Gym, Tanning, Laundry, Plummet Into Obscurity, by Hank Layton

Did you see the Trump Roast? Hopefully you at least heard about The Situation situation.

The Sitch – or Michael Sorrentino, as it’s written on his Princeton engineering degree – played the role of “What the hell is this guy doing here?” at Comedy Central’s most recent celebrity roast. The Jersey Shore’s leading gorilla juicehead fist-pumped to the crowd, rattled off a few jokes someone else wrote for him, and participated in some of the most grueling five minutes in television history. The crickets are still abuzz about his performance. Snoop Dogg was so bored he lit a blunt. Ice-T was seen shaking his head in disgust and clicking the safety off his gun. Greg Giraldo had a better showing. Dude bombed so bad, he was the only performer to get a laugh out of the roastee and future President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Part of Sorrentino’s problem was he delivered his lines as if he was picking up a chick at the club. Every buildup and every punch line had the same hungry-for-syphilis tone. For example, when he told the beautiful Whitney Cummings, “We call ugly girls grenades. But I wouldn’t call you a grenade because you’re not blowing up any time soon,” it looked like he was one awkwardly silent beat from, “No, but seriously, we should go check out the hot tub after the show.”

His other problem was more and more people are turning against “The Situation” and all that he represents. And I love this.

I’m as tired of hearing about Jersey Shore as you. I was into it the first season and even followed a few of the cast members on Twitter. These people were so disgusting it was hilarious. But then they held out for more money. They got a few more seasons. They got rich. They got big-headed.

They’re still all of those things, but now they’re just annoying. Everyone has voiced an opinion on them.

But we’re entering a different phase of the Jersey Shore legend. With The Situation’s embarrassing performance at the Roast, we’re officially witnessing the beginning of the end of these numbskulls. To me, this is fascinating.

After all, what the fuck does fame mean in this country anymore? We regurgitate celebrities like a loop of Two Girls, One Cup. Fame has become a terminal disease. One day you’re normal. The next day you’re a household name. A few days later you’re all but dead. Some celebrity statuses take mere weeks to disappear (the “Leave Britney Alone” gentleman), while others take decades (Charlie Sheen of Two Dudes, One Pup fame). Sometimes it feels like we pick specific types of people to be famous because they look like their eventual downfall will be an entertaining one. I’m looking at you, Justin Bieber; not really, because I kind of feel like a pervert when I look at you.

There’s something about the attention celebrities receive that makes them forget that our admiration has a warranty. Fifteen minutes of fame in exchange for twenty years of lame. That’s how it works. These people can’t see their own downfall ahead of them. It’s not Shakespeare (although Snooki sitting her ass in a freezer and complaining that she has to poop was pretty damn close), but it is still tragedy. A tanned, ‘roided-up, sexually transmitted tragedy.

And we eat that shit up. We are rooting for these people to fail, yet all they hear is praise. Sure, we’re a little jealous of their temporary worth. But the main thing is that tragedy, for whatever sick reason, entertains us. It always has. Always will. And boy, do we like to be entertained. Hell, our most famous play is about Spider-Man – and only because the people running the show have killed more people than the Green Goblin, Doc Ock and Venom combined.

One day, we’re going to look at Sorrentino’s performance at the Roast as the turning point – the “What the hell was that guy doing there?” moment. By that time, he’ll be rooming with Kevin Federline in some house in the San Fernando Valley, and Sammi and Ronnie will have had twenty-seven kids, and JWoww will have eaten three of them. Vinny and Pauly D? They’ll stave off hunger by doing a gay porno. Snooki will have completed her transformation into a human testicle. (That happens after a girl’s 1,000,000^th lay. She’s at 999,964.)

The cast of Jersey Shore have no clue that they’re going to be nothing more than pop culture references within years. Sure, they have spinoffs and money and published works of literature now, but this is just their part of the ride. Ours is yet to come. Because right now, they’re in the setup. Soon they’ll be the punch line.

Unfortunately for Snooki, she met the punch line when she got decked by that dude in the bar in season one.

They are the poster children of an entertainment industry that is out of ideas – the poster is also in 3-D, so you’ll need to pay a few extra bucks to see it at its full potential.

Our movies suck. Our TV shows suck. Our music sucks. Our books suck. And things don’t appear to be improving.

There are only going to be more Mike Sorrentinos and Charlie Sheens, more JWowws and Mel Gibsons. It’s inevitable. They’ll capture our attention momentarily, but then we will stomp on them. And that will continue to be the fun part. Also fun: Finding the moment when everything began the slow descent down. In this case, it was in the cringe-inducing moments after Roast Master Seth MacFarlane introduced “The Situation” by declaring that “tonight is the official beginning of his fifteenth minute of fame.”

Now that’s entertainment.

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