Four Hours on Hard Cement
!Beware! This is a long blog...
Yesterday was the open casting call for “The Biggest Loser”. As I mentioned in a prior post, I decided to do the in-person interview in addition to the video tape submission. The casting call was to be from 4-7 pm at the Hard Rock Cafe (downtown Chicago). I had no idea how early to show up. I didn’t want to get there too early because it’s cold outside (I don’t have my winter coat - yet) and I knew that there would be some sort of line to stand in. I planned to arrive around 2:30.
Oh, guess who wants to meet the morning of the casting? Yup. He’s going to “squeeze me in” sometime between 9am and noon. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Well, I’m not going to lab all dressed up with makeup on because this will cause unnecessary attention. This means that I have to go back to the apartment after this “meeting”, get all spiffied up, take the el (elevated train / public transit system) into the city and still try to be there by 2:30. I won’t hold my breath.
I come in to the lab just after 9am in anticipation of this meeting. Ken has to sit down with three students who are going with him to France this next week and have them give their talks. Where do they decide to do these practice talks? That’s right, immediately behind me in the computer room (room within the lab with all of the computers in it). So for the next three hours I am trying to write my thesis with people “presenting” talks behind me and with the audition on my mind. Suffice to say, no work was completed. And then, oh it’s noon. Ken has a lunch meeting. Well, I refuse to wait until after this lunch meeting - I will never get out of here! I dropped off a copy of the revised paper in his box and left. By the way, I have never gone to a conference that I couldn't DRIVE to - I hate graduate school.
Once back at the apartment, I started to try to pretty myself up a bit. This is no small task when you don’t know where anything is. The woman I am staying with was exceptionally kind and loaned me cute shoes, socks (appropriate for the shoes instead of the athletic socks I only had available), makeup, earrings, a hair dryer, and (it’s worth mentioning again) a place to sleep for almost two weeks! I am lucky in about seven hundred different ways that she is here but a quick run down of the most prominent in my mind are: she is just a great person so hanging out with her is a lot of fun, she has a really funny husband who is also great to hang out with, she wears the same size shoes as me, she let me use anything in her pantry or refrigerator so I didn’t have to shop for condiments or cheese (which I just forgot to buy at the store - didn’t plan on having to mooch that), and her coloring is pretty close to mine so I could wear her make-up. Did I mention that she’s really a cool chick? Anyway, back to not being able to find anything... I had the outfit all picked out (including shoes and socks) and I knew where the earrings were but I didn’t know which hair products were where and I didn’t know how her make-up was organized. The digging didn’t take too long as she isn’t a make-up whore and the hair products were only in two places. I successfully completed my transformation by about 1:45 pm. By the way, I am now the biggest fan of a clinique product called pore minimizer or something like that. I must purchase some. It’s great!
Off to the el. I arrived downtown with no problem and located the cafe. I got in line and was then told I needed to go to the front of the line to get a ticket. Actually, you had to go inside to get a ticket - not the front of the line. Wow. Already a lot of people were there. Got my ticket. Got back in the line. I then spent nearly an hour on the phone. I will post another blog with that story. I hate insurance companies.
At some point around 4pm, they instructed us to get in line according to the number on our ticket. Okay, already there. I was by a group of ladies (and one guy) and decided I might as well join in the conversation because the environment was too distracting to read. Okay, I am going to come off like a COMPLETE bitch when I write this but here it is anyway... Are some people absolutely clueless about themselves?? If I know you live in a trailer before you tell me, they are not going to cast you in a nationally broadcast network show (except for maybe Cops or Most Wanted). If all you do is bitch about your hypothyroid condition (that apparently can’t be treated with drugs), they are not going to cast you. If you have half of your teeth rotted out, they are not going to cast you. If you look like exercise could kill you, they are not going to cast you. If you qualify for the senior citizen discount, they are not going to cast you. Why do these people even show up? Am I one of “those” people who think I have a chance and am being delusional? The current contestants are all 21-31 except for one 39 year old and one 40 year old (both of whom could pass for mid-thirties). There are clearly looking for young adults. The target age group seems to be 28-31. Half the contestants are in that group. Second, these people all have great “head shots”. If you didn’t know better, you’d guess some of them aren’t overweight judging by their faces. And those that do show the weight in their face, they are still pretty good looking people. They all have fairly all-american names. They are all well spoken. If you think you aren’t cute enough, don’t show up - you aren’t. I think I am cuter than at least one of the girls so I figured it was worth a shot, I speak in “dictionary” english, I’m in the right age group, and my name is really common, easy to spell and easy to pronounce. And, given this blog, I am catty enough to be on a reality show. You might wonder, why do I care if these delusionally people audition...
Because they don’t go by ticket number!! Fuck. I waited and waited in line. Slowly we would creep forward. They were interviewing about 80 people an hour. I should be in well before the cutoff. I was number 170 or something like that (the tickets didn’t start at #1 so I can’t say for sure - I’m guesstimating (non-dictionary english)). Okay, three hours later...
A woman in line (who I do not like at this point) decides to go find out exactly what the first number was and where are they now. So, it turns out my guess was pretty good. Closer to 190. Still, should be in with 1/2 to spare, right? Oh god. Those people ahead of me got here after me - I am the one who told them that they needed tickets! What’s going on? Oh, so the tickets - A big joke. Why do I insist on following the rules? They not only aren’t checking to see if you are the right number, they aren’t checking to see if you have one at all!! So a massive number of people have now cut and I am possibly not going to get in. In fact, it looks like I am definitely not getting in. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. My feet are freezing, I skipped out on meeting with Ken for this, and I even typed my application form. This is sucking so bad I can’t even explain.
Another group goes in. At this point I can actually hear the woman who is in charge of the line. It is just a big mosh pit as you get near the beginning of the line. The group of people (trailer trash) that was behind me is starting to try to snake around the side. I literately push some guy in front of them. He is the boyfriend of this other woman with whom I have been speaking to for the last three hours (once I determined that I couldn’t stand the other group and was off the phone). I told her that I think we had to start jockeying for position near the front. It turns out, as two chicago inhabitants, we are quite adept at the ‘wiggling through crowds’ thing.
And boy, did that skill pay off BIG TIME!
The woman says that they will take ten more people. Oh no! We (really cool woman and I) are now about three ‘rows’ (using that term loosely) behind the front. She starts counting... seven, (not me), eight (not me), nine (not me)...
Ten - and points directly at me! Woohoo!! Holy shit - talk about cutting it close. I was LITERALLY the LAST one from the line to get in (officially). The cool woman had scored no# 9 so we were both in. Sweeeet. It turns out, in addition to not checking tickets, they aren’t monitoring the stairs up to the interview room. So an additional ten or twelve people were able to sneak in to the cafe by saying they were there to eat and then sneak up the stairs before they blocked them off. I actually was a big snitch and told the interviewers what was going on. I am not sure if that was a good thing to do. They posted the line woman at the top of the stairs after my tattle-tale-ing.
We wait in another line. While in this “new” line with new people around (since we had kind of cut in line ourselves in the mosh pit) I struck up a conversation with this guy in front of us. Fireman from the Waukegan area. Looked like he might be ex-military. Turns out... ex-marine. That would definitely explain the haircut. The cool woman and I chatted with him while we waited to be seated at one of the two interviewing tables. I will mention why this conversation was noteworthy later in the blog.
Finally, sit down at the interviewing table. What they do is seat seven or eight people around a table and have us introduce ourselves. They want to know about our personal situation - name, where from, couple statis (married, divorced, single, how single = significant other, multiple, engaged), children statis, and sexual preference (gay or no). That went okay. Then THE question. They only ask one. When we did names, the interviewer started at the other side of the table so I thought I would have a bunch of time to think about the question too. She asks the question to the table and then says, “We’ll start with the same person.” AND THEN TURNS TO ME!! AAAAAAAH!! The question was, “If you were your goal weight tomorrow - what would you do?” I was just a tad flustered. I started with some lame statement about enrolling back in school so I could play waterpolo again and be on the starting lineup. Then I said book the cruise and buy the bikini. Then said something about my bf. She asks why I didn’t bring him. I think I might have scored points on this because I said he was canadian and said how we met and she seemed surprised. Maybe that will make me “different” enough to stay on their minds. It could have been much, much worse but it could also have been better. I forgot to mention, they taped the whole thing.
I promptly left after we were done and exited the building. The cool woman had been assigned to a different table and had finished before me. She was waiting outside which I thought was really nice of her. She asked how it went. We both concluded that we both did “okay”. Here is where the conversation with the guy comes in. I am guessing this cool girl is about 35. So maybe woman would have been a better way to describe her but I’m not going back to change it. The guy asked, get this, if I was her daughter! Okay, she doesn’t look that old and I don’t look that young. We couldn’t decide if he was asking to make idle chit-chat or if because he was interested in me. Either way, I’m taking it to mean the later and that’s a huge ego boost. He didn’t stick around so I didn’t have to break his heart telling him I already have a man. teeheehee. After we wished each other luck and parted ways, I jumped on the el and headed home. It was about 8:30 pm. It took (including el rides) ~ 7 hrs. - that’s just outrageous.
Anyway, it’s over and done with. I’m glad to say that I had the guts to go through with it. I might hate grad school but it has certainly dulled my sense of embarassment and/or feelings of idiocy. Rumor has it that they are going to do call-backs by Sunday. I’ll keep you posted. Well, actually, I will keep posting - up to you to come back to see how the story ends.
Yesterday was the open casting call for “The Biggest Loser”. As I mentioned in a prior post, I decided to do the in-person interview in addition to the video tape submission. The casting call was to be from 4-7 pm at the Hard Rock Cafe (downtown Chicago). I had no idea how early to show up. I didn’t want to get there too early because it’s cold outside (I don’t have my winter coat - yet) and I knew that there would be some sort of line to stand in. I planned to arrive around 2:30.
Oh, guess who wants to meet the morning of the casting? Yup. He’s going to “squeeze me in” sometime between 9am and noon. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Well, I’m not going to lab all dressed up with makeup on because this will cause unnecessary attention. This means that I have to go back to the apartment after this “meeting”, get all spiffied up, take the el (elevated train / public transit system) into the city and still try to be there by 2:30. I won’t hold my breath.
I come in to the lab just after 9am in anticipation of this meeting. Ken has to sit down with three students who are going with him to France this next week and have them give their talks. Where do they decide to do these practice talks? That’s right, immediately behind me in the computer room (room within the lab with all of the computers in it). So for the next three hours I am trying to write my thesis with people “presenting” talks behind me and with the audition on my mind. Suffice to say, no work was completed. And then, oh it’s noon. Ken has a lunch meeting. Well, I refuse to wait until after this lunch meeting - I will never get out of here! I dropped off a copy of the revised paper in his box and left. By the way, I have never gone to a conference that I couldn't DRIVE to - I hate graduate school.
Once back at the apartment, I started to try to pretty myself up a bit. This is no small task when you don’t know where anything is. The woman I am staying with was exceptionally kind and loaned me cute shoes, socks (appropriate for the shoes instead of the athletic socks I only had available), makeup, earrings, a hair dryer, and (it’s worth mentioning again) a place to sleep for almost two weeks! I am lucky in about seven hundred different ways that she is here but a quick run down of the most prominent in my mind are: she is just a great person so hanging out with her is a lot of fun, she has a really funny husband who is also great to hang out with, she wears the same size shoes as me, she let me use anything in her pantry or refrigerator so I didn’t have to shop for condiments or cheese (which I just forgot to buy at the store - didn’t plan on having to mooch that), and her coloring is pretty close to mine so I could wear her make-up. Did I mention that she’s really a cool chick? Anyway, back to not being able to find anything... I had the outfit all picked out (including shoes and socks) and I knew where the earrings were but I didn’t know which hair products were where and I didn’t know how her make-up was organized. The digging didn’t take too long as she isn’t a make-up whore and the hair products were only in two places. I successfully completed my transformation by about 1:45 pm. By the way, I am now the biggest fan of a clinique product called pore minimizer or something like that. I must purchase some. It’s great!
Off to the el. I arrived downtown with no problem and located the cafe. I got in line and was then told I needed to go to the front of the line to get a ticket. Actually, you had to go inside to get a ticket - not the front of the line. Wow. Already a lot of people were there. Got my ticket. Got back in the line. I then spent nearly an hour on the phone. I will post another blog with that story. I hate insurance companies.
At some point around 4pm, they instructed us to get in line according to the number on our ticket. Okay, already there. I was by a group of ladies (and one guy) and decided I might as well join in the conversation because the environment was too distracting to read. Okay, I am going to come off like a COMPLETE bitch when I write this but here it is anyway... Are some people absolutely clueless about themselves?? If I know you live in a trailer before you tell me, they are not going to cast you in a nationally broadcast network show (except for maybe Cops or Most Wanted). If all you do is bitch about your hypothyroid condition (that apparently can’t be treated with drugs), they are not going to cast you. If you have half of your teeth rotted out, they are not going to cast you. If you look like exercise could kill you, they are not going to cast you. If you qualify for the senior citizen discount, they are not going to cast you. Why do these people even show up? Am I one of “those” people who think I have a chance and am being delusional? The current contestants are all 21-31 except for one 39 year old and one 40 year old (both of whom could pass for mid-thirties). There are clearly looking for young adults. The target age group seems to be 28-31. Half the contestants are in that group. Second, these people all have great “head shots”. If you didn’t know better, you’d guess some of them aren’t overweight judging by their faces. And those that do show the weight in their face, they are still pretty good looking people. They all have fairly all-american names. They are all well spoken. If you think you aren’t cute enough, don’t show up - you aren’t. I think I am cuter than at least one of the girls so I figured it was worth a shot, I speak in “dictionary” english, I’m in the right age group, and my name is really common, easy to spell and easy to pronounce. And, given this blog, I am catty enough to be on a reality show. You might wonder, why do I care if these delusionally people audition...
Because they don’t go by ticket number!! Fuck. I waited and waited in line. Slowly we would creep forward. They were interviewing about 80 people an hour. I should be in well before the cutoff. I was number 170 or something like that (the tickets didn’t start at #1 so I can’t say for sure - I’m guesstimating (non-dictionary english)). Okay, three hours later...
A woman in line (who I do not like at this point) decides to go find out exactly what the first number was and where are they now. So, it turns out my guess was pretty good. Closer to 190. Still, should be in with 1/2 to spare, right? Oh god. Those people ahead of me got here after me - I am the one who told them that they needed tickets! What’s going on? Oh, so the tickets - A big joke. Why do I insist on following the rules? They not only aren’t checking to see if you are the right number, they aren’t checking to see if you have one at all!! So a massive number of people have now cut and I am possibly not going to get in. In fact, it looks like I am definitely not getting in. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. My feet are freezing, I skipped out on meeting with Ken for this, and I even typed my application form. This is sucking so bad I can’t even explain.
Another group goes in. At this point I can actually hear the woman who is in charge of the line. It is just a big mosh pit as you get near the beginning of the line. The group of people (trailer trash) that was behind me is starting to try to snake around the side. I literately push some guy in front of them. He is the boyfriend of this other woman with whom I have been speaking to for the last three hours (once I determined that I couldn’t stand the other group and was off the phone). I told her that I think we had to start jockeying for position near the front. It turns out, as two chicago inhabitants, we are quite adept at the ‘wiggling through crowds’ thing.
And boy, did that skill pay off BIG TIME!
The woman says that they will take ten more people. Oh no! We (really cool woman and I) are now about three ‘rows’ (using that term loosely) behind the front. She starts counting... seven, (not me), eight (not me), nine (not me)...
Ten - and points directly at me! Woohoo!! Holy shit - talk about cutting it close. I was LITERALLY the LAST one from the line to get in (officially). The cool woman had scored no# 9 so we were both in. Sweeeet. It turns out, in addition to not checking tickets, they aren’t monitoring the stairs up to the interview room. So an additional ten or twelve people were able to sneak in to the cafe by saying they were there to eat and then sneak up the stairs before they blocked them off. I actually was a big snitch and told the interviewers what was going on. I am not sure if that was a good thing to do. They posted the line woman at the top of the stairs after my tattle-tale-ing.
We wait in another line. While in this “new” line with new people around (since we had kind of cut in line ourselves in the mosh pit) I struck up a conversation with this guy in front of us. Fireman from the Waukegan area. Looked like he might be ex-military. Turns out... ex-marine. That would definitely explain the haircut. The cool woman and I chatted with him while we waited to be seated at one of the two interviewing tables. I will mention why this conversation was noteworthy later in the blog.
Finally, sit down at the interviewing table. What they do is seat seven or eight people around a table and have us introduce ourselves. They want to know about our personal situation - name, where from, couple statis (married, divorced, single, how single = significant other, multiple, engaged), children statis, and sexual preference (gay or no). That went okay. Then THE question. They only ask one. When we did names, the interviewer started at the other side of the table so I thought I would have a bunch of time to think about the question too. She asks the question to the table and then says, “We’ll start with the same person.” AND THEN TURNS TO ME!! AAAAAAAH!! The question was, “If you were your goal weight tomorrow - what would you do?” I was just a tad flustered. I started with some lame statement about enrolling back in school so I could play waterpolo again and be on the starting lineup. Then I said book the cruise and buy the bikini. Then said something about my bf. She asks why I didn’t bring him. I think I might have scored points on this because I said he was canadian and said how we met and she seemed surprised. Maybe that will make me “different” enough to stay on their minds. It could have been much, much worse but it could also have been better. I forgot to mention, they taped the whole thing.
I promptly left after we were done and exited the building. The cool woman had been assigned to a different table and had finished before me. She was waiting outside which I thought was really nice of her. She asked how it went. We both concluded that we both did “okay”. Here is where the conversation with the guy comes in. I am guessing this cool girl is about 35. So maybe woman would have been a better way to describe her but I’m not going back to change it. The guy asked, get this, if I was her daughter! Okay, she doesn’t look that old and I don’t look that young. We couldn’t decide if he was asking to make idle chit-chat or if because he was interested in me. Either way, I’m taking it to mean the later and that’s a huge ego boost. He didn’t stick around so I didn’t have to break his heart telling him I already have a man. teeheehee. After we wished each other luck and parted ways, I jumped on the el and headed home. It was about 8:30 pm. It took (including el rides) ~ 7 hrs. - that’s just outrageous.
Anyway, it’s over and done with. I’m glad to say that I had the guts to go through with it. I might hate grad school but it has certainly dulled my sense of embarassment and/or feelings of idiocy. Rumor has it that they are going to do call-backs by Sunday. I’ll keep you posted. Well, actually, I will keep posting - up to you to come back to see how the story ends.
2 Comments:
i sooooo hope you get on this show... :)
By
Anonymous, at 1:34 PM
ooops that last comment was from lael. surprise surprise.
By
Anonymous, at 1:35 PM
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