The crazy junkies just want their hedonism fix

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If you’re going to gatecrash, do it with some style. Pick the White House, and have a TV crew and make up artist on hand as you get out of the car for the gathered press to see. You will of course know Michaele and Tareq Salahi for gracing President Obama's first state dinner on Tuesday without actually being on the guest list. The couple have also had cable channel Bravo following and filming them over the autumn. This is because Michaele Salahi is being considered for a show called The Real Housewives of D.C..

Unlike all the other Watergate wannabes we’ve had since the 1970s I rather like Crashgate; it is an inspired use of the suffix. However, through the couple's publicist Mahogany Jones we now know that Paul W. Gardner (the Salahis' counsel) maintains that they did not ‘crash’ the event.[1] I’m not going to argue when there are dictionaries that can do it so much better.

Michaele and Tareq spent some time at the party, getting photographed with President Obama, Vice President Biden and Rahm Emanuel (White House Chief of Staff) as well as some Marines. They left before dinner was served and later the photos taken of them went up on Facebook. Michaele would really rather like to get on TV. She reportedly has 4,000 friends (and counting) on her profile, on which she has also put a suggestion for a new host (herself) for Live with Regis and Kelly and/or The Today show. The White House event might possibly put her in the good books with the Real Housewives production team.

Whatever happens now, the Salahis are scheduled for Larry King Live on Monday. It would be a bit of a shame if Michaele does get to be on reality TV when so many others have not been so lucky. There was Aaron Barschak, the comedy terrorist who—in the guise of Osama bin Laden in drag—gatecrashed Prince William's 21^st in 2003. He would have loved the opportunity to get a TV show going. Instead his comedy career remains somewhat frustrated despite his best efforts. Of course, the Heene family have ended up with the mother and father pleading guilty to misdemeanour and felony charges related to the “balloon boy” affair. Court documents from the case have revealed that the stunt and attempted deception were meant to “make the Heene family more marketable for future media interests.”[2]

What is it about reality shows? We all share the world with a great many other people, but do you ever get the feeling that some individuals—despite us all being wonderfully unique—cannot accept it when their claim to be different or ‘the crazy one’ is undermined by the sheer volume of people acting uncannily like them? You’re outgoing, crazy in the funny way…well, so is half the street. Go to a club or a gig and everyone is crazy, equal to or more than you. So you act madder and more extreme, and there are still people outdoing you.

It really must be hell for people that worry about this. It’s getting to the stage where they just can’t compete with mere legal antics. There are thousands of people trying to make sure they have the personality with the most personality. Perhaps if this situation were left laissez faire it would become a sort of adventure-lifestyle capitalism, and the benefits of competition would push everyone to live as extrovertly as they are capable of. We’d eradicate shyness and poverty—those two great social ills—in one go. As it is, getting a place on reality TV is one of the few benchmarks for the crazy junkie that tells them definitively that they have made it. Their life is so crazy it got shown on TV. They are more interesting than any other extreme personalities around.

In this world Michaele Salahi is more important than the president she met. Michaele worked hard to get where she is; she honed her personality, she made friends, lived the life, got the networks interested and entertainingly mishap-ed her way to fame. Barack Obama took the easy option—he just studied and worked and campaigned. His job makes him famous; any strait-laced bore can do that. Unlike so many other lazy, spoilt stars, Michaele can’t leech off of her talent, career or back catalogue of work. She has to generate her celebrity by making her whole life fame itself. Incredibly, her rise to fame is fame. In some sort of paradox she was filmed outside the White House in case she later became famous.

I know crazy junkies—people whose lives deliberately compete with the misadventures of the famous. I’ve been with them in their successes and failures. I’ve seen them hold court with everyone in the room as they acrobat their way to applause and permanent drink stains on someone else’s carpet. I’ve also been with them when someone else has outdone them, when they swear into their beer, pat me on the back and tell me I’m all right. They are the people Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker had a good handle on when they wrote Nathan Barley. Crazy junkies can be just a little infectious, I know, but it doesn’t last.

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[1] Helene Cooper and Brian Stelter, ‘Obamas’ Uninvited Guests Prompt an Inquiry,’ New York Times.com, <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/us/politics/27party.html?_r=1> 26 November 2009.

[2] ‘“Balloon Boy” Parents Plead Guilty,’ CNN.com, <http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/13/balloon.boy.heene/index.html> 13 November 2009.