Originally Posted by Joey RoXer
So we flew out to LA on Sunday and got there in the morning. We didn't do much on Sunday because we didn't have much money. We did drive around a little bit and it's true what they say...
LA is a hole.
It really is. The stereotyping is true. I don't even know how to organize my thoughts about it. The graffiti, the traffic, the hookers, the Mexicans, it's all there. We drove around in our rental car and traffic would get insane at some points and then it would clear up in places. Most of the graffiti is terrible. It's mostly "XYZ" written on a call box in Sharpie or something lame and I never realized how much that annoys me. But shit in big cool swoop letters on an overpass or something doesn't really bug me. I guess it has to be colorful or something for me not to be angry about it.
Oh man the mexicans. It's seriously Tijuana in some places. Now I've seen my share of day-workers but at this one Home Depot it was unreal. It looked like they were waiting in line for tickets or something and the line went all around the block and the sidewalk was filled. There would be so many at some points and then so few in others. Like in Beverly Hills there wouldn't be any. Not even mowing lawns or something.
The shitty parts of the city are surrounded by nice parts are surrounded by shitty parts and so on. It's this ongoing cycle. On one side of the street there would be run-down shops and tons of people and fucking 20 yards away is the nice Beverly Hills area with green lawns and big houses and shit. Unreal.
The Walk of Fame is terrible. It's in such a shitty area. I would hate to be the person that has the star near the parking garage and gets run over all the time. It wasn't even worth seeing. Or typing about really. We did see the church of Scientology off of L. Ron Hubbard Blvd. though and got a kick out of that.
And some of the hookers looked pretty decent. There was this one who looked like a skinny Sherell Crow and was being arrested by a cop. Well, she LOOKED like a hooker. She might have been a normal person being arrested for god knows. But I would have paid for her. Most of them looked like your strung out hooker though, no big deal. There were a few homeless people that were pretty decent. One guy was dancing around stopped traffic as if it were a grassy meadow and was holding a sign "Love Everyone".
Fuck, I almost forgot. There was a magazine (some local LA thing) and in the back was an ad for an attorney that read:
LA'S DOPEST ATTORNEY
Wanna get high?
- Smoke weed while on probation
- Go to prison and smoke dope!
- Accepting murder cases
Pretty funny, but let’s move on to the big day.
So on Monday we wake up at 4:30 am which seemed unnecessarily early to me. See, they send you tickets in the mail but it doesn't guarantee admission. They start letting people in at 8:00 am, and my sister thought we should leave bright and early. I figure if we get there around 5, it would only be us and 10 other people standing around for 3 hours. We get there at 5:30 (we actually left at 5) and there was a long ass line. It looked like a bunch of day-workers :rofl:. So I was kind of shocked at that. But then I realized that people who watch this show are pretty insane also. So to get us away from the studio they handed out order of arrival passes and tell us to come back at 7:30. Our numbers were 334 or so.
So at 7:00 we head back in and and at 8:30 they start organizing people by order or arrival numbers. Of course, that takes forever. So now it is 9:00 am, we've been standing around (actually sitting on benches under shade) and we find out that the theatre only holds about 300 people. Oh shit.
So they go down the line by order of arrival and write down a number on your ticket they mailed you. They get down to us and my number is 282. :| So somewhere along the way, 50 people or so got lost. But whatever, I was now guaranteed to get in. They were having two tapings that day, so some of them were allowed to go back to the later taping. But who fucking cares about them.
We (all 300 of us) all have our numbers written on our ticket. And it's about 9:30 it's getting hotter and we're sitting and we're tired of looking at each other and we just want to fucking get on with it. Thats when the fun begins.
There were a few people I saw that I hoped would get on. This one guy brought like 20 people with him and all their shirts were yellow and it said "pick Josh, he turns 18 today". There was also this group of chicks in cow shirts and pink shirts and all sorts of shirts. I wore a blue shirt. I felt out of the loop.
One of the guys who works there introduces some singing group. It was about 10 people and they harmonized themselves and it sounded good. Then they started singing, which didn't bug me until the chorus.
And what might the chorus be? "I found Jesus, Jesus loves me" sang very slowly. Very slowly. How many times did it repeat you ask? I counted after 4. And they sang over and over for 16 TIMES. STRAIGHT. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. AHHHHHHH. After that, they would do some more hymns and the applause would die down after every song until it just stopped. But they never stopped, they kept going.
So finally, at about 10:30, the guy over the megaphone says he will now hand out official numbers and an info card to write down our full name and ssn. Once they got all the cards, they would then hand out the name tags (YES!)
How long does it take for them to hand out name tags? About an hour. Because once our official numbers were given, we had to be REseated in that order. My official number was 254. So we lost some more people. But the good news is, the jesus lovers did not get in because there were no more spots left for that show. Score.
It's now 11:30. We've been standing around, sitting around, getting up, re ordering, standing in line, blahblhablah for a good 7 hours. Then they finally tell us that they will take about 50 of us at a time, herd us to the other side of the building, and then interview us at about 15 at a time. Asking us our name, where we're from, what we do. I was Joseph from Phoenix studying subjects at the U of A. Because "subjects" is better than saying "undecided". And the dude got a kick out of that. But then he moves on to my sister and she says she is from California and is in desperate need of a new car. She shows him pictures of the car wreck she was in a year ago where her car flipped over and over and over and she did a very good job of selling herself. I was confident that the dude bought it and her name is now on the list. But we would have to find out later because they were done interviewing us and they herd us to the other side of the building where all 300 of us sat on benches waiting for the interviews to finish.
It takes so much endurance to do this. Even I was starting to get pissed off at all the waiting. Finally, at 12:00, we were led inside the building. And we go up the steps and we're now at the top of the stage looking down.
And it was all worth it.
The stage and theatre is so small. It looks huge on TV but it's like half the size of a high school auditorium. It is ridiculously small. So they usher is in and I guess at some point we decided to go to the other side of the hall where there only a few seats left. So, if you tried to look for us on TV, we would be all the way on the left. All they way. And then down. All the way. Have you figured out that they don't ever film those people? We didn't figure that out for a while.
So we all get in and it's A/C and everything so I don't mind the waiting. They tell us the episode will air on Oct 12th. They play the opening music and the place goes nuts. Not only is it extremely small in there, it's also extremely loud. I will no longer get mad at someone when they can't hear what their friends are suggesting because it so loud. It's a bunch of people screaming their heads off so of course it should be loud.
But it turns out it wasn't the opening music, it was some techno remix (which I will be looking for after this). So the announcer comes out, warms up the crowd, blahblhablha and then the show starts and 10X louder than before. Josh got called up, one of the cow chicks got called up, and a few other people. And then they introduce Bob and the show gets underway. Josh wins the first game and goes up onstage.
However, Bob thought the other person won. So he tells Josh to stay where he's at and the other comes up and theres a bunch of confusion. The producer finally tells old senile Bob who won and they have to re-edit. Bob said "what the hell happened" and "Son of a bitch, I guess that was my fault" during all of this. So they go and re film it and Josh has to act surprised when he wins he gets on stage.
Members of the audience also ask Bob question during the breaks. A woman asks Bob "Will you sign my shirt?" and Bob says "Not now, I'm busy woman...but you can take it off and throw it on stage of you like"
Bob is the fucking man.
I won't go through all the games but the HI-LO game was the easiest one ever. And they gave out 4 cars that day. 5 if you want to count the electric vehicle. They also gave away a "water walker" which I guess you walk on water with. When the announcer said "a brand new water walker" everyone was like "what the fuck is that?" and he described it, and the place was still silent for like 5 seconds because nobody knew what it was or what it did.
I was never called on stage nor was my sister. I guess our stories didn't make the cut. And we were all the way in corner, so we we're really seen either. HOWEVER I am positive that I was heard. Unless they edit out my voice (which I'm sure they will) I can be heard yelling "$602", "$602", "$573", "$1,573", "SEVENHUNDERDANDSEVENTYSEVENDOLLARS" "SPIN AGAIN", "STAY", and "DON'T SPIN". I yelled "spin" and "Don't spin" after the fact. For example, the lady already had her hands on the wheel and was in the process of spinning when I yelled "SPIN AGAIN". Or, the lady already said "I'll stay, Bob" and moved over to the side when I yell out "DONT SPIN".
And then when it's all over, they give away a door prize and send us on our merry way.
All in all, if you have the endurance to stand around for a long time, then it is definitely worth it. I had a fucking blast and I was glad I was there before Bob died.
Bottom line: My name was not called. I did not get on stage. I may be heard. It was a long wait, but I had fun.
And I will scan my nametag tomorrow.
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