Phone Home

Is it possible, just slightly possible that I have achieved something worthy for a call home? I think for a moment about the last few calls home. There was the phone call from the mountains of the Former Soviet Republic of Georgia informing my parents that I had been evacuated due to a revolution and by the way, Dirk and I broke up. There was the call from a hospital bed in Bosnia to ask my father if he knew the Croatian word for Appendicitis. There was the call from a windowless office building in DC to tell my parents I had passed the Foreign Service Exam so please make yourselves available to any strangers asking questions for my security clearance. And there is now.

“Wait a second,” Moms voice is slow and drawn out. I look at my watch. It is 11:30 PM in Washington DC, making it 8:30 PM in Washington State, and all together possible that my mother is already drunk.

“Let me get your father on the phone.”

I am pacing the wood floors of my studio apartment, high above Dupont Cirlce, watching the blink of the red light on the Washington Monument warning the oncoming planes of its presence.

“Really Mom, It’s not that big of a deal. It's kinda supposed to be a secret. But okay, if you want to get Dad.”

She tries to cover the receiver with her hand, but I still hear her scream.

“Miiiicccchhhhaaaaeeellll.”

I hear a click and the bass hum of my Fathers monotone voice.

“This is your father.”

“Oh Michael, is that you?”

“Who else would it be Daisy? We live alone. Did you think the neighbors would be picking up our phone?”

“It’s Meg and she wants to tell us that she is moving to LA."

“Mom, it’s not Meg, it’s Jane. And I’m not moving to LA. Dad, it's not that big of a deal, I just wanted to tell you and Mom that I’ve been invited to LA for a casting call. One of these reality TV show things."

Dad speaks. “That’s nice. Why are you telling us this?”

I fall back on the couch, pull up my sweat covered legs up underneath me and squeeze my sock covered toes mindlessly.

Mom answers before I can.“Oh Michael, she is going to be on MTV!”

“Well, not exactly Mom. Well, not yet. It’s just a casting call. I probably won’t get it, but I feel kinda special they invited me. It's exciting, don't you think?"

“I didn’t know you were an actress. I thought our other daughter was the actress in the family. Who is this again? ”

Dad can’t see my eyes rolling while I listen to my parents latest routine. The ‘I just can’t keep up, there are so many of you’ routine.

“Dad, I’m not an actress. It’s a reality TV show. Like 'The Bachelor'. It's all a secret, I don't really know the details yet, but I just am, myself and they record it, and-"

“Don’t tell them I’m a drunk.”

Silence. Dad breaks it.

“That all sounds very nice Jane."

“They are flying me to LA this weekend for a casting call. I just wanted someone to know. You know, in case I get sold into white slavery or something. I just wanted you guys to know.”

More silence. I curl up a little more on the couch, so that my chin is resting on my knees.

“Well, sounds very exciting. Good luck. I’ll be sure to tell your mother in the morning.”

“Oh stop it Michael. I'm fine."

“I just wanted you both to know.”

“Great, let us know how it goes.” And with that, Dad hangs up.

I can still hear Mother breathing into the receiver. I hear footsteps, and my Father taking the phone out of my Mother’s hand.

"C'mon Daisy, let me take you to bed."

I hear the click of Dad's shiny wingtips crossing the kitchen floor.

I hear the click of the receiver, returning to its cradle.

Punk'd

My plane dropped down at LAX and I was met by a production assistant. She drove me to a hotel and the next morning a young woman arrived to be my chaperone for the day. We took a walk up to the Hollywood Hills. She called it hiking. I learned the premise of the show. A bunch of single men and women living in the same house, competing for the affections of a 'bachelor and a bachelorette'.

It sounded cheesy. Christ, this is going to be a career killer.

But c'mon, what a story.

Two days later, I stepped out of a Lincoln Town car in front of a house in Agoura Hills California. A crew of a least thirty stared at my quivering lip and the sweat dripping down my arms. A dozen halogen lamps illuminated my already shiny forehead. Bulbs flashed. Photos were taken. Six different cameras pulled focus with every step I took. Someone called for silence on the set. And then another car pulled up and an average looking man stepped out.

Oh Jesus, I've been cast on Average Joe. I fucking knew it. How could I think I was good enough for this MTV shit. How humiliating.

"Hi, nice to meet you. What's your name?"

More cars pulled up to the house and more people emerged to soak in the lights and take the glare off my plastic smile. When I am nervous, I make conversation. Usually coupled with awkward laughter.

I asked everyone their name, occupation, home town. Periodically, someone from the crew would yell for quiet. But my anxiety propelled me to continue.

I whispered under my breath to the unfortunately named Ferrari standing next to me, "where did they find you?"

"My agent. I just got the call yesterday."

The director called for complete silence and ordered a re-shoot. Disbelief measurably registered on my face.

Three days of casting calls, interviews with a psychiatrist, blood tests and a thorough doctor's examination and she just got the call yesterday?

By the time the shows host arrived to formally introduce the fourteen strangely average men and women to the most superficial woman and two dimensional man I'd ever met, I had been stewing over Ferraris answer for thirty minutes.

The Host with a bad blonde dye job and fake British accent introduced the show. "You seven men and seven women will be living in this house together over the next two weeks. All the while, competing for alone time with this fabulous bachelor and bachelorette. At the end of two weeks, these two will be forced to choose someone with whom they believe they could pursue a future. Will it be you?"

Please. I wouldn't date a single man here. Ridiculous.

Ferrari had tipped me off. Something was not what it seemed.

Over the next 48 hours I was a skeptic. Ridiculous contests flowed out of the producers. I did a strip tease with a partner dressed as a dog and a T-bone steak. I wrestled with an inked stripper while trying to pop balloons filled with whip cream firmly safety-pinned to her breasts. I held a yoga position for twenty minutes, danced in a Conga line chained to fifteen people, and dug for hot dogs in a vat filled with a naked model and mashed potatoes.

The sexual innuendo threatened to make me unemployable in Washington DC. Exactly how much are people willing to do just to be on MTV? To add to the strangeness the other contestants never wanted to talk about themselves. What reality TV contestant is not completely self absorbed and attention seeking?

I was done when a Jessica Simpson look-alike pulled me into the bathroom to tell me about her former food fetish porn career starring in the ill titled 'Porked'n'Beans'. Mid-story, the camera man had to turn off the camera and change the battery. Cami stopped talking, patiently waited until the camera turned back on, and then flowed back into her emotional story.

I was Truman on the Truman Show. And I was done being made a fool of.

I approached the producers. They labeled me a conspiracy theorist. They told me I was killing the comedy. Relax. Enjoy.

Fuck off.

I think they knew they were losing my interest. Because later that night they staged an elaborate 'eviction ceremony' that fell apart in a dramatic twist. The bachelor and one of the bachelorettes started yelling obscenities at one another. I started laughing. And then the host looked at me and announced to the cameras.

"This almost seems rehearsed. Doesn't it?"

What?

"We've been fooling you."

I was right. The show was a fake. Except for me and one of the single men, everyone living in the house was an actor playing a part in a grand practical joke set to air on Spike TV in three months. The producers explained that they were trying to parody reality TV and thought two innocent victims who thought it was all real would be really hysterical.

They brought me into a back room filled with cameras and directors and editors. They clapped like I had done something. But I hadn't. They clapped to make me feel better about what they were doing to me.

After they revealed the hoax, they offered me a script and the promise of a $100,000 if I could keep fooling the other guy. They needed me to help keep him convinced. But I knew they just didn't want to loose two days of film that had already been shot.

Of course, I said yes.

Why not?


************************************************************************

I read my script, I signed some papers, and my experience quickly changed. No longer was I the center of attention amongst several other normal people living under a camera for the first time. Now I was odd woman out amongst a lot of LA character actors. I watched as they paced outside the trailer smoking cigarettes and talking on their cells to their agents about negotiating more screen time.

This culture of ego, professionalism and Hollywood drive were way out of my league. This experience took me from being the coolest kid in school, to being the new kid just transferred in from public school, completely isolated and completely unworthy to sit at the lunch table with the cheerleaders and jocks.

Not easing the transition, were the two geeky and sarcastic comedy writers that got some sort of sick pleasure out of convincing me various married and disinterested cast members harbored secret crushes on me. They took turns asking me every day who I was going to have sex with at the wrap party.

Unfortunately, I never got a chance to make that decision. Fourteen days later they taped the last episode, finally revealing the truth to my unsuspecting male counterpart.

He was stunned. But he got over it with a six pack and an oversized fake cardboard check.

Twenty minutes after the reveal, they shipped us back to the seedy hotel next to LAX and we never saw anyone from the production again. Unfortunately they made the mistake of booking the room on the network credit card and finally having a partner with whom to absorb the shock, Joe Schmo and I called in room service for ten, ordered porn on every channel, cleared out the mini bar and each stole the complimentary hotel robes. Then we went out and sat on the porch and relived every detail of the past 14 days with the benefit of hindsight.

I returned to DC the next day and began a consultancy with a governmental organization. After the show aired I enjoyed the occasional late-night talk show in New York City, repeat guest appearance on the radio, photo OP in STAR magazine (the cellulite issue) or shout out in the subway. But the poor ratings of the show meant that life quickly returned to normal.

In December of 2004, I moved to New York City and took a real job with a 401 k plan and insurance benefits. Besides the occasional double take on the street, I'm back to being just your average Jane Schmo. But occasionally I will pass by an old poster at a Subway stop that hasn't yet been spray painted over with a moustache and I'll smile.

I was famous, for about 13 minutes.

Reality TV

It was Saturday night in Washington DC and I was so tired that I doubted I could pull it together to rally for one more night. But Molly Jean was visiting, and it was important to me that I show her a ‘good time’ and hold up the false pretense that every Saturday night I could be found out dancing on tables and picking up undergrads.

It was much more exciting than the reality that most Saturdays would find me masking a broken heart and working the double shift at the neighborhood cocktail lounge. It was much more glamorous than the fact that I was 30 years old with a Master’s degree and still waiting tables, three months out of a failed near engagement which I sabotaged like all the rest.

Molly was also tired. Even though I hadn’t seen her in five years, ten years of friendship meant that I could tell. I wondered how long we would both be able to keep up the pretense that we were still 23.

Molly moved from the couch, her long delicate legs dragging over the wood floors in my studio apartment. Her height made her tower over me in photos, her delicate beauty and womanly figure made me look fourteen. This Saturday night, she gracefully removed the stylish reading glasses from her chiseled nose and stepped effortlessly into a pair of tight jeans. She stood in front of the mirror and threw her head of long auburn hair, recently straightened with a flat iron, over her shoulder.

“I’m ready whenever you are." And she sat back down on my suede chocolate couch with her recent release paperback book.

My neighbor and his best friend arrived and instantly began ogling Molly. I’m accustomed to the attention she attracts. She took off her glasses and began to hatch under the heat of their stares. She was oblivious to her charms. She laughed at all their jokes.

We head laughing into the DC February night.

At the bar, I watched the guys throw back cocktails, weave between flirtatious glances, hand out phone numbers, and act interested in conversation that was impossible to hear over the furious pump of loud rap tunes. Molly and I danced and disappeared for a moment into a time when we wore tiny cocktail dresses, moved with bodies that were thinner and tighter and acted without fear of what other people thought about us.

We left Ouzo’s and rounded the corner of Connecticut onto 18th. I thought the two women on the corner were handing out flyers for an after hours party but they were production assistants looking for willing men and women to try out for a new reality TV series they claimed would air on MTV.

MTV looking for willing men and women to try out for a new reality TV series !
$10,000 if your cast
Come hang in Cali
PARTY! PARTY!!PARTY!!!

'PARTY! PARTY!! PARTY!!!' was hardly my thing. I let out a snicker over my shoulder as I stepped around the PA's and continued walking down the street.

I wasn't looking for love. Recently escaped from a serious relationship, I was avoiding deep connections with the opposite sex like making eye contact with the homeless asking for change on the subway.

“You can make $10,000 dollars!” She hollered after us.

“It will only take five minutes.”

I could hear her feet on the pavement behind me.

The truth was, I was exhausted trying to entertain my BFF with DC's slim offerings and this little adventure would tie our night up perfectly.

"Yeah, sure, okay. What do I have to do?"

I thought perhaps a questionnaire, a photo... But within moments, a camera and microphone hung ominously over my head.

"So who ended the last relationship? You, or the guy?"

"Do you have any hidden talents?"

"What is your father like? Do you guys get along?"

"So, like, do you think we should be at war with Afghanistan?"

Cameras, terrify me. I focused on Molly, standing behind the camera. I used her unwavering confidence in my humor and sassiness to distract me from my fear of looking like an asshole.

I saw the red light and could feel my lip begin to quiver. Like an alcoholic tremor, the more I tried not to let it happen the more it seemed to reveal my utter insecurity. I must have been okay, because through the fog, I could hear Molly's laughter.

Then, off went the light and my face relaxed. Like Novocaine wearing off after a visit to the dentist for a root canal, I slowly came back into the moment.

I had no idea what had come out of my mouth.

But soon Molly and I werere blocks away, laughing until we couldn’t breathe, skipping down 18th street wrapped up in the warmth of our new memory.

*******************************************
The following Friday, I got a phone call.

"Hi, I'm a casting agent calling from LA. We saw your tape. The one you recorded in the street last week in DC. We want to talk to you more. Can you come out this weekend for a casting call?"

She told me she was casting for an MTV Bachelor take-off. Some in descript number of single men and women, all living in a house together. She wouldn't tell me how many people. She wouldn't tell me where they were filming. She wouldn't tell me the name of the show. She cautioned me that every step of this process needed to be strictly confidential.

I hung up the phone and called Molly.

************************************************************************

When I arrived in LA, I was driven to a hotel about two blocks from LAX, told I wasn't allowed to leave my room for any reason unless escorted by a member of the crew and given $25 to survive on for the next three days eating nothing but room service.

Over the next two days of casting calls I met five other women. We were nothing alike. They were young, average pretty and innocent. They had wide eyes and giggled a lot.

The casting agent phoned two weeks later.

"Hi there. Good news. Guess what? You have totally been cast on the show. Congratulations! Are you just totally psyched or what? Oh my God. Isn't this great. Are you crying?"

I packed my bags, told my friends I was going to Liberia for two weeks and called my parents.