hang out in this part of the country. Even looking back, I’m not sure how this kind of information escaped me in the first 30 years of my life, but I had no idea that the entire region was filled with guys who are no taller than 5′2″ and who all weigh at least 200 pounds. When I got there, it was a complete culture shock. Dudes wearing Affliction t-shirts and gold chains and hanging out in packs. Up until then, I had never even heard of Affliction t-shirts, yet here I was, surrounded by them.

A not-so-brief story that pretty much sums up my weekend: the first night we were there, we were at a bar and I went up to order myself a drink. The place wasn’t crowded or anything, but the bar area had a few loiterers. Is that a word? I think so. So anyway, I’m weazled my way to the front of the bar and I accidently brushed elbows with some guy, whom we’ll call Dude. You probably think you know where I’m going with this. I can assure you, you don’t. Okay so I brush elbows with Dude, now remember, this is my first night there so I have no idea what kind of trouble potentially lies ahead. I turn to look at this guy and he looks back at me with this look on his face that I had never seen before. It was a mixture of “you’re about to die, Asshole” and “I’m going to kill your whole family” and “seriously Asshole, I’m going to kill you and your whole family”. All for an elbow brush. So I say “oh man, sorry about that.” That’s right, I apologized. Because that’s what you do when you accidently invade someone’s space, albeit barely and ever so briefly. But now Dude was confused. An apology? He wasn’t used to an apology. He was used to fisticuffs. So he says:

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No I’m not,” I respond.

But wait, but how did he know that? Was I wearing my favorite 1959 White Sox hat? No. Was I wearing my Harpo Studios sweatshirt that I got that one time when I went to…never mind? No again. So how did Dude know that I wasn’t from around there?

“Because you apologized,” he said.

“Oh, no kidding. That’s funny,” I replied back.

Here I was, just seconds away from getting my ass kicked for reasons that wouldn’t be clear to me until later in my trip, but instead I was exchanging pleasantries. And all because of an apology. We ended up hanging out with Dude and his two friends the rest of the night and they were cool as hell. We bought them shots, they returned the favor, and looking back, I’d say that first night in Jersey was my favorite of the entire weekend. Fucking awesome.

The rest of the weekend was a little different. Every place we went I felt like any one of us were just seconds from getting cold-cocked right in the face. I even saw it happen countless times to other people. One dude looks at another Dude’s girlfriend and BOOM, fist to the face. Another dude looks at someone for too long or something and BOOM, fist to the face. How do they live like that? I never felt comfortable.

But anyway, to the point of all this: MTV has a new show coming out called “Jersey Shore” and I’m kind of excited about it. I’m looking forward to watching it with the wife just to assure her that yes, that’s how these people act. Had I not actually gone there myself and seen it with my own eyes, I don’t think I’d believe it.