“You can try me, fatso.”

Hi Guys,

So my annoying stepsister is all “why don’t you promote your shows blah blah blah” so here it is, the show flyer and all the details for my local show here in Burbank!

I got two late shows, which I think is better because late is when all the weird fun stuff happens. So reserve your tickets here https://h2f.hosting-advantage.com/booking/h2f_flyer.php?id=4507 so I can tell my step sister you did it!!

Geeez. Hugz and see you then. It’ll be so fun, I promise.

I’m sitting in my Toledo hotel room with a raging case of the runs, courtesy of the Japanese Hibachi place across the street. Nothing like diarrhea you’ve paid for. I’m watching TV and discovered my favorite new show, it’s a “Scared Straight” remix called “Beyond Scared Straight.” The original was amazing, but this one is even better as it has special 2011 craziness added. It’s filled with terrifying facial tattoos, efficient homemade shanks and shivs and plenty of women who look like men. It’s on A & E. Remember when that channel used to just be the uptight guy who hosted Masterpiece Theater? A & E has come a long way.

I love Jersey Shore. There, I said it. More than that, I think it may be the most perfect show on television. Tonight for the season premiere, my family is having a viewing party and we’ll be  fist-pumping together to celebrate the perfection that is this TV show. I can hear you now, “but Christina, I thought you were an intelligent, well-read, culturally aware person who shuns the mass appeal and stupidity of such lowbrow reality shows.”

Or maybe you’re just that douchebag on Facebook who writes things like “my opinion of you has just lowered” when I publicly declare my love for this show.

But really, what is so fundamentally wrong with liking reality shows, namely Jersey Shore?  Is it really that different  from liking any other scripted show CBS has shoved down our throats, masquerading  as comedy? Is watching How I Met Your Mother any more dignified than watching Jersey Shore?  Why can’t I love Bill Hicks and still get a giggle from Larry the Cable Guy? Am I just an uncultured twat with too much time on my hands to even blog about this? Maybe. But here’s my point:

Firstly, if you claim to be one of these cultural elitists who say asshole things like “WATCH television? Why, I don’t even OWN a television”. You’re not as culturally aware as you should be.  Period. Whether or not you like it, popular culture IS still culture and being above it  means you’re ignorant of what most people in your country are aware of. To me, not knowing who Snookie is is just as offensive as not knowing who the Vice President is. Not only that, you mean to tell me after a long day’s work you’d rather curl up on the couch and read some Shakespeare to unwind than watch the Situation make an ass out himself?

“OK, self-righteous twat, but what about Shakespeare?” Isn’t there more artistic merit in reading Shakespeare than watching these retarded guidos do push ups on Jersey Shore? Well yes and no. If you’re reading Shakespeare, then congratulations, you’re reading and that’s always preferable to watching TV of almost any kind.

What people forget is that Shakespeare was  considered trash entertainment in his own time. It wasn’t until the Romantic and Victorian era that his plays were revered as  high culture.  He essentially was the Jersey Shore of his time. His plays were written in language that was accessible to a mass audience and his topics were “common man” type stuff.

“But Christina, Shakespeare was classy, used big words and never had lowbrow dick jokes in his plays.”   Wrong. There’s tons of double entendre and  sexual innuendo in his plays.  How the hell do you think I learned what a “codpiece”* was in 10th grade? In other words, Hamlet was fist-pumping. If you don’t believe me, just google that shit.

*That thing on his wiener is a codpiece.

Not only that, what are all great dramas and comedies made of? Shakespeare solidified the formulas we still use today for almost all successful plays, movies and TV shows. There’s lover’s quarrels, mistaken identity, betrayal, murder, conflict, romantic rivalry – all themes that are alive and well in “trashy culture” like Jerry Springer and yes, even Jersey Shore.  Jesus, the sitcom Three’s Company wouldn’t have lasted one season without good old mistaken identity.

Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell discovered that there were certain archetypes that recur in human myth, across times and across ethnic and geographic groups. In other words, we humans love seeing the same shit, over and over,  just in different forms. You think anyone has the patience to watch a Shakespeare play on TV anymore? Let alone an advertiser who would spend a dime on that network? I thinketh not, but they will if the drama is sprayed in self-tanner and drenched in Axe body spray. It’s just a repackaging of the old story-telling  formulas.

So, the next time you hear someone trashing your favorite crap TV show, kindly remind them that what is today’s trash was just yesterday’s trash, remixed. And you know what, sucka? I LOVES my trash.

Hey Kiddies,

If you’re in or near the Bay Area, I’ll be doing a New Year’s Eve show with an amazing line up of Comedians at the Palace of Fine Arts. Tickets go on sale 11/19 at www.Livenation.com