Ryan Kehoe In The Gauntlet III

I've been watching The Gauntlet III on MTV, the latest Real World/Road Rules Challenge. I'm not sure why I am watching it. I've seen the same kind of fights and hook-ups with a lot of the same people many times before and there is nothing really new here. As near as I can tell, I think I am watching it to see Ryan Kehoe, one of the "Rookies" (pictured here). He had previously been on the Fresh Meat season of the Challenge as one of the contestants added who had never been on Real World or Road Rules. He didn't last long that first time out, but he seems to be doing better this time around.

There's been so many of these challenges with so many of the same people, I don't always know from the commercials when they are starting a new one or repeating something I've already seen. It's hard to tell from the name either, because they rotate different versions of it and bump up the number suffix. I try to watch one episode in a season to see if I'm going to find interesting and most importantly, whether it contains any people I can't bear to watch (e.g. Wes).

Although I have no idea who some of the contestants are, I'm surprised how many I do know from previous seasons of Real World and Road Rules. I've watched both Real World and Road Rules since their first seasons, although less of Real World starting with Las Vegas and lately not at all. Road Rules was fun but then it went on hiatus.

The lack of new cast members from Road Rules being available to add to the pool of challenge players was one of the reason's that MTV had to bring in "Fresh Meat" like Ryan Kehoe. Ryan has am interesting back story, being a former boyfriend of Road Rules "Campus Crawl" cast member Shane Landrum. They both appeared in Fresh Meat and at the time Shane had nothing but bad things to say about Ryan. To me, Shane's comments only made himself look like a sad and bitter person who wanted to tear down the reputation of an old flame. From what I can see on television and elsewhere, I think that Ryan seems like a fun and normal person and Shane is just an old crank.

I might be a little biased because Ryan looks, talks, and acts just like a former boyfriend of mine. Unlike Shane, I have no ill feelings toward my guy, so I have only affection for his look-alike.

The Shape of Fashion

Watching America's Most Smartest Model, it looks like the co-host Mary Alice Stephenson was expecting a more serious show like ANTM or Project Runway. She not only gives tough critiques, but she also encourages the contestants to be more cutthroat, as modeling is in real life. On the other hand, the producers clearly intended the show to be as light-hearted as it actually is. From the title of the show to the casting of likable, humorous personalities, they created a well differentiated show that provides some light entertainment for a Sunday afternoon. I hope as they cast for the second season that they don't move away from the formula to create another in a line of high drama, bitch-fest shows. AMSM has just enough of that to keep it interesting but so not so much to take it away from its focus on its comedic elements.

Episode six of the show led off with an Edge Challenge that required the remaining models to pair up into teams and to have each member of the team cut three specified shapes out of paper. The team that accurately cut out all six shapes the fastest would be the winner. An easy task for elementary school students, but not necessarily easy for the masterful models.

As would be expected, AMSMBFFs Brett Novek and Jeff Pickel joined together again to be a team of convivial cocks of the walk. VJ Logan had to pair with Aussie Rachel since his regular squeeze box decided it was in her best interests to team up with the sagacious Daniel Schuman. (She thought Daniel's wits could save her from being, like the Second Defenestration of Prague, thrown out.) Left over, Angela Hart and Andre Birleanu formed the fourth team.

The challenge was devised and supervised by Project Runway's Santino Rice, who missed an opportunity to do a revision of his "Where's Andre?" imitation of Tim Gunn. The Brett/Pickel and VJ/Aussie Rachel teams had no problem with the task. Unfortunately for Daniel and Angela, their teammates blonde Rachel and Andre had trouble. Andre because of his unfamiliarity with the English system of measurement and Rachel because, well if you have seen the show you know why. Santino noted that it was painful to watch them work.

The winners of the Edge Challenge were Brett and Pickel. For the Callback Challenge, which was to use the shapes to design a garment, BP received assistance from Santino as their edge in creating their apparel. The first hurdle they faced was the fact that they were both men and mens' clothing is difficult to create for the inexperienced. They settled on creating basically a fighter's robe with some sexy underpinnings for Brett to model.

Brett and Pickel showed that they were starting to "get it" - understanding the competition as VJ had already done. As the winners of the first challenge, they also got to give one other team only a single shape to work with. They decided to hose VJ by giving him just a circle, (which surprisingly he didn't just use to make a poncho.)

BP realized the clothes challenge was really about the presentation, not the design and workmanship of the clothes. In the end, Brett's sinewy body, Pickel's runway description, and their overheated raging red robe won them the automatic callback.

Blonde Rachel said that Mary Alice and the female guest judge were just two girls who like hot boys. Well, who doesn't like hot boys? With Brett and Pickel, even straight boys got to shout ... baby got pack(-age)! Rachel's dress was criticized but it was just an excuse. It was time for her to go and she ended up getting tossed rather bluntly.

Some extra thoughts:

• I'll will miss the sound effects that occurred when Rachel thought about things.
• Did you notice VJ dabbing his eyes after Rachel was let go? Maybe his tough guy image is hiding some deep inner sensitivity.
• I'm still wondering exactly what VJ said in episode five that got so bleeped.

Considering "most smartest", Angela and Daniel are the smartest contestants and they should have found ways to always be on the same team. They would have killed on all the intelligence tasks. Daniel would be a worthy winner as he follows the rules in general and the Golden Rule in particular. He expects everyone else to do the same and, unfortunately, he gets very frustrated when they don't.

Brett and Pickel rehearsing Cinderella?
In depth coverage and photos of -> America's Most Smartest Model.

Getting Piggy With It

The most important thing in reality tv is the casting. It is essential to cast interesting people whom viewers can get to know quickly and want to see more of from week to week. A good example of good casting is the show America's Most Smartest Model. It would have been easy to have cast basically cardboard cutouts that looked good but had no other worthwhile traits to speak of. Instead, the people responsible for the selection did an excellent job of picking people with both hot bodies and anything but stereotypical model personalities.

Compare the men of AMSM with the guys from Manhunt or Average Joe. Manhunt men were interesting enough for a roll in the sack but that's it. The well-built men from Average Joe were unbearable every time they opened their mouths. AMSM went a different direction and someone deserves a bonus for it.

Episode five of the search for the most erudite yet pulchritudinous specimen started with another unsettling display of the situation between VJ Logan and Rachel. He wakes up to find the female in the bed. With the camera on him he covers his face (from embarrassment?) and wraps himself with the comforter like a body size condom to protect himself from her.

The most troubling element for me is Rachel's appearance. Her lack of sufficient body fat means there is not enough subcutaneous adipose tissue to support her face and this causes pronounced nasolabial folds. It makes her look a lot older than she is - even older than co-host Mary Alice. With that in mind, Rachel starts to look old enough to be VJ's mom and that's creepy.

Speaking of fetal pigs, the Edge challenge involved carving up little piglets to show that the models could find and extract specific organs. I was eating lunch at the time I was watching the show and that wasn't easy to do. VJ, relying on some previous experience with butchering, got an "A". Jeff Pickel also got an "A" and Brett Novek an "A-". The grading was done by a high school biology teacher, who wisely noted that Pickel had "great, great organs, complete organs, clean organs." Brett was lauded for having "cleaned up your organs very nicely." From what I have seen of the show. their personal hygiene, and they way they fill out their shorts, I would have assumed this to be true.

The winner of the competition was Daniel Schuman, who then was the only person given an advance copy of the script for a 30 second commercial that each of the models would have do as the second contest in the episode. The commercial was for a bodywash product and would take place in a shower. Only Daniel would get to do the scene with hot water. Everyone else would be subjected to cold.

The preparation for the commercial shoot was fraught with controversy. Part of the parameters of the contest was that each model would receive their script only twenty minutes before their shoot so that that was all the time they would have to learn it. VJ eavesdropped on models ahead of him doing their rehearsals so that he could gain an advantage in the vocalization. Some of the other models were disturbed by this behavior and called him on it. VJ became angry at the accusation that he had engaged in cheating.

Let's see if we can figure this out and achieve a win-win situation.

Brett appears to be highly ethical person with his concern about adherence to the spirit of the rules. That's a good thing and I really appreciate it. It makes you believe you could always trust him and that if you were his mate, you wouldn't have to worry about him cheating on you.

On the other hand, it appears that VJ is sharp enough to see that the game doesn't start and stop with the beginning and end of each of the challenges. As he remarked, he is the only one that understands the competition - that the game is going on 24/7 and things like grabbing an anatomy book or eavesdropping on others is all an expected part of it. He may be getting the flack for outsmarting the others, but Mary Alice made it quite clear that it is not only legal, but an indicator of who she thinks are the better players.

Unfortunately, the first players in a reality show don't all know how the game should be played and this can cause bad blood between them (remember season one of Survivor). It remains to be seen if any future episodes contain any dirty dealing that would justify definite condemnation of the behavior of any of the models. Still, it would be better if VJ would not be so blistering in his retorts. It's not good to make enemies so easily.

The bad part is that the points of contention didn't seem to alter the outcome of VJ's performance. He didn't need the anatomy book and he had an innate advantage in doing a shower scene. VJ is a get dirty and stroke yourself with lather kind of guy. He won the automatic callback for his wet performance and said, "Big Daddy VJ took this one home." Personally I would rather have heard him talk about whether any shower "shrinkage" occurred, but maybe his use of the term "Big Daddy" let us know that none had.

In depth coverage and photos of -> America's Most Smartest Model.

Science Flair

Episode four of America's Most Smartest Model continued this week to showcase this country's best and brightest talent (along with some often referred to but never explained token foreigners). The means for exhibiting the models' powerful mental prowess in this episode was a science fair (mentored by Bill Nye, the Science Guy).

It was an "edge" challenge and the purpose was to learn about and explain a scientific principle and demonstrate it using a homemade exhibit. The models had to pair up and two of our favorites, Brett Novek and Jeff Pickel, formed a team, while VJ Logan decided to mash up with Jesse. VJ explained that he thought Jesse was a better choice than Rachel for doing well in the contest. It was a good move because it was later shown that Rachel's mind was audibly off the hook (pondering the thermodynamics of a toaster).

Brett and Pickel played the roles of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein while playfully showing differences in theories. It was a good opportunity for the dynamic duo to show their personalities and acting abilities. Andre seemingly agreed when he declared that best actor and supporting actor Oscars were going to Brett and Pickel. Ben Stein was less impressed while remarking that it was like a Yiddish theater production in which a little goes a long way.

VJ and Jesse demonstrated an ersatz volcanic eruption. They had a little trouble getting it started but eventually it started to spew. VJ made a confessional comment that "It just kept erupting and erupting and it gets, I mean, everywhere." I wasn't paying total attention at that moment so I wasn't sure if he had been talking about a volcanic eruption or a nocturnal emission, but as always, he made it interesting to think about.

The winners were Angela Hart and Daniel Schuman (for solar power). Their edge award was tanning lotion, so it was understood at that point that the callback challenge would involve tanning,

Brett and Pickel logically thought the models would be showing their bronzer induced coloration so they prepped with a lot of self love with the lotion. To everyone's surprise the twist was that the same teams as before had to create their own bronzer out of common household ingredients and use it on a colorless nerd to prepare them for a photo shoot. The results have to be seen on TV to really enjoy the humor of it all.

Concerning the episode's more pleasant visuals, the sight of Brett, Pickel, and VJ shirtless, tanned, and in shorts made me extremely light-headed. It was almost as if the blood had rushed from my upper body to some lower appendage. The appearance of Andre on the other hand, fit the message of his shirt, which exclaimed "Purple is for Thugs". As I have mentioned before and I reiterate here, I do find him quite thugly.

VJ smartly used his good looks to try overcome the look of his partner and nerd's current appearance, by posing himself as the main focus of his team's photos. The plan didn't work out so well but it did show the viewers two things. One is that VJ is a clever fellow. He knows that the best players in any game look to find what can give them an edge above their similarly situated competitors. The second thing the viewers could see is that the camera adores him. He can sometimes look sullen but when the lenses are pointed at him he sparkles. Of course, having champagne drenched shorts also contributed to his bubbliness.

VJ's plan backfired when Andre accused him of trying to sabotage Jesse by hogging the shot. VJ kept calm during the mudslinging until he exploded at Andre and put him in his place. I think this was the first time I felt that friction in a reality show was actually hot. VJ was cool as could be and then he struck like a viper and settled back into place. Wow. Van Jameson is a man. Don't mess with him or he will bring the load of testosterone to a near boil.

Pickel, I don't know what to think about. A bad spot in the episode, which made me perturbed with him, was a statement that he made about Jesse. VJ had made a complimentary comment about Jesse doing well with intellectual challenges (hmmm... because VJ was analyzing a competitor or because VJ always has something nice to say about everyone?). Pickel said that Jesse is gay, black, and overweight, so he has to have insecurities about one of those things. Is there such a thing as a Chicago cracker? I'm looking to Pickel to provide some explanation for this strange remark. I give Andre one credit for stating that Jesse would be insecure because he was f'ing fat (his words, not mine), not because of the other two things.

I have been wondering who will win the VO5 Extreme Style $100,000 and be named America's Most Smartest Model, so I turned to my usual source for wisdom and affirmation, my electronic talking Pikachu. I invoked him with the standard "I choose you..." and asked who would triumph in this greatest competition of the American Fall TV schedule. A squeeze upon the hand of the awesome augur returned a clear and indisputable reply of "Pick-el, Pick-el!" Be assured, the afterschool omniscient Oracle of the Orient is never wrong. [11/25/07 - I guess there is always a first time.]

Young scientists demonstrating the principle of attraction.
In depth coverage and photos of -> America's Most Smartest Model.

Most Hottest Male Models

I saw a recommendation for VH1's America's Most Smartest Model and decided to give it a try. I saw that it included seven hot male models so how could I pass it up? I couldn't care less about female model shows (ANTM comes to mind), but the shows that focus on or include male models have been pretty interesting (e.g Manhunt, Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency).

As the title suggests, the premise of the show is to find the model that has the best combination of beauty and brains. The genre is reality competition with both contests and conflict in a shared living space. The action is mildly amusing and the personalities so far are so-so, but the real draw of the show is watching people who have had the world handed to them on a platter suddenly having to struggle for something. Also, its more entertaining seeing models knock each other rather than lesser mortals who may only be speaking out of resentment. Oh, did I mention that some of the men are gorgeous?

My favorite is Brett Novek (pictured, top right). Besides being a super stud, he's one of the more personable, and seemingly nice people on the show. Its refreshing to hear him tell his peers that he regards himself lucky and thankful for what nature gave him. It could be a real act but he comes across as a gentle spirit.

Another one of the boys is Jeff Pickel (left). He seems as nice as Brett, with an absence of any arrogance. He has beautiful dark eyes. They are limpid pools of both sexual energy and frivolous effervescence.

The third of the hotties is VJ Logan (below right). The show presented him in a way to make it seem doubtful that he would win anything based on brains. He told the co-host Ben Stein that his family were not native born Americans because they were from California. The appearance was created that models just need to be good frames to drape clothing over. Hoosier connection: when asked to list as many states as he could VJ elevated Indianapolis to statehood.

There are two losers on the show. One is Slavco Tuskaloski, who was also on the show Kept. He's disgusting. To the show's credit, he got kicked out after only a few minutes into the first episode.

The other bad spot is a self-proclaimed Soviet, Andre Birleanu. He deliberately makes himself look like king-sized commie a-hole. His body is well cut but above the neck it is all thug. A bag over his head would not be enough to do him but maybe a cranial iron curtain would work. Brett said he thinks Andre must be from Chernobyl. During a spelling bee he misspelled retardant, which is apropos as he seems way retardant.

In depth coverage and photos of -> America's Most Smartest Model.

Strike It Up

Somehow I found myself watching The Ultimate Fighter show on SpikeTV. There are several things wrong with that. For one, I'm clearly not in SpikeTV's target demographics. Second, I find any fighting "sports" to be a byproduct of a personality disorder and not something to be watched.

The ostensible purpose of the show is to pit 16 mixed martial arts fighters against each other to find "the ultimate fighter". The winner gets a contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championship organization. To win the fighters have to beat the crap out of each other. However, since it is a reality show, most of the show is about the personalities and the conflicts between the contestants who are forced to live together. If it weren't for the kicking and the punching it would seem like a dozen other reality shows. Of course in this show the players are all men. Ho-yay!

I generally don't find faces showing signs of being pummeled attractive, but I think one decent guy out of the bunch is Matt Arroyo (pictured). If it weren't for his compulsion to hit people, he would be alright. He considers himself a computer nerd that enjoys using MySpace. He also sold insurance for a year and a half before his love for Brazilian jiu jitsu led him to teaching mixed martial arts full-time. I can understand - a Brazilian could get me to make major life changes also.

The question in my mind is why straight guys would not want to watch two gay guys pounding each other, but they would want to want two straight guys going at it. I think they might also appreciate Matt's looks a little. His interview video on SpikeTV's site was watched more than any of the other fighters.

Bachelor of Hearts

A new season of The Bachelor begins on Monday, September 24, on ABC, and I am once again appalled by the concept. Putting 25 women on the air who are willing to demean themselves by vying for the affection of a single man debases everyone connected with the show, including the viewers. How can anyone disrespect themselves so much to allow themselves be wooed knowing that their suitor is doing the same thing with so many others? This is even more degrading than a two-bit toilet tramp trolling for trouser treats (or so I'm told).

I could never tolerate anyone toying with my affection. I should mention that I was totally supportive of Glenn Close's character in Fatal Attraction. If I had written the screenplay I would have put Michael Douglas in the pot instead of the rabbit. I'm a one-man man and I expect my counterpart to be the same: "I'm not going to be ignored, Dan."

Don't give me a rose if you are also handing them out to anybody else. And don't fake flirt with me either. If you are going to sweet talk me you'd better mean business or the pet goes in the pot.

Big Brother 8 Bites The Big One

BB8 ended with the Evil Dick as the winner. He and his dickette daughter used the inherent advantage of a familial relationship to beat the other 12 contestants, who entered the house knowing no one or worse, knew another contestant as a sworn enemy. It's not the first time that the producers have cast people with preexisting relationships in order to add some contrived excitement, but it's the first time that two family members made it to the final two. The result was well described by Dick after he evicted Zack (leaving only Dick and his daughter Daniele): "Who cares what happens after this?" Too true. Why even air the final two shows after that? I would rather have just seen two hours of house guest Mike doing his grooming routine (pictured here).

The producers need to go back to letting it be a straight up game instead of inserting "twists" that can lead to such an awful finale. No more X Factor, pairs, or twins, and definitely no more "America's Player". How can BB be considered a competition show when viewers are allowed to effect the outcome of the game? Technically, the producers are not allowed to influence the outcome so that the viewers don't lose faith in the integrity of the show. Even though in this case it is the viewers influencing the results, it would seem that they would still be less likely to watch this kind of show if it were considered to be blatantly fixed.

Gratuitous picture of Mike. I give kudos to the show for casting two gay men to live in the house together, even though it was done because they were known to be enemies and the producers hoped for the queen of all bitch-slapfests to occur. Dustin and Joe made for good TV and it would have probably been even more entertaining and twisted if Joe hadn't gotten knocked off so early. They could have fought over Nick, the man who pined for Daniele but who had no problem talking about his boink list of men he would share Y chromosomes with. What would be even better in the future would be to have two attractive gay men who don't know each other be house guests and see if they develop a sho-homo-mance.
Dustin assuming the mounted pawn position.
Straight Nick doing that gay thing with Joe.
The U.S. version of Big Brother is quite conservative compared to other versions in the world when it comes to baring flesh. Our networks' standard and practices would not allow any exposure of naughty bits. There is occasionally an accidental revelation of secured body parts on the internet feed, but they are rare. I suppose some people watch the live feed hoping to see some untanned swatch of skin of the contestants or maybe catch them in a compromising position. Do these people know that there are like 100,000 other sites on the web where they can see a lot more being spread at any time of the day?

It must be noted that one of the more popular characters in the house this season was not a person, but the red unitard. Jen, Zach, Jessica and Dustin all couldn't resist the desire to have this single piece of clothing against their skin. Imagine a finale with Dick and the red unitard as the final two. Would the four affected members of the jury vote for Dick for game play or for the 'tard and the bittersweet memories they held of its tight embrace. Now that is a finale I would much rather have seen that this one.

Real To Real

Repost from Trick Wire

Reality TV creates an ever increasing number of instant celebrities and with the celebrity status comes fans. For some of these now famous people, the fandom can be understandable because their TV appearance showcased their entertainment talent and boosted their career in the fan supported performing arts. For the others, the ones who are more or less ordinary people, the concept of having fans can seem odd.

I think the draw that these reality TV stars have is that they seemingly expose their inner self and this satisfies a human need in the viewers to find and really get to know other people. Socially, we all wear our masks but we long to know what is behind the other person's. That's why reading other people's minds is traditionally the most wished for super power after flying. We want to know and in turn perhaps be known.

It's debatable that anyone shows their true personality on TV, but the kind of shows that seem to are not the talent shows, like American Idol or SYTYCD, but rather the communal endeavors, such as Amazing Race, Survivor, and Big Brother. On these shows there is an induced level of stress that intended to cause the participants to throw off their facades and reveal what they are really like. These revelations are then caught by the omnipresent camera, usually in a solitary situation to emphasize that the thoughts expressed are of a deeply personal nature (shared only with the cameraman and a few million viewers). To the people watching at home, it's an easy way to look inside someone and determine if they are someone with whom one would want to be friends or lovers or whatever. The result is that the likable contestants get a lot of fans who wish they could get to know the person on TV or someone like them because they are just so special.

The interesting thing about this is there are plenty of ordinary people all around in real life who may fit the bill just as well but whom you'll never know because they don't come with a "confessional" video with which you can preview their personality. With television you can watch who you want to learn more about and then turn them off when you decide you don't care for them. Obviously, it's not that simple in real life. People would rather not invest the time and effort in learning about the strangers all around them, forgoing the reward of finding a splendid friend in order to avoid the surprise of what else they might find instead.

Unfortunately, it is hard to get to know people on a deeper level. There is a societal condition that thwarts the human nature to know others. It is often expressed with the well known letters TMI. In real life we only let each other reveal enough to stay within the comfort zone, which isn't much. I know that there is no one other that me who really knows who I am completely and I can't decide if it's because I withhold the information or I feel others don't want to know.

With such interpersonal constraints, it's no wonder we turn to television to see what people are "really" like.

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I posted picturea of some of my more recent favorites of reality television: James Rhine from Big Brother 6, Jesse Brune from Work Out, and Goil Amornvivat from Top Design.