The Apprentice LA - Episode 7

I’ll begin by mentioning that yesterday I got an ant farm for my office. I spent the day overjoyed with wonder as I stared, fascinated, into the doings of my 14 ants. I told most everyone I know about how excited I was to be in posssession of such a wonderful ant farm. It was a great day. Then, last night, I had terrible recurring nightmares about ants.

And with that, we will begin our recap.

So it’s the last night of Task 6. While Surya’s in the boardroom firing Aimee, there was an actual discussion about potentially ousting Surya as PM of the next task. The talk of a coup came mostly from Frank, but it was incredibly drastic, and nothing came of it.

The next morning (day 1 of Task 7, day 19 overall) we met Trump bright and early on Rodeo Drive, and he announced the Lexus task. Each team had an assigned dealership, and we headed down to ours. This was a mammoth task. We’d be hosting a 2-hour event for 50 Lexus preferred customers, i.e. rich white people who had a passion for cars, especially the Lexus. These people lived and breathed Lexus (how many casual car people do you know who go to preferred guest car events?). We’d be giving them a sneak preview of the new Lexus, the LS 460. We had $50,000 to work with. We’d be graded on three things: luxury experience, product knowledge, and the driving experience. Stephanie and Frank would be in charge of the luxury experience (i.e. the event planning—the food, decorations, tent, etc.), Nicole and I were in charge of product knowledge, and James would plan the test drive.

Nicole and I were assigned to product knowledge because these would be the people who would be interacting with the customers the most (the car itself would be in the middle of the event and we’d be standing by it the whole time answering questions)—and smiling at older people and acting excited about a car seemed like a good job for us.

So we all met with the Lexus executives, and wrote down the key words they said, since these would likely be the things the preferred customers would be interested in. There were three new features that had never been in a Lexus before—the self-parallel park, the 8-speed automatic transmission, and the infrared sensors that measured the temperature of the occupants, not just the air (pretty cool car, I must say).

Then Stephanie and Frank headed out to the catering company to pick out food, and Nicole and I went down to the car and learned every possible detail about it for 2 hours. This is what they showed Heidi and Muna doing on the other team. I took about 15 pages of written notes as the expert told us about every aspect of the car. I know relatively little about cars, so I spent time learning how to talk intelligently about valves, suspension, transmission, etc. But we also learned all of the little details too—by the end of the day I knew about the special headlights, the unique shape of the body, the paint, the way the sunroof was powered, the material the shocks were cased in, the sonar used for the parallel park, the hubcaps, the tires, the length and width of the car, the available colors for the interior and exterior, the type of leather used on the steering wheel, the massage chair in the back, the acceleration statistics, the width of the duel exhaust pipes, the size of the LCD screen, the workings of the GPS system, the number and location of the airbags, the brand of the stereo system, the price of the car, the price of the bells and whistles, the date of the release, etc. etc. etc.

(And yes, I made that list so thorough because I’m bitter that all they showed was me flirting with Nicole while sucking down a packet of honey.)

After collecting all the info, I typed it up for the rest of the team and went over the important points with Nicole, Surya, and James throughout the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Frank and Stephanie continued to make plans and phone calls, and James called a test drive company and ordered the cones, potholes, etc.

As I said, this was a mammoth task. Everyone was working at full steam the entire afternoon and into the night. Around 10pm I remember going through the ridiculously long dossier, and realizing that our graphic designer was only available to us until midnight, but that we hadn’t made any signs yet. Frank and Stephanie thought someone else was in charge of that, and we thought they were doing it. So I quit the product knowledge for the time being and called the graphic designer and met with him and designed the signs. I frantically typed up museum-like captions on each one and very nearly missed the deadline—in fact, it was so late that the print-shop would charge us double. This didn’t turn out to be a problem, but it hit me that if this extra money ended up losing us the task I’d end up in a vicious boardroom battle where Surya argued that the late signs were my fault and I’d be yelling about how the only reason I was working on the signs is that he forgot to assign them to anyone and they slipped through the cracks, and that if anything I had almost saved his ass by taking over. If something goes a little different, that’s the story of this episode—instead, no one, including anyone else on the team, remembers this at all.

Late that night, we headed back to the house. You know that scene where someone says, “Where’s Nicole?” and they flash to me and her on the couch snuggling, as if we’re fucking around when the rest of the team is working? In reality, everyone else went to sleep back at the house, except she and I stayed up a couple of hours mastering the product even better, quizzing each other on it, etc. and that’s what you saw. Pretty frustrating.

The next morning, we went back to the dealership, and James and I spent 3 gross hours loading cones (cones are a lot heavier than they look) and fake streetlights and huge rubber potholes into a truck and laying them out on the roof to set up the test drive. James would stay up there as a guide when customers came up for the test drive. The signs I had designed finally arrived 15 minutes before the event started, and I remember paying the delivery guys extra money to hang them up, since we had so many other things to do. Stephanie and Frank made the final preparations with the food, tent, TV screens, banners, etc. Nicole and I crammed with our product knowledge packets. I also printed out a sign-up sheet for people to take the test drive—I’ve been too busy tooting my own horn to get into this, but it was a logistical nightmare to get all 50 people up for a test drive in the 90 minutes (the last 30 had to be a Q&A), and we decided the best way to do it was to send a few people up at a time and hope that enough people made it up there—and I handed Frank the signup sheet and told him to be in charge of this (he and Stephanie had been so busy getting the event ready, that Frank, who didn’t really have knowledge of the car, had little to do during the actual event).

And then, the people started coming in. Surya gave the introduction, I pounded a Starbucks Double Shot, and it started. For 90 minutes, I answered every question in the world, and used basically every piece of product knowledge I had memorized. I thought I may have been overdoing it with the memorization, but in fact, if I had known any less it would have been bad.

And just like Stephanie and Frank were the perfect people for what they did and James was great for his station, Nicole and I had been the right people for our role—we both do great with old people (who made up the majority of the customers). I had my little grandmama’s boy smile going, and Nicole had her shiny cheerful face on, and the they were loving us.

Which brings me to more bitterness.

The executives paid a visit in the middle of the task. They observed things for awhile, and before they left, they came over to me and Nicole, shook our hands, asked our names, and joked with us that it was a shame we couldn’t work for them full time.

Flash to post-task, and the scene where Trump is meeting with the exec’s to ask who the “stars” were—last week, the Priceline exec’s told Trump who the stars were on both teams. Curiously enough, though, this week, they said that Heidi and Muna were stars for Kinetic, and the rest of the scene was cut.

I’ll let you fill in the blanks.

The problem is, the previews had promised an exciting “double-firing,” so as the obvious red herring, Nicole and I were doomed to look useless in this episode. The other reason is that both teams did well on product knowledge—the teams differed in the “luxury event” criteria, on which we excelled and they stumbled, so the editors focused mainly on our success, and their failure, in that area (I’ll give credit where credit is due—Stephanie and Frank nailed their job).

The truth is, I’m not really too bitter about any of this—I’m kidding more than anything. I know full well that this show can give you a real reason to be bitter (just ask Surya), and this was all a bit frustrating but nothing serious. Not only that, but looking at the season as a whole, I’ve had a perfectly fair shake.

Frustrating episodes are part of the experience—every person on the show can list you a handful of instances in which they were unfairly edited.

Most importantly, being humble in the last two paragraphs gives me the moral free rein to continue to toot my own horn in these recaps.

Anyway, after 90 minutes, we held the Q&A, which ran smoothly, and the task ends. They clap for us, and we all collapse in the other room and eat the hors d’oeuvres from the event. Very satisfying moment. I sat with Frank and Steph and said, “That was great, we killed it.” And Frank said, “Yeah, everyone but fuckface,” referring to Surya, who was on an OTF. Steph rolled her eyes in agreement. James sat down and he and Frank began talking about their frustrations with Surya.

I didn’t see Surya much over the last two hours and hadn’t even thought about him either way, but apparently the three of them had thought about it plenty—and this was not going to end well.

So we went to the boardroom for resolution:

Arrow: 94/100
Kinetic: 84/100

We aced this one.

After going 0-3, Arrow had won 3 of the last 4. Which really sucked for Kinetic—it’s one thing to be the stiff boring winners, but if you’re the stiff, professional team and you keep losing to the drunk fuck-ups, then you just suck.

So Trump announces the reward—after going on a shitty surfing reward the week before, we are blessed with the coolest reward of the show: to hang out with Snoop for 3 hours in his studio.

So we went back to the house and did what our team always does—we pulled out the liquor. After 30 minutes we piled into the van, and headed for the studio. This was a happy team.

We pulled up to the studio (apparently a very famous one), and I noticed a 1,300 pound man standing outside the door. Gulp.

While we were waiting there, I remember Jay Bienstock, the show’s Executive Producer, popping his head into the van and congratulating us. Jay’s a cool dude. He talked to us about how after this experience, real-world deadlines will seem like a joke (Lexus would spend a month of preparation, he said, to put on an event like the one we just put together in 24 hours).

After a few minutes, we went into the studio, and there was Snoop, and about 4 other guys. I’m not quite sure how The Apprentice pulled this off—Snoop???

Of course, he was the coolest person in the world. He brought us all around in a circle, and asked if anyone was musically inclined. Everyone looked at me. He pointed to the piano, so I sat down and started improvising, trying to play the least cheesy thing I could muster. The whole thing is somewhat of a blur, but I played for at least 10 minutes, while his bassist started playing with me, and Snoop started singing. He was humming a melody along with my piano. At one point, he pointed to me, and said, “this guy can play.”

Then he sat down on the drums, and we started doing a back and forth “dialogue”—I played a diddy and he mirrored it, and we went back and forth for awhile.

Are you kidding?? I was just thinking “I cannot believe this is happening.”

Of course, in accordance with the theme of the episode (“Tim is useless”), they cut this out completely. They didn’t even put it in the deleted scenes. The one thing I have is this picture. You will click on this link and view this picture:

http://www.nbc.com/The_Apprentice_6/photos/general/13629.shtml#photo

So I started playing something resembling a hip-hop theme, and the team came up with lyrics—the chorus they came up with was:

It’s not where you start,
it’s just where you finish.
It’s not where you start
the race, it’s where you finish.

Kind of good, and cool because we started by losing a lot and were winning now.

Then the free-styling began. Thankfully, I did not attempt this.

Frank was hilariously bad, and James free-styling was like a carnival exhibit. Gotta give them credit for trying. Then Steph interviewed that “Surya, who claimed to be a huge Snoop fan, just sat there silently while James and Frank rapped.” For chrissake, can we give the kid a break??

Another funny moment was Steph and Nicole doing the “Ba-da-bum-bah, ba-da-bum-bah” lines back and forth. Steph was perfectly in tune. When Nicole did hers it was like someone was spraying a fire-extinguisher haphazardly around the room. It was so off-key that Snoop stood next to her (with his arm around her) and sang her part with her to help her out. Everything about that is awesome.

After we recorded, Snoop and his guys went into the sound studio to mix the song, while we hung out in the main room and drank champagne. Every 10 minutes I’d look up and remember that Snoop Dogg was sitting 20 feet away, and just shake my head in disbelief.

When they finished, we went in there and heard the final product—not great. But then he played us his new single, which was pretty great, while he sat there with his eyes closed and bopped his head up and down.

Then he hung out with us in there for another half hour, and gave us some life advice, which I kind of forget. At one point, he said, “I can’t hold it anymore, I’m getting the shakes—fuck the cameras.” And he pulled out a huge joint and lit it. Then he said, “I’m the only one who can fire Trump” and he looked at the camera and said, “Trump, you’re fired.”

If all future rewards are cleaning poop off Trump’s shoes with a stick, you won’t hear any complaints out of me.

And so, the task ends for Arrow. Watching Jen and Derek go down on Sunday, I had the following thoughts:

--Jen and Derek are both great—two of my favorite people in the cast.

--Trump’s reaction to the “white trash” comment is why it’s a good show—Trump is prone to do completely nonsensical things out of nowhere, especially when he’s in a pissy mood. And he was in a pissy mood in that boardroom. I could watch his fuse go off on Derek about 200 times and it wouldn’t get old. The reason this makes it a good show, is it proves that the producers only have so much say—Trump's unpredictability gives the show more credibility because he will always fire people he doesn’t like and keep people around who he does, even when the producers advise him otherwise. Which makes the happenings in the boardroom quite genuine and un-staged. I really believe that when many boardrooms start, Trump does not know who he’s going to fire.

--The go-carts was a stupid idea.

--I love the way Jen went down.

--I was highly entertained by Randall continually interrupting Trump. Really, nothing is better than Trump in a pissy mood.

And that’s that. See you next week.