Zoolander Reenactment - 5 page blog

-"You're pretty well-read for a model."

"You can only be a pretty face for so long."

That's an excerpt from an actual conversation I heard today at a commercial audition. I've only auditioned for two commercials so far, and they've both been like this... A room full of models, and me. I'm not sure how I'm auditioning for the same things as them, but I'll take it. I also just auditioned for a show called "Fugly," so I am getting mixed messages.

The first audition was for a cell company commercial. All models and me. By the way, I know they are models because everyone's agency is listed. I'm not looking at a group of guys and thinking, "Whoa, it's a bunch of models." They were casting a Gillette commercial at the same time. This called for around 20 model women. All had their lower legs exposed. I'm guessing they were supposed to rub their legs and say, "Now that's smooth!" The great thing about these situations is that people pace around the room, trying to learn their lines. It's hilarious.

Today's audition topped the cell company thing by far. NCAA to NIT level. There were probably about 30 models... and me. I looked very out of place. Here are the notes I was sent to prepare for the audition:

"please let them know that they will be ACTING as a "NASCAR" type driver in a crazy situation…portraying a driver who will drive 5000 miles in two days. He will be asked to improvise about the trip and being an adventurer and some of the "moments" of such a trip. Have them be prepared as a character of this kind. Think Matthew McConaughey (he is liked by men as a guy's guy and lives out of a camper these days…an adventurer)."

I don't have time to get into why "acting" is in caps, or why "NASCAR" and "moments" are in quotes, but I do acknowledge that none of these things should happen. The important part is that I'm supposed to "Think Matthew McConaughey..." I have no idea what that means. I know nothing about him. After having only this vague description, I came up with a couple logistical problems with this commercial.

1. 5000 miles in two days would require me to drive an average of 104 mph. Considering I'd have to stop for gas every couple hours, I would actually have to drive around 110 mph. This means I'd be in jail within the first two hours. They're pretty serious about speeding on the east coast.

2. There aren't too many 5000 mile land masses. That would be like driving from Miami to the Bering Strait. In order to cover 5000 miles from New York, I'd have to either go deep into South America or cross the Bering Strait into Siberia... which I'll get to soon.

After telling a friend of these two problems, he suggested I'm doing the wrong kind of research. I'm thinking NASA instead of NASCAR.

I had to fill out an info card when I arrived at the casting place. It asked for info that I don't know, such as: chest, neck, suit, sleeve, etc... I don't even know what these numbers should look like. If I had tried to answer them, I would have looked like Larry David on the episode where he sold cars. "What's the wheelbase on this car?" "It's a thick base. Really thick." So, I called my manager's assistant to see if she had an idea of the type of numbers I should be entering. She didn't know. With no other options, I asked the model to my right, "Hey, I don't have any clue about this stuff. What do you think I should write?"

"I don't know your dimensions."

"I know, but I don't want to guess. Just tell me what you wrote. That way my numbers will at least be human dimensions."

"16."

"16 what?"

"16 inches."

"What is 16 inches?"

"My neck."

"Okay, I'll put 16."

"I don't think yours is 16."

"Any idea for chest?"

"If they really want to know that bad, they'll find out?"

"Thanks for the help."

While waiting, I heard a guy say, "Muscle Expo 3000 is about to happen. You ready?" I think that means, "Do you want to go to the gym? Everyone hates me there."

They called us into the studio in groups of four. I was first up in my group. I didn't get to watch anyone else to see what type of stuff they were doing. The models were not friendly when I commented on how awkward the situation was. I asked what they were looking for. I got no specific direction in return. Instead, I was told all about Matthew McCongheygheyegy's lifestyle, for about 40 seconds. Apparently, he's an ADVENTURER!!!

Since I was clueless regarding what they were expecting, I decided to go for it. Instead of describing a regular race, I described West to London, but changed it to a 48 hour scenario. Not familiar with West to London? It's an idea my friends Al, Jim and I came up with. We were watching Discovery's "Building the Ultimate," and it was about a bridge being built over the Bering Strait. Within 30 seconds of tuning in, I said, "Jim, let's drive to London. West to London." He was in. Al was in. We called Glen and Craig. They're in. I think we have a couple more as well. I don't remember who though. We're going to take three cars, like they did on sailing expeditions. We'll have a food car, a tool car, and a spice car. It will be a 90-day voyage (none of us like driving long distances without stopping). We will stop each night and take in a town (there has to be a less gay way to say that). The interesting plot points would include:

1. Spending 40 days in remotes areas means someone will die of a disease that will eventually be named after them.

2. Al only eats chicken breasts, burgers, fries, cheese pizza, and French bread. Therefore, he's not going to be able to eat from the time we reach Siberia until we get to Germany. That's dangerous. He also doesn't drive. That adds the element of "Why did they bring him along? What is he contributing? He must be great at conversation or something."

3. Finding roads in Siberia and Mongolia will be tough. There are less than 200 roads in all of Mongolia. We only need to find the one that will take us to the Mongolian BBQ.

4. Chances are, if we go anywhere near Albania, we will be kidnapped. That will get the State Department heavily involved. When was the last time the State Department got involved in your vacation to Ocean City?

5. We will probably run into a Chechen warlord. We can cross that off our To-Do Lists.

I didn't go into these details with the audition, due to time constraints. I didn't get to say everything I planned on saying either, because they kept asking questions. I guess they have to do that with models. This prevented me from being able to say, "As long as we hit the Chunnel by hour 44, we should be safe. It's only supposed to be two hours to London from there, but you know how Chunnel traffic can be on a Sunday." I really wanted to say that. It's funny, and I think the models would force themselves to laugh, because they don't know what the Chunnel is... except the well-read model. He'll get it. Highlights had a whole page on the Chunnel last Fall.

The casting director laughed a lot at my audition, but I'm pretty sure West to London isn't what they're looking for. Oh yeah... I also found out that I hold my head up too high. I should tilt my chin down. That's what they said. I don't know why.

-Senator Inhofe made a statement yesterday insisting that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. We all know he's crazy, but this has to be his best claim to date. He's not only saying it doesn't contribute to global warming, but also that it has no negative effects on the environment. I didn't realize anyone thought that. I don't even think it was debatable 100 years ago. They didn't speculate that it would contribute to global warming then, but they knew it degraded air quality. This is like when tobacco companies claimed cigarettes didn't cause cancer, if they also claimed they are good for you. What a goof head (That's a new insult I just learned from my mom).

-The Onion had one of their best headlines ever last week: "Anna Nicole Smith Finally Reaches Target Weight."

-This is an excerpt from a blog from last year. I wrote it after doing two nights at a theatre in Miami with Colin Quinn. We had a limo all weekend for whatever we needed. I'm not bragging. It pertains to the story. Read it. I'm adding stuff to the bottom.

A girl, whom we’ll call Kristina (since it is her name), worked at the theatre where we were performing and wanted us to hang out with her and her friends after the last show. We were pretty sure we weren’t going to hang out with them, but we would give her a ride to her friend’s house anyway. She was quiet and seemed nice. Then the Smirnoff Ice started flowing. First, she started talking about how she grew up privileged and never needs to work a day in her life. I wanted to tell her, “Your parents are rich, not you.” When someone earns their money, they tend to downplay it. When a young, dumb slut has access to someone else’s money, they love to brag about it. When she got tired of talking about her riches, she moved on to talking about how "hot" she is. It should be noted that she was barely above average. If looks were an NBA team, she’d be the 4th player off the bench. We had already committed to taking her to the friend’s house though, and we figured we could put up with it for a little while longer.
We got into the limo as she was telling a friend on her cellphone that she was getting into the limo with us. SHE IS SOOOO KEWL, LOL, BRB, WTF, BOGHGHDHDF!
Less than two minutes after getting into the car, she started bragging about the fact that she went to University of Florida, which is a lot like bragging that you’re wearing GAP jeans. Anyone can do that, and no one cares. Because I wasn’t talking, she started making fun of the fact that I’m from Virginia by saying that the Blue Ridge Mountains are boring. Now, you can make fun of me and call me names. But when you start insulting mountain ranges, that’s when it starts to hurt. LOL WTF CUNT (Can’t Understand ‘Noying Twats) ;) BRB LOL!J>
When she finished with her cutting-edge landscape roast, she went back to talking about University of Florida. In a moment that changed my life, she actually said, “Florida is the Harvard of the south. That’s what people call it.” We started laughing hysterically. “Whatever, you guys. Whatever! It is. It’s like the best school there is. Fuck Miami and UCF. The Gators are the Harvard of the south.” If I could make stuff like this up, I would be the best comic in history. Harvard of the SOUTH? That’s like calling Berry Blue the champagne of Kool-Aids.
She kept repeating crap like that for several minutes. No one cared. It was ridiculous. The irony of an idiot bragging about how great their school is, is a delicious brand of irony. Goes well with gravy.
She would not stop talking about it. To validate her claim, she started talking about their admissions standards, which is a conversation that no one ever has once they have been accepted to a college. Why would anyone care? She said, “You have to have a 1300 on your SATs and a really good GPA to get in.” I said, “1300 isn’t really that high. It’s pretty good, but you need 1500 or higher to get into Harvard. 1300 is usually the standard for a decent state school.” That really pissed her off and prompted her to shoot back, “Whatever. My friend got a 1300 and was valedictorian, and still didn’t get in.” Colin Quinn, whom I was opening for, replied, “I thought you said you can get in with a 1300?” Without hesitation, she looked at the color of our skin, to make sure we were all members of the gringo club, and said, “Yeah, well he didn’t get accepted because he’s white… fucking affirmative action… don’t even get me started on that.” So, I said, “I know. What’s with everyone trying to oppress white people these days?” She thought I was serious. How can she think that, especially living in Florida? I’m white and I admit that practically everything in this country is catered to white people. You can’t deny that.
She asked us what colleges we went to. I told her I went to George Mason. She told me that SHE beat ME in the Final Four, as if we were on the teams. BURN! Colin told her that he went to Harvard, which northerners affectionately refer to as the University of Florida of the North (By the way, nothing says “scholarly” like that Gator mascot). She didn’t believe it. So, he said that he actually went to DUKE on a lacrosse scholarship. This was no more than three minutes after her last Jim Crowe reference, and she was on a bigot roll. She actually said, “Yeah, that is total bullshit. There’s no way those guys raped that girl. It’s obvious she’s saying it because she’s black and the players are white.”
I said, “So, you’re saying that black girls fake rape because they’re black?”
“Yeah. It’s bullshit. They go to DUKE, so the guys are rich and she wants money.”
“They are scholarship athletes. They aren’t rich. Besides, accusing someone of rape, isn’t a very effective method to get money. First, you said race, and now you’re saying money…”
There were a couple more exchanges, until we finally got her out of the car. And what did we learn? New stereotypes. The new list of black stereotypes, according to Kristina the bigot, is: chicken, watermelon, orange soda, can’t swim, plays basketball and most of all, they’re all a bunch of rape fakers.
So, move over John Starks. Kristina has taken your place as my most-hated human being on the planet.

New stuff: It's clear that Kristina is a racist idiot. The "Harvard of the South" comment creeps into my mind every 14 or so minutes. It was great to see The South Harvard Gators show off their speech skill after they won the championship. This is the actual text of Joakim Noah's postgame speech/rant:

"I mean this is what it's all about. I mean, we worked so hard for this. You know what I'm saying. So, yeah, we gonna do it big.. all day... all night. Do it huge. You guys have no idea what I'm talking about, when I'm saying that, but, but, BUT MY BOYS KNOW. THE GATOR BOYS KNOW. THE GATORS KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT."

That sounds like a Harvard student to me.

Joakim "GZA aka The Genius" Noah