'Mad Mad House' Rewards Enlightenment
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'Mad Mad House' Rewards Enlightenment
By Kate O'Hare
When the reality series "Mad Mad House" launched in March on Sci Fi
Channel, it took five "Alts" -- practitioners of alternative
lifestyles -- and gave them dominion over 10 Guests (allegedly
ordinary folk) in a rambling mansion straight out of a Hammer horror
film.
The stated aim was to put the Guests through a series of trials and
personal encounters designed to challenge them physically, emotionally
and spiritually, for a prize of $100,000.
The Alts were Fiona Horne, a witch; David "Avocado" Wolfe, a raw-foods
enthusiast and clothing-optional naturist; Art Aguirre, a tattooed
Modern Primitive; Don Henrie, a self-styled vampire; and Iya Ta'Shia
Asanti, a voodoo priestess.
The Guests ranged from early 20s into middle age, with varying degrees
of religious conviction and very distinct personalities. They were
eliminated by the vote of the Alts one by one.
In the show's two-hour finale, which aired Thursday, April 29, the
final choice came down to Nichole Ferrera, a Malibu, Calif., native
who dominated in the trials; and Frisco, Texas, exotic dancer Jamie
Etheridge, who had not won a single trial. Etheridge survived
elimination from the final three by winning an endurance challenge
that involved balancing on a hook suspended from a chain.
"I wasn't scared," says Etheridge, 22. "I would go into every other
trial second-guessing myself. I had been doing a lot of work with Iya
Ta'Shia. She had been talking to me about what I needed to do, who
Jamie was, that I needed to find myself and get serious.
"When I went out to that trial, I had a feeling that I was going to do
good, and I wasn't getting down off that hook no matter what.
Everything changed right there for me."
The Alts then put the two women through a series of rites of passage,
which included sleep deprivation (as a result of trying to sleep in
Henrie's coffin), foraging naked for wild food, meditation and a final
strength test that involved walking while dragging heavy weights.
Despite the self-confident Ferrera's physical prowess, it was
Etheridge's sudden burst of grit and determination, said the Alts,
that made her the winner, with Wolfe casting the deciding vote.
"There was a constant under-theme throughout the entire show," he
says, "that we were looking for some kind of growth and transformation
in the guests in the house. I also feel like it was divinely led.
Every trial, the right person was eliminated.
"How it ended up was perfect. I thought the person who really did make
that spiritual transformation, that real, deep, core transformation
that they're going to take home, and did take home, won."
With the $100,000, Etheridge, the mother of a toddler daughter, has
left her job and plans to become self-employed.
"The biggest change so far has been not going to back to work,"
Etheridge says. "I've made other major changes. I'm working on my
business. I'm opening a preschool gymnastics place. I've found my
location. And I've just been taking everything I've soaked in from the
house and continuing with that, everything I've learned from
everybody.
"I think they showed me very fairly on the show. I did start out
major-ly unfocused and just kind of there. I started making changes
toward the end and getting more focused, especially coming into the
last trial.
"I just went in there jumping around, being the good vibe of the
house, but I came out pretty strong and focused, with a plan for my
life like I didn't have before that."
According to Wolfe and Etheridge, both Alts and Guests have stayed in
contact since the show ended, with the Alts gathering to view the
finale in the home of a contest winner in Rochester, Minn.
According to Wolfe, it was not just the Guests who underwent
transformation.
"If I had to say anybody [among the Alts]," he says, "I'd probably say
Don. Don was more shifted by this show than the rest of us. That's my
guess. I felt that it was the most incredible experience of my life
for sure, that I went up a level. But Don, I felt like he went from an
obscure vampire to the number-one vampire in America.
"He's been looking at that and thinking how that might change his
life. I think he's the next Vincent Price. I keep telling him that,
too."
For himself, Wolfe just wants to get his raw-food (and meatless)
message out there, which places him at the opposite end of the
nutritional scale from the meat-loving Atkins Diet.
"If Atkins was able to make it after all those years to number one,"
he says, "I figure, hey, a few more years ... Things swing back and
forth in America, from high carbohydrates to low carbohydrates, high
fat to low fat. The Atkins Diet is on top now, but next thing you
know, it'll swing around, and it'll be the raw-food diet. I'm the
champion of that, and I'm trying to ride that wave."
Asked how what advice they would give to the next group of Alts and
Guests in a possible season two of "Mad Mad House," both Wolfe and
Etheridge urge their successors to be themselves and be open-minded,
with Etheridge adding for the Guests, "Stay out of alliances and stay
out of drama. Just be there to learn and soak it all in."
Rodney Peterson
any thinking person. Sure, it's halfway entertaining to watch. But no sane
person sticks meat hooks into their skin and hangs themselves, drinks human
blood, believes in voodoo, and what's the other? Witchcraft? Like any
religion, not real. Don't see any harm in being naked and eating natural
foods (which, I assume the naturist does-I don't watch enough of this stupid
show to know more than that-nor care to. To see the words "enlightenment"
and the activities portaryed in Mad Mad House in the same sentence is just
insane. Truly enlightened people are enlightened through their minds, the
stuff on Mad Mad House is just insecure con artist type morons who choose
not to function within the boundaries of normal society being idiots and
trying to make you believe practicing these things someow makes them
"better" or immortal, or something. Horseshit!
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