Navel Gazing in Old City

This fall's premiere of MTV's The Real World: Philadelphia will present an enormous dilemma. On one hand, anything that makes my hometown look happening -- and make no mistake, TRW lacquers a hipster shine onto every city in which it tapes -- is okay in my book. On the other hand, my doctor has recommended I limit my daily exposure to self-absorption and angst, and if the staggering amounts being displayed by the twentysomething hotties currently drinking their way through San Diego are any indication, Philadelphia should be off the charts.

Every year, against virtually impossible odds, TRW producers somehow manage to find a more annoying, narcissistic, dysfunctional, whining group than the year before. If you told them Osama was a bisexual, nihilistic, pierced alcoholic who tells everyone within earshot he's just "misunderstood," by God, they'd find him and cast him.

The missus and I got sucked into a Real World: San Diego marathon last night, and I found myself literally shouting in frustration at the television screen. These people spend their days at low-stress, meaningless jobs, then spend their nights drinking wantonly, hooking up with each other, living in a palace stocked with the latest cutting-edge gadgets, and jetting to exotic world locales, all on MTV's dime, then have the audacity to face the camera and tearfully confess that they're thinking of leaving because their housemates won't put down the lid on the toilet when they're done.

I know I'm going to sound old -- like, Frank Fitzpatrick-old -- when I say this, but back when The Real World launched, way back in the early 1990s, the young people who put themselves on display seemed to be, if not genuine, then at least less obviously fake than today's posers. Some of them even approached average-looking, unlike the current genetically engineered freaks. Assholes like Puck were the exception, not the rule, while the kids in San Diego make Puck look like Mother Theresa.

Then again, perhaps a person who chronicles his beer and sandwich choices at baseball games shouldn't throw stones at others for being self-involved. In other words: Who do I think I'm kidding? Of course I'll watch. I'll look for restaurants and bars I've been to, and neighborhoods I've hung out in, and local landmarks, and I'll hope like hell that the show reflects Philadelphia's complex greatness. Yeah, that's it -- I'll be watching for civic reasons. Just don't tell my doctor.