Have you ever met a self-described "guido" or "guidette"? I haven't, and I've lived within their purported stomping grounds for a decade. In fact, I bet that 99% of Americans have never met one, which is probably the bet MTV execs were making when they greenlighted this show, because the whole point of it seems to be to allow members of a tiny splintered-off sub-group, a small social network, really, to present themselves before the the largest possible audience that will feel comfortable looking down on them. Remember in Independence Day, when the aliens came and all of the nations and religions and creeds forgot their differences and came together to fight them? The same concept is at work here (though it can be argued that all of reality TV is like that on some level.) It's been said before: we watch reality TV so we can celebrate and take comfort in the fact that we're different, we're not like these people. MTV has simply raised the ante by choosing to present eight horrible people who define themselves by the same ethnicity. And yes, that is bad, but to get too worked up about it (as Italian Americans, as people from New Jersey, as reasonable human beings with the ability to reason and a sense of fairness), while understandable, is to play right into MTV's hands.

Because as repulsive and wrong as this show is, isn't calling it racist (or ethnicist) kind of...racist (or ethnicist)? Yes, it's annoying that the people on this show choose to define themselves and their behavior as that of a particular background, but if you accept that these people represent Italian Americans you have to accept that the women who clawed for Bret Michaels' attention on Rock of Love represented American women. It's an obvious lie. It's that wrong, and that laughable, and while I have no doubt a few people out there in America are stupid enough to think less of Italian Americans based on this show, I firmly believe that when those few people turn fourteen and meet their first actual Italian American, that spell will be broken.

That said, this show is horrible and everyone involved with it should be ashamed of themselves. The biggest shock of the entire premiere was the fact that the show actually has credits (though, suspiciously, not very many!) Here are nine horrifying clips from this painful TV show about, and let's call them what they are: eight individuals afflicted with the same crippling syndrome, rounded up by an attention-hungry cable network and presented for us to laugh at and pretend to be shocked by. Let's think of it as one long, entertaining anti-tanning PSA. Above, the shore house mates meet each other.

Snooki demonstrates that she likes being the center of attention, and "Ring Around the Rosie" is given a new meaning.







"I just don't want your pukey breath on me." I have a new appreciation for the kindness and maturity of my tormentors in 7th grade.







New girls arrive, and quickly get naked. Angelina freaks.





"This situation is is going to be indescribable. You can't even describe this situation." - The Situation





The shore house becomes a yelling house.





"I should have just pounded out what's her face on Friday." Never before has a man's term for the sexual act so aptly described his bad technique.





"Guys, I gotta let you know something that's disgusting." Vinny has PINKEYE!







"Go upstairs with your whores and have fun." = Funny

"I will cut your hair while you're sleeping." = Funny

"If a girl's a slut, she should be abused." = Unforgivably sickening. Like this show, really.

[East Rutherford, October 22. Image via Getty]

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ - OCTOBER 22: General view of at the Meadowlands Sports Complex on October 22, 2009 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Michael N. Todaro/Getty Images)

[Image via stock.xchng.]

Teresa is my favorite so far. Her stage mothering, her refusal to purchase a used home ("I don't want to live in somebody else's house. That's gross."), her "buh-bees"…it's all — as she would say — juicy and delicious.

I love that her husband pretends that he has absolutely no connection to the Mafia. That computer is old, not turned on, and that Post It has nothing written on it.

The best thing Teresa said last night was, "I heard the economy was crashin' so I pay for everything with cash."

She was carrying around six figures in her bag.

Danielle is great because while she doesn't have a job, she stays active with her hobby.

We've already seen the half-hour preview, and the hour-long series premiere runs tonight at 11 p.m. (10 p.m. Central) after the Real Housewives of New York reunion special. (It will move to its regular 10 p.m. time slot next week.)

This is Bravo's fourth Real Housewives series, and for the first time, most of the cast are related to one another somehow. The show features Dina and Caroline Manzo, sisters who are married to brothers Albert and Tommie Manzo. The family runs the Brownstone, a catering business/wedding factory in Paterson. (Though it's not mentioned on the show, several reviews note that the 350-pound body of the brothers' father, Albert (Tiny) Manzo, was found riddled with gunshot wounds in the trunk of his car in 1983.)

The rest of the cast includes Jacqueline Laurita, a former Las Vegas cosmetologist, who is married to Dina and Caroline's brother. Teresa Giudice is a friend of the Manzos, but not related. She has three young daughters and her husband owns a construction business. Jacqueline's friend Danielle is the outsider on the show. The divorcee is not a relative of the Manzos or even Italian-American.

Some reviewers say the women's family ties make their fights seem more believable compared to the series set in Orange County, Atlanta, and New York. The show relies heavily on Sopranos-influenced stereotypes, even featuring signs from the New Jersey Turnpike in the opening credits, even though these women actually live 20 miles away. Oddly, some reviewers argue that the show is more "real" than previous seasons, precisely because the women live like characters on the aforementioned HBO series. But let's be clear: The idea that any of these programs reflect the lives of most "real housewives" just proves you've been watching too much TV. Below, the reviews:

The New York Times

The New Jersey housewives are more real and more riveting than their predecessors because, well, they are from New Jersey, and also because they so closely mirror the make-believe characters in The Sopranos. The best reality shows look like fiction.

This may be the most preposterous Housewives edition, but it's also the most believable. The suffocating family ties are an improvement over past incarnations, when producers often threw together women who were not really that close and whose frictions often seemed forced. These women actually do know one another well, talk every day and raise their children together (badly). The camera crew seems to be eavesdropping, rather than masterminding. Some of the women seem to have a sense of humor, or at least to enjoy the joke that is their lives on film.

The Boston Globe

It's also totally believable, from start to finish: For all of its absurdity, this series feels more "real" than other popular docudramas such as MTV's The Hills, its characters completely authentic. Some reality stars seem completely aware of the images they're building; every conversation feels calibrated to serve some future career in fashion, publishing, or reality TV. The varied Housewives, by contrast, have built their lives and amassed their fortunes already. Now that they're fully realized, they feel they deserve recognition.
Their lack of self-awareness is intoxicating; it makes the premiere the most engrossing hour of pure TV escapism I've seen in a very long time. I watched nearly every moment with jaw agape: Don't they hear themselves saying things like, "My whole house has nothing but marble, granite, and onyx"? Don't they know that hating rich people is a quintessential TV experience? Do they care? They don't care! It's fabulous!

Compared to its predecessors in Orange County, Calif., Atlanta, and New York, The Real Housewives of New Jersey is the apotheosis of conspicuous consumption. Set in a town where every house has a hangar-size foyer with a massive chandelier, it follows what might be the closest to a group of true housewives the series has seen. "I think I'm one of the last generations to have the old-school attitude," one character, Caroline, says. "I live for my children, I live for my husband, My career is secondary."

Slate

When I say that The RH of NJ is the most synthetic installment of the show yet produced, I refer not to the cast members' investment in plastic surgery; the specimens of Orange County bionic science edge them out on that count. Rather, the drama queening in these parts is much too blatantly contrived. In the premiere, you can see the whole season's worth of conflict lurking in the foreshadows. The catfights get hyped as if arranged by Don King. The five housewives-raring to depict themselves as the heads of the Five Families-are terriblly aware of the requirements of reality stardom.

The Los Angeles Times

Maybe it's just that the women, two of them sisters married to brothers, their sister-in-law, their nice friend and New Jersey's own Cruella de Vil are actually recognizable as human beings, even with their wads of cash and strange relationship with eyeliner ...

The Real Housewives of New Jersey promises to do what the rest of the series in the franchise never really did: show upper-middle-class families living something that approximates their actual lives. Sure, there's rigging going on. In the pilot, the dreaded Danielle makes a scene over not being invited on some "girls night out" that these shows are so fond of staging. But these gals seem less interested in creating TV personas or proving themselves the "hottest Housewife" than in reacting the way they might actually react if what was happening were real.

The Washington Post

Real Housewives of New Jersey is a rhapsody in beige, a fascinating journey through a world of $1.5 million houses, minimum price — although the full effect of the nation's economic collapse seems not yet to have been felt, in the premiere. The women keep themselves in shape, most of them, but their major exercise is acquiring stuff. And always the homes must get bigger, bigger, bigger ...

The word "housewife" fell out of favor with the first flush of feminism, but these women use it without complaint to describe themselves. Besides, the term implies being married to a house, and for some of the women, that seems clearly to be the case. Meanwhile, it seems from the very first chapter that — unless later episodes get into the recession — a sequel is in order, a chance to see whether these women escape economic calamity or succumb. "I don't want to struggle with money," Danielle says. Who does? If only the choice were ours to make.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

These creatures may be so desperate for attention they'll do almost anything, but they probably aren't that bad. So much of the show is more obviously fake than Dina's parking scene, right before she drives by the exclusive-looking High Mountain Golf Club, which actually is open weekdays to anybody with $74 and a shirt with a collar ($86 on weekends).
Don't count on any figures you hear: Though there are lots of multimillion-dollar houses in Bergen County's Franklin Lakes, home base for our "real" housewives, prices start at about $250,000, not the $1.5 million Dina mentions.

And if Teresa Giudice really did pay cash for the $120,360 in goods she is supposedly shown buying in a few minutes at the furniture store, the more than two-and-a-half pounds of hundred-dollar bills would have made an ugly bulge in her designer handbag. Not to mention how it would have drawn IRS attention to her husband's construction company.

Variety

One of the moms is trying to turn her moppet daughter into a pint-sized actress/model, injecting an element of child pageantry a la Showbiz Moms and Dads, as a beaming mom sings along in her seat while the kid struts onstage. Another housewife has a twentysomething son whose goal in life— wait for it — is to open a strip club ...

These are, in short, a pretty loathsome array of deliciously shallow stereotypes, almost feeling stitched together from pieces of other programs. And one suspects while the producers sifted through footage in assembling the premiere, the smiles in the editing bay were even bigger than those haircuts.

The New York Daily News

To confirm the obvious up front, "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" owes way more to the likes of Melrose Place and Dirty Sexy Money than it does to any actual New Jersey housewives.

If there's such a thing as a typical New Jersey housewife, she's a soccer mom who barely has time to brush her teeth in the morning. She's not a woman whose BlackBerry probably tells her that her first appointment of the day is phone sex at 3:30.

But then, the Real Housewives series has never been about "real" anything. The cast for a show like this, by definition, consists of exhibitionists.

Earlier: The Real Housewives Of New Jersey: Bronzer, "Buh-bies," And... Blow Jobs?
Real Housewives Of New Jersey Sneak Peek

"Many commenters have noted that the procedure can be safely performed," said New Jersey Consumer Affairs Director David Szuchman in a letter to the state's board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling. The ban was proposed after two women were hospitalized with infections after receiving brazilian waxes. "It was an unnecessary issue," said spa owner Linda Orsuto. "In New Jersey especially, where the government has been picking our pockets for so long, it was like: 'Just stay out of our pants, will you?'" [The Telegraph, The Chicago Tribune]

Earlier: Garden State Wants Your Bush To Run Wild And Free

The 19-year-old from New Jersey was left outside in the cold for an hour wearing only a dress and one shoe, having lost the other one as her three friends dragged her from the car on January 16. The woman flagged down a driver who took her to the hospital, but she may need surgery for frostbite on both feet. The friends wanted revenge because the victim sued one friend's auto insurance carrier after a car accident. The three attackers now face kidnapping, assault and conspiracy charges and are free on bail. [AP]

• Meanwhile, an expert on veteran mental health says that the medical community needs to come up with an effective response to domestic violence cases that involve the growing number of abusers that are veterans with PTSD. • After bad publicity over their backlog of untested rape kits, the LAPD announced a plan to seek funding to reduce its "massive backlog" of unexamined DNA evidence from violent crimes. • Carol's Daughter, a beauty brand marketed to African American women, is suing Carol's Express and its distributor, CVS, over trademark infringement. • Facebook removed a group titled "Dead Babies Make Me Laugh" which was based on those boring jokes about dead babies that dumb people tell. • Female gymnasts can avoid worsening wrist injuries, the most common injury for female athletes, by seeking quick treatment and assessment even if they feel a low level of wrist pain after an injury. • Good news for migraine sufferers: A new study claims that women who suffer from migraines have a significantly lower risk of getting breast cancer. • A Norwegian management researcher has found that leaders that displayed both feminine and masculine traits were the best at creating a climate of innovation. • The Lifetime network is currently developing a biopic about Georgia O'Keeffe starring Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons. •

Worse, though, is the expectation among both men and some Egyptian women that women are asked to be harassed by their manner of dress. According to the survey, 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women admitted to having been sexually harassed, though less than 3 percent of the harassed Egyptian women ever reported it. And, although it likely goes without saying, most of the Egyptian women who were harassed were wearing headscarves or clothes they deemed modest because, when it comes to street harassment, it isn't ever really about what a woman is wearing, it's always about a man trying to assert himself and intimidate her.

I mean, though, let's be frank, this isn't new and it certainly isn't limited to Egypt. I've been hollered at everywhere from my hometown to Vietnam; I was groped in the high school hallway, in clubs in D.C. and in the halls of Congress. My European friends warned me about traveling alone in Italy and I've been followed home in Spain. My sister's suburban New Jersey college had a serial masturbator dubbed the "Mad Wanker" who used to wait for girls to walk by at night and then shine a flashlight on his less-than-impressive junk. So before we call it cultural, or even limited to Egypt, why don't we just say: who among us hasn't experienced this, regardless of our country of origin? And is there some system by which we can tag the men that do it with tracking devices, so we know who to avoid and/or mace?

Two-Thirds Of Egyptian Men Harass Women? [Reuters]

• After last night's fellatio-esque interview of John McCain, reporters ask Jon Stewart if he's a real journalist and if he should've tried harder to ask a real question. No, and yes. [Comedy Central, Time, Rolling Stone]
  
• No one really cares, though, because Hillary might not actually stay in the race until August. [NY Times]
  
• And there is one economist who agrees with her gas tax plan, but only because this example of blatant electoral pandering is the method of blatant electoral pandering likely to do the least harm of all the harmful ways to blatantly pander to the electorate. [NY Times]
  
• Oh, and some New York Congressman got his mistress pregnant three years ago and has a secret love child and is a drunk driver. Even married Republicans lose when it comes to abstinence-only education. [NY Times]

• That pedophile Interpol was searching for? He was a store Santa from Jersey and found fucking little kids "euphoric." Gross. [Associated Press]
• And some people still buy that shit about Obama being a Muslim. [Wired]
• And some dude used to drug and rape women at his office parties, but the law firm he worked at didn't sack him for it or warn anyone even after 2 women got drugged and reported it. Dudes, don't lawyers know not to fuck with lawyers? [Boston Globe]
• Mark Penn is so dumb that he didn't know about proportional representation in the primaries when Hillary hired him, but she'll still have to pay him the $10 million or so she owes him. Asshole. [HuffPo]
• And, for my girl/fellow alum SarahMC, check out the disaster porn of a mega car crash in Allston right by the Shaws on Comm Ave. [Boston Globe]
• Speaking of disasters, Burma is still fucked. [NY Times]
• And the Prime Minister of Israel has likely been taking bribes from foreigners. [Washington Times]
• God I need a fucking drink.