Back in the day, Dr. J (Julius Erving) was The Man. He reinvented the game. His graceful scoops, his flights of acrobatic fancy, his nasty afro, the super-high tube socks, the illegitimate child(ren). He was the most popular man in American sports. Well, apparently times have changed, and the good Doctor’s star has fallen a bit. Check that, A LOT. We initially heard this story on the radio and a google search directed us to this article from the good folks over at Deadspin.

It came to light during a RW:Austin recap show on MTV, that the girls were hit on by “this old guy” while down in Costa Rica for vacation from their strenuous lives here. Well, little did these ladies know that the “old guy” was none other than the Legend himself. The girls rejected #6’s advances. We are quite sure that had they known with whom they were messing, they would have found enough tequila greed for money and fame amorous feelings to have let the Doctor have his way with them.

For those of you who have missed our RW recaps, you can rest easy, they are back, well...kind of. As our expert on all-things-RW recuperates from a month-long battle with his Tivo, another of us has decided to take a swing for him, which is kinda like having to pinch hit for Barry Bonds. And for those of us who do not have a television-recording device and must rely on transcribing the events in real time, there is always the chance that a tasty tidbit could get overlooked. So, please, bear with us. But here goes…

Previously on the RWwe are told that Lacy has continued her elitist and deceptive ways by bitching about having to cover the band Hello, Goodbye. In an attempt to sway the house towards her band choices for documentary coverage, she spreads lies about Nehemiah’s preferences. Then, in the preview for tonight’s episode, we are given the overwhelming feeling that this episode will be all about exposing and maligning the pasty 20-something virgin for being the passive-aggressive, elitist, pseudo-intellectual bitch that she is (or that MTV wants us to think she is.) Good times.

The episode begins with the kids trawling 6th St. looking for ‘man-on-the-street’ style interviews with festival goers. One kid excitedly tells Rachel that he and his buds just met Robert Plant. Rachel responds, “Great,” and looks at the boy stupefied as if he had just tried explaining string theory to her. Nehemiah adds, amidst a 6th St. bustling with true music fans and not the typical, “Hey, you kids with the cameras followin’ you think you’re so damn cool; how bout I break your face a little bit, guy?” drunk frat boys from San Marcos, that this festival is a lot bigger than they expected it would be, and it’s like totally weird and stuff seeing the city (read: 6th St) looking so different. Yea, Nehemiah, welcome to what we deal with every March. Of course, we just walk around drinking and going to see bands and are not constantly harassed by folks for carrying cameras while being followed by cameras. (We get harassed for other reasons altogether.)

We watched episode twelve from a bed in the Hilton Hotel in mid-town Manhattan. We were on a business trip that we didn't particularly want to go on. We've been watching a lot of episodes on the road lately, and it's making us home sick. (We're actually writing this recap at Chicago's Midway airport.) And here's the thing -- seeing those silly shots of the Frost Bank building, the montages of Congress Ave and Sixth Street -- they make us feel right at home! The Real World actually eases the pain of being away from Austin. Amazing!

The lead up to episode eleven features clips from previous episodes, so that we know where this episode will fit into the complicated plot of this season. These clips feature Wes' bold declaration from early in the season that he will definitely be scoring with Johanna, as well as scenes from Rachel and Nehemiah's fight over her level of involvement in Iraq, and whether or not she actually had to scrape her best friend's brains off of her shirt. This means that this episode will also be about Wes and Johanna, Nehemiah and Rachel. It's a simple formula, folks, and we roll with it.

And now, on to the show.

EPISODE 9, WHICH WE FORGOT TO RECAP LAST WEEK, A VERY QUICK MINI-RECAP:

Wes is jealous of Leo, Johanna's local squeeze. In a jealous rage, Wes brings a blonde back to the house, with whom he fornicates, repeatedly, on camera. Johanna comments, Wes reacts, they get into a bitter feud. The blonde leaves in a huff. Meanwhile, Melinda worries that Danny won't return, and Danny cries like a little bitch. What will happen? Who knows!

We knows!

Our recap of episode ten, only one day late, is after the jump!

Well, we've just about had it with our stolen cable. For some reason, and we are beginning to think this is some sort of ironic punishment for writing these recaps, the reception we get for MTV is getting worse and worse. It started out a bit fuzzy. It has since degraded to a screen 3/4 of which is taken up by a unmoving static blur, and 1/4 of which is taken up by a wildly throbbing static rainbow. It is like watching the naughty pay per view channels without paying - we get the sound, but we don't so much see what is going on. There is also a high pitched ringing. It is overall, not a particularly pleasant experience.

However, we are professionals here at Austinist. P. R. O. Look it up in the book. We're going to fight the good fight, and stay the good long battle. We have perfected the medium of writing snarky recaps of reality television shows, and we can now die happy, having left an indelible stain upon American culture and humanity in general.

And now, on to the show!

Monday night, pop culture nerds swarmed Book People to see Chuck Klosterman, author of "Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story." As we are pop culture nerds, we were sitting on the front row.

Klosterman is a senior writer for Spin and a contributor for Esquire. "Killing Yourself to Live" is his third book, and it follows Klosterman on a trip across the country in the summer of 2003, visiting several sites of death. Musically related death, that is. The woods in which Lyndyrd Skynyrd's plane crashed, and the remains of the nightclub where the Great White tragedy took place are just two stops on his road trip.

Visiting these sites and musing on mortality are supposed to be the literary hook of this work. Klosterman does visit the sites and to an extent, he does write on life and death. But a significant portion of the book discusses his relationships with various women in his life. And it is these relationships, three in particular, which fascinate us. Klosterman seems completely aware that a book about his personal life might not be so interesting to readers. He'd be right if it were about anyone else, but it's fun to see how Klosterman deconstructs his relationships by way of his musings on pop culture.

So when we got to sit down with Klosterman, we had a lot of questions. In our short conversation, we covered the "Real World: Austin," the war in Iraq, the Klosterman clan, the process of writing, and music, of course.

OMG, we are so late writing our weekly recap of The Real World that for a while we were considering not even doing one. I mean, how relevant is a recap once the episode has been aired three hundred and fifty times? But then we realized that this episode has another few thousand runs in it's lifetime, which means that our grandchildren will probably be watching it on their Lazer Vision 8000-X Holographic Brain Manipulator, and that they too will need guidance and humorous commentary. This is a historical document, people. Like the Bible.

First things first. Melinda is totally showing her boobs, and also her butt, and also the bit sort of in front of her butt, but not quite the really naughty bit - you know that part - in the photos on this web page called Sexy Melinda gets nasty in Austin and also at this web page called Real World Melinda drunk and stripping. And also at like, a lot of other web sites that show naked pictures of drunk girls, surrounded by semi-pornographic dating site ads that imply that some of that is just a click away. Awesome!

Secondly, we must apologize for leaving our kind readers with the impression that at the end of last episode, Melinda and Danny were in a disagreement about Danny having had made out with exactly four women on his big night out with the boys. Apparently we missed the last few seconds of the show, during which Danny explained to Melinda that he was kidding, and then they had sex. Awesome!

And now, onto the show!

On our past recaps, we've had comments from people saying things like, "Oh god, I can't handle watching these idiots do nothing but drink and screw!" and "Are they going to do anything other than drink and screw this time?" and also, "Drinking and screwing? Again!?" We had no idea what everyone was complaining about. Drinking and screwing is fun! And it is fun to watch people do it, even if they are stupid.

Well, we have changed our minds. As this season wears on, and yes, it is wearing on for us, we're beginning to really hope for some substance in this show. This newest episode is described by Tivo as:

Finally recovered, Danny wants to emulate Wes and Nehemiah's lifestyle.

Ah! We see! He's finally recovered from the repercussions of his last bought of drinking and whoring, and he wants to get back into it! Brilliant! And what a dazzling plot twist, MTV! Thank you for keeping us so intellectually stimulated.

And now, on to the show!

Before we begin, we'd like to point out the interesting comments left by reader Sgt. Anonymous, who gave us some insight into Rachel's actual experiences in the military with quotes from a magazine called Air Force Times, which clearly isn't getting enough real news from the military about the wars we are fighting, and has to fill its pages with nonsense about The Real World. Oh, we are so political! How about that Supreme Court nomination, kids? Sigh.

But we're not here to talk about politics. No! We're here to talk about episode five, which is the first episode which my TiVo has provided a description of: Rachel's boyfriend wants to marry her; Wes and Nehemiah attract groupies. Want to know a sad fact? When we read the line about groupies, we actually thought they may be talking about us, and we were excited. Excited to be groupies to reality TV nobodies. What a life we lead!

Ahem. On to the show!

Episode Five of The Real World: Austin begins as Rachel receives a care package from her meat head boyfriend Eric. "I'm nervous as to what it is," she says, "because Eric sometimes does some really random things without thinking very much." As she begins opening the large brown cardboard box, we discover that the box is moist, sticky, and smells a bit funny. We were immediately reminded of an episode from seasons ago when one of the cast members was given a bleeding pigs heart as a Valentine's Day gift, and were hoping for something that awesome. Giving your loved one a rotting piece of animal flesh takes panache, you know? Though that episode has spawned a sort of unofficial rule amongst our friends that states that body parts are never, ever an appropriate gift.

As is our tradition around here, the first order of business before we get into the dirty details of this week's episode is to list off the errors and errata that have been submitted since last week. In our previous recap, we accidentally said that Danny and Melinda were in front of the "Driscoll" hotel, when we meant to say "Driskill." Also, we were totally wrong, it wasn't either of these hotels. In other news, this Austinist contributor appeared last night on KXAN's 10 O'clock news to gibber on about his brief encounter with The Real World cast while they were filming. In summary: Yes, they drank alcohol. Finally, in our daily leisure drive through Austin's expanding down town, we noticed that the iconic AUSTIN sign from the top of the Real House has moved from its original home to a new spot atop South Congress' Vivid boutique. Neat!

We start the fourth episode of The Real World: Austin with a quick and very probably out of context shot of a peace rally marching its way down Congress Ave. Can we guess where we're going? Let's talk to Rachel!

Lacey sits at the kitchen counter flipping through a photo album. We see photos of Rachel in uniform. "Whose palace is this that you're in?" asks Lacey.

"Saddam's," says Rachel. Ain't no big thing. She was cold chillin' in the extravagant palace of a deposed dictator, heel dug deep into the flesh of the oppressed.

Because we never turn down a chance to dither on about something we know nothing about on television, this Austinist contributor was just filmed for tonight's 10 o'clock news on KXAN about the underage drinking portrayed in recent episodes of The Real World: Austin, about which we write a very funny recap. We think the reporter's line of questioning will convey the general idea of what this report will be about. It went something like this:

We begin this week's recap with a few small corrections to the last one, which have been requested by umpteenzillion readers. First off, the person who appears in episode 2 in the big directors chair is John Pierson, not Paul Stekler. Stekler appears later on in the episode, and is the guy who is going to actually be helping the housemates film their documentary. Pierson is the guy who had to defend his relationship with Michael Moore to "I see dead soldiers" Rachel. Secondly, this particular Austinist contributor is a douchebag who does not know the difference between the words "queue" and "cue." We promise to use them properly this time. We are very sorry for these errors, and hope you will forgive us for our terrible trespasses.

And now, on to the mind boggling!

The third episode of The Real World: Austin opens with Danny in Lacey and Johanna's room complaining that he can't sleep. His major concern: will he be a hideous monster after his surgery? It's totally understandishable that he'd be worried about his looks, because he's got like 25 appearances on future MTV reality shows to think about! Lacey's not too concerned, though, as she's "never heard of people like looking different or worse." We're wondering what sort of post-surgery rumor mill Lacey is tapped into, cause like, breaking your skull typically does leave you looking different. But who are we to say! We're not on TV!

Due to retardation problems on the part of the editor of this site, and an errant button press on the TiVo remote while we were buffering the show so that we wouldn't have to watch commericials -- there may have been weed involved -- we screwed up big time and didn't get to watch the third episode of The Real World last night when it aired. BUT DON'T WORRY! We've got our TiVo set to record it this afternoon, and our weekly recap will be online early this evening.

We are very sorry to disappoint all of our loyal readers, and are lashing ourselves with switches we made out of swamp grass that grows in our back yard. The swelling is quite bad, and the pain is worse, but we deserve this punishment for disappointing you. Also, we enjoy it a little bit.

Thank you for your patience in dealing with us.

We were surprised the other day when, on our regular "Can We Get Ourselves On TV" drive by the Real World house, we noticed that not only has the large, glowing AUSTIN sign been taken down, but so has all the nice landscaping that surrounded the building. We don't know what the plans are for that space now that our newest neighbors have fled the city, but we thought they'd at least leave a few trees behind. But no, as we predict our fair city will be left after this upcoming MTV-ified SXSW, the house has been left an ugly, desiccated corpse. Perhaps somebody will buy it and donate it to Austinist to use as an office space.

The second episode of The Real World: Austin opens with a glamour shot of the above mentioned house in all of its glory before quickly cutting to Danny on the telephone to "Dr. Shepler" where he complains that he is in "unbearable pain" and that last night - the night of his beating on Sixth Street - was "one of the worst nights of my life." Danny tells Rachel that he wants to see the videotape from the previous evening so that he can press charges against the person responsible for maiming his beautiful face and casting him into an era of darkness. He also says that he wants to make sure that none of his roommates get sucked into the swirling toilet of his life.

Here's our advice for not getting into a street brawl in Austin: Do not walk into the middle of the Sixth Street, followed by a camera crew, and start throwing punches.

After the jump: Sex! Milkshakes! Filmmaking! People claiming to have learned something when really they have not learned anything at all, and have, in fact, actually damaged their ability to think rationally by impairing their senses with the double edged sword of alcohol and television cameras!

If the visions of debauchery seen in the season premiere of The Real World: Austin is any indicator of what is to come, we may have on our hands a pop culture episodic that carefully documents the total disintegration of all things good and wholesome, like a giant Nothing rolling across the land, destroying everything in its path. This is like the decadence of Ancient Rome - orgies, gladiator combat, drunken celebrations of Bacchus - we expect we'll see a few Christians fed to the lions in next week's episode. We love, love, love it.

The first (hour long) episode opens with our introduction to Danny as he leaves our well appointed and totally empty airport where he's just arrived from Boston. In a magical flashback, we see that he works construction, and that he's close to his father. As he enters his cab, his voiceover says, "I thought I was going to come out here and see guys on horseback with big hats!" Danny will soon learn that he shouldn't dismiss Texans so flippantly. He'll learn it in the face.

Next, we're introduced to Rachel and Nehemiah. Rachel is an ex-soldier, or, we don't know, a military nurse, or whatever that's called. Nehemiah is black. Wait. He's more than black! He's got a degree in media arts! He's well spoken and educated! But after he and Rachel meet on the grounds of the capitol, Rachel's voiceover says, "He's the picture of black power!" Good job at boiling things down to a racist core, MTV!

Rachel and Nehemiah read from their cue cards questions about one another's relationship status. Nehemiah is taking a break from his girlfriend. And surprise! So is Rachel. "No sex, no love, no baby talk" are her rules.

"I bet you $50 you get butt naked with someone," responds Nehemiah. We'll take that bet. How about this? We'll start doing shots every time one of the cast members violates their deal.

SO MUCH MORE AFTER THE JUMP!