Situation Out of Control, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #101

November 9, 2010 Arthur Tebbel 3 Comments

Dear Art,

I saw you at my book signing this week.  I hope you got a chance to read it, I know it’s pretty long, longer than any book I’ve ever read certainly.  I really did my best laying out my philosophy on life and explaining my life and life choices.  Don’t keep me in suspense bro, what did you think of it?

-Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Jersey Shore cast member

Sitch,

Can I call you Sitch?  You signed that in quotes in my friend’s book under your signature which was already not your name but Situation.  You have a nickname for your nickname.  This makes you Mike “The ‘Sitch’ Situation” Sorrentino.  Completely absurd dude.  I know Mike is out of the question; I’m sure no one outside of your family calls you that.  I hope Sitch isn’t just for women, that would be really embarrassing for me.  I guess we’ll just have to leave it at Situation.  Let me fix that.

Situation,

I had a blast at your signing.  It was really a high point of my trip to New York City (take that family and lifelong friends).  The crowd was fantastic.  Really covered all the bases.  There were some people, like myself, that seemed to be there ironically.  There were some people, like the heavily bronzed, scantily-clad, overweight woman two spots behind me who told a reporter she had a master’s degree, who appeared to be genuine fans of you and your show.  There was a gaggle of teen and pre-teen girls, many with their mothers in tow, who screamed when you walked by like The Beatles were signing books.  I sincerely hope that child services were waiting outside for them.  Then there were the people directly in front of me and behind me in line, one was a Birtish woman doing a favor for her brother who seemed completely disgusted by the whole display, the other was a guy who seemed to pretend to be there ironically before revealing near the front of the line that he also attended a signing of your workout video.  You certainly know how to bring together a diverse group.

The biggest problem with your signing was that they snaked the line through the entire store.  Combined with being towards the end of the line meant I had a two-hour tour of aisle after aisle of dramatically better books.  The temptation to grab another book of the shelves to have it signed was pretty overwhelming.  I could be the only person on Earth with a copy of The Fountainhead signed by The Situation.  Unfortunately your page long list of rules stipulated that, along with not being photographed and that you would leave promptly at 9pm no matter how many more people where in line, you would not sign anything except your own book.  So sad really.

I have not finished your book.  Not because it’s too long (it’s 133 pages) and not because it’s too dense (it has wide margins and plenty of illustrations) but because I can’t read it for sustained periods of time.  However, I want to make a pledge to you and everyone reading this.  I will review your book.  I will write a review longer than the book itself.  It’ll be amazing.  I’m pretty sure it’ll break the Internet in half.  You haven’t heard the last of me bitch.  Sorry, I meant Sitch.