Tricks of the Trade

Picture of Mystery and wingmen Matador (left) and J-Dogg, prior to Matador's taking steroids and wearing fishnet shirts and J-Dogg's getting cut from the show for being short

This past Sunday I settled in to which usual A Real Chance of Love, Charm School and The Pick Up Artist in order to be prepared for my conversations with Megan the next day. As I was watching the part of Pick Up Artist where the nerds go into a bar to attempt to implement Mystery's methods and the bar is secretly being filmed so that Mystery can watch the nerds and criticize them, I realized that Mystery has been teaching these losers the EXACT SAME pick up lines that he taught the nerds from season 1. There are apparently three key "set openers" - i.e., the golden line you use to force your way into a conversation, one being "Hey, did you guys see the fight outside? Two girls fighting about a guy named George" another being "Hey ladies, would you ever date a guy named Herman?" and the last being "Mick Jagger - hot or not?"

So basically, this season, as in last season, these guys are traipsing around the bar, interrupting conversations and asking COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS questions. Season 1 was filmed in Austin, Texas and Season 2 is filmed in Phoenix, but apparently the producers assumed that no one in the small shantytown of Phoenix a) owned a TV, b) watched VH1, c) had been to the VH1 blog or d)watched The Pick Up Artist on VH1. Well, turns out the joke's on me because apparently people in Arizona do NOT own TVs because women in bars act like these are interesting and original pick up lines when these nerds approach. Frankly if a nerd came up to me and asked whether I'd seen two girls fighting about a guy named George, I would say no, but that I HAVE seen The Pick Up Artist and that they can go now and stop embarrassing themselves.