Steve-O

Puerile is as puerile does, and few do puerile as successfully as Steve-O, a likeable guy who's turned his debauchery and masochistic pastimes into a TV show, a series of DVDs and a tour, to the delight of dumb fun-loving kids everywhere. The live show also features fellow Jackass alumni Party Boy and Wee Man — who did nothing on stage apart from booze-chugging, salt-snorting and bottomless-babe-ogling — along with a few pathetic, probably unpaid hangers-on who had the honour of drinking Steve-O's piss, having their eyebrows shaved and getting kicked in the balls. To disprove his dad's charge that he has no talent, Steve-O impressed everyone with a balancing act, supporting a large kitchen knife and a massive ladder on his nose while wasted on tequila. That stunt aside, the old man may be right: this show is about balls, not talent, and Steve-O's clearly got balls, though they've seen better days, before sack-stapling became his pièce de résistance. Apart from money, groupies and strange psychological kicks, Steve-O's motivation must be attention, the same kind of attention some of his Montreal fans got later by injuring themselves and other people's cars for TV cameras, a drunken display that eventually drew the riot squad (who, of course, have their own bizarre tribal rituals). But apart from a little class clown notoriety and a big drunk, what did these 1,500 teenagers get for their money? A lame, lo-tech, 45-minute sideshow that plays 100 times better on TV (with the miracle of editing), and maybe a punk rock "fuck you" to mainstream reality TV, if you think garbage like American Idol deserves such validation. As Steve-O said, "You can't stop rock'n'roll," but you can save your brain and your money from idiotainment.