Party Animals (Part 2)

Continued from part 1.

VJ Logan, the one who wants to win America's Most Smartest Model the most, won the Edge Challenge in episode seven and the power that went with it. For the Callback Challenge he got the most time (30 minutes) in front of the camera for a photo shoot, and he also got to assign who got which of the remaining, lesser time allotments. The photo shoot involved animals and VJ got first pick of the set of different animals available. The stallion that is Van Jameson of course picked the horse, while our other two men of note, Jeff Pickel and Brett Novek, selected the chicken and the pig. VJ, unfortunately, went too sullen with his expressions and even though he had the most time, his photos didn't show any charisma or other emotion. Pickel's photos only showed a disturbing comfortability between man and fowl. Brett's photos were few in number and unable to show any porcine passion other than fear. Perhaps the pig had caught wind of the anatomy exercise from earlier in the series.

Andre Birleanu ended up winning the contest with a photo of him using the same choking tactic on a llama that he had used on Lisa in a previous photo. The worst photo was Daniel's, which was taken in the one minute he was given in front of the camera. It showed him exhibiting actual fear while stroking an ostrich. Such is a model's life.

Daniel's modeling challenge results in AMSM have not been spectacular, so it was not surprising that his intelligence was not enough to keep in him the show any longer, especially with the performance in the networking challenge. Therefore, like the undigestible part of the food I ate three days ago, he was pushed out.

Toward the end of the episode, Andre and Pickel (and Brett by association) decide to ally against VJ, ostensibly because they believed VJ was too cocky, but more likely because they realize that he was the biggest threat. I remain a Brett man, but I believe that VJ is being judged too harshly because people don't appreciate his complexity.

Just from what shown on the show, it is clear that VJ is someone with a lot of internal conflict, which probably causes him a lot of unhappiness. On the one hand, from his life experiences, he may believe that he needs to have a hard exterior and be very scrappy to keep other people from taking advantage of him or knocking him around. He may also have some reluctance for trusting other people, believing that he needs to be independent and rely on himself to get ahead. On the other hand, he has a less visible side that would like very much to help others and be friends with every one. Like my mother's baking, he is rock hard on the outside and soft and gooey on the inside.

There were several signs during the episode of the dichotomy that is VJ. The harsh side was displayed with the insults that were thrown at Andre during the photo shoot and then with the shouting match afterwards. The soft side instinctively complimented Andre that he had done a good job considering he had been given only two minutes. The hard game player gave the declining Daniel the least amount of time, but the concerned kid stuck up for Daniel when he thought Andre was abusing him. The hard side teased the other models by looking in one direction before handing out a time allotment (acting as if were going to give it to who he was looking at) and then handing it to a different model. The soft side was shown by not giving Pickel and Brett the worst times, despite tiffs that he had had with Brett. In fact, when Brett's pig ran away, VJ encouraged Brett by telling him he still had time to capture it and get more photos. We need to consider that VJ may be acting in a way that he feels that he has to, and not necessarily the way he wants to.

Other thoughts:

• The boy models' hair looks so good even when they get up in the morning. I haven't been able to make my hair look like anything other than crap for awhile, despite trying a lot of hair products. I want to know what they use on their hair.
• I have a better opinion of Andre after his display of his humorous side. He's still someone that you would rather speak to for only a few minutes through the plexiglass at the lockup, but it's nice to see that he has a human side.
• Mary Alice Stephenson is playing a role that she was hired to do for the show. The producers clearly wanted a Simon Cowell performance and not a Paula Abdul one, so it's not fair to Mary Alice to criticize her as a person for acting in a way she is paid to do.
• When Brett found out they were going to the country, he said "I'm down for new things." Note to Brett: I'm a new thing.
  

Van Jameson Logan

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

Andre said VJ did not look like a real cowboy. This video shows what cowboys should look like: