Pageant Damaged

If you want to see some women with some chewed up psyches and severe myopic thought patterns, spend some time with the beauty queen and pageant crowd.

There is something not right about wanting to stand in front of strangers, lips vaselined into a perma-smile, exuding a toxic amount of positive rhetoric and concern for the world. Competing for the validation of strangers who will decide if you oozed the most poise and charm is a waste of time, but these woman have such shattered spirits, the only validation they can get for their cardboard existence to to battle each other for a chintzy tiara and flimsy sash.

Even though her parents surely did it, the guilt of the Ramseys was not dispatching that creepy, robotic monster, but making JonBenet a soulless, baton twirling, frilly dress wearing competitive automaton. And don't think we're not better off without that warped overdose of pep and kindness that is nothing more than a Pollyanna mask. Over the last year there have pageant winners and revealing their darker, wilder sides and getting in trouble both legally and "professionally" (and I use that loosely, as if competing to be Miss Podunk Small Town suggests a career). Perhaps more correctly, they're baring their realistic sides, as the false puppies-and-rainbows goodness has caused more rot to them than a month hanging out with me. And that is why when they go apeshit, it's a pleasure to watch.

Miss Arizona wannabe and law student Kumari Fulbright is being charged with kidnapping, armed robbery, aggravated robbery and two counts of aggravated assault for holding and torturing her ex-boyfriend in early December with the help of three other men. I'm not even going to bother with saying allegedly - the nutty bitch did it (love that police photo too).

While recently completing a semester-long unpaid stint clerking for a federal judge, she also posed brandishing small arms in a shiny black bikini for a 2008 calendar. Nothing says "take me serious as an attorney and a woman" than a cheesecake calendar for the militia crowd.

Authorities think the dispute began because the ex-boyfriend was believed to have stolen jewelry given to Fulbright by the former beau suspected of helping in the attack. Fulbright (who I think has an ironic last name, and a a crazy stripper's first name) is 25, the victim ex-boyfriend is 24, and the accomplice ex-boyfriend is 44. Not a whole lot of surprises so far in this story.

Fulbright invited the man to her apartment, then excused herself to shower, where two men showed up and bound him with plastic ties and duct tape. They accused him of taking the jewelry, and threatened to shoot him with pistols. When Fulbright finished her shower, she bit the man on his forearm, right hand and ear, held a butcher knife to his head, and told him she was going to kill him.

The man was taken to another home, where the assault continued, then taken back to Fulbright's house, where she guarded him with a gun. He finally managed to free a hand and grabbed the gun, and their struggle spilled outside, eventually managing to escape.

The police noted, "He has some bite marks on him, evident and consistent with his account, and his hands were red and swollen, consistent with someone who had been tied up," and said the suspects stole the victim's wallet, money clip, cell phone, and briefcase.

Tucson police also are seeking to serve her former boyfriend, Robert Ergonis, 44, and his brother, Michael Ergonis, 46, with arrest warrants charging them with kidnapping, armed robbery and aggravated assault, but believe they may have fled the country. Telephone numbers for the brothers were not listed.

Fulbright posted bond but indicted suspect Larry Hammond was still in jail as Tucson police are looking for the idiot tag team of former boyfriend, Robert Ergonis and his brother Michael. It is believed the two have fled the country...enjoy Mexico, douchebags! At the moment, Fulbright's phone is out of service and her apartment was unoccupied Wednesday, without any furniture. Hard times indeed, queenie! Efforts also were made to contact her through Myspace, so you know shit has gone bad if you're 25 and unreachable on Myspace.

In 24 hours this will be old news and little will be spoken of it, but let me just get to the end, which is somewhere towards the end of the year, as the case finally goes to trial...guilty!

this is as sexy as a math test, but less enjoyable