Jersey Shore: Trash Bags Last Stand
Like when Godzilla finally topples and his flame breath is extinguished, so has the creature known as Trash Bags been defeated on Jersey Shore, the greatest sociological experiment of our time. She will not be missed.
Trash Bags terrorized the house for a good long while and—like Godzilla going from regular lizard to radioactive terror—she transformed from a resigned outcast just trying to make friends to an avowed enemy who was going to take the whole tribe down with her as she flailed violently. As it is in her nature, when things got hard, she left. She is a bartender, after all, with great, life-saving bartending activities to tend to. Before we can discuss those, let us look at a couple of vocabulary words that will help us better know the tribe of the guido.
- Sweatbox: Another name for a taxi both because when it is full of drunk guidos in Miami, it gets quite warm which leads to perspiration. The taxi is also the preferred mode of transportation for making out. Since everyone is in close proximity and likely inebriated when taking the cab ride home, men can usually convince women to neck in the back seat. The men are "sweating" the women, which is where the term comes from.
- No Hair off My Back: This is an idiom particular to the guido. While the usual phrase "no skin off my back" means something is not a problem, the guidos' particular spin on it has a different definition. Since the male of the species are waxed, buffed, and preened like the glimmering dolphins at Sea World, there is already no hair on their back. When they say that something isn't "any hair off my back" it means not only do they not care about it now, but they never even cared about it in the first place. Like the hair on their back, the problem never even existed.
Now that we know that, let's get to Trash Bags. Oh, Trash Bags, Trash Bags, Trash Bags. You didn't make it easy for yourself did you? To be fair, everyone in the house treated her pretty badly, but she didn't try very hard to make things right. After bowing out of our experiment early last session, she convinced the scientists in charge to let her back when the tribe migrated to Miami. Like a prodigal daughter, she returned with her head bowed low, but after a few weeks her real personality came flying out to the surface like the tentacles of the creature that lived in the trash chute on the Death Star. Angelina was, in the parlance of the guido, "fake." And for that they could never forgive her.
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Just like the guidos do not know the meaning of "done," they also do not know the meaning of "fake." They use it to describe someone who they do not like. Authenticity is prized in their little tight-knit community, because there are so many people who don't agree with their lifestyle. Those who are genuine and real are the true guidos, the ones to be praised. Those who are "fake" are just among the scores of imitators and mainstream losers who can't conform to their strict code of dress, behavior, and appearance. The only sin worse than talking shit is being "fake," but, while talking shit can be proved, being "fake" is much harder.
How can you tell when one is "fake?" Is he duplicitous, disingenuous, or another big word that starts with D? Is he a liar? Does he act one way to your face and say other things behind your back? Trash Bags goes around telling people that she cleaned when she really didn't. She takes other girl's men and then yells at them when they take hers. She accuses everyone of creating drama but fights with everyone around her. That, to us, seems like the definition of being fake, without quotes. It is the real thing. It is an actual fallacy. Therefore, her claims that everyone in the house is "fake" is just another fake thing about her.
After all, The Situation and the rest of the crew, while they do talk shit behind her back, also talk shit right to her front. They call her the Staten Island Dump to her face. That is the opposite of fake. That is ekaf, which is "fake" spelled backwards.
To add to all of this, there was some drama with The Situation's bed. We haven't really discussed this yet, but a guido's bed is a sacred space, much like the bathroom. While the bathroom of a house is a revered shared space where all must worship, the bed is something different, it is much more personal. If the bathroom is a mosque, then the bed is a prayer mat, where the guidos can adjourn by themselves for spiritual replenishment. That's why they spend so much god damned time in bed. They aren't just lying there lounging in their sloppy sloth, they are trying to get in touch with their god. Little do they know that their household spirit, the Duck Phone, has been forsaken and won't return to them.
When Trash Bags has her friend visiting and Jose spends the night (he's the real loser in all of this, since he gave Trash Bags a Fossil watch and never even got laid before she left) she decides to sleep in The Situation's bed without asking. He was bagging Canada's Next Top Model in the smash room, so it's not like he planned on using his bed. He turns it into a fight not because he hates Trash Bags, but because she invaded his very private space. It's like if she had used his toothbrush to clean her ears or used his jock strap as a dust rag. Trash Bags would never do either of those. We all know she doesn't bathe or clean. The Situation was clearly a dick about the situation (ha!), but as the alpha male, that's his prerogative, and it's his argument with her over the bed that eventually gets her to decide to leave, which is what he wanted all along.
The only one who came off as classy in the whole affair was alpha female JWOWW who told Trash Bags to get over her fight with The Situation and just stay in the house. That's what JWOWW did. She punched Sitch much harder than Trash Bags did, and she's still one of the core members of the tribe. And with JWOWW at your back, you can defeat any enemy.
However, when Snooki hooked up with an old flame of Trash Bags' at the club, Trash Bags wasn't going to just say goodbye and leave, like she intended, she was going to cuss Snooki out on the way. Drunk and amped up on unexpressed sexual longing, Snooki is ready for a fight. Here it is, in two rounds.
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There is no clear winner here, but physically Trash Bags (the sober party) seems to get the better of our Snooki, who we know from studying her various and sundry altercations not only can't fight, but can't even defend herself. Beating Snooki in a fight is sort of like winning a game of Connect Four against a 97-year-old idiot with dementia.
But Snooki is the clear winner here, because she is still a part of this experiment. She has friends who love and support her. While she can't get laid to save her life, at least she can warm herself with the affections of her tribemates. Trash Bags has nothing, shunted off into the cold night like a baby left on the firehouse steps without a blanket—wrinkled, whiny, and flapping its arms at anything that gets close enough to give it an embrace.
Trash Bags did what she always does when things get hard, she cut and run. This is a life-long habit. In the fourth grade when she couldn't remember what 8 times 7 equaled, she got up and walked out of class never to return. At Jeffrey Hallowatty's Bartending School of Greater Staten Island when she couldn't mix the ingredients for a Sidecar she threw her cocktail shaker on the ground and walked across the street to the mall where she bought herself a scrunchy from Claire's to make herself feel better. And when she didn't want to work at the Shore Store in Seaside Heights, she put all of her belongings back into a Glad bag and walked off into what we thought was the sunset but was really a car that had burst into flames on the side of the freeway.
As Trash Bags got nearer to that automotive inferno, she broke down and cried, because that's what her life was. She is a machine unfit for its given purpose and when it is pushed too hard, it just ignites, the tickling flickers joining together—hand in hand—until it reaches the gas tank and explodes leaving behind nothing but a charred chassis where all the passersby can point and say, "That was once a very nice car that ruined itself." Let us leave Trash Bags like that, sobbing into her knees on the side of the road. But let's do her one final indignity. Let us strip her of her nickname, of her individuality. Let her answer for her crimes by the name that God and her parents gave her. Let her be known, once and for all, as Angelina, and let children scream at the mention of her name and let us speak of her no more.
Switching gears, let's talk about Snooki. Our beloved mascot can't get laid to save her life. Is it because she tries too hard? Is it because she's too short? Well, it might be because she has so many qualifications for an eligible suitor.
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That certainly is quite a list and, apart from the part about being a juicehead and liking to tan, a rather sensible set of qualifications for selecting a mate. Everyone should be so lucky to find someone who is funny, a dork at heart, takes an interest in their hobbies, is "romantical," and likes to sleep in. God knows I would. And if he was a gorilla juicehead, well it wouldn't be so bad. She put this all in her Match.com profile. We scoured the internet and couldn't find this alleged internet smash note, but our friend Sheryl, who minored in Sociology at Freshkills Community College and wrote her thesis about the mating habits of the Guidous Americanus, read it once, said it contains the line, "I love long walks on the beach, before I pass out in the sand and am arrested for disorderly conduct." That's our Snooki!
But we learn later that Snooki is so desperate that she quickly deviates from her list of qualifications. All she really needs is a guy to be tan and have some sort of build and she'll go there. Also, if you ask her to make out, she'll probably say yes. We all have to have standards, but Snooki's seem to be much lower than others.
Still, Snooki can't manage to get laid. Why? Well, it appears that she has really stinky puke. When one drinks as much as this guidette, then puking is bound to happen. We all know that puke breath is a biological phenomenon that is deadly to guidos, much like garlic is to vampires. Even worse than that is if the puke actually takes on a stench of its own. While it's not deadly as puke breath, for the guido it is like living in a house that has been besieged by tear gas. Snooki's breath naturally smells like a combination of pickle juice, sour mix, cigarette butts (she eats them when she's done smoking), stale lubricant, glitter, chocolate orange gellato, and Vitamin Water. Combined it smells like a turkey, Swiss cheese, and bacon sandwich left in a hot Escalade for a week. Yeah, it's pretty nasty.
The Situation doesn't have any problem getting laid. He got back in touch with Samantha, Canada's Next Top Model, who comes over the house in a skimpy outfit and sucking on a lollipop like some sort of Vancouver Lolita. It would have been more subtle if she knocked on the door and then turned around and bent over so that the first thing Sitch saw when he opened the door was that she wasn't wearing panties. This girl wasn't just DTF she was FRTFRN!!! (fucking ready to fuck right now!!!).
When The Situation finally gets her in bed, it's like an explosion.
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She sure knows how to show a guy a good time, or, more appropriately The Situation knows how to show lady a good time. He tells us that guidos and Canadians have a special connection. You would think it's because they are both outsiders trying to break through into mainstream America, but it's different. The thing that binds them together is Nutella.
Yes! The hazelnut spread is a favorite of the guido. Peanuts are not native in the guido motherland of Rural Northitania so most of them are allergic to them or have considerable digestive problems when trying to consume either peanuts or their byproducts, like peanut butter. The hazelnut, however, is a delicacy where they come from. But the guidos could never figure out how to get the nut onto a piece of bread. They tried to smash them together and it didn't work. They hung pieces of bread from a tree and threw the nuts at them, and that didn't get them anything but holey bread. Finally, they poured flower, water, and yeast all over the buds of the nut, hoping that they would grow into slices of bread with nuts on them, but science was not on their side.
Finally, one day, a magical product arrived from Canada. It was called Nutella, and it was a creamy spread version of the nut they loved so much. Finally they could put it on toast and sangwiches. Ever since that day the guidos have had a symbiotic relationship with the Canadians. They get their Nutella from Canadians and our neighbors to the north can only earn their livelihood by selling their strange foodstuffs to the guido. And when they join together in sexual congress it is a combination that is both explosive and delightful—much like Nutella on toast, but even noisier.
Speaking of noisy, I'm beginning to worry about DJ Paulie Decible. It seems that all he can do is run around and scream and make up strange songs.
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Based on this evidence I am giving DJ Paulie the Diagnosis of Buskineers Disease. Like Legionnaire's Disease, it is an airborne disease caused by bacteria, but in this case it causes those infected to behave like street buskers or carnival criers or other people who scream in strange voices to attract attention. While these professionals use their shouts to make money, DJ Paulie Disease has no control over his outbursts. His syndrome attacks the brain like Tourettes, until he has no control whatsoever over the strange music he is creating. It's not a problem for him now, with his beloved Rocio by his side, but when the disease enters its fatal fourth stage, where he can't even stand up without an open guitar case full of change at his feet, he might be sad, lonely, and homeless, just like all the buskers that have come before him. And one day he will shuffle along the freeway, the bleating horns blaring out the song in his heart and he will stumble across an old crone sobbing next to a burnt out car. "Why!" she will scream at him. "Why, Paulie? WHY!"