Based on this and their cast bios, here are the most promising characters:

• Mike, the maybe-gay maybe-bi guy described as sexually confused in the trailer, is scheduled to become a gay rights activist mid-season. Cross fingers for a "closeted on the Hill" subplot, hopefully featuring Republicans.
• 
  
• Emily was raised in a "fundamentalist Christian cult" and is now on a "daredevil" streak, which is just screaming "crazy in-house hook-ups" and "alcohol problems," isn't it?
• 
  
• Andrew gets the most face-time in the trailer, and his bio says he's "witty," which hopefully means "bitchy bickerer." His affectations include an omnipresent panda hat and being a "local legend for his witty, often offensive, politically incorrect comics," which hopefully means disgustingly cute comic nerd romance, not endless arguments about political correctness, which are the most annoying category of discourse.

The problem was with Ayiiiiiiia. How do you solve a problem like Ayiiiia? How do you catch a frown and ask it to leave the house? No one knows.

This episode was one of those ones that's edited to such a weird degree that you can't really tell what's what or when's when. As the vomit-splattered curtain was drawn back on the scene last night, Emily and Ayiiiia and Shabazzle were getting along famously. They were riding pennyfarthing bicycles down by the arcade. They were flying kites and going to kissing booths and eating cotton candy and doing this and doing all of this stuff and it was summertime every minute of every day, just breezes and balms. Everyone was so happy!

Except Johnnay. Johnnay wasn't happy because she was sitting up on the deck, her black hair matted in nest-like snarls atop her little round marble head, staring down at the three frolicking ladies and seething. But she didn't care, she didn't care that they were having the best time of their lives, that they were becoming Sistahs with a capital SISTAHS, because she had the boys. She had tumble-topped Binky with his suspicious accent, creepy-faced Bronne with his bleary creeper features, that gay one, and Melody, the tattooed rocker hunk with chestnutty good looks and a badass attitude. She has all of them! So she doesn't need Ayiiiia or Emily or Mafarffle. And they don't need her.

So the house was divided and everyone was drunk so they couldn't stand. While at the club one night, Ayiiiia decided to up and leave and everyone got worried because this is downtown Mexico where the national pastime is gringo abduction and the official currency is crumpled twenties covered in blood. After 45 minutes of looking and yelling her name for a while ("Ayiiiia! Ayiiiiiiiia!" it sounded like Japanese soldiers dying in comic books from World War II), they finally found her standing on the street. Now if your roommates had been looking for you and had been worried that you were going to wind up mostly dead in the back of a rusted-out El Camino, you'd naturally do what Ayiiiiia did, I think. Which was yell at them. She got mad that they'd been worried and looking for her. Because... that makes complete sense I guess. So we started to see some cracks in the Ayiiiia veneer there.

This didn't stop the three girlyfriends from hanging out though. Mad that Johnnay had gone to lunch with the boys one day, they decided to go out club dancing without her. Just Ayiiiia and Emily and Verdell. So they went and drank fizzy drinks and the lights swirled and Emily saw Ayiiiia there across the way, grinding her hips into the air, her horsey bucks and thrusts hypnotic in their crassness. So when the ladies got home, sprawling down the stairs in their pointy boots and pointier features, Ayiiiiia and Emily left Gargamel twirling in the kitchen and went to bed. They went to bed, not to sleep. If you catch my meaning. If you're picking up what I'm laying down. What I mean to say is... I'm pretty sure that Emily and Ayiiia from The Real World: Cancun had sexual relations with each other after their girls' night out. So.

Sistahs were totally bonded! Everything was peachy keen! Except nothing was peachy keen. See while the three weird sisters were friendies, Johnnay was still hulking off in the perimeter, like Sirius Black in dog form. And as she stewed in her lonely juices, she riled up the dumb boys, who were just off in a corner hooting and throwing their feces around and drinking and annoying Emily. Dark clouds began to form in Em's eyes and the Earth began to tremble ever so slightly. But no one noticed, not yet. But soon they would.

Because they are nice or vain or probably both, the straight boys Binky and Bronne agreed to escort Derek to a gay bar for gay people. The gay bar in Cancun was basically like any other bar in Cancun except it was full of mens and only a scattered handful of women—those that just wanted to dance and not be bothered, those that needed the reassuring touch of a man but couldn't find it in Straightville. Bronne had asked Derek to "gay him up as hard as he could," which I half-chuckled at and thought That could make a could joke but really it's just too flat and boring. Gay me up real hard. Hardee hard hard. Bronne. Bronne was that guy you knew in college who was always just trying a little too hard. Wanted to be the party animal and the ladykiller and brah's brah and all that but was never quite sure how to do it, and you could tell that he was wildly reinventing himself from some nerdy obscurity he toiled in in high school and you sorta felt bad for him so you tolerated him and let him hang around but the more and more he pushed and pushed and pushed the more you got angry at him and eventually you just ditched him forever because oh holy God it was worth being an asshole and losing karma points because now he's gone and won't bother you and ahh blessed relief. Remember that dude? That is Bronne. It's sad.

ANYWAY. Nothing remarkable happened at the gay nightclub for gay people except that on the way back Derek got caught by a groundskeeper for peeing in the bushes and the small fellow tried to take him to apologize to the manager but Derek deftly eluded him by saying "No, I was just vomiting" and then making throw-up noises and motions. Blehhh Blehhhh! he went. And I felt bad for the teeny tiny Mexican man who was just trying to do his job, but really, son? Peeing in the bushes merits an awkward sitdown with the manager? This is Can-motherhumpin'-cun, friendo! The bushes must be practically made of pee at this point. Let it slide, dude. Just let it slide.

So the boys were supes drunks that night and when they woke up at 8 am, for a very important Student City business conference that involved ziplines and seal kissing, they were still drunk. Melody really wanted to be on time so he started bellowing the time to everyone and Bronne just acted cray-zay (it was just so exhausting to watch) and Emily started clawing at the walls and eventually she exploded into a furious ball of boy hating and screaming. The boys were not scared of her rage, just bemused by it, so they kept egging her on and she got madder and madder and when they finally got to the Student City Sitting In a Hammock Leadership Conference, she refused to participate in any of their reindeer games. She was mad at her roommates so she decided to punish herself with no fun zipline rides. I don't get it.

ANYWAY. Emily was also kinda mad at her once beloved Ayiiiia, because when the shit hit the fan with the boys, only brave Mulligatawny was woman enough to stand at her side and fight. Ayiiiia, on the other hand, just disappeared into an occluding smoke and mist of mutters and bleeped swears, carrying on some fight with herself and maybe other people, it was hard to tell. Whatever it was, Emily felt it was a Reason Why Not to like Ayiiiiia anymore. So being a mature individual, she decided to just not talk to her anymore. Like, really, she just blatantly ignored direct questions. She and Bilbao finally made friends with the boys and Johnnay again, and Emily apologized for being a bitchy bitch because it's not nice to be that way when you live with people for a TV show.

Ayiiiia sat alone in a hammock, sticking pins into little Melody-shaped dolls.

Back at the ranch, Ayiiia was stomping around and starting fights with people. She shoved Binky down a flight of stairs for no good reason. Derek came up and tried to give her a hug, so Ayiiiia ran him through with a curtain rod. He slumped over dead. Melody came walking by, singing a song, and she based a priceless Ming vase over his head. Ker-thunk. Johnnay was in another room entirely, doing her knitting, but Ayiiiiia closed her eyes really really tight and focused really really hard and suddenly Johnnay felt a pain in her head and then fell over, perished. Suffices to say, Ayiiiiia was in a bad mood. But then she made a critical error. She started some shit with Schlimazel. Their fight went like this:

AYIIIIA: Let's get in a fight, but don't be attitudey.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude? Who's got attitude?

AYIIIIA: You've got attitude.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude? I've got attitude?

AYIIIIA: Attitude: You've got it.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude?

AYIIIIA: Attitude.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude.

That was a verbatim transcription. They just said the word attitude back and forth for ten minutes and then both stormed away. Later Shlomo was bitching to Emily about their newfound Enemy and said Enemy was caught lurking behind curtains, listening. It was like that movie The Lives of Others except in this case instead of a conflicted East German Stasi officer listening in on a playwright, it was a stupid girl named Ayiiiia who won an online contest to be on a reality show standing behind a curtain in Cancun. But they're close relatives!

Finally the two lovers, dim Emily and rabid Ayiiiiiia, got in the spat to end all spats, shrieking and caterwauling while the other roommates milled about the living room like Sims that you don't control, they're part of some other person's game, and finally Ayiiiia said "At least I wasn't fucking adopted!!!" and ... oh dear, Ayiiiiiia. Just oh dear.

So that was basically the end of Ayiiiiia. All the other roommates were happy as clams, and decided to play kings. When they got to 9 Bust a Rhyme, Crickets or Fallujah or Jasmine or Attitudes or whatever her name is said both "cat" and "hat" which is really annoying because she took two words when she only needed one.

ANYWAY. Ayiiiiia went to go drink wine on the porch by herself. Which, all things being equal, is not a bad way to spend an evening. Watching the Mexican waves roll in while sipping wine and not having to go to work or pay bills or do anything unpleasant tomorrow. But when you're roommates are inside doing waterfalls and 2 For Yous and hating you, I guess it's a sad thing to be doing. So I guess Ayiiiia might go home. Pity.

What is it, though, about these contest winners? They never work out! Remember that fool from the Hollywood season a couple years back? Man that guy was a DISASTER. I mean, Ayiiiia sorta worked for a little while—she even did a lady!—but I guess it had to come to this. Yelling for no reason and then lonely porch drinking. Maybe the end came in the beginning, when she started bitching about dishes. It's never a good idea to bitch about dishes on this show. It just never works out well.

ANYWAY.

Here:

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The Good Stuff

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Weeds; June 8th, 10pm
Showtime's hit comedy, about Mary Louise Parker the suburban mommy pot dealer, regained any momentum it lost during the Albert Brooks period by shacking Nancy up with a deadly but lovable Mexican politician cum drug lord and deepening the stakes with a life-saving pregnancy plot twist at the very, very end of last season. Plus, Silas'll probably take his shirt off a lot more, and we might finally get to see where, if anywhere, the undeniable Nancy/Andy chemistry could lead. Almost as much summertime fun as just actually getting stoned.

Top Chef Masters; June 10th, 10pm
Basically the same thing as regular Top Chef, except with food world superstars rather than wannabes. You won't get the same disaster quotient you get on the o.g. version, but that's probably actually a good thing. Bravo's once proud (and dwindling) fleet of competition series have begun relying too heavily on wackadoo personalities rather than on talent, so maybe this is the ideal corrective. Sure they may have out-there, annoying personalities, but we're pretty much guaranteed they're all gonna be competent.

True Blood; June 14th, 9pm
HBO's kitschy vampire series started off wildly uneven last season, veering from scary-sexy to scary-stupid in the middle of episodes. But it eventually found its deep-fried Southern Gothic stride, with clever storytelling and ever-deepening characters gushing out of every orifice. And, yes, Anna Paquin is ungodly annoying, thus rendering the show's central relationship something of a bore, but she's more than made up for by the dangerously sexy Ryan Kwanten, the filthy-fascinating Nelsan Ellis, and the as-yet-unexplored-but-still-intriguing lesbodrone that is Michelle Forbes. As entertaining a show as one could want during the hot 'n sticky months. [See Ed. note below]

Mad Men; August sometime, 10pm
AMC has two of the best shows on television right now, and this is their flagship (the other is the fabulous Breaking Bad). When we last left the worried Don Draper, he was staring down dual abysses—his swiftly unknotting past, and the disappearing of everything the late 1950s promised the 60s would be. Poor Betty has problems of her own to deal with (oh dear, a baby), and of course there's that whole Pete/Peggy thing (oh dear, a baby), and the unsettling matter of Joan's rape. Not exactly light summer fare any of it, but compelling, beautifully detailed, oddly menacing capital a Art nonetheless.

The Maybes

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Nurse Jackie; June 8th, 10:30pm
The first episode Showtime's new Edie Falco vehicle is actually already on demand, and we gave it a watch last night. While Edie Falco (who plays the acidic-yet-warm, painkiller-addicted title nurse) could basically recite tax code and make us swoon, we're not so sure about everything around her. Medical shows are really hard to make original at this point, no matter how many gratuitous swear words and sex references you throw into the pot. Peter Facinelli's Dr. Asshole is basically a (slightly) grownup version of the Asshole he played so many years ago in Can't Hardly Wait and the good-lookin' Haaz Sleiman couldn't really find his way through the dense thicket of ooh-snap girlfriend gay stuff the writers gave him in the pilot. Points, though, go to theater goddess Eve Best and sadsack Merritt Wever for handling their barely sketched-out roles with aplomb. We'll keep watching for now, but we're cautious.

Hung; June 28th, 10pm
HBO's show about a man (The Sweetest Thing's vaguely annoying Thomas Jane) who has an enormous penis and becomes gigolo has a great supporting cast (including the underrated Anne Heche and the vastly underused Jane Adams), but that premise... If it's funny/sad, we're into it. If it's funny/gross, we didn't like Californication the first time, so why would we like it grosser?

10 Things I Hate About You; July 7th, 8pm
We love ABC Family for Greek, but hate it for The Secret Life of the American Teenager. So we're not really sure where the hell we fall on 10 Things. The movie on which it's based was a tart little surprise of a teen flick, but the small screen cast seems, frankly, nowhere near as attractive or interesting as a lineup of Heath Ledger, Joe Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union, and Alex Mack. That Larry Miller stuck around to keep playing the overprotective dad of Kat and Bianca (yes, like in Taming of the Shrew) might indicate that there's some quality poking through the formula holes. We're curious to find out for sure.

For When Our Brains Are Mush

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.NYC Prep; June 23rd, 10pm
The Bravo show is this. Just spoiled rich New York City kids—the real-life Gossip Girls. It'll probably make you want to drink, so good thing it's summer and that's when drinking is forgiven, even encouraged. So pour that wine into a big ol' tumbler full of ice and sip deep. Or shallow. You know.

The Real World: Cancun; June 24th 10pm
Yes, it's happening. MTV has decided to sacrifice seven not-at-all-virgins to appease vengeful Montezuma. They'll go wandering through the jungles of the urban Yucatan, figuring out what happens when people stop being polite and start vomiting body shots into each other's belly buttons. Bad boy rocker Joey (from fuckin' Lawrence, Mass kid) and contest-winner Ayiiia (yes, three i's) are stone fox boombalotties, plus there's lots of weeping in the trailer, so... sigh. We're stoked, dude.

Wipeout; Wednesdays at 8pm
People falling down was pretty funny last summer. We're hoping the charm hasn't worn off. Don't fail us, ABC.

OK, that's it. The Boston Globe has an easy list of everything else. So go! Watch TV and have fun and enjoy the silly summer pleasures. But also be sure to get outside once in a while and experience all that the sweltering season has to offer. Like, um... Drinking outside. Or drinking on the beach. Those are sort of the same things, huh?

Oh well.

Editor's note: True Blood, like other TV shows (even some mentioned in this very post!), is a Gawker advertiser. Their campaign, though, includes sponsored posts via Bloodcopy.com, which when it was introduced generated some discussion in the media about media. So here is the boring disclosure: Those Bloodcopy posts are written by the advertising department. Editorial posts are written independent of who advertises; we might endorse, trash or simply ignore TV shows that happen to advertise. And that's why you keep a bright line separating the editorial and advertising in the first place, kids.

Top pic via Getty

Is there any way that this show cannot be awesome? I don't believe so. It could have been awesome despite itself even if they producers were corny, but judging from the highlight reel it's actually well done, too. And featuring slutty sex, just like every other 'Real World!'

"You probably never think of homeless people kissing, making love, falling in love," Ayoub says of the intimacy-and intrigue-captured on camera.

Next evolution: 'Half-Homeless, Half-Hipster Real World: Little Rock'

Homeless Real World (sizzle reel) from Broadcasting & Cable on Vimeo.

[B&C]

The company, which has produced all 257 seasons of Real World as well as other reality dreck, has put an ad on EntertainmentCareers.net looking for a "FULL TIME" production accountant for an as-yet-unnamed reality series filming in the Beltway area:

Really this makes complete sense. Ever since Barry O. came shuffling up to politics, his groundswell populist hat in hand, DC is a cool, inspiring, exciting place to be. You couldn't have been a bigger square in squaresville if you lived and worked in the city during Bush's millennium kick-off reign of terror. But now everyone wants in. The cast mates could be, like, political volunteers or something! Imagine the effect! The change! The hope!

Yeah this season is squeaky—mouse squeaky—clean. Well, in comparison to seasons past at least. No one's drunk and horrible and spreading love diseases everywhere. No one's drunk and getting into histrionic fights with roommates and hurling racial epithets. No one's drunk and... Uh. No one's drunk. Where is the limitless supply of alcohol that's plagued this reality experiment gone awry for the past ten years or so? I guess MTV decided enough was enough. It's time for a hiatus. The only trouble is that while it's all well and good and refreshing to see all these perky youngsters livin' life with un-booze-fuzzy clarity, it's also kinda boring.

I mean, what happened last night?

Devyn had boy issues. You know Devyn. She's the beauty queen with the enormous bookshelf protruding from her sternum who is the house's very own Mrs. Malaprop. I can't think of any specific examples right now because that strange first hint of spring in the air is sort of distracting me by making me want to get in a car and keep on driving forever, but she does misuse words all the time. Well, anyway, she has a "sort of fiance" named White Boy who is a club promoter in Kansas City. Being a club promoter in Kansas City means that you walk around dressed as a club sandwich, passing out fliers for the new Panera Bread at the Zona Rosa. It must pay a lot though, because he's always giving Devyn money. And she demands it, in that dumb collegiate insolently bucktoothed way of hers. But she's also kinda jeepin' on him with another guy, named Cracker Head. So all the roommates knew Devyn's wicked secret when White Boy came to visit and they mocked her, gently, about it (see clip above).

So a big confrontation was in order, right??? Well, no. White Boy left. Devyn wrote him an email/called him on the house phone and broke it off. That was it. Nothing. Then Devyn took a feather duster and cleaned off the shelf and went to go make herself a club sandwich. Sigh.

The other big thing that happened was that my pathetic crush on Ryan developed unabated. He had his cute girlfriend Bella come to visit and they went to Coney Island with the gay dude JD and everyone was kind and Baya gave her a big hug and it wasn't as awkward as it could have been. Did you expect some big drunken fight or fuzzy, nightvision fucking? Well too bad. The happy couple just talked and walked and she said he had a beautiful face (no argument there, honey chile'). That was it! I'd like to say that Chet climbed into the wall again, weeping and furtively masturbating while staring at them from the eyes of a portrait, but that didn't happen. I'd like to say that Katelynn farted so violently that all her boy parts came back. But that didn't happen. Nope. Everyone was just nice and calm.

There was a third jokey plot with the boys putting a little white rat named Stinkers Gyllenhaal (or something) in the girls' beds, but it didn't amount to much other than Chet being surprisingly likable. Yes even as he desperately tried for more and more precious boytime during so he could gaze upon Ryan's puckish countenance and quietly imagine the little cottage by the sea that they could share someday, Chet was tolerable. Kind of funny even. Meanwhile the girls launched a charming little detective initiative to discover the source of the rat. Katelynn was sort of annoying and credit-takey about the whole thing, but that was it. Little rats. Little jokes. No freakouts. Hardly any swearing, even.

It looks like the season will take a turn at some point, if preview clips are anything to go by. Which will be exciting but also kind of sad. Sedate as it might be, it's kind of pleasant just watching young people be nice to each other. Thrilled to be sharing this experience in their precarious mansion by the harbor, the cool blue Verrazano in the background, stretching across the ocean like a welcome arch. The narrows there, through which so many people over so many years arrived to find, one likes to believe, a welcoming America. One that wasn't drunk and yelling and screwing and fucking up. But instead laughing or hugging or lifting weights or dusting shelves or petting mice. Or maybe just staring out at the limitless horizon, waving hello to all the little boats bobbing merrily along. Out there on the friendly, sparkling sea.

This week's story was told in three parts. There was The Lonely Talents of Miss Devyn R. Actressa. There was I Would Do Anything For Love (Except That, Until We're Married): A Chet Chetterson Romance. And there was Sleeping Bag for Two: A Mystery, which involved the reformed lesbian Sarah and her phone-operating father. First we go to Devyn's Tale.

Devyn wants to be an actress, she says. And because she's studied theatre "at a collegiate level," she feels she's ready to skip the stage and head right on out to instant success in Hollywood. Even though her cousin Kim was in The Color Purple on old Broadway, Devyn will not budge about the theatre thing. Her cuz was kind enough to listen to the MTV producers and place a call to a casting director friend, trying to get Devyn a meeting. Before all that happened, though, there was the Curious Incident of the Gay in the Nighttime, when JD got super drunk again. I think I figured out what the deal with that is. JD is one of those people who's so sure of himself in life, so confident that he's smart and in control and good to look at, that he thinks he can do no wrong when he's drunk. He's just more awesome, right?? Incorrect. He's bitchy and show-offy and loud-mouthed when he gets super drunk, which he's now done twice. I'm keeeeeeping track.

This time the gang was at Angels & Kings, because it's the most awesome bar ever, and JD came in a'saunter, with a transsexual named Lady Coolatta Febreze (not her real name) on his arm. JD was all drunky and bragging about how he has this awesome trans friend and she's suuuch a better trans than Katelynn is (what does that mean, exactly?) and that she can sang much much better than Devyn could ever hope to do because she's an American Idol reject. Everyone was offended at this point. Though Devyn was way more offended than Katelynn, which is completely backwards. Especially because JD spilled the last remaining little wrinkled bean and told Chet that Katelynn was born with boy parts. But whatever. Devyn was angry, and even angrier when the Countess Ticklefeathers O'Houlihan invited her on stage for a little singalong. Devyn was all "no, no, I'm not warmed up, no... no.... HERE I GO, COUNTRY FOOLS!" She sang "I Hope You Dance," which is a lonely sad song for shut-ins by Leeanne Wombat. Devyn sang aight, and then Princess Hydrox McDelicounter warbled and the Angels & Kings audience, a befuddled menagerie of straight dudes and idiots, scratched their heads.

Then came Devyn's big casting director non-audition. She turned left at the wrong place and ended up in New Jersey, but eventually made it, 45 minutes late. She wasn't very apologetic, but that's OK. She's worked really hard for this moment. So she did a monologue from a Lee Blessing play (I shouted alone to myself, drinking Chateau Diana fake wine with seltzer out of an enormous wine glass at this point, that I had taken a masterclass with him years ago and as I said it I realized even I didn't care). Anyway her monologue was flat and terrible and the poor casting director wanted to shoot himself. Then Devyn sang the National Anthem. At an audition. Devyn sang the National Anthem at an audition that she was 45 minutes late to. She's going places! In the end she seemed to forgive JD for pitting her against Argyle Lemonade, RN. So that's something.

On to # 32 in the Chet Chetterson Romance series, about a bumbling Mormon person who's never seen a naked girl. Chet was still pursuing the model ("she's a model... and I'm down with that" or something) named Emily and her force fields were weakening against his Millennium Falcon-shaped hairdid. So they went to the Angels & Kings bar the same night that JD's trans friend, Q'orianka Kilcher, voice-murdered Devyn. I think was the same night anyway. So whatever, after Ryan insisted that Chet had no game, he did seem to have game, backed up by his favorite wingmen, TV cameras. So after everyone in New York wept for a few hours, Chet and Emily went on a date in Little Italy. She was really late, probably because she'd been aimlessly following Devyn and had ended up in Jersey City. The date went well, they went back to the house and cuddled. Chet confessed that he'd never seen a naked woman or touched a boob or self-diddled, and Emily's eyes glazed over. She's only 19! Which Chet said he liked because it means she's "young and innocent," which was horribly creepy. Someday Chet will work his way into some sort of body hole—be it woman, man, or mineral—and the space-time continuum will be forever breached and Buffy will have to jump into the light again to save everyone's life. Sigh.

Sarah, the LUG with the jugs, was having problems with her father. He somehow found her phone number (somehow! whoooo could have given him the number to the house that's also a television show??) and wanted to talk. They haven't seen each other in eight years and it's time. Sarah got very upset and yelled and hung up. She told a story about how her father had been sexually abusive. He kept saying on the phone that it was all made-up by the mother. And I don't want to jump into this too much, because if you've ever seen the sad mystery machine that is Capturing the Friedmans you know that these issues are so murky and muddled and sometimes impossible to figure out and speculating about them is useless at best and cruel at worst. But... OK, so the story was that Sarah had been molested at a daycare center or something and then she'd gone on a camping trip with her father. And on that camping trip, Pops only brought one sleeping bag. And then her story ended. Sarah said that while nothing exactly had happened, she still felt violated and that she and her mother had tried to prosecute her father for the offense. I don't know. I'm no ADA Alexandra Cabot, but that doesn't sound like abuse to me. Maybe all he could afford was one sleeping bag. Or, maybe he did plan on molesting her. Who knows. She's sure of it though, and I guess that's all that matters... ? Sigh. We'll end this segment here.

The other ones, Ryan and Scotty and Baya, they were around sort of. But this wasn't their week. Luckily I can see through both walls and time, so I know the real story of what happened to them. Ryan found an old monkey's paw down by the docks. He brought it back to Scotty, who thought it was "real neat." They figured out, by doing internet research, that you're supposed to make wishes on a monkey's paw but that they always turn out bad in some sort of cruelly ironic way. So they decided to make the wishes in a sing-songy fake-Baya voice. "Dear Monkey's Paw.... I want to be a daaaancer," Ryan shrilled. One finger went down, and a low rumble coursed through the house. The next day Baya got a dancing job. As a chorus girl in Phantom of the Opera. Which is terrible because Baya is "street"! So Baya killed herself and Scotty and Ryan put the monkey's paw away to use on the new replacement roommate.

At the very end there were fireworks and everyone did a slow waltz and the cameras swirled overhead. And I noticed, and I mean this sincerely, that unlike the camera swirling on The Hills or The City, when this particular season of Real World does it... Well, I feel like I'm actually looking at something.

So, that's nice.

Baya & Ryan: Save the Last Email
Baya is the hip-hop honky with a flat-faced heart of gold and Ryan is the shaggy, been-told-he's-funny-all-his-life-but-really-isn't boy from rural Pee Ayy. Being the two whitest straight people in the house, they've naturally begun a flirtation that involves goofy touching and joking and rolling around on beds together and, uh oh, Ryan being uppity and weird and insisting on reminding her that he has a girlfriend wasting away back home somewhere in the dungeons of the Keystone. First it was at a bar—Angels & Kings, they promoted heavily—when Kumbaya started sexgrinding with him (or whatever, it involved her mashing her hand into his face. doesn't that always turn you on, boys?) He got upset and gurgled to her "remember... I have a girlfriend" because, in this post-Twilight world of dashing young men and the girls who must be careful not to turn them on lest the men do something awful that would be all the girls' fault, it was up to Kumbaya to stay away from him. Terrific! Then, after they went to a jokey pole dance class and Ryan made jokes that were "funny" when gawky but curiously confident boys from your 10th grade English class made them but are not at all now, Ryan sent an email to the lass saying, again, "I have a girlfriend... I'm not ruling you out... Just not right now... So put a cork in it and I'll get to you when I'm ready." Which. Blargh. Baya doesn't like him all that much, she just likes the attention, and she'll probably rumpleflop into his pants further on down this cobbly Red Hook road. Also, terrible confession time: I'm mayyyyybe starting to find Ryan a little cute. Shoot me in the face, please.

Scotty Hampshah and Devyn: Jungle Heaver
The heaving is her bosom, which Scotty lovingly calls the Silicon Valley. Aw. So, yeah! Scotty finally got some screen time. Sadly, though, it involved him standing shirtless in a kitchen, holding raw chicken and saying that it would make an awesome sound if he slapped someone with it. I mean, I know exactly what he means and he is completely right, but c'mon. You're on camera. Anyway, Devyn (who I am increasingly liking, if only because she seems relatively normal and nice and not a mess) made her patented BFF-O-Meter™ that charts how they're going from friends who google-eye each other to friends who eventually make lovely origami of their genitals. BUTTTTTTTTTT, record skip! Scotty brought along his sexy tall model friend when JD dragged everyone to Elmo, because that is the only restaurant he knows. (Or, more likely, the only restaurant that will let them film.) Devyn was not feeling it and told Scotty that he should date a black girl, but it didn't matter anyway because Chet was chetting up the model (unsuccessfully, see below) and it was later revealed that Scotty is in love with a girl back home and he had kind of lied about it. Devyn handled it well and the whole thing was pleasant. Scotty's plotline on the show has now come to an end.

Chet Chetterson and the Mingly Model: Under the Banner of Devyn
Oh for the love of God (who lives on a space planet and is waiting... for YOU). The Mormon Chet thought he and Mingly Sue had good chemistry ("I mean, she's a model and I'm Chet." see clip above), which was completely sad. So after Elmo, Chet decided to pretend he was drunk or something and started slurring little come ons to ol' Sue, while Devyn watched bemusedly. At one point he purred to Kumbaya that he'd never seen a yellow polka-dot bikini and then he flexed his pec. Literally. As if he were the Sexy Hunk in some B 80's movie about girls who get a job working at a gym in Hollywood for the summer. (It could star Haviland Morris and be called Workin' It). So that was terrible and Mingly Sue couldn't care less about Chet, whose entire face is the same terrifying shade of clear. At the end Devyn said to Mingly: "Aww, you broke his little heart." It was true. This kid is such a dingus. I can't deal with it.

Katelynn T. and the Band Geek: For the Boys
Katelynn was super upset because her boyfriend back in Missoula wasn't being very communicative. She had a long talk with the girl from San Francisco whose name might be Sarah about how boys are and about how girls are and the fact that they were talking so casually and traditionally about gender and Katelynn herself used to be one and is now the other was either really great and, like, progress! Or it was just sort of squirmy and maybe I chuckled a little too loudly and then felt awful about myself. So, whatever. ANYWAY, Katelynn got drunk at Angels & Kings and danced with otha boys and kissed otha girls and whoohoo! Later she went on a date with a boy from a band. They went to the Lower East Side. They walked and talked and she didn't mention her wicked secret (that she doesn't know how to spell Caitlin.) Eventually, though, she decided that she didn't want to date him. So she cried about the boy back home and I wondered, because I'm a dreadful person, if maybe he got scared about being outed as dating a transgendered person and decided to break it off without, you know, telling her. Hopefully that's not the case.

So that was the episode, basically. I mean, there was stuff about how they want to be shitty musicians and shitty dancers and shitty "hosts," and they all mostly failed. The other people, JD and Maybe Sarah, didn't do much. I will say. You know. It's nice. It's real nice that MTV maybe finally found some tiny horcrux of its soul and said "let's cool it with the drinking and the slimy fucking." This season is tame and vaguely... smart. I mean, smarter than the past ten or so seasons. So good for them.

At the very end of the episode, there was a great whirring and the loft disappeared with everyone inside it. But to where? Or, to when??

We were mostly treated to Gay Panic II: 2 Fast, 2 Curious, the stirring sequel to last week's For Straight Boys Who Have Considered Blowing a Dude When the Rainbow Seems Enuf. By this I mean that Chet—the pathologically irksome platinum-headed Mormon fop—ogled over JD's (who is a homosexual person who commits homosexual sex acts) HUGE ENORMOUS KING KONG DONKEY SCHLONG CONDORMS. They were so big that Chet couldn't stop obsessing over them and complimenting JD for having A HUGE ENORMOUS SOMETHING HIDDEN 'NEATH HIS PANTS. What I mean to say is that Chet is a hormonesexual. He might be gay, he might not be. Either way, he is completely batshit head-over-heels obsessssssssed with the act of doin' it. He put one of the condoms on a banana and put it in the fishtank. Because... comedy?

Ryan, the war-stricken jokey pratfaller, mugged and galoompfed his way through things. Honestly, I would maybe kind of like him, if only he didn't have this awful habit of smirking like a little 13-year-old wiseacre every time he's just about to seem like decent person. Because they want airtime, Ryan and Chet decided that they would let JD take them to a nightclub bar lounge in Chelsea (the only part of New York that JD knows is Chelsea, evidently.) They went to XES. Yeah.

So there was a drag queen there, name a' Peppermint, and Ryan got paid $100 by one of his roommates to get a kiss from ol' Peppermint. Peppermint, wicked little minx, decided to not kiss Ryan on the cheek as was the fashion of the day, but to kiss him right square on the mouth (and suck out his soul, like they do in movies.) Ryan was so grossed out! He spit and slobbered and washed his mouth out with soap like he had just said "dagnabit" in front of his religious 1930's mother. Chet, who was wearing eyeliner and was crazily hungry for any compliments like "those gay fruits who wear assless chaps are going to eat you alive," just laughed and laughed and secretly wished it were him.

Though Ryan behaved like a fucking idiot, he wasn't hateful about it. It was like trying sushi for the first time or something. Um, but not sushi. (POOR CHOICE OF WORDS, DO YOU GET THAT JOKE?)

Then Chet's family came to visit (already?) and his mother was a tiny little ball of abject crazy as were his android blonde sisters. Where did they come from? Can Mormons teleport? They can, can't they? I knew it. Ryan and Chet went to dinner with the good Councilwoman of the Village of the Damned. They told her that JD was gay and she said "that's why he's so nice and nurturing." Which, as stereotypes go, is probably one of the better ones. Back at the house she hugged JD and said "take care of him," because he's colored and effete and therefore must be the help. Then the Mormons blinked their eyes twice and beamed back to their Space Temple and the New York Harbor dried up and left only salt.

So, Gay Happened. Then JD got super duper drunk after talking to detectives about his credit-card-stealing Papa, and came home and issued a loud, slurry tirade against immigrants of a quality not seen since Lou Dobbs had one Jack n' Ginger too many at that CNN Christmas party. Chet got really offended and white about it and there was an awkward discussion about it later that eventually devolved into a pensive staring at each other and then an inching closer. And closer. And closer. Chet could feel JD's warm breath on his face. JD placed his hand gently on Chet's chest. His eyes smiled warmly. Then JD grabbed Chet around the waist and kissed him deeply. Before they knew it they were tearing each other's clothes off, not caring who saw. And then Chet woke up. In the middle of the night. Alone in his bed. He wept. Lonely and bitter tears.

Kumbaya wanted to be a dancer and the Brooklyn Hip Hop Conservatory School for Girls or whatever wanted some attention so she auditioned badly and they accepted her. But she turned it down because... it seemed like work? It wasn't entirely clear.

Also, did you know that Katelynn is a transgender person? Did you know that? Oh, you did. Would you like her to tell you again? 'Cause she will. And then she will hug the little Boston Terrier, Scotty, and he will chuckle like the nice boy he is while also feeling a little gross. That's just the truth.

At the very end of the episode a giant crab broke into the loft and ate everyone.

We got to briefly go home with each cast member, to all the respective burrows and glens and hollows they crawled out of, chasing some blinding camera light that enticed them all their lives, hovering just beyond the reaches of their dim existences. Until now.

There was rumply Ryan, a jokester with a secret dark back story about fighting in the desert war, and all the rage and terror that comes attendant with that hellish experience. He's also an idiot smalltown prick. But we'll get to that later. There's Katelynn, the most worrisome and pitiful cast member, a post-op male-to-female transgendered woman who was just three weeks out of recovery when the show began taping. She's nice and shy and sexually daring and seems a bit like a witless sheep led to the slaughter. Considering two of her roommates are such magnificent jackasses about her particular circumstances. The other prick—a worse, far more malevolent presence than the aw-shucks dopery of Ryan—is our friend Chet, the blonde Mormon hipster fuck who we previously thought would just be a cute "watch him get laid!" character but instead swiftly revealed himself to be a creepy, prurient, lecherous asshole. I don't care if he's gay (he probably is), straight (he probably hates women), or whatever. He's just an unrelenting bag of dicks.

The other roommates seem fine for the most part. I was surprised to really like JD, the gay dolphin trainer from Miami. We'd previously ragged on him for maybe dating Anderson Cooper and stuff (although, is that really teasing?) but on this episode he mostly came across as an articulate, kind, intelligent person who doesn't put up with shit from anyone (see: table Hulk smash in preview of upcoming episodes.) Devyn is just a dopey beauty queen with a crush on the boring but nice Scott the Bodybuilder. Baya the dancer seems fine, and Sarah the tatooed reformed lesbian seems kind of cool one minute, then really way too into the idea of being on the show the next.

Basically the episode revolved first around the meet and greets, of which the only real moments of note were Scott saying "she's cute but um... not my type" when he met Katelynn, and Chet, having hung out with Devyn for about twenty minute, saying "OK, let's get personal... What did you think of me when you first saw me?" Because he's completely obsessed with his heinous, stupid self and hopefully will get a lesson that his little hipster party boy with filthy, sex-starved ultra-religious insides shtick may serve him well in Salt Lake, but here in Brooklyn they will beat a fucker down for such behavior. (That is also something to note! Every time they mentioned Brooklyn or played a song about Brooklyn they used, well, a lot of black dudes shouting "Brooklyn!!" Which is all well and good, that kind of Bed-Stuy braggadocio is certainly a significant part of popular, visible Brooklyn culture. But I hope they switch it up sometimes. To like a bunch of Lubevitch from Midwood singing "Brooklyn!" or some old Polish ladies from Greenpoint or a Chinese guy from Sunset Park or a nice Italian girl from Bensonhurst. If we're going to stereotype and noveltize, let's get everyone in the pot.) For the record, Devyn thought he was gay because he was wearing a purple shirt. Nice.

The other major segment was the poke-it-with-a-stick antics of the tittering Ryan and the leering, skin-crawling Chet when they figured out, through no admission on Katelynn's part mind you, that she was in fact transgendered. (This was mostly JD's doing. Not so cool there.) "She touched my nipple!" Chet tweeted at one point, referring to an extremely brief friendly tap Katelynn gave him in the hottub (of course these people went in the hottub right away, their Real World chips flipped on the minute they landed in New York). Ryan was just rude and unfunny, making loud wisecracks about her underwear and treating her like she was a circus freak. Seemingly completely unaware that she was, in fact, an actual fucking person who was living in the same place as him and that he couldn't just discuss her openly like she was some kind of odd, misplaced piece of furniture.

The boys basically continued like that the entire episode, speculating disgustedly about who was gay—it was a peculiar, telling obsession of both of theirs. In Ryan's case I'm guessing it has something to do with his time in the military—I'm sure that kind of coiled, prickly suspicion and curiosity can easily seep into that primarily young male environment. In Chet's case I think he's just a lustful motherfucker who can't reconcile his raging desire to have dirty, rough sex with a man (or a man dressed up as a woman, perhaps) with his ridiculous, hateful, magic-book religion. Or maybe that's just how he wants it to seem. He's also cold and calculating and, by his own admission, trying to get a job at MTV. The more conflicted his character, he may figure, the better his chances of sticking out.

I'm rambling and this isn't funny, I know. But it was just a really shitty parade of dumbassedness and gay panic and all of that wicked stuff last night. Chet kept blabbing about it to everyone (Scott, admirably, took him to task for talking about people behind their back) and then Ryan and Chet, in ludicrous fashion, took JD aside—who had kindly, if a bit self-importantly, invited Katelynn to dinner with him in Manhattan so they could have the queer convo—and acted dumb and dumber, culminating with Ryan referring to Katelynn as "It." JD came across looking a bit like a self-righteous shit in that scene too, mostly because all three of these yutzes were talking about Katelynn like she was a child. Sigh.

So I dunno. Poor Katelynn is in the glass case right now, while the two monkey idiots dance around her and hoot and throw banana peels. I think there's hope for Ryan. But Chet is a gross little shitbrick who needs a good lesson in comeuppance.

There was surprisingly little shitfacery, only Ryan at a fist-pumpy concert venue. Maybe this season really will be different. Also Devyn has a crush on Scott, Sarah is sweet but a bit too let's-have-an-important-convo-for-the-cameras, and Baya didn't really do much. She'll probably sleep with Ryan.

Oh and the house is yet another gorgeous/tacky display, this one perched swooningly on a rocky pier overlooking the New York Harbor, accommodating Brooklyn-themed bedrooms, a large, Crunch-sponsored gym, and basically completely see-through showers. It's fancy and ridiculous and I'm sure it would get annoying to live in after about a week.

Hopefully unlike the show itself. I hate to admit it, but I'm guiltily intrigued so far.

BKLYN, out!

What will happen in the thundering and lumbering first hour of the haggard reality show's new season? Well, based on what we've seen over the show's two-decade history, it's sort of easy to guess. There's a pretty simple plot structure, usually arranged by cast member. So!

Baya Apparently this strangely-named (but not for this show, Baya on the Real World is like Meghan anywhere else—a weird name for the RW would be like Aquatopeka or Ninjizza) girl is from Utah, is a hip-hop hippie, wants to dance professionally, and has panic attacks. So, we're guessing that Aquatopeka will—tasting the sweet grimy air that exists out from under Mormonism's thumb for the first time—get spectacularly drunk and hit on the cutest of the straight boys. We hope she falls down the stairs, hurts her good dancin' leg, and hurls herself into the briny Atlantic.

Chet We already kind of know a lot about him. His name is Joe Pitt Chet Cannon and he is also from Utah and is a crazy Mormon who is probably gay (look how trendy he dresses!) and MTV really wanted to get him laid. So let's see. We suspect he'll spend time refraining from alcohol and not talking about sex, for which the rest of the cast members—at this point soaked in booze (one has already been reduced to a little flaming heap in the corner) and sticking their genitals in/on whatever they can—will give him the hairy eyeball and judge judge judge. But he'll defend himself amiably and then excuse him self to furtively masturbate in the confessional while thinking about the buttery golden loins of Brigham Young.

Devyn It'll be a cold day in July before I recognize Missouri, so let's just say that this beauty queen (Miss America Teen winner!) is from a land west of Illinois and east of Kansas. She has really big boobs and is also a black person. So she might spend her time talking about black/white issues in a producer-prodded finger snapping way, or she may play it cool and just kind of eye everyone suspiciously while sitting in a corner with the other person of some sort of color. (I say this not because this is how she should act, so don't comment-frag me. It's just how that shit goes down on this show.)

JD That other person of color I was talking about. The second horrible, othering thing about JD is that he is a gay person who does gay things like having gay sex with gay men. Gay men like Anderson Cooper! So that is going to be a problem for the cutest straight guy (who is probably entangled with Kumbaya somewhere at this point) but he'll act like, aw it's no thang. Chet the blonde Mormon secret geigh will nod and smile politely then, in confessional (post-wank), will say "it's just... just not OK in my beliefs." And then we'll all groan and throw something at the TV and I'll shriek "get me something more to drink, this is so bad" and then I'll realize that I'm all alone at 25 still watching this show. Thanks, JD. He'll probably also cry. Because apparently his father did some bad things to him and that's baggage worth rummaging through, tossing things onto the floor willynilly as if his life were a hotel room.

Katelynn You thought that ethnic homo had problems. Katelynn is a transgendered person who doesn't know how to spell Caitlin. Her roommates will probably act really awkward and jittery and kind of look at her weird and some will be more jovial than others (Chet will be weeping) and JD will say it's fabulous but mostly, in the secret confessionals, everyone will say what lurks in the deepest, judgiest sub-basements of their booze-splattered hearts: "Why doesn't she know how to spell Caitlin?"

Ryan Ryan is the seemingly regular straight guy who has lots and lots and lots of sublimated rage. So in the first episode, expect him to assess the assets of asses and cheerily greet the gay dudes Morm and Colored, and then kind of give the stink eye to that tall, husky-voiced, big-handed lady who apparently doesn't know how to spell. At some point in the first hour he'll probably have a drunkish heart-to-heart with one of the pretty girls about his buried, sorrowful past (he's an Iraq war vet who was, like, in the shit) but then he'll brush it off and say "whoo, we're here to party! Hello Brooklyn!!!" to which Brooklyn will respond "clean up after yourself, why don't you. For heaven's sake."

Sarah This is the tatooed lesbo chick who's now dating a dude and who isn't really that rebellious after all, she was just molested when she was younger. Hard to say yet whether she'll be a condescending, secularly pious teetotaler or if she'll be a drunken, horrifying mess like that poor sad girl from the San Diego season who ended up dying. Let's hope it's the former. She might be the one to have the lookin'-at-the-view deep dish with Ryan, or she might run screeching to the gay people so she can talk about herself. Prove me wrong, Sarah. Prove me wrong.

Scott Scott is my best friend with whom I ride buses all the time. So I know exactly what he's going to do. He's going to: be dopily friendly like some sort of pesky golden retriever, shake everyone's hand like the good Masshole boy he is, talk a lot about his hardscrabble past but in noble "what doesn't kill me..." Good Will Hunting isms, then take off his shirt, then act uncomfortable around the 'mos and the people who can't spell. He won't be featured much because he's featureless. A scandal-free workout machine. And my best friend. OK. I think I can come out with it. (Don't kill me Scotty!) We're dating.

Or I'm totally wrong, because MTV is previewing this season like it's more thoughtful and less about drinking and fucking, but I kind of doubt it because people love the drinking and the fucking and who cares if it's Brooklyn, Bangladesh, or Biloxi, people just like watching strapping idiot youngsters drinking and fucking. No matter what. That is last true currency in this bankrupt world. To paraphrase Lester Bangs. Sort of.

See you at 10.

The bus was late and it was cold, so people were crammed inside the bus line’s storefront. After about five minutes, I heard behind me the familiar, whispery cadences of a just-outside-Boston accent. There was this Scott character, seeming painfully normal in that earnest, doofy way boys from that neck of the woods can be. But then he started chatting up some young lady (a fashion business student) and the Real, ridiculous story unfolded.

He was an actor! And a model! And, uh, yeah… He’d, y’know, just finished shooting his season of the Real World. Never mind that the show is a useless husk at this point, only slightly interesting now because this season happens to take place in the borough of increasingly ill repute. No, that doesn’t matter. This was this lad’s moment! And damned if he wasn’t going to let this young chippy know about it. Repeatedly. At length.

He kept offering info in this faux-tentative way. “You know... this season's just been so hyped,” he informed her—after she had expressed how lame the show had gotten. “It’s crazy” [with mock amazement barely covering thrilled-with-himself awe] “Like, on the 'net. 30 web agencies just interviewed us.” And, you know, he was “trying to get some work done,” which meant tinkering around on some site where he could “talk to fans.” You know, all those fans. Of the show that hasn't aired yet.

He went on to explain that, because he was one day going to be in movies, the on-camera training was really valuable. But the show isn’t for everyone, he warned. No, you have to be in the proper mental and physical shape to endure it. Luckily he was well built for the endeavor. “The promos seem good," he added when nobody asked him. "They make me seem just like I work out. It’s a lot of me shirtless. But that’s OK,” he said chuckling, oh so dismissively. Yeah, that’s OK! I’m sure they’ll round out your character! (For the record, MTV's website currently describes his character as such: "Often perceived to be a 'musclehead,' it is hard to believe that this muscular personal trainer used to be a 90-pound weakling.")

He doesn’t drink—maybe five or six drinks the whole time, he told the girl. And living in Red Hook was a drag. It could take 2 hours just to get to Manhattan! (I don’t know if I believe that. Maybe I do.) Most importantly though, young Scott vaguely knows CT, the lunking, equally-accented broheim from the Paris iteration. The world is small.

These days, now that the show is over, he lives in an apartment, with two of the other girls from the show. He’s doin’ the acting thing and just did press week for the show and his phone is just brrrringin’ off the hook. At one point there was a slight, awkward pause in their conversation. So he decided to reiterate just HOW MUCH his phone rings. “Yeah, I just got all these calls and, uh, one of them was the Boston Globe. They want to interview me tomorrow.” This was the second time he’d mentioned this impressive Globe get. The girl seemed nonplussed.

But, I dunno, can we really blame him for his “guess what? Guess what??” braggy attitude? All of this must be so new for a boy who's “worked in a mill” his whole life. And now here he is answering his always-blowin'-up BlackBerry for interviews. And advising some fashion student on where to live cheaply in New York City (“live in the outskirts,” he said several times. I pictured the girl finally setting her bags down in some tattered corner of Yonkers, her heart swelling. “I did it!”) It’s an entirely different life he has now, so suddenly. How quickly we can become whole different people! Just like that.

Sadly we sat too far away on the bus for me to overhear anymore. But a tipster, who was on the same bus!, tells us:

Real world red hook cast member scott was here conducting phone interviews and talking very loudly to a "fan" saying things like "I don't think im better than anyone but...." I was sitting right behind him and was trying to do work. He was talking so loud and wouldn't stop. He didn't even have the decency to turn the sound off his phone while gchatting or whatever. On top of that he kept crawling under my seat looking for the back to his phone!

When we finally got to South Station, I wanted to catch one more snippet from this Scott of The Real World: Brooklyn, formerly of New Hampshire. You know, before he bumbles onto the TV. I’m sure we’ll see a lot of him then, when that happens. (Aside from the upcoming Real World premiere, he wants to do one of those Challenge series, he oh-so-casually told the girl). But by the time I’d grabbed my suitcase from the bus’s metal gut, he was way ahead of me. He became, like the rest of us, just another face in the crowd. Unrecognizable! Wholly unremarkable. Maybe for one last time before the show premieres. Here in the bus station just before Christmas. Here in cold, old Boston.

Out here in the real world.

"So, is MTV really trying to get you laid? “Yeah, but I’m 23 and I’ve had plenty of opportunities to lose my virginity. My convictions aren’t going to change because of some stupid show,” he said, his voice rising above his usual laconic whisper. He complained about the heat and excused himself politely."

At one point, we would have LOL'd, but now that we're older and wiser, we are in awe and respect for Chet's steadfast committment to what we're sure will eventually be a caring and trusting monogamous relationship. We admire him for not shagging every girl in the tri-state area. We should all be a little more like Chet. (Call me.)

[New York Press; photo Driven by Boredom]

5 p.m. August 26 | Just spotted the cast and crew members having lunch and filming at Cafeteria at 17th and 7th on the sidewalk cafe!

"Gave her the number to the house, apparently its a Kentucky area code? She is kind of into it. She is prob about 28-30, vaguely normal and not at all slutty. Guess they have one goal, and that is to get ANYONE to lay the Mormon."

Oh, they must mean Chet, the engaged dude from Salt Lake City. So what was the phone number again?

[Photo: NewYorkology]

Ugh. They were all out at Royal Oak on saturday (8/16) night. Hit on my friend. Ruined the dance floor. Tried to take her home to 'corrupt' the mormon guy, who's name is.... chet.

Talked to the two blond dudes. they made me sick to my stomach.

remember when MTV cast people who already lived in NYC? except for julie of course.

On the upside we now have the number for the real world house. Just have to figure out how to use it to make them all self-destruct.

Adrian Foster, 32, an employee at Petland Discounts, also dreamed of stardom. “It’ll be good, once I’m on it,” he said. But he questioned the choice of neighborhood.

“Compared to other places they were living, I think this would be a downgrade,” he said. “A few bars, a few stores, that’s about it. Clubs, they have to go to Manhattan. It’s kind of rough out here. They’ve just got to keep their eyes open and ears open.”

Danny Perez, 37, works at Gallery Religious Supplies, which sells, besides the anti-jinx soap, candles and bath salts that claim to attract money or love and dispel evil. He knows the neighborhood as well as anyone, acting as a confidant to his customers, who whisper to him of some ill or want that he addresses with a special candle.

“They’d be jeopardizing their safety,” he said of the cast members. “Too many side streets.” But he promised to do his best for any of them. “I’ll help them out,” he said. “I’ll help them out.”

Gosh, it sounds like throwing a bunch of young, privileged, mostly white youths into downtown Brooklyn might produce some unexpected complications. If you think about it, it's almost as though that's what MTV wants.

[Times]

The moment in question comes when King Of The Friars, Jeffrey Ross, launched into one of his trademark "roast" bits and started putting the screws to Real World punching bag Puck. In what can only be described as a overly macho and HGH-fueled show of support, a few fully lubricated meatheads who we didn't even recognize (save for CT) unexpectedly bumrushed Ross and tossed the unsuspecting comedian into the pool below for his transgressions against the King Of The Snot Rocket. From the look on Ross' face, this moment was clearly unscripted.

For us, this moment represented everything that has gone wrong with the show in the last three or so years. While the composition of the cast has always included a few instigator types, the battles used to be fought on the psychological level, not the physical. The popularity and watchability of the loveable lunkhead Brad led the RW casting directors to fill future casts with aspiring Abercrombie & Fitch catalog models, all of whom also doubled as alcoholics-in-training. Much like pouring water on the back of Gizmo, a bunch of wannabe Brads were spawned after that San Diego season, and Jeffrey Ross felt their wrath last night.

• Real World Awards Bash [MTV.com]

• To Whom It May Concern:

  Good morning,

  My name is Carolyn [REDACTED]. I reside in Naperville, Illinois. I am interested in applying for a celebrity assistant's position, and hope you can assist me. I can be reached at [REDACTED].or [REDACTED]. I would also be willing to send you my resume if required.

  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

  
  

• [To: Perez Hilton] BET YOU WISH SOMEONE WOULD "THREW" YOU A BONE!!!

  WHIP OUT THAT CREDIT CARD AGAIN, PEZHEAD, AND PAY / ORDER UP SOME
  DICK....YOU SOUND LIKE YOU REALLY NEED IT!

  YOU NEED TO GET YOURSELF SOME CHAD HUNT SIZED COCK UP THAT FAT SLACK
  STRETCH-MARKED BUTT OF YOURS TO EASE TO OBVIOUS TENSION!

  XOXO,
  GOSSIP GIRL

  
  

• Hello. Goodbye...Hello. I am MisterArteest and I am an ApprehensiveBlogger, I will Announce this at TheOutset. TheApprehension is borne from an IdealSpirit, an IdealSpirit that believes in the OldWay, in the Authentic, in TheClassic, in the Atavistic&Bicameral, in TheForms of Literary Conquests ByPaper and ByPen, not ByComputer and MostCertainly not ByBlog ...I would prefer to do It like HenryMiller did It or JimmyCarroll, or Baudelaire or Bukowski... Maybe an adequate Analogy could be that of an AspiringThespian of TheStage or SilverScreen attempting to become a RealityTelevision Star...Part of Me thinks Blogging to be a ShortCut, a Fad, a Trend, a PopularInstrument of ArmchairDilettants... Part of Me thinks Blogging is NothingMore than an EmptyDiary of Words for the Vapid&Bored...Part of Me believes there are NoLiteraryPoints to be Earned in this Arena...Part of Me wants to save MyMaterial for a HardBack in a Bookstore...Part of Me thinks by becoming a 'Blogger', I am choosing to Chop my IdealSpirit off at TheKnees and dive into ThePool of Self Dilution that is the 'Blogosphere'...Part of Me believes Life is a Series of Resignations...Part of Me wants to cease flooding the EmailBoxes of MyFriends&Family and instead give Them a Choice...Part of Me thinks I will be Unsuccessful in Attracting a Readership...Part of Me doesn't think I will adequetly or comprehensively Articulate my Positions, and in turn, Be Misinterpreted...Part of Me thinks this will open some Doors that might otherwise RemainShut...Part of Me doesn't...I may not be here long, this GrandBloggingExperiment may be ShortLived...We will see...Whatever my PersonalHangups may be, in TheInterim, I hope You All will, at least in some S mallWay, be left with something to ChewOn...Cheers...

  
  

• It is only ten minutes past and I am watching the Real World, and I want to jump through the screen and smack these bitches! These girls are more than the usual catty girls you see on TV...Trisha...You have a boyfriend, get over the guy that "you saw first" and let somebody who doesn't have one have him. These girls are so blind that they are being played by a very hot Aussie...The girls need to get a clue...And
  lastly, this girl Shauvon is on my last nerve. She is ready to blow up during every conversation, and it's
  just a bit much. ALL three of the girls with the exception of Parisa, who is the only one with any
  sense, are HORRIBLE 2-Faced bitchy little girls...I've said my piece...good night.

  P.S. The southern boy always seems to soothe me...even though I slightly detest the sound of his voice 9
  times out of 10.

  
  

• Went to Launch of "Rigged" new monster book by Ben Mezrich! Can't wait for the movie!

  
  

• Mick Jagger's well fed bodyguard.

  
  

• Not that Taylor Hicks is on anyones radar right now but this is a pretty big scandal and you guys should break this story. In May 2007 Splash News released photos of Taylor Hicks with some woman on the beach. The girl was some piece of ass. But Hicks camp lied to save his priest like image and said it was some Milwaukee newsnanchor named Caroline Lyders that was his girlfriend. The real girl is some chick from Kansas City and she was just a fling. She set him up with those pictures. [And so on and so on.]

  
  

• What the hell? I was all nice and signed in, and I was watching the comments go by and commenting... and then it demanded I reload... now I see the stupid party, but no comments no matter how many times I reload.

  Denton is going to die. And I'll be the guy standing over his corpse with a confusing look on his face.

  
  

• Dear Tionna, I have a question and I wanted to know your opinion. I produce a home amateur sex series using mostly teenage girls. ([URL REDACTED] ) I'm 40-something years old and my best friend thinks I'm too old for this line of work and feels that these girls need to be experiencing sex with someone their own age. I feel that as long as the girl is 18+ and she consents to appear in my videos, that's her free will choice and age should not be a factor in whom I'm fucking. I'm not forcing them. I feel no moral duty to showcase females in my own age group. I question is simple: Does using teenagers to appear in my videos violate some 'moral code' or do you feel that my friend is simply playa hatin the fact that I can still pull young shawties?

  Awaiting your insight and wisdom,

  Big Belly Rick