Wow, it's been a long, long time since I've written one of these. Let's just say that I was abducted by aliens and leave it at that. Anyway, back to Los Angeles, 1993. For those of you who need a refresher course: Glenn sucks. And never more than in this episode. He sucks. He sucks so much. And all of his equally sucky band, Perch, has come out to Los Angeles from Philadelphia, and, now, in the middle of an unidentified living room, they're torturing...er, "singing for" Jon and Beth, both of whom paste pained smiles on their faces while Glenn thrashes around and howls and performs his low-rent Eddie Vedder imitation. My ears begin to bleed. This is worse than anything on The X-Files, people. Aurally, anyway. In an interview, Glenn admits that it was difficult to perform for Jon and Beth, because he was concerned that they were judging him. "Which, they probably were," he finishes. Yes. Yes, they were. And so was I. And, Glenn, I hate to break it to you, but your band is ass. Actually, that's a lie. I enjoy breaking that to you. I feel as gleeful as a sixth-grade girl on the last day of school, who, whilst cleaning out her remarkably messy locker, has discovered an unwrinkled tear sheet of River Phoenix, straight from Teen Beat, nestled unharmed at the back of her locker, between her Pee Chee folder and her slam book. "I'm also uncomfortable because the music wasn't perfected," Glenn muses, and that's practically the understatement of the twentieth century, finishing third after "That Adolf Hitler -- something's just not right with him," and "Albert Einstein: not dumb after all." Back in the Mystery Living Room Concert Hall, Glenn jumps and yelps and twangs in an attempt to sing. It's painful. It's causing me actual physical pain. In an interview, Beth wrinkles her nose. "Ahhhhh...[Perch's music] is different," she says diplomatically. Jon makes a disgusted face. "It's all just so weird," he says, making a face like he'd just been asked to eat a sandwich someone had fished out of the garbage can.
Glenn looks into the camera and explains that he has about seven people staying over at the beach house. Cue the montage of Perch sleeping all over the house: on the sofa, on a spare bed, on the ground, in the closet. Literally. "There is a plethora of Perch," Jon twangs from a chair on the beach. "They're everywhere." They are. They're jumping off the furniture. They're eating all the food in the fridge. They're acting like a bunch of unsupervised and poorly disciplined fourth-graders. "I actually enjoy Glenn's friends very much," Banthony simpers. Beth, in an interview, sighs. "They're nice guys," she clarifies. "They're just always around." Aaron sits on the stairs and looks balefully into the camera. "Like, you'll wake up, and you'll see Perch," he says wearily. Glenn, in an interview, explains that he didn't think Perch "was in the way." This, over scenes of Perch eating everyone's food and sleeping in other people's bedrooms. I would have had an aneurysm by this point, but, then, I hate the people. "Is this some kind of Holiday Inn or what?" Jon wonders, his long blond mullet ruffling in the ocean breeze. So, in case you're slow: Glenn's band is living in the house, and it's pissing everybody off. And while I think Glenn is being a total ass by allowing his band to live with them indefinitely, I think the rest of the roommates are partially to blame for not saying anything. They shouldn't have to, true, but obviously, Glenn's not the most sensitive flower in the garden, so they need to, if they want to fix the situation. Also, that conversation would provide some much needed conflict and drama in this so-far stultifyingly dull episode.
Glenn perches (get it?) on the porch steps of some random house. "It's Operation Perch, now," he says. And everyone know what a successful operation that was, all these years later, with Perch still riding the top of the Billboard charts. Except not. And thank God. So, Operation Perch kicks off with a visit to the childhood friend of one of the band members -- a good-looking guy named Noel, who lives in an artsy studio in Topanga Canyon, sort of a rural and artsy area of Los Angeles. Perch sits around the table and stares at Noel. I'm retracting my assessment of Noel as a hottie, because I've just noticed that he's wearing white slouch socks, like he's Debbie Gibson getting ready to shoot the "Shake Your Love" video. Glenn wonders aloud whether they ought to get a lawyer first, or a manager. Noel looks at the table and bites his lip to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter, and wisely advises Glenn to "worry about the music first." They all explore Noel's pad as Glenn voice-overs that Noel is a performance artist who has dubbed himself the "King of Slide Shows." Okay, that "hottie" assessment? Fully rescinded. Noel is clearly insane. Also, he's wearing sweatpants, and I have a rule about wearing sweatpants in public, much less on television.
So Glenn invites Noel to do a slide show at the beach house. We, the audience, are treated to clips of this slide show, which looks just ghastly. It involves possums? I don't know. "The slide show wasn't about anything! It was dumb!" Jon explains vehemently, and I couldn't have said it better myself. Out of the mouths of babes, you know. Jon goes on to explain that he and Glenn were the only roommates present for the slide show, although there were more than thirty people in the house, and he felt a little uncomfortable about that. On the other hand, he really didn't want any of his roommates to come home to see the crazy shit going down in their living room. As if on cue, Dom stumbles in the door. He peers at the slide show from the safety of the stairs, looking befuddled. Upstairs in the pool room, Dom and Jon sit on the sofa and exchange looks. "What the fuck is this?" Dom asks. Jon sort of grins. "Dom, it's a slide show!" he says. "Is this a form of entertainment?" Dom asks. Jon starts to crack up. "No," he says, "it's a slide show." The noise downstairs gets really loud, so B/M Productions subtitle this last bit. Dom asks about Tami. Jon indicates that she's on her way home. "Hide the knives," Dom advises. Downstairs, all the strangers burst into applause.
Jon and Beth sprawl on Jon's bed and conspiratorially hiss to one another how sick and tired they are of having all these stupid people in their home. Beth flips her hair. Jon flips his mullet. Downstairs, Tami comes home from...wherever, to find Perch, sitting around the kitchen table. They serenade her. She grimaces. In the confessional, Tami purses her lips. "Glenn has been driving my black ass crazy," she says dryly. Over the last few episodes, I've found myself slowly falling in love with Tami. She just cracks my shit up. I've traditionally been a big fan, myself, of making everyone else happy -- sometimes to my own detriment -- so I find her frankness rather refreshing. Although, I have to admit, since my birthday a few weeks ago, I've been way bitchier. All of a sudden, I'm saying things I used to just think to myself. For example, this guy blatantly stole my parking space the other day, and before I knew it, I told him, rather loudly, what an asshole he was. Previously, I would just have muttered curses under my breath. Perhaps the aging process is turning me into Tami.
Glenn brats in an interview that no one ever said anything to his face about Perch. That's because the new me isn't living with them. The new me would have gotten all up in his grill and told him that if he didn't get his craptastic grunge band out of my house, I would hot-glue-gun his slacker ass to his face. Beth sighs in her interview and explains that she didn't want to start trouble with Glenn and the band, but....
Tami's confessional. She raises a brow. "[Glenn] thinks it's cute. It is not. And I'm pissed," she says, succinctly. Go Tami! Go kick his ass! Let's cut the talking and get some action going, here.
Moments later (or, knowing Real World editing practices, months previously), Perch's trombonist (that's not very grunge, dude) practices his instrument in the confessional. He practices in the closet. He practices in the bathroom. He practices while people are trying to sleep. "It's gonna blow up here, soon," Jon thinks. I pray to God the blowing up starts soon.
And it does. The roommates decide to hold a house meeting, in which Glenn gets all up on his high horse and announces that the big problem with this house is that no one ever talks to anyone about anything. He acts like such a jackass in this segment, it's almost unbelievable. I can't believe this little meeting didn't turn into a brawl, because he's being a huge dicksmack, and, God knows, the rest of the roommates are certainly unstable enough to give in to the urge to pummel him. "Nothing anybody says in this house is relevant," Glenn brats. "Stupid Jon comes in, he starts smiling," he spits. Yeah, that's awful. Smiling! How dare he? Why don't you just take him out back and shoot him? Glenn whines that he was excited about coming out to live in the house because he really thought they were all going to get to learn about each other and bond, and it was going to be all sociologically satisfying and shit. "But we're all too busy with ourselves," he spits. Dear Glenn: Maybe no one wants to bond with you because you're a complete tool. Think about it. Love, Jessica. This everyone-is-too-self-involved diatribe of Glenn's pushes Tami over the edge, and she really lets him have it. I wish I could tell you what she said, but her mouth is wired shut and it just sounds like gibberish. Nevertheless, the MTV censors bleep out about a third of her words, so I assume she's calling him names. And more power to her. At this point, Aaron jumps in and tries to mediate, but fails, because Glenn is still bitching that everyone else in the house is so "fucking boring." Beth tries to say something about this, but Glenn waves his finger in her face, metaphorically speaking. "I'm not going to listen to you," he shouts. "I'm not done talking yet." Wow. Well, that's the perfect attitude, coming from a man who, no less than four minutes ago, was whining that no one in the house wanted to learn about anyone else. "Now, I'm done," he says, and laughs angrily. The other roommates haul themselves off the sofa, armchair, and floor, and give Glenn dirty looks as they stalk out of the room.
So Glenn gets this brilliant idea -- a plan which he feels will bring "the house" closer together. The idea? Group bonding. Trust-building exercises. Whatever. Each roommate writes a series of questions, directed toward other members of the house, and tosses them into a hat, anonymously. The horror. I hate these stupid games; if you want to know something about me, have the balls to ask me to my face, first of all. Second, I have basically no inner monologue, so if you're unaware of the intimate details of a facet of my life, there's probably a very good reason for that -- namely, that those details could quite possibly turn you to stone. In other words, had I been living in the Beach House of Banality at this juncture, I would have pissily refused to take part in what Tami calls the "Question and Answer Game." Then I would have stalked angrily out of the house and everyone would have talked shit about me behind my back. Then, they'd show me the shit-talking footage at the Real World reunion, and I would start to cry and admit that, deep down, I just wanted everyone in the house to love me, and then someone would fakely pat me on the back, and later we'd all write tell-all books about how Bunim-Murray ruined our lives.
Anyway, the roommates all sit around the living room and answer a ton of canned questions. What do we learn from this little game? That Glenn regrets inviting Perch to Los Angeles, because their staying in the beach house pissed everybody off. That Banthony suspects that she was genetically predisposed to be gay. That if Jon didn't sing, he'd be a minister, because he's all about The Lord. That Tami thinks that she's just naturally a bitch. That Beth wishes she (Beth, not Tami) were more of a bitch. That Dom thinks Tami should sell "Home Bitch Improvement" tapes for $29.50 on midnight informericals. Hee! Tami chortles. That Banthony is pissed because all anyone is interested in is her sexual preference. She also tells them that she could not love a man they way she loves a woman. That Glenn's family life sucks, because he has eight brothers and sisters and he was the baby and no one loved him and his dad never paid any attention to him because he wasn't good at sports and he's a failure and he never talks to his parents and he needs all their pity and love and attention to make up for that! Dom seriously advises Glenn to make peace with his father, citing his own father's illness as Exhibit A. At this point, I pause the tape and call my mom. She yells at me for all the swearing I've been doing in my recent recaps and hangs up on my ass. Beth tells everyone that she had a really hard time when her father died, because her mom wouldn't really let her work through the grief. Everyone shoots her mournful glances. Aaron admits that he is hard to talk to; Tami says that she is, too. Aaron says that Tami reminds him of his mother, a revelation that might just be the most disturbing thing I've ever heard on this show. He and Tami make a pact to work on becoming better listeners. Everyone beams at one another like one big happy family. Jon twangs that if they'd tried the whole group-bonding crap right at the very beginning, they would have saved themselves a whole passel of grief.
Jon and Tami discuss the fact that Banthony is "weird" but also "good-hearted." They're in agreement that they like her. Whatever. The God's honest truth is that Banthony is boring, which is what really bugs me most about her.
Later, Glenn puts on one of Jon's old western shirts to watch Jon perform in the finals of his Country-Western Hoedown Showdown at Borderline. Glenn seems to think that showing up in Jon's shirt conveys some kind of solidarity, and I guess Jon agrees, because he seems pleased to see Glenn in his shirt, whereas I would have been all, "Is that my shirt? Why are you wearing my clothes, poseur?" Anyway, everyone's come out to see Jon, which is really is sweet. "Everyone" includes all of Perch, which is also rather nice. Jon is all touched by the turnout.
So a bunch of other people sing a bunch of twangy tunes and then Jon gets up and boot-scoot-boogies his way into the judges' hearts and into the winner's circle. He sings. People line-dance. He wins. Beth hugs him. The crowd goes wild.
Back at the beach house, Dom and Jon lounge by the hot tub. "That's really good, Jon. It still doesn't mean I like your singing, but I'm really pleased," Dom tells him, grinning slyly. "That's okay. I still don't think you have any taste," Jon retorts tartly. They look at each other and burst out laughing. Oh, those two! They warm the cockles of my cold dead heart!