Tonight, at 10 p.m. Eastern, is the
premiere of the 23rd incarnation of
MTV's The Real World, a show
I once followed very closely but
have not watched in quite a while,
much like this season's Desperate
Housewives or Heroes, despite
having invested a lot of quality prime
time with them in the past.
Video from The Washington Post:
D.C. cast members of 'The
Real World' show off their house,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2009/10/28/VI2009102804296.html
Washington's Newest Monument, Courtesy of MTVhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2009/08/14/VI2009081402016.html
In fact, I hadn't watched a second
of MTV at all this year until I went
to check out their coverage of the death
of Michael Jackson just moments
after TMZ first reported it, even while
the LA Times dawdled and kept their
online version of the story the same until
even lame MSNBC was reporting the
Breaking News of his death and
not merely word of his hospitalization.
(I was on my computer at the time
TMZ broke the news, which is why
I mention that pertinent fact about
the slow-poke LAT.)
My interest in flipping over to MTV
was simply the curiosity factor to see
what their Breaking News coverage
might consist of on a day when their
audience numbers ought to have been
huge.
Would it simply be old clips or would
they actually conduct live interviews
with some serious and thoughtful music
professionals and journalists
-like certain IU grads I could name-
or would it consist largely of cringe-worthy
blather audio/texts from teenage girls,
run over countless video shots of guys
Moonwalking outside the Apollo Theater
and other well-known international locales,
as long as the TV camera lights were on?
What makes me mention The Real World
at all, of course, is that this season will be
based out of a former mansion in Washington's
quirky and often exasperating Dupont Circle
neighborhood, north of the downtown core
where I and most of my friends worked,
along K Street and Connecticut Avenue.
That's an area I know very well from having
lived in Washington and Arlington County
for 15 years, and since that's the case,
I wanted to share a few thoughts here
and mention some things you may want
to look for, because of where they've
chosen to situate the show, knowing that
the producers cast it with certain plot
narratives and sub-plots clearly in mind,
or, at least, with fingers crossed..
So, that said, based on my own experiences
and those of friends and former colleagues,
here are a few things you might want to
be on the lookout look for in the weeks
ahead, which might tell you if the show is
even more heavily edited than usual, say,
if by the fourth or fifth episode:
a.) Someone in the house is not shown
bitching or cracking wise about how
f----ed-up the local D.C. govt. is, with
a glaring example of the nonsensical
outrage, and everyone else in the house
finally realizing that the horror stories
they'd heard about D.C. govt. were
all too true.
Welcome to D.C.!
b.) Some friend of theirs arrives for a
weekend visit -and someone always is!-
and when they drive over to the Adams
Morgan area to go to a bar or restaurant
after driving around DC showing their
friend the sights, they don't show some
unknown guys, either African-American
or Salvadoran, suddenly jumping out
of nowhere and suddenly standing in a
street parking space -IF they can find
one- who want to be paid for finding
and/or watching the spot, as if they're
Columbus or The Secret Service.
The implicit warning: If they don't pay,
something WILL happen to the car.
Welcome to D.C.!
It'll no doubt remind some of you of the
famous "No Radio Inside" sign days
in New York of the '80's, sometimes
punctuated by a note near the broken car
window, hours later, with someone having
thoughtfully scrawled, "Just checking!"
c.) There isn't at least one segment or
two of a cast member discussing something
of theirs that was stolen, and the DC Police
telling him or her that it was their own fault.
Welcome to D.C.!
d.) Someone doesn't say in a condescending
way that DC's Chinatown, while perhaps
having a few very good restaurants, isn't
as nice as New York or San Francisco's
Chinatown.
Yes, because it's MUCH, MUCH
smaller, dummies!
On the other hand, Arlington County's
Little Saigon area on Wilson Blvd.,
next to the Clarendon Metro, couldn't
be beat for VERY GOOD and inexpensive
Vietnamese food, and very friendly
service, to boot.
That was a Day-after-Thanksgiving
tradition for me if I and my friends
were hanging around town and weren't
out-of-town with family or significant
others doing the turkey thing.
After which, thoroughly stuffed, we'd
head back to my place to watch the
annual grudge match between
Texas-Texas A&M, with yours truly
playing navigator, and explaining
to the others where these small Texas
towns the players were actually located.
Talk about something from my
regular routine in DC that I really
miss here in South Florida
-Little Saigon.
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/?p=4519
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/08/17/tidbits9.html
(Two weeks ago, thanks to the wonders
of DirecTV, I watched the Abiline-Katy
Texas 5A High School football championship
game at The Alamodome, LIVE on
Fox Sports Southwest, Channel 676.
Their excellent coverage and production
values put that of of the Miramar -Deland
FL 4A state title game in Lakeland over
on Fox Sports Florida/SUN to shame.
It was night-and-day, like the difference
between MLB and the low minors.)
For more on The Real World, see:http://www.mtv.com/shows/real_world/Washingtondc/series.jhtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122902739.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/13/AR2009081304164.html
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-real-world30-2009dec30,0,5130304.story
http://jezebel.com/5436535/meet-the-new-8-strangers-of-the-real-world-dc/gallery/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/08/14/DI2009081401732.html?sid=ST2009081403688
Also, in other Washington area reality news,
TheWrap TV Editor Josef Adalian reported
yesterday that, as he aptly put it,
CW's 'Blond Charity Mafia' Sleeps With the Fishes America's distaste for all things Washington apparently extends to "Blonde Charity Mafia."
After months of delays, the CW Tuesday confirmed that it will not be airing the soapy reality docusoap after all. The decision isn't much of a surprise: After originally slotting the show for a six-week run in July and August, the network then pushed the show to "the fourth quarter."
Said quarter ends Thursday. And there's no sign of the "BCM."
Read the rest of the story at:http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/cws-blond-charity-mafia-sleeps-fishes-12332
