Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Death(s) of(in) Reality TV

*sigh* Who does one have to mutilate to get a good season's hibernation 'round here? Krampus was prepared to turn in after the summer's fracas, and sleep may yet come. But much like Keith and Monty Colburn aboard the Wizard, my roommate knew this was one blood soaked walrus herd I'd have been enraged if missed. And oh, what a bloody herd it is.

Given my interest in Schadenfreude, it's suffice to say that reality television has been a ripe harvest waiting to happen. People nearly drowning on game shows and suffering permanent damage, brawls captured on digital media, it's a veritable on the same tracks multiple train wreck waiting to happen in full, glorious bloody color. And all it would take would be the weight of multiple tragedies, or one large one, to silence the rampant 'reality'. Has that finality finally occurred? Time will tell, but this is a veritable mudshow circus of sex and gore!

VH1's rampant recycling of reality show contestants can occasionally bring forth entertainment. Let us look at Megan Hauserman, if only briefly. A woman getting her reality's first injection on Beauty and the Geek, she moved on, unable to find love on Rock of Love, the hard rock's version of Flavor of Love only without the roast on Comedy Central. Then showing that she's more than a bikini on I Love Money by showing the epitome of manipulative women showing cunning, intelligence beyond her exterior and mentally challenged dog, failed to win the prize when confronted by the peers she helped to eliminate. Then on Rock of Love Charm School, Megan went onto boast that her most lucrative goal for her future would be to play the role of trophy wife for a rich man. She also acted a drunken mess, daring to belittle Sharon Osbourne's family at the reunion show, resulting in a drink thrown all over her. A hot, wet mess that her friend Brandi C. seemed to see coming.

So Megan, in her own charm and VH1's need to milk ratings like hungry fingers in a hospital's enlarged prostate ward, managed to get her own show originally titled Megan Hauserman: Trophy Wife, renamed Megan Wants a Millionaire. I can't help but laugh at how closely Megan may have dodged a bullet, or a strangulation and mutilation and becoming a trophy for a killer. You see, one of the respective millionaires on the show was Ryan Alexander Jenkins, dubbed the 'smooth operator'. It's said that he actually made it into the top three on the show. Oh, spoiler alert. But a funny thing happened to bring the wrong publicity to the show.

At first, when Ryan's freshly married then annulled ex-wife Jasmine Fiore's body was found naked, in a suitcase and in a dumpster, he was wanted for questioning. Then when more details came out, he was a full fledged suspect. You see, no one could immediately tell it was Jasmine. Whoever strangled her also cut her fingers off, and pulled her teeth out to prevent identification! Isn't that fucking meticulous? A crime of passion is one thing. But to sever each finger, and pull out 32 teeth out of a woman's dead head? I wonder if the body's eyes were still open at the time? Could you imagine someone mutilating a body with those vacant eyes staring up at you?

Here comes the part that can only be made in glamour and beauty obsessed Hollywood and Vegas. Do you know how they identified the body? By comparing the serial number on her breast implants! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Oh, that tickles me in dark places. So Ryan Jenkins, no relation to Leeroy Jenkins I'm sure...but how funny would that be if they were? As he lunges for her throat, screaming:

"All right bitch, let's do this! RYAAAAAAAAN....JEEENNKINNNSSSSS!!!!"

Hehehehe, you simply have to appreciate the humor in all this. Apparently Ryan and Jasmine were last seen together and she alive in a hotel in San Diego. That's right, San Diego. And people have the gall to wonder why I became so defensive of potential sociopaths in vicinity of my friends. And you know, they have yet to find her car, her fingers or her teeth. What happened to them? Were they thrown away, ground up, given to dogs or other animals to feast upon? Or maybe the local cannibal union had finger sandwiches, or dipped them in chocolate for ladyfingers. Teeth aside for making some child a mint from the tooth fairy, where is the car and fingers? Will someone's stomach have to be pumped to recover evidence?

Later, Ryan was found in a dive of a hotel in Calgary, supposedly paid for by a mysterious woman. Was it an old friend of Ryan's? Megan? Maybe the Tooth Fairy? Who knows. But the manhunt ended when Ryan was found, a victim of apparent suicide, hanging by a coat rack by his belt. What is it with sociopathic Canucks anyway? First Benoit and his family, now this. No resolution or trial for closure, no, these selfish afterbirths belched from bleeding cunts leave the justice system hanging. Like David Carradine without the happy ending.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Oh come now, that was a good one!

You see, THIS is the kind of monster, the type of mind hiding behind smiles and charms, of a facade while the true monster rises underneath that attracts Krampus. These kinds of late term abortions that could have been are the kind to beware. Krampus must catch up on lost time in the future. But now, the show Megan Wants a Millionaire, of which I swore not to watch out of principal and fear of my eyes vomiting from the ridiculous, and I Love Money 3 which Ryan also filmed, has been cancelled. So now the poor soul who actually DID win that show will never receive their payment they have earned. One man, a horrific crime, two shows destroyed. Should we give him a medal posthumously? No, of course not. But we may be looking at the single largest trigger event to see what happens to reality television. Time will tell.

In the meantime, out of respect to the family of Ms. Fiore, the shows featuring Ryan will be pulled from air. But you know, one can't help but look at the greater size of the scale. Was there an accomplice that helped Ryan, and he ran out of suspicion? What happened to the car, fingers and teeth? Who actually removed them? Did the mystery accomplice actually dispose of Ryan and make it look like suicide? Ryan's family insist that Ryan wasn't the man who did this, or he became involved with the wrong crowd. Who knows. But this is not over, ladies and gentlemen. Someone will no doubt sell the rights to this story and we'll see a prime time made for tv movie about all this in the future. From reality to prime time! And I also can't help but appreciate the mystery and potential supernatural aspects of this story. From a glance, it would appear that Ryan became possessed, committed this heinous act, became conscious of it and paid the price for what 'he' had done. It sounds like something we'd see the Winchester boys investigating Thursday nights in the fall.

One thing is for certain, this should affect the outcome of reailty and celebreality television in the future. Tighter background checks, stronger anti-violence guidelines, perhaps an elimination of the more cost-effective shows altogether. Perhaps not. In the meantime, families mourn, potential victims go on anti-anxiety medication, and their television careers remain in limbo. All while people actually would tune in to watch the now canceled shows just to play armchair detective, looking for signs of Ryan's mania in editing. Don't get me wrong, I agree that what happened to Jasmine is a tragedy. The kind that Krampus exists to confront. But since I don't know her, and all this comes from the aether of digital broadcast and the internet, at least I can find entertainment in the story. Just like everyone else. But I have the courage to admit it aloud.
I feel a compulsion to share some of the lyrics to a wonderful song by Tool. It's called Vicarious. I dedicate this to the cowards that live as the song suggests, playing voyeur and jury, but have difficulty in seeing the entire show due to the vantage point within the closet they peek from. I suppose it's hard to get a flat screen into the same area where your winter clothes are.

Eye on the TV
Cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavor
It happens to be

Like:
"Killed by the husband"
"Drowned by the ocean"
"Shot by his own son"
"She used a poison in his tea
And kissed him goodbye"
That's my kind of story.
It's no fun 'til someone dies

Don't look at me like
I am a monster
Frown out your one face
But with the other
Stare like a junkie
Into the TV
Stare like a zombie
While the mother holds her child,
Watches him die
Hands to the sky crying,
"Why, oh why!"

Cause I need to watch things die
From a distance
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
You all need it too - don't lie.

Why can't we just admit it?
Why can't we just admit it?
We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'
Neither the brave nor bold
Will write as the stories told
We won't give pause until the blood is flowin'

I need to watch things die
From a good safe distance
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
You all feel the same so
Why can't we just admit it

Blood like rain, come down
Drum on grave and ground

Part vampire
Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
Stare at the transmitter
Synched to the death rattle...

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie

Credulous at best your desire to believe in
Angels in the hearts of men
Pull your head on out
Your hippy beliefs and give a listen
Shouldn't have to say it all again

The universe is hostile
So impersonal
Devour to survive
So it is, so it's always been...

We all feed on tragedy
It's like blood to a vampire

Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I.

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